Chapter 229
Chapter 229
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 229
Chapter Title: The Second Hundred Steps Ritual (3)
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“Guhh!”
Muchi strained to lift his upper body from his prone position.
Crack.
The superhuman physique he’d inherited from his grandfather Ralph pushed back against the Sword Lord’s aura.
Veins bulging jaggedly across his skin.
Muscles swollen to the bursting point.
He couldn’t recall ever taxing his muscles this hard in his life—Muchi gave it everything he had.
Crack-pop.
His body let out eerie groans as it shuddered, but he still couldn’t manage to stand.
‘Ah, so it really is impossible...’
The first time he’d laid eyes on the Sword Lord.
Muchi had been gripped by overwhelming fear.
But when the Hundred Steps Ritual began.
He’d been the first to step forward toward the Sword Lord, ahead of everyone else.
He didn’t know why he’d done it.
And even now, as he poured every ounce of strength into rising again, he didn’t know the reason.
All he felt was that he’d done all he could.
‘Should I... just give up?’
His mana was nearly depleted, and his body was screaming in protest.
He figured his strength would give out soon anyway.
Deciding there was no need to push further, Muchi slowly released the force he’d been using to resist the crushing pressure.
The moment his upper body, which had been pressed flat, began tilting toward the ground—
Step.
A long shadow stretched across the ground in front of Muchi’s eyes.
Then, a pair of familiar shoes entered his view.
Followed by a voice he knew all too well.
“What are you doing?”
That lazy, crooked tone halted Muchi’s collapse dead in its tracks.
He gritted his teeth and lifted his head.
“Ugh...”
After straining with all his might, Muchi’s gaze finally reached the figure looking down at him.
His pupils shook as he saw the owner of that voice, just as he’d suspected.
‘Yuri... hyung? How is hyung here?’
Why was Yuri from the 50th Cohort at the 51st Batch’s Hundred Steps Ritual?
Reading Muchi’s eyes, Yuri smirked.
“I had a prior engagement with someone.”
He glanced briefly at the Sword Lord, then turned back to Muchi.
The smirk vanished from his face in an instant.
Replaced by contempt.
“Hey, I asked what the hell you’re doing here.”
“......”
Of course, Muchi couldn’t answer under that lung-crushing pressure—he could barely breathe.
If anything, Muchi was amazed by Yuri.
How could Yuri speak so casually amid this insane pressure?
Catching Muchi’s look, Yuri clicked his tongue.
“Tch, you pathetic punk.”
“...?”
The sudden insult brought a flicker of injustice to Muchi’s eyes.
Seeing it, Yuri sneered even more.
“I thought you’d changed a bit after building some skill and getting into the Cradle... but you’re no different from when we first met.”
Muchi felt wronged, confused why he deserved such criticism.
No—beyond wronged, anger started bubbling up.
‘Hyung... what does Yuri hyung know!’
How hard I worked to meet you!
The resolve I made to get into the Cradle!
Yuri brushed off Muchi’s fierce glare with a scoff.
“What’s with that aggrieved look? I don’t get what you have to be aggrieved about. Hm... did I say something wrong?”
A heavy bass note rumbled from the still-sneering Yuri.
“Hey, you snot-nosed brat. That look on your face, like you’re about to die of injustice... that’s the face of someone who’s given everything and still failed.”
“......”
“But you? Mana’s run out, you say? Or can’t even twitch a finger?”
Disgust crept into Yuri’s voice.
“You’re clearly not at that point... but you were about to quit just now, weren’t you?”
“......”
“What the hell kind of guy are you?”
Muchi’s pupils trembled violently at the offhand question.
Yuri stepped forward, gazing down at him.
Step.
Yuri effortlessly took the eighth step—the very one Muchi had strained for and failed.
He paused there, staring straight ahead as he muttered.
“You’re still just a quit-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, crybaby snot-nosed brat. No change at all.”
