Chapter 116
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 116
Chapter Title: Acceleration
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In the blink of an instant, within an instant's moment, he crammed an unimaginable barrage of strikes.
So-hyang didn't even have a chance to respond before her entire body was pummeled, convulsing in midair like a dance without her feet touching the ground.
Of course, So-hyang had a record of effortlessly slicing through supersonic bullets and casually dodging optical weapons hurtling in at light speed.
But that didn't make it easy to counter a general who unleashed his ultimate technique, golden lightning crackling across his body as he moved like footage played at double speed.
The former attacks, no matter how overwhelmingly fast, could be predicted and dismantled by reading the gunner's intent and the system's judgment—even if their speed was extreme.
But now, in the time it took to plant one foot and swing an arm once, four or five fists came flying.
No matter how bizarre one's physics-defying prowess, with such a vast gap in their effective time scales, there was no way to cope.
Well, for the moment, at least.
The reason Southern General Ouyang Ji of the Golden Army—which guarded the Imperial Capital—trained in martial arts was simple.
To save people.
To protect the Empire.
Thus, there was only one value he prioritized.
Speed.
Rush faster than sound to rescue lives, sever the legs and snap the arms of villains before they could reach the common folk.
Save one more person, just a little bit faster.
Ouyang Ji yearned to become a hero of swiftness.
But even in a world slowed to near stillness, there were surely people he couldn't save, lives beyond his reach.
Even after transcending limits to reach transcendent peak and perfecting ultimate arts that defied reason, it still fell short.
Would Hwa Realm masters be any different?
What of godlike beings who surpassed even Hwa Realm?
Even His Imperial Majesty the Emperor was not omnipotent.
Though closer to omnipotence than any other existence in the world, there were places his benevolent gaze could not touch.
He knew that.
That the lives he saved as a general outnumbered those he could not.
That most of the unsaved would not resent him.
He remembered.
The gaze of his wife, her eyes meeting his just before her head was crushed beneath the collapsing building.
That beautiful, sorrowful smile she gave, as if to say it wasn't his fault.
In truth, it was probably his delusion—in a world accelerated endlessly by his ultimate art, someone who hadn't even reached peak realm couldn't possibly lock eyes with the general.
What he had met, then, was not her eyes, but his own reflection in them.
Though he claimed recent stimulation from So-hyang's shocking display at the Academy, the heart demon had likely taken root in his mind from that moment.
No, even earlier—from the day he began training in martial arts, questions had lingered.
Questions he had agonized over for decades without answers, eventually shelved and ignored.
And so, the general resolved to pose those questions not to himself, but to another.
To one brimming with confidence and composure, fixated solely on forging ahead along a single path.
To a warrior of pure white, untainted by the filth of anguish or torment.
He would ask with his fists.
"So draw your sword!! White Lotus Sword!!"
He would receive the answer with his sword.
Having shouted so boldly while relentlessly pummeling So-hyang, the general suddenly hardened his expression.
The sensation against his fists felt off.
Like striking thin silk cloth with no rebound, or like round beans subtly deflecting chopsticks—the impact points kept veering away.
"...You're... deflecting the attacks?"
Amid a rain of fists pouring down at speeds beyond even transcendent peak standards.
Since speed equated to weight, these blows should carry several times the power of his earlier ones.
Yet even without footing or balance, she deflected the shocks solely through minute muscle and joint movements.
The general ground his teeth.
So-hyang's eyes curved softly.
Indeed, the Empire's general. Since venturing into the jianghu, aside from the Academy Head, he was the only one to land this many effective hits.
Even compared to the transcendent experts she'd faced before, he ranked clearly in the top tier.
Zegal Hun of the Zegal clan would be obviously insta-killed before adapting.
Wudang's Sect Leader Qing Ha Zhenren would fail to leverage his infinite inner energy, allowing close approach through overwhelming penetration led by a fortified body.
Anyone short of the aged monster, former Wudang Sect Leader Qing Xu Zhenren, wouldn't cope easily.
He truly deserved the title of the Empire's general—the strongest force in the Central Plains.
With the power to easily suppress all manner of invaders, murim folk included.
Of course, So-hyang was a separate case.
She intuitively deflected every impact from the furious barrage that didn't even fully enter her vision.
