Chapter 147
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 147
Chapter Title: Invincible Meteor Strike
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Today's Hundred Flowers Academy was peaceful as ever.
Of course, the instructors were having a hellish day dealing with the new students.
But the overwhelming majority of the students were utterly at peace.
The second- and third-year students had the minor event of course registration,
but they wrapped it up with a click and were just thinking about grabbing a drink in the evening to celebrate the start of the semester, so it was peaceful enough.
However.
Just as a unified China inevitably splinters into fragments according to the ultimate law of nature, peace is destined to meet its doom.
Ku-gu-gu-gu, ku-guung...!
Dududududu...!
"What the hell?"
"An earthquake?"
"Now's the time—press your lower body to the ground...!"
Suddenly, the earth began to shake.
Of course, earthquakes in the Shaanxi-Sichuan region weren't all that rare, so locals with ties nearby didn't panic too much.
"Eek...?!"
But one person who had never experienced or even heard of an earthquake before
was rolling around on her bed, browsing the gallery, when she freaked out completely.
A massive thud at first.
Then grinding creaks, rumbles, and shakes rattling the wooden building several short times.
And unfortunately, Myo Narang was away on student council business, leaving the little cult leader alone in the room.
"Kyaa, kyaauu...!"
Facing this otherworldly phenomenon for the first time in her life,
Luri pulled the blanket over her head, clutched the wolf pup she'd kidnapped off the street, and trembled on the bed.
And then.
WTF earthquake??? What is this???? (2)
Need textbook + answer key for Understanding Classics ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
❗❗❗❗Aja ja jat❗❗❗❗❗ (7)
Ah fuck, the ground shook and my reply got buried ㅡㅡ (4)
"Earthquake...?"
After grasping the situation via her smartphone, the repository of all the world's knowledge,
Luri, still rolled up in her blanket, summoned her soul-binding technique.
But even after a long while, her soul couldn't reach Geum Sihyeon's inner self.
"Geum Sihyeon...!"
No way he'd gotten caught up in this violent rumbling, right?
Despite the unknown terror, Luri hurriedly threw off the blanket, slipped on an outer robe,
and bolted out of the dorm.
"Kyau!"
Sniffing around with the wolf pup in tow, she dashed off following Geum Sihyeon's scent.
The soft little cult leader, just barely peeking into the quasi-peak realm, couldn't pinpoint the source of the vibrations.
Ku-gu-gu-gu, ku-guung!
"Huh...?"
But there was one person in the academy who could recognize the origin of that martial art.
The academy's sole Flower Realm master, excluding the head who had rushed off to the Martial Alliance after the entrance ceremony.
Seo Dohee.
Kuung, ku-kuung, kuung!
The chain of earth-shaking vibrations resounding one after another was clearly not natural, but man-made through martial arts.
Her senses, matured over 46 years,
could flawlessly distinguish vibrations from cannon fire, martial arts, and pure natural quakes!
"Eek!"
"Th-the ground is shaking...!"
"Everyone, stay calm!"
But with new students around her in a panic, she couldn't leave just yet.
If the academy were under attack, it'd be a disaster,
but the defenses and barriers, fortified even more after the previous incident, wouldn't easily allow outsiders in.
So it had to be someone inside.
"This way, everyone! Watch your heads!"
After guiding the freshmen in her orientation lecture to safety and erecting a barrier to prevent secondary damage,
"I'll go check what happened."
She notified one instructor of her absence and flew toward the epicenter.
Her destination: the South Training Hall.
Mostly used by second-year students.
Fortunately, there were no signs of life nearby—but that only made it more suspicious.
It was an aura so overwhelming it even gave her chills, so no way could it be fully concealed.
...Unless it belonged to a superior master surpassing even her.
Pushing down the creeping unease, Seo Dohee cautiously stepped into the training hall.
The hallway greeted her with smashed equipment scattered everywhere, as if a typhoon had ripped through.
"What a waste."
Green Forest Eye.
Her eyes, which could appraise an item's value at a glance, gleamed as she tallied the damage.
For a moment.
"Oh..."
Then she stopped calculating upon seeing the Xuan Iron embedded in the stone outer wall, protruding and badly crumpled.
Judging by the Xuan Iron's thickness,
the money already sunk into this training hall alone exceeded the Green Forest's annual budget by miles.
Who the hell had the gall to smash this place? Was there a secret vault or hidden opportunity inside? Suspecting as much, she ventured deeper.
