The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 128

Ji Soon-chan swallowed hard, watching the Devil Ape hurtling towards him.

‘One mistake and I’m done for!’

Whoooosh-!

The massive fist filled his vision in an instant.

The chilling sound of the Devil Ape’s fist tearing through the air sent shivers down Ji Soon-chan’s spine.

‘Even a slight graze will cause serious injury!’

Ji Soon-chan panicked and flung himself to the left.

He channeled all his mana into his lower body and kicked off the ground.

Ji Soon-chan’s body soared into the air.

KWA-A-A-ANG-!

Ji Soon-chan dodged the fist’s trajectory, and the Devil Ape’s fist slammed into the spot where Ji Soon-chan had been standing.

The dungeon floor shattered, sending debris flying in all directions.

‘Holy crap.’

Ji Soon-chan swallowed hard again, witnessing the scene.

He briefly imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t dodged that attack.

‘……I’d be like jerky.’

Just imagining it made his body tremble.

‘Okay, calm down. Just don’t get hit. Don’t get hit. If I keep doing what I’m doing…’

Ji Soon-chan forced down his anxiety and performed a roll.

He spun once and landed back on his feet.

And at that moment.

Whoooooosh-!

“Ugh-uh-uh!”

Ji Soon-chan’s body was unexpectedly struck and sent flying backwards.

It felt as if a storm had directly hit his body.

‘What the heck is that!’

As he flew backwards, Ji Soon-chan turned his gaze to the Devil Ape.

The Devil Ape, which should have been slamming its fist into the ground, had changed its stance and was now extending its fist towards Ji Soon-chan.

It looked as if it had just punched the air a moment ago.

‘Could that be, a wind punch?’

That stance.

It had punched the air to create a shockwave.

There was no other way to explain the situation.

‘Crap! I need to roll first!’

Ji Soon-chan’s body, sent flying by the Devil Ape’s wind punch, crashed into the ground.

He tried to roll, but his unstable position made a perfect roll impossible.

“Kuh!”

Ji Soon-chan groaned in pain.

His whole body was throbbing.

His back, in particular, was in excruciating pain.

‘Pain or not, I need to get away…!’

But the problem wasn’t the pain.

The problem was that he had just created an opening.

Koo-ooo-ooo-!

And the Devil Ape wasn’t stupid enough to miss this opening.

Ji Soon-chan quickly regained his senses and stood up.

‘No, it’s too late!’

However, the Devil Ape moved faster than Ji Soon-chan could get to his feet.

The Devil Ape, emitting a sinister glow, was free-falling towards Ji Soon-chan.

The amount of mana contained in that fist was extraordinary.

Was it for a continuous attack? It seemed weaker than before, but it was still not an attack to be ignored.

If he got hit by that, he wouldn’t even be able to piece his bones back together.

‘Blocking it is impossible.’

And he couldn’t dodge it either.

He barely dodged the previous attack when he was at full strength.

In his current awkward position, he couldn’t dodge that attack.

He considered using the Eight Trigrams Gate [a martial arts technique], but soon realized it was pointless.

Without Shin Ha-yul’s interference, he couldn’t stop the Devil Ape’s brute force.

He would just become minced meat while using the Eight Trigrams Gate.

‘What should I do?’

Ji Soon-chan bit his lip, watching the Devil Ape’s fist rapidly growing larger.

Was he going to get hit like this?

So futilely?

‘Damn it.’

Just as Ji Soon-chan was wallowing in regret.

“Left!” Kang Shin-woo shouted from the left.

“!”

At that shout, Ji Soon-chan immediately flung his body to the left.

His body moved faster than he thought. It was a reflex.

Ji Soon-chan’s body got a little closer to Kang Shin-woo.

But that was it.

He didn’t escape the Devil Ape’s attack range.

The result wouldn’t change.

Ji Soon-chan was about to suffer a major injury and be taken out of the fight.

However.

“Hoo.”

Kang Shin-woo wasn’t going to just watch that happen.

Kang Shin-woo’s muscles expanded further.

‘Divine Martial Arts.’

A deep breath.

That breath, filled with mana, was slowly released.

And then.

‘Tai Chi.’

