The Grasshopper Demon despised every human who stood in its path. Especially the human with the strange aura—the one its Psychic Intimidation didn't work on. It was a natural predator with razor-sharp instincts. It could tell that the failure of its Psychic Intimidation meant this opponent possessed mental fortitude surpassing its own. This puny human with the power of a drinking glass had greater psychic strength? The truth was impossible to accept. It calcified into murderous spite—a driving need to kill and devour him.
The Grasshopper Demon forgot its original purpose: to kill the trembling little girl who couldn't move. The command etched into its soul was overwritten by a new directive—eliminate the man who'd interfered. As if the girl named Luciria no longer mattered at all. Removing the thorn before its eyes took absolute priority over some nameless child.
[Celestial Fiend.] Soundless words rang inside the Grasshopper Demon's skull. Just like the encounter with the Chimera Wolf. A voice no one else could hear except Jinyo. The bodyguards, Sven, Luciria—none of them reacted to its words. It was a voice meant only for Jinyo, and the creature could sense the hostility he harbored toward Heaven. The Grasshopper Demon detonated its dark green Planar. Its muscles swelled slightly as its Strength stat surged with reinforcement.
[Blood Consumption Art.] The Grasshopper Demon roared. Its Planar intensified until the very air grew dense and heavy. Jinyo and both bodyguards felt its crushing pressure bear down, making it hard to breathe. Sven, who'd been running toward his sister, tripped and fell flat on his face. A nauseating, bloodthirsty stench saturated the air. Cold sweat poured from every person present—all of them wanted nothing more than to flee this hell.
The Grasshopper Demon vanished from sight. Speed beyond what the eye could track.
"It's gone!" Adam, the mage bodyguard, felt his heart plummet to his ankles.
"Adam! Watch out!" Joey, the knife-wielding bodyguard, shouted a warning. The Grasshopper Demon had closed the distance to Adam in the span of a heartbeat. It cocked its sickle-arm to sever the mage's head—a mage who was defenseless at close range.
"Son of a bitch." Of course Adam was the first target. He was the mage—the one with the most destructive power. That's why it was gunning for his life first.
"Take care of my wife and kids, Joey."
"You bastard! You don't have a wife or kids! Don't pull that deathbed-wish crap. Nobody's letting you die." Joey launched himself in with a killing-knife technique, throwing everything he had. The distance between Joey, Adam, and the Grasshopper Demon was less than three meters. But from Joey's perspective, time was crawling.
'I won't make it! It's too fast. My footwork is still too raw.' Joey couldn't do a thing. All he could do was watch. The Grasshopper Demon swung its arm to sever Adam's neck in a single stroke. A mere blink before Adam's head would have left his shoulders—
The sickle-arm sliced through Adam's space. But Adam was untouched.
Amid everyone's bewilderment—including the Grasshopper Demon's own—the fierce fragrance of flowers erupted. Violent Planar flowed through a sword, tempered by an unyielding and unbreakable will. A blade forged from ore that didn't exist in the human world—as though it were a gift bestowed from the celestial heavens themselves. It shone and gleamed more brilliantly than any other sword that night.
"Dance, Poet's Aria."
The ring of clashing blades echoed. It was fierce and heavy—but not heavy enough to overpower the sickle-arm that deflected it in a fraction of a second. The Grasshopper Demon turned to face the young man whose expression was cold, but whose eyes burned with a hunger for victory—and a desire to devour.
[Is that your own handiwork, Celestial Fiend?] The Grasshopper Demon was certain it had aimed for the neck. But it had misjudged the distance. It had been sure Adam was within striking range—yet when it swung, the sickle-arm missed his neck by roughly five centimeters. It was virtually impossible for it to miscalculate distance. The only explanation was that its senses had been tricked into believing Adam was within range.
"Who knows? Why don't you figure that out yourself. But is it really a good idea—fixating on just me like this? I know insects love flowers, but ignoring everyone else is rather rude."
