The Tragedy of That Day
Kang Hyeon watched the back of the rookie running out after declaring she would report his request to become a professor, and he tossed the remaining whiskey into his mouth.
Gulp, gulp!
“Kuh.”
As the potent alcohol burned its way down his esophagus, the pain gnawing at his energy core eased slightly.
Those people could not possibly fathom it.
Why he constantly sought out alcohol.
Why he had become such a wreck.
The demonic aura of Asura.
To properly explain this, one must travel back to the day of that horrific tragedy 20 years ago.
* * *
At 13 years old, abandoned at an orphanage with nothing.
A dimensional gate tore open before the young Kang Hyeon without warning.
When he regained his senses, the place he was forced to face was Murim, a realm swarming with blade-eating lunatics.
A brutal world where human heads rolled across the dirt just by turning one’s gaze.
A cruel neighborhood where a starving child’s wrist would be severed for stealing a single rice ball, and when begging for their life, they would be beheaded simply because they were considered boring.
My dream was modest back then.
I wanted to live.
I desperately wanted to survive and return home.
Was it luck, or a terrible curse?
The ones who snatched the back of his neck as he crouched on the street, trembling in terror, were some bizarre old men.
“Kuhahaha! You have finally arrived! The Heavenly Martial Body!”
“He even harbors the Heavenly Martial Star, blessed with the martial destiny of the heavens! This child can certainly summon the Heavenly God!”
Cheering wildly, they dragged Kang Hyeon away to a cave hidden deep within overlapping mountain ranges.
That day marked the beginning of his hell.
Those bastards proudly called it training, but from Kang Hyeon’s perspective, it was nothing more than torture.
Furthermore, none of them were remotely sane.
A maniac obsessed with the sword, a bastard who threw his entire life away for a single palm technique, and even a physician who viewed the human body as nothing more than a sack of medicinal herbs.
Take away their martial arts, and they were all just raving lunatics.
Anyway, thanks to that relentless abuse, his skills improved at a terrifying pace.
Swordsmanship, footwork, energy arts, medical arts, sound arts, palm arts, and even formations.
Honestly, he felt like he had mastered every conceivable martial art that a human could possibly learn.
And if he failed to meet their expectations even slightly?
They beat him until his bones shattered.
Kang Hyeon, without even understanding why, learned tenaciously simply to survive.
One of the old men even unleashed a bizarre technique.
A miraculous formation that distorted the flow of time, stretching a single day outside into four agonizing days within the cave.
Claiming they had no time left, they callously threw Kang Hyeon right into the center of that formation and forced him to master all sorts of martial arts.
It took him several years to finally realize it.
Even if the Blood Cult, the Demonic Cult, and the Murim Alliance all banded together, they would not be able to defeat a single one of the old men standing before him.
Those monstrous beings wielding such absolute power had a phrase they would habitually say to Kang Hyeon.
“You must summon the Heavenly God into your body atop the formation we have laid.”
“Only then can you stop the Demon God Asura, who will descend shortly.”
In that manner, 20 agonizing years crawled by.
And exactly as they had prophesied, the sky tore open in a gruesome crimson as the Demon God Asura descended.
It felt as though the entire world was collapsing.
No, in reality, half of Murim must have been reduced to ash.
The seven old men immediately activated the formation, and Kang Hyeon, vomiting blood, operated the Heavenly God Scripture exactly as he had been taught.
The Heavenly God Scripture was a forbidden martial art that melted all the martial arts of Murim into one entity, drawing out the power of the Heavenly God.
That was the reason why the old men had worked Kang Hyeon like a beast and taught him so insanely.
To save the world, no, to simply survive, Kang Hyeon desperately raised his energy to its limit and was forced to battle that terrifying monster for an entire month.
The sky split apart, and the very earth screamed in agony.
Even those immensely powerful old men vomited blood and died, one by one.
“Do not stop!”
“Pierce that bastard’s heart!”
The desperate death cries of the old men pushed Kang Hyeon’s back forward.
Leaping forward, trampling upon the sacrifices of his seven masters, he unleashed a single, devastating strike that contained the essence of all his martial arts.
Kwaaaang!
A deafening roar that seemed to erase every sound in the world.
The energy held firmly in Kang Hyeon’s hand pierced straight through the heart of the Demon God Asura.
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!”
The apocalyptic disaster, which seemed as though it would never collapse, vomited blood and stumbled backward.
Yet the bastard refused to die obediently.
“You arrogant bastard.”
A sickening, metallic screech leaked out from between the bastard’s lips.
“To think these lowly bugs dared to drag in a being from another world.”
Laughing like a maniac, Asura tightly gripped Kang Hyeon’s arm.
