Every time muscles boasting overwhelming density and volume shifted this way and that, savage sounds rolled through his entire body.
Crack— crack!
Wild tattoos carved across a body that seemed like the word violence given flesh writhed as though alive, and a heavy aura hung over the surrounding area, as if gravity itself had increased severalfold.
“The air here has a different flavor, too! Mm, not bad! Kahahahaha!”
The muscular oddity twisted his body this way and that, limbering up once before bursting into uproarious laughter—Harley, the barbarian warrior who had crossed over from another world.
Flutter flutter—
Caw— caw—
The resonant waves of that laughter spread in every direction, sending countless flocks of birds in a wide area soaring up all at once, but the man himself did not care in the slightest.
And after slowly looking around, he soon began to saunter forward.
‘As expected, Harley is perfect for this kind of work.’
In truth, even excluding Harris, there had been several candidates.
Leaving out Heinrich, whose temperament did not suit the task at all and who had too many issues in various respects, Hans and Heinz II would not have been bad choices either.
‘But neither of them is a card I can use right now. They’ll have more useful roles later. For example…’
When dealing with the evil organizations he had learned about while gathering information on the Ganghwan Realm—the Demon Cult and the Blood Cult, for instance.
Since they were no different from black mages or vampire forces in Auterica, it was precisely at times like this that they needed to be handled with even greater caution.
‘The situation hasn’t even been properly grasped yet, so I can’t recklessly step forward first and put them on alert. Bastards like that run even wilder the more chaotic the world becomes, so right now there’s no telling how far their influence has spread.’
In that sense, Harley—the destruction tank specialized solely in smashing, slaughtering, and causing havoc—was an extremely useful card.
It was also an excellent advantage that, as long as he did not use physical mutation, he merely looked like a martial artist who had trained external arts to the limit.
‘Hm, will my outfit stand out a bit?’
Harley glanced down at his own body.
His bare upper body exposed his muscles and tattoos completely, his lower half was covered in leather, and his feet were outright bare.
“Hmmm.”
Without realizing it, he scratched the back of his head.
The hide of a magical beast pressed down over his head brushed against his fingertips.
It was certainly an outfit far too alien for this world…
“…Well, it won’t matter!”
But what of it?
Come to think of it, it had been the same in Auterica.
At first, many had looked at him askance and regarded him with displeasure, but now not a single person dared treat him that way, did they?
The results of his crammed etiquette lessons had already been proven once.
Then he only had to make it so in this Ganghwan Realm as well.
No, he might even bring a fresh wind to the fashion world, as if setting a new trend altogether!
‘As the true attire of a warrior!’
And to do that, there was something he had to do first.
Harley, who had been moving forward slowly, gradually lengthened his stride, and his massive body began to accelerate.
Rumble rumble—
With every step, tremors passed through the ground, and the earth-shaking grew louder and louder.
Soon, his body split the wind and shot forward.
There was no form of footwork commonly known in this world, nor any profound principle of lightness arts contained in it—but.
“Krahaha! First, shall I spread the magnificence of this body?”
To begin with, for him, a being with overwhelming physicality and the very crystallization of absurdity, such trifles were not particularly important.
And so, a predator unleashed into another world began its hunt in earnest.
It did not take very long for the results to appear.
***
Clop clop— rattle—
Somewhere deep in the mountains, the sounds of many horse hooves and rolling carriage wheels echoed softly.
A group moved diligently in orderly formation along a road that had not been properly maintained, little more than traces remaining.
It was a mountain path so peaceful that there was nothing in particular to call a problem.
“Strange.”
Suddenly, one member of the group—a martial artist of the Zhuge Clan who had been vigilantly watching every direction with sharp eyes—muttered under his breath.
With one hand resting on the hilt of his sword as if he would not let his guard down for even a moment, he frowned slightly.
“Why is it so quiet? Until just recently, they were rushing at us like mad dogs, not even giving us time to relieve ourselves, but now that it’s suddenly this calm, it feels as if something big is about to happen…”
“Hey now! What are you saying? Words have a way of becoming reality, so watch your mouth!”
“Huh, I’m only saying we should prepare for any possible situation…”
“I said I understand, so shut that mouth!”
And the man who had been voicing his unease quietly closed his mouth at his colleague’s rebuke and the sharp gazes that followed from those around him.
Only then did he realize that the others had already been as tense as he was.
