Semifinals (7)
He really is different.
Inside the Battle Hall, Xenos's expression had gone taut as iron. He, too, had watched the whole match unfold on the screen.
So that is the One Sky.
The one sky we had ever known — and play that truly lived up to the name.
The general public probably had no idea. They would come away believing a summon called Hungyo had simply drifted forward and run the man through, easy as anything.
No.
Set Baek Jinwoo's side against Jones and Coby's, and the specs were all but identical — even where they differed, not by much. Both of the American summons carried complete rare rune sets at full enhancement, with Omni-Abrasive slathered over the lot of it. This was American capital at work; failing to manage even that much would have been the strange part.
Only—
It comes down to a difference of fine control.
However much Battle of Summoners looked like a game decided by rank and runes, the reality was something else entirely. Far deeper detail was melted into it: center of gravity, the efficiency of the sword's path, breathing, the geometry of vital points. A single movement demanded that you weigh a hundred variables at once.
And a single mistake could produce an overwhelming difference in the result.
And that Hungyo had every last one of those variables under control.
That was knowledge bought only through repetition. Playing player-versus matches deep into the night, colliding with fellow rankers over and over until the lessons sank into your bones — that was how it was learned.
If he himself had been standing in that man's place? Whether he would have won was one question, but he would never have gone down so hollowly.
"Xenos, sir......"
"It appears the next match will be yours, Boss."
"I'm afraid we might actually lose at this rate."
He could feel the anxious eyes of the American national team on him. Frightened, of course. Genuinely terrified of losing to that Jinugod.
"Boss, that man is a bona fide monster."
The defeated Clint Jones was sniffling, and Xenos felt an odd stab of irritation.
"Quiet. As if anyone here doesn't know that."
At the flat rebuke, Jones flinched and dropped his head.
"Have I not told you time and again? Jinugod. That man is a monster among monsters. You didn't believe it before the match — and now, having eaten exactly one hit, you come sniveling back like a cur that took a beating in some alley. Frankly, it is a hilarious sight."
"I apologize."
"If your fundamentals had simply been sound, wearing down that Hungyo's strength would have been well within your reach...... You and Coby couldn't manage even that."
"......"
Jones's mouth clamped shut. It was a fact bomb with no comeback. Only now did he recall the expression Xenos had worn back then as he watched him — that look of sheer disdain. Before the match, hadn't he swaggered off with Boss! Jinugod or whoever it is, I'll settle him within my own limits and be back!
"Watch my match. See what fundamentals actually are. See exactly where it was that the two of you lost so cheaply. You will understand once you watch."
"Th-then... does that mean..."
A spark of hope kindled in Jones's eyes. If the man could speak with that much confidence, did it mean America might actually win?
"Do not nurse vain hopes. I will give everything I have, but I never said we would win."
"Th-then..."
"That is not the point. The balance among the great powers is already turning. What matters is not your seeding in the semifinals — it is what you learn from this match, and what you carry away from it."
One look at Jinugod and he had understood: before long, South Korea would stand entirely alone above the five great powers. And from the Fifth World League onward, there would be no way left on earth to bring that Jinugod down.
Nothing to be done about it. He was like a natural disaster that rolled in with every season. So what could they do? Hold their seat among the five great powers. That, and only that.
"Those who keep improving will keep the honor they have always carried. But for those who are left behind — I will no longer be able to spare a place on the United States national team."
Xenos swept his gaze across the players. "Is everyone clear?"
"Yes, Captain!"
As he nodded, dice came clattering out before his screen — and on the topmost face glowed none other than Xenos's own face and name.
"I'm off."
With a soft shff, the Xenos in the Battle Hall was gone.
Shhhk!
The summoned Xenos lifted his head and looked out across the stage. "......Jinugod."
There stood the black-haired Asian, Baek Jinwoo.
"Hoo." A sigh escaped him unbidden. This was a man who refused to make sense no matter how long you looked at him.
It was the same back then.
Up in the topmost tiers of player-versus play, whenever you ran matches hoping to scrape together even the smallest reward... every so often, he would appear. No matter how hard you thrashed, you were countered perfectly, shut out completely — in the end, people took to forfeiting the moment his name came up. Of course, that had been private bloodsport between strangers. Now, the honor of a nation was on the line. Three hundred forty million Americans were cheering him on.
