The Emperor's Sword Form
Namgung Woo's consciousness had entered a higher-dimensional realm amid the whirlwind of battle. It was the ascended state reached only by supreme masters. Detached from the flow of the main world, he existed in his own sub-dimension, freed even from the constraints of time. His brain, concentrated to the extreme, traced the incoming path of O-eum Maje Aban's hand. Eyes and brain were connected organs. The Changnyeongmanan had already transcended the limits of mere sight and transformed into consciousness itself.
He had already swung his sword to block Aban's first strike. Retracting it would take longer than the time it took for Aban's hand to reach him. The instant the calculation was complete, Namgung Woo twisted his body. The movements of the Heavenly Wind Divine Technique now unfolded as pure reflex.
Kwaaaaaah—!
Aban's hand, thick with condensed energy, crushed the empty air a mere few inches from Namgung Woo's throat. Yet that did not mean he had avoided everything. The moment Namgung Woo twisted using the Heavenly Wind Divine Technique, Aban reversed the direction of his true energy and unleashed a massive wave from his entire upper arm. It was a tornado of true qi. The vortex spinning around Aban's arm became a dragon's claw, tearing through Namgung Woo's Heavenly Steel Secret Palace and carving a scar across his cheek.
A sharp sting raced from his cheek into his brain. Namgung Woo's brows furrowed on their own. He had grown used to most pain by now. But the agony from this wound refused to let him adapt, even though he had experienced it before. Namgung Woo knew why.
The internal energy of the Formless Sorrow Art.
Did it affect pressure points? Or did it inflict nervous system damage like phantom pain? Wounds caused by the Formless Sorrow Art carried intense agony even without special penetrating force. It felt as though the flesh was both melting and burning at the same time—an abominable torment.
Pain destroys human consciousness. It steals focus and shatters confidence. Even a minor wound became no trivial matter if inflicted by the Formless Sorrow Art. Yet not even pain could paralyze the mind of someone who had stepped into the ascended realm. Namgung Woo consciously cast aside the extreme agony rising from the wound left by the Formless Sorrow Art.
The Gongryeong Taeheo Singong. The supreme art of filling through emptiness. Following its teaching, the Empty Spiritual Energy moved to purge the pain and cool his thoughts. Even if one of Namgung Woo's limbs were torn away, the brain in his upper dantian governed by the Empty Spiritual Great Void Divine Art would feel no suffering whatsoever.
Thud—!
Following the Infinite Step stomp came the Blue Sky Unfettered Sword. From the first form, Flowing Heaven No Severance, he drove in five forms within a single breath.
Clang!Craaaack!
Ordinary humans would never choose the madness of abandoning their weapon to fight bare-handed. Anyone who did so was either insane or possessed something that far surpassed any advantage a weapon could offer.
O-eum Maje Aban was clearly the latter. His protective energy was impossibly dense. But even that could not endure five consecutive strikes of sword gang. Aban only allowed the first three forms. The remaining two collided with his energy-laden hands and erupted into massive shockwaves.
The Myriad Manifestation Strange Beast Technique. A martial art that denied the common belief that focusing solely on power would weaken other aspects. It displayed extreme transformation alongside absolute might.
The afterimages of Aban's hand shadows lingered, revealing exactly how he had blocked Namgung Woo's sword. Their exchange was so extreme that one could not even track the rhythm of breathing. Multiple forms were traded in the space of a single exhalation.
The Blue Sky Unfettered Sword, which had broken the limits of sword paths by following the endless sky, was completely covered by the shadow of Aban's hands.
Bang!Kuuuuuung—!Clang!
Aban's hands shifted forms freely. Palm, fist, hand-blade, hook. Every possible variation a hand could take was contained within the single art of Myriad Manifestation Strange Beast.
Shiiiing!Shweeeeek!
From the arm that lashed like a whip burst the same piercing sound as arrows fired from the Ghost Palace Leaf bow. Gray true energy rose like mist, as if attempting to obstruct the Changnyeongmanan.
Yet the flow remained with Namgung Woo. Whenever he stepped forward with Infinite Step and unfolded the Blue Sky Unfettered Sword Art, the thick mist of true energy was swept away in an instant. And each time Aban tried to seize the blade, Namgung Woo twisted it as though he had foreseen the attempt, shattering Aban's protective energy.
Approaching death. Though he held the advantage in ultra-close quarters, Aban saw an old phantom overlapping the figure of Namgung Woo, who advanced without hesitation using stomping steps.
'The Sword Emperor...!'
Aban's pupils dilated. Fate, wearing the shape of a man, was finally coming to announce his end.
"Don't make me laugh!!"
The Sword Emperor Namgung Jin was dead. The person standing before him now was nothing more than a blue-green fledgling who might have inherited only half of Namgung Jin's talent. There was no way O-eum Maje Aban would die to such a child.
The third martial art of O-eum Maje Aban, following the Formless Sorrow Art and Myriad Manifestation Strange Beast. The upper dantian technique Six Body Reception Agony Transmission activated with such intensity that it made Aban's own brain throb.
The fear Aban felt, the pain from the Formless Sorrow Art gnawing at Namgung Woo's brain, the murderous intent to kill him at all costs—everything blended together into a single blade aimed at carving out Namgung Woo's soul.
A demonic heart sword of the heretical path, achieved without hesitation through any means necessary. One strike was enough. If he could pierce Namgung Woo's mental barrier even once, Namgung Woo would collapse, unable to endure the extreme agony planted by the Formless Sorrow Art.
But O-eum Maje Aban did not know.
He did not know about the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong that Namgung Woo possessed—the art that the Namgung Jin he knew had never held.
