Chapter 343
For the translation, I decided to make only a subtle distinction. I’m rereading the final paragraph as if it were a powerful, seamless opening to a new piece. I refined “a few months ago” to “mere months ago,” “even if one fortuitous encounter had followed another” to “even if one fortuitous encounter had followed another,” “made no sense” to “made no sense,” and “far from ordinary” to “far from ordinary.”_TITLE: His Power in a Single Clash
A single clash had been enough to feel his power in full, and it was not a thing she could dismiss as raw attack power. He had turned aside all four of their exquisitely timed strikes, and then, with one use of Sword Barrier, left the four of them unable to do anything at all.
She knew Sword Barrier. The Sword Barrier she knew was nothing like that strong. Watching her people broken beneath Shin Yujun's had torn her common sense out by the roots.
Is it the items?
Everyone in the cult knew Shin Yujun's equipment was exceptional. Even so, however fine the gear, he was a player who had been summoned to the Tower of Infinity only months ago. Grant him one heaven-sent encounter after another, and a loadout like that still made no sense.
Worse, his skills and traits looked no more ordinary. Magic of that caliber, above all, was not something items could buy. A spell's rank rising did not, by itself, send one's magic leaping forward in brilliance. Raise the rank alone, without the knowledge and proficiency to match, and you entered what people called a stagnation phase. Shin Yujun seemed to have no such plateau at all.
If we let him slip away today, we may truly be unable to handle him.
Shutting down his magic alone amounted to sealing one of his greatest weapons. Magic was what spun out the most variables, and for that reason Ban Soyeon believed they still had a chance.
That was when Geron caught her eye. He seemed to be signaling that they should overwhelm him in a single rush, and the idea was not wrong. Go in alone and your head left your shoulders; charge together and instant death, at least, could be avoided. And so long as they did not die, their fierce regeneration would have them whole again in no time. That was the power of the Grace and the flesh augmentation. Even Geron, short of Coordination's level though he was, boasted a startling speed of recovery.
If Branch Head Ji Gyutae were here as well...
No. That wasn't right. Even if he came, it might not mean much. Ji Gyutae had not yet received so much as the Grace. Were he ever granted it, he would become one of the cult's secret weapons, something Coordination could not begin to compare with. As he stood now, though, he was far weaker than any member of Coordination. Sorry as she was to say it of the Branch Head, he would only get in the way.
Every member of Coordination knew how to break Sword Barrier. They had been caught only because its power outstripped anything they had imagined. Players of their caliber had, of course, already committed to memory the answer to a technique that struck and guarded in the same motion.
In truth, that answer was nothing elaborate. Deny Sword Barrier its effective range, and keep hammering. He could not hold it forever. However gifted the body, a player who chained a high-difficulty technique without rest stood a good chance of burning himself out. And among the elemental spells, there were a few that Sword Barrier could not stop.
Uncle Song Taeyeong pierced that Sword Barrier so cleanly, too.
One specialist was gone, but Park Seho, waiting behind them, could cast the same magic. Ban Soyeon asked for the spell in a message, and quickly. They stood close enough for a shout to carry, but then Shin Yujun would hear it, wouldn't he? The message left her at a possessed speed, and she moved again.
By then Yujun was holding Sword Barrier and stretching his senses a very long way out, watching for more Demon God Worshippers. He had, in fact, been weighing another plan entirely: stall here for as long as he could, wait for their support to arrive, and crush the whole of them in one sweep. That was part of why Coordination's members were still alive. Their resistance was fierce, yes. But if he fought at full strength, they could not have matched him.
...This is useful, too.
He was used to being outnumbered. What he seldom met was four elite players in true sync, all at once. As a rule, a single spell swept the field, or his sword cut down whoever came as they came. Coordination was cautious. They would not yield him a single step of distance.
Much of that came of Yujun himself, who was hardly moving, only swinging his sword in a loose, careless arc. Even so.
Looks like they've got a fair read on how I'll move.
Their teamwork was locking in tighter by the moment. He had not so much as activated Super Concentration. He was holding nothing but Sword Barrier, and against any ordinary foe that alone would have ended the fight. Coordination met him with a fluency that suggested they had faced Sword Barrier before.
This feels strange.
Three of the four in front of him were Korean, and those three were locked in a grinding, desperate struggle for the sake of killing him. If Koreans had never been summoned to the Tower of Infinity, what would they be doing now? Plenty had yet to be called, and still, with each year that passed, more of them were. Most of the summoned were young, but age had never been grounds for exemption.
They said a Great Cataclysm is coming. Maybe the summoning stops after that.
He still hardly knew what the Great Cataclysm even was. There was not a single thing he could say for certain.
Little by little, Yujun changed his pattern. He kept Sword Barrier raised and fed his sword the power called Chaos. Then, through Sword Unity, he formed five blades in the empty air.
They appeared in the space of a blink. Ban Soyeon's eyes flew wide. So did Cheon Sihyeon's.
"That's the bastard's signature technique!"
"Finally!"
In that instant an enormous flood of energy burst from the bodies of Coordination's members. Three of them at once. They had been waiting for Sword Unity.
Oh... so they weren't at full strength either?
