Chapter 230
Chapter 230: Silence (1)
Boom—
Jin Ha-gyeong felt the vibration transmitted through the ground beneath her feet. A trembling that crept from her soles up to her calves. It was not the earth shaking. Something rising from below the mountain was striking the entire ridge.
And the terrible chanting sound of metal clashing.
The fog still wrapped around the mountainside, so the area below was invisible, but the scale of the battlefield could be gauged from sound alone.
The Dark Net Rakshasa Path's demon soldiers had come in droves—hundreds at minimum, possibly over a thousand.
And not only that.
'The Twelve Rakshasas have undoubtedly come as well……'
Jin Ha-gyeong's gaze turned toward the ridge below. She felt her empty left sleeve fluttering in the morning wind, yet did not turn away. The shoulder on the side where an arm should have been felt cold. It was not solely because of the morning air.
Na—mu—a—mi—ta—bul—
Na—mu—a—mi—ta—bul—
Two layers of chanting that struck the ears and the Dantian without pause.
When they had first ascended, it had clearly been a single layer.
That heavy resonance—hundreds of voices folded into one—had been present since a while ago. But now an additional layer had been laid on top of it. If the first was hundreds of voices, the second layer was a single voice alone.
A single one, yet it could be felt dominating the hundreds, flowing clearly in one direction.
Rumble—
That was why the entire mountain trembled. The wooden poles of the tents where the wounded had been laid rattled, and the pebbles on the rocky ground shifted subtly.
Jeon Ra-hwa approached. Her eyes had narrowed as though trying to pierce through the fog beyond.
"We need to go down now."
Jin Ha-gyeong did not answer.
What was fighting below was the Hero Gate's Guild Master, and at his side were two extraordinarily powerful Formation Taoists. Someone at her level descending would change nothing. There was nothing she, having lost one arm, could do in that battlefield.
However—there was something she could do here.
Jin Ha-gyeong's gaze swept over the temporary encampment before Rainbow Lake. The wounded were the majority. How many could still grip a sword?
Ho-ae was standing in front of Seok-gyeong, blocking his path. Seok-gyeong's hand trembled atop the sword hilt, but did not let go.
Rumble rumble rumble—
The vibration grew more violent. One of the two layers of chanting cut off abruptly.
The hundreds of voices had vanished.
What remained was now a single one.
But still—that single chanting continued to shake the entire mountain. A vibration that resonated not just underfoot but throughout the entire body. Some of the wounded raised their heads. It was a trembling that even those too injured to sit up could feel.
One man among the defeated soldiers propped himself up on a broken sword and rose. Beside him, another. And then one more.
Jin Ha-gyeong, who had been watching that sight in silence, clenched her jaw until her molars felt ready to crack, then let words spill out.
"All who can grip a sword hilt—rise."
Fight we must, even with bodies already broken.
Even ground to dust, we must fight. Those heroes are fighting down there—should we not contribute even as dust?
Shring—
With her remaining hand, she drew her sword.
***
Crash—!
The Trident came driving down.
The rock split and fragments flew in all directions. Gak-jin crushed the impact of the landing beneath both feet and cast his gaze downward.
Reddish-brown monk's robes.
Among the corpses in reddish-brown monk's robes that blanketed the mountainside, two decapitated bodies lay fallen side by side.
Gak-hae and Beop-jong.
And—
Gak-hae's Crescent Moon Blade, shattered into pieces no larger than half a span, lay tumbled beside them. The broken hilt was still within that hand, not yet gone cold. He had not let go even in death.
On Beop-jong's corpse, an inexplicable wound remained. A cut with no trajectory, as though a blade had sprung from thin air. Traces suggesting that the angle of entry of the blade had been not from outside in, but from inside out.
'What technique is this?'
The veins on the hand gripping the Trident swelled up in thick cords.
Twenty years they had walked together. He and Gak-hae had entered the Rakshasa Warrior Monk Unit on the same day, and Beop-jong was the youngest that Gak-hae had cherished most. And was the child still not even fifteen years of age?
The rage that had been boiling soon subsided. What remained in the wake it left behind was killing intent alone.
Chanting rang out from behind.
It was Beom-eum's. That one person's chanting vibrated the entire mountain, meeting head-on the invisible energy of Dong Bong-soo.
And together with the chanting—
Ting—
A clear metallic tone additionally rang out across the mountainside.
A bronze alms bowl. The begging bowl that Beom-eum held rested on his left palm. The fingertips of his right hand struck the rim of the bowl, and the lingering resonance that rang out from that single strike layered itself atop the low register of the chanting, forming a harmony.
If the chanting was the melody, the alms bowl was the beat. When melody and beat layered together, a sea of sound spread around Beom-eum.
Brahma Heaven Ten Thousand Sound Sea.
When the bowl's lingering tone rode the melody of the chanting and spread outward, everything within the range the sound touched became Beom-eum's. The vibration of rocks, the trembling of leaves, even the ripple of blood pooled atop corpses. Ten thousand sounds submerging into a single sea.
The Brahma Heaven Ten Thousand Sound Sea swallowed the middle of the mountain.
Dong Bong-soo's Super True Energy Field and Beom-eum's Brahma Heaven Ten Thousand Sound Sea were clashing head-on over dominion of this mountain.
