The Hero Returns

* * *

Ka-pow—!

The spear hurtling out of Ares' hand quickly filled up Su-hyeun's vision.

Bang—!

Su-hyeun hurriedly swung his sword to deflect the incoming spear. His hand had begun aching from numbness from parrying each attack.

"Just how many damn spears does he even have?" he thought.

It had only been a single breath ago that he had to urgently smack a spear away, yet another spear was instantly in Ares' hand again. It seemed likely that his spears were not some specially crafted heavenly weapons but ordinary throwing spears that happened to contain the power of Ares.

"A spear can be used as a melee weapon or as a throwing weapon. And in a period as brief as a flash of light, you will often lose your window of opportunity just because you hesitated to throw your so-called valuable weapon," said Ares before assuming a posture preparing for a throw once more.

Here it comes!

Paaaaang—!

Clang—!

Su-hyeun defended against yet another thrown spear. However, the impact force still lingered in his hand. Just how high was Ares' Strength stat anyway? These spears contained the level of pure power Su-hyeun had not experienced before.

Ares continued, "For that purpose, there is no reason to use good spears. Rather than enhancing your combat strength, it is far more important to make that decision at the snap of a finger, after all. A good spear will only serve to muddy that decision-making process."

"Even if that's true, aren't you too carefree with your spear wasting right now?"

"I have plenty of spears. Why should I conserve them in that case?" Ares retorted before assuming the familiar stance once more.

Su-hyeun had always been the one throwing spears during his fights, and maybe that was the reason why he wasn't feeling so great at the current reversal of fortunes, so to speak.

"Since that's the case..." Su-hyeun began thinking.

Ares finished assuming the stance, and then, another spear flew out from his hand.

Ka-boom—!

The spear tore through the air like a launched missile with the sound that it made, but almost at the same time, a different noise exploded from the opposite side.

RUMBLE—!

"What?!" Ares hurriedly raised his shield.

The impact arrived shortly after that.

KA-BOOOOOM—!

Ares, holding up the shield, quivered and jolted uncontrollably several times. He was barely able to prop himself up by strengthening his leg muscles, which prevented a humiliating spectacle of him getting helplessly flung away.

On the flip side, his arm with the shield required a lot of his strength to prop up.

Ares withdrew the shield, revealing his stunned face. There was a scorched spot in the center of the Temple.

He quietly muttered, "That's father's power."

"Yes. Although it does take a bit of effort to pull off..."

Pazzzzzik—

Another spear emitting an amber-golden light materialized within Su-hyeun's grip. "I can still create several more of it, no problem."

Pazik, bzzzzzik—

The spear containing a stupendous amount of power affected the surroundings simply by materializing like this.

Ares glanced at the ashes scattered on the arena's floor. Those were the remnant of a spear crafted by a fairly well-known blacksmithing god, although that individual was no Hephaestus.

Even so, a god-made spear couldn't withstand a lightning bolt containing Zeus's might, which disintegrated it into fine powder. It would be impossible to block the Thunderbolts unless the spear itself was a top-quality item, in other words.

"With things like this, spear-throwing won't get me anywhere fast," Ares inwardly mused.

Basically, Ares had lost one of his attacking options. No, actually, it would be more correct to say that one of the methods that proved to be more advantageous for him had now become his opponent's advantage instead.

"In that case..."

Ares discarded his spear and then unsheathed his sword next. Unlike his spears, this sword was rather gorgeously designed. Its hilt was decorated with gold, while some types of metal in varying sizes and quantities could be seen embedded within the blades, enhancing the weapon's cutting power.

That was definitely one of Hephaestus' products.

The meaning behind Ares pulling his sword out was simple—he had chosen to change his battle strategy.

"So, it's a sword this time," Su-hyeun glanced down at his own sword. Then, while looking at the Thunderbolt he still had in his left hand, he muttered to no one in particular, "But I don't need to play along, now do I?"

He began smirking deeply.

Right after that, Ares charged straight into Su-hyeun.

Pshuuuuak—!

Sliiiiice—!

He swung his sword downward to perfectly match his forward charge, but it only ended up cleaving the floor apart. Despite the Temple's tough construction, a long but shallow sword scar was left behind. Ares stopped moving for a moment on the spot where Su-hyeun used to be and quickly looked around to locate his foe.

