Battle Demon's Sparring 4
Ryu-jin. If I start to lose my mind again...
[I'll step in. You've given me permission for this, right?]
Shin Gi-woon left the rest to Ryu-jin. If his mind went strange again, she would rein him in.
It was a situation he had never once faced in his previous life. If he had to guess, it was probably because of the demonic energy. Once this sparring match ended, he would have to investigate demonic energy in detail. There was no telling whether it might seize control of his entire body again, the way it had when he swallowed the black bead.
"Ready?"
"If I wasn't, were you planning to keep waiting?"
"No. We go in right now."
The fire still burned in Se-hwa's eyes. What was the driving force that moved her? He would know once their weapons crossed. Martial artists were that kind of breed.
"I'll give you a three-second handicap."
"Isn't that something you're supposed to say at the start?"
"From where I'm standing, the real sparring is only just beginning."
"...Ha. Then I won't hold back."
Se-hwa's form vanished. Her swift footwork completely erased her presence, and she reappeared beneath Shin Gi-woon's chin.
Whiiish!
A blade shot upward as if to pierce straight through his jaw. Shin Gi-woon bent at the waist and slipped past it by a single second. Of course Se-hwa had never expected it to land. She immediately reversed her grip and drove the sword down toward his abdomen.
Kaaang!
By a paper-thin margin, Se-hwa's sword slammed into the ground. He had said he would give her three seconds—not that he would stand there defenseless and take the hit.
Shin Gi-woon reset his stance and watched Se-hwa gathering her energy. The crimson aura blooming from her entire body had already begun to form deep-red flower petals. Realizing she was preparing her true ultimate technique, Shin Gi-woon's lips curled all the way to his ears.
The fire in her eyes had gone beyond mere blazing—it had completely swallowed them. She had stepped into a state of selfless trance.
I'll match her, then.
Coldly speaking, Se-hwa was not a Peak-level martial artist. She was a First-Class expert at the extreme, still needing to smash through the wall of Peak. The only reason she could contend with Shin Gi-woon in a spar was one: her mastery of demonic energy was peerless.
"Hup!"
Se-hwa even showed a preparatory breathing form before she kicked off the ground. The earth crumbled, sending successive tremors through the land. She charged forward trailing blood-soaked flower petals. If he stood there dazed, he would be carved into strips of meat.
I promised a handicap, so defense only...!
Shin Gi-woon concentrated the internal power of the Battle Demon Divine Art into his spear blade. At the same moment, Se-hwa's sword came crashing down with the force to split him in two.
Soul-Obstructing Root Wall
Tukwaaaang!
Shin Gi-woon locked his lower body rock-solid with the Thousand-Jin Weight technique. The internal power cascading from his spear blade granted him a heaven-sent barrier, and he succeeded in completely stopping Se-hwa's powerful strike. Even in her trance, she looked startled.
It was time for the counterattack.
"Three seconds are up."
"...!"
The moment Shin Gi-woon shifted to offense, pitch-black ghostly energy swept across his entire body. The Battle Demon Divine Art was fine. The demonic energy was the problem. Then he simply wouldn't use demonic energy.
"Haaap!"
Having withdrawn the demonic energy, Shin Gi-woon charged. His fierce momentum was enough to call to mind a mountain lord. The internal power wreathing the spear he thrust was weaker than when he used demonic energy—yet its density had become incomparably solid.
Kagagagak!
"He's overwhelming her."
"So he chose quality over quantity."
"They're both monsters..."
"Please let the third trial not be a life-or-death duel."
What the observing candidates felt while watching the spar was a single thing: awe. Even though they were rising talents of the same age, the two of them were powerful enough to be called a heaven beyond heaven. Shin Gi-woon even more so. After reclaiming his demonic energy, he had begun to overwhelm Se-hwa even further.
"Haha... How long is it going to take us to catch up to those two?"
"Wake up. Even if we trained for a hundred days we still couldn't catch them."
Ma Ra-jin and Bi So-hyang had given up by now. No matter how many times they focused, they simply could not spot a single opening.
It feels like I should be able to see it... but I can't.
Meanwhile Se-hwa was wrapped in a hazy sensation. Occasionally instinct moved her hands, yet she could not tell what she herself was doing. But she recognized that Shin Gi-woon was there. The savage form of the Battle Demon was gnawing away at her. Then, in all likelihood, she was in the middle of a spar. And she was being pushed back.
I have to win.
If only to flatten the noses of those who looked down on her. She absolutely had to pass through Jamma Cave as the top candidate. Second place meant nothing. To do that, she had to surpass Shin Gi-woon. Not kill him—surpass him.
More. More.
Was this place a prison made of transparent mirrors? When she embraced a powerful will, fine cracks began to appear. The ghostly energy of the Battle Demon that had bound her entire body could no longer press down on her.
"Haaaat!"
Kwajangchang!
It shattered. The dense fog that had blocked her vision vanished. Se-hwa knew instinctively. She had crossed the wall.
Kwaaaaaaah!
"Kh!"
Shin Gi-woon let out a groan at the energy that erupted. It seemed she had safely broken through the wall of Peak. At this rate it would be hard to hold back.
