Chapter 14: Who Is the True Mara? (3)
Chapter 14: Who Is the True Mara? (3)
World Violation
World Violation
My Transcendent Heart Art erodes—or, to phrase it differently, violates and dominates—this world we call nature. To liken the world to a computer, it's akin to spreading a virus under the name of Geum Tae-yang.
There was a time when a sudden question occurred to me.
Formations twist the principles of feng shui to produce new effects. If that's the case, then formations are a kind of virus program that hacks into the world's computer. Couldn't I use Lightning Qi as an electronic signal to achieve a similar effect?
If possible, I instinctively knew that doing so would grant me power truly worthy of being called divine. So I immediately began training in the Transcendent Heart Art.
Before I had even fully mastered it, I focused intensely on manipulating Lightning Qi.
Like caressing a woman's delicate body to make it burn with desire.
I embedded my will into the Lightning Qi, imbuing it with my intent, and then—little by little, ever so slightly—sent signals carrying my will into the world.
That period, excluding my training in the Sexual Art, was when I spent the most time practicing martial techniques. But whether my efforts were rewarded or not, I truly awakened to the Transcendent Heart Art and mastered World Violation.
However, this technique had one drawback: deploying it required spending a considerable amount of time in one location.
Because its foundation was derived from formations that twisted the natural order, setting it up took time, much like installing a formation. Roughly half an hour was needed, but in a battle between masters, even half an hour was a very long time.
Yet, if I could fulfill that condition, World Violation granted me power that was nearly omnipotent.
'World Violation isn't about harmonizing with nature—it's a Transcendent Heart Art that violates and dominates it. Now, in this area, even the laws of nature bend partially to my will.'
I could eliminate the gravity that originally existed here, or multiply it several times to crush my opponent.
And......
"You transformed the natural energy into Lightning Qi and manifested it as a Thunder Dragon?"
"Oh? As expected of the Heavenly Killing Star. You saw right through it."
Just as Chi-chi pointed out, gathering natural energy and manipulating it according to my will was another application of this technique.
If she manifested Asura Advent by blending her own inner strength with the will of the Heavenly Killing Star, then my method could be described as imposing my will upon the great natural world itself.
I had perfectly replicated the Transcendent Heart Art that Namgung Gang-o wielded in the original story.
Krrrrumble—
───!!
Talk about a bolt from the blue in the dead of night.
The colossal Thunder Dragon and the three-headed, six-armed giant glared at each other, their competitive spirits flaring. As if engaged in a battle of sheer presence, the overwhelming energy they radiated in all directions made the mountains seem to scream, "Go fight somewhere else!"
Amid the tension between these two titans, Chi-chi and I locked eyes, seeing only each other.
And then—we charged.
***
Clad in Lightning Qi that crackled across his bronze skin, Geum Tae-yang looked nothing short of an incarnation of the Thunder God. Even with Protective Aura guarding against it, the lightning he unleashed left a tingling numbness on the skin and slowed reaction speeds by a fraction.
Knowing this, Chi-chi countered by scattering her own thorns of Demonic Qi against the thorns of electricity.
Against an opponent who wasn't an insulator, the lightning thorns naturally sought their mark, making it an exhausting task to individually manipulate Demonic Qi to block each one. Chi-chi had to invest no small amount of mental resources just to hold him off—already, she was starting this battle at a disadvantage.
Yet she was certain this was the right move.
Because if those tiny accumulations of Lightning Qi slowed her reactions, in a battle between supreme masters, it would be a direct path to defeat.
"Haaah!"
Geum Tae-yang struck first.
His claw technique lashed out—like the fangs of a dragon that, once they closed around a pearl, would never let go.
The Thunder Dragon's fangs surged forward as if to devour the asura whole.
It was a devastating attack, one that could have inflicted serious injury.
But sensing through the Heavenly Killing Star that he bore no killing intent, Chi-chi didn't hesitate—she leaped straight into the dragon's maw. Her recklessness, extreme beyond measure, left her robes scorched and skin flayed by the Thunder Fang's relentless strikes, but the wounds were nothing more than superficial.
But it wasn't just Geum Tae-yang's lack of killing intent—Chi-chi's Protective Aura also possessed exceptional rebound resilience.
As the Asura used its six arms to forcibly pry open the dragon's jaws and face, the momentum of its breakthrough surged.
