Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 29

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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29
Late morning found Seoul’s sprawling digital billboards and phone screens saturated with sensational headlines targeting Cheolhyul Jangga.
“Following the successive stock plunges of Cheolhyul Jangga subsidiaries…”
Investors who had lost vast fortunes wailed across the news cycle. As a cascade of damning internal corruption scandals erupted one after another, Cheolhyul Jangga’s prospects seemed to be hurtling toward total collapse.
In the back row of the classroom, Kim Seungyeon sat with her chin cradled in her palm, a deep smile playing at the corners of her mouth. The meticulously doctored materials she had disseminated had become the opening salvo of this massive downfall—the satisfaction was beyond words.
“Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?”
Kim Junpyo swallowed hard, muttering anxiously.
“It’s fine. A scratch this small won’t topple a family that enormous.”
Cheon Dohyun lay sprawled across his desk, his voice drowsy and quiet as he savored the tranquility of the moment.
Then a trembling classmate approached their group and spoke hesitantly.
“Um… hey, Dohyun?”
“Yeah?”
“Someone’s here at the front of the class. They’re asking for you.”
The way the student kept glancing nervously down the hallway made it clear this was an uninvited guest. Rising from his seat, Dohyun slipped out the back door—where Kim Minho’s gang was waiting.
“Ahem, ahem!”
The thugs still tried to appear intimidating, forcing their shoulders up and down in exaggerated swagger,
but when they met Dohyun’s cold gaze, not a single one could hold his stare.
The leader of the group, beaten in this battle of presence, Kim Minho, finally forced out the reason for his visit, his voice trembling.
“Can we talk after school?”
“Wait, your name is…”
Dohyun pulled a worn notebook from his pocket. He flipped through the pages quickly until he found what he was looking for.
“Right, Kim Minho. The school bully who reported me for school violence…”
Cheon Dohyun grinned, teeth bared.
“It’s all written down here.”
The color drained from Kim Minho’s face and that of his companions.
“Thanks to you lot, I got to experience suspension from school for the first time in my life—quite the valuable lesson. I’ve been too busy to even thank you properly, but since you’ve come to see me in person, I’m truly grateful. No need to wait until school ends. Why don’t we settle this right here, right now?”
“Wait, wait!”
As Cheon Dohyun cracked his neck and wrists, slowly closing the distance, Moon Sungil and Lee Chanhui, startled by his menacing momentum, bolted for the stairs. Isolated, Kim Minho flailed his arms desperately, stammering excuses.
Kim Minho waved his hands frantically, trying to stop Cheon Dohyun.
“I just did what I was told. Back then and now! Isn’t that right, guys?”
He spun around in panic to seek their agreement, but there wasn’t a soul left beside him. Then, from the far end of the hallway, came a faint echo.
“Yeah, that’s true!”
“Minho always does whatever he’s told—super obedient like that!”
In a heartbeat, they had abandoned him and fled.
“You disloyal bastards!”
Kim Minho screamed, his voice quivering with betrayal.
“So, what did this brilliant mastermind order you to do?”
Cheon Dohyun wrapped a muscular forearm around Kim Minho’s neck like a python and asked in a low voice.
“H-Hwanggeum-ryun… They told me to check if you came to school, and to bring you back.”
“Where is this person?”
“…Here.”
Kim Minho hastily pulled out his phone and opened the map app. The coordinates on the screen pointed to the outskirts of the Old City District, where redevelopment had stalled—a desolate abandoned building with no registered business name.
“Fine. Go.”
“Wait…”
The moment Dohyun released his grip, Kim Minho choked and grabbed at Dohyun’s collar desperately.
“You should probably go. Really. They told me something…”
In that instant, Cheon Dohyun’s senses twisted. Time seemed to stop. Beyond Kim Minho’s slowly parting lips, he saw what looked like a phantom image of Jang Gihan—someone he had never met face-to-face.
From the abyss of oppressive darkness came an arrogant, ice-cold voice that pierced his ears like a phantom sound.
[If you cannot bring him here of his own accord, then burn down his house. If he still doesn’t appear, kidnap his acquaintances one by one. Make it so he has no choice but to crawl to me on his own two hands.]
