The Knight's Overwhelming Power
The arena fell into an instant, suffocating silence. Every single person inside had their thoughts frozen in shock.
The murmurs spread like wildfire across the arena. After the endless silence came a wave of buzzing voices, and every single word reached Yusoha’s ears.
She understood their reaction perfectly. After all, she had reacted the same way the first time she saw Eclipse. But they would learn soon enough. They would learn just how overwhelmingly powerful this unassuming knight truly was.
While she was busy scoffing at the crowd’s comments, Eclipse spoke to her.
“Soha.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s no need for you to help. I can handle this alone.”
“…Alright.”
When Eclipse’s words echoed through the arena, the spectators stared at him in utter disbelief. He was seriously claiming he could defeat both Yu Danha and Hidelixius by himself? Some even began muttering that Yusoha must not have any idea how strong her own Guardian Star actually was.
The shock of Yusoha finally summoning her Guardian Star lasted only a moment. Yu Danha quickly remembered that this was, after all, still a tournament match. She looked at Eclipse with cold, calculating eyes.
She couldn’t sense any mana radiating from his body. In that case, there was no way he could stand against Hidelixius. The giant was a full ten meters tall. A single swing of his fist would crumple that worn-out knight like a tin can.
Yet despite that, the knight called Eclipse showed no sign of drawing his weapon. He simply stared at Hidelixius with unshakable confidence. Seeing this, Yu Danha assumed he was hiding something and took careful aim.
Hidelixius also seemed irritated by Eclipse’s dismissive attitude. After absorbing the Fragment of Knowledge, both he and Yu Danha had grown significantly stronger. The giant took a heavy step forward, ready to charge the moment his summoner gave the order.
The moment the ten-meter-tall giant moved, the entire arena shook. Even so, Eclipse remained perfectly still, as if he were watching children perform some amusing little trick.
Having never been so thoroughly ignored before, Yu Danha finished aiming and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The anti-materiel sniper round screamed through the air, hurtling straight toward Eclipse’s head. But he simply flicked his hand, deflecting the bullet with the back of his gauntlet.
The speed was so absurd that Yu Danha watched her own mana-infused bullet get swatted aside before she could even trigger its explosion.
“…What?”
He had knocked it away before the mana could even detonate? Yu Danha was stunned by the impossible feat.
“I see. So that’s how it is,” Eclipse muttered. He clenched both fists. There was no need to draw his greatsword. In fact, drawing it would be dangerous. His control over his power still wasn’t perfect.
If he pulled out his blade and swung it even once, those two wouldn’t survive.
Right after Yusoha had summoned him, Eclipse had realized something inexplicable had happened to his sword. An absurd amount of power now dwelled within it. And that power was not something he could wield recklessly.
That was why he had sealed his greatsword. The moment he drew and swung it, catastrophe would follow. But he could still control his own body. So he stepped forward with clenched fists.
Kwaaaaang!
The noise that erupted was far greater than when Hidelixius had taken his threatening step. The ground exploded outward.
Yu Danha and Hidelixius both grimaced at the deafening sound. In that instant, Eclipse vanished from their sight.
“…Huh?”
[Where…?]
Both of them instinctively looked down, and that was when they finally spotted him.
“You…!”
The word “bastard” never left her mouth. The moment they located Eclipse, his fist was already flying forward.
Kwaaaaang!
A single punch. That was all it took.
Hidelixius’s massive body was sent flying across the arena, slamming into the barrier installed for the audience’s safety. Yu Danha, who had been riding on his shoulder, suffered the same fate. The overwhelming impact left her mind reeling.
“Cough!”
A ten-meter giant being sent flying and smashed into a wall by a single punch was simply too surreal. But since both Hidelixius and Yu Danha were A-class Awakened and Guardian Star, they didn’t lose consciousness. They staggered back to their feet despite the brutal blow.
From that single exchange, both of them understood. This Guardian Star possessed impossible strength.
Yu Danha stowed her sniper rifle and pulled out a machine gun. She began pouring every ounce of her mana into its ammunition. What followed was a storm of bullets.
