The End Always Points Toward Victory
A crushing pressure slammed down across the entire arena as Raon and Garona poured their strength into each other.
Five layers of protective magic shielding the sparring ground tore apart. The thick floor itself was being ripped up in chunks. And still neither of them gave a single inch, their feet driven into the earth as if they had been nailed there.
"You…"
Garona's eyes narrowed in disbelief as he glared down at Raon.
"What the hell did you do?"
"What did I do?"
Raon answered with an easy smile.
"You're holding me off with raw physical strength, not aura!"
"And?"
"That scrawny little frame of yours holding back my power doesn't make any damn sense!"
Garona roared a battle cry that threatened to burst eardrums and stomped down with a true step, using every inch of his towering height — well over two meters — to crush Raon from above.
"Nngh…"
Raon swallowed a groan and drove strength into his buckling legs. This is a kind of power I've never felt before. Garona wasn't using any martial technique. He was simply pressing down with brute force, and even that sent pain ripping through Raon's bones as if they were about to shatter. It didn't feel like fighting a man. It felt like matching strength with an ogre.
"Enough. Back off."
Savagery surged in Garona's eyes, and the force bearing down grew even heavier. Whether the rumor that he had torn a drake's throat out with his bare hands was true or not, the arena floor began to crumple, and his feet started sinking into it.
"Keep clinging to stubborn pride and you'll be crushed flat before you even get the chance to swing that stick of yours."
"Is this your full strength?"
"What?"
"If this is all you've got, I'm disappointed."
Raon's hands trembled under Garona's pressure, but the smile never left his face.
"A bastard about to get flattened still talking big!"
Garona's gaze twisted with fury.
"Is it because of all that cheering?"
He swept a look across the stands roaring Raon's name, and the corner of his mouth curled up.
"A word of advice from a senior. Fame and popularity are poison that kills a martial artist."
"Poison?"
"Fall for the crowd's cheers and praise, and you stop seeing your own limits. You lose the ability to tell what you should do from what you shouldn't. Just like you, right now."
A gleam of intellect surfaced amid the savagery in Garona's eyes.
"Unfortunately for you, this is as far as you go."
The power exploding from his massive grip surged once more. Skin tore. A shock ran through Raon's entire skeleton as if every bone were about to snap.
The arena groaned under the strain.
To anyone watching, Raon looked moments from being crushed outright — and yet his crimson eyes remained as clear as a spring reflecting the sun. His strength really is exceptional. Garona's power was simple, and simply overwhelming. No technique. No special trait. Just raw, crushing force that felt like it would burst Raon's body apart. Calling it ogre-lord-class strength wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
But that's not what I came here to see.
He didn't want to watch someone simply smother an opponent with overwhelming power. He wanted to see how that power moved. If it's just raw strength, I'm stronger.
Raon smiled coldly and drove force into the ball of his left foot. His calves and thighs swelled as if they would explode. The arena floor caved in, and all five layers of protective magic burst at once.
He shoved off with his right leg and locked the erector muscles along his spine. The power surging up from his lower body reached his torso — and for the first time, Garona's enormous hand was forced back. Panic flickered through those violent eyes.
"Wh-what…"
"We're just getting started."
Raon unsealed every last ounce of physical strength and agility he had been holding in check.
The blade of the Heavenly Sky Sword, heavy as a mountain set upon it, crushed down on Garona from the front.
"Kh…"
Garona's huge hands — easily twice the size of a grown man's — began to tremble. His knees sank until they were a breath from the ground.
"Th-this is impossible!"
Garona clenched his teeth so hard they seemed ready to crack, as if he couldn't believe what was happening.
"How does a pair of arms and legs that thin have this kind of power?! Even with perfect aura control, this shouldn't be possible!"
"Impossible, huh…"
It isn't impossible. It's only natural. His strength and agility were both approaching three hundred — a realm that had already transcended the human species. Even a martial artist of the Beast Alliance, famed for possessing the strongest physiques on the continent, couldn't withstand it.
"I told you this before."
