Chapter 12
Strength was always a relative judgment.
In a survival battleground, that held doubly true.
A viper that brought down a lion had no guarantee of evading the talons of a hawk wheeling overhead.
In that sense, Chae Geonuk believed Go Taemin was confronting the most towering wall he had encountered in today’s match.
He had watched Go Taemin’s terrifying prowess unfold in real time.
Barely a moment ago, he had witnessed Taemin casually dismantle Antonio, a seasoned veteran.
Still, Geonuk could not quell his unease, because he had also observed this pretty boy fighting in real time.
Christopher, the Ashen Phantom.
Before hunting down Go Taemin, the youth had already wiped two Named warriors off the map.
Even Juggernaut, hailed as the Monster of the Battlefield, and Joaquin, the Human Butcher, had been reduced to mere prey before the tip of his blade.
Dressed in blue jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt that looked utterly out of place in this hellscape, the boy was, by any measure, the undisputed strongest presence on this map.
Wishful thinking was poison to an information broker. Geonuk coolly weighed the two men’s capabilities side by side.
Go Taemin had never received formal training in swordsmanship.
No master had ever taken him under their wing, nor was there any record of him sweating it out in a dojo for years.
The sole reason he had survived the infernal arena and climbed this high was simple.
Overwhelming talent.
A supernatural grasp of spacing that gauged distance in a fraction of an instant.
Reflexes that answered before an enemy attack was even unleashed.
And a meticulously conditioned physique backing every single movement.
It was only possible because those three elements worked in flawless harmony.
To Geonuk’s eyes, however, Christopher was a prodigy capable of making even Taemin’s gifts look quaint.
Christopher possessed all three of the gifts Taemin held.
If anything, he surpassed him in each.
Then came the decisive difference.
The boy possessed an additional weapon Taemin lacked.
A natural-born genius for the blade.
Where Taemin swung his sword on raw instinct, Christopher backed that instinct with exquisite technique.
It was as if someone had granted wings to a beast that already had razor-sharp claws.
A prodigy armed solely with raw talent and instinct versus a monster who possessed refined technique on top of them.
The scales had already tipped decisively in one direction.
On the monitor, Christopher leveled the tip of his sword at Taemin with languid eyes.
Contrary to Geonuk’s desperate wishes, Taemin showed no intention of retreating.
Watching him, Geonuk let out a bitter sigh.
“Yeahā¦ getting crushed once like this might not be the worst thing.”
If Taemin was to survive Nova Arena over the long haul, swallowing the bitter pill of defeat was an inevitable part of the process.
He only hoped his precarious junior would not be crushed beneath the weight of that bitter outcome.
Taemin broke the stillness.
His figure, clad in the Akwi mask, shot forward like a bullet.
At the brazen charge, Christopher gave a light shrug.
“Hmm. You’re rougher around the edges than I expected. I thought you’d at least return my greeting.”
His sword cut through the air in the same breath.
A stark red line traced itself across Taemin’s retinas.
A trajectory of death read by pure intuition. Taemin twisted his torso without hesitation.
The red line whipped past his shoulder by a hair’s breadth.
Simultaneously, he initiated his tried-and-true formula for victory.
Close the distance, pierce the enemy’s opening, and snip their lifeline in a single breath.
It was a sequence that had never failed him.
“ā¦!”
Defying his expectation, a searing heat scorched across his shoulder.
He had clearly maneuvered outside the red line.
He thought he had read the trajectory and evaded, but in that fleeting instant, Christopher’s blade had shifted both speed and angle to slice through his shoulder.
There was no room to ponder.
Taemin struck back at once. The distance was already closed.
He drove his dagger deep toward Christopher’s flank.
Just as he thought the blow had landedā
“ā¦?”
No resistance met his fingertips.
The boy who had been standing there a split second before lightly pivoted, letting the thrust glide harmlessly into empty air.
Having dodged by a razor’s margin, Christopher was suddenly standing behind him.
The hair on the back of Taemin’s neck stood on end.
Death.
For the first time since entering Nova Arena, his instincts dredged up that word.
