Level 0 Master

[Challenger against Protector. Commencing the last battle.]

The Valkyrie's voice echoed solemnly.

And for the last time, the same battlefield opened up. A straight tunnel. There was no space to move left or right.

Varka, who liked putting on a show of power in a contest, walked confidently down the tunnel. He walked as if he didn't consider the narrow walls an obstacle.

Sungjin's teammates greeted him. It was the exact same situation as before. If there was a difference, it was that there was one more person this time. It was now seven against one, but even before that number, the Kaiser of White Silver looked complacent. After all, no matter the number, his powers remained the same.

He moved immediately without waiting for the opponent to strike first. It was his benevolence to crush their resistance immediately.

"The Front Wheel of the Universe." As soon as Varka finished his seal, a wheel began to turn—that was the absolute power of someone who conquered, of the sole undefeatable king who ruled and led every being by himself.

It was the tyranny of dictatorship in its truest form. There was no sense of freedom within the structure. It had an absolute power, but its activation was brief.

A skill that continuously evolved. Always perfect. It had been so until now.

Sungjin's sword was embedded into the ground. Dawn Bringer.

The sacred sword, which dismissed all illusions and returned natural order, shone brightly, and one piece of the wheel broke apart.

Sungjin was able to protect himself within the sword's protective shield.

"You've rebuffed my attack."

Their eyes clashed.

"This is the second time. I can read your timing, at the very least."

"I see. You do have the right to enter the central."

"I also have the right to defeat you. Stat Exchange!" Sungjin threw the sword before him and ran forward. What went with him was Ereka's calm yet firm stat.

A golden armour enshrouded him. Sungjin propelled himself from the ground with the knight's power. Even the infinite wheel retreated and revealed a path for the Holy Sword of Halt. The sword went forward as if it were slicing through confusion with its light, and Sungjin similarly closed the distance between himself and Varka.

With this, it was Sungjin's victory.

His sword, which emphasized being shapeless and rhythmless, drove itself toward the opponent's neck without hesitation. Even if the opponent was to retaliate, this was a sword that had calculated such a move. What Varka could do in this situation had already been seen through by Sungjin. With the Front Wheel of the Universe activated, Varka wouldn't be able to use any other skills. The higher the skill level a person had, the less experience he would have against an opponent of equal skill level.

This victory… was his.

Looking at the approaching blade, Varka was suddenly reminded of his past. It was a past from a long time ago, before he had become a Kaiser. It was from when he was still on Earth.

There was no one on earth who could go against his words as the CEO of the wealthy company Group Lucian, which had passed down secret engineering techniques and wealth for four thousand years within the strongest nation.

Aside from his daughter—the only person he had ever loved.

"Father, it's my request for you to not step on the resistance members of the Seryuu."

The Seryuu nation was the continent's colony where his country's influence was the strongest. Currently, it was ridden with resistance movements.

"What are you talking about? The Seryuu nation's prime minister and his group have had a firm relationship with us for thirty years. Do you know how much income our group earns by monopolizing their country's natural resources?"

"But that country's people wants freedom. Please don't let our nation support the oppression of those resistance movements."

"Don't speak nonsense. What do they have to do with you?"

"Please. Treat others as nicely as you treat me."

"Ha. You're the only person worth my love in this entire world."

"Can't you do it for me?"

"Child, the only person who would cry and worry for you would be myself, your father. Others are those who manipulate you. You must be stronger if you wish to survive in this world. Sympathizing with the weak will only become your weakness, and the weak will ultimately become your backstabbers."

"But… we have enough."

"A brief moment of hesitation may cost you everything. Stop thinking about useless things and do as I say."

But when he returned from the meeting with the prime minister that evening, what awaited him was a letter.

Father, I'm going to the Seryuu nation.

She was immature. She was a child who had been swayed by the idea that the rich and prosperous should volunteer for the poor. She was a child who worried about what other people thought. She was a child who didn't know she could ignore such things.

But, because she was his daughter, because she was his only daughter… he could not be strict with her. Because he loved her, he gave her freedom, and ultimately allowed her escape.

He shouldn't have. He should have held onto her. He should have been strict.

If he had… his daughter wouldn't have died after being swept away in the civil war.

Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. Could he accept man's challenge for such a concept?

No. He knew the ending.

Varka raised his fist. It was a fist without a weapon, but he stretched it out, unwilling to be defeated; however, Sungjin could read its trajectory.

I'll let it slide and aim for his arm. He uses his fists more than his arms. His arm movement is limited.

Even if Varka was a Kaiser, he wouldn't be able to stand against Sungjin's attack solely with his body.

…?

Suddenly, Sungjin's calculation and change in movement occurred due to a premonition. That was because Varka's power surrounding him had not faltered in the slightest. He had decided that the Kaiser had something up his sleeve. Sungjin stepped back and raised his sword. His premonition was accurate.

Crash!

A shockwave rippled through the air. Even though he had blocked some of it with his sword, Sungjin still faltered. This is…

"My fist can shatter a rock some hundred feet away, but you've defended yourself quite well."

Another skill…? No, no. This is.

"Yes, I cannot use my skills. This is purely my martial arts." This was a height he had reached after endless training.

