90
Chapter 90: Timur Khan (1)
Only then did Timur Khan withdraw his gaze from the sky and turn his body.
Dong Bong-su's body, which had become a complete wreck, came into view. Though dried blood covered his body in multiple layers forming a blood membrane, what caught Timur Khan's eyes first was the pus caught here and there between the torn clothes.
"You've been eaten by the disease."
"That's why there's no time."
Did he mean there wasn't much time left until death? It probably meant that, but it was difficult to judge. Until now, all of Dong Bong-su's movements had exceeded his scope. The words that popped out of his mouth didn't seem like they would be particularly different.
Timur Khan opened his mouth again.
"What exactly makes you fight even after becoming like that? You'll die soon anyway."
"Because I'm not dead until I die."
Dong Bong-su answered while shaking the Wanderer's Sword with a flick, dropping freshly stuck blood to the ground.
Thinking he was indeed an interesting fellow, Timur Khan raised his finger to point at the sky and said,
"Really? Is that so? Like all the people you've killed, you too will soon be up there anyway. Same with me."
The conversation ended there.
Because Dong Bong-su's Wanderer's Sword drew a parabolic arc and swept across Timur Khan's upper body like a receding tide.
Clang!
Timur Khan hastily deflected diagonally with his own sword, repelling Dong Bong-su's sword.
Meanwhile, Kaiji lifted both front paws and attacked Timur Khan's lower body as if clapping hands.
He had to retreat backward like an ebbing tide without even having time to be angry at Kaiji's betrayal, who had been his loyal dog until recently. Because he was his wolf, he knew well. How powerful Kaiji's attacks were.
Wooooom—
Timur Khan hadn't simply retreated backward.
His long sword began rotating at high speed like a top.
"......!"
Seeing that, Dong Bong-su could easily understand what Timur Khan was trying to do. That was undoubtedly Great Force Hegemon Rotation applied to a sword. Since Timur Khan's martial arts were higher than Mamorota's, there was no need to mention its power.
Whooom—!
Timur Khan's Rotation Sword thrust straight forward, and Dong Bong-su's both hands hastily moved upward toward above Timur Khan's head.
"......!"
Timur Khan hastily turned the direction of the sword that had been pointing toward Dong Bong-su upward. Because something huge had suddenly appeared above his head and was falling down.
It was a Trebuchet. Something Dong Bong-su had taken out from the Inventory to block Timur Khan's attack.
BA-THOOM!
Due to gravitational action, the Trebuchet naturally fell above Timur Khan's head, and it collided with his Rotation Sword Energy and shattered into pieces.
Rattle-crash.
When the fragments of the Trebuchet that had met its end poured down like rain, Dong Bong-su and Kaiji's attacks were once again inflicted on Timur Khan.
Timur Khan's sword was extended upward, so there seemed to be no way to block.
However!
At the critical moment, his body began spinning like a top. Moreover, that body was surrounded by Defensive Energy in a ring shape.
BOOM!
Body Ring. A unique martial art of Timur Khan's that extended and applied Sword Ring even to the body. Its power wasn't inferior to Sword Ring at all, so despite Dong Bong-su and Kaiji having struck first, they were rather bounced backward by the ring-shaped bundle of energy that burst from Timur Khan's body.
Snap!
Timur Khan flew directly toward Dong Bong-su while still deploying Body Ring. It was precisely the Flying Ring Sword Unity that made Timur Khan the strongest in the north!
KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOM!
As his body spun in midair, the size of the Body Ring became stronger and larger.
The floor of the walls that entered within that radius was mercilessly gouged and split. If Dong Bong-su and Kaiji also entered within that range, they would be torn like paper sheets like that.
The moment Timur Khan's Rotation Sword Ring was about to touch Dong Bong-su, Dong Bong-su and Kaiji disappeared. They had avoided Timur Khan's attack using Footwork.
However, Footwork worked only once.
Timur Khan's deadly rotation he was performing hadn't stopped yet. He flew again toward where Dong Bong-su had appeared. Though he couldn't secure vision because he was rotating at tremendous speed, he could determine Dong Bong-su's location sufficiently through Energy Sense.
Now his rotation became even faster, leaving Body Ring marks all over the walls.
The eyes of Dong Bong-su watching sank deeply and reached the place of 'nothingness.' It wasn't waiting for death. That would absolutely never happen until death stabbed the tip of that sword into his neck.
That was Dong Bong-su.
Dong Bong-su suddenly held his sword upside down and stabbed here and there on his own body filled with pus.
Blood and pus gushed up like a fountain and soon swept away by the whirlwind Timur Khan had created, spraying in all directions.
[As the player's health has dropped below 20%, all abilities increase by 10%.]
[Survival Instinct Lv.2] was activated.
Contrasting with the pain that swept through his entire body, Dong Bong-su's eyes sank even lower.
Whrrrrr—!
