The Hero Returns

[Flame - Land of Fire]

Ruuuumble—

Crimson flames completely filled up the coliseum.

The purpose of these lukewarm flames wasn't to burn the enemies down but to create a more favorable environment for Su-hyeun. Even so, these flames were more than enough to set the much weaker small fries on fire, preventing them from interfering too easily.

"I've managed to tie them down, so..."

A bluish light swirled within Su-hyeun's eyes. He had strengthened the power of Insight just then.

Up to this point, he used it to see vast distances, but its use would be different from now on: That would be to see what might happen to him in the very near future.

Fwhoooosh—!

A long spear attempted to chop Su-hyeun's figure in half, but he disappeared like a mirage at the same time.

The spear that attacked him from behind lost its target and came to a brief pause.

Smack—!

Su-hyeun's fist slammed into the head of the spear wielder.

That head should have been blown apart into smithereens from the impact, yet only the skull got crushed to bits.

Plop—

Still, the spear wielder died in one strike.

The sturdiness Su-hyeun felt through his fist was somewhat different from the others so far.

"Was that a version of Energy Barrier?"

The "Energy Barrier" was a technique where the wielder protected themselves by wrapping their body in magical energy. The greater the quantity of their magical energy was, the denser and stronger the barrier generated would be.

Even without seeing who it was, Su-hyeun still figured out the identity of the spear wielder through the strike, as well as the application of the Energy Barrier.

"That was Jang Chun, wasn't it?"

Jang Chun, a martial artist born before Cheon Mu-jin's time, was a demon-like man who fought against the entire world by himself.

If there hadn't been other notable heroes also living in the same era as Jang Chun, Cheon Mu-jin's world would've been led down the path of destruction even before he had the chance to be born.

"Should I sweep them up at once?"

Su-hyeun was about to reach out to Gungnir tied to his back, but then, he shook his head.

He didn't need to go that far just yet.

Pazzzzik—

[Grand Thunderbolt]

The gigantic lightning spear summoned into his hand had to be dozens of meters in length. Rather than a spear, it looked more like Su-hyeun had actually caught a lightning bolt that fell from the heavens.

The lightning wrapped around his hand and maintained its outer appearance.

RUMBLE—!

However, he wasn't planning to throw this lightning spear. Instead of throwing it, he began to swing it around powerfully.

Pa-sususu—

All the past lives caught in the range of the lightning spear turned into black smoke and disappeared from there. Even with only one swing, the Thunderbolt grew somewhat blurry, as if maintaining this form had become more difficult.

"I guess I can't use it for long."

"One, two..."

Su-hyeun assumed the spear-throwing stance.

The past lives must've sensed the incoming danger because they stopped pouncing on him and hurriedly parted left and right to get out of the way.

But that response was one step too late.

Su-hyeun powerfully chucked the spear.

FLASH—!

KA-BOOOOOM—!

A massive explosion of electricity rocked the coliseum.

* * *

Flash—!

Rumble, booooom—!

[Rain of Thunder]

[Flame - Chain Explosion]

Electrical currents and explosions of flames continued to go off. Su-hyeun, enveloped in crimson flames and his left arm crackling with electricity, swung his sword down hard.

[One Sword Cutting Through Everything - Earth Divider]

[Flame]

Ruuumble—

Splaaaaat—!

His blade split the coliseum in half. The audience seats, already half destroyed by then, began tilting to one side before completely crumbling to pieces.

BOOM—!

When the heavy structure collapsed, it managed to crush several enemies along the way, too. However, the remainder of his past lives weren't so weak that they would die by something on that level.

Shu-pat—!

Slice—

A superficial scratch was left on Su-hyeun's cheek.

He failed to dodge an incoming spear completely on time.

"Well, that's troublesome."

His enemies were persistently targeting only his head. That was because they had figured out that he was protected by a set of sturdy armor, making it difficult to hurt him in the torso.

Fwhoooosh—!

A figure broke through the explosions and reached the front of Su-hyeun just then. His hand was gripping a sword just like Su-hyeun's.

Smack—!

"Hmm," Su-hyeun furrowed his brow.

