Chapter 129: Clash of the High-Levels

[Translator – Aren]

It was impossible to prepare for everything.

So people learned to ignore or look away from the least likely dangers using common sense and preconceptions.

That was probably how the members of the Gangnam group hiding in the hospital were thinking.

A person could only enter a room through a door or a window. Without special equipment, no one could climb straight up a wall, so they would have to use the elevators or stairs to go up and down. To fire a gun, they had to expose themselves, and if they tried to break through some other way, there would inevitably be warning signs that could be detected.

They were reasonable deductions.

There was just one thing they hadn’t considered. The fact that I was a wizard.

But I understood.

The Gangnam group had no choice.

If they knew what a high-level Eyes-branch, Stage 4 wizard could do, the number of possibilities they’d have to prepare for would be near infinite, making it impossible for them not to panic. When faced with too many choices and possibilities, humans were the sort of being that would freeze like frogs before a snake.

All I had to do was hit that blind spot.

-Tap!

I stopped running along the wall beside the stairs and landed in front of the emergency door. I touched down as softly as some dust or lint settling, but I was sure they’d heard me. In a silence where even breathing had faded, even that had sounded far too loud.

Even through the thick steel door, I could faintly sense people on the other side.

I straightened up and adjusted my grip on the Four-Tiger Sword. To catch someone off guard, you had to think with the same kind of logic and mindset they did. People thought very differently depending on their abilities and position.

How would low-level wizards who were practically no different from non-wizards think?

There was no need to suffer the disgusting backlash of using Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading]. I could guess their thoughts quite easily after all.

People were suckers for spectacle.

If they thought like non-wizards, they’d assume that I, a high-level wizard, would see Eyes-branch, Stage 4 [Cognitive Imposition] again to pull off some insanely awesome, completely outlandish breakthrough, and they’d be watching every direction.

The Eyes-branch wizards would be trying to predict my every move somehow, while the Ears-branch wizards would be communicating telepathically and preparing to respond at once.

What a tragically pathetic mindset.

They actually thought they were important enough for me to use some insanely powerful high-level magic on them. The revolting arrogance of believing themselves worth that much made a laugh escape my mouth.

I would exploit the blind spot created by that arrogance.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

In this world, only I am absolutely exalted and precious……

Eyes-branch, Stage 2, [Cognitive Distortion]

Time slowed.

I was the only one in this world that stayed in normal time, while everything around me that I perceived through my senses became infinitely slow.

In that state, I grabbed the emergency door and pulled it open.

Beyond the double doors, I saw the desk area along with the words ‘5th Floor.’

A thin layer of dry-ice-like fog covered the floor, but it didn’t even reach my heels.

Among the Gangnam group, the 55 Unit wizards had dragged hospital beds over to use as cover, piled chairs and cabinets in front of the elevator entrance to barricade them, and were waiting with their guns ready.

Meanwhile, the Seoul wizards, their faces covered in ridiculous but distinctly everyday-looking getups, hiding behind corners and pillars while keeping watch on the surroundings.

If I had to name something that stood out to me, it was that every one of them was watching a different direction.

Even if goggles or glasses hid where their eyes were looking, they couldn’t hide the direction of their bodies and faces. The 55 Unit wizards were covering the stairs and elevator, while the Seoul wizards were watching the ceiling, walls, windows, and floor in every direction.

Their wariness of Eyes-branch, Stage 4 [Cognitive Imposition], had reached its absolute peak.

I stepped forward.

I moved into a silence where even the sound of my footsteps couldn’t keep up with me.

As the soles of my combat boots tapped the hospital floor, I passed the elevator entrance, examining everything around me more carefully.

True to their status as low-level Alteration-type Stage 1 wizards, the 55 Unit wizards couldn’t perceive the slowed time. More precisely, they could perceive it enough for their eyes to shift, but they couldn’t keep up with me.

The Seoul wizards, at least, were different.

I stopped right beside a Seoul wizard wearing clean glasses and blatantly stared at him, moving only my eyes. There was a response.

The Seoul wizard’s eyes were moving extremely slowly, so slowly that you wouldn’t notice unless you watched very carefully.

It had taken only 8 steps to reach the Seoul wizard leaning against the corner beside the elevator.

That helped a great deal in determining the exact limits of Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion].

Testing it against monsters was difficult, but against fellow wizards, I could make much more thorough estimates.

