Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Venerable
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The practice of martial arts is akin to stacking a pagoda.
One inhales the qi of nature, accumulates it in the body, lets it flow to carve paths, and circulates it in a full cycle, however small.
Third-rate, second-rate, first-rate.
In the microcosm of the human body, it is like pounding earth and selecting stones to build something up.
These three realms combined are called the Foundation stage.
Upon this prepared foundation, one lays the cornerstone, erects pillars, and begins building the pagoda. This realm is the Peak.
This is called the Establishment stage.
Transcendent Peak is the realm where the pagoda is completed.
It is reaching the end of the microcosm, knocking on the ceiling of heaven, a state where one can go no further.
Thus, it is called the limit of humanity, the pinnacle of Peak.
This is known as the Completion stage.
One polishes the foundation, establishes it, and reaches completion.
Martial arts should fundamentally end here, and for humans, there is no advancing beyond.
Then what is the Transformation Realm?
It is shedding the limits of humanity.
The realm of breaking through the ceiling of the microcosm and soaring into the macrocosm.
The paradoxical realm that achieves the impossible.
Shaking off the fetters of inevitable destruction, becoming one who exists solely and eternally—
In awe, it is called Venerable.
A vast sky unfurled between Lee Se-min and So-hyang, who had been pressed close, mere paper-thin apart.
As if distance had been forcibly imposed upon space itself, not even an instant passed before they were transported to opposite ends of the sky.
“Hah... what is this...?”
Swords emit light. They spew flames. Fans fire cannons and waves.
All the mysteries he had encountered until now could be understood in principle.
The flow of qi visible to the Dragon Eye, phenomena fueled by supernatural power.
This was different.
The sky unfolding before his eyes... was simply sky.
Not an illusion of blue painted by inner energy, not a cave ceiling shattered to reveal the outside—it was just sky, existing.
Gravity clearly existed, yet he did not fall; nor was he standing on solid ground.
Looking down, no earth was visible; looking up, no sun existed.
No matter which direction—up, down, left, right—only pure blue sky and pristine white clouds existed.
Even experiencing it firsthand was hard to accept.
“...Sigh, she's ground my body to dust and gone berserk again.”
The Alliance Leader sighed familiarly upon seeing Lee Se-min's pallid face and the blood trickling from his mouth.
Straight features and a tall, sturdy build.
The blue-eyed man resembled Namgung Su astonishingly, though his attire differed greatly.
His hair was unkempt but not filthy; his clothes were casually worn but not disheveled.
A free-spirited appearance straddling neatness and scruffiness.
With a light gesture from the Alliance Leader, the tangled flow of Lee Se-min's inner energy smoothed out, his internal injuries calmed slightly, and his complexion improved a bit.
At the same moment, the Blood Curse in So-hyang's hand vanished.
“What.”
A short distance away, amid the clouds, a crimson blade wailed mournfully.
Kkiiieeeee—!
The eerie cry echoed from afar. So-hyang tried to summon it back through their bond, but the Blood Curse, shrouded in mist, did not budge.
“Hmm, what is this situation, I wonder...”
So-hyang shivered involuntarily under the ambiguous gaze fixed upon her as he crossed his arms.
The vast sky dominating their surroundings felt like it was staring at her.
Like a bug held in a giant's hand, the sheer density of the being's presence was viscerally different.
“At best a county-grade demon weapon awakened its spirit and devoured a human body!”
Lee Se-min's furious voice roared from across the sky, veins bulging in his neck as he vented his agitation.
“It shattered Gang Qi! Its growth potential defies reason, Alliance Leader! We must destroy it now!!!”
His eyes bloodshot.
With the Alliance Leader here, sealing might be possible, but the potential it had shown was utterly shocking.
They had to smash it, even at some cost.
“No, wait a moment.”
Beckoning So-hyang with a finger, the distance between them vanished, placing her before the Alliance Leader.
His eyes, emitting brilliant yet chilling light, as if containing the azure heavens, gazed upon her.
Words failed her.
For the first time since inhabiting So-hyang's body, she felt utter powerlessness.
“Demon Seal Cave Master, this one is no demon.”
“...W-what do you mean?”
Pierced by the eyes of the Transformation Realm, the soul was untainted by demonic influence—clearly human.
“But the Ghost Eye clearly showed a bond with the demon weapon! Didn't you see it consumed by Blood Qi just now!?”
“Yes, I saw it... but, tsk, hard to believe...”
