Chapter 171. Battle of Shanghai (3)
Could this much blood really come out of a human body?
Thinking blankly about something so pointless, Kang Yujin dropped to one knee.
He needed to check the person lying on the ground.
“Don’t look, you idiot...”
A woman’s voice reached him.
“No matter how old a woman gets... she still doesn’t want other people seeing her face mangled like this.”
“I’ll treat you.”
“It’s already too late. Don’t touch me.”
“I have plenty of medicine in my Inventory. I’ll treat you.”
“I told you it’s useless...”
The Fist Venerable lay on the ground.
Her disheveled hair covered her face, and her clothes hid the condition of her body.
The only thing showing how badly she had been injured...
was the blood that had completely soaked the ground around her.
"..."
Kang Yujin bit his lip and looked around.
Far away, high above the ground, he saw the Demon Venerable.
Like prey skewered onto a branch by a bird, his torso had been impaled through a withered tree, his body hanging limply.
Nearby, the Sword Venerable was slumped against a rock.
Not a single limb remained attached to his body.
His head hung low.
“Did you... acquire the Skill?”
“Is that really important right now?”
“I asked if you acquired the Skill...!”
“I asked if that matters right now!!”
Kang Yujin shouted.
Then his gaze shifted again.
He saw a lone man standing in the empty field.
“Was it you?”
"..."
The man didn’t answer.
He merely smiled.
The instant Kang Yujin saw that smile...
his mind went completely blank.
“Brat, no! Calm down first...!”
The Fist Venerable’s voice reached him.
But Kang Yujin couldn’t calm down.
He couldn’t think at all.
His body simply moved on its own.
"...!"
With a roar that couldn’t be expressed in words, Kang Yujin charged.
He saw the man smile and raise one hand.
And at that moment...
Kang Yujin sensed death.
The unavoidable death he had experienced countless times inside the Demon Venerable’s illusions.
Even through his rage...
his instincts could feel it.
But his furious body refused to stop.
As Kang Yujin charged straight toward the man...
a gigantic cylinder suddenly dropped from the sky and crushed him.
"...!"
Kang Yujin barely managed to stop.
He couldn’t understand what had just happened.
“What... is that?”
He looked up.
Messages from the Constellations appeared before his eyes.
[B-rank Constellation ‘Golden and Silver Children’ applauds.]
[A-rank Constellation ‘Naval Commander Holding a Pitchfork’ jumps to his feet and cheers.]
[A-rank Constellation ‘Prodigy with Three Heads and Six Arms’ grumbles that it took far too long.]
Had some Constellation helped him?
Kang Yujin looked around.
There was no one nearby.
“B-Brat...”
The Fist Venerable’s voice came again.
Kang Yujin snapped back to himself and hurried toward her.
“Haha... I don’t know what happened, but it looks like we bought a little time...”
“Senior, right now...”
“Listen carefully, brat.”
Her voice was growing weaker by the second.
“As you already know from reading it, the book we gave you wasn’t simply a manual explaining how to move your body.”
“Yes...”
At first, Kang Yujin had thought it was a book explaining the movements needed to perform techniques.
But it wasn’t.
If anything...
it was closer to a book of philosophy.
“What matters in martial arts... is enlightenment.”
"..."
“Until now, we have all taught you something.”
“We trained you to sense the boundary between life and death in an instant.”
“We made you familiar with controlling internal energy.”
“And we trained you to move your body quickly and precisely.”
“Yes...”
“In our own way, we were preparing you so that you could understand that martial art properly.”
“It definitely helped.”
“Yes... then...”
The Fist Venerable’s voice softened.
“Can you do it now?”
“Yes.”
Kang Yujin answered without hesitation.
“I can.”
“If you lose your reason and charge like a wild beast, you can’t use that power.”
“Even if rage is burning inside your chest... keep your head cold.”
“Stay calm.”
“I understand.”
His answer was short.
He knew the Fist Venerable didn’t have much time left.
“Leave the rest to me.”
“Yes... all right.”
Her voice became thinner and thinner.
“Brat... no, Kang Yujin...”
“If Jegal Geum and I had ever had a child...”
Her voice stopped there.
The Fist Venerable no longer moved.
Kang Yujin looked at her for a moment.
Then he took off his outer garment.
He carefully covered her body with it.
Afterward, he opened his Inventory and took out another set of clothes.
