Spell Release 3
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen—Mount Hua Sect’s absolute elite. And among them, the one hailed as the strongest of all: their leader, Myeong-seol.
He watched the fight with a vacant, almost vacant stare. On one side stood a man whose entire body was coiled in an inscrutable darkness. On the other, a young demonic cultivator who had trespassed onto Mount Hua in pursuit of Hwaseon.
By every measure of reason, the young man should never have been a match. Anyone with eyes could see the dark-shrouded figure had reached the Hwa-gyeong realm.
Yet the opposite was true. The one who was no match at all was not the young demonic cultivator—it was the man of darkness.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
“Khuk!”
“What’s wrong? Giving up already?”
Shin Gi-woon was driving the dark man back without mercy. At the very start they had been evenly matched. The man’s power had been canceled out by Gi-woon’s spear, while Gi-woon’s own energy had been gnawed away by that suspicious darkness. But as the fight dragged on and demonic energy began to surface in earnest, the man’s darkness could no longer exert its full strength. At times the demonic energy even began to devour the darkness instead.
Until now the man had clearly been handling enemies with sorcery. Against Shin Gi-woon it simply did not work. Perfect absolute counter.
SWISH!
Gi-woon’s spear skimmed past the man’s hair by the thickness of a single sheet of paper. Chilled to the bone, the man flung himself backward. In an instant five jang of distance opened between them—only for Gi-woon to close it again with a light leap. His spear then painted the sky in a relentless, chaotic storm of thrusts.
PA-PA-PA-PA-PAK!
The man had no choice but to pour everything into blocking Gi-woon’s spear. Absolute counter of martial arts was no longer the issue. Something far more absolute—the sheer gap in skill—was dictating the flow of the fight.
“You’ve never fought anyone stronger than yourself, have you?”
“What?”
“Crushing the weak with overwhelming power… anyone can do that. But when you have to stake your life against someone stronger than you, your entire mindset has to change.”
“A brat like you dares spout sophistry?”
“You’d better think carefully. Keep going like this and you’ll die on my spear.”
Gi-woon’s eyes were still crimson. They had already exchanged more than several hundred exchanges. He had only minor scratches, while the man’s darkness was in tatters.
Shin Gi-woon had grown by fighting the strong in the gutters. To him, experience was the greatest teacher of all. The combat sense forged through hundreds and thousands of real battles had become an ally that could never be ignored.
At this rate I won’t complete the mission.
The man recalled his orders. Hwaseon would surely grow greedy and try to steal the Gongcheongseogyu. The moment that theft was confirmed, kill him and return to the Palace. If Hwaseon failed to steal it and was being pursued by Mount Hua’s forces, rescue him and return to the Palace.
The man was certain Hwaseon had not yet consumed the Gongcheongseogyu. Since things had already come this far, he had intended to massacre the Plum Blossom Swordsmen as well. The arts he had mastered held absolute superiority over Daoist-style martial arts, after all.
The problem was that the Demonic Cult was involved in this affair once again. Worse, the opponent was a spearman—the kind Cheongung loathed above all else. Cheongung’s grand designs had always been thwarted by some mysterious spearman. Was that truly coincidence?
The man made his decision in an instant. Even if it cost him this body, he would drag that damned spearman down to the underworld with him.
“…Spell Release.”
KUU-GUUNG.
The man clapped his hands and stamped his foot. Darkness erupted across a space dozens of jang wide.
Gi-woon thrust his spear on pure reflex, yet the darkness was so solid it did not even scratch. Moments later the surroundings were swallowed by pitch black, transforming into a lightless domain of pure darkness.
He could no longer sense the Plum Blossom Swordsmen. From the circumstances, they had deliberately been excluded.
“Clever. Trying to keep my friends in check too, huh?”
Shut your mouth. Now that I have released the spell, you are already a dead man.
A voice thundered from the sky. Even when Gi-woon expanded his sensory field, he could not locate the man’s presence. Heightening his eyesight did nothing; the darkness remained impenetrable. For someone already accustomed to the dark to still see nothing meant this blackness had been created through that so-called Spell Release—in other words, it was a concept that blocked vision itself.
Ryu-jin. What can you see?
…
Ryu-jin?
It’s a technique that uses natural qi. This kind of method… shouldn’t be possible for a human.
What are you talking about?
Gi-woon frowned. It was the first time he had ever felt Ryu-jin this confused—like a jarring sense of dissonance from something that contradicted everything she knew. She was more flustered than he had ever seen her.
Then—
CHAE-AENG!
Darkness shot from the right, aiming for Gi-woon’s throat. He bent his waist with monstrous reflexes and dodged. In a world without sight, everything had to rely on sensory perception alone.
The attack did not end. From every direction—east, west, south, north—an indescribable number of energy signatures rose into the air.
Spell Release or not, it was a technique he had never seen before, and the situation was turning against him.
“Hup!”
