The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 21

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#021. The Man with the Iron Mace

Except for the forest setting, it was like a scene from a western film as the man with the iron mace and Sung-jun glared at each other silently, maintaining their standoff.

And beside them stood Seoa, looking at her teacher with eyes that didn’t know what to do.

Instinctively realizing that the man before him had chosen to fight rather than flee, the man swallowed dry saliva and began calculating.

‘He shows no fear even after seeing my build and the insignia at my waist – is he also an Awakened? If he’s stronger than me, then how strong is he exactly?’

Park Hyeon-jo, a Korean-Chinese Awakened from China, couldn’t gauge the strength of the young man before him.

If he were a fellow Tianwu Guan Awakened, he could have roughly estimated his strength through the aura emanating from his body, but the young man before him wasn’t emitting any aura at all.

This was a sense of alienation arising from the fundamental difference in how the two used their abilities.

However, unlike Park Hyeon-jo who couldn’t sense his opponent’s aura at all, Sung-jun had already grasped Park Hyeon-jo’s strength through spells.

‘So this is the “qi” that Tianwu Guan Awakened are said to use…’

Centered around the lower abdomen, commonly called the ‘dantian’ in martial arts novels, an intangible energy was extending throughout his body along the meridians.

And Sung-jun, seeing the flow of qi within the man’s body, realized he possessed strength two or three levels higher than his own rank.

‘This isn’t the kind of aura a Temple Warrior rank should have… Is there a story behind this? From his speech, he seems to be of Korean-Chinese origin – perhaps his promotion was blocked for that reason.’

Having finished assessing the man’s strength, Sung-jun initiated the first attack.

Since he didn’t know the combat patterns his opponent used, leading the attack and drawing out the opponent’s responses was the advantageous approach in a probing battle.

‘Let’s see his reaction speed first.’

As Sung-jun flicked his fingers, a spell immediately activated.

When magic that collapsed solid ground to restrain the opponent melted the floor where Park Hyeon-jo stood like water, he felt his body stagger and simultaneously struck the wobbling floor hard with the iron mace he was holding.

“If you’re going to attack, at least give a warning first. Did you forget your manners?”

Though his words pretended surprise, his tone was utterly calm.

From this incongruity, Sung-jun intuited that this man had real combat experience, not mere bravado.

And as he judged, Park Hyeon-jo’s act of striking the floor wasn’t simple escape but preparation for his next attack.

He used the momentum of his body rising from striking the floor to spin like a windmill while preparing his next technique.

However, before he could unleash his technique, Sung-jun’s spell split the air and struck hard where he was floating.

-Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!-

A fierce blow that wouldn’t kill but would break a bone or two if it hit.

Realizing that even this fierce attack was one Sung-jun had held back on, Park Hyeon-jo raised his assessment of Sung-jun’s danger level by one, no, two levels.

‘This won’t be easy. Even with full power, I can’t guarantee escape, let alone victory against this man.’

He channeled qi drawn from his dantian into his iron mace and deflected the incoming spell mass.

—Tu-kwa-a-a-ang!—

The qi in the iron mace deflected the magic’s trajectory, and through that gap, Sung-jun’s counterattack continued.

Water and fire, stone and wind.

Amidst the rain of spells, Park Hyeon-jo displayed fluid movements as if guiding his opponent’s attacks rather than enduring them with force.

‘Since I made this movement, you’ll attack here, right?’

‘Since you aimed there, you’ll want to strike here next.’

Techniques.

The series of flows and responses that martial artists call such.

These skills seemed to drive Sung-jun’s magic along predetermined trajectories.

And at that moment, Sung-jun suddenly realized.

‘This is… martial arts!’

Understanding this, Sung-jun cast protective magic with one hand to prevent battle aftermath from reaching Seoa, while pouring out continuous spells with the other.

—Kwang! Kwa-ang! Shu-a-ang! Kwa-ang!—

Witnessing the spectacular battle that could only be seen in superhero movies right before her eyes, Seoa watched her teacher’s fight in a daze.

Her teacher who usually used only minimal spells.

But now that teacher was fighting properly, as if showing her how a mage should battle.

And this while facing an enemy he could subdue anytime he wanted.

Watching Sung-jun like this, Seoa began instinctively interpreting the complex formulas contained in Sung-jun’s spell operation with her unique talent for grasping magic through sensation rather than theory.

