War of Seizure (4)
The instant Seo Seol-ryeong unleashed her vast reserves of spirit qi, intricate patterns rose from the ground all around them.
It was a design shaped like a single silver blossom.
But Cheon Woo-jin recognized what those patterns meant at a glance. It was the geometric crystalline structure visible when falling snow is magnified to its extreme. Snow, after all, is born when moisture within the clouds freezes solid — and the crystalline structure spreading across the ground was that very principle made manifest.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
Everything around them froze solid — everything except the patch of earth where Seo Seol-ryeong stood beside Cheon Woo-jin. The principle applied itself to all things that had set foot upon the crystalline lattice, just as moisture freezes inside a cloud.
The cultivators of the three great factions who had been closing in on the pair all stopped moving at once. Even Na Chwi-ryang, who had charged in with terrifying momentum, was no exception. And what fell upon those frozen figures, unable to so much as twitch, was the lightning art Cheon Woo-jin had unleashed almost simultaneously with Seo Seol-ryeong's Silver Flower Snow Shadow.
This time, lightning qi spread outward from Cheon Woo-jin like the spokes of a wheel, surging in every direction to fall upon his frozen enemies.
Being frozen solid meant that the protective spiritual power guarding the body was frozen as well — incapable of fulfilling its duty. Cheon Woo-jin's lightning punched clean through their defenseless bodies, inflicting grievous wounds. Only moments ago they had been utterly surrounded, driven to the brink of despair; a chained sequence of wide-area spells had flipped the entire battlefield in the space of a breath.
"GRAAAAH!"
Amid it all, one presence shook off the ice and roared. The lizard-man of the Stone Ruler King Physique — the demon cultivator Na Chwi-ryang. His abdomen was pierced clean through, yet as if it didn't concern him in the slightest, he leapt. That soaring body was swollen to the point of bursting. Even if Cheon Woo-jin had rebuilt himself from the marrow, a single blow from that monster would have shattered every bone in his body — and someone as slight as Seo Seol-ryeong would not have retained a human shape at all.
The sphere of lightning qi Cheon Woo-jin hurled exploded, and the erupting thunder crashed over Na Chwi-ryang — who mounted no defense whatsoever.
"Such fireworks are nothing but a momentary dazzle!"
Of course it was. It had been flung precisely to dazzle.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
Seo Seol-ryeong's spell, timed for the instant his eyes squeezed shut against the glare, swallowed Na Chwi-ryang whole. Massive stakes of ice speared his torso from eight directions at once. His eyes flew wide — he had never seen it coming — and he plummeted from the sky, sucked down into the fissure his impact had torn in the ground.
"……"
"……"
Their breathing is in perfect sync, Cheon Woo-jin thought. He didn't bother saying it aloud. Having concluded their communication through nothing more than presence and the rhythm of their breath, Cheon Woo-jin and Seo Seol-ryeong turned toward different directions.
Lightning and freezing qi crackled in unison. Cultivators sprinting toward them from afar were caught in the twin attacks and tumbled down beneath the rooftops.
It was at that very moment that a fierce wind blew in from the west.
"I'll be taking the Ghost Spirit Summoning Banner."
Whoosh!
A man came flying in like the wind itself, hand outstretched toward Seo Seol-ryeong. She raised a barrier of ice to cut off his approach, but he veered around it at a speed invisible to the eye and burrowed into her flank. And just before his fingers could snatch the Ghost Spirit Summoning Banner from her left hand —
the banner vanished.
"Hm?"
The man's eyes went wide at his grasped air. Cheon Woo-jin lashed lightning toward his head, but the man evaded at that same imperceptible speed, widening the distance — then clicked his tongue as he glanced at the hem of Seo Seol-ryeong's sleeve.
"Universe in the Sleeve, is it? Wielding a Nascent Soul-grade technique."
Universe in the Sleeve was a spell that created a subspace in which to store objects — the technique Nascent Soul cultivators used in place of a Storage Pouch, and even Sama Mun had kept his belongings within one. Sama Mun had simply thrust his hand into empty air and drawn items out, but properly speaking it was a spell that opened a space within one's sleeve — hence the name, meaning the world inside a sleeve.
Seo Seol-ryeong had been pulling great quantities of spirit stones out of her sleeve since long ago, and so Cheon Woo-jin had already known she had mastered it.
