Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 39

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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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39
“There! That’s the target!”
With To Ryong’s urgent cry, the hunting dogs—scattered and frenzied with bloodlust—snapped their attention to a single point. A greedy gleam flickered through eyes drunk on the scent of carnage.
“What? That high school punk?”
“Our target? You’re saying he was by the entrance?”
In that instant, every scrap of tactical briefing etched into their minds by violence and gore evaporated. Only a single number—100 billion—flooded their vision.
“Grab him!”
“He’s mine! Don’t touch!”
The hunting dogs pivoted with savage momentum and hurled themselves toward Cheon Do Hyun in a frenzied charge.
“Poison Blaster!”
“Fire Lance!”
Dozens of spells in different attributes and forms tore through the air, streaking toward Cheon Do Hyun.
Only then did To Ryong realize, watching the hunting dogs barrel toward him with their newfound fervor, that he’d made a careless blunder.
‘Damn it! I shouted without thinking—caught up in the moment!’
At this rate, the fish he’d already caught would be torn to shreds by these mad dogs. A hundred billion won vanishing before his eyes.
‘That can’t happen. That neck is mine!’
To Ryong drew a piece of equipment refined from Mana Stones out from within his robes.
Then he began chanting the incantation for the highest-output spell he could manifest.
The moment his hands pressed against the ground, To Ryong’s murky mana devoured the earth around him, boring down in an instant.
Grind-grind-grind-grind-CRACK! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
A sound like hundreds of pneumatic drills piercing underground tunnels simultaneously erupted, and the earth beneath their feet split wide with a cavernous maw.
[Sinkhole]
“Wh—what?!”
“Damn it, what is this!”
As the ground supporting them vanished without warning, To Ryong, Cheon Do Hyun, and every hunting dog within the radius plummeted helplessly into the pitch-black depths below.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
They say falling requires no wings. Or perhaps things fall precisely because they have none.
In this moment, such questions of causality held no meaning.
No one tumbling through the void could maintain coherent thought.
“#%&#@^@”
Screams and unintelligible cries as they clawed at one another.
Pure pandemonium.
Yet even amid the chaos, To Ryong—as if he’d been waiting for this moment—surged a massive boulder upward and landed on it with perfect balance, as though surfing.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-CRASH!
Now free from the fall, he rode the stone downward, springing off the debris littering the ground with effortless grace.
“Stupid bastards. Go ahead and die.”
He sneered at the plummeting hunting dogs.
Meanwhile, his gaze was busy scanning the falling mass of bodies for one person in particular.
‘Found him!’
At last, he spotted a threadbare training suit fluttering through the dust.
It was Cheon Do Hyun.
To Ryong was a high-tier mage who’d reached the Harmony Stage. His plan was to use precise wind magic to pluck the target cleanly and escape from this nightmare.
And at this moment, everything seemed to be unfolding exactly as he intended.
Yet cold sweat kept trickling down the back of his neck.
‘What’s this…?’
A primal unease, his instincts screaming a warning. To Ryong soon found the reason and flinched.
‘Why is… why does he have that expression even while falling?’
Even in free fall, Cheon Do Hyun hadn’t uttered a single scream. Instead, his eyes—calm and dark as obsidian—fixed directly and precisely on To Ryong.
At that bestial gaze, To Ryong flinched, about to summon his wind magic—
Whoooosh—!
From the depths of Cheon Do Hyun’s dantian, a black vortex of the Taihao Hunyuan Heart Method erupted violently, spinning with terrifying force.
Do Hyun’s body flipped in the air with a light flutter, like a feather. He then began leaping with agility off the shoulders and heads of the thrashing hunting dogs as though they were stepping stones.
Thud! Whack!
Each time he pushed off another body, Do Hyun gained momentum, his form rocketing toward the vertical wall of the sinkhole. The moment he touched the wall, he compressed his Inner Force into the soles of his feet, activating the subtle principle of adhesion.
Suddenly Do Hyun stood upright against the cliff face, gravity defied.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-TAP—!
From that point on, Cheon Do Hyun sprinted up the vertical precipice as if racing across flat ground.
“What the hell is that…!”
