Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: 19530305 (3)
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***
Flesh was sliced open, and blood sprayed.
The black blade narrowly missed the carotid artery. If it had been even a fraction slower, that strike would have severed his neck outright.
Chicken Head clutched his throat with his left hand and swung his right toward the sword aiming for it once more.
!!
The impact of mana-infused fist clashing against sword shook the space itself. Rather than enduring the shock, Chicken Head used the shockwave to leap back, widening the distance.
Thud—he landed atop Pig Head's corpse, glaring at Yeomyeong with burning eyes as he demanded,
"Who the hell are you? How do you know Flying Leg Art, even up to its secret techniques? Even Jeon Yong-seop, that traitorous bastard, never mastered True Strike. So how..."
Chicken Head trailed off there.
The opponent's calm indifference to the gunfire and magical shockwaves from behind, the murderous intent gleaming in those golden, lustrous pupils, and the fury seeping through it all.
"...You're not someone I can reason with. Guess I'll have to rip it straight out of your brain—"
Yeomyeong gave him no more time to yap. He unleashed sword energy while stepping into Flying Leg Art.
Chicken Head grinned as if he'd been waiting for it. In the next instant, his body swelled massively, spewing out an enormous surge of mana.
A transformation?
Unlike the Horse Head he'd seen at the academy, this one's change happened in the blink of an eye.
His bulk nearly doubled, and new arms sprouted from his shoulders—all in just over a second.
By the time Yeomyeong's sword reached him, the bastard had already completed his transformation and was swinging razor-sharp claws.
Creeeang—!
Sword met claws in collision, followed immediately by arms whipping out to smash fists together. Wave Yang Art warped mana clashed, shoving the air aside.
Using that split-second vacuum as their cue, the two superhumans unleashed a barrage on each other.
Four hands, two feet. Chicken Head's razor-sharp talons and claws moved in unison, as if to shred Yeomyeong to pieces.
A relentless assault reminiscent of a meat grinder.
Yeomyeong wove through it with Wave Yang Art in his left hand and Nine Palace Sword energy cloaking his right-hand sword.
His sword deflected claws, his hand blade snapped talons.
The precarious, all the more brutal exchange didn't last long. Chicken Head gaped his beak wide and began charging a red beam.
The beam erupting from his maw and Yeomyeong's fist smashing into his beak happened almost simultaneously.
Kwaaa!!
Chicken Head's head snapped back, the beam scorching empty air, but Yeomyeong couldn't follow up.
In blocking the beam, he'd overextended his fist, letting Chicken Head's claw plunge deep into his side.
A wound that would straddle life and death for any normal human.
Yeomyeong ignored it and swung his sword, stabbing at Chicken Head's throat.
Gahk— Chicken Head screamed, hurling Yeomyeong far away.
It was a blow even another superhuman would struggle to react to, yet Yeomyeong twisted midair like a dandelion seed caught in a gale, landing lightly with a thud.
Seeing that, Chicken Head spat in disbelief,
"You've abandoned your humanity too, huh?"
Yeomyeong answered not with words but by simultaneously invoking Mariji Heavenly Divine Art and Black Wing Style.
As golden feather-like mana rippled around him, Chicken Head spat blood and sneered,
"Yeah, a monster, that's it."
The two, having already regenerated their wounds, launched into round two.
Over a dozen ice spikes bloomed around Yeomyeong's face, while Chicken Head gathered different spells in each of his four palms.
Weakness, blindness, pain, deceleration.
Just before the four spells completed, Yeomyeong kicked off the ground alongside his ice spikes.
***
The spells didn't complete. It was due to the ice spikes homing in on precise weak points.
The moment he moved mana to weave spells into his arms and the air, three ice spikes poured toward the gathering mana.
One or two could be ignored, but the final three were the problem.
Just the right amount—not too many, not too few—to ruin the spells.
What to call it? Experience? No, sharpness? No, this wasn't on that level.
This was talent. Innate genius forbidden to ordinary folk.
