Thunder Fist of Fury
"Fight!"
A thunderous roar rolled across the grounds. Killing intent swept through all ten sparring arenas at once. Arena Eight, in particular, exploded into violence so savage it might as well have been a battlefield.
"Yeop Pung, on your knees!"
Bandages still wrapped around his face, Jo Bihong was the first to bellow and charge. The wrappings whipped wildly with every scream.
"Die, Yeop Pung!"
From the opposite side, one-armed Jang Un came tearing in just as hard. One arm was useless, but the viciousness of his aura hadn't dimmed in the slightest.
Both were experts of the 1-Vein Profound Realm. They poured every drop of Profound Qi in their bodies into a lightning-fast assault on Yeop Pung's vital points. Jo Bihong's fists came down like heavy bludgeons; Jang Un's legs snapped out with the speed of a striking viper.
Idiots...
Yeop Pung had already seen through them. Watching it all unfold with cold, unhurried eyes, he detonated the golden Profound Qi throughout his body.
It erupted with the force of a bursting dam, a radiance so overwhelming that everyone who saw it felt the air itself being crushed.
"Get lost!"
Yeop Pung went for Jang Un first. He kicked lightly off the ground and closed the distance in a blink, a fist already blazing gold as it came around.
The punch arrived like a storm, heavy and unstoppable as a war club. Before it even connected, the wind of it sent Jang Un's hair flying backward in a tangled mess.
Good God!
Meeting that fist head-on, Jang Un went white with terror. What hung before his eyes was not a fist at all, but a colossal bludgeon that looked ready to smash mountains and drain seas. He did not even dare to think of taking it straight on.
He had, however, prepared for exactly this. The instant Yeop Pung threw the punch, Jang Un dropped low and slid past his ribs, a dodge so clean it looked as if he had known the attack was coming.
"Heh heh, you moron! Did you really think I'd take that punch head-on again? Try this on for size!"
Jo Bihong roared in right behind him. Heavy Profound Qi boiled off his fist as it drove toward Yeop Pung's back.
Hm?
Yeop Pung made a small, puzzled sound and started to turn toward the attack at his back. In that same instant, a far hotter, far more violent surge of Profound Qi came crashing in from his right.
Gi Beonjin. He had been waiting for his opening, and now he came on with the eyes of a blood-starved wolf. Both hands were clenched around a monstrous concentration of flame Profound Qi, and he fell on Yeop Pung like twin fireball meteors dropping out of the sky. Timing, power—everything was perfect.
"Let me show you what true Profound Arts really are! On your knees!"
"Blazing Fire Divine Fist!"
Searing flame split the air, painting white smoke across empty space. The heat pouring from Gi Beonjin's fists looked ready to melt metal and burn stone to ash.
This was the true power of the Profound Arts. Gi Beonjin had taken his 1st Grade Fire Profound Qi and driven it in a way no ordinary method allowed, forcing out a strike that smashed straight through the limits of a 1-Vein Profound Realm expert.
"Yeop Pung!"
The crowd cried out in shock. The attack had come too fast for him to set his stance. He took Gi Beonjin's flaming fist on his left shoulder.
A dull, heavy impact, and Yeop Pung's body went flying. Fire clung to him and bloomed into a great blaze, roaring as if it meant to swallow him whole.
"It's over!"
"He's done! Yeop Pung is finished!"
Pitying groans rose from the stands. Jo Bihong and Jang Un laughed, flushed with triumph, waiting for Yeop Pung to crumble into ash on the spot.
Gi Beonjin, having seized the first move, watched the burning figure with a satisfied smile.
"Yeop Pung, you dared to pick a fight with me—you brought this on yourself! Don't get cocky just because you broke through to the Profound Realm. The Cheonun Sect still... the likes of you..."
The arrogant speech never made it to the end. The sight in front of him stripped the words from his throat and left only raw shock.
"S-Senior Brother Gi... th-that bastard?"
Jo Bihong and Jang Un went deathly pale. They had seen everything from only a few paces away.
From within the dying flames, Yeop Pung stood perfectly upright. There was nothing of a defeated man about him. The bearing he radiated was still that of a victor, proud and unshaken.
"How is that possible?"
The crowd could not believe what it was seeing. He had taken Gi Beonjin's Blazing Fire Divine Fist head-on and come out of it unharmed. What kind of monster was Yeop Pung?
With every eye locked on him, Yeop Pung slowly stripped off what remained of his disciple's robes, burned away until only the sash at his waist was left. A hard, powerful torso was laid bare. A sharp jawline. Muscle carved as if by a blade. In the sunlight he looked like an Asura reborn from fire, majestic and terrible. Not a single wound marked his body.
"So the idiots finally learned how to use their heads."
Yeop Pung smiled, a smile so cold it raised the hair on the skin.
