Chapter 325

Chapter 325
Chapter 325
Title Match (2)

Kaboom—!

Disappointment.

That was the straightforward assessment of the situation by Mok In-gwang, the authentic Mad Demon.

He had locked horns with countless formidable rivals, survived a multitude of lethal encounters… but this was an entirely different beast.

‘What on earth is this person?’

The mere physical build of his adversary spoke volumes about his unparalleled mastery of external martial arts.

Those absurdly swollen muscle groups went far beyond ordinary human boundaries.

Furthermore, it was not a matter of raw muscular force alone.

He displayed astonishing swiftness and momentum, razor-sharp reactions, an impenetrable defense, and combat intuitions that seemed to mock common sense.

‘And more crucially… ’

There was no misinterpreting it.

The chaotic lunacy boiling deep within his foe.

It was a monstrous vibe, a capability that surpassed mundane human reach.

‘I simply cannot credit my own senses. Can a human truly be like this?’

It mirrored an experience of battling a fiend cloaked in human flesh, a creature arriving from an entirely separate realm.

Consequently, he had intentionally emphasized raw force and velocity, intending to bait his adversary into an ambush by taking advantage of his raw reactions… and that strategy appeared to yield results initially…

Kaboom—!

Yet the talon-like wave of energy he had whipped out from a completely obscured angle was intercepted by his rival’s bare palm.

Since it was hardly the initial occurrence, Mok In-gwang did not pause. He instantly executed a secondary strike…

Crack!

…which was likewise intercepted.

“Khahaha!”

And yet another…

Screech!

…which was swept aside.

And one more…

…which was entirely neutralized.

The defensive maneuvers of his foe were radically altered from before.

Which pointed to a single conclusion…

‘…He is adjusting?’

The fiend he was contesting was absorbing information, mutating right in the middle of combat.

Utilizing him, Mok In-gwang, as raw material for growth.

He had succeeded in drawing blood a few times, but the gashes were superficial.

They mended rapidly, fading away into nothingness.

His energy lacerations, saturated with his sheer willpower and designed to pulverize whatever they struck… were being mended without any visible effort.

Even a master of the Mysterious Realm would require an extended period to mend such trauma… This defied all known laws.

“Ugh! What sort of undying methodology have you unlocked?! What entity are you?!”

“Haha! Excellent! You are far from the push-over I anticipated! Give me everything else!”

“You absolute lunatic!”

Yet his foe was so bizarre, so alienated from any practitioner he had ever crossed paths with, that he failed to devise a viable countermeasure.

He was fundamentally outclassed.

Even backed by his singular talent and anomalous bodily makeup, which permitted him to push past his natural boundaries, he proved incapable of closing the chasm separating them. The gulf between arriving at the pinnacle of the Master Realm and leaping forward into the Mysterious Realm was vast.

“Are your reserves depleted already? Move it, comrade! Let us resume!”

Mok In-gwang scowled at the mocking invitation.

The reality of the situation finally dawned on him.

‘…Is his power truly this immense?’

The sole reason this clash was being prolonged was due to his rival’s desire to stretch it out.

Indignation burned within him, yet he lacked the leisure to ponder his resentment.

‘This is turning critical.’

He was approaching his breaking point.

His internal lunacy, the wellspring of his raw capability and his birthright affliction, was transforming into a double-edged blade, eroding his mental stability and threatening to swallow him whole.

‘A choice must be made.’

Two paths lay before him.

Acknowledge defeat, rein in his internal energy, and restore tranquility to his consciousness… or release his unbridled power, completely ignoring the fallout.

‘…Is that truly a choice at all?’

As it always had been, his path was determined from the start.

A predatory smirk split his features.

‘My absolute strength might fall short of yours, but—’

Mok In-gwang triggered his hidden methodology, the Mad Control Heart Technique, an exercise he had trained diligently every single day since discovering it during his youth.

He ceased to fret over the mental breakdown, the chaotic pollution that would corrupt his cognitive thoughts.

More immediate dangers demanded his focus.

Crack—

The circulation of his blood surged violently, causing his sinews to expand.