His hands drew a large circle.

Symmetrical and large.

The movement of his hands resembled a Tai Chi symbol.

‘Flow.’

The Devil Ape’s fist was right in front of him.

Kang Shin-woo’s hands gently wrapped around the fist.

It looked as if a human was carrying a waterfall on their back.

‘Release.’

Kang Shin-woo’s body balance shifted to the right, and the torrent of power began to flow to the right.

It was as if he was diverting a flowing stream to another place.

Hence, Flow, Release.

Releasing the flowing stream.

KWA-A-A-ANG-!

The Devil Ape’s fist veered off course and slammed into the ground.

“Ugh!”

The shock of the fist and the ground colliding at close range sent Ji Soon-chan and Kang Shin-woo flying into the air.

However, this time, they didn’t roll helplessly on the ground.

Unlike before, their body balance wasn’t broken.

They could withstand this level of aftershock.

“Are you alright?”

“……Yes. Thank you.”

The two used the storm created by the monster’s fist to create distance.

The two checked each other’s condition.

“I’m sorry. Because of me…”

Ji Soon-chan bit his lip.

“It’s okay. Divine Martial Arts also affects physical recovery. This level of fracture will recover in a few hours.”

Kang Shin-woo’s arms were completely broken and dangling.

It was an injury he sustained when he deflected the Devil Ape’s attack a moment ago.

“Still, that’s amazing. Even after properly deflecting it, the power is still this strong.”

Kang Shin-woo laughed as if he found it amusing.

The innate nature of a warrior, who is happy in the face of a strong opponent, was revealed.

Koo-ooo-ooo-!

The Devil Ape, furious, roared loudly.

It was frustrated that things hadn’t been going its way since the beginning.

“It’s definitely smart. It’s still testing the waters even after all that.”

But that was it.

It had only roared and expressed its frustration.

It didn’t give in to its anger.

Instead, it coldly suppressed its anger and was assessing the situation.

“Yeah. It’s a scary one.”

Kang Shin-woo felt a chill run down his spine.

Thinking about encountering such a monster in the wild made him shudder.

“I see why no one has been able to defeat it for 32 years. It’s not a monster that can be defeated by students.”

There is no more difficult opponent than a cautious monster.

If it weren’t for the Korean team, this monster would have reigned as the overlord of the third area of the dungeon until the end of its lifespan.

“But that record ends today.”

Yes.

If it weren’t for the Korean team, and Shin Ha-yul.

“Nothing is easier to handle than a moderately intelligent being… is it?”

Kang Shin-woo smiled as if he found it amusing and glanced sideways.

Shin Ha-yul was in the corner of the passage, closing his eyes and preparing something.

He didn’t know how, but he couldn’t feel any mana or anything, but he instinctively knew.

It was unusual.

That was something beyond the normal trajectory of magic, something unknown.

The warrior’s intuition was telling him that.

And then.

Woo-oo-oo-oo-oo-!

Kwaaa-!

The air changed.

An intangible pressure emanated from Shin Ha-yul.

A force that could not be described.

Just the feeling of it on his skin made his hair stand on end.

“……This is.”

Ji Soon-chan stared at Shin Ha-yul with a shocked expression.

The energy that Shin Ha-yul was emitting made the hair on his entire body stand up.

Krrr…

The Devil Ape seemed to have sensed that terrifying energy as well, and its eyes widened.

The Devil Ape’s pupils trembled with panic as it looked at Shin Ha-yul.

‘……Is it trembling with fear?’

It had the expression of someone who had encountered a top predator.

It looked like it was about to run away at any moment.

Thump!

As expected, the Devil Ape took a step back.

It was trying to escape this place.

The monster’s unique senses and the Devil Ape’s unique intelligence combined to make a choice that a normal monster wouldn’t make: to run away.

“Senior!”

“I know!”

If this continued, the Devil Ape would escape. They couldn’t let that happen.

The two moved to somehow restrain the Devil Ape.

No, they tried to move.

“That earth devours bones—”

At that moment, Shin Ha-yul’s voice bound their feet.

Just by hearing his voice.

Just that.

‘My body won’t move.’

He couldn’t move.

It felt like he shouldn’t move.

