Ghost Hand's disciple.
The instant those words rang out, every gaze in the examination grounds locked onto a single point. Expectation, curiosity, jealousy, and wariness.
Stares laden with a storm of emotions struck Ha Jin like hurled spears.
Ha Jin cursed inwardly, but outwardly he couldn't utter a word. With all eyes on him, there was no slipping away.
'Damn it......'
His goal was to pass the trial inconspicuously and fade into the background. But that was no longer an option. The stage had essentially been set for him, hadn't it?
The Mad Demon's violet eyes boring down from the sparring platform were especially unnerving. The gaze of a predator that had just spotted its prey.
He swallowed dryly despite himself. In the end, Ha Jin climbed onto the sparring platform with a resigned sigh and offered the Mad Demon a respectful clasped hands greeting.
"I humbly request your guidance."
A perfunctory courtesy, but the Mad Demon waved it off with a flick of her hand and spoke in an irritated voice.
"Skip the pleasantries. You're Ghost Hand's disciple, yes?"
Her eyes flashed.
"Let yours truly personally see how well that stubborn old geezer raised his student."
"Pardon?"
Before her words had even settled, the Mad Demon thrust her hand forward again. A pressure denser and more intense than anything before crashed down upon Ha Jin.
"Let's see you block this."
An overwhelming energy on a completely different level from what he'd witnessed. Amid the skin-slicing pressure, Ha Jin first steadied his focus.
He swiftly gathered his mana and deployed a Shield spell precisely in the path of the Mad Demon's incoming hand. Her palm struck dead center. He expected it to hold.
CRRRACK—!
But contrary to Ha Jin's expectations, the Shield didn't last a single instant. It shattered with a deafening sound, splintering apart like glass.
'What......?'
Ha Jin's eyes flooded with shock. She had only struck with her bare hand, yet it had broken in one blow.
'That Shield held up against Cheon Ha-rin's attacks!'
Granted, there was a gap in strength between Cheon Ha-rin and the Mad Demon, but this was a level of destructive power that defied all common sense.
His mind went blank white. But even if the Shield had broken, he'd blocked at least one strike—that should count, right? Just as Ha Jin was about to breathe a sigh of relief—
Through the shattered fragments of the Shield, the Mad Demon's fist was already hurtling toward him again. Without the slightest loss of speed—if anything, with even fiercer momentum.
'What......?'
Wasn't the trial supposed to be blocking a single hit? Before he could even process his confusion, the Mad Demon's fist bore down on him.
A split second of shock. In that sliver of time where Ha Jin hadn't fully grasped the situation, the fist was already upon him.
Ha Jin's vision was consumed entirely by the Mad Demon's fist.
"Ngh!"
Instinct reacted first. Ha Jin clenched his teeth and wrung out every last scrap of mana—down to the dregs—and deployed another Shield.
CRRRACK—!
This time, too, the Shield failed to hold, splitting apart like a spiderweb. Simultaneously, his mana wellspring screamed as though in agony. A splitting headache struck, and his vision swam.
'This is my limit. I need to end this insane trial first......'
Ha Jin tried to call out to the Mad Demon beyond the crumbling Shield—to protest that the trial was supposed to be one hit, that this was cheating. But at that exact moment.
Again.
A third fist came thundering in.
'Fucking hell......!'
Ha Jin spat a vicious curse inwardly and scraped the bottom of his nearly empty mana wellspring, clawing out what he could to deploy another Shield. This was no longer defense—it was desperation.
Meanwhile, the Mad Demon furrowed her brow with each punch she threw.
'What is that?'
Just before her fist connected, she'd felt something—as though it struck an invisible wall. Yet the attack wasn't fully nullified, nor was it deflected.
'Some unusual form of external arts? Or a type of rebound technique?'
The energy was far too alien to be something Ghost Hand had taught. For the first time, genuine curiosity flickered in her violet eyes.
'Interesting. I want to test this a little more.'
She thrust her fist again without the slightest concern for Ha Jin's condition. Watching from the far side, the Blade Demon's face had gone ashen.
