Chapter 283

BANG!

The air in the office rang with a sharp vibration.

Park Jihoon’s forehead smashed through the table and slammed into the floor. With a sharp crack, spiderweb-like fractures spread across the ground.

“Guh.”

I pressed my knee into his back, using the principles of the Thousand-Catty Drop.

My eyes, fixed on the back of his head, were filled with surprise.

Huh. Look at this bastard.

Modern Hunters had no concept of martial arts.

Even among close-combat types, it was extremely rare to find someone like Im Yeongjun, a Black Hunter who focused primarily on hand-to-hand combat. Most concentrated on weapons.

Because that was the better way to improve their survival rate.

But Park Jihoon was different. Even though it had lasted only a moment, the movement he had shown was comparable to that of a Peak master from the Murim.

It was a little clumsy, but it was almost like a grappling technique wielded by someone who had reached a higher realm.

I had underestimated him and been caught off guard. The fight had ended almost immediately, but the fact that he had exchanged moves with me five times already put his ability far beyond what I had expected.

Has this level of hand-to-hand combat survived into the modern era? Why hasn’t anyone heard of it?

I asked aloud, unable to suppress my curiosity.

“You. Where did you learn that just now?”

Park Jihoon answered in a strained voice.

“Let go right now, before you regret it.”

“I see. Still full of energy, are you?”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Once. Twice. Three times.

Every time I grabbed his hair and slammed his head down, a muffled groan escaped him. Blood spattered across the office floor, which had been spotless only moments ago.

As his body went limp, Park Tae Seop, who had been observing the situation, suddenly spoke.

“That’s enough.”

“Is this bastard the Guild Master’s son?”

“Would he be my son?”

“Then is he your daughter?”

“Obviously not that, either.”

“Then this isn’t a matter for the Guild Master to interfere in. If you cross the line here, I can’t guarantee what I’ll do, either.”

Park Tae Seop’s eyebrow twitched.

“You’ve got quite a spicy tongue.”

“My hands are even spicier. My old nickname was the Haengsin-dong Fire-Chicken Stir-Fried Hand.¹… Want a taste?”

“I have a reputation to uphold. I have no intention of fighting a young man as green as you.”

Park Tae Seop uncrossed his arms and continued.

“But if that fellow is seriously injured, it will put me in a difficult position. He’s an important business partner.”

“He’s a manager sent by your business partner, right? No, seeing how you’re being pushed around, it’s embarrassing to even call him a business partner. You’re practically a figurehead. Does he have something on you?”

I must have struck a nerve, because he deliberately furrowed his brow.

“You’re more perceptive than I expected. Though I heard you weren’t very bright.”

I didn’t need to ask which bastard had said that.

I grabbed Park Jihoon’s wax-stiffened hair even more roughly and answered.

“I’m a slow learner. But once I learn something, I don’t forget it.”

“He learned his lesson properly this time, so let him go now.”

“I was planning to do that anyway.”

As I lifted Park Jihoon by the hair, Park Tae Seop gave a small nod.

“Good thinking.…”

I drove the fistful of hair back down with all my strength.

BANG!

One more time.

CRACK!

The floor shattered beneath the deafening impact. I drove my toe into the solar plexus of the man flopping around like a raw fish.

With a thud, Park Jihoon flew backward and slid all the way to the door.

“Ghk!”

The impact jolted him awake. He trembled violently and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“……”

Park Tae Seop was unable to continue speaking, so I addressed him.

“I let him go. There. Happy?”

“You…… You’re quite something.”

“Am I really as bad as the bastard who cuts people’s arms off and calls it a warning?”

“I don’t particularly like that fellow myself, but you would’ve been better off taking my advice.”

His expression and voice had turned rigid.

He was sincere.

Rather than feeling afraid, I became curious. Who was this person that even Park Tae Seop—a war hero of the Great Cataclysm and one of Korea’s top rankers—was wary of?

I asked with a questioning look.

“Who is it? That bastard only called him ‘that person.’”

“I can’t tell you. Even if I did, you’d only resent me later.”

“Why make such a big deal out of it? Is that person Asmodeus or something?”

“If you made him your enemy, it would be better if he were the Demon King. At least the whole world would fight alongside you.… But what are you doing right now?”

Park Tae Seop stared at me with his eyes wide.

Or, to be precise, he was staring at the phone in my hand.

“I’m looking at this phone.”

“Suddenly?”