And then,
upon confirming the deepest chamber, thoroughly wrecked,
Seo Dohee let out a sigh.
The nameplate at the entrance, once engraved with "Student Council President," lay in shattered pieces, only the character for "cow" remaining as a ghostly remnant.
Stepping past the half-destroyed door, flung open in escape,
"...Ha?"
she saw a Xuan Iron plate pierced with a perfectly spherical hole narrowing inward, and a round crater in the floor.
Surprisingly, the interior was pristine.
...As if that spherical space had always been there from the start.
No shattered stone fragments, no dust that should've billowed everywhere.
The space itself had vanished entirely.
At this point, it was downright eerie.
Could Geum Sihyeon, at quasi-peak, really pull this off?
No, impossible.
Even if she wrapped her strong qi around an axe and swung, she couldn't leave such a clean mark.
The most rational explanation:
The Sword Demon, that lunatic thug, sneaked in while the head was away and put on a flashy show before fleeing.
"No way."
The guy who fled without even showing his face out of fear of the Martial Alliance Leader
wouldn't dare cause trouble here with the Alliance Leader still in Xi'an.
"Whoa, insane."
"Heek?"
Seo Dohee jolted in surprise, letting out a dumb yelp as she swung her axe,
but
"Whoa, I've never seen anything like this in my life!"
the tiger arrived before she could even speak.
The Martial Alliance Leader, Dan Yuwol, casually blocked her axe strike with a single finger and marveled.
"Whoa, this is wild too!"
Before she could ask how he'd gotten here, Seo Dohee followed his gaze.
There,
"......"
was an indentation shaped like a man sprawled flat in a 大 character.
Judging by the height, arm and leg lengths...
Undoubtedly,
it matched Geum Sihyeon, whose form she could visualize with eyes closed.
...Not that I have any right to say this after royally trashing the place,
but this destructive power was on another level compared to Strong Ring.
That much I was sure of.
"You okay?"
"Thanks to you. Appreciate it."
If Luri, who must've sensed it via soul-binding and come running, hadn't pulled me out of the wall, I'd still be stuck there trembling and whimpering like her.
...Let's forget about demolishing the student council president's meditation room for now.
First things first, that technique from earlier.
The monstrous move that sucked up half my inner energy to fire, then the other half to handle the backlash—I needed to sort my thoughts on it.
Good thing no one was around.
If there had been, they'd probably be plastered in the wall yelling for help like me...
A genuinely dizzying moment.
Anyway,
"Kyau!"
"Grr, grrr."
Luri had dragged me to the western woods for safety.
Taking in the reunion of the wolf pup and its mother after so long, I started with
"Gotta name the technique first, of course."
Ultimate moves demand cool names by tradition.
If a badass ultimate summoning a massive dragon to torch the whole map was called "Mom"?
The casters would be yelling "Ah! No ult!" every teamfight, forcibly renaming it after some Joe Schmoe's dad.
Let's see.
I fired it, and hurling it felt divine, like a life-flashing montage with hallelujahs, so end it with "bullet."
Various energies collided like the Big Bang, shaking the earth, so borrow from a shooting star: meteor.
Meteor Bullet.
"Hmm..."
Still feels 2% short.
Needs a prefix.
Then, based on that destructive power,
"Invincible Meteor Strike."
A single shot.
The ultimate energy sphere no one could rival.
I could call myself the One-Strike Invincible.
"Lame."
"Hm."
No artistic flair whatsoever, and she dares critique my naming sense?
How's a person named Luri anyway?
...Won't say the mean thing.
Anyway, to use my Invincible Meteor Strike in real combat,
ideally in a wide-open space where the backlash wouldn't hit and no allies nearby—location constraints, sure.
But refining the technique precisely could still yield map-dominating power even miniaturized.
Savoring the peach-like firmness and softness of her thighs, I closed my eyes briefly to organize my thoughts.
Running Small Martial Supreme Art at full throttle, weaving the clues into a solid theory,
"Huuu..."
I emerged from the trance and opened my eyes.
"Oh, you're awake?"
Must've passed out in the meantime.
Martial Alliance Leader's face in view,
voice in ears.
Enlightened, huh? Come to the Alliance...
Idiotic thoughts swirling, I closed my eyes again.
"Ho, so you're Cheon Luri?"
"Yeah."
"Greetings, Alliance Leader!"
Before the Demonic Cult's little leader could go full arrogant half-respectful on the Martial Alliance Leader in some horrific scenario, I hastily sat up.