The Support Ate it All - Chapter 652: No. 104 Black Serpent Fang (6)

Go Hyeonwoo could not tell exactly what sort of situation he was in.

Just moments ago, he had been locked in a desperate battle with White Serpent, and even now that man ought to have been standing right in front of him.

But at the same time, it also felt as though he alone had been isolated in a separate space.

Together with the sacred relic he had just drawn.

The first thought that surfaced in Go Hyeonwoo’s mind was:

Was it always this heavy?

When it had been wrapped all over in chains, it had actually felt light. But now, just holding it made it feel as though his arm were about to tear off.

And a constant unease kept washing over him, the sense that he might drop it at any moment.

As though he had climbed onto the head of a rampaging dragon, or barely managed to seize hold of a massive typhoon.

Could he really swing something this hard to hold, this hard to even keep in his grip?

More than that—could he actually perform his swordsmanship with it?

Go Hyeonwoo let out a sigh inwardly.

So I was daring to try to claim something like this.

He had expected the power contained in the sacred relic to exceed his own capacity, but not to this extent.

Before he could succeed in the trial, and before he could truly make it his own and reach unity with it, there was still a very, very long road left ahead.

And I skipped all of that and drew it anyway.

Even thinking about it again, it had been recklessly foolish.

But he did not regret it.

If he recalled what Kim Ho had said—

—Wouldn’t even an extreme method have its own advantages?

There were definitely things he could only obtain in this moment.

First, I should try moving it little by little.

Go Hyeonwoo began tightening his grip.

As though resisting him, the sacred relic—which had already felt impossibly heavy—seemed to grow even heavier, and the wind swirling around him clawed at him with even greater ferocity.

WHOOOO—

A burning pain ran through his entire body.

Go Hyeonwoo grimaced without realizing it.

……!

Even so, he did not stop applying force, and the sacred relic shifted about a tenth of an inch from where it had been.

An absurdly meager result for the effort spent and damage suffered.

It might actually be better just to keep holding it.

No. It’s too early to give up.

Shouldn’t he try every method he could think of?

To begin with, this was never going to be solved through brute force alone.

Go Hyeonwoo thought calmly.

The foundation of my sword art is flow.

The flow of energy. The flow of wind…

Reading and controlling countless flows.

Then the sacred relic must be closely tied to that as well.

So Go Hyeonwoo sharpened his focus even further and began sensing and reading every flow around him.

WHOOOO—

The wind created by the sacred relic’s will roared violently, spiraled, and converged into a single point.

Then it compressed to an extreme and formed a blade.

So even that wasn’t the end of it.

Only now, with his concentration sharpened to this degree, could he finally tell.

Even after the wind had become a blade, it was still raging without pause.

What I need to move isn’t the sword. It’s that flow.

Go Hyeonwoo decided to treat himself as though he were empty-handed.

Just like in the Challenge Austerity Quest he had cleared right before coming here.

He recalled how he had knocked aside and redirected the countless strands of sword energy mixed into the wind with his bare hands.

And then he recreated that sensation exactly.

WHOOOOOO—

The crushing heaviness was still there, and the wind raking across him was still agonizing.

But soon, the tip of the motionless blade trembled.

Then, though only very slowly, it began to move.

That was how Go Hyeonwoo succeeded in taking a middle guard stance.

Now let’s try swinging it.

The tip of the blade slowly traced left, then slowly traced right.

Next, it rose upward, then came down along a diagonal.

At first it had felt unnatural, like a child clumsily waving a stick around, but after repeating it several times he felt himself growing more and more accustomed to it.

Now maybe this is actually possible.

Entrusting himself to instinct, Go Hyeonwoo swung the sacred relic once more.

From his hand, the forms of the Heavenly Flow Wind-Cloud Sword Art unfolded one after another.

[Clear Current], [Rapid Current], [Pure Current], [Turbid Current]….

……!

Then suddenly, he felt his senses return.

The first thing that came into view was White Serpent.

He looked utterly different from before Go Hyeonwoo had drawn the sacred relic.

His pure-white robes had turned into blood-red robes, and his hair was flying loose in wild disarray.

……Did I do that?

He had only been trying to control the sacred relic in a trance-like state, yet apparently his battle with White Serpent had continued all the while.

And astonishingly enough, it looked as though he had very nearly taken him down.

So Kim Ho’s prediction hit the mark.

He had said that if he drew the sacred relic, his odds of winning would rise above seventy percent.

If anything, it felt even higher than that.

Still, this is no time for optimism.

His own body was in ruins as well. The damage seemed to have piled up from the backlash.

Especially the hand holding the sword—it was not merely torn open. The white of bone was practically exposed.

He had also lost a tremendous amount of blood, enough that a pool had formed beneath his feet, and perhaps because of that, he felt overwhelmingly sleepy.

So this is how Miss Seo usually feels.

But he still could not collapse here, so Go Hyeonwoo forced himself to stay conscious and faced his opponent.

Though White Serpent was drenched in blood, he looked deeply pleased. And perhaps noticing that Go Hyeonwoo had come back to his senses, he spoke.

“I give you my praise. To endure such pain and still continue fighting would not be easy even for the demonic martial artists of our cult. When the time comes, you may well make that blade wholly your own someday.”

“Thank you.”

Go Hyeonwoo tried to show proper courtesy, but realizing that his body would not move as he wished, he only bowed his head respectfully.

White Serpent did not seem to mind much and continued.

