Chapter 104
Chapter 104
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 104
Chapter Title: Versus the Little Buddha
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Wi Seong-cheon slowly rose to his feet.
The preliminaries that had dragged on for four days would end today.
His opponent was Jinwoo, the Little Buddha. The very opponent Wi Seong-cheon had pointed out and hoped for—the man called the representative of the Dragon-Phoenix.
Jinwoo was the direct disciple of the Shaolin abbot and the winner of last year's Heavenly Tournament as well.
Today, Wi Seong-cheon would fight that Jinwoo. Tension... was of course there.
‘I can’t win unscathed.’
First, he steeled himself for that once more.
It was a resolution he’d made long ago. Winning against the Little Buddha Jinwoo without a scratch was impossible. He didn’t even have clear confidence that victory was possible in the first place.
“What’s with the last-minute nerves.”
Wi Seong-cheon chuckled. It had been the same against Hwangbo Seong-u. He had chosen Hwangbo Seong-u, but he hadn’t started with any confidence of beating him.
But the situation was different. When he fought Hwangbo Seong-u, he’d had the chance to ‘read’ him. He lost the first fight that way, then won the rematch.
But not this time. He could only fight once. There might be another chance later, but not under this much scrutiny.
‘The key is.’
Wi Seong-cheon steadied his breathing.
‘To make it my rhythm.’
The cheers were surprisingly subdued.
Instead, appraising gazes stabbed down sharply. They pressed on Wi Seong-cheon like an immense pressure. He didn’t shrink back but straightened his spine.
It couldn’t be helped—it was different from before. As the most anticipated match of the preliminaries finals, the sparring grounds were filled with VIPs: the Murim Alliance Lord, the Black Serpent Union Leader, and all the other luminaries. With them openly exuding their presence, the students and other spectators weren’t daring to act out either.
They were deeply interested in this match too. Wi Seong-cheon, the hidden dragon of the Heavenly Flower Sect. He had fought three times to reach the finals, claiming overwhelming victories each time. No one doubted his title of hidden dragon anymore.
But acknowledgment didn’t mean everyone liked him. Wi Seong-cheon could clearly sense the blatant emotions in the gazes directed at him.
They wanted him to suffer a crushing defeat against the Little Buddha and be utterly humiliated.
“You’re late.”
Jinwoo was already standing in the center of the sparring ground. He rolled the prayer beads on his wrist with his usual smile.
“The donor seems tense.”
“Of course I am.”
Wi Seong-cheon smiled back. Jinwoo chuckled, formed a prayer gesture, and bowed his head slightly.
“No need to be. Your defeat is a given, so no shame in it. Thus, no need to tense up.”
“And you, Senior Brother?”
“Me? I’m... used to it. Truth be told, I’m not entirely free of tension. But Donor Wi Seong-cheon, I’m confident of my victory.”
You’re different from me, then.
Wi Seong-cheon stared at Jinwoo’s face with that thought. Jinwoo met his gaze and smiled with crinkled eyes.
“Do you know why? Because I can’t afford to lose. More precisely, I mustn’t lose. Look—all these people watching. Shaolin is the Mount Tai of the Nine Great Righteous Sects. I represent Shaolin among the Heavenly Academy students. I can’t lose to you.”
“I already beat Shaolin once.”
“Haha! True. But that’s exactly why I mustn’t lose, Donor.”
His curved eyes gleamed with sharp light.
The Little Buddha.
Jinwoo’s smile was as compassionate as his moniker suggested, like a Buddha’s. But the eyes staring at Wi Seong-cheon were anything but a monk’s.
“I have to uphold Shaolin’s prestige.”
Jinwoo said in a low voice. That was his true heart. The eyes he fixed on Wi Seong-cheon were those of a warrior, not a monk. There was no killing intent as befitting a disciple of Buddha, but no compassion either.
Wi Seong-cheon realized Jinwoo wouldn’t let his guard down or act arrogant. He would go all out to crush him.
Because he stood here as Shaolin’s representative. And because he burned with the mission to restore Shaolin’s honor, tarnished by Jinbae’s defeat.
