Martial Arts Worlds

When the door opened, everyone's disappointment about the martial soul vanished, and they excitedly approached the door.

"The door… it is open!"

Dante said in excitement, hoping that there were some riches that would wash away his disappointment, and then stepped through the door.

They arrived in a dusty old room, looking like it was straight from the Old Stone Age, and then, sitting in one of the stone chairs, they saw a skeleton clutching a hardcover book in its bony grasp.

"N-nothing?"

Dante's eyes shook as he looked at the empty room.

"What the hell was the statue protecting then? This skeleton bastard?! There is nothing here!"

He kicked a stone and stormed out of the room, with Gunwoo quickly running after him.

It was a day of disappointments for them.

Aoi curiously approached the skeleton, and carefully took the hardcover book from its grasp, but when she did, the skeleton fell apart.

She blinked in surprise and looked at Kiernan, who was wryly smiling and scratching the back of his head.

She shook her head, trying to signal that it wasn't her fault, but Kiernan just shrugged his shoulders.

With a pout, she opened the hardcover book, took a deep breath, and began to read within the interior of her mind, as she couldn't speak.

Kiernan walked next to her and read it inwardly as well.

It had a lot of pages, and they couldn't possibly read it all, as it would take years, but from the first page, he had a good understanding of what happened here.

'The skeleton was an ancient martial artist, and it looks like he was hunted by his enemies, and he ended up here to recover from his injuries.

'However, they found him, and he wasn't in a state to fight them. Therefore, he created the Guard Angel from stone and dust, then tore his martial soul out of his body and inserted it into his creation.

'The Guard Angel destroyed his enemies, but before the skeleton could recover his martial soul, he died of his injuries.

'And here we are. The Guard Angel has been protecting its 'creator' for thousands of years, not knowing that he was long dead.

'The years of decay had greatly weakened its martial soul powers, so we were able to defeat it. It must've been a mighty one thousands of years ago.'

Aoi closed the hardcover book and took it with her, but before she left the room, she drew a cross on her chest when she looked at the skeleton.

She then turned to look at Kiernan and pointed at the skeleton.

"What?"

Kiernan tilted his head.

She drew another cross on her chest and then pointed at the skeleton.

"You want me to do that? Uh…"

Kiernan looked at the skeleton, scratched the back of his head, and drew the religious symbol of the Abrahamic God.

'Well, this feels weird. I am pretty sure I am heading to Purgatory, so I am pretty sure that Abrahamic God would ignore my prayer.'

Kiernan shrugged his shoulders and left the room.

…

"Yawn~"

Kiernan yawned while sweeping the floors of the fifth floor of the Yokai Dojo, and at the current moment he regretted going to the Guard Angel's cave, as that went on quite late.

He only had about three hours of sleep.

'Need a good night's sleep to have enough energy for the day ahead, but there is no such thing in this dojo as a good night's sleep.'

Kiernan looked around, saw that no one was looking, and then sat down on the windowsill to take a quick power nap.

'Five minutes should do it…'

At that moment, the door at the end of the hallway opened up, and he immediately jumped to his feet, continuing sweeping.

Master Arakawa walked out of his office, smiling kindly while walking by, but then he stopped and looked at the floor.

"Stain. Right there."

He pointed at the very small black spot by the wall. It was so small that it was barely noticeable, and since it was touching the wall, it was likely that no one would have even seen it.

"Thanks…"

Kiernan crouched by the black spot, knew that he wouldn't be able to remove it by just sweeping, and needed different tools for it.

"I heard that you visited Guard Angel's cave with my granddaughter."

Master Arakawa said with a smile.

"Yes, I did."

Kiernan said.

He expected her to tell everything to him, as they were family and seemingly very close with each other.

"She showed me the book, and I read it through last night. I didn't expect such a legendary figure to be so close to us, even though he is dead.

"You know who he was?"

Kiernan said in surprise.

"Yes… King of the West World was his name. Known conqueror and was in possession of one of the greatest martial abilities of all time.

"With his martial ability, he had the power to destroy the world. I've heard about your guys' battle with Guard Angel, and by the sound of it, he couldn't use that Martial Ability.

"Maybe it could've in the past, but not currently.

"Otherwise everyone in Dusk Town's vicinity would've died. We're all lucky, I suppose."

Master Arakawa said with a chuckle.

"What was his Martial Ability?"

Kiernan asked as he didn't like getting blue balled like that.

"Haha… It is quite hard to explain. Well, he was fused with the world around him. When he breathed, the wind of it caused tornadoes; when he jumped and landed back on the ground, the world would get pushed down. In essence, he was one with the world.

"I heard that he once slowed down the rotation speed of the world and other legendary deeds. A being like him was danger to the whole concept of existence."

Master Arakawa said.

"How in the hell could someone like him have been defeated?"

Kiernan asked with a frown.

"There is always someone stronger—the people of the world realized that the King of the West World was too dangerous with his ability to be left alive, as he could accidentally destroy the world.

"Therefore, a group of individuals with enough strength were chosen to create a plan to take down the King of the West World and eliminate the threat once and for all.

"Back then, that group of people was called the 'Martial Order', but they've been extinct for a long time…"