Chapter 206
The clash of battle echoed with Yu Hwa's golden strings ringing out!
Her strings vibrated, flooding the surroundings with rivers of crimson light. Sunset hues bathed the area, summoning ferocious beasts. I dodged her sunset glow just enough to pinpoint Jang Ik's opening. 'No opening at all.'
But the truth was, not even a single gap existed. 'If I enter now, my neck will be cut.' My instinct was warning me of exactly that.
Whoosh! Yu Hwa's melody swept over Jang Ik. He leaped into the air to avoid her music, stretching both hands toward his four sabers. And in the next instant...
Boom! One of his sabers had somehow flown straight toward my eyes. Whoosh! The saber swung freely through the air, targeting my neck. I kicked off the ground just in time to dodge it. 'Sword qi?'
Jang Ik's saber moved freely through the air, chasing me. I countered with my Invisible Sword to deflect his blade, then studied the saber up close. 'No, it's not sword qi.'
Jang Ik's grip on the saber was connected by thin strands of qi. He moved his qi links to swing the sabers freely through the air. This was completely different from the art of detaching one's consciousness to infuse weapons with action.
Boom, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! And as I observed Jang Ik's sabers...
Jang Ik stood firm, rotating two sabers connected by qi in both hands and around his body. 'Is he preparing a technique?' If so, I needed to see how it would unfold. It was time to prepare myself for his move.
Whoosh— The air itself began to suck inward. Not just the surrounding air, but the very qi of heaven and earth was being absorbed by Jang Ik. Zap, zap...
I felt my entire body tingling with discomfort. At the same time, my spine grew cold. 'I was wrong.' If that technique were fully unleashed, both Yu Hwa and I would die. Yu Hwa, too, seemed to sense the danger and began tearing her strings even faster.
And I, meanwhile, spun around Jang Ik's position, hunting for his gap. And at some moment, I found a sliver of an opening in his initial form. Zap, zap... My instincts were screaming. That gap was definitely a trap. Stepping into it would surely bring disaster. Yet I clenched my teeth and lunged toward the trap like an arrow. 'I'll suffer the disaster, but this is the only chance I have.'
Jang Ik was like an enormous cliff— not just high, but sheer and unassailable, impossible to climb. To surpass that cliff, even if it meant stepping into the trap, I charged straight in!
Danak Sword Art, Wolak! Swish! I entered the sliver of an opening Jang Ik had shown me and swung my Invisible Sword horizontally across it. But in the blink of an eye, Jang Ik moved his tiny frame, leaping into the air to avoid my sword. He then continued rotating the two sabers around him, driving them straight down at me. I hurriedly retreated backward to dodge, but something suddenly hooked behind my back. 'This is... qi strands?!'
The qi strands Jang Ik had been using while spinning his sabers blocked my backward retreat. 'It wasn't just spinning the sabers!' By dispersing qi through the sabers, he had been spreading his control outward. Before I knew it, the area was blanketed in impossibly thin qi strands. [Gotcha.] Jang Ik flashed a grin and hurled the saber he held. I slashed through the qi strands with my Invisible Sword, evading and pulling back. The saber grazed my nose tip, but I had barely dodged in time. Yet the next instant...
Boom! The saber that had grazed my nose tip, following the paths of the qi strands scattered around me, spun wildly before firing back at me once more. The qi strands I had cut had already reconnected. 'If this continues, I'll never be able to approach Jang Ik.'
At first glance it looked like simply four sabers rotating around him, but those four sabers scattered qi while Jang Ik controlled the strands like a puppet master, freely manipulating the four sabers. And those qi strands could either grant physical force to disrupt an opponent's movements or sharpen qi to trap and slice the foe. 'This demands a level of precision manipulation... insane.' Jang Ik was pushing me with this exquisite manipulation of qi. 'First, I dodge one incoming saber, then charge at Jang Ik.' The qi strands spread around me were annoying, but slicing them at the Qi Condensation level with my Ansang's ability was more than enough. So first I'd block or dodge one saber, then rush Jang Ik and look for an opening. As I thought that, I extended my Invisible Sword toward the sabers. "...!"
Kwaaaang! A monstrous explosion thundered. I spat blood. Waa! The force was so intense it felt as though my organs were about to burst. I gritted my teeth and spat blood—the only thing I could do. 'In an instant, the power of all the scattered qi strands had converged into one point!' A technique that could gather the scattered power of a previously dispersed force into a concentrated shock. It was a terrifying skill. And while I was steadying myself from the shock, the sunset rivers had filled both my surroundings and Jang Ik's. Yu Hwa, swallowing me whole along with the rivers, tried to engulf Jang Ik from every direction with her flooding force. But the next instant...