With that, Yuri walked on as if he had nothing more to say.
Nine steps.
Ten.
Eleven.
Muchi stared blankly at Yuri’s receding back.
The last words echoed in his ears.
[No change at all.]
The more they buzzed, the tighter his chest grew.
Muchi quickly realized the source of that suffocating feeling.
‘It’s not... wrong.’
His mana wasn’t fully depleted.
Nor was he out of strength.
Yet he’d tried to give up.
Yuri’s criticism... was spot on.
Which meant, as Yuri said, he hadn’t changed.
‘Yuri hyung...’
Muchi stared blankly at Yuri, who had just taken his twelfth step.
‘What kind of... world is that place? How did he get there?’
The seventh step was this brutal— what must the space of those twelve steps Yuri had taken be like?
Even more astonishing, Yuri wasn’t stopping; he was taking a thirteenth step.
Slower than before, but upright, straight ahead, without faltering.
Gritting his teeth at that solid back, Muchi thought.
‘I came chasing that man...’
Yet here he was, sprawled out.
While Yuri pulled farther away.
At a speed he could barely match.
That’s when Muchi realized.
‘I worked hard too, but Yuri hyung worked even harder than me.’
Even with the same year’s time, Yuri’s effort had created this gap.
‘And I said I wouldn’t lose next time we met, despite being stuck at this level.’
To think he’d tried to stop and quit here!
Shame tightened his chest again.
To shake it off, Muchi let out a primal roar.
“Grrrrraaaargh!”
Crack-crack.
Eerie sounds emanated from his body as he slowly began to rise.
‘I’ll follow!’
Eyes bloodshot, Muchi chased Yuri’s back.
‘I’ll follow... Yuri hyung!’
Crack—creak-crack.
‘Follow him!’
Muchi summoned every last drop of remaining mana.
For the first time, he poured it all out.
He felt the agony of his mana core for the first time, but had no time to care.
He focused solely ahead.
Crack!
One leg lifted.
Thud.
Finally, he succeeded with the eighth step.
The instant he did—
Step.
Yuri, ahead, took his fourteenth.
Slower than before, but undeniably reaching it—Muchi extended his leg too.
Creeeak.
Pressure squeezing from all sides.
Pain from his maxed-out mana core.
His body’s screams.
Muchi ignored it all.
His mind was filled only with chasing the ever-distant Yuri.
‘Chase... chase him...!’
A level of focus he’d never achieved before.
It drew out strength beyond his body’s limits.
And so, finally—
Thud!
‘I’ll follow... Yuri hyung!’
Muchi succeeded with the ninth step.
A record that should’ve stopped at seven had advanced two more steps while chasing Yuri.
But no time to rejoice—Muchi reached out again.
No, tried to.
‘A bit more...’
But his body, pushed beyond limits, could no longer obey.
‘More... I have to... follow more...’
Eyes rolling back to show whites, Muchi collapsed face-first.
* * *
Muchi’s nine steps.
They surpassed Quinter Rider’s eight.
They even matched the record set 36 years ago by May Winchester, the previous top holder before Yuri.
In other words, Muchi’s feat was remarkable, more than enough to stun the crowd.
Yet despite witnessing it, the stands remained silent.
Even Quinter, whose record had been broken by this new recruit, paid it no mind.
All eyes were fixed on one person.
The man walking at the front of the arena.
And right then—
Thud.
Yuri took another step.
‘Fifteen!’
‘He’s finally... reached last year’s mark.’
Yuri’s record last year: fifteen steps.
That spot was his starting point this time.
The crowd’s eyes gleamed.
‘How many more will he go?’
‘Twenty? Thirty?’
No one in the stands had ever taken more than ten steps in the Hundred Steps Ritual, so Yuri’s path ahead was a total unknown.
All they could do was swallow dryly and watch.
* * *
Thud.
“Hoo...”
Having taken fifteen steps, Yuri caught his breath lightly.
‘Finally... made it.’
