Chapter 70
Chapter 70
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: The Real Start
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“Is Kang Geohan going to die?”
Roen asked in a trembling voice.
“I don’t know either.”
Countess Kali Stehold replied.
“For now, it seems like he’s still alive...”
Her eyes shook as she gazed at Kang Geohan.
Kang Geohan was definitely alive.
But could that even be called a human form?
Like dry ice evaporating in the air, steam billowed fiercely from every part of Kang Geohan’s body.
His eyes had rolled back completely, bloodshot whites taking the place of his pupils, and drool mixed with guttural roars poured from his wide-open mouth.
“Crazy... fucking bastard...”
In the end, even Countess Kali Stehold let a curse slip from her lips. What the hell was she supposed to make of the countess’s warning? She’d called it so dangerous...!
But she couldn’t help imagining it anyway.
If he survived even in that state,
If he safely absorbed the Balrog core he’d swallowed whole,
What kind of growth would that young rider achieve?
* * *
When he swallowed the Balrog core, Kang Geohan felt like his esophagus was melting away entirely.
It was like drinking lava.
Activating his full-body mirror ability amid the horrific pain was almost instinctual.
The vivid red demonic mana originating from the Balrog core was spreading throughout his entire body.
Savagely,
It tried to devour all of Kang Geohan’s existing demonic mana, burning and dominating from the depths of his soul to the tiniest hair on his skin.
‘Gotta snap out of it!’
Heat surged up, making his head spin. His vision was gone—just pure red. This pain, like falling into a pit of hell, felt eternal.
Suddenly, his flesh felt piercingly cold.
But,
‘Snap! Out! Of! It!’
Kang Geohan clung to his full-body mirror ability to the end, observing his own body.
He watched the horde of hot, raging demonic mana pouring from the Balrog core as it sought to conquer his entire form.
Kang Geohan seized his own demonic mana.
Like gathering scattered remnants of a shattered, routed army, he forcibly wrangled his wavering demonic mana and formed an encirclement around the Balrog’s demonic mana.
Sizzle—!
Steam kept erupting, making his whole body itch unbearably.
Even so, he’d barely achieved a balance.
‘I won’t die right now.’
The Balrog’s demonic mana still held the advantage, but the demonic mana Kang Geohan had steadily built up over time was no pushover. The two forces split his body in half, locked in stalemate.
The Balrog’s red demonic mana claimed his internal organs and bones, while Kang Geohan’s held the skin and muscles.
At the border zone in his deep muscles, the two demonic manas clashed, producing insane pain.
His limbs trembled like he had a terrible flu, bones and muscles throbbing.
A balance forged for survival.
But it was only a stopgap.
Kang Geohan gritted his teeth.
‘What I need to do is absorb it. Not just hold on and fight...!’
Hadn’t he grabbed the bull by the horns not to wrestle it, but to eat it and grow stronger?
Kang Geohan desperately shifted his gaze. Forcing down his rolling eyes, he scanned his surroundings.
‘I need to shake the Balrog’s demonic mana under my control. Digest it. To do that...’
His vessel needed to grow larger.
To do that, he had to shatter the vessel.
Shatter it, then devour the Balrog’s demonic mana through the cracks.
What caught his eye was a small river flowing proudly. ‘Coldfire.’
Rooooar!
He hadn’t meant to, but a horrific roar burst from his mouth.
He felt the indistinct crowd around him recoil in shock.
In his ragged, torn voice, Kang Geohan shouted.
“Demonic stone...! The heaviest one!”
Someone placed a barbell-shaped demonic stone on Kang Geohan’s back.
Shouldering it, Kang Geohan kicked off Sleipnir and charged forward.
To quell the heat threatening to cook his brain.
To tear his own flesh and demonic mana, devouring the ferocious Balrog’s demonic mana!
Thud! Thud!
With every footfall, the grass blackened and died. Charging straight ahead, Kang Geohan plunged into the Colfire river.
Splash!
Sizzle!
