Chapter 464

Kwang-Soo thought Se-Hoon was exaggerating.

Not only was the fragment of Celestial Night too small to be a sparring weapon, but he also just couldn’t imagine what kind of benefit could come from using it.

Well, if he’s telling me to, there must be a reason.

Unless it was all just a prank, there had to be more. With that thought, Kwang-Soo stepped onto the training ground.

“Here!”

Se-Hoon’s fist struck fiercely, driving into Kwang-Soo’s body.

Crack! Thud! Crunch!

Every time Kwang-Soo blinked, the sky and ground had flipped. But no matter the direction, fists, feet, elbows, and knees rained down and pounded his body. Yet even though the pain was as piercing as an awl shredding his mind, Kwang-Soo clenched his teeth and attempted to retaliate.

Whoosh!

But alas, there was no way wielding a splinter no bigger than a fingertip would achieve anything.

Boom!!!

His body, which had been sent flying nonstop in every direction, was finally slammed violently into the center of the training grounds.

“

Phew.

How was that?” Se-Hoon nonchalantly remarked, landing softly nearby.

“...”

Instead of answering, Kwang-Soo remained sprawled on the ground as he checked his condition: his bones and muscles were thoroughly shattered, but his vital organs and mana circuits—anything that could be called a weak point—remained pristine for some reason.

Still examining his body, which resembled cracked glass, Kwang-Soo croaked out, “If you had complaints... you could’ve just said so... you bastard.”

Maybe Se-Hoon had a lot built up against him, but shoving a useless shard in his hand and then beating him to a pulp was just too much. Making a sour expression, Kwang-Soo looked up at Se-Hoon, who stared down with an equally unimpressed face.

“I

told

you before we started it was going to hurt a bit. Now that you’ve basically dealt with your inner demons, I had to jolt your dulled senses back to life.”

“What kind of lunatic... calls

this

a bit?!”

“...”

At the outburst, Se-Hoon narrowed his eyes. The method he just used had been taught to him—by Kwang-Soo himself—to pay off a debt before his regression.

Although I suspected as much back then... he really just taught it half-heartedly.

Finally confirming it, Se-Hoon felt a powerful urge welling up to hit Kwang-Soo even harder, but he suppressed it. It didn’t feel right to take out the sins of the pre-regression human scumbag Kwang-Soo on the current, merely ungrateful one.

Tsk. I guess being too nice also can screw you up sometimes.

Grumbling internally, Se-Hoon looked down at Kwang-Soo.

“I’m telling you—it really was just for training. Do I look like someone who’d hit you because of a personal grudge in a situation like this?”

“...”

“...”

Annoyed by Kwang-Soo’s silence, Se-Hoon lightly kicked the sole of his foot.

“?!%$?#!”

Kwang-Soo jolted up. The sharp pain surging from his foot up his spine had been indescribable.

“HEY! This is why you...

huh?

” Kwang-Soo stopped just short of cursing Se-Hoon out, looking at his own body in surprise.

He, who had looked like a walking corpse, was now as good as new, perfectly healed—as though his body had never been broken in the first place?

...My senses have become a little sharper, too?

Akin to taking off a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer, he felt a refreshing lightness and clarity throughout his body that made him marvel.

“Why what? Why I what?”

“...

Ahem.

Well, it sure

is

effective.” Feeling awkward, Kwang-Soo looked at the Celestial Night fragment in his hand and changed topics. “But what’s the point of doing

just

this during sparring? I don’t see how that helps me understand how to use the Emotion Insight.”

Aside from the fragment, Kwang-Soo had also gotten a ban on using anything else—whether it was physical attacks, defense, or other weapons—besides the Celestial Infinity Blade.

In other words, if Kwang-Soo wanted to attack or defend, he first had to manifest the Celestial Infinity Blade with that fragment successfully.

It wouldn’t be a problem... if it were even working on this small fragment.

The entire time while being pummeled earlier, Kwang-Soo had been pouring mana into the fragment to manifest the Celestial Infinity Blade. Yet no blade formed; the fragment merely absorbed the mana. No matter how many times he tried, every blade he formed would just shatter violently with a convulsion.

I get that I’m supposed to overcome the fragment’s resistance, but... what does that even help me with?

In the first place, why did the fragment break the sword aura he was trying to create? Until he could answer that question, he wouldn’t be able to focus on the training.

“

Hmm...

I suppose that is something I need to clarify before we move further with our sparring sessions.”

Ideally, Se-Hoon wanted Kwang-Soo to realize on his own, but he also acknowledged that Kwang-Soo’s brain might have stiffened while under the influence of his inner demons. And in that case, perhaps it was better to shine a little light on the path.

Convinced, Se-Hoon took out another Celestial Night fragment and held it up.

