Cheonun Sect's Victory
"Stop!"
Sa Cheonseong's cry rang out through the mountains.
He had never once raised his voice like this in the face of an enemy. Even last year, when he had clashed with Yi Hwawu more than a hundred times along these mountain paths, that ice-cold youth had not shouted a single word. But now, with victory hanging just before his eyes, it was different.
Anyone who stands in my way dies!
The Profound Qi bursting from both his hands radiated a killing frost. The already frigid summit of Taibai Peak plunged even colder.
"Frost Profound Qi!"
A mutated power standing apart from the Five Elements — rare beyond measure, and lethally cold.
Maeng Chang-haeng's eyes flew wide. Those who possessed Frost Profound Qi were vanishingly few, and its strength was tremendous.
Snow piled across the surrounding peaks rushed into Sa Cheonseong's left hand and, in an instant, became a razor-sharp ice spike. Its tip glittered with a blue gleam beneath the sun. Then, in the blink of an eye, the spike traced a blue rainbow as it shot toward Yeop Pung's back. That was killing intent, pure and simple.
"Yeop Pung, watch out!"
The cry tore from Maeng Chang-haeng before he even knew he had spoken.
Lightning exploded from Yeop Pung's body, and his movements surged even faster.
The blue light streaked toward the sky. That terrifying ice spike grazed Yeop Pung's arm. Stained with his blood, it flew on and on into the distance.
A hair's breadth.
Every soul from Cheonun Sect let out a breath they hadn't known they were holding. That spike had been aimed at a vital point. Had Yeop Pung been even a fraction slower, it would have punched straight through him. Fortunately, he had triggered Thunder Shadow Steps and barely kept his life.
Sa Cheonseong — this bastard's methods are truly vicious!
Meanwhile, Naeng Chu gritted his teeth in frustration.
Damn it. So close!
"Sa Cheonseong, keep going!"
Another blue rainbow rose in the air. Sa Cheonseong's skill was even more powerful than anyone had imagined. The ice spike he hurled with all his might as he leaped created a sonic boom in midair, like an arrow loosed from a thousand-pound bow.
The spike charged ferociously toward Yeop Pung's back, but in that moment Yeop Pung could not look behind him. Hearing the sound at his back, he instinctively triggered his footwork again to dodge sideways. He could no longer climb straight up, so he leaped off the mountain path toward the cliff face beside it.
Both hands punched through the ice sheeting the cliff and shattered the rock beneath.
Just as he barely managed to brace himself against the cliff, Maeng Chang-haeng's shout came from the side once more.
"Dodge, now!"
What's going on?
Before Yeop Pung could even react, searing pain tore through his calf. Sa Cheonseong's third ice spike had already been aimed precisely at the spot he would dodge to. The spike punched through his calf without mercy.
It hurts! Yeop Pung felt, with terrible clarity, the bones of his calf shatter to pieces under the spike. His entire body trembled violently, and he nearly fell from the cliff.
"Yeop Pung!"
Cries rang out from every direction. Below him, the shadow of death was already closing in.
The distance between Sa Cheonseong and Yeop Pung was now barely a hundred and fifty feet, and Sa Cheonseong held yet another ice spike in his hand. Hearts pounded as if they would leap from people's throats. If that spike flew again, Yeop Pung would die without even a chance to dodge.
"That's enough, you brat!"
Maeng Chang-haeng had already condensed his Profound Qi, ready to save Yeop Pung's life the instant he forfeited the match.
"Yeop Pung, don't push yourself — forfeit already!"
Mo Soo-mi and the others craned their necks from the summit, screaming until their throats tore. They would not — could not — watch Yeop Pung collapse in a pool of his own blood.
But no matter what the people around him shouted, Yeop Pung's will burned even more fiercely.
Give up? I can't give up. Not here. Not now.
Yeop Pung looked up at the summit. The peak was so close. But he could no longer put any strength into his right leg. Below, Sa Cheonseong had already prepared to strike with the ice spike. Whispers of death began to ring in Yeop Pung's ears.
"You lowly worm. You think you can snatch victory from me? Don't even dream it. Die!"
The ice-cold blue spike flew toward Yeop Pung, who could barely move. Eyes went wide. Time itself seemed to freeze. Every gaze followed that terrible blue spike, and in an instant it had reached him.
At that very moment, unprecedented golden lightning flashed across the sky. The ice spike embedded in Yeop Pung's right leg shattered to pieces, and a crushing pressure of Profound Qi drove him to the absolute limit. Thick golden currents wrapped around his body like a dragon of lightning. Thunder tore at every eardrum on the mountain. Both of Yeop Pung's hands turned completely gold. An enormous lightning storm gathered at his fingertips, and a vast sea of lightning unfurled before him.
A dragon of golden lightning coiled around his body. A sea of thunder unfurled from his hands.
This is — Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens!
