Chapter 98. Your Mind Wandering?
Dark clouds, heavy with lightning, hung low over the earth.
No—look closely, and they weren’t clouds.
Boom…! Ba-boom!
Explosions rang out one after another. Monstrous blasts. All kinds of dust and dirt that couldn’t withstand it floated up in thick, billowing masses.
Then what was the lightning?
Pajijik—!
Sparks spread in all directions, piercing through the dust. But they weren’t ordinary.
They were far too deep-blue to be called lightning.
“How long has it been?”
Aster kept detonating explosive annihilation (爆滅), pressing Destrow back.
It wasn’t precise.
Like it didn’t matter whether it hit or not—he only aimed with rough eyeballing.
Because of that, some of the explosive annihilations vanished after throwing nothing but a shockwave at Destrow, but who cared about that kind of detail?
Either way, even if he aimed carefully, how sturdy was Destrow’s barrier?
Jjeo-eong—!
A clear, ringing impact, like refined chunks of metal—without a speck of impurity—slamming into each other.
Leaving only that sound behind, the attacks vanished futilely.
So why waste mental stamina!
‘Just keep beating the shit out of it.’
Facing Aster’s fighting like that, Destrow couldn’t hide his shock.
<Wh-what…!>
Shockwaves that battered the barrier without pause. Messy. No—beyond messy, it was no different from childish horseplay.
But that was exactly why it was more troublesome.
If it were a formalized, standardized attack with structure, he could at least predict it—but this, he had no idea where it would bounce next.
And that wasn’t all.
Boom! Ba-bababoom—!
When dozens of explosive annihilations rained down, the Emperor retreated to widen the distance.
One second. No—one quarter of that. Or even a near-instant was fine.
Anything, just to buy a single moment!
But the opponent was so fast, charging like a mad dog.
<…>
The Emperor hardened his face and accelerated. No—eventually, he outright turned his back to Aster and ran.
But even that wasn’t easy.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Cheung, cheungcheung, cheungchchchchchchcheung!
A blue cluster of light flared up along his path. Then it spat out a pajijik, a frictional crackle, and lit up everything around them.
Shockwaves in quick succession!
<…You!>
In the end, the Emperor had no choice but to stop in place to 펼치기 his barrier.
‘You vermin…!’
Was the opponent’s realm higher than his? No. That wasn’t it either.
If anything, he was a lower-level.
Of course—Destrow and a human, an ancient mage and a modern mage—you couldn’t apply a single identical yardstick to both.
But the ones standing on the battlefield knew.
Who was above, and who was below.
Whether they could crush the other—and if they wanted to crush them, how much damage they would have to accept.
In that sense, Aster was clearly below him.
Tzuzuz—
That damned overturning heaven (逆天) pressed endlessly, and yes, the bastard had undergone some bizarre change with overturning heaven’s help, but…
A truth that did not change.
The Emperor was above, and Aster was, to the end, below.
‘But then why?’
<…Kgh!>
Wham—his vision spun with a snap of sound. Aster’s fist had smashed into his jaw.
It was a blow hard to believe came from a mage. Probably because of the strange mana wave wrapped around the fist.
Bang!
“…!”
Had he given up on widening the distance? The Emperor slammed his forehead into Aster’s face.
Aster staggered back a couple steps, then bared teeth full of blood and smiled.
“You want to trade punches? I’m good at that too.”
<…>
A sudden brawl erupted between them.
Thud! Thu-uud—!
A sound like beating a leather drum echoed out, and each time, someone’s body jolted violently.
Even in the middle of that, the Emperor still couldn’t understand.
‘What… is this absurdity?’
This was the Emperor who had waged countless wars of conquest before placing the whole world beneath his feet.
From the greatest knights to mages, to hidden powerhouses everywhere who used all manner of bizarre tricks—he’d met them all.
Among them were geniuses who reached the summit by the orthodox path, and also painfully talentless men who carved a road through endless effort.