“Like I mentioned before, information about the final realm that Ha-Rin reached right before her end is contained within Celestial Night. But after it was split in half by you and Doppelganger, it became unstable.”

What had been a user-friendly sword, which would attack in response to the wielder’s synesthetic mindscape, was now just a defective weapon that couldn’t be properly controlled unless the user had mastered the Celestial Infinity Blade. Put another way, it was as though a textbook had been torn horizontally in half to form two separate books.

“Well, even if it had just been split in half, someone who knew the Celestial Infinity Blade technique could still comprehend the Emotion Insight—but that doesn’t apply to us.”

Due to Kwang-Soo’s negligence, not only had Celestial Night been split, it had been shattered. Naturally, the Emotion Insight technique that Ha-Rin left engraved inside had also been broken to the point of being unrecognizable. The horizontally torn book had been further shredded into tiny pieces.

“So in the end, there’s no way to figure out how the Emotion Insight works?”

“No, it’s not impossible. It’s just become much more difficult.” Fiddling with the fragment of Celestial Night, Se-Hoon continued. “Now, not only must you master the Celestial Infinity Blade technique, you have to understand Ha-Rin herself. From the beginning, step by step, you need to know.”

Ha-Rin’s entire life, values, and desires—only by understanding those first could he deduce and attain what she had gained at her very end. In essence, to learn Ha-Rin’s Emotion Insight, Kwang-Soo had to understand the human being that was Ha-Rin to a T.

“What the hell...”

Kwang-Soo couldn’t hide his fluster. Just understanding oneself took several deep introspections—how could he fully comprehend someone else’s life?

Is that even possible?

If Ha-Rin were still alive, perhaps. But trying to understand her with just memories from decades ago? That was basically impossible.

Wanting to reject the idea, Kwang-Soo opened his mouth—

“I’ll show you, just this once.”

Woong-

Activating Metamorphosing Dreams, Se-Hoon watched as countless dreams began unfolding around the Celestial Night fragment. Flipping through them, Se-Hoon eventually found one where he had attained the Emotion Insight and began projecting it into reality... until he stopped.

...This is her way of saying no shortcuts, huh?

The night-like darkness of the fragment was rippling. From what he could tell, if he forcibly triggered the dream, the fragment would likely crumble into dust. However, instead of canceling it altogether, Se-Hoon altered the dream’s trajectory instead after some brief hesitation.

In that case, let’s have it be something unrelated to the Emotion Insight, but still—by pure chance—helpful to Kwang-Soo.

If it was for Kwang-Soo in particular, not himself, then perhaps even Ha-Rin’s Emotion Insight would allow it. Banking on that chance, Se-Hoon projected the altered dream into reality, and, as he hoped, the Celestial Night fragment gave in after a moment.

Woong-

Darkness poured from the fragment, weaving into the form of a sword—the perfect replica of the original Celestial Night—which Kwang-Soo had never thought he’d see again.

Entranced, he reached out his hand...

Bang!

Only for the sword to shatter into countless pieces the moment his fingertip brushed it.

“...”

Yet, even though it was just for a moment, the feeling remained vividly on the tip of his finger.

“...”

In thought, Kwang-Soo gently rubbed the spot with his thumb.

At this distance, it wouldn’t have been strange if it had actually cut me...

Why had it only left a mark on his finger without slicing through? Even though Se-Hoon had shown him a direct demonstration, questions still lingered in his mind.

Still, for reasons he was yet to understand, the dots were connecting in his head—meaning he was now standing at the starting point of acquiring the Emotion Insight within. Realizing his new position, Kwang-Soo clenched his fist and looked at Se-Hoon.

“Can we start the training right away?”

His expression made him look like the man just moments ago was someone different.

It was a sight that made Se-Hoon grin.

“Of course.”

Wasting no time, the two resumed their sparring session. Just like the first time, Kwang-Soo couldn’t manifest the Celestial Infinity Blade with the Celestial Night fragment and continued to get beaten unilaterally by Se-Hoon.

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

“Again.”

However, Kwang-Soo didn’t give up. They fought, he’d heal, then they’d fight again. Over and over, the cycle continued aside from their mealtimes. The lights in the classroom-turned-sparring hall never went off.

Then, on the seventh day since training began, at long last, Kwang-Soo finally showed some change.

Woong!

A black thorn protruded between his fingers. Startled by the sight, Kwang-Soo opened his tightly clenched fist around the fragment.

“...It worked.”

Unlike before, the fragment was radiating a spiny, black sword aura in all directions like a sea urchin. Clearly, it was still far too crude to be considered a proper blade, but Kwang-Soo wasn’t discouraged.

The first step is always the hardest.

Now that he knew where the path lay and how to take the next step, it didn’t seem so difficult. Riding that brief surge of clarity forward, Kwang-Soo clenched the fragment again and looked at Se-Hoon.