Jang Gihan’s command might have been articulated more simply in essence, but what mattered was the sheer, merciless resolve itself—the determination that he would stop at nothing to drag Dohyun in.
So this is where the line ends.
Though Jang Gihan had been an unknown adversary, Dohyun had always sensed a kind of restraint whenever they clashed—a boundary that was observed.
But now, for some reason, Jang Gihan had crossed that line.
Dohyun stared at Kim Minho with eyes turned to ice.
“Go tell him I’m coming directly, right now.”
“What? Right… right this second?”
As Kim Minho stood slack-jawed, Dohyun’s form had already shot past the hallway and burst out of the school building.
“Wait… regular classes haven’t even ended yet… we’re students…”
#
At that same moment, on the highest floor of a desolate abandoned building on Seoul’s outskirts.
In that place where rust-eaten rebar lay exposed like the skeletal frame of something long dead, Jang Gihan sat with his chin propped on a tactical chair, gazing downward. Less than half a day had passed since he mobilized the Hwanggeum-ryun to sweep the area with a massive dragnet, and the bizarre trails Cheon Dohyun had left behind began surfacing one by one like corpses rising from still water.
The vagrant attacks that had befallen employees working at Babylon. The pathetic condition of janitor squad members recently admitted to downtown hospitals in a comatose state. The CCTV footage confirmed at the scene.
All of it pointed to evidence that Cheon Dohyun was in collusion with some massive force.
‘Vagrants, bottom-rung beggars, and the Seoul Station Underground Closed Area.’
Fragmented pieces of information were being compiled in real time, assembling themselves in Jang Gihan’s mind into one colossal picture.
“Interesting. What the hell is your true identity?”
This was the moment Jang Gihan was murmuring to himself, still chin in hand.
“Young Master, we’ve just received contact from our informant planted at Shinnam High School.”
A subordinate came rushing up the stairs, bowing his head apologetically.
“Go ahead. Report.”
“Yes. The target, Cheon Dohyun, has declared an all-out battle—saying he’ll come here on his own two feet.”
“On his own?”
The moment those words left his lips, a dull impact sound thundered from directly below.
Boom—boom!
Screams erupted in its wake.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Hearing that sound, Jang Gihan’s lips curled into a smile.
“Right. I knew you’d come yourself.”
Jang Gihan rose to his feet.
He conducted a light check of his personal weapons and finished preparing to receive Cheon Dohyun, who would arrive momentarily.
#
Meanwhile, Cheon Dohyun burst through the shattered first-floor iron door with the thunderous crash, scanned the Hwanggeum-ryun remnants charging toward him like wolves, and drew a Three-Section Staff from his waist.
Snap-snap!
[Heukpailseom]
As the folded metal rod extended fully, a wavering black aura rose from the Three-Section Staff like heat shimmer.
Cloaked in that black force, the staff emanated a sinister presence, not unlike a demonic sword.
Dohyun drew his full-body rotational force to its limit and unleashed a horizontal slash—a trajectory as elegant as the confident stroke of a brush laden with ink upon rice paper.
Screech—
For all its beauty and grace, the result was catastrophic. The Hwanggeum-ryun members, who had been priming their Mana Circles to unleash magic in unison, were swept away by the immense force that crashed over them like a tidal wave, scattering like tissue paper in all directions.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
With a single application of Heukpailseom, Cheon Dohyun had erased roughly a dozen organization members.
“Send out your boss!”
“Ugh…”
When Cheon Dohyun shouted, those pressed down by the momentum could only groan; not a single one dared answer back.
Only the executive-level combatants mixed in with the crowd managed to collect themselves, coughing blood, but Cheon Dohyun—as if mocking their sluggish defensive stance—lunged at them.
“Hold him!”
“I’ll bind him—Bind!”
“Resilient Vines!”
“Enveloping Flames!”
