Chapter 175 - My Son Is Too Strong (2)

"Why, you little son of mine!"

I hurriedly grabbed the holy sword. There was no time to draw it, so I blocked the muscle pig’s fist with the sword still in its sheath.

BOOOM!

Aura collided violently with aura.

-Oh?

I deliberately let the force push me far backward, opening a gap between Uburka and me. I used that distance to buy myself time. Gripping the hilt, I settled into a stance, ready to face the muscle pig whenever he charged.

-Good. Very good!

Uburka smiled with satisfaction.

-Your muscles are scrawny, yet you have considerable weight. Have you added the weight of your soul to that of your body?

"I only build concealed muscles! You insolent brat!"

-Ugor? Concealed muscles? What are those?

"I look slim on the outside, but I’m packed with muscle underneath! They’re magical muscles that preserve your figure while increasing your strength without limit! Concealed muscles are the mark of a true master. Someone like you, whose muscles multiply outward, is nothing but an amateur!"

-What barking nonsense from Kekereukker...

Chair Uburka looked dumbfounded, his breathing slowing for just a moment.

Faced with bullshit beyond a certain threshold, the human brain freezes.

Seizing that break in his breathing, I lunged straight into Uburka’s reach.

-Hm!

Uburka’s red eyes widened. He was far larger than an ordinary Earth Spiritfolk—and offered far more places to hit. I wrapped layer upon layer of aura around the sheath and swung it like a club.

"Sorry, kid! I’ll go easy on you!"

Chair Uburka grinned.

-Ugor.

He looked down at me as I closed in. All he did was look. Without twisting away or raising an arm to guard, he simply watched my sheath slam into his torso.

CLAAANG!

A sound that defied all common sense rang out. Not a thud or a slash, but a clang. My palms tingled as though I had struck a lump of iron.

"Is that the Indestructible Diamond Body?"

-My body is made of muscle.

Uburka gave a smug chuckle, baring his fangs.

-I was born with albinism. Sunlight stung my skin, and my poor eyesight was a nuisance. I could not even smear myself with mud beneath the blazing sun. I agonized over why even ordinary pleasures were so difficult for me to enjoy. Then, one day, I realized!

Uburka spread his arms.

-If I coat my entire body in aura, there is no problem at all!

Crazy bastard.

-From that day onward, I devoted myself to aura training. First, I practiced covering all my skin in aura for even a single second. One second, two seconds, three seconds, one minute, two minutes, three minutes... When I could maintain it for more than an hour, I became an adult. When I could maintain it for more than a day, I rose to become chair. To me, Uburka, a congenital deficiency was merely a minor obstacle!

The hobgoblin struck a bodybuilder’s pose. His biceps writhed and rippled.

"Urgh."

It was such an unholy, wicked pulsation that, had I eaten anything greasy, my stomach might have become profoundly unsettled.

-I trained until I bled to let aura permeate my muscles! When the muscles tear, aura helps them regenerate. Those reconstructed muscles conduct aura even better. Tearing, growing, tearing, and growing again, I succeeded in obtaining the ultimate muscles!

Bulge! Flex!

Uburka’s left and right pectorals flexed in turn.

Incredible. My eyesight and psychological defenses were taking a tremendous beating. Inflicting damage without even touching me—his level was surely comparable to that of a supreme master.

-At last, I could control every muscle at will, from the finest to the thickest! Muscle and aura! Aura and muscle! This is the Way of Muscle that I founded!

Now that was some high-class bullshit.

-For some reason, no one but me has managed to follow it. Poor things! It is simple enough if you wield aura with the sole intention of reconstructing your entire body from beginning to end.

"Huh? Hey, wait... Isn’t that bodily transformation...?"

-You who may be our father!

The child who might have been the first in Earth Spiritfolk history to earn the title [Muscle Pig Who Underwent Bodily Transformation] shouted.

-You are stronger than I expected! Excellent! It has been a long time since I met someone I could strike without holding back. So stop using that hilt and come at me with everything you have!

"Wow. I know I’m not really one to talk, Uburka, but you really know nothing except fighting—"

-The heart is the body! Will is muscle! Knowledge is flesh!

His muscles, already churning like magma, suddenly swelled as though heralding a volcanic eruption.

