Desperate Struggle
"In the end, you and I are both at the Qi Refining stage."
The brows of the old Foundation Establishment monster twitched as he stared at Jin Somyeong.
"Foolish brat! Even with my cultivation restricted, do you think I could be defeated by some Qi Refining whelp? An infant like you is nothing more than a bug I could crush beneath my—"
Just as his furious bellow was about to continue, Jin Somyeong's eyes flashed.
He had caught the opening exposed by the man's anger.
Whoosh!
The gap between one breath and the next, created in the midst of speech—he aimed for that single instant. He thrust out the swift sword he had honed to its present realm by cutting down countless enemies.
The blade flew straight ahead in a spray of swordlight, its tip about to pierce the old monster's heart.
Clang!
Spiritual energy condensed in midair and seized the sword. A pressure like the weight of ten thousand catties bore down on it, preventing it from advancing even an inch farther.
Still standing with his hands arrogantly clasped behind his back, the old monster clicked his tongue as he looked at Jin Somyeong.
"Ill-mannered little thing. Still, I suppose you were at least capable enough to kill my disciple."
"Of course. How could I possibly be weaker than a frail weakling like your disciple, elder?"
"Hah. What a vicious tongue you have. Now I'm tempted to see how long you can keep acting insolent."
Jin Somyeong tensed.
The old Foundation Establishment monster's thin, sinister smile was anything but ordinary.
Boom!
Jin Somyeong pulled up his spiritual energy and kicked off against the opponent's force. Naturally, it was blocked, but he succeeded in using the rebound to retreat.
He opened a suitable distance and lowered his center of gravity, preparing himself to respond at any moment.
Then—
Jingle...
A clear bell rang. No, it was the refreshing rush of waves surging in.
A beach?
Kee-ree, kee-ree!
Soft sand stretched beneath his feet, and seagulls wheeled gracefully through the sky. The waves broke in white foam with a soothing rhythm, calming the heart.
As he looked upon the ideal seashore, picturesque enough to have been painted, Jin Somyeong frowned.
Something's wrong...
He stood there, unsettled by a vague sense of discomfort he could not explain, when a beautiful woman in a swimsuit approached and linked arms with him.
"What are you doing? You came all the way to the sea and you're not going to play?"
She was not the only one.
"Jin Somyeong! Stop standing there and come here. Let's play together!"
"Let's throw that idiot into the sea first!"
"Good idea!"
One after another, countless beauties he had seen throughout his life appeared and beckoned to him. Among them was even Cheong Hwa-ran, and beyond her were celebrities from his previous life. The nameless sense of wrongness swelled by the moment.
"..."
A faint headache stirred, but he could not tell what had gone awry.
Bright laughter, languid just to hear, rang out without end, and his thoughts kept breaking apart.
"Everyone, stop it and come eat! The meat's done!"
Suddenly, a fragrant smell drifted over.
Sizzle! At the pleasant sound, he turned his gaze and saw pork belly roasting over charcoal.
The sight of food from home after so long made a maddening hunger surge through him. He was stunned. Never in his life had he ever felt this hungry.
Without realizing it, he took one step forward.
"Ah."
Jin Somyeong's gaze snapped to the side. His entire mind fixed on a single sword planted in a corner of the beach.
A pitch-black longsword darker than shadow.
The instant he saw it, clarity returned.
"No!"
"Don't go!"
He shook off the beauties clinging to his arms and ran straight for the sword. The moment he pulled it free without hesitation—
Crash!
The dreamlike scenery shattered like a broken pane of glass.
A scorching heat and the acrid stench of lava welcomed him back.
"Hah."
Where had that fresh sea breeze gone?
It felt as though he had been violently dragged from a sweet dream and hurled onto cold ground.
Returning to the secret realm where even breathing was difficult, regret washed over him. The heat he had grown used to suddenly felt horrifying.
That beach just now had been, quite literally, a dreamlike world. An ideal paradise where pain did not exist.
But he had no intention of turning his eyes away from the reality before him.
Swaaa...
The faint sound of waves—no, the bell—continued to ring, but this time he did not waver.
"You have rotten taste, old man."
"Oh? For a Qi Refining brat, your spirit is rather impressive. No wonder you awakened Divine Sense."
The old Foundation Establishment monster, who had been shaking the bell as if playing a game, sounded impressed.
Until now he had shown no emotion beyond killing intent and rage, but now the corners of his mouth curled upward.
He licked his dry lips and let out a grotesque laugh.
