You Have Trampled It
The numbers of Won Rip and Seo Eun-hyun collided.
The light of murder and the light of blood met.
Ting!
A clear sound echoed across the battlefield.
Clear.
And weak.
A smile bloomed across Won Rip’s lips.
“You’ve grabbed the dignity of the whole world, yet this is where it ends?”
Weak.
Not even a master.
Just a commoner swinging a blade with all his might.
He had somehow blocked the strike, but only barely.
That was the end.
Won Rip realized it.
‘It’s not just me who’s losing strength.’
The petty cultivators fighting him also had their power drained.
‘If I wipe all of them out, I really will be the victor!’
He smiled wide on his lips.
“Keep smashing that fool’s colorless glass sword all you want. I’ll shatter it into pieces!”
Bloody light spurted from his body as he formed a binding.
Cugugugu!
A sea of blood clouds gathered around him.
And from within the blood clouds, blood trees grew, carving out a blood-red forest.
Seo Eun-hyun and the Core Formation masters who had bound to help him also scowled and fled the blood-red forest.
‘I won’t miss even one.’
I’ll catch every last one and chew them up and swallow them.
Won Rip thought this as he targeted the most bothersome little pest first.
He shot straight toward Seo Eun-hyun.
Already trapped in the blood-red forest, Seo Eun-hyun was mindlessly slashing at the trees, and Won Rip’s eyes caught the sight.
“Farewell. You at least had some dignity.”
Cugugugu!
Bloody vine tendrils shot from his hands, pouring down on Seo Eun-hyun.
And Seo Eun-hyun began flicking the vine tendrils away with his glass sword.
Won Rip laughed until his mouth split.
‘You’ve become much weaker. You’ll fall soon.’
“Didn’t I tell you what to show? I didn’t want to see that pitiful struggling. Just die already….”
And then.
Twung!
Seo Eun-hyun’s blade struck the blood-red vine.
“Hmm?”
Something felt off.
Normally, when a human exhausts his stamina, he should grow weaker than before.
But Won Rip frowned at the rebound he had just felt.
‘Stronger than at the start?’
He wasn’t that strong.
But he was.
Clearly stronger than at the beginning.
‘Is it just a feeling?’
No, that couldn’t be.
Won Rip bit his lip tightly.
Kwang!
Seo Eun-hyun’s sword struck the vine again, repelling it and pushing back his blood-red forest.
It wasn’t an illusion.
His blade had clearly grown stronger than at the start.
‘But it’s a tiny level. No need to worry.’
“Die!”
Kiiiiiing!
Blood Sea True Manifestation!
The realm of the Blood Sea gathered on Won Rip’s hand and stabbed straight down at Seo Eun-hyun.
Seo Eun-hyun didn’t even glance at the blood-red water blob falling on him.
He closed his eyes and raised his sword as it came.
Danak Sword Art.
Yu-gok!
He rushed toward the water blob, dove into the gap, twisted his body, and sliced it apart.
Chwa-rak!
Won Rip’s spell fractured with a single glance.
Won Rip’s face hardened into stone.
Kwoong!
Seo Eun-hyun landed back on the ground.
And at the landing spot, deep footprints remained.
Kwang, kwang, kwang!
Every time he moved.
Every time he used a stance.
The depth of the footprints grew deeper.
‘The amplification rate of attack power is gradually increasing?’
Like rolling a snowball.
Every time he cut Won Rip’s spell with his sword and struck it away, his stance grew more ferocious.
Won Rip stopped chasing the other masters.
‘I have to take this guy first, this guy first!’
Dangerous.
His sixth sense that had risen to Nascent Soul was warning him of the flames of fate.
‘I even got the Bongmyeongin! I can’t lose!’
“Water, flow!”
Chwarruruk!
Blood qi surged and became a blood river, covering Seo Eun-hyun.
And then.
Danak Sword Art, Gwa-am.
Seo Eun-hyun began to spin.
It was sword dance.