"Is this all you've got?"
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Geum Tae-yang, who had repelled himself out of the Asura Demon Spear's range, realized that half-hearted resolve wouldn't be enough to bring Chi-chi down. Though he knew she wouldn't kill him, the sheer force of her breakthrough, burning through his defenses, was beyond what he had imagined.
At the very least, he steeled himself with the mindset, "Even if I have to take some damage, I'll strike back." He unleashed a rapid succession of punches into the air.
At first, it might have seemed like mere fist wind, but the instant the Heavenly Killing Star's warning flashed through her senses, Chi-chi obediently planted all six of the Asura's spears before her, forming an impenetrable spear wall.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The deafening collision of powerful fists against intangible spears resounded afterward.
Her expression twisted instinctively at the long-range fist strikes meant to snipe distant enemies, but then confusion flickered across her face.
"Hundred-Step Divine Fist? No... that can't be. There's not a trace of the Buddhist aura I sense from those bald monks."
"A mimicry. Just a mimicry."
The Asura intercepted the charging Thunder Dragon.
Weaving through the gaps between their colossal battle, they exchanged blows in rapid succession—Geum Tae-yang blocking with repulsion as his shield, Chi-chi attacking with the Asura Demon Spear.
"A mimicry? I didn't even sense it until the last moment before impact."
"The result is the same. The origin is entirely different—it resembles the Hundred-Step, but it is not the Hundred-Step."
Shrinking Earth was a Taoist art that folded space.
In the same vein, what Geum Tae-yang had just executed was a display of his dominance over the battlefield through Transcendent Heart Art—folding space to deliver his fist strikes across distance. In the end, the fact that he had transcended space made Chi-chi's vicious grin grow even more bloodthirsty.
"Hah. So you reached a hundred steps from nothingness, did you? Hahaha! The enlightenment of the Thousand-Year Shaolin has been matched by a mere Lust Demon! The looks on their faces must be priceless! Truly worthy of the Mara candidate I've acknowledged. But in the end, that position will be mine!"
"If I crush you here, I don't mind handing it over."
"I don't need a position handed to me!"
Chi-chi thrust the Asura Demon Spear forward. In response, the Asura simultaneously stabbed with its six intangible spears.
Geum Tae-yang flicked his wrist, and the Thunder Dragon coiled around him like a serpent, shielding him in a circular embrace.
Electric currents surged and cycled across the dragon's scales before a repulsion field expanded outward. The six intangible spears bent unnaturally, tearing through the surroundings.
Yet Chi-chi's Asura Demon Spear expelled Demonic Qi, forcibly canceling out the repulsion field as it stubbornly pushed forward.
To counter, Geum Tae-yang attempted to paralyze her by unleashing an even fiercer Lightning Qi.
For the first time, he revealed a form of Lightning Qi he had never shown before.
Having temporarily entered an Empty Spirit Body state, he meticulously stacked, compressed, and condensed the energy within his dantian.
Then, whenever he had the leeway, he replenished it anew.
This was True Thunder Qi—a density incomparable to ordinary martial power, a force so heavy that, were it not for the Diamond Indestructible Body that toughened even his insides, his dantian could have shattered.
It surged up from his dantian and unfurled in his palm.
Chi-chi frowned as the True Thunder Qi's eruption pushed back her Demonic Qi, threatening to overwhelm her—
WHOOSH.
Then, impossibly, flames of an unbelievably pure nature ignited from what should have been Demonic Qi.
Holy Fire.
A flame that subdues all demons—one that any Demonic Human who has mastered the Demonic Arts and reached the realm of Demon Transcendence could ignite.
And here, the term "demon" encompassed all things in existence.
Thus, even the True Thunder Qi began to falter under the concentrated Holy Fire at the spear's tip, gradually being pierced through.
'Hoh. Even the original Chi-chi never reached this point... Did the time she spent with me grant her some form of enlightenment?'
In the original work, only the Demon Immortal had ever attained such enlightenment. Not even the Heavenly Demon of that era had grasped the Holy Fire—yet Chi-chi had already awakened to it.
Truly, the talent befitting a heroine destined to be the final boss of an entire world.
But that didn't mean it signified his defeat.
Geum Tae-yang made his choice.
