Chapter 680

He woke up.

When he opened his eyes, the scenery was the same as before.

Hyman and Jack were eating meat and drinking alcohol.

“You awake?”

“Yes, I’m awake.”

As soon as he got up, he ate meat and drank the medicine.

He focused on recovery and began reviewing the fight.

His concentration was frightening enough that even Hyman did not disturb him.

Then the challenge began again.

The third challenge.

Hyman took his stance and spoke.

“You didn’t seriously think I’d been going all out, did you?”

“If that’s the case, you don’t have to hold back anymore.”

“Haha! That’s the spirit you should have!”

A fist immediately came flying.

Su-ho watched the fist all the way to the end.

Screeech-

With a slipping sound, the fist slid past him.

He had not blocked it with his guard.

He had redirected it.

Hyman’s eyes widened slightly.

Su-ho’s fist immediately dug in.

KABOOM!!

The fist struck Hyman’s chin.

Hyman’s head snapped to the side.

Then the corners of his mouth curled upward.

It was a smile filled with exhilaration.

“I hope that wasn’t a lucky punch.”

After regaining his balance, Hyman began throwing punches in earnest.

Su-ho met him head-on as well.

He wanted to defend by evading or redirecting as much as possible to conserve mana, but Hyman was not someone who would fail to understand that intention.

He changed his style entirely to infighting and drove in heavily.

Su-ho did not retreat.

Because he had already known that once they reached a certain point, the fight would inevitably become like this.

A slugfest.

If the first and second fights had been battles of technique, the third was a slugfest.

It was only natural.

Hyman was superior in barehanded combat, but Su-ho had spent so long reviewing the fights and analyzing Hyman that he could now stay right up against him and face him directly.

CRUNCH!

At that moment, Su-ho’s fist struck Hyman in the side.

But despite being a heavy body blow, the impact rebounded back into him.

It felt as though he had kicked an enormous wall.

Still, it had not been completely ineffective.

Hyman’s body shifted half a step.

“You’ll regret looking down on a giant’s body.”

The counterattack came immediately.

The exact same body blow.

Su-ho tried to bring his elbow in to block it, but his timing was late.

“Urgh!”

It felt as though electricity was being sprayed through his body from his ribs.

That was because Su-ho’s body was not yet as sturdy as Hyman’s.

Hyman laughed as though he were enjoying himself.

“We’re continuing, right?”

Instead of answering, Su-ho threw a punch.

The slugfest began again.

Their heads snapped around again and again, their bodies pitched forward, and meaningful damage steadily accumulated.

Time passed.

There was not much left.

Three minutes?

Hyman’s expression was still full of composure.

It was the look of someone who now understood everything there was to understand.

If there were no unexpected variables, Su-ho would simply lose consciousness again.

Su-ho’s fist flew toward him once more.

The same direction.

The same trajectory.

Hyman raised his guard with a sneer as the fist came toward his temple.

That was when it happened.

Slice!

A burning sensation.

At the same time, Hyman’s eyes widened.

Slice?

Not thud or boom?

At that moment, pain surged through the forearm he had raised to guard.

When he checked a moment later, a deep cut had opened across it.

“What the......”

Before he could even understand what had happened, Su-ho’s fist came flying again.

Straight toward the center of his face.

He barely dodged.

By the width of a sheet of paper.

The fist grazed his cheek.

But.

Ssk-

The sound of skin splitting.

Again, there was a stinging sensation.

Sometimes, when a fist was wielded like a whip, the tip could create such sharp friction that it cut the skin.

But this was not one of those cases.

Drip-

Blood ran down his cut cheek.

Hyman stepped back and raised his fists.

“What is this?”

“What is what?”

“Fine. I’ll figure out the details afterward.”

He could confirm the truth later.

Because this time, he would win again anyway.

Thinking that, Hyman drove forward.

Su-ho did not retreat either.

Hyman threw a punch.

Su-ho weaved and redirected it with his guard.

But the instant Hyman’s fist grazed Su-ho’s guarding forearm, blood burst from Hyman’s fist.

SPURT!

Both the fist that had grazed the guard and the skin of the forearm split open in a long line.

It felt as though they had brushed against a sharp blade.

A skill?

Impossible.

From the two or so fights they had already had, that brat’s mana should already have been reaching its limit.

Then how could he possibly be using a skill?

At that moment, Su-ho’s fist dug inward.

It was aimed at Hyman’s abdomen.

Hyman tensed his stomach.

It was fine.

Except for his face, there was nowhere on his upper body where Su-ho’s fists could deal him any major damage.

But just before Su-ho’s fist made contact, Hyman suddenly felt an ominous chill.

A feeling that he absolutely should not take that punch.

But the fist was already right in front of him.

It was too late to dodge.

Even so, he turned his body.

Because sometimes, even when it was already too late, one still had to act.

He twisted.

The fist passed across his abdomen and twisted along his side as though drawing a line through it.

SPURT!!

Blood burst out.

Hyman’s eyes widened.

That was a fist, wasn’t it?

It had been a fist.

It had not even landed cleanly.

He had deflected it.

Then why?

At that moment, he saw Su-ho’s expression.

A smile.

And then he realized.

Ah.

Junior.