‘That’s perfect.’
Wi Seong-cheon grinned.
The referee professor raised his hand. The drum signaling the start of the match was moments away. Wi Seong-cheon took a few steps back. Jinwoo remained in prayer pose.
‘Right hand.’
It moves.
The fracture hadn’t fully healed. But it moves. It could swing for strikes without much issue. Overdo it, though, and it’d break again. No helping it.
‘Internal injuries.’
Circulating qi was fine. But the truth was, his internal injuries hadn’t fully healed either, just like the fracture. Overuse this too... and they’d flare up.
‘That’s fine.’
Same answer. That’s fine. He’d excluded right-hand strikes in prior fights solely for today. Could this catch Jinwoo off guard...
‘He’s not that easy.’
The deep smile half-hid Jinwoo’s eyes. But Wi Seong-cheon felt his gaze. He was wary of the right hand.
Jinwoo wasn’t sure if Wi Seong-cheon’s right hand was usable or not. But he was definitely on guard.
Even if Wi Seong-cheon suddenly struck with it to exploit a gap, Jinwoo wouldn’t fall for it.
‘Wish he was arrogantly overconfident.’
Arrogance breeds carelessness. Piercing such an opening is easy. He’d been able to slam the restraint into the Poison Blood Demon Fiend because the fiend got careless.
But Jinwoo wouldn’t.
‘Senior Brother.’
You said you must beat me to uphold Shaolin’s prestige as its representative.
‘I don’t have some grand mission like you.’
It’s a paltry personal reason by comparison. Pure selfishness, even. Wi Seong-cheon raised both hands.
Paang!
The bandages wrapping his right hand burst with a tearing sound. Jinwoo’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘For myself.’
He wanted to uphold the Heavenly Flower Sect’s honor. It sounded the same as Jinwoo’s words about Shaolin. But the Heavenly Flower Sect had no such honor to begin with.
What moved Wi Seong-cheon wasn’t a sense of duty for his sect.
He just wanted to do it. It was a mere desire, not worthy of being called a mission.
What’s wrong with that? Unlike Shaolin, hailed as the Mount Tai of the Nine Great Righteous Sects, the Heavenly Flower Sect was derided as bats. Apparently there was some sect secret, but Wi Seong-cheon didn’t know it yet and didn’t care right now.
It just pissed him off.
Despised for no reason. His father groveling and bootlicking. Prejudiced stares just for being Heavenly Flower Sect.
Even when he proved his strength, they responded with envy and slander over recognition.
‘Can’t lose for Shaolin’s sake. Fine words.’
No lie in them. The halo Jinwoo bore as Shaolin’s representative. “Heavenly Arts All Stem from Shaolin”—it meant Shaolin was the Mount Tai of the Nine Great Righteous Sects and a great symbol of the righteous murim. Jinwoo, called Shaolin’s future, couldn’t lose on this stage.
The overwhelming majority of spectators were convinced Wi Seong-cheon would lose to Jinwoo.
‘I have nothing to lose.’
Jinwoo had much at stake.
‘I can afford to lose.’
Jinwoo couldn’t.
‘I’m not fighting for some noble mission like you.’
His father had said it. They’d come from afar, so show them something impressive.
It was a match he could lose,
But now he had reasons not to.
Doong!
The drum signaling the match’s start boomed. Wi Seong-cheon shot forward like he’d been waiting. Who’d have thought he’d charge right at the start?
‘I thought the donor was the cautious type.’
Most of his prior preliminary matches ended the instant they began because of the clear gap in skill. He’d ended them in flashes, but Wi Seong-cheon wasn’t impatient.
Quite the opposite—he was extremely prudent. Jinwoo knew Wi Seong-cheon had maneuvered to ‘end up here.’
The cafeteria brawl, the match with Jinbae, the victory, pointing him out via Jeong Mi-ju’s bracket.
‘I know. You have nothing to lose compared to me.’
That’s why you challenged me.
