The Heavenly Demon Teaches (3)
“What are you two doing? Move.”
The moment Hwaryeong spoke, Il-su charged forward. There was no thought behind it. He simply knew that if he didn’t move, Hwaryeong would send him flying, so he rushed in.
Hwaryeong watched his charge with a click of her tongue, easily sidestepped his punch, and kicked him square in the stomach, sending him tumbling across the floor once more.
“You’re still trying to force logic into your movements. Looks like you’ll need to roll around for a few more hours.”
What kind of terrifying nonsense was that?
The instant Il-su sprawled out on the floor, a scream from NyangNyang rang out. She must have attempted a clumsy charge and been sent flying too. What a monster. Why doesn’t that person ever get tired?
The ones Hwaryeong was facing weren’t ordinary players. Whether it was NyangNyang or Il-su, both were top-tier Apis pros who had entered the professional league. Yet even after dealing with the pair for two full hours, Hwaryeong hadn’t faltered once. She maintained absolute dominance. Even now, when the two of them looked ready to collapse from exhaustion, she hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Seeing Hwaryeong approach, Il-su frantically tried to push himself up.
“That’s enough. Don’t stand. Let’s rest for a moment before we continue.”
The second she waved her hand, Il-su collapsed flat on his back. He had only played the game for two hours—why did he feel this drained? It felt like he was actually going to die. If he logged out now, he’d probably wake up with a fever in real life.
- WakeUp! has donated 10,000 won.
[Get your head on straight! You have a stream to run!]
“Ten thousand won! Thank you so much for the huge donation!”
Capitalism was so great it could resurrect even a corpse. He shot upright and bowed deeply, but when he felt a presence nearby, he cautiously lifted his head. NyangNyang was staring at him with her hand covering her mouth.
“You said you were about to die, but money really is irresistible, huh?”
“Of course. What could possibly be greater than money?”
Il-su puffed out his chest with a shameless expression, but he couldn’t hide the slight flush on his cheeks.
He deliberately looked away from the chat window, wiped a hand down his face, then lowered his head and spoke.
“Isn’t this hard? Don’t you get tired?”
“I rolled around way more than Mr. Dang So-il, you know? How could I not be tired?”
“Then why did you come over instead of resting?”
“I came to hear your impressions, obviously.”
At the sound of her plopping down, Il-su looked up. NyangNyang had sat cross-legged and was letting out a light laugh.
“I told you, didn’t I? That it would be tough.”
“You did.”
Until today, Il-su had thought NyangNyang was exaggerating. He assumed she was just trying to scare him. But there wasn’t a single lie in what she had said. Hwaryeong’s training was brutal enough to make someone puke.
“These days my tier keeps shooting up, so people keep asking how I suddenly got so much better. But look. If I’m doing this every week, there’s no way my skills wouldn’t improve.”
“If someone did this and their skills didn’t improve, I’d say there’s something wrong with that person.”
It wasn’t just rolling around on the ground. He was receiving guidance from an overwhelmingly powerful martial artist named Hwaryeong while suffering through it all. How could his skills not improve?
“Right?”
“Still, I’m sure part of the reason your skills improve so fast is because it’s you, NyangNyang.”
“Me? Why?”
“You’re a veteran of wuxia games.”
NyangNyang wasn’t an ordinary Challenger-tier player. She was one of the users who had shaped the meta of wuxia games since the early days of VR. She knew so much about the genre that she could quickly absorb whatever Hwaryeong taught her.
But Il-su was different. He had only lightly tasted games like Hwaryong Muin and had never delved deep into them. Even while playing the Heavenly Demon character, he had only watched lectures from current and former pros or artisans ranked in the top 100. He had never once tried approaching it from a true martial arts perspective. Naturally, his knowledge of wuxia was shallow.
If you compared wuxia knowledge alone, there probably wasn’t much difference between him and the bronze-silver users in the chat. In fact, the average viewers might even know more.
Until today, Il-su had been carrying deeply ingrained bad habits. The habits and ways of thinking built up over many long years weren’t easily changed. Even today alone, how many times had Hwaryeong scolded him?
If bronze-silver users were blank white paper, Il-su was paper stained pitch black.
“Do not worry. No matter how long the road, if you run without stopping, you will eventually reach the end.”
Had she been listening to their conversation? Hwaryeong appeared from behind and spoke those words. It was probably meant to motivate him, but Il-su, whose mind had gone blank from the brutal sparring, took the statement literally.
“I don’t particularly want to run like a madman, though.”
Il-su shook his head at Hwaryeong’s words. It was true that he cared about improving his skills, but unlike the current pros, he wasn’t starving for victory. He had no intention of burning away his lifespan just to get stronger.
Hwaryeong slightly furrowed her brow at his flippant answer.
Thanks to Il-su’s tactless remark, the chat window exploded, and even NyangNyang, who was sitting beside him, glared at him. Only then did Il-su realize he had messed up, but it was already too late.
“You seem to have rested enough. Stand up.”
A smile bloomed on Hwaryeong’s face as she declared the end of the break. To Il-su, that smile looked exactly like a judge pronouncing his death sentence.
*
Coach Park Ye-jun of pro team XLG was watching Hwaryeong’s stream. Ever since the video of her defeating the Third Elder was uploaded to the Apis homepage, Hwaryeong had drawn the attention of numerous professional teams. Defeating the Third Elder meant she had reached the pinnacle of the Heavenly Demon character. Whether someone knew about the game or not, regardless of who Hwaryeong really was, that level of skill was worth recruiting.
