Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 888

Kwaaaaaaaah!

It was a strange thing.

Looking at what was happening before his eyes with a cool head, it was truly a terrible and horrific sight.

There couldn’t be a more fitting scene for the phrase ‘a sight too gruesome to bear’. However, those who were actually watching the scene didn’t feel it was that cruel.

Why was that?

Bang Jin-hoon soon understood the reason.

There was nothing left.

Where Bator’s energy had swept through, nothing remained.

Only the bare frame of the deck, completely torn apart, remained eerily.

Think about it.

Which would feel more terrifying: a place where nothing remains, or a place where the corpses of a few people are lying?

Clearly, it would have to be the latter.

But Bator’s single strike left nothing behind.

The only thing left was the blood flowing down through the gaping hole in the deck.

Bang Jin-hoon pressed his lips together.

Looking at the cleanly cleared space in front of him, he felt a moment of emptiness. Then, that emptiness slowly turned into unease, and then began to change into fear.

The Japanese samurai, who were lucky enough to survive outside the range of that power, were going through the same process as Bang Jin-hoon.

The empty deck gave them a sense of bewilderment, but soon that bewilderment turned into a suffocating fear.

They were gone, all of them.

“Gulp.”

The sound of someone swallowing dryly was clearly audible. The once noisy space had instantly turned into a silent space where even breathing couldn’t be heard.

Only then could they hear it.

The sound of waves hitting the ship began to be heard. Only then did those who were here realize once again that they were floating on the sea.

And if they knew that, there was only one choice.

They slowly retreated.

It wasn’t that they were retreating while being cautious. It was because their bodies were making the decision before their minds could.

And the moment their minds fully understood the situation!

“Aaaaaaaah!”

“Run! Run, you bastards!”

“Save me!”

A mass exodus began.

The samurai began to rush out with a momentum that couldn’t be compared to anything before. Those who reached the end of the deck threw themselves into the sea without looking back.

“Hmm…”

Wiggins shrugged his shoulders. He seemed quite pleased with the scene he had created in collaboration with Bator.

“I’ve always wanted to try this once. The Round Table is great, but one of its drawbacks is that the knights don’t cooperate well. I’ve always wanted to try a combo where I hold them down and someone else finishes them off. I’m feeling pretty good that it worked out as I imagined.”

‘What the hell is this crazy bastard talking about?’

Bang Jin-hoon could tell for sure. This guy was out of his mind too.

It was something he already knew, but he had thought that he was the most normal one among them, and that thought was shattered in that moment. At least, among the guys holding executive positions in the General Assembly, there wasn’t a single one who could be called normal.

‘Damn it, am I a crazy bastard in other people’s eyes too?’

Bang Jin-hoon was reflecting on his life in the middle of the battlefield.

And apart from that, Bang Jin-hoon had to admit that the scene unfolding before his eyes was enormous.

That magic was definitely different from martial arts.

You couldn’t do something like that with martial arts. It might be possible to intimidate with momentum and block the movements of one or two people by shooting out energy.

It would be impossible for Bang Jin-hoon, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for someone like Kang Jin-ho.

However, it was impossible for even Kang Jin-ho to bind the movements of multiple people at once like Wiggins had just shown.

It wasn’t a matter of ability. Martial arts were not originally based on the premise of many versus many.

Martial arts were developed with the goal of perfectly defeating one person in front of you. What developed in the martial world to deal with many opponents was not martial arts, but formations.

‘So, that’s what magic is like.’

A formation that can only be deployed with a number of skilled martial artists. He could produce the same effect as that formation alone. Of course, formations also play a role in defeating enemies themselves, so it can’t be perfectly compared, but anyone could see that magic was a bit simpler and more efficient.

And the usefulness of magic wasn’t just that.

In Bang Jin-hoon’s view, Wiggins’ magic was overwhelmingly more efficient in group battles, that is, in war, rather than in individual battles. It was insufficient to deal with a single master, but it was obvious that it would exert tremendous power when dealing with a large number of mid-level opponents.

“That thing.”

“Yes?”

“That thing also looks amazing, so why even bother with swordsmanship?”

“Ah, well, there’s a reason for that. Magic is a very efficient and good means, but there are many cases where it can’t stop even a single person. So, since the old days, magicians had no choice but to have their necks cut off if a trained knight got close.”

“…Hey, you ever think about learning Korean?”

Wiggins smiled wryly.

‘I can’t just turn on a translation app in this situation.’

Whether he learns Korean or the others learn English, they need to come up with a solution somehow.

‘Because there’s no other way.’

To put it simply, a magician is like an artilleryman.

They don’t have the same power as modern artillery, but they have a strong support tendency in terms of dealing damage over a wide area from a distance or providing assistance.

The disadvantage of artillery is that there is no suitable countermeasure when tanks or special forces approach. This problem also applied to magicians. No, even more so.