The severity of [Cognitive Distortion]’s backlash depended on how much interaction took place. I figured all magic was probably similar. [Cognitive Dissonance] had demanded a greater price whenever I used it to overcome the cost of the magic or violated the laws of physics after all.

It was like struggling in deep water under crushing pressure.

The vast majority would be trapped beneath that pressure, crushed flat or frozen in place, but this Great Archmage Baek Jemin was different.

In endless slowed time, I raised the Four-Tiger Evil-Slaying Sword and couldn’t suppress a laugh.

-Blink.

Before the people who noticed me could even scream, they aimed their guns, threw punches, and threw themselves at me.

-Babam!

The Seoul wizard with the clean glasses must have learned some sort of martial arts, because his stance was clearly different.

He shifted his weight to his lower body, widened his stance, threw low kicks aimed at my shin and side, and kept both arms up to protect his upper body.

Fast and fierce.

Against an ordinary wizard or non-wizard, he probably could’ve thrown a punch before they even noticed him, smashing their philtrum or striking the temple or underside of their jaw hard enough to kill them.

With enough speed behind it even something as soft as jelly could hurt on impact. If it had flesh, muscle, and bone backed inside, it could hit even harder. There was no need for some special instant-kill move.

But even that required one condition.

-Bababababam...

Elbows and the bones across the backs of my hand.

I met his attacks by presenting the hardest, least sensitive parts of the human body.

For some reason, I somehow managed to catch his rhythm.

It felt like someone was playing a tune, and my body naturally began moving to the beat.

Gunfire endlessly rang out, sending vicious bullets flying in every direction, but I wasn’t afraid of them, knowing that they would miss. And just in case, the Hand-branch magic symbol written on my back should do its job.

The only things that mattered were attacks from fellow wizards.

For something like that, I didn’t even need to swing the Four-Tiver Evil-Slaying Sword.

Bone struck bone through layers of flesh and skin.

The impact stirred up the thin layer of dust coating the hospital.

My poncho fluttered, spreading the intense stench of blood buried beneath every other disgusting smell clinging to it.

Even in the middle of all that, part of me was calmly analyzing my opponent’s level.

Clean Glasses.

Heart-branch, Stage 2, or something?

Too bad for him.

Because I was Heart-branch, Stage 2 as well.

-Bang!

I smashed his fist aside with the back of my hand.

-Baaang!

I struck his kicks down with my elbow.

Even while retreating with his injuries, Clean Glasses kept throwing punches continuously. Whoosh, whooooosh. Those weren’t sounds he was making with his mouth. The air itself was genuinely tearing as he struck out. His punches carried enough force to lightly split skin just by grazing it. 

I knocked Clean Glasses’ fist aside with the back of my hand again, sending it to veer off course.

The missed punch struck the wall with a boom, leaving a deep dent in it.

I casually stepped back, dodging his kick.

When his heel slammed into the floor instead, an explosive crash rang out, and the flooring shattered like chips of stone and flew up.

Amid the concrete dust and splattering blood, I advanced exactly as much as Clean Glasses retreated.

If he took one step back, I took one forward.

I slipped past every desperate attack he threw at me, redirected them, then countered while putting on a proper show.

The core aspect of that performance was my left arm.

I was fighting Clean Glasses using only my left arm.

My poncho fluttered, catching some air, while the speed behind my movements gave them some force.

And this was the result.

-Bang!

Clean Glasses’ pupils trembled.

Every time his fist buried itself in the wall, every time his foot cut through empty air and struck the floor, I could see a very intense, sticky emotion begin to surface.

-Bang!

No matter how vicious and sharp Clean Glasses’ punches were, their limits were obvious.

This wasn’t a fight between marital artists. It was a fight between wizards.

If you wanted to beat a higher-level wizard, you had to prepare accordingly.

Figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent’s magic and their preferred tactics, work out how to use your own weapons and magic, gather together gear relying on occult knowledge, and so on…

And yet.

If he thought throwing faster punches was enough to beat a high-level wizard, how much more non-wizard could his mindset possibly get?

-Craaack!

I spread my fingers wide, then neatly pressed them together.

I sharpened my fingertips into a point and drew back my left arm.

Clean Glasses looked like he was about to try something, but a Heart-branch Stage 2 whose very thinking was still that of a non-wizard was beyond saving.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Only then did I realize that because of [Cognitive Distortion]’s backlash, my mouth was thick with the smell of blood and the metallic taste of iron. Ordinary people would be bawling their eyes out and giving up on magic because they didn’t want to look any more pathetic.

