The Hero Returns
chapter-539-30041322

[Rain of Thunder Dragons]

Kyaaaaaah—!

Lightning dragons emitting blinding light rained down. They descended on top of Shiva’s head but got wiped out of existence when he took a swing with his sword.

“One, two…”

Su-hyeun’s whole body pulled back tautly like a bowstring,

From the tip of his toes to his midriff, even his arms down to his wrists, he loaded the spear with all the strength he could muster.

[Gungnir]

Fwhoooosh—!

The spear flew at the speed of light.

It drew an azure arc in the air among the descending thunder dragons to shoot toward Shiva.

But right at that moment…

Jjiiiiing—

The spear in Shiva’s hand also flew out, and its tip collided against Gungnir mid-air.

A thunderous noise rocked heaven and earth. The shockwave generated from the two spears colliding tore the atmosphere apart, causing arcs of lightning bolts to shoot out everywhere.

Whoooosh, grab—

Gungnir was flung back before entering Su-hyeun’s grip.

However, it didn’t fly back to him on its own accord. Su-hyeun had dashed toward Shiva after throwing the spear, allowing him to retrieve it personally.

Kkkyaaaaah—!

Shiva was inundated with the dragon’s roar. It came from much closer than before, making it far louder and raucous.

The reddish-golden light was so bright that it could easily blind someone. At the same time, a figure of a dragon enveloped Su-hyeun’s sword.

[Thunder Dragon Sword]

[One Sword Cutting Through Everything – Earth Divider]

[The Wave Sword]

KWA-WOOOOOO—

A massive thunder dragon swallowed up Shiva’s figure, and the descending blade hacked that figure apart in half.

“You sure are good at slinking away.”

“It’s difficult to hit someone when you’re that slow, after all.”

That retort came from somewhere behind Su-hyeun.

Shiva stood up while propping his weight on the ground; then, he dusted himself off. The sword and spear in his hands had turned into crumbled powder by then.

“It doesn’t look that difficult to me, though.”

“Mm?”

Only then did Shiva belatedly touch his face.

Some droplets of blood stained his palm. That strike just now managed to graze his cheek.

“It seems so.”

Shiva looked surprised.

However, it was Su-hyeun who was having a bigger shock right now.

“Such a shallow wound will not cut it at all,” he thought.

Shiva knew how to use magic.

Even a simple recovery magic spell could mend such a minor wound. Sure, the Demonic Aura’s side effect could worsen any wound inflicted, but a small wound like that would never be fatal to anyone, let alone Shiva.

Su-hyeun ended up firing off several powerful techniques in a row, but he was still okay aside from his slightly heavier breathing. His magical energy reserve was still overflowing.

“Should I go back to dragging things out?” he contemplated.

His initial plan was to use various powerful techniques and finish the battle as soon as possible.

However, their exchange just now made him think about revising his plan a bit. Shiva’s responses were just too good to end this battle in a flash.

“What are you thinking so hard for?” Shiva stared at Su-hyeun standing still for a moment and then lightly tapped his head. “My eyes can see everything, you know.”

“You’re a lot more slippery than I thought, Shiva.”

“Fighting like this is more entertaining than I thought, you see.”

Shiva never had a chance to fight properly like this.

Su-hyeun didn’t know the entire history of all the universes, so there could have been a few intense fights for Shiva in the past. Even so, just how many existences could legitimately threaten Shiva until now?

Even if there have been a few, they couldn’t do much to Shiva in the end.

“Because they have all perished in the end.”

Will he also end up walking down the same path as them?

Or would he set off in another direction altogether? That would be decided from this moment on.

Pazzik, pazzzziii…

[Somersault cloud]

[Rain of Thunder]

The Somersault cloud enveloped Su-hyeun while countless Thunderbolts floated in the sky above.

However, they didn’t descend immediately. Instead, their tips were all pointing at Shiva.

“So, it’s my turn now?” Shiva chuckled as if he was having fun.

Black energy currents oozed out all around him.

This was his unique power of destruction—the power that erased everything coming in contact with it.

Sheeerik, sheeeririk—

The oozing black current coalesced into the shape of a spear—not just one but the same number as the Thunderbolts and the same shape, too.