The ultimate coolant, Colfire, bubbled and evaporated.
His dazed mind cleared slightly in the rising chill.
Kang Geohan tensed his back muscles, securing the barbell firmly on his shoulders. Then he took a large step forward.
Back straight! Hips tucked! Knees bent to ninety degrees. He assumed a perfect lunge position and advanced.
Bubble bubble bubble.
Colfire boiled along his path.
Overcoming the excruciating pain by loading his body triggered a reaction from both his demonic mana and the Balrog’s.
As demonic mana that had entered his body, it resisted external pressure together.
That was exactly the point Kang Geohan was aiming for.
‘Instead of making them fight each other, give them a common enemy to blend naturally. Load my body to absorb the Balrog’s demonic mana organically.’
With the intent to tear flesh and shatter bone.
Kang Geohan pressed on with the lunges.
Was it a hallucination?
Suddenly, a voice echoed in his head.
[Give up, human. You think a weakling like you can handle this power?]
A low voice brimming with hostility. Right after it spoke,
Crunch!
His whole body twisted. The Balrog’s demonic mana inside him went berserk like a wild horse.
As if refusing even one more step, it ground his bones, squeezed his muscles, sending tremendous pain wracking his body.
Nosebleed gushed out, and blood dripped from burst vessels in his eyes.
Kang Geohan! Kang Geohan!
Voices calling his name from somewhere. But Kang Geohan couldn’t hear them.
In truth, he’d already half-lost consciousness by then.
And yet,
Grrrind!
His body kept moving. The resolve etched into his subconscious issued absolute commands to his body.
Move! Resist the weight! Fight the pain! One more! Just one more!
Even semiconscious, Kang Geohan continued the lunges.
[Arrogant...!]
As if ignoring the hallucinated Balrog voice. Kang Geohan kept performing the movements.
Time passed like a dream.
When he came to, he was somehow on Sleipnir.
When did I get back? Did I return myself? Did someone bring me? Or was it a dream? Fleeting questions like a dream. But none of that mattered. He was starving.
“Food...”
His monstrous, cracked voice leaked from his lips.
“You crazy bastard...”
Uncle Davis? A voice thick with moisture shoved ogre meat into his mouth.
Kang Geohan chewed the meat in a trance and gulped down the water pressed to his lips.
His vision was still gone. All he saw were images from his full-body mirror ability.
The Balrog’s demonic mana still rampaged, shredding his own demonic mana like a ghost ship’s sails.
Like kneading dough, Kang Geohan stuffed dark mana and Balrog demonic mana into the gaps of his torn demonic mana, mixing it vigorously.
Each time, the dissonance between his demonic mana and the Balrog’s lessened bit by bit.
And when he opened his eyes, he was back in the middle of the Colfire river. Memories fragmented, but he didn’t even think to question it.
Eyes open on Sleipnir: eat ogre meat. In the Colfire: shoulder demonic stones and lunge.
His barely healed demonic mana tore again.
[You think you can endure this?!]
Occasional hallucinations booming in his head. And the ensuing dizzying pain.
But Kang Geohan found that pain joyful.
‘Kuhk. This is my second life.’
His first life had been pathetic. He hadn’t built the perfect body he wanted, hadn’t become the person he aimed to be.
Not that there’d been any way to turn it around. He’d just lived day after day, meaningless, barely surviving.
But this second life was different.
Infinite potential remained. He hadn’t broken.
This place, Laniakea, different from Earth—what was it? How far could he go here...?
He wanted to reach it.
Since he’d been reborn, shouldn’t he see the world’s end, his own limits?
This pain was just part of the process.
A challenge to test his boundless potential.
So,
The fact that he could...
‘I’m happy! I’m happy right now! More! Let’s do more!’
The pain from the Balrog was just motivation.
‘One down, one more!’
Boiling with fever, out of his mind, yet his subconscious movements were always perfect form.
At some point, his demonic mana stopped breaking.
