The Second Salvation Myth of a Retired Regressed Hero

“Get up.”

Doyun shambled towards the fallen Torn.

Torn looked up at Doyun, still clutching his hand. It seemed he hadn’t yet grasped the difference in their abilities, his eyes still brimming with the intent to kill. Truly, wave after wave of foolishness radiated from this seed.

Thunk.

Doyun placed his foot on Torn’s hammer lying on the ground. Then, casually waving the rusty sword in his hand, he looked down at Torn with an emotionless gaze.

“Human bastard…!”

Torn growled. He seemed to take Doyun’s gaze and foot on his hammer as a provocation, gripping the hammer’s handle with both hands again.

“Take that look off your face!”

If he raised the hammer, the human standing on it would lose balance and stagger. Then, he could immediately bring it crashing down, reducing him to a meat pie.

Torn met Doyun’s disdainful gaze unflinchingly, pouring strength into his grip. But.

“Hueup!”

The hammer didn’t budge.

It was strange. Even with that frail human bastard placing just one foot on it, the hammer felt immensely heavy.

Doyun clicked his tongue as he watched Torn. Right before him, while his opponent was trying to move his weapon, he was simply pouring all his effort into the hammer, completely disregarding him. He couldn’t even fathom how foolish he could be anymore.

Exasperated, Doyun decided to simply lean on his sword and watch the show. He would keep exerting his full strength until his face covered in white fur turned beet red.

Around 10 seconds must have passed like that. Finally, he managed to budge the hammer.

“Kuhhaaahh-!”

Inwardly, Doyun marveled. Indeed, even a rotten personality couldn’t erase innate talent, it seemed.

But that was precisely the problem. That talent, now amplified by the divine blessing of the System, would be fully utilized to undermine the alliance.

It seemed he needed to decisively crush his spirit here and now.

Just as the hammer lifted about a finger’s width, Doyun channeled mana into his ankles. Then, simply standing still, he applied the principle of deflecting a thousand pounds with four ounces to his feet.

KWANG!

“Uheck!”

In an instant, dust billowed across the ring.

The hammer was driven deep into the ground like a nail. Intricate cracks spread across the ring’s surface like a spiderweb, as if a small meteor had struck the center.

Doyun, still looking down impassively at Torn, said:

“I told you to get up.”

At those words, the dumbfounded look in Torn’s eyes was rekindled with rage.

“You bastaaaaard!”

Abandoning the hammer, Torn charged at him barehanded – a kind of frenzied lunge that completely disregarded the sword in Doyun’s grip.

And in that moment, Doyun’s sword moved like a streak of light, thrusting towards Torn’s head.

“No!”

The presiding instructor screamed out a cry of horror. But Doyun’s sword was too fast for him to stop from that distance.

Shink!

The sickening sound of something sharp piercing flesh rang out.

“Oh, shit…!”

The presiding and assistant instructors rushed over, aghast.

Killing was strictly prohibited at the Cradle. No exceptions, even for a tournament. They felt their heads pounding already, thinking about dealing with the fallout.

But then, Torn moved.

“Rooooaaarrr!!”

Torn let out an anguished roar, clutching one side of his head. The instructors froze.

‘He’s alive?’

Upon closer inspection, the sword hadn’t pierced his head, but rather grazed past it.

Thunk.

Something fell before Torn. An ear. His own.

“Aaaarrgghh…!”

Though a mere appendage, Torn thrashed about, experiencing the agony of bodily dismemberment for the first time. Quite unbecoming of his massive stature, he shrieked like a little girl.

Doyun shook off the blood on his sword and slung it over his shoulder.

‘That should clear his mind for now.’

Originally, he should have killed him to nip it in the bud, but publicly displaying such actions as a student was unwise.

The instructors held their steps again. While the outcome was apparent, Torn hadn’t technically surrendered or been incapacitated.

His hand wasn’t so mangled that he couldn’t wield the hammer. Losing an ear would greatly impact his awareness but didn’t render him unable to fight.

But Torn, evidently unaccustomed to such pain, could only shriek hideously.

“Aaaarrgghh!! Healer! Healer!! Heaalerrr!!”

He called for a healer while lying on the ground, effectively surrendering.

The presiding instructor approached and asked:

“Torn. To receive treatment, the match must end. Do you surren…”

“Heaalerrr!!”

He had even started kicking on the ground like a tantrum.

The instructor let out a deep sigh and signaled the healer. The match was over.

Doyun walked out of the ring with the same impassive expression as when the match began. But his mind was still calculating.

‘How should I handle this?’

He disliked leaving loose ends. Originally, he should have eliminated such parasitic scum undermining the alliance, but the circumstances didn’t allow it.

‘If I could just find a reasonable excuse…’

Doyun descended from the ring, contemplating how to eliminate any future repercussions.

A cold towel touched Doyun’s cheek.

“Hm?”

He turned to see Sophie. It seemed she had been waiting to be the first to welcome Doyun after his match.

“Well done.”