Not the demon weapon devouring a human, but a human dominating the demon weapon, forging a true bond.
The Alliance Leader quietly explained it seemed a mark of genuine mastery over the irrational demon.
“W-what did you just say...?”
Lee Se-min's eyes shook violently.
Confusion, denial, rage, emotions indescribable swirled madly—
Then piercing sorrow welled up, not blood but tears at his eyes, as he stared through So-hyang with a choked voice, asking again.
“...Is that... true?”
A voice thicker with desperate longing than his deep-seated enmity toward demons.
Countless attempts over endless years to control demons had all failed.
The only valid method was suppression and sealing, never a fundamental solution, inevitably leading to collapse someday.
Demons kept spawning somewhere, accumulating without a way to eradicate them.
The more one tried, the more certain the impending despair became.
Now, he had given up.
The once-blazing fury had died out, leaving only numb resignation.
Thus, the emotion in his voice was a faint hope he had forgotten even existed—desperately earnest.
The Alliance Leader sighed with a complicated expression.
“Regulate your qi first. I'm the Sword Venerable, not a physician. You'll really die at this rate.”
Without a word of protest, he sat cross-legged immediately.
In stark contrast to his earlier readiness to die, Lee Se-min now tenaciously pursued survival with resolute will.
“Hmm.”
While they spoke, So-hyang keenly observed the sky enveloping them.
She felt the vast gap, like a bug before a giant, and the powerlessness.
But cowering in fear—how could one aspire to rise?
Powerlessness was precisely what her past life's So-hyang had desperately sought.
This was something to rejoice over.
Would she see it as an insurmountable wall?
Or stairs to climb step by step?
So-hyang pursued only the latter.
Setting aside the initial shock, she focused all her senses—sight, hearing, intuition, inspiration—to dissect the sky the Alliance Leader had unfolded.
“...Will, is it.”
The power she had judged near-omnipotent in herself.
The Alliance Leader's will was endlessly dense, vast, and compressed to extreme form.
Yet not mere imitation—it was indistinguishable from true sky.
It was true substance, concept, space, and part of his flesh.
“...So distant.”
Truly, unimaginably far.
No inkling of how to reach it.
But now, it was no longer inscrutable.
A sudden flash of insight.
Iron-Cutting and Sword Pressure.
Straight sword path cleaves iron.
Fierce sword path rends the void.
Combining these irreconcilable opposites might even slash a gash in this terrifyingly blue sky.
She seized the idea flashing in her mind.
So-hyang raised her finger.
Index and middle together—Sword-Finger Seal—and summoned her will.
Lee Se-min, Alliance Leader, blue sky, white mists.
Forget them all.
Only the finger—no, a single sword—and herself wielding it exist.
The slender finger softly touched the void, slowly descended—
A wound appeared in the blue sky, revealing the dark cave beyond.
Of course, merely an instant; the sky swiftly sealed the breach.
“What...!?”
Yet the leisure on the Alliance Leader's face vanished for a moment, his expression shocked as he clenched the sky.
The sky in sword form turned toward So-hyang.
“...Ha, haha! So that's it?!”
He called himself the Sword Venerable.
His mental image was the sky, but why Sword Venerable, not Heaven Venerable?
Because this entire sky was the Alliance Leader's sword.
Thus, all beneath the sky was under his blade—no different!
The level was truly different.
Unfathomable as sky, but as a grasped sword, it exuded godlike pressure.
The honed sky lightly pierced So-hyang's pale neck, beads of blood welling up.
“—I surrender!”
So-hyang beamed, raising both hands high to clearly show no fight left.
She couldn't win now, no matter what. He was a natural disaster in human form—worse than one.
To ease his wariness, she should wipe the grin from her face first, but how?
She had just slashed the sky!
Exhilaration surged madly; she couldn't suppress the bursting smile.
If death came, so be it.
At least she could witness that sky-spanning strike up close—a profit.
Hearing the Dao in the morning, one could die at dusk.
。
Had she ever felt this line so viscerally?
“Tsk, what in the world...”
The Alliance Leader eyed So-hyang's beaming face—bright enough to illusion the surroundings lighter—dubiously, grunting suspiciously before sheathing his sword.
“...For now, let's move locations.”
At his quiet word, the sky within the cave folded away.
“Heh, nothing surprises me anymore.”
And where the sky unfolded next was the Alliance Leader's quarters at the heart of the Murim Alliance, over a hundred li away.
