Ch.151151. The Final Day.

“slow.”

With a greasy voice, Sunwoo sliced through the fly’s back.

Sizzle-

The green fluid that fell to the ground made a disgusting sound as it emitted smoke.

“Too slow.”

Regardless, Sunwoo continued muttering strange phrases, intoxicated by his sword dance.

Unable to bear it any longer, Sunhwa screamed.

“Fight properly!”

“Ah, sis. It’s visualization, visualization.”

Apparently, reciting chuunibyou-filled lines helps him visualize better.

Of course, despite his words, Sunwoo had his own strategy.

[Tsk. How amusing to see you bluffing to forget your fear.]

Sunwoo didn’t bother refuting the words of the Fly King – Beelzebub.

He couldn’t deny it, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

The giant fly instinctively emitted a rotten stench that gnawed at one’s mind.

It wasn’t just a headache-inducing smell, but literally a stench that could reduce humans to beasts.

If he lost focus even slightly, he felt he would face the darkness within himself.

[Foolish boy. Do you truly believe you can hunt the beast?]

[No, you cannot. Humans are beasts. They merely suppress it with civilization and reason.]

[But what about this world now? People abandon their conscience to survive. This world is the result.]

[It’s not difficult. Just admit that you too are part of the beast…]

“You talk too much for someone about to die.”

Slash.

Sunwoo’s spinning slash cut off three of the fly’s legs.

The fly immediately flew up to create distance and regenerate, but Sunwoo cut off its wings, making it crash back to the ground.

“Everything that falls has wings.”

The reason he kept spouting cringeworthy lines was to remind himself that he was human.

He felt sleepy, hungry, excited, and afraid.

Numerous bestial impulses tempted him.

Believing his intellect wasn’t particularly strong, he thought this was the only way to suppress all these instincts.

Self-actualization, or in other words, dreams.

Only his admiration for righteous outlaws and coolness kept him human.

“I’ll begin your funeral right here!”

Sunwoo deliberately chose cool phrases as he split the fly’s head in half.

Finally, the Fly King stopped its mental attacks and revealed its true form.

[When one falls, flies will swarm to the corpse.]

[The flies will consume each other and grow larger-]

[A legion shall rise from the rotting corpse!]

The Fly King roared as its split head stopped making that nerve-grating metallic sound.

A swarm of flies poured out from the split head, and as it had said, the flies began to devour each other, increasing their numbers.

If left unchecked, this swarm could cover the city like a plague of locusts.

Sunwoo hurriedly swung his sword into the center of the swarm.

Some flies avoided the blade, but others were cut.

He calculated that if he performed a whirlwind attack, he could grind all the flies to dust.

But Sunwoo couldn’t decide easily.

Sizzle-

The sword that had cut the small flies was being corroded, covered in green fluid.

A self-destructing virus that multiplies infinitely by consuming corpses.

That was the identity of the fly swarm.

Sunwoo turned pale imagining what would happen if that fluid covered him.

But while he hesitated, the number of flies was increasing in real time.

He looked at the city once, then at his companions, and steeled his resolve.

Sunwoo made the sign of the cross, holding a sword with rotation energy in his right hand and a new sword in his left to replace the corroded one.

“If I survive this, I’ll go pay tithes or whatever.”

After a brief prayer without faith, he began spinning with all his might.

There might have been a cooler method, but this was the only technique he could think of to grind these flies to dust.

Even as he thought how ridiculous he looked, he didn’t stop spinning.

He didn’t stop even when swords without energy coating melted away.

As long as they were chunks of metal, they would work for dealing with flies.

Only the energy-coated sword, the one Amon had passed down to him, regenerated when he poured magical power into it.

He didn’t stop spinning even as his clothes turned to rags and his skin began to burn.

Finally, when his entire body was covered in burns-

[The beast is never hunted- We shall rise again-]

“The Fly King wasn’t much after all.”

With those dying words spoken through countless fly vocal cords, Beelzebub ceased to move.

Of course, Sunwoo hadn’t escaped unscathed.

