Chapter 152 - Skyrocketing (1)

1

The connections between people are strange indeed.

They range from little things, like making a friend and later discovering that he’s the grandson of the old man who ran your neighborhood supermarket...

To discovering that the hunter you spent ten years idolizing was a deranged psychopath, getting killed by him, then killing him yourself, and ending up living together through thick and thin...

No, let’s stop there. That example is far too unusual.

Anyway, my point is simple. You never know where human connections will lead. I’ve met all manner of strange and wondrous people by now, but the mystery of those connections still amazes me.

“Heeey, Kim Gongja! Been a while. You’re looking great!”

Specifically, I was amazed by the person on my video call right now.

“Somehow you’re even better-looking than when we were kids. Your face looks so much brighter. Seriously. I’m jealous, man! Maybe I should’ve followed you into the Tower when we left the orphanage. Let me tell you, Kim Gongja, out here the air’s bad, the people are worse, and it’s no place to live.”

The man my age chattered nonstop. He wore a neat suit, with his hair swept aside in a deep nine-to-one part. I murmured his name.

“Kim Han Feizi...”

“No, no. It’s Kim Han Fei now. Okay? I changed my name.”

“The director told me you’d earned yourself a National Assembly badge. Congratulations, my friend.”

He’d probably gone the furthest of all the kids from my orphanage cohort. A proportional-representation member of the National Assembly, was it?

The director had dismissed it in passing as “nothing but choosing the right connections and being lucky with the times,” but at our age, choosing the right connections wasn’t easy either.

“Aw, Gongja, compared to you I’m just the tail end of a snake. Don’t you go online? You’re incredibly popular. You’ve really helped raise our country’s standing.”

“Sorry. I’ve been staying off the internet lately, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, really? That’s a surprise. Anyway, my friend. Do me a favor.”

Kim Han Feizi smiled affably.

“I’m running for a constituency seat in the next general election. But being young and fresh is about all I’ve got to appeal to voters, right? So I was wondering. Would you mind if I publicized just a little that you and I were best friends at the orphanage?”

“Yes, I would.”

I bowed my head.

“Best of luck, Assemblyman. Please practice good politics. Politics that puts the people first. Honest, clean politics, please.”

“Huh? Ah. Hey! Hey!”

Han Feizi’s expression turned desperate.

“Gongja! Please! Help me out! Sorry I never called! How was I supposed to know you’d make it so big in the Tower? J-just one photo! I’ll only use one poster! Please help me keep my Assembly badge for just one more term—”

CLICK

I ended the call without a second thought. The last thing on the screen was my childhood friend’s face as he tearfully begged. Seeing it brought a fresh realization.

‘I really have made it in the Tower.’

A childhood friend who’d never once contacted me was calling. I was even getting petty requests from a member of the National Assembly. Before my four thousand regressions, I couldn’t have dreamed of such a thing.

BZZZZ

As soon as I hung up, my smartphone rang again. Han Feizi. I answered, making no effort to hide my annoyance.

“Yeees?”

“Lord Gongja, I apologize. I got above myself just because we played together as children.”

This bastard...

Becoming a politician had really taken him to new heights, hadn’t it?

There was something to learn from that shamelessness.

“I know you must be terribly busy, but could you spare a moment to hear us out?”

“I suppose there’s no harm in hearing you out.”

“Lord Gongja, I know nationality means nothing in the Tower. But we’re still fellow Koreans, aren’t we? That’s a connection too. There are so many people in the National Assembly, in our party, who feel very favorably toward you.”

“I’d rather not be so pleased with your goodwill that I end up your sucker.”

“Tell us what you want from us...”

“Uh, clean politics? Work for world peace.”

“Something possible, you lunatic!”

I see. So it was impossible...

If it was impossible, I supposed there was nothing to be done...

“Ah.”

An idea flashed through my mind.

“There is something I’d like to ask.”

“I knew it! People can’t get through life without exchanging favors. What is it? Ask for anything. The party will give you its full support. They gave me a blank check before I called you.”

