I Entered an Academy in a Ruined Game

Chapter 298 : The Natural Enemy of Demons (4)

Crosell was confused.

'What did he just do?'

The attack that snapped her head backward.

'Was it a punch? A kick? What was it?'

What was clear was that the attack came at a speed beyond Crosell's perception.

And she couldn't even discern the nature of that attack.

'...My vision is blurry.'

She had taken significant damage from just one hit.

'If I allow a few more attacks like that, I'll be in danger.'

That wasn't all.

'And what was that technique where he waved his hand to disperse my magical energy?'

Wasn't that exactly how someone of higher caliber suppresses someone of lower caliber?

'He is...'

Crosell's eyes narrowed.

'Truly a transcendent being?'

She couldn't understand how that was possible.

Exceptional talent?

Natural intelligence?

Innate aptitude?

Rigorous training and brutal trials?

Numerous miracles?

'If one could transcend with such things, there's no reason I couldn't have climbed that wall in nearly a thousand years.'

In a sense...

Transcendence was given only to the chosen ones.

And that selection was an extremely rare event that might happen once in thousands of years.

"I cannot accept this!"

Crosell erupted in anger.

"You're being stubbornly strange."

Su-hyeon raised his invisible sword.

The invisible sword.

Or the sword of mind.

Though she had mocked it as an easy realm to attain...

How difficult must it be for a formless sword to boast strength and sharpness that didn't yield to her cherished Ice Sword?

It was in itself proof that the sword in his heart, his level as a swordsman, surpassed her imagination.

Clang!

The slashes created by Su-hyeon and Crosell collided in midair, creating another shockwave.

'He perfectly matched and nullified my attack in terms of power, speed, and trajectory.'

It was an acrobatic feat impossible without being at a higher level than herself.

'...This is absurd.'

The alias "Beautiful Crosell" wasn't given simply because of her physical beauty.

Rather, it was because the martial realm she displayed was so beautiful and lofty.

'But what exactly is this human?'

It was already preposterous for a human who hadn't even lived 20 years to speak of transcendence.

And now a human who had only learned the base martial arts developed by humans who could live for mere decades had surpassed the martial arts that demons had honed over hundreds, even thousands of years?

'Even to be equal would be my humiliation.'

It was truly an incomprehensible phenomenon.

And because she couldn't understand it.

She couldn't accept it.

"Aaaahh!"

Crosell spread her wings, screaming with a voice as beautiful as a siren.

Her power, aura, the killing intent in her eyes, and cold anger.

In every aspect, Crosell was now in peak condition.

"I'll butcher you into a thousand, ten thousand pieces!"

"Try it."

Su-hyeon's eyes deeply descended into the world of unconsciousness.

Selflessness is self.

Having sunk into the deepest unconsciousness, Su-hyeon pointed the tip of his invisible sword at Crosell.

Clang!

There were ten sword strikes and seven collisions, but those watching heard only a single sound of collision.

Afterimages, light, movements beyond visual range.

At this moment, only those engaged in the battle themselves could understand their fight.

"You are strong."

Su-hyeon complimented Crosell.

"How dare you evaluate me!"

Crosell's anger flared even higher.

'No, truly.'

Su-hyeon quietly marveled at Crosell's prowess.

'She ranks 4th among the Great Overlords, but in martial arts, it wouldn't be strange to place her 2nd.'

Crosell's fighting style, having abandoned miscellaneous abilities to focus solely on the sword, seemed simple at first glance, but the ever-changing attacks from her sword tip presented Su-hyeon with endless permutations.

But among all those future possibilities, only one would actually occur.

And the eyes of a transcendent being were already seeing that future, one moment ahead.

"Why, just why!"

Clang!

Crosell screamed as she wildly swung her sword.

A flurry of strikes made without even taking a breath.

Not one of those attacks lacked profound principles.

Yet none reached Su-hyeon.

"Kugh!"

Crosell coughed up blood and retreated after being hit in the stomach with the sword hilt.

"Huh, huurk."

Before Su-hyeon's eyes, which had encompassed martial arts, experience, intuition, instinct, and psychology, then transcended to another dimension.

