Facing the Chief Instructor
The instant the Chief Instructor’s hand toyed with the hilt of his sword, the air in the training grounds froze solid.
It wasn’t just that the temperature dropped. It was the suffocating killing intent rolling toward me that made my skin crawl.
The Chief Instructor had focused all of his attention on one person and one person only: me.
So this is a true expert in this world.
I could feel it—his entire being was locked onto me.
It was an electric sensation, different from the one I’d felt when fighting the Swordmaster. My heart was thundering with a strangely pleasant excitement.
For now, I should probably treat him like a Swordmaster.
Even back when I was the Necromancer King commanding tens of thousands of troops, I’d always been wary of Swordmasters who fought at the front line with their blades drawn. They were far more dangerous to a necromancer than archmages, because they never gave a mage the time to cast.
“Come.”
A cool thread of battle spirit gleamed in his eyes.
He wanted to see with his own eyes the martial art that only the Third Blood Demon had been able to wield.
I slowly drew up the power of the Death Blood Demon Art.
Death Blood Acceleration.
One of the forms left behind by the Third Blood Demon.
Blood wasn’t a nerve, so it couldn’t move at will, but the Death Blood Demon Art mixed death energy into the blood itself. Once I moved that power, the blood would be forced to accelerate.
The sea of death energy that had been sleeping in my dantian began to churn, surging through my veins like a raging tide.
As the Third Blood Demon had designed it, the death energy flowed along my blood vessels and forcibly awakened my muscles and nerves.
Tingling, stabbing pain shot through me from head to toe. The faster my blood flowed, the more my vessels struggled to keep up.
Perfect.
Pain woke the mind and forced complete focus on battle.
“Then I’ll do as you wish.”
I lowered my stance, bending my knees slightly.
BOOM—!
The ground exploded.
Dust billowed up from the spot where I’d stood, but my body was already bearing down on the Chief Instructor’s chin.
“…!”
His eyes widened a fraction. I’d clearly exceeded the speed he’d expected.
But being beyond expectation didn’t mean he couldn’t respond.
Whoosh.
With a single step of footwork, he let my fist glide past him.
The death energy condensed at my knuckles sliced through the air, releasing a sharp tearing whistle.
I immediately kicked out, but the Chief Instructor simply raised a hand and knocked my shin aside.
Thunk!
The recoil traveled up my leg like I’d struck iron.
As expected, an expert was still an expert. Even with the martial art left behind by that genius, the Third Blood Demon, it was still not enough.
Yeah, a straight fistfight isn’t going to work.
I retreated to open some distance. The Chief Instructor, still with his hands clasped behind his back, said in a voice that never once wavered, “Your speed is decent. But that is all. Your forms are shallow, and you’re clumsy in the way you contain your power.”
“Then how about this?”
I drew the death energy into my fingertips and wrapped it around my nails.
It was one of the forms of the Death Blood Demon Art: Death Blood Claw.
Under normal circumstances, the energy would materialize into long talons, but at my current level, all I could do was sharpen my nails to a point.
Swish! Crack!
The clawing arc ripped through the air toward his chest, but the Chief Instructor didn’t even blink. He simply extended his left palm.
Crimson energy formed a barrier and collided with Death Blood Claw.
Clang—!
The instant my nails met the defensive wall, a metallic ring rang out across the training grounds as though I’d struck steel.
Even though I’d pushed the sharpness of death energy to its limit according to the Third Blood Demon’s manual, the barrier woven from a true expert’s inner power remained unbelievably sturdy.
“Is that all? Your talent for handling death energy is impressive, but in the end you can’t even pierce a single layer of qi. So death energy is supposed to be superior to every other force, and yet if the wielder is lacking, it amounts to nothing?”
There was disappointment in his voice.
He flicked my attack aside and shoved me back.
I staggered five or six steps before steadying my breathing.
So this was a master of the Central Plains. Not someone to be taken lightly.
My newly learned forms alone weren’t enough to break through decades of accumulated power.
Right. On the strength of this world alone, I’m at a disadvantage. But I’m not just a martial artist.
I lowered my stance again.
“You still have more to show?”
His expression was already openly disappointed.
Yes, keep looking down on me like that.
I still had one more move in reserve. I couldn’t reveal everything—I had to keep my past life’s power hidden—but if it was subtle enough, he wouldn’t notice.
Martial arts and magic differed in how they were used. To put it simply, it was the difference between a guitar and a violin. Even if you struck them the same way, their structures were different, and so were the results.
Keeping Death Blood Claw active, I twisted my inner image. I needed a way to unleash overwhelming destructive power without exposing the power of my past life.
I drew all the death energy I could into my right hand.
Wraith Hand.
Ssssshh—!
Black smoke rose as if my palm were burning away, and my right hand was dyed in utter darkness.
This wasn’t merely energy clinging to the hand; it was black magic, death energy compressed to the extreme until it devoured even light itself.
The Chief Instructor’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve compressed your power into a single point. But that won’t be enough to break through my qi barrier.”