At that very moment, he sensed a presence above his head.

Rumble—!

Claaaang—!

Ares blocked the Thunderbolt falling on top of his head, causing his legs to buckle for a moment there.

The electrical energy from the lightning traveled down the sword at the same time and briefly paralyzed his hand. However, he ignored that and tried to leap to where Su-hyeun was, only for the latter to kick the air and rise even higher to create more distance between them.

The situation had reversed completely now.

Ares normally used his sword, spears, and shield to fight; he concluded that a long-range battle using spears was impossible to continue and gave up doing that, but now, Su-hyeun was the one throwing a bunch of spears at him.

"This has become a bit troublesome," said Ares as he shed some cold sweat.

Even if the Thunderbolt couldn't be thrown around willy-nilly, the destructive power contained in each shot still proved to be considerably lethal even to someone like Ares. No matter what, he had to avoid getting directly struck by one.

With one more danger to look out for, trying to wage close-quarter combat would be very hard to pull off.

"Not only that, but he's also not too shabby up close, wasn't he?" Ares recalled when he and Su-hyeun briefly fought in close quarters earlier.

The levels of their skills were quite evenly matched. However, Su-hyeun seemed to possess more trump cards, and this situation was proving to be too disadvantageous for Ares.

"In that case, time to change my strategy, then," Ares suppressed a smirk from breaking out on his face.

* * *

Rumble—!

The Thunderbolt flashed brightly once more.

Ka-zzzzzzik—!

Kagagagak—!

Ares was shoved far back after he defended against another Thunderbolt with his shield. He was closing in for a melee just now only to suffer a considerable amount of damage from the lightning spear, and then, the distance between them widened even further.

"Fuu-woo...Let me tell you something, every one of these Thunderbolts feels exactly like when father smacks me around," Ares quipped despite his whole body getting drenched in sweat.

Even Su-hyeun was in a similar state; the only difference was that he had shed less sweat than his opponent.

This battle had been going on for several hours already.

The way it unfolded remained largely the same since the beginning; Su-hyeun used Thunderbolts to create distance and continued to damage his opponent from afar.

When Ares did manage to get close, Su-hyeun responded with his own sword, dropped another Thunderbolt on top of the God of War, or even used his divine Flame to create distance again.

"Even then, I'm guessing you don't have a lot more left in your reserve, now do you?" For the first time in several hours, Ares smirked again.

He could sense that the might of the Thunderbolt had decreased a lot. Su-hyeun had also become exhausted with the passage of enough time.

"It looks like you sweated a lot more than me, though?"

"A fight on this level is nothing more than a child's play compared to my battles against the race of giants. I lost count how many times I was driven to death's doorstep with my breath about to cut out at any moment."

"Is that so?" Su-hyeun's lips distorted into a smirk. If one wanted to talk about such a thing, then well, he could totally relate as someone who had already experienced death before. "Why don't we find out who will be left standing in the end?"

"Very good."

Whoooosh—

Ares raised his shield and charged toward Su-hyeun. He was going for a body slam here.

Kwa-aaaaah—!

With Ares charging in while tearing the atmosphere apart, he carried enough momentum to completely obliterate a huge mountain. He held his shield up to defend against the incoming Thunderbolt, only to sense something was not quite right, "Why isn't there any attack?"

The Thunderbolt that came flying in like clockwork suddenly was nowhere to be found, so Ares briefly peeked over the shield to look, but right at that moment...

Fwhoooooosh—

A humongous storm of winds was already concentrating on Su-hyeun's sword. "Blow away…"

Whoosh—

"Palm Leaf."

Baaaaaang—!

The huge storm focused on one spot and began mercilessly pounding on Ares' shield. The wind pressure borne out of an incredible amount of winds succeeded in forcing him back. Ares gritted his teeth and strengthened his grip on his shield.

Pa-zzzzzik—

The next thing he knew, a Thunderbolt materialized in Su-hyeun's hand.

Ares clenched his teeth when he spotted the Thunderbolt visible just below his shield. "This punk, he suddenly changed his—"

Up until this moment, Su-hyeun always hurled a Thunderbolt whenever Ares tried to close in on him and created an extra distance that way.

