Chapter 363 (1/2)
Act 5
Clang, claaang—!
Gu-wuwuwu—
Swords clashed, and sword slashes landed everywhere.
Ku-ruru, rumble—
The ground overturned, and the grandstands collapsed. Huge waves of flames swept across the battle arena, and the storm of magical energy lashed out to shove away the flames.
Clang, screeeeek—
Crack—!
Chun Ha-jin’s body was roughly shoved back.
He strengthened his leg muscles and barely managed to regain his balance, but it still proved to be inadequate. He was having a hard time understanding just what was going on here right now.
“Dammit!”
Without a doubt, the size of his aura was greater, but in a frontal collision, it would always be him on the losing end.
The reason for that was simple.
“What is up with this ridiculous strength…?” he thought.
Indeed, he was being forced back simply through physical strength alone. However, that only made it so much harder for Chun Ha-jin to understand because all his life, he believed that being weaker in terms of physical strength could always be overcome through the application of the power called “internal force.”
No, wait—that was not the end of the story either.
Piiiht—
Sliiiice—
Chun Ha-jin reflexively swung his sword and was immediately rewarded with the impact force from a sword strike that numbed his hand. He couldn’t even see the speed of the attack.
He realized that his opponent’s power and speed were both far superior to his. Nonetheless, Chun Ha-jin believed that he held the advantage of one thing.
“I must manipulate this fight into a battle of inner strength!”
His power was a result of stealing from tens of thousands of people for the past dozen-plus years. Only by turning this fight into the battle of inner strength did he stand a chance at winning here.
Pounce—!
Chun Ha-jin’s figure shot forward.
He might not be able to keep up in terms of speed, but he was still a martial artist who spent his entire lifetime repeatedly fighting countless life-or-death battles with his sword by his side.
Even if his opponent was faster than him, it would still be possible for him to catch up by determining where the opponent would move to next, especially more so, if he relied on the internal force currently overflowing within him.
[Heaven Murdering Grand Strike]
[Death-Force Absorption—Heavenly Demon Silhouette]
An image of a giant demon suddenly materialized behind Chun Ha-jin. The massive aura sleeping in him erupted at once outside his body and entered his sword before pouncing on Su-hyeun.
Su-hyeun felt as if a massive evil phantom was leading a tsunami wave to pounce on him, but he calmly pointed his sword at it.
“I can see it.”
Shu-wuwu—
Su-hyeun’s vision could clearly pick up the slender gap emitting a soft light amid the gigantic wave of energy, and he found no need to hesitate nor evade at this point. All he had to do was to cut it down.
Clack—
“Slice it apart—”
A lone strand of wind enveloped the sword when Su-hyeun softly whispered.
“Palm Leaf—”
Vroooooph—!
His descending sword unleashed that lone strand of wind and sliced apart the atmosphere. As a result, the tsunami in the image of the evil phantom was instantly split apart to reveal Chun Ha-jin’s stunned figure right behind it.
“Crazy son of a…!”
Chun Ha-jin’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and right at that moment, his sword loudly clashed against Su-hyeun’s own.
CLAAANG—!
Tuu-kwaaaaaahk—
The vestige of magical energy still remaining in the air swept across the surroundings. Meanwhile, the sword strikes couldn’t cut either of the men and were blocked by the walls of energy, utterly devastating the poor arena instead.
Creak, creaaaak—
“I did it!”
In the middle of all this, Chun Ha-jin was smiling faintly.
He no longer lost out in strength, all thanks to him raising his inner force to the absolute max and going on a series of offenses earlier. As long as they were locking swords in this manner, Chun Ha-jin could turn this battle into the fight of inner force, just as he wanted.
Wu-wu-woong—
The inner force entered Chun Ha-jin’s sword.
The power that Su-hyeun knew as “magical energy,” the power and life force stolen from hundreds of thousands of people over many years, focused on one point and began howling out through Chun Ha-jin’s sword.
That magical energy was gradually traveling through Su-hyeun’s sword toward him.
“What are you grinning about?”
Giii-iiiing—
Su-hyeun also proceeded to rouse up his own energy.
The battle of inner force was the name given to a type of battle back in Chun Ha-jin’s former world where duelists locked swords and clashed in a rather straightforward manner by using their inner energies.
“You want to challenge me in a contest of inner force?”
To Chun Ha-jin, this action seemed incomprehensible. He assumed that Su-hyeun wasn’t a dummy, so he should’ve fully realized that his advantage lay with physical strength and agility, yet this? Therefore, Chun Ha-jin was absolutely confident that he would never lose in the battle of inner force.
The corners of Chun Ha-jin’s lips arched up, “Not sure whether you’re brave or stupid, but—”
But right at that moment…
Cough—!
Chun Ha-jin reflexively coughed out without even realizing that he did. A lump of blood came flying out at the same time and landed on Su-hyeun’s chest.
“What the hell…?”
An internal injury?
Su-hyeun’s energy that traveled through his sword and entered Chun Ha-jin’s body proceeded to completely wreck the latter’s inside by blowing up and tearing apart his internal organs.
More blood threatened to gush out of his mouth, but Chun Ha-jin barely managed to suppress that and hurriedly retreated a few steps back. Just as he lowered his sword, his innards tumbled greatly once more.
Bleeeergh!
Drip, tumble—
Lumps of blood and bits of organs spewed out of his mouth.
Chun Ha-jin’s eyes shot open wide in disbelief, and he stared at the blood he had vomited just now. This blood, in its sickly black color, served as ample proof that his innards had been thoroughly damaged by now.
“Having lots of something doesn’t mean a whole lot, now does it? Do you fight while relying only on your big body?”
“What dogsh*t are you…?”
“As a result of you focusing so much on making your power bigger, both your magical concentration and density have become just too insufficient in the end. If you were intending to simply enlarge its size to a ridiculous degree to crush your foes, then too bad for you, that makes it easier for me to deal with you.”
To put it simply, Chun Ha-jin boasted a magical energy reserve with an impressive “count,” but in reality, it was nothing more than half-cooked.