Chapter 201
Chapter 201
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 201
Chapter Title: Well-Fed Hypocrisy and Starving Goodness (5)
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"What in the..."
Damian frowned, looking up at the rain of fire pouring down.
Even from a considerable distance, the intense heat was enough to make his skin sting.
The power contained within the fiercely burning flames was something even he couldn't ignore.
"...So you didn't come alone."
"Did you think I was crazy enough to come here by myself?"
He knew he had grown at an absurdly fast pace, incomparable to other Awakeners.
The power of the Black Heaven and the Stigma of Lyra.
He also knew that thanks to the other Stigmas he had absorbed with the Black Heaven, he possessed power several times stronger than the number of strokes in the star engraved next to his left breast suggested.
But.
'I'm still a long way from taking on one of the Seven Stars.'
He'd only had an elementary school education, but he knew how to distinguish courage from recklessness.
Knowing full well how absurdly powerful the Awakeners known as the Seven Stars were, he couldn't fight Damian without a plan.
Fwoooooosh!
At Oh-jin's signal, Ha-eun's bombardment began, raining down relentlessly through the collapsed ceiling.
Damian's eyes glinted coldly as he looked up at the fireballs, each packed with potent mana.
The firepower in each individual fireball was certainly strong enough to send a chill down even Damian's spine, but.
"Do you think I can't dodge these just because you're firing them indiscriminately?"
Damian lightly kicked off the ground, retreating backward to evade the falling fireballs.
The firepower within the fireballs was indeed formidable, but his movements weren't clumsy enough to be hit by blind attacks fired from a distance where he couldn't even see the attacker's face.
"You're right. It wouldn't be hard for you to dodge an attack like this."
Oh-jin nodded, dodging the falling fireballs.
He didn't even need to be on Damian's level; Oh-jin himself could easily dodge the randomly falling fireballs.
But.
"What about them?"
"Pardon?"
Oh-jin smirked, twisting the corner of his mouth as he pointed to the second floor of the mansion.
There, members of the collateral branches, unable to escape due to the collapsed passages, were screaming their heads off with pale faces.
"Aaaaaah! I-it's hot!!"
"Help meeee!"
"Uwaaaaaah!!"
The indiscriminately falling fireballs weren't just aimed at Oh-jin and Damian on the first floor; they were also raining down on the people who had been enthusiastically cheering for Damian's victory on the second floor.
"Now, aren't you going to save them?"
Oh-jin's lips twisted into a sneer as he shrugged.
That's right.
Even if they held no value to him, even if they were meaningless.
He had to throw himself in harm's way to save them.
Because.
"That's the 'right' thing to do, isn't it?"
Because he wasn't a filthy hypocrite like Isabella, but a 'good' person who truly sacrificed and devoted himself to others.
Boom!
Fwoooooosh!
"Kugh!!"
Damian, who had been dodging the fireballs with light movements, suddenly found his steps becoming urgent.
He kicked off the ground and jumped up to the second floor.
"Aaaah! P-please save me! Sir Damian!"
A middle-aged woman, her face so caked in powder it was hard to tell if she was wearing makeup or a mask, rushed desperately toward Damian.
Fwoosh!
A massive fireball was plummeting toward the woman.
"Kugh!"
Krakoom!
Damian shielded the middle-aged woman, who could barely run in her high heels, with his body, taking the fireball with his back.
"Keogh!"
Even with his body cloaked in the mana of his Stigma, a dizzying impact washed over him.
"Yeah. I knew you'd do that."
Oh-jin looked up at Damian, who had thrown himself at the fireball to protect the woman, and gave a bitter smile.
"W-what is the meaning of this?!"
Damian turned to Oh-jin, a look of bewilderment on his face.
He never imagined that Oh-jin, known as the Lightning Wolf and revered as a hero in Korea, would do something like this.
"Stop the attack! At this rate, everyone here will die!"
"So?"
"...Pardon?"
"What does it have to do with me if they die?"
Oh-jin chuckled, leisurely dodging only the fireballs coming his way.
He recalled how they had spewed venomous hatred at Isabella, screaming for the witch to be killed.
Their deaths wouldn't be a problem.
No, it would be a problem if they didn't die.
"You...!"
"More importantly, can you afford to be so relaxed?"
Oh-jin gestured to the people scattering in all directions to escape the fireballs.
Some of them were already engulfed in flames, thrashing about in agony.
"They'll all die at this rate."
"Dammit!"
Damian cursed under his breath and desperately swung his sword to protect the people amidst the downpour of fireballs.
Swish! Swish!
As the sword, wreathed in pure white light, sliced through a fireball, it turned into a lump of red crystal and fell to the floor.
The Stigma of Libra possessed a power unmatched in dismantling mana-based attacks, but.
'There are too many attacks.'
If it were just a matter of numbers, it would be one thing, but the power of each individual fireball was so immense that it was difficult to block them easily.
Damian chewed his lip anxiously, swinging his sword at the raining fireballs.
If he were to just ignore the people trembling behind him, blocking this level of attack would be nothing.
'I can't do that.'
His eyes, filled with firm conviction, shone brightly.
His sword, slicing through the fireballs, began to emit a brilliant light.
"Just as I thought. When the conditions are right, there's no Awakener better than her."
Oh-jin chuckled, watching Damian barely manage to block the torrent of fireballs.
When he had sparred with Ha-eun before.
Oh-jin had overwhelmed her in everything except firepower—mobility, combat sense, and close-quarters combat.
'In other words.'
It meant that in terms of raw firepower, Ha-eun was superior to Oh-jin.
Especially when it came to unleashing indiscriminate attacks over a wide area, there was no catching up to Ha-eun.
'But she can't keep up an attack of this magnitude indefinitely.'
