A Power Worth Kneeling For
"This is impossible!!"
BOOM!
Woo Shin, who had been standing slack-jawed in stunned silence, shot forward at tremendous speed.
As he charged, his hands moved — and the floor tore free, a cascade of rubble slamming toward Do-ha's face.
"What is this supposed to be? An attack designed to piss me off?"
Even after taking a blow that would have killed an ordinary person, Do-ha merely shook his head. The stones shattered the instant they touched his face, scattering into powder.
A soft rustle. A dull thud.
"Oh? Nice movement."
From within the choking dust, Woo Shin burst out and planted a hand against Do-ha's stomach — and Do-ha actually sounded impressed.
No matter how thoroughly the dust obscured his vision, there was no way he wouldn't sense an approaching presence. But Woo Shin had used his telekinesis to lift his own body, surrendering himself to the ambient qi so that he could close the distance undetected.
"Haaah!"
BOOOOM!
A grinding screech of force. Woo Shin, now right on top of him, detonated the telekinetic power gathered in his palm. At this range, a direct hit — there had to be at least some damage.
Tap. Tap.
"Are you an idiot? You've got telekinesis — why the hell are you forcing a close-range fight?"
"……."
Do-ha dusted off his stomach and tilted his head. For a moment, Woo Shin's legs nearly gave out.
No one had ever taken that hit and stayed standing. Hell, even SS-Rank monsters died in a single strike. So what the hell was wrong with this guy? Why was he completely fine? Couldn't he at least pretend it hurt?
"Once you figured out I can use telekinesis too, you should've switched tactics."
Do-ha flicked his fingers — and Woo Shin's body rocketed upward at terrifying speed. It wasn't floating so much as being launched.
A shriek of air. Then a jolt.
"Ghhhk!"
Just short of slamming into the ceiling, Woo Shin poured every ounce of his telekinesis outward and arrested his momentum.
"Everyone who uses this telekinesis has the same energy signature."
It was an unavoidable fact. Martial artists each possessed their own unique internal energy — sky-blue for one, violet for another, if you thought of it in colors. Telekinesis was different. As he'd already explained, telekinesis was the art of manipulating free-floating qi in the air. Anyone who could control it could use it — and that very nature meant every practitioner shared the same energy signature.
"And what does it mean when the energy is the same? It means you can control your opponent's energy, too."
A soft hiss of power.
"Wha—?!"
Woo Shin, trembling against the ceiling, jolted in shock as he began plummeting toward the floor. The telekinesis holding him aloft had vanished in an instant.
"U—uah!"
Flailing as he fell, he detonated a burst of telekinesis and used the explosive force to flip himself midair. The house was vast, the ceilings extraordinarily high — he'd nearly landed face-first. Hitting the ground face-first wouldn't have hurt him, but it would have blinded him long enough for an attack to land.
"Good grief. You really are…"
Do-ha sighed at the sight. Was this guy's combat IQ just that low? Why did he keep using his power so stupidly?
"When I launched you at the ceiling, you should've laid telekinesis underneath yourself first, you moron. Or at the very least, reacted the second I stole your energy. Your raw ability is outstanding — your intelligence, not so much."
This telekinesis was genuinely formidable. Without Do-ha present, most beings would have lost to Woo Shin. Even his own friends would have struggled. You simply couldn't counter it. And yet the man couldn't even use a power this extraordinary properly.
"Shut up!"
"And why do you keep using your energy only from the outside? You could just grab an opponent's heart with telekinesis and it'd be over."
"Ha! If that were possible, you'd already be dead!"
Woo Shin barked a laugh. The fact that Do-ha could use telekinesis was surprising enough — but maybe because he'd only just started, he was spouting pure nonsense.
"Energy circulates inside the human body."
"So what?"
He already knew that. People had meridians. They had dantians.
