Even the Heavenly Demon's Main Wasn't Hwaryong
The chat exploded the moment the clip started playing.
She’s not human. She only just started playing, but she’ll be in the pro league in no time. And once she gets there, she’ll probably turn into a truck and start stomping everyone. Honestly, it feels like no one will even be able to stand against the Heavenly Demon until she reaches the rank where she faces actual current pros.
Gwon-jon made up his mind right then: if he ever ran into her in ranked, he was bolting immediately. Despite his arrogant-sounding name, he was an extremely realistic person.
Gwon-jon couldn’t hold back his curiosity and immediately headed to Turret. The video title was “How to Annihilate the Awakening Order.” It started from Dekay’s point of view. Massive elementals, each as large as playable characters, surrounded him.
It was impossible to understand. He had eaten the Awakening Pill on the Market map. The world itself had given him every advantage. How could he lose? Especially with an elemental archer, a class famous for making the most of the pill’s effects.
His question was answered soon enough. Watching the Heavenly Demon dismantle every single elemental attack in the video made it clear that Dekay’s loss wasn’t his fault. The player known as Heavenly Demon was like a tsunami or a hurricane. A natural disaster that human strength could neither stop nor even dream of stopping.
When something like that stands in front of you, what else can you do? You lose. That’s it.
Even though he was watching with his own two eyes, it still didn’t make sense. How was this even possible?
The elementals’ attacks carried enough firepower to be called catastrophes. If Gwon-jon had been standing there instead, he wouldn’t have lasted five seconds before it was game over. Yet the Heavenly Demon shattered everything with raw power.
After watching just the first video, Gwon-jon felt a surge of sympathy for Dekay. Having to try for a ten-win streak against a monster like that… his mind must have been shredded. The man was the type who got dead serious during hardcore gaming. He must have gritted his teeth and done everything possible to win. What would it feel like to have your entire strategy crushed by overwhelming force?
Gwon-jon didn’t even want to imagine it.
The next video below was extremely short. Ten seconds long. The title was “Dekay 3-Second Cut.” What the hell is this?
The video began the moment the system started counting down.
3… 2… 1…
The instant the game began, the Heavenly Demon vanished from in front of Dekay.
What? Where did she go?
It seemed Dekay in the video had the same thought. He turned his head. But there was no need to search. She had already revealed herself—right in front of him.
Startled, Dekay tried to shove her away with his shield. But as if a bug had triggered, his movement froze. Instead of blocking, it only created an opening.
In a fight between top players, even that tiny gap was fatal.
The Heavenly Demon threw her fist. It slammed straight into Dekay’s face.
[Defeat!]
The screen went black.
…What the hell was that?!
Gwon-jon replayed the video. She disappeared, reappeared, and it was over in one hit. His brain couldn’t process it.
He was, after all, considered an expert when it came to the fist. Otherwise he wouldn’t have survived in the pro league, a place packed with people who had poured both talent and their entire lives into Apis. He had carried a certain amount of pride, but that confidence shattered the moment he saw the Heavenly Demon’s fist.
He couldn’t understand even the slightest principle behind her punch.
If it had been something reasonable, he would have been commentating and sharing the wonder with his viewers. But this was so far beyond his comprehension that he couldn’t even open his mouth.
After watching it several times, he finally slowed it down to 0.25x speed. Only then could he see her movement.
The moment the game started, the Heavenly Demon moved her feet. What she used as a foothold wasn’t the ground. It was the air itself. That was how she could advance without making a sound.
In less than a second she reached Dekay and prepared to swing her fist. The moment her foot touched down, Dekay noticed her presence.
Dekay was definitely skilled. He had made a decision and acted before his brain could even fully register the situation. The strange part was that the man who had instantly moved his arm to shake her off had stopped halfway.
Why had Dekay frozen while trying to swing his shield? He wasn’t the type to make such a mistake.
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
Gwon-jon let out a hollow laugh at the viewer’s comment. To an Apis player, death was like an old friend they met every day. Especially the top rankers—they accepted death as something completely natural. There was no reason to fear it.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Killing intent? What is this, a martial arts novel?”
It sounded ridiculous, but if killing intent could actually be used like that, it explained the scene. If Dekay hadn’t stopped on purpose but literally couldn’t move, then it wasn’t a mistake.
Thinking about it, it made sense. A master of her level wouldn’t attack without considering a counter. From the start, she must have been certain she wouldn’t be hit.