Xenos lowered his head, slowly and deliberately. Then he summoned all five of his summons at once.
⊳ Tyrant — A-Rank
⊳ Transmutation Alchemist — A-Rank
⊳ Vocalist — B-Rank
⊳ Vocalist — B-Rank
⊳ Vocalist — B-Rank
Every last one of them was humanoid. The Tyrant was a brawler who lived and died by his fists. He had already tasted the Transmutation Alchemist's power once, back at the London casino. And the Vocalists were buffers who fought with song......
"So the plan is to go in without weapons."
Baek Jinwoo nodded. It was, unmistakably, a Xenos composition: seal every scrap of metal in existence with the Transmutation Alchemist, then bury the enemy under fists and song.
"Baek Jinwoo. I put this comp together as a counter to your Hungyo."
"......"
"I ask your understanding in advance. It may be worthless against Rachel, but against you, there is no better combination in existence."
That much was true. Rachel fielded the Yellow Dragon, the White Tiger... all divine-beast-type summons, so sealing metal would have accomplished nothing against her. But a player like Baek Jinwoo, running Hungyo's sword and Doldori's scythe, was bound to suffer against a comp like that.
"Well built."
Baek Jinwoo acknowledged it coolly. A Hungyo fighting bare-handed. It wasn't that the man couldn't brawl, but his mastery of it could never match his mastery of the blade.
"Then again — what matters was never the weapon. It's who's holding the reins."
"......Granted."
Xenos nodded and continued. "Might I ask one thing?"
"What is it?"
For the sake of Baek Jinwoo's halting English, Xenos asked slowly, in the simplest words he could find. "If, by some chance, I win this match — I will suffer no penalty for it, correct?"
A deep smile gathered at the corners of Baek Jinwoo's mouth. Not a sneer — something warm. "Since when did the great Xenos turn into such a coward?"
"When the opponent is Jinugod, a man is permitted some fear. I imagine the other Five Emperors feel the same."
"You can skip the worry. You can't beat me anyway."
"......That is not something one can know until we have tried!"
No further words were needed between them. Vwoooong! First to move, the Transmutation Alchemist's cylinder flared with light — and in the same instant, the sword in Hungyo's hand crumpled like wet paper into a lump of dead iron.
......Hungyo could only stare down at his empty hand, disappointment plain on his face.
"What are you doing? He took your sword, didn't he? Then go tear him apart."
Sorry to say it, but the moment our Hungyo became EX-rank, he came to know the skills of every summon in existence. The Tyrant? The man throws a beautiful punch. Whether that would be enough to beat our Hungyo, though — he doubted it. Truly.
Tat!
The Tyrant and Hungyo charged at the same moment. The Transmutation Alchemist dropped back, and—
Dag mijn liefde♪Ik zal je beschermen♩
The Vocalists began their song in perfect unison. The Vocalist was buffer and debuffer in one: allies within the space gained movement and attack speed, while enemies lost the very same. And every overlapping voice multiplied the effect — two singers meant double, three meant fourfold.
KWAAANG! The Tyrant's fist and Hungyo's collided head-on, and both were blasted apart faster than they had charged in.
"......" Watching the exchange, Xenos bit down hard on his lower lip. He's holding that speed even while being ground down by the Vocalists' sonic field?
He had expected Hungyo to be strong. The man had already shown what he could do in this tournament — how could he not have noticed. But that he would be a match for the Tyrant's fists — no, that he had not imagined.
Focus.
He had already told the kids on the national team before walking out: watch this match closely. That he would show them, precisely, what fundamentals meant.
SHWAAAEK! The two fists hurtled at each other once more. KWAAAAANG! That single exchange split the stage floor open and carved the air in two. Hungyo and the Tyrant alike glared at each other through gritted teeth — bodies howling with tearing pain, neither giving a single inch.
KWANG! Hungyo threw an uppercut; the Tyrant turned it on his elbow. By his own lore, the A-rank Tyrant was the undisputed king of the back-alley brawl — and his pedigree was the real thing, turning aside a punch from the reborn Hungyo.
