Ch.638Same Appearance, Different Reactions

The clash between two superhumans—one with power beyond human limits and the other with an indestructible body—inevitably turned into a battle of endurance.

Would Hersella’s body collapse first from the accumulated damage that penetrated her protection, or would Orhan’s Karma run out while maintaining his Unyielding Flesh?

A bloody struggle between the Empire’s finest and the strongest of the steppes.

Techniques that even those who had reached the realm of Heroes would find difficult to counter were colliding and being countered every second, yet the essence of this battle was ultimately a simple test of endurance.

“Sink into the fire pit!”

The vortex of Karma of Murder struck the magma that had risen ankle-deep, creating waves of extreme heat.

A red tidal wave that burned and melted everything it touched. Orhan broke off one of the stone pillars supporting the underground cavity and hurled it toward the magma wave. Sticky spray splashed in all directions.

“Not yet-!”

Hersella kicked away the flying boulder that came through the scattered magma, shattering it to pieces, and charged toward Orhan with fragments covering her entire body. The blue-silver blade shot toward Orhan’s eyes.

“Futile!”

Orhan deflected Aimeila’s sword with the edge of his hand and thrust his other fist toward Hersella’s abdomen. A force that could pierce even bedrock. The bullet-like fist drove into Hersella’s lower abdomen.

“So what!”

No, it tried to.

*Whoosh!*

A punch that pierced the air. Just before Orhan’s fist could reach her lower abdomen, Hersella wrapped tentacles of Karma of Murder around nearby rock masses and yanked herself in that direction.

A technique that used materialized Karma of Murder like a rope to throw herself toward terrain features. It was the evasion method she had demonstrated during her battle with Isabella.

Hersella, who had launched herself toward the rock mass, rotated half a turn in midair, landed on the surface of the rock, and—

*Crash!*

She charged again, shattering the boulder she had stepped on. It was a meteor-like charge.

Orhan twisted his waist sharply to kick away the approaching Hersella, but at that moment, a mass of crimson chains shot up from the magma on the ground and wrapped around his legs.

“Kuk…!”

The gap created by the Karma of Murder chains lasted only a brief moment, but it was enough time for Hersella’s thrust to reach Orhan’s solar plexus.

*Clang!*

With an intense metallic sound, Orhan’s body flew backward and crashed into the rock wall. Half-melted piles of stone tumbled down, covering and crushing his entire body.

“Tch….”

Hersella clicked her tongue as she landed on the magma. Despite landing a perfect hit, her expression was tinged with disappointment.

The metallic sound itself was proof that she had failed to inflict any damage on Orhan.

‘As expected, I can’t break through the Unyielding Flesh…!’

It was a strike that released all the power in her body at once, but even so, breaking through the Unyielding Flesh was impossible.

She could knock him back as she just did, but without being able to inflict wounds, it was merely buying a very short amount of time.

[No need to be disappointed, right? We prepared this strategy knowing we couldn’t break through it anyway. So we could win just by focusing on defense.]

The personality of Haschal… ‘Ha Sungwha’ who had retreated to the back of her consciousness answered.

As she said, just keeping Orhan trapped would guarantee Hersella’s victory. As long as she didn’t get beaten to death before Orhan’s Karma was depleted.

However, for Hersella, such a victory wasn’t exactly the outcome she wanted. She had agreed to it only because there was no other way, but if possible, she wanted to pierce Orhan’s heart with her own sword.

Besides…

‘We cannot be certain. Since we are trapped here, we cannot grasp the situation above. Though the possibility is low, if by some chance the imperial army is defeated, who knows how the situation might change.’

[…That’s true.]

Haschal agreed with a sour voice.

If those supplying oil and air to the underground cavity were killed, it would be impossible to maintain the fire trap. Both fuel and oxygen would disappear completely.

The melted magma would remain, but the blazing flames would consume all the oxygen in the cavity and die down, and if that happened, Hersella would have to choose between suffocating together with Orhan or escaping.

Or, the Ka’har warriors might dig through the remains of the wall from above to rescue Orhan.

With thousands of troops crushed to death in the collapse of the wall, it was unlikely that Ludwig would be defeated… but the power of ‘what if’ could not be ignored.

