I Entered an Academy in a Ruined Game

Chapter 270 : Draw Him Out (10)

Su-hyeon was deeply immersed in the Realm of Non-Self.

Overflowing vitality, the flexible relaxation that smoothly transmitted that vitality from the tips of his toes to his fingertips, and the optimal elasticity created as a result.

Whirrrk!

In the slowly flowing time, Su-hyeon could react to all six arms of the Ma-in.

Nevertheless, he was facing six weapons.

Clash clash clash clang!

Even though Su-hyeon displayed divine skill by deflecting three weapons at once with one sword and flowing away two attacks with his arm wrapped in a Hardening Shield.

Still, one attack grazed his clothes, the edge of his skin, his hair.

Kagagak!

Not one weapon lacked in principle, and...

Chang!

Not one attack lacked in power, speed, or trajectory.

'This is Asura.'

This was the power of a being who had reached the pinnacle as a Ma-in.

'Indeed S+ rank.'

Each attack seemed beyond even Ha Jinsu's.

'No, in terms of impact, beyond Lee Cheong-myeong.'

Of course, the fact that six arms attacked simultaneously might make that power seem exaggerated beyond reality.

'It's okay. I can endure.'

Su-hyeon forgot his fear and faced him bravely.

Kwaaang!

Seong Ji-cheol's mace struck the empty space where Su-hyeon had been.

Shiiik!

Even though he blocked the retreat with chains, axes, and sickles simultaneously, Su-hyeon neutralized all those moves by stepping with Chukji.

"Truly admirable."

Seong Ji-cheol said without even disturbing his breathing.

"It's embarrassing, but it's true that my name is often compared to the strongest."

"......"

"Beings worthy of being called my equals are the Divine Spear and the Vampire Queen. Only Ju Taeyang can claim to be above me, and even the Reversal War General and Battle Maniac merely chase after me."

Against such a person...

"That you, a mere 17-year-old boy... no, I'll stop."

Seong Ji-cheol stopped what he was saying and shook his head.

"How many times must you have heard people express surprise because of your age? It must be tiresome."

"......"

Still immersed in the Realm of Non-Self, Su-hyeon merely observed his body tired from the fierce battle while regulating his breathing, not responding to his enemy's words.

"Boring. You look pitiful when you're too desperate."

With footwork that seemed impossibly nimble for such a large body, Seong Ji-cheol rushed at Su-hyeon.

Kaaaang!

The axe and mace.

The heaviest attacks struck Su-hyeon vertically, forcing him to employ both arms in defense, and...

Kagagak- Chwak!

In that gap, the sword and sickle that sharply scraped his Hardening Shield finally sliced Su-hyeon's side.

"Kuk!"

"Rest assured. I didn't apply any poison."

Such boring tricks went against his principles.

'Chain!'

Su-hyeon's widened visual field easily detected the chain trying to bind his feet from outside his vision.

'I can see it.'

Su-hyeon could see the intricate movements of the chain, the weak links surrounded by mana so dense it was almost thick.

Kakak!

Su-hyeon, who had repelled the axe and mace with nimble footwork, placed the blade of his Moonless Sword against the side of the chain, and...

Ppakak!

The chain, strong enough to easily bind an elephant, broke helplessly.

"Hooo."

Seong Ji-cheol marveled.

"This is Ahn Byeong-jun, that dwarf's technique."

Su-hyeon didn't answer.

Instead, he recovered his balance that had collapsed from swinging his sword in one step, and prepared for the next attack in his second step.

'Chukji.'

The mysterious power that folded the earth to run couldn't be released and swirled between Su-hyeon's feet and the ground.

Whirik!

Su-hyeon accelerated that overflowing kinetic energy in every joint of his limbs, transforming it into a lightning-fast left straight.

'Danger!'

Seong Ji-cheol used his mace like a shield to block that trajectory.

Gwaaaaaang!

There was a massive explosion, and...

Crack!

Seong Ji-cheol's mace developed a large crack.

"...Impressive."

