Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant-Chapter 480

“Kekeke, yeah! This is it!”

When Su-ho saw the system notifications, he let out a shout of pure, electrifying pleasure without even realizing it.

At the same time, blood ran down from his forehead in a thin stream.

Su-ho’s head wasn’t fine.

It was swollen in several places, like he’d been clubbed—big lumps rising under the skin.

And it wasn’t just his head. His face, shoulders, and chest were the same.

But he’d won.

Why?

There was only one reason.

The moment the dummy’s fist loomed over him again, Su-ho ran countless calculations.

It felt like he’d seen countless futures, like some character from a movie who can see the future.

But among all those futures, he focused on only one.

The dummy, drenched in my habits, has to be shocked by something I would never do.

Like AlphaGo losing in a moment of confusion because a great Go master played a move beyond the range of human prediction.

So once—just once—was enough.

Because that would be the detonator, the butterfly’s wingbeat.

In that instant, lightning struck through his mind, and instead of twisting his head away out of habit, Su-ho put his forehead into the falling fist.

Then a huge explosion and blast of pressure erupted, kicking up a spray of dust.

He could see the dummy hesitate.

Because that wasn’t An Su-ho’s style.

After all, An Su-ho always fought like a machine, minimizing damage at all times.

But there was one thing even Infinity—the culmination of cutting-edge technology—didn’t know.

Namely, that this combat style was Su-ho of this life... in other words, An Su-ho’s style in his second life.

'I was originally someone who fought desperately. There were plenty of times I went in prepared to lose an arm, and plenty of times I went into a dead end even knowing I might die.'

In fact, there were many times his arm had been severed or he’d nearly been decapitated.

But he survived them all.

Like the words of Admiral Yi Sun-sin—if you try to live, you will die; if you decide to die, you will live.

He wasn’t afraid of death.

No... there was a time when he had been afraid.

But just as his second life was, his first life too had been lived with a single thought: he had to take revenge on the system that stole his family and his life. At some point, he began living with nothing left behind him.

He’d lived with the complacent thought that if he got hurt, he could just be healed by a healer.

So he fought on—desperate and ragged—steadily gathering data, stacking experience, honing techniques, and tempering himself.

And before he knew it, he’d reached the seat of the Sword God.

'If a game is fun, playing the same game again can be fun too. But I’m not playing a second run of life for fun.'

He would avenge betrayal, stop the Five Calamities, and save humanity.

Like a man being chased by a monster, once he reached the level where he didn’t even need sleep, he stopped sleeping and spent every moment calculating, planning, and fighting.

As a result, a new style naturally took shape—and a me that was different, yet still me, was born.

In that sense, this fight had been valuable in many ways.

'It’s like I’ve been eating factory-made retort meals, and for the first time in ages I got to eat real cooking.'

Even in the pre-Great Cataclysm era, there were definitely fighting techniques like a “head block,” taking an opponent’s punch with your forehead.

The human forehead was far harder than people imagined.

Some experts even said that head blocks weren’t some special technique invented by humans, but something discovered by instinct.

So the lightning that struck in his mind at that moment was less a brilliant trick to beat the dummy, and more the wildness that had been asleep for a long time.

The choice hit the mark.

When I took the punch with my forehead, the dummy’s eyes shook violently, and in that split second, I twisted and seized his wrist as he flinched from pain, bent his arm, bent my own arm too, tangled us up viciously like a rope, and with a grip that was going numb, I grabbed the dummy’s skin like a beast digging in its claws—like a madman.

And then I went into infighting.

A fight right in front of your face—one you absolutely can’t avoid.

The fight itself was manageable.

People say fights between masters are decided by a sheet of paper’s difference and by their condition that day, but from the moment the dummy’s fist met my forehead, this stopped being an ordinary master-versus-master bout. It became a fight between the current me, like a computer, and the old me, like a beast.

Simply put, the moment it became not the same me fighting the same me, but a different me fighting another me, that enormous difference led me to victory.

Even though our Overall Combat Power differed by a full 10, compared to the dummy, who panicked at an unexpected variable, I swung my fists like a madman—just like my original style.

'And it’s not easy to beat a mad dog to death.'

Drip—

Blood welled up again on his forehead and ran down between his brows.

Refreshing.

He’d once wondered if drawing a little blood from the crown of his head whenever he had a vicious headache might help, and this felt exactly like that.

Ah, is it because I really did get hit until my crown bled?

Well, whatever.

He hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

A chuckle leaked out.

Seeing Shiva’s notifications, Su-ho reined in his laughter, lifted his chin, and looked up at the sky.

“Yes, I know. Shiva, God of Destruction. So... do you like me completely now?”

As he spoke, Su-ho wiped the blood running down between his brows with his forearm.

The smeared blood spread across his face like a stain.

It was oddly grotesque—evoking the look of an Indian warrior’s war paint—but Su-ho himself was flooded with a powerful sense of liberation.

A madman.

Yeah.

He looked exactly like a madman.

And that, too, was part of why Shiva was captivated by him.

[ ■■ answers yes to your question. ]

[ Therefore, ■■ wants to make you its successor. ]

Yeah.

This was the notification he wanted to see.

