Ch.639Holding hands together

– KWAAANG!

Orhan burst out like a fountain, shattering the melting pile of rocks.

Lava covered his entire body and dripped down, but underneath, his body was without even a scratch, just as Hersella had expected. He remained as solid as a steel tower, as tough as black iron.

Like Durandal that had found its master, he seemed to embody the very concept of “Unyielding Flesh.” It appeared impossible to harm that body with any weapon in this world.

‘As expected.’

Hersella clicked her tongue softly and charged at him once more.

“Kyaaaah!”

She swung her longsword with a roar full of killing intent. But it was ineffective.

The blade aimed at Orhan’s neck stopped with a metallic sound, and Hersella’s left hand, shot like lightning, was caught in Orhan’s grip. Frosting creaked and screamed under his superhuman grip.

Hersella frowned as her wrist began to ache.

“Let go!”

Her right foot extended toward Orhan’s abdomen. It was a strike meant to push rather than damage. Unfortunately for Hersella, her kick never reached his abdomen.

“Hap!”

Before her kick could connect, Orhan swung his arm like a whip and slammed her body into the ground.

Her body, wrapped in crimson currents, crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact. Lava splashed like water, and the ground beneath cracked.

“Kuk…!”

Hersella let out a groan.

Her mind reeled like a small boat in a storm. A chunk of flesh struck her jaw.

Her consciousness blurred for a moment. Survival instinct took over her clouded mind. Her body moved reflexively, performing the most appropriate counterattack from muscle memory.

A joint lock. A technique she had honed to fight armored opponents when she lacked the strength to break through armor was unconsciously deployed.

Hersella’s hands gripped Orhan’s wrist while her legs wrapped around his forearm.

As her white calves pressed down on Orhan’s neck and collarbone, his forearm was firmly fixed between Hersella’s thighs as if clamped in a vise.

Using all her limbs to hang onto Orhan’s forearm, Hersella pulled his arm deep into her embrace and arched her back dramatically. It was a technique designed to break an armored enemy’s elbow and shoulder joint, ripping the arm off.

“Huhk…!”

Orhan drew in a startled breath.

The perfectly executed joint lock had a significant impact on him—not physically, but mentally.

When Hersella grabbed his arm and pulled hard, Orhan was visibly flustered and tried with all his might to shake her off. He was so shocked that even his Unyielding Flesh wavered momentarily.

It wasn’t because of joint pain. His body wasn’t merely like an armored human but more like armor itself, so a joint lock couldn’t injure him.

What shocked Orhan to his core wasn’t the joint lock itself, but the fact that she would apply such a technique in ‘this situation.’

“Get off!”

Orhan tried to ignore the sensation traveling up his forearm and slammed Hersella against the cavern wall. With a thunderous boom, the half-melted rock burst, spewing lava like blood.

“Kek…!”

The impact on her back made Hersella’s legs loosen slightly.

It was a tiny opening, but Orhan didn’t miss it. In few situations throughout his decades of combat had he felt this desperate, so his nerves were more alert than ever.

“KAAAAP!”

With a roar like a tiger, Orhan extended his other arm, grabbed Hersella’s calf as if tearing at it, and swung with all his might.

He did this to create the sense of crisis that if she maintained her joint lock position, her leg would be torn off first.

As his left arm swung with the force of a typhoon, Hersella released Orhan’s right arm without much resistance.

Though she had instinctively applied the joint lock to Orhan’s arm, as soon as her consciousness returned, she realized what she was doing.

‘What on earth am I…?!’

Confusion, bewilderment, and a sudden wave of vague shame made Hersella release the forearm she had been holding.

Though vengeance and resentment soaked her marrow and provoked fierce killing intent, her reason couldn’t accept clinging to her enemy’s arm while naked.

Besides, clinging to him wouldn’t inflict any injury anyway.

Orhan trying to remove Hersella from his arm, and Hersella trying to let go of Orhan’s forearm—for a brief moment, they both wanted the same thing.