"You idiot. You should understand by now — telekinesis manipulates free-floating qi, the kind that drifts through the air like atmosphere. The moment that energy enters a person's body, it vanishes. It dissolves into the opponent's own energy."
That was why he only ever used telekinesis for external attacks. If he could seize an opponent's organs with it, he would be a god in this world. And why couldn't he? There was, of course, a reason.
"Hmm… is that so?"
Do-ha extended a hand, and telekinetic force unfurled. Woo Shin flinched at first, thinking it was an attack — then immediately realized Baek Do-ha was simply testing the theory.
A soft hiss.
"He's right."
The qi he'd been controlling vanished without a trace. Do-ha nodded. More precisely, it wasn't dissolving into the opponent's cultivated energy — it was being absorbed into the fundamental life force every living being possessed. Innate True Qi.
"Now do you get it?"
"Ah… if I just modified this a little, I think I could…"
With a slight alteration, he might not be able to extend the duration much — but for a brief instant, it should be possible.
"Letting your guard down?!"
The moment Do-ha crossed his arms and turned his head, Woo Shin launched his assault. Getting complacent after barely a minute of conversation!
A howling rush of force.
"Hey. Hold still for a second."
Do-ha lightly stamped his foot, and shards of stone rose into the air.
A low hum of power. Finger Flick Technique.
THUD!
"Wh—what?!"
Struck by the stone fragments, Woo Shin reeled in panic. They'd been so small he'd simply taken the hit — and now he couldn't move at all.
"R—release this!"
"Ah, for crying out loud."
A sharp flick. A whistling streak. A soft impact.
Sealed at the mute acupoint, Woo Shin's body shuddered as he desperately tried to force words out.
"If I do it like this…"
Do-ha was already lost in thought, mixing various energies together on his own, completely absorbed.
The front door creaked open.
"Woo Shin-nim. I've sent all the fans outside—?!!"
One of Woo Shin's subordinates stepped inside, took one look at the wreckage, and nearly jumped out of his skin. The house was warded with sound-blocking magic — unless a hole punched through the ceiling or a wall collapsed, nothing that happened inside leaked out. He hadn't known a fight was raging until the moment he walked in.
Footsteps pounded across the floor.
"Who the hell are you?!"
"Shut it."
A flick of the fingers. A screaming whistle of air.
THUD!
As the subordinate charged, Do-ha casually flicked his finger and struck him dead-center in the forehead with the Finger Flick Technique.
The man crumpled.
"……."
Woo Shin shot him a look of pure contempt. He himself was immobilized, true — but at least he'd put up some kind of fight before ending up like this. What was that idiot doing? Ranked among the Divine 200, and he just charged in completely unguarded?
A soft whisper of energy.
"Hmm. Would this work?"
Do-ha, still mixing energies, glanced at Woo Shin. He wanted to test this — and conveniently, an excellent practice dummy was sitting right in front of him.
A rush of force. A tiny tick.
"?!!!"
The telekinesis slipped inside his body and brushed his heart with the barest touch — and Woo Shin's eyes bulged wide enough to fall out of his skull. Telekinesis was supposed to vanish the instant it entered a body. It should never have been able to reach the heart. And yet, for the briefest fraction of a second, it had grazed the very tip of his heart.
"Ah… it disappears right away."
Woo Shin trembled violently.
"?"
Unable to move, unable to speak, his eyes bloodshot and his whole body shaking — Do-ha tilted his head. Normally, when someone sealed at a pressure point got bloodshot eyes like that, it wasn't because they were trying to move. It was because they were trying to say something.
"You want to talk? Just hold it in. I already know you'd just make a racket. It touched your heart for a split second, right? I felt it too, so sit tight."
Do-ha turned away without a care. Since he was the one wielding the telekinesis, the sensation had come through crystal clear.
Six hours later.
A rush of force. A tiny tick.
"Ah, still not…"
"……."
