The God-Possessed Swordsmanship Genius - Chapter 16

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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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Swordsman Genius Blessed by a God, Chapter 16

Ma-in.
They were people who had traded their lifespan and vitality to a Demon in exchange for power.
Beings so vile that their mere existence was enough to chill the blood, and so rare that you could hardly find one anywhere on the Continent anymore.

‘Mikel was a Ma-in?’

Yushia swallowed hard. She and Baudon were standing well away from the Altar, yet Mikel’s killing intent made her knees tremble.
Even with a Bishuken swordsman on their side, she couldn’t be sure of victory if the enemy was a Ma-in.

“When did you figure it out?”

Mikel and Allen circled each other slowly, their eyes now red.
Neither of them looked away for an instant. One careless moment, and they knew the other’s blade would come flying in like the wind.

“I knew from the start that you weren’t from Bishuken. I only began to suspect you might be a Ma-in when I saw you hunting that Demonic Beast.”
“When you saw me hunting it?”
“Your killing intent was out of control. Demonic Qi was leaking out of you, bit by bit.”
“You sensed that?”

It should have been barely perceptible.
Mikel marveled at Allen’s perception. He had used only a trace of Demonic Qi while bringing down the Brisle, and yet Allen had caught it.

“You’ve clearly met a Ma-in before, haven’t you?”
“Sick of the likes of you, that’s all.”

How many Ma-ins had he encountered up to now? And how many Demons, for that matter?
Just thinking about it made him utterly sick of the whole business.

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re the same sort of creature.”
“…What?”
“One look at you and it’s obvious you’re a half-breed, isn’t it? A real Ma-in doesn’t have veins bulging out like yours, and their eyes don’t turn red.”

Ironically, the stronger a Demon’s power was, the less a Ma-in who inherited it differed from a human. And the Demons themselves were no different.
In that sense, to Allen, Mikel was a Ma-in only by half.
A Ma-in who had not received the Demon’s power in full, one made not through a pact but through a transfusion of blood.

At Allen’s words, Mikel faltered.
He, too, knew how his own appearance changed once he began to draw on Demonic Qi.
He had always assumed that the veins standing out on his skin and the shift in his eye color were the natural result of using Demonic Qi. He had believed every Ma-in must look just like him, as a matter of course.
And yet, it wasn’t so.

Grind.

“Don’t talk nonsense!”

Whoosh!

Demonic Qi erupted from Mikel’s body like a burst dam.
A gale whipped up in a ring around him.

“What could a punk like you possibly know? Don’t pretend you understand me!”

The gale of Demonic Qi tore at Allen’s hair. Between the strands whipping across his face, Allen’s eyes gleamed blue.
The moment Mikel saw that Allen didn’t flinch in the slightest, a rage came boiling up inside him.

“So, is it that you’re young but already a Bishuken, is that it?”

Having unleashed his demonic qi, he kicked off from the ground.

Whoosh!

With a leap, his long sword came flying through the air like the wind. Allen’s blade met it, matching its speed.

Clang!

When sword qi collided with sword qi, the shockwave carved ripples into the floor of the altar.
Allen’s blade gently deflected Mikel’s sword.
Following through, Allen’s sword slid along and aimed for Mikel’s head.

Mikel tilted his head back, and his eyes reflected in the flat of Allen’s blade. After the strike and the evasion, the two of them broke apart, putting a bit of distance between them.
A small gap.
Neither of them was willing to tolerate that distance.

Allen and Mikel clashed again.
Chwajeong!
In the open air, their blades struck three times in rapid succession.
Allen never once looked away from Mikel’s eyes throughout the fight. He fought by watching his opponent’s eyes and shoulders, not the blade.
As if locked in a contest of pride, neither man stepped off the narrow expanse of the altar.

Kwang!

Two blades struck once more at the center of the altar. Mikel, the taller of the two, bore down on Allen from above.
With their swords locked together, their eyes glared into each other.

“You bastard-.”

Allen did not give up a single step of the altar.
Mikel, grasping Allen’s intent, asked him.

“Do you mean to offer your life on this altar?”

Kagagak.

Allen did not answer.
It was a silence that said yes.

Kiiit.

Once again, Allen grazed along the flat of the blade and drove deep inside Mikel’s guard.
Just as Mikel stepped back with a footwork maneuver to create distance, that very moment.

Seongsin-ryu, Second Form.
Sonagi.

Phwahaak!

The sword qi unleashed from Allen’s blade tore Mikel’s clothes to shreds.
It was a gust of sword qi that would have minced his body had he not barely raised his sword to block it.

“Gah!”

Mikel stumbled back again and again, his brow furrowed. A sword qi he had failed to block sliced across his side.
But this was no time to worry about a single wound.

‘Where did he go?’

In the brief moment he blinked against the fierce wind, Allen had vanished from sight.
He scanned the altar, but Allen was nowhere to be seen.
Then that means.

‘Up!’

Mikel snapped his head up.
Sure enough, Allen had climbed onto the demon statue at the top of the altar and was preparing his next form.

Seongsin-ryu, Second Form.
Sonagi.

Swoosh-shaaang!

This time, Sword Qi poured down from above. It was clearly the same form as before, but the outcome was different.
Allen’s Sword Qi was focused solely on Mikel.

“Aaaaagh!”

Clang, clang-clang-clang.

His wildly swung sword met the falling Sword Qi.
Like rain, the Sword Qi tore through his arm and pierced his collarbone.
Mikel swung his sword as though he felt no pain. In truth, he didn’t feel any.
It was a change that came after he had received Demon blood and become a Ma-in. He was convinced that not feeling pain was the greatest strength a Ma-in could have.