“Yes.”

He had the exact expression of a man wondering what kind of lunatic he was dealing with.

Park Tae Seop asked, unable to understand me at all.

“What are you doing with that?”

“What do you think? Since you won’t tell me, I’m trying to find the number myself.”

“The number?”

“Yes. That person’s number.”

“Wait. Is that…?”

“That’s right. I took it from that bastard’s pocket earlier.”

Park Tae Seop’s eyes widened. Park Jihoon, who had been coughing up blood, shouted as though he had forgotten his pain.

“Give it back right now!”

“Yeah, I can’t give it back.”

I toyed with the mysterious phone, whose make I couldn’t identify.

It looked completely different from the phone I had seen when I visited his officetel last time. There was no way he had changed it in the past few days, so it was probably a separate phone he kept for secret communications.

It wasn’t strange. Even people who secretly cheated on their partners carried two or three phones.

He has so many secrets, after all.

When I touched the screen, two messages appeared alongside a lock icon. They were asking for fingerprint and iris recognition.

I could understand the fingerprint part, but what the hell was with the iris scan?

I gestured toward Park Jihoon, who was staggering to his feet.

“Hey. Come here. Put your fingerprint and iris against it.”

“Jin Taekyung, you crazy bastard. Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Yeah, I know. So get over here and press an eye and a finger against it before I rip them out.”

“Don’t rush me. I was planning to do that even without you telling me.”

Park Jihoon ground his teeth with a crunch and wiped at the corner of his mouth.

But unlike before, when he had been gasping for breath, he now seemed overflowing with strength.

Aside from the blood covering him here and there, his cracked forehead and broken nose had already healed completely. His stamina was as good as new.

Only then did I notice a small reinforced-glass vial rolling around by his feet.

“A potion?”

“When there’s an enemy in front of you, never let your attention wander until the very end. Didn’t they teach you that at the training center?”

He must have taken out the hidden potion and gulped it down during the brief moment I was looking at my phone. I shrugged.

“That only applies when the two sides are evenly matched. That’s not the case here, is it?”

“What?”

“I don’t know where or from whom you learned whatever you learned.…”

As I circulated my qi according to the formula of the Fire Gate Divine Technique, the fire dragon coiled within my dantian awakened.

I fixed Park Jihoon with reddish, glowing eyes.

“You and I are in different classes, you fucking scrub.”

The next moment, the fire dragon formed from a jiazi’s worth of Scorching Yang Qi scattered into hundreds of streams. As they dispersed, they awakened my acupoints and raced forward without restraint.

The internal energy converged again at a single destination and merged into one.

Disperse, compress. And…

Release.

WHOOSH!

The weather had already turned toward early winter. Yet the once-cold office transformed into the sweltering heat of midsummer beneath a blazing sun. An enormous burst of fiery qi erupted in an instant and surged through the room.

“Hah.”

I exhaled a breath of scorching air.

Beyond the wavering heat haze, I saw a man whose face was filled with shock. His expression had gone rigid, and turbulent waves churned in his eyes.

“You, you……”

A groan-like voice slipped between Park Jihoon’s lips.

“How?”

“I told you. We’re different.”

As though someone had thrown ice water over him, he trembled and bit down on his lip. He bit so hard that the flesh split at once, and blood began to flow.

“This, this is impossible. How could you.…?”

The man muttered with a twisted expression, then abruptly opened his mouth.

“I’m going to need your help, Guild Master.”

There was no question who he was speaking to.

Park Tae Seop, Guild Master of Myeongdong Guild, had been watching me with astonishment. He answered in a heavy voice.

“Is there even a way to refuse that proposal?”

“No.”

“And if I refuse anyway?”

“Definite rewards and punishments according to your choice. You must know how ‘that person’ operates, Guild Master.”

“……I’m sick to death of this.”

Park Tae Seop sighed and pulled a sixty-centimeter-long rod from his waist. When he stroked the Magic Gem attached to its end, a snow-white blade surged upward.

Hssssss!

“Don’t blame me.”

With that bitter remark, he pointed the tip of the sword at me, the blade engulfed in a blue aura.

My opponent was a hero of the Great Cataclysm and one of Korea’s top ten rankers. A massive aura rose from his body and confronted my Scorching Yang Qi.

With a powerful ally at his side, Park Jihoon smiled coldly.

“You’re finished.”

“Finished?”

I laughed aloud.