They swelled.

And swelled.

"W-what?"

They kept swelling.

"Baby...?"

Before I knew it, Uburka had become enormous. That was no exaggeration—he really was as big as a hill. His shadow swallowed my entire body.

"Haven’t you grown a little too much...?"

His body had not actually grown. His [aura] had merely expanded into [an enormous image of Uburka].

Like a pilot inside a giant robot, Uburka’s real body would be somewhere in the middle of that giant.

In other words, that hill-sized figure was entirely, completely, a mass of aura!

-Hah.

BOOM!

The ground shook. Uburka had merely taken a step, yet the earth danced to his rhythm. I looked up at him, feeling like Thumbelina.

"Th-that’s quite a bit of killing intent. Couldn’t you shrink back down? Daddy’s getting a little scared..."

-This is my true form!

Giant-mode Uburka roared.

-From the joints of my fingers to the blow of my fist, all is my will! Dream-dweller who calls himself the White Lion! My fist shall pierce your heart!

"Hey! Hey! This is an offense against your own father!"

-Excellent. If victory means offending my father, I shall gladly become an unfilial son!

Delighted, Uburka proudly shouted the name of his fist technique. Then a house-sized fist cast its shadow over me and fell toward my head.

Fucking Aura Art: Giant Style.

No Form.

Crushing Fist.

The name didn’t have even a tadpole’s eyeball’s worth of elegance!

"That technique name is just awful!"

-A martial art’s worth is proven by its power, not its name!

He was certainly right about that. In exchange for throwing away his naming sense, Uburka had gained tremendous destructive power.

The first blow.

The earth split.

The second tore up the surface, and the third gouged deep underground.

Fists rained down like a torrential storm.

Bedrock shattered. The fiercely heated aura pulverized the earth in an instant, melting much of the soil into something like mud that splattered my face. In no time, I looked like a mouse drenched in muddy water.

"Hot!"

Screaming, I dodged Uburka’s relentless waves of attacks.

"You idiot! Your idiocy will shake the whole world! Ah, I didn’t raise you people like this!"

-Cut the bullshit. Zombie, you can’t go easy on him just because you raised his people.

The attendant spirit spoke as I dodged about like a tap dancer.

-Fight with everything you have, like he said. Even in the martial world, parents and children sometimes split up and fight each other. Some shitty sects even make family strife a tradition.

"Damn it!"

I drew my sword.

"I don’t care anymore!"

-I stopped caring long ago!

"What a thing to brag about, you brat!"

I summoned my aura.

What I pictured was flame.

A torture chamber beneath a mansion.

'The child’s hand, reaching out while bound in chains, is a blaze shimmering with flame.'

The resentment of one who died so young.

'Fire.'

In an instant, my heart grows hot. I give concrete form to an emotion that, left alone, would fade without a trace, shaping it into the scene beneath the mansion. I unfold that embodied emotional image through aura.

'My shadow is the basement’s darkness.'

Without being buried in emotion.

'My flame is the touch of a child’s hand.'

Without being held captive by the image.

In fire, there is no you or me. Fire is one. Always, flames overlap and burn the world with unmistakable clarity.

Thus, my sword’s tip becomes someone’s fingertip, and my blade becomes our screams.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven: Revised.

First Form.

Blazing Children’s Sword.

-...!

Burn.

-Hahahaha! Indeed!

My aura rides the shadows, swaying like a serpent’s head. It binds my opponent’s wrist. That wrist is merely a shape the giant has conjured and enlarged. But my mental image is firmer. Hotter.

Stronger.

I sever the wrist.

-Certainly!

My opponent resists. With his left wrist severed, he swings his right arm to shake me off. Is he trying to gain distance? He wants to reset his stance.

I press him.

I duck beneath the punch. The instant his fist sweeps through empty air, I seize his right arm with shadowy flames as well. One strand. Two strands. Three strands. Dozens of streams of aura lock down the giant’s fist.

-There is no room for doubt!

I burn him.

-Kekereukker!

The giant tries to restore both arms. He must still have plenty of aura. In that case, I need only cut off his limbs faster than he can replenish them.

-Have you descended among our people again after six hundred years!

Before his left arm grows back, I take his left foot.

