Chapter 323: There is a Reason Behind Strength (4)

Before being struck by Keter’s fist, Taragon saw his life flash before his eyes.

This is a serious hit.

He could feel it even without being hit. If he took that blow, it would be instant death at the very least. Keter’s fist carried power capable of smashing even steel.

“Did I do something wro—”

Boom!

Ah, so this is how I’m going to die.

The sound of his chest bones breaking rang out. His body lifted into the air and flipped over. He couldn’t put any strength into his body at all.

After a brief moment of airtime, Taragon rolled across the ground, then suddenly sprang to his feet.

“

Huh?!

”

Even Taragon himself was shocked. He patted his chest, shocked that he was still alive. Had Keter gone easy on him? That didn’t seem likely, given how brutal the sound had been.

At that moment, Keter stretched his shoulders and said, “Aura circulation isn’t just something you do for training. It greatly increases your defense from the inside of your body. That said, don’t think about using it lightly in real combat. Right now, the extreme cold is lowering your body heat, but under normal conditions, you would cook to death on the inside.”

Far from being happy to learn a new trick, the trainees felt chills run down their spines. They now realized that Keter telling them they had gotten better meant that he would beat them without holding back.

As expected, Keter clenched his fist tightly and dashed forward. Panir, who had been behind Keter, relaxed for a moment, then hurriedly raised his arm. He blocked Keter’s attack, but his bone got fractured. Panir tried to ignore the pain and counterattack, but Keter’s attack wasn’t over.

Keter’s foot slammed into Panir’s abdomen. He wasn’t sent flying like Taragon, but he was shoved straight back while still standing.

“Don’t think your enemy will attack as seen.”

Keter’s words weren’t meant only for Panir. They were directed at all of the trainees.

The trainees didn’t stand around blankly either. Anis and Katherine fired arrows, while the knight commanders drew attention from the front. Mizar and Pekda waited patiently for an opening from Keter’s blind spots.

Keter used a trick and pretended to attack. At first, no one fell for it, but on the second attempt, the commander of the Sacred Order of Sefira took the bait. Just as the commander of the Order of the Star and the vice-commander of the Order of the Galaxy were about to help, they hesitated.

“

Oh

.”

In that moment, Keter’s fists rapidly pummeled the Sacred Order of Sefira’s Commander. Then the other two belatedly stepped in to help. However, as if Keter expected that, he grabbed the commander’s arm and raised him as a shield, causing the other commanders to hesitate again.

“Don’t hesitate. Even if you think it was wrong to do so, move the way you intended to. That’s how you lose less blood.”

Keter suddenly vanished from their views.

A moment later, Anis urgently shouted, “Below!”

But action was faster than words. Slipping out from underneath the Sacred Order Commander's legs, whom he had been using as a shield, Keter yanked the Order of the Star Commander’s ankles and knocked him down.

“

Urgh!

”

Seeing a combat style he had never seen in his life, the vice-commander of the Order of the Galaxy instinctively kicked his foot out, but that kick ended up striking the Order of the Star Commander’s head.

“Don’t be deceived by the enemy’s actions. Read their intent.”

Keter caught the arrow flying in from behind his head without even looking and threw it at Pekda, who was sliding in from the side.

“No matter how great a technique is, don’t use it more than three times. If you’ve used the same technique three times and it still hasn’t worked, then it simply doesn’t work.”

The three commanders who had been entangled with Keter retreated far back. The remaining trainees tried to buy time by shooting arrows, but that was a mistake.

Keter didn’t dodge the arrows. He took the hits as he chased after the commanders. Then, he grabbed the backs of the Sacred Order and Order of the Star Commanders’ heads with both hands, and slammed them into the ground.

“Don’t hold back. If you meet an opponent who doesn’t hold back, you’ll die.”

Perhaps the two commanders lost consciousness, as they didn’t get back up.

Whether it was because he heard Keter’s advice or because he realized there was no better way to deal with this situation, Myle angrily shouted, “Don’t try to defeat Keter. You just have to snatch the elixir in his hand. Only Sir Mizar should shoot arrows, and the rest of us have to swarm him!”

Myle charged at Keter as the lead. As he did so, the other trainees were naturally persuaded and charged as he told them to. Mizar stayed far back, watching for an opportunity. As the most accurate archer among them, he searched for an opening on Keter, but no opportunity presented itself. And the same was true for the trainees surrounding Keter.