How the hell did a guy like that end up as Korea's enemy? Swallowing his rising doubts, Chicken Head swung his leg.
Creeeang—!
A stinging shock raced up his claw that blocked the sword.
No joy in the block. Accounting for superhuman speed, a combo would follow immediately.
And sure enough, his opponent's sword curved like a snake toward his lower body.
As if anticipating it, Chicken Head gaped his beak and fired a curse beam.
Kwaaa—! By the time the beam scored the ground, Yeomyeong had already pulled back far.
"Crazy bastard."
Chicken Head growled through ragged breaths, glaring at his foe. No idea when he'd snatched it, but Yeomyeong held his severed talon.
He'd lost the attrition war.
Chicken Head scanned the surroundings to mask his anxiety.
Far down the stairwell floor, two women and the Horse Heads were locked in fierce combat—dead even, by all appearances.
Was it the hammer-wielding woman's freakish skill? Or the threatening support fire from rifles levitated by telekinesis?
Those factored in, but the biggest issue was the prismatic barriers blooming every time the Horse Heads cast spells.
Looking closer, the barriers came from small ivory rods floating via telekinesis. What the hell were those?
Unicorn horns, maybe?
The moment that inexplicable unease washed over Chicken Head.
Yeomyeong vanished from his spot.
By the time Chicken Head snapped to, Yeomyeong's sword was already at his nose.
Shatter—! He hastily deployed a barrier, but it didn't even buy time.
Damn it all.
Even as the sword plunged into his chest, Chicken Head flailed legs and arms to smash Yeomyeong.
Blows that could pulverize a man literally struck each other.
Feathers burst, blood sprayed from Yeomyeong's body.
At this point, anyone would pull back for distance, but Yeomyeong pressed in relentlessly, exploiting gaps.
One of Chicken Head's arms severed, a massive hole torn in Yeomyeong's thigh—yet the gap between them only shrank.
This son of a bitch—wants to settle it here?
Chicken Head suppressed his boiling bloodlust. His shoulders bore Excellency's will and the lives of seventy million Koreans.
He clenched his beak and swung his left arm. Yeomyeong, as if waiting, sliced it off and aimed for the neck.
Just before his head came off, Chicken Head completed his spell.
"—Corpse Explosion."
Target: the severed left hand.
Boom—! Bone and flesh erupted, shoving Yeomyeong and Chicken Head apart.
Pushed all the way to the Horse Heads, Chicken Head propped himself with the arm on his shoulder and sprang up fast.
"Arm!"
At his shout, one Horse Head sliced off his own arm and tossed it over.
Chicken Head pressed it to the stump—sss—smoke rose as it reattached.
He frowned at Yeomyeong regenerating similarly. The thigh hole was closing faster than his own.
What the hell was he? Some beastkin hybrid?
"...America's handiwork?"
No answer still. Yeomyeong flicked blood from his blade with a golden-eyed glint, then gripped it two-handed.
The classic sword stance.
Prepping that monstrous sword energy from the start?
Recalling the Comet Sword, Chicken Head drew up his own mana.
But in the next moment, what bloomed from Yeomyeong's sword wasn't stellar light, but milky-white sword energy.
What?
Staring at the massively condensed mana, Chicken Head felt inexplicable deja vu.
That sword energy—he'd definitely seen it...
"...Incheon Butcher?"
It matched exactly the swordsmanship he'd begged the Korean government for aid to acquire.
Just looking at it choked him, suffocating—milky-white sword energy.
But how? The Incheon Butcher was supposed to be at the academy...
That instant.
A realization flashed through his mind.
The string of failed Earth ops, the superhuman who'd coincidentally thwarted them every time, the Incheon Butcher, the academy, and... the fine stud the minister bragged about.
"No way?"
Coincidence or fate, just then a crack split the hammer woman's mask amid her fight with the Horse Heads.
The face—and those blue eyes—peeking through were all too familiar. Rebellious eyes any Shepherd would know.
"Black Sheep...? Then you...!"
