bookpower Chapter 358: 2 Vs 1
Chapter 358: 2 Vs 1
Chapter 358: 2 Vs 1
They put on durability-check armor, then swapped their usual weapons for a wooden sword and wooden dagger.
They also finished equipping an emergency defense device—one that forcibly triggered to protect the wearer if excessive damage came in.
Thanks to layered protection—double and triple—there was no worry about safety accidents.
“The count starts now!”
Ma Jin-ho, the only spectator and the referee, boomed out.
Kang-hoo had long since taken his position, and O Yu-jin and O Hye-jin had finished their warm-ups.
“Begin!”
The spar curtain rose.
【Shadow Step】
Kang-hoo’s first choice was Shadow Step.
Since they could chain magic, he judged dispersing their line of sight was best.
“...?”
What unfolded was far more suffocating than he’d expected.
He had known O Yu-jin would deploy a “Formation of Slowdown” early.
But that formation wasn’t chasing only his true body—it tracked the feet of every shadow he cast.
Six slowdown formations matched speed and hounded him relentlessly—neither lagging nor getting ahead.
‘She can multi-track calculations? Impressive.’
He couldn’t help but be impressed.
To tail himself and five shadows, all moving in different vectors, this deftly—
But his admiration stopped there.
If you got caught in a slowdown formation even once, the next link would be freezing. A perfect recipe for danger.
【Master of Manipulation】
【Manipulation – Formation of Slowdown】
He immediately copied the slowdown formation via the Master of Manipulation constellation.
If he had it, it could be a perfect tool to flip variables back on them.
Kkudeudeudeuk!
Then O Hye-jin deployed a skill that froze the surrounding air wholesale to restrict his movement path.
His toes were just brushing a slowdown sigil—she had predicted and fired on that vector.
It was decidedly tricky.
With this level of skill, they could sit as masters of a major guild and smoothly run all of Jeju.
【Acceleration】
【Leap】
Planting power in both legs, Kang-hoo vaulted high.
With Acceleration layered onto Leap, his jump height was considerable.
Of course he didn’t end his evasion with a simple jump; he had one more skill to tack on.
【Cutieee!】
A large slime appeared.
Why summon a slime out of nowhere? He had a reason.
‘If I think only about my evasion, I’m a scrub. To become intermediate—no, advanced—I must predict that they’ll target where I evade to.’
He knew the sisters would target him the instant he went airborne.
Many hunters overlooked this— thinking everything would resolve if they just dodged stylishly.
That only happened in the low-tier world where opponents flailed even at shabby evasions.
Anyone with a bit of eye for combat knew how risky aerial evasion was—mobility in the air was far worse than on the ground.
At certain instants, you were little more than a slowly drifting target.
So he had prepped a few options to absorb the sisters’ aim at his airborne body.
First pick: Cutieee!—a slime so adorable it looked lethal to the heart.
At the same time—
“Wow. He blocked it like that?”
Ma Jin-ho gasped as the aerial freezing check O Hye-jin had loosed got eaten by the slime.
Slow the enemy’s ground movement with formations and they choose the air—textbook flow.
Lots of fights had taught this data; his aerial leap had been well within their calculations.
So she immediately fired a freeze check to bind him—but it was blocked, right in their faces.
The big slime wasn’t an impromptu call; it was a counter to their gambit.
Vision stolen by the slime.
With the freeze check wasted as well, their linkage suffered a gap.
Crucially, they momentarily lost Kang-hoo’s exact position—deadly.
Flustered, O Yu-jin’s concentration wavered; her multi-tracking of all shadows showed gaps.
From the air, Kang-hoo spotted the shadow that had slipped her pursuit and swapped places.
“...!”
He reappeared less than seven meters from the sisters.
He had forced an approach.
Recognizing an attack window, he breathed a skill into his spare wooden dagger.
【Fire-Dragon Spear】
A dagger wreathed in flame.
No hunter could ignore such a projectile screaming in.
Whoom!
He sent Fire-Dragon Spear at O Yu-jin, and, now spotted, he also threw a check at O Hye-jin.
【Qi Blast】
Taaang!
【Summon Corrupt Beast】
Kieee!
He snap-fired Qi Blast to force O Hye-jin to block, then loosed a Corrupt Beast to harry her until its lifeforce ran out.
Taaang!
She barely caught the Qi Blast on her sword— but the Corrupt Beast immediately clung to her face, blotting her vision entirely.
‘A brief margin. In it, take Yu-jin out.’
His gaze locked solely on O Yu-jin.
He surged with Acceleration and Leap.
Having parried Fire-Dragon Spear, O Yu-jin poured mana into her wooden sword.
From her grip and the flickering effect, she clearly meant to emit sword-qi.