His sword dance, without any gap, madly swept through the blood river one drop at a time.
Flicking away every single blood drop.
Ridiculous martial power!
And Seo Eun-hyun’s sword was still.
Every time it repelled Won Rip’s spell, it grew steadily stronger.
Steadily.
* * *
The final ultimate of Danak Sword Art.
U-gong Yi-san was the following stance.
First, use Mountain Beyond Mountain is Endless to ensure that the energy in his own body doesn’t leak out even a single thread.
Second, maintain that state and, with the twenty-first stance of Heavenly Pool, collide with the opponent and draw back all residual flows and powers created by the clash.
Third, apply the stance of Gong-gok Jeon-seong again to gather the opponent’s power completely into the body and strike back.
Fourth, with Mountain Middle Ho-gyul, concentrate all the tiny powers in one point and forcibly suppress the rebound.
Fifth, with Cheop-cheop San-jung and Neung-gok Ji-byeon, distribute the burden on the body to the maximum and flow it into the ground.
It was hard to explain, but.
In one line: every time the opponent clashed with the user’s stance, the opponent’s power was pulled into the stance and the attacks were continuously strengthened.
And the price for forcibly pulling the opponent’s power was the death of the initiator.
Therefore.
A person who used U-gong Yi-san once would grow endlessly stronger while fighting the opponent, and eventually die by bursting because he couldn’t suppress the gathered power.
Kwang!
The attack of Won Rip’s was drawn into the stance and he struck back with it.
And with the principle of Mountain Beyond Mountain is Endless, the struck-back power was perfectly wasted and scattered back to the opponent.
His attacks gradually grew stronger.
Soon, he wasn’t desperately trying to dodge Won Rip’s spells; he was blocking them head-on.
Every time he unfolded U-gong Yi-san, every time he clashed with the opponent, his power grew by at least one cheon.
And he was now shooting thousands of attacks at Won Rip.
Puk, puk!
His whole body couldn’t endure the enormous power, and parts of him burst.
But the advantage of a master was.
Shurruk…
His regeneration was not that of a human.
When Kim Young-hoon unfolded U-gong Yi-san and when I unfolded U-gong Yi-san.
The duration itself was different.
Kwang, kwang, kwang!
My footprints grew deeper.
And.
I took one step.
Jjeong!
My slash tore through Won Rip’s forest and carved a path.
The forest he made seemed to regenerate, but I took another step and swung my sword.
From one spot, I wasn’t just desperately blocking his sword.
I was clearly advancing toward him.
“W-what is this….”
Won Rip gritted his teeth and pulled out his blood-red spear spell.
Kiyaaaa!
His blood-red spear spell.
From the spear spell, a Ghost King made of blood fog revealed its body.
Chwa-rak!
When he sliced his own finger and fed it to the Ghost King, the Ghost King’s body heated up red-hot and unleashed an even stronger aura.
The guy raised his spear and charged at me, who had torn apart his blood-red forest.
I closed both eyes.
My whole body was bleeding anyway, so seeing clearly wasn’t an option.
Return to the original heart when learning martial arts.
Eyes closed, I entered the world of intent.
Red and blue lines.
Since I created the master’s intent domain, I hadn’t paid much attention to it, relying only on the domain.
The intent domain was ultimately a higher match of intent flow, after all.
But in a long time, facing the red and blue threads in the peak master era, I realized something I hadn’t known before.
‘Did these threads originally hold so much?’
The threads from the enemy were red.
In terms of emotion, it was anger, or killing intent.
But within that killing intent, countless meanings were embedded.
From the next moment where it would move, why it moved that way, what thoughts it was thinking right now.
Through martial arts, I had become transparent to the opponent’s heart.
The Ghost King in front of me was, in reality, Won Rip’s puppet.
Therefore, the emotions felt from the Ghost King were Won Rip’s emotions.
Fear and anger, shame, humiliation, a little hope.
Those were the emotions Won Rip felt.