[!!!] The Grasshopper Demon's eyes went wide. The bear of a man lunged in from behind. A knife edge enhanced with Sword Intent carved into its body. Joey's killing-knife technique was at expert level. Every cut carried the precision and lethality of a trained killer. The Grasshopper Demon had let its guard down—or rather, it had completely forgotten the other two humans existed. No—it hadn't meant to. Jinyo had drawn its attention away.
"Don't underestimate a former D-Rank Hunter, you deep-fried grasshopper!" Joey was seething. He'd nearly lost another colleague.
"Phoenix Talon!" Adam cast his spell. The Grasshopper Demon used its superior speed to dodge the magic. It darted to the ten-o'clock position—but someone was already there to intercept, as though they'd known exactly where it would go. Jinyo shadowed it like a vengeful ghost. The creature was faster—there was no way Jinyo could physically keep up. Yet the fact that this human kept arriving at its position meant something.
"Poem of a Hundred Blooms. First Form."
Peach Blossom Dance!
Jinyo swung his blade. The Grasshopper Demon was one beat too slow and took a hit. But it batted away every subsequent strike with its arm. Its gaze locked onto that strange pink sword.
[I see now. That worthless piece of scrap metal.] The source of every anomaly it had experienced—it all traced back to this sword!
Punishment Wave!
The Grasshopper Demon layered its technique into a slash. A strike so fast it left Jinyo no choice but to raise his sword and block. If he didn't raise his blade right now, his head would leave his shoulders. But even if he successfully blocked or parried, the embedded Punishment Wave would send damage directly into his meridians or internal organs.
And Punishment Wave didn't just channel Planar into meridians and organs. With enough mastery, it could be modified to damage weapons or armor as well. [I will destroy the Celestial Fiend along with that cursed sword.] That was its intent.
Planar with such complex frequency oscillations that it was visible to the naked eye overflowed from the Grasshopper Demon.
"Again! It's going to use that thing again!" Joey recognized the sensation from being hit by Punishment Wave before. Every time the Grasshopper Demon used that bizarre technique, its Planar fluctuated wildly. This time, it was more intense than ever.
"If that kid takes a direct hit, his frail body won't survive. Joey—we have to help him." Adam shouted to his partner. He didn't fully understand what had happened, but he was certain the kid was the reason he was still alive.
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"I can't. The young master and young lady come first." If they moved in and the grasshopper seized the opening to attack Sven or Luciria, that would be a failure as bodyguards. A bodyguard's job was to protect their charges. The employer's safety came first—always. As much as it pained him, Joey couldn't leave his position. Adam alone had no chance of even slowing the creature down.
Just as everyone assumed Jinyo was about to die—the Grasshopper Demon detonated its movement speed by two additional gears. A velocity no one should have been able to react to. Its sickle-arm, dripping with Punishment Wave, drove straight at Jinyo. But Jinyo didn't raise his sword to block the way anyone expected.
He pulled every last drop of Planar back into his body.
"!!!" Luciria watched the reckless act with wide eyes. For any Planar user, retracting all Planar into the body was tantamount to discarding your armor and weapon. A single hit in that state could be lethal. The girl had been taught many things, but nothing in her education explained the intent behind this action. But then—common sense could never apply to those called geniuses.
In those emerald eyes, there was nothing but the madness to devour his opponent. Sword Intent surged into Poet's Aria. The Planar vibrating within the blade reached a frenzy—a chaotic frequency that seemed to consume everything it touched.
"Punishment Wave."
CLANG!
Poet's Aria—overflowing with volatile Planar frequencies—collided with the sickle-arm carrying its own volatile frequencies. The Grasshopper Demon stood frozen, eyes blown wide in disbelief. Every thought ceased. Horror and fury erupted from within like magma surging from a volcanic vent. This advanced technique—one no human should be able to use without painstakingly delicate Planar control—had just been deployed by a human with commoner-level cultivation!
"Wha— what did I just see, Adam?"
"How should I know!" Joey didn't want to believe it either. If his eyes hadn't deceived him, two volatile wave frequencies had collided—and in the end, it reduced to a simple physical exchange. Jinyo's arm was flung back by the superior force, but he sustained none of the internal damage that Joey and Adam had suffered. It wasn't because the Grasshopper Demon had botched the technique. It had been neutralized by the technique Jinyo had just used.