Each round, packed with explosive mana, sprayed toward Eclipse like a raging tempest. But even as the bullets detonated in a chain of explosions, Eclipse remained completely unharmed. He charged forward at a speed that defied human perception.
Every time his powerful foot struck the ground, the arena floor shattered and thunderous booms echoed. He took the barrage of bullets head-on, yet not a single scratch appeared on his ancient armor despite the violent storm of mana.
He crossed the vast distance between one end of the arena and the other in the blink of an eye. The moment he appeared before Yu Danha and Hidelixius again, the giant swung a mana-infused gauntlet at him.
Kwaaaaang!
With an ear-splitting crash, Hidelixius’s gauntlet shattered to pieces and his massive arm was knocked away. Once again, it had been a single punch.
As the giant staggered backward from the devastating impact, Eclipse kicked off the ground, leaped into the air, and seized Hidelixius by the throat. With monstrous grip strength, he grabbed the giant’s incredibly thick neck, lifted his entire body with one hand, and slammed him back into the ground.
Kwaaaaang!
[Cough!]
The brutal impact knocked Hidelixius unconscious, forcing him to be unsummoned. The recoil from the unsummoning hit Yu Danha as well. Blood spilled from her mouth as she collapsed.
“That’s… impossible.”
She could only utter those dumbfounded words.
The spectators who had witnessed the scene were left completely speechless. A ten-meter giant being picked up in one hand by a knight who wasn’t even two meters tall and slammed into the ground was simply too unreal.
Amid the stunned silence, Eclipse walked over to Yusoha and spoke.
“It’s over, Soha.”
“…Y-yeah.”
Even Yusoha, who had been watching, was just as shaken. She had expected Eclipse to overwhelm Yu Danha and Hidelixius. After all, she and her escort team had been utterly helpless against him. But she had never imagined it would be this one-sided.
Who was Yu Danha? Setting aside the humiliating defeat she had suffered at Yusoha’s hands last year, she was still a high-ranking competitor within Hwanryeong. And yet she had been smashed into a wall by a single punch from Eclipse.
And that wasn’t all. The barrage of bullets that had made countless Awakened tremble in fear had failed to leave even a mark on him. Eclipse hadn’t even drawn the greatsword that appeared to be his primary weapon.
When most Guardian Stars were summoned to Earth, the weapons they had used in their previous lives were granted power proportional to the hardships they had endured. In other words, Eclipse’s broken greatsword was essentially a divine artifact empowered by the weight of his past suffering.
Just like Hidelixius’s shield, which no ordinary weapon could even scratch, and his formidable gauntlet.
And yet… Eclipse hadn’t used any of those weapons and had still crushed Yu Danha with ridiculous ease.
Yusoha felt a shiver run through her entire body. The thrilling sensation left goosebumps rising across her skin. She lightly gripped her own arm and spoke to him.
“You worked hard. Really.”
“It wasn’t much work. Honestly, the humans of this world are quite weak. I had high expectations since she was your sister, but she wasn’t even enough for a warm-up.”
“……”
Eclipse answered Yusoha’s bright smile rather dryly. In response, she simply beamed even wider.
While Yusoha was smiling radiantly, the arena remained wrapped in silence. But that silence didn’t last long.
Yusoha’s Guardian Star, who had been absent for ten long years, had finally appeared. And not only that, he had single-handedly crushed Yu Danha and Hidelixius with ease. The crowd began to erupt with excitement.
There was only one thing the public demanded from Awakened and their Guardian Stars: strength.
And Yusoha and Eclipse had more than fulfilled that condition. They had more than earned the thunderous cheers now filling the arena.
It was a roar Yusoha had never heard before. There was no jeering or insults, only pure admiration.
Naturally, Yusoha basked in the sight with delight. Eclipse smiled at how happy his contractor looked. Of course, the smile remained hidden behind his old helmet.
“Hoo…”
Yu Hyeok and Yu Hajun stared at the screen in utter disbelief. Their eyes were fixed on Eclipse, who had just displayed such astonishing prowess.