In any case, that was precisely why the enemy—Dong Bong-soo—had come to a halt and stood in place.
Good. Beom-eum had spread the Ten Thousand Sound Sea, so all that needed to be done was fight atop it.
Twenty years of matched breathing.
Gak-jin's Trident was pulled from the ground.
"Benefactor. How can you do something so cruel without hesitation? Why did you use such a vicious killing move even against a child this young?"
Dong Bong-soo's white teeth showed.
"You die—for standing in my way."
Caterpillar-like veins carved themselves into Gak-jin's temples.
"Is that so? Then you too must go meet the Buddha, benefactor. For you have stood in the way of the two of us."
Charge.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
With each step that eight-foot frame took, the ground cracked apart. The muscular power and internal energy that would not budge even if three peak masters hung on him carved a giant's footprints into the ground with every stride.
Ting—
Beom-eum's alms bowl rang a second time as if keeping pace. Matching that lingering tone, the pressure of the Ten Thousand Sound Sea laid down one layer thicker. The surface of the invisible barrier enveloping Dong Bong-soo—that thing which made the air as heavy as water—trembled faintly. The soundwaves of the Ten Thousand Sound Sea were interfering with the density of the Super True Energy Field.
'Now.'
Rakshasa Dharma-Protecting Blade, Second Form.
Demon-Breaking Rending Slash.
Snap—!
The Trident drove in horizontally at waist height. The moment Spear Rigidity was loaded onto the three prongs, the air around the Trident tore apart, and three streams of Rigid Energy wound tightly like knots following each of the three prong-tips as they advanced. Since the Ten Thousand Sound Sea had been laid down, the density of the Spear Rigidity was doubled as a matter of course.
Beom-eum's chanting held firm. The three streams of Spear Rigidity from the Trident grew thicker, fed by the melody of the Ten Thousand Sound Sea. Rigid Energy growing by consuming sound as nourishment.
Clang—!
Dong Bong-soo's sword blocked it.
Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword.
The pitch-black blade received the Trident's three prongs head-on. Sparks flew. The impact traveled up the Trident's shaft in a straight line—to the wrist, to the forearm, all the way to the shoulder joint.
One exchange.
From this single exchange, Gak-jin could tell. The force loaded into Dong Bong-soo's sword was not at a level that could receive three streams of Spear Rigidity head-on. He had merely deflected it. Shifting the Trident's trajectory by less than half an inch to redirect the very direction of the force away. The reverberation that traveled up the shaft was the proof. The fact that the impact had returned in full meant the opponent had not absorbed the force.
'……Deflecting Rigid Energy.'
However.
It did not matter whether he deflected the Rigid Energy or did anything else. The Trident returns each exchange. And the Rigid Energy of the Trident struck atop the Ten Thousand Sound Sea grows heavier and more intense with each exchange.
Gak-jin spun the shaft and raised the opposite blade.
Rakshasa Dharma-Protecting Blade, First Form.
Demon-Subduing Horizontal Slash.
Clang—!
The centrifugal force generated by the Trident's rotation concentrated on the right prong, sweeping the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword upward. The prong-tip grazed Dong Bong-soo's left shoulder.
Even merely being grazed, Dong Bong-soo's body was pushed back half a span.
No.
The expression "pushed back" was not accurate. The marks both feet had carved into the ground were not half a span but two zhang. What the muscles, jutting like boulders beneath the reddish-brown monk's robes, had sent through the Trident was not technique but a pure mass of Rigid Energy. As Dong Bong-soo was scraped back across the ground by his soles, the rock along his retreating path split as though plowed by a plow.
Ting—
Beom-eum's alms bowl rang again. The beat was quickening. The chanting melody guiding the rhythm rose by a half-tone, and the waves of the Ten Thousand Sound Sea grew sharper by a degree.
Clang—!
This time not a thrust but a hook. The outer two prongs of the Trident caught the blade of the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword. The moment the blade was caught between the prongs, the shaft was twisted to forcibly wrench the sword's trajectory.
Craaack!
It was not beneath Dong Bong-soo's feet but the entire ground between the two of them that split along the slope for a length of over ten zhang. The force twisted by the Spear Rigidity and Sword Rigidity interlocking had discharged into the ground. Rocks on both sides of the fissure heaved upward then shattered. Fragments flew in all directions like fire bombs exploding, tearing the monk's robes of the surrounding corpses.
Whether one should call it natural or inevitable.
With that, the enemy sharply fell back.
'It's working.'
Ting. Ting. Ting-ting-ting.
Beom-eum's alms bowl rang in rapid succession. From slow three-beat to fast five-beat. The moment the beat changed, the density of the Ten Thousand Sound Sea surged. The soundwaves interfered with Dong Bong-soo's Super True Energy Field, and there were moments when the density of the barrier thinned—coming and going repeatedly.
The ebb and flow of tides.
In those thinning instants, when the Trident was driven in, the weight of each exchange increased by over ten thousand catties more.
Beom-eum creating the tides of the Super True Energy Field with the beat, and Gak-jin thrusting the Trident into the gaps of the tides.
A duet built over twenty years.
Clang-clang-clang—!
The Trident slid across the blade and struck three times in succession. On the third contact, the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword trembled for the first time, vibrating along the blade.