Chapter 30

Whoosh.

The instant Jopil’s red-hot palm struck my chest, energy as hot as lava swept through me. My breath caught, and my internal energy surged backward.

What is this?

The question flashed through my mind as I was sent flying. I crashed and rolled for over ten zhang before I finally came to a stop.

“Cough.”

Blood trickled down my chin. The occasional unidentifiable chunks mixed in with it were… fuck. Pieces of my organs.

He got me good.

Through my blurred vision, I saw Jopil walking toward me. His leisurely stride had the ease of a victor.

I have to get up.

I groped beside me until my hand closed around the cool shaft of my spear. Using it as a cane, I barely managed to stand—and saw Jopil’s scowling eyes.

“You can still stand after taking a Flame Divine Palm at seventy percent power… What a high-maintenance junior.”

Wham!

His palm detonated into me again.

The Flame Divine Palm was every bit as powerful as its name. My shirt burned away, and my flesh melted and sloughed off. The heat burrowing into me severed my blood channels strand by strand.

“Guh.”

Horrific pain crashed over me. But instead of writhing in agony, I drove my spear at Jopil’s vital point.

Thunk.

“You’re like a fighting dog.”

Jopil snatched the spear shaft and clicked his tongue.

“Someone at your level can’t do anything to me.”

“Go… fuck yourself!”

The next moment, I let go of the seized spear and lunged into close quarters with him.

Last chance. Focus every bit of internal energy on a single point. If I struck his vital point, I could turn the tide.

But…

“Gasp.”

The result was disastrous.

I had forced my internal energy up without regard for my internal injuries. I collapsed on the spot, trembling as if I’d been struck by lightning.

I could feel drool running from the corner of my mouth.

“Pfft. Puhahaha! Have you ever seen such a stupid bastard!”

Jopil burst into mad laughter and snapped the spearhead.

“Well? What now? Huh? Youngest Young Master of the Jin Family of Taiyuan?”

Now I didn’t even have a weapon. Despair darkened my vision.

Am I going to die like this?

In the last seven years, I had never felt death this close. Me—who had fought more than a thousand times and lived. Die here, of all places?

So pointlessly?

No. I can’t die like this…

I reached out, but that was as far as I got.

—Squad Leader!

A shout crackling with static was the last thing I heard before all the light went out.

When I opened my eyes again, it was neither heaven nor hell. I was drenched in sweat and panting. My whole body felt heavy, like waterlogged cotton.

A dream? Or my life flashing before my eyes?

Whatever it was, one thing was certain. This was the past—a memory from seven years ago.

The familiar face of my training instructor was proof enough.

“You—you, this…”

The instructor couldn’t finish. His eyes were on a steel dummy built for training. Modeled after a monster, it was little more than scrap metal now.

Bent and split scrap, head to toe.

“Was that a Skill just now?”

My younger self answered in an exhausted voice.

“Thrust with All My Might.”

“Thrust with All My Might?”

“Yes. I just thrust as hard as I could.”

“You don’t really know how you’re able to use it, but after Awakening you just started doing it naturally?”

“Uh, yes. That’s right.”

“That’s a Skill, you idiot.”

Looking incredulous, the instructor turned to the file in his hand.

“Jin Taekyung. Twenty years old. Lives in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. F-rank Awakened. Is this you?”

“Yes. So, my full-power thrust—no, my Skill. It’s good, right?”

“You’re asking if it’s good?”

The instructor let out a hollow laugh.

“I’ve been at this training center for fifteen years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Destructive power like that should require at least D-rank.”

“Fuck, I knew it. Uh, Instructor. I’m leaving.”

“What?”

“I’m going to get reevaluated. Honestly, if I can do that much, I should at least be E-rank.”

“No. They seem to have judged you correctly over there.”

“What?”

“The Skill really is incredible. It’s a level that could never come out of an F-rank. But…”

The instructor scratched the back of his head.

“You can’t use it.”

“Why? Why not?”

“Your body can’t keep up. That Skill is more than F-rank mana and physical ability can handle. That’s why you collapse after using it once.”

“But I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

Before I could even nod, the instructor’s hand shot out like lightning and tapped my chest.

Literally a tap. But I’d used up all my strength, so I flopped onto my back.

My whole body throbbed. I could barely twitch a finger.

“You’re already putting out more power than your limits can handle. Later on, it won’t end with a little soreness.”

“…Is there another way?”

“Solid fundamentals and excellent technique. And your own combat sense. If you want to live a long time, don’t use that Skill. Ah. Except in special circumstances.”

“Special circumstances?”

The instructor grinned and added,

“When your life is in danger. That Skill might save you once.”

The next moment, I opened my eyes on the cold snowfield.

“Squad Leader!”

The shout I’d heard at the end came through clearly. I also felt my wrecked body and the sharp pain.

I’m still alive.

My life flashing before my eyes had lasted only an instant. Jopil was looking behind him, close enough to reach if I stretched out a hand.

“Not bad loyalty. Their skill’s pathetic, though.”

At the end of his gaze, the reconnaissance squad members were charging toward us in a cluster.

“I’m thinking of tearing those bastards apart and killing them. What do you say?”

“…dly… fought.”

“What?”

“Stupid… fought.”

I mumbled it again. Jopil bent down, irritated.

“Can’t you even talk straight?”

“I said I’ve been fighting stupidly this whole time.”

Ptoo!

The moment I’d been waiting for.

I spat the blood I’d gathered at his face. Half a beat faster, my hand was already slamming down toward his foot.

Inventory Open.

Jopil didn’t know.

I was a Hunter, a man of Murim, and a player who could use the System!

Equip Dagger.

A solid weight filled my empty grip. His face covered in blood, Jopil hurriedly tried to pull back, but the dagger’s tip had already punched through the top of his foot.