“Does that… even make sense?”
Even the legendary Yu Hyeok was left speechless at the sight of his granddaughter’s Guardian Star. Since he knew exactly how strong Yu Danha was, the shock hit him especially hard.
“I had a feeling, but still…”
Rumeorn looked somewhat surprised, but her reaction was far milder than that of her husband Yu Hyeok or her son Yu Hajun.
“Do you know something?” Yu Hyeok asked.
“Soha didn’t want to reveal it, so I kept quiet, but when I went to see her earlier, I caught a glimpse of her Guardian Star. He was strong.”
“How strong?”
“I couldn’t even measure it. He wasn’t emitting any mana at all.”
“Then how could you tell he was strong?”
“It was a feeling. He gave off the same aura as those who had reached the end of the sky back in my original world.”
“Good heavens.”
Yu Hyeok was stunned. Yu Hajun looked equally shocked. In Rumeorn’s world, those who had reached the end of the sky were beings who had transcended the limits of existence itself. And one of them was Rumeorn.
In other words, she was saying that Yusoha’s Guardian Star was at least on the same level as herself.
After hearing her words, Yu Hyeok nodded slowly.
“I wondered why Soha’s Guardian Star hadn’t appeared for ten years. Now it makes sense. She must have been trying to summon something truly extraordinary.”
“I think so too. Everyone was shocked when Soha first awakened her mana, remember?”
“That’s right. They even called her the genius of the century back then.”
When Yusoha had first awakened her mana, everyone around her had been stunned. She had inherited Rumeorn’s mana, handled it with mastery despite her young age, and possessed an absolutely enormous mana reserve.
Everyone had been dying to know what kind of Guardian Star such a child would summon.
As Yu Hajun recalled that time, he suddenly remembered a recent theory that matched the offhand comment Yu Hyeok had just made.
“…Come to think of it, Father, have you heard about the recent hypothesis?”
“What hypothesis?”
“The one suggesting that Guardian Stars might be chosen according to the rank of their Awakened. If that theory is true, it fits Soha’s situation perfectly.”
“I’ve heard of it. Where was it from again? The Awakened Academy?”
Yu Hajun nodded.
“Yes. If the hypothesis is correct, the reason Soha couldn’t summon a Guardian Star until now might be because there simply wasn’t one who matched her level. And the moment a being who met the conditions appeared…”
“She summoned him?”
“That’s the only conclusion I can reach right now, Father. Though of course, it’s still just a hypothesis.”
“It’s more convincing than simple speculation.”
“Isn’t it?”
Yu Hyeok let out a hearty laugh.
“I should take a look at the paper that proposed this hypothesis.”
Yu Hajun nodded.
“I was thinking the same. By the way, it really has been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“What has?”
“Seeing Soha smile like that.”
On the screen, Yusoha was smiling brighter than she had in years. Yu Hajun gazed at her quietly before speaking to Yu Hyeok.
“It’s been years since I’ve seen her smile so brightly… I think I can finally worry a little less.”
“You’re telling me. My head’s been aching for a while now. This is good. Ah, but what about Danha…? She’ll be alright, won’t she?”
“I’m not entirely sure…”
Only then did they remember Yu Danha, who had been smashed into the barrier. Their expressions hardened.
“I’ll contact the medical support team right away.”
“Hurry.”
“Yes, sir.”
Come to think of it, this wasn’t the time to simply celebrate the appearance of Yusoha’s Guardian Star. Yu Hajun quickly called the medical team and spoke briefly.
“I see. Understood.”
After ending the call, Yu Hajun turned to Yu Hyeok with a relieved expression.
“She was injured, but it’s not life-threatening. The medical team says she’ll recover quickly once they treat her.”
“That’s a relief. It seems Soha’s Guardian Star held back after all.”
“It appears so.”
Only then could the two men finally relax and rejoice over the fact that Yusoha had summoned her Guardian Star. Rumeorn, who had been listening silently, also smiled softly as the corners of her mouth lifted in quiet joy.