An assessment of strength is always relative.
On a survival battlefield, all the more so.
Because a venomous snake that has hunted a lion is not thereby guaranteed to evade the talons of a hawk circling overhead.
In that sense, Chae Geon-uk thought that Go Tae-min had met the largest wall of the day's match.
'Run, instead. It isn't as if you have to fight.'
He had been watching Go Tae-min's strength in real time.
He had taken in the scene just before, too, where Go Tae-min had brought down the seasoned Antonio with ease.
And yet he couldn't hide his unease, and the reason was that he had watched the beautiful boy fight in real time exactly as he had watched Go Tae-min.
The Ashen Ghost, Christopher.
Before coming to find Go Tae-min, this beautiful boy had already erased two named warriors.
Even Juggernaut, whom they called a monster of the battlefield, and the Human Butcher Joaquin had been nothing more than prey at the point of his sword.
That boy in jeans and a short-sleeved tee, so out of keeping with this vision of hell, was by any account the strongest being on this map.
'Tae-min's odds of winning are low.'
Optimistic forecasting is poison to an information broker. Chae Geon-uk coldly compared the two men's specifications.
Go Tae-min. He had never formally learned swordsmanship.
There was no record of his being taught by anyone, or of years spent sweating in a training hall.
There was one reason a man like that had survived in that hellish arena and climbed this far.
Overwhelming talent.
A sense for the measure, reading the distance to an opponent in an instant.
Reflexes that responded before an attack was even swung.
And a well-conditioned body underpinning all of that movement.
It had been possible because those three formed a perfect three-beat.
But the Christopher reflected in Chae Geon-uk's eyes was a genius of the sort that made even Go Tae-min's talent look like a joke.
'The very class of talent is different.'
Christopher possessed all three of the talents Go Tae-min had.
No, perhaps more than that.
And then the decisive difference.
That beautiful boy had one more weapon that Go Tae-min did not.
An innate gift for the sword.
If Go Tae-min swung a blade relying on instinct, Christopher had precise technique on top of that same instinct.
It was like giving wings to a predator that already had sharp claws.
A genius armed with nothing but talent and instinct, against a monster who had technique as well.
The scales of victory were already tilted one way.
On the screen, Christopher was leveling the point of his sword at Go Tae-min with languid eyes.
Contrary to Chae Geon-uk's desperate wish, Go Tae-min did not look as though he had any intention of avoiding it.
Seeing it, he let out a bitter sigh.
"Right. Getting broken once, miserably, around here might not be a bad thing either."
If Go Tae-min was going to keep surviving in Nova Arena, swallowing the bitter medicine of defeat would be a necessary part of the process too.
He only hoped that this junior of his, standing there so precariously, would not be too crushed by the bitter result.
***
The one who broke the silence was Go Tae-min.
FWIP—!
His frame, in its demon mask, shot out like a bullet.
At that headlong charge, Christopher shrugged lightly.
"Hmm. You're a tougher sort than I expected. I thought you'd at least take a greeting."
At the same moment his sword cut the air.
A vivid red line was drawn across Go Tae-min's retina.
An intuitively legible trajectory of death. Go Tae-min twisted his body without hesitation.
The red line went past his shoulder by a hair.
At the same time he set his tried-and-true winning formula running.
'Dragging it out puts me at a disadvantage.'
Close the distance, drive into the opponent's opening, cut off his windpipe in one stroke.
It was a flow that had not failed even once to this day.
SHHK—!
"......!"
But against expectation, a sensation like being seared by fire grazed across his shoulder.
He had clearly been outside the red line.
He had thought he read the trajectory and dodged it, and in that instant Christopher's edge had changed both speed and trajectory and cut his shoulder open.
'How?'
But there was no gap in which to think it through.
Go Tae-min counterattacked at once. The distance was already closed sufficiently.
He drove the knife deep toward Christopher's flank.
It was the instant he thought he had succeeded.
"......?"
There was no resistance against his fingertips.
The beautiful boy who had been standing right there a moment ago had twisted his body lightly and let the attack slide away.
Having dodged by the width of a sheet of paper, Christopher was standing behind him at some point.
The hair on the back of Go Tae-min's neck stood up.
Death.
For the first time since entering Nova Arena, his instincts dragged out that word.
Go Tae-min's senses, honed over countless crossings of the line between life and death, were screaming.
A loud alarm bell was ringing in his head.