Even with the Dragon's Heart, Ha-eun couldn't pour out such overwhelming firepower without rest.
She was probably already pushing herself to maintain this barrage.
'This should still buy me some time—'
Just as he was about to finish that thought.
Vwooooom!
The brilliant light flowing from Damian's body intensified, and wings of light formed behind his back.
"Hmph!"
With a low grunt, Damian leaped high off the second-floor railing.
The wings of light spread wide as Damian's body shot through the air at a terrifying speed.
"What the hell."
Oh-jin stared up at Damian, dumbfounded.
Having flown into the sky, he was now slicing through every single fireball raining down over the wide area.
'Is that guy even human?'
It was like using a sword to deflect every raindrop on a rainy day to keep one's clothes dry.
And not just his own clothes, but everyone else's too.
Swish, swish!
Ruuuuuumble!
His movements, far surpassing the speed of sound, created a sonic boom that sent the debris from the collapsing mansion flying like pebbles.
To think that the mere aftershock of his movements could send piles of concrete debris flying.
Oh-jin looked up at Damian with an expression of weary disbelief.
"Ah..."
"S-Sir Damian..."
Even the people who had been frantically fleeing stopped to stare, mesmerized. Damian's movements were nothing short of miraculous.
About thirty seconds passed like that.
The intensity of the falling fireballs began to noticeably weaken.
Ha-eun's mana was starting to run out.
"Hah, hah."
Even so, Damian was only slightly out of breath, still looking perfectly fine as he calmly cut down the weakened fireballs.
'So this is what it means to be one of the Seven Stars.'
Oh-jin let out a short sigh and channeled mana into the spear he gripped.
Damian had blocked Ha-eun's attack far better than he'd expected, so time was getting tight, but.
"Still, I'm not too late."
Crackle, crackle!
Oh-jin felt the spear in his grasp tremble and grinned.
It couldn't speak or send telepathic messages, but.
As an ego weapon, he could feel something like the spear's will.
"Now, then."
He roughly slammed the butt of the spear into the ground.
The blue lightning coiling around the jet-black spear gathered at its tip.
Cr-cr-crackle!
The blue lightning gathered to form a single warhorse.
It was a phantom steed, just like the one the Living Armor had created.
Of course, this phantom steed's body was covered not in eerie, dark blue flames, but in brilliantly blazing blue lightning.
"Let's run wild."
Mounted on the phantom steed, Oh-jin aimed his spear at Damian, who had flown into the sky with his wings of light.
Cr-cr-crackle!
The phantom steed reared its forelegs high before charging ferociously toward Damian.
Kra-koooom!
He aimed his spear while mounted on the warhorse.
Blue bolts of lightning generated nearby converged on the spear's tip as if drawn to a lightning rod.
"Kugh...!"
Damian's expression twisted.
Perhaps the miraculous movements he had just displayed hadn't been easy for him either.
Unable to dodge Oh-jin's strike, which targeted that opening, he hastily raised his sword.
Blue lightning and pure white light clashed.
Kra-kooooooooom!!!
A deafening roar, as if dozens of tons of bombs had detonated at once.
The Colagrande family mansion, as large as a soccer stadium, crumbled, and the ground for hundreds of meters around sank several meters, as if a sinkhole had opened.
A scene unimaginable for a clash between two humans.
As the thick cloud of dust slowly settled, what came into view was...
"Cough."
...the sight of Damian, coughing up blood, his left shoulder pierced by the jet-black spear.
Compared to the wounded Damian, Oh-jin stood tall, looking relatively unscathed.
"S-Sir Damian!"
"The Lightning Wolf... d-defeated one of the Seven Stars?"
The heads of the collateral branches who witnessed the scene stared with aghast expressions, their mouths agape.
Normally, they all would have been killed, swept away by the shockwave from Oh-jin and Damian's clash, but because Damian had stood protectively in front of them just before the impact, their location alone had been spared.
"Kugh, cough! Cough!"
Damian looked at the silently standing Oh-jin and gave a faint smile.
"It seems... I am the victor."
Thud.
With those words, Oh-jin's upright body tilted like a roly-poly toy and then pitched forward, face-planting into the ground.
Outwardly, Damian's injuries were more severe, but.
"Grh, ah, ugh."
The mana flowing within his body wouldn't move an inch.
The mana that had crystallized within his mana circuits due to the power of Libra was now sharply lacerating him from the inside.
An excruciating pain, as if shards of glass were flowing through his veins instead of blood.
Oh-jin lay on the ground, twitching like an insect.
"O-Oh-jin!"
Isabella crawled toward the fallen Oh-jin.
Despite the pain from the curse, which felt like her body was shriveling up with every movement.
She didn't stop until she reached the fallen Oh-jin and embraced him.
Oh-jin, held in Isabella's arms, struggled to lift his head.
"Hah, hah. Damn, he's strong."
To think he could overwhelm him while protecting all those other people.
He'd thought they'd be strong, but the Seven Stars were monsters beyond imagination.
"I'm sorry... Oh-jin. It's because of me..."
Ignoring Isabella's teary eyes, Oh-jin watched Damian slowly walk toward them.
Damian pulled the spear from his shoulder, threw it to the ground, and raised his sword.
"This is the end."
"...Yeah."
Oh-jin nodded.
Just as he said, he didn't even have the strength to move a fingertip.
But.
"'My part' in this is over."
"...Pardon?"
Oh-jin chuckled and nodded.
From the very beginning, when he first came here.
He never thought he could beat Damian.
'But even if it's impossible for me.'
He picked up a nearby piece of concrete and sliced a long gash across his forearm.
Slice!
Blood trickled down his forearm.
Oh-jin held out his bleeding arm to Isabella.
"Drink."
If it was Isabella.
If it was the Leech Queen.
She could surely defeat the Sword of Justice.