A dense wave of Mana reverberated throughout the area. Then, magic formations of every conceivable color stitched themselves across the void, and binding spells poured down like a downpour—all aimed at suppressing Cheon Dohyun’s mobility alone. Massive vines shot up through the concrete floor, snaring at his ankles; formless Mana chains constricted his joints; the temperature in the vicinity spiked violently as crimson flame whips lashed out ferociously, wrapping around his entire body.
Yet Cheon Dohyun’s expression was utterly composed.
[Heubsungdaebeop Application—Jinggong]
Whoooooosh!
Jinggong, an advanced technique of seven-star Heubsungdaebeop, instantly siphons Mana from the surroundings, creating a localized Mana Vacuum. As the Mana needed to construct and sustain the incantations evaporated, the painstakingly woven spells lost their potency and dissolved slowly away.
“Wh-what is this phenomenon…!”
“The atmospheric Mana has vanished entirely!”
“M-magic isn’t… magic isn’t functioning!”
For mages who had spent their entire lives relying on the flow of Mana, the sudden erasure of ambient Mana around them triggered a primal, suffocating terror—as if the very air had vanished and left them unable to breathe. They thrashed about in panic.
Dohyun, missing no opportunity, dove straight into their ranks and unleashed merciless fists and kicks.
Thud-thud-thud! Crack!
With each sweep of Dohyun’s passage, well-built men let out pitiful screams and crashed through the air in every direction. Having completed his Complete Physical Transformation, Cheon Dohyun’s raw physical specifications had already transcended the measure of ordinary humanity by an immeasurable distance.
It was not a level of force that mages who relied solely on magic and neglected body conditioning could withstand.
Where his hands touched, bones snapped and caved in like sugarcane stalks.
“Ngh—ahhhhh!”
“Run!”
Adult men flew through the air with a single kick from Cheon Dohyun. Watching from a distance, he seemed like a living tempest.
In mere minutes, the Hwanggeum-ryun remnants who had been waiting in the first-floor hall were strewn about—every last one either unconscious or bearing grave injuries.
“Ughhhhhh…”
“Help me…”
Looking down at those men, Cheon Dohyun’s face betrayed no flicker of emotion.
“Is Jang Gihan on the upper floor?”
Cheon Dohyun asked the closest man lying on the ground.
“Ugh… shut up. You think I’m gonna… argh, yeah, yeah, he’s up there!”
The man’s stubborn resolve to uphold one last shred of loyalty crumbled in a single second—the moment Cheon Dohyun pressed his thumb against the pressure point between the man’s collarbones, a bestial scream tore from his throat and shattered his will entirely.
“Thank you.”
Cheon Dohyun flashed a courteous smile and was about to set his foot on the concrete stairs leading to the second floor when something stopped him.
Every hair on his body stood on end. A spine-chilling sensation drove deep, and his body moved before his mind could register—he jerked his torso backward and stumbled away in a violent retreat. It was instinct, pure and primal, his flesh acting where thought could not.
Crack—boom—!!
Right on cue, a spear wrought from flames blazing like the sun tore through the very air where his foot had been moments before, and plunged down diagonally with merciless force. The Flame Spear, compressed with brutal power, exploded on impact—an entire flight of stairs melted away, leaving behind a grotesque crater in its wake.
“….”
Cheon Dohyun felt the presence above, radiating a formidable wave of Mana.
“So you’re at the very top, then. No need to come down. I’ll climb up to meet you myself.”
Whoosh—flash!
His form blurred once on the first-floor staircase, and then, faster than sight could track, he materialized in the empty air of the next level. His speed bordered on the preternatural—too swift for the human eye to follow. With overwhelming footwork that defied gravity itself, Cheon Dohyun reached the topmost floor of the Abandoned Building in mere bounds.
The roof of the highest floor was stripped bare, its outer walls completely demolished, leaving only a skeletal frame exposed against the sky. The dizzying rooftop, with its clear view down to the ground, looked far more decrepit and precarious than any floor below.
And standing in the center of that desolate expanse was a man radiating a suffocating, crushing wave of power.
“So you’re Cheon Dohyun.”
“….”
Wind howled around them.
Cheon Dohyun studied the man’s face slowly, deliberately.
Before him stood Jang Gihan—the source of all his misfortune.

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