50. Noble Soul (15)
He had expected Cheolribeon to subdue Soya with ease.
Their abilities were utterly incompatible, and even when they had fought in Aether World Online, there had been countless instances where Cheolribeon had won overwhelmingly.
He had also known that Cheolribeon would notice Baek Yuseol’s presence.
No matter how much he concealed himself, it was impossible to hide completely from a 9-Risk dark mage.
And yet…
“So you’re the one behind Soya?”
He had not expected things to develop like this at all.
With his expression stiffened, Baek Yuseol leaped down in front of Cheolribeon.
No matter how much his physical abilities had improved, he still could not handle mana, so it was entirely possible his knees might shatter from the landing—but for the sake of sticking the coolest landing possible, he controlled Blink with utmost precision.
Tak!
When he landed on the ground, Soya was already half-unconscious, tears and snot pouring from her like a flood.
Normally, because she had once possessed such beautiful looks, it might have felt pitiable to see her reduced to that state…
but strangely enough, he felt no such thing at all.
Instead, it felt satisfying, refreshing.
Perhaps that was only natural, since he had sent her to Cheolribeon precisely to cause this situation.
‘You need to suffer a little more.’
A wretched dark mage who had dared to aim for Iphanel’s heart, and on top of that had caused her noble soul to fall into corruption.
“Hmm, looking at you up close, you’re even more ordinary than I expected. Just a normal high school student.”
“I am a high school student.”
“How boring. You came all this way and you’re still planning to play dumb? This girl’s expression is already telling me the truth.”
Even while twisted in pain, Soya somehow forced her eyes to turn toward Baek Yuseol.
Her desperate gaze, as if begging him to save her, made it seem as though she saw Baek Yuseol himself as hope…
but he had absolutely no intention of rescuing her.
Not that he had the ability to, anyway.
“Really…
ordinary.”
Cheolribeon frowned.
Having honed the ability called Phenomenon Control over hundreds of years, he could indirectly grasp the power sleeping within someone, no matter how hard they tried to conceal their aura.
But strangely, he could feel no power whatsoever from Baek Yuseol.
He was no more and no less than an ordinary person.
And that made him all the more suspicious.
‘Could an ordinary person really get into Stella Academy?’
Even if, by some chance, he had entered Stella Academy with a normal human body to begin with, could such an ordinary body truly have resolved all the countless incidents that had happened until now all on its own?
‘Strange…’
With his expression stiff, Cheolribeon crushed the ground beneath his foot.
A branch splintered, and at the same time a thin scream burst from Soya’s mouth.
“Guuugh…”
He had merely broken a branch, but she was probably feeling pain as if her wrist had been shattered.
He was not the type to feel pleasure from hurting others, but right now, before he could properly deal with Soya’s head, that boy standing in front of him was far too irritating.
“You don’t seem willing to speak willingly. It can’t be helped. This sort of thing isn’t my style, but…”
Cheolribeon clenched and unclenched his fist, drawing up every last bit of his remaining dark mana.
A crimson haze rippled around his body, twisting the flow of the air.
“Then I’ll just have to force your mouth open.”
It was certain that Baek Yuseol was the one behind Soya fighting Cheolribeon.
If that was the case, then it was also reasonable to assume that the person who had ordered that stupid Soya to steal the spirit’s heart was the same person.
It was only a natural chain of reasoning.
But there was no way for Baek Yuseol to deny it.
‘This is bad…’
From Cheolribeon’s point of view, the suspicion was perfectly valid, and Baek Yuseol had no room to explain himself away.
He knew well enough that making some pathetic excuse like “I didn’t do it” would never work.
‘I really didn’t want to fight him…’
Part of the reason was that Cheolribeon was strong enough to survive even after facing the very strongest figures in the world,
but another part was that, though he was indeed an “evil man,” he had also been one of Baek Yuseol’s favorite characters back when he had played the original game.
Now, however, he was no longer a character or a game figure, but a real person.
So that feeling could not be expressed.
Swaaak—!
“Hup!”
Cheolribeon stomped the ground with one leg and swung his arm, sending a lash of dark red mana cracking through the air like a whip.