The tremendous impact made Seong Ji-cheol's skull ring, and his muscles and joints screamed.

'He retreated three steps.'

It was truly an astonishing power.

"I won't be able to use this anymore."

Seong Ji-cheol marveled while looking down at his mace.

'Taking a fist wrapped in Chukji head-on, yet the weapon isn't completely destroyed?'

Su-hyeon was equally surprised.

'...My Hardening Shield broke and my fist is slightly injured. That means he didn't even disperse the force.'

Once it hit, it was an invincible strike.

'Neither the Spear Devil, nor Rusty Sword, nor the Sword Warrior could withstand it.'

But Seong Ji-cheol had endured.

"You really are incredible."

Su-hyeon, emerging from the Realm of Non-Self, said.

"Jeong Su-hyeon, feeling like talking a little now?"

Seong Ji-cheol smiled.

"Or is it that you can't concentrate because it hurts too much?"

His gaze turned toward Su-hyeon's stomach.

'Damn it.'

In exchange for rendering one mace unusable, blood flowed from Su-hyeon's stomach, pierced by the spear tip.

'If it had been just a little deeper, my intestines would have been torn, and I would have been incapacitated.'

It was a moment when life and death came and went with a single breath, a single judgment.

"You must have realized the difference in power already."

Seong Ji-cheol said.

"Do you now understand that you cannot change the predetermined fate with your power? While you're doing this, the cabinet might already be opening."

"I wonder."

Su-hyeon retorted while tearing his clothes to stop the bleeding in his abdomen.

"Is it really that easy to open?"

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No Seonggwang.

Dripping blood from the wound inflicted by Su-hyeon, he arrived near the cabinet and finally let out the long sigh he had been holding.

"Damn it."

A thick composite barrier that could seemingly block even a nuclear bomb stood before his eyes.

"Woo-hyuk would have been better at opening this kind of thing than me."

"...What should we do?"

The teleporter who had brought Seong Ji-cheol asked.

"What can we do? I can't open this with my hands."

"Then?"

"We have no choice but to wait until Asura defeats that guy and comes."

He shrugged, saying it was all for nothing.

"Well, at least we cleared the path here."

Behind him lay countless chimeras, scorched by lightning.

"I've done my part."

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"Su-hyeon, are you still at it?"

Commander Ju Taeyang, having returned to his office, muttered quietly while listening to the voices coming from the situation room.

The battle situation he heard was not good.

It had already been over 10 minutes since Su-hyeon broke through the Vampire Queen's defenses and entered the secret passage, but...

There was no news from there.

Even while facing a joint attack from the 'Flame Emperor' Seol Ji-yun, "Fire Sword" Jin Hyein, and several supernovas led by Min Hae-na and Seo Jun-seong...

The Vampire Queen's defense, refusing to yield the entrance to the secret passage, was like an iron wall.

The momentum of Jang Su-il, who had broken one of Reversal War General Son Ji-gwang's ribs and snatched and thrown away Breaking Sword Ahn Byeong-jun's mace, still persisted.

'...Even in this situation, I shouldn't go?'

If he went to that battlefield...

If he burned his last remaining life, he could surely organize this chaotic battle situation.

'Is it not time yet?'

But Ju Taeyang couldn't move.

Because Su-hyeon had earnestly asked him.

That today, no matter what happened, he had to endure.

That his final battlefield had not yet come.

'But the fact that Su-hyeon hasn't come out means something has gone wrong.'

He couldn't help but consider the worst case.

What was the worst case?

Su-hyeon dying in this battle and the door to Nastrond opening.

'Are you saying that even in the face of such a possibility, my final battlefield has not yet come?'

Jeong Su-hyeon.

The prophet of the end.

The material that would become his firm successor.

Only because of that boy's words was Ju Taeyang still exercising patience.

'...When a truly insurmountable enemy appears. That's when stepping forward is my final mission, he said.'

The Battle Maniac, the Vampire Queen, and even Asura...

No existing Ma-in, no matter who came, could be that threatening an enemy to Ju Taeyang.