“How reassuring.”

I smiled.

“Do you happen to know someone called Hwang Eunseo?”

Thus spoke Gongja: The connections between people are strange indeed.

Sometimes, someone you thought was dead takes revenge.

2

“Well, that’s what happened.”

“A perfectly natural and inevitable progression.”

The Sword Star replied after hearing my story.

“When I rose to first place in the rankings, I received countless requests myself. Not only from members of my family, but from politicians and businesspeople. They contacted me hundreds, thousands of times.”

“Huh. Swedish people do that too?”

“People are much the same wherever they live, wouldn’t you say?”

CLANG!

The Sword Star’s blade crossed mine. Though we conversed at leisure, our hands and feet moved busily. We were sparring to hone each other’s skills.

I was getting some advice on life while we were at it.

“You are now indisputably a person of power. A special sort, at that. You didn’t gain that power through political maneuvering, but purely through skill and achievement, did you not? People in the outside world like you. The Tower’s hunters look up to you.”

“You’re laying the flattery on rather thick, sir.”

“My point is that you must be all the more careful, young man.”

The Sword Star swung his blade.

SWISH!

The sharp strike targeted my wrist. I angled Sparkle upward and deflected it.

Once, I couldn’t even have followed that attack with my eyes.

“Aren’t I being reasonably careful already?”

But now I countered it while making small talk. I had become capable of countering it. I sent aura surging through Sparkle and locked the Sword Star’s blade firmly in place.

“Hmm.”

The Sword Star furrowed his brows.

“Remarkable use of aura.”

“I’m told I have more talent for aura than swordsmanship.”

“I don’t know who told you that, but they were right. Aura is a matter of the mind. Its power varies enormously depending on how vividly you form an image in your mind. What did you picture just now?”

A mansion engulfed in flames.

The children there had their hands and feet bound. They were trapped in restraints that wouldn’t loosen no matter how they struggled.

["It hurts..."]

["Please forgive me..."]

I moved my aura while picturing the children’s hands and feet. Handcuffs and chains. Writhing and struggling. With the aura I conjured from those images, I gripped the Sword Star’s blade tightly.

“Well.”

I smiled.

“That’s a trade secret. I can’t tell you for free.”

“...”

An unusual gleam flickered in the Sword Star’s blue eyes.

“... There is something I deeply regret. Letting the Heavenly Martial Sect’s leader go to [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] in my place. You are an entirely different martial artist from the man you were before you went there. I should have gone along, even if I had to insist unreasonably.”

“Are you the type to regret the past? That must be exhausting.”

“Such insolence!”

The Sword Star laughed.

“I haven’t the slightest intention of handing over first place!”

Blue aura exploded from the Sword Star’s blade.

BOOOM!

The pressure felt like compressed air bursting all at once. I quickly raised a barrier of aura and cut off the blast.

“Haha!”

A youthful laugh escaped the old man’s lips.

“Splendid!”

The Sword Star didn’t stop with that explosion. Like a typhoon bearing its own wind pressure, he kept pouring out blue aura. I retreated carefully, intercepting his strikes one by one.

“Is having a rival truly this delightful?”

The Sword Star was simply overjoyed.

“When we raced through the Aegim Empire together, I never imagined you would grow this much! You never know what life will bring. I am endlessly grateful that a young man like you has appeared!”

Winds whipped off his sword. His blade came at me, slicing each second into ever smaller pieces.

CLANG!

I managed to parry with a combination of sword and aura. But my movements were starting to become a little frantic.

“Aren’t you... enjoying this... a bit too much?”

“Of course I am! The Heavenly Martial Sect’s leader improves by the day, and your skill is growing at a frightening pace. It makes life feel worthwhile!”

The old man’s laughter rang across the field.

We were in an open field on the outskirts of Babylon, the City of Heavenly Ascent, on the Tower’s first floor. Many hunters had gathered to watch us spar. They watched our exchanges wide-eyed, recorded them, and even took notes in notebooks as they marveled.

“That’s incredible...”

