The Fist That Shatters the Sky

KWAAAADUK—!

A single strike.

One blow, and both of her arms were ruined.

The force left over from it reached all the way to her innards and turned them inside out.

Kuhl—!

Cheon Yuha spat up a mouthful of blackened blood.

She forced her bent waist and torso rigidly upright. The instant her airborne feet touched the earth, she flung herself down and rolled across the ground.

Naryetagon—the lazy donkey's roll. A maneuver even she, who cared little for dignity, had always avoided; a thing she had never once performed in her life. Yet without a moment's room for shame, Cheon Yuha sprang up as if launched from the ground and unleashed her movement art.

KWAAAAAAAAANG!!!

The spot she had just vacated exploded open. The statue, which had closed the distance in an instant, had driven its fist into the earth.

Violence achieved through raw physical force alone.

"……"

Watching that devastating spectacle, Cheon Yuha instead felt the faint possibility of victory.

At the same time, a hollow futility welled up inside her chest.

Strong. That lump of scrap iron carried a blow more powerful than anyone she had ever crossed fists with. But that was all it had. Nothing resembling Musun, who had transcended humanity—no martial arts of Zhongyuan, no fist arts of the West, not even modern combat disciplines. Without equipping a single technique or school of learning, it simply swung its hard fists around and around, crushing its opponents beneath an overwhelming body that imitated Musun's divine frame.

Cheon Yuha's face twisted.

Even a far weaker golem knew how to draw upon internal energy, knew how to wield techniques. Then that thing should be capable of it too. Rage boiled up at the lump of scrap that plainly had techniques available and chose not to use them.

……Filthy fast.

Choking down the curse that surged up along with the blood in her throat, Cheon Yuha steadied her breathing. Both arms had been ruined from the start, leaving her odds slim, but she had to try everything there was to try. Whatever martial art, whatever form she could still use—

Just as her gaze, which had been barely keeping pace with the statue's speed, began to blur once more—

"……Yes! Come at me like that, with everything you've got!"

She actually welcomed it. Trading full-force blows against each other was far better than being handled with kid gloves. She preferred a tin can that knew martial arts to a tin can that was merely fast and offered nothing worth learning.

And then, the fifth strike. A sudden low kick, and her left leg shattered with a KWAK—!

……This thing is toying with me!

Even as anger flared, Cheon Yuha grasped the truth: with her mobility gone, the fight could not continue. So she threw her gambit. She abandoned the half-measures of evasion and planted herself where she stood. Circulating qi through her ruined-rag arms would take a brief moment of stillness.

But the statue showed no intention of waiting, and drove its fist straight at her. In the blink of an eye the fist was upon her, filling her entire vision.

Parry it.

Cheon Yuha fixed her eyes clearly on the thing hurtling toward her face. She brought her rag of a hand directly against the statue's fist. An act that looked, from any angle, like self-destruction—yet she deflected the fist outward with the flowing smoothness of water parting around a stone.

──……!

Yihwajeopmok—transferring the flower onto another branch. It was neither light nor soft as a petal, but she somehow turned aside the direction of its force. With that, her left arm was beyond all use, but one side still remained—and more than that, an opening had appeared. The instant the statue's torso opened, Cheon Yuha's frame, which had been pushed back the whole fight, moved with blinding speed.

Agonizing pain shot up from her shattered left leg, but she accepted it. To be fettered by a moment's pain was to earn a lifetime's disgrace. She slipped lightly past the snatching hand the statue hurriedly threw with its other hand and bored in close. Tuk—. Her small palm met the chest of solid armor itself. A jolt of pain shot up from her broken right arm, but it was swallowed whole by the elation that had risen to its height.

Wearing a savage smile, Cheon Yuha released in a single instant the energy she had condensed into that one point until now.

"Die, lump of scrap iron."

KWAANG—.

A light sound, considering it carried the full concentration of a Super-Peak martial master's every ounce of energy. Yet in the very same instant, the Guardian vanished from where it stood.

──……Giririk.

『Maximus』fixed its gaze on Cheon Yuha's form, dwindling into the distance.