‘That one… I could use. Ah, I’d need to see that spell once more to understand it.’

Seoa instantly fell into the world of magic.

The flow of mana caused by the spells Sung-jun cast.

The boundary between reality and fantasy twisting along his dance-like finger movements.

Like being captivated by the movement of a blazing campfire, Seoa unconsciously began following Sung-jun’s finger movements and making the surrounding mana fluctuate.

And at that moment.

“Enough.”

As a massive ripple spread out like waves centered on Sung-jun’s body, the song of the dancing mana stopped.

And simultaneously, a powerful force forcibly suppressed the mana around Seoa.

Sung-jun had forcibly suppressed the mana movement that she was unconsciously about to let run wild.

“What did you do?”

“Stop for a moment. I have something to say to my disciple.”

“Like hell! You damn bastard! Do I look like I’m playing around to you right now?!”

Enraged at Sung-jun treating their life-or-death confrontation like a practice spar, Park Hyeon-jo swung his iron mace.

However, before his attack could reach Sung-jun’s body, dozens of magic circles that appeared around Sung-jun forcibly stopped his movement.

‘I’m going to die.’

This was a fear of a completely different dimension from the sensation of someone pointing a gun at you.

Inescapable death. A premonition of death like watching a bullet that had already been fired about to pierce your heart.

Only then did Park Hyeon-jo realize he had been making a huge mistake about the man’s strength.

The fact that the young man before him, who looked to be only in his early twenties, was stronger than any human he had ever seen.

“Do as you wish.”

“I have no intention of killing you. However, I have something to ask you, so please wait a moment.”

Having suppressed Park Hyeon-jo’s movement, Sung-jun released the magic circles and turned toward where Seoa was.

There was his disciple looking at him with a frightened expression like a child who knew she was about to be scolded.

“Seoa…”

“I’m sorry! Teacher! I knew what you said, but I couldn’t help myself!”

Seoa squeezed her eyes shut and waited for her teacher’s reprimand to fall.

Despite Sung-jun’s repeated warnings, she had tried to cast spells she didn’t understand theoretically in primitive magic form, and in the process made her fighting teacher stop the battle and forcibly suppress her runaway mana.

‘Will I get scolded badly? Should I make excuses that it wasn’t on purpose? Should I promise this will never happen again?’

In thoughts so complexly tangled they made her nauseous, she felt Sung-jun’s hand patting her shoulder.

“Tea… cher?”

“I know you didn’t deliberately try to copy the magic.”

Sung-jun knew everything.

That her casting magic wasn’t due to her will but an unconscious manifestation.

And that such longing for magic was so great that it couldn’t be suppressed by the restraint of her teacher’s warnings.

This was natural.

In the past, during the era when even Sung-jun’s teacher, the great archmage, couldn’t use magic.

Sung-jun too had once been obsessively fascinated by the enormous possibilities that magical theory held.

Sung-jun was recalling his past self as he looked at Seoa, who seemed ready to burst into tears at any moment.

‘What kind of crazy guy have I seen. Didn’t I clearly warn you? If you forcibly combine opposing elemental spell formulas, the backlash from twisting the laws returns to the spell caster!’

‘…Precisely speaking, I didn’t mix two spells but activated them alternately at 0.5-second intervals…’

‘Are you calling that an explanation right now… Huh? What? This might actually work?’

In this way, when studying magical theory, Sung-jun used to mix spells that previous Demon Lords had painstakingly perfected like kneading clay.

And his teacher Minastrias, while being exasperated by Sung-jun’s attitude, would provide theoretical verification of whether Sung-jun’s makeshift spells could actually function.

‘If I had actually been able to use spells on Earth back then, I probably would have died over 800 times…’

The fact that Earth’s mana concentration was too thin to use magic became the foundation for Sung-jun to attempt completely new ideas beyond the limits of existing magical theory.

Dangerous ideas that actual magic-using mages would never attempt seemed like ‘theoretically feasible attempts’ to Sung-jun, who couldn’t use magic.

Just as Sung-jun back then was obsessed with magical ‘theory’, Sung-jun could fully understand his disciple’s obsession with magical ‘sensation’.

Because he had similar experiences himself.

However, unlike himself who could handle magical theory through imagination alone without risk of runaway, protecting Seoa’s body, who could actually use magic, required minimum safety measures.

