Deity Transformation? (2)
Jin Somyeong narrowed his eyes as he watched Mok Saheon regenerate the arm that had been severed only moments ago.
What a tenacious bastard. He might as well be a cockroach.
It was a divine ability that sacrificed the surrounding insects to rapidly regenerate any fatal wound. It seemed to be a unique trait of the Insectoids, and its vitality was truly hideous.
He continued swinging his sword, carving through flesh and bone, and was still wondering how he was supposed to kill the thing when Mok Saheon, who had at last even sprouted wings, began to show the light of reason in his eyes.
The hesitant, twitching movements disappeared entirely. With every exchange, Mok Saheon's motions grew rapidly more refined. Worse still...
Fsssssssh!
He vibrated his wings and sent out razor-edged winds that resembled Sword Qi. He was no longer merely compressing magical power and hurling it; he had begun to use actual spells.
The situation was deteriorating by the second, but Jin Somyeong felt no fear.
"Good!"
He shouted with fierce delight and focused on the sword in his hand. He cut, deflected, and whenever he found the slightest opening, he thrust.
It felt like walking a tightrope between life and death. The electric thrill racing along his nerves was almost welcome.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The atmosphere warped beneath the shock waves of their mad, laughing exchange. Two overwhelming forces collided without pause, destabilizing the space around them.
How long had they fought in that state of selfless absorption?
At some point, Jin Somyeong realized the surroundings had grown strangely empty.
The insect eggs that had once been piled up like desert sand had vanished completely, revealing the true floor of Paeseongdojang beneath.
Enormous structures, tall enough to brush the sky, stretched endlessly beyond the horizon.
Who would have imagined that such a landscape had been hidden beneath the sand?
Could every single one of those buildings be a trial gate?
It was a view beautiful enough to be called majestic, but Jin Somyeong had no leisure to admire it. Every shred of his attention was fixed on the formidable enemy before him, who might well be at the Deity Transformation stage.
Clang!
The instant he deflected a dark violet dagger that had been about to pierce the spot between his brows, Mok Saheon clasped all four of his hands together and began muttering an incomprehensible, grotesque incantation.
"Guh!"
An invisible shock wave that even his Divine Sense could not detect slammed into his solar plexus. Pain exploded through him as his ribs cracked, and he plummeted.
He clung to the thread of his fading consciousness, the impact like being struck by a siege engine.
Craaaaaash!
Something shattered against his back as he fell.
Only a beat later did he realize, with the sound of breaking glass, that he had crashed into some nameless building.
The building had been protected by a barrier, but that meant nothing when he had been flung at such speed. Like a cannonball, he smashed clean through the barrier and then the roof before hurtling down inside.
Jin Somyeong rolled across the floor to reduce the impact as best he could, then sprang to his feet and froze.
A sword pavilion?
The interior of the building looked, by any measure, like a mountain. Yet where grass should have covered the ground, tens of thousands of swords of every imaginable kind had been thrust into the earth.
Literally, a mountain of blades and a forest of swords.
It was a spectacular sight, one he would have gladly stared at in a daze under other circumstances, but there was no time.
Thud!
Mok Saheon descended from the sky. No, the unidentified being that had taken over Mok Saheon's body landed and looked down at him.
"A magnificent fighting spirit. It is hard to believe you are still only at the Nascent Soul stage."
"..."
That lofty tone was completely unlike Mok Saheon.
"It is unfortunate that you were born of the human race... but with talent of that caliber, you should suffice. What say you? Will you become my disciple?"
"I trained this hard just to become some bug's disciple? I'd rather die."
"A laughable thing to say, born of ignorance. Are humans not a feeble race, with lifespans scarcely worth mentioning?"
"That's rich. In the end, you're the one who got beaten by humans and sealed in a secret realm."
The being snorted as though Jin Somyeong's retort was not even worth answering.
Beeeeeeeeep!
A ringing noise shook his skull, and a vast force crushed down upon his shoulders.
Amid the pressure, as though he had been caught between two great mountains, Jin Somyeong understood by instinct.
This is a Deity Transformation-level spell.
Perhaps because the being had fully seized Mok Saheon's body and awakened its reason, this was on an entirely different level from the brute-force compression of magical power it had used before.
Every trace of energy he could perceive began to boil, trying to crush him outright. It was a spell of overwhelming scale. It felt as though the entire world itself had become hostile.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The earth surged up with a quake and transformed into a dragon. No, a centipede. Just as it was about to coil around his entire body, Jin Somyeong ignited the magical power in his heart.
Energy raced through his meridians and multiplied explosively.
Ah.
The moment he unfurled his Blood Wings, the pressure crushing his shoulders shattered at once.
The exhilaration of being freed from restraint ran through him.
