I Thought I Was Bullying a Nobody, But He's a Martial Arts Genius - Chapter 57

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

A Fighting Genius, Bullied Without Knowing It — Episode 057
“Haah… haah…”
Park Yeon Sung leaned against the steel cage, breathing hard.
His chest heaved and fell like a bellows, swelling with each breath before collapsing again.
He swept his sweat-damp hair back and tilted a water bottle to his lips.
Cold ice water slid down his throat, yet his gaze remained fixed firmly on the Octagon.
“Lower your head! Keep it tucked!”
Inside the Cage.
Baek Seojun was tangled roughly with a hulking man a full head taller than himself.
Every collision of their bodies produced a dull, friction-thick sound that echoed through the Gymnasium.
The larger man threw his weight forward, trying to brutishly crush Baek Seojun’s upper body.
Ryu Tae Hwan barked sharp instructions from the sidelines.
“Keep your neck rigid against a heavier opponent and you’ll get yanked right out! Rotate your hips more! Drop your center of gravity all the way down!”
The moment Ryu Tae Hwan finished speaking, Baek Seojun’s movement transformed.
His chin snapped tight against his collarbone.
Simultaneously, he twisted his hips and drove his lower center sharply downward.
The response was immediate, like a sponge drinking water.
Thud.
The larger man’s body, unable to control his own momentum, lifted momentarily into the air.
At the precise instant their centers of gravity crossed.
Baek Seojun rolled his feet deep and drove both arms through the man’s open armpits.
“Wh—what…?”
The hulking partner staggered backward in confusion.
His eyes went wide as saucers, shaking violently.
He thrashed, trying desperately to crush back down with sheer strength.
But both his arms were already flailing through empty air.
He’d completely lost the Underhook.
The overwhelming pressure of his weight evaporated in an instant.
Instead, he found himself overpowered—both in strength and technique—and crashed pathetically into the steel cage.
Park Yeon Sung, watching from outside the cage, swallowed hard.
‘That kid is a genuine monster.’
With each sparring round, Baek Seojun’s movements evolved.
He dismantled the crude strength of a higher weight class with nothing but pinpoint technique and timing.
The sense to exploit an opponent’s weight wasn’t something you taught someone overnight.
A Title Match against Champion Lee Sung Jun.
Baek Seojun’s blade was already pointed at that target, being sharpened to its keenest edge.
* * *
Time moved quickly.
Only ten days remained until the fight.
The landscape inside the Octagon shifted ceaselessly.
Patter, pat-pat-pat.
Every time sweat drops fell to the floor, a new higher-weight-class partner was positioned before Baek Seojun.
Bang! Thud!
Weighty impact sounds and feral shouts of effort filled the Gymnasium.
This breathless training wasn’t running on Baek Seojun’s will alone.
Do Yun mobilized every connection he had, scraping together strikers and grapplers from the higher weight classes across the country and forcing them into the cage.
Ryu Tae Hwan stripped down their form and layered perfect defensive mechanics over Baek Seojun’s fundamentals.
A Yeon, monitoring from outside, quantified her opponents’ patterns down to the second and relayed immediate tactical adjustments.
Outside the cage, Tae Soo and Jin Hyuk checked the time until their voices cracked, blowing the whistle relentlessly.
Team Jugjak was pouring every resource it had into Baek Seojun to produce a new Champion.
* * *
Well past midnight.
With all the staff gone, Team Jugjak Gymnasium lay in deep silence.
The main lights were off, the interior dim.
Only a thin incandescent bulb cast a faint glow over the massive sandbag in the corner.
Thud! Bang!
Heavy, explosive impacts kept striking the empty space relentlessly.
Each time Baek Seojun’s glove bit into the sandbag’s leather surface, thick drops of sweat scattered in all directions.
“Huff! Gasp!”
The rough, ragged sound of his breathing.
The friction of bare feet scraping against the floor.
And the metallic creak of the thick iron chain suspending the sandbag.
In the darkness, only three sounds crossed in steady rhythm.
The day of reckoning had drawn near.
Even after the scheduled training ended, Baek Seojun remained alone, throwing punch after endless punch.
