301 – The Returner’s Fight (20)

“Hoo…”

“Haa…”

The sound of sighing had a strange magical power, and just hearing it had the effect of draining all of my strength. If two people were to sigh continuously in a small room, all of their original energy would fly away.

“What should I do…”

I’ll confess honestly. It wasn’t ‘if.’ It was a stark reality. Choi Jiwon and I were sighing deeply in the room the arena had prepared for us.

How did the fight with Cheonma go? I lost. I regressed. Since regressing, I’ve been locked in this room and sighing. Of course, I never thought I’d win right away. The process of losing is the problem.

To cut to the chase.

Han-gi worked.

“This sucks… ”

And I confirmed that I shouldn’t use cold air.

**

Before returning. Cheonma and I confront each other with swords in hand.

“You are truly a strange person.”

The guy laughed while observing my posture.

“… What?” ”

…”

“If you were going to talk, then answer.”

I asked back without realizing it, but Cheonma didn’t answer. Is it because he hasn’t regained his strength yet that he has limitations in speaking? Or is it because he’s not worth answering?

“This brat.”

I laughed viciously as well. There was no reason to hold back when they were provoking me.

Cheonma grabbed his sword. I grabbed my sword too. If we fight fair and square, I’ll definitely lose. Weak people like me don’t have the luxury of saving strength.

I lower my stance, embodying the magic of the flash. I draw out my magical power to the limit, wrapping my entire body just enough so that it doesn’t regress. Pure white fog covers the ground. The sword shines dazzlingly. A stroke that

contains everything I have. A fatal blow. All the know-how I’ve accumulated through repeated regressions so far. Towards Cheonma, who is glaring at me from there…

“Huh?”

Where did he go…? Cheonma disappeared. He was just smiling leisurely just a moment ago. Wasn’t I supposed to hit him once? He was acting so relaxed. Where did he go?

Eventually, I relaxed my stance and quickly looked for Cheonma. He was lowering his stance, holding a whip at the left edge of his head, just outside my field of vision. He no longer had the composure he had just now. The guy was astonished, his mouth wide open.

“… What are you?”

“What?”

“…”

Cheonma didn’t answer again. The guy’s pupils were busy scanning my entire body. It was as if he had seen something unbelievable.

Why was he doing that? There were two reasons. Flash. Cold.

If I had to choose between the two, I would go with Cold. If I’m wrong, then whatever. I’ll just go back.

“Let’s go.”

After finishing my calculations, I approached him step by step, maintaining the magical power that enveloped my body. Cheonma stood still, glaring at me. The guy must be confused as well. He must know that backing down is not the answer.

Cold is like an aura, its effect grows stronger the closer it gets to me. In order to properly feel its effect, I have to close the distance sufficiently. If I get ready to use Flash, it will move away again. So, I slowly close the distance. His windpipe…

-Kaaah!!!

I quickly moved my sword. A dark aura that looked like a thin needle flew at me, and I struck it just in time. I struck a small needle, but there was a sound of weapons clashing. What the hell did I do?

“?!”

There was no time to catch my breath. Countless dark energy baptisms came flying at me like rain. Cold energy can stop living things, but it can’t stop inorganic objects like that. It was possible to slow down due to the difference in air density, but the effect wasn’t great.

Using my previous know-how, I transformed my clothes to cover my entire body, and I was able to block all the attacks I could.

-Phew.

“… Ah.” The

needle was deeply embedded in my joint area. Even if I hadn’t returned, it was in a position where I would have great difficulty moving.

In the end, I returned without being able to face Cheonma and my sword.

[I took damage.]

[I return to the point where I first entered the 28th floor.]

***

I returned, but I didn’t give up.

“If what you said, Junho, is true… I think the cold energy will definitely work.”

“Right?”

Cheonma opened up some distance because the cold energy worked. He must have run away because he knew he would lose if we fought. If he could win, he wouldn’t have thrown his dark energy from far away.

“Ugh…”

So, it was almost certain that Cheonma would stop or freeze to a similar degree if exposed to the cold energy, but it was very difficult for him to escape like that. He may not have done it on purpose, but the dark energy attack was so difficult.

“I think he just threw his dark energy to keep it going as a simple restraint.”

“… That restraint?”

“Yeah. They say dark energy is fierce, but if you surround yourself with magic and rush in, you can take some damage and close the distance.”

“… I can’t take that little damage? I’ll just retreat?”

“You didn’t know that.”

“… That’s right.”

Cheonma didn’t use dark energy as his main weapon. As we can see from his fight with Choi Ji-won, he used dark energy to buy time at crucial times. So Choi Ji-won guessed that this storm of dark energy was also a means of buying time.

