Junhyuk and Layla were allies who fought together in the battlefield. After learning from Halo, it was the first time he was sparring with her.

Halo was an outstanding teacher, and Layla had learned from him ever since she was a child. By now, she should have mastered the basics.

Sparring with Layla, Junhyuk’s heart was pounding. As he was now, he didn’t think he would lose easily to Halo, so as a result, he didn’t think he would lose to Halo’s student. However, he didn’t plan on letting his guard down.

Junhyuk ran toward her, and she ran toward him. Her movements left vestiges like an illusion, and they were incredibly fast. Junhyuk was astonished by that. She could accelerate even faster than Artlan’s acceleration at the second level.

Layla swung her katana, and Junhyuk swung his sword.

Clang!

Junhyuk thought he had parried the strike, but the pressure of her attacked launched him into the air. Layla launched her katana at him, so Junhyuk released a gust with Dentra’s Magic Sword.

He could control wind better than her. His gust hit the side of her blade, and the katana changed trajectories, but it still flew toward him.

Layla was also heading for him. While she closed in, Junhyuk readied a mana blade.

Suddenly, there were two Layla, or at least he felt like he was dealing with two of them. Junhyuk swung Aksha’s Longsword to keep her from getting closer and released another gust with Dentra’s Magic Sword.

Boom, boom, boom!

As things exploded, he tried to step forward. His sword and her katana clashed. Thought the speed of her katana was faster than the speed of his sword, she lacked continuity in her attacks.

Junhyuk exchanged a few hits with her, and after a while, he was able to read her movements. He could see her openings as she tried to attack him nonstop. Junhyuk was different from the others in that he could counter her strikes.

Clang, clang, clang!

Deflecting her attacks required a lot of energy. He parried one and stabbed at an opening. His sword stopped in front of her chest, and she frowned.

She had seen his attack, but she hadn’t been able to dodge it. She wouldn’t have been able to evade the hit.

Layla had thought her attacks to be perfect. She had thought he wouldn’t be able to counter them. Lowering her katana, she sighed and said, “You got me completely.”

He replied, “Maybe I’m not the one who should say this, but your attacks have a pattern.”

“A pattern?”

“Kind of a habit?”

Layla closed her eyes and took a seat. Halo put a hand on Junhyuk’s shoulder and said, “Layla developed her sword to go over her limits. She did not expect her katana would create another limit.”

“You knew?”

“I did. I told her about it, but she did not change. Now, however, she learned it for good.”

“That’s nice.”

Junhyuk had helped her out and repaid the debt he owed Halo. Layla was still meditating, so he turned to the others.

“Let’s drink till she wakes up.”

“Right.”

Junhyuk wanted to hear Artlan’s heroic exploits. The other heroes had told him about their pasts, but Artlan’s story wasn’t that fun.

Artlan had been strong as a child and had learned to control mana by himself. At one point, he met a teacher who had taught him more methodically. I had taken a year for Artlan to defeat that teacher. Artlan increased his territory, but he soon encountered the ocean.

He couldn’t cross the ocean by himself, and that’s when he met the dimensional manager. From then on, Artlan focused on the Dimensional Battlefield.

Vera told him that she was an unparalleled genius. The mages of the magic tower had tried to kill her by burying her alive, but she managed to kill them all. Her magic had been far beyond their expectations. After killing them, she became the tower’s elder and, eventually, the master of the tower.

Vera could control dimensional movement, so it was easy to see how outstanding she was. Even dragons had recognized her prowess.

Nudra was about to tell his story when Layla woke up. He couldn’t tell if Layla had attained a new level, but she seemed to have learned a lot from her mediation.

“Thank you. I learned a lot,” she told him.

“I was about time you come to terms with it. It’s good you learned.”

“I needed something to trigger the process,” Layla replied.

She looked at Halo and said, “I want to go train.”

“Sure.”

Layla turned back to Junhyuk and said, “See you in the nest battlefield.”

“Right.”

Layla left, and Junhyuk looked at the others. They were all getting up.

“It’s no fun if she’s the only one training. See you next time.”

The group left one by one, and Junhyuk looked at the bottles left. Some were still full. He put those in his Spatial Bag and yawned hard. Sarang and Elise were still there.

“I should be going.”

“Me too.”

Junhyuk nodded. After they both left, he pulled out his swords. The Triple Yin Yang was complete, but he had to improve himself even further.

He started training again.

—

On Friday, he watched Ling Ling’s match. Her battle was more ferocious than before, but in the end, Ling Ling won. Junhyuk was paid his winning and went back to Earth. There, he got a call from Elise.

There was a tear, so he quickly exited his training facility. Junhyuk teleported to Elise’s lab and saw her with a grave look on her face as she looked into a monitor.

“What is the size of it?”

“It’s bigger than before, but look over here.”

Elise showed him the sky above Jeju Island.

“What is that?”

“This is where the biggest tear is. A dragon can come out from something that size.”

“A dragon?!”

Junhyuk was speechless. A single dragon wasn’t a problem, but there were 150 tears around the world. If a dragon appeared, all of the heroes would have to join forces to fight it. They couldn’t deal with 150 tears.

“Did you call Eunseo?”

“I told her about it. Lucy is coming up with a strategy.”

“How many iron soldiers do we have ready?”

“There are three thousand at the ready, but I’m not sure if I can stop the tears.”

With the decomposition compound, they would be able to stop the monsters, but without enough of it, they would have to fight normally. They didn’t know how many monsters would exit the tears, but three thousand iron soldiers wouldn’t be enough.

“Let’s send teams of powered people. I’m not sure a new hero will appear, but we shouldn’t deal with these tears like the previous ones.”

“OK. I detected the tears early, so we have five minutes to spare. I already deployed the iron soldiers to every location. We should send the powered to nine specific spots.”

“Right, but getting to Jeju Island will take time.”

“We can…” she said, stopping mid-sentence and motioning with her hand across the air. Junhyuk walked out with her, and saw that Jeffrey, Sarang and the champions were already there. He also noticed a plane he had never seen before.

Elise smiled and said, “I made it so that we could go there. It’ll get us to the island in five minutes.”

“It’s that fast?!”

“Get on. We are wasting time.”

They all got on the plane, and Elise smiled and said, “Put your seatbelts on.”

The plane took off vertically. The turbines turned direction and sped up. There was loud screaming, and Junhyuk looked out the window. It was incredibly fast, but he was not scared.

It took the plane four and a half minutes to cross the air and reach Jeju Island. There, they saw a tear bigger than anything they had ever seen.

Junhyuk got up, and Elise turned the plane, saying, “Get out, please.”

The people exited the plane, and Junhyuk looked up at the tear. It was even bigger than the last tear with the dragon.

“What are you going to send?”

Junhyuk wanted, and suddenly, a head appeared through the tear. It was a dragon’s head.

“A dragon again?”

The last dragon had been hard to kill, but a dragon wouldn’t pose that much of a problem for the powered people now.

Still looking at it, Junhyuk watched as another head appeared.

“It isn’t a dragon.”

He was intrigued. It was a five-headed dragon.

“No. That’s not a dragon. It’s a hydra.”

The hydra had ma.s.sive wings, along with a thick mana shield. It was even bigger than a dragon.

“They must’ve crafted it, a chimera of many dragons.”

The heads all had different colors.

Junhyuk unsheathed his swords and said, “I don’t care if it was engineered.” He got on his drone and took off toward the hydra.