Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 30

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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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30
A fierce wind swept across the rooftop, tousling the hair of both figures. Jang Ki-han stood alone to meet Cheon Do-hyeon, without a single guard in attendance.
“So you’re Jang Ki-han.”
The legitimate heir of the Iron Blood Jang Family and the mastermind behind the criminal organization Golden Wheel. The one who had hunted Do-hyeon’s life and, in the end, driven his benefactor Gwak Cheol to death.
Do-hyeon had expected killing intent to surge the moment he faced him. Yet he found himself startled by his own inner calm—far more composed than he’d anticipated.
The man standing before him appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary student his own age. A frail appearance that gave no hint of the hidden mastermind orchestrating countless tragedies. The disillusionment escaped him almost involuntarily.
‘So you’re Jang Ki-han.’
Jang Ki-han, facing him across the rooftop, was lost in a similar train of thought.
A cursed body that could not manipulate even a thread of Mana. The school’s official outcast, perpetually shunned. And yet recently this creature had seized a strange power, blocking his path at every turn, until finally trampling the very foundation of the Golden Wheel he’d built. A mortal enemy.
He’d imagined some grotesque, bestial form. But the Do-hyeon before him was simply a high school student with clear eyes and a sturdy frame.
After a long moment of mutual appraisal, the two opened their mouths in perfect unison.
“Why go this far?”
The identical question, word for word. Upon hearing it, both let out hollow laughs as if by agreement.
“I didn’t expect our meeting would be this pleasant.”
Jang Ki-han made no attempt to hide his smile.
“Still, this isn’t the kind of situation we can laugh our way through.”
“No. We need to see how this ends.”
Their intentions aligned perfectly.
Cheon Do-hyeon gripped the Three-Section Staff hanging at full extension and lowered his stance.
Jang Ki-han extended his Staff directly forward, priming the Mana Circle within his body.
Whooooom—
A heavy circling sound unlike anything heard before.
Gooooo—
The roar of Internal Power churning from the dantian.
The mere act of the two preparing for battle sent the Mana density of the surroundings skyrocketing. The air itself felt heavy, pressing down upon them.
“Let’s see it through.”
Perhaps they had both sensed it in their very first moment of confrontation. Jang Ki-han and Cheon Do-hyeon felt an immediate kinship with one another.
Extremes, they say, resemble one another.
One could prove himself only by trampling others mercilessly. The other could survive only by resisting that violence to the very end.
So they were the same and yet different.
Whoosh—
Do-hyeon took the offensive first.
Condensing Internal Power into his legs, he drove off from the ground, and his form vanished from sight as though leaping across space itself.
“…!”
He closed the distance in an instant, arriving before Jang Ki-han.
Whiiiiick—
The Three-Section Staff cut through the air.
The speed was so tremendous that the sound arrived half a beat behind the strike itself.
Clang-clang-clang! Clang!
Yet the end of the Staff struck a transparent barrier and never reached Jang Ki-han.
Do-hyeon pressed forward without yielding, unleashing a torrent of consecutive blows.
Left and right, high and low, diagonal angles.
His Three-Section Staff came from unpredictable vectors.
Clang-clang! Clang! Crash-clang-clang!
The protective barrier became visible to the naked eye, its shape and contours evident beneath such tremendous physical force.
Each time the Staff bounced back, blind sparks scattered in all directions.
Whoosh-whoosh-whish—
Maintaining his assault while gauging the barrier’s limit, Do-hyeon seized a fleeting opening and extended his left hand.
Star Devouring Technique
The instant his palm made contact with the shield’s surface, it began voraciously devouring the immense Mana that constituted the barrier. Stripped of the force that sustained its structure, the shield lost its form in an instant, distorting like a mirage.
Do-hyeon would not miss so fatal an opening. A brilliant cyan force gathered at the end of the Three-Section Staff like a lightning bolt.
Black Flash Slash
The weapon, drawn back to his left ribs, unleashed a black flash like a rail-gun projectile, driving toward Jang Ki-han’s vital point.
Slash—
A chilling cutting sound rang out, yet there was no trace of Jang Ki-han within the impact zone. He’d narrowly folded his upper body and let Do-hyeon’s all-consuming strike pass through empty air.
‘He reacted to that…?’
Do-hyeon’s pupils trembled.
Jang Ki-han’s eyes flickered with subtle electrical current.
An application of lightning magic—a sophisticated technique in which he channeled electrical current directly through his nervous system to artificially enhance his reaction speed. It bore the same quality as the method Kim Seung-yeon had demonstrated in Babylon.
Unprepared for such an evasion, Do-hyeon had committed all his strength to the strike. His body, unable to overcome the force’s inertia, lurched violently and exposed him to an instant of complete vulnerability.
Jang Ki-han raised his left hand—the one not gripping the Staff—with practiced speed. No incantation was needed. His fist, Silent Casting complete, came down on Cheon Do-hyeon’s chest without mercy.
[Fire Fist]
Boom—!
The instant the fist made contact, a scarlet explosion of flame erupted.
“Ugh!”