'That lunatic—she's gotten lost in the fight again......'
Trial be damned—she was simply fascinated by the toy before her and intended to play with it until it broke.
He understood, if he was being honest. A mere cadet was blocking the Mad Demon's attacks in succession. Not barely surviving one—repeatedly blocking them. Even he would want to test that.
But if left unchecked, the cadet would die. Deaths among cadets were common enough in the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, but if the cause was a Demon Lord, that changed things entirely.
The Blade Demon judged that he had to intervene immediately and opened his mouth.
"Hey, the trial ends there—!"
Just as he was about to charge in, the Mad Demon murmured with a chilling smile.
"Let's see if you can block this one too."
At her fingertips, inner arts of a density and intensity incomparable to anything before began to condense. The killing intent was so thick that the very air around them shrieked and warped.
The Blade Demon's eyes widened in horror.
"That lunatic! She's channeling inner arts against a cadet?!"
Without another moment's hesitation, he threw himself toward the sparring platform with every ounce of strength. This had crossed beyond the realm of a trial—it was an outright killing strike.
***
The Mad Demon extended her inner-arts-laden hand toward Ha Jin without a shred of hesitation. In practice, she had unleashed a martial technique.
"Damn it!"
Ha Jin instinctively recoiled and fought to hold onto consciousness, scraping together the very last drop of mana in his body to deploy one final Shield.
CRACK—!
The instant the Shield formed, he heard something inside him break with devastating finality. The sickening sensation of his mana wellspring fracturing completely.
'Ah, I'm fucked......'
When mana was fully depleted or the wellspring itself cracked, recovery took an enormous amount of time. Naturally, the pain was excruciating, and he'd be unable to use magic in the interim.
Worst of all, the strain on his entire body was severe.
There was no possibility of blocking the Mad Demon's next punch.
'At this rate, I'll die......'
But in that moment, a massive shadow materialized between Ha Jin and the Mad Demon with the speed of lightning. It was the Blade Demon.
He had drawn his Moonwhite Blade and leveled it at the Mad Demon's throat with enough menace to suggest he might actually cut her. The Mad Demon addressed the Blade Demon blocking her path with irritation in her voice.
"Why are you butting in again?"
The Blade Demon snarled, the sound of teeth grinding audible in his voice.
"You maniac! I told you to administer a trial, not kill the cadet!"
The Mad Demon tilted her head as though she couldn't understand.
"That one was blocking my attacks like it was nothing. He can handle this much. I barely put any force into it."
"As if! How could a mere cadet take a blow charged with your inner arts and come out fine?!"
"Then let's just ask him. Look, he's standing right there."
The Blade Demon could barely contain his surging fury as he spun around to face Ha Jin behind him.
"Hey, Cadet Four Hundred! Are you alright?"
But no answer came from Ha Jin. Instead, a thin line of dark blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Cough......"
With a short, wet cough, Ha Jin crumpled forward, utterly drained of strength. The Blade Demon's face flooded with alarm.
"What?! Hey, stay with me! Instructor! Get this man to the infirmary immediately!"
While the Blade Demon shouted frantically, the Mad Demon, too, stared wide-eyed at the unexpected turn of events.
"What? What's wrong with him?"
Every trace of her earlier leisure and madness had vanished; bewilderment was written plainly across her face. The examination grounds descended into chaos in an instant.
The Mad Demon felt, for her part, somewhat aggrieved.
'I could've sworn that last hit glanced off something too......'
She retraced the subtle sensation lingering at her fingertips. An alien feeling of not having struck cleanly. Of course, sorting through that was less urgent than dealing with the situation at hand.
Instructor Chae Un-ryang scrambled onto the sparring platform and slung the limp Ha Jin over his back. He sprinted toward the infirmary at a desperate pace.
The Blade Demon turned on the Mad Demon—the root cause of this entire debacle—and berated her in a voice thick with killing intent.
"You call that fine?! Does he look fine to you?!"
The Blade Demon jabbed his chin toward the direction Ha Jin had disappeared and bellowed.