None of the techniques Crosell had built up could catch Su-hyeon off guard.

'Just one graze would be enough!'

Trusting in her sword that could create incurable wounds with just a cut, Crosell tried absurdly irregular swordsmanship just to scrape him.

Clang!

Whack!

"Urgh!"

Su-hyeon didn't allow any attack, easily defending and then countering to add more wounds to Crosell's body.

"Even an Ice Sword that leaves incurable wounds doesn't matter if it never cuts me."

Su-hyeon said.

"Your swordsmanship is already transparent to my eyes."

Swordsmanship carries the user's patterns like fingerprints.

And Su-hyeon, having analyzed his opponent through hundreds of exchanges, no longer felt surprised by any of Crosell's actions.

"If you have no more tricks to show, let's end this soon."

Smack!

Once again, an attack of incomprehensible speed struck Crosell's face.

"Kugh!"

With blood bursting from her lips, Crosell asked in disbelief.

"...What did you just do?"

"A jab."

"A jab?"

Crosell's expression distorted.

"With such a trivial attack?"

"For a demon, you know human martial arts quite well."

Su-hyeon shrugged.

"If you don't understand jabs, how about this?"

Flash!

As light sparkled, a section of Crosell's Ice Sword was cut off.

Clang!

The sound came afterward.

"...!"

"Overwhelming speed itself becomes an attack that cannot be defended against."

Su-hyeon said.

"Your advantages in speed and power are gone. What will you use to face me now?"

"You bastard!"

Crosell's wings moved independently to take a position behind Su-hyeon with an acrobatic trajectory.

Clang!

Su-hyeon's Moonless Sword stopped the attack that followed.

"...Is that a technique?"

Su-hyeon muttered, discerning Crosell's intention to disrupt his center of gravity.

"A predictable answer."

With swords clashing.

Su-hyeon grabbed Crosell's wrist with his free hand.

"!?"

In an instant, Crosell found herself without her sword, falling through the air.

'What is this?'

Boom!

"Kugh!"

Falling to the ground with no time to break her fall, Crosell hurriedly got up while rolling.

"What's the use of leaving your sword behind?"

Slash!

Su-hyeon, grasping the Ice Sword in his left hand, followed her and cut off her wing.

"Aaaagh!"

"Indeed."

Su-hyeon nodded.

"It truly doesn't heal."

The frozen wound was visibly rotting at a rapid pace.

Slash!

Crosell tore off her wing with her own hands.

"Urgh."

The watching Special Operations members winced.

"The Great Overlord...!"

"Help our lord!"

"Where do you think you're going!"

The Special Operations members blocked the demons trying to intervene.

"Get away, all of you! Do you dare presume to help me?"

Crosell's rage turned toward her subordinates.

"We-we're sorry!"

"Forgive us!"

"...You all stay back too."

Su-hyeon held back his comrades.

"Can you still fly with just one wing?"

"Shut up!"

Crosell's face contorted at Su-hyeon's mockery.

"How dare you, how dare you!"

Humiliation and rage.

"I will definitely kill you!"

In that massive whirlpool of emotions, Crosell lost her composure.

Boom!

"Urgh!"

"Huk!"

Just from releasing her magical energy, hundreds of demons lost consciousness, walls crumbled, and three Special Operations members were injured.

"Kuh! This is!"

"Quickly, Jun-seong, retreat!"

As Seo Jun-seong deployed a telekinetic barrier, the injured Kim Ho-su, Kwon Seung-yeon, and Kim A-yun moved behind it.

"Terrifying magical energy...!"

Lee Yu-jin swallowed hard.

Just from releasing her aura, awakened ones of A and A+ ranks were damaged.

And demon soldiers of lower ranks collapsed.

The demon soldiers nearby even had their forms crushed and disappeared.

'It's unimaginable power.'

But what surprised her even more was the reality that even a demon with such nightmarish power was being toyed with like a plaything before Su-hyeon.

"The authority bestowed upon me by Him is 'Absolute Zero.'"

Crosell, who was beginning to turn completely white with frost, said.

"Let's see if you can survive in the world of extreme cold where even molecules stop!"

Crack!

