Prologue: The Martial God
Kyle glared ahead with bloodshot eyes. He couldn't easily make sense of the situation unfolding before him.
This was the Academy. They were in the middle of a sparring match, and his opponent was a slender demon girl. As a descendant of the hero, he was born with exceptional talent and divine power. By all accounts, losing to a demon girl was impossible from the start, compatibility alone made it an absurd notion.
Okay, that much he could grasp without issue. The problem came next.
The demon girl's race was succubus. Among demons, they were the epitome of low-tier species. Their innate beauty was certainly outstanding, but their abilities amounted to little more than feeble mental attacks. Even those only worked if the target didn't resist, and against Kyle—who was practically immune to mental assaults—they were useless.
That left the girl with nothing but a fragile body slightly tougher than a civilian's and magic on par with a typical Academy freshman... or so it should have.
Unrefined magi rampaged wildly, binding Kyle's body in torment. An overwhelming surge of magi pierced even his divine power.
The girl moved. Perhaps due to her racial traits, even her slightest motions seemed to seductively sway and entice. But the aftermath of those movements stirred Kyle's heart for an entirely different reason.
What... the hell?
As the girl stepped forward lightly, the dwarf-forged sparring arena floor—resistant to all but the heaviest blows—cracked with a sharp creeeak!.
She swung her hand casually, unleashing a gale that clawed across the arena walls, leaving vivid gouges in its wake.
No trace of magical energy in any of it. It was purely a display of overwhelming physical might.
All of Kyle's common sense was being shattered.
Can I... win?
Against that? That incomprehensible existence? Me?
No. I will win.
He was the son of a hero. As one who bore noble blood, he could not allow defeat at the hands of a demon classmate—not some otherworld invader, but a peer.
Steadying his faltering resolve, Kyle gripped his sword tighter and decided to unleash his strongest technique.
A multicolored sword aura began to shimmer around his blade. It was the technique his father, the active hero at the time, had favored: Cheongcheon Gongjeol.
He hadn't fully mastered it yet, had never used it in practice, and it was overkill for an Academy freshman. A single misstep could kill her.
Kyle suddenly regretted it, trying to dispel the multicolored aura—but in that instant, he caught sight of the girl's face and froze.
Throughout the spar, she'd worn a bored expression. Now, beholding his sword aura, she smiled in ecstatic rapture.
As if she'd been waiting solely for this moment.
The girl assumed a stance. The air around them grew heavy and still, a suffocating silence descending as if the entire space bowed to her dominion.
The standoff stretched in the quiet, until finally, she spoke. Her voice flowed like jade beads rolling—beautiful beyond words.
"Ora."
The word itself was far from lovely. Yet somehow, Kyle intuited the meaning hidden within that single syllable.
You want to try that technique, right? I can take it. I want to see it too. So... show me.
That's what she was saying.
The girl raised the edge of one hand like a blade. Paradoxically, the sight eased Kyle's tension—not because he thought he'd win, but because he believed she could truly receive Cheongcheon Gongjeol.
Her aura was that terrifying.
By the time that realization hit, Kyle's body had already launched forward, swinging his sword with all his might. The girl, eyes wide as if intent on dissecting every facet of Cheongcheon Gongjeol, slashed back with her hand-blade.
The clash of sword and hand was the last thing Kyle saw before his mind faded to black.
...
How long had he been unconscious? Not long, probably.
But one thing was certain: his best strike had failed, and as payment, his consciousness had briefly fled.
Wedged against the wall, Kyle barely opened his eyes, brushing dust from his hair—only to freeze once more at the sight before him.
There stood the girl amid the rubble at the sparring arena's center, wreckage from the collision strewn around her. Her jet-black hair should have been utterly dark, yet it sparkled mysteriously in the sunlight filtering through the collapsed ceiling.
Her crimson eyes stared at the blood dripping from her tattered arm—luminous, drawing him in like a hypnotic abyss. Did it not hurt?
A pair of small devil wings at her waist fluttered gently, as if savoring the thrill.
"Felt something like this... or was it? Kinda fuzzy now."
Magi began to ripple from her bloodied hand—black and red, deep blue and violet. Ominous hues, yet they evoked no disgust or fear.
Quite the opposite.
Beautiful.
That was Kyle's impression.
But as he tried to analyze the magi's flow, horror gripped him.
This magi she summoned atop her hand was anything but ordinary.
Cheongcheon Gongjeol...?
The technique, born of divine and mana power, had gleamed in multicolored splendor.
She was mimicking it solely with magi.
Theoretically possible, perhaps—but practically impossible. Divine power and magi weren't just incompatible; their natures were polar opposites.
Moreover, Cheongcheon Gongjeol required near-perfect fusion of divine and mana forces—a feat only achievable after fully dissecting its secrets and reinterpreting them.
She must have completely mastered not just magi, but divine and mana power as well.
No, even that wouldn't suffice for this phenomenon.
Kyle watched, entranced, imprinting her form in his vision. Then, softly closing his eyes, he thought.
...Musin.
She was an unfathomable existence beyond human comprehension. No mere labels like "succubus" or "Academy freshman" could define her.
And so, Kyle named her thus:
Musin, Martial God.