Even if they accepted that Dekay froze because of killing intent, the next part was the real problem. How did he die the instant her fist connected? A Sword-and-Shield Knight famous for high defense had his entire health bar wiped out by a single punch.
No matter how strong the Heavenly Demon was, that was too much. That was straight-up balance breaking. A technique with performance that belonged in a comedy show had flown in at a speed that was nearly impossible to react to.
“If I could do that, I wouldn’t be streaming. I’d be a pro.”
At first glance, there was nothing particularly special about the Heavenly Demon’s fist. Each motion flowed together with breathtaking cleanliness, but that was it. So why did it have such power?
To find someone who could explain it, they’d probably have to bring in a ranker from a different martial arts game, not Apis.
“I prefer when people spoon-feed me.”
Honestly. How was he supposed to analyze something like that? He was just a guy who picked the username Gwon-jon because it sounded cool. He had become a Fist King main simply because he liked the class, not because he was some serious martial arts enthusiast. There was no way he had the ability to break down a technique like that!
When Gwon-jon boldly said exactly that, the viewers waved their hands in disgust. Then one viewer gave him the answer he wanted.
“NyangNyang? Of course. He’s famous in the martial arts game scene.”
If even someone as serious about martial arts as NyangNyang Fist Law said that, it would be hard to hear a proper explanation from anyone else. Looked like he’d have to wait for the Heavenly Demon to explain it herself someday.
Having cleanly given up on understanding it, he closed Turret and, as usual, launched Apis.
One of the best things about coming to the modern world was the abundance of sweet things. Eating things so sweet they made your head hurt somehow lifted your mood.
I had been sampling all kinds of desserts, but lately my favorite was ice cream. It was cool, sweet, and came in so many flavors that I never got tired of it. With the single-minded goal of trying every flavor, I had been eating all sorts of varieties. However, there was still one I hadn’t touched—mint chocolate.
This was because of Enry’s strong opposition. According to her, mint chocolate wasn’t something humans should eat. I couldn’t understand her words. After all, it was being sold, wasn’t it? They wouldn’t put something humans couldn’t eat on the menu.
When people said something wasn’t fit for human consumption, they usually meant things like cookies made from dirt and water. The kind of thing you ate only when you were so starving you might eat a person, just to fill your stomach. Something that looked like food but wasn’t. They wouldn’t sell something like that at an ice cream shop, would they?
If a shop actually sold something like that, I’d actually find it interesting.
After my weekday language class ended, I finally decided to satisfy my curiosity. Whether it turned out good or terrible, either way it would be fun.
The mint chocolate the employee scooped for me looked somewhat disappointing. From its appearance and smell, it seemed perfectly edible. There were even chocolate chunks mixed in. No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like something a person couldn’t eat.
How strange. Enry wasn’t the type to speak empty words. Maybe despite its appearance, it really did taste terrible.
Gathering my courage, I took a big spoonful of mint chocolate and put it in my mouth. The refreshing scent and the sweetness of the chocolate mixed together, tickling my tongue.
Hmm. It’s good?
Without saying a word, I moved my spoon again to enjoy the refreshing sensation of the mint chocolate once more.
Hehe. So Enry had made a fuss over nothing.
When I nodded, Enry looked at me like I was some kind of rare creature. How could she make that face while looking at something this delicious? Well, the children of this modern age probably didn’t know what true hunger felt like. Compared to the days when I starved, this food was nothing short of heavenly.
What a refined place. If this is a country that makes food like this, I’d be happy to seek out its cuisine again next time.
Enry’s words carried a deep hatred for her own homeland as she told me to look for meat dishes if I really wanted to try. Just what had she eaten as a child to make her shudder like that? I was curious, but—
Her expression was so serious that I couldn’t ask.
“I have been, yes.”
It wasn’t for any grand reason. Last time when I taught Ha-rin, I realized I needed to change her entire perception of martial arts. But to do that, there was one problem I had to solve first.
Giving someone guidance required authority. In the Murim, my word was law, but this world was different. Right now I was just an ordinary person—neither the Heavenly Demon nor anything special.
I thought of many methods, but the ones I knew only worked in the Murim. In the modern world, they would be considered violent crimes. Since I didn’t want to become an enemy of public authority yet, I had no choice but to pick an alternative.
That alternative was ranked games. It seemed that staying at a high rank in Apis granted a certain level of authority.
Enry giggled, saying it was chaos with people rejoicing at having met me and others resenting me for beating them without even letting them touch me.
It seemed I had become something like a disaster to the people inside Apis.