Wing, wing, wing, wing! The qi strands scattered around us began to glow. Along with that, Jang Ik's sabers followed the qi strands' trajectories and spun wildly around him. Whoiiiiing! It felt like a storm. The green-tinged sabers were churning up a gale. "Kuhk...!" At the exact moment when Jang Ik created the storm as 'defense,' I poured every last drop of my strength to escape his qi domain. The green storm instantly swept away the crimson rivers. [Just exert a little more force. The qi itself contained in this body isn't even at the Qi Condensation level. And yet he's using it sparingly, and you still can't even break through it? You can't even handle this?]
Shiii... After Jang Ik's storm passed, I looked at the places his sabers had swept through and let out a dry laugh. "He's gone mad..." A diameter of thirty zhang had been swept clean away. Of course, even unleashing hundreds of Su Sa's magical techniques at the Foundation Establishment level would have been enough to clear that much. But the reason I was stunned went further. 'The amount of qi in the qi strands Jang Ik used, and the qi infused into the sabers themselves, was clearly enough to sustain a sword qi for about one shichen.' So the total quantity of power Jang Ik had wielded was less than even one swing of a sword gang. Yet swinging a sword gang could slice through a single rock, while such broad destruction was impossible. 'What in the world did he do?' Yu Hwa seemed to have realized the fact too; her complexion darkened. 'The melody Yu Hwa used, when measured only by total power output, matches a full strike of a Yuan Ying master.' Yet Jang Ik had repelled that strike with power weaker than even a mortal martial artist's sword gang. Truly, this was Saryangbalcheon-geun! 'No matter how high the realm, is this even possible?' It couldn't have been just a strike repelled by sword gang strength alone. There had to be more. After exchanging a glance with Yu Hwa, I immediately charged straight at Jang Ik, pouring every ounce of my full power into the assault. Her Hwanramyeonha supported my back, and together we attacked Jang Ik. But the next instant...
Boom! Jang Ik again dispersed qi and hurled sabers through the strands. I dodged on the spot and, along with Yu Hwa's rivers, charged straight at him. The next instant...
Zzeoeoeeong! The saber I had dodged exploded with even greater force than the previous storm, ripping up the ground nearby. 'What in the—' It's impossible! The power stored in the saber I had just dodged, even when all the dispersed qi strands were combined, was far weaker than sword qi. Yet how did it produce such destructive power? 'It's not just Saryangbalcheon-geun.' Something—something Jang Ik had been hiding from us existed. I sharpened my senses and spun around his position, observing his qi strands. And suddenly, I felt a certain sense of familiarity while looking at his qi strands. 'That...' Suddenly, the moment when Kim Young-hoon had used an external dan to grasp the fragment of Woldo-seopcheon flashed into my mind. Kim Young-hoon had extended external meridians and blood vessels, creating an external dan to amplify the power of attacks. "...! That's... not simple qi strands." I asked Jang Ik in a trembling voice. [Ho? You already realized? How?'] [I have seen something similar before.] [Similar? Ho...'] "That entire region is, itself, 'you'." Yes. The qi strands formed by Jang Ik's swinging sabers were not simple qi. They were meridians and blood vessels made of qi, and veins of the soul. Kim Young-hoon had tried to connect external veins to his internal life force for reinforcement, but Jang Ik had done the opposite. He made the external meridians breathe and live by drawing in heaven and earth qi from outside, drawing in even greater qi than his own body could accept through the qi strands. 'I thought the heaven and earth qi was being sucked away due to rotation, but it wasn't.' The qi strands Jang Ik laid down, rotating together, became veins of the soul. They breathed, drew in the surrounding heaven and earth qi, and the qi had been sucked away. I was impressed by Jang Ik's technique, but the precision left me speechless. 'He draws in external heaven and earth qi to strengthen his own attacks?' If it were that easy, wouldn't everyone be fighting that way? Who would bother learning ordinary martial arts? It demanded the same precision as one's own body. And if the actual body didn't match that precision, the heaven and earth qi Jang Ik had drawn in from outside would simply disperse again and become useless. Shring, shring... Jang Ik continued spinning his sabers while extending the qi domain's area, looking at me as if praising my realization. At the same time, I realized the danger from the sabers was growing steadily more intense. 