Around this time last year.
The spot where he’d collapsed.
Stepping there for the second time felt fresh.
‘Light.’
Last year, he’d wrung every limit from himself, even resorting to the Demonic Arts, just to barely reach the fifteenth step.
But not now.
Energy surged through his body; he brimmed with confidence to go further.
What pleased him most?
Reaching this point purely on his own power.
‘Without the Demonic Arts... just my own cultivated strength!’
To others, Yuri’s record was fifteen steps.
But he knew the truth.
His real record was a mere ten steps.
The rest had been filled by Yohan.
Sure, someone might argue that mastering the Demonic Arts made it his power too.
But Yuri couldn’t accept that.
‘The Demonic Arts from a year ago... weren’t mine.’
What he’d learned then was purely Yohan’s creation.
The shortcut Yohan Redner had forged over a lifetime to reach the Sword Lord.
He’d simply strolled along it.
Not today.
Today, Yuri had blazed his own trail, without Yohan’s shortcut.
Finally standing at last year’s point through his sole efforts.
And beyond fifteen steps—that was the real stage to test his power.
Yuri stared at the Sword Lord in the special seats, gazing down.
Beneath him, he saw Yohan’s shadow, walking ahead with his back turned.
‘He’s gotten farther.’
Over the past year, had helping complete the Demonic Arts advanced Yohan?
He was beyond last year’s fifteenth-step finish line.
But Yuri smiled.
Because from now on...
‘I’ll catch up!’
Thud.
Yuri took his sixteenth step.
‘Here I go.’
Chasing Yohan.
* * *
Yuri, who’d stopped at fifteen, finally moved.
Sixteen, then seventeen.
Eighteen, nineteen.
Finally reaching twenty.
He walked all twenty paces without a single hitch.
But at the twenty-first, his pace slowed dramatically.
Still, Yuri didn’t stop.
One step at a time—when he reached twenty-five—
“Urk!”
Yuri’s face twisted, a groan escaping for the first time today.
Theresia let out a soft one in echo.
“Yuri...”
She couldn’t imagine the battle he was fighting there.
But her heart supported his back.
Believing he’d work another miracle, as always.
And perhaps fueled by that—
Thud.
Yuri, briefly stalled, took his twenty-sixth step.
Then twenty-seven.
Thud.
The heavy thud of his foot on the ground echoed softly through the silent arena.
It took 2-3 minutes for the next, his twenty-eighth.
Thud.
Eight minutes for the one after.
Thud.
Over ten for the next.
The time between steps grew longer.
In tandem, Yuri’s face flushed red, sweat pouring like rain.
Crack—crack.
Just like Muchi, eerie sounds burst from Yuri’s body.
He strained to lift each foot.
Agonizingly slow movements.
It took nearly twenty minutes for the thirty-first step.
To some, tediously slow.
But no one in the stands left their seat.
They were immersed in Yuri’s forward march, forgetting time.
And...
“Grahh!”
No one there.
Could call the desperate struggle of a human defying a mighty storm.
Boring.
* * *
“Boring.”
High in the sky.
Lying sideways on a vast cloud-bed, Yohan watched Yuri’s ordeal and judged thus.
‘Heh, how’s it feel? Like dying, right?’
Fifteen steps at first, wasn’t it?
Just now, Yuri had taken his thirty-second.
From fifteen, in nearly three hours, only seventeen more steps.
But it wasn’t “just” seventeen.
Yohan, who knew the Sword Lord best, could assert that.
‘Even a mere seventeen steps difference... the pressure he’s feeling is hundreds of times worse.’
The Sword Lord’s intervals.
That was the gap of those seventeen steps.
And that was still the outskirts, relatively milder.
The closer he got, the more each step’s difference would widen exponentially.
“Brat, acting all cocky inviting me to watch, now you’re whining. Heh heh heh.”
Yohan sneered down at the ground.
Yet his calm eyes never left Yuri.