Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1079

Bang!

This must be what it feels like when bones are crushed.

He had only blocked the incoming fist with his forearm, but it felt like he had stopped a speeding dump truck.

But that was only for a moment. The terrible pain lingered for a bit, then the feeling in his arm vanished.

However, he didn’t have the time to look down and check the state of his arm.

The fist that had crushed his arm was quickly retracted and then thrown again.

‘Ugh!’

There was no time to think.

The speed of the incoming fist exceeded the speed of thought. Instinctively raising his hands to block was all he could do.

And even that wasn’t perfect.

Thud!

The hand that blocked the fist was helplessly pushed back, slamming into his jaw. For a moment, the world went dark.

“Guh!”

As his dazed mind returned, a terrible pain engulfed his jaw.

‘Where?’

His mind was back, but his senses hadn’t fully returned. He couldn’t tell exactly what state he was in. It took a little more time before he felt the hard floor against his cheek.

‘I fell…’

Reflexively, he put strength into his arms and lifted himself up.

“Ah, not yet!”

“Stop.”

Wiggins bit his lip. He couldn’t do anything.

This wasn’t a sparring match. Could you call it a sparring match when you were unilaterally beaten without even being able to throw a single punch?

“I can still go on,” Wiggins replied, gritting his teeth. But Kang Jin-ho looked down at him with cold eyes.

“Twenty.”

“If I had intended to kill you, you would have died more than twenty times over.”

Clench.

The lip that had been caught between his teeth was torn off with a dull sound. He tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth.

He knew there was a difference.

There was no way he could hold out.

The person in front of him was Kang Jin-ho. The Demon King who had descended into the mortal realm. Hadn’t he witnessed that overwhelming power with his own eyes countless times?

If Kang Jin-ho wanted to, he could kill Wiggins in an instant.

But…

‘I thought I could last at least five minutes…’

That’s what he believed.

He thought that the gap between Kang Jin-ho and Wiggins was such that, if they were both serious, he could last about five minutes. He wouldn’t be able to inflict any real damage, but he thought he could at least hold out.

But the gap between Kang Jin-ho and him, when they actually fought, was beyond imagination.

‘He didn’t even use his sword…’

Kang Jin-ho was a swordsman.

The difference between when he held a sword and when he didn’t was enormous. Kang Jin-ho always held a sword when he was seriously fighting someone.

But now, Kang Jin-ho’s hands were empty.

For a swordsman to fight without a sword meant that he didn’t acknowledge his opponent. There was no malice, but it meant that Kang Jin-ho saw Wiggins as being at that level.

Even so…

Even so, he couldn’t even touch him.

An unimaginable humiliation. Even having his bones crushed wouldn’t be this painful.

‘I thought I had already abandoned my pride as a martial artist…’

Profit over honor.

Gain over reputation.

It had already been over ten years since he had started living like that.

But he realized anew. No matter how much you live a life unrelated to violence, and no matter how futile you feel violence is, the humiliation you feel when you are forced to kneel before violence you cannot handle doesn’t diminish at all.

It felt like his blood was running backward.

“Wiggins.”

“…Yes, Lord.”

Kang Jin-ho quietly looked at Wiggins before opening his mouth.

“What are you?”

“Are you a martial artist, or not?”

Wiggins bit his lip tightly.

He wanted to answer right away. That he was a martial artist, that the flame of a martial artist still burned in his old heart.

But the answer didn’t come easily.

What exactly was a martial artist?

Someone who had mastered martial arts?

Someone who could leap over mountains and cross rivers in a single bound?

Someone who could use their energy to reach places that ordinary people couldn’t?

None of that was it.

At least, according to Wiggins’s and Kang Jin-ho’s standards, a martial artist was someone who didn’t neglect their efforts to become stronger.

Someone who could give up other things to become stronger.

In that sense, was Wiggins really a martial artist right now?

He couldn’t answer.

The answer he couldn’t give himself gnawed at him from the inside.

Kang Jin-ho, who had been quietly looking at Wiggins, nodded.

“It seems you’re still a martial artist.”

His voice was low.

“But you’re weak.”

“Don’t hope for luck.”

Wiggins raised his head.

“There’s no other way to get stronger. No one can carry you if you don’t walk on your own two feet. Even if you’re in a car, you have to step on the gas pedal yourself.”

“One…”

“If you’re weak, you have no choice.”

Kang Jin-ho was utterly resolute.

“Cut back on sleep. Cut back on eating time. Cut back on time spent lost in thought, and cut back on time spent washing.”

“Balancing things is like that. If you want to get stronger but don’t want to give up what you’re doing now, you have no choice but to sacrifice other things.”

Wiggins nodded.

He was right.

But it was too difficult to put into practice.

For over half a century, he had lived solely for martial arts. The path that martial artists walked was so harsh that ordinary people couldn’t even imagine it.

The life of a martial artist was one where you had to give up everything else for the sole purpose of becoming stronger.

To find a balance between life and martial arts?

There was no way that was possible.

Time didn’t wait. The moment you reduced the amount of time you devoted to martial arts, those around you would move ahead. Just by taking a short break, others would move several steps ahead.

