Chapter 409
Chapter 409
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 107
>Chapter Title: Heavenly Demon (5)
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The realm known as the Profound Realm.
It signifies that one's enlightenment in martial arts has reached the heavens.
Countless martial artists who hone their skills hope to surpass barriers and attain harmony, devoting their lives to touching the heavens.
Yet, those who achieve that harmony are exceedingly rare, and even fewer manage to reach the even higher realm of the heavens beyond it.
In reality, plenty of people spend their entire lives without advancing past the stages of first-rate, peak, or transcendent.
But among that vast number of martial artists, there were undoubtedly innate geniuses.
The Heaven-Earth Society Leader of the era, Bi Jung-seon, was one such genius.
From childhood, he had walked a smooth path as a prodigy in martial arts, reaching the Transformation Realm without ever being blocked by any walls of enlightenment.
[······Indeed. So that's how it is.]
That had been his father's reaction to his own talent.
The man who had never shown proper interest in his mother or himself, to the point of being heartless, changed after he surpassed that wall.
He even personally instructed him in martial arts to make him even stronger.
At first, the attention from his father, which only appeared when he turned twenty-nine, had filled him with suspicion.
But since he didn't hate the continued attention and care from his father, he devoted himself even more to martial arts, and through painstaking effort, he finally reached the supreme realm known as the Profound Realm.
[Ha······hahaha! Hahahahaha!]
On the day he attained the Profound Realm, he was overjoyed beyond measure.
Though his path upward had been smooth until then, the Profound Realm was different.
Even he had hit a wall and stagnated for a long time.
But having overcome that trial, gained enlightenment, shattered the barrier, and reached a realm that only three people in the current martial world had achieved, it was only natural that he couldn't contain his joy.
[Father! Father!]
Bi Jung-seon thought his father would be greatly pleased to hear this.
Rushing there in a single bound, full of eager anticipation, he shared the news with his father.
-Hic!
For the first time, Bi Jung-seon saw a new expression on his father's face that he had never witnessed before.
[Indeed······. Indeed, so it is.]
His father replied as if pleased, but the look in his eyes and on his face as he gazed at his son was not one of pride toward his child.
It was closer to the gaze of a beast or predator eyeing its prey.
Yes. It was greed.
Having read this incomprehensible, alien emotion from his father—completely opposite to what he had expected—he fell into an even longer stagnation afterward, worse than before.
* * *
After the day of the great cataclysm, the martial world entered a long period of stagnation.
Though the martial classics and a significant number of records from the old martial world era were lost, the few remaining ancient texts revealed that there existed an even higher realm beyond the supreme Profound Realm.
That was the Life-Death Realm.
[The ultimate realm achievable by transcending one's will at the boundary between life and death.]
Three crystalline swords formed of utterly transparent qi manifesting around Mok Kyung-un.
These were none other than Formless Swords.
Those who recognized them caused a massive stir below the plaza.
“No way······.”
“Formless Swords?”
Formless Swords.
A technique possible only for those who have reached the pinnacle of the sword, requiring not just profound understanding of the sword but also enlightenment in qi that surpasses the Profound Realm.
Which meant,
“L-Life-Death Realm!”
Those who knew of the Life-Death Realm couldn't hold back their shock.
It was unmistakable.
The three Formless Swords Mok Kyung-un was displaying announced that he had reached the Life-Death Realm.
-Grip!
Amid the gasps and cries of alarm from those around him, Great Young Master Na Yul-ryang clenched his fist.
‘Mok Kyung-un······. What the hell are you······.’
His mind wasn't closed off, so he acknowledged that the other had grown stronger than him.
However, he believed that even with exceptional talent, it was only possible because he had left the Heaven-Earth Society and encountered various fortuitous opportunities.
That was why he thought Mok Kyung-un had simply reached the Profound Realm ahead of him.
But to learn that the bastard had surpassed the Profound Realm and attained the legendary Life-Death Realm, which even his master—the Leader of the era—hadn't reached, made his insides boil with rage.
‘······Were you toying with me?’
From the start, the bastard had been at a level where he could kill him in one exchange.
Yet he hadn't done so and hadn't revealed it.
From that alone, Na Yul-ryang could tell.
The bastard had never even considered him a factor.
‘You bastard looked down on me! Kughhh.’
Infuriating.
This was the most infuriating he'd ever felt in his life.
He had thought for the first time that he had a proper rival, but it had all been his own delusion.
‘Young Master······.’
Mo Yak felt her heart ache watching him like this.
Her arrogant lord Na Yul-ryang, who had never lost confidence even for a moment, was now consumed by jealousy and torment because of someone else—it hurt her to see it.
Why had such a monster appeared before Great Young Master Na Yul-ryang, who was called a genius that appeared once every few hundred years—if at all?
Mo Yak lifted her head to gaze at Mok Kyung-un floating in the air above the plaza.
-Shoot!
Mok Kyung-un moved.
The moment he thrust his sword formula forward,
-Swish!
One of the three Formless Swords beside him shot toward the Leader.
Its speed was so incredible that its form vanished the instant it moved, making it hard to track with the naked eye.
But to the Leader facing him,
‘It's coming.’
He clearly saw the Formless Sword aiming to pierce his chest in a single stroke.