She stood perfectly still. The only one moving was itself. The statue flew. Swept away by a force it could not resist, it was driven straight back. A mass of metal weighing over a ton drifted through the air, the way such a thing properly should—and so it flew backward and backward until, at last, it reached the very building it had been created to protect.

And then—

KWAKWAKWAKWAGAGAGANG──!!!

Impact. Bang, bang, bang, bang……! Starting from the entrance of the research building, it bored inward, wrecking the structure again and again. The destruction showed no sign of stopping, and amid the unending roar of shattering stone, Cheon Yuha let a giggle spill out.

"Pfft, hehehe, hahahahaha……."

Then, glancing down abruptly at her right hand, she twisted her mouth. A hand mangled so terribly she wondered if it had ever been this bad in her entire life. The vice principal's words at the entrance ceremony—that if she didn't die, he'd fix her up—she believed them, and yet the damage was severe enough to make her doubt whether it could truly be repaired.

"Tch."

If an immortal had personally vouched for it, then she supposed it would mend itself one way or another. So thinking, the young sovereign of the Heavenly Demon Cult slowly raised her head.

And there, standing directly before her eyes, was the statue—its chest ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠caved in.

"Goddammit."

Cheon Yuha exhaled a sigh. She had hurled everything into that single fajin blow, so apparently the inside of the thing was disgustingly hard as well.

I lost.

But 『Maximus』, which had closed in at once, for some reason did not immediately throw a punch. Drdrdrdruk—… It suddenly drove one foot into the ground, then slowly lifted the other foot. Very, very slowly. And in that fully raised leg was held an energy that matched, precisely, the blow she had delivered into it.

"……Petty, aren't you."

Even as a hollow laugh escaped her, Cheon Yuha waited calmly for her defeat. She had no strength left to answer another blow, and with her legs ruined, she lacked even the means to flee.

"Next time—"

I will win. Without fail.

It was the very moment she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was pledging the next duel when someone closed in out of nowhere and yanked her by the nape of the neck.

"……Huh?"

In an instant she was airborne, pulled back more than ten jang away. At the utterly unforeseen situation, Cheon Yuha turned her head in a daze—and there was the man from before, gripping her by the scruff.

"Next time, think a little before you fight."

The man grumbled that he couldn't very well nurse her to her grave. And that expression, looking at her like she was some little child. That amused gaze. That upturned corner of the mouth. This time it was no misreading. She was certain—beyond any doubt, he was looking down on her.

Cheon Yuha's face scrunched up as she moved to say something. But the words never came out.

"……Hoo."

The man had stepped in front of her and taken his stance. He was extending his fist at the very Guardian whose dangers he himself had enumerated at tedious length. Cheon Yuha—her circumstances were entirely different from his. First-rate martial artists had proliferated like weeds by the twenty-first century, but this was a fighter with nothing to boast of except his youth, throwing himself at a thing that had reached the Transformation Realm, however clumsily. The recklessness of it was that of an ant charging an airplane.

……And yet, why was it? It looked utterly absurd, and yet somehow, looking at that man's back, she could not bring herself to believe he would collapse. Astonishing, but it was so. And that was why Cheon Yuha simply stared blankly at the man's back.

KWAANG! KWAANG!

The battleground of the great war between righteousness and evil was truly a hellish place. Energy beams flew in from the front while the mad dogs of the Sichuan Tang Clan sprayed poison from behind—a churning cauldron of chaos. However great a master, no one was human enough to fight forever, and I myself was worn ragged by the endless battle.

……About time I kicked the bucket, huh.

Blood poured from my whole body, from countless wounds and the poison crawling through them. I was, unmistakably, on death's door. And then—PEWUUUUNG—!—even a Meteor came flying from far off.

……Ah, I'm screwed.

As I was thinking that, somewhere the earth itself exploded, and I heard this:

—It's the Mad Heavenly Demon! The Mad Heavenly Demon has appeared!

Cheon Yuha, leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult and conqueror of Zhongyuan, had descended upon the battlefield. When she extended one hand, the meteor split in two; when she stamped her foot, everyone was driven face-down into the dirt. At that staggering sight, sniffling with a dumbstruck expression, I thought:

Oh, my lady, have you come to save me?