Before his left foot grows back, his right foot.

Before his right foot grows back, his left arm again.

I cut through the giant’s phantom form.

-You lack none of the majesty in the legends! No, let me correct myself! It is the legends that fall short!

I slash him to pieces.

-Magnificent! Ugor! Magnificent! Rather than [enhancing] yourself, you [bring down] others into this world!

I bury the giant in the blazing underground.

-Could aura, the fire of the soul, be used in such a way!

Like burning paper, the giant is eaten away by the flames. Handspan by handspan, he shrinks.

Since the giant’s aura is also red, it resembles a small flame being devoured by a great inferno.

'Do the two really need to be different?'

The thought suddenly occurs to me as I swallow the giant’s flames.

'Uburka enlarged his own arms and legs. Extended them. Aura is a tool for expanding oneself. On the other hand, I conveyed someone else’s screams. Drew them in.'

Vivid red aura blazes.

'Is there any reason both can’t happen at once?'

A spark snaps in my mind.

'I’m trying to transform Master’s Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven into my own. But do I really need to scream alone? Can I shoulder all the karma alone, and am I the only one who can depict all that sorrow? Must it be that way?'

The principles of aura manipulation fill my mind.

'No.'

There, a solution comes to me.

'Anyone can become fire.'

I open my mouth.

"Uburka. Picture it."

-Ugor?

Should I describe the scene beneath the mansion?

No.

"Picture the dark underground of Slimepolis."

A scene closer to him.

"There, your people dug holes in the earth to live in. Around thirteen Earth Spiritfolk huddled together in each pit. Among them were young Earth Spiritfolk. From birth, those children had never seen the sun in its full glory, never felt rain wash over their whole bodies, and never smeared themselves with mud to their hearts’ content."

-...

"Picture the children."

I press the strongest warrior in Earth Spiritfolk history.

"Morning and evening, a few fish are rationed out to each pit. That’s all the food there is. The mothers carefully roast those minnows with barely any flesh on them. Can you picture it?"

-... I can.

"The cramped pit fills with acrid smoke. The mother hacks, and the child coughs. But they can’t go outside. The Mountain Snailfolk overseers have their feelers raised. Can you picture the smoke in that narrow hole, the coughs of frail parents and young children?"

-I can.

"A young Earth Spiritfolk reaches for a fish that isn’t cooked yet."

I knock aside the giant’s punch with my blade.

"The mother slaps her young child’s wrist. Grabs it. She might even hit the child. Yet whenever they get a chance, those little children keep reaching for the half-cooked fish. Because they’re hungry. When their mother stops them, they throw tantrums and even burst into tears."

-Mm.

"In the end, the parents have no choice but to give the fish to the children as soon as it’s even a little cooked. The child gobbles it up right away. Then looks at the next fish being roasted. Asking for that one too."

I strike the giant’s wrist at an angle with my hilt. An opening appears. Swinging my sword through it, I shrink the giant a little more.

"Picture the child’s gaze, the mother’s gaze upon the child, the child’s reaching hand, the mother’s hand stopping and holding it. Depict all those paths through the smoke of the earthen pit at once."

-...

"You can depict them."

-Ugor.

"Hold them within you."

The giant swings his fist.

"Imitate them."

I dodge and twist it aside. The punch changes direction.

"Weep."

I twist the giant’s stance.

"Your people know how to sing sorrow through fire. Flames are merely fire, but you read emotion in the angle at which they curl, the speed at which they rise, the amplitude with which they fall. Aura is no different."

-...

"A single written character holds the sky. A single rhythm sings sorrow. Why couldn’t aura hold the sky? Why couldn’t aura depict sorrow? Imprint the mental image."

The giant’s stance crumples. I strike his shin to restore his balance.

Set him upright.

The giant’s fist, flailing in empty air, becomes an attack thrusting forward.

"Strike."

At that moment, flames blaze from the giant’s fist. They split into five tongues.

Each of those five splits into another five, becoming twenty-five blazing, reaching hands.

-...

Uburka stares blankly down at his fist.

Some flames are delicate, others forceful. Not one resembles Uburka’s own gestures.

"Mm."

Though it remains rudimentary, that blow unmistakably resembles the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

"Not bad. You really are a talent for the ages."