Sometimes there were those who, by unorthodox shortcuts, had nearly taken the Emperor’s life.
Truly ten thousand battles.
And yet ten thousand victories.
The Emperor had fought ten thousand times and won ten thousand times.
But even to such an Emperor, Aster’s way of fighting—no, Aster himself—was incomprehensible.
Thu-uud—!
“Ghk…!”
A fist drove cleanly into his solar plexus. His eyes rolled back. It was a hit strong enough that it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed on the spot.
But—
<…Kgh!>
Baaak!
As if he didn’t feel pain, even with his eyes rolled back, he drove out a fist that smashed into Aster’s face.
Was he fearless? No—slightly different.
Did he enjoy fighting? Like a Battle King (鬪王), a battle-maniac who had tormented the Emperor to the very end—did he feel ecstasy in pain?
No. Not that either.
Crack! Wham! Thu-uud!
Blows exchanged. If he took one, he always paid one back.
The fight between the Emperor and Aster was less a mage’s duel and more like knights’ dirty brawling—no, it was pure violence.
And even as they traded blows, old opponents flickered through the Emperor’s mind.
‘How… can a man like this exist!’
Look at that gaze.
“…Heh heh.”
A wildness rougher than the Wild King (野王), who had once reigned over countless monsters, glistened in it.
That aggressiveness far surpassed the Battle King, and that killing intent was darker and darker than the soldier who had committed the most slaughter across ten thousand battlefields.
“Your mind wandering?”
Wham!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
With his shoulders seized so he couldn’t even twitch, a chain of stupid, brutal headbutts followed.
The bastard kept moving without caring about the blood running down his own forehead.
As if giving up his own blood meant nothing as long as he could so much as brush a single hair from the other.
As if giving up his own flesh was fine as long as he could take even a drop of blood in return.
It wasn’t normal.
A warrior’s proper mindset was to give flesh and take bone.
<Krgh—!>
And in that moment—
The Emperor had no choice but to realize it. And also to admit it.
<You… bastard…!>
It was then that the Emperor roared.
“Hoooh…?”
Sensing something ominous, the bastard pulled back without hesitation.
Paaang—!
At that moment, a monstrous wave of force poured out from the Emperor’s body.
<…I acknowledge it.>
Pas-seuk—
As the force spread, the earth blackened and died. Nature rotted away.
An ancient wraith.
With his loyal subordinates bound up by some intruder, Destrow had tried not to use his power if possible.
But—
<Half-measures won’t do.>
Was it the difference of time? While he slept, magic and martial arts might have advanced. The trends of battle might have changed, and old methods might have been破解.
Or, if not—
Perhaps the bastard was simply exceptional.
But either way—
<By human methods, it will not be easy to catch you.>
A thick baleful qi (邪氣) surged in waves on all sides.
A violet energy spread through the Emperor’s flesh.
It was the moment the Emperor abandoned his identity as a mage and drew on his power as Destrow.
Overwhelming terror.
But Aster didn’t shrink at the sight.
“Somehow, I thought it was too easy.”
Because it was familiar.
“Then I’ll… too….”
Pajijik, pajik.
Blue sparks spread through his entire body.
As if he were wrapped in lightning—mana sparks rippled around Aster.
And then—
Kwaaang—!
A collision of flashes and lightning. The surroundings were dyed in different colors.
An ominous energy rose into the sky.
From afar, Shine and Oberon, who had witnessed Destrow’s arrival, increased their speed.
An ancient ruin they’d sprinted to while dumping in every last drop of the elixir they’d been given.
[Th-this… what…?]
Shine stood there in a daze, taking in the scene ahead.
Flash—
Urrrung… bang!
As if the thunderclouds of the heavens had descended onto the earth, fierce lightning struck down over the ground.
No—rather than “struck down,” it was more accurate to say it surged up from the earth.
It looked like… yes. Like heavenly gods that existed only in legends had fallen to the ground.
A sinister momentum overwhelming enough to crush even Shine.