‘But Donor, having nothing to lose doesn’t make defeat any less bitter.’
Have you ever tasted ‘real’ defeat?
Jinwoo asked inwardly as he drew up his inner energy.
Buddha Light Heavenly Illumination Divine Art.
The peerless Shaolin art Jinwoo cultivated bathed his body in golden light.
He vanished.
He charged at the start. The distance was just over ten zhang, crossed in one breath at full speed. Jinwoo hadn’t moved until then.
Distance zero,
The moment the fist flew. Jinwoo’s body glowed golden. And vanished. It happened in an instant.
‘Immovable Diamond Divine Method.’
The technique’s name flashed clearly in Wi Seong-cheon’s mind. Among Shaolin’s countless peerless arts, this was especially renowned.
A movement art that flipped from Immovable to utmost speed in an instant. Its velocity exceeded Wi Seong-cheon’s imagination.
“If I may say.”
The voice came from right behind. Wi Seong-cheon twisted his body, shifting stance immediately.
Whoosh!
A thrusting palm force grazed past his nose.
“You seem to take defeat too lightly.”
Jinwoo smiled faintly as he spoke. As his extended palm withdrew, his fingers curled. Wi Seong-cheon hadn’t seen it then. Now his eyes widened.
This time he saw it.
Tok.
With that light sound, a finger flicked. Flicking Finger Divine Skill. A golden qi bullet shot toward Wi Seong-cheon. He dropped into a near-prone stance and lunged forward.
Watching him, Jinwoo let out a low chuckle.
“You must think it’s fine to lose here. That just putting up a good show against me gains you plenty.”
The Flicking Finger Divine Skill didn’t stop. Its decisive superiority over other arts lay in that speed.
Unlike thrusting fists or palms, kicking, or swinging weapons, Flicking Finger Divine Skill required only ‘flicking a finger.’
That made it all the harder. Infusing true ‘qi’ into that simple motion and firing it demanded precision. Projecting condensed qi also consumed substantial inner strength.
“Listen well, Donor. There’s no such thing as a light defeat in this world. Even if intended.”
Wi Seong-cheon knew that much.
He’d lost countless times before. But he found Jinwoo’s words surprising. The Jinwoo he knew had never suffered a single defeat at the Heavenly Academy.
Yet his words now sounded like he knew defeat’s weight all too well.
“That’s why I can’t lose.”
The barrage of Flicking Finger qi bullets restricted Wi Seong-cheon’s movements. Jinwoo’s version was chillingly precise. Not mindless flicking—he was thoroughly predicting Wi Seong-cheon’s actions.
“I don’t want to lose anymore.”
The smile vanished from Jinwoo’s face.
“Especially not here.”
Predictions don’t always hit. As Jinwoo predicted Wi Seong-cheon, so did he predict Jinwoo. Flicking Finger couldn’t block approach. It lacked decisive power.
Yet he kept it up because—
‘Behind.’
He judged before he sensed it. Wi Seong-cheon’s body whipped sideways. He halted his charge at Jinwoo, turned perpendicular, and leaped back.
His quick-moving eyes caught Jinwoo on the right and the left—which should have been empty.
The left wasn’t empty. The qi bullets Jinwoo fired, which Wi Seong-cheon dodged, hadn’t dissipated but hovered in midair.
Keeping qi detached from the body like that was impossible for Wi Seong-cheon.
The qi bullets returned. In that brief moment, their number was a hundred. The hundred projectiles bore down on him. Wi Seong-cheon’s eyes darted frantically.
Instead of closing on Jinwoo, he charged straight into the qi bullets. His arms hung loosely relaxed.
Heavy Arms Receive Stance.
Heaven Strike.
His fully limp arms whipped like flails.
Pbababang!
The qi scattered. The spectators saw his arms faintly glow blue.
‘Sword aura...!’
‘He manifested sword aura in an instant?’
Thanks to the Dawn Heaven God Pill fully opening his middle dantian. He scattered the qi bullets with high-speed swings, but couldn’t focus fully on it.
Jinwoo was moving.
‘As expected.’