"Heh heh... How long has it been since I've had amusement like this? Good! Then try enduring this as well!"
The old monster's fingers formed a series of complex hand seals in an instant. Jin Somyeong, bracing for another mental attack, even spent some of his Boundless Great Ability to prepare his defenses.
Just as he completely shook off even the bell chime lingering in his mind—
"Kuhuk!"
Blood surged up his throat and burst from his mouth.
He could neither block it nor evade it. He had not even sensed what had struck him in the first place.
At some point, a revolting energy had grown from inside his body, rotting and mashing his organs apart.
"...!"
His eyes flew wide. His hands and feet trembled from the impossible pain. It felt as though thousands of ants were gnawing through his entrails, and he would rather have fainted.
"...You're enduring this?"
Through his blurred vision, the man in black frowned.
"Rot and become a corpse."
A chilling voice followed, making the hairs on Jin Somyeong's body stand on end.
Thump! His heart lurched, and strength drained out of him. The sensation of collapsing from within was horrific. He wanted to escape the pain somehow, but it was impossible.
"Ptui!"
Jin Somyeong spat out blood mixed with pieces of organ and clenched his teeth.
Then the organs that had evolved into spiritualized vessels began to spin madly.
They erupted with blood vitality against the deadly energy that corroded whatever it touched.
In the blink of an eye, the result of the fierce war inside his body appeared.
Hissss!
Black smoke began to rise from every pore on Jin Somyeong's body.
The blood vitality of a body refiner, an energy that guided the flesh toward transcendence merely by being possessed, had driven out the curse.
At the same time, the expression of the man in black, who had been leisurely toying with him like a cat with a mouse, twisted.
"A sword cultivator and a body refiner! You truly are someone who must die."
Jin Somyeong had no mental room to answer. In truth, he could barely hear him.
If he had not possessed a powerful body that had reached the brink of the Qi Refining stage, he would already have died.
I didn't think he would be this strong...
Even restricted by the prohibitions of the secret realm, the old Foundation Establishment monster was overwhelmingly powerful. Every single one of his attacks was deadly.
What exactly is different?
The greatest problem was that Jin Somyeong could not detect the man's attacks.
If he could not see them, he could neither dodge nor block them.
This opponent was in a different class from the cultivators he had faced until now, the sort who relied only on destructive attacks.
He was stealthy, and he was lethal.
Jin Somyeong forced down the blood rising in his throat. If his senses were insufficient, he had to raise them higher.
He consumed what little Boundless Great Ability remained and strengthened his perception.
He could feel something faint, but...
Not enough!
He carved away his own flank as it silently began to rot.
Crunch!
Dragging his heavy body along, he stepped with the Rising Dragon Step. He intended to move as quickly as possible and evade the curse.
"Hmph! Useless!"
It was frustrating, but the old monster was right.
The moment Jin Somyeong thought he had perceived it, the curse was already spreading from inside his body. There was no answer to it.
He endured by force, but he was nearing his limit.
Just as he desperately held together a body that felt ready to collapse—
Ugh!
A sudden dizziness spun through his head. He shook it off, and his vision cut out.
In a battle measured by fractions of an instant, that accident made his heart sink.
Shwaak!
Sure enough, he sensed a violet energy flying toward him in silence, and—
Clang! He struck it away with a reflexive swing of his sword.
"Hm?"
The man in black frowned as if surprised, and Jin Somyeong, startled as well, looked down at his own sword.
He tried to understand what had just happened.
The energy bearing that vicious curse had been repelled by his Sword Qi.
How did I sense it?
Having defended successfully for the first time, his mind began to turn at high speed.
He rapidly replayed the instant when he had swung his sword.
Without question, he had reached his limit and his concentration had loosened for a moment. Since his five senses had cut out, it should have been an extremely dangerous instant, and yet...
"Ah."
Realization struck him, and his eyes widened.
Slash!
He clearly perceived the curse that flew in like a surprise attack and cut it down.
"It was Divine Sense."
Divine Sense was not merely another sensory organ.
It should not stop at grasping the surrounding situation like the five senses did.
Beyond that, it had a far more important function.
Information warfare.
"Hmph. What changes just because a Qi Refining brat like you figured that out?"
At a gesture from the snorting man in black, violet arrows appeared in the air.
This time, Jin Somyeong could see them clearly.
He saw the old Foundation Establishment monster's Divine Sense wrapped around the arrows.
He intended to observe them properly and evade, but...
Whoosh!