"Anyone can see that's someone who overstrained his energy circulation and suffered serious internal injuries! What were you going to do if he'd been crippled?!"
The Mad Demon had nothing to say, even with ten mouths. She now understood that she had gone too far, and that the consequences were far worse than she had expected.
All she could do was clamp her mouth shut and absorb the Blade Demon's fury. The Blade Demon clutched his smoldering insides and sighed.
"Can we please just hold a normal trial? You've turned the entire Demon Path Hall into a disaster."
He clicked his tongue and descended from the platform, clearly unwilling to exchange another word with the Mad Demon. Left behind, the Mad Demon stood awkwardly in place, brow furrowed at a prickly feeling she had never experienced before.
Meanwhile, below the platform, Cheon Ha-rin's red eyes narrowed as she watched everything unfold. While other cadets were reeling in shock at Ha Jin's condition, she felt an entirely different kind of dissonance.
'What?'
A question bloomed in her mind. Ha Jin was clearly better than that. No matter that his opponent was the Mad Demon—she had used only the most basic level of inner force.
Other cadets had struggled to block it, true, but none had suffered internal injuries severe enough to vomit blood.
Above all, the Ha Jin she remembered had been far more composed and capable. The image of him effortlessly brushing aside her full-power swordwork as though it were a game was still vivid in her memory.
'The man who blocked my sword technique with ease collapses helplessly after just a few exchanges?'
Impossible. This had to be some advanced stratagem—that was what she was thinking when a single possibility crossed her mind.
'Could it be...... that he really was giving it everything he had against me too?'
But this immediately crashed into another question.
'No, that doesn't explain why he ran in the middle of our spar. If he was truly giving his all to block, there'd have been no reason to flee.'
She recalled the moment Ha Jin had turned his back and vanished. It had felt like a profound humiliation. No matter how she looked at it, that hadn't been an act of consideration toward her.
Besides, this man was Ghost Hand's disciple. The idea that Ghost Hand's sole disciple lacked the skill? Now that was the truly inexplicable thing.
'There must be some other scheme at work. Or is he trying to draw everyone's attention again, like last time?'
If that was the case, the intent behind it was deeply unpleasant.
Whatever the truth, it couldn't be a matter of ability. Cheon Ha-rin stared at the spot where Ha Jin had been carried away, refusing to let go of the thread of suspicion. While everyone else was either sympathizing or reeling in shock, she alone was trying to unravel Ha Jin's true intentions.
Elsewhere, the Blade Demon surveyed the examination grounds—now in shambles—and his gaze fell on his daughter, So-yeon, standing in quiet stillness. He sent a silent Voice Transmission.
[Keep a close eye on Cadet Four Hundred—the one who was just carried away.]
He, too, recalled the bizarre sight of Ha Jin blocking the Mad Demon's attacks. To call it a simple clash of inner arts would be wrong—there had been something alien and fascinating about it.
[That one may be the greatest enigma in this entire class.]
[Yes.]
Her father's voice echoed softly in So-yeon's mind.
'Ghost Hand's disciple, they said.'
Her impassive eyes turned toward the direction Ha Jin had vanished. Her father, the Blade Demon, was someone who took the martial path with utmost sincerity—he was not a man who spoke idly.
A subtle curiosity began to stir within her.
And not far from where they stood, among those who had already passed the trial, Yun Geom was staring in the same direction with a hardened expression.
'Cadet Four Hundred, Ha Jin......'
The Mad Demon's strike—which he himself had barely managed to block with every ounce of his strength. And yet that unknown man had blocked it multiple times in succession. For someone ranked four hundredth, that was considerable skill.
He had ultimately collapsed vomiting blood, true, but the process itself had unpleasantly needled Yun Geom's pride.
'Was he deliberately hiding his strength?'
The fact that Ghost Hand's disciple had received a number as low as four hundred had already been grating on him. He unconsciously tightened his grip on the sword at his side. Then he murmured to the Sword Demon Sect warrior standing beside him.
"Keep that man under surveillance."
"As you command."
It was the moment attention from every direction began converging on Ha Jin.