The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 25

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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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25
Episode 25. A Legendary-Grade Variable
***
Above the residential streets of Sutak-dong.
I burst skyward from between the building clusters, and the crimson epicenter entered my field of vision.
A rift torn open in the void.
I detected the wavering pulse of leaking Mana.
By its concentration and density, it was E-rank.
A small-to-medium Gate, barely D-rank at best.
But it had been open for quite some time—the crimson light at its edges was murky, drained of vitality.
‘A naturally occurring Gate. And it’s been here for hours.’
This was negligence.
The management authority or the Buckler Guild would have spotted it long ago.
But it was likely deprioritized because this slum didn’t turn a profit.
The price of that carelessness was brutal.
The Gate, having passed through its incubation phase, had breached its threshold and was vomiting monsters into the world.
A Gate Break.
“Kiiiiiieeeek!”
From the narrow alley beneath the rift came a screech that felt like it would split eardrums.
‘Search.’
First-circle detection magic.
The Mana pooled on my retinas acted as a lens, zooming in on the situation hundreds of meters below.
A ghastly standoff.
The police cordon had already collapsed.
Two patrol cars lay overturned and burning, while a handful of officers huddled behind riot shields in a makeshift formation.
Surrounding them were grotesque creatures with sickly green skin.
Goblins.
“Gee-eeeek!”
One Goblin lunged, bringing a rusted, gap-toothed blade down in a vicious arc.
Crack!
The polycarbonate riot shield splintered open like tofu beneath a blade.
Unable to absorb the impact, the steel bit straight through the officer’s shoulder.
“Uaaaaaagh!”
The officer reeled backward, spraying blood.
The arm holding the shield went limp.
“Officer Choi!”
A younger officer beside him thrust his own shield forward desperately, moving to block.
But the Goblins were cunning.
They seized the moment as the prey’s formation fractured.
“Kukegegeee!”
Another lunged low, crawling along the ground, and swung a dagger.
Ting! Tang! Tang!
To shield his fallen superior, the young officer pulled the trigger on his .38 caliber revolver.
The smell of cordite filled the air as bullets struck the Goblin’s torso.
“Kil-kil-kil…”
The Goblin recoiled only a single step—completely unharmed.
Despair settled thick across the officer’s face.
These were mere Goblins, the lowest rank of monster.
Yet they carried Mana within their bodies—creatures from another realm.
To ordinary humans, they might as well have been armored bears.
Wheeeee—
The Goblins whistled sharply to each other.
Six of them moved as one, tightening their encirclement completely.
One immediately crouched low and began closing the distance.
“Damn… damn bastards!”
It looked like the end was near.
But I wasn’t too late.
I planted my foot on the railing of a four-story villa’s rooftop.
I compressed Aura into my toes.
Bang!
The concrete railing shattered as my body plummeted downward, defying gravity’s pull.
Wind hammered against my eardrums.
In mid-air, I brought my hand to my waist.
Whish—!
With a rasp of friction, the Hwan Dao and Dragon Head Sword slid free from their sheath.
The moment my fingers closed around the hilt, everything changed.
The sensation bore no resemblance to a training blade.
The sword’s edge drank in mana like a sponge, as though the blade itself had become an extension of my nervous system.
‘Synchronization.’
I transmitted the mana flowing through my veins as Aura, channeling it into the sword.
The blade burned blue and vibrated with power.
‘Lightning Slash.’
I layered the lightning spell over the momentum of my descent.
Electric discharge erupted in an instant, wrapping itself around the sharp edge of the blade.
The Goblins leaping to strike at the officers’ throats—their skulls met the falling slash.
Light descended upon them.
Whoooosh—
The flash traced a diagonal line,
and as I landed, I used the rebound from my knees to dissipate the impact.
Cracks spider-webbed across the asphalt.
Silence fell.
“Kee-eek···?”
Three Goblins that had been rushing toward the police.
Their heads simply dropped to the ground at once.
The cross-sections were charred black as though burned in flame, not a single drop of blood spilling.
The lightning’s electrocution had paralyzed their nervous systems, and the slash wreathed in Aura had cleaved through bone and flesh like butter.
‘Done.’
I straightened slowly, shaking the blade lightly.
The impurities clinging to the sword evaporated.
It wasn’t merely the Dragon Head Sword’s performance.
My training with Charles.
That insane routine—wielding a wooden sword wrapped in Aura thirty thousand times.
That hellish muscle memory had transformed my body.
The peculiar heaviness I’d felt when first wreathing my blade in Aura had completely vanished.
With less exertion, my strikes were sharper, and mana consumption had dropped by half.
‘All this in just one day.’
Charles’s method of tempering was undeniably effective.
The remaining three Goblins staggered backward, bewildered by their companions’ sudden demise.
I turned my gaze toward them.