He still thought I was only applying death energy differently.
Instead of answering, I kicked off the ground and flew at him again.
Space rippled like heat haze around Death Blood Claw. The black magic that corroded all life it touched and dragged everything toward death was closing in on the Chief Instructor.
Perhaps he finally sensed that something was wrong. Up until now he’d maintained his calm, but now his face went pale in an instant and his left hand moved in a hurry.
The moment my claw collided with his left hand, Wraith Hand ignored his qi barrier and bored straight through it.
It was black magic that disregarded even the concept of defense.
CRAAANG—!
The Chief Instructor’s instincts screamed danger, and he detonated his inner power throughout his body.
The enormous shockwave sent me flying back like a paper doll.
I rolled six or seven times before I finally managed to stop.
My insides felt torn to pieces, and a faint trickle of blood leaked from the corner of my mouth.
“Hah, haa… Looks like that was too much. I can barely move a finger now.”
On purpose, I let my exhaustion show and slumped down. The black magic that had dyed my palm had already vanished without a trace.
What I’d shown him would have looked like nothing more than a reckless novice’s trick—simply compressing death energy to an extreme and changing its nature.
The Chief Instructor said nothing for a long moment. He looked down at me with his usual expressionless face and said, “Excellent. If it can enter while ignoring qi barriers, then perhaps the rumors are true—death energy really does stand above all other forces. And to have grown this much in only one night… it seems the Death Blood Demon Art was made solely for you.”
“Thanks to your guidance, Chief Instructor, I was able to use everything I’d learned. I’m grateful.”
“Now that I’ve seen enough of your skill, you can go. The others will be waiting for you.”
I headed toward the entrance of the training grounds with unsteady steps.
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After Wang Saryeong left the training grounds, the Chief Instructor stood alone and slowly pulled out the left hand he’d hidden behind his back.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Deep claw marks had cut across his left hand, and blood kept falling without pause.
“What in the world was that…?”
Wang Saryeong’s final attack hadn’t been a simple compression of internal energy.
It had come at him while erasing the very concept of defense, and in the end it had wounded him.
If he hadn’t sensed the danger and exploded his inner power, his left arm might have fallen to the ground.
“They say death energy takes precedence over all forms of power, so I can accept that much. But the phenomenon still lingering in this hand…”
Black smoke was rising from the wound. An alien force. This was surely the death energy Wang Saryeong had used.
And yet, even after its owner had left, the fact that it still clung to the injury was an incomprehensible phenomenon.
The Chief Instructor sat cross-legged and concentrated all of his inner power into his left hand.
Only after his expression had stiffened and sweat had begun to fall did he finally open his eyes.
“A vicious power.”
In martial terms, the Chief Instructor was a master standing at the very peak of the superlative realm.
For such a man to sweat while forcing out an invading force meant that power was no ordinary thing.
“This has gone beyond the category of demonic arts.”
Feeling a chill run down his spine, he gripped his mangled left hand.
He felt a deep sense of helplessness at having sensed a threat to his life from a boy barely ten years old.
A monster had entered the Blood Cult. No—perhaps something even worse than a monster had arrived.
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On the way back to the dormitory after leaving the training grounds, Jin Sohee was waiting anxiously at the end of the corridor, leaning against the wall.
The moment she spotted me, she rushed over and grabbed my sleeve.
“What happened? Why are you so late? Did something happen to you?”
As she worriedly checked me over from head to toe, I gave her my usual shameless grin.
“Nothing much. I was just being praised for my absurdly great talent, so it took a while.”
“Don’t lie! Your face is so pale…”
“You’ve got to be a little pale to look handsome.”
I lightly patted her head and walked on ahead.
Jin Sohee muttered under her breath, then scurried along after me.
The side effects of Death Blood Acceleration had left every muscle in my body screaming, and my insides were a wreck.
Even so, a satisfied smile never left my lips.
The Death Blood Demon Art, and black magic combined.
I’d seen possibility. A twisted power even a master of this world couldn’t properly answer.
To the people of this world, who knew nothing of black magic, it could become a hidden dagger in my sleeve.
Following the corridor, we reached the Blood Demon Pavilion, the residence of the official disciples.
Inside the massive hall, dozens of boys and girls were already gathered.
All of them were survivors—trash who had passed the Blood Cult’s brutal selection.
The moment I appeared, every one of their gazes turned toward me.
“Is that him? The bastard from Group 44 who caught the elder’s eye?”
“Look at his face. That corpse-lookalike got the elder’s favor?”
“I’ll kill him first in the next test.”
I heard their voices from all around.
Of course they were jealous. I’d caught an elder’s attention, and the Chief Instructor had personally stayed behind to test me to the end.
I didn’t dodge their stares. I met them head-on instead and shouted, “If you’re so upset, then bring it on!”
Even if my body was a wreck, there was no way I’d lose to a bunch of brats like that.
As I strode in with complete confidence, the path naturally opened before me.
Who could possibly handle me?
Me—the one once called the Necromancer King.
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