Forged across countless brushes with death, Taemin’s senses screamed.
A deafening alarm blared inside his skull.
If he yielded the initiative like this, he would die. It was no vague premonition, but terror bordering on absolute certainty.
Christopher was equally impressed.
He had heard the wordĀ Ā all his life.
Even in the United States, teeming with monstrous athletes, his dynamic visual acuity and reflexes stood in a league of their own.
His father, an obsessive American football fanatic, had poured all his passion into grooming his young son into a gridiron star.
Christopher, however, found American football boring.
To him, combat was not about battering an opponent with brute force, but toying with them without permitting a single hair to be grazed.
In that regard, Nova Arena was his ideal playground.
He had ascended to the peak without facing a single crisis or suffering a single wound.
The blow he had just delivered was no exception.
Christopher had fully intended to end Demon’s life with that one stroke.
The outcome, however, was nothing more than a shallow graze across the man’s shoulder.
Christopher let out a soft exclamation and tilted his head.
“You actually dodged that? I like it. Looks like this new toy won’t break so easily.”
The boy’s voice remained crystal clear, yet the bloodlust threaded through it was cold enough to freeze the humid jungle air.
Clutching his bleeding shoulder, Taemin glared at Christopher.
His instincts whispered to him.
Taemin merely lowered his stance, keeping the tip of his sword leveled.
Back down here, and there was no tomorrow.
Die as prey, or remain the hunter.
There was only one choice.
Taemin kicked off the ground and surged forward once more.
This time, his left flank.
Fresh crimson welled from the clean cut in his leather armor.
Taemin’s counter, meanwhile, merely skewered Christopher’s lingering afterimage.
He did not stop.
Driven by feral tenacity, he swung his blade again.
His right thigh.
A searing spike of agony surged straight up his spine.
With every exchange, the flicker of interest drained from Christopher’s eyes.
“It was only novel at first. In the end, you’re just like the rest. No matter how desperately you swing that thing, you’ll never hit me.”
Pressing the masked man before him, the boy moved to wrap up this tedious skirmish.
Right then.
Taemin hurled the dagger gripped in his left hand.
“Heh. As if that could work.”
Christopher deflected the flying blade with the tip of his sword.
He riposted in the same fluid motion.
With a sharp metallic ring, the sword flew from Taemin’s grip.
It was over. A warrior stripped of his weapon.
Christopher was certain of his victory.
As he moved to drive the finishing thrust into his opponent’s heartā
“Huhā¦?”
The sword tumbled from Christopher’s fingers.
Having drawn the empty scabbard from his hip before anyone noticed, Taemin had struck the boy’s wrist with pinpoint precision.
If you lose your blade, use your fists; if your fists fail, use your body. That was how the mercenary Go Taemin had survived the valley of the shadow of death.
Watching the absurd scene unfold, the commentators screamed in unison.
ā
ā
Both men were now empty-handed.
Taemin seized Christopher around the waist and slammed him into the earth.
Merciless fists began caving in the boy’s face.
The majesty of the Ashen Phantom that had dominated the battlefield moments before vanished without a trace.
On the dirt remained only a frail boy, flailing his arms in a desperate bid to ward off the pounding blows.
Taking the full brunt of the downpour of strikes, Christopher marvelled inwardly.
It hurt. And it burned hot.
This man was fundamentally different from himself.
If Christopher had been playing an intricate game, the man before him was a combatant locked in a desperate struggle on an actual battlefield.
A true warrior who had walked over mountains of corpses to reach this place.
Amid that alien realization, Christopher gathered his final thought.
The boy’s head lolled limply to the side.
A new notification popped up before Taemin’s eyes.
[You have slain Pro Warrior ‘Ashen Phantom’.]
[You have slain a Red Diamond Mark holder. (Cumulative Mark Holder Kills: 15)]
“,Ā ,Ā ,Ā ā¦”
Taemin drew ragged, heaving breaths.
The stench of blood assaulted his nostrils.
Every inch of his body screamed. As the adrenaline receded, excruciating agony rushed in to fill the void.
