Ink Spear
"Ink Spear?"
A dazed voice slipped out of me before I could stop it.
"Fists make it the Ink Fist, and a spear makes it the Ink Spear. Simple."
"I get that, but…."
Never in a thousand years had I imagined the Fist King would be the one to bring it up first.
It went without saying that I'd planned, someday, to transplant the Ink Fist onto the spear. After all, the entire reason I'd learned the Ink Fist in the first place was to complete the Nameless Spear Art — and, further down the road, the Ghost Spear Limitless in its entirety.
But that was only supposed to happen after I'd fully mastered the Ink Fist.
Even the Seven Forms of the Blue Dragon had only been applied to the spear after my proficiency with the blade forms reached the point where I could execute every technique with a sword. The Ink Fist, by comparison, was barely past its first stroke. There was no way I could unfold it with a spear.
"Isn't it a bit premature?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, how am I supposed to do with a spear what I can't even do with my fists yet?"
"Which is exactly why I'm telling you to open your fists and pick up a spear."
The more we talked, the deeper I felt myself sinking into a maze.
"Then let's start here. Disciple — what do you believe the Ink Fist to be?"
"The Ink Fist… that's the secret art of the Hyunmu Fist Gate. A fist technique."
"Spare me the pretty words! Think more fundamentally than that!"
"Fundamentally…."
I scratched my jaw, thought briefly, and opened my mouth.
"A fist that swings Ink Qi… I suppose."
"Exactly! That's it."
The Fist King beamed with pride and drew in a breath, channeling power. A pitch-black aura bloomed across his enormous fist.
"The reason the Ink Fist is the Ink Fist is that the fist is the most efficient tool for handling Ink Qi."
Ink Qi was mana compressed and condensed to the extreme, heightening its density. As hard and resilient as it was, that made it extraordinarily heavy in its own right. Think of the difference between an ordinary sword and a massive greatsword, and you'd be about right.
Its raw power is tremendous — the problem is everything else.
It was notoriously difficult to control. Even the Fist King himself couldn't paint a full-power strike from his very first punch.
"That's also why the Ink Fist grows stronger with each successive stroke."
You swung your fists again and again, layering a little more power into the energy dwelling in your hands, until at last you could unfold it to its very limit. That was the principle behind the Ink Fist's final secret — its last technique, the Eighth Stroke.
"Do you follow what I'm saying?"
"…Not really."
"It means there's no need to stubbornly cling to your fists."
The Fist King reached down and picked up a fallen tree branch from the ground.
"There is no single correct answer in martial arts. Even 'efficiency' is merely one path, measured by the common standard of humanity. And the world holds countless branching paths besides."
Crack.
As strength flowed into his fingers, something remarkable happened. The Ink Qi gathered in the Fist King's hand climbed up the branch, dyeing it black from end to end.
"Do not cling to the so-called proper path. There was never such a thing to begin with!"
He drove the branch in his grip straight down into the ground.
BOOM!
The twig that should have snapped limply instead punched through the earth and tore open a massive fissure.
"Wha…!"
"Take up the spear."
He crossed his arms and let out a small laugh.
"The real lessons start now."
"Ugh… uaaaagh! Aaack!"
A hunter-exclusive hospital. In a private room, Park Sung-chan lay in bed, his screams shattering the silence. His once-handsome face had grown gaunt and hollow, and his black hair had turned bone white.
The nightmare had been going on for days now. Inside the prison called sleep, Park Sung-chan was living through hell itself.
"D-don't come near me! Aaaaagh!"
Phantoms wept tears of blood as they stared at him. Then they swarmed all at once — gouging out his eyes, tearing his flesh to shreds, crushing every bone in his body.
IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS! DAMMIT, IT HURTS!
Just when he thought he would die, everything snapped back to normal. And then the same scene played out again. Over and over, and over again — as if the universe were demanding he atone for the things he had done.
"Nnngghhh…!"
Today, once more, his dry lips ground against each other as he thrashed in the throes of the nightmare.
"Is it this one?"
A humanoid figure materialized at his bedside. A silent approach, like a shadow creeping close — no sound, no presence, nothing. It had simply come into being, as natural as if it had been standing there all along.
Someone draped in a white robe that veiled their face. Over brown skin, a faint halo of holy energy shimmered.
"Hmm. Not particularly interesting. This soul is a complete mess. Low-grade, too."
Her long fingers pointed toward Park Sung-chan's forehead.
"What could possibly be entertaining about a creature like this, that they'd bestow such a blessing…."
— Cardinal. We are short on time.
The voice rang inside her mind. The corner of her mouth, hidden behind the robe, tugged downward in a scowl.
"…Fine, fine. Quit nagging."
This crowd really was far too stiff.
"Little one. I don't understand it in the slightest, but our Prophet has chosen you."
The woman called Cardinal drew something from within her robes — a tiny fragment, as if a piece of light itself had been chipped away.
"So give thanks, and give thanks again. Never forget, for as long as you live, the grace of being chosen by the Church of Advent."
She placed the fragment on Park Sung-chan's chest.
Ssssshhhh!
The fragment burrowed in, piercing through skin and sinking down until it lodged itself against his heart.
"…Ghk!"
Park Sung-chan's body convulsed violently, straining against it. Tendons and veins bulged grotesquely across his entire frame.
"AAAAAAAAGH! Aagh…!"
"Hehehe! This part is always my favorite."
After a few more rounds of convulsive agony, Park Sung-chan finally went still. His face relaxed, breathing evenly, as if he'd forgotten the nightmare entirely.
The Fragment had been perfectly implanted into his body.
"Make good use of that power, and grow strong. Strongly, strongly."
The Cardinal smiled sweetly and whispered.
"Our Lord desires an abundance of powerful slaves."