Struck with a violence that nearly shattered his senses, Do-hyeon curled into a ball and was driven back dozens of paces. Jang Ki-han shaped the fingers of his left hand—still wreathed in unquenched flame—into a gun, taking aim at the distant Cheon Do-hyeon.
[Fire Bullet]
Bang! Pow-pow-pow!
Where an Air Bullet maximized piercing power through its point of impact, Fire Bullet was pure magic—a spell of overwhelming firepower. Dozens of flaming projectiles tore through the air, tracking Do-hyeon’s path and detonating in sequence. With each burst, a towering column of flame rose up as if to swallow the very shape of a man.
“Ggh—”
Hastily dampening the blast radius with Star Devouring Technique, Cheon Do-hyeon rolled across the ground, just barely escaping the spread of Jang Ki-han’s barrage.
‘The speed of spell manifestation is insane…!’
Swift judgment. And a casting speed so staggering it more than covered for it.
‘So this is the true power of a magical great house.’
Then Jang Ki-han spoke, preparing his next spell with unhurried ease.
“Do you know what’s terrifying about Thermal-Type Magic, Cheon Do-hyeon? Once the environment is established, I can pour out chained spells without pause.”
With that, he drove his Staff hard into the ground.
[Fire Field]
A shudder ran through the air, and the residual flames hovering in the atmosphere engulfed the space between them in a massive curtain of fire. In an instant, the rooftop transformed into a blazing inferno where breathing itself became a struggle.
Under the murderous heat consuming everything around him, Do-hyeon’s brow furrowed. The rubber soles of his shoes began to melt stickily, clinging to the ground. He layered his Internal Power over his skin, barely deflecting the scorching assault.
“Stubborn, aren’t you.”
Beyond the undulating flames, Jang Ki-han’s silhouette wavered and distorted.
“When discussing the ranks of mages, a Fourth Circle wielding three Attributes is called a Harmonizer. Then what is the title of a Fifth Circle that dominates five Attributes? It is called the Abyss. It means achieving harmony of all things—yet it is called an Abyss, an abyss of despair. Are you curious why?”
With each step Jang Ki-han took toward Do-hyeon, massive serpents of flame erupted through the concrete, piercing skyward.
“They say it’s because of the absolute helplessness those who face a higher Circle feel in their bones. The moment you encounter someone who weaves five Attributes freely, you taste a terrible despair—as if you’ve fallen into an inescapable abyss of hell. And I have just set foot in the realm of the Abyss.”
The gem embedded in the Staff Jang Ki-han held was radiating an ominous crimson light.
“Experience that despair yourself.”
At a gesture from Jang Ki-han, serpents of flame lunged from all sides to ensnare Do-hyeon’s limbs. He immediately cast the Heavenly Demon Phantom Step. The air, shimmering from the extreme heat, was the perfect medium for weaving illusions.
Whoosh—whoosh—!
Six afterimages surrounded Jang Ki-han. Without so much as blinking, he swung his Staff through empty space.
“Deception has no place here.”
This space was saturated with Jang Ki-han’s Mana. There was no need to distinguish real from false.
He simply swept the entire space away.
As the Mana Stone at the tip of Jang Ki-han’s Staff flashed, the pillars of flame that had risen erupted and scattered in all directions.
Crash-boom-boom-bang!
The area explosion consumed the entire rooftop, and Cheon Do-hyeon’s illusions dissolved like paper, consumed by the inferno.
Whoosh-ahhhhh—
Cheon Do-hyeon burst through the flames!
He had clawed his way through the gap in the explosion.
Protected entirely by Internal Power, he had used the momentum of the blast itself to hurl himself upward, succeeding in rushing straight down at Jang Ki-han from above.
‘Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step’
Crack—
The crushing pressure of the Heavenly Demon bearing down from above slammed terribly against Jang Ki-han’s shoulders. His rigid knees buckled under the strain, wavering violently. Behind that absolute force, Do-hyeon’s Three-Section Staff descended like a meteor, driving straight down.
Crash-boom-boom-bang!
Every ounce of Internal Power was poured into the strike.
He had gauged Jang Ki-han’s shield strength and, with precise calculation, brought down the full weight of power needed to shatter it in a single blow.
True to Do-hyeon’s calculations, Jang Ki-han’s hastily erected shield shattered like glass.
Crack-pop!
The Three-Section Staff did not stop there. It continued forward. And finally, it touched Jang Ki-han’s body.
“…!”
A look of shock crossed Jang Ki-han’s face.
Cheon Do-hyeon’s visage hardened with determination, refusing to squander this opening. And then, moments later, their fortunes reversed.
Thud—
But with that dull impact, the Three-Section Staff that had struck Jang Ki-han’s chest bounced away uselessly, as if it had hit a steel wall. The cause of this strange phenomenon revealed itself at once.
Under the force of Do-hyeon’s devastating blow, Jang Ki-han’s upper garment was torn to shreds, and beneath it, on his bare skin, lay a unique Artifact—armor concealed until now, now exposed to view.
The armor blazed with a brilliant, eye-searing blue light of Mana, perfectly negating Do-hyeon’s physical force.

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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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