Chapter 331
Chapter 331
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 331
Chapter Title: One Last Toast
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*Gulp-.*
Gyu-seong emptied his glass.
Su-hyuk's glass was refilled.
*Glug glug-.*
Like they were competing, Su-hyuk drained his even faster.
Now it was Su-hyuk's turn.
The glass filled. Emptied. Filled again. Emptied again.
It repeated so many times it was hard to count. Alcohol kept pouring endlessly from that small bottle.
Gyu-seong's eyes had grown slightly glassy, the buzz clearly setting in.
"You hold your liquor well."
"I don't not drink. It's not that I can't."
It wasn't a lie, but that wasn't the whole story.
Su-hyuk simply couldn't get drunk even if he wanted to.
Invulnerable to All Poisons—the skill Su-hyuk had acquired.
It forcibly protected his body from the alcohol poisoning laced into the drinks.
That was also why he'd guzzled down this mystery liquor without hesitation. He trusted the skill.
No poison could possibly surpass hydra venom.
Nothing's in it.
Su-hyuk took another long swig.
There was nothing in the alcohol. It was just booze.
At least they hadn't set a trap with the drinks.
He'd even suspected they might use his dead friend's grave liquor laced with poison.
If only that were the case.
Then he wouldn't have to think of the man before him as Gyu-seong. The Gyu-seong he knew would never spike drinks with poison, no matter how much he wanted someone dead.
He was a man who relied on nothing but his fists and his comrades.
*Gulp-.*
Su-hyuk kept pounding the drinks, occasionally feigning a drunken glaze in his eyes.
But Gyu-seong showed no reaction.
No poison in the booze. No ambush exploiting a lapse.
"Remember this? It's the liquor you guys poured on my grave."
He even said things no one real would dare.
Su-hyuk remembered but had forgotten. Come to think of it, the taste matched exactly—the liquor he'd poured on Gyu-seong's grave with Si-woo and Ye-ryeong.
"It was killer stuff."
"Was it?"
"But you're not scared in a spot like this? Deep in enemy territory, downing drinks like it's nothing."
Gyu-seong asked as if he knew Su-hyuk's situation inside out.
Su-hyuk nodded.
"Never really had much to begin with."
"True enough. Show some fear. You might die again."
That confirmed it.
The man before him wasn't Gyu-seong. Nor was he some illusion conjured by a Mercian.
He'd created him himself. A fake born from the bruise in his own heart.
"Not scared of my fists?"
A voice laced with a hint of hurt pride and rivalry.
Gyu-seong really would ask that if he were the enemy.
"Me? Of you?"
"...You cocky bastard. Am I the same as back then? Are you?"
"Different. You and me both."
For a moment, Gyu-seong—who'd been raising his voice—clamshelled his mouth shut.
Su-hyuk drained his glass and gave a bitter smile. For a split second, it felt like the small table stretched like taffy, putting distance between them.
"This much distance is just right for us now."
He knew.
Why the Hwang Gyu-seong before him resembled the real one so closely.
The black magician's magic circle was vile and filthy, but the Gyu-seong Su-hyuk knew despised cowardice more than anyone.
The circle had judged.
That showing a near-perfect likeness held far more value than poisoning drinks or ambushing. It would deceive completely, make him hesitate.
In this trial, Gyu-seong's upright honor was the black magic's darkest weapon.
And yet.
"Yeah, you're right."
Gyu-seong's words stung his chest unexpectedly.
"We need this much distance now. You lived. I died."
"You know that—why are you sitting here?"
"And you?"
Gyu-seong's eyes flashed.
With eyes more real than real, he asked like the genuine article.
"Why not cut my throat?"
A sharp pang.
His chest ached again.
The Gyu-seong before him knew his predicament.
And with those words, he'd deliberately dropped a hint.
Kill him to move on.
If only he'd said the opposite.
Spare me. Don't cut me down. Weren't we friends?
Appealing to pity like that—he could've done it without hesitation.
But this Gyu-seong planted doubts.
What if he's real? Or what if some magic bound Gyu-seong's soul here?
Su-hyuk swallowed useless thoughts with another gulp.
The grave liquor burned just right. The poison purified, but the mood intoxicated.
"I will."
He slammed the glass down.
"One more round first."
Su-hyuk shared missed stories with Gyu-seong.
Tales from the past. Tales from the twenty years he'd been absent. True or fabricated—it didn't matter.
He felt drunk on reuniting with a long-lost friend.
After laughing and chatting for a while, Gyu-seong spoke up.
"Just in case—don't let all this laughing make you hesitate."
To Su-hyuk's ears, it sounded like:
You're really gonna do it? Even when I'm just like the friend you knew?