"Urgh…"
Raon smiled coldly and took one hand off the Heavenly Sky Sword. Even pressing down with a single hand, Garona couldn't push the blade away.
"My muscle is densely compressed combat muscle. Yours is just ballooned-up show muscle, puffed out like a parade float."
"You little…"
Raon pointed at each of their arm muscles in turn, and Garona's eyes began to burn a furious red.
"In other words: mine is compressed practical muscle. Yours is fashion muscle."
"Shut your mouth!"
Garona couldn't take it anymore. He heaved both arms upward. The force that had only ever driven in a straight line twisted into a spiral, and a tremendous shock erupted.
A colossal explosion hurled Raon and Garona to oppositeresponse vis-à-vis opposite ends of the arena.
"I don't know what kind of sorcery you used, but I'll admit it. That body of yours is above mine."
Garona bit down on his lip, set his left arm forward and his right arm back, and dropped into a lower stance.
"But the way you use it is clumsy. I'll show you that strength isn't everything."
"By all means."
Raon smiled and nodded. That's more like it. He had stepped into this ring precisely to see how the strongest physique on the continent was actually used. Garona offering to demonstrate it himself was nothing but a gift.
"That infuriating smile of yours ends here!"
Garona kicked off the ground. His massive body charged forward and seemed to split into three, spreading like an illusion. Footwork that carries the principle of the phantom sword?They all look real.
He was closing in at a terrifying speed. There wasn't much time to think.
Raon stepped into the Grand Harmony Step, intending to slip left across space — and Garona's movement changed in an instant.
The three afterimages fused together on the left and stuck to him in a heartbeat.
A fist filled his vision before he even registered it. Instinct honed over a lifetime of martial study answered in that sliver of a moment. The punch was fast, and it was vicious.
Raon snapped his waist backward. The wind pressure from Garona's fist felt like it would tear the skin from his face.
"You idiot!"
Unwilling to surrender the advantage, Garona dropped his left elbow like a hammer. I figured you'd do that. Raon drew his left foot back, straightened his waist, and swept the Heavenly Sky Sword — still cocked behind him — upward in the same motion.
A blade charged with ganggi and a fist collided, and a monstrous shockwave scoured everything around them.
"Nngh…"
Raon was driven backward, the hand gripping the Heavenly Sky Sword trembling. He had drawn the Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation to its peak, and still the impact traveled not just through his hand but up his entire arm. If he had eased off even a fraction, the bone would have cracked. Rotation.
The fist he had just clashed with had been carrying a ferocious spin — but it wasn't ordinary Silk-Reeling Force, and it wasn't Spiral Power either. And that's not all.
The peculiar thing about Garona's punch wasn't only the rotation. The blow had struck twice.
The instant Raon weathered the first impact, a second shock followed right on its heels and rattled his bones. Interesting.
Raon pushed the Ring of Fire to its limit and clicked his tongue in satisfaction. Footwork that split into three. A punch carrying a bizarre rotation. And a double impact on top of that. There was more than enough here to learn from.
"There goes the composure on your face… wait. You're smiling?"
Garona twisted his mouth at the smile rising on Raon's face.
"I'll end this in one go!"
He drew in a breath and stomped. The arena split as if an earthquake had torn through it, and he charged through the cracks, stepping through that three-bodied footwork as he drove a massive fist forward.
Raon narrowed his eyes and flowed backward on the Grand Harmony Four Steps. In that same instant, the three Garonas merged at the center and carved through space at a speed the eye couldn't follow. The reason he splits into three isn't anything complicated.
It was footwork that fused instinct and reason, designed so he could answer no matter which way an opponent moved. And what makes it possible is…
A supple ankle.
Raon watched Garona's ankle. That thick joint swayed left and right in turn, generating a smooth rotation.
Garona wasn't relying on aura control alone. He was wringing every last bit of use from the joints in his ankles and the muscles inside them to produce this insane speed and this constantly shifting footwork.
Before Raon knew it, Garona was right in front of him, fist already flying. The pressure was so fast and so fierce that blood burst from the back of Raon's hand — a hand the punch hadn't even touched. The best I can do right now is…
Raon swept the Heavenly Sky Sword down and raised the Flame Bead Wall of the Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation's Hundred Flowers.