There had been no sound at all.
A mana-whip that lightly ignored the resistance of the air and swung at several times the speed of sound.
In that instant, Baek Yuseol felt a horrifying chill and barely managed to evade by blinking sideways and rolling away.
‘Crazy…!’
He hadn’t even seen it.
All he had sensed was a warning at the very edge of [Sixth Sense] that “something dangerous” was coming, so he threw his whole body out of the way.
He hadn’t been able to trace the whip’s actual path at all.
‘So this is still a 9-Risk, no matter what…!’
He had described Cheolribeon’s attack power as rather low before, but that was only an extreme example based purely on “magic combat.”
Cheolribeon had entered the ranks of 9-Risk solely through the ability called Phenomenon Control,
but his physical abilities themselves were also outstanding.
Until now, he had never needed to reveal those physical abilities, so no one had paid them any attention—but now that all of his mana was exhausted and he had no choice but to move directly, Cheolribeon’s true skill was slowly beginning to show itself.
Kugung!!
When Cheolribeon lightly kicked off the ground and sprang up, the earth beneath him caved in and collapsed.
At the same time, Soya, who inherited the pain of the tearing earth directly into her own body, screamed and rolled across the ground—but no one paid any attention to her.
Slash!
A thick tree that must once have been part of the World Tree was neatly severed in two and came crashing down, while Baek Yuseol, who had been standing there, vanished like an afterimage and reappeared about ten meters away.
‘Now!’
Baek Yuseol used Blink.
It hadn’t even been a few seconds since Cheolribeon had discerned that peculiarity, and yet he had already grasped the opening.
‘The delay between one Blink and the next is, at most, 0.3 seconds.’
To some people, it might feel like no more than a fleeting instant.
But to a 9-Risk dark mage, it was more than enough time.
‘Damn it…!’
But Baek Yuseol had also anticipated that an attack would immediately come rushing in during the gap between his Blinks.
Even so…
there was no way to deal with it.
To use the next Blink, he first had to grasp his exact position, measure the distance, and then carefully cut the Blink at precisely the right moment.
And that was impossible to do instantaneously with an ordinary human’s concentration.
In the end, Baek Yuseol had no choice but to expand Blink as far as he could toward a space with as few obstacles as possible, narrowly avoiding Cheolribeon’s attack—
but in the middle of it, a branch scraped his forearm and left him wounded.
Drip.
A drop of blood fell.
As Baek Yuseol hopped backward, he clutched the wound and tried to stop the bleeding.
Since he couldn’t use even the simplest healing magic, any wound he suffered during battle was fatal.
‘…Strange.’
Cheolribeon’s expression hardened.
The fact that Baek Yuseol had dodged several of his attacks clearly proved he was remarkable,
yet somehow he looked clumsy.
His combat sense seemed excellent, but compared to that, his physical body simply didn’t seem able to keep up.
‘Well…
doesn’t matter.’
For whatever reason, if he was in a weakened state, then that only worked in Cheolribeon’s favor.
At the moment, Cheolribeon himself was in no condition to activate any trait or ability either, despite the title of absolute defense.
‘Right now, even Cheolribeon can be cut if you want to cut him!’
Swaaak—!
Dodging dozens of rushing lashes of black mana, Baek Yuseol’s eyes sharpened.
Avoiding the fight was impossible.
No matter how much he had once liked Cheolribeon as a character, if he wanted to survive, he had no choice but to face him seriously.
‘Can I win?’
He didn’t know.
But it was worth trying.
Tuk!
After using consecutive Blinks to reach a branch, Baek Yuseol paused there briefly and steadied his breathing.
It was simply an act to recover the number of Blinks he could use, but Cheolribeon also entered a brief standoff while retracting his whip.
‘I have to focus.’
Closing your eyes and concentrating elsewhere in the middle of battle was insanity.
And yet, for a truly brief instant—
within that gap of less than 0.5 seconds, as Cheolribeon reeled in his whip to swing it again,
Baek Yuseol closed his eyes and plunged straight into his mindscape.
[Blessing of Crimson Spring March]
How had he fought until now?