"Then I suppose I have no choice but to take you alive."
If she had been holding the banner in her hand or tucked into her pouch, he could simply have killed her and taken it. But an object sealed inside Universe in the Sleeve was another matter entirely. No one but Seo Seol-ryeong could open its mouth — so she could not be allowed to die. A high-ranking cultivator could extract items from another's sleeve, but with the power of the Core Formation cultivators gathered here, that was impossible.
The one targeting Seo Seol-ryeong now was a Core Formation cultivator of Byeokpung Valley — and at the Late Stage, no less, which meant he likely held a fairly high seat even within that valley.
"No help for it, then."
The Core Formation cultivator named Danmok Hwi drew the sword at his waist, and in that instant the air seemed to fill with a clear, crystalline wind.
"I'll carve off your limbs and carry you back to Byeokpung Valley. Even without your sleeves, the Universe in the Sleeve won't vanish, will it?"
Fwoosh!
With a violent rush of wind, Danmok Hwi vanished in a heartbeat.
Shaaaak!
Just as before, he bored in from the flank, blade arcing for Seo Seol-ryeong — but a silver shield suddenly interposed itself, twisting the blade's trajectory. Drawing back a sword that had cut nothing but empty air, Danmok Hwi breathed a note of admiration.
"Oh ho."
Looking at Cheon Woo-jin, who had shielded Seo Seol-ryeong with the Silver Ridge Rampart Formation, Danmok Hwi smiled.
"Guarding your woman yourself, are you?"
"It's not like that."
"It is not."
By some accident, the two of them had spoken in unison — the very same words. Their breathing matching was one thing, but at this level it was starting to feel a little unpleasant.
"I'll take him."
"As you wish."
After that brief exchange, Cheon Woo-jin left Seo Seol-ryeong where she stood and hurled himself at Danmok Hwi. Enemies beyond counting were converging even now, and if they meant to sweep away so many at once, it was more efficient to leave it to Seo Seol-ryeong and the spiritual power of a Core Formation Great Circle. The rampaging Danmok Hwi, meanwhile, was his alone to handle.
KRAKOOM!
Shrouded in lightning from head to toe, Cheon Woo-jin closed the distance in an instant.
"You'd attempt close combat against a sword cultivator like me?"
Danmok Hwi smirked and swung his blade — a stroke that could have parted a man's neck in a single pass. Just before the coldly gleaming edge touched his throat, fresh lightning burst from beneath Cheon Woo-jin's feet.
With explosive acceleration, he wrenched his body aside, twisting into Danmok Hwi's left side even as he felt his spine scream in protest.
Danmok Hwi snorted and drove his left fist at him. A sword cultivator, yes — but at Danmok Hwi's level, even a bare hand was a lethal weapon. Feeling that weapon closing in, Cheon Woo-jin unleashed the technique he had kept coiled at his fingertips.
KRA-BOOM!
The black sphere, unfurled at point-blank range, swallowed Danmok Hwi's left fist whole — and did not stop there, gnawing away nearly his entire forearm up past the elbow.
"……!"
Danmok Hwi's face went rigid. No longer able to afford his leisure, he yanked himself backward in haste — he had realized what this jet-black sphere was: a spell capable of annihilating even a Core Formation cultivator such as himself. Wrenching his body aside as Cheon Woo-jin had, he kicked off the ground and shot away, still fast enough to vanish from sight.
But Cheon Woo-jin had already spread a spiderweb of spirit qi in every direction. Seeing with the eyes was slower than sensing within the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss.
There, is it?
Just as a spider senses its prey through the tremble of its web, Cheon Woo-jin could feel the path of Danmok Hwi's movement. And if he could feel it, then all he had to do was drop an attack onto that trajectory.
The heavens answered Cheon Woo-jin's call and dropped black lightning upon Danmok Hwi. However blistering his speed, no one can dodge a bolt that falls directly across his path. The black thunder plunging from above was drawn into his upper dantian, bored through him lengthwise, and left catastrophic ruin within his body.
"Ah……!"
Even the Golden Core in his abdomen swept away by the lightning, Danmok Hwi rolled to the ground as a corpse. Having felled him, Cheon Woo-jin moved back to Seo Seol-ryeong's side.
"Impressive."