[Just a fluke!] The Grasshopper Demon rejected reality. It detonated another Punishment Wave at Jinyo. Jinyo steadied his breathing and focused.
Punishment Wave!
Jinyo swung to neutralize the attack. But this time, he failed. Pain raced through his arm and spread to his shoulder. His arm began going numb—but this wasn't the first time he'd been hit by Punishment Wave. He adapted with an iron will, focusing entirely on defense. The Grasshopper Demon came at him with another Punishment Wave strike. Jinyo answered with his own, neutralizing the attack once more.
If doing it once could be called a fluke, what did doing it a second and third time mean?
In science, a reproducible process is not called a coincidence. Joey and Adam fired spells and used their own techniques to find openings, but their fear of Punishment Wave made it nearly impossible to commit. Yet this younger fighter didn't just have courage—he stood his ground and found a way to contend with this monstrous power.
'How can he adapt this fast? Where did this kid come from?' Adam and Joey thought the same thing. Sven, watching with his own eyes, didn't know how many times he'd cursed Joden in his head.
"So this is the 'garbage who can't be cultivated.' The 'incompetent contract teacher who can't do anything.' You really are pitiable, Joden. Your judgment is so poor I should never have associated with you." Sven's face twisted between a smile and a grimace. After meeting Jinyo, all Joden had done was badmouth him as a useless man—a PhD working as a math teacher thanks to his father's connections. And this was what Joden called garbage? Then what did that make everyone else—dust mites?
Everyone was mistaken. They assumed Jinyo had figured out how to counter Punishment Wave in the span of a few breaths. But the truth was that he'd fought the Chimera Wolf before and had the Punishment Wave technique manual sitting in his cottage. He'd studied it and devised countermeasures—because there was every chance a future enemy would use this broken technique against him again. Understanding the principles and developing countermeasures was something he'd been trained to do since military academy. And it was no different in his work as a scholar at the university.
The principle behind Punishment Wave: controlling Planar into violently complex frequencies. Like braiding hundreds of threads into a single rope. If even one thread was misaligned, the rope would loosen and unravel. But if braided tightly and firmly, the rope became rigid and immensely strong. Now—what happened if two waves of the same frequency collided?
They cancelled each other out.
'I didn't understand it when I read the manual. I wasn't really paying attention at the time. But seeing it up close for the second time, I finally get how it works.' Jinyo hadn't just been watching passively. He'd been observing the Grasshopper Demon's technique intently. He might have understood the theory, but without a live demonstration, it would have been impossible to truly learn. But when someone was kind enough to show him in person—with the help of Sage's Eye and skills he'd memorized by heart—Jinyo had understood Punishment Wave and used it for the first time. Even if it was still imperfect.
His current success rate was 25%. But Punishment Wave devoured enormous amounts of Planar. It drained both mental and physical energy at staggering rates. The buff from eating Immortal Rice had already worn off. His recovery rate was back to pathetically low levels. But he didn't waver. He couldn't afford to. He was a car with broken brakes—all he could do was drive straight ahead until the fuel ran out.
"You two—when I give the signal, hit it with everything you've got." Jinyo didn't wait for a reply. There was nothing to do but act, and it had to be now. Joey and Adam began accumulating Planar and awaited the signal. The Grasshopper Demon—now fully heated up—unleashed attacks so fast ordinary people couldn't react, every strike laced with Punishment Wave.
But Jinyo, who now understood Punishment Wave well enough to use it himself, knew exactly how draining it was. And the more the Grasshopper Demon moved, the more it was feeding information to the beast that was learning and adapting.
"I can see it all now. Crystal clear!" Jinyo bared a manic grin. He used Flower-Treading Steps to evade the assault, diving under its arm, touching down three times in an unpredictable pattern. The Grasshopper Demon—despite superior speed, superior reflexes, superior senses in every conceivable way—didn't immediately pursue. Not because it couldn't. Not because it was too slow.
It was growing paranoid.