"Congratulations on breaking the wall of Peak."
"...So this is the Peak realm."
"You want to keep going, don't you? I can tell just from your eyes. Your hands are itching."
Twitch. Twitch.
Se-hwa realized something was wrong with her body. Why was she twitching like this? She wanted to move so badly she could go mad. Shin Gi-woon knew exactly what that phenomenon was.
Breaking the wall of Peak was called the first gateway for a martial artist. The second gateway was naturally Transcendent. The third was the Realm of Transformation. The fourth was the impossible domain of the Profound Realm. And the fifth was the Realm of Life and Death—a domain that had not appeared since the first Heavenly Demon.
Even Shin Gi-woon had tasted frustration without being able to cross the fourth wall. That was why he understood what it meant to break through a wall. It was fair to say one had been reborn.
"Conversation ends here. No more holding back."
"...That's what I—"
Huuuung!
Before she could finish the sentence, a razor-sharp spear blade grazed Se-hwa's left cheek. Shin Gi-woon's eyes were fixed solely on her vital points. Se-hwa did not panic. She welcomed it. If he came this close, she no longer needed to close the distance first.
"Haht!"
Before he could withdraw the spear, Se-hwa tried to snap the shaft with sword aura. But her opponent was Shin Gi-woon. He had already reinforced the shaft with internal energy so it would not break. What rebounded was Se-hwa's sword.
Kwaduk!
At the same time Shin Gi-woon's spear shaft smashed into Se-hwa's side. She was sent flying far back. Shin Gi-woon cut through the air and closed in right in front of her nose. Se-hwa's eyes sparkled.
Papapapak!
As if she had been waiting for him to enter close range, she moved her sword in a dazzling blur and formed dozens of flower petals.
"Haap!"
Tududududu!
She fired them all at once toward Shin Gi-woon. He did not flinch. He focused every scrap of his vision on the falling petals. Each one carried energy sharp enough to be terrifying. A mere graze would not end well. Of course, if he simply didn't get grazed, that was the end of it.
"Hup!"
Papapang!
Shin Gi-woon swept his spear in a wide horizontal arc.
Battle Demon's Single Flash
That was not the end. They were in midair. Shin Gi-woon stomped hard on a layer of air and rose so high that Se-hwa had to crane her neck. For a brief moment she was stunned that her confident finishing blow had failed. Then she landed, poured every last drop of her internal energy into her sword, and—
"Haaaaaat!"
—fired it with raw force. It was hard to even call it a form. It was nothing more than sword aura packed with internal energy. Yet he could feel a thick demonic energy that no bare body could withstand.
Yes. This is what I wanted.
Shin Gi-woon gripped his spear as he plummeted. Only something of this level could truly be called breaking the wall of Peak. In the blink of an eye, the sword aura Se-hwa had fired wrapped around him, and an indescribable explosion erupted in midair.
Kwaaaaang!
Se-hwa's victory. That was what the candidates thought. Se-hwa herself was different. The air was still thick with dust from the blast, but right before the explosion Shin Gi-woon had definitely—!
"This is fun! This is what sparring is supposed to be!"
"Kh!"
He had fired spear aura into the sword aura to accelerate the explosion, then driven his spear blade deep through the gap where the sword aura's density weakened. With minimal damage he succeeded in neutralizing the finishing move Se-hwa had unleashed.
Battle Demon Heavenly Spear — First Form...!
And as he fell, Shin Gi-woon used the pull of gravity together with the Thousand-Jin Weight technique.
Battle Demon Emergence
Kuoooooh!
He displayed the most powerful form he could show. Se-hwa frantically tried to draw in energy, but all that gathered was a pitifully small amount of internal power.
Kwajijik!
In the end her wooden sword snapped, and Shin Gi-woon landed lightly on the ground like a leaf falling from a tree. With him came the spear tip aimed at her throat. The result of the spar between two Peak-level rising talents was Shin Gi-woon's victory.
"I won, right?"
"Yeah... I lost."
Se-hwa admitted defeat. Shin Gi-woon rested the spear on his shoulder and held out a hand to her. She did not refuse. Shin Gi-woon and Se-hwa clasped hands.
Was that the beginning?
"Uwaaaaaaah!! I can't lose! Special training starts today! Follow me, Bi So— koff!"
"A guy who cries from a jab to the side talking about special training? Shut up and go recover."
"Damn it!"
Ma Ra-jin roared as if deeply moved, and several candidates applauded the two of them. In truth their spar had been of such a high level that it left no small resonance with most of the candidates present. If they had been as close to the pair as Ma Ra-jin was, they might have shouted just as loudly.
Receiving the applause of so many, Shin Gi-woon let out a short laugh, and Se-hwa's face turned red.
"You embarrassed?"
"...Shut up."
"Our peerless Lady Se-hwa actually knows how to blush."
"I said shut up!!"
While he teased her over her flushed face, Shin Gi-woon flicked his gaze toward a certain spot. His eyes had settled colder than they had been during the spar itself.
That presence was definitely...
No one was there now, but there was no mistake. The Chief Instructor of Jamma Cave, Leader of the Heavenly Net Black Death Squad, Lee Hyeong-seop, had been watching this spar.