“It’s my fault. When I first learned magic, I was so fascinated by the charm of magic as a discipline that I forgot to sleep, and I should have remembered that you too haven’t been learning magic for long.”

A beautiful light magic circle formed in Sung-jun’s hand.

Then Seoa felt the sensation of the mana flow that had been boiling around her body being instantly organized.

“This is….”

“It’s a spell I made for you. It doesn’t prevent you from using spells entirely, but it’s a kind of safety device that forcibly cancels any spell you’re casting if it detects a dangerous mana flow that could backfire. If I had cast this on you earlier, you could have practiced magic much more comfortably….”

“…Are you saying you just created such a complex spell with that kind of function on the spot? How on earth did you… Eep!”

Seoa, who had been questioning Sung-jun without realizing it, hastily covered her mouth.

However, upon receiving Seoa’s question, Sung-jun’s eyes sparkled as he began giving a theoretical lecture as if he had been waiting for this moment.

“That’s a good question. Actually, this spell is based on a theory created by the 17th Demon Lord and founder of startup magic, Yujin Stoer….”

Watching Sung-jun excitedly explain the spell he had created, a smile appeared on Seoa’s lips behind her hand.

Sung-jun’s appearance, unconsciously becoming like a child whenever theoretical topics came up, was remarkably similar to her own behavior when she instinctively got drawn into mana flows upon seeing spells.

And behind these two people stood a man glaring at the harmonious atmosphere between teacher and student with an expression filled with rage.

‘These damn bastards….’

The emotion Park Hyeon-jo was feeling wasn’t simply anger from Sung-jun ignoring him.

On that day everyone called D-DAY.

Ever since the day an Apocalypse-class Corrosion Entity appeared in central Beijing where he lived, Park Hyeon-jo hadn’t been able to smile like them for even a single moment.

He had only run to survive, and killed people to survive.

The sight of these two people in his view contained smiles that he, who had crawled through hell to escape here, absolutely could not tolerate.

‘Damn bastards who don’t even know what real fear is.’

An unprecedented rage welling up from his chest seized Park Hyeon-jo’s heart.

He felt an impulse to show these two people, who were acting leisurely as if they were on a date in this hellish reality, the harsh cruelty of reality.

‘Fine. You won the fight, I’ll give you that. But remember this. The one who wins fights isn’t the strong one—the one who survives is the strong one!’

Suddenly, explosive energy shot out from Park Hyeon-jo’s ankles as he knelt.

At the same time, Park Hyeon-jo put down the iron mace in his hand and drew the dagger from his waist.

‘Since you spared my life, I won’t kill you either. But you should learn exactly what happens when you turn your eyes away during a fight.’

A momentary strike executed at such speed that even an opponent with eyes on their back couldn’t possibly avoid it.

Even though Sung-jun realized from Seoa’s expression as she looked behind him that Park Hyeon-jo was attempting a surprise attack, he couldn’t take any countermeasures.

Among all the spells he knew, there wasn’t a single one that could be cast fast enough to block a martial arts master’s surprise attack at such close range.

‘I’ll have to rely on the protective magic I’ve cast on my body for now.’

Regretting his choice of carelessly skipping the most important finishing touch of subduing his opponent despite saying he would show how to fight, Sung-jun began casting a spell to use after taking the hit.

However, what awaited Sung-jun wasn’t the sharp pain from behind, but a familiar voice he never expected to hear in this place.

“찾——-았——–다!!!!!”

At the voice suddenly coming from above, Park Hyeon-jo urgently looked up at the sky.

Then, seeing a girl charging down faster than the voice had traveled, he opened his mouth with an expression of disbelief.

“What the hell…!!”

-CRASH!!!!-

With a tremendous explosion that was hard to believe came from a small girl’s descent, Park Hyeon-jo’s head was crushed under the girl’s bottom as he was driven straight into the ground.

“Ugh… I deliberately landed on the old man to use him as a cushion… but it had to be his head…. Huu… my butt hurts….”

With an expression showing no concern whatsoever for Park Hyeon-jo, who had more than half his head buried, the girl stood up while dusting off her bottom.

Then she spoke to Sung-jun, who was looking at her with a dumbfounded expression.

“I finally found you, Ma Sungjun. Isn’t it pretty cowardly to win and then run away?”

It was Shirasaki Miyu, the girl who had come all the way to North Korea to find the opponent who had beaten her unconscious.

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