His perceptive faculties grew incredibly acute, his consciousness narrowing onto one specific target.

To break his opponent, regardless of the price.

His thoughts whirled at breakneck speed, driven by his internal chaos, dissecting data and calculating maneuvers.

The chaos of his opponent was immense and suffocating, yet he possessed the Mad Control Heart Technique, granting him the means to direct it with superior precision.

He had already proven capable of drawing blood multiple times.

The window for victory remained cracked open.

At least, that was his assumption.

“Let us discover who claims the authentic title of Mad Demon!”

“Oh? A sudden burst of enthusiasm… Wait?”

With his cognitive faculties slipping away, he lunged directly at his foe, who observed him with widened eyelids.

His physical form was enveloped in an eerie, blood-colored mist.

—

Zhengzhou, the administrative center of Henan Province.

Deep within a structure nestled inside an obscure alleyway, several individuals were trading words in muted tones.

They had gone so far as to deploy an isolating barrier to ensure their dialogue remained completely confidential.

“What is the status of Mad Demon?”

“Proceeding as orchestrated. He is moving toward the outlaw camp where the fraud was recently spotted. They ought to have crossed swords by this point.”

They were analyzing Mok In-gwang, who had departed the urban area to hunt down the individual utilizing his identity.

That assignment fell squarely within their purviews, after all.

“Who do you predict will emerge victorious?”

“Extrapolating from the intelligence metrics we have compiled, the pretender.”

“I am hesitant to declare that. Mad Demon is not the sort of warrior to throw in the towel easily. Should he abandon all regard for his survival…”

“Quite true. He will likely unleash everything, entirely indifferent to the ultimate fallout.”

They traded hypotheses while systematically purging the chamber of any evidence.

It remained an erratic scenario, yet they maintained unison on a fundamental point.

“Regardless, whoever walks away alive will be thoroughly broken.”

They would be incapacitated from disrupting their operations for the foreseeable future.

“Operation wrapped up, in that case.”

“No matter the final resolution, our assignment is fulfilled. The subsequent steps belong to the superiors.”

They had brilliantly manipulated the duo into a collision course, neutralizing two distinct liabilities simultaneously.

“Proceed to the subsequent destination.”

Their objective here was met. They possessed no further requirement to fret over the ultimate destinies of the twin Mad Demons.

“…Dengfeng County.”

And as their forms melted away into the shadows,

The structure, which had served as a hub for an intelligence web a mere moment prior, stood entirely barren.

Its former tenants, along with every single marker of their presence, had vanished completely.

—

Harley, trading blows with the authentic Mad Demon, found himself feeling a genuine spark of respect.

“This is… remarkable!”

His adversary had not even broken through to the Mysterious Realm yet, but his martial efficiency was extraordinary.

Even granting that the martial arts of the Murim were custom-tailored for single combat, he was unquestionably superior to the bulk of otherworlders.

‘An execution style that capitalizes on structured lunacy? Fastinating.’

The opponent’s technical proficiency played a massive part in his current showing.

Its multi-faceted nature and malleability were phenomenal, flawlessly counterbalancing the somewhat narrow spectrum of energy-based applications native to this environment.

‘This asset could prove advantageous.’

Harley’s approach remained basic.

He modified his patterns and absorbed the lesson, tracing his rival’s physical shifts and absorbing his offensive strikes directly.

He likewise possessed the utility of 「Mimicry」, the standard ability accessible to every avatar.

‘Furthermore, I command the “Tyrant of Madness”, built specifically for regulating chaotic energy.’

The capability he had secured after digesting the White Giant’s core, a amalgamation of 「Beast of Madness」, 「Heart of the Mad Dragon」, and 「Madness Control」.

It was an authority that went beyond simple manipulation, representing a pure dominion over the concept of chaos itself.

And courtesy of that authority, the titanic reserves of chaos within his form began navigating along highly disciplined tracks.

However…

‘…This looks precarious.’

Harley, testing his freshly minted talents and parameters, suddenly creased his brow.

“Kyaaa—!”