Clatter clatter—
In a suffocatingly awkward atmosphere, the elites of the Zhuge Clan silently advanced.
Until just two days ago, they had been so overwhelmed by incessant attacks that they could barely keep their wits about them, but at some point, those large-scale assaults had abruptly ceased.
It was not as though there was no harassment at all from those with some measure of local influence, but the large-scale offensives troublesome enough to truly make things difficult for them had completely stopped.
Since such a pattern had begun without any warning and continued on, they could only suspect that someone was deliberately making them lower their guard before suddenly striking.
Their bodies were certainly at ease, yet their minds were more unsettled than ever.
And while everyone was taking this atmosphere, like the calm before a storm, gravely—
“Inhale, exhale—.”
Hugo, shut inside the carriage as usual, was unlike the others; with an entirely relaxed mind, he was immersed in meditation along with deep breaths.
‘It’s finally gotten a bit comfortable. I should have done this from the start.’
It was only natural for him to be this carefree.
After all, the one who had brought about the present peace was none other than himself.
If the bastards constantly bothering him at every turn were annoying, then he simply had to make it so they could not pick a fight with this side from the very beginning.
While Harley went ahead along the route and thoroughly swept away anyone likely to become a problem, Hugo focused solely on the topic before him, immersing himself in his inner self with all his might.
‘I already know the method.’
His mind gathered into a single point, and the flow of time around him slowly began to stretch.
His senses sharpened to an acute edge, making him distinctly feel every fine hair in his pores, while the circulation of qi flowing around him came close enough to grasp.
‘Come here.’
Unlike the qi drawn in through his breathing, the energy adjacent to his skin still did not budge, but he did not give up and continued the work.
Having already raised several transcendent beings, he was confident that there was no way he would fail to pass through a mere hurdle of this level.
‘Come here.’
The energy he sought to handle, the laws composing the world, the environment and body he had been given—everything was different.
But if only a slight opportunity presented itself…
His mind, which had already reached lofty heights, was prepared to seize it at any time.
Twitch—
The qi touching the fine hairs at the edge of his skin reacted faintly.
The carriage he rode in continued to rattle and sway, but that much could not disturb his concentration.
‘Come.’
Thanks to having asked his companions for understanding in advance, he even skipped meals and continued his training without pause.
How much time had passed like that?
The realization that had teasingly brushed his fingertips bit by bit at last began to slowly roll into his grasp.
Recalling the sensation from when Harris had overcome a wall through martial arts, he tightly seized what had entered his hands.
‘…So you’ve come.’
And finally—
《The individual has met the conditions and gained enlightenment. The skills “Qi Circulation,” “Underwater Breathing,” “Clear Mirror Still Water,” and “Strong Bones” have merged and evolved into the special skill “Heavenly Qi Body.”》
Along with a certain sense of liberation that traveled from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes—
He could feel the energy of this world entering and leaving his entire body.
A mysterious sensation, as if the muscles and bones throughout his body were changing under the influence of an unknown power.
At that electrifying feeling, Hugo slowly lifted the eyelids he had closed and twisted the corner of his mouth slightly upward.
“Well now—.”
***
“—This is exhilarating! Krahahaha!”
Rumble—
Along with crazed laughter that shook the air, a tall pavilion standing on one side of a broad manor collapsed.
The dust that surged upward spread in all directions, but by now, there was no one here who cared about such a thing.
After all, this place had already been reduced to a state where it was harder to find anything intact; the collapse of a single building felt like nothing new.
Including the people.
“Kuh… Kheuk! You monster…!”
A middle-aged man whose bones had been shattered all over his body rolled across the ground and shouted as if coughing blood.
Then blood truly began pouring from him like a waterfall, but compared to what had happened here, that much was nothing.
As he violently vomited blood, he turned his head while collapsed and looked around himself.
Dozens of figures lay unmoving, drenched in blood.
Including the second-in-command, the chief elder, they were all pillars of the Asura Sect who had reached at least the peak realm.
They were most certainly not people who ought to be sprawled out in such a miserable state as they were now!
“Kugh… You bastard… Why would you do something like this…!”
At that horrific sight, the sect master of the Asura Sect—the hegemon of the border region between Hubei and Henan—glared at the culprit who had done this through vision blurred by the blood tears streaming down his face.
Even though he could not properly focus his eyes, distinguishing his opponent was not difficult.
That giant-like physique was not something one could easily forget.
