Since he first held a kunai at the age of five, Hanzo, who had crossed the boundaries of life and death countless times over 36 long years, felt it instinctively.
‘Dangerous.’
He didn’t know exactly what was dangerous.
But he was certain that if he didn’t retreat now, he would face a great disaster.
Wham!
The moment he let go of Kim Yu-seong’s wrist and leaped back, a sharp ice pillar shot up from Yu-seong’s back.
‘What?!’
An enormous amount of yin energy.
It was an incomprehensible phenomenon by his standards.
‘Could a man with such abundant yang energy also harbor comparable yin energy?’Typically, yang and yin energy couldn’t be cultivated simultaneously.
Men had yang energy, and women had yin energy.
Specializing in one would naturally reduce the other.
But the boy in front of him shattered that common sense.
‘What kind of monster has the Fuma clan created?’
He knew from rumors that the Diamond Yaksha was extraordinary, but not to this extent.
Feeling his mouth dry up, he gripped his kunai tightly.
‘Even so, it’s still not enough. He can’t match my ‘experience’ yet.’
He had pride.
In the battle experience he had accumulated over 30 years.
No matter how sharp a sword is, it means nothing if wielded by an unskilled person.
He may fight well for a high school student, but he’s still a hundred years too early to beat him.
“Ninjutsu! Spider Prison!”
He set up high-elasticity threads specially made for ninjutsu throughout the corridor like traps.
The silk threads of the Spider Prison were strong enough to stop an elephant’s charge, making them ideal for dealing with brute opponents like Kim Yu-seong.
As Kim Yu-seong slowly got up and exhaled lightly, white frost formed on the corridor walls.
As he felt before, the yin energy was truly immense.
It was only early autumn, yet the physical frost was forming.
Perhaps influenced by the powerful yin energy, Kim Yu-seong’s black hair had turned white, and he looked up.
‘He’s coming!’
The next moment, Kim Yu-seong, lowering his body and stepping strongly with one foot, charged at an incredible speed.
Crack!
‘Foolish! He broke through the Spider Prison?!’
It’s impossible for a human to do that.
Hanzo hurriedly retreated and shielded his face with his arms, watching the charging Kim Yu-seong.
A strange flow of energy enveloped his entire body.
Hanzo soon realized the nature of the technique Kim Yu-seong was using.
‘Whirlwind Armor!’
One of the secret techniques of Swift Wind, the Fuma clan’s martial art.
A defensive technique derived from the 6th form, Whirlwind.
It was also a technique favored by his rival, the 17th Fuma Kotaro.
‘It’s been less than three months since he learned Swift Wind, yet he’s already at this level.’
He was purely impressed, yet he sneered at Kim Yu-seong.
‘But I already know the countermeasure for that technique.’
It might seem flawless, but the Whirlwind Armor’s weakness was that the wind coverage around the body was uneven.
Having gained enough distance, Hanzo quickly formed seals and filled his cheeks with air.
“Ninjutsu! Black Rope Butterfly!”
A giant flame in the shape of a butterfly burst from his mouth, burning through the corridor.
‘Now, how will you block this attack?’
The flame butterfly flew right up to him in an instant.
But the method Kim Yu-seong used far exceeded his expectations.
Clap!
With a single clap, a gust of wind blew out his prized ninjutsu, Black Rope Butterfly, like a candle.
‘Ridiculous!’
Not countering with ninjutsu, but simply using physical force.
But there was no time to be surprised.
Kim Yu-seong, having already broken through all the webs, was right in front of him, launching a palm strike.
This was also a familiar technique.
Swift Wind’s 2nd form, Storm.
A technique that unleashes a flurry of strikes like a storm.
Starting with a palm strike to the ribs, it hits all the vital points of the body with punches.
The striking speed resembled Wing Chun, but the power of each blow was incomparable.
‘But it does have a weakness.’
Because it targets vital points for maximum efficiency, if you block all the vital points, it’s not scary.
His movements had a subtle hesitation, likely from a lack of killing experience.
After easily blocking the final elbow strike to the temple, he drove both fists into the exposed abdomen.
“Argh!”
Kim Yu-seong’s body was flung back with a scream of agony.
