The Unlucky Duel in the Academy Arena
Yoo Hwa-young’s first encounter with him had been nothing short of fate.
Back when he was still a child, a villain had snatched him up as a hostage, and the world had been on the brink of his death. The surrounding adults had been in utter panic, frantically searching for only one thing—heroes.
He had been no different.
Inherently a coward, he had simply cried and wailed, calling out for a hero with all his might.
But there had been no heroes nearby at the time, and the crowd closing in from every side had left him helpless as the villain raised a hand to strike.
Just then, someone had stepped in and saved him.
An angel fallen from the heavens.
Yes. Hwa-young’s appearance had been like a celestial descending from the sky, and he had fallen hopelessly in love with her the moment he saw her.
“Crap, what do I do? Dad’s going to throw a fit if I get hurt again.”
“O-over here! T-thank you for saving me!”
“Huh? Ah, so you were the kid the villain had grabbed, huh. No need for thanks. It wasn’t a big deal anyway.”
His bright smile and casual tone were still burned into his memory as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.
From then on, he had asked her name and made it his life’s mission to become the man who deserved her.
He had ignored every warning that he lacked talent and could only attend the prestigious Legna Academy—the only academy where the truly gifted could go.
He had done it with nothing but raw effort!
And while he was doing exactly that.
THUD!
“Why is it that everyone’s saying Hwa-young likes you, you bastard?!”
His tears had been flowing so freely they were now tinged with a faint crimson glow, and Cheon Seong scratched his head, trying to sound calm.
“Eh… no one’s saying that.”
KEYSAMA!!!
Now the boy was sobbing so hard it looked like real blood, glaring at him with eyes full of resentment. Cheon Seong was bewildered.
He had never thrown out any bait at all, yet this kid had swallowed it whole and was challenging him to a duel. It was nothing like the formal duel requests he saw in knightly tales. Right now the boy looked like a complete loser—though Cheon Seong hated to admit it.
Still, as someone who knew the facts, he figured it was better to tell the truth than to let the misunderstanding stand. But was the blood really necessary?
“So you want to duel me after all?”
“Yeah! I’ll beat you and prove that I’m the man who deserves Hwa-young!!”
Flames of passion burned in the boy’s eyes. Unyielding resolve to crush the enemy before him.
Cheon Seong had no problem with the spirit, but… something felt off.
He had never done anything to earn this boy’s hatred. Why did he feel like the kid was stealing Hwa-young away from him right now?
In other words, it was like he was the villain and the boy the tragic hero who had lost his beloved.
A dirty yet strangely unsullied feeling of discomfort.
“Hmm… is this okay?”
After finishing his assessment of the situation, Hwa-young looked at him with an awkward expression.
“Well… from a purely tactical standpoint, it’s exactly what you wanted, but the emotions are a bit complicated.”
The emotions were complicated, but that didn’t change the fact that he still had to do what he had to do.
To completely crush the boy and block in advance any garbage who tried to pick a fight with him over his “mediocre” skills.
“Whoa… saying that makes you sound like a real villain.”
“…”
Cheon Seong turned his head away from Hwa-young’s words and avoided her gaze.
“By the way, what do you think?”
“Huh? About what?”
“That guy over there. You like him, right?”
Cheon Seong and Hwa-young were not yet dating. They were still in the “getting to know each other” stage before love even began.
Given their current closeness, Hwa-young now had two options.
First, she could keep working on becoming his girlfriend while they continued getting to know each other.
Second, she could give up on him and find a man who would genuinely love her.
Cheon Seong’s advice to Hwa-young was clear: take the second path.
He told her to give him up.
He knew himself better than anyone.
He was not a good man. Not even close.
He was selfish and cold.
He simply wore the mask of “Cheerful Cheon Seong.” In truth, he was so cold and distant that she could barely stand to look at him for long—yet he knew her heart better than anyone.
So he had hoped she would give up on him. Probably.
“Hm… you think I’d be happier if you went after that guy?”
Hwa-young, being quick-witted, had immediately understood what he meant and asked.
Thankfully.
“Yeah, stop worrying about me because I’m such trash. Just go find someone who actually loves you and let yourself be loved.”
She should say it out loud.
You were never the woman for a guy like me.
Let a real man love you, not some piece of garbage like me.
THUD!
“Look at me.”
Her cheek stung.
Hwa-young gripped his face, forced his head toward her, and glared into his eyes—the ruby-red ones filled with burning passion now clouded by his pitch-black gaze.
“Tell me the truth about what’s hidden in your heart.”
