Chapter 127 – Purification (4)

Graaagh!

Blood-covered wolves that seemed to have gone through fierce combat burst into the arena shrieking.

The wolves flinched momentarily at the massive energy gathering into the contamination formation, but soon raised their momentum and ran forward.

Wooooong.

At that moment, a shining massive magic circle began drawing beneath the running wolves’ feet.

The red pattern that had been drawn beforehand emitted bright light, and before the startled wolves could avoid it, tremendous lightning burst from the magic circle.

Crackle!

Graaagh!

Before the wolves’ painful screams could fade, the magic circle burned all the wolves pitch black.

Soon another pack of wolves burst out from the entrance, but startled by the lightning that erupted in front, they all stopped walking.

“Huh? There’s more. Well, just kill them all, I guess.”

The man wrapped in a black robe flicked his finger toward the newly appeared wolf pack.

Subsequently, magic circles revealed themselves from all directions: beneath the newly appeared wolf pack, on the surrounding walls, and even in the passage inside the entrance.

Nowhere looked avoidable.

And with a tremendous sound, the ground began overturning.

“How noisy. What kind of magic churns up the entire ground.”

The warrior standing beside, surprised by the magic’s power, teased the black-robed magician.

But the magician had no intention of accepting his joke.

“All the magic circles drawn here are lightning magic. There’s no magic that overturns the ground anywhere!”

“Then what’s that?”

The area around the second wolf pack was completely filled with dust. That dust spread rapidly to the surroundings.

“Damn. We got tricked! The magic circles!”

The magician startled by the spreading dust hastily activated the remaining magic circles.

Crackle! Boom boom!

Light burst from magic circles around the dust, then tremendous current poured toward the dust.

But the current couldn’t stop the dust from spreading. As the ground itself overturned and magic circles were erased, the current seemed to retreat on its own.

“It’s not magic! Could it be monster sorcery?”

At the magician’s words, the red-eyed swordsman narrowed his eyes.

“Could it be? Is it that bastard?”

He sprang into the dust as if bouncing.

Soon the swordsman’s laughter came from within the dust.

“As expected, it was you! I’ve been looking for you!”

Clang! Clang!

When sword collision sounds came from within the dust, the ground’s destruction that had been spreading to the surroundings stopped.

The magician hastily cast wind magic and shot it toward the dust ahead.

The wind cleanly blew away all the dust.

Where the dust flew away, the wolves were nowhere to be seen and people’s forms were visible.

Two young men and two women.

The red-eyed swordsman was giggling while crossing swords with one of the men.

“We finally meet. You don’t know how regretful I’ve been since we parted without finishing.”

He who crossed swords with Sun-woo was full of a cruel smile at his lips.

On the other hand, Sun-woo who was crossing swords with him showed no change in expression.

It was a face he frequently recalled since memories returned, an opponent he had fought with hundreds, thousands of times in his heart.

There was no reason for his expression to change just because he saw him in person.

However, just because his expression didn’t change didn’t mean his heart was at ease either.

Sun-woo’s energy crossing swords wildly surged, representing his feelings.

While the two crossed swords, Nanseol burst forward.

Her target was the black-robed magician standing alone in front of the group.

Since she knew that tremendous electricity burst from one gesture of his hand, she couldn’t leave him alone.

“B-Blink!”

Startled by Nanseol rushing at tremendous speed, he hastily used instant movement magic to dodge far away.

He moved dozens of meters, but Nanseol wasn’t easy.

Nanseol’s sword that had somehow followed flew aiming for the magician’s neck.

The magician screamed in fright.

“Don’t just help! We only need the priestess now anyway!”

But from behind there was neither answer nor movement.

He dodged with Blink magic once more. And he looked back with an angry expression.

There his subordinates wrapped in black robes were merely frozen stiff with hands extended to cast magic.

What stopped them was Hayden, who was dripping cold sweat on the opposite side.

He could handle them one by one with telekinesis.

But he judged that both Yeonhwa’s safety, who couldn’t fight, and binding all the enemy’s subordinates would be more advantageous to the battle situation.

‘Ugh. Seems I can’t hold on long…’

————————————————————————————————————————

“Among summoners, your growth speed was exceptionally fast. Even though you’re not a warrior, you use martial arts too, so I really struggled to deal with you.”

Red energy began surging from the warrior’s sword.

“Thanks to that, I secretly stole contaminated spirit beast’s inner dans to eat, did body modifications, really a pile of annoying work.”

The red energy now escaped the sword and materialized while wrapping the sword, gradually pushing away Sun-woo’s sword.

“I haven’t entered supreme peak yet because I still lack that damn enlightenment, but the power shouldn’t differ much?”

Screech!

His sword that now transformed into a lump of red sword energy confronted Sun-woo’s sword spreading sounds like screams.

But the red-eyed warrior who had been adding force to his sword with a mad smile began changing expression as time passed.

“What the hell is that sword! A sword not even wrapped in sword energy, let alone sword aura, blocks sword aura!”

Not knowing Sun-woo’s sword was one of the ten great treasures of the Demonic Cult, no, the Bright Cult, called the Revolving Divine Sword, he couldn’t understand the current situation.

Anyway, his initial plan to cut Sun-woo using sword aura ended up in the trash bin.

“Tsk, making things annoying.”

He leapt back and shot the sword aura wrapped around his sword toward Sun-woo.