Like well-kneaded dough, it stretched and bent under any pressure without snapping.
From then on, Kang Geohan’s demonic mana and the Balrog’s began mixing in earnest.
With every lunge, the two twisted together, merging stickily.
[In... insane...!]
His demonic mana was fundamentally transforming.
It grew endlessly flexible, harboring hot intensity.
But unlike this inner change, Kang Geohan’s external appearance only grew more haggard.
No matter how much he ate, it couldn’t keep up with his body’s destruction—weight plummeted, face shriveling like a skull.
With nonstop steam, he seemed to evaporate whole like dry ice.
Some thought Kang Geohan would die soon.
“He’s lived this long already, which is a miracle in itself...”
Even Countess Kali Stehold muttered uncertainly.
When chewing ogre meat Uncle Davis stuffed in his mouth, friends visited one by one.
Helena White looked down at him with a complicated expression and said,
“How... how can you push yourself that far?”
She didn’t expect an answer from Kang Geohan. She was just talking to herself, watching him wither away.
“But I don’t think you’ll fail. You’ll overcome it... and definitely get stronger. So. I won’t be scared anymore. I won’t fall behind you.”
After Helena left, Roen came; after Roen, Harkruks; then Gerot.
Time marched steadily on. Some prepared for Kang Geohan’s end, but he kept hoisting heavier demonic stones.
“Demonic stone...! Heavier! Heavier...!”
[Stop...! Stop!]
At some point, the Balrog’s voice stopped echoing in his head.
Kang Geohan trained on in the silence.
Splashing in Colfire, lunging, squatting, curling demonic stones with his biceps—mercilessly devouring the Balrog’s demonic mana.
And at one moment,
Boom!
Clang—thud!
Kang Geohan shot to his feet, hurling the demonic stone from his back far away.
Colfire surged high, raining down, moonlight weaving faint rainbows through the sparkling droplets.
“Ah...”
A hoarse, cracked voice slipped from Kang Geohan’s lips.
He looked down at his hands.
He could see them.
He looked up at the brightly shining moon.
The steam locomotive-shaped craters on the moon’s surface appeared as clear as if viewed through a telescope.
His full-body mirror showed a body brimming with perfectly shed demonic mana.
“Master. Are you back to your senses?”
Kalts Black stood beside him.
The time lost to the heat haze faded like evaporating alcohol.
How much time had passed?
Feeling extreme hunger, Kang Geohan said,
“Ah... seems like it. I’m starving...”
“Get on for now. We need to catch up to the column.”
Kalts Black patted the scout bike.
Had he waited like this every time for Kang Geohan’s training before returning to the group?
Grateful, Kang Geohan climbed on behind Kalts Black.
“Is it... over now?”
Kalts’s voice trembled faintly as he asked. He pretended otherwise, but the quiver revealed how much he’d worried.
Kang Geohan blinked.
Over?
[Kang Geohan]
Height: 179cm
Weight: 48kg
Willpower: 15 / 362
Strength: 11 / 78
Mana: 13 / 278
Fat Mass: 1.89kg
Muscle Mass (Skeletal): 14.17kg
Demonic Mana: 3,237 pindem
Spirit: 52 spirit
The InBody window answered for him.
Demonic mana up over 2,000 pindem. He’d fully absorbed the Balrog core.
He’d lost 13kg, looking a wreck, strength dipped slightly too...
But 3,237 pindem.
Enough demonic mana to surpass Rafal Black.
More than enough to pilot a 2-core 4-thread Giant Heart.
So Kang Geohan could smile and reply.
“Yeah. It’s over. I’m definitely stronger.”
It wasn’t just more demonic mana.
The demonic mana that needed hours of morning stretching to twist four or five times was gone.
Its quality had fundamentally changed.
Elastic, flexible, hot demonic mana stretched infinitely through his body at will.
“This is where the real start begins.”
Rumble!
Riding the roaring scout bike, Kang Geohan wiped sweat from his forehead and let the fierce wind scatter it.