The difference in mobility between knights and magicians is greater than the difference in mobility between artillery and tanks. And the range of a magician is not as long as that of artillery. At most, the distance you can see with your eyes.

A knight can close that distance in an instant.

Of course, if you reach the level of Wiggins, you can deal with it with blink or teleport, but magicians who reach the level of Wiggins are not that common.

It’s the same for any class, if you reach the highest level, you’ll have your own way of dealing with things. That’s why Wiggins learned both magic and swordsmanship.

It was because he didn’t want to give up being both the protagonist of war and the protagonist of battle.

‘I was stupid.’

Looking back now, there was no greater recklessness.

Is it possible because they are both martial arts?

That’s ridiculous.

This is the same as choosing to master both mathematics and humanities at the same level. Both belong to the category of academics. But anyone who has studied even a little bit would not treat the two as the same academic field.

Of course, there are monsters like Leonardo da Vinci in the world who have mastered fields that seem to have no connection at all to the extreme, but unfortunately, Wiggins was not that much of a genius. Not knowing that in advance is what made Wiggins who he is now.

“Anyway, you’re a very useful guy.”

“That’s the only thing I can boast about. But I need them to think that way too.”

Wiggins smiled bitterly. A jack-of-all-trades.

It sounds good.

A person who is proficient in many fields is easy to use and looks smart.

But in reality, people with such abilities don’t feel as much joy as you might think. Rather, they are just miserable.

Those who change or dominate the world are those who dig into one field and reach its extreme. Those who have raised several abilities moderately cannot cross that final wall.

Even if he doesn’t seem to be that far behind Bator now, the gap between him and Bator will widen more and more as time goes on.

‘No, it’s already widened.’

The Bator of the past was also strong. But the current Bator was incomparable to the past. Thanks to accepting demonic energy, his destructive power had increased, and he had become bolder.

Of course, it’s not perfect. There were also unstable parts. He had not yet made up for the fact that he easily lost his reason, so if he were to fight a master, he would show weaknesses that he would not have exposed before.

Overall, he might be weaker than in the past when fighting one-on-one. That is, if it was a fight between masters of that level.

But that can be compensated for.

There was no way that a martial artist like Bator wouldn’t be able to grasp his own condition, so he would do his best to compensate. As the demonic energy deepens and the compensation is completed, Bator will become a completely different martial artist than before.

That’s why he felt bitter.

The reason he joined Kang Jin-ho was also because he couldn’t improve any further as an individual. So, he might have tried to relieve his suppressed feelings by creating an organization beyond the Round Table.

But an organization is an organization, and an individual is an individual. The General Assembly was growing, but Wiggins didn’t feel as much reward as he thought he would. Rather, he was feeling a sense of deprivation as he watched others move forward while he stayed put.

‘This is going to fester, isn’t it?’

Wiggins coldly diagnosed his condition. Seeing that he couldn’t feel refreshed even after creating such a good picture, it seemed that a lot of dissatisfaction had built up internally.

But…

“It’s not a problem to worry about.”

“Yes?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Wiggins waved his hand.

“Hey! Don’t swing your hand around like that! Didn’t you learn that you shouldn’t point a gun at people? You didn’t go to the army… ah, you didn’t go.”

Wiggins shook his head.

Seeing that he didn’t lose his cheerfulness even in this situation, this person was definitely not normal either.

‘I don’t need to worry about it alone.’

Thanks to Kang Jin-ho, he was able to realize it.

The Master solved everything on his own.

He presided over meetings and listened to the opinions of other knights, but that was just the system of the Round Table. The Master only listened to opinions, he didn’t ask for advice. He only focused on gathering the opinions of others and making the best conclusion.

But Kang Jin-ho was different.

He really asked others for advice. It was shocking to Wiggins to see a martial artist who had reached that level put himself down and ask for the opinions of others.

Strong martial artists have a strong sense of pride in themselves. They are people who have reached that position through effort, perseverance, and talent. Why would such people listen to the words of others?

Wiggins also believed that he could only solve his own problems. But thanks to Kang Jin-ho, that thought was shattered. Just as Kang Jin-ho asked him for help, he too could ask others for help.

‘I need to talk to the Lord.’

Kang Jin-ho might be able to solve his frustration. Even if that wasn’t the case, he would be able to suggest a better direction than now.

Wiggins believed that.

His eyes turned to Kang Jin-ho’s back.

Kang Jin-ho, who had now lowered his sword and was standing still. Looking at his back, a smile appeared on Wiggins’ lips.

It was ridiculous. To be smiling in the middle of this battlefield.

‘Things have changed a lot from the past.’

Now he would never be able to return to being the knight of the past. He too had changed too much.

Feeling both bitterness and pleasure at the same time, Wiggins turned his head.

“Well, now it’s time for the director to show us something.”

“…Should I dance or something?”

He shouldn’t have said that.