KWAAANG! Another collision — an explosion of qi burst between the two summons.
Keugh! Blown backward by the blast, Hungyo knitted his brows. More aggravating than the Tyrant himself was the singing swelling at his back, amplified three voices over. Not that there was anything to be done about that — because the Tyrant's fist was already streaking at his skull like a shaft of light!
Hungyo instinctively began to raise his guard to block—
No.
His lord's control came in. Don't block. Dodge.
Teeth clenched, Hungyo stared the fist down with his eyes flung wide. His head snapped aside on pure reflex, and in the same breath his waist coiled into the rotation his lord demanded — a rising body shot tearing up along the very same line. KWAAAAAANG! He felt something give beneath his knuckles. It landed? The damage seemed to have gone through.
But the Tyrant was no idler either. A leg came flying in on a trajectory no one could have traced, and hammered into Hungyo's midsection. PUWOK! Hungyo's body launched skyward — whirl! — but he coiled himself back into balance midair and touched down clean.
A first. Tension bled into Hungyo's expression as well. Every opponent he had faced before had crumbled to a simple feint or a well-timed counter, but this Tyrant moved differently. His fundamentals were, without question, iron.
My Lord. What am I to do? With a sword I could manage, but fists are... rather beyond me. His mind brimmed with skills of every kind — but brimming in his head was all they did. For them to pour out through his body, to become flesh, he would need sweat, toil, and years of tempering.
That was when the corner of Baek Jinwoo's mouth curled up into a grin. At this level? This, I can definitely pull off.
"Hungyo." He said it low and even. "Let the strength out of your body. From this moment on, you follow my control and nothing else."
"Yes, my Lord."
Hungyo let go. The Tyrant, reading the change as an opening, came on again. SHWAAEK! The fist knifed through the air, driving in sharp and vicious — so fast, so unorthodox, that it seemed to split into three. Power that would mean a fracture, at minimum, from a mere graze.
And even then, Hungyo kept himself loose. I trust my lord.
The greatest geniuses Hungyo knew numbered exactly two. In pure martial arts, Aso was overwhelming — but taken as a whole, it was Baek Jinwoo. As for just how genius his lord was: Hungyo had walked him through the Geoncheong Simgong formula a single time, and the man had memorized every line of it on the spot and was slowly making it his own.
Geoncheong Simgong. The name sounded like nothing at all, yet Hungyo knew better than anyone how magnificent a breathing method it was. He didn't know whose art it was, or where it had been born — the greatest breathing method in history, simply sitting inside his head. He had explained it to his lord as though it were a trifle, afraid of weighing the man down with it. And the one now mastering it as if to show off was none other than his lord.
With a lord like that holding his reins, what was there to be afraid of? I can dodge it.
Shff! The corner of Hungyo's own mouth curled upward before he knew it — because he understood, now, what his lord's control intended. His body was moving before his mind could catch up.
SHWAAEK! Hungyo's fist shot out in answer — fast enough that it, too, seemed to split into three.
Identical.
Hungyo was, unmistakably, copying the Tyrant's punch. KWAGAGAGA! And it was finer, faster, and more efficient than the original — he had read the flaw in a punch he had seen exactly once, and thrown back a fist that patched that flaw perfectly.
Hah. A pleasure sharp enough to prickle every nerve in his body. So this was his lord's genius? His body refused to sit still. He left the punch where it landed and simply broke sideways — straight for the Vocalists.
Good. At last, he could silence the song pouring out of those damned mouths. Even at a dead sprint, his fists lanced out along three separate lines. KUGAGAGAGA! Serpent-quick strikes — one fist flying for each singer's head!
Xenos's jaw dropped. Wh-what in the world is that...!
KWAAAAAANG! Three fists burst through three faces in the same instant. PUK! Heads splitting open like smashed watermelons.
You, truly... Xenos could only stand there, dumbfounded. This went beyond fundamentals — it was flawless improvisation layered on top of them, with a live copy of the enemy's skill executed through nothing but control. Are you actually insane, Jinugod?
It was a moment when no other thought could form.