Chapter 102
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: The Apostle
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Run.
Jin's body seemed to be screaming that at him.
It was a lightning-bolt warning.
A red emergency light blaring deafeningly in his head.
"Hey."
He called out to Kendrick, who was right beside him.
Had he sensed something was wrong too? The response came back quiet.
"What."
"Should we bolt?"
"Nonsense. I've never run from anything in my life..."
A brief silence.
He could almost hear the guy swallowing dryly.
"...I'll consider it. For Jahad's future."
Even the haughty Kendrick was backpedaling a bit.
This wasn't the time to save face.
In that moment, Jin and Kendrick each realized the truth about the other through different means.
Jin glanced at his status window.
Kendrick recalled his family head training.
And they quickly arrived at the same conclusion.
Apostle.
The figure stood motionless inside the shrine.
Blood dripping from his fingertips painted vivid red dots across the ritual silk cloth below. A summoned breeze lightly lifted the hood he had pulled low over his face.
Revealing his features.
Cropped, frizzy hair. An eyepatch covering one eye.
His single, hollow gaze was colder than that of the dead inspectors.
It felt exactly like a blade—just catching it in his vision made Jin's skin prickle as if thinly sliced.
But he couldn't afford to get lost in phantom pain.
Behind that one-eyed buzzcut loomed black stakes driven into the ground at the four cardinal directions.
And at the center, atop a stone pedestal, lay a longsword preserved in a glass case. Jin easily guessed that was the sacred artifact his status window had mentioned.
It wasn't hard to figure out. Even now, the murky energy oozing thickly from the black stakes was gnawing away at the golden barrier enveloping the presumed relic.
So, protect it so they can't take it? Got it.
Jin chewed on his lip like it was a rice cake left out overnight.
Mountain after mountain.
He'd barely dodged the blood-soaked giant tree, only for a monster that could slay with a glare to show up next.
Sword Saint, what the hell did you entrust me with?
The question echoed in his mind, fading into the distance without an answer.
In the heavy silence where one second felt like a minute, the Apostle spoke.
"...Jahad? How?"
A question mark hung at the end. He'd been staring silently, wondering the same thing—it seemed the Apostle was just as puzzled by the situation.
But unlike Jin, he muttered the answer to himself.
"So it's the Sword Saint. A will that reaches the heavens... No wonder he warned us to be cautious."
His gaze drifted far off.
Toward the arena.
As if locking eyes with someone there.
"But we were faster."
The Apostle smiled.
The next instant, he was right in Jin and Kendrick's faces. A movement even his superhumanly enhanced nerves couldn't track. The trailing wind carried the acrid stench of blood.
Whoosh.
In that stretched-out second like pulled taffy, the Apostle's hands drew beams of light.
Four fingers neatly gathered, thumb excluded—a thrust.
The straight trajectory aimed straight for the heart.
At the same time.
Jin and Kendrick reacted.
Kendrick stomped the ground hard. Using his planted foot as an axis, his spinning body generated centrifugal force like a storm.
Dragon Ascent.
A technique that restricted the opponent's movement while boosting his own. The essence of the late bloom, they called it. His swirling hand motion left a long, zigzag afterimage in the air.
And just barely caught up to the Apostle's fingertips at chest level.
Clang!
The sound was impossible to believe came from flesh on flesh.
At that moment, an equally thunderous noise erupted from the opposite side.
Boom!
Beyond the numb, trembling air.
Jin, in a stance where he'd smacked the enemy's hand blade outward from inside to out with full force.
If Kendrick had crafted his late bloom with technique, Jin had bridged the gap purely on instinct.
The classic case where body moves before brain.
If someone asked how, he'd probably just say, "Beats me."
This too was innate talent.
Irregular. The unreasonable body that kept evolving as long as he lived made such responses possible.
And so, he didn't stop there.
The potential dreaming of eternal growth wouldn't let its master settle for mere defense.
Right after.
Beneath the hand that had deflected the attack, his long fingers curled like a beast's claws.
From thumb to pinky, five talons crackling with lightning.
Crackle!!