What could he say?
He was being honest.
He wanted Hwa-young to love him only after she left him for someone else.
He wanted equal happiness with someone who was not trash like him.
He wanted—
he wanted—
he wanted—
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Was he really that selfish?
Did he really want Hwa-young to abandon him and go to another man?
No. He did want it.
He wanted… he wanted… he wanted…
“Just leave me. That’s the only way for you to be happy.”
“…”
At his words, Hwa-young’s eyes filled with sorrow, and she lowered her head in silence.
SWISH
Her body moved on its own.
Despite her exhausted state, it had pulled her into his embrace.
“…Eh?”
“…!”
Hwa-young’s eyes widened in shock, and Cheon Seong, realizing what he had done, tried to pull away.
SMIRK
“Our husband’s words and actions don’t match, do they?”
A mischievous, devilish glint in her eyes that felt strangely warm after so long.
THUMP
His heart fluttered faintly.
“That’s not it. Hey, let’s go start the duel already.”
“O-okay, okay. Yeah.”
The boy watching the two of them flushed and nodded awkwardly.
When he had first seen their sweet moment, he had been clenching his teeth so hard it felt like something was about to shatter. That rage had vanished from Cheon Seong’s face.
His expression was now filled with agony, accusation, self-loathing, lust, and killing intent—emotions so dense they even made anger itself feel distant.
They had reached such a pitch that it was almost as if the boy could no longer even feel angry.
So the two—well, along with the many others who had followed Hwa-young—headed toward the academy’s arena to watch the duel between Cheon Seong and the boy.
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It was exactly the same as back then.
It was the same feeling he had felt the first time he truly understood his own heart toward Beatrice.
Disorienting. Disgusting.
He understood.
He had known.
Even before yesterday evening, he had already realized that his gaze toward Hwa-young had changed.
But he had turned a blind eye.
Why?
He had said it countless times, yet he said it again.
He was trash.
He did not deserve to receive the overwhelming emotion of love.
Then what had he been showing Hwa-young until now?
That was genuine.
He could swear there was not a single lie in how he had treated her or what he had felt in his heart.
And that was exactly why he wanted to kill himself right now.
He wanted to rip out the heart of this selfish, filthy man and tear his body apart to feed the monsters.
But he could not die.
No matter what, he could not die.
Even if his body and soul were shattered before he finished everything, he could not die.
That was why he had to live while embracing the killing intent that wanted to end him and the self-loathing that came with the knowledge that he was being loved while still breathing.
He had been living like that all this time.
When he had accepted Yuna as his lover and confirmed his feelings for Beatrice, he had never forgotten the disgust and self-loathing that had flooded him.
Every night, every morning, at every new beginning, he had felt that pain and agony with his entire body.
He simply endured it because he could not fall.
He could not escape it even by waking from a dream.
In the dream state—in the unconscious realm of his sleeping mind—the pain had materialized, making it even more agonizing.
His body had been bound, torn, crushed, and broken over and over in the nightmare.
Was this a nightmare?
No. This was not a nightmare.
It was a blessed dream at best.
The fact that he had to keep living was something he felt with his entire body, even in his sleep, every single night—how could such a dream be anything but blessed?
It hardened his resolve.
And within that dream, Hwa-young, Yuna, Beatrice, Hana, and his own obsessive attachment toward Hwa-young had all materialized.
Yes. He would no longer hide it.
He had fallen in love with Hwa-young as a man.
He wanted to make Hwa-young his woman, to possess every single thing about her.
He wanted her body, her heart, her ruby-red eyes that sparkled like jewels, her hair that perfectly carried the flames, her voluptuous chest, the soft scent of her skin and body.
He wanted to be the only one she looked at.
His throat burned dry.
Parched.
As dry as a desert where drought had lasted for decades.
‘I’ll take Hwa-young. Her body, her heart, everything about her.’
That sentence felt like a single drop of rain falling on dry land.
‘Then I’ll kill her.’
He would kill the one who coveted what was his.
And claim her.
The dew of Hwa-young, the single drop of rain.
SWISH! CRACK!
Power surged through his body.
He could no longer hold back his killing intent.
But he forced himself to suppress it.
He couldn’t afford to get caught by the professor.
“Then is the boy ready?”
“Ready!”
“…Good.”
CRACK! SNAP!
The professor’s hand stretched toward the sky, and Cheon Seong’s eyes fixed only on that signal.
‘Fall. Fall now.’
He heightened every sense of his body to detect only the signal for the start of the duel.
WHOOSH!