The strength he sensed through his hand was quite considerable. That explained why this past life managed to break through the Rain of Thunder to reach him. However, this past life still wasn't quite strong enough to chop him apart in one go.

The thing was, though, it wasn't just one opponent who managed to break through the obstructions of the divine Flame and the Rain of Thunder.

"Freeze him to death!"

Buzz, bzzzzz—

Dozens of magic circles manifested all around Su-hyeun next.

"Blizzard!"

Crack, craaackle—

Freezing and tough ice encased and solidified Su-hyeun's body. A similar thing happened to the past life crossing swords with him, but the one bearing the brunt of this freezing attack was undoubtedly Su-hyeun.

But right at that moment...

Shu-rururu—

"What?"

Su-hyeun's figure that was trapped in ice melted down like snow.

[Doppelganger]

"Bingo."

Su-hyeun's voice came from somewhere in the air.

With his hands frozen, the opponent quickly looked up; a surprised expression etched on his face.

Slice—

His torso was chopped apart in half.

Su-hyeun watched this past life transform into smoke in the blink of an eye, then reached behind him. "With that, about one-tenth remains."

Compared to the beginning, the number of his opponents had definitely decreased.

Sure, so many enemies remained that they resembled a black ocean, but their enormous sense of presence—the one that felt like an unstoppable tide—had become noticeably thinner.

That must have been due to their numbers decreasing by quite a lot.

"As for the remaining ones," Su-hyeun's hand gripped Gungnir, "I'll clean them up in one go."

Squeeze—

Pazzzik, pazzzzzzik—!

The golden Gungnir's shaft was enveloped in azure and orange-gold arcs of electricity.

Rumble, bang—!

Streaks of lightning began crashing down from the storm clouds in the sky.

They fell like raindrops before concentrating on Gungnir. The spear acted like a lightning rod, attracting all the lightning bolts and turning them into arcs of electricity.

"You can do this."

Squeeeeze—!

Although Su-hyeun was the one who gathered the electrical currents, he had to clench his teeth and endure.

"Yes, you can do this!"

He wasn't talking to himself.

In his hand was a weapon capable of attracting the power of lightning and containing it.

With it, he did not need to exhaust his mental strength to attract lightning bolts and maintain the form of Thunderbolts, which wasn't the easiest thing to do in the world. Gungnir already came in the form of a spear, after all.

All he had to do in this case was to attract the power of lightning into Gungnir.

It wouldn't have been able to do it if it was an ordinary weapon. No matter how hard adamantium was, he did not doubt that the weapon would not endure the strain and shatter into pieces.

However, if it was Gungnir—if it was the weapon crafted by the Primordial God, Brahma, then...

For the first time during this battle, Set, who was watching from the sidelines, finally opened his mouth, "Now that looks dangerous."

He could only be referring to the powerful energy starting to concentrate on Gungnir.

He broke the silence because he had instinctively figured out the true destructive power of that energy. Moreover, it wasn't just Set who realized this. Every single past life still present thought the same thing.

However, their responses to this quandary were not exactly the same.

Pah-ahk—

Swiiiiiiiiiiiish—

Several quickly distanced themselves, trying to get out of Gungnir's attack range. Others dashed in, trying to stab Su-hyeun in the back while gathering his power.

When the latter group came close enough...

"How nice of you to come to me."

Whoosh—

FLASH—!

Su-hyeun swung Gungnir around just like that.

Two lightning energies sporting distinctly different colors, one orange-gold and the other azure, whipped up into a frenzied storm.

For a brief moment there, a blinding light flashed before disappearing. With that, countless past lives rushing toward Su-hyeun got vaporized to nothingness.

Set, sitting on the intact audience seat, shot up to his feet.

That attack just now was on a completely different scale to the Thunderbolt from earlier.

Simply maintaining a Thunderbolt's outer shape was quite taxing. Swinging it around once would already make its form blurrier and indistinct.

But that wasn't the case with Gungnir.

To him, it was really dangerous.

"Get out of its reach, now!" Set's roar echoed loudly within the destroyed remnants of the coliseum.

Unfortunately, it was already too late for such a warning.

Khyaaaaaah—!

A figure of a dragon materialized all around Gungnir next.