The extreme cold rushed toward Su-hyeon like a massive tsunami.

"Huk...!"

"Save me...!"

Demons caught in the cold died instantly, freezing before they could even scream properly.

"Back away if you don't want to die!"

"Y-yes, understood!"

"My God. Absolute Zero?"

Hwang Ji-su, who witnessed this, was shocked.

Even for her, known as the strongest of the ice manipulation type, it was a miraculous realm possible only in theory.

'Impossible.'

If this was real, even Su-hyeon would be in danger.

"Don't take it head-on! You need to avoid it!"

Su-hyeon looked at Hwang Ji-su, who was shouting, and shook his head slightly.

"Don't worry."

And with one slash.

Slash!

The extreme cold that was freezing the air as it approached was split by Su-hyeon's sword strike.

"...!"

"It's indeed very cold."

Su-hyeon muttered, looking at his Moonless Sword whose tip had frozen from the impact of the slash.

However.

It seemed that the Great Overlord's power couldn't invade further into the invisible sword made of extreme density.

"He cut it...!"

Crosell was dumbfounded.

He simply cut the cold that had reached absolute zero with his sword.

What was even more incomprehensible was the phenomenon where the cold, merely cut by the sword, split and didn't dare approach Su-hyeon.

"I can cut even space itself, so what significance does this mere authority have?"

Su-hyeon said in a low voice.

"Ah..."

Finally.

Despair settled on Crosell's face.

"Authority, compatibility."

Su-hyeon sneered.

"I didn't expect someone of your level to cling to such childish notions."

The absolute difference in power. The difference in caliber.

Crosell took a step back, feeling the unbridgeable gap.

"Are you afraid?"

"...!"

And Su-hyeon, looking down at the despair felt by a being of lower caliber than himself, showed mercy.

"If you bow your head before me, I'll spare your life."

"...What?"

"Unexpected mercy leaves you dumbfounded?"

Su-hyeon asked in return.

"It's nothing surprising. What's so strange about a quasi-transcendent bowing before a transcendent?"

"......"

Crosell bit her lip until it bled.

"Damn it."

She faltered for a moment.

At the hope that if she begged for her life, she would be spared.

"...Ah."

Her heart weakened.

"You, you bastard."

"You wavered."

Su-hyeon didn't mock or rejoice at the sight.

Just calm, as if confirming something expected.

"Aaaaaaahh!"

And the proud and beautiful demon couldn't endure that humiliation.

Stab!

"Th-that bastard!"

"Suicide...?"

Crosell, who had stabbed her neck with her prized Ice Sword, smiled as she coughed blood.

"Hu, huhuhuh."

"Destroying yourself before suffering greater humiliation. You had some pride left after all."

Su-hyeon praised her for this.

"What is this."

The Special Operations members, unable to process the scene, just watched in silence.

"You, Jeong Su-hyeon. One who has transcended humanity."

Crosell spoke each word as if chewing them, coughing blood.

"D-don't. Be smug."

"I wasn't particularly smug."

"The helplessness and despair I felt before Him."

Crack!

Even as the boiling blood turned to icicles when it met the cold.

Crosell's words continued.

"Was far greater than what I felt from you today."

"Is that so."

Su-hyeon nodded.

"Is that enough for your last words?"

"...Detestable bastard."

The expression Crosell made in her final moment.

Was a distorted smile.

"I won't take your head."

Su-hyeon looked down at Crosell's corpse and spoke to the Special Operations members and demons who were blankly watching the scene.

"Great Overlord Crosell, who butchered and slaughtered countless humans, met Special Operations Captain Jeong Su-hyeon, suffered an overwhelming defeat, and then committed suicide by stabbing her own neck."

Su-hyeon's recitation carried immense declarative power in itself.

"From humanity's perspective, there could hardly be a more satisfying victory than this."

It was both a declaration and a definition.

"...That guy."

Seo Jun-seong, looking up at Su-hyeon, muttered.

"Good thing he's not our enemy."

"That's what I'm saying."

"I almost started speaking formally to him for a moment."

"Is this how religions are born?"

Everyone nodded at Nam Tae-hoon's murmur.