It felt as if Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust flowed through him in place of blood. Enormous power surged up, enough to burst the meridians he had tempered countless times.
Crack, crack, crack!
The centipede trying to coil around his body was torn apart by nothing more than the uncontrolled energy leaking from him.
Amid the soaring sensation that he could do anything, Jin Somyeong fought to maintain his reason.
"That divine ability..."
Mok Saheon hesitated, frowning as though he were seeing something he could not comprehend.
The Blood Wings. More precisely, it was a technique that circulated Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust internally without releasing it.
It began in the heart, passed through the spleen, lungs, and kidneys, and reached the liver.
Completing only the first circulation was enough for him to stand evenly against the boundless energy Mok Saheon was emitting.
He forcibly controlled the energy of Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust as it attempted to move straight into its second circulation.
Boom!
Then he charged forward violently enough to split the earth and thrust his sword.
It was a swift sword strike so fast it left behind only a pale afterimage, but his opponent did not remain still.
The tip of Jin Somyeong's blade met the dark red bead Mok Saheon had condensed.
———!
A shock wave erupted. The aftermath of the clash brought the sword pavilion collapsing around them, but there was no time to mourn it.
The moment Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust entered its second circulation, control would become impossible.
Ignoring the pain rising from his meridians and five internal organs, which felt as if they would burst at any moment, Jin Somyeong swung his sword.
Craaaang!
How many times had they collided in the span before a single breath could be exhaled?
"Remarkable. Did the human race possess such a divine ability?"
Pure admiration appeared on Mok Saheon's face. Though only for a short while, a mere Nascent Soul cultivator had fought evenly with a Deity Transformation cultivator.
At that moment, Jin Somyeong was devoting every nerve in his body to controlling Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust.
I can't last long.
The second circulation would begin soon, and then it would be over.
If he did not want to explode and die, he had to release Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust. There were only two possible outcomes: either he killed his enemy, or his meridians were shredded one by one and he destroyed himself.
Before he could even organize the chaos in his head...
Ting!
The blade he thrust instinctively at an opening bounced off the carapace covering Mok Saheon's upper body.
It didn't cut, even with One Path of Light Filling the Heavens wrapped around the blade?
The moment he saw it, Jin Somyeong understood.
It still wasn't enough.
He threw the Starlight Residual Shadow Sword in his hand. No, he threw Mugeuk. He sent it flying into the middle of the sword pavilion and commanded it to absorb the sharpness of the mountain of blades and forest of swords.
Leaving behind Mugeuk, which answered with a humming vibration, Jin Somyeong pulled out one of the swords embedded in the ground. It was a greatsword with a heavy feel to it, and the moment he slashed upward on a diagonal...
Claaang!
The sword collided with the bullet his opponent fired and broke pathetically.
What?
Jin Somyeong's eyes widened, and he urgently tilted his head back.
He avoided the bullet just before it pierced his brow, then drew a new sword and swung it.
That nearly killed me.
Only now did he realize that the swords in the pavilion were strange.
Some had no edge at all. Others had durability so poor they shattered like glass.
He wondered what kind of trial this was supposed to be, but there was no time to think.
He swung whatever sword he could get his hands on, and when one broke, he kept fighting even if he had to roll across the ground to do it.
At most, it lasted only a few seconds.
But while enduring that instant that felt like eternity, he knew. Any more was impossible. If he did not want his meridians to burst and kill him, he had to end this now.
At the same time, he understood something else.
Not yet. Mugeuk needed more time to absorb the sharpness.
Amid the thoughts flashing through his mind, Jin Somyeong made his decision.
He would endure somehow. He gripped the shabby longsword he had pulled from the ground and focused.
After concentrating so deeply that the world seemed to slow, he saw it.
An invisible shock wave, born from those wings vibrating at tremendous speed.
As it flew through the air toward him, Jin Somyeong brought his sword down as if to cut it clean in two.
Slash!
The shabby longsword split the invisible shock wave like wind, but cracks began to spread through the blade.
Was it not enough?
Even after he had reinforced the sword with everything he had, it still fell short.
As he watched the sword begin to break, something occurred to him.
He still had one thing left.
His Divine Sense, which was no different from his eyes and ears.
It was absolutely necessary for controlling the surroundings, stabilizing space, and detecting the enemy's attacks. That Divine Sense remained.
His hesitation was brief.
He recalled every strand of Divine Sense he had scattered in every direction and condensed it all into the blade.
Unable to survey his surroundings with Divine Sense, he was as good as blind with his eyes open.
Shhhk!
He brought the sword down vertically and cut the shock wave apart.
Then something strange happened. Along the path of his sword, the domain his enemy had seized with Divine Sense split open.
Now.