“It has been quite some time since our cult fell, yet I never abandoned the dream of rebuilding it. I believed that someday a new supreme master would appear and gather all demonic martial artists beneath him.”

“……”

“Though it seems I shall not live to enjoy that glory, for a martial artist it is also an honor to meet one’s end by such a blade. Now—show me.”

At last, White Serpent lowered the Snake Tongue Sword and began drawing up every last bit of momentum he had left.

He had sensed that both of them had almost no strength remaining, and was preparing to stake everything on one final decisive move.

Go Hyeonwoo also raised his momentum and thought:

Until now, he had continued fighting half unconsciously, but this would be the first time he swung the sacred relic while pouring his own will into it.

So he made a request in his heart.

Just this once—move the way I want you to.

Had that desperate wish gotten through?

The motionless blade slowly moved once more, and a gentle wind wound itself around it.

WHOOO—

Inner energy also compressed around White Serpent, took on visible form, and gradually turned white.

A gigantic hornless serpent with two heads coiled itself and stared at its prey.

Then it crouched, its whole body compressed as though it were about to spring at any moment.

“……”

“……”

In the instant Go Hyeonwoo and White Serpent exchanged looks,

the final decisive moves unfolded from their hands.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—!

The giant white serpent lunged in with its maw flung wide open.

It was a form Go Hyeonwoo had already seen once before.

[White Serpent Ascends to Heaven]

During their three-form duel, it had appeared at the very end and driven him to the brink of death.

Now, since it carried even greater power than it had then, he ought to have felt an overwhelming sense of danger, but—

……Strange. I feel nothing at all.

His mind remained calm the entire time.

Presumably, it was because the power of the sacred relic had elevated him, if only for a moment, to a realm so high it felt distant.

A master did not feel a sense of crisis from a form performed by an inferior fighter.

Someday. Without fail.

Go Hyeonwoo renewed his vow that he would one day reach that realm through his own ability alone.

What he had to do was so clear and simple it barely needed saying.

Raise the sacred relic overhead—

and bring it down.

[Clear Current]

The wind, compressed to the absolute limit, fell like a descending blade, scattering the white serpent apart with absurd ease, then continued onward and swallowed the now defenseless White Serpent as well.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—!

The field of vision blurred under the gale, the shockwaves, the flying debris, and the billowing dust.

Then Go Hyeonwoo abruptly felt the sacred relic leave his hand.

But instead of falling to the ground, it flew of its own accord and slid into the sheath as though drawn by a magnet.

……So it can do that too?

It truly did deserve to be called a sacred relic.

As Go Hyeonwoo marveled inwardly, the relentless wind gradually died down.

Soon White Serpent’s figure emerged—and he looked even more horrific than before.

It was not enough that the wind had shredded his body.

It had practically torn chunks out of him as it passed.

It was hard to understand how he was still standing at all.

And yet, even in that state, he opened his mouth and asked another question.

“Only now do I ask—but what is the name of that sword?”

“……”

At times like this, the proper code of the martial world was to answer plainly.

But for a moment, Go Hyeonwoo found himself at a loss for words.

Even his master, who had once belonged to the Blood Cult, did not seem to know its exact origins, and the guess that it was the Blood Wind Sword had turned out to be wrong.

……It would be right to answer honestly and say I don’t know.

If he did that, White Serpent might even name it himself.

Just as many supreme techniques and famous swords of the martial world had been named that way.

But then, at that moment, something his master had once said flashed through Go Hyeonwoo’s mind.

—If you can ever achieve complete unity with that sword, you could truly become the God of Wind!

“Wind God. It is Wind God.”

“…Indeed. A name that suits it. Even with the word ‘god’ attached, it does not sound arrogant in the slightest.”

White Serpent murmured in admiration.

He seemed to be savoring the name of the sword that had taken his life.

Then he looked straight at Go Hyeonwoo again and said,

“From the other side, I will pray that you one day become Wind God’s true master. I was glad to have fought you……”

That was the end of it.

White Serpent could say no more.

Only then did Go Hyeonwoo feel all strength drain out of him.

It’s over……

At last, he had finished the duel they had left incomplete.

“Elder!”

“The elder has fallen!”

The black-clothed men surrounding the battlefield rushed toward White Serpent one after another.

Han Somi and Kim Ho also came running straight toward him.

“Go Hyeonwoo!”

“Han—…Kgh.”

The moment he opened his mouth, instead of “Miss Han,” a blood-tinged cough burst out.

Han Somi’s already pale face turned even whiter.

I didn’t mean for this to happen……

He felt sorry for making her see him in such a miserable state again and again.

He wanted to at least tell her he was fine, but even that seemed difficult now.

His eyelids kept drooping, and his consciousness was growing dimmer and dimmer.

Looking at Kim Ho, whose outline he could barely make out, Go Hyeonwoo spoke inwardly.

In the end, I caused trouble for you after all.

How was he supposed to apologize for this later?

At the very least, he hoped the clear would not be disrupted because of him.

But then, at that very moment, Go Hyeonwoo suddenly felt all the pain wash away as though it had never existed.

The body he had barely been able to control became light as air, and his mind turned perfectly clear.

He could roughly guess what had happened.

A notification message had appeared in the corner of his vision.

[‘Retrocovery’ is granted.]

Then Kim Ho added, as though to say there was no way he would allow otherwise,

“Who said you could rest?”

“……Ahem! Thank you, Kim Ho.”

Go Hyeonwoo, suddenly awkward, brushed himself off and stood back up.