His arm slammed down with a thunderous roar.
Thunder God Bird's Claws.
But Jin would never call it that even on his deathbed—he naturally copied the half-demon technique he'd loved as a kid.
Thus, Soul-Shattering Iron Claws!
The flow from defense to offense was as natural as running water.
His hooked talons lashed straight for the Apostle's chest.
And the recoil.
"...!"
A sharp jolt of pain sent Jin flying back hard.
Just like sharply condensed power always did—if it failed to pierce, it exploded right there. He'd fallen right into that cliché trap.
In other words, Jin's attack hadn't breached the Apostle's skin.
The next moment.
A pale palm burst through the dusty haze and seized Jin's head, smashing it into the ground.
His skull hit first, legs shooting up.
No matter how tough Jin was, an impact like that would blow his fuses for a bit.
And it did.
His eyes rolled back white, failing to capture the Apostle's face looking down at him.
But his subconscious was still alive.
Grip!
Both hands clamping the arm that gripped his face—that was proof.
At the same time, Kendrick moved.
The split-second opening Jin had created. He'd already completed his third rotation. His accelerated fist sliced the air.
Crackle-crackle!
The Apostle casually deflected that ferocious blow with one hand.
In the past, Jin had reversed the Dragon Ascent's vortex by spinning opposite, but this guy didn't even attempt that.
He simply shattered the layered momentum with raw power.
As if destruction was the sole province of the weak.
Urk.
Blood welled up in Kendrick's mouth.
Just like the day he'd lost to Jin—the rebounding force flipped right back on him.
But this time was different.
Thud!
Grinding his teeth, he stomped again.
His fourth rotation followed.
Gathering the scattering vortex for one more turn, his body collided with the Apostle once again.
And predictably, got repelled.
His stance crumbling badly.
Kendrick faced an instant crossroads.
Abandon Dragon Ascent and retreat now, or steel himself for death and press one step further.
The Cerebellum King chose the latter without hesitation.
Thud!
The fifth footfall, embodying his resolve, cracked the ground.
"...!"
Jin opened his eyes.
Still clutching the Apostle's arm.
The blackout had been brief, so his next move came without a hitch.
From his fallen position, he snapped his hips and waist up, heel kicking skyward.
An uppercut heel straight to the jaw.
His compressed leg muscles exploded with power—
For a split second, the Apostle's head snapped back.
At the same instant, Kendrick was in front of him.
Whoooosh—!
After five full wraps, the airflow had become a gale.
From the fist slamming into the Apostle's face, lightning-fast combos followed. Each one a lethal strike targeting vitals.
Naturally.
The Apostle's body jerked violently.
Jerks, jerks, more jerks.
Suddenly, it burst into a crimson mist.
What?!
A sight all too familiar to Jin.
The moment his eyes widened in realization—
Whoosh!
The blood mist, sucked into the fierce whirlwind, swirled blood-red around Kendrick.
Then, explosion.
Jin tumbled across the ground, swept by the shockwave and roar.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Just like skipping stones on dry dirt.
In the chaotic bouncing, something must've hit wrong—his right vision went pitch black. A bonus injury.
Screeech—!
His hand clawed the ground in haste, gouging ten furrows before nails flew upward haphazardly. Whatever.
Jin hauled himself up urgently, squinting against the headwind slapping his face as he peered ahead.
At the edge of his vision.
Kendrick slumped in ruins.
Beside him, the Apostle reforming in a whirlwind of human shape.
"...A vampire?"
"Progeny of the Pure Blood."
The only one in this era.
The Apostle added curtly, turning back as Kendrick's head slammed into the dirt.
"Didn't expect the Thunderclap's grandson to be this capable. I acknowledge the title of Cerebellum King isn't empty. You've got shoulders broad enough to carry the family."
He ground his heel into Kendrick's skull.
Licking the blood trickling from his mouth.
"But who are you? You weren't in our list of variables."
Jin didn't answer. He just watched the now-still Kendrick, then slowly raised his head.
His brow furrowed.
Flames roared in eyes twisted with rage.
"Get your foot off him."