'The wider the qi domain, the more infinite the power of Jang Ik's attacks.' It was a technique that, in a way, connected to my Uigong-sansan. But if I tried to break through the domain to counter it, I would have to face Jang Ik's sabers, which moved infinitely freely inside the domain, while the qi strands would continuously disrupt my movements, making it troublesome. 'I'll settle it in one blow.' If I continued to drag this out, Jang Ik's power would grow infinitely. Of course, since Jang Ik was in his current state, his body might burst and die, but even if I won that way, it would have no meaning. I exchanged signals with Yu Hwa. United in will, we each took positions on either side of Jang Ik and unleashed our maximum possible attacks. Danak Sword Art's ultimate, Danak. Hwanramyeonha's ultimate, Hwancheonha. Kugugugu! At once, twenty-one ultimate forms were driven into the widest gaps among Jang Ik's qi strands. The eight divided rivers of crimson light merged back into a single torrent, crashing like a raging wave into the qi strands. The next instant, Jang Ik smiled and lifted the two sabers in his hands. [Impressive. I'll show a little strength too.] And the name of his supreme art rang out into the world of intent. Doton, Jeilbo. I felt it. What Jang Ik was about to unleash was a strike on the level of Cheonji's comprehension. In other words, every clash with us so far had been pure skill that hadn't even reached Cheonji. Around Jang Ik, four sabers spun. Together with the sabers, he danced in place, scattering attacks in all directions. Saboramcheondo, Juseon-myeongcheon, Yuksun-myeongcheon. "Ah..." Beautiful. It was clearly like the strike that had split the Wondrous Castle of Goe-gun in half from the previous life. And this time, even closer and more detailed, as if showing and teaching, I could feel that beauty even more acutely. 'Intent...' Qi is soon followed by intent. Just as Jang Ik's qi strands, when concentrated, displayed enormous power, his intent—when concentrated—descended to the rank of qi. And his consciousness that had descended to the rank of qi merged with countless qi strands, manipulating the qi it had drawn in from around. And that qi, honed to an extreme sharpness on the sabers, flew toward me and Yu Hwa, who were each unfolding our ultimate forms. Whoosh! Clean. That was it. My Danak's ultimate, which I had poured out, was sliced through by Jang Ik's Juseon-myeongcheon and vanished. Zeojeojeojeong! Yu Hwa's ultimate, which she had unleashed, was torn to shreds by Jang Ik's Yuksun-myeongcheon and scattered into the air. It was almost violently dispersed by her ultimate form. Whoosh! By now, I had realized my body had been split straight down the middle. '...Enormous.' With Jang Ik's consideration, the Golden Elixir hadn't split and I could have survived. But I felt chills all over my body. In a real fight, Jang Ik's qi would have split even the Nascent Soul in one blow. Ku kua kwa gw a a a! Yu Hwa was struck by Jang Ik's qi, bruised all over, and sent flying far away. I let out a dry laugh. It was the perfect defeat. And Jang Ik dispersed the sabers he had condensed qi into, crossed his arms, and spoke. [See? Do you all understand what I was trying to say?] "...Yes. That was a good lesson." Only after sparring with Jang Ik did I understand what he meant. I even roughly understood why he had asked that question before the spar. [The skills of the Heart Tribe, the Doton, are from the perspective of the weak, facing the strong!] Yes. The technique Jang Ik had shown with his absurd precision was, in reality, something the strong could simply handle by extending a fist without needing complicated operation. Yet Jang Ik had repeatedly unleashed attacks of power far exceeding Nascent Soul level with the force of only a single sword gang. Saryangbalcheon-geun was Saryangbalcheon-geun, but he used that power to amplify it further, suppressing opponents with even small strength. Jang Ik was not the strong one. That was why he had to operate qi so complexly to amplify the power of his techniques. A technique he had created to confront the terrifying races—dragon races, human races, giant races—after being born into a weak clan! That was his Doton. [As the weak, as the slave, as the insignificant creature! As the weak, the owner, the rulers—I resist! The intent I have been working to ensure the weak are not unjustly oppressed is my Doton!] The words Jang Ik had spoken—"everyone has the talent for realization"—meant that all beings living in this world would someday stand in the position of the weak. Therefore, he had wanted to teach the weak. [I ask you again.] I pondered deeply within my heart at Jang Ik's question. [What is Wu in your life?]