“Kee…eek!”
I pushed off the ground.
I closed the distance of three paces in a single bound.
Horizontal once, vertical twice.
Slash, slash.
I didn’t even give them time to scream.
The remaining Goblins collapsed to the ground one after another.
Complete annihilation took less than five seconds.
“What… just…?”
Only then did the officers react.
Emerging from behind their shields with blank expressions, they stared alternately at me and the corpses littering the ground.
“That’s… that’s incredible. You took out those monsters in an instant.”
A young officer holding a shield stammered out the words.
I casually slid the Hwan Dao back into its sheath.
“They’re only Goblins.”
That’s right.
Nothing to make a fuss over.
What thrilled me was the realization of my own latent strength confirmed in live combat.
The young officer lifted his helmet visor and stared directly at me.
My face, and the fluorescent green vest I was wearing.
“Wait… are you perhaps Hunter Kim Do-jin?”
“That’s right! The hunter who kicked away that ten billion won that went viral on the internet!”
He recognized me.
It was all over the news, so it would be strange not to know about it.
I nodded appropriately.
“I’m with the Ability Management Team. We received a complaint report.”
“Ah, thank you! Really, thank you so much. We’re alive because of you!”
The young officer kept bowing his head.
A rough, labored breathing came from behind.
“Ugh…”
The officer with the slashed shoulder let out a pained groan.
Dark red blood trickled from the raw, gaping wound visible through the torn uniform fabric.
Wounds from a monster’s weapon don’t stop bleeding easily because of mana’s toxicity.
I approached him.
“Don’t move.”
The officer looked up at me with startled eyes.
Instead of answering, I extended my right hand and held it about ten centimeters above the wound.
‘Healing.’
A soft blue light bloomed from my fingertips.
The process of converting combat-optimized mana into gentle life force.
The light scattered like dandelion seeds, enveloping Park’s shoulder.
“This is… incredible.”
Choi’s eyes widened.
The black toxic residue clinging around the wound purified and dissipated, and the torn muscle tissue began slowly knitting back together.
A soft, soothing warmth seeped in—neither cold nor hot.
“Weren’t you a hunter? Healing magic, no less.”
“It’s only first aid. There will be residual effects from mana erosion, so you must go to the hospital as soon as things settle down.”
I dusted off my hands and stood.
“Yes, yes. I will, absolutely. Thank you so much.”
The officer ran his fingers over his sealed shoulder with a dazed expression.
I turned and asked him a question.
“But how did a goblin manage to come all the way out here? There should be considerable distance from where the Gate appeared.”
Choi furrowed his brow in response to my question.
“It’s because of the guild managing this area. This district is definitely under Buckler Guild jurisdiction, but they botched the raid so badly that they set up the barrier carelessly. Monsters have been leaking into the residential area this whole time.”
My suspicion was correct.
The guild responsible for controlling the naturally occurring Gate had failed its duty and let monsters slip through.
‘Handling things this poorly.’
Once I sealed the Gate entrance and dealt with the remaining creatures, my first assignment would be cleanly finished.
I was about to turn away with that thought when—
Whoosh—
Not the sound of wind.
From the corner of my vision, I caught the trajectory of something alien tearing through space.
‘What is that?’
I turned my gaze.
Silver.
A large butterfly, the size of an adult man’s fist.
But not an insect.
A silhouette in flight, trailing traces of light like silver dust from its translucent wings.
A Fairy-type monster.
Not something you encounter easily.
“What are those guild members doing, exactly? How did they set up that barrier so badly that everything’s pouring out?”
The middle-aged officer muttered in irritation.
The younger officer agreed.
“Right? Goblins and now flying insects. We need to lodge a proper complaint with the management authority.”
I shook my head.
“That’s a monster, but it won’t cause harm. It has a strong homing instinct, so it will return to the Gate on its own if left alone.”
“Ah, is that so? Its appearance made us tense.”
The officers relaxed and reached for their radios.
I too was about to look away.
A fairy with nothing special except its silver color.
At that moment.
[Beep—! Beep—! Beep—!]
Airi’s warning alarm shrieked in his mind like a siren.
A noise loud enough to split his eardrums.
He was about to shut her off.
[Successor! You cannot let it escape!]
[Capture is strongly recommended!]
“Why the commotion all of a sudden? You’ve been quiet for a while.”
Her voice wasn’t its usual dry tone.
Urgency bled through despite her mechanical nature—a cry laced with desperation.
[Scan results obtained! The entity that just passed possesses ‘Legendary-grade’ attributes.]
“…Legendary-grade.”
He’d seen plenty of Legendary-grade items before the regression.
But Legendary-grade Fairies were exceedingly rare.
Had he even seen one or two?
That something so insignificant, like a gnat, was flying through a residential neighborhood?