To Ryong’s astonished wind conjuration grasped at empty air, its target lost.
He should have swiftly withdrawn the spell or corrected its trajectory, but To Ryong could only stand slack-jawed, staring at Do Hyun’s extraordinary feat. It was movement that shattered the bounds of human comprehension.
Splash—
The moment Cheon Do Hyun kicked off from the cliff edge and unleashed his technique, his figure rippled through the air like a video frame skipping erratically.
‘Heavenly Demon Phantom Step.’
To Ryong lost sight of Cheon Do Hyun in the blink of an eye and looked around in sudden panic.
In that instant, Cheon Do Hyun burst up from the lower corner and landed atop the stone.
Sway—
The stone that To Ryong had summoned lurched off balance.
“Uuugh!”
As To Ryong instinctively crouched to keep from falling, Cheon Do Hyun’s hand shot out and seized the man’s head.
It was the speed of an enormous eagle snatching a lamb.
“Kgh…! You… madman!”
He had no time to react.
[Finger Flicking Star Absorption]
“Gaaaahhhhhhh!!”
The vast wellspring of mana and life force flowing through To Ryong’s body was sucked into Do Hyun’s palm like a violent torrent. To Ryong’s scream faded to a hollow gasp as his body withered grotesquely.
#
Whoosh!
Do Hyun hurled To Ryong down into the Sinkhole and launched himself back into the Yongsan Bunker.
But before the dust from his landing had even settled,
he found himself surrounded in a circle by men radiating a killing intent that was anything but ordinary.
“Not even time to catch your breath.”
Then, from between the circle of mercenaries, a woman with voluminous wavy hair stepped forward, her heels clicking against the ground. A distinct tear mole marked the space beneath her eye—a single point that transformed her striking beauty into something far more perilous, almost lethal.
As if to prove her rank, the mercenaries surrounding Cheon Do Hyun parted in unison.
She raised her radio, her voice cold and sharp.
“Target acquired in Zone 1. Executing termination immediately.”
With that declaration, the woman raised a blade-edge hand toward Cheon Do Hyun, fingers rigid and angled.
Screeeee—
Mana currents spiraled into her hand, and a massive blade of wind materialized before her.
[Wind Blade]
The moment Security Iron’s Team Leader 3 swung her wind blade toward Do Hyun’s neck,
a black shadow cut across his path and deflected her strike.
Clang!—
As sparks erupted, the figure came into view: Lee Ye Rim, one of Gaebang’s core combatants.
Her lion-like mane of hair flew about her as she appeared, two Folding Knives gripped in each hand like the fangs of a beast.
“While I came to help you, something’s gone wrong deeper inside. Leave this to me—Do Hyun, go to the Patriarch!”
Lee Ye Rim shouted without turning her head.
At her words, Do Hyun wheeled about and surged toward the lower depths of the bunker.
Team Leader 3 ‘s eyes widened as she cried out.
“Stop him!”
She shouted, and tried to pursue Cheon Do Hyun herself, but Lee Ye Rim’s fists gave her no opening, striking in relentless succession.
Hundred Knot Continuous Ring
Clang, clang-clang, clang!
The Wind Blade and Lee Ye Rim’s energy-infused Folding Knives collided through the air with a deafening crack. Unable to withstand the explosive barrage, it was Security Iron’s Team Leader 3 who was forced back a step.
……
“Where do you think you’re going? I’m your opponent, you bitch.”
#
Meanwhile, on the path toward the Patriarch with Lee Ye Rim’s aid,
the pursuing hounds were crushed beneath the Heavenly Demon Overlord Step, and no further pursuers appeared.
The Yongsan underground bunker was already riddled with holes like a honeycomb by the Iron Blood Faction’s infiltration squad that had burrowed in from above ground.
Cheon Do Hyun, who had rushed out first upon hearing the explosion from the entrance, now regretted his hasty action.
The Gaebang members waiting in the rear were hard-pressed against the Iron Blood Faction’s troops that had penetrated so suddenly, locked in brutal close-quarters combat under the crimson emergency lighting as they desperately blocked the access tunnel leading from the surface.
“Damn it, I stayed in the rear because I didn’t want to fight!”
“Stop whining and swing that club again!”