The guild war was suddenly right on top of us. I called Baek Seo-ha and Shin Min-woo together and spoke to them seriously.
"The preliminary brackets are out."
The guild war preliminaries — the matches held before the main tournament. In practical terms, you had to break through this stage before the real guild war even began.
▷ Sinseong
▷ Molar
▷ Giant
▷ Blue Rake
Our Sinseong had landed in Group F.
Group F, huh.
The bracket was drawn by pure lottery, so nobody had arranged it deliberately — but by any measure, it was exquisite.
"The draw isn't bad for us."
Baek Seo-ha studied the other teams in our group closely.
"Molar is a mining guild that mostly harvests items from low-rank gates, and Giant is a mercenary guild. Neither of them looks like they're aiming for the main tournament."
Not all guilds were created equal. There were mining guilds that hired mid- and low-rank hunters to farm items out of low-grade gates, and mercenary guilds that supplied team members when solo hunters needed support to clear a gate.
"Commercial guilds enter the guild war just for appearances all the time."
Neither of them would be gunning for the main bracket. Guilds like that mostly showed up for the publicity.
It wasn't something to be careless about, exactly — but it wasn't worth worrying over either.
"Hmm… the problem is this one."
"Blue Rake Guild? Who are they?"
"An underdog guild that's been on a steady climb for the past couple of years."
Only one team from each group could advance to the main tournament.
"In other words, Group F comes down to a showdown between us and Blue Rake."
"Ngh! Now I'm getting nervous."
Shin Min-woo rubbed his hands together and comically screwed up his face.
"Don't overdo it. You two already passed the Fist King's test."
Baek Seo-ha and Shin Min-woo had cleared the Fist King's assignment roughly two days prior — grazing his shin and the tip of his cheek, respectively.
"…Don't bring that up."
Apparently the training period still haunted her; Baek Seo-ha squeezed her eyes shut and pressed a hand to her forehead. In any case, ever since that day they'd been coming back from the Fist Gate and training at the virtual reality training hall.
"What do you think the theme of the preliminaries will be?"
Unlike the main tournament, where guilds invariably faced off in direct duels, the preliminaries changed their event every year.
"Last year was the treasure hunt, wasn't it?"
"Good memory!"
"I watched it on TV with my sister. When Shinra Guild crushed the guild that found the treasure first and stole it right out from under them, I couldn't help letting out a cheer."
Just as Shin Min-woo said, last year's guild war preliminary had been a treasure hunt. And this year, it was originally supposed to be a treasure hunt as well. The event had been so wildly popular that, exceptionally, they'd run the same format two years in a row.
At least, that was how it went before my regression.
As far as I could tell, this year's preliminary would not be a treasure hunt.
"Want me to make a prediction?"
This was pure gut feeling. The odds still heavily favored a treasure hunt — that was the future I'd already confirmed once. And yet.
"This year's preliminary will be a gate raid."
"A gate raid?!"
"They've… never done that before."
"Of course they haven't. Until now, no one could broadcast the inside of a gate."
"…!"
A technology currently monopolized by South Korea: real-time broadcasting from inside gates. Perfect bait for drawing the eyes of every other nation.
Given the nature of gates, using it in the main tournament — the centerpiece of the guild war — would be impractical. But the preliminaries?
That, we could absolutely work with.
And as a bonus, it would make a superb global publicity piece under the banner of a never-before-seen guild war fought inside gates.
"If I were the organizer, I can't think of a single reason not to do it."
When I finished, the two of them simply stared at me.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No, it's just…."
"Hyung, you look genuinely brilliant!"
What, now?
"It's the first time you've actually looked like a chaebol heir, I guess?"
"And what did I look like before that?"
"Hmm…."
Something told me the rest of that sentence would hurt a lot, so I stood up from my seat without waiting to hear it.
"…Just train. You're both dead."
I adjusted the settings and cranked the virtual reality's difficulty up to Hell.
Click.
Virtual Gate System Online
The moment I pressed the button, the surroundings flashed and transformed into an environment like the heart of a cavern. Stalactites jutted like fangs, and from the darkness, pairs of crimson eyes glinted with a sinister light.
BEGIN!
With the start signal, the monsters lurking in the dark all lunged at once — massive vampire bats and monkeys with grotesquely elongated arms. In a darkness that deadened all five senses, they'd have been a nightmare for anyone else.
"Hup!"
"…Hah."
For us, transformed beyond recognition by our training —
they weren't even worth the effort.
Shhk-shhk-kkak!
THWACK!
Monsters scattered into particles of light in a single stroke.
Taking them to the Fist King was worth every second.
Perhaps because our sparring sessions against him had been fought as a pair, it wasn't just their skill that had grown — their coordination had tightened up remarkably as well.
Baek Seo-ha holds the front line while Shin Min-woo supports from the center, keeping the enemies in check.
When the situation called for it, Shin Min-woo would surge into the vanguard as well and neutralize every monster in the vicinity. A play style truly worthy of the name All-Master.
"There it is! That's what I suffered all that hell for—"
"Kraaaaak!"
Before I could even savor the moment, monsters came swarming toward me as well.
"What a nuisance."
I let out a soft sigh and gave the spear in my hand a light twirl.
Three in front, four behind.
In a cramped space, the slightest wasted movement meant death. Carefully, executing only the motions that were necessary, I attacked.
Hummm…
I compressed my mana at high speed, gathering the aura that bloomed in deep ink-black and focusing it at the spear's tip.
As if painting a picture with a brush.
The spear darted out in a swift thrust.
Hyunmu Ink Spear
— First Stroke —
The aura of deep ink-black crushed their skulls with a dull, heavy thud.
"We're winning this guild war."
This life's guild war would not end in tragedy. Because I was going to make damn sure of it.