Number of available Blinks: 3.
Maximum movement distance: 15 meters.
Those were the unmistakable “limits” engraved into his soft, fragile body.
And that wasn’t all.
His physical abilities were full of flaws.
Blink was fast enough that even a 9-Risk dark mage might momentarily lose track of his movement,
but what about the speed at which he swung his sword?
‘Too damn slow.’
To beings like them, it probably looked like slow motion captured by a high-speed camera.
The motion of his sword was as sluggish as a turtle, so no matter how fast Blink was, avoiding his strikes would be absurdly easy.
And yet, making his sword faster right now was impossible.
He had trained constantly until now and had never neglected that training, but in the end, growth speed had its limits.
‘I need to change the method.’
He had read every last word of the mental arts manual left by Ha Taeryeong, the previous possessor of a Mana Leakage Body, the one said to have fought against the Founding Mage.
As a swordsman with a Mana Leakage Body, Ha Taeryeong had shared every secret from beginning to end about how to fight mages.
But nowhere in that manual had there been a “method for dealing with dark mages.”
Because they possessed physical abilities superior to humans, they could not be overcome with mere swordsmanship.
Even Ha Taeryeong had failed to devise a countermeasure against them.
‘I have to make one myself.’
He had to think it through on his own.
Until now, he had somehow managed through luck, but that wouldn’t work against Cheolribeon.
Still, perhaps it was a stroke of fortune.
Cheolribeon’s absolute ability was completely inactive right now, so if Baek Yuseol’s response was good enough, landing a decisive blow was possible.
‘In that case…’
Give up on the act of slashing.
And thrust instead.
‘…Use the acceleration of Blink to charge straight in from the front.’
A simple method.
So simple it made all the 고민 he’d had up to now feel ridiculous.
But if that was the case, then why had Baek Yuseol never used it before? Was it because he was stupid?
He had attempted a thrusting attack through Blink exactly once before.
A long time ago—
during the Necromancer’s assault at the beginning of the semester.
Baek Yuseol had delivered a final strike by charging straight at a Necromancer who had already been mortally wounded and was nearly dead…
and he himself had almost suffered a fatal wound in return.
Why?
Because if the opponent knew Baek Yuseol was charging straight at them, it was easy for them to counter with a sharp attack.
That was exactly why he had always fought by aiming for the enemy’s flank.
Because Baek Yuseol himself, with defense close to zero, could actually be the one put in danger.
That single, fatal flaw—having no defense—had forced him into these troublesome fights all along.
‘Focus. If I focus, I can do it.’
Baek Yuseol’s mindscape deepened further still.
A level of concentration impossible for a human—concentration beyond humanity itself.
[Derived skill of the Blessing of Crimson Spring March]
[Hyper Focus activates.]
And then, 0.5 seconds passed.
[Blink]
Slash!
“…Hm!”
Cheolribeon had swung his whip at Baek Yuseol, who had stood there with eyes closed and head tilted back toward the air, but the instant he vanished, Cheolribeon frowned.
“What an irritating bastard. Is running away the only thing you can do?”
When he slowly turned his eyes, Baek Yuseol had reappeared about ten meters away, facing him.
‘What is this?’
Something about him felt different.
The aura coming from Baek Yuseol was no longer ordinary.
As though even the petty flow of wind around him was being allowed to pass without resistance.
Cheolribeon realized it instinctively.
‘I don’t know exactly how, but he’s regaining his old power.’
He couldn’t leave that be.
“Hup!”
Cheolribeon flung both arms downward and cracked his whip, and those lashes spread wide to both sides as if they had become dark crimson palms.
He had already simultaneously fought two 9-Class mages, and on top of that faced Soya, the wielder of Phenomenon Interference, who was likely half-witch.
His stamina was already exhausted.
He had meant to conserve as much mana as possible, but since the opponent had finally come at him in earnest, he too needed to respond with full sincerity.
Even if he spent every bit of his power and died here today, he would have no regrets as long as he had done his utmost.
He had always… thought that way.
‘My body is at its limit now.’
This attack would probably be no different from the very last of the last.
