The Hero Returns

Act 1

Pride.

And then, arrogance.

The world referred to this being, completely wrapped up in two emotions seemingly only a single hair removed from each other, as 'Pride'. Or, to denote his position as the ruler of this Babel Tower, the Babel King.

As the title suggested, he was the king of arrogance. And he also happened to be the strongest 'human being' ever, filled to the brim with the emotion of arrogance.

"A human who tamed a dragon, is it…"

Babel looked down at Su-hyeun from his throne. Literally, looked down.

Babel was easily two meters tall sitting down, and on top of that, the throne itself was several meters high as well. Naturally, this meant Su-hyeun had to look up at the guy.

Babel spoke again. "You're a strange man."

"Strange how?"

"You're probably far stronger than all other human beings. A dragon follows you, and you possess a level of strength that no ordinary man can ever hope to possess."

"So?"

"Yet, why do you not place yourself at a higher level than the others?"

Babel sat up straight in his chair and began scanning Su-hyeun from top to bottom.

It was at that moment that Su-hyeun figured out what this guy was confused about. the king of arrogance wasn't talking about his strength, but the emotions he possessed, instead.

Babel too had read Su-hyeun's emotions, just like Wrath from Paris's dungeon had done. Specifically, he tried to read the emotions close to 'pride' in Su-hyeun's heart.

And that was what the ruler of the Babel Tower found so puzzling. He couldn't sense the emotions of pride from Su-hyeun, the possessor of powers so much greater than anyone else.

"Humans exist solely to compare themselves to someone else. And you certainly have the qualifications to be prideful. After all, you possess the power to look down on the majority of mankind, do you not?"

"That's true, but…"

Crack-

Su-hyeun powerfully stabbed the sword on the floor. "But, the one I'm comparing myself to isn't anyone else, but me from the past."

"The past you?"

"There's nothing more idiotic than comparing yourself to other people and arguing who's better off of the two. This world is vast and you can find countless others who are either better or worse than me out there, after all."

Gu-wuwuwuwu-

With the spot where Su-hyeun had stabbed his sword acting as the central point, the whole tower began to vibrate.

The light in the eyes of the Babel King, still sitting on the golden throne began shaking, as well. He had realized that the cause of the vibration was Su-hyeun's sword, and that concerned him.

"You bastard…"

Grab-

Babel grabbed the armrest of his chair, and his magical energy began to seep into the ground via the throne. His power than began colliding against Su-hyeun's magical energy somewhere deep, deep underground.

Su-hyeun continued, "You asked why I didn't try to elevate myself above the others, didn't you? Because I'm not worthy. Because I'm still a long way off."

'Pride' was an emotion born from comparing yourself to somebody else. And that was why Su-hyeun couldn't be arrogant at all.

He knew what the past him was like. And that made him feel that even the lowest ceiling he needed to break through first before everything else was still so, so far away.

Kim Sung-in.

That was the past him.

The strongest, greatest awakener in the world, possessor of the ninth level of magical power, the hero who opposed Fafnir himself.

Su-hyeun's basis of comparison always had been Kim Sung-in. And that made it impossible to be conceited. He couldn't afford to be conceited, either.

"Although, that idea might be a little hard to understand for a fool like you, who wanted to reach the heavens by building something like this tower."

Tsht, chu chu chu-

The two men's magical powers continued to collide.

Babel was having a hard time trying to stop Su-hyeun's magical energy from spreading out to every corner of the tower from below the ground. Unfortunately for him, the speed of the latter's magic was simply too fast.

"Cease your actions this instant!"

Babel shot up from his throne.

The moment he extended his hand toward Su-hyeun…

Gu-wuwuwuwu-

Again, the tower began shaking even harder than before.

Pull-

Su-hyeun yanked his sword out of the ground. With this, his preparations were complete.

Babel, standing on his feet, seemed somewhat dazed compared to how confident he had looked earlier.

"This tower was built higher and higher without any proper foundation being laid down. I lightly messed around in a couple of places, here and there. It'll probably start coming down all by itself soon."

"You 'lightly messed around?'"