Just as Su-ho was about to respond to Shiva’s acknowledgement—

[ ■■ clutches its forehead. ]

[ ■■ asks you if this is your best. ]

[ ■■■■ lets out a hollow laugh. ]

Ah, right.

You guys were there, too.

So what are you going to do about it?

Now that you’re here, are you going to give up the successor qualification or something?

Su-ho coolly turned off some of the notifications.

[ ■■ shouts that you can’t...

The notification disappeared.

Mm, yeah. He should’ve done this earlier.

Su-ho focused back on Shiva.

“So, what are the conditions?”

[ ■■ laughs loudly. ]

[ ■■ likes your boldness very much. ]

[ ■■ tells you to wait a moment. ]

Wait?

What was it going to do?

Still, if it told him to wait, he waited for now.

And after a while—

[ ??? accepts ■■’s proposal. ]

Huh?

What did it say?

Su-ho’s eyes widened at the notification.

Because that line was something he’d only ever seen when Hera had raised an objection to the system before.

'So why now?'

That bastard Shiva—if it wanted, it could just open the succession rite. What kind of deal did it make with the system? 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He had no idea.

But one thing was certain: the system had accepted that proposal.

[ ■■’s proposal has been accepted. ]

[ ■■’s test begins. ]

In that instant, Su-ho’s vision went black.

And when his vision brightened again, the scenery around him had changed.

“Here is....”

A place he’d never seen before.

One thing was certain: this wasn’t Kunlun.

Like the sparring arena where he’d fought the Heracles avatar before, the floor was flat and laid out in thick grid patterns, and the sky and the end of the horizon weren’t visible—an arena eerily similar to that place.

That was when—

[ Entering ■■’s space. ]

■■’s space?

Seeing that, Su-ho immediately realized this was Shiva’s space.

'Jeez. What kind of crap are you trying to pull now, dragging me in here?'

If it decided to pick him because it liked him, then as the God of Destruction it should just give him the successor qualification cleanly.

Just as he was thinking that, a black wormhole formed in front of his eyes, and from within it, a shirtless handsome man with skin tinged in blue and violet stepped out.

Then the wormhole vanished, and the man smiled at Su-ho and waved.

“Hi?”

A simple greeting.

I should greet him /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ back.

Just as he was about to answer—

Piiing—

“Uh...?”

It was just a simple greeting.

But the moment Su-ho heard the man’s greeting, a high ringing sound—piiing—filled his ears like tinnitus, his vision blurred, and he suddenly couldn’t keep his balance.

As a bonus, his arms and legs lost strength, too.

When Su-ho staggered like he was about to fall, the man panicked and quickly spread both palms toward him.

Then the intense dizziness vanished in an instant, and Su-ho barely managed to recover his senses.

But maybe because of the aftermath of what he’d just experienced, Su-ho still had no choice but to collapse to the ground.

“Wow....”

A low murmur.

It came out on its own, almost like a sigh.

Because the pain that hit him was like severe orthostatic anemia.

But soon strength returned to his body again, and Su-ho managed to stand back up.

Seeing that, the man gave an awkward smile and scratched the back of his head with one hand.

“Hey, are you okay? I tried to control my power as much as I could, but I didn’t know you’d be this weak.”

“......Who are you?”

“Me? Who do you think I am?”

The man smiled with innocent cheer.

In that moment, a thought flashed through Su-ho’s mind.

'Don’t tell me that guy is Shiva?'

He’d never met a god called a Transcendent in person.

The closest he’d gotten—if not a true manifestation, then something near it—were Hera and Artemis.

But even then, they’d only descended indirectly, using a priestess as a proxy or appearing like a faint silhouette. They’d never appeared this clearly right in front of him.

'And when Artemis descended, I thought my skull was going to split the moment I heard her voice.'

But the man in front of him also made his vision and mind spin wildly the moment he heard his voice.

“Why are you thinking so hard? You’re right.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re right. It’s me. Me. Shiva, the God of Destruction.”

“......!!”

The man who brightly revealed his identity with that innocent expression and voice was, indeed, the Shiva he’d only dared to suspect.

He was so shocked he temporarily lost his words.

When Su-ho just stared with his mouth half open, unable to say anything, Shiva narrowed his brows in disappointment and stroked his chin.

“Hm. What’s this? The you I saw looked like a complete madman... but I guess you’re still just a mere human after all. Well, I understand. If you see a great being like me in person, any little creature can’t help but be shocked.”

“No, it’s just... I suspected it, but you really are Shiva?”

“Yeah. More precisely, this isn’t my main body—it’s an avatar body.”

“What does that—”

“Why are you asking when you already know? You can barely keep your sanity and you’re shaking like this just seeing an avatar. If my main body descended directly, what do you think would happen? You’d probably explode right there, spurting blood out of every hole in your body.”

“......”

His mouth wouldn’t close.

No—more accurately, he couldn’t think of what to say at all.

Su-ho was smart.

But even with a dragon’s mind, in a situation like this, anyone would be forced into temporary speechlessness.

Maybe Shiva knew that, too.

He smiled and kindly said,

“I didn’t call you here for anything complicated. I called you because I want to have a round with you.”