Drip.
A line of blood ran from Cheolribeon’s mouth.
By forcibly dragging dark mana up from the very bottom, his internal organs were twisting apart.
The pain was so horrific an ordinary person could never even imagine it, and yet it didn’t matter to Cheolribeon in the slightest.
There was only the enemy in front of him. Only one.
Focusing every shred of his attention on that insolent young boy pointing his sword at him, he swung the black palms—
…Whoooosh!
A leaf, carried on the autumn wind, trembled and slowly drifted to the ground.
The calm breeze, passing as though nothing at all had happened, brushed across the cheeks of both men and swept by.
“…Urk!”
Cheolribeon coughed up a mouthful of blood and slowly lowered his head.
He looked down at the silver mana sword that had pierced through his chest.
‘I let my guard down…’
His senses had dulled.
Partly because he was exhausted and weakened, yes—
but also because the earth had loved him and protected him for far too long, leaving him no need to extend his own senses, and those once-sharp instincts had faded.
Still, perhaps a fish remains a fish even when rotten.
“Damn it…”
Baek Yuseol, having lost his grip on the sword, slowly staggered backward, then hit a tree with his back and sank to the ground.
‘I should’ve…
focused a little more.’
He had been sure he had seen every single attack rushing straight at him.
But the opponent had realized even that and bent the attack in to strike through the gap within the gap within the gap.
‘This…
I might really die here…’
A blade of black mana had pierced his waist.
A fatal wound.
He might die before long.
Compared to that, what about his own attack?
Clatter!
The moment Baek Yuseol’s mana infusion disappeared, the Terrifon Sword slipped free from Cheolribeon’s chest and fell to the ground with a dull clang.
Blood was flowing from Cheolribeon’s chest, yes…
but it was not a fatal wound.
At the instant the sword had thrust toward his heart, Cheolribeon had released mana and twisted its trajectory.
It was reflexes and combat sense so absurd that they bordered on the impossible—
but now was not the time to admire them, when this was an enemy he had to fight with his life on the line.
“…Regrettable.”
Cheolribeon drew up every last trace of remaining dark mana and began healing the wound in his chest.
Ordinarily it would have closed in an instant, but now, even stopping the bleeding was a struggle.
“You should consider it an honor. Since that man, you’re the first one to leave a wound on my chest.”
Even if Cheolribeon was weakened right now, hadn’t Baek Yuseol nearly inflicted a fatal wound on the man known as Absolute Invincible?
As a mage, shouldn’t he be proud?
Of course, Baek Yuseol, who wasn’t a magic warrior, felt no pride whatsoever.
He only thought—
‘I should’ve thrust a little faster.’
I should’ve used Blink a little faster.
I should’ve concentrated a little more and dodged it.
If only I’d had just a little more experience…
I could’ve avoided an absurd attack like that.
‘I guess I have to finish this.’
Cheolribeon staggered toward Baek Yuseol, then suddenly stiffened at the ominous sensation he felt from far away.
He quickly turned his head, and there, in the distant sky, appeared a woman with violet wings.
‘The Elf King… she’s recovered already.’
Seeing Kkotseorin rushing toward them at frightening speed, having likely witnessed the entire situation, Cheolribeon lowered his head.
He could finish Baek Yuseol right now, but if he did, it would be too late.
‘…I need to leave.’
Not because he wanted to preserve this pathetic life of his for a little longer.
Cheolribeon lifted Soya, who had collapsed on the ground, drooling tears and snot and rolling around until she finally lost consciousness.
If he died here, then there would be no proper way to deal with her.
With Soya slung over his shoulder, Cheolribeon turned back and gave Baek Yuseol one final look.
There he was, clutching his abdomen with his eyes closed, utterly defenseless—
and yet somehow, Cheolribeon did not feel like killing him.
Because in Baek Yuseol’s eyes, he had felt no “evil hue” at all.
For someone who had manipulated Soya and turned the World Tree into chaos,
his eyes had been strangely pure and noble.
‘I can leave him alive for now.’
And then, Cheolribeon’s body melted into the earth and vanished.
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