Chapter 144
As soon as Yekaterina woke up from her sleep of replenishing her strength the entire afternoon, Yoo Seodam headed towards the building next door to help Celeste.
The entire building was used by Celeste to hold her class. At the moment about 90,000 people were watching her live streaming lesson. But Ye Sa-hye had told Yoo Seodam that only about half of that number were watching it for the sake of learning, while the rest were watching it just for Celeste.
“Oh…”
Yoo Seodam exclaimed as soon as he entered the building. The inside of the building was quite spacious, its walls were also reinforced with an ether-coating. However, regardless of its spacious space, only 30 people were present inside the building.
Every single one of them had a different rank, ranging from E rank to A rank. And from what Ye Sa-hye had told Yoo Seodam, they were all already registering their name under Another League for the perks of learning even after the live streaming is over. After going through a formal education course, every single one of them planned to work as a hunter under the banner of Another League.
‘In the end, all of them are going to be my subordinates.’
Yoo Seodam said to himself as he saw a large monitor on the wall. On it, a real-time response for Celeste’s class was being displayed. And in front of that monitor, Celeste was holding a class with a wooden sword in her gym uniform.
“Focus the flow of energy on your ankles and swing them up.”
Wooshh!!
Celeste instantly disappeared from everyone’s sight and moved behind a student who stood still, almost as if she was teleporting.
“And you’ll get something like this.” Immediately after, the chat window was flooded with question marks. “It’s easy, right?”
-????
-??
-Eh…
-?
-What..
-What did you do?
-Professor… You are too fast.
Yoo Seodam chuckled. The response on the screen was justified. Because, even though Celeste had a good voice, it seemed that she had no talent for teaching. In his opinion, her inability to teach stemmed from the fact that she was too much of a genius. Whatever she did, she always did it in her own way. So, when she explained it to other people, they wouldn’t be able to understand it.
The fact that she had a lot of viewers even though she was like this was really strange in Yoo Seodam’s eyes.
“All you have to do is follow what I did…”
-Oh haha that’s right, just follow along lol
– So how did you do that haha
-Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
-Sorry for being stupid…Sorry for being stupid…
It seems that she was teaching the basic steps, however, she wasn’t able to explain the process in words.. In addition, Celeste also showed various body strengthening mugong albeit only a little because of the ‘Tasting Corner Strategy’.
After observing Celeste for a while more, Yoo Seodam felt that she had grown considerably stronger from the last time they met.
Frankly, he was quite surprised that she had reached A rank. No matter how fast body strengthening superhuman grows, there must be some limit to their growth speed. However, it seems like that limit wasn’t applied to Celeste as she kept growing more and more.
It’s amazing how she became A rank at the age of 19 in Italy and 20 in Korea, but what was even more surprising was that her actual ability easily exceeded A rank.
Whenever she swung her sword, boom! The sound of air being torn apart reverberated. And when she lowered her foot, the ground shook.
Body strengthening-type superpower was different from mugong or wigong, which strengthens one’s body by using drugs or secret techniques. It was a technique that utilized a mysterious power of monsters to evolve the body further.
It was far superior to wigong. And when body strengthening users could also use naegong…. A completely different kind of monstrous power was born.
Boom!!
“Keuk!”
-Crazy lololololol.
-He’s dead???
-Nope, I don’t think so..
-I think he’s dead…?
With only one attack from Celeste, an A rank student flew away and crashed into the wall. It was quite a subtle attack from Celeste as she didn’t even sweat when she attacked.
Then, Celeste turned her gaze away and met the eyes of Yoo Seodam. Yoo Seodam waved his hand as she bowed respectfully towards him with her usual expressionless face.
-Who?
– I can’t see who it is.
-Celeste noona suddenly seems to be in a good mood?
-Really?
Yoo Seodam could see a barrage of questions flood the screen as they couldn’t see him, who was standing behind the camera. He felt sorry for them, but he had no intention of showing his face.
“It’s been a while, do you want to spar?”
Celeste nodded happily at Yoo Seodam’s offer.
“Good. Just like in the past, I won’t stop even when you roll around in pain.”
“It will be different from back then.” Celeste replied calmly.
Yoo Seodam flinched at her reply. He belatedly remembered that the reason he was able to defeat Celeste in the past was because he had completely monopolized the swordsmanship of other worlds.
Will he be able to achieve an overwhelming victory like in the past while he was facing the current Celeste?
‘I’m not really going to lose, am I?’
Somehow, Yoo Seodam became anxious, but thinking about his own pride, he couldn’t back down here, so, he moved to the centre of the building with a specially crafted strong wooden sword.
“Wow… It’s Hunter Yoo Seodam.”
“So, it’s true that he had returned…”
“But, is that rumor real?”
“Shuushh, he can hear you.”
The students whispered amongst themselves.
-OMG
– Is that Yoo Seodam?
– What’s going on?
-Oh haha Murim Lord’s boyfriend has arrived hahaha
– lol
-Shit, he has such a beautiful girlfriend, I’m really envious.
Mysterious stories quickly flooded into the screen, but unfortunately, because Yoo Seodam was focusing on Celeste, he couldn’t read any of it.
Both Yoo Seodam and Celeste stood in front of each other with swords in their hands. Yoo Seodam wore a simple suit, and Celeste was in a comfortable gym suit, but that didn’t really mean much.
-By the way, when will they start?
The moment such comments popped up,
Fwoosh!! Tang!!