‘What about my heart?’
I suddenly wondered, clashing with the Ghost King, why my emotions weren’t Won Rip’s.
‘Ah… I see.’
My emotions were filled with pain.
And the expectation of death waiting at the end of that pain.
That was it.
I wanted to die.
‘I… I want death.’
Every time I unfolded the stance of U-gong Yi-san.
My muscles in the whole body felt like they were bursting.
Not just a metaphor; when actually moving the body, blood burst from every part.
The footprints grew even deeper.
But even in this monstrous pain.
When I faced death, I sensed an absolute calm.
‘Is this the end of this life?’
I would die swinging the sword.
Like so many times in previous lives.
When facing death, the lanterns of the previous lives had swept before my eyes.
From the very first life, up to ten deaths.
A life spanning nine hundred years.
Within that overwhelming life, the love that shined for ten years.
How fleeting human life was.
What on earth was I swinging the sword for?
Whirrick!
Suddenly.
While swinging the sword in my pain.
I caught my heart off guard and found an empty domain.
Void.
Completely empty.
‘Why am I still alive?’
Life was nothing but pain.
Wasn’t that what I had realized through Eumhon Gwijumun?
Hurry, end quickly, and go to the next life.
Just pass over it like that.
That’s when it was.
――If life is filled with emptiness, were the times we spent together also empty?
A warm hand seemed to land on the hand holding the sword.
‘Eh…?’
Scenes swept before my eyes.
They were the days I had spent with her.
Good times, regrettable times, painful times…
And the scenes sweeping before my eyes didn’t stop there and went even further.
The times I had built a new martial world with Kim Young-hoon and soared.
The times I had reached a new realm of martial arts.
The time I taught my disciples, and Gye-hwa had folded paper flowers and gifted them to me.
The times I saved my disciples and died.
The moment I met my master.
The moment I offered ten bows to him and died.
It wasn’t the lanterns of the previous lives.
My lanterns didn’t shine like this.
When I died, only empty moments of life had swept by.
This was…
‘Ah, I see.’
The true ability of Total Heaven wasn’t strengthening three thousand colorless glass swords into one.
Jeong.
The colorless glass sword was a spell that pulled up human emotions.
I had forgotten that Buk Hyang-hwa had researched the circuits of the Ghost using human seven emotions while creating the colorless glass sword.
She had designed the spell so that human emotions could reside in it by imitating the Ghost’s puppet.
Just as the human mind was made from tens of millions, hundreds of millions of emotions including the seven emotions.
The colorless glass sword, when one circuit overlapped with another circuit, the combination of the countless circuits created hundreds of millions of emotions, and those emotions made another knowledge in the colorless glass sword.
Kiiiiiing!
I poured in the formless sword.
The formless sword was originally a lump of my consciousness mixed with strong and weak.
And when the artificial consciousness inside the colorless glass sword touched my consciousness, it began to amplify my consciousness.
The power of the formless sword grew.
But up to this point, it was the same power I had felt when I first activated Total Heaven.
The power of the colorless glass sword I had newly discovered just now wasn’t the end.
Paaaaraaah!
The colorless glass sword began to shine.
The artificial consciousness inside the colorless glass sword stimulated my emotions.
And, receiving my intense emotions, it began to add them directly to the formless sword.
That’s right.
The colorless glass sword was accepting my emotions and converting them into power.
Kwaaaaang!
The spear of the Ghost King burst against my single strike.
The Ghost King clinging to the spear also exploded and disappeared together.
Won Rip continued casting spells in panic, even self-harming his body to summon even more dangerous blood spells.
The guy was carving his own body to block me, and I was advancing on him while exploding my whole body.
I might not have been entirely sane from that pain already.
I was going forward with my eyes closed, feeling only the flow of intent.
And I observed my heart.
The empty domain of nothingness.
In that empty domain, the colorless glass sword was pouring in the emotions of the past.
Good moments, bad moments.