Simultaneously, the lethal poison erupting from the bastard’s heart dug fiercely into his energy core like a venomous snake.
“Wait for me. I am the incarnation of vengeance. My army… will inevitably cross over into your world.”
Sizzle!
With that ominous curse as his final act, the Demon God vanished without a trace.
That was the end of it.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw the brilliant blue sky of South Korea that he had left behind 20 years ago.
What I saw back then was just a mutt of a snake.
That bastard named Leviathan or whatever.
Compared to Asura, Leviathan was nothing more than an earthworm, so he popped it effortlessly with a single flick of his hand.
It was all thanks to that.
The government taking the initiative to provide him with a house and continuously supplying him with alcohol.
Honestly, it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He truly believed he would finally be happy once he returned.
The Earth he had dreamed of for so long.
His modest dream was simply to live there without ever having to work, eating whatever he desired, and carelessly rolling around reading webtoons for the rest of his life.
Yet reality was…
Damn it.
The poison of Asura was tenaciously gnawing away at his life force, and now he had to prepare for Asura, who would undoubtedly return someday.
Just when I finally thought I could live my life properly…
They were demanding he fight that horrific bastard all over again.
Well, the only saving grace was that the Heavenly God Scripture needed to obliterate that bastard was already ingrained within his mind.
Yet the problem was that there were no old men left to deploy the Seven Luminaries Formation, the prerequisite for the Heavenly God Scripture.
That formation strictly had to be deployed by others.
That was the exact reason.
The reason he wanted to enter the Academy.
I can never stop it alone. I desperately need talents who can replace those old men.
After investigating with the smartphone the government had provided him for a month, he discovered that it was the place where the greatest talents gathered.
It’s a truly laughable situation.
He learned desperately until his bones shattered and he vomited blood just to survive, yet now the situation was completely reversed, and it was his tragic destiny to teach others to the brink of death.
Honestly, he was overwhelmingly worried.
He completely lacked social skills, and he had never once formed a proper relationship with anyone.
He spent 20 years getting beaten to a pulp by old men, so how could he possibly have learned such things?
Those old men did not raise Kang Hyeon as a human being; they forged him into a blade meant strictly to pierce Asura’s heart.
Thanks to that, his martial arts were unparalleled.
By the end, those old men weren’t even a match for me, so that says everything.
Furthermore, he had slaughtered countless people.
He had cut down far too many.
He roamed the martial world several times to broaden his knowledge of all sorts of martial arts, and during that violent process, Kang Hyeon never left a single soul alive among those who attempted to kill him.
He had to teach someone with such a completely dried-up sense of humanity?
Smirk, Kang Hyeon let out a hollow laugh, kicking the remaining empty whiskey bottles onto the floor, and buried his body deeply into the sofa.
Yeah, whatever.
What did any of that matter?
He first had to stop that damned bastard Asura no matter what.
Otherwise, this entire place where he had to eat and live would be blown away.
He calmly closed his eyes.
The agonizing pain in his energy core had yet to subside.
* * *
Outside the safe house.
Lee Seah, who hastily pulled out her smartphone, pressed the call button.
It was a direct line to the Director.
“Yeah, Agent Lee. How did it go?”
“Director. Black proposed a condition.”
“A condition? He actually proposed a condition?”
Kim Hyeongseok’s voice visibly brightened with relief over the phone.
It was highly understandable, considering Black had been unresponsive until now.
“Oh my, he finally opened his mouth! So? What does he want? Is it money? Or identity laundering? Or what, does he want us to set up an entire brewery for him?”
“That is… He asked us to get him into the National Academy.”
“What?”
“And as a professor at that.”
“A professor? No, why a professor position all of a sudden? Isn’t he just completely wasted?”
“…”
It did indeed seem like he was heavily intoxicated.
He had complained about his head hurting, and on top of that, he had downed an entire bottle of whiskey right in front of her.
“Hmmm, even if Black’s skill is the real deal, being a professor is an entirely different issue… Honestly, he’s a severe alcoholic. He’ll be nearly impossible to control.”
The National Academy was the place where all of South Korea’s greatest elites gathered.
A place swarming with the descendants of massive conglomerates, the Prime Minister, and colossal Guild Masters.
It was obvious what kind of catastrophic disaster would unfold if a drunkard entered such a prestigious place.
“There isn’t even an open slot, is there?”
“That’s right. Because it’s the 20th anniversary, the professor lineup was finalized ages ago. It’s already been fully announced to the press too.”
A brief, heavy silence flowed between them.
“Should I simply refuse him?”
“Wait, hold on a second. Agent Lee, why are you being so impatient?”