He felt sorry, but their combat compatibility was poor.
Since Fuma Kotaro disappeared ten years ago, he had conducted countless combat simulations while tracking his rival.
‘Swift Wind, already outdated, cannot defeat me.’
Though it was the secret martial art of the Fuma clan for nearly 500 years, it was still an artifact of the old era.
From the moment his fighting style was recorded, numerous experts began dissecting its weaknesses.
This was why he, the self-proclaimed only rival of Fuma Kotaro, didn’t bother entering the GOF tournament.
‘For a ninja to reveal his trump card so openly, nothing is more foolish.’
He was thinking this as he looked down at Kim Yu-seong’s large body lying on the ground.
“Got you.”
Struggling to stand, Kim Yu-seong suddenly said something strange.
“What do you mean?”
“Before asking me, how about checking your own body first?”
Hanzo lowered his head, wondering what he meant.
“…!”
The two fists that had struck Kim Yu-seong’s abdomen were frozen white.
“Instant freeze. The moment your body touched mine, I infused it with yin energy.”
His body temperature dropped rapidly.
The ice that covered his wrists like shackles made his calloused hands turn pale.
‘This is bad.’
He couldn’t properly form seals like this.
He had let his guard down, thinking he had won, and it cost him.
But…
“So what? Even without my arms, I’ll fight with my legs.”
Hanzo said this and stomped his foot hard.
Ching!
A thin blade popped out from the sole of his Oxford shoe.
“This shoe’s blade is coated with various insect poisons. It’s not lethal, but if it cuts you, you won’t be able to move for half a day.”
In other words, when you wake up, it’ll all be over.
“So, a one-hit kill.”
“That’s right.”
Thinking that the guy was pretty smart for his looks, Hanzo lifted his left foot since his frozen arms couldn’t move well.
“Come at me.”
Kim Yu-seong faced him boldly without running away.
‘If only we hadn’t met as enemies.’
How long had it been since he last met a man with such spirit?
It had been so long that he couldn’t even remember.
As a warrior before a ninja, showing utmost respect to his enemy, Hanzo took the kunai between his teeth.
“……”
The suffocating tension that could only be felt in a standoff.
Finally.
It was Kim Yu-seong who moved first again.
Swift Wind’s 1st form, Kamaitachi.
A technique that slashes the enemy with a wind-covered hand blade.
Like watching a quick-draw sword technique, Hanzo dodged the swiftly extended hand blade by a paper-thin margin and kneed him in the groin.
Kim Yu-seong quickly reacted, blocking his attack and using Swift Wind’s only footwork, Oikaze, to create distance.
But a spider doesn’t let go of prey caught in its web.
“Spit!”
At that moment, he spit out the kunai he had been holding in his mouth, aiming for this exact moment.
Seeing the kunai flying like a bullet, Kim Yu-seong hastily raised his right arm.
But the attack wasn’t over yet.
Sliding across the hotel corridor floor, Hanzo aimed for Kim Yu-seong’s shin, swinging the blade in his shoe heel.
‘This is checkmate!’
The poisoned blade was about to graze Kim Yu-seong’s unprotected shin when…
Hanzo suddenly heard a voice in his ear.
“Is this all you’ve got?”
Freeze!
It was as if time had stopped.
No, it seemed like a lie, but time had actually ‘stopped.’
In the world where everything had stopped, the only thing moving was the faint, white soul that suddenly emerged from Kim Yu-seong’s body.
“I temporarily froze the time around us.”
Like a guardian spirit, the ‘ghost’ standing next to Kim Yu-seong spoke clearly enough for him to hear.
“So, how does it feel? To have victory snatched away at the last moment?”
‘Ridiculous!’
This was an absurd power.
Hanzo’s body trembled at the scientifically inexplicable absurdity.
But it was a reality.
The only thing he couldn’t predict was the existence of this ghost attached to Kim Yu-seong.
Three seconds passed…
Time started moving again, and Kim Yu-seong, having blocked the perfectly timed attack, looked down at Hanzo with cold eyes and said.
“From now on, I won’t waste a single second taking you down.”
“You fool!!”
A fist like a sledgehammer came crashing down on his head as he screamed.
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