The stab wound in his flank was especially severe. Through the torn leather armor, blood surged in steady pulses, soaking the soil.
His vision flickered and dimmed ā the telltale sign of heavy blood loss.
Struggling to steady his swaying body, Taemin reached down to collect the sword and scabbard lying in the dirt.
The health recovery effect granted by the Red Diamond Mark apparently did not replenish lost blood.
Fortunately, he had packed an emergency first aid kit.
He dumped hemostatic powder into the wound and wound bandages tightly around his midsection.
It was far from professional medical care, but it would suffice as a makeshift patch to keep him on his feet until the match ended.
Finishing the field dressing, Taemin bit down on the end of the bandage to secure the knot.
He groaned, pressing a hand against his throbbing flank.
A considerable amount of time still remained before the match concluded.
Furthermore, remaining prey ā or rather, remaining survivors ā were scattered everywhere.
Taemin forced himself upright.
Two thousand dollars a head.
To him, the survivors scattered throughout this jungle were not menacing competitors.
They were merely golden goblins hidden across the woods or walking around on their own two feet.
As long as he could pocket that cash, pain like this was nothing more than a pleasant post-workout ache.
Struggling to his feet, Taemin readjusted his Akwi mask and stepped back into the gloom of the forest.
Using the red beacon as his compass, he roved the grounds, butchering warrior after warrior.
ā
ā
ā
ā
Taemin moved with cold calculation.
For a mercenary whose very lifeblood was efficiency, pointless slaughter was a waste of ammunition and stamina.
Ordinary warriors earned him no money. They were merely prospective candidates to inherit the next mark.
He hunted down only the mark holders, slitting their throats one by one.
Whenever he did, the mark transferred to a new target, and he hunted that warrior in turn.
Slashing and cutting his way through, before longā
[You have slain Pro Warrior ‘Glek’.]
[You have slain a Red Diamond Mark holder. (Cumulative Mark Holder Kills: 78)]
[Time Remaining Until Match End: 11:32:17]
[Current Survivors: 1]
Across the vast expanse of the forest, only Go Taemin remained.
[‘Akwi (ę”鬼)’ Victory!]
[A win bonus equal to Base Pay x 1 has been awarded.]
[You have held the Red Diamond Mark the longest. You have acquired <Waldstein Series No.113> as a reward.]
[Concluding Match 4 of <Pro League – Ashmoon Night 193>.]
Under normal circumstances, the match would have required another eleven and a half hours of endurance before drawing to a close.
The jungle, however, held no guests left to meet the edge of his blade.
In a survival match that began with one thousand combatants, he had cleared every single participant before the clock could run out.
āWhat on earth did I just watch? A 72-hour survival match wrapped up in 60 hours. Where did the remaining 11 hours go?
āThat wasn’t survival, that was a time attack.
āHoly crap, I should’ve known the moment the Ashen Phantom got caught. Demon isn’t some Japanese amateur, he’s a Reaper straight out of hell!
ā78 cumulative mark kills? Just calculating the bonus prize money puts him over $150,000. Has there ever been a warrior in history who ripped off that kind of bonus in a lower-numbering Match 4?
āThe NAA suits must be clutching their heads already. Congrats, Demon. Watching you clean out their wallets feels amazing! ššš
āWhere’d all those clowns who were mocking Demon go? The ones saying he’d turn into an ordinary mortal once he landed in the US. Step right up. Demon isn’t human, he’s a literal devil!
āWhat gives me chills is his attitude. Cutting down nearly 80 people and acting as casual as if he’s picking up groceries at a supermarket. Now that he’s pocketed Waldstein No.113, what kind of monster is he going to show up as in the next match?
āHOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. When he slammed Christopher into the dirt like that, I hurled my beer glass across the room! That’s what real combat looks like! Demon, you’re my hero starting today! šŗš„š„
āI can’t even remember the main event that just wrapped up. Match 4 was the real main event! NAA needs to bump him to the main card right this second. Keeping his blade buried in the lower numbering is a criminal waste of talent!
At the arrival of a new Named warrior, viewers across the US Pro League erupted in cheers.