This makes no sense. How is not a single attack getting through?

It’s like he has eyes on his back. His arms feel like legs, and his legs feel like arms.

Is his entire body a weapon?

Excluding the two fallen commanders, as many as seven people charged at once, yet they couldn’t do anything to Keter. Speed wasn’t the issue. The problem was that every attack was being read.

Just then, Keter’s advice blew open the trainees’ minds once again.

“Irregular attacks aren’t bad, but there are opponents they won’t work on. In those cases, simple attacks work better. Control the speed, then pour in a decisive strike at the critical moment.”

That matched exactly how Keter was attacking the trainees. He deliberately threw punches they could block, then suddenly unleashed a heavy blow. That caused them to fail to block even attacks they normally could and go flying.

A small Aura Arrow was fired from Keter’s fingertips. Its power itself wasn’t great, but as it flew toward the trainees’ faces, they all dodged or covered their faces. Keter continuously shot blunt-tipped Aura Arrows toward those who covered their faces. They were slow enough to be dodged if they had been seen, but the four trainees who blocked their own vision fell helplessly.

Now only four trainees remained. They couldn’t succeed even with ten, so how could four possibly snatch the elixir from Keter’s hand? The fighting spirit and fervor they had before faded. It was obvious from their gazes alone that they had already lost the will to fight.

“Don’t waver. Even if your comrades are dying beside you, don’t take your eyes off the enemy and maintain the flow of your attacks. When such small things accumulate, they eventually overturn victory and defeat.”

Keter didn’t bother dragging things out, and instantly knocked down the remaining four trainees. He didn’t go easy on them for being a woman, his siblings, or an elder of the family. He struck them all fairly, with just enough power to knock them unconscious. Of course, it wouldn’t be Keter if his training ended just because they passed out.

After restoring only their critical injuries with elixirs, Keter immediately soaked them with cold water to wake them and shouted, “Do you want to freeze to death? Start circulating your aura right now!”

The trainees, who had come back from the brink of death, almost forcibly began circulating their aura again. Their bodies, which had gone icy cold, slowly regained vitality.

Just as the trainees found both their bodies and minds so exhausted that they could barely gather themselves, Daat handed each of them a water flask. Except for Taragon, none of them drank the water right away. Even in their dazed state, they suspected the flask. However, after seeing that Taragon was perfectly fine, they all followed, and their eyes immediately widened.

“It feels like my body is coming back to life again.”

“

Ooh

, is this a potion—no, is this an elixir?!”

“As expected of our instructor...!”

“But are elixirs usually this salty?”

Keter didn’t bother telling them it was just salt water. After all, salt water was no different from an elixir for bodies pushed to their absolute limits.

Revitalized by a single bottle of salt water, the trainees shuddered at Keter’s next words.

“After thirty minutes of rest, you’ll try to take the elixir from my hand again. For reference, you won’t be given food or sleep until you manage to take the elixir from me.”

Could thirty minutes of rest really be called rest? Even while resting, they had to keep circulating their aura. At the same time, they had to figure out a way to bring Keter down. Since he hadn’t explicitly forbidden doing anything, all the trainees racked their brains. Some planned individually, while others coordinated as a team to try to steal the elixir.

Just when exactly thirty minutes passed...

“Thirty minutes are over.”

Thud!

“Why is it me again?!”

The second round began with Taragon’s resentful scream.

***

A large grave appeared in the Second Training Grounds. All the trainees had finally died and been buried due to Keter’s excessive training.

Of course, nothing like that actually happened. The trainees were lying inside the grave, and they were practically half-dead, but they were definitely all alive. The inside of the grave was surprisingly spacious, with small air holes drilled through.

“

Ughhh

.”

“

Mmmngh

.”

In the pitch-dark of the night, the trainees groaned, unable to fall asleep easily. No matter how solidly the walls were built with earth, that only blocked the wind. They couldn’t get rid of the cold, which meant that even while sleeping, they had to keep circulating their aura continuously. However, they wouldn’t have been groaning in discomfort if it were that easy. They were unable to sleep for four whole hours.

Panir and the two from the Seven Stars of the North were the most accustomed to pain, so they managed to fall asleep. However, for the others, that was out of the question.

There’s no way anyone can fall asleep in these conditions.

It’s freezing, sure, but this pain just isn’t getting any better.

Was one second always this long...?

My back aches so badly.