Every person from Cheonun Sect was stunned. They had never seen Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens on such a magnificent scale. It was merely the ultimate technique of an ordinary Profound Art — but when Yeop Pung used it, the power was astonishing.
With a thunderous roar, Yeop Pung shattered the rock with his left foot. He charged toward Sa Cheonseong — who held that terrible ice spike with a merciless expression — and struck back.
"Yeop Pung!"
Amid the thunder of heaven and earth, cries of astonishment rang out across the mountain peak.
Yeop Pung's golden lightning shattered the ice spike in midair. He flew toward Sa Cheonseong like a golden lightning dragon tearing through the sky.
"What?"
Sa Cheonseong, crouched on the stairs, stared with his eyes wide.
He dares shatter my ice spike?
No one knows the power of that spike better than I do. Even a martial artist who has reached the Six Meridians can't break it in a single blow — and he shattered it with a golden lightning technique?
But Sa Cheonseong only sneered, his expression cold.
Even if this fool can break my spike, charging at me like this is no different from suicide.
Sa Cheonseong's right arm transformed in an instant into a crystal limb as hard as diamond. The terrifying Frost Profound Qi condensed upon it radiated an aura that seemed capable of freezing heaven and earth. This was the extreme of the Profound Dao realm — a death-dealing ice fist that would surely kill Yeop Pung.
A peak-stage frost fist that could freeze heaven and earth — a killing blow meant to end Yeop Pung where he stood.
"Come and die! Nine Nether Coagulating Ice Fist!"
Sa Cheonseong's voice was ice. The stairs beneath his feet exploded as he charged without hesitation toward Yeop Pung within the golden lightning.
The blue light they met in midair was cold. The gold was brilliant. People were so tense they could not make a sound. They could only watch as the two lights collided with terrible force.
Lightning and ice crystals smashed together in the air, sending up a white mist that covered the sky. In the radiance of Profound Qi, the moment Yeop Pung's hand and Sa Cheonseong's fist were about to clash —
Sa Cheonseong smiled. Looking into Yeop Pung's eyes, he wore an expression as if he had seen through every thought in his opponent's head.
"Hmph. Yeop Pung. Did you think you could beat me with a little trick like this? All you're aiming for is to use the force of the two techniques colliding to fly up to the summit. Unfortunately… at your speed, you can't even hit me."
In a split second, Sa Cheonseong's fist shifted inward by two inches. The original pattern of fist meeting palm transformed into a strike aimed at Yeop Pung's chest. If that punch landed, Yeop Pung would surely lose.
But in that same instant, Yeop Pung smiled too. His smile was a slap across Sa Cheonseong's face.
Sa Cheonseong could no longer evade Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens. Yeop Pung watched surprise and bewilderment spread across that cold face, clear as day. In that moment, victory was sealed.
"Dreaming of victory? Heh. You think you can stop me from winning?"
Endless lightning swallowed heaven and earth. Yeop Pung's palm crashed into Sa Cheonseong's fist.
Sa Cheonseong's nearly invincible Frost Profound Qi met its match for the first time. The two powers forged a colossal ring of Profound Qi in midair that spread for hundreds of feet. In the roar of that tremendous explosion, both bodies were swept away by the impact — but the directions they flew were as different as heaven and earth.
Sa Cheonseong, his face filled with a despair he could not believe, fell weakly toward Taibai Peak. He was uninjured — and yet he seemed to be sinking into a darkness without end.
Yeop Pung flew toward the sky. His organs froze. His face went pale. Tendons in his right arm snapped and bone shattered beneath a pain beyond describing. And still he burst into a bright, ringing laugh that echoed all the way to the heavens.
"Hahaha!"
They saw it all — Yeop Pung's hoarse, triumphant laugh, and the blood that soaked him from head to foot. He soared past the highest peak of Taibai, wringing out the last of his Profound Qi to swing toward the open air. He struggled, pushing his body up onto the summit, and then he fell. Everyone watched him do it.
"Yeop Pung!"
In that instant, everyone — Mo Soo-mi among them — was so moved they shed tears. They ran madly toward the place where Yeop Pung was falling.
Mo Soo-mi, who normally called Yeop Pung "brat," was the first to throw his own body forward and catch him securely.
"Yeop Pung! Yeop Pung!"
Tears streamed down Mo Soo-mi's face as he held the blood-soaked youth tight in his arms.
All the disciples of Cheonun Sect gathered around. They clenched their fists, too moved to speak, and simply looked at him.
Yeop Pung glanced around with a satisfied smile and asked, with difficulty:
"Did I win?"
"You won! Yeop Pung — we won!"
"Then… that's a relief…"
Overwhelming exhaustion swept over him. He closed his eyes at last, and slept.
"Hahaha!"
At the same time, a burst of laughter from the sky shook the entirety of Taibai Peak.
Maeng Chang-haeng had not laughed this loudly in decades. He yanked the wine flask from his waist and took a rough swig. Then he declared it to all of heaven and earth.