The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 58

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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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58
Chapter 58. The God of Combat
***
The dawn air was sharp as a blade. Damp mist had crept across the landscape, yet even it could not mask the acrid metallic stench of blood that pricked the nostrils.
The earth beneath my shoes felt sodden—far too wet.
Whether from the night’s dew or from someone’s blood soaking the ground was something I didn’t need to verify.
I walked forward methodically, carving the visible landscape into fragments and forcing them into my mind. There was no room for emotion.
I had only to dismantle the variables laid before me and extract the optimal course of action.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Kim Dae-han’s roar tore through the silence. Blood vessels bulged across his eyes the moment he stepped from the car and took in the scene.
The ground was chaos. Yu Hye-sung lay crumpled in the dirt, one hand clutching his abdomen, breathing in ragged gasps.
The blood he spat bloomed like a crimson flower against the white mist. Beyond it, the face of Hunter Association President Jung Eun-jin had gone pale as plaster.
Around the trunk of a black van with its doors sealed shut, armed Gate Management Bureau agents were tightening their perimeter.
The muzzles of their Mana-suppression Tactical Rifles were leveled squarely at us.
A bronze-skinned man rotated his body slowly. His polished shoes ground against the gravel with an unpleasant crunch.
His pupils had settled to a bestial coldness. Behind the Sunglasses, his gaze fixed on my eyes as if trying to pierce through them.
“Who are you? What’s your affiliation?”
His voice was laced with sharp wariness—the menacing vibration of a growling beast. Kim Dae-han stepped up beside me, squaring his shoulders as he answered.
“Ability Management Team. I’m Team Leader Kim Dae-han.”
“The Ability Management Team…”
The man ground out those words as if chewing on them. He scanned Kim Dae-han’s uniform once, then—losing interest—his gaze swung back to me.
My senses sharpened. The Aura this man radiated was far from ordinary. It was in a different league entirely from the Bureau’s administrative staff I’d faced at the Goblin swarm Gate.
His entire body thrummed with the reek of slaughter—a stench worn into bone and sinew from crossing the line between life and death countless times. It was not something that could be groomed away.
It was the indelible mark of massacre carved into his being.
I studied his face carefully. Dark brows, sharp nose bridge, and a small scar beneath his left ear.
A fragment of memory surfaced. I definitely knew this face.
“State your name.”
Kim Dae-han’s voice dropped lower. Instead of answering, the man drew a Silver Badge from his inner jacket pocket and held it up.
The metal gleamed under the pale glow of a distant street lamp.
“Gate Management Bureau Tactical Operations, Bae Hyun-gyeom. As you can see, I’m executing official duties.”
The moment that name left his mouth in a flat tone, my rational thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
‘Bae Hyun-gyeom?’
I kept my expression blank, narrowing my eyes. This wasn’t a face I merely recognized—it was a name I couldn’t possibly forget.
The reason I hadn’t identified him at first glance was simple.
The Bae Hyun-gyeom I remembered before my regression was not this neat, tidy agent standing before me now.
He had been a monster who had lost all human form.
A madman marinated in Purple Grade Booster—a substance that surpassed Orange Grade and obliterated the brain entirely—who did nothing but slaughter and kill.
His skin had been mangled as if burned, his reason long evaporated, chasing only the ecstasy of destruction as a victim of the Purple Grade Booster.
But before his fall, he had been different. He had stood at the vanguard of the Gates, crushing the flood of monsters with his bare fists, the most unbreakable shield of humanity.
An existence who had commanded reverence from all as the apex of unarmed combat hunters.
‘The God of Combat, Bae Hyun-gyeom.’
Yet here, at this moment in time, he was faithfully serving as a lapdog of the Gate Management Bureau’s Tactical Operations.
It was fate’s mockery.
A hero who had become humanity’s calamity, consumed by Booster, now stood before me as the power structure’s obedient hound, backing the Booster cartel itself.
It was grotesque—a perfectly sickening testament to how warped the world’s machinery had become.
“Taking the Association President is a clear violation of the law.”
As my silence lengthened, Kim Dae-han stepped forward another pace. His fists were trembling.
“State administrations cannot unilaterally arrest or detain senior officers of the Hunter Association. Do you intend to openly violate international law?”
Kim Dae-han’s legal argument was flawless.
To prevent governments across the globe from turning Awakened Ones with superhuman power into private armies, a supreme legal decree established by the UN-affiliated Hunter Management Organization.
The Hunter Association was an independent body, not subject to state authority, and to drag its president Jung Eun-jin away like a kidnapping at dawn without warrant was an unambiguous crime.