You’ve got something, don’t you?

Yes, senior.

I do.

A conversation exchanged entirely through their expressions.

Hyman’s brow furrowed.

To think it had taken him bleeding three times before he finally realized it.

He was a little angry.

Not rage.

More like a flare of irritation.

Irritation born from embarrassment at having let his guard down.

He erupted with all the strength in his body.

He decided not to spare himself anymore.

There would be plenty of time to recover afterward, so he decided to unleash everything now and end the fight.

And so he threw his entire body into it.

He charged in with that resolve.

Su-ho did not retreat.

Instead, as though he had been waiting for exactly this, he accepted the full offensive.

A fist came.

Su-ho threw a fist of his own to stop it.

No.

More precisely, rather than blocking, he struck it aside from the side like a whip.

The instant Su-ho’s fist struck Hyman’s fist, it carved a deep laceration into it.

Bare hand against bare hand.

That had been true in the first and second fights.

But not anymore.

The third fight.

From this point onward, it was a fight between bare hands and blades.

Unity of Body and Sword.

A power that required no mana.

Su-ho had worked toward reaching this realm and practiced until he felt as though he would die.

And although he had only just stepped onto the threshold, he had finally begun to grasp its principles.

He was also ready to use it whenever necessary.

Even if his body had been enlarged through a skill.

But Hyman did not know that.

That was the reason for his defeat.

He had never once in his life fought someone whose sword and body had become one.

That was why wounds began appearing.

The longer the fight continued, the more cuts opened all across his body and the more blood sprayed out.

Of course, there were impacts as well.

Even if sword and body had become one, that did not mean every broad, flat part of the body had become sharp.

To use a body united with the sword and wield it like a sword required the appropriate level of concentration.

That was why Su-ho was careful with his fists.

Careful with the forearms he used to guard.

Careful with his kicks.

Careful with his shins.

He distinguished between them as he attacked.

There were many effective hits.

Hyman’s fists were different from Su-ho’s fists.

There was nothing the fist of a natural-born giant could not break.

There was nothing it could not bring down.

If he kept striking and striking, eventually it would collapse.

So even as his entire body became drenched in blood and more cuts opened across him, Hyman endured stubbornly and continued pouring out attacks.

He had no choice but to win at the end of this fight.

Because the time allowed to Su-ho was not infinite.

If he endured just a little longer, Su-ho would naturally collapse once his mana ran dry.

That was what Hyman thought.

But something was strange.

Why wasn’t he falling?

Even if time was relative here, enough time had already passed that Su-ho should have collapsed long ago.

Yet Su-ho still looked perfectly energetic.

For some reason, he seemed overflowing with vitality, still handling Hyman’s attacks and even firing counters back at him.

Strange?

Was this a dream?

That couldn’t be.

Then an illusion?

Here in Apophis of the Selection Bureau, had Su-ho somehow created an illusion and placed even him—a former Giant King and the examiner—under it?

As he thought that, Hyman saw something.

A strange mist drifting through the cloud of dust.

No.

It was not mist.

They were particles.

More precisely, red particles.

What was that?

He narrowed his eyes.

He knocked aside an incoming attack and opened the distance.

At first, he thought he had seen wrong.

But once he had created enough distance, he realized.

He had not.

Something was cleverly using the drifting dust as cover as it floated through the air.

More precisely, it was continuously moving from Hyman toward Su-ho.

It was blood.

Blood flowing from the wounds all across Hyman’s body.

Blood that had spilled and scattered across the ground.

All that blood was floating upward, breaking apart into tiny particles, and moving toward Su-ho.

And Su-ho was absorbing it throughout his entire body.

Around then, Su-ho grinned.

“You noticed?”

“You......!”

“I can use blood magic. It’s one of my specialties. And blood magic replenishes strength through the target’s blood. Things like mana, for example.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been watching you. But why are you only using it now?”

“I was waiting for the right moment. I needed a probing battle first. A card like this only works once after it’s revealed.”

“And you turned my body into this mess for the same reason?”

“Unity of Body and Sword? Of course. My true profession is swordsman, after all. Even without a sword, I can now still be called a swordsman. I’ve reached the realm where I can use my entire body like a sword.”

“Impressive.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Before coming here, I nearly killed myself learning nothing but this, so of course I had to put it to use. I just never had the chance until now. Funny that this is how I finally get to use it. Now then.”

Su-ho took his fighting stance again.

“Thanks to you, senior, I can now fight as much as I want without worrying about mana or time. So how about we start wrapping this up?”

“Ha!”

Hyman burst out laughing.

His junior’s confident provocation.

It did not irritate him in the slightest.

If anything, it made him happy.

Yes.

Thanks to this, he understood.

Why he had failed to pass the true test.

Someone like you was the kind of person who could become a true Giant King.

The crown made by the First King had simply been too heavy for an ordinary man like him to wear.

Hyman took his stance again as well.

I’m happy, junior.

Happy that I can acknowledge you this completely, without even the slightest feeling that I deliberately went easy on you.

So I’ll give it everything I have until the very end as well.

BOOM!

Hyman kicked off the ground.

His fist shot forward.

And.

SLASH!

A sharp cutting sound echoed throughout Apophis.