The Gang Qi cloaking his fists was offset by the protective Gang Qi over her skin.
So, taking the hits was more bearable than expected.
Given her transcendent physical durability from the start, she could probably endure this pummeling all day long.
This was possible because the general specialized in pure physical impacts, eschewing Gang Qi arts or sharp sword intent that she'd faced before.
For most other murim warriors, the distinction wasn't so clear-cut, and raw power often proved more effective...
But this time, her opponent was So-hyang, who had mastered the principles of mechanics through bodily interaction.
Even in her previous life, when her body wasn't as sturdy, she had records of deflecting not just human fists but bear paws—a perfect matchup.
Moreover, the general's signature ultimate technique, Flash Thunder, wasn't particularly efficient.
A self-buff that maximized overall physical capabilities, distorting the time applied to his body to exceed limits and achieve superhuman speed.
The faster the movement, the greater the consumption and the immense strain on the body.
In all prior combat uses of the technique, fights ended in an instant, win or lose.
Against foes unable to match the speed, he suppressed them by slamming dozens of fists in a blink.
Against opponents with an overwhelming gap who could basically match his boosted speed, he was naturally crushed in one exchange.
Thus, an unnoticed flaw: excessive output that devoured him from within.
"-Hah, haa...!"
His breath grew ragged, and the depleting inner energy began to weigh heavily.
So-hyang saw through it.
In other words, she could win just by enduring.
But would she do something so dull?
With her opponent unleashing full power and clashing in earnest, treating him rudely would violate a warrior's code.
From the moment he activated the technique, she'd perceived all his movements.
Her divine sense blanketing the space detected every fist striking faster than her eyes could track.
Processed via the thought speed from her reconstructed neural structure, recognizing every attack.
Her body had been rebuilt from the ground up to visually track—not predict—hypersonic bullets.
Truth be told, she could move even faster right now by yanking out the embedded titanium piercings and releasing the seals.
But that would be cheating.
Without relying on her off-limits transcendent body bordering Hwa Realm, restricted to transcendent peak level, she needed a way to counter this swiftness.
It wasn't coming easily.
She was already utilizing her body's full capabilities optimally, with no waste or shortfall.
Maximizing physical prowess via hysterical strength wasn't viable either.
It would impose far too much strain on the piercings—enough to shatter the seals mere seconds ago—not to mention the shockwaves coursing through her body.
She needed a newer method.
A way to step into the same accelerated time as her opponent.
So-hyang recalled knowledge from her past life.
Time was once seen as an immutable, absolute physical quantity, but Albert Einstein overturned that premise.
Above all, hadn't she personally felt it with her eyes and body?
This ultimate technique before her seemed like a method to accelerate the time flow applied to the body.
And then there was the White Realm—clear proof.
Though confined to a closed space, it directly denied time's absoluteness, allowing her to stop, slow, or accelerate the flow at will.
Though rooted in the incomprehensible irregularity of a demonic beast, there was no reason she couldn't reverse-engineer the manifested phenomenon.
A way to exert influence outside the White Realm's domain, controlling time's flow in reality...
She had already witnessed a precedent.
Mujeong's evolution—from a mere demonic beast holding a tiny space to a full demon realm.
The power to erode real space and transmute the present world into an otherworld.
Of course, So-hyang's White Realm wasn't yet mature enough to swallow a vast area in one go like the original before purging its demonic nature.
But what if she limited the scope?
Say, targeting only the user's own body...
The idea struck, and simultaneously, So-hyang opened a gateway to the White Realm inside her own heart.
Space erosion began from an entrance tinier than a grain of sand, gradually expanding.
The White Realm could contain life. She'd confirmed as much when brewing liquor and fermenting dough before.
Her body was now, in a sense, stored within the White Realm.
The blood flowing through her cardiovascular system began accelerating independently of normal bodily functions.
Muscle fiber contraction and extension, joint operations, the expansion and contraction of alveoli driven by the diaphragm.
Above all, the electrical signals racing through her nerves and the flow of her soul received a boost...
White Realm expansion: mind-body acceleration.
The world's movements in her vision slowed to near stillness, and the general's incoming fist settled into her palm.
"-What."
"Mm, now the speeds match."
And then, a fist slammed into the general's face.