As a result, Hersella’s body was thrown like a shot put—

—KWAAANG!

She crashed into the ceiling of the underground cavern with a thunderous sound.

The rock supporting the ceiling couldn’t withstand the impact and shattered.

As broken rocks rained down, Hersella extended her Karma of Murder tentacles to anchor herself to the ceiling while glaring at Orhan. Her cheeks were slightly flushed.

The evaporating bloody steam concealed her complexion.

—-

“…Targeting joints is pointless.”

Having convulsively swung his arm to shake off Haschal, Orhan uttered only this one sentence.

His tone seemed arrogant, boasting the firmness of his Unyielding Flesh, but in reality, it was closer to a plea: please don’t attack with joint locks.

‘What kind of situation is this?’

Despite his arrogant tone, Orhan felt an indescribable sense of powerlessness. This was not the fight with Haschal he had desired and imagined would someday occur.

The succession of power through a bloody battle where capability clashed with capability, skill with skill, killing intent with fighting spirit, ending with his successor cutting through even the Unyielding Flesh and defeating him.

None of that existed here.

The reality Orhan faced was his daughter, without a stitch of clothing, clinging to his arm, and himself beating her in the same unclothed state.

How would that look to others? His fighting spirit waned like a cooling corpse. His surging will subsided, making him forget even the sense of being trapped.

‘Should I continue fighting like this? Until the end?’

If just a few minutes of fighting had already shown him all sorts of unseemly sights, what would he witness if they continued until one of them was finished? The mere thought was uncomfortable.

‘With this feeling?’

On the verge of sighing, Orhan unconsciously slumped his shoulders slightly. For the first time in his life, he felt the urge to abandon a fight.

“…Let’s talk for a moment.”

He wanted to attempt persuasion again, despite having failed once before.

—-

“Nonsense. I have no intention of exchanging words with an enemy. The only thing I want to hear from you is your death rattle.”

In response to the sudden request for dialogue, Hersella, clinging to the ceiling like a spider, replied in a cold tone.

She had no desire to speak with Orhan. Talking would only inflame her anger. It had always been that way, and it remained so now.

“For someone saying that, you were talking quite freely until just now.”

“That was because I… No, never mind. What’s the point of explaining.”

Hersella, who was about to explain indignantly, closed her mouth.

“To someone who will soon be dead.”

It wasn’t her but Plev occupying her body who had conversed with Orhan, but Hersella had no desire to explain the existence of her companion dwelling within her.

So she stopped talking and kicked off the ceiling to charge at Orhan.

‘Fighting up close only gets me grabbed and thrown. In that case…!’

Hersella changed her tactics.

Instead of making futile attacks with Durandal and Frosting, she picked up rocks floating on the lava and threw them, using her Karma of Murder tentacles like hooks to freely jump between walls and ceiling, evading Orhan’s counterattacks.

Her movements resembled a combination of a wasp and a gorilla.

Orhan kicked away the flying rocks, breaking them, and split half-melted stone pillars to wield like maces. Massive rocks collided violently, creating thunderous explosions that reverberated throughout.

“…Is this for Imelia’s revenge?”

“Don’t speak my mother’s name! How dare you!”

Though Hersella had resolved not to speak with Orhan, the moment Imelia’s name was mentioned, that resolution immediately shattered. She roared like a dragon whose vital scale had been torn off, raging fiercely.

“Conscience, you say. You probably think I neglected and abandoned Imelia. But that’s a misunderstanding. I—”

Orhan finally tried to explain the truth behind the misunderstanding that had been left unaddressed for nearly a decade. Daughter becoming stronger through hatred or not, he no longer wanted to fight like this.

The sensation of the joint lock branded on his right arm had inflicted enough mental trauma to rob him of his fighting spirit.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. That you had good reasons for abandoning Mother in the Golden Flower Palace and not even showing your face at her funeral?”

Hersella, responding to the word “misunderstanding,” glared at Orhan with contempt.

“I already know all that.”

She uttered words Orhan could never have expected.