Babel's suspicion-filled glare was fixed on Su-hyeun.

Just as he said, he only lightly messed with some parts. The real problem wasn't to do with the heaviness of his actions, but where exactly he had been messing around, though.

<< He accurately attacked the core. >>

What Su-hyeun aimed for were the pillars underground that supported this tower—pillars that could bring this tower down.

Cracks were currently forming on those pillars. Eventually, they wouldn't be able to support the weight anymore and would begin to gradually crumble, causing the tower itself to collapse.

"Thirty minutes." Su-hyeun unfurled three fingers, before tucking them back in, "After that, this place will be gone. With that, your supply of power will disappear, too."

"How do you know that?!"

The brows of the Babel King shot up high. It seemed that he was greatly shocked by the fact that Su-hyeun knew this hidden truth.

"You don't have to know. What's important, though, is that you actually stood up from that chair."

Only after listening to Su-hyeun did Babel realize that he had stood up from the golden throne.

He was the symbol of Pride. He welcomed Su-hyeun while sitting down, as if to say that there was no need to even stand up while fighting his new guest.

That arrogant attitude was basically a display of his pride. But the event of him needing to stand up was tantamount to admitting that he had no choice but to humble himself.

It was to prevent the tower from collapsing, but he even failed in that front, as well.

For a short while there, Babel had a despondent expression, then, without warning, broke into a loud peal of laughter.

"What an amusing situation this is."

Both the tower crumbling down, and him standing up from the throne, too.

He hadn't even done anything yet, but to think that everything was about to disappear. Only, unrestrained laughter continued to leak out at the absurdity of this situation.

Babel covered his face with a hand and guffawed away. "Keuh-heuh, hehehe. Well, fine. It doesn't matter. I was thinking of heading outside soon, anyway. I'll just consider the timing being brought forward by a few days. And…"

"Miru."

Giiii-iiiing-

Somewhere near the tall ceiling…

A humongous mass of magical energy focused in one spot. Babel, about to finish his sentence, naturally had to raise his head to look.

"Breath."

[High Breath.]

[Cintamani.]

RUUUUMLE-!

Miru's Breath fired from the ceiling enveloped Babel's entire body.

Su-hyeun carefully watched his opponent's movements and ordered Miru to stay back.

Pah-ahk-

Swoooosh-

Not too long after that, a massive palm flew right at Su-hyeun's nose. The hand was large enough to hold the head of an average-sized adult man easily.

CLAAANG-!

Gu-gugugu-

Su-hyeun's sword clashed with that huge hand. The force of that arm shoved his body down, and the ground beneath his feet caved in instantly.

"Your elder was saying something. It's not polite to cut in," said Babel.

"I don't care how old you are, I just don't feel like giving you much respect, you know? I mean, the stuff you did was way too horrifying to be worthy of respect, wouldn't you say?"

Drop, tumble…

Even before Su-hyeun's retort came to an end, things fell from the ceiling. It was a skull and rib cage belonging to a human. That was just the beginning, and the pieces of solid rubble mixed with human bones continued to fall to the floor.

Gu-gugugu-

Babel glanced at that and muttered to himself, "Faces I haven't seen in a while. Although, I can't who was who anymore."

Wuduk, wu-dududuk-

Crack-!

While still holding the blade, Babel tried to shove Su-hyeun down to the floor.

Piii-iiht-

But even his monstrous strength had no answers for Su-hyeun's sword. The blade slipped out from the tight grip without much difficulty.

Su-hyeun rapidly took several steps back to create some distance and glanced at his surroundings.

<< The Tower of Babel. Also known as the Tower of Humans. >>

A tower literally built of humans—Babel buried alive people he used to live with in several places of the structure and became an existence that took their strengths as his own.

Meaning, bringing this tower down was a necessary first step in fighting Babel. As long as this structure remained standing, he would possess near-infinite strength.

<< The first task has been taken care of. >>

Gu-ooooh-

Su-hyeun sensed the incredible amount of magical power emanating from Babel and quickly enveloped himself in several layers of defense-related skills.