‘At least the very edge of the Transformation Realm… No, if it is to this extent, he must certainly be in the Profound Realm. But there is no way someone with such a conspicuous appearance could have remained unknown until now…’
Even though the experts representing the sect had gathered and even employed a coordinated formation, none of their attacks had worked.
The marks created by the gang qi of himself and the chief elder vanished as though washed away in the blink of an eye, and attacks below that level did not even land properly.
That was surely the fabled Vajra Indestructible Body.
A distant realm said to be reachable only by those who had attained the extreme in external arts.
On top of that, his fist power was enough to pierce holes through buildings with just the wind pressure from a single strike, so in a sense, it was only natural that they had ended up like this.
“Grrr… You baaastard—! Just who are you? What grudge could you possibly bear to barge in without warning and commit such an atrocity that outrages both heaven and man!”
He roared thunderously, pouring out the resentment boiling within him.
An ordinary person would not have found it strange to have died long ago in his condition, but as an expert of the Transformation Realm, his vitality stubbornly clung to life even in this situation.
Though, in his current state, even that would not last long.
“Huh? Well now, is this what they call naeronambul? Anyway, people never think about what they’ve done themselves. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“Nae… naeronambul…?”
“Ah? Was that not a four-character idiom? Well, let it go! Let it go! Why nitpick over every little thing? Kahaha!”
In the early stages of the fight, he had merely laughed no matter what was said to him and launched attacks indiscriminately, yet now that everything was over, the reaction he showed was such a playful answer.
The sect master of the Asura Sect tightly shut his eyes, forced himself to steady his breathing, and once again glared sharply at his opponent.
In any case, he could roughly grasp the meaning from the context.
In other words, was he not saying he had barged in blindly because he could not tolerate injustice?
“…I see. In the end, you are saying you did not like the way we conduct ourselves? But do you know this? Your actions right now are by no means…”
“Ah, enough. I’m not interested in that kind of self-reflection. I’m just going to do whatever I feel like doing.”
“…Grrr! You… you bastard! Reveal your identity! Surely you won’t hide it even in this situation?!”
At that indifferent reply, which cut off his words as if it were nothing, his blood pressure surged again, and he gritted his teeth as he once more questioned his opponent’s identity.
Even if he was going to die, should he not at least know who the culprit was?
Perhaps that desperate feeling was conveyed, because the strange man who had annihilated an entire sect alone answered obediently this time.
“Well, there’s no point in going on at length… Just call me the Mad Demon! Ah, maybe you won’t be able to call me anything now? Uahahaha!”
Though it was closer to mockery than an answer.
Also, separately from that, the sect master of the Asura Sect could not be satisfied even after hearing his opponent’s reply.
Because—
“…The Mad Demon? Mad Demon? Don’t spout nonsense! Do you think I, the sect master of the Asura Sect, would not know his appearance? To think you would try to mock me even after things have come to this!”
“The Mad Demon” was already an alias used by someone else.
And by someone who had been actively making a name for himself even recently.
Judging that his opponent was making fun of him, he spat out another mouthful of blood in his rage.
“Ah, what? There was already a guy using that?”
Of course, Harley only reacted plainly to that as well.
Smacking his lips in disappointment, he scratched his chin with dissatisfaction.
“Then I’ll have to talk to that guy separately. That’s mine now, so he should use something else. If he looks like he’s got no future, I’ll just twist his neck off.”
And then he casually uttered those chilling words.
“…Ha, what kind of…!”
“Honestly, you sure do talk a lot. Anyway, if I’ve entertained you with this much conversation, that should count as paying the price, right? My time is expensive!”
“…Price?”
At that abrupt remark, the sect master of the Asura Sect furrowed his brow.
What did that suddenly mean…
“Well, since I handled things a bit roughly, it might be a little hard to dig out, but the important stuff should be in the vault, so it’ll be fine. It’d be a hassle to gather every little trinket.”
“…Wait…!”
“Then farewell, friend. Try to live a little more kindly in your next life.”
“You are the…!”
Crunch!
Once the one who had been chattering noisily fell silent, Harley began humming as he rummaged through the collapsed building.
The debris roaming through the air at will under “Jewel Eye: Coercion” looked as though one were witnessing the art of seizing objects through empty space, but by now, not a single person remained here to behold that astonishing sight.
“Oh! Found it! Wow, what a haul, huh?”
After all, the small fry and civilians that Harley had not hunted had already fled far away from this place long ago.