These fighters, intuitively grasping that they could not afford to keep distance from the mages, had narrowed the gap and were engaging in direct hand-to-hand combat.
Yet even that was not holding—they were gradually being pushed back.
Then Cheon Do Hyun swept into the heart of the battlefield like a tempest.
Boom-boom-boom-boom—
There was no need to even draw the Three-Section Staff.
With nothing but his inner force-infused fists, the heavily armored mercenaries of the Iron Blood Faction coughed blood and flew backward.
“It’s Do Hyun! Cheon Do Hyun is here!”
As overwhelming martial prowess reversed the situation in an instant, the bloodied Gaebang members erupted in exultation.
“What, what is that bastard?! Shoot! Fire now!”
Panicked mages stumbled backward, screaming.
The mages unleashed a torrent of incantations at Cheon Do Hyun in unison. Dozens of lethal spells traced crimson arcs, filling the narrow corridor.
But—
Whoooosh!
Do Hyun stretched out his hand lightly and carved through empty air. That single, simple, graceful gesture—a tremendous pulling force swallowed every spell soundlessly into his palm and erased it.
“……?!”
Since achieving profound understanding of the harmony between the Taihao Hunyuan Heart Method and the Finger Flicking Star Absorption, the types and volume of magic Cheon Do Hyun could absorb had grown to absurd levels.
Thanks to that mastery, he could now employ such wondrous techniques.
Seeing the spells vanish in an instant, the mages’ eyes flooded with alarm.
Flash!
Without pause, Cheon Do Hyun deployed the Heavenly Demon Phantom Step.
His form rippled strangely, leaving dozens of afterimages in the air as he surged toward the mages’ very faces.
It was impossible to discern which image was real.
“Raise, raise barriers…! Ugh!”
Before the defensive gear that the Iron Blood Faction boasted could even take effect—
From nowhere, the worn Three-Section Staff in Do Hyun’s hand traced a heavy sword-line through the void.
Over the mere staff, a blue-green aura gathered like a blade’s edge.
‘Heavenly Demon Sword Art, First Form: Black Breaking Flash.’
Crunch!
The cutting-edge defensive equipment that had repelled even ordinary sword energy split cleanly, like tofu beneath a knife.
Blood sprayed toward the ceiling in fountains.
Seizing the moment as the enemies froze in horror, Do Hyun was about to surge forward—
Clang-clang-clang!
An alien aura intercepted his Three-Section Staff with tremendous force.
“Far more dangerous than I thought. Whelp.”
A team leader-class mage who had been mingled among the others stepped forward with a cold smile, blocking Do Hyun’s path.
His specialty seemed to be telekinetic magic—several short daggers moved through the air at menacing speed.
Knife Dance.
The moment the man flicked his fingers at Cheon Do Hyun and fired all the daggers at once—
Ping! Screeeeeech!
A single ray of light flashed from the darkness, and with a crack like gunfire, a silver arc traced through the air and struck each of the flying daggers with perfect precision.
Clang, clang-clang-clang, clang-!!
Under the violent impact, the daggers held by telekinetic magic scattered far. And on the ground where they fell lay 100 Won Coins—exactly matching the number of daggers.
A man who emerged from the darkness, flicking coins with his thumb. Lee Sang Won, one of the Three Dragons of Gaebang, stepped forward with an easy smile.
“Not bad for someone called the originator of Tojeon? Go, Cheon Do Hyun! Before it’s too late!”
At Lee Sang Won’s shout, Cheon Do Hyun nodded silently and charged through the final barrier toward the heart chamber where the leader dwelt.
Breaking through the reek of blood, he finally smashed through the sealed door of the Gaebang leader’s chamber and rushed in.
“…….”
Do Hyun’s urgent steps halted abruptly, as if catching on a stone.
In the room reeking of blood—
There lay Seon Young Hoon, the Gaebang leader, drenched in blood and fallen. And standing over his crumpled form, gazing down with cold, mechanical eyes, was a man.
Kim Ki Beom—the representative of Security Iron, the head of the Iron Blood Faction, and Jang Jae Young’s most razor-edged hidden blade, prepared to drive into Do Hyun’s heart.

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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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