Give up the flow like this and he dies. Not a simple premonition, but a terror closer to certainty.
Christopher, meanwhile, was equally full of admiration.
'What? He dodged it?'
He had heard the word genius any number of times since he was young.
Even inside an America crowded with monstrous physiques, his dynamic vision and his reflexes stood alone.
His father, a fanatical American football fan, had poured all his passion into raising him into a star of the field while he was still a child.
But Christopher found American football boring.
'Why go to the trouble of colliding when you can just dodge?'
To him, a fight was not about smashing an opponent with force but about running him down without letting so much as a hair be touched.
In that sense, Nova Arena was the perfect playground for a boy like him.
He had climbed to the summit without a single crisis and without a single wound to this day.
The same went for the blow just now.
Christopher had intended to cut off Demon's windpipe in a single stroke.
And yet the result was nothing more than a thin cut across the man's shoulder.
Christopher let out a low exclamation and tipped his head.
"You dodged that? I like it. This toy doesn't look like it'll break easily."
The boy's voice was as clear as ever, but the killing intent in it was cold enough to freeze the jungle air.
Go Tae-min gripped the shoulder seeping blood and glared at Christopher.
Instinct whispered. If you want to live, run.
But instead Go Tae-min leveled his point and dropped his stance.
Withdraw now and there would be no next time.
Die as prey, or remain a hunter.
There was only one choice.
Go Tae-min kicked off the ground and shot out once more.
SHHK—!
This time it was his left flank.
Hot blood seeped out through the keenly cut leather armor.
Go Tae-min's blow, by contrast, had still run through nothing but Christopher's afterimage.
Even so he did not stop.
With a beast's tenacity he swung his sword again.
SHHK—!
His right thigh.
A searing pain climbed his spine.
The longer the exchange went on, the more interest washed out of Christopher's eyes.
"Only the first one was fresh; in the end it's the same thing. Swing yourself to death like that and it still won't land."
The beautiful boy pressed the man in the demon mask and moved to bring this dull fight to a close.
That was the moment.
Go Tae-min flung away the knife he had been holding in his left hand.
"Hah. Something like that won't come close."
Christopher batted the knife aside lightly with the point of his sword.
At the same moment he came in on the counterattack.
CLING—!
Along with a keen metallic sound, the sword flew out of Go Tae-min's hand.
It was over. A fighter who had lost his weapon.
Christopher was certain of victory.
It was the instant he was about to drive his final blow into the man's heart.
CRACK—!
"Huh......?"
The sword dropped out of Christopher's hand.
Go Tae-min had pulled the empty scabbard from his hip at some point and struck his wrist precisely.
If there was no sword, use a fist; if a fist wouldn't do, use the body. That was how Go Tae-min the mercenary had survived on the line between life and death.
The commentators who saw that absurd scene screamed in unison.
-Unbelievable! Christopher's hand is empty! This is an incredible sight!
-Look at that! He used the scabbard! He has completely blindsided a Christopher who was reading nothing but the trajectory of the sword!
Now both of them were empty-handed.
Go Tae-min hooked Christopher's waist in the same motion and slammed him to the ground.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Merciless fists began to crush the beautiful boy's face.
The dignity of the Ashen Ghost who had been dominating the battlefield a moment ago was nowhere to be found.
What was left on the ground was only a fragile boy flailing his arms to get out from under those fists.
'So you can fight like this too.'
Christopher took the pouring blows full on and marveled.
It hurt. And it was hot.
This man was different from him at the root.
If he had been playing a precise game, the opponent in front of him was a fighter waging a life-and-death struggle on an actual battlefield.
A true warrior who had come this far over any number of corpses.
Inside that dissonance, Christopher gathered up his final thought.
'Fun. Still...... next time I'll have to win.'
The boy's head tipped limply to one side.
A new notice window surfaced in front of Go Tae-min.
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Ashen Ghost'.]
[You have eliminated a Red Diamond mark holder. (Cumulative holder kills: 15)]
"Huff, haah, huff, huff."
Go Tae-min dragged air in violently.
The stink of blood pricked his nose.
His whole body screamed. In the place the adrenaline had drained out of, vicious pain came rolling in.
The stab wound in his flank in particular was critical. Blood welling up through the torn leather armor soaked the ground.
His vision went faint, flickering. The warning sign of excessive blood loss.
'......Still, I won.'
Forcing his swaying body under control, Go Tae-min reached out and picked up the sword and scabbard rolling on the ground.
