Faced with a grotesque scene that would make an ordinary person pass out on the spot, Sihyun quickly stepped back and started sweeping his surroundings with a fast scan.
'When was it? When did I get caught in an illusion technique? Where are the students supposed to be?'
As his sense of qi spread wide, a surge of alarm poured over him. Watching the things that were wearing the guise of his party as they kept walking, Sihyun used a lightness skill to start pulling away.
Forget picking a direction—first priority was getting away from those things.
If he thought about the killing intent he’d felt at the start, there was no way he could handle that many at once, so he had no choice.
"Huff, huff…."
What the hell was this? Sihyun sprinted so hard that tiny stone chips flew in every direction and dust puffed up, and only when the presences around him vanished did he slowly plant his feet on the ground.
Then, wiping the cold sweat soaking the back of his neck, he started keeping guard over his surroundings.
"I need to clear the fog, at least."
It looked like the party had scattered long ago, and it seemed like he himself was already caught in an illusion, but that didn’t mean he could just sit there with his hands tied.
If this formation was the same as the one he remembered, then he knew how to head toward the Life Gate, so if he could just find one specific object, he should be able to get out of here properly.
Sihyun wasn’t expecting students at their level to escape this place. In the first place, this was inside a Gate, so going ahead and clearing the Gate himself felt like the fastest way to wrap this whole thing up.
Bzzzt.
At that moment, a small sound like a broken radio frequency came through. If it was loud enough for even Sihyun’s ears to catch, then it was definitely coming from a fair distance away.
Sihyun immediately focused his inner power into his hearing, and as the sound grew louder, his face twisted hard.
-Grk… grrrrk
"Fuck, this is so fucking—"
With no break at all, Sihyun turned his back to where the sound was coming from and launched himself forward.
They said this formation created the worst possible situation based on the intruder’s memories. So if that grk-grk sound was what he thought it was, then it was only a matter of time before it came looking for him.
Sihyun fired his internal energy around like a madman, sweeping the fog away for a moment. First, he had to find a large octagonal stone. That was an important implement that would set the direction toward the Life Gate.
'My internal energy….'
In the meantime, his internal energy had dropped by about a third. No matter how efficient his internal energy was, if he wanted to move, he had to keep shooting it out to cut through the fog and check the terrain, so it couldn’t be helped.
He had no idea how much time had passed, where the others were, anything at all. Sihyun forced himself to hide the anxiety boiling up inside and tore through the area like a lunatic.
Then, from far off, he heard a human voice.
"Kyaah!!"
Chwa-chwa-chwa-chak-!!
It was a familiar voice. Sihyun, sprinting like mad, flipped into an aerial somersault, kicked the air, and sharply changed direction, charging toward the scream.
The noise got closer. There wasn’t any sound of blades, but he realized it was the noise that came out of combat. Sihyun sent out another qi wave and scattered the fog.
Chwaak!
And then, in one glance, Sihyun saw stones around the area sliding and shooting out—whether it was inner power or telekinesis, someone was manipulating them.
Sihyun rapidly analyzed the battlefield he was closing in on. Five people total. Three were in a hallucinated state. One was combat-incapable. One was on the verge of collapsing.
"Jesus, those idiots."
The curse slipped out on its own. Sihyun clenched his teeth and started concentrating his qi at his fingertips.
Piiing, piiing, piiing-
"Cgh!"
Red internal energy shot forward like an arrow. The three who had been moving like maniacs stiffened up like logs and collapsed to the ground.
Striking acupoints from the outside by sending only qi required extremely high-level skill, but maybe because he’d been doing it for ten straight years, it came out of Sihyun’s hands with absurd ease.
"Haa, haa."
Sihyun glared at the three who’d passed out from the acupoint strikes, breathing roughly. His internal energy had already dropped straight down to half.
He was only barely inside the formation, and the entrance was still completely unclear.
There was absolutely no way he could carry even these people. After putting the two attacked students to sleep as well by sealing their blood points, Sihyun slowly straightened up and raked his messy hair back with a rough swipe.
"Sleep for a bit. If you wander around like this, you’ll just die fast anyway…."
Sihyun lined up the five—passed out, or asleep—laid them down, and started running forward again.
Everything around him was dim and hazy. In this place where he couldn’t tell anything, only the internal energy he’d used was serving as an indicator of time passing.
"When I get out, I’m definitely getting mental damages compensation, no matter what."
Even the internal energy he’d had half of left was continuing to drop, and physically, too, he was starting to wear down little by little.
Then.
He felt a faint, alien kind of presence. A prickling premonition slammed into his head like a strike. Sihyun ran in that direction, pouring in his desperate hope.
"Holy shit. Found it."
At last, an octagonal stone came into view. With a face full of exhilaration, Sihyun rushed up to it and pushed a little of his internal energy in, scattering its resonance.