[Gungnir - Thunder Dragon Miru]

Pazzzik, pazzzzzik—!

The image of the dragon floated above the highly concentrated energy. It was getting much harder to hold the spear now.

"One..."

Two—

Su-hyeun's back arched greatly. He was getting into the spear-throwing stance.

For a very brief moment there, he mistakenly thought that the whole world had come to a standstill with Gungnir as the center of it all.

The tip of Gungnir, flashing and crackling in colorful light, now pointed toward the center of the coliseum.

And finally...

"Three!"

He cried out the last number, and Gungnir shot out of his grip.

FLASH—!

* * *

KA-BOOOOOOM—!

FLASH, pazzzzzzik—!

A massive pillar of light shot up from the coliseum.

Even if anyone wanted to dodge it, they would still be trapped within the coliseum. Su-hyeun's past lives were swept up in the range of the attack and began vaporizing one by one.

Swiiiiish, grab—!

Huff, huff...

Gungnir flew out with so much power and returned to Su-hyeun's hand without much fanfare.

The sense of its weight before and after throwing it felt markedly different. It was undeniable proof that his stamina and magical energy reserve had diminished significantly.

"Did I push myself a little too hard?"

He began wondering if it was wise to pour out so much magical energy in one go like that.

Should he have stuck to a drawn-out battle and carefully conserved his strength?

The electrical sparks and currents gradually receded, revealing the sight of the coliseum.

No, wait...

"It can't even be called a coliseum anymore, huh?"

Shu-wuwu...

The dust settled down, revealing the scorched-black coliseum's debris. Since the vaporized past lives didn't leave behind a corpse, the only way to figure out how many died just now was to count the living ones.

"They managed to block that?"

Around a few thousand remained.

Compared to the beginning, this number was nothing but a drop in the ocean, but surviving Gungnir's attack proved how strong they were.

"Even though they did not manage to survive by themselves..."

Considering the remaining number before the attack, it made sense that this group managed to avoid getting swept up in Gungnir's attack and survive.

If every single one of these individuals poured out all of their strengths to defend against the electrical currents spreading out from Gungnir, then for sure, the tale would be a different one.

Whatever the case might be, they managed to do it—after experiencing considerable sacrifices.

"Fuu-woo..."

Su-hyeun sucked in a deep breath for one last time and slowly descended to the ground.

Creak, gugugu...

Rumble, gugugugu...

The ground shook, and the wrecked coliseum began rising again.

Su-hyeun wordlessly watched this scene unfold. Rebuilding the destroyed coliseum was not a big deal as long as he wanted it to happen. However, what was happening right now wasn't his doing.

"Isn't such a shabby stage unfit for us?"

Step—

The one responsible for rebuilding the coliseum, Set, began stepping forward.

Su-hyeun wordlessly stared at him. Truth be told, he had been staring at him for a long time now.

"He definitely cut it down," he thought.

Just as Su-hyeun threw Gungnir, Set finally yanked his sword out.

That sword in his hand was the very weapon that cleanly chopped apart Gungnir's lightning current overflowing throughout the coliseum.

Even if he wasn't directly attacked by the spear and was simply within the range of the electrical charge, that was still something else.

"You know, this thing called fate can be quite mysterious at times."

Clack—

Set wielded a sword in one hand while his other hand gripped a shield. Pitch-black energy oozing out of his figure began forcing back the remaining electrical currents inside the coliseum.

This was Osiris's closest friend and Su-hyeun's very first past life.

"To think that our beginning and end can be this different," Set glared at Su-hyeun with a pair of eyes brimming with contempt and hatred.

They might be of the same soul, but they couldn't be any more different. That was true for every single individual present in this place, too.

"You lot have been yapping away like crazy in my head for a while now. It's getting a bit bothersome, you know. You and me, we're all the same person, so I do get where you're coming from, but..."

Whoos—

Gungnir flew out of Su-hyeun's grip once more.

POW—!

The golden spear whooshed past Set's head and blew apart the head of another opponent behind him.

Having finished throwing the spear lightly, Su-hyeun addressed Set in a firm and resolute voice, "Even so, I'd very much like you to shut the hell up now."