Happy moments, angry moments, sad moments, joyful moments, loving moments, moments of hatred…
‘Is that so.’
I had thought this life was fleeting.
When I killed Won Rip, I thought I would die anytime.
But….
The colorless glass sword was speaking to me with the will left by her.
This life wasn’t just fleeting.
‘But… what am I supposed to do?’
I would die.
Even if I knew life wasn’t fleeting.
I would explode my whole body toward the great enemy and die that way.
‘I know too. I wanted to live with you. But you died to that guy, and I will die fighting him.’
If this life isn’t fleeting!
If it’s filled with Total Heaven!
Human will is so empty in front of predetermined fate!
Kwaaaaang!
As emotions grew intense, the colorless glass sword amplified the formless sword even more.
The gap between Won Rip and me widened.
The guy formed a binding and prepared even more dangerous spells.
‘Ah, that’s….’
Can’t block it.
Even if I die together with that spell.
With the strength of U-gong Yi-san I had already strengthened, I could no longer block it.
There was a gap determined from the moment I was born in this world, wasn’t there?
Born as a human, there was a predetermined limit, wasn’t there?
That was the moment.
‘…If Young-hoon-hyung was here, he wouldn’t have said this.’
――Limit?
Somehow, from inside the dantian Kim Young-hoon had put in, something warm rose.
It might have been a feeling.
――Why do you think about that while swinging a sword?
From his dantian, a warm energy was felt.
It was like morning sunlight.
His golden light that had blazed earlier.
Suddenly, I opened the eyes I had closed.
Beside me, Kim Young-hoon was swinging his saber together.
It wasn’t in reality.
Just a phantom I was seeing because my mind was half gone from pain.
But that phantom.
Spoke the same words as Young-hoon-hyung would have.
――If there’s a limit, so what. Still have to live.
Danak Sword Art and Dan-maekdo Art.
Formless sword and saber.
I had already begun to follow Kim Young-hoon’s martial arts and move exactly like him.
He was also unfolding U-gong Yi-san.
Kwoong, kung! kung!
When my footprints grew deeper, so did his.
Our movements overlapped.
――Living isn’t like that.
――Even if there are great people above great people.
――What are you going to do. Here in this place, the things I’ve received, the things I can do. Just have to do my best.
What was this conversation.
It wasn’t the phantom speaking.
It was a real conversation.
From the company, the words I had heard.
――Do you know why martial arts and life are different?
The phantom smiled and spoke to me.
――Born receiving this body, don’t think about limits…
Beyond the phantom, the image of Kim Young-hoon and me before entering this world appeared.
――Here in this place, the things I’ve received, the things I can do…
A short memory with Kim Young-hoon.
The voice of the phantom overlapped.
――Just advancing without worries.
――Just have to do my best.
A gentle, yet somehow hardened hand.
Pushed me from behind.
Kim Young-hoon had gone ahead and pulled me.
Yeah, get rid of the worries.
Even if there is a limit of fate from birth.
What are you going to do.
Here and now, in this moment, do what you can.
Since I knew life wasn’t fleeting, I wouldn’t think about the limit of fate anymore.
Just swing the sword.
I thought about the colorless glass sword in my hand and the formless sword overlapping on it.
Both were soon my life.
Then.
I looked at the being unfolding U-gong Yi-san together beside me.
It wasn’t Kim Young-hoon.
It had the face of mine.
The phantom’s appearance gradually approached me and overlapped.
‘Ah, I see.’
Until now, I had followed the footprints Kim Young-hoon had stepped on.
The thing in front of my eyes.
I had been chasing the footprints Kim Young-hoon had shown me at the end of his life.
But.
What I had thought was dancing beside me was ultimately myself.
Kim Young-hoon’s voice was now coming from behind.
――Look ahead, Seo Eun-hyun!
With a gentle hand and an upright hand, both pushed my back at the same time.
――Believe in the things you have trampled!
It was only then that I realized.
Then, why I had failed to see the next realm in the previous life.