The sword tip that became Timur Khan's rotation axis circled at a speed beyond imagination and closed in right before Dong Bong-su. It looked terrifying enough to resemble a large drill of a machine digging a borehole.
Dong Bong-su dismounted from Kaiji's back. Then after sending Kaiji backward, he held the Wanderer's Sword horizontally with the tip facing forward. And he raised [Sword Energy] and thrust it toward Timur Khan.
A normal skill of Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon, an ordinary thrust.
A firefly before the full moon?
No matter who looked, Dong Bong-su's Sword Energy fell far short of the momentum of Flying Ring Sword Unity that Timur Khan deployed.
If they collided like this, it was clear as day that Dong Bong-su would be swept by that rotational force and torn to shreds in an instant......!
Ting.
It wasn't. A collision of JP and true qi occurred. However, that sound was unexpectedly not very loud. Though Timur Khan's incoming speed was tremendous and he was being pushed backward, Dong Bong-su wasn't completely swept by that rotation. He was merely being pushed backward by the charging force.
Because the tip of Dong Bong-su's sword had precisely stabbed Timur Khan's rotation axis. If he had missed even by 1mm, he would have been swept by the Rotation Sword Ring Timur Khan had created, but since he stabbed the axis of the top without any error, it became unrelated to rotational force. Just as even if a needle rotates fast, the very tip of the needle, the exact center, isn't rotating.
An accuracy impossible to dream of if it weren't Dong Bong-su. However, even so, tremendous force was loaded at the end of Timur Khan's Rotation Sword Ring.
Splurt.
Blood oozed out through Dong Bong-su's mouth.
Skrrreeee—
[Wanderer's Leather Shoes] that Dong Bong-su was wearing scraped against the wall floor, causing tremendous friction. Electric sparks flashed from it.
Dong Bong-su was pushed backward endlessly. If he was pushed back just a bit more in this state, the tip of the Wanderer's Sword would waver and be swept by the Rotation Sword Ring in an instant.
That was when.
Dong Bong-su's mouth opened and a sword appeared between his upper and lower teeth.
Perhaps some internal organs had torn due to internal injuries, as organ fragments also flowed out of his mouth along with the sword.
Despite such tremendous pain, Dong Bong-su precisely, very accurately stabbed a sword into the point where the Wanderer's Sword and Rotation Sword were joined at the tip. Though he said stabbed, in fact it was merely touching very lightly at the tip of the Rotation Sword.
[2-Strike failed. The player strongly pushes the enemy backward.]
With the activation of [Consecutive Strike], Timur Khan was knocked back.
Dong Bong-su led his body that felt like a thousand pounds and once again extended the Wanderer's Sword, precisely stabbing it into the tip of Timur Khan's Rotation Sword. Of course, this time too a sword popped out from his mouth and reached the same spot. Though it wasn't enough to penetrate Timur Khan's Body Ring, it was sufficient for the system to recognize that action as an attack and activate [Consecutive Strike].
Timur Khan was pushed backward again.
Until this point, Timur Khan hadn't realized at all that he was being pushed backward. He thought only that Dong Bong-su's energy was being pushed back. However, he could soon know that wasn't the case. Because there was almost no collision of energy waves. How could it be so quiet when his Rotation Sword Ring and the enemy's sword collided?
Rotation Sword consumed tremendous energy in proportion to its power, being a one-hit-kill martial art.
Ten times.
He was pushed backward.
Timur Khan finally stopped rotating and landed on the ground.
"......"
Dong Bong-su was fine. Though blood was flowing from his mouth, his expression was no different from when they first met. No, rather, that figure standing expressionlessly couldn't look more relaxed.
How?
However, contrary to what he thought, Dong Bong-su was actually tremendously exhausted and his insides were completely turned inside out from internal injuries.
Timur Khan's insides were also greatly disturbed from the sudden massive consumption of internal energy.
He looked at Dong Bong-su's eyes hidden by his bangs for a moment, then raised his head again to look at the sky. The sky was still blue, unlike the blood-red earth.
"Do you know why the sky is so blue?"
Dong Bong-su had no answer. Still, Timur Khan continued speaking.
"Even humans like you and me, after death, if we cross that blue river, our souls are purified. So humans need not fear death. Therefore die without hesitation. Don't endure any longer unnecessarily."
Timur Khan raised his sword that he had lowered for a moment again. This time he held it horizontally to the side, not above his head, and extended his arm straight. With that, this time the axis of the top became his head, not the sword.
And he began spinning round and round again.
Wooooong—!
If the previous one looked like a high-speed rotating drill, this time it looked like a shot put athlete spinning their body before throwing the shot.
Dong Bong-su this time too looked at Timur Khan's rotation with indifferent eyes, then began spinning in the same direction exactly the same way. His posture was also no different from Timur Khan's. If one had to find a difference, it was only one thing: that rotation speed was incomparably slow.