The Wind That Cuts Without Warning
“Kgh!”
Baek Jaehoon put distance between them.
He'd let his guard down. That was all. Getting humiliated like this by a mere F-rank—unthinkable.
Fortunately, the wound itself wasn't deep.
He tightened his grip on his sword.
Focus.
Apparently the man had been hiding at least one technique. It wouldn't work on him a second time.
He glared, refusing to let a single one of Baek Doyun's movements slip past him.
This time, Doyun moved first. His arm swung as though swaying idly in a breeze, and the blade came rushing in—slow. Almost languid.
So predictable it's practically falling asleep!
Baek Jaehoon slipped inside the arc with even nimbler footwork.
He thrust his sword. And he was certain—
It had landed clean.
“….”
The tip of Baek Doyun's sword trembled once more.
In that instant, the blade that had been hanging far away closed the distance in a flash and knocked Baek Jaehoon's sword skyward.
“Wha—”
With his upper body flung wide open, Baek Jaehoon took a kick straight to the stomach and was knocked backward.
His eyes wavered violently.
What was that just now…? The sword had gotten faster, as if it had simply accelerated.
Don't tell me—an artifact? No, impossible.
They'd both inspected the communal training swords before the duel.
The same sword… but then what?
“Kgh!”
Blocking the relentless stream of strikes that followed, Baek Jaehoon gritted his teeth.
Slow. Everything about the man was sluggish—yet he couldn't, for the life of him, keep up with the blade itself.
With wounds accumulating steadily, little by little, he felt himself being herded into a dead end.
Finally, he screamed out his frustration at a phenomenon he couldn't comprehend.
“What the hell… IS this?!”
The onlookers fell speechless at the sight of Doyun overwhelming a duel everyone had assumed would end in Baek Jaehoon's victory—or at worst, a stalemate.
A rookie of the Cheongryong Unit, who had been studying the swordwork intently, his eyes gleamed.
“Captain! What sword technique is that?”
“No idea.”
“Oh come on, you can tell me, right? Is it one of those secret arts passed down only to the direct bloodline?”
“Nothing like that exists.”
The Cheongryong Unit commander answered halfheartedly, unable to tear his eyes away from Baek Doyun's blade.
A sword technique that manipulates the wind.
The blade swings to twist the flow of the surrounding air, and the next strike rides the current of wind that distortion creates.
That explained the wavering sword tip as well.
A sense attuned to reading the flow of the wind. The delicate control needed to bend that flow in whatever direction one willed.
And on top of that, the sheer skill to carve out a precise sword path in the blink of an eye. Lacking even one of those, the technique would fall apart.
Even granting a difference in raw physical ability, if Baek Jaehoon failed to perceive what was happening, he'd be toyed with from beyond the reach of his own blade—nothing more.
To win, Baek Jaehoon would have needed to unleash such overwhelming strength or mana that it disrupted the surrounding air itself.
Which meant that for a D-rank close-combat hunter like him, victory was, for all practical purposes, impossible.
When did he learn something like that?
So he hadn't been sitting idle for three years, after all….
Whether it was a good omen or the herald of a new storm, only time would tell.
The things worth watching had only multiplied.
This is broken.
So I thought as I opened a gash on my opponent's leg with one of the Cheongpung Sword Technique's forms.
The most overpowered part of all was that the technique cost me no mana whatsoever.
Recorded techniques consume mental power when used.
And the cost didn't even seem all that steep. I'd already unleashed it plenty of times during morning training, and I was using it constantly right now, yet I only felt slightly tired. Pretty sustainable.
Better still, I didn't need to concentrate to use the forms—the moment I willed them, my body executed them on its own. It felt like flicking a switch.
Actually, no.
More importantly, why is this guy so weak?
And he called himself D-rank. What, did he win that rank in a card game?
No point dragging this out any longer.
Time to end it.
I lowered my sword and shifted my stance.
Baek Jaehoon, who had only just managed to catch his breath, steadied his breathing, his face screaming what now?! Some instinct must have warned him, because he came charging in with his broken form still mangled.