“Since your cold energy is that deadly, he probably needed time to come up with a countermeasure. I think it’s actually positive.”

“Right? I thought so too.”

When Choi Ji-won nodded, an idea also came to me.

“Then… I won’t reveal my magical power at first. I’ll just confront you while increasing my physical abilities a bit, and then at the crucial moment, if I unleash it, I can win, right?”

“Sounds good?”

**

That’s how we met Cheonma again. This time, I slowly circulated my magical power only within my body, and I approached Cheonma little by little. My expression was still relaxed. But I guess this is what Cheonma is like.

“You really are a strange person.”

“I thought so too.”

One step. One step. If I just take five more steps, my magical power will be within striking distance. It’s a distance that my sword can’t reach, so Cheonma might have let his guard down. Where, let’s see how far that arrogant face can go…

“… ?”

“… What are you.”

If only I had stuck closer, it would have been fine. Cheonma was already far away. His wavering eyes scanned my entire body. It was the same reaction as the previous round.

This meant one thing.

“… You felt this?”

The guy felt the cold air swirling inside my body. And he had a gut feeling that he would freeze if exposed to it. It was an intuition that was close to that of a beast… No, it was a beast itself.

– Saeaek!!!

“… Ah.”

I was once again caught up in the storm of dark energy and returned. It seemed like I blocked it a little better than the previous round, but I still had a long way to go.

[I took damage.]

[I returned to the point where I first entered the 28th floor.]

***

“… You can figure out the nature of the energy just by holding the magic power inside your body? Does that make sense?”

“I don’t know…”

If Cheonma gave me some distance, he would be defeated. However, if he opened enough distance and started spraying dark energy, I would be defeated. Since I was the one who had to close the distance, this was a situation that was unilaterally disadvantageous to me. The other side could have just run away and sprayed out dark energy.

“Did you figure out about the return?”

“That didn’t seem to be the case. Then you wouldn’t have picked up the sword at first and would have thrown the dark energy right away.”

It didn’t seem like he figured out about the return. It was just bad luck. The guy’s restraint was so fierce, and my return was so weak that it was an accident.

“Hiding my magical power completely… wouldn’t be possible if I just revealed it?”

“No.”

If I didn’t use magical power at all, I could fool the Heavenly Demon. It would be impossible for an archangel, let alone the Heavenly Demon, to figure out the magical power that had been quietly dormant. Even I, who could see souls, couldn’t do that.

However, magical power isn’t something that fires immediately with a click of a button like a gun. It requires a process of awakening the dormant magical power, moving it, and sending it out of the body. In other words, it would require a process of taking out a gun from my waist.

“But then it would definitely react.”

However, judging by the speed of Cheonma’s reaction, it seemed like it would react unconditionally no matter how fast I was. You might think that it wouldn’t be easy to follow him, but it wouldn’t be easy to fight against a nimble water spirit with a body that had no magic power. It wouldn’t be easy to just run away, and at the same time, a dark energy would fly at you.

“How about getting a large shield and carrying it?”

If only I could overcome the dark energy. It seemed like an answer.

“Then I would use a different weapon, like a bow or a pike, instead of a dark energy.”

“Pike? Isn’t that a long spear? Wasn’t there one like that?”

“There was one that was foldable.”

“…”

Choi Ji-won said that it would be difficult to close the distance while holding a large shield. It would be difficult for me to do so at the moment, unless I had a skill that could deal with long-range attacks.

“If it weren’t for the dark energy, I could fight against it…”

“Let’s think of another way.”

“Heroic traits…”

“It would be possible if I used the water spirits. But I have to consider that Cheonma would become stronger as time goes by.”

“Huh…”

There’s a technique called Han-gi that can kill with one blow. I can’t use it. Is it because there is a way to win? It felt even more unreasonable. It seemed to predict the arrival point of the flash beam. Damn, if only the preparation time had been shorter, we would have won unconditionally.

We thought and thought, but no proper answer came to mind. The Heavenly Demon would run away no matter what if I revealed my magic power. Was there no way to reach that guy?

So again, now. We were just sighing and holding our heads.

“Wait a minute.”

Just then, a brilliant idea occurred to me.

“The Heavenly Demon… can’t use the techniques it used?”

“… Right?”

“Then, if a secret technique is destroyed once, it won’t be used again, right?”

“It’s not like there’s only one type… but if it’s used up, it would be like that?”

“Then, if I don’t use my magic power and use all of my secret techniques for light restraint?”

“The Heavenly Demon won’t be able to use the secret technique…”

“If I release my magic power there…”

“The Heavenly Demon won’t have a way to restrain it, so it’ll be exposed to the cold air, right?”

It’s not an easy path. But it’s a sure path.

At this very moment,

a possibility suddenly emerged.