And those few steps sometimes became an irreversible gap in the life of a martial artist.

He had continued that kind of life for decades.

A life where he gave up what humans should naturally enjoy, and postponed what humans should naturally experience, running and running solely for martial arts.

To continue that life at this age was an utterly terrible thing.

Still, Wiggins had endured.

He had endured and endured, and that was how he had made it this far.

And now, again?

‘It’s incredibly harsh.’

Wiggins fully stood up.

Even so, the reason he kept chuckling was probably because of the man standing in front of him.

A path of unimaginable hardship.

Just thinking about the path he must have walked made his legs tremble. The person who had finally reached that place had lived a life that was probably tens or hundreds of times harsher than the life Wiggins had lived.

Even so, Kang Jin-ho was moving forward.

‘Just give me a little break.’

The whining reached the tip of his throat, but Wiggins suppressed the words that were about to come out. The moment he said those words, Wiggins would no longer be able to live as a martial artist.

Not yet… not yet.

“Then, Lord.”

“Ugh…”

“o’ …”

“If it’s a little more harsh, can I become stronger?”

“Well.”

“…Huh?”

Kang Jin-ho tilted his head.

“It’s a bit subtle.”

Was this the kind of thing you usually said at a time like this? Kang Jin-ho looked at Wiggins for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Your hand-to-hand combat is weak.”

“No. Rather than hand-to-hand combat, it’s close-quarters combat. If you don’t give me any distance, I can’t even swing my sword properly.”

Well, that’s…

That’s because the martial arts I’ve learned are like that. Swords are mid-range weapons, and magic is a long-range weapon!

“I don’t want to make excuses, but…”

Wiggins glanced away. He could see the directors and Lee Hyun-soo looking at him with smug expressions. Seeing Lee Hyun-soo’s face, which looked like he was enjoying the schadenfreude [pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune], made him angry.

“It seems like you need a little excuse, but in the West, there isn’t an unreasonable class called a ‘fist master.'”

“There isn’t?”

“Yes! Even the Elder Knights all wielded weapons!”

“Come to think of it…”

Kang Jin-ho recalled his memories and nodded.

“That seems to be the case.”

“It’s obvious. Isn’t fighting with a weapon stronger than fighting without one?”

“That’s right.”

“So, there’s no need to fight without a weapon, or to fight with a short weapon. In fact, swordsmen are quite rare in this world. They’ve increased in modern times due to the convenience of carrying them, but originally, using a spear was much more versatile.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded at the sudden lecture.

It made sense.

‘It’s military logic.’

Contrary to popular belief, armies in the past didn’t use swords. Soldiers naturally carried spears. If you gave a sword and a spear to people who had never used weapons before and made them fight, the person with the sword wouldn’t even be able to get close to the person with the spear.

“So, I can’t help but be weak in close-quarters combat. Where I learned martial arts, I’m actually the one who engages in close-quarters combat.”

“You mean you’ve never fought in a closer range?”

“I usually don’t allow that distance.”

Wiggins drew his sword and slashed it down in front of him.

A line was drawn about a meter in front of him.

“This is my distance.”

Wiggins shrugged.

“I don’t know if it’s the limit of my abilities, but I’m helpless within this distance. And… you can call it arrogance if you want, but I’ve spent my whole life preventing anyone from entering this distance.

If I meet someone who can easily enter it like you, Lord, I have no choice but to offer my neck.”

It wasn’t just a simple defense.

It was an explanation of his perspective and his martial arts.

“So, rather than strengthening your close-quarters combat, you’d rather bet on preventing people from getting close.”

“That’s correct.”

“The problem is that you’re not doing that.”

Wiggins’s beard twitched slightly.

There was definitely no room for excuses.

Because even if Kang Jin-ho fought him with a sword in the way he was used to, he couldn’t say that things would be any better than they were now.

“I think I’ve pushed myself to my limits.”

Kang Jin-ho didn’t say anything and just looked at Wiggins.

“And then, at some point, I reached it. The moment when progress slows down.”

That was probably true.

Everyone was bound to reach that wall.

This wasn’t just a principle that applied to martial arts.

The period during which learning, training, and studying led to progress wasn’t eternal. Any human who had been constantly striving would inevitably reach it. A moment when you couldn’t move forward just by repeating what you had been doing.

That’s when you had to choose.

Whether to struggle and challenge it, or to acknowledge your limits and stop.

Most people challenged it.

It wasn’t that they gave up. Usually, they challenged it. Because they didn’t acknowledge that it was their limit. But a wall wasn’t something you could overcome just once.

If you overcame a wall after enduring pain that felt like your blood was drying up, an even bigger wall would block your path. And if you overcame that, an even bigger wall would block your path again.

That’s when humans finally felt despair.

The reward for putting in more effort and pain than you had ever done before was just a small step forward. The reward was too meager, and what you had to give up was too much.

And at some point, you would eventually face it. A wall that you couldn’t overcome with effort alone.

Wiggins looked at Kang Jin-ho with eyes like a lake.

“Can I overcome it?”