“Duel start!”
WHOOSH—!!
The signal hand dropped, and Cheon Seong’s body leaned forward, leaping forward with full power.
WHOOSH—!!
His staff pierced the air as he aimed at the boy’s vital point.
An attack without any force adjustment.
It was so powerful that if he missed, it would not only knock him out but could seriously injure him.
THUD!
But the boy was not just anyone who had entered Legna Academy.
He possessed not only combat talent but outstanding talent in strategy.
‘I’m thinking, imagining how the next attack will come!’
That was the simulation of combat.
By focusing intensely on the first movement, he could see through muscle shifts and calculate dozens, hundreds, thousands of possibilities in his head to predict the opponent’s movements.
That was his unique ability.
Accuracy comparable to future sight.
But far weaker than actual future sight.
WHOOSH—BANG!
Cheon Seong’s staff moved like a snake and slammed hard into the boy’s nape.
The boy staggered, collapsed after only one strike, and lost consciousness.
And.
‘Hah! I have to stop him right now!!’
Even the moment of unconsciousness was part of the boy’s simulated combat.
WHOOSH—BANG!
Exactly as he had predicted, Cheon Seong’s staff aimed for his nape again.
BANG!
The boy, who had foreseen the attack, blocked it.
Then came the counter.
THUD!
When Cheon Seong blocked the boy’s neck strike, the boy quickly moved as if he had read it and continued his assault.
WHOOSH!
Cheon Seong dodged by stepping back, and a small cut appeared on his cheek.
“…”
SWISH
Cheon Seong silently touched his cheek and looked at the blood on his hand…
WHOOSH—
Cheon Seong’s body vanished, and a brown something appeared right in front of the boy’s eyes.
CRACK!
The boy’s head exploded like a watermelon under the staff, and his brains scattered across the arena floor.
“KRUH?!”
And the boy, clutching his head, collapsed onto the arena floor.
The death he had just experienced.
Just as he had predicted, it was another simulated duel using his unique ability, Thousand Thoughts Flash.
But even though it hadn’t happened, the reason the boy had collapsed was the difference between his Thousand Thoughts Flash and the ability to see the future.
Thousand Thoughts Flash—his unique ability to keep simulating combat in his head until he found the optimal movement after considering every possible outcome.
Its predictions were so accurate they looked nearly invincible at first glance, but unfortunately its fatal weakness was painfully obvious.
It was that while the user felt every simulated death as if it were real.
Precisely, the simulation was not reality, yet it felt exactly like reality.
If he died there, the shock was real enough to break bones and send the user into mental agony.
That was why his Thousand Thoughts Flash could never defeat someone overwhelmingly stronger than him.
No matter how many times he blocked and countered, the mental shock of “I would have died in some scenario” was too strong—he would pass out.
Everyone feared death.
The boy was experiencing that fear as he dueled Cheon Seong.
Cheon Seong’s cold black eyes stared back at him.
In those eyes, the boy saw himself—a white rabbit trembling in terror.
And to the boy, Cheon Seong appeared as a black wolf hunting him down.
Despite the terror of death pressing down on him, the boy forced himself to rise from the ground.
‘I still have to watch… Hwa-young is watching…’
He knew.
He knew that from the very beginning to the end, Hwa-young’s eyes were fixed only on Cheon Seong.
He knew he would never enter her sight.
“But… I can’t give up.”
SWISH.
He stood up and pointed his sword at Cheon Seong again.
“Even if the woman I love is watching… I can’t give up.”
He had grown through endless pain using his innate ability, all because he wanted to enter Legna Academy—the only place where Hwa-young might appear.
He had finally reached the chance to stand beside the woman he had only been able to watch from afar, and how could he give up just because he was afraid of death?
“I… I’ll go… all out… now…”
“…”
Cheon Seong was still silently watching him without saying a word.
But Sando.
Sando had pushed his Thousand Thoughts Flash to its absolute limit.
“If a thousand is not enough… then ten thousand… if that’s not enough… then a hundred thousand…”
If a thousand futures were insufficient, he would multiply them.
No matter how much the pain of death increased, he would keep expanding until he found the way to defeat the man standing in front of him.
Like that—
WHOOSH—!!
Sando shot forward and swung his sword at Cheon Seong’s wooden staff.
CRACK!
Cheon Seong’s staff split in two.
SMIRK
Sando, who had landed a perfect hit, grinned with joy.
“I won—!”
BOOM!!!
The shout of victory was shattered by a single punch from Cheon Seong, who was still wearing mana.