'...Su-hyeon. Don't die there. Flee rather than die.'

In Ju Taeyang's mind...

More important than blocking the door to Nastrond was none other than Su-hyeon's life.

'As you said, the end approaches moment by moment.'

But...

"The end you spoke of isn't Nastrond, is it?"

The erosion of the shadow world.

That in itself couldn't become the end.

Even though he had heard from Su-hyeon what would happen because of it, he believed so.

"I rather think like this, Su-hyeon. Nastrond opening is not only an unavoidable fate but rather an opportunity to end everything."

Why not?

"Shall we struggle to stop the army of nomads who come running with fattened horses every autumn?"

Ju Taeyang asked himself while looking out the window.

"No. Nothing ends that way. It's just days of waiting in fear for the day when recovered fiends will attack again, days of suffering headaches from internal uproar while reinforcing defenses."

Therefore, Ju Taeyang thought.

"To cut this knot, shouldn't we draw out their leader, behead him, and burn down his stronghold?"

They needed to defeat the leader of Ma-in and demonic beasts, in other words, all demons.

'That would be the guy Hwang Won-jae calls "Him."'

According to Su-hyeon's prophecy, he was the ruler of Nastrond and the most ferocious conqueror.

Only by defeating that being could they stop the end, and...

In other words, when no one can stand against and defeat that being, that's when the end is completed.

"Therefore, this is also a battle to draw him out."

That wasn't just Ju Taeyang's thought alone.

'So live. Flee if necessary. If you're there, we can ultimately achieve victory.'

Ju Taeyang recalled Su-hyeon's face, fighting far away where even telepathy couldn't reach, and repeated in his mind.

"Just as you told me to be patient, you too must stoically endure failure and defeat, and withdraw."

He trusted Su-hyeon's judgment and skills.

'If you set your mind to it, who on earth could chase and catch you?'

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"Keuk!"

Su-hyeon, kicked in his wound by an unexpected kick, retreated backward in pain.

"Did you think legs were your exclusive weapon?"

Seong Ji-cheol asked.

'Damn it.'

Su-hyeon, who had sustained several more injuries in that short moment, swallowed the rising blood behind his throat.

"I heard your defense and evasion skills were impeccable, but it seems even they have their limits."

His feet began to slow, and his reactions weren't what they had been at first.

Both stamina and mana were being shaved away.

"Huu."

'Sometimes there are opponents like that. Ones that make you feel like nothing you do will work against them.'

Of course, Su-hyeon knew.

The fact that he hadn't yet reached the level to defeat the Vampire Queen and Asura, though maybe Jang Su-il.

'Still, I didn't know the difference would be this big. Was I unconsciously intoxicated by the realm I reached with Ju Taeyang's help?'

"Still can't accept it?"

Jang Su-il asked, as if curious why despair hadn't yet appeared on Su-hyeon's face.

"The fact that you can't defeat me."

"...Well, I wonder about that?"

Although he had rendered the mace unusable and cut the chain once...

Seong Ji-cheol's attacks, having discarded the mace and firmly gripping the spear with both hands, were hardly inferior to before.

'At this point, I have only one card left.'

[Overclock].

A secret technique that draws out the final strength at the cost of bodily destruction.

But if he used that skill, he didn't know what he would lose due to the backlash, which was on a completely different dimension from before.

'Is this a situation that must be stopped at such a cost?'

Or was it a situation where he should retreat?

Su-hyeon's head and heart were making different arguments.

'...Retreating is probably the right thing to do.'

Of course, Su-hyeon was a person who knew how to put reason before emotion.

'I can't die here.'

But even if he outmaneuvered Seong Ji-cheol with Chukji and attacked No Seonggwang, nothing would change.

'If the cabinet finally opens, the countdown to Nastrond's opening definitely begins.'

A world where the end begins.

The world after today would become such a world.

'...There's no choice.'

Su-hyeon thought.

'But even if I retreat, I want to land one blow.'

Su-hyeon's eyes flashed suspiciously.