As realizations crossed, Yeomyeong slowly slashed the air.
***
Yeomyeong didn't know the true essence of the swordsmanship he'd stolen from the Player.
It was hollow bluster at best, but usable enough for stolen goods, so he'd kept at it. That was all.
Yet for some reason, throughout the fight with Chicken Head, his swordsmanship had begun absorbing other martial arts, taking shape.
Like water filling an empty cup.
Of course, it didn't fill to the brim. The essence still hid its face, as if the time wasn't right.
Thus, all that rode his swing was a mere glimpse of insight.
Whoooosh—
The milky-white sword energy cleaved empty air.
The next instant, red lines etched across the Shepherds' bodies. On arms, waists, necks.
"What the fu—"
Before a Horse Head could finish, shluck—crimson blood burst from the lines.
Sword strikes overpowering the Shepherds' regeneration.
Two Horse Heads dropped dead instantly; Chicken Head's waist split, entrails spilling out.
"Gahk!"
Combat halted. Even Neti and Seti paused, mouths agape at Yeomyeong's feat.
Yeomyeong himself felt no joy or awe. Suppressing the roiling mana in his body drained him utterly.
'Can't use this recklessly.'
Only after mana normalized did he lower his sword and step forward. The neutralized Shepherds couldn't respond or flee.
They just glared with twisted faces.
"N-Now I remember... Ch-Cheon Yeomyeong. Y-You fooled us completely..."
Yeomyeong didn't reply. No point conversing.
Deception and exploitation—that was the Korean government's specialty, wasn't it?
"H-Ha...! D-Don't know how you got here, but... big mistake. The moment Excellency learns of you... you'll...!"
"What're you gonna tell him? You're all dying here."
Seti cut off Chicken Head.
Two Horse Heads left, Chicken Head regenerating in real time—yet she was certain of victory.
"Black Sheep... you foolish livestock. Always so defiant. That day, we should've used you instead of the white one..."
"..."
Pathetic provocation. Yeomyeong, now right before them, raised his sword without bothering to listen.
Chicken Head, wounds unhealed, seemed done for...
"Long live the Republic of Korea!"
One "dead" Horse Head suddenly stabbed his own throat.
Self-destruct? No.
Blood spurting from the severed Horse Head neck rocketed through air, forming a red, translucent barrier between Yeomyeong and the Shepherds.
Clang—!!
Yeomyeong's sword struck it next; the barrier shuddered, absorbing not just the impact but the mana too.
Rebound like striking dragon scales.
"...Pointless."
Yeomyeong frowned. He could smash this barrier given time, but time was the issue.
And sure enough, Chicken Head didn't waste it. From within, he swung at the surviving Horse Heads.
"A mighty nation is always built on patriots' blood."
The Horse Heads offered their necks without resistance.
Heads severed, crimson blood sprayed, layering in air to weave another spell.
Ziiing—
A small hole, barely big enough for one person.
Pitiful for sacrificing two Horse Heads, but Yeomyeong gritted his teeth.
No one told him, yet he knew: spatial magic, akin to a portal.
"Trying to run now? Don't you dare, you bastard!"
Neti's anti-tank rocket fired, but the barrier held.
Chicken Head alternated glances between the hole and them, then laughed through his beak.
"Cheon Yeomyeong... scapegoat... all of you... will pay the price."
Yeomyeong kept striking; Seti's hammer joined, cracking the barrier—but it endured.
Let him go like this?
Yeomyeong thought anxiously.
If he escaped, not just Seti's sisters at the academy, but everyone else would be in danger.
The Saintess, Korvus, and... Soemiri.
For some reason, recalling Soemiri.
Her words from special class echoed in his head.
『There're plenty of other spells you've taken hits from, right?』
Spells he'd taken?
Yes, he understood and could use spells he'd endured. The fusion of Seti's gift and his own talent.
And the one he'd tanked most...
"...Corpse Explosion."
The moment Yeomyeong's eyes flushed red, the fallen Horse Head corpses around Chicken Head swelled.
***