“Uuuagh!”
My sword traced a semicircle, gleaming with light.
The fifth form—a technique demanding internal energy—judged the need on its own and drew mana out of my body.
And at the same moment, I panicked a little.
Hold on, why is it pulling HALF my mana?!
Whether I liked it or not, a crescent slash of pure mana shot forward.
Baek Jaehoon threw everything he had into blocking it, but the blade that met the slash snapped clean in two.
The crescent didn't slow. It stretched on toward his chest—and just before it could land, someone hauled Baek Jaehoon backward and caught the slash barehanded.
PANG—!
Brushing aside the cloud of swirling dust, the commander of the Cheongryong Unit, Kim Wongil, bowed at the waist.
“Uncle Wongil?”
“My apologies. It seemed you were about to spill unnecessary blood.”
“Nah, I was about to get stuck dealing with the paperwork. Thanks.”
“Of course.”
It was a face I hadn't seen in a long while. How long had he been watching?
Thud—
Baek Jaehoon crumpled onto both knees, staring blankly up at the sky.
“I've got some business with him. Mind stepping aside?”
“Certainly.”
Kim Wongil withdrew to the side, clearing the way.
Throb—
Slipping the hand that had caught the slash behind his back as he did so.
I walked up to Baek Jaehoon and laid my blade across the wrist of the man still dazed on the ground.
The instant the cold edge touched his skin, his eyes snapped into focus and turned toward me.
“What do you think you're—”
I applied the slightest pressure, and the blade began to bite into flesh.
“Shh.”
“…!!”
“Dragging this out would be a pain, so let's be quick about it.”
I leaned down and dropped my voice.
“Nod if I've got it right. If I haven't—well.”
Baek Jaehoon's eyeballs darted frantically. Desperately hunting for a way out, he soon shot a pleading glance toward the Cheongryong Unit commander.
But Kim Wongil turned his head away, feigning ignorance, and Baek Jaehoon let out a small, defeated sigh.
“Who told you to pick a fight with me?”
At the same time, his eyes flew wide. He parted his lips, about to say something—and the blade immediately pressed deeper into his skin.
Skin parted, blood trickled down. Convinced he'd truly lose the wrist if this went on, he nodded his head like a madman.
“Good enough.”
The moment I withdrew the sword, he clutched his wrist.
No need to ask who it was.
I'd been shut away for three years and then suddenly reappeared in the world—of course one of the nervous succession candidates had sent someone to sound me out.
Several of them had watched me set foot in this area yesterday, so he'd have been briefed in advance. Though the words he'd actually spat were probably all his own spite.
If a guy worries that much over me merely walking around… maybe it's worth keeping an eye on him.
Who knew what today's spectacle would stir up next, so now I had a reason to get stronger, fast.
“I'll be taking a few monsters from the pens. Consider that my notice.”
As I turned to leave, I gave Uncle Wongil a light nod.
“Do drop by the unit sometime.”
“Maybe I will.”
….
Long after the spectators had dispersed, Baek Jaehoon—back on his feet thanks to a fellow manager—dragged himself, limping, toward the management zone.
He opened the door and scanned the interior.
Flinch—
Empty pens stretched everywhere before his eyes. Even a rough count put the missing monsters at twenty.
“Ah… goddammit.”
Jin Muhyeok.
Seven days since he'd obtained his opportunity in the stable.
Thanks to the Cheongryong fruit, he had at last succeeded in reaching the Peak Realm.
His very way of seeing the world had changed, and he was savoring the feeling—when an unwelcome visitor appeared.
“I'm asking you how the hell you reached Peak Realm!”
Yoo Hajin. A man it felt almost embarrassing to call a friend.
“Not gonna answer? I'm talking to you, you know.”
“It was enlightenment.”
“Bullshit.”
Jin Muhyeok shook his head.
“Your internal energy is visibly surging. You're telling me that's the realm of enlightenment?”
“It grew when I became Peak Realm, that's all.”