Yet Bae Hyun-gyeom didn’t blink. He merely pushed up the Gold-rimmed Glasses that had slipped slightly down his nose with a fingertip.
“Gate Management Bureau regulations take precedence under the Special Administrative Law.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t the Ability Management Team also operate within the framework of the Special Administrative Law? You should be familiar with that much legal principle.”
Bae Hyun-gyeom’s voice was mechanical, detached. It was not debate—it was notification.
A collision between international law and domestic special ordinance. It was the extra-legal authority the government had granted the Bureau under the pretext of controlling Gates, an unprecedented disaster.
‘In the event of anomalous Gate-related phenomena that pose grave threat to national security, the Bureau’s administrative execution takes precedence over all international statutes and general criminal law.’
Using this toxic clause as a shield, they violated sacred ground under the guise of legality. The law—as an instrument of violence—tightened around President Jung Eun-jin’s throat.
“Even if it’s the Bureau Director’s order, this isn’t the Bureau’s jurisdiction!”
Kim Dae-han’s voice rose. Thick veins bulged in his neck.
“Lee Do-hyeon was under our protection, and if he’d died here, the investigation would fall primarily under the Hunter Association and the Ability Management Team’s jurisdiction. So back off right now——”
“He was found in a Hatching-type Gate, though.”
Bae Hyun-gyeom cut through Kim Dae-han’s words with that single statement.
“A Hatching-type Gate is precisely what falls under special control by the Gate Management Bureau. Everything that emerges from it—all byproducts and personnel—falls under our purview. And Lee Do-hyeon’s cerebral blood vessel ruptured after Association President Jung activated her ability. He’s dead.”
Kim Dae-han’s mouth snapped shut. He stared at Bae Hyun-gyeom as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“He’s naturally a subject of investigation. Whether it’s the Association President or someone above her—it doesn’t matter.”
“Damn it, don’t spout that horseshit——”
Yu Hye-sung, sprawled on the ground, spat a mouthful of blood and cursed. As if oblivious to the pain of his shattered ribs, he clawed at the floor with his nails and glared at Bae Hyun-gyeom. Kim Dae-han’s face twisted with rage as he shouted.
“Watch your tongue! The person we risked our lives to save—why are you saying the Association President killed him!”
“That’s precisely why we’ll investigate, and the truth will come out.”
Bae Hyun-gyeom walked past Yu Hye-sung, who writhed in pain at his feet, with the same indifference one might show a stray pebble on the road. His bearing remained consistent.
The posture of an executor devoid of all emotion.
“I won’t belabor the point. This is the Director’s order.”
In the brief moment their words clashed.
I paid no attention to their argument whatsoever. My focus lay elsewhere—on the chilling truth hidden beneath the surface of this entire situation.
‘Information is leaking.’
The fact that Lee Do-hyeon was trapped in a Hatching-type Gate.
And the fact that Association President Jung had burned her own lifespan using the S-rank Ability Seraphim’s Wings to save him.
This was information known only to me, Kim Dae-han, Jung Se-hui, and a handful of the Association’s highest leadership. Information kept under strict control, sealed away.
Yet in just a few hours, it had fallen into the hands of the Gate Management Bureau.
They had constructed a flawless scenario based on this intelligence: eliminate Lee Do-hyeon and pin the blame on the Association President. And they’d descended upon us with it already locked in place.
A rat was nesting deep within our organization. A fatal informant reporting our every move in real time.
Zing—
A smartphone vibration cut through the silence, emanating from Bae Hyun-gyeom’s pocket.
The atmosphere hung on a knife’s edge, bloodlust colliding from all directions, yet Bae Hyun-gyeom answered without hesitation.
“Yes, Chief.”
An urgent voice leaked through the receiver.
“Before departure. The Ability Management Team is blocking the way, but—yes, I’ll handle it before you arrive.”
“······”
“Understood.”
He finished his responses with mechanical numbness, as if inputting code into a machine. His hand moved to his pocket, stowing the phone with unhurried ease.
And the moment that silent gesture concluded.
Shhwoosh—!
From within the neat suit enveloping Bae Hyun-gyeom’s frame, a grotesquely heavy, violent aura began to erupt.
Crackle, crack!
The mana suspended in the air combusted under the weight of his bloodlust. The fog-laden dawn air suddenly constricted as if into a vacuum.
Chest tightness. Lungs compressed. It was a suffocating, oppressive bloodlust—the kind that would have sent an ordinary Awakened One to their knees, retching.