The One-Two Straight, repeated thousands upon thousands of times.
The rotation of his shoulders, the twist of his hips, the perfect guard with his chin tucked.
Every movement meshed together with mechanical precision.
Yet a strange tension had settled firmly between Baek Seojun’s brows.
Creak.
The gymnasium’s heavy steel door swung open.
Baek Seojun didn’t break stride.
Instead, he twisted his waist and drove a fiercer Left Hook deep into the sandbag.
Footsteps echoed through the darkness.
Thud, thud.
He planted himself against the ring post, keeping his distance from the sandbag.
With his arms crossed, he watched in silence as Baek Seojun’s fists carved through the air.
Bang!
The final punch bent the sandbag’s torso mercilessly.
Baek Seojun wrapped both arms around the swaying sandbag, breathing heavily.
His chest heaved as if it might burst.
Do Yun, standing at an angle in the darkness, opened his mouth slowly.
“Are you scared?”
A short, offhand question.
Baek Seojun gradually released his grip on the sandbag.
He kept his eyes lowered to the floor, opening and closing his sweat-drenched fists.
His rough breathing began to settle.
There was no reason to make excuses or pretend to strength.
He had felt keenly over these weeks how vast and solid the wall before him—the Champion—truly was.
“Yes.”
Baek Seojun lifted his head to meet Do Yun’s gaze in the darkness.
Beneath his wet hair, a deep, concentrated intensity gleamed in his eyes.
“Honestly, I’m terrified.”
……
“The stronger I’ve become through training, the more clearly I can see just how strong my opponent is.”
It was a truth he’d learned grappling with elite fighters from the higher weight class.
The overwhelming difference in raw power, the density of technique, the seasoning on the Cage.
Lee Sung Jun was the current reigning god of Korea’s Featherweight division, perfected at his apex.
Knowledge gave sight, and sight gave weight—a crushing mass that was throttling Baek Seojun’s resolve.
At the honest answer, Do Yun’s lips curved into a soft arc.
A small smile.
With that quiet sound, Do Yun stepped closer.
He stopped beside Baek Seojun and draped an arm across his sweat-soaked shoulder.
Light, yet never light—a weight descended through him.
“You’re right. He’s strong.”
Do Yun’s voice was steady.
No exaggerated comfort, no premature encouragement.
Just a calm affirmation of reality as it was.
“But you’re strong too.”
Do Yun’s gaze turned toward the sandbag, now still.
“Don’t doubt it.”
The hand on Baek Seojun’s shoulder tightened with solid force.
A reminder: never deny the path you’ve walked, the sweat you’ve poured out.
It was the affirmation of a Champion, a conqueror of the Asia Continental Cup, and his nearest mentor.
At that single, brief word, the invisible tension strangling Baek Seojun’s chest seemed to snap.
His ragged breathing grew completely calm, settling into stillness.
“Understood.”
Baek Seojun gave a short, decisive nod.
In the place where a faint trace of doubt had lingered in his eyes, it was washed clean.
And there, a sharp, piercing resolve began to burn.
Do Yun withdrew his arm from Baek Seojun’s shoulder only after confirming the look in his eyes.
He turned and walked slowly toward the gymnasium’s exit, disappearing into the darkness.
As Do Yun’s figure receded into shadow, one final piece of counsel reached him.
“To bring down the Champion.”
Do Yun’s footsteps paused for a moment.
He glanced back over his shoulder toward Baek Seojun.
“You’ll have to show more in the Cage than anything you’ve practiced before.”
It was no mere advice.
Only one who had stood in the Champion’s place could offer such a brutal, unvarnished truth.
Creak.
Bang.
The heavy steel door closed again, and complete silence descended over the gymnasium.
Left alone in the darkness, Baek Seojun stared at the door where Do Yun had vanished.
‘More than what you’ve practiced.’
Baek Seojun turned the words over slowly in his mind.
Only the sound of steel chains brushing faintly against each other cut through the quiet air.
He lowered his head slowly, gazing down at his own hands.
Red Gloves beaded with sweat.