But Great Archmage Baek Jemin was different.

My tongue was already sliced up anyway. Might as well slice it one more time.

Pain so bad it felt like my bladder was twisting?

I just had to twist my body around with some stylish footwork.

Eyes-branch, Stage 2, [Cognitive Distortion] 100%.

The world slowed infinitely.

In that state, I thrust out my fingertips.

Within slowed time, I drove my fingertips forward with the speed granted by Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement].

At that moment, I saw despair fill Clean Glasses’ eyes.

It was the moment [Causal Arrangement - Miss] was broken.

-Shkkk.

I hadn’t realized human flesh was this fragile.

It felt like driving an awl through a tough leather bag.

I clenched my hand and ripped it straight back out.

-Crrrrunch!

Drops of blood floated through the air weightlessly.

Clean Glasses’ eyes had lost focus and blankly stared into space. He couldn’t even raise a hand to clutch at his torn-open neck.

-Blink.

-Driiip...

Blood splattered everywhere.

Thankfully, I had my gas mask on, so none of it hit my face. A few drops did land on the lenses, but I just left them. I was pretty sure wiping them with my hands would only make things worse.

Around that time, the 5th floor, which had been filled with gunfire and screams, suddenly became deathly silent.

Seemed like my performance had an effect on them.

Would they react differently if I offered them a chance to surrender now?

I wasn’t exactly planning on massacring these low-level wizards, so maybe I could just leave it at that…

-Ding!

My body froze.

I heard the sound of a violin string snapping.

There was no way someone in this hospital was plucking violin strings, which left only one explanation.

[Causal Arrangement- Miss] had been released.

My eyes met those of the 55 Unit wizards.

-Click.

The 55 Unit wizards immediately raised their guns, with one of them shouting.

"Even if we surrender, they’ll just send us to the blockade line! Kill him!”

I immediately threw myself behind the corner.

-Bang, babang!

Gunfire erupted, followed by a hail of bullets striking things or ricocheting away. My ears went beyond just muffled and started to ring. The shots were so intense my head throbbed.

-Peeeeeep

I hurriedly opened a hospital-room door and clung to the walls inside.

My heart was pounding.

I took a short, ragged breath.

-Huff!

A rough breath burst through the gas-mask filter, and the instant the ringing eased even slightly, fierce gunfire drowned it out again. These weren't the neat cracks of rifles set to semi-auto.

For a brief moment, the gunfire continued with enough intensity to devastate the whole area.

That was when my feet started shaking uncontrollably and my guts shuddered.

An explosion caused by gunpowder.

And not some ordinary little crack, either. A proper explosion.

Did our side set it off? Or the Gangnam group?

Should I use Eyes-branch, Stage 1 [Cognitive Expansion] or Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading] to figure out what was happening?

When faced with too many choices, even Baek Jemin, the human, had trouble picking one.

But I couldn’t just rush out without thinking either.

If you weren’t confident you could overwhelm the enemy in one go before they pulled something, you couldn't afford to expose yourself.

In a fight like this, the idiot who showed their magic first lost.

The side whose magic’s limits got found out was guaranteed to lose.

By the time I’d let out a couple of damp breaths inside my gas mask, a chilling tearing sound had mixed into the deafening gunfire.

-Crack, crack, craaack

It sounded like the strands of a tough rope snapping one by one.

Occasionally, faint explosions mixed in as well.

They were close enough to gunshots that it was hard to tell, but after being exposed to the sound of gunfire for so long, I’d learned to distinguish them.

-Crrrack.

That was the sound of flesh being crushed

-Pop.

An explosion like a balloon popping.

-Crunch.

The sound of bones breaking.

Baek Jemin, you’ve really lived long enough to see and hear all kinds of shit.

Never thought I’d live long enough to become able to tell how someone was dying just from the sound.

At some point, the gunfire had died down.

Instead, all I could hear clearly were footsteps treading through pools of blood with wet splats.

-Gulp.

I swallowed once.

It was only after looking at the golden constellations engraved into the blade of the Four-Tiger Evil-Slaying Sword that I finally found my courage.

I steeled myself and stepped out of the hospital room.

I still didn’t know exactly what the backlash for Eyes-branch, Stage 4 [Cognitive Imposition] was, so I couldn’t abuse it. If it came down to it, I’d settle things with Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion]. I was deliberately holding back Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance] until I’d figured out my opponent’s fighting style and proficiency so I could use it to catch them off guard.