"Your martial arts?"

Sungjin's art was to decrease his sword and his body's movement to the least amount possible. Every hero had praised his fluid sword skill that wasn't bound to structure or movement, but Varka's skill was beyond his.

His fist reached out once more. The fist, which had been trained to the ultimate level, and was without a skill to back it up, reached out. With just that, the air exploded.

"Kuk." Swallowing his pain, Sungjin tried to move his body, but he was ultimately thrown back by the following fist.

His sword had reached a level where everything was destroyed in its path, but his opponent revealed a fist that couldn't be calculated and was the ultimate level. How could he have known?

Varka's strength came not only from his skill but from enlightenment. That was why his level was on a different tier: he had understood life's truth and had learned true martial arts.

Sungjin could only barely read the timing of his attacks and block them with a raised sword.

"What amazing sword skills. It's an ability befitting your climb up the Western continents." Even as he praised Sungjin, there was no hesitation in his attacks.

The air of the fist itself didn't explode. An ultimate power didn't needlessly and uselessly throw aftershocks around an attack. It exploded the air inside Sungjin's body. It was an attack beyond this world that aimed directly toward its targeted area.

Craash!

Reading his opponent's movements, Sungjin responded accordingly, but at the same time, the oppressor could read Sungjin's careful movements in his "foresight" zone.

The person who was above the other in this fight, where each and every movement was read within a split moment, was the one with the most power, which kept creating more injuries on Sungjin's body.

He could avoid the direct attack and block it, but the aftereffects were too great. That one attack was like being run over by a mountain hog. If he hadn't exchanged his specs with Ereka, he would have been dead with the first attack, but even that had its limit. Small damages built up in his body, and Sungjin's body ultimately trembled.

Without missing that chance, Varka's fist was thrown.

Crash.

This time, the attack went through. Sungjin rolled backwards as he dropped.

Varka raised his fist as the victor. "How unfortunate. Your level, that was a level I had reached when I was one hundred and twenty years old." It was amazing for Sungjin to have reached that level when he was but twenty. "But your current self is not my opponent." Because he was talking to someone he defeated, his words held weight.

The girls were in shock. Sungjin had been beaten in a martial arts competition. They couldn't believe it, even though they saw it with their own eyes. Although Sungjin had been defeated by overwhelming power before, he had never lost a pure martial arts competition.

Would this be the result of their last chance for victory?

Sungjin…

Were they unable to surpass Kaiser in the end?

Varka glanced at Sungjin. "What is wrong cannot overcome what is right." The fist should be called a right of gods.

Sungjin stood up and wiped the blood from around his mouth. "Yeah, that's more powerful martial arts than what I've achieved. Thank you for a good experience."

"Now you know there's no chance."

The others were all encased in the Front Wheel of the Universe and fell short of Sungjin's sword toward Varka. They had no odds of winning.

"Ha, you think?" Sungjin laughed. He fixed the sword again and rushed forward.

"Useless." The fist stretched out again.

The sword that computed everything could be called invisible, but the fist that was beyond logic should be called a right of god.

At that moment, when Sungjin's sword was about to be destroyed again by clashing against an attack of another tier, Sungjin reached out with his left hand. Light gathered. Golden rays like the sun gathered in his hands. The glorified god's light descended from heaven to earth to accompany him. It was the shape of a shield that held the sun's might. In that brilliant image, he exclaimed, "Skill Exchange!" That was his second skill.

That was his skill obtained in the second level by connecting more deeply with the girls as the result of their last fights.

"AEGIS, shield of all people!"

The details were:

[You can use the skills of your allies. Your ally who gave you that skill will not be able to use the skill themselves.]

Out of the many, it was the weakest, useless skill. The whole team couldn't increase the number of available skills, after all. Ereka or Sungjin could use it, but in the end, the entire team could only use the skill once. The ability was weak because it wasn't a "skill copy," but Sungjin was satisfied. This skill is enough for a level 2. It was the strongest in his hands.

A golden blaze surrounded all of Sungjin's teammates. It was an inviolable light of god. They were in their own separate world, even from the rules that had conquered the world. Bondage could no longer bind them. The Front Wheel of the Universe was now meaningless.

An exclamation burst from Varka's mouth. "Ha."

He had thought Sungjin was an abnormal young man, but to think that he could break the Front Wheel of the Universe…

"Attack, everyone!"

Sungjin's command wasn't necessary. His team members, who had waited for this moment, had already begun to give their all.

"Mjolnir!" The first to start the fight was Jenna. A common attack. Won't work against the Kaiser. But what if it was a hammer of the god of thunder?

An incandescent hammer fell down with a ringing punch. It was a reproduction of the myth that crushed mountains, tearing the earth and burning the atmosphere.

At the same time, Eustasia also raised her sword. "You don't need a trivial skill. Heavenly Sword—Durandal!" Heavenly swords became twelve meteor showers that fell toward Varka. One by one, the holy sword that could cut through steel fell.

This was a counterattack.

Varka admired the brilliant attacks. It was beautiful, even though it was the strength of the rebellious.

Amazing.

This radiance. This light.

An old memory came to mind..