“Embracing them—”

Whoooosh-!

Shin Ha-yul’s mana surged forth.

It was the real deal, different from the subtle energy and remnants of mana from before.

In that instant, the quality of the air changed.

“We shall bury them—”

Crack-crack-crack-!

The earth froze.

The air froze.

The world froze.

“Permafrost.”

As if time had stopped, everything stopped.

The dust that had been scattering in the air from the aftershock of the battle.

The fragments of earth that had been shattered and scattered by the Devil Ape’s footsteps.

Even the Devil Ape’s movements.

“……”

“……”

Only silence remained in the world that his mana had embraced.

* * *

Thump!

Shin In-hyuk jumped up from his seat with a shocked expression.

“That is…”

He thought there was nothing more to be surprised about.

Was there something even more shocking left?

Shin In-hyuk’s eyes trembled like aspen leaves.

“Patriarch. What is that magic…”

Kim Seok-hyun, who was watching Shin Ha-yul’s battle with Shin In-hyuk, had an expression that was not much different from Shin In-hyuk’s.

No, it was even more extreme than Shin In-hyuk’s.

He looked like he had seen a ghost.

—De, Devil Ape subjugation! The Devil Ape’s bio-signals have completely ceased! The Korean team is causing another uproar!

Like the two of them, the commentator, who had been almost frozen, seemed to have finally regained his senses and began commentating again.

With an expression that looked both moved and shocked, he announced the fact that the Devil Ape had been subjugated.

—Wooo-aaaaaaah!

After that, the cheers from the audience seats roared loudly.

The main camera showed the audience seats.

It’s hard to put into words, but everyone was going crazy.

Everyone seemed to be in a state of catharsis, jumping up and down and just screaming.

—Re, Raymond commentator. What, what was that ma, magic just now?

The caster asked in a trembling voice. It was an inappropriate pronunciation for an announcer, but no one in the audience felt uncomfortable with that fact.

Rather, they were happy that the caster was sharing the same emotions as them. The fact that the caster was stuttering so much was proof of how surprised he was.

—I don’t know! It’s a magic I’ve never seen before! No, in the first place, is that really a 6-circle magic? To my eyes, that magic looked like at least a 7-circle magic!

Raymond rubbed his arms vigorously. When he recalled the scene from a moment ago, he got goosebumps again.

—W, well, replay! Shouldn’t we watch the replay first?

—Ah! That’s right! We need to watch the replay! We need to watch it dozens of times!

Raymond moved his hands clumsily, not like a professional. He had pressed the replay button thousands of times over the years, but this was the first time he had trembled like this.

—Okay, let’s watch!

Immediately, the scene from a moment ago was broadcast on the main monitor as a replay.

Because it was a hologram monitor, the sense of realism was conveyed perfectly.

—Permafrost.

The moment Shin Ha-yul, who was materialized as a hologram, quietly and very slowly uttered those words.

Crack-crack-crack-!

The world stopped.

The audience seats fell silent again at the sight.

It was a magic that was absurd no matter how many times you looked at it. How could that be the magic of an 18-year-old?

“Haha… Ha, haha…”

Kim Seok-hyun laughed, completely out of his mind. He looked like a madman.

“You really… show us more than we can imagine.”

It had been about three months since Shin Ha-yul returned to the family.

He thought there would be no more surprises.

But there were still surprises left.

“The magic Ha-yul used just now… was it an incantation?”

“Yes. That’s how it looked to me.”

“……”

Incantation.

A technique that had become obsolete 100 years ago with the development of magical technology.

When Shin In-hyuk was born, it was already completely obsolete, so there was no opportunity or reason to learn that magic system.

“The incantation I know… is very different.”

No matter how long the incantation was, it was a useless technique that only enhanced the power by about 0.5 circles.

With a normal incantation, you could never produce that level of power.

Even Shin In-hyuk, who had not learned incantation, knew that it was not normal.

“It seems that your prediction is correct, Patriarch.”

He recalled the words that Shin In-hyuk had casually said about two months ago and his eyes lit up.

“Young Master Ha-yul may have truly inherited the legacy of Ray Bell Bytenner… the great archmage of myth.”