I, Baek Jemin, am a Great Archmage.

I never lose.

-Splat.

My foot landed in the pool of blood that had spread all the way to the hospital-room door.

I followed the blood with my eyes, and what unfolded before me was quite the spectacle.

A poncho with a rabbit-shaped brooch. A ponytail fully exposed beneath a pushed-back hood. Earbuds in her ears. Eyes wide open behind the lenses of her gas mask.

Go Ryeoha raised a bloodstained fist. then opened her hand wide and gave me a little wave.

"Tada."

“...”

"Hubae-nim, Shin Nain-ssi lodged a complaint that you’ve been using your magic way too recklessly. Be careful!”

At Go Ryeoha’s feet lay a corpse with its neck snapped.

I’d only counted roughly, but there had to have been at least 8 of them… Apparently they were all dead now.

Not a single wail or frightened scream could be heard.

Necks were snapped, sides were blown open.

At a glance it looked brutal, but the restraint of someone who cared about nothing but efficiency was plain to see.

No unnecessary theatrics when killing people.

She’d only hit places that would really hurt if struck.

But the real key was the hole behind Go Ryeoha’s shoulder, with wind blowing freely through it. The window opening had clearly been widened, surrounded by black scorch marks as though it had been burned open.

"Hubae-nim?”

"Ah, yes…"

I reluctantly started walking over…

As I treaded closer, the pastor and Lee Sejun poked their heads out through the gap in an emergency door warped by bullets.

"Jeez."

"Baek Jemin, are you some kind of human butcher? Why’d you kill so many people?”

"I only killed one.”

And fuck, didn’t these people here aim to kill our people?

But before I could object, the pastor and Lee Sejun’s attention shifted to Go Ryeoha.

Naturally, both of them turned their heads toward her.

Go Ryeoha was flicking the blood off her hands when she noticed them staring and let out a short breath.

-Huuff—.

"Oh? Pastor, Sejun-ssi, neither of you got hurt?”

"I’m fine. We’re Siblings, after all.”

"Uh, ahem, hmm. For Ryeoha-ssi to even be worried about me…”

Lee Sejun quietly stepped away, opened an ammo box, and quietly checked the remaining rounds, while the pastor cleared his throat needlessly and murmured a short prayer over the corpses and pools of blood.

When he finished checking the ammo, Lee Sejun walked over to me with the machine gun under his arm.

"From when Jemin-ssi went upstairs and we heard the gunfire until we caught up…even at the fastest, that couldn't have been 30 seconds, right?”

"Get to the point."

The mere fact that Lee Sejun had gotten closer to me was extremely unpleasant, so I demanded firmly.

"Go Ryeoha-ssi’s lethality is incredible.”

"Isn’t making gold, explosives, and antibiotics out of blood even more incredible?”

"Jemin-ssi. Science can do those things too. Killing 8 armed people in under a few seconds, wizards who were former conscripts and had learned Alteration-type Stage 1 at that, without the slightest hesitation, isn’t something trivial. She didn’t even give them a chance to resist. Go Ryeoha-ssi… I think she’s a much greater wizard than I realized. As her Sibling, I feel proud.”

"?"

It was a positive change that Lee Sejun had come to respect Go Ryeoha as a person instead of being jealous of her, but it was quite regrettable that the change had come from being impressed by how good she was at killing people.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes had been right when he said non-wizards could only understand things in terms of lethality and destructive power and couldn’t recognize the greatness of a wizard without considering violence.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Right when I was clicking my tongue inwardly.

-Ffsssssh...

Something like sand began spilling down from the ceiling.

I immediately glared at the person I suspected to be responsible for this.

Go Ryeoha.

"Master, I think setting off that explosion caused quite the commotion.

"Huh? I threw a lighter instead of the propane tank, though?”

There was a fuckton to question about that, but this wasn’t the time to stay here and argue.

-Boom.

The amount of sand pouring down increased.

We Supreme Archmages had to stop screwing around and move.

Stepping between the corpses sprawled across the floor as we went.

When confronted with a horrific death, people either broke down emotionally, hid, or ran away.

What we Supreme Archmages chose was to spout nonsense and set down the weight on our minds for a little while.

I’d call that a top 1% mindset.

-Fssssssh...

Still, I had to say something.

