Chapter 149
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: Arrrgh!
It was precisely aimed.
Toward the exact spot where Ha Mu-baek and Gong Mu-hyeok were standing.
When had he prepared something like that?
Not just one, but a full four of them.
They fired simultaneously.
Though internal energy was required to trigger them, he had solved that with a mechanism using silken threads.
By gripping it in hand and channeling internal energy, the energy would travel along the silken threads all the way to the trigger button.
At Gong Mu-hyeok's shout, Ha Mu-baek's gaze shot toward the ceiling.
And there he saw the four weapons that had made him contemplate death.
Oh Jang-ro's gaze, who had just begun to deploy his defensive formation, also locked onto that spot.
Their faces drained of all color.
The three elders who had leaped into action at Gong Do-hyeok's command, gripping the bizarre weapons, now glared at him with faces twisted in betrayal—but it was already too late.
Oh Jang-ro hurled themselves forward without hesitation.
They had to get as far from the target as possible.
Gong Mu-hyeok's face, who had unleashed a shout with all his might, also turned deathly pale.
He had personally witnessed Ha Mu-baek surviving the explosion of a single Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclap.
But back then, it had been just one.
Now, four of them were poised to spew hellish flames toward a single point.
Even though he had created them himself, Gong Mu-hyeok couldn't even begin to imagine the power when four overlapped and detonated at once.
Gong Do-hyeok looked down at Gong Mu-hyeok and Ha Mu-baek with a face full of leisure.
Ha Mu-baek drew his sword.
It happened in an instant.
And just as he swung it toward the air at a speed too fast for the eye to follow, the four Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclaps spat fire simultaneously.
Kuwaaaang!
The sword, infused with pure white sword force, moved at a velocity impossible to track with the naked eye.
A massive barrier of sword force formed without allowing even the slightest gap.
A sword curtain.
A sword curtain of sword force, no less.
The sword curtain, which first seemed to form a flat plane, expanded into a hemispherical dome covering Ha Mu-baek and Gong Mu-hyeok from above.
Kuwaaaang! Kuang! Kuaaaang!
With deafening explosions reverberating through the grand hall, crimson flames engulfed Ha Mu-baek and Gong Mu-hyeok.
The explosive blaze burned fiercer, refusing to die out, searing everything in unrelenting fury.
The grand hall shook violently, as if the pillars might crumble at any moment.
Dust and debris rained down from the shuddering pillars.
Gong Do-hyeok watched the crimson inferno with emotionless eyes.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
It wasn't indifference.
He was barely suppressing his joy.
Wi Sang-hyeong stared at the scene before him with a shocked expression.
He hadn't known.
Gong Do-hyeok hadn't said a word to him either.
That such devices were installed in the grand hall.
When on earth had he done it?
It had to be Gong Do-hyeok's solo handiwork.
He had known that all five elders would be discarded as pawns against the enemy.
He had thought it was a borrowed knife ploy.
But to simply sweep them all away like this?
The explosive power of four Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclaps combining was beyond imagination.
The grand hall's tremors grew ever more violent.
There was no sign of them subsiding.
Would they calm a bit once the explosion ended?
"The grand hall is sturdy. I even planned to rebuild it from scratch."
True to its status as the heart of the Myriad Things Alliance, the building was constructed with utmost durability.
It shook, but nothing broke.
Perhaps because the blast was concentrated in one spot.
A tremendous explosion raged at that single point, but its range wasn't all that wide.
Gong Do-hyeok had calculated and installed the devices to ensure Ha Mu-baek's complete elimination.
Thanks to that, Oh Jang-ro all survived—for now.
Though some had lost legs or an arm.
Two of them looked on the verge of death without immediate treatment.
Gong Do-hyeok didn't spare them a single glance.
He simply stared at the spot where scarlet flames roiled.
Anticipating what would emerge when the blaze finally faded.
The surviving Oh Jang-ro gazed at the inferno with faces gripped by terror.
They couldn't even remember how they had escaped that place.
Four overlapping explosions.
It was incomparable to the single test firing they had witnessed before.
A conflagration that made even the fires of hell seem laughable.
When those flames died down, it felt like nothing would remain there.
"Uwaaaah."
Gong Mu-hyeok was so shocked he couldn't even form proper words.
Frozen in place, he was overwhelmed by the scene around him.
Crimson flames surrounded him on all sides.
Billowing as if ready to annihilate everything in an instant, surging toward him.
Yet not a single one touched him.
Ha Mu-baek swung his sword tirelessly with an impassive face.
The sword curtain formed by his white sword force.
Not even the thinnest wisp of flame crossed the sword curtain's gaps.
All of it was blocked.
Not even a handful of heat made it through.
Despite the blaze bearing heat intense enough to mock the infernos of superheated hells.
Gong Mu-hyeok himself had created the Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclap.
Which made him all too aware of how absurd his current state was.
The immense power of the overlapping blasts, and yet not a single hair on his head was singed.
Twice shocked—first by the power, then by his unscathed survival—Gong Mu-hyeok was left dumbfounded, unable to speak.
Ha Mu-baek regarded the flames seeking to devour him with calm eyes.
'Not bad. Quite powerful.'
One and four were different, after all.
Power exceeding expectations.
Likely due to the overlap.
'But manageable.'
Indeed.
Last time.
The realization from nearly dying to the Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclap.
The wall he had surpassed with that insight.
Without it, this would have been grueling.
The old Ha Mu-baek could have blocked only half this power at most.
He would have managed somehow, but at the cost of exhausting every ounce of strength, pushed to the brink of death.
Now was different.
Even with four overlapping, baring their savage, lethal fangs.