However, he suddenly changed his tactic. He then relied on the Palm Leaf, not the usual Thunderbolt, to generate mighty wind pressure to disrupt Ares' sense of balance.

If Ares was aware of this ahead of time, or if he had detected even a hint of what was about to come, then he would have never lost his balance like this. He would have probably made plans to deal with the second attack, too.

Unfortunately, Ares couldn't respond to the unexpected second attack, which happened to be another round of Thunderbolt.

Ares' whole body was now airborne from the Palm Leaf's mighty winds, and he clenched his teeth as he witnessed the lightning spear leave Su-hyeun's hand.

RUMBLE—!

Kwa-zzzzzzik-!

The Thunderbolt snuck under the slightly raised shield to slam into Ares' torso, but at the same time...

Stab—!

A single spear came flying from out of nowhere and pierced deep into Su-hyeun's shoulder.

"Kugh...!" Su-hyeun staggered from the impact.

The moment he fired his Thunderbolt, Ares also threw his own spear. Their timing was almost a perfect match.

Ares wasn't the only one who got caught unawares just now. Su-hyeun also ended up overlooking the potential counterattack after their battle unfolded in a fixed pattern until now because Ares had not thrown a single spear during the past few hours.

"I let my guard down."

Su-hyeun, having fired many Thunderbolts up to this point, was in a fatigued state. On top of that, the battle was fought in the same pattern for a while, so he ended up forgetting about Ares' spears.

"Is this what he has been aiming for?"

Just like how Su-hyeun was biding his time and waiting for an opening to manifest by changing the attack pattern just once, Ares had also been holding onto a trump card.

Thanks to his carelessness, Su-hyeun now had an extra hole in his shoulder. Of course, Ares was also suffering from grievous injuries.

"Keuh-euh...This certainly stings."

Pazzzik, bzzzz—

Ares distorted his torso while enduring the pain. He was already greatly exhausted by this battle, so the Thunderbolt ended up shocking his body, halfway paralyzing him.

Even if he belonged to the group of gods that possessed ridiculously strong physical bodies, there was no way he would emerge unscathed after getting struck directly by a Thunderbolt with how exhausted he was.

"So, how about it? You think you can continue?" Ares began walking over to Su-hyeun while quivering and twisting his paralyzed body.

Even though he was obviously exhausted, the light burning in his eyes was still going strong. It even seemed to be burning fiercer than ever before.

This fight was reaching its climax, it seemed.

Su-hyeun asked back, "Are you seriously asking me that in your current state?"

"Well, you also have a new air hole in your shoulder, after all, and it seems that you are not aware of this, so let me clarify it for you. This level of injury is nothing to me."

It didn't look like Ares was bluffing, either.

His body must have been truly monstrous because, during their brief verbal exchange, his paralysis seemed to have come undone.

At this rate, he would only go down for the count after getting struck by a few more Thunderbolts.

Puu-wuuk—!

Su-hyeun yanked out the spear in his shoulder. It had really been a long time since he got wounded to this degree. To him, the level of pain was just as intense, but his pain tolerance was quite extraordinary, to begin with.

Also...

"Even then, it seems that I still hold more trump cards than you, Ares."

[The trait, "Hero – Immortality," is activating.]

[Vitality and stamina will rapidly recover. The abnormal status, "bleeding," will partially heal.]

[Physical abilities will be greatly enhanced.]

Sizzle—

Su-hyeun's wound rapidly closed up, and all of the sweat pouring out from his body nonstop evaporated and became a fog of moisture.

Ares' brows shot up at this unbelievable spectacle.

It sure had been a long time since Su-hyeun had to rely on this skill. What had taken even longer to happen was a battle like this one where his stamina and energy were almost completely depleted, and he was even injured during the battle itself.

Squeeze—

Su-hyeun clenched his fist tightly.

This much was already good; he could get back to fighting in this state.

"The duration is around 15 minutes," he thought.

Once that was over, the skill's effects of temporarily enhancing his stamina, as well as stemming the bleeding, would vanish. Even then, 15 minutes should be more than sufficient to put the exclamation point in this battle's climax.

"Well, then..."

The scale that had been balancing itself precariously had suddenly tilted to one side.

"Why don't we continue?"