Was that why?
Mikel survived the second Sonagi as well. His arm hung in tatters, but he still gripped his sword.
The moment the rain finally stopped, Mikel began his counterattack.
No.
He tried to begin.

Ssssk.

That was, if not for the long gash that had appeared across his chest without him noticing.

“…Huh?”

Fwoosh!

Blood gushed from the split in his chest.
There was still no pain, but all the strength drained out of his body at once.
His knees gave way, and Mikel dropped to the ground with a thud.
He lifted his head with difficulty, his face disbelieving.

“What… how…”
“So that’s how it can be used.”

Whisk.

Right in front of Mikel, Allen flicked the blood off his sword.
First Form, Bora.
It was the form that had split open Mikel’s chest.
Right after unleashing Sonagi, the Second Form, Allen had chained into Bora, the First Form.

“I need to practice narrowing the range. The narrower the area the rain falls on, the harder it will pour.”
“You’re… practicing on me…?”
“Is that a problem?”
“You, you…”

Mikel, who had been about to say something, flinched in surprise.
It was the rage in Allen’s eyes, the eyes that were aiming the tip of his sword at Mikel himself.

“…Why are you angry?”

A faint, smoldering fury.
This was not the anger of a single moment.
It was a rage that had been burning for a long time, perhaps one that would never go out, glowing deep within those eyes.
Having become a Ma-in, Mikel was acutely sensitive to emotion, to rage in particular.
Yet he could not make any sense of Allen’s feelings.

“You won… so why, exactly?”
“No reason.”

Allen answered Mikel’s question with a sneer.

“I’m just sick of scum like you.”

In Allen’s view, men like this were the worst kind of vermin.
Most of the future Ma-ins had bowed to the Demons only to survive.
But in this present-day Continent, the shadow of the Demons and Ma-ins was not so long.
These men hadn’t submitted out of necessity. They had simply attached themselves to the Demons because they craved power.
In a way, they were a greater evil than the Demons themselves, and Allen did not hesitate to cut down such men.

Shwiik!

Mikel’s neck was severed, and his head flew upward.
It landed with a dull thud and rolled across the floor, and its eyes met Allen’s.
In its final moment, Mikel’s face wore an expression of injustice.

What could he possibly feel wronged about?
Was it the treasure he never found? Or simply the fact that he had died at all?
Toward that severed head, Allen spoke as if murmuring to himself.

“In your next life, may you never have cause for injustice.”

Whoosh!

That was when the eyes of the demon statue lit up.

The instant Mikel’s breath died, the Altar’s condition, “one who offers a single life,” was fulfilled.
Allen turned his head and looked toward Yushia and Baudon, who were standing far from the Altar.
The moment his gaze met their bewildered faces, Allen flashed a grin and gave a wave.
In the next instant.

Swish.

The figure of Allen, who had been standing atop the Altar, vanished without a trace.
The Altar was finally at peace.
Yushia and Baudon, who had been holding their breath, finally let out long, shaky sighs.

“Phew-aaah.”
“Kh-aah. Cough, urk, ah!”

Baudon, exhaling deeply, clutched his stomach and let out a cry.
Blood gushed from the wound Mikel had stabbed into him.

“Hold still. I only just managed to stop the bleeding, and you’ll tear the wound open again.”
“Ugh. Once we get back, the treatment fees alone will cost a fortune.”
“Are treatment fees really what you’re worried about right now?”

Yushia let out a sigh and shook her head.

“If you’d just picked your side more carefully, why did you do it?”
“Damn it. Like I knew, did I?”
“If you had known, the thing rolling over there would’ve been your head.”
“Gulp…”

Left with nothing to say, Baudon clutched at his hair, thinking back to the moment Allen had come back.

“Maybe I should just die…”

* * *

It was about as long as it takes to blink hard and open your eyes again.
In that brief stretch of time, his vision flickered, and when it settled, Allen found himself in another space.

It was as if the Altar he had just been in had been turned upside down. The demon statue was still gazing down from above, and up ahead, he could see a small iron door.

Thump.

The echo in his chest grew louder.
Allen fixed his eyes on the iron door.

‘That’s it.’

Behind that iron door was a carving.
The Star Flower, the original target of this expedition, and likely the other treasures as well, must be somewhere in there too.
But, unfortunately, the cursed dungeon was not going to make things easy.

Pssshhhh.
Sssssss.

Demonic beasts appeared in a cloud of black smoke.
Dorbis and Brisles, along with earth mermaids and blood-sucking bats, numbered more than a hundred.

And above all.

Whoosh.

The torches on the floor went out, and darkness fell over the chamber.
Sudden darkness, arriving just as more than a hundred demonic beasts appeared.
If he focused mana into his eyes, he could still light his vision, but in a situation like this, most people who lost their sight would be thrown into chaos.
Fear of the dark was only natural for humans.
But.

“Would it kill you to make it a little easier?”

Allen stretched and slowly walked toward the demonic beasts.
Fighting in darkness was nothing new to him.
In the Strike Squad, he had rarely fought demons or Ma-ins in the light.
Battles with demons came day and night alike, and some demons could blot out sight or erase light altogether.
Deep inside the Demonic Realm, darker still than this, he had once fought off a flood of demonic beasts for three days and nights.
And back then, he hadn’t even had mana.

“That brings back memories.”

Surrounded by the gazes of the demonic beasts watching him from the darkness, Allen spoke.

“Annoying.”

The next instant.

Swoosh-kkkyah!

Cutting through the darkness, Allen lunged straight at the demonic beasts.

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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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