Since I had heard he went to Hankuk University, I had assumed he was at least somewhat smart. But it seemed he had completely forgotten what I told him last time.

“I’m the one who decides whether this ends, you fucking idiot.”

Park Jihoon had forced me onto the starting line and pulled the trigger to signal the beginning of the race. But he had failed to anticipate the most important thing.

That this race had no finish line.

And that wherever I stopped was the finish line.

Open Inventory.

Summon White Flame.

FWOOSH!

I stepped forward amid the flames.

Blue fire streamed along the spearhead, scorching everything around it as it surged toward the enemy.

“Haah!”

With a powerful battle cry, a massive greatsword came flying at me. The blue aura gathered at its tip was denser and longer than anything I had ever seen in reality.

As expected of one of Korea’s top rankers.

Internal energy and mana.

Their names were different, but their essence was the same. In that sense, the energy Park Tae Seop possessed exceeded mine.

But.…

That’s all.

I sprang upward.

My hair narrowly grazed the ceiling, while the blade sweeping across my waist cut through empty air.

WHOOM! CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

The massive pressure wave swept everything away. The reinforced glass covering one side of the office shattered and fell toward the ground.

Before the screams from below could reach me, I brought the spearhead down toward the crown of Park Tae Seop’s head.

WHOOSH! BANG!

With a deafening roar, Park Tae Seop’s knee struck the floor.

His eyes widened in shock as he hurriedly blocked the attack with the shield in his other hand.

“What is this?”

By now, he must have been feeling the crushing pressure of a boulder weighing ten thousand geun.

It was the difference in our physical abilities, as well as the gap created by the way we used our energy.

Hunters really aren’t very efficient.

In contrast, Murim cultivation techniques explosively increased the efficiency of internal energy. That was why renowned great powers like the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families were so strong.

The various martial arts built around excellent cultivation techniques—

when those small gears meshed together with precision, they could finally be called a divine technique.

Disperse, compress, release.

Internal energy was like a scarce resource. You had to draw it out when absolutely necessary and find the best possible use for it.… Even Park Tae Seop, one of Korea’s top rankers, had not completely escaped those limitations.

BANG! BANG! BOOM!

After blocking a total of four attacks, Park Tae Seop’s shield split in half. At that moment, a flash shot toward my side.

“Die!”

The owner of the thin, sharp rapier was obviously Park Jihoon.

Just as I thought I had avoided it, the aura clinging to the tip of the blade surged out even farther and grazed my side.

SIZZLE!

Disappointment flashed across Park Jihoon’s face.

His aura had only cut through my clothes and passed by.

I checked my uninjured side and licked my lips.

“……This is pretty interesting.”

“Interesting? You’re not afraid?”

“Did the guy you call ‘that person’ or whatever teach you?”

“Shut your mouth. You’re not worthy of even speaking of that person.”

“Huh. So I was right. This isn’t some kind of cult, is it?”

“You son of a—!”

WHOOM! SHH-SHH-SHHK!

Park Tae Seop’s greatsword came from the right, while Park Jihoon’s rapier flew in from the left.

As I watched the two men tear through the space between us, I thrust out both arms.

BANG! BOOM!

I blocked Park Tae Seop’s greatsword with White Flame and Park Jihoon’s rapier with the dagger I had just summoned, then smoothly rotated my wrists.

KRRRANG!

The four blades locked together and tangled around one another.

I remembered my duel with Sword Saint Mae Jonghak.

His sword that let everything flow past.

His movements.

And I put them into practice.

Flow.

Sliiide.

The spearhead and dagger slipped like snakes. Neither the massive greatsword nor the slender rapier could block their path.

Before long, the two keen-edged weapons touched the men’s throats.

Swish.

“Drop your weapons.”

“……!”

“……!”

Two shocked gazes turned toward me.

Park Jihoon spoke in a voice filled with rage and despair.

“How could you……?”

“You didn’t hear me, did you?”

CRACK!

There was no hesitation.

I raised my foot and drove it down onto his knee. The cartilage shattered, and a scream burst from him.

“Aaaaargh!”

“We’re down two arms on our side. One leg doesn’t balance the books.”

I was about to crush his one remaining knee when—

“I think that should be enough.”

An unfamiliar voice bored into my ears.

The voice was impossibly deep and low. A chill ran down my spine, and the fine hairs on my body stood on end.

This was……

A Supreme Peak master?