‘If time dilation hits me, I lose.’
He went full sprint.
There was only one way to erase a headcount disadvantage—reduce the headcount.
That meant eliminating O Yu-jin in this exchange.
Swiiing!
Mana budded on her tip—then a fierce blade of sword-qi shot at him.
He desperately wanted to just slip aside, but that was precisely what they wanted.
So—
【Body-Guard – Stage 3】
He brought out the Body-Guard skill.
Skaang!
The Stage-3 barrier wrapped him and cleanly took the sword-qi.
Swiiing!
She instantly shaped another and fired again; she had predicted his block and chained without hesitation.
A rare scene born of mutual recognition and respect for each other’s skill.
He refused to lose momentum; from start to now, his goal was O Yu-jin’s elimination.
【Body-Guard – Stage 2】
Kaang!
Sparks burst as another sword-qi shattered on the barrier.
O Yu-jin’s mouth fell open—one block, maybe; two in a row, she hadn’t expected.
Moreover— normally, blocking knocked you back or killed your speed momentarily.
But he shed the strikes without losing pace and closed to point-blank.
“This is insane...”
From the third-party seat, Ma Jin-ho could see everything.
From the start, Kang-hoo had targeted O Yu-jin alone and had pre-scripted answers for her options.
So whatever wrinkle she tried was inside his calculation envelope—he could answer instantly.
In fact, he had laced in feints to shake her further; a true opening appeared.
Chiiiiik!
Kang-hoo halted— dipped, then sprang like a coil, telegraphing for her upper body.
Anyone could see he meant to slash for neck or face with the wooden dagger.
So she thrust her wooden sword forward to intercept that vector.
But—
【Soaring Strike】
Thwack!
“Kyaak!”
A variable hit.
Instead of stabbing again, he stopped—and kicked, launching his lead leg.
Unaware of Soaring Strike’s existence, O Yu-jin yielded a fatal opening.
The clean shot under her chin lifted her off the ground.
She wore protection, so she wasn’t injured—but the shock rang through her.
And by the time she barely regained balance and landed—
Cheok.
His wooden dagger was already poised at her uvula.
Kkuuk.
For confirmation, he pressed her uvula once—signifying that in a real fight her head would be gone.
“Haa.”
O Yu-jin exhaled.
Regret was regret, but rules were rules. She stepped out of the ring at once.
“Ah, seriously!”
Meanwhile, O Hye-jin was suffering at the hands of the Corrupt Beast Kang-hoo had sent.
It moved at high speed and could strike—she couldn’t ignore it.
As pre-ordered, it persistently screened her vision— even when sliced or torn, it somehow kept veiling her eyes and throwing her focus off.
This was her first time facing a summoned fiend of this sort; she couldn’t help but fluster.
Thus she fell even easier than O Yu-jin.
Chaining Shadow Step and Illusion Arts, Kang-hoo closed—and easily took her by the throat.
Her fatal blunder was having no counter to the Corrupt Beast variable.
“I... lost.”
“Good work.”
“...That’s it?”
“Yes. Ms. O Yu-jin has already exited.”
“Wow, it feels like we barely even started and we both got wiped...”
O Hye-jin bit her lip. She wasn’t angry or resentful.
She had simply wanted to feel the measure of his power firsthand—and now knew his name’s fame wasn’t empty.
Make one mistake— show one opening— and you could not avoid death against the assassin Shin Kang-hoo. That fact landed hard.
A little later, they regrouped at the center ring.
“My eyes feasted.”
Ma Jin-ho beamed.
Receiving an icy glare from O Yu-jin—as if to ask how he could smile when his guild master had lost— he hurriedly straightened up, realizing he’d gotten carried away.
Having steadied the sting of defeat, O Yu-jin addressed Kang-hoo calmly.
“My sister and I lost. I think it was a meaningful spar. A clean defeat.”
“I thought we wouldn’t fluster at ordinary variables... and you still nailed us with a perfect shot.”
O Hye-jin drooped her head.
In a 2-on-1 that ended in the opening phase, she was understandably upset.
That’s the nature of gambits— when both sides fought by gambit, the verdict came fast. The side that missed lost in a landslide.
Perhaps because of that—
O Yu-jin wanted to chew through and review the cause of defeat; she asked him right away.
“Could you give us feedback on this spar? If needed, we’ll pay for it. Please—we really want it.”
She bent at the waist, full bow—her stance radiated a will to pare away flaws at any cost.
Pride had vanished; only the desire to upgrade themselves remained.
The feedback forming in Kang-hoo’s mind was crisp. He had to start with this.
“You need to stand on your own. The self-consolation that ‘we’re strong together’ is a useless arrogance.”
His sharp critique of the sisters’ fatal weakness began.