<< Here he comes. >>

Pah-aht-

Fwooooosh-

A huge fist flew toward Su-hyeun's head. In that blink of a moment, he lowered his body.

Paaang, kwa-boooom-!

The fist punching the empty air still managed to completely destroy the floor behind him.

That was a truly ridiculous amount of power. Just the concentration of magical energy permeating that fist was enough to almost numb Su-hyeun's body.

Swiiish, swoooosh-

Crack, split, craaack-!

Babel's punches chased after Su-hyeun's figure.

A simple barrage of punches, where not a single special skill was used. But Babel was a step above Su-hyeun in both power and speed.

<< He's fast. >>

Swoooosh-!

Su-hyeun stared at the fist brushing past right before his eyes.

The impact of getting struck just once would be considerable. If he took a direct hit from that, there was little doubt that he'd suffer a mortal wound.

But, why was this?

<< I don't think I will get hit by that. >>

Flash-

Su-hyeun moved first.

Fwooosh-

And, just before Babel's flying fist crashed into Su-hyeun's head…

Sliiiice-

The latter's sword dug deep into the giant's extended arm first.

"Eut?!"

The shocked Babel hurriedly slammed down with his other hand.

Kwa-booom-!

Crack, craaaack-

The fist aiming for that sword hit the floor, instead. The destroyed ground shattered and debris shot up.

Meanwhile, Su-hyeun was already up in the air. Babel's bloodshot eyes were glaring at him.

At the same time, the giant's fists began pummeling the air.

Pang, pa-pang-

Pang, papapapang-!

Magical powers shooting out from the barrage of punches flew toward Su-hyeun. At that moment, his figure descending to the ground leaped up higher into the air, instead.

[Leap.] [Leap.]

[Dragon Slaying Spear.]

Only after jumping high enough to reach the ceiling did he pull out the spear tied to his back.

Soon he was right above Babel's head. He jerked his arm back before powerfully swinging it down—all the while injecting his magical energy into the spear.

[Wave Spear- Explosion Style.]

Swiiiish-

Pahk, papapapahk-

Spears began raining down.

The spears permeated with powerful magical energy rained down and began slicing up Babel's body. But the giant simply shielded his head and other vital spots and jumped up without even bothering to evade the attack.

Boom-

Swoooosh-

Su-hyeun's next attack commenced in order to stop Babel, but it was useless. The giant extended his hand to catch his opponent.

Grab-

"I got you."

Babel smirked while holding onto Su-hyeun's leg, then tightened his grip. In an instant…

Crush-

Sounds of the leg being crushed came out from the giant's hand.

But then…

Ruuumble-

Kwa-booom-!

[Doppelganger.]

[Flame.]

Su-hyeun's body suddenly transformed into a dark blue-colored flame and exploded.

"Keuh-euh…"

Babel furrowed his brows at the sizzling heat burning in his palm.

The moment he chucked his spear, Su-hyeun used his skill and swapped his position with the fake.

"You know, this is strange," said Su-hyeun.

Ta-dahk-

Babel, landing on his two feet, looked behind him. That's where he found Su-hyeun with the lowered sword staring back with a face full of confusion.

"You're a lot weaker than I thought. Even if we're talking about the very first indigo color… This is very different from what I heard about, you know?"

Su-hyeun's previous stiff, tense expression had loosened some time ago. On the other hand, Babel's expression was cramping up, instead.

"What did you just say to me?"

"I said, compared to what I thought, you're nothing much to write home about. Is it because you can't get extra power from the tower? You're way behind me purely in skills, and, besides your physical body, you have nothing else to offer, do you?"

"You even dare to bluff…!"

"Bluff? I wonder about that."

The corners of Su-hyeun's lips curled up. At the same time, his sword pointing down suddenly moved.

Splaaash-!

"…!"

Babel's chest was sliced open and blood spluttered out. His eyes shot up as if he couldn't believe that actual blood had been drawn from his flesh. He stared at his open wound in disbelief.

"See, I told you." On the other hand, Su-hyeun, swinging his sword from a distance, was speaking in a clearly mocking tone of voice. "You're nothing special."