They grew sharply faster, as if they had become other people entirely. Speed was not the whole of it. The weight behind each attack had grown heavier by several times, at the least.
A technique that eats away at their life force.
He could not name the skill, but their vitality was visibly thinning. They would not be looking to drag this out.
He had used Sword Unity for nothing, he thought. Drawing in more Demon God Worshippers required Coordination alive, and now that they had committed to a mutual destruction, that aim looked difficult to reach.
Yujun let out a long breath and brought ten more swords into the air. This, too, seemed to sit inside what they had prepared for. They did not panic. The most blades he had ever raised with Sword Unity before this had been a greater number still.
Then something went wrong. Whatever was sealing mana turned the swords of Sword Unity to powder. They crackled apart and fell.
"Ah..."
A hollow laugh left him. A blunder this absurd.
Sword Unity itself is fine... I just can't give it the shape of a sword.
Shaping a blade meant expelling mana outward, and something Coordination had prepared was standing in the way. The forms had held at all only because he had poured out a staggering quantity of mana in a single burst.
So the more mana there is, the longer it takes to break it down.
Sword Unity did spend a great deal of mana, but set against the whole of Yujun's reserves it was a trifling sum. What if he released every drop? Coordination's reaction would likely be worth seeing. There was no need, though, to spend what he didn't have to.
Coordination was no less dumbfounded. They had wound themselves tight and hauled their power up, all because he had cast Sword Unity with such confidence, and then—
"Now's our chance!"
At Ban Soyeon's shout, all four came at once. The first to arrive, against every expectation, was Geron, the one whose specs fell shortest.
It was the exact moment Yujun activated Super Concentration.
Kwaaaang—!
This time Paranet's Body Slam took Geron cleanly—a Body Slam carried on spatial movement. The Demon God Worshippers had been wary of it all along, slipping aside again and again, but Paranet had waited with the timing measured, and this time there was no slipping it.
The result was tremendous. Geron's armor crumpled inward, and the man was knocked unconscious outright. Landing such a blow on the strong was the difficult part. Connect, and the force stood with Harp's own breath.
The other three had to face Yujun.
Fwoom—!
Cheon Sihyeon's strike came fast, and it came heavy. Yujun set his sword into a gap of perfect precision, the way a key finds its lock. It fit too exactly. Cheon Sihyeon jerked back in horror, but Yujun had already read the retreat, and he stepped in.
Thuk!
The guard at Cheon Sihyeon's throat did nothing to dull the blow. His neck was pierced clean through.
"Ghk!"
That was the last of him.
"You son of a bitch!"
Ban Soyeon came on in a fury, and in the same breath a heavy bolt of lightning magic flew for Yujun. Lightning Chain—an inferior shadow of the Chain Lightning he himself used. Lightning was lightning, though, and its power was nothing to take lightly. Eating it raw would not end well. He drew on Chaos and wrapped his whole body in a thin film of it.
Lightning Chain and Ban Soyeon's strike crashed into that film together.
Kwaaaang—!
The film of Chaos did not so much as crack. It answered with a rebound and flung Ban Soyeon away. Snuffing the Lightning Chain out was only extra.
Then Yujun's figure was gone.
No mana in it at all, pure stats and nothing else, and not one person there could follow him by sight. They paid for that. Park Seho, shaping a spell at the rear, took Yujun's sword through the chest.
"Aaaagh!"
Ban Soyeon was already coming for his back, her face flushed a burning red. Yujun pulled the blade free of Park Seho's chest, turned, and drove it forward. He did not look back. A sword carrying Chaos left nothing that could regenerate, and Park Seho had died on the strike in any case, gone before Han Jiyun, their healer, could so much as begin to mend him. Short of a resurrection, that one was finished.
His eyes found Ban Soyeon. Fear of death did not seem to touch her. She was charging in alone, without a flinch.
Sorry. I can't spare you.
She was Korean, and she had been brainwashed into serving the cult, but leave her breathing and she would be an obstacle. That much was obvious. Yujun moved at his fullest speed and cut through her neck.
Shhk!
One remained. Han Jiyun. Her face had gone the color of death.
"Th-this can't be..."
She had never imagined the gap could be this wide.
How is the cult even out here, carrying on like nothing's wrong?
That the thought rose at all said everything about the gulf in front of her. Alone as he was against the cult, Shin Yujun looked vaster still. He had grown stronger by an entirely different order than the first time they had met. She had thought the investigation thorough and the information on him plentiful, and she understood now that this had been nothing but a miscalculation.
"Aah..."
Set beside Ban Soyeon or Cheon Sihyeon, Han Jiyun was close to helpless in a duel. She was, even so, the most important of Coordination's members, and for a simple reason. Her healing stood above the rest. In all the cult, no one could match her at recovery, and the Grace had only made that growth more dazzling. Now death stood in front of her.
She had lost the will to fight. Yujun looked at her with a complicated expression and held his sword out.
"I'll make it quick."
"Th-thank you."
Shhk!
Han Jiyun smiled, relieved, and her life ended there.
With that, every member of Coordination was dead. Fellow Koreans, and people who might one day have grown into a serious threat. The aftertaste was bitter as wormwood.