He saw the path.
Following instincts honed through countless battles, Jin Somyeong took one step forward.
He folded space toward the empty place where their Divine Senses had canceled each other out.
In an instant, he teleported through his opponent and secured the position behind his back.
At that same moment, he snatched Mugeuk as it came flying to him and spun like a top.
The second circulation of Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust was guided to the tip of the blade.
The blade came down like a bolt of lightning, and just before it split Mok Saheon's crown...
Mok Saheon did not simply stand there and accept it.
He crossed all four arms, each wrapped in so much power that the air itself warped, and tried to knock the blade away.
But.
The moment they touched that pure white line, all resistance lost meaning.
After passing through the second circulation, Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust had merged with One Path of Light Filling the Heavens. Nothing could stop it.
After a moment of silence, Mok Saheon, whose entire body had been split vertically from the crown of his head, spoke in admiration.
"What a marvelous divine ability."
A pure white line ran down from his forehead, and white flames flared around the wound.
It was the divine ability that gave form to the phenomenon of extinction. Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust had unleashed its power.
The white flames spread in an instant and swallowed Mok Saheon completely.
Hup?!
Jin Somyeong caught something flying toward his chest on the flat of his sword and turned it aside.
He did not even have time to be shocked.
Engulfed in white fire, Mok Saheon drove his claws at him like a beast.
He endured even after taking Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust?
Was Deity Transformation truly that monstrous? Jin Somyeong's eyes widened in shock, but his body reacted naturally.
He poured Boundless Great Ability into Ten Thousand Flows Recovery. While rapidly restoring the body that had been ruined by unfurling the Blood Wings, he continued the melee.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
More than ten clashes unfolded in a single instant.
He forgot everything else. They were simply unleashing killing moves to murder each other.
Jin Somyeong twisted his upper body to avoid the claws descending toward his heart and was about to cut through Mok Saheon's forearm when...
"Behold. This flesh has broken down, unable to endure even a fraction of power. This is the limit of the human race."
Mok Saheon, now suddenly aged and withered, murmured as though regretful.
Seeing the deep wrinkles and the hair gone completely white, Jin Somyeong instinctively knew the bastard's lifespan had run out, and he snorted.
"Humans aren't weak. You're just incapable of properly controlling your power."
"Ha ha. Clinging to trivial power and trying to control it perfectly is wasteful. Once you become an Insectoid, you will understand my words."
The words, spoken with a grotesque laugh, sounded ominous.
Jin Somyeong tensed. In the next instant, Mok Saheon's body swelled to the size of a house and exploded.
Self-destruction?
By the time he realized it, it was already too late. He had been caught in sticky, dark green smoke.
But something was strange. He had been caught in the explosion, so why did it not hurt?
If anything, it itched...
He unconsciously checked the back of his hand and was horrified. Carapace had grown over both arms, which had been perfectly normal moments before.
Insane.
That final self-destruction must have been the enemy's last attack, meant to infect him and turn him into an Insectoid.
You couldn't just die quietly?
He had no time to savor victory.
From the backs of his hands to his shoulders, carapace covered him in the blink of an eye, before he could even resist.
The situation was urgent.
He drew up the blood vitality he had accumulated through the Five Viscera Hundred Refinements Art. Just as he was about to resist with energy specialized in poison resistance...
What is this...?
One Path of Light Filling the Heavens, which had been concentrated in his sword, traveled up his wrist and into his body. When it touched the parts covered in carapace, something astonishing happened.
Purification, perhaps?
The moment the carapace touched the pure white light, it turned to ash and fell away. His skin returned to that of an ordinary human.
Suddenly, he remembered what Paseongjingun had said after cutting down the Imugi.
My Dao has filled the world; thus, I call it One Path of Light Filling the Heavens.
Jin Somyeong vaguely understood. One Path of Light Filling the Heavens was not a secret art meant solely for destruction.
It felt as though he was on the verge of grasping something, and at the same time, as though he understood nothing at all.
If he could, he would have sat cross-legged and meditated, but the situation was too urgent.
Rumble!
He recalled the Myriad Thunder Heaven-Churning Blade and unleashed lightning movement at full force.
He barely escaped the smoke that had surged outward from the self-destruction, but the danger was not over.
The smoke was expanding as though it intended to fill all of Paeseongdojang, so he had to put as much distance between himself and it as quickly as possible. Even with One Path of Light Filling the Heavens, he could not endure for long inside that poisonous smoke.
As he rapidly scanned the surroundings in search of an exit, his eyes flashed open.
The Body Refinement Pavilion?
Because the eggs that had formed the desert had vanished cleanly, his field of vision was wide open. Among the countless buildings spread out all the way beyond the horizon, a few stood out in particular.