“From now on.”
Bae Hyun-gyeom clenched his two leather-gloved fists. The leather stretched taut, and the dull crack of vertebrae twisting echoed across the Annex Building’s front yard.
His shoulder muscles swelled until the suit sleeves seemed ready to tear.
“I will do what I came to do.”
It was an executioner’s colorless sentence.
“Anyone who obstructs me will be considered interfering with official duties and will be removed.”
At Bae Hyun-gyeom’s declaration, Kim Dae-han reflexively drew the handgun from his waist.
“Is this how the Gate Management Bureau conducts itself—through force first?”
Bae Hyun-gyeom paid no mind to Kim Dae-han’s handgun, advancing with quiet steps toward where Association President Jung stood.
With each footfall, the ground trembled faintly. It was arrogance rooted in overwhelming force.
Step, step.
By the second, third stride.
“······”
Bae Hyun-gyeom’s steps halted. His eyes had found mine—meeting them at precisely his own eye level.
“······Who the hell are you.”
A deep furrow carved itself across Bae Hyun-gyeom’s brow.
I had neither mercy nor patience left to answer his question, to explain the situation. The violation of sacred ground, their pathetic arrogance—all of it had long ago incinerated the control mechanisms of my reason.
I met his gaze directly and spoke.
“The same as you.”
With my chin tilted upward, I released the killing intent I’d been holding back completely.

“I’m in the middle of something.”
“What?”
Bae Hyun-gyeom’s eyes narrowed further.
“So get lost.”
***
The moment my provocation cut through the air, the sinister aura that had wrapped around Bae Hyun-gyeom’s entire body condensed in an instant into his right arm.
Mana swirled and was visibly drawn into the end of his fist.
Crack-crack-crack!
The earth beneath my feet couldn’t withstand his force and split like a spider’s web. This was no mere threat.
“You deaf? I said get lost.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking.
Boom!!!
A deafening roar tore through the air. Bae Hyun-gyeom’s fist shot toward my face like a cannon ball. It moved faster than the eye could follow.
No—it was a violent barrage of compressed mass that transcended the physical concept of speed itself, tearing through space.
The aura compressed on the surface of his fist turned the surrounding atmosphere into a vacuum, distorting my vision.
‘Fast.’
Since synchronizing with Kang Tae-yoon, I had faced countless enemies, but never a single blow so heavy and perfect, so saturated with killing intent.
The overwhelming facet of that martial prowess which, in some distant future, would be called the God of Combat and stand at the apex of humanity—it blazed before my eyes now.
My heart pounded. But not from fear. From exhilaration.
The mana within my body responded instinctively, honing itself to a razor’s edge.
Crash!!
The sound of two massive steel masses colliding head-on shook the entire Annex Building.
The shockwave scattered in all directions, and dust from the ground billowed up like a storm, obscuring my vision.
At the center of the thick dust cloud.
I remained planted in place, unmoved.
“······?!”
Beyond Bae Hyun-gyeom’s spectacle lenses, his pupils shook violently with shock.
A full-power blow. A strike with devastating trajectory. What had stopped it was neither shield nor elaborate defensive magic.
It was the flat of the blade held in my right hand.
I concentrated my aura on the flat of the blade, receiving the kinetic energy of his fist and redirecting it cleanly. The blade resonated faintly with vibration, but my arm didn’t budge an inch. I had completely absorbed the God of Combat’s punch.
The blade hummed slightly with oscillation, but my arm remained steady. I had swallowed the God of Combat’s fist entirely.
“······You.”
Bae Hyun-gyeom’s voice trembled. His mind couldn’t accept the fact that his strike had been blocked so effortlessly.
He glared at me through my sunglasses as though trying to pierce through to my eyes, a growl rumbling from his throat.
“A-rank Hunter from City Hall······.”
In the moment he tried to speak my name and rationally reconstruct the situation, I cut him off without mercy.
“Doesn’t matter.”
I thrust the flat of my blade forward forcefully, knocking his fist away roughly. Metal and muscle ground together, producing a sharp metallic screech.
“Take off your glasses.”
Bloodshot veins appeared in Bae Hyun-gyeom’s eyes. The aura pouring from his body grew harsher and wilder. But it didn’t matter.
Whether he was the man called the God of Combat or the Bureau’s watchdog, it meant nothing to me. If he stood in my path, he was simply an obstacle to cut through.
I adjusted my grip on the sword diagonally and stepped forward.
Now we had moved beyond the realm of words.
We had entered the primal domain where blood and bone collided.

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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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