The martial robe he had inherited from Jegal Geum.
The one said to have been made from the scales of a dragon hunted in China long ago.
Kang Yujin put it on.
Then he raised his head.
At that moment...
the surroundings shook.
“Uuuugh!”
With a roar, the gigantic cylinder lying on the ground shot upward.
Then it suddenly shrank.
It became the size of an ordinary staff used in staff techniques...
and flew away somewhere.
“G-Ghk... Was that the Ruyi Staff Jin Gahui used earlier? Why now...?”
The man who had been crushed beneath the cylinder...
no, the gigantic staff...
rose with an enraged expression.
“Kang Yujin.”
Then he looked at Kang Yujin.
“There was an interruption.”
“Still, now that we have finally met, allow me to formally introduce myself.”
“I am Asmodeus, Number 32 of Pandemonium’s Seventy-Two Demons, the honorable...”
“They really were a bunch of lying old geezers.”
Kang Yujin ignored him and muttered to himself.
“They told me to remember what happened when I lost Jegal Geum.”
“What?”
“They told me to become stronger so something like that would never happen again.”
“So I did exactly what they told me.”
“I trained as hard as I could...”
Kang Yujin continued speaking to himself without responding to Asmodeus.
“Then what was the point if it still ended like this... you damn old geezers?”
“Are you ignoring me?”
Asmodeus stepped forward with an offended expression.
“Kang Yujin, you...”
“I just want to confirm one thing.”
Kang Yujin cut him off.
“You’re the Vessel in China?”
“That’s right.”
Asmodeus nodded.
“I personally accepted Ha Mina’s modifications so that I could ascend to the position of the next Demon King.”
“Good.”
Kang Yujin let out a long breath.
“The person I absolutely needed to defeat...”
“and the person I want to kill right now...”
“turned out to be the same person.”
He clenched his fist.
“How fortunate.”
“What?”
“Maybe that great one guided me here.”
Grind.
Kang Yujin clenched his teeth.
“So that I could fight you with everything I have.”
"...!"
Only now did Kang Yujin understand.
He had met many people and experienced many things after coming to China.
Through all of it, he had become far stronger.
And all of that...
had been for this moment.
To defeat the demon standing before him.
“You dare...!”
Asmodeus moved.
“You are nothing more than a pathetic human whose body was modified!”
He charged at Kang Yujin with one arm extended.
That energy is terrifying.
Kang Yujin calmly observed Asmodeus.
His actual movements were crude.
He probably had little experience in hand-to-hand combat.
Compared to the Contractors Kang Yujin had met in China, his technique was almost childish.
And his raw physical ability didn’t appear especially extraordinary either.
Of course, it far surpassed an ordinary human...
but at most, it seemed only somewhat better than Phenex.
The problem was the tremendous energy covering his entire body.
That...
was monstrous.
Magic power? Demonic power? Internal energy?
Kang Yujin couldn’t tell exactly what it was.
Maybe all of them had been mixed together.
Either way...
the amount was terrifying.
The reason Asmodeus could move so quickly was because of that energy.
And while wrapped in it, Asmodeus’s offensive power increased exponentially.
If a direct blow containing that much energy landed...
even an extraordinary Contractor would inevitably fall.
Even if I use [Protective Aura] at full strength... it probably won’t matter.
Kang Yujin calmly analyzed everything as Asmodeus’s fist approached.
This was the boundary between life and death he had experienced countless times inside the Demon Venerable’s illusions.
By a paper-thin margin.
Kang Yujin raised one hand.
But he didn’t block directly.
He slipped past the attack as if merely brushing against it.
Thanks to the Fist Venerable’s brutal training, he could now move quickly and precisely.
Everything...
And recalling everything the Sword Venerable had taught him about controlling internal energy...
I take it.
Kang Yujin exhaled.
Then he punched.
BOOOOOOM!
The sound was like heaven and earth splitting apart.
For an instant...
even Kang Yujin wondered if something had gone wrong.
The power was so overwhelming that he could hardly believe he had produced it himself.
Asmodeus looked equally unable to understand what had happened.
“What...?”
Asmodeus was no longer standing in front of Kang Yujin.
He had been blown all the way into a small rocky hill in the distance.
“How... far... did I just fly?”
"..."
Kang Yujin didn’t answer.
He simply glared at Asmodeus and slowly walked forward.