Watching Cheon Yuha trudge toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me as I entertained that ridiculous thought, it was obvious from a glance that she was half-dead too.

"Haha, I'm all out of strength myself."

She said she had come to save me, but there was no slipping away as we pleased.

……Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

And so, two patients who could die of blood loss at any moment stood back to back and raised hell for an entire day before finally clawing our ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way out of the war zone. It was a journey so treacherous that escaping without a single death among us counted as a miracle.

Later, when we had some breathing room, I asked her why she had come. We hadn't been close at all back then. At that perfectly reasonable question, Cheon Yuha only threw back her head and laughed.

"AHAHAHA! I just felt like it!"

The Mad Heavenly Demon. True to the epithet, she was, in fact, out of her mind. The world is wide, I suppose, and there's always bound to be at least one lunatic who charges into hell of her own accord.

How does a person like this even exist.

When her body had barely recovered, she immediately latched onto me demanding we spar. I clicked my tongue back then at how shamelessly she clung. And yet at the same time—fine, dammit. I swore to myself that someday I would save her in return, without fail.

The word comrade-in-arms did not exist for nothing. She had spared my life on a battlefield, and the desire to repay it in kind took root in me.

But I died before I could repay that debt in full. And then I came back to life. So this was simply something that couldn't be helped. I'd settle accounts here instead. At the very least, no life would hang in the balance this time—what a godsend of an opportunity.

Setting that aside, it was still, objectively, the most reckless challenge in history.

Maximus. Its true capabilities sit at the very tail end of Super-Peak, or the threshold of Transformation.

Looked at as favorably as possible, this was a First-rate versus a Super-Peak. No sane person would attempt such madness.

But so what? What had to be done, I had to do—gathering every last ounce of myself to do it.

It was absolutely possible. A sustained, evenly-matched fight was beyond me, but landing one clean blow on a stupid golem? That I could do.

And that was enough.

"Hooooh."

Spine and neck straight, I exhaled as serenely as I could manage. I planted my legs firmly into the earth and extended both hands out before me. To the statue of Musun, which had obligingly waited until my preparations were complete, I offered a word of thanks.

"Come at me, you son of a bitch."

The instant the words left my mouth, the golem, as if it had only been waiting for this, launched its kick. Not a stomp—a flying knee. It must have been furious indeed, because it leapt into the air with its own two legs and came flying at me.

DRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRUK─────!!!

A strike to split the very sky came crashing down.

Deja vu.

Against a calamity that rivaled that Meteor, I drew everything to its absolute limit. With my eye technique, I tracked the descending blow even as it blurred. I gathered the measly pinch of internal energy I had to the tips of both hands and fortified them so they wouldn't crumble before contact was even made. With my body-hardening art, I drove my legs into the earth so my frail flesh wouldn't be blown away by the shockwave alone.

And then, I drew the Taiji.

—The Bagua's Qian: Heaven.

My left hand seized the sky. By that point, death was already breathing down my neck. Keeping my eyes locked on the frame of scrap iron tearing through the air, on the knee drawing nearer and nearer, I moved my hand to the very end.

—The Bagua's Kun: Earth.

My right hand grasped the ground. This was the secret art that a lifelong no-talent had poured his entire existence into—back when all his struggling could amount to nothing more than babysitting doomed geniuses. And it was the realm he had, in the end, finally reached. A fragment of it.

It twists.

Both hands moved. And at last death arrived—the knee, the flying knee—

EUDRDRDRDRDRDRUK───!!!

Immediately, both my arms wrenched sideways. From the shockwave alone, before the attack had even fully landed—a catastrophe. But I was not startled. I was not afraid. I did not fear defeat. I had done this countless times already. So I simply moved.

It bent further. Coiled and twisted. Until it had turned completely inside out. Even so, he kept drawing the Taiji. His crushed hands and fingers continued their uncanny movement, tracing arcane paths—like an incantation being chanted.

……And then the knee, the sky, the earth, space itself—

Right now, in this very moment.

"……Ah."

Cheon Yuha witnessed a miracle.