When camping in midwinter, a campfire was essential. One would sleep wrapped in thick fur clothing at the very least. And yet, the trainees had to sleep half-naked on the dirt ground in the coldest winter in the history of the Lillian Kingdom.

No one had ever experienced such extreme conditions. There was no way to grow accustomed to the conditions in a short time, or so they all thought. But after some more time passed, they fell asleep. It wasn’t that they had grown used to the pain, nor that the cold had faded. Their bodies had simply shut down.

Just as the pit that had been filled with groaning finally seemed to quiet down, Keter, who had been with them, moved.

Keter smacked Anis on the forehead to wake him and whispered, “If you fall asleep with your aura circulation stopped, you’ll freeze to death.”

Jolting awake, Anis restarted his aura circulation even in his half-dazed state. Restarting the aura circulation made the pain feel even worse.

Like with Anis, Keter struck awake the trainees whose aura circulation had stopped while they slept. If he didn’t, they would die. Then, when he had a brief moment of leisure, Keter looked at Myle.

Keter raised his hand. “Number 1. Why aren’t you sleeping? Want some help?”

Myle, who had been lying down, sat up and said, “I’m staying awake on purpose, Instructor.”

“That won’t earn you an elixir.”

“Then I really can’t sleep. I’m the most behind among my siblings.”

Though Keter was clearly much younger, Myle continued speaking as if making a confession.

“Anis and Taragon aside, my archery is probably worse even than Hissop’s, who’s busy with work all day. I know you know that too, Instructor. And yet you called me to this training, which leads me to infer two reasons.”

“I was bored anyway, so you may continue.”

“Either I have archery talent that’s not terrible, or the family’s current combat strength is terrible.”

Bitterness was heavily seeped into his words, but that was Sefira’s reality. Sefira’s territory was currently packed with many external forces. They were certainly adding strength, but they were a double-edged sword. There was always the risk that they could fall into political schemes or enemy traps and become enemies themselves. And whether Sefira could respond when that happened would determine the family’s fate.

Keter simply shrugged in response.

Myle couldn’t tell whether that was in agreement or denial, so he decided not to dwell on it.

“Either way, since I’m far behind the others, I need to work that much harder.”

“

Hm

, then there’s no need to overdo it.”

Myle blinked rapidly. That wasn’t the reaction he expected.

“Even if you push yourself beyond your limits, you won’t be able to catch up to anyone here. There won’t be any miraculous growth either. Of course, it’s better than doing nothing, but you won’t get results equal to what you lose.”

“If there’s even a fingernail’s worth of a difference—”

“Do you want to die ten years earlier for that fingernail’s worth of difference?”

Myle was taken aback.

“Don’t misunderstand, Number 1. I didn’t bring you into this training thinking of you as core combat power. Nine was an awkward number, so I just made it ten. Talent in archery? Of course you have some. But at best, you’re only five or six times better than an ordinary person. With that level, you’ll never make a difference on the battlefield.”

Keter’s words were sharp enough to wake all the trainees who had been asleep. Yet, no one defended Myle. It was the bitter truth, one no one else had ever told him.

“It’s only natural that you’re weaker than Anis and Taragon. While you were reading books and picking your next book, they ran an extra lap in the training grounds and shot one more arrow. As you said, they received rewards equal to the effort they put in. And now you’re saying you’ll work hard? Thinking you can catch up at this point is nothing but greed and delusion.”

It was such merciless criticism that it felt hard to even breathe. Just as Myle’s spirit, which had not broken even under the harsh training, was about to crash...

“But does that mean you’re inferior to Anis and Taragon? No. You’re only behind them in archery. Your ability to read the battlefield, your adaptability, and your mental strength are far superior to theirs. That’s why it’s so absurd. You learned incantation instead of archery and gained knowledge through books. Those are things Anis and Taragon don’t have. So why would you throw away your own strengths to learn archery and become an average person?”

Myle remained silent.

“What I’m teaching you isn’t archery, but experience. Whether you take archery, or mindset, or combat tricks from this experience, that’s up to you.”

Keter hadn’t originally planned to say this part, but if there was no harm in saying it, there was no reason not to.

“Death is fair to everyone. Especially when fighting powerful enemies, nine out of ten die. Even so, I want you all to survive because—”

Just then, someone sniffled. Hidden by the darkness, there were also those with teary eyes. However, at Keter’s next words, the tears instantly vanished.

“If you all die, I won’t get the money you owe me back.”