He accepted Sophie’s towel. Somehow, it was refreshingly ice-cold, gently soothing his hardened state of mind with her considerate gesture.

“Thank you.”

From afar, a mage student from Sophie’s clique smiled warmly before disappearing into the crowd. Her specialty was ice magic.

Whistles rang out from the surrounding students, causing Sophie’s face to redden – quite a delicate, girlish, and adorable reaction.

In contrast to the festive students, the instructors were still dumbfounded.

Overcoming mana deficiency wasn’t utterly impossible.

An Earthling’s mana deficiency was acquired, unrelated to their innate mana talent. Dust simply accumulated and blocked their channels. Even Earthling-born individuals weren’t born without any mana talent initially.

And mana manifestation was closely tied to ‘willpower’. While the System’s blessing made using mana more convenient nowadays, ancient texts indicated that in the old era, the most crucial mana talent wasn’t affinity or capacity, but ‘willpower’ – something the great hero Enoch Ruszvolnik particularly emphasized.

If Doyun possessed the willpower to overcome his mana deficiency through sheer force, and was innately gifted with immense mana talent to achieve such output with minimal accumulation…

Then in theory, the recent match wasn’t entirely implausible. But it was only theoretically possible, leaving the instructors utterly dumbfounded.

Like Sophie, Dewshy also approached Doyun to congratulate him. Doyun conversed with them.

“You really were a monster.”
“A vampire shouldn’t be talking to a human like that.”
“For a human body to reach that level, you’re a monster. Are all the humans from Earth monsters like you? What a dreadful dimension.”
“…That’s not it.”

Doyun returned the towel Sophie had used to wipe his sweat.

“Oh… I didn’t know you were hiding such skills.”
“I wasn’t particularly hiding them. I just rarely had opportunities to wield a sword.”
“I see, you’re right.”

Sophie smiled dimpledly – a far cry from the chilly aura she had exuded due to Torn, her smile now beautifully refined.

Meanwhile, Torn was still lying in the ring, receiving treatment from the healer instructor.

She puffed on a cigarette while tugging sharply on Torn’s reattached ear.

“It’s on tight, at least.”
“Hueuck… My, my ear…!”
“Stop whining, your ear’s already reattached. The clean cut means no lasting damage.”

Overhearing those words, the presiding instructor wondered:

‘A clean cut?’

He looked at the sword Doyun had been holding – rusted and heavily chipped, barely deserving to be called a sword. How could such a blade have cleanly severed a mana-reinforced body?

“Oww, it hurts…!”
“This kid really isn’t worth cultivating. Your ear’s already reattached, quit being such a wimp.”

With the treatment finished, Torn rose from the spot. The first sight that met his eyes as he raised his head was Sophie’s luscious rear outside the ring, and Doyun chatting casually with her.

‘That… scummy bastard…!’

Torn ground his teeth at the sight.

“Instructor! There’s been an injury!”
“Yes, yes, coming right away.”
“Torn. You’ve been eliminated from the preliminaries. Wait in the holding area or spectate the other matches, your choice.”

The two instructors left the ring. Thanks to the instructor’s healing, Torn was more energetic than before the match began. No need to bother with him further.

But even after they left, Torn didn’t exit the ring. Clenching his fists, he glared towards Doyun.

Sophie was giving Doyun such a lovely smile as she conversed with him – sweet and innocent, as if kindly lending an ear to anyone’s requests, the very picture of grace. A benevolent smile.

So different from the Sophie Torn had witnessed. She had always shown a cool, charismatic demeanor towards him and the other students, regarding Torn in particular with disdainful looks, as if observing an insect.

Torn couldn’t control the rage boiling over along with the vigor from being healed. The scorching heat rapidly consumed what little reason he had left.

He immediately charged towards Doyun outside the ring, shouting furiously.

“You human baaastaaaaard–!!”

All eyes turned towards him. The students flinched and scattered from his ox-like momentum, while the instructors rushed to restrain him.

Though at a distance, it was child’s play for the instructors to catch up to a student’s speed. Torn would be easily subdued and disciplined.

But before them, someone else acted first.

“Eh, eh? Student Doyun?”

Doyun stamped the ground.

“Eh, eh, wait…!”

Doyun was much closer to Torn than the instructors. Their eyes widened as they belatedly noticed Doyun, but before they could open their mouths, his mana was already in motion.

In an instant, the pure mana of the divine beast race converged in his arm through 200 years of refined, near-miraculous precision and speed in mana control.

An explosive instantaneous output incomparable to others dispersing mana throughout their bodies. A speed that transcended even the instructors’ perception.

In that moment, Doyun’s sword and arm vanished from everyone’s sight.

The only one present able to perceive the sword strike hurtling towards Torn, the faint golden aura enveloping the rusty blade, was the Headmaster alone.

An instantaneous extreme acceleration of the sword strike beyond anyone’s expectations.

‘Localized Acceleration Control.’

This was the forte, only usable by one person on the continent.

The great hero Enoch Ruszvolnik.

Swick-