Shunk!

“Guh.”

Even a Peak master was still human.

When his body jerked to a halt from the sudden pain, I released the dagger and reached for his ankle.

Equip Dagger.

My Inventory was piled with weapons from enemies I’d taken down since the Tutorial. Swords, spears, axes, daggers… more than twenty of them.

Jopil’s men had been a walking armory.

Slice.

“Gaaah!”

The Achilles tendon. The moment I cut the tendon at his ankle, a scream burst out of him. As his stance collapsed, I rolled aside, slashing and stabbing. His remaining left leg was soaked in blood too.

Slice. Thrust. Thrust. Stab-stab-stab!

Jopil’s mouth opened wide with rage and pain.

“Gaaaaah! You son of a bitch!”

He couldn’t use either leg, but Jopil was a Peak master. He spun like lightning, evaded the dagger, caught my wrist, and twisted.

Crack.

“Gah!”

The attack didn’t end there.

A red-hot palm.

The Flame Divine Palm.

Boom.

My chest caved in. My vision went white. Powerful fire qi tore through my body.

Boom.

The strength drained out of me.

I heard the bones in my neck shift out of place beneath Jopil’s grip. His chilling voice slid into my ear.

“You understand now, don’t you. Who you picked a fight with.”

“…Cough.”

“If King Yama asks, tell him I sent you.”

To me, hanging limp as a corpse, Jopil declared it with a face full of rapture.

“Die.”

The final Flame Divine Palm shot toward my chest. Lava that would swallow my life whole was imbued in that blazing palm.

And at last…

Tap.

The world stopped.

There was no lava. No heat of any kind.

Only his scarred, callused palm resting against my chest.

A ripple ran through Jopil’s eyes.

“You…”

The strength slowly drained from the hand around my throat. As Jopil staggered backward, I saw a dagger buried below his navel.

It had pierced his dantian.

“This… what the hell is this?”

The next moment, blood ran down Jopil’s chin.

That was only the beginning.

Blood started pouring from his eyes, his nose, and his ears as well. A waterfall of blood streamed from his seven orifices.

The reconnaissance squad stopped in their tracks at the horrifying sight. Someone muttered, almost a groan.

“Qi deviation…”

Internal energy was a double-edged sword.

I had waited for the moment Jopil drew his internal energy to its peak, then driven a dagger summoned from my Inventory into his dantian.

The result was a reversal of his internal energy.

Qi deviation.

“You were definitely empty-handed.”

I answered in a tired voice.

“You live long enough, all sorts of things happen.”

“I can’t die like this. This makes no sense.”

Jopil muttered like a man whose soul had left him and took one step after another.

Pools of blood formed wherever he passed.

“I am Jopil. Jopil, One Question, One Kill. The nineteenth-generation successor of the Fire Gate Clan. I’m not someone who should die at the hands of a nobody like you!”

Covered in blood and screaming, Jopil radiated a chilling, ghostly aura. Even the reconnaissance squad members who had charged in ready to die trembled with fear.

“Then why? Why, at the likes of you, would I—!”

That was when the ember I’d thought extinguished burst into flame.

The change started in Jopil’s body. The flowing blood stopped, and the veins all over him stood out blue. He looked like a man who couldn’t feel the pain of both tendons being cut—or even the qi deviation.

A terrible heat poured from the breath he exhaled.

What is this?

A literal resurrection?

No. This was Jopil’s last desperate struggle.

Everyone screamed, seized by terror, but I could see it clearly. His hair was turning white by the second. His skin was shriveling.

Right now, that man was…

Burning his life.

He’ll kill me, at least, before he goes.

Power gained by throwing away the most precious thing he had. Every bit of it was aimed at me. I knew on instinct that I couldn’t dodge.

Can I do this? Me?

I picked up the fallen spear.

The Sharp Spear I’d used from the Tutorial until now.

With its spearhead broken off, it was nothing more than a pointed iron rod.

I’ll end up looking like this soon enough too.

There was only one option left.

Even if I succeeded, there was no guarantee I would survive. But there was no luxury of hesitation.

“Jin Taekyung!”

“Yeah. Let’s finish this.”

Me and Jopil.

Jopil and me.

We shot toward each other. The heat pouring off him melted the piled snow and dried my lips. I drew a long breath.

Sss. Hoo.

The noise around me receded. My heartbeat and breathing sounded like thunder.

Thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.

My heartbeat reached its peak.

My breathing fell into place with mechanical precision.

I was certain.

Now.

At the same time, I woke the internal energy in my dantian. Inside me, where my qi and blood channels were twisted and wrecked, the only thing left was the third internal energy, hardened like rock.

My only option—and the last piece that would fill my Skill.

Run wild all you want.

The awakened internal energy went berserk. It forced its way through my ruined qi and blood channels and spread through my whole body. A dizzying pain hit me.

But it was soon forgotten in the new strength the energy gave me.

Go!

Every muscle in my body pulled taut. From my calves and thighs, through my waist and along my thrusting arm, every ounce of strength and internal energy in me surged forward.

Condensed air burst from the broken spear tip.

Matching it, Jopil thrust out his Flame Divine Palm.

“Dieeeee!”

Whoooosh.

A mound of snow erupted with the wind. Through the flakes drifting gently back down, Jopil came into view.

From the right arm that had unleashed the Flame Divine Palm, through his shoulder and his side—half of his upper body had evaporated.

“What kind of martial art…?”

I dropped the spear and answered.

“Thrust with All My Might.”

The next instant, heaven and earth flipped upside down.

Beyond my blurring vision, Jopil’s already lifeless head shot high into the sky.

Socheon was crying out loud, holding a sword as tall as he was.