Sweeping away enemies converging from all directions with her powerful spells, Seo Seol-ryeong gave her assessment with cool composure.
"More than I had imagined, all this time."
"I take it you thought about me often, then."
"I did. I had to estimate when you might die, after all."
Having fired off that icy retort, Seo Seol-ryeong turned her head toward another direction.
"I truly believed you were dead this time."
"Even your judgment misses the mark sometimes."
"I'll remember that," she added in a frost-edged voice. "From now on, I'll make a point of not worrying whatever befalls you. You do manage to come back alive on your own, after all."
The two of them carried on this exchange for one simple reason: even a moment's respite was a necessity. They had crested one wave, but more cultivators were already swarming in — a greater number than all the enemies they had felled together so far. They had no intention, however, of grinding themselves down in a war of attrition while standing still inside the encirclement.
"There they are!"
"Don't kill the woman — take her alive!"
Watching the cultivators surge toward them, Cheon Woo-jin and Seo Seol-ryeong drew their spiritual power up once more. But at that very moment —
"……!"
KU-KU-KOOM!
The ground suddenly collapsed. The cultivators pouring in like a tide were swallowed by the caving earth and plummeted into the depths below. Amid the screams erupting from every direction, a single vessel rose up out of the fissure. At its helm stood a woman with bronze-brown skin.
"Seo Seol-ryeong……!"
It was Wi Ju-seon of the Corpse Ghost Extreme Jade Gate. She had activated her flying vessel, kept in storage beneath the ground, and bored her way up through the earth. And the flying vessel was not the only thing ascending from below. Countless corpses were crawling up in its wake — reinforcements Wi Ju-seon had hastily dragged out of the underground after witnessing the two of them locked in desperate struggle.
"Lady Wi, why are you……"
Wonder bloomed across Seo Seol-ryeong's face, but there was no time to explain. Cheon Woo-jin shoved her shoulder.
"Go."
"It isn't even your vessel."
Whoosh!
They leapt for the flying vessel as it cut across the sky, and both of them landed squarely upon its deck. Wi Ju-seon, gripping the helm at the prow, raised her voice.
"Hold on tight!"
FWAAAAAANG!
The vessel accelerated with a thunderous roar. The sensation of being pressed backward nearly knocked the wind out of Cheon Woo-jin, and he grabbed the railing without thinking. From the ground, the cultivators of a dozen factions hurled spell after spell, but the vessel was accelerating too swiftly — every attack went wide. Their pursuers would hardly sit idle and let them punch through the encirclement, though.
"Don't let them escape……!"
From all sides, cultivators took to the air astride their swords. The sword cultivators of Byeokpung Valley were giving chase upon blade-borne flight, riding the wind to closing speed and unleashing a merciless barrage of sword gusts.
"Ugh!"
Screech—!
Wi Ju-seon wrenched the helm hard over. The hull heeled sharply and dropped altitude like a stone, skimming so low it seemed certain to slam into the rooftops of the nearby buildings — yet thanks to that audacious aerobatics, they slipped past the sword gusts' direct strike. Brushing cheeks with disaster by a hair's breadth, Wi Ju-seon shook the shorn strands of hair from her face and shouted.
"I can't pull that off twice! Cover us!"
"I'll handle it."
At her call, Cheon Woo-jin rose to his feet. The raging wind whipped his hair wildly about, veiling his vision until taking proper aim at the enemy would have been near impossible. But it didn't matter. Right now, he had no need to aim at anything at all.
Sfft.
He drew a single sword from his Storage Pouch, then loosened the white cloth half-wrapped around its blade, revealing the power of the Dharma Treasure he had spent the interval replenishing with spirit qi.
"That sword of yours……"
Seo Seol-ryeong, having noticed that he had used a Dharma Treasure, started to speak — but Cheon Woo-jin only clutched at his face and bowed his head.
"Kgh……"
"Were you struck by an attack?"
After declaring she wouldn't worry about him no matter what happened, Seo Seol-ryeong nonetheless swept over him with urgent concern.
"My hair got whipped around and stabbed me in the eye."
"……"
Looking as if she regretted having bothered, Seo Seol-ryeong turned her head back toward the front. A trivial concern, no doubt, for someone who lived her daily life behind an eye covering. Rubbing his eye, Cheon Woo-jin settled back into his seat.