The sword's power had been scrambling its senses. It feared this was a trap—a grave being dug for it.
The Grasshopper Demon was afraid. It didn't know what Jinyo was doing, thinking, or planning.
This impossibly weak human with his pitiful amount of power was herding it with something far more terrifying than brute strength. It held its ground and waited to see what Jinyo would do. It didn't have to wait long. On the fourth step, Jinyo detonated every remaining drop of Planar and charged the Grasshopper Demon head-on.
The Grasshopper Demon extended its sickle-arm—longer, sharper, larger. It kicked its speed up another notch beyond anything Jinyo had witnessed. It was confident this was its absolute peak. A level Jinyo couldn't possibly match.
But was that really the case?
Jinyo, right now... was strong.
As the clouds obscuring the sky drifted apart, the sole source of natural light in the night sky cast its glow down upon the earth—a blessing to nocturnal creatures navigating the darkness. That blessed light fell upon the body of a man who concealed a strength surpassing all others. His body seemed to radiate. It was luminous—even though no light actually emanated from him. Yet he appeared magnetic and enigmatic, as though he were something beyond human.
[Moonlight status activated.]
Gentle yellow Planar blended with soft pink. Though its aura was faint, it wasn't the searing heat that scorched skin—it was a dim, gentle, quiet light.
"Dual-element... Planar?" No one was sure who said it. Maybe Sven. Maybe Adam or Joey. But it didn't matter. It conveyed the magnitude of their shock well enough.
"Peach Blossom Dance." Jinyo read every movement. He dodged the assault and closed in on the gap left by the technique the creature had just used.
Double Impact.
CLANG!
A single slash carrying the force of two simultaneous Punishment Waves. If Punishment Wave was the use of a single complex high-frequency Planar wave, then Double Impact was the use of two violent frequency waves striking at the same time. Jinyo hadn't intended to use Double Impact. He'd done it because he thought it might be possible.
When the first strike landed, Jinyo pressed his advantage with flowing floral patterns. Every slash hammered the defenseless Grasshopper Demon. Double Impact dealt damage proportional to elemental intensity. The more powerful Jinyo's elements, the greater the damage. Unfortunately, Jinyo's primary Flower Element was only Rank F. The Lunar Element granted by Moonlight status was a mere G.
Too weak to kill—but more than enough to inflict shock.
"NOW!" Adam poured every ounce of his accumulated Planar into the spell.
Tier 3 Magic: Cannon Blaze.
Dozens of fireballs merged into one, compressed into a massive round, and rocketed forward. It struck the Grasshopper Demon dead center as it writhed from the pain. Joey drew both knives. He lunged in and carved into the creature's vital points. His blade sliced across the throat. The power coiled in his arm muscles exploded outward—and severed the head clean from the neck.
Jinyo's eyes went wide as the Grasshopper Demon's head tumbled free.
[You have slain the Grasshopper Demon — Level 30. You received: Plant Cultivation Ticket (30 hours).]
"W-we did it! We killed it!" Adam screamed with elation. They'd killed it! He could feel power flooding in. The EXP nearly pushed him to the next level. Joey exhaled. He looked down at the young man who appeared to be on his last legs. He smiled, then laughed.
"Come on, kid. We killed it. Look—I even leveled up."
"You... I didn't tell you to kill it. I needed to be the one to get the kill."
"Oh, come now. Still green, aren't you? Don't be sore about it. I'll make it up to—"
"I don't care about petty stuff like that! There's no time. I'm about to—" Jinyo tried to stand, but his body had no strength left. His legs buckled beneath him. As though his soul had left his body. He'd been praying he was wrong. But fate wasn't kind enough to let him be wrong alone. Less than a minute after the Grasshopper Demon was decapitated, another violent surge of power erupted. The relieved atmosphere that had settled after the battle was obliterated—replaced by crushing pressure and nerve-shredding Psychic Intimidation.
The telltale vibrations of tiny insect organs in motion. A shadow with long antennae stretching from the power lines. A grasshopper figure, towering over a human. Jinyo didn't even need to turn around. The system told him everything.
[Grasshopper Demon — Level 25.]