[That crafty bastard… was he really to that extent?]
Blue lightning and violet flashes blazed, and Aster’s figure wasn’t visible, but Shine naturally assumed the blue lightning was Aster.
Because that deep-blue lightning was extremely similar to the nature of Aster’s mana.
“I-I also… don’t… really….”
Oberon stared at the scene with his mind half gone.
Dull eyes. A blurred focus. A gaze whose sharpness had somehow faded.
It wasn’t because of Destrow’s baleful qi. And it wasn’t because, like Aster, he’d lost his mind to that impurity.
All of Destrow’s baleful qi was focused on Aster, and even the impurity that had been scattering around had been gathered in to face Aster.
The reason Oberon’s soul had been knocked loose was something else.
“……”
Awe.
Every time the sinister violet flash flared, fear surged up from deep inside him. But what about the blue lightning?
Ecstasy.
People often say that a master’s artwork can steal your soul just by looking at it—beauty that enthralls instinct itself.
To a mage, blue lightning was more beautiful than any master’s artwork.
How could it not be?
Mana control at its absolute peak.
Leaving aside the mental image (心想) and principles it carried, the very existence of it was the purest mana—drawing out that destructive power.
Meanwhile, Shine’s perspective was a little different.
[Dirty… good at hitting, aren’t you.]
Because of the flashing light, he couldn’t see the hand and foot movements, but the momentum and flow of the battle were instead clearly revealed.
That happened because a flow he’d perceived as an abstract sense met the medium of mana and became concrete.
Pajijik—! Bang! Ku-gu-goong…!
Two masses of light, gathering and scattering, then charging at each other again and again in violent collisions.
At a glance they looked evenly matched, but to Shine’s eyes—someone who had once reached Master Knight—it was plainly visible.
‘The advantage is… Destrow.’
Aster was simply rampaging roughly.
But because of that, Shine was even more captivated.
Rough. Brutal. Ferocious. A flow that didn’t care about efficiency at all, taking no shape, wearing no form.
And yet, from it, Shine felt freedom.
No—not freedom…
—Awe.
Kkigigik—
Shine realized his own emotion only after a friction sound spilled from his hand, which he’d clenched hard without realizing.
‘Me… I felt awe?’
Why?
Just looking at the movement, it wasn’t comparable to his living self.
Unlike knights who thoroughly embodied form (形) and style (式) and earned freedom through it, a freedom built with no foundation was dazzlingly beautiful, but…
That was all it was.
‘But why?’
[Th-this… damn it. Me, to that crafty bastard?]
Shine couldn’t accept it himself, but in a way, it was only natural.
Sometimes, regardless of completeness, there were things astonishing by their existence alone.
A mage, yet martial force (武) he had mastered himself. A past life—one whole lifetime. The martial force Aster had piled up was exactly that.
[At this rate… we can’t even cut in, can we.]
It wasn’t just because it was so intense.
A freedom so distant… and yet a ferocity that roughly severed the opponent’s flow. Even while rampaging, he cut the opponent’s battle “pulse” and orchestrated the fight.
That was the true identity of the déjà vu the Emperor had felt—Aster’s fighting method, something an Emperor who was a mage by nature could never grasp no matter what.
But.
Watching him, Shine felt, in one corner of his mind, pity.
Solitude (孤獨).
Because in Aster’s battle, there was no concept of an ally.
Each move was inefficient, but the battle as a whole was thoroughly efficient—a flow built so that he could bear everything alone.
‘What kind of life have you lived?’
Still at some distance.
From a place where the battle’s aftershocks couldn’t reach, Shine and Oberon watched Aster’s fight.
While one felt an ecstatic trance, and another felt an untimely pity—
<…>
“……”
Two beings collided and fell without pause. Emperor Destrow and Aster.
Even the blood that ran down instantly evaporated and vanished in the mana lightning.
The Emperor stared at his opponent with hollow eyes.
“……”
The bastard was smiling.
Like he was going insane with joy.