As a result of being exposed to countless fly self-destructions during his spinning, his entire body was covered in burns.

In that condition, he kept his eyes on the corpse, worried the flies might resurrect again.

Rustle

The wings of the giant fly that had spewed out the swarm vibrated slightly.

Sunwoo startled and chopped the giant fly into pieces, but soon realized the vibration was just from the wind and sat down in exhaustion.

Then, turning his head toward the sarcophagus where Amon was sleeping, he muttered,

“Fuck… I pulled off something impressive too.”

He savored the afterglow of victory while trying to suppress the smile that kept creeping onto his face.

Beelzebub VS Ju Sunwoo.

Ju Sunwoo wins.

***

Sunhwa had decided to take on the demon Bael.

“Your powers are excellent swordsmanship and invisibility, right? I’ve wanted to face you.”

She didn’t know the abilities of the other three fragments – Beelzebub, Set, and Baal.

But Bael’s abilities were detailed in the Lemegeton.

Since she was the strongest in close combat among the remaining party members, she automatically volunteered to face Bael.

Clang!

An intense exchange began between the two.

The demon Bael was a rapier user.

Given her combat style of defending with a jian and counterattacking with a hwando, the sharp thrusts of the rapier were very difficult to parry.

‘He’s only coming in with thrusts, not slashes.’

Of course, if Bael were an ordinary swordsman, even thrusts wouldn’t be difficult to parry.

But his swordsmanship power was no lie – Bael’s thrusts were enough to make Sunhwa’s blood run cold.

Moreover, his use of invisibility was also powerful.

[Sometimes, what is visible deceives the eye more than what is invisible.]

Instead of making his entire body invisible, he only made parts of his sword and lower body transparent.

This technique, which created gaps that forced misjudgment, was far more deadly in a duel between swordsmen than complete invisibility.

Unable to gauge the distance, she couldn’t tell whether his sword swings were feints or genuine attacks.

As a result, the sword exchange became one-sided with Sunhwa on the defensive.

[To think you’d face me just because you’re a swordsman. You might have been better off facing one of my other selves.]

Bael sneered at Sunhwa, who couldn’t respond to his sword.

As he pointed out, perhaps her abilities were more specialized for facing other fragments of Bael.

Adapt with the jian, strike with the hwando.

Her ability was powerful against opponents who relied on abilities and characteristics, but nearly useless against opponents who relied on pure skill.

In that sense, since Bael’s swordsmanship was pure skill, her ability was essentially sealed.

But instead of responding, Sunhwa kept her eyes fixed on Bael’s shoulders and feet.

Sometimes she failed to block his sword and got stabbed, but so far she had managed to avoid vital points.

By the time her martial arts uniform was stained red, she quietly recited:

“不迷之劍，終知所向 (A sword that does not lose its way will know where to strike.)”

[?!]

Suddenly her jian perfectly deflected the rapier, and her hwando sliced across the demon’s abdomen.

Bael glared at Sunhwa in bewilderment at her sudden improvement.

“How…?”

“Well. Do I have any reason to tell you?”

Her counterattack began.

The demon, who had deliberately used a rapier that was difficult for her to defend against, switched to a longsword in response.

As the sword changed, so did his swordsmanship, and Sunhwa was pushed back on the defensive again as Bael combined wrestling with his attacks.

But before long, she adapted again and counterattacked by slicing his thigh.

[Tch.]

By now, Bael had abandoned formality and began facing her in earnest.

The battle continued in this pattern.

Bael kept changing his sword and swordsmanship, and she slowly adapted to each change.

As the battle continued, Bael grew increasingly impatient.

‘Why?’

The situation was overwhelmingly in his favor.

While his wounds regenerated as he changed swords, Sunhwa’s body accumulated more and more scars.

His sliced abdomen and thigh had already regenerated to almost normal.

In contrast, Sunhwa was covered in blood and seemed to be struggling just to stand.

However, Bael’s instinct as an excellent swordsman warned him.

‘She’s adapting to me.’

The evidence was that the time it took for her to adapt to each of his sword styles was gradually decreasing.