“Can you give me three more fragments?”

Taking the additional fragments Se-Hoon handed him, Kwang-Soo gripped them all in one hand and attempted to manifest the Celestial Infinity Blade just like before.

Crackle-

Yet the sword aura scattered and crumbled between his fingers. Whether due to the increased number of fragments or the complexity, he failed again—though Kwang-Soo didn’t mind in the least.

“Keep going.”

If he failed, then he just had to fight until he succeeded. And once he did, he would increase the number of fragments and try again. In every way, it was a completely brute-force method, like guessing a password from zero to nine, one digit at a time, but Kwang-Soo did adapt as the days passed by.

Whoosh!

From thorn to spike, spike to dagger, then dagger to longsword. As the number of fragments grew, so did the length and surface of the sword aura. By the twelfth day of training, all the fragments in his hands had formed a single blade.

Woong-

The Celestial Night fragments sloppily fused and sheathed in sword aura to make a patchwork weapon. It was clearly rough and imperfect, but its power told a different story.

“Hmph...!”

Swoosh!

The moment Kwang-Soo swung the ragged Celestial Night with all his might, hundreds—no, thousands of slashes poured forth like a torrential downpour.

Yet, despite it being an attack that could easily shred someone to pieces, Se-Hoon faced it head on.

Unity of Mind and Body

Synchronizing his physical and mental state, Se-Hoon then hurled not just his fist, but his entire being into the gap. Ignoring all cause and effect, he threw his fist directly forward.

Boom!

The barrage of sword aura shattered into nothing against the sheer force of Se-Hoon’s strike.

“...You crazy bastard.” Kwang-Soo let out a stunned laugh.

Over the past twelve days, he’d recovered the sharpness he’d lost due to his prolonged struggles with his inner demons, and that last attack had been something close to a finishing move at his prime

And Se-Hoon still dismantled it entirely with solely the power of Premotion.

He just casually threw thousands of punches in the blink of an eye.... What kind of monster is he?

What was important was that Se-Hoon had done all that

without

even being a Perfect One. If the Trailblazer had been facing him instead... Kwang-Soo furrowed his brow at the horrifying possibility that his head would have already been blown off.

This still isn’t enough...

The theoretical scenario made him painfully aware that if he were to stand against a real Perfect One, he’d need even greater strength. Lost in thought, Kwang-Soo stared at the patchwork Celestial Night as he reflected on what he still lacked.

“

Hm.

Not bad.”

After checking his own body, Se-Hoon gave a satisfied nod.

“But you just blocked everything.... What’s ‘not bad’ about that...”

“Everything? I just regenerated right away, but look—my neck, heart...”

“Stop.”

Kwang-Soo gave Se-Hoon a fed-up look, unable to believe Se-Hoon was trying to show his decapitated head and pierced heart.

“Anyway, you

did

block most of it.”

“At this stage, yes. But it’ll get better once you complete the next training.”

“The next training?”

Kwang-Soo raised a puzzled brow. He thought the next step was reforging Celestial Night. There was more training?

“Technically, it’s both training and material processing.”

“Material... processing?”

Was he talking about refining the ragged Celestial Night he had made? Wondering such, Kwang-Soo looked down with a slightly conflicted expression at the patchwork of a sword, when Se-Hoon then added, “Oh, and this time, you’ll be fighting two assistants, not me.”

“Assistants?”

As if Kwang-Soo’s confusion was their cue, the two people in question walked into the classroom.

“Ah... Hello...”

“...”

Jake looked clearly awkward, unsure why he’d been summoned. In contrast, Aria had strolled in with all the confidence of someone walking into her own house.

They’re... the assistants?

Seeing the siblings step onto the sparring floor, Kwang-Soo made a sour face.

Regardless of how well they were going to fare against him, he couldn’t imagine how they’d be of any help.

“

Hm...

Pardon me for a moment.”

While Kwang-Soo was being skeptical, Aria’s gaze had landed on the patched-up Celestial Night in his hand. From how she walked straight up to him and gently enveloped her index and middle fingers in her own sword aura, it seemed she had realized something.

Then, with a single swing—

Slice!

The patched-up Celestial Night was cleaved in half.

“Wha...!”

“Sis?!”

Both Kwang-Soo and Jake stared at her in shock, eyes wide, while Se-Hoon just exchanged calm remarks with her.

“Yeah, that’s definitely not ideal.”

“Right?”

Seeing the two talking like they were in on a shared secret, Kwang-Soo couldn’t take it and snapped.

“What’s ‘not ideal’ about my sword? Whatever it is, say it in a way I can actually understand...!”

Hearing his outburst, Aria paused, looked toward him, and pointed to the sword aura surrounding the Celestial Night fragments.

“It means your sword aura doesn’t even measure up to the material it’s made from.”