I Should Have Been Even Crazier
Kugugugugu-
The qi of heaven and earth was drawn in, converging upon the Taiji.
I poured every ounce of my focus into spinning the Taiji.
"Hoh..."
"..."
This was the only path left to me.
To unfold even a single, properly executed Taiji Wisdom Sword.
The softness woven into the Taiji Wisdom Sword was my sole hope of deflecting the demonic force he wielded.
I didn't even dare think of fusing another principle into this art.
Merely unfolding the Taiji Wisdom Sword in its original form was already draining every scrap of my concentration and mental fortitude.
Stray thoughts vanished. The sounds reaching my ears vanished.
All that remained was me, the sword, and my opponent.
Kiiiing-
I will survive.
Driven by that single resolve, the Taiji I cast forth spun in its perfect form, if only for this one moment.
"Come at me, you cursed bastard."
"How entertaining. I've stumbled upon something truly interesting."
Long crimson blood talons grew from his fingertips.
And moments later, force blades shaped like claws came raining down toward my head.
An enormous sonic boom rang in my ears.
And I raised my sword.
The energies of yin and yang — blades of black and white — flowed like a river and wrapped themselves around the blood-red force.
Through the Taiji Wisdom Sword, I embraced the overwhelming destructive power within that force and took it into my own body.
Having contained that power within me, the strength I could now unleash grew all the greater.
The Taiji's rotation began to spin faster and faster.
And the expression on the Blood Talon Demon's face twisted.
"You... you're doing something insane. If you keep that up, you won't survive."
"If I do nothing, I'll die all the same."
My blood vessels and body, forced to accept power beyond their capacity, began to run rampant.
His claws came swinging down at my upper body once more — and through the principle of the Taiji, I deflected the blow, absorbing it into myself.
"You're a funny one."
"..."
His claws rained down like a storm.
From all six directions — front, back, left, right, above, below — blood-red force swirled in, and wielding my sword as a brush, I painted over every one of those attacks in black-and-white sword qi, taking them into myself.
In the span of a single second, we exchanged more than ten clashes.
Naturally, ordinary sword qi could not envelop all of that force.
Fragments of force that had torn clean through the Wisdom Sword scattered outward, shredding my thighs, my waist, my arms.
"Haa..."
The wounds themselves were nothing. It was the pain of the power rampaging inside my body that cut deeper.
Still, I had to endure.
"Pain is... something I'm used to."
I had suffered through this kind of agony more times than I could count.
The feeling that I might collapse at any moment, that I could no longer swing the sword—
Chaeng-! Chaeng-!
Every time the blood-red force collided with the raging torrent of the Taiji, the torrent shattered, scattering black-and-white fragments in every direction.
And I absorbed some of those fragments, stacking them layer by layer within my own body.
A curious smile crept across the Blood Talon Demon's lips. "You're certainly no ordinary Peak realm cultivator. Your sword fundamentals alone would hold their own against a martial artist of the Harmony realm... and the durability of your body is nothing short of inexplicable."
"..."
"A body that should have burst apart long ago is still holding on. Impressive. Very well — keep enduring, if you can."
The Blood Talon Demon's claws began carving crimson scars across the empty air.
The black-and-white energy stretching from the tip of my sword became ink, wrapping around and smothering every one of those lines.
As I committed the Blood Talon Demon's claw arts to memory, I thought.
His martial art crushed opponents beneath an overwhelming internal power built at speed through demonic cultivation.
A meaningless art for someone like me to use.
So what I needed to do now was... devise a counter to his claw arts.
I had already committed every one of his techniques to these two eyes — it would not be difficult.
The Blood Talon Demon's claw arts were dismantled piece by piece in my mind, then reassembled.
The corners of my mouth curled up on their own.
"...You've finally gone mad, have you?"
"Not a chance."
I forced the sword — now immeasurably heavier than before — up with all my strength.
And the raging torrent of the Taiji began to paint its picture once more.
The tip of my blade stabbed into the gap in the swirling force.
Immortal Points the Way
Taiji Wisdom Sword
The thrust I had honed for sixty years, carrying the full weight of every ounce of Taiji power I had accumulated, shot forth.
The next instant.
PWAAAAAANG-!
An enormous sonic boom split the air, and a hole was punched clean through his upper body.
Then every blood vessel that had been storing up the unbearable power burst all at once.
My knees buckled beneath me.
Straining with everything I had, I lifted my head — and saw the Blood Talon Demon too, clutching the hole in his chest, down on one knee.
"How... how so easily—"
"..."
But wait.
Why?
I had blown a hole through his lungs, so how was he still standing there unscathed?
Why won't you just die?
And the moment that thought crossed my mind, blood-red energy began rising from his entire body like mist.
The Blood Talon Demon's eyes flooded crimson.
The crimson mist rapidly healed the wound I had staked my life to inflict.
Tilting his head slightly, he smiled at me.
"Unhyeon's life has saved me, it seems."
"...What?"
"Blood Yin Demonic Art. It lets me steal the life force of others and use it for power — or for regeneration. From the very start, this was a fight you could never win."
"..."
"You truly startled me. If I had been careless, things could have gone very badly. I won't be able to use force blades anymore, though."