Inside him, a grand current of golden Profound Qi flowed without end, vast as a great river. It drove out every last trace of the fire Qi that had tried to burn him alive. At the same time, the fury and killing intent boiling up from the depths of his heart spilled outward, whipping up an invisible gale.
Yeop Pung was furious. Every humiliation he had swallowed until now detonated in that instant. Today, on this sparring floor, he would settle it all.
"Y-Yeop Pung, you're still putting on airs? Next hit, I'll break every limb you've got!"
Jo Bihong and Jang Un were too frightened to meet the killing light in his eyes. With Gi Beonjin at their backs, though, they still managed to puff themselves up and throw threats.
Gi Beonjin's eyes had gone red with rage. Flame Profound Qi burned around both fists, wilder and more vicious than before. He pointed at Yeop Pung, voice dripping with contempt.
"Hmph. Yeop Pung, so what if your Profound Qi is strong? You don't even know Profound Arts! Today I'll trample you into a lump of charcoal! Die!"
"What?"
Yeop Pung's cold mockery rang out across the arena. Golden Profound Qi exploded from his body and wrapped both feet. The light was so fierce that people in the stands had to squint against it.
With a violent crackle, the golden Qi condensed into threads of living lightning and coiled around his feet like serpents, pouring boundless power into his body.
Yeop Pung stamped down with everything he had. The hard bluestone floor shattered with a roar.
His body vanished in the blink of an eye. As if he had simply stepped through space, he was already on top of Jang Un, the nearest of them.
That's impossible! That speed—!
Jang Un's hair stood on end. Yeop Pung's fists had always been strong, but a 1-Vein Profound Realm expert could still react to them somehow. This speed, though, was despair itself. It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky—an attack there was simply no dodging.
"Aaaagh!"
Jang Un screamed. He never even saw how the strike came in. He was already in the air, and then his abdomen was being hammered as if he were grain on a threshing floor. Pain tore through him like a thousand blades ripping him open from the inside, a misery so savage he would have begged to black out.
"Jang Un!"
Jo Bihong had watched it all from the other side. The sight of Jang Un being launched in that wretched arc froze him in place—and before he could even finish the scream, a streak of gold flashed across his vision.
"Yeop Pung!"
Jo Bihong felt as if his soul were leaving his body. He was a shade stronger than Jang Un, just enough to glimpse the golden lightning coiled around Yeop Pung's palm—and to see that palm coming for him with nothing held back.
What kind of palm technique is that?
He saw the attack. It did not matter. He met the same fate as Jang Un.
Yeop Pung's palm smashed into Jo Bihong's face. The bandages wrapping his head exploded into scraps and went flying in every direction. His body bounced backward and spun through the air, the white fragments drifting around him like snowflakes scattered on a bitter wind.
Thud. Thud.
Having sent both of them flying as if they weighed nothing, Yeop Pung settled back into his stance at his leisure.
Only then could the crowd clearly see the golden lightning sheathing his hands and feet. It crackled and spat, flooding the arena with a pressure that towered far beyond the 1-Vein Profound Realm.
From the spectator stands, Han Un cried out in astonishment.
"That boy just pulled a martial art he learned for a mere hour in the Enlightenment trial all the way to this level.... This—this is a genius who appears once in a hundred years!"
The audience around the arena was completely captivated by Yeop Pung's overwhelming power. When they realized the art he was using was the Thunder Fist he had only just learned, shock and reverence swept through them in equal measure.
What kind of talent was that? Yeop Pung was a true genius.
Up on the stage, Gi Beonjin had gone utterly blank.
"That's impossible! It can't be!"
He stared at Yeop Pung's imposing figure and clenched his teeth until they creaked. Humiliation and rage he had never felt in his life came surging up through his chest.
He had always been the genius, the one who received respect and adoration. He stood at the 2-Vein Profound Realm and had mastered mid-grade Profound Arts that others could not even approach. He was destined to become the brightest center of the entire Cheonun Sect.
And what was this Yeop Pung supposed to be? Something less than a dog! A lowly, ant-like existence—how dare he stand above him? No. This could not be allowed.
Reeling from a shock he had no precedent for, Gi Beonjin felt his fragile pride crumple. This young master, who had sailed through life with the wind always at his back, could not even grasp the situation once frustration found him. Blinded by rage, he did something monumentally stupid.
With a bang, Gi Beonjin wrenched his 2-Vein Profound Qi to its absolute limit. Flames two feet high roared up over his entire body. Transformed into a man of fire, he screamed like a madman and charged.
"Yeop Pung, you mongrel! How dare you! How dare you think you can beat me, Gi Beonjin! You're not qualified! You will never be qualified!"
The instant the word mongrel struck Yeop Pung's ear, every nerve in his body went taut. His eyes, already flickering with golden lightning, flared even wider.