The problem wasn’t that Won Rip gave me pain.
I had followed Kim Young-hoon.
From Wol-do-ip-cheon, we hadn’t realized our paths had diverged.
I didn’t have to be as fast.
My sword didn’t have to be golden.
I didn’t have to divide space.
‘So…’
I realized I had stood at the end of the road Kim Young-hoon had trampled.
‘Let’s go. Next.’
If I stepped on the other side, I would be free from the path he had walked.
‘Young-hoon-hyung. I will also step on the realm you have trampled.’
But even so, step on it.
I stepped off the path Kim Young-hoon had trampled and shouted from the realm I had trampled.
“Wol-do!”
Sorry, hyung.
I will name this realm.
In memory of the path you have trampled.
And in memory of the place I first trampled.
“Taep-cheon!”
In place of Kim Young-hoon’s will, I roared loudly.
And swung the colorless glass sword.
Bu-ung!
The blood sea that had covered the sky split exactly in half.
Shrung, shururung!
Inside my heart, where I had discarded all thoughts about fate and become empty.
The moment I realized that the empty space wasn’t simple emptiness.
The formless sword.
My heart’s manifestation.
Began to merge with void.
――Strong and weak are actually one.
――Martial arts and I are one.
The inscription Kim Young-hoon-hyung had left from the previous life.
I now understand.
Following the logic of heaven and earth, I split strong and weak, realized that the heaven and earth was all me, and melted strong and weak into the formless sword.
But.
Wasn’t there still one strong and weak I hadn’t melted?
My inner dantian.
I had thought I was handling nine strong and weaks.
But in reality, there was still one tenth strong and weak left.
At the moment I realized void, my inner dantian, which had settled at the center of my golden core, melted from inside the golden core and became the energy of formless, merging with the formless sword held in my hand.
Kim Young-hoon’s external dantian had, in any case, been one of the paths leading to this realm.
The formless sword, completely connected to the dantian inside my body, began to circulate, beginning from the dantian and spreading throughout the body.
Yeah, throughout the body.
Into each single muscle fiber.
Into every single blood vessel, the formless sword resided.
I was soon to become the formless sword itself.
Kim Young-hoon would have been the same.
He too had stepped into a new realm, with the saber planted throughout his body.
The moment I melted the tenth dantian.
The true power of the formless sword entered my hand.
A small miracle born from the will to take a different path from Kim Young-hoon.
Before long, I had reached right in front of Won Rip.
With the formless sword residing in every single blood vessel.
My body no longer exploded from the influence of U-gong Yi-san.
The endurance of the flesh had reached its extreme.
In that state, I swung the sword toward Won Rip.
Wol-ak!
Simple horizontal slash.
Won Rip unfolded a defense spell.
With Kim Young-hoon’s saber, he would have cut through space and struck me down in this realm.
But I was similar but a little different.
Shu-ung!
The formless sword that had reached a new realm penetrated Won Rip’s defense barrier and, inside the defense barrier.
Cut only Won Rip’s body.
“…Eh?”
Won Rip, who had unfolded the defense barrier, looked at his own body with a dazed expression.
Puk!
Clearly the defense should have worked, yet there was no sign of the defense barrier breaking as his body was sliced.
It seemed he couldn’t understand his own state.
Chwarruk!
The guy’s body began regenerating again.
But.
Bu-ung!
I sliced his body again.
Bu-ung, bu-ung, bu-ung!
Even with the defense barrier unfolded, it was useless.
No matter how many times.
As many times as I wanted.
Without any resistance, piercing through all his defenses and attacks.
My formless sword began continuously slicing apart his body.
I had gained not only freedom of trajectory but also freedom of material and immaterial.
When the guy looked at me with an uncomprehending expression.
I delivered the final strike.
Wol-do Taep-cheon, Formless Sword.
The formless sword pierced through all defenses and attacks and aimed straight at his golden core, the Yuan Ling inside it.
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