A weapon honed through hundreds of falls and thousands of risings.
Baek Seojun’s eyes gleamed in the darkness like a predator’s.
Crunch.
Leather locked tight as his fists clenched so hard the joints threatened to shatter.
There was no more doubt.
All that remained now was to prove everything he had perfected within the Cage.
* * *
Weigh-in day.
Private waiting room.
Kim Ji Hoon paced excitedly around the sofa.
“Wow, this main-event waiting room is insane! Look at the size of that refrigerator. Back in the day we’d just lay out a mat in a corner of the shared locker room!”
Ji Hoon’s bright, bouncing voice scattered the heavy atmosphere a little.
Just then an Axis Korea staff member opened the door and poked his head in.
“Baek Seojun, it’s time to head out.”
Baek Seojun stood up.
Do Yun and A Yeon took positions on either side, following him out.
The moment they stepped outside the Event Venue through the dark corridor.
“Roaaaar!!”
A deafening roar erupted, threatening to burst the eardrums.
Hundreds of camera flashes burst like fireworks, flooding Baek Seojun’s view with white light.
The vast stage of the Axis Korea 200th Commemorative Tournament.
An overwhelming scale and heat pressed against his skin.
Baek Seojun climbed onto the scale with a steady gait.
“Baek Seojun, 65.5 kilograms! Approved!”
Baek Seojun took his place as the challenger after clearing the weigh-in without issue.
Soon Champion Lee Sung Jun stepped onto the stage.
He stripped off his training top and cast it aside.
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the crowd.
Extreme weight cutting.
His ribs jutted out skeletal and sharp, his cheeks carved in deeply.
Yet the muscle definition clinging to bone was almost grotesquely sharp and alive.
An eerie, oppressive physique.
Do Yun stepped close behind Baek Seojun and whispered tersely.
“Don’t be fooled by that gaunt appearance.”
Baek Seojun nodded without breaking his gaze.
“By tomorrow he’ll have transformed into a completely different monster.”
The two fighters faced each other at the center of the stage.
Faceoff.
Baek Seojun’s eyes met Lee Sung Jun’s hollow, sunken gaze.
A chill.
A cold shiver ran down Baek Seojun’s spine.
The thick, viscous killing intent radiating from his dehydrated body.
Baek Seojun understood instinctively what Do Yun’s warning meant.
The man before him was a true beast—one who hadn’t lowered his bloodlust for even a moment.
After the fighting pose and light touch of gloves concluded, the press conference began immediately.
Questions poured toward both fighters.
A journalist in the front row fired the first question.
“Who do you predict will win this Title Match defense?”
The question was directed at the Champion.
Lee Sung Jun answered without a shred of hesitation.
“Nothing changes.”
It wasn’t baseless arrogance. It was absolute certainty.
“I’ll enter the Cage as Champion, and I’ll walk out as Champion.”
He continued without even glancing at Baek Seojun beside him.
“And once I set this belt down, I’m going to fight the strongest on the continent.”
Baek Seojun—the most promising prospect in Korea right now.
Yet Lee Sung Jun had just dismissed him as nothing more than an ordinary obstacle to pass through, a weighty declaration that hung in the air.
As murmurs rippled through the venue, the microphone passed to Baek Seojun.
Hundreds of camera lenses and gazes swung toward the challenger in unison.
Baek Seojun didn’t answer immediately.
A brief silence.
Then he slowly turned his head and fixed Lee Sung Jun with a direct stare.
Beneath the table, Baek Seojun’s fists clenched hard.
Thick veins stood taut across the backs of his hands.
“The Champion says he’ll walk out with the belt…….”
Baek Seojun’s voice was low and steel-edged.
His grip on the microphone tightened with force.
“But that’s not how this ends.”
A bared-teeth declaration of war to the Champion who dared treat him as merely a stepping stone—a predator’s challenge.
“Ohhhhh—!”
“Over here! Baek Seojun!”
In an instant, roars of acclaim erupted from journalists and fans alike.
Beneath the blinding barrage of flashes pouring down like madness.
Baek Seojun’s gaze and Lee Sung Jun’s collided in the air between them.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————