Just as Su-hyeun felt a chill run down his spine from this ominous foreboding, one of the spears created by Shiva shot forward.

POW—!

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Lightning bolts descending from the murky clouds filling up the sky began merging at one point.

Pazik, bzzzzzziii—

[Grand Thunderbolt]

A spear the length of dozens of meters generated in Su-hyeun’s grip. This spear contained an even greater electrical energy than hundreds of Thunderbolts lumped together.

However, Su-hyeun didn’t even have enough time to count to three while assuming the position. He immediately threw the spear in his hand.

FLASH—!

KWA-ZZZZZEEEEK, Pa-susu…

The moment Su-hyeun’s Grand Thunderbolt collided with Shiva’s spear created out of the black energy current, the lightning spear was dyed in darkness before being extinguished from existence altogether.

That was a somewhat threatening power, indeed.

Directly clashing with Shiva while wielding his weapons seemed like a bad idea.

“Right, my weapons will get extinguished if I do that.”

Su-hyeun dodged an incoming black spear while glancing at the sword he had in his grip.

Its edge had been corroded. All he did was deflect one of the incoming black spears, yet this was the result.

“I might have infinite magical energy reserve, but it’s not the same story for my stamina or concentration.”

Matching the speed of the incoming spears and dodging them, or simply defending against them, required quite a lot of concentration and stamina.

Brahma helped him acquire a practically infinite reserve of magical energy, but Su-hyeun’s stamina differed. Indeed, boundless magical energy was just an advantage he now enjoyed, one where he could use all of his powers without holding back. Still, it was not an omnipotent solution for everything.

“Even so…”

Su-hyeun spotted that the speed of the incoming black spears was getting slower and slower.

“I was right.”

Su-hyeun’s strategy of dragging things out was working out rather well at the moment.

At the very least, he became sure of one thing. The one setting the pace in this battle wasn’t Shiva but him.

“This is no fun,” Shiva muttered as his expression crumpled ever so slightly.

He was making that face for the first time in this encounter. The fact that Shiva, who hadn’t changed his expressions that much so far, frowned like that could only mean he was getting unsettled right now.

“I’m always what you’d call not fun.”

CLANG—!

The Thunderbolt Su-hyeun was gripping deflected the black spear fired off by Shiva. He then generated a new Thunderbolt before finishing the rest of his sentence, “I don’t fight to have fun but to win, after all.”

The surrounding terrain was already so devastated that there didn’t seem any good place to stand up. Still, Su-hyeun landed on the ground and looked up at Shiva still floating up there in the sky.

“He’s not that good in combat.”

With how things were going, even Shiva should be feeling the heat.

This pattern had been repeating itself for a few hours already. Shiva would pour out one-sided attacks while Su-hyeun focused on defending.

This should be boring and frustrating for Shiva. No matter what he did, Su-hyeun simply defended or dodged. By now, he should be feeling that attacking itself was rather pointless.

It was like rinsing and repeating over and over.

Su-hyeun was laying a trap.

Slice—

“What?”

Shiva looked back at an object that scratched past his cheek.

It was a Thunderbolt, but it was already long gone, beyond the range of his view. Even so, he still felt the sting coming from the surprisingly deep wound on his cheek.

“Oh, have you finally decided to change tact?” Shiva gripped the sword and spear in both hands and rushed toward Su-hyeun, thinking that maybe the time had come.

At the same time, the black energy current spread thinly around, split into tens of thousands of strands, and bombarded Su-hyeun’s position.

SPLASH—!

Su-hyeun wielded Gungnir in his hand.

The azure lighting energy required only one thrust to carve out a path. No matter what a weapon was made out of, whether adamantium or whatever, Shiva’s energy could easily destroy them, but Gungnir was an exception.

That was because Gungnir was a weapon permeating with the authority of Brahma, a Primordial God of a similar status as Shiva.

“Are you still thinking of defending ag—?”

Fwhoooosh—!

Shiva’s words came to an abrupt stop.

He felt this hollowness around his waistline, so he looked down. His eyes widened at what he saw there.

A large hole was carved out in his torso where winds passed through.

He then recalled Su-hyeun’s counterattack from a few moments ago.