A wall of searing crimson flame bloomed before the blade, meeting the oncoming fist head-on.
A punch loaded with tremendous rotational force twisted the flames of the Flame Bead Wall apart, and the second shock punched straight through the gap it left.
Raon couldn't absorb the second impact. He was hurled backward. He forced strength into his staggering legs and let out a ragged breath.
"Hah…"
His insides churned from the massive shock, but a smile rose anyway — because he had just seen the secret of Garona's physical arts. This was rotation too.
Silk-Reeling Force and Spiral Power were elements that applied rotation to the aura running through the mana circuits, raising a martial art's power and penetrating force. Similar principles were used everywhere — but Garona's was different. Muscle rotation.
Garona's punches didn't just rotate aura and joints. They rotated the muscles inside the waist, the shoulders, the arms, and even the wrists. It was a martial art that used the rotational force of aura, joints, and muscle all at once. I never even considered rotating the muscles themselves.
To take muscle that already turned naturally and move it again on top of that — it was an astonishing method. Fresh insight set his mind burning hot.
Not every secret had been unraveled, though. He still hadn't figured out how Garona produced that second shock.
"Persistent bastard!"
Garona flashed in like lightning and dropped a fist from above. Whether this too was a martial art of the Beast Alliance, muscle, wrist, and aura all rotated together, and a shock that rattled the marrow erupted.
The punch was simple and savage — but what Raon was watching wasn't the punch itself. He took not only the first impact but the second one as well, meeting both of them head-on.
Driven to the edge of the arena, Raon felt blood run from his lip. He had been blocking punches with enough penetrating force to pierce even ganggi, over and over, from the front. Of course he was bleeding. So that's it.
The secret of the double impact was the fist itself.
When Garona threw a punch, he held his fist loosely, as if cupping an egg — then, the instant it struck the opponent, he clenched it tight and detonated his aura, creating the second shock. That had to be it.
"Hoo…"
Raon wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stretched his back straight. He had taken internal injuries, but every last one of Garona's secrets had been laid bare. Satisfaction brought a smile to his face all on its own.
Wrath popped out of the ice-flower bracelet and settled onto Raon's shoulder. The Cheonhonghwan?
I didn't put it on because I want to win with my own skill.
Wrath snorted, the sound at odds with the mockery in his words — as if, despite himself, he rather liked it.
I'm busy right now. Later. Raon swatted the chattering Wrath away with the back of his hand and focused on Garona. This fight isn't over yet.
He had grasped the secret of the rotational force — but taking it for himself was another matter entirely. He would have to keep clashing, keep absorbing the principle through his own body. And I have a sword art that's a perfect match for copying this.
Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation — Revolving Heaven.
Revolving Heaven was a sword art of the Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation that rotated both the wrist and the aura to generate flames that spun like a saw blade. For stealing the physical arts of the Beast Alliance, it was ideal.
"You're the first person who's ever lasted this long going head-to-head with me."
Garona's expression was hard to read — frustrated, and yet a faint smile had seeped into it.
"I didn't know colliding strength against strength could be this much fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how long you can hold out."
He flexed his fingers and broke into a broad grin, the look of a man who already believed the final victory was his.
Garona spread both hands and drew up every last drop of his aura. Power so immense it shimmered into red heat-haze above his shoulders burned without end.
"This is where it really starts!"
He charged at a terrifying speed and dropped his fist.
Raon stomped a true step and raised the Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation to its peak. Following what he had seen through the Ring of Fire, he rotated his body, his aura, and his muscles all at once, matching Garona's movement.
Wrist, aura, and muscle turned as one, and saw-toothed flame roared along the blade.
A ringing clash split the air. Garona was forced back three steps. Raon was driven back seven, his hands shaking. Of course I can't copy it on the first try.
This wasn't a matter of moving aura. It was the body — the muscles themselves — and that wasn't something he could imitate so easily. But… I can see the method now.
The first attempt had failed, yet he felt like he understood how Garona was moving those muscles. Aura. Garona was using aura to create those minute, precise movements inside the muscle.