"Can't hear you."
"I said get your damn foot off him, you bastard."
The Apostle shrugged.
Poured more force into his leg demonstratively.
Crunch! Kendrick's face sank another inch, spilling thick blood onto the ground.
Jin kicked off.
The world blurred past.
The light core in his heart, spinning nonstop till now, yielded its place to the comrade huddled beside it.
Fwoosh!
Semitransparent heat surged up, replacing the fading lightning.
"...What?"
Confusion flickered in the Apostle's single eye.
Jin's fist hammered his gut. Even half-woozy, he nailed the liver spot-on. And for the first time, a reaction unlike any before—the Apostle's brow cracked.
Jin's fist hadn't suddenly gotten insanely stronger.
It was a simple matter of compatibility.
Long ago.
From the moment the Blood King Zanedin fell to Solad's family head—a fated matchup.
The Apostle's face jerked upward.
Scorching pain bloomed under his shattered jaw.
"...You bastard!"
As he regenerated his pulverized jaw and began chanting—the fist smashed his face again.
His body slid back, finally morphing into bats. An enormous swarm, blotting out his entire view in darkness.
So what?
Jin exhaled intense heat. The resulting haze incinerated the oncoming bat horde like a tsunami.
Flames that had slain their king.
Pure inferno illuminating souls, Light Flame.
Its very existence a natural predator.
Still, this...!
Thousands of bats wheeled in the sky.
The Apostle's fragmented ego shared the same thought.
Everything from one to ten was off.
How could the owner of super-rotation wield Solad's flames too?
Perplexing enough, but worse problems loomed.
No matter the predator, size difference was real.
Could a tiger handle a rabbit the size of an elephant?
Lucky not to get crushed.
But the opponent ignored all common sense.
Even now.
He'd already unleashed countless blood spells, unnoticed or not.
Yet he pressed on, staggering but relentless.
"Natural predator" didn't explain it.
The Apostle realized a more fundamental distortion.
[What are you?]
Same question as before, but the emotion loaded in was worlds apart.
The voice of one beholding a must-kill foe.
Naturally, Jin didn't answer.
Or rather, he had no mind to.
This guy's insane.
He'd fought a Vampire Lord once before. Back then, one big heat haze had them loving the burn. This one was different—way different.
An infinite swarm blotting his vision.
Each bat channeling deranged spells. Leagues beyond the underground bats that just bit and scratched with physical force.
Explosions, thrusts, bindings, strikes, illusions and auditory hallucinations disrupting senses, headaches, world spinning.
Layered shocks hammered his marrow.
He could drop any second—no exaggeration.
Truth was, even this was over 80% weakened thanks to [Pure Flame] and [Pure Blood Devourer], but Jin had no time to notice.
He just pushed forward stubbornly.
Desperate to drag the outfighter into his range, he kept moving feet that refused to obey.
At some point, his body was a spell-chewed statue.
Without recovery and willpower that'd make even Pure Blood vampires click their tongues, he'd have collapsed ages ago.
It stung that his grasp of the Pure Flame imagery wasn't as deep as Jahad's, but Jin forgot even that, focusing on what he could do.
Enduring incoming spells, whittling down the endless bats one by one. A flame-wreathed fist burst another mid-air.
But nothing lasted forever.
Boom!!!
Back-to-back barrage spells flipped his eyes. His tenth blackout this fight, but he clawed back consciousness for the eleventh time.
His body refused to obey anymore.
Upper body tilting back.
Legs giving out, unable to hold the crumbling frame.
The moment Jin fell onto his back—
Thump.
Someone caught him from behind.
"Can't have you dying here, Jin."
The soft voice carried an elegant rose scent.
"...You."
"Rest for a bit."
Beyond his hazy vision, a beautiful face flashed a dangerous smile.
Gently laid on the ground, Jin coughed and looked ahead.
The clicking heels advancing—that back was unmistakably Michelle's.
"I won't tolerate anyone touching my treasure."
The next moment.
A massive pair of wings unfurled from behind her.
Scattering pitch-black feathers reminiscent of crows.