“It… wasn’t a thrust but a throw?”

The thrust of the spear was nothing but a feint.

Su-hyeun pretended to thrust Gungnir forward, but at the same time, he threw the weapon.

He didn’t even drive that much energy into the weapon. He believed that Gungnir already possessed enough destructive power on its own.

Before anyone realized it, Gungnir was already back in Su-hyeun’s grip.

“You shouldn’t have let your guard down, then.”

Shu-wuwu…

The Somersault cloud spread thickly around Su-hyeun once more.

His figure was hidden behind the blurry veil as he prepared to defend.

“Even if he didn’t mean to, he probably still got caught off-guard, anyway.”

The familiarity could work for you but also against you.

Once you become familiar with something, you would inevitably let your guard down. It was not suitable to be too tense in combat, but it was also bad to be too relaxed.

That would only cause a delay in your reaction time. A continuous barrage of attacks might not get through, but an opportune sneak attack preying on the lull of one’s defenses would work like a charm.

“Now, the problem will be with how long he sticks to the one-sided attacks,” Su-hyeun thought.

He then gripped Gungnir even tighter.

“But this is the only way.”

Without Gungnir, it was impossible to break through Shiva’s defenses and inflict any significant damage to him.

Su-hyeun had already used up one opening. From this moment on, Shiva would become wary of any counterattacks.

Sure enough…

“So, you used the pattern against me, is that it?” Shiva muttered to himself while rubbing the wound on his torso. “In that case…”

Shureeek, shiriririk…

The black energy current oozing all around Shiva suddenly coalesced in the air.

It instantly morphed into a massive sphere. The sphere continued to balloon in size, eventually filling the entire sky already covered in thick storm clouds.

“I guess it’s time for me to change the pattern, then.”

“Pattern, my foot,” Su-hyeun retorted in dismay while staring at the massive energy sphere dominating the skies above. “You’re just thinking of trampling on me using nothing but brute force, aren’t you?”

Su-hyeun’s whole body was shuddering.

He was pretty sure that never before in his life did he come in contact with energy that large or chill-inducing. He could already tell what would happen without actually seeing it for himself when that thing fell to the ground below.

“Serious now, what a ridiculously difficult trial this is.”

Since this trial on the 210th floor was the first tough hurdle past the 200th floor, Su-hyeun expected it to be rather tricky, but he never imagined the difficulty would shoot up by this much.

Even so, he still had to stop that thing.

Evading was not the correct answer here. Not only did he not have many evasive options available, dodging that would surely fail the trial, preventing him from moving onto the subsequent trial.

Shiva was simply a mountain he had to overcome no matter what.

What he needed to overcome at the end was not Shiva but Vishnu.

Shwirik, shriririri…

Shu-wuwuwu…

Two types of energy began gathering on the tip of Gungnir. One was magical energy, while the other was Demonic Aura.

The latter was the energy he acquired after using Predation on Osiris. If magical energy was the “power” birthed from Brahma, then Demon Aura was closer to what Shiva currently wielded.

Pazzzik, bzzzzzzik—

Arcs of azure lightning combined with the Demonic Aura to envelop Gungnir. The black and azure light tumbled and tangled together to not just wrap around the weapon but also Su-hyeun’s arm.

Hiss, sizzle—

The usable energy supply might be unlimited, but he was still restricted in terms of his body’s endurance that could withstand the usage.

Blood vessels in his hand gripping the spear burst open, and his bones began vibrating, probably due to him forcibly exerting a lot of energy in one go. The intense pain traveled from his hand to the rest of his body.

Even so…

“Just a little bit more…!”

Su-hyeun assumed the spear-throwing position.

Yet he didn’t throw Gungnir right away. He didn’t count to three, either.

He needed a lot more time than it took him to count to three. Su-hyeun assumed the throwing posture a lot slower than usual.

“Well, then…”

Go-oooooooh—

Shiva lightly flicked his hand, causing the massive black sphere to descend to the ground below.

“Do your best to survive this.”

And right at that moment…

“One.”

His slow spear-throwing posture suddenly gained momentum.

“Two.”

RUMBLE—!

The moment he threw the spear, a mighty roar of thunder tore through the land.

“Three!”