The Academy’s Sashimi Sword Master

Truth be told, I didn’t fully understand Yu Sein’s explanation.

We were in the middle of a fight, and she didn’t have time to calmly explain all the details either.

But at least I understood one thing.

I looked up. In front of me towered a terrible demon, as if taken straight out of Indian mythology.

There are many possible adjectives, but one is enough—it was horrifying.

=……!=

Even it seemed startled when our eyes met.

From that alone, I knew that Kali Yuga, the end of times, was not an “immortal.”

‘Maybe its intention was to turn this world into one ruled by Blessing of the Apocalypse M 2nd…’

It could be that this was part of the process to be reborn as an immortal.

After all, I had cut down Ragnarok with my sword.

And in the mind of its comrade, Kali Yuga, the fear of death had probably been engraved for the first time.

That’s why it hid in the form of a mobile game, waiting for the right moment.

But people did not surrender themselves to the game as much as it believed.

The craze for Blessing of the Apocalypse M 2nd was just that—enthusiasm for a game. Cases like Yu Sein, completely trapped, were rare.

Because for the people, there already existed,

“Does that thing have lots of eyes? Would be a good target for a bow.”

Their hero.

“Should we start by turning it into a hedgehog of arrows?”

The Heavenly Archer, Ryozo.

“Ok. Abel, you go and stab it with Kang Geom-Ma.”

The Lady of the Sword, Abel.

“…Haah. You really shouldn’t be joking, but if it helps you relax a little…”

The Hero, Leon.

“Nyahaha! A hero’s gotta have lunch in life and dinner in hell. Oh, my heart’s pounding! Is this arrhythmia or what?!”

The flower, Rachel.

“Hey. Don’t talk like that in front of your elders. Kids, the master will go first, you just follow without straining yourselves too much.”

The Sage, Media.

“All of you.”

And me, Kang Geom-Ma.

I felt something strange in my chest. An indescribable feeling.

Come to think of it, these people were the ones who accompanied my past life, which had been nothing but a heap of boredom.

Now we fought together, cheering each other on.

My nose twitched. And amid it all, I saw the pale face of Kali Yuga. My muscles tensed sharply.

‘That bastard…’

It had tried to spread cancer into the world of the people I love. I don’t want to act with the youthful arrogance of shouting, “I won’t forgive you!”

Even if we’ve always been a half-crazy bunch with our heads in the clouds.

“Let’s go.”

I stepped forward.

‘Ryozo, you said that…’

I was your pride.

And I believe it too. Ten years ago, with my know-it-all attitude, I stubbornly denied it.

But now I can’t help but admit it.

I feel proud. Because I am with you, now and always.

***

Seoul.

On the Olympic Expressway.

Bang!

The blare of a car horn tore through the air.

Citizen A lifted his head, half-asleep.

“…Huh?”

Where was that sound coming from? He realized his forehead was pressed against the steering wheel.

“Seems I blacked out all of a sudden, argh…”

He grabbed his head at the sharp pain. Stumbling, he got out of the car.

“What…?”

He wasn’t the only one with a headache. The cars were completely stopped on the expressway.

A traffic jam scene that only made the headache worse.

Other drivers were also getting out of their cars, probably trying to figure out the cause of the jam.

But the reason was obvious to anyone who opened their eyes.

Atop Jamsil Tower, one of Seoul’s iconic landmarks, a gigantic eye was glaring ferociously at humans.

Only then did the citizens suddenly remember what had happened before they lost consciousness.

“Right! The red lightning!”

The eye had fired red lightning bolts everywhere.

Those who were struck began casting sinister spells, unleashing chaos across the Olympic Expressway.

Most of the civilians driving there had collapsed unconscious from fear and shock. Citizen A was one of them.

“W-we have to evacuate…”

They’ll come back. Those villains who call themselves mages and spread magic are still around.

The giant eye is still up there!

They must flee no matter what. Even if it means jumping off the bridge.

“Don’t worry.”

At that moment. Someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

The startled citizen spun around abruptly.

It was a hero, a man in heavy armor and wielding a blade instead of firearms. At a glance, it was obvious he was a hero.

But something about him felt strange.

‘His armor… isn’t it kind of old-fashioned?’

At first glance, it seemed quite old, but it gleamed from being so well maintained. The detail wasn’t its condition, but the style of the armor.

Wait a second.

Black hair?

The citizen rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was ink-black hair.

“…Sir Heavenly Sword?”

“Tsk. Now when you mention black-haired heroes, everyone thinks of him first. In my day, black hair was my trademark.”

The man muttered bitterly.

The citizen’s eyes shifted behind the man.

At the end of the expressway, where earlier the mages had been rampaging, now they lay piled up like mountains.

It was obvious it was the work of the black-haired man.

Barely five minutes had passed since the citizen had blacked out.

And in that time, had he defeated so many?

“Ugh…”

A dull noise.

Gwoooouuung…!