‘Besides, I might collapse before completely draining his energy. I can’t fight like this forever either.’

It was a fact unknown to Orhan, but just as his Unyielding Flesh had a time limit, Hersella also had a limit to how long she could fight.

Despite it being her original body, she had to continuously consume the power of Karma of Murder to maintain her consciousness at the forefront.

The moment the power of Karma of Murder was depleted, Hersella’s consciousness would fall asleep again, and Ha Sungwha’s personality would take over the body.

It wouldn’t affect the outcome of the battle, but it was an unacceptable conclusion for Hersella. The memorial service for her mother would only be meaningful if she carried it out with her own hands.

[…Well, what can we do? If we can’t penetrate the Unyielding Flesh, we have to continue like this. There’s no other way, right?]

Of course, it wasn’t Haschal’s concern. She thought that if Hersella failed, she would simply take over.

[It seems to be working well in practice too.]

As Haschal said, they had a slight advantage in this second battle against Orhan.

Not just because of the defensive power of the blessing.

Unlike the previous fight where she had to endure significant injuries just to buy time, the number of Orhan’s attacks that connected had decreased.

[It feels less like we’ve gotten stronger and more like Orhan has gotten a bit weaker.]

From Haschal’s perspective, Orhan’s attacks still carried devastating power, but everything except that power seemed slightly weaker than before.

His reaction speed to Hersella’s attacks, and the sharpness contained in each of his strikes.

Haschal thought it was because Orhan’s concentration was disrupted by the battlefield covered in flames and magma, but that wasn’t actually the reason.

Orhan’s attacks had become duller not because of the sense of crisis from falling into a trap and being in mortal danger, but because of Haschal’s appearance as she charged at him.

When she had been clothed in garments and armor, he could attack freely, but now that she was charging at him with her naked body on fire, even the great Orhan couldn’t help but have dulled reactions.

It was only natural. Although Orhan was fighting with the mindset that he wouldn’t mind dying here, he couldn’t remain indifferent to his daughter’s naked form.

Hersella had unintentionally employed an unethical form of seduction.

Orhan was also fighting naked, but Hersella and Haschal weren’t fazed by his appearance at all.

A man’s naked body was merely slightly unpleasant but all too familiar to Haschal, and Hersella had seen such forms often when leading her subordinates on raids, so she remained indifferent.

It sounded like a joke, but the difference in mindset between facing “a daughter’s nakedness” and “an enemy’s nakedness” was clearly affecting the flow of the battle.

==========

“Huu….”

Orhan, buried in the pile of stones, rose with a quiet sigh.

Looking back on his entire life, there had never been a more difficult fight than this one. Both physically and mentally.

Haschal was employing completely different tactics than before. Each strike was lighter than before, but she was now fully utilizing the power of Karma of Murder, which she had previously used only for flight, making it difficult for him to respond.

It felt like facing a warrior and a sorcerer who had both transcended the wall simultaneously.

He had never met a sorcerer who had transcended the wall, but if such a person existed, they might fight like this.

‘Impressive.’

Unfortunately, it seemed she hadn’t acquired enough power to break through the Unyielding Flesh, but if they fought with their spiritual techniques sealed, he couldn’t be certain he could defeat Haschal.

‘Impressive, but…’

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason why responding was difficult.

The basics of combat begin with facing the enemy and reading their movements, but when it was difficult to look directly at the opponent, responding became challenging.

When she swung her right foot like a whip to kick his head, he found himself averting his gaze completely without even realizing it. It was almost an instinctual response, so even Orhan had no way to control it.

If he were fighting someone other than Haschal, he wouldn’t have cared. If it had been a fight he absolutely couldn’t lose, a fight against an enemy, the opponent’s appearance wouldn’t have even registered.

In fact, if this had been that kind of battle, Orhan would have fought by any means necessary, trying to escape from this place somehow. If needed, he would have explicitly targeted the exposed vital points.

Continuing to fight here would only make his defeat more likely, and even for him, it was impossible to shake off the opponent’s interference and escape from this place using only straightforward attacks.

However, such fighting methods were impossible against his daughter.

He only wanted Haschal to become stronger than him, not to shame her or take her life.

Hersella was worried about the possibility of losing to Orhan, but this was a fight that Orhan had difficulty winning from the start.