The crimson mist left over from his healing whirled above the Blood Talon Demon's pale hand.
No matter how I looked at him, he was no human. He was something monstrous.
He's completely insane.
What the hell am I supposed to do against that?
I throw out my ultimate technique, reduce him to a dying husk, and he recovers in the blink of an eye?
At this point, there's nothing more I can do, is there?
The Blood Talon Demon looked at me and spoke.
"What a pity. What a shame, to have to send off one such as you with my own hands... Any last words?"
"...I think I've been thinking about this a little wrong, all this time."
"Hm?"
"To face a madman... I should have been even crazier than he is."
This is Murim.
Not a world where survival comes to those who carefully pick and choose their methods.
With my resolve, the threads of the Heavenly Net Severing Breath stretched out, piercing through the trees around me.
The formula of the Blood Yin Demonic Art, buried in my memory, began to surface at my will.
"From now on, to survive... I'll stop caring whether it's righteous art or demonic art."
"...! Wait, this is—?"
The threads of the Heavenly Net Severing Breath dyed themselves blood-red.
At the same moment, the trees began withering away rapidly.
Jjejejeok-
The life force drained from over a hundred trees restored my burst blood vessels more solidly than before and breathed fresh vitality into my body.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye — so much so that he simply stared at me, dumbfounded.
Beyond the Blood Talon Demon's crimson eyes, my own equally blood-dyed gaze met his.
"...Shall we do this again?"
I did not build my qi with the Blood Yin Demonic Art's energy.
Burning every last scrap of my remaining strength, I raised the sword once more.
The Blood Talon Demon smiled at me.
"Kekekek... you've gone completely mad... So you too were blessed by the cult, then?"
"Shut up."
Whatever he was saying, not a word of it reached my ears.
All that remained was: kill him.
That was all.
An opponent who could no longer use his force blades was no opponent of mine at all.
Through the Heavenly Thunder Taiji Steps, I bored into his very reach as a single bolt of lightning.
The blood-red sword qi blazing bright around my blade lunged from the tip like a beast, carving scars through the empty air.
It bore a certain resemblance to the very claw arts the Blood Talon Demon himself had used.
And so, his body was torn literally to shreds.
When the power of the Blood Yin Demonic Art was spent at last, and I shook free of its influence and came back to myself...
I was sitting slumped atop a pool of blood.
"...Ah."
All around me were scattered chunks of flesh, and a single grotesque head that had somehow kept its shape.
Why on earth was that bastard still smiling, even in the instant his body was torn apart?
"...Creepy."
I stomped his head and crushed it.
Just in case he somehow came back to life.
Given the growth potential of the Blood Yin Demonic Art, it wasn't an impossible scenario.
"Ah, I should get going. Seolhyeon must be waiting."
She'd declared with perfect confidence that she had ways of hiding herself... Well, she'd probably be fine.
After all, she'd laid traps everywhere, just in case.
And with that thought, I set my feet on the path leading down the mountain.
****
Un Hyeon murmured as he watched Baek Sihyeok's back descending the mountain.
"That creature... what is he, exactly?"
"My disciple."
"Are you telling me he bears the legendary Yin-Yang Body or Primordial Chaos Body? How can any single body hold righteous art and demonic art alike? And the Taiji Wisdom Sword is an art imbued with the enlightenment of the Harmony realm. It is not something one can properly unfold at his level of attainment."
Un Hyeon covered his face with his palm and muttered.
"Victory over a transcendent martial artist while standing at the Peak realm... a monster who commands righteous, unorthodox, and demonic arts all at once. There is no place in this world for such a thing to exist..."
"Which is why I intend to raise him. So that he does not grow into a monster."
"...Can you take responsibility for that? If he matures into a monster in full, neither I nor you may be able to stop him."
"And so, knowing that, would you kill him here and now?"
"No."
Un Hyeon shook his head firmly.
Between his wrinkled fingers, Un Hyeon's gleaming black eyes turned toward Yeon Sohee.
"Then I will take responsibility. That boy — I shall take him in as my disciple."
"...Pardon?"
Yeon Sohee's eyebrows twitched.
"Do you honestly believe that's acceptable? A doddering old fossil of a senior brother, stealing his junior's disciple?"
"How am I to have any idea how far astray the boy will drift, or in what direction, if you are the one teaching him! Does my decision, your senior brother's, displease you so? Then draw your sword!"
Un Hyeon had put the words "draw your sword" into his mouth on the reasoning that if he pushed this hard, she would surely back down.
Surely she wouldn't truly be the kind of brute who beat her senior brother down with a real blade.
And Yeon Sohee — smiling sweetly all the while — drew her sword.
The Taiji that manifested behind her began to spin, warping the very space around it.
Sensing that something had gone terribly wrong, Un Hyeon trembled.
"...Eh?"
"Do not cross the line, Senior Brother. Go inside and get some sleep. It's late."
Un Hyeon was so flustered that he couldn't even summon the thought to respond, and simply stared at her.
And in the very next moment.
KWAAAAAA-!
Yeon Sohee swung her sword.
The black-and-white sword qi erupting from her blade sent Un Hyeon's body flying, quite literally, off the mountainside.
Looking down at her senior brother plummeting below the peak, she wore a satisfied smile.