Yoo Seodam and Celeste, the two superhumans rushed towards each other at the same time.
-F*ck? I don’t see what happened just now.
In order to broadcast the movements of superhumans, a high-performance camera that could capture more than 1000 frames per second was needed. But if the viewers still cannot follow it with their own eyes after that, there is a separate feature called ‘Replay at 0.1x speed’.
Pakk!!
In order to withstand the power of superhumans, the wooden training sword they both held was internally coated with ether. In other words, it was a sturdy and expensive training sword.
‘Wow, you’ve become so strong…’
Yoo Seodam realized once again that Celeste was a genius. Her sense in swordsmanship had far exceeded his from long ago. But now, on top of it, she also wielded a swordsmanship that combined the swordsmanship of Murim world and fantasy world. It wouldn’t be an easy fight even for him who had also grown stronger by hunting numerous protagonists in the past two years.
Tung!
In front of Celeste’s violent swing, Yoo Seodam turned his body to the side and evaded her attack. Then, he tried to launch a counterattack through the gap.
Realizing Yoo Seodam’s intention, Celeste hurriedly swung her sword to the ground in the middle of her charge. She used her sword as an axis to spin her body and launched a kick towards Yoo Seodam.
Yoo Seodam ducked down to avoid it before trying to raise his sword to strike, but Celeste judged much more quickly than him. As soon as her kick missed its target, she kicked into the air, controlled her center of gravity, and tried to slam Yoo Seodam’s head with her heel.
Bam!
The moment the steel-like kick was about to slam into the floor, Yoo Seodam slipped towards her back.
-WOAHHH
-???
-What happened just now?
-Is this really happening?
-Wow, he blocked it and then avoided it
Yoo Seodam was also someone who strengthened his body just like a body strengthening superhuman would do. In addition to that, he could also become more powerful by pouring mana into his magic circle. However, he didn’t possess the same ether coating that the body strengthening superhumans possessed.
‘My ability itself seems to have the upper hand, but…’
In defense and pure swordsmanship, Celeste was far beyond him. It was truly god-sent talent that couldn’t be catched up by stolen S rank talents.
Of course, Yoo Seodam didn’t use any of his personal weapons and magic, which could be counted as his most important skills. But even so, it was amazing that Celeste could push him to some extent.
The two instantly separated and put 20m distance between themselves. The next moment, they were crossing swords against each other again, and then they bounced into the air, exchanging several blows that were too fast for normal eyes to see, and then they fell to the ground again.
Their swordsmanship didn’t have lotus flowers blooming like Seol Jungyeon’s or white flashes like Ha Sunyoung’s, but it was very fast and heavy and there was something about it that unconsciously made the viewers feel excited.
-Wow…
-It’s really crazy
-Why did the chat window become so silent?
Even the amount of chats had decreased. All of them were at a loss for words due to the splendid battles of superhumans that could not be easily seen. The viewers then realized that Celeste had been teaching her students while controlling her power during the broadcast.
Wooshh!!
The wooden sword slithered towards Yoo Seodam. With only hairbreadth away from his neck, Yoo Seodam skillfully avoided it.
‘It’s been a while.’
Celeste suddenly remembered the first time she met Yoo Seodam, two years ago. At that time, she felt lost and empty because she couldn’t grow like she wanted to. Her growth was slow, too slow for her liking.
And then, she learned the art of swordsmanship from Yoo Seodam.
She learned from him that swordsmanship wasn’t simply swinging swords with brute force. There were plenty of ways to swing and move with even more efficiency, with even more speed, and even more strength.
She was desperately clinging to Yoo Seodam. At first, she simply wanted to learn his swordsmanship because it was such a beautiful swordsmanship. However, as time passed, her purpose also gradually changed. Each time she became stronger and her proficiency increased, she wanted to show her swordsmanship to Yoo Seodam.
‘I’ve grown this much.’
And, whenever he saw herself growing up, he would always say,
‘You’ve become stronger. Much more than yesterday.’
Little by little, she began to live for that feeling. This feeling remained after Bang Ho-Win, her lifelong goal, the reason she swung her sword without stopping for a single moment, died.
She was a little anxious.
She was afraid the Yoo Seodam wouldn’t return from the rift.
She feared that she would never be able to face him and his swordsmanship ever again.
Kwaanngg!!!
Yoo Seodam’s sharp attack left a large scar on the floor, but Celeste had already leaped backwards and escaped the spot. She was already preparing for the next attack.
When she thrust her sword, an aura shot out from her sword and hurled towards Yoo Seodam. And when Yoo Seodam made up his mind and parried it, a quarter of the building trembled.
Now, it was slowly approaching a level that was too dangerous to be said as a mere sparring. But Celeste doesn’t want it to end.
The fact that she could clash against such a skillful opponent to her heart’s content, the fact that her opponent recognized and acknowledged her strength, it was fun.
‘I am alive.’
She felt alive.
-What
-Did you see Celeste’s laugh just now?
A few messages popped up, but they were quickly buried. It was because her smile lasted only for a split second. It was truly a fleeting smile.
But in reality she was happy. She felt incredible joy as she competed against Yoo Seodam. That joy made her burst into laughter unknowingly.
Cheong!!
Before long, her wooden sword fell to the ground. Celeste, who had lost her sword, had lost the match. Then, Yoo Seodam said with a smile as he wiped his cold sweat,
“You’ve become stronger. Much more than yesterday.”