So-hyang belatedly felt the backlash like her brain frying, hot blood trickling from her nose.
Even amid skull-crushing pain, she couldn't quell the surging ecstasy.
Still so powerless, so distantly far.
Yet she was now certain she could one day reach that realm.
In the inner chambers of the Alliance Leader's quarters, three people sat around a small table with three teacups.
“...So, what happened?”
Lee Se-min calmly explained the situation so far.
Those retrieving the demon weapon returned with an outsider named So-hyang, and a faint connection to the demon weapon was detected from her.
“Judging her a host dominated by the demon weapon, we tried to subdue her, but her power was extraordinary, and we were being overwhelmed.”
“And that's when I arrived?”
“Yes. But Alliance Leader, what brought you to the branch...?”
“Something came up. Not important now.”
The Alliance Leader turned to So-hyang and addressed her.
“First, what's your name?”
“Regrettable to introduce myself this way. Call me So-hyang.”
“Tch, your speech has been odd since earlier...? Wait...”
The Alliance Leader tilted his head, then rested his chin on his hand, scrutinizing So-hyang.
“Hmm. The body is young, but the soul feels over a hundred, maybe a hundred thirty?”
“Then... Rejuvenation?”
“No, not that. Not aged then youthened—the body truly is young... Soul Transfer Great Law? No, the soul matches the body...”
Not deduction but observation, certainty in his voice—So-hyang sighed deeply.
“Tch, a real monster. How deep do you see...?”
Her insides already fully exposed, So-hyang hid nothing and explained her circumstances.
“...Reincarnation, huh. That explains it.”
The Alliance Leader peered at So-hyang curiously this way and that, as Lee Se-min interjected.
“Alliance Leader.”
His face unusually vibrant, eyes shining with hope, voice barely suppressing urgency.
Lee Se-min wanted an answer.
The Alliance Leader, anticipating the question, wore a complicated expression but nodded permission.
He inhaled, swallowed hard, forced his stiff tongue to move.
“I ask: how did you hold the demon weapon without being eroded, and instead subjugate it...?”
“...”
Lee Se-min's hands sweated profusely, heart pounding wildly as he awaited the answer.
Perhaps, just perhaps...!
But.
So-hyang's answer wasn't what he sought.
“You endured the demonic corruption... purely through mental fortitude...?”
Muttering impossibilities and buts, lost in confusion, the Alliance Leader added.
“Demon Seal Cave Master, listen. This So-hyang is nearly a hundred years old. Exactly how many?”
“Must you ask? ...A hundred thirty-two.”
“Roughly peers, anyway.”
“What, peers?”
“Not just aged—the soul itself is extraordinarily exceptional. Earlier, she slashed my mental domain.”
Shock filled Lee Se-min's eyes.
“...!? In your Heavenly Realm, Alliance Leader?”
“Yes. Even I was stunned.”
The Alliance Leader roughly grasped the principle and drew forth the Blood Curse stored in his mental domain, holding it.
Kki, kkieee...
Normally spewing mad Blood Qi to devour its user, the Blood Curse was meek as a trained circus dog awaiting performance.
“See, I can hold a demon weapon too.”
“Well, you're a Venerable...”
“Right. Like a poison needle—if the skin is too tough, it won't pierce.”
But Lee Se-min sought an antidote to the virulent poison called demon.
He wanted a way to overcome erosion, not immunity like the Transformation Realm.
That's why he pinned hopes on So-hyang, who retained consciousness despite Blood Qi erosion—
“This one just endured the poison through sheer mental strength.”
“...How on earth?”
“I don't know! Anyway, reality is one freak case, so meaningless.”
“Aah...”
The light in Lee Se-min's eyes faded, gloom returning.
The harder-earned the hope, the steeper the fall when lost.
His vitality visibly waning, as if years shaved off his lifespan—So-hyang couldn't bear the guilt.
“I'm sorry.”
“No... It was my delusion, my disappointment alone...”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Before the Alliance Leader said, I failed to notice you weren't tainted and even offended you...”
The issue was, there was a way to clear the misunderstanding, but So-hyang, battle-blinded, had deliberately fueled it.
Reflecting calmly now, it was inexcusable.
Like finger-gunning before a PTSD-afflicted veteran—what difference?
“...I sincerely apologize. I'll compensate you for any harm I caused.”
Even his acceptance of fault was upright.
“Urk...!”
Forcing a bloodbath on such an earnest youth just to fight, costing health and lifespan...!
“I'm truly sorry...!”