A very faint humming sound followed, and the fog that had been blocking his vision quickly thinned out.
"Haa… Yeah. It’s still here."
Of course, that incredible formation wasn’t something you could dismantle just by finding one stone.
Between trees soaring so high they seemed to pierce the sky, Sihyun stared grimly at dozens of small doors.
If this were a normal person who didn’t know anything about this formation, they’d naturally head toward those doors or panic—but not him.
Sihyun bit down on his lip again, then moved not toward the doors visible in the distance, but toward a half-sick, withered tree only about two steps away.
The entrance leading to the Life Gate was here.
Bzzzt.
Without hesitation, Sihyun threw his body into the sick tree, then endured the energy that swept over him like jelly and kept pushing forward, just like the method he remembered.
And the moment he felt like he’d slipped out of it, he hurriedly raised his sword.
Cha-cha-cha-chaeng!!
Before he could even open his eyes, killing intent scraped across his skin, making it prickle, and Sihyun moved on instinct. Feeling the momentum of a heavy sword at the point of contact, he gritted his teeth.
"Tch!"
There wasn’t just one enemy. After snapping his eyes open, Sihyun leapt, dodged the sword stabbing in from behind, then widened the distance from the group in one burst and dropped to the ground.
"You guys are the Black Kill Squad!!"
In front of Sihyun, five figures wrapped head to toe in black cloth blocked his path, the only exposed part—their eyes—glinting coldly.
Even within the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, they were one of the few direct units under the Heavenly Demon himself.
And that also meant they were fighters with monstrous skill.
Tension surged up to the top of his head.
But at the same time, facing a battle that would once again have him crossing the line between life and death after so long, he felt a strange thrill rising little by little.
'Yeah, I’m a crazy bastard too.'
There was no need to wait. Mocking himself inside, Sihyun snapped his plain iron sword up in an instant. Then, without hesitation, he shot straight toward the five who were forming a formation.
Jjeo-eong! Kwaaang!
The man in front thrust his sword straight in without delay.
But the straight-on sprint was a feint. In an instant, Sihyun sprang up into the air, seized the rear, and without hesitation drove his blade into the gap in the man’s neck bone, pierced through, then drew downward, splitting the body open. At this level, it should’ve been an instant kill. And sure enough, the man collapsed to the ground without a hint of movement.
Shu-shu-shuk-
He took one down easily, but he didn’t let his guard down. Sihyun blocked a fist rushing in from the side with his sword, then bent his waist in a grotesque angle to avoid the saber coming in from behind.
And Sihyun’s sword swung horizontally, carving a beautiful arc like it was slicing through clouds.
Puwhak.
Two arms dropped off at the same time, painting the air. Sihyun lifted the corner of his mouth in a grin and opened the mouth he’d kept tightly shut until now.
[Heavenly Demon Radiant Flame Dance]
Sihyun’s body moved as if performing a sword dance—smooth, yet packed with destructive force.
A blade moving too fast to even properly see shredded the two whose arms had been cut off and were still twitching.
Hwaak.
Before they could do anything, blazing sword-flames made from internal energy surged up, swallowed their bodies whole, and burned them away.
Now there was only one left.
Honestly, he couldn’t tell if that thing was a real person or a monster. The good news was that its skill was far below the real Black Kill Squad.
Sihyun narrowed his eyes at the things that, unlike reality, vanished without leaving even a speck of ash, and stared straight into the eyes of the one remaining man in black. Only now did he realize there was no humanity in them.
Of course, the real Black Kill Squad bastards were inhuman too, but they didn’t have that inorganic, plastic-lump feeling.
"Hoo…."
Then this is easier, instead.
Sihyun focused on the man’s movement again, adjusted his grip on the hilt one more time, then set aside the heavy pressure of tension and checked his fingertips, his toes, and his pupils.
That thing, every time he checked it in the gaps, revealed a habit—like it had copied someone’s habits exactly—of narrowing its pupils ever so slightly right before it moved.
Yeah. Like now.
Jjeo-eong! Chwaaaak!!
The taut tension shattered apart, and two swords collided head-on with a huge crash.
Sihyun’s swordsmanship was based on internal energy and speed rather than brute force, so for a moment, it seemed like he was being pushed back in raw power. But he hadn’t jumped in thinking he’d win by force in the first place.
Sihyun’s blade climbed up the contacting sword in an instant, slithering like a snake. And before it could even counter, the tip pierced straight under the chin, bursting out toward the crown of the head with a cruel gleam.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, and it was over.
"Haa, haa…. That was easy."
Sihyun sucked in ragged breaths, grinned, and yanked the sword out of the head in one motion.
Then, stepping over the man’s body as it slumped down, he walked to the middle door in front of him and shoved the huge door open with both hands.