KWA-JI-JI-JIK!!
Soul-Severing Root Wall
Gi-woon urgently drove his spear into the ground. It was the third form of the Battle Demon Heavenly Spear: Soul-Severing Root Wall. A temporary measure. Even now the darkness was hammering against the energy barrier, trying to punch through.
In that brief window Ryu-jin began explaining her theory.
I still don’t know exactly how Spell Release works. But if the reason they blocked my ascension was to gather massive amounts of natural qi, then it makes sense.
Get to the point!
You’re trapped in a prison of natural qi. So if you release a power that opposes natural qi…
I can push it back.
KWA-CHA-CHANG!
The moment the solution appeared, the Soul-Severing Root Wall shattered and dozens of dark spears rained down on Gi-woon. He unfolded Narye-tagon and vacated the spot, then explosively drew up his demonic energy.
“Open.”
Cataclysmic lightning qi erupts from the body, shattering the prison of natural darkness.
KWA-REU-REUNG!!
Terrifying lightning energy exploded outward from Gi-woon’s body.
Gi-woon. At this level, Transcendent experts should be able to use this technique.
I get what you mean.
If Transcendent experts could use Spell Release, that meant Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul—who were currently chasing Hwaseon—might be in danger.
Gi-woon expanded the lightning qi blooming from his entire body even further. The man poured out countless dark spears in response, yet the lightning not only shattered those spears—it filled the once-pitch-black space with brilliant thunderbolts.
What?!
“Spell Release or whatever—I’ll just smash it with raw power.”
KWA-JI-JI-JIK!
As Thunder Heaven opened, his vision gradually returned. Natural qi versus the opposing demonic energy. The fierce territorial struggle between the two forces carved a new path for Gi-woon. At the same time he locked onto the man’s position.
Flash.
Lightning coiled around his entire body as Gi-woon moved at the speed of a thunderbolt and seized the man’s rear. The man’s reaction was too late. By the time he grasped Gi-woon’s location—
“Die.”
PU-HWA-AK!!
—his spear had already pierced through the man’s three vital organs.
“Haaah… hah…”
Hwaseon was pouring every scrap of strength into his light-body technique until he was nearly choking. Even so, he still had not left Mount Hua. No—he could not leave. From behind, iron arrows kept raining down; ahead, an assassin with daggers in both hands blocked his path.
A driven hunt. That was the only way to describe it.
Then—
KWA-AAA!
“What is that?”
Hwaseon stopped mid-run, eyes stolen by the darkness spreading high into the sky. Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul, who had been tracking him, were the same. The ominous weight of that blackness went far beyond ordinary. Instantly they worried for Gi-woon’s safety. The problem was Hwaseon.
“Keuk… kuhahahaha!”
The moment he saw the darkness he burst into mad laughter, then looked around and clapped his hands.
“Spell Release…”
“What?”
“Yul! Get back here—now!!”
Sensing the danger, Bi So-hyang shouted urgently. At the same time the surroundings began to dye themselves blood-red. Fortunately Sama Yul rejoined her just before the space fully transformed. From there, the real problem began.
“What the hell is this…”
“What is it?”
The space had changed. The fresh plum trees were gone without a trace. Thousands of trees stained in dark crimson blood greeted them instead. Hwaseon’s position could no longer be sensed. The two instinctively put their backs together and guarded every direction.
In that instant Hwaseon slowly walked down from the sky. His clothes looked as though they had been formed from clotted blood—a blood robe.
A domain of blood-soaked blossoms that turns the world into a crimson killing field.
“Blood Flower Under Heaven.”
Dangerous. Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul felt it in their bones. Not even the Demonic Cult possessed a technique like this. Even the Hwanryu Sect, specialists in sorcery and curses, had nothing on this scale.
Bi So-hyang carefully asked,
“What… exactly is this?”
“It was never a power I intended to show so soon. But since they used it first over there, I suppose I am entitled to use it as well.”
“If you had it, why didn’t you use it earlier instead of waiting until now?”
Sama Yul’s sarcastic jab. Hwaseon took her words as a joke and laughed.
“Because I didn’t want to die, of course. And since someone else used it first, I figure I have a free pass.”
Hwaseon’s eyes turned completely red. When demonic cultivators used demonic energy, only the pupils reddened. This man had turned even the whites of his eyes a solid crimson. It was clearly an abnormal state.
“Now that you have seen this form, you will not leave here alive.”
KUU-OOOOO.
Hwaseon stretched a hand toward the sky. Every petal in the surroundings soared upward at once.
“Yul.”
“I already know without you saying it.”
What they had thought were mere flower petals rose into the air and transformed into long, razor-sharp swords. Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul drew up their internal energy and formed protective auras.
Seeing their tense faces, Hwaseon curled the corners of his mouth.
“Go on. Struggle all you like.”
His arm dropped toward the ground.
SWAAAAA!!
Blood-red blades tore the space apart.