After hours of continuously modifying the telekinesis, Do-ha scratched his head and sighed. Woo Shin, who had been forced to watch the entire process, wore an expression of utter defeat. Six hours of being unable to move or speak had left him simply resigned to his fate.
"Mixing it with magic doesn't seem to work."
Better to try modifying it with martial arts alone. The first time the telekinesis had touched an organ, he'd used a single pure energy. After that, progress had stalled, so he'd been blending various energies — but even then, the best he could manage was the briefest graze.
Ah… wait.
A thought struck him. He'd been adding energy after energy, and it kept vanishing. What if he did the opposite — what if he stripped energy away?
Do-ha moved his hands, beginning to weave telekinesis together with a single martial art. Careful control was essential — one wrong move and the technique would devour the qi entirely.
Mine is too strong. I'll use something else…
Star Absorbing Great Art.
He mixed the Star Absorbing Great Art into the telekinesis. He'd considered using his own Talhon-heupseong-daebup, but that was far too powerful.
Now the balance is right.
Do-ha nodded as the telekinesis and the Star Absorbing Great Art settled into harmony. Now, the moment this telekinesis entered an opponent's body, the Star Absorbing Great Art would begin devouring the surrounding energy — and the telekinesis would no longer dissolve into the target's qi.
"Let's see if the theory holds…"
Do-ha deployed the telekinesis once more, and Woo Shin exhaled a weary sigh. How much longer did he have to endure this?
A soft whisper of power — then a crushing grip.
"?!!"
"That's it. Nailed it."
As he clenched the heart with telekinesis, Do-ha smiled — and Woo Shin's vacant expression transformed into pure shock. Just now, something had squeezed his heart tight. Not hard enough to burst it — more like a hand gently closing around it. Until now, it had only been the lightest tap at the edges. This was a full, deliberate grip.
Even with further refinement, two full seconds would be a stretch.
If he amplified the Star Absorbing Great Art's energy to extend the duration, the telekinesis itself would be consumed. The absolute maximum was somewhere between 1.8 and 1.9 seconds. But even that was an extraordinary harvest. In battles between masters, dozens of exchanges flashed by in a single second. Against Demon Kings, life and death were decided in the span of one breath. A single second could flip the entire tide of a fight.
"Hey. Thanks to you, I just got something incredibly valuable."
Do-ha smiled and patted Woo Shin on the shoulder. Thanks to this guy's power, he'd acquired telekinesis itself. The stronger the opponent, the shorter the duration — but even so, an ability like this could keep an enemy constantly off-balance.
You stand up from a chair and your knee throbs, or your ankle twinges — what then? You don't collapse, but it's damn uncomfortable, isn't it? Telekinesis worked the same way in combat: it made the enemy miserable.
And of course, against a weak opponent, I could just crush the heart and kill them outright.
A soft series of clicks. Woo Shin collapsed where he sat as the pressure-point seals released, all strength draining from his body.
"You helped me get something good, so consider this repayment. I'll spare your life."
Originally, if the man hadn't paid him, Do-ha had planned to cut his head off and go home. Woo Shin hadn't personally harmed him — but he had been covering for those landowners. Still, what Do-ha had gained was valuable enough to forgive even that.
Do-ha turned his back — and Woo Shin dropped to his knees without a word.
"?"
"What are you doing?"
"Master!"
"……What the hell kind of nonsense is this all of a sudden."
Woo Shin calling him Master out of nowhere made Do-ha's brow furrow. Had six hours of pressure-point seals driven the man insane…?
"Please… please take me as your disciple! Teach me the telekinesis you just used!"
Woo Shin stared up at Do-ha with glittering eyes. The realm he had longed for. The dream he had chased. The absolute peak of telekinesis he had so desperately wanted — and the man standing before him had just shown it to him.
"I'll give you everything I own. If you tell me to crawl on the ground like a dog, I'll do it. Just teach me the telekinetic technique you demonstrated."
Woo Shin slammed his forehead against the floor and begged.