What could swinging a sword at a place already emptied possibly cut?
The Empty Spiritual Great Void Divine Art. Its profound teaching was a power that protected its owner from every form of upper dantian ability.
The moment his trump card turned futile, Aban's balance crumbled. A blue lightning bolt stretching down from the heavens struck him.
Was this judgment? Was this the end?
Clang—
"Huh?"
Aban watched the blade snap and bounce away through the air. The sword had already cracked during their very first clash. After that, it had been mercilessly abused throughout the exchange between two supreme experts. Had it been Gwak Dan or Paeng Hu-sang instead of Aban, this would never have happened. Their martial arts were powerful, yet the special destructive nature of Aban's Myriad Manifestation Strange Beast was fundamentally different.
Was this, too, fate?
Funnily enough, as one of the founders of the Banunbang who had declared he would reject fate, O-eum Maje Aban rejoiced in it at that very moment.
"This is fate...!"
Namgung Woo's body was completely open. Both arms raised high. If he simply reached out, it seemed he could grasp and crush that heart.
Aban's arm moved. It was slow. At least, that was how it appeared to Namgung Woo. With fingertips sharpened like blades, he closed the distance to pierce Namgung Woo's heart.
But fate had not yet declared its end.
Swish—
Even Aban's full-powered strike appeared sluggish in the decelerated world as the woman appeared in an instant. She folded the space between two separate locations and leaped across it in a single moment.
Her arrival was surprising, but it was difficult to call the decision wise. Anyone short of the Transcendent Realm would find their body unable to endure this place packed with condensed energy. In Namgung Woo's eyes, the woman had not reached that level.
Indeed, her body was already beginning to rupture slightly under the energy waves, blooming scattered red flowers across her skin. Yet she paid it no heed. She threw the object in her hand upward, then vanished by leaping through space just as she had come.
What she left behind was a single sword.
Namgung Woo's hand moved on instinct.
Squish—
The eerie sound of flesh being pierced. Amid the sensation of skin tearing, Namgung Woo felt the new sword wave wrap around his hand. Hope had entered his grasp.
Thud!
The slowed world accelerated once more. For the first time since the battle began, Namgung Woo staggered backward.
He had survived. His heart was intact. No matter how skilled Aban was, a hastily thrust hand technique could not break through the Heavenly Steel Secret Palace that Namgung Woo had reinforced with every ounce of his power and destroy his middle dantian.
Remaining in his natural state posture, Namgung Woo recognized the sword now held in his hand. He did not need to turn his eyes; the expanded vision and consciousness of the Changnyeongmanan already encompassed it.
'The horn of Mangcheonhu...'
It now carried a blue-white hue instead of its original grayish-blue, yet the power contained within remained unchanged. Covered in ominous demonic energy, it still hid within it the pure purification of power accumulated across long years.
"What is... that sword?"
It was a divine weapon of strange power. Even during the Blood Sect Havoc, when bizarre and immeasurable demonic weapons ran rampant, he had never seen such a rare demonic sword appear in the human world.
"I've learned something good."
"What?"
"Thanks to you, I feel like I've finally grasped the sense of it."
He now held the conviction that he could do it.
Namgung Woo raised the sword. Middle stance. Aban's body was caught upon the tip of the blade extended straight forward. Along the sword wave held in Namgung Woo's hand, the Three Dantian Three Thousand Divine Energy rode upward.
The translucent milky-white Empty Spiritual Energy. The clear blue of the Blue Sky Energy. The brilliant platinum of the Heavenly Thunder Energy. The three divine energies rose as sword energy, blending together to forge sword gang.
Everyone Namgung Woo had faced until now, every step of the path he had walked, was contained within this single strike.
The ghost realm shown by the black gate during the Beijing Rebellion. From it, he had learned how to claim an entire area as his own domain.
The Ohodamundo displayed by Paeng Hu-sang. From it, he had learned how to infuse upper dantian power into martial arts.
The Six Body Reception Agony Transmission shown by O-eum Maje Aban. From it, he had finally learned how to materialize the power of the upper dantian.
And the people who had believed in him and followed him. From them, he had learned the responsibility and karma he must bear.
One by one.
He would release them all here.
Uuuuung—
The energy Namgung Woo had already spread throughout the area resonated, producing a deep vibration. It was the sound announcing the final moment of this battle—perhaps of this entire war.
Yet Aban sensed it not through hearing but through his energy perception. This space was transforming into a domain meant for only one person.
It was a heaven-shaking, earth-rending event. A single human was claiming the world as his own. Just this sight was enough to make the martial artists gathered at Hahong Lake turn pale and forget to swing their weapons.
But did they know? That this was merely the prelude.
Namgung Woo's arm rose. From middle stance it ascended into upper stance.
The Changgung Daeyeon Singong. The Cheonroe Jewang Singong. The Gongryeong Taeheo Singong. The three divine arts became one.
The Blue Sky Energy formed the frame. The Heavenly Thunder Energy forged the edge atop it. And the Empty Void of the Empty Spiritual Energy overlaid everything, crushing the domain he had claimed with an overwhelming presence. That presence spread across the entire space and manifested as reality.
While no one else could move, only Namgung Woo remained free.
Having filled it, it was time to empty.
The sword descended.
It was the judgment of the heavenly emperor gazing down upon the earth. It was the verdict delivered by the king who acted on behalf of the heavens.
O-eum Maje Aban remembered. He saw once more the single sword the man who had blocked him that day had displayed.
The judgment of the heavenly emperor looking down from above. The verdict of the king who executes heaven's will on earth.
"Emperor's Sword Form...."
The sword that could not reach its mark that day now severed Aban's fate through the hand of a new successor.