A troubled groan accompanied by a heavy sigh could be heard.
It meant that while the immense risk was significant, the situation was equally too enticing to pass up.
“Haa, fine, if Black demands it, I have to create a position even if there isn’t one. Agent Lee, I’ll figure out a way somehow, so tell Black that we accept his terms. Instead, you must firmly nail down that he has to handle the Leviathan corpse disposal.”
“Yes, understood!”
* * *
Click!
When Lee Seah re-entered the room, Kang Hyeon slowly opened his eyes.
“The acceptance?”
“They have accepted. However, it’s on the condition that you must dispose of the Leviathan corpse floating in the East Sea. Would that be acceptable?”
“Leviathan? That mutt of a snake from back then? The corpse was still left behind?”
“Yes.”
“Lead the way.”
Since it was a trivial task, he immediately headed outside.
After traveling for about two hours in Lee Seah’s car, they finally arrived at the coast of the East Sea.
“Urp!”
The Association staff strictly controlling the scene, wearing heavy gas masks and protective suits, were dry-heaving violently.
As he was about to carelessly open the car door, Lee Seah frantically stopped him.
“E-Excuse me, Mr. Kang Hyeon.”
“Yeah.”
“You must not approach it unprotected! Even the S-rank Hunter, Mr. Yoon Taeseong, approached it only to have his skin melt off…”
“Just wait here.”
“M-Mr. Kang Hyeon?!”
Lee Seah screamed out urgently, yet he ignored her and stepped outside.
They call this poison?
A scoff instinctively escaped him.
Still, one thing he was thankful to the old men for was that poison no longer felt like actual poison to him.
Even if it wasn’t complete immunity to all poisons, he possessed a massive resistance to most standard toxins, and compared to the lethal poison of Asura, something of this level was almost refreshing.
Swish.
Approaching as if he were casually strolling upon the water, Kang Hyeon gazed down at the mountain-like corpse of the Leviathan.
“It rotted terribly.”
There was no need to utilize any grand martial arts.
He simply dragged out a mere handful of the energy condensed within his energy core and gathered it in his palm.
Fwoosh!
A fierce flame instantly ignited.
The True Fire of Samadhi.
Shortly after he casually tossed it, the massive corpse cleanly vanished into absolute nothingness without leaving a single speck of ash behind.
It was exactly at that moment.
A small cluster of light brilliantly sparkled and slowly fell from the empty space where the massive corpse had previously been.
This is?
As he pulled it in using psychokinesis, he caught a worn-out ancient tome.
[Flying Wind Steps – Part 1]
You get martial arts manuals for slaying monsters?
Although it was fully written in ancient script, he could read it effortlessly, and more importantly.
It’s a martial art I know.
It was a martial art that actually existed in the Murim he had previously inhabited.
Still, it was a first-rate footwork technique practiced strictly by those with decent talent.
It was cleanly divided into three parts: Upper, Middle, and Lower, and this was the very first volume of the set.
Of course, Kang Hyeon had already mastered it to perfection long ago.
Did it take me about two days to completely master it?
As he casually approached holding the ancient tome, the rookie hurriedly ran toward him.
“Are you alright?!”
She rushed toward him in a panic.
“I think I should be the one asking that. Are you alright?”
“I think I desperately need a moment to calm down. Huu, huu!”
Taking a quick glance around, he noticed the entire area was indeed in chaos.
The deeply problematic corpse had vanished in a single instant, throwing them into confusion.
“Are you not going?”
“We should go… Huh? But what is that book? Don’t tell me.”
Her eyes widened like a startled rabbit upon seeing the ancient characters written on it.
“I-Is that a secret manual?!”
“It seems like it.”
“Congratulations!”
“What’s there to congratulate?”
Whish!
Kang Hyeon effortlessly tossed the ancient tome straight to the rookie.
“Take it.”
“Y-Yes, what?!”
Lee Seah’s jaw dropped wide open as she caught the priceless secret manual in sheer bewilderment.
In this industry, a single secret manual of this caliber was easily worth enough to erect an entire building right in the middle of Gangnam!
“N-No! I-I wasn’t asking you to give it to me! If you simply register it with the Association, the complete ownership will fully belong to you, Mr. Kang Hyeon…!”
“Enough.”
Kang Hyeon annoyedly waved his hand as if he were bothered and turned entirely around.
“Just call it even for the room and board and all the liquor I shamelessly mooched in that expensive house for the past month.”
“N-No…”
Lee Seah stared at him in utter disbelief.
“What Hunter in the world pays for their rent with a priceless secret manual?!”
“If you’re really that incredibly thankful, just buy me a lot more whiskey. The good, tasty ones.”
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