“Can you fight like that once you master aura?”

“Of course not! They can use aura like that because it’s those two...”

“The Sword Star is still a step above the Death King, after all.”

Hmm.

‘So that’s the prevailing opinion, is it?’

The urge to win boiled in my heart.

‘Fine. I’ll show you.’

Even I considered myself less skilled than the Sword Star for now. But what I thought and what other people thought were two different matters. Very different.

“Sir Sword Star.”

“What is it?”

“Personally, I don’t like demonstrating forms I haven’t yet perfected. I consider it inconsiderate to my sparring partner.”

After intercepting the Sword Star’s blade, I sprang far backward, opening a distance between us.

“But we aren’t just ordinary sparring partners, are we?”

“Oh?”

Instead of chasing me down to press his attack, the Sword Star lowered his sword tip. He looked intrigued by what I might say.

“I’m not sure what you mean, Death King. Do we share some special connection?”

“Of course.”

I grinned.

“We are, after all, fellow disciples of the same master, aren’t we?”

“...”

The old gentleman’s face stiffened.

I wasn’t talking about the Demonic Cult. I meant our attendant spirit. None other than the Sword Emperor.

The Sword Star had the same attendant spirit attached to him as I did.

‘In [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon], the Sword Emperor used his ultimate technique against Master.’

The verbal sword duel between my attendant spirit and Master had been broadcast throughout the Tower. It had aired for everyone to see. Any hunter who wished could watch, and naturally, the Sword Star had been among them.

‘There’s no way he failed to recognize it.’

Most hunters probably hadn’t understood the verbal sword duel that day.

But whatever anyone else thought, the attendant spirit haunting the Sword Star would have known.

‘Of course he would.’

It was a martial art he himself had created.

How could he fail to recognize it?

‘The two of us have the same attendant spirit.’

Now both [my attendant spirit] and [the Sword Star’s attendant spirit] knew that fact.

They had become aware of each other’s existence.

‘And yet the Sword Star hasn’t asked me anything... He must have been waiting for me to bring it up. He was being considerate.’

But he couldn’t have imagined I’d bring it up at a time like this. He’d probably expected me to confess somewhere quiet, as though sharing a secret.

As proof, the Sword Star was looking around in considerable consternation.

“Now, young man. Death King. Saying such a thing here...!”

“Are you flustered?”

I beamed.

“Excellent, sir! Please, get even more flustered!”

“W-what...?”

“This form isn’t finished yet! Here it comes!”

I charged at the old man.

That’s right.

I had brought up our attendant spirits solely to fluster the Sword Star!

“Wow. You underhanded bastard. Sure, rank means nothing in a fight, but this is a bit much...”

My attendant spirit, who would resent coming second to anyone in sheer nastiness, marveled at me. Leaving that praise behind, I raised the holy sword high and brought it down.

‘The image I form is the flames in a certain mansion.’

The fire that had raged there.

‘The suffocating smoke.’

Aura exploded from my body. Deep-red tendrils covered everything around me. The aura became blazing flames that wound around the field, choking the airways of everything alive and moving within it.

In an instant, the open field became a fiery hell.

“...!”

Only then did the Sword Star react. He hurriedly raised his blue aura to resist.

Sorry, but my form wasn’t finished yet.

["I don’t want to die."]

Resentment.

["I’m hungry."]

Desire.

["I want to live..."]

Hope.

I carried all those yearning thoughts in my aura.

Every strand of rising aura held the voice of a different child. Each burned along a different path, with a different intensity.

The flames became a living, moving colony and descended on the Sword Star.

“Hmm?”

The Sword Star hurried to block them. He had to cut off each wave of flame as it surged at him from the front, back, left, and right.

Naturally, openings began to appear in his stance.

I lunged into one like a beast.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven—Revised.

First Form.

Blazing Children’s Sword.

My own Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, which I had resolved to create.

The old man’s eyes widened as he witnessed the form.

“Sorry, senior brother. This fight is mine!”

I brought my blade down toward the Sword Star’s head.