In an instant five lines flew in Sun-woo’s direction. And another line flew toward Hayden behind, who had his hands raised.

Though grumbling with his mouth, he was coldly assessing the situation.

Now that he knew it was hard to immediately deal with Sun-woo before his eyes, while attacking Sun-woo he needed to clean up the guys who came together.

But that thought was shattered by sword aura bursting from Sun-woo’s sword.

Sun-woo blocked all sword auras flying toward himself with a sword that didn’t even create sword energy… And he shot his own sword aura to block the sword aura flying toward Hayden.

Sword aura, not sword energy. To block his sword aura at supreme peak upper level, it was impossible without equal-level sword aura.

“Damn, this doesn’t make sense! They say growth range is different, but I’ve never seen or heard of this growth speed!”

He himself had sacrificed his body with inner dans, surgery, and various medicines to forcibly pull from peak lower level to just before supreme peak.

But the guy who was first-class when they first met became peak second time they met. And now he had reached supreme peak upper level same as himself.

Moreover, the opponent had not only martial arts but various other skills too.

For him to rise to the same position as himself in martial arts in this short time, he couldn’t help but be surprised.

“This time it’s my turn, right?”

Sun-woo who blocked the sword aura immediately rushed toward the red-eyed warrior.

Seeing Sun-woo rushing like flying, he prepared for Sun-woo’s attack with a sword fully covered in sword aura.

But what came at him wasn’t Sun-woo’s sword.

Swish swish swish!

Bean-sized water droplets generated in front of Sun-woo and shot at him.

Though merely water droplets made from atmospheric moisture, he had to move his sword frantically.

The water droplets flew at speed like flying bullets. At that level, even water droplets wouldn’t differ much from bullets’ destructive power.

The feeling of blocking with the sword was the same. Every time he deflected water droplets, the impact felt on the sword wasn’t much different from blocking bullets.

“Damn!”

His lower body that he had stabilized with internal energy to prepare for sword strikes in case Sun-woo shook the ground became scattered deflecting water droplets.

Therefore he had no choice but to yield first strike to Sun-woo who subsequently came at him.

Clang! Clang!

Moving like light rays and sword collisions, the distance between the two gradually narrowed.

After losing first strike and continuing to be pushed back, the warrior thought he might lose at this rate.

Most of all, his forcibly grown internal energy was extremely unstable compared to his realm.

Unstable internal energy like evil faction’s absorbing techniques was a time bomb that could explode anytime.

He couldn’t keep sword aura continuously activated or fight long.

The problem was Sun-woo fighting opposite trusted the sword’s performance and fought without even wrapping sword energy.

There had to be tremendous difference in internal energy duration. Moreover, his surgically enhanced body didn’t surpass Sun-woo’s body either.

Eventually, at this rate he might self-destruct consumed by his own internal energy, so he decided to pull Sun-woo to close range to settle the match.

Fighting so close you could feel each other’s breath on faces was combat where a moment’s mistake meant losing life.

It was one thing inexperienced warriors should absolutely never do.

The warrior greatly laughed inside seeing Sun-woo stick close without knowing better as he led.

Though summoners received abilities different from others leading to such fast growth, experience alone wasn’t something abilities could resolve.

Now began the brawl honed and polished for decades.

Clang!

The shortly held sword deflected Sun-woo’s sword right before his nose and using that recoil the sword greatly swung around to cut Sun-woo’s arm.

Thud!

But the sword couldn’t cut Sun-woo’s arm and was blocked by his arm.

Before his surprised expression could fade, Sun-woo’s shoulder holding the sword jutted out and struck his chest, and subsequently Sun-woo’s forehead violently struck his head fallen from impact.

Bang!

Impact rang through his head and before he could gather his senses, all sorts of attacks including Sun-woo’s fist, shoulder, and knee exploded on his body.

He who had been forcibly swinging his sword to block only fatal attacks barely gathered his senses and even employed Lazy Donkey Rolling he swore never to use, flying his body back as far as possible.

Instantly bruised all over and face covered in blood, he rather couldn’t understand being beaten in a brawl.

Not knowing Sun-woo used abilities to experience countless past battles, he could never understand.

But he had no time to feel dejected. Because Sun-woo was rushing after him.

Fortunately his internal energy had no problems, so enduring pain he raised his sword toward Sun-woo.

Suddenly Sun-woo’s sword began splitting into multiple.

“Damn! Now it’s phantom sword!”

The red-eyed swordsman spat curses seeing dozens of swords pouring before his eyes.

Phantom sword meaning hiding real sword among false swords to attack.

A technique deceiving eyes with dazzling sword movements, well utilized among first-class swordsmen.

But at peak level where energy movement could be felt, it was completely useless.

“Even underestimating has limits!”

He ignored swords without energy and swung his sword to deflect only real swords outside.

Phantom sword creating fake swords had weakened sword power to create several times more sword illusions.

He also tried to continue offense after deflecting the sword, but half lost his mind to pain felt in his body and bloody trails.

“No way, all were real swords?”

But Sun-woo’s sword was indeed phantom sword.

Just a true phantom sword with illusion technique and phantom pain deployed together.

“Let’s finish now!”

It was time to settle.

Sun-woo swung his sword toward the warrior who looked dazed, and the red-eyed warrior ultimately had no choice but to let his blocked internal energy run wild.