If she fully adapted at this rate…

‘No, that won’t happen.’

As a demon bearing the title of the most excellent swordsman, he couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

Finally, Bael brought out his trump card.

‘I didn’t want to use this, but…’

Until now, he had refrained from using invisibility due to his pride as a swordsman, but things had changed.

‘Playtime is over.’

He drew a zweihander and made his entire body invisible.

It was a combination for a fatal strike from a place that couldn’t be seen or heard.

‘You won’t call me a coward, will you, swordsman of Joseon?’

He swung the zweihander.

And the sword passed right through Sunhwa’s hologram.

[!!!]

If one can’t be seen, the solution is to bait the attack.

She had left a hologram on the ground and jumped into the air.

Sunhwa, who had determined Bael’s position from the distortion of the hologram, swung her sword toward where he should be.

[Above!]

Bael immediately noticed her deception.

Clang!

He easily blocked the sword coming down from the sky.

Then his eyes caught sight of her bare feet.

It was a stance as if she were planting her feet firmly to prepare for a powerful strike.

‘In mid-air??’

While he was trying to figure out her intention, the weight on his sword disappeared.

Bael looked around in confusion for traces of her, but all he could see was the hologram she had just left.

The next moment, a large horizontal slash came through the hologram, and Bael realized he had been deceived.

‘Geomancy teleportation!!’

He never imagined that the place where he was standing would be on a ley line.

In that split second, Bael regretted his misjudgment, but it was already too late.

The sword cut through his waist, separating his upper and lower body.

Thud.

His upper body fell limply to the ground.

Bael stared blankly at the sky and muttered:

[If I had used invisibility from the start…]

“It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Though victorious, Sunhwa, covered in blood and looking like she might collapse at any moment, refuted him.

“You know that too, don’t you?”

[…]

Bael couldn’t argue.

From the moment he was deceived by her at the end, he had essentially suffered a complete defeat against her.

Before disappearing, he voiced the curiosity he had been harboring about her.

[Was adapting to my sword… your sword’s ability?]

“You misunderstand. It’s not my sword that adapts, it’s me.”

She emphasized that the sword was merely an extension of herself.

Only then did Bael realize his mistake.

[So I was the one who forgot the essence of swordsmanship…]

The sword is ultimately determined by the swordsman.

The moment he judged her essence as a human with a sword rather than a swordsman, his defeat was sealed.

[This is my complete defeat.]

“You’re too much like a warrior for a demon.”

[Perhaps.]

Bael twisted his lips bitterly.

As she said, Bael was one who had pursued all kinds of pleasure, wisdom, learning, and martial arts, even encroaching upon divinity.

[I am always foolish.]

Self-deprecating his characteristic of knowing everything yet always forgetting the essence, he closed his eyes.

Sensing that he would be the same in his next reincarnation.

“Phew…”

She caught her breath as she watched the demon turn to ashes.

She took out a pipe and put it in her mouth.

For reference, it wasn’t tobacco but a vitamin.

For someone who was trying to quit smoking but had a hobby of writing poetry while looking at the moon, it was too cruel to ask her not to put anything in her mouth.

So she was savoring her victory while puffing out smoke from a vitamin.

“Phew…”

She moved her feet, looking at her companions who were still in battle.

But before she could take two steps, her knees gave out.

“Ah, I’ve lost too much blood.”

Adapting to Bael was good, but she had lost too much blood in the process.

She rummaged through her pocket for a rapid hemostatic agent, but she had used it all during the battle.

“Haah…”

In the end, she decided to trust her companions and wait, sitting down.

Coolly, this was the wiser choice than becoming a burden.

Looking at the setting sun, she recited a poem.

“不迷之劍，終知所向 (A sword that does not lose its way will know where to strike.)”

Phew.

Exhaling a puff of smoke, she looked at the sarcophagus and continued her verse.

“劍無迷惑，其勝為君 (A sword without delusion declares, I dedicate this victory to you, my lord.)”

Bael VS Ju Sunhwa.

Ju Sunhwa victory.