Whether Airi’s words were true or false, no Hunter in this world could remain unexcited at the mention of “Legendary-grade.”
He had to catch it first.
If not, he could simply shut Airi down for thirty days.
It possessed a Homing Instinct, so it would eventually head toward a Gate anyway.
Since there was no wasted distance either way, there was nowhere left to hesitate.
***
‘[Haste].’
The instant the spell left his lips, his feet drove against the ground.
Crack!
His legs, charged with acceleration, gouged the asphalt.
An explosive burst of speed.
The silver Fairy had already twisted into an alley a hundred meters ahead.
He had to close the gap.
“Come here.”
He stretched out his hand.
The distance narrowed as he cut through the wind.
Semi-transparent silver wings grazed the tips of his fingers—so close, so impossibly close.
Just a bit more.
But fortune never came so easily.
The creature sensed his killing intent and twisted its flight path, darting upward with a sharp pivot.
Poof—
Silver dust erupted, and the Fairy’s form transformed.
The butterfly, barely fist-sized, had instantaneously shifted into a small reptile wrapped in black scales.
‘A Hatchling?’
A dragon’s offspring.
Though it might be illusory, the creature’s flight speed with its bat-like wings spread was in an entirely different league.
Flap, flap.
With just two wingbeats, it soared to the height of a three-story building.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
He kicked off a utility pole in the alley and launched himself upward.
Using the rebound, he ricocheted off an air-conditioning unit mounted on the building’s exterior wall and vaulted higher.
A vertical ascent reminiscent of parkour.
“Got you!”
The moment he stretched his hand from atop the rooftop railing.
Grrrrgh—!
It transformed once more.
This time, a massive silver wolf over two meters tall.
The wolf, now heavy with substance, struck the rooftop floor with a bang and hurled itself toward the adjacent building.
“Damn it, shape-shifting?”
A curse escaped his lips.
The wolf bounded across sign frames and used a passing truck as a stepping stone, charging deeper into the city center.
The distance was widening.
At this rate, he’d lose it.
“Haa…”
His lungs felt like they might tear.
That unpleasant sensation from Dong-gu-neung was creeping back up, slow and insidious.
A searing burn as Mana roiled through my veins.
A warning sign of Mana Backflow.
[Successor, Aura duration limit exceeded. Circuit overload status.]
“Quiet.”
I knew.
This was the first time I’d maintained the Synchronization skill for so long.
And that was on top of maximum output for full-speed sprinting.
Charles’s training had strengthened my circuits, or so they said, but my body still couldn’t fully handle the new operating system.
Rationally, I should stop here.
Stop, cool down, prevent the Mana pools from burning away entirely.
Once the Fairy entered the Gate, it would be over.
A low growl erupted ahead.
The creature had shifted form again.
This time: a herbivorous monster that ran on two legs—a Sprinter Beast.
Built for speed.
It was trying to shake me off deliberately.
“Not now.”
How rare was an opportunity like this?
A Legendary-grade Fairy could be a game-changer in this world.
If I let it slip away, the pride of a 9-Circle Archmage would weep—as would the title of a former S-rank Hunter.
I bared my teeth, grinding them together.
Rather than suppress the Aura’s output, I ignited the Mana core itself.
A suicide move—smashing the control panel and flooring the accelerator.
Pain as if I were coughing blood.
My vision flickered crimson.
The sound of muscle fibers tearing screamed in my ears.
And then it happened.
Ding—!
[Synchronization Rate increases. (22% → 25%)]
[New Sword Saint skill unlocked: Fast Running.]
My brother’s legacy answered to my stubborn pride.
“What a ridiculous name.”
Blood pooled at the corner of my mouth, but I laughed.
[Fast Running].
Less intuitive than childish.
But I understood the weight of what lay beneath it.
“Airi. Rename [Fast Running] to [Dash].”
[Command confirmed. Updating skill name.]
I stopped mid-sprint and planted myself firmly on the ground.
The Fairy receded from sight.
But I felt no urgency.
Only stillness.
I drew a long breath and condensed my entire Aura into the balls of my feet.
My calf muscles swelled, ready to burst.
I knew how to use it.
I’d seen it countless times within the Gates.
That Stepping Technique my brother once used to break through enemy lines—the one that folded space itself.
That silhouette.
“[Dash].”
Bang—
The asphalt beneath me erupted and collapsed inward.
My body snapped forward like a bullet from the recoil.
The landscape stretched and blurred like watercolor paint.
Sound fell away behind me. Air resistance vanished—a vacuum state.
Beyond the body’s limits, tearing through the seams of space itself, running.
Instantaneous.
The Sprinter Beast’s back, which had been hundreds of meters ahead, rushed into my line of sight.
The creature’s pupils as it twisted around in shock.
Tag was over now.

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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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