"You're still far from ready!"
Garona charged in again. The ferocious power packed into the incoming fist crushed down on Raon's entire body. Joints, muscle, and ganggi rotating in the same direction wove together, and a terrifying shockwave erupted.
"Good."
Raon clicked his tongue in anticipation and raised a blaze of scarlet fire along the blade of the Heavenly Sky Sword.
"Let's take this all the way."
Every time Raon and Garona collided, the arena floor split like a drought-cracked field. The mages kept throwing up protective magic, but it tore apart in an instant, too fast to mean anything.
"I-is this what a fight between humans looks like?"
"What kind of duel is this…"
"Why is the Frost-Flower Sword Hero even fighting him head-on?! He's got techniques for dodging and then striking the openings!"
"Exactly. Why throw away his advantages and fight on Garona's terms?!"
The spectators watched Raon trade blows with Garona from the front and let out bewildered, empty breaths.
"You think someone's got something on him?"
"Look at him. He's smiling. No chance."
"He's insane. I've never seen a duel this crazy in my life…"
"My chest is going tight. This is a real man's fight!"
"Raon! Hold out till the end!"
"Garona! Don't you dare lose!"
The crowd screamed themselves hoarse, throats tearing, as Raon and Garona hurled sword and fist at each other.
"I did not see this coming."
Chamber craned her neck forward to look down at the arena.
"Anyone here actually predict it would turn into a slugfest like this?"
She glanced back over her shoulder, but no one answered.
"Who could have predicted this?"
King Lecross shook his head as he watched Raon block Garona's fists.
"I thought he would pick at the openings, the way he did when he defeated Borini Kitten. To think he would clash with that Garona from the front…"
He let out a disbelieving laugh, as if he still couldn't quite accept it.
"The Frost-Flower Sword Hero's physical ability is far exceeding my expectations. I cannot fathom how muscle of that shape and size is producing that kind of power."
Derus Robert narrowed his eyes as well, as if he found it absurd. Unlike the other leaders of the Six Kings, however, his gaze remained cold and still.
"Kahahahaha!"
Ogram raked a hand back through his hair and burst into booming laughter.
"That kid. The more I watch him, the more I like him!"
He pointed at Raon, who was charging in to throw Revolving Heaven at Garona, and grinned.
"He wrings out every last drop of power he's got and meets it head-on! Simple — but not something just anyone can do. That boy is a real martial artist!"
Ogram turned his head and looked at Glenn.
"Unlike you, old man, that child's overflowing with a beast's blood. I'd take him into the Alliance if I could."
"If you did, the Beast Alliance would be wiped from the world."
Glenn's gaze on Ogram was ice-cold.
"You've gotten better at jokes!"
Ogram seemed to take it as humor, and his laughter only grew louder.
"Mm…"
Sheryl felt the chill of Glenn's aura and her shoulders trembled. That wasn't a joke… Ogram might have thought so, but Glenn had meant every word. If he laid a hand on Raon, the Beast Alliance really might vanish.
"I'll give him this — standing against Garona with that small body and refusing to back down. But that's as far as it goes."
Ogram's eyes turned grave, as if the laughter had never been there, and he studied Raon.
"Garona's real strengths aren't just destructive power. It's his recovery and his durability. If they keep tearing each other apart from the inside, the one who falls will be that kid."
Ogram clicked his tongue and leaned back in his chair.
"The winner was decided the moment they started clashing head-on. He's hanging on out of sheer stubbornness, but he won't last much longer."
"Your eyes are still knotholes, I see."
"What…"
"Look at that child's sword."
Glenn lifted a long finger and pointed at Raon.
Raon's waist, arm, and wrist turned in a strange, winding rotation. The flames that had only ever burned like a saw blade gathered at the sword's tip, condensing into a crimson sphere like a miniature sun.
"Th-that's…"
Ogram watched Raon's movement, his jaw trembling in disbelief.
"The Black Beast Tribe's…"
"That child's beginning is slow, but…"
Glenn's mouth curved in satisfaction.