Truly insidious. But he'd grown familiar with the malice.
"Don't worry. One clean stroke."
Words for Gyu-seong—and for himself.
No hesitation. This wasn't real.
When the time came, strike. The more real it felt, the deeper the magic's hold.
Gyu-seong set his glass down and laughed heartily at Su-hyuk's words.
"Won't be that easy. I won't go down without a fight."
He fully grasped his role.
This wasn't the living world under the Milky Way. He was an obstacle blocking Su-hyuk's path.
"Weren't you just telling me not to hesitate?"
"Can't help it. That's why I'm here."
The moment Gyu-seong finished.
"Shall we stand?"
They said it in unison, as if by agreement.
Su-hyuk and Gyu-seong rose. Gyu-seong's glassy eyes from the drinking cleared in an instant.
A table's width apart.
Gyu-seong donned gloves. Su-hyuk drew his sword. Close enough for a punch to land, a swing to cut.
If asked who it favored, a fist fighter over a swordsman. But the Gyu-seong Su-hyuk knew wouldn't exploit that edge.
He saw even that as cowardice—a stubborn, brutish fool.
That was why Su-hyuk struck first.
This fight opened only if he started it.
*Clang-!*
The clash of sword and fist echoed toward the Milky Way overhead. They collided, recoiled, lightning engulfing Gyu-seong's body.
A fist rocketed toward his head. The sword grazed close enough to sever his neck.
Collide, recoil. Their forms launched skyward, then crashed to earth.
*Boom boom boom-.*
Sparks flew from clashing blade and fist. Their faces met up close.
"Thought you'd gone soft coming back from the dead. But you're not bad."
"You..."
*Crackle crackle-.*
Electricity amplified from Su-hyuk's blade tip.
"Your punches hit softer than expected."
*KABOOM-!*
The swing meant to cleave the fist swallowed Gyu-seong whole.
Bursting through the yellow lightning wave, Gyu-seong thrust another punch. Air tore; Su-hyuk's shoulder and elbow clothing shredded.
Gyu-seong's skill was formidable.
Destructive power near demonic. A single punch could rupture organs dozens of meters away.
But it only worked on those it could reach.
Their fight ended anticlimactically.
*Flash-!*
Amid the exchanges, one swing.
A pure white streak, slicing the Milky Way overhead.
*Splurt-!*
Both of Gyu-seong's hands flew off in that strike.
His eyes, disbelieving, tracked his severed hands. They spun in the air before thudding limply to the ground.
The fight was over.
Gyu-seong muttered hollowly.
"...No sound is cheating."
"Dodging after hearing it is too late anyway."
"True, but still."
He nodded in acknowledgment, yet chuckled in disbelief.
"How do you counter mixing sound with silence?"
Su-hyuk had mixed lightning and thunder.
Sound and silence. Fast and slow. He'd woven them cunningly into his swings.
Some faster than sound. Some slower but deadlier. Some noisy, some quiet.
A nightmare for the opponent.
"Still clumsy."
Even so, Su-hyuk wasn't satisfied.
His lightning control was woefully immature. Power lacking, speed sluggish.
For now, it only confused eyes and ears like this.
"And if it were really you, I wouldn't have won. The old you was a monster."
"Yeah, sure."
Su-hyuk didn't immediately behead the smirking Gyu-seong.
His gaze drifted to the table they'd drunk from before the fight.
Somehow, it lay not just overturned but shattered to bits.
It reminded him of the two of them.
"Don't project us onto that broken table."
Eerily perceptive.
Did the black magic read his deepest thoughts?
No. Gyu-seong had always been sharp despite his dull appearance. Typical of him.
Su-hyuk nodded.
"You're right."
"Hurry up and cut me down. Move on."
"Don't nag. Makes it harder."
"That's the point. Can't you just spare me?"
Even now, Gyu-seong chuckled like it was hilarious.
So damn identical.
No hesitation in the fight, but now his sword hand trembled.
Gyu-seong spread his arms wide, chin lifted. Stab the heart, sever the neck—your call.
His downcast eyes said:
You're really doing this?
Couldn't waver forever.
Su-hyuk bit his lower lip.
Deep breath in, out.
His trembling hand steadied.
Eyes heavy, sunken.
*Stab-.*
The blade plunged into Gyu-seong's chest.
No resistance. Indifferent to the method, his body toppled limply backward.
*Fsssh-.*
Expecting a thud, it dissolved into black dust before hitting ground.
The scattering dust coalesced. It morphed into the black door that had vanished without a trace.
Su-hyuk stared coldly at it, thinking.
This trial seemed designed to sour his mood.