“Ugh!”
Asmodeus’s eyes widened.
He forced himself upright and charged again with ferocious momentum.
His rush was unquestionably faster and heavier than almost anything in the world.
Come.
Kang Yujin spoke silently in his mind...
and pushed against the ground with his feet.
Again...
he dodged by the narrowest possible margin.
His body floated lightly into the air as he slipped past Asmodeus.
Then, the instant Asmodeus twisted around to launch another attack...
BOOM!
Kang Yujin’s heel slammed directly into Asmodeus’s head.
Asmodeus’s face smashed into the ground.
The impact was so severe that cracks spread through the earth from the point of collision.
"..."
The surroundings fell silent.
Not even the Constellations sent messages.
It was as though every living thing in the universe had gone quiet to watch.
“What... what is this?!”
Asmodeus barely managed to rise and shouted.
“How can you, a mere human who was only modified... possess power surpassing mine, Asmodeus?!”
“I don’t actually have more power than you.”
Kang Yujin answered coldly.
“Whatever that energy is... internal energy, magic power, I don’t know.”
“You have overwhelmingly more of it.”
“That’s right!”
Asmodeus placed a hand over the heart on the left side of his chest.
“The overwhelming demonic power accumulated within me over thousands of years!”
“I was modified so that I could convert it into a more aggressive form of energy, amplify it, and use it like humans use internal energy!”
“In other words, I possess the equivalent of thousands of years of internal energy!”
“You cannot compare to me!”
“Probably not.”
Kang Yujin had only ten years’ worth of internal energy inherited from Jegal Geum...
plus the internal energy gained from consuming seven Great Spirit Pills.
Whether Asmodeus truly possessed the equivalent of thousands of years was impossible to know.
But their reserves were unquestionably incomparable.
“That’s why this works so well on you.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?!”
Asmodeus charged again.
This time, his movements were slightly different.
Still crude...
but similar to Yang Weizheng’s movements.
Did he fight Yang Weizheng too?
It didn’t matter.
Kang Yujin had already reached the point where he could respond to Yang Weizheng’s actual techniques.
There was no reason to be struck by Asmodeus’s imitation.
He slipped past everything by a paper-thin margin.
Swiftly.
Precisely.
And...
he took it all.
“Here I go.”
"...!"
A violent gale erupted.
Every time Kang Yujin threw a punch, Asmodeus’s body shot into the sky.
At the same time...
the ground split apart and thunderous explosions rang out.
Asmodeus’s body was protected by an enormous layer of energy.
But each time Kang Yujin’s fist struck...
that protection shattered like glass.
“What is this?! What the hell is this?!”
“If you’re that curious, I’ll tell you its name.”
When Kang Yujin first acquired the Skill...
the name had surprised him.
This martial art probably had nothing to do with that great one.
And yet...
it carried a name like this.
Maybe all of this really was fate.
“[Nameless Great Art].”
"...!"
The Skill [Nameless Great Art].
It was unlike any martial art Kang Yujin had ever encountered.
Its effect was to draw in external energy and make it his own.
The power used by an opponent during an attack...
was seized in its entirety...
then returned through a counterattack.
That meant the power currently striking Asmodeus...
originated from Asmodeus’s own overwhelming energy.
In other words...
Asmodeus was being beaten by his own strength.
“And this...”
The energy scattered throughout the surroundings during their exchanges...
Kang Yujin gathered that as well.
No one had directly taught him how.
But he understood.
This was the finishing move the Fist Venerable had wanted to teach him.
The true essence of [Nameless Great Art].
Gather even the energy scattered throughout the surroundings into one place...
then release that enormous power all at once.
“Nameless Great Art, Heaven-Shaking Tyrant Dragon.”
It was, just as the Fist Venerable had said, an entirely different kind of technique from [Heavenly Splendor Great Thunder].
[Heavenly Splendor Great Thunder] required Kang Yujin to directly land a fist filled with internal energy.
This did not.
Kang Yujin merely raised his hand...
and extended his arm toward Asmodeus.
Yet he could feel through his fingertips that the released energy had locked onto its target perfectly.
The raging power took the form of a dragon.
It swallowed Asmodeus whole...
and once again hurled his body into a nearby rocky hill.
Asmodeus’s body broke apart.
And with a deafening roar...
the entire hill collapsed with him.