The cables supporting the expressway began to emit a shriek. The eye atop Seoul Tower frowned.

And it released an overwhelming energy that seemed to engulf the entire city.

“Looks like the main base is already warming up.”

The black-haired man smiled faintly.

With the sound of his armor, he began walking toward the Tower.

At that moment, a presence fell from the sky like a thunderbolt, landing with an impact that crushed a dump truck.

A gigantic shadow had leapt down from above.

“Are you alright?! You weren’t hurt?”

“Haah!”

It was the Sword Master!

It was his first time seeing him in person. Everyone else also began cheering amid the despair.

The citizen nodded vigorously, moved.

“Yes, thanks to that knight who took care of the strange mages…”

“That knight?”

The Sword Master looked toward where the citizen was pointing. A man was standing on the bridge railing, gazing toward Seoul Tower.

He was a hero.

The Sword Master sighed in relief and approached him.

“Thank you. I don’t know which faction you belong to, but…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

The man turned his head and looked at him. The Sword Master’s heart skipped a beat.

“Oh, so you’re that one.”

The man smiled, showing his teeth.

“How many years has it been? Decades? In a dream I saw a boy wielding a sword like Aaron, so I gave him some advice. Maybe it was an interference between timelines, something that happens once every three thousand years.”

Aaron.

This man had mentioned the name of the legendary Founding Swordsman of the Nibelung family as if it were nothing.

And on top of that, he treated the Sword Master as if he were his younger brother, patting him on the shoulder.

“Time flies. Unlike Aaron, who was always lagging behind, you were a responsible boy. You’ve aged well.”

“…You…”

Is he…? Is he who I think he is?

The man nodded as if he could read his thoughts.

“Lycan told me the basics. They said you took good care of Geom-Ma, making sure he didn’t stray.”

“Kang Geom-Ma…? Don’t tell me…”

“He is my last disciple. And my son.”

“……!”

“The timelines are a bit tangled, aren’t they? Better to accept it that way. Lately the world’s been all stirred up.”

The man raised the sword hanging at his side.

The Sword Master thought—even if it was just a stance—it was of overwhelming beauty.

Even after awakening his Blessing, he had never stopped training.

And yet, before this man—the founder of all heroes—he was nothing.

“With all due respect… before, your arm…”

“I didn’t have one, right? How do I explain… Let’s just say that thanks to rejuvenation, the lost arm came back too.”

“I see…”

“And you? What happened to your arm? Though for a hero, the rare thing would be having all their limbs intact. But in the short time I saw you, you didn’t seem like the type to sacrifice it just like that.”

The Master stroked his empty sleeve, long used to the absence.

He smiled with nostalgia.

“…I offered it to the new era.”

“Well, you definitely are a descendant of Aaron. In daily life you’re a clown, but when you get serious, you’re all airs.”

“I-I am not…!”

“Bah.”

The man smiled at him, wrapping his fingers around his sword’s hilt.

“What do you say? Will you come with me?”

“…It would be an honor, if you permit it.”

The Sword Master straightened his mind and replied.

The man smiled and set one foot on the railing.

“Honor to fight? Come on now. But I have a hunch that giant eye is probably only in Seoul. Let’s destroy it, and then we’ll fly to Hawaii, where Kang Geom-Ma is.”

“Understood.”

“Excuse me…”

“Hmm?”

A young man approached the two of them, trembling, holding his phone. He was recording the two giants.

The boy spoke with difficulty.

“Not the Sword Master… the one who looks like Heavenly Sword… Really, I-I’m only asking just in case…”

Glup.

“Are you… who I think you are?”

The Sword Master looked alternately at the boy and the man.

“Take lots of photos with that and share them with the world.”

The man patted the young man’s head with his only hand.

“Tell them the founding hero, Balor Joaquin, has returned across time.”

***

Thanks to the swift intervention of Kang Geom-Ma and his group, Kali Yuga’s original plan—to devastate humanity’s minds—ended in failure.

That alone was enough to make Kali Yuga feel sick to its stomach.

But to make matters worse, it had now been dragged into reality.

And worst of all—it hadn’t even manifested seventy percent of the true body’s strength it had planned.

If it were a true “End of the World,” that alone would be enough to drag the entire planet into ruin.

Such was the overwhelming power of the Apostles of Suppression, who transcended even species themselves.

=Dammit. That woman from hell…=

Kali Yuga gnashed its teeth.

Right now it was fending off an incessant offensive.

=You’re trying to forcibly twist the structure of karma, huh?=

It was no doubt a mistake on Kali Yuga’s part to have defied the real intent of Suppression.

Unlike the rigid Ragnarok, Kali Yuga had secretly schemed a conspiracy.

Its intention was to devour this world and be reborn as the ruler of the next timeline.

Thus, it would finally rid itself of that miserable role as Suppression’s lackey.

But all its plans had crumbled.

The last Apostle chosen by Suppression.

Because of the whim of the woman from hell, the link between reality and Blessing of the End M had been severed.