As the Leader extended his sword formula, four of the twelve Intentional Sword Auras that had been spread like wings around him overlapped like a shield,
-Clang!
Blocking the charging Formless Sword.
-Boom!
Yet even after crossing four Intentional Sword Auras to block it, the sheer power was so immense that the Leader's form was flung backward.
‘This much power.’
The Leader inwardly clicked his tongue.
He had expected the Formless Sword—known as the sword pinnacle—to surpass Sword Aura in might, but it exceeded even that.
And then,
-Hum!
‘To the side!’
As he thrust his hand toward his right side, four Intentional Sword Auras executed sword strikes like four masters attacking in unison, creating dozens of sharp trajectories.
-Crackle!
Blue flames sparked like lightning between those trajectories as another Formless Sword bulldozed through relentlessly.
‘If there's no opening, you'll force one?’
-Hic!
The Leader, who had been clicking his tongue, directed his gaze somewhere.
-Swish!
The Leader hurriedly moved his left sword formula.
Then, two of the remaining Intentional Sword Auras guarding him flew toward the direction of his extended formula.
-Swish!
There was no one there,
-Clang!
But in the middle of the Intentional Sword Aura's trajectory, someone appeared and deflected it.
It was Mok Kyung-un.
Having reached the realm where he could wield Formless Swords, Mok Kyung-un had already attained a level of movement where he could traverse space at ultra-high speeds, indifferent to ground or sky—and any lapse in vigilance here would mean losing track of him.
Yet, as one titled with the Six Heavens and a grandmaster at the pinnacle of the Profound Realm, the Leader unleashed superhuman focus.
-Clang!
The Leader not only blocked the Formless Sword that had burrowed right up to him with his treasured sword Fate, but also sent two Intentional Sword Auras hurtling toward Mok Kyung-un's back and left ribs.
Of course,
-Crash!
Mok Kyung-un easily deflected the two Intentional Sword Auras merely by tracing a full-moon trajectory with his Formless Sword.
And not stopping there,
-Pop!
In an instant, he struck the Leader's right shoulder with his left sword formula,
-Pierce!
“Urk.”
-Clatter!
Forcing him to drop his treasured sword Fate from his hand.
With his entire right arm numbed by the energy that pierced his shoulder, the Leader had no choice but to create distance.
“Hah!”
With a shout, the Leader swung his sword formula toward Mok Kyung-un.
The twelve Intentional Sword Auras around him then flew in unison, forming an array that targeted Mok Kyung-un's vital acupoints.
‘Twelve Sword Heavens Advance, Third Form: Endless Infinity!’
The combined sword formation created by the Intentional Sword Auras surpassed ordinary techniques in power.
This wouldn't defeat Mok Kyung-un.
But at least it would buy him time to widen the distance.
However,
-Clangclangclangclangclang!
Mok Kyung-un's twenty-four forms of the first stance of Demonic Sword Arts, executed with Formless Swords, wove exquisite sword trajectories that blocked the array of twelve Intentional Sword Auras.
Without stopping, the second stance followed, unleashing a sword momentum that trapped the Intentional Sword Auras in interlocking paths, causing them to lose power and bounce away.
-Crashcrashcrash!
In the process, nearly half the swords even shattered.
‘This······.’
As they oxidized into blue qi and sword fragments scattering everywhere, amid that, Mok Kyung-un's Formless Sword pierced toward the Leader, who was desperately trying to create distance,
-Slash!
“Guh!”
Severing his right arm like a bolt of lightning.
Only when the Leader's arm was severed did their forms become visible to the naked eye again, prompting gasps and sighs to intermingle below the plaza.
‘He-He did it!’
‘He severed the Leader's arm!’
Those cheering were the support faction that had decided to follow Mok Kyung-un.
They had been unable to contain their tension in this duel against no one less than the Heaven-Earth Society's head and supreme master, but the sight of the Leader's arm being cut off made cheers erupt inevitably.
“Waaaaah!”
On the other hand,
‘Aaaah······.’
The side filled with sighs was the complete opposite in atmosphere.
This was a life-or-death clash between the pinnacle martial artists titled New and Old Heavens: the extreme of the Profound Realm versus the supreme realm of the Life-Death Realm.
Though the new Heaven, the Heavenly Demon Mok Kyung-un, had reached the Life-Death Realm, the Leader had long stood at the martial world's apex, and his vast experience couldn't be ignored—so the onlookers had harbored a sliver of hope.
However,
‘No way······.’
‘As expected, huh.’
The gap stemming from their realms.
Even the current martial world's pinnacle, the Leader, couldn't bridge it.
In the end, he couldn't surpass the wall of the sword pinnacle, the Formless Sword?
-Swish!
Whether to finish the fight, Mok Kyung-un aimed a Formless Sword at the Leader's throat.
His breathing somewhat ragged, the Leader—who was pressing an acupoint on his severed arm to staunch the bleeding—shook his head slowly and arduously opened his mouth.
“Resentment truly is a fearsome thing.”
“······.”
“Did the rage toward that lord drive even a body possessed by a ghost to such a realm? Wraith—no, the progenitor of the Moon Vein, Ryu So-wol.”
‘!?’
At these words, Mok Kyung-un's eyes sharpened.