Back then, it had only been a matter of welcoming her if she showed interest in going pro. Not many teams had considered actively scouting her. But as time passed, more and more pro teams began showing interest. After she took down an Outer God. And now that she had overwhelmingly won the tournament hosted by Dekay.
There wasn’t a single pro team that didn’t want her. Everyone wanted Hwaryeong on their roster. She was the kind of person who could bring a championship trophy to any club the moment she joined.
Almost every domestic club had sent her a love call, but she hadn’t responded to a single one. Among the staff, all sorts of speculations were flying around. She probably wasn’t interested in going pro. Maybe she already had a day job. Or perhaps she was waiting for better conditions. There was no concrete information, but the scouts from every club were racking their brains trying to figure out how to approach her.
Ye-jun, a pro team coach himself, had also thought it would be nice if she joined his team. A monster like that would dramatically expand their strategic options. But he knew better than anyone that such a thing would never happen. The team Ye-jun belonged to was a weak club that compensated for its lack of capital by burning through players. Although they produced decent results, they were hardly the kind of team that a player like Hwaryeong, who could choose any club she wanted, would be interested in.
That was why Ye-jun secretly hoped Hwaryeong wouldn’t join any team at all. He didn’t want to have to figure out how to counter a monster like her.
When he heard that she had started streaming, Ye-jun cheered. Just become a successful streamer instead. Grow so big that you don’t even need to dream about going pro. Perhaps his desperate prayer had been answered.
Hwaryeong’s first broadcast was a massive success. Honestly, it would have been strange if it hadn’t been. How could a stream from a user who could drop a dragon with no foundation and completely dominate a boss that no veteran had ever beaten fail to blow up? Even Ye-jun himself had gotten so absorbed in her overwhelming martial prowess that he had watched the entire Sky’s End broadcast, a game he normally had zero interest in.
It seemed Hwaryeong had truly decided to walk the path of a streamer, because she had turned on her broadcast again today. The stream title was ‘Martial Arts Lecture.’ The moment the broadcast started, she explained what kind of content she would be doing. She would be taking two top-tier Apis qi-character users—NyangNyang and Dang So-il—as her students and teaching them how to use martial arts.
Viewers who had come to see her combat prowess protested, but Hwaryeong paid their complaints little attention. Ye-jun had also entered the stream hoping to see her martial might, but upon hearing that she would be giving a lecture, his eyes lit up. Hwaryeong was a Heavenly Demon user of astonishing skill. From the perspective of a pro team coach, there was no way he could miss a lecture where someone like her was sharing her know-how.
Ye-jun, who had joined the stream with a light heart, stood up, grabbed his notebook and pen, and sat back down with the mindset of a student attending class. If there was anything useful in this lecture, he should pass it on to the kids on his team too.
He took notes on every single thing Hwaryeong said, studying the stream like a diligent student. But the longer the lecture went on, the more questions piled up in his head.
What on earth is this person even saying? Logic? Enlightenment? Martial arts verses? What is any of that?
Ye-jun knew absolutely nothing about wuxia. The VR games he had played until now either had mana or didn’t even have mana or qi. He had almost never dealt with qi. Of course, since Apis had qi characters, he had touched on martial arts while analyzing those characters. But that had only been character analysis. He had never tried to understand the deeper meaning contained within them.
To Ye-jun, wuxia was simply a genre he knew existed but had no interest in. Naturally, Hwaryeong’s explanations sounded like some scientist spouting unfamiliar theories. After rewatching the VOD and listening to her explanation again, he finally realized this lecture was something he could never understand. He threw his pen onto the notebook filled with scribbled nonsense, stretched, and let out a sigh.
So now, to coach properly, you have to read wuxia novels? What era is this?
“Coach, what are you doing?”
At the relaxed voice coming from behind, Ye-jun turned his head. There stood Lee Hyun-jin, a pro gamer on XLG, with a piece of bread in his mouth.
“Are you analyzing someone?”
“I wish I was.”
If he had used the time he spent watching Hwaryeong’s stream to analyze other players instead, he wouldn’t feel this empty. He let out a mental sigh, then suddenly remembered that the person standing in front of him, Hyun-jin, was a fan of wuxia. Since this guy had been famous as a Heavenly Demon artisan during his amateur days and was still known for handling various qi characters well, maybe he could understand what Hwaryeong was saying.
“Hey. Perfect timing. Watch this and explain to me what this person is saying.”
“Oh. It’s Hwaryeong’s stream?”
“You know it?”
“Of course I do. These days, there isn’t a single person playing qi characters who doesn’t know Hwaryeong.”
Hyun-jin, who had come over to watch the VOD beside Ye-jun, tilted his head as he listened to what Hwaryeong was saying.
“Why are you making that face?”
“It’s just… what Hwaryeong is saying is exactly the same as what Seo-woo hyung used to say.”
If it was Seo-woo, then…
“Han Seo-woo from QZ Gaming?”
The Heavenly Demon artisan who was more famous by the nickname “Korea’s Living Heavenly Demon” than by his actual name. A pro among pros whose skill was recognized even on the world stage.
“Is there any other Seo-woo I would know?”
“Han Seo-woo said the exact same thing?”
“Yes. He said that when unfolding martial arts, you must follow the logic. That’s why you have to study the martial arts verses.”
Hyun-jin explained that while Hwaryeong explained it much better, the core message was no different from what Seo-woo hyung had said.