The illusion of Chaerina.

It was she who pushed away the plague spread by Kali Yuga to the farthest reaches.

That illusion was an authority granted exclusively by Suppression to the woman from hell.

Compared to that, Kali Yuga’s plan was nothing more than a cheap trick.

=I’ll exterminate them… and then I’ll kill the mind of that damned woman from hell! I’ll turn her entire life into a real hell.=

The eyes embedded in its skin spun endlessly. They were to track the movements of the heroes attacking from all sides.

Fwossshh!

An arrow shot from the flank pierced one of its eyes. It dodged several, but a few struck dead on.

When it tried to catch them to crush them, a swordsman and a lancer attacked from the opposite side.

Even with dozens of eyes it couldn’t keep up. Everything was chaos. Those humans were experts at hit-and-run tactics.

That such insignificant insects could land effective strikes against an Apostle of Suppression? Unthinkable. But at the center of it all was Kang Geom-Ma.

“Geom-Ma! That blue one’s about to do something!”

Rachel shouted, and Ryozo added her opinion.

“Haa—We need to push it back from the front for a moment.”

“I’ll buy you 10 seconds. Reset yourselves in the meantime.”

=You insolent worms! You dare mock me to my face?=

“What a noisy bastard.”

Kang Geom-Ma dismissed him coldly.

“Hiding yourself as a cheap little mobile game, and now you talk about insolence, mockery—why don’t you say the truth? You’re afraid.”

=You arrogant…!=

“That’s a flag.”

=……!?=

“Everyone who’s said that line in front of me is already dead.”

And with that, Kang Geom-Ma launched himself at it. Kali Yuga twisted its body to avoid a direct clash.

The scenery changed abruptly. First Hawaii, then deserts, jungles, eternal snows, oceans—a sequence of scenes.

Kali Yuga observed its state with its third eye from a cosmic perspective.

Looking at Earth from space, it understood everything. The blue planet was encircled by a ring, like a hula hoop.

Kang Geom-Ma had grabbed its head and was spinning it at the speed of light around the globe. Accelerating more and more. The friction was so great that Kali Yuga’s skin was peeling off completely.

Then, Kali Yuga stretched out its arms and managed to push Kang Geom-Ma away. At that moment, the two were flying over the sea.

Kang Geom-Ma propelled himself through the air like a bolt of light.

Kali Yuga sharpened its vision to the utmost. Veins burst from its eyes. With retinas covered in blood, it managed to glimpse Kang Geom-Ma’s movement.

In all its hands it wielded circular swords—chakrams. And counterattacked.

The sashimi and the chakrams collided. A single clash and already it was devastating. The crossing of weapons unleashed typhoons.

Thunderous booms resounded between them. The weather shifted, tsunamis rose, the sea sank revealing the ocean floor.

It was literally a battle of gods.

Surprisingly, amid that fierce fight, an image began to form in Kali Yuga’s mind.

Kang Geom-Ma was simply strong. Not just in power, but in spirit. His only weakness was his fragile humanity, but even that had been covered by his companions.

=…I acknowledge it. You are the one at the end of the road.=

Kali Yuga’s eyes widened.

=But even so, you are still inferior to us.=

The sashimi gleamed. Three of Kali Yuga’s arms were severed in a single stroke.

Grinding its teeth, Kali Yuga hurled the severed arms at Kang Geom-Ma.

He dodged two with the slightest tilt of his head.

Annoyed at how easily the attack was avoided, Kali Yuga threw all its chakrams.

Kang Geom-Ma spun like a swallow and deflected them all. But just then, one of the severed arms lunged into plain sight.

By reflex, Kang Geom-Ma swung his sashimi. He was going to reduce that arm to minced meat.

Thud.

A fragment flew off and grazed his cheek. Kang Geom-Ma responded with a deadly thrust.

Kali Yuga barely managed to deflect the blow.

However. From space, an observing gaze was horrified.

The cloud covering the Earth and the ocean had been sliced in a fan. Kali Yuga, trembling, looked back at the enemy.

Kang Geom-Ma stood still. Completely motionless.

=You are lost in a dream=

It was Kali Yuga’s special ability.

The Golden Age of Gandhara. A technique that made the target fall into endless pleasure until they were neutralized.

=Originally… I planned to use this ability to turn everyone into my vassals. But I acknowledge it. You are beyond what I imagined=

A cosmic-level pleasure was injected into Kang Geom-Ma. He would be trapped forever in that golden garden. Never, under any circumstance, would he escape.

And just when Kali Yuga thought it was over, it abandoned the idea.

It didn’t want to approach Kang Geom-Ma any closer.

=You damned hell-bitch, I’ll start with you=

Dragging its exhausted body, it launched itself toward the sky.

Kang Geom-Ma, with dim eyes, sank slowly into the ocean’s depths.

As if tentacles from the darkness were pulling him down, his body descended little by little into the abyss.