The Red Diamond mark's stamina-recovery effect apparently did not replace blood he had spilled.
If there was one mercy, it was the first-aid kit he had brought.
He poured clotting agent into the wound and wound a bandage tightly around his flank.
It was not professional treatment, but it would serve as a stopgap good enough to hold until the match ended.
Having finished the first aid, Go Tae-min bit down on the end of the bandage and tied it off.
Then he clutched his throbbing flank and let out a groan.
'I nearly went and crossed the river of the dead to high-five my dad.'
There was still a fair amount of time left until the match ended.
And the remaining prey, no, the remaining survivors, were still scattered everywhere.
Go Tae-min pushed himself up with effort.
'Got to make money. Even if I die, I should earn first, or I'll never stop feeling cheated.'
$2,000 a head.
To him, the survivors in this jungle were not threatening competitors.
They were nothing but golden goblins, hidden here and there in the forest, or walking about on their own two feet.
If he could earn that money, pain like this was no more than a pleasant ache in the muscles.
Having forced himself upright, Go Tae-min adjusted his demon mask and stepped back into the darkness of the forest.
Then he roamed with the red marks for signposts and slaughtered the other warriors.
-Demon is moving again! He just brought down a heavyweight like Christopher and he still isn't resting! That is a truly tremendous fighting spirit!
-This is an unbelievable massacre! After the Ashen Ghost, Demon has eliminated a further 5 mark holders! That leaves the current survivor count at a mere 50 or so!
-In a survival match like this, generally a lot of people survive to the very end! The further into the late phase, the more survivors play it safe! And yet Demon does not stop! No, he is raising his pace instead and bringing down the warriors who are hiding!
-Good heavens! Is he planning to be the only one left in this jungle! He is determined to monopolize a map that started with 1,000 people, all by himself!
Go Tae-min moved with thorough calculation.
To a mercenary, for whom efficiency is life, meaningless killing is a waste of ammunition and a waste of stamina.
Ordinary warriors were not money to him. They were nothing more than reserve candidates to receive the next mark.
So he went looking only for mark holders and cut off their windpipes.
Then the mark would transfer to someone new again, and he would hunt that warrior in turn.
Cutting and cutting on like that, before long—
[You have eliminated Pro Warrior 'Glek'.]
[You have eliminated a Red Diamond mark holder. (Cumulative holder kills: 78)]
[Time remaining until match end: 11:32:17]
[Current survivors: 1]
In the broad forest, only Go Tae-min was left.
['惡鬼' wins!]
[A win bonus of base pay x 1 is paid.]
[You held the Red Diamond mark the longest. As your reward you obtain <Waldstein Series No.113>.]
[Match 4 of <Pro League - Ashmoon Knight 193> is concluded.]
By the original reckoning it was a match that should have required another 11 hours and 30 minutes of endurance.
But there were no guests left in the jungle to take the point of his sword.
In a survival match that had started with 1,000 people, he had brought down every participant before the time limit expired.
└What did I just watch? A 72-hour survival match ended in 60 hours. Where did the remaining 11 hours go?
└This wasn't a survival, it was a time attack.
└Insane, I should have known from the moment the Ashen Ghost got caught by him. Demon isn't a Japanese amateur, he's a Reaper straight out of hell!
└Cumulative holder kills, 78? Just calculating the bonus money, that's over $150,000. Has there ever been a warrior in history who pulled that kind of bonus out of match 4 on the lower card?
└Those NAA bastards must be holding their heads already, don't you think? Congratulations, Demon. I'm so happy you cleaned out our money! 😍😍😍
└Where did all the guys who were mocking Demon earlier go? The guys who said he'd just be an ordinary human once he came to America. Come out, all of you. Demon isn't human, he's a genuine demon!
└What gives me chills is that guy's attitude. He cuts down nearly 80 people and he's as indifferent as a man doing his grocery shopping. He's picked up Waldstein No.113 too, so what kind of monster is he going to show up as in the next match?
└HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. When he slammed Christopher into the ground like that I threw my beer glass with him! THIS is a real fight! Demon, you're my hero from today! 🍺🔥🔥
└I don't even remember the main event that just finished. Match 4 WAS the real main event! NAA needs to move this guy onto the main card right now. This guy's blade is far too good to be stuck in the lower numbering!
At the appearance of a new named warrior, American Pro League viewers poured out their cheers.