“Do I look like an idiot? Be honest. What did you swallow?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, playing that game, are you? I took a blade for you last time!”
“That was because you're slow.”
“Why you—!”
No matter how he tried to shake him off, the man clung to his side without a hint of leaving, pestering him relentlessly, until at last Jin Muhyeok relented and recounted everything, exactly as it had happened.
“There'll be nothing there, so give it up.”
“You never know!”
Watching the man's back as he spun around and launched into his lightfoot art, Jin Muhyeok clicked his tongue.
“Tsk tsk.”
Without so much as a pause, Yoo Hajin poured on the speed and arrived at the spot Jin Muhyeok had described.
“This the place?”
Sure enough, deep in the mountains stood a single man-made cavern.
He stepped cautiously inside—and from the very entrance, small creatures blocked his path.
“Hoh.”
So this is what he meant by empty, huh. The bastard.
If there was any comfort, the energy he could sense didn't feel particularly strong.
“Wasting effort where it doesn't matter—that's what third-raters do.”
He grinned and slapped himself against the ceiling. Then, flowing into his lightfoot art, he burst through in a flash.
The monsters could neither cling to the ceiling nor match his speed; all they could do was watch him go.
“Easy. Too easy.”
The occasional arrow came flying, but there was no chance in hell he'd get hit by any of that.
When it came to lightfoot movement, even most Peak Realm masters couldn't keep pace with him.
And puny little critters dared to try? Not a chance.
They'd spend their lives eating his dust.
Unregistered technique detected.
Initiating Technique Analysis.
5%… 15%… 19%…
….
“This is it.”
The passages wound like a maze, so it took longer to find than expected.
The Cheongryong fruit….
“There it is!”
At the very center sat a single, plump-looking fruit.
He snatched it up in an instant, and the spiritual energy contained within pulsed unmistakably in his palm.
“Excellent! Heh heh.”
With this, he too could cross the wall into the Peak Realm.
“Shall we, then.”
Yoo Hajin sprinted along the ceiling, just as he had coming in.
He knew the way out now, so he could move even faster.
Pushing ahead without delay, the entrance soon came into view in the distance.
The moment he funneled even more internal energy into his toes to punch straight through—
A hail of arrows came flying from up ahead. He twisted to dodge, but the arrows came so perfectly uniform, so airtight in their coverage, that he had no choice but to land on the floor.
As if they'd been waiting for exactly that, Goblins and Kobolds swarmed him.
Yoo Hajin skidded backward, putting distance between them.
“Using your head, are we?”
Determined not to let him escape, the monsters packed the narrow corridor wall to wall, while archers in the rear readied their bows—covering the ceiling too.
A laugh bubbled up out of him.
“You think I'm… dodging around because I'm weak?”
Shrring—
Yoo Hajin drew his sword and planted his stance, legs spread shoulder-width apart.
One heartbeat from swinging his blade—then he spotted the single gap in their formation and hurled himself through it.
Deflecting arrows as he went, he tore through the gap with his lightfoot art and reached the mouth of the entrance.
“Haha! Best of luck to you all—”
At which point the Horned Rabbits came flying at him.
“?!”
He'd already maxed out his speed. Braking hard now, or turning, meant internal injury.
He desperately knocked aside the Horned Rabbits with his sword, but two of them buried themselves in his shoulder and thigh.
“Kghk!”
Bleeding, he tumbled across the ground.
The monster horde closing in without pause. And the entrance, mere steps away.
Yoo Hajin hesitated—then squeezed out every last drop of strength, even the strength he'd been born with, and crawled along the ground.
One of the Goblins rushing in drove a knife into his side. He bit down on the agony and threw it off, then rolled his body and finally tumbled out of the dungeon.
“Ugh….”
Thankfully, the moment he was outside, the monsters turned and retreated back inside.
Only then did Yoo Hajin sprawl flat on his back, arms spread wide.
Technique Analysis complete.
Ghost Shadow Steps(Guieongbo) has been recorded.
Recorded techniques can now be registered.
“Not bad.”