No matter how bad the construction defects were, it made no sense for a hospital ceiling to spit out this much sand just because we’d had a little gunfight, set off some tiny explosions, and thrown a few light punches.

"Isn’t this thing collapsing?"

"Baek Jemin, do you have any idea how sturdy hospitals are built? It’s just some sand falling from the ceiling."

-Ting, tiding, ting.

I thought it was magic.

I thought I’d somehow misheard, hearing the sound of violin strings snapping.

But when I turned my head and saw the other Supreme Archmages’ eyes waver, I knew.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Eyes-branch, Stage 2, [Cognitive Distortion] 100%.

Time slowed infinitely.

It was slowing.

It had to be.

-Ting!

Even in this infinitely slowed time, the sound could be heard clearly.

Considering even sound had slowed, this had happened quite some time ago.

This wasn’t the sound of violin strings snapping…

...It was rebar snapping.

-Boom.

My heart pounded.

And the floor gave way.

Within the slowed time, I heard gentle classical music playing at 0.1x speed.

That’s when I realized it.

I understood why they had chosen to hole up here.

I finally realized why [Causal Arrangement - Misfire] and [Causal Arrangement - Miss] had been released.

The volume had deliberately been turned down so low that you could barely hear it unless you paid close attention, with nothing but the prelude playing over and over.

♪

At last, the primordial performance began to pick up the tempo.

♬

The oldest music, sung by the celestial bodies as they wore themselves away, descended upon the wizards’ ears.

Fate was decided.

—Causal Arrangement.

The man scorched by fire sang, scraping his vocal cords raw.

—Collaspe.

In the infinitely slowed time, I forced my eyes wide open.

I desperately held them open to keep my eyelids from closing completely, feeling them turn bloodshot as tears welled up. Within this slowed time, Lee Sejun and the pastor were moving painfully sluggishly.

Of course, if the other wizards were practically frozen within it, Lee Sejun and the pastor were moving at around 0.3x speed.

Only wizards at the same stage could move properly within this time.

"Hubae-nim, evacuate first…”

-Crrrrraack!

Before Go Ryeoha could finish speaking, the ceiling collapsed.

It was a collapse too fast for sound to keep up with.

Two human silhouettes fell amid snapped rebar and shattered concrete.

-Thud!

At that moment. Go Ryeoha stopped asking questions.

She grabbed Lee Sejun by the back of the neck, caught the pastor with [Telekinesis], then turned and ran.

I couldn’t look away.

I didn’t even dare close my eyes.

If my gas-mask lenses hadn’t shielded them, the dust would have stung my eyes so badly I’d have to blink.

But I couldn’t do that right now.

Familiar silhouettes were rising from the dust.

-Pat, pat.

Two wizards stood there, brushing the dust from themselves.

A man in a coat, wearing a baseball cap and gas mask, with True-Body Sarira prayer beads on his left arm and a grimoire in his right.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

A familiar, mild-faced man in a tracksuit and sneakers, clutching a nuclear warhead tightly beneath his left arm.

Sports Rebar.

Within this time that should have been infinitely slow.

Sports Rebar smiled benevolently as he drew a red cross on the nuclear warhead with blood running from his left hand.

"Nice to meet you. I’m Kang Peter.”

“...”

"You’re an Upright Alteration-type, right? Inverted-type Hand-branch, Stage 1 is [Civilization Desecration]. It's magic that makes tools and technology created by human civilization operate or break down while ignoring their underlying principles.”

Within this time that should have been infinitely slow.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes raised his right arm.

At that, a Predator Spine slowly leapt toward him through the collapsing, twisting ceiling. It was obvious what he intended to do. I had both eyes forced wide open, desperately distorting time, yet it made no difference.

They were Stage 4 as well.

High-level wizards.

No.

That wasn’t all.

There was still knowledge I didn’t have...

When it came to magic, they knew far more than I did!

-Shrrrrk!

The Predator Spine laid itself over Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ right arm. Its ribs wrapped around his arm, securing it in place. He stared at the skull lacking a lower jaw resting by his elbow, then twisted it back and forth in disgust before wrenching it off with some effort.

-Crack.

The jawless monster skull floated through the air, rolling its cloudy eyes.

Leaving only the Predator Spine’s vertebrae and tail attached, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes stared at me and breathed heavily.

-Huuuff……

"I’ll rip that gas mask off you.”

I knew instinctively.

I couldn’t buy any more time.

The moment I realized that, I acted without any further hesitation.

-Blink.