His challenger, eyes completely inverted and spittle spraying from his lips, sprinted blindly forward, entirely mastered by his internal madness.

He appeared to have relinquished all restraint, his physical vessel overflowing with unguided energy, a direct byproduct of forcing his capacities past safe thresholds.

Should this trend persist, he would end up obliterating himself.

‘There is still a great deal of data to extract from him.’

And that outcome contradicted Harley’s objectives.

The methodology he was currently absorbing sat far past the boundaries of commonplace martial paths, its sophistication quite advanced, meaning he required additional intervals to properly assimilate it.

‘My intention was to recruit him as my premier vassal within Ganghwange.’

Step one required pacifying his erratic state, but…

“Hey, pal? Let us lower the temperature…”

“Kyaaa!”

…Mok In-gwang was thoroughly divorced from cognitive thought.

He was striking out without pause, indiscriminately, even pulling from his foundational life force to stoke his capabilities.

‘I will be forced to knock him out cold if this persists.’

He was obligated to quell that internal chaos, even if it necessitated physically chaining him down.

Lacking that intervention, his unguided lunacy would drain his foundational life force, transforming him into a hollowed-out husk.

‘This marks my initial attempt applying this mechanism to an external target.’

Yet he lacked the luxury of hesitation.

He would simply have to perform to the absolute best of his capacity.

“Huu…”

He exhaled a quiet breath, and immediately following,

Whoosh—!

Whirr— Crackle!

…Vapor hissed violently from his physical frame, accompanied by a grating, metallic resonance.

His right socket, gleaming with a crimson radiance, its center constricted vertically like a serpent’s, and his left socket, its emerald center glittering like a precious stone, its center now showing sharp angles.

And then,

Kaboom—!

An additional earth-shaking boom reverberated across the peaks…

…yet the consequence was fundamentally reversed on this occasion.

“Haha! Occasion demands you quiet down a touch.”

“Gah!”

“Endure it, pal. Merely view it as a sedative preceding a medical procedure.”

Harley’s titanic fist, supercharged by 「Gem Eye: Coercion」, buried itself deeply into Mok In-gwang’s midsection.

It represented a mere fraction of a second’s interruption, but for Harley, who had thoroughly deconstructed his challenger’s movement patterns, it provided more than ample opportunity to deliver a crippling strike.

“Ugh!”

“Huh! Still resisting?”

Naturally, a solitary strike lacked the capacity to fully restrain an individual mastered by chaos.

Furthermore, he had intentionally limited his power, anxious about destroying the man’s internal architecture.

Grab!

He clamped onto Mok In-gwang’s skull with a single palm, his alternate fingers opening and closing as he fixed his gaze directly upon him.

The Mad Demon thrashed wildly, his physical frame contorting as he attempted to rupture the hold, his trauma already initiating the mending process.

Yet Harley’s unyielding physical supremacy anchored him immovably in position.

‘I harbor uncertainties regarding how efficiently “Tyrant of Madness” will function here… ’

Nevertheless, it beat remaining passive.

It might play out a bit… aggressively, but the man would comprehend the necessity eventually.

“This could cause a bit of discomfort~.”

In all likelihood.

Wham!

“………!”

And in this fashion,

Mirroring a dominant empire suppressing an uprising in a far-flung territory,

He deployed his irresistible authority,

…to quiet the insubordinate provincial.

—

A multitude of motivating maxims existed throughout this domain.

‘If a primary attempt yields no fruit, strive, strive once more.’

What a magnificent principle.

A brief and uncomplicated sentence, yet it articulated massive truths regarding tenacity, devotion, and the unyielding human resolve.

‘And another exists alongside it.’

Who originally voiced it?

‘Withhold the discipline, corrupt the offspring.’

Wham—! Bam—!

Harley, mulling over the collective intelligence of prior generations, methodically enacted it upon his current predicament.

And as a consequence,

Thud—

“…Ugh… Y-you lunatic… Cough!”

…He once more validated the truth that no barrier was insurmountable.

The reigning Mad Demon offered a deliberate nod, peering down at the ousted Mad Demon with a highly pleased expression.