"Come on! Come on! Come on! Lust Demon, is that all you've got? Put some more effort into it! Where's that boast of yours that you'd pin me beneath you? If this is all you can do, you'll become rust on my spear."
"Hmph. Try me."
When he was being overpowered, digging in and staying on the defensive would be a poor move.
Then he would turn defense into offense. As if determined to knock Chi-chi off her feet before he went down himself, Geum Tae-yang used the True Thunder Qi he had been spending on defense to attack.
The moment he withdrew the True Thunder Qi, the Asura Demon Spear and six formless spears came hurtling in, tearing into his entire body. His skin and flesh, as hard as diamond, were ripped open, and his neck was cut deeply enough to bring him to the brink of death.
But even in the face of death, he kept his mind in the state of Clear Mirror Still Water and seized the spear.
His hand hurt as though it were about to burn away in the Holy Fire, but he did not hesitate. He grabbed the spear and pulled.
As he dragged Chi-chi along with the Asura Demon Spear, he slammed a fist filled with True Thunder Qi into her abdomen.
"Guh!...You said you'd make me your woman, yet you don't hesitate to hit one in the stomach."
"Can't you see I nearly died just now?"
Her Protective Aura had not broken, but Chi-chi had taken a gut punch, and the True Thunder Qi had struck her dantian, inflicting internal injuries. Even so, he was in greater danger, with the deep wound in his neck.
If the cut on his neck had gone just an inch deeper, he might have died.
Of course, Geum Tae-yang had walked an extremely dangerous tightrope—dangerous enough to inflict a serious internal injury on her—and in that regard, he had come out ahead of Chi-chi.
"But that move of yours just now was a poor one. I may have suffered internal injuries, but you're bleeding badly, too, and you won't be able to keep this fight going for long. Didn't you realize that means I have the advantage? I've learned Demonic Arts, which let me circulate my inner energy more smoothly than you can, even while injured."
By its very nature, Demonic Qi was an energy that achieved explosive growth on a foundation of instability. The Demonic Qi accumulated through everything from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to all manner of lesser Demonic Arts ultimately aimed to defy Heaven.
In other words, even if her internal injuries grew worse, she could still control her energy while injured.
It was just that the cost-effectiveness was utterly terrible.
"Chi-chi, you've been pierced by my dick that many times, and yet you still only know one thing and not the other."
"...What are you talking about?"
"I have the Diamond Indestructible Body. That means that, as time passes, my bleeding won't get any worse. My wounds will heal and stop bleeding. You think the Diamond Indestructible Body is just about being tough? You need outstanding recovery, too, to move this hard body and heal your wounds."
"......"
Had she realized the situation was turning against her? Chi-chi began gathering the Holy Fire at the tip of her spear once more.
This time, the Holy Fire flared not only at her spear tip, but also at the tips of Asura's six formless spears.
At her resolve to end this in a short battle, even if she had to overextend herself, Geum Tae-yang rang out with True Thunder Qi, wearing a smile as hearty as could be.
The Thunder Dragon, accompanied by thunder and lightning, stretched its body and glared at Asura.
The two of them remained still amid the fierce standoff—
Flash.
They settled everything with a single move.
Against Chi-chi, who shot her entire body forward like an arrow loosed from a bowstring and thrust her spear, Geum Tae-yang displayed even greater speed. Light flashed, and he came flying in at an unbelievable speed, breaking through her Bow-Body Springing Shadow at a speed beyond perception.
He moved at a speed so close to light that it seemed less like he was following electricity and more like he was following light itself.
At that speed, it would have been no surprise if the resistance had shattered his body. But Geum Tae-yang, with his Diamond Indestructible Body, held firm even under that acceleration and swung his leg.
"Heavenly Demon. Have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?"
The Thunder Heaven Divine Art's secret technique—
"Thunderclap Flash!"
The world filled with black and white. His movement had become so impossibly swift that the eyes could not take in all the visual information, sending only a fragmentary impression to the mind.
He was the only one moving in that black-and-white world.
No—Chi-chi was moving, too, but she was so slow that her impressive footwork from a moment ago seemed meaningless. Even a tortoise would have been faster than she was now.
In that black-and-white world, Geum Tae-yang swung his leg.
"Guh?!"
At that very moment, Chi-chi saw a flash before her eyes, and her vision went dark.