The moment he thought he had perceived them, they vanished. He clenched his teeth at the arrow that had somehow lodged in his side.
The opponent's Divine Sense had suppressed and twisted his own, interfering with his ability to perceive the spell.
It felt as though his very senses were being distorted by the old man's practiced use of Divine Sense.
Jin Somyeong narrowed his eyes, forcibly enduring the pain.
He fixed his attention on the method of employing Divine Sense to disrupt perception and conceal the presence of spells.
Thud!
He narrowly dodged the curse flying toward his forehead, but this time an arrow stabbed into his shoulder. He had missed another one.
Hoo.
Ignoring the curse that was rotting his muscles, he focused.
He spread his Divine Sense as far as he possibly could in order to detect the old Foundation Establishment monster's attacks in advance.
But it was impossible.
The continuous curses had left his entire body in tatters.
He had already consumed more than half of his spiritual energy. Even the spiritualized organs that had been ceaselessly emitting blood vitality were struggling now.
"Tsk. You really are stubbornly hard to kill!"
The irritated man in black fired dozens of arrows at once.
"Haha..."
Jin Somyeong abruptly laughed and acknowledged the level of his own Divine Sense.
It was outstanding for Qi Refining, but compared to Foundation Establishment, it was lacking.
How strong could a newly awakened Divine Sense possibly be? He had to change his method.
Wuuung!
He withdrew all the Divine Sense he had been spreading as far as possible. He compressed it, and compressed it again.
Until he completely controlled only the space thirty centimeters around himself.
Smoothly, he closed even his eyes and drained the tension from his entire body.
He let the Boundless Divine Sword, wrapped in a haze-like shimmer, hang low as he relaxed his muscles, and then—
Whoosh!
He tilted his head to the side.
As an arrow grazed past his earlobe, he advanced toward the dozens of arrows following behind it.
It was a strange sensation. In that state of extreme focus, even the world seemed to slow.
Tap.
The tip of his sword moved forward slowly and pushed against the side of an arrow. He did not oppose the flow of force, using only the bare minimum movement required.
Of the seventeen arrows, he struck away exactly three.
The ones aimed at his brow, his heart, and his dantian.
The curses that broke down the body ran wild, but he ignored them. He trusted that the powerful flesh tempered by the Ojangbaekryeongyeol, the Five Viscera Hundred Refinements Art, would endure.
Step by step, he focused only on moving forward.
Clang, clang, clang!
How many attacks had he deflected?
Amid the agony blurring his vision, Jin Somyeong smiled instead.
Guided by the Boundless Divine Sword, he had somehow reached the old Foundation Establishment monster's very eyes. He swung his sword.
Spiritual energy condensed in the air to block the blade, but he cut straight through it.
It was a slash into which he had poured every last trace of his remaining Boundless Great Ability.
"...Splendid."
At the same time as the old Foundation Establishment monster voiced sincere admiration, a red line appeared across his neck.
Then the opponent's body split apart and transformed into a swarm of thousands of insects.
What Jin Somyeong had cut was not the main body, but a clone made of bugs.
"Which is why you should die now."
Bzzzzzz!
The instant the hair-raising sound of wings reached him, the swarm of insects glaring with baleful eyes exploded.
As if self-destructing, they charged at Jin Somyeong and spread a black-violet mist.
The surging poisonous smoke swallowed him whole.
Hissss!
A chilling sound came from within the smoke. The poison was so vicious that even the surrounding soil melted away.
It had happened in an instant, far too quickly to avoid.
"Tsk. He was rather tenacious for a—hm?"
The man in black emerged from empty air, looking somewhat fatigued as he shook off his hands.
Boom!
Jin Somyeong burst through the poisonous smoke and thrust out his sword.
"Kuh?!"
The old Foundation Establishment monster drew out a shield, but Jin Somyeong smashed through it with sheer force. He did not cut him—he blasted him away.
After driving him into the volcanic terrain spewing ash, Jin Somyeong unleashed sword strike after sword strike without pause.
Boom! Boom!
At first, the man in black merely frowned, watching as if observing a final struggle, but his expression gradually distorted further and further.
"What the—!"
The power behind Jin Somyeong's Sword Qi was anything but ordinary.
The sharpness enhanced by Boundless Great Ability had not yet faded.
Toward the great Foundation Establishment cultivator, who had somehow fallen from his lofty perch and become covered in ash, Jin Somyeong charged.
He was drenched in blood, and on his lips hung a mad smile.