For Ha Mu-baek, it was just a matter of putting in a bit more effort.
Stronger than initially anticipated, but solvable with extra internal energy.
The white sword force shone brighter.
The hemispherical white sword curtain Ha Mu-baek deployed grew even more solid.
Though he swung ceaselessly, it posed no difficulty.
About one-third of a gak (roughly three minutes).
A short time, yet also long.
What trick was this?
Flames blazed in empty air without fuel for that duration.
Considering the blaze's persistence, it was astonishingly long.
Long enough to tire even swinging the sword nonstop.
Most would collapse gasping after a fraction of that time.
Ha Mu-baek showed no change.
Just indifferently swinging his sword.
His breathing remained steady.
Not a drop of sweat.
Even Ha Mu-baek himself was slightly surprised.
He had thought his spar with his master had given him a true measure of his level.
But actual combat proved different.
'Guess I got this strong thanks to it.'
Ha Mu-baek's lips curved faintly upward.
Growing stronger always felt good.
No matter how strong, it was never enough.
To utterly eradicate the Demonic Cult and Blood Cult vermin, he had to grow endlessly.
Amusingly, this time it was thanks to that Demonic Cult pest pushing him past a near-death crisis.
In truth, the previous two wars had been the same.
Blood Cult and Demonic Cult.
Fighting them, overcoming crises—he had grown through it all.
"Tahat! Thrust!"
"Tighten your guard more! Your positioning's off there!"
Shouts of full-throated kiais and rebukes pointing out their flaws.
Sounds faintly reaching Baek Ri-pyeong's ears as he left the Pavilion Lord's quarters toward the Fierce Dragon Dormitory.
'During break?'
The thought crossed Baek Ri-pyeong's mind.
Now in the winter break after the semester's end, there was no reason for group training.
Without realizing, Baek Ri-pyeong's steps turned toward the source of the noise.
It was the grand training ground.
Where Baek Ri-pyeong had trained himself.
Where he had learned shield techniques from Jegal Myeong.
Sure enough, Jegal Myeong stood on the platform.
And those training fervently were...
'Second-year Fierce Dragon Corps.'
Those who had completed Dragon Training Pavilion's curriculum and were soon headed to the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
New Year's Day.
Four days after the first of the year, they would depart for the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
He knew because he would face it himself in a year.
He had assumed they were resting while awaiting assignment.
Some eagerly, some in dread.
But Baek Ri-pyeong's expectations were off.
They sweated profusely in training.
It was the shield art he had learned as a first-year, but different.
Formations had been added.
Not solo against zombies, but two, three, four, five—or more—shields cooperating to block zombies.
Unlike them, Baek Ri-pyeong had already been to the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
Thus, he could recognize the effectiveness of those shield arts and formations.
'Thoroughly focused on defense and survival.'
It had to be.
The Fierce Dragon Corps' role was to block zombie attacks.
Killing zombies was the Demon-Sealing Corps' job.
That was what Baek Ri-pyeong had heard.
Risking life to block: Fierce Dragon Corps.
Earning merits by slaying: Demon-Sealing Corps.
'Unfair.'
The sudden thought.
He knew it intellectually, but seeing second-years train desperately with assignment looming stirred it.
Were the Demon-Sealing Corps working half as hard?
Baek Ri-pyeong's gaze turned toward the Hidden Dragon Corps and Wa Dragon Corps training grounds.
Then he shook his head slightly.
No aura of training anywhere.
Some graduates from Hidden Dragon and Wa Dragon would join Demon-Sealing Corps.
On the same day as Fierce Dragon.
Yet the fourth-years seemed to just be waiting.
Unlike the heated air of the grand training ground, the atmosphere there felt quietly settled.
Baek Ri-pyeong's eyes shifted to Jegal Myeong on the platform.
Hidden Dragon Corps instructor.
Yet pouring his heart into teaching Fierce Dragon Corps.
Despite break ending his official duties.
And that shield art and formation.
He hadn't realized when first learning it.
But after the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest, he knew.
It was a shield art and formation born from thorough study of zombie movements.
Baek Ri-pyeong was certain.
'Instructor Jegal Myeong has been to the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.'
He knew because he had gone too.
Watching the desperate training of second-years soon to leave Dragon Training Pavilion stirred something deep in his chest.
'I don't want to go back.'
The honest sentiment echoing from his heart.
Witnessing that training forced Baek Ri-pyeong to confront his true feelings.
Hidden Dragon instructor Jegal Myeong and second-year Fierce Dragon cadets.
Their intensity shook Baek Ri-pyeong's heart.
After watching a bit longer, Baek Ri-pyeong moved.
His destination changed.
Not Fierce Dragon Dormitory, but Squad Seven of Fierce Dragon Corps' training ground.
To leave the pavilion, he needed Instructor Ha's approval anyway.
With him away.
Better to swing his sword once more than waste time holed up in the dorm.
Just like those desperate, intense seniors.
"Oh? You showed up today?"
Dang Jin-san welcomed Baek Ri-pyeong.
Squad Seven's training ground was already packed.
Dang Jin-san, Dan Mok Un-roe, Nak Woo-jin, Yeon Ha-min, and even Ju Wu-myeong.
A smile spread across Baek Ri-pyeong's face.
'Yeah. This is it.'
The inferno-like blaze gradually lost its ferocity.
The time it had burned already was astonishing.
Anyone versed in fire or gunpowder would never believe it.
As the Myriad Golden Shackles Thunderclap flames finally subsided, the revealed scene...
Gong Do-hyeok bolted up from his throne.
"Th-that, th-that, th-that th-thing..."
A trembling voice.
Gong Do-hyeok stared at the vista before him in utter disbelief.