Chapter 169
Chapter 169
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 169
>Chapter Title: God is Great (6)
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The battlefield reflected in Il-mok's eyes as he gripped his sword.
“Khuk.”
Before he knew it, several nearby Black Tiger members had stepped in to block the man in his place.
Ting!
An arrow flying in from afar bounced off the curved blade the man swung.
But even with Jeong-hyeon providing support from a distance, the four Black Tiger members were being steadily pushed back.
“Get out of the way!”
The leader bellowed as he swung his curved sword with ferocious force, shoving the Black Tiger members backward, unable to withstand it.
Pat!
Seizing that moment, Il-mok launched his body forward.
“Il-mok, Elder!”
Ignoring the Black Tiger members' surprise, Il-mok thrust his sword with extreme precision, embodying the essence of swiftness.
Chaeng!
But Muhktar Khan effortlessly blocked Il-mok's ambush, even right after unleashing his own powerful strike.
“Heh heh heh heh.”
As the fanatic leader's eyes rolled back in mad glee, drool practically spilling from his mouth, Il-mok clashed swords with him and shouted.
“I'll take this one! Withdraw with the wounded!”
It wasn't just for Joo Seo-yeon.
Dokgo Pae, who had first clashed head-on with that leader, had suffered severe internal injuries, and several other elders were wounded as well.
Blocking the relentless waves of fanatics charging from all sides without fear of death was no easy task.
Perhaps annoyed that Il-mok was still talking while fighting him.
Muhktar Khan swung his blade in a sudden, powerful arc.
Il-mok quickly reacted with the twelfth form of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, Soul Jade Shield, forming a sword barrier.
Kwang!!
Whether because his breathing had faltered from all the shouting, blood trickled from his mouth as he was pushed back a step.
Amid the agony twisting his innards, Il-mok's lips twisted into a bizarre smirk.
“Yeah. Go ahead, thrash around all you want, you damn bastard.”
It wasn't directed at the enemy leader.
It was a curse spat at the other self in his head that had just ordered him to deploy the Soul Jade Shield.
It had been slower than instructed, less refined than commanded, nagging endlessly in his mind.
While Il-mok bickered with the side effects, Muhktar Khan swung his curved sword relentlessly.
But this time, the result was different.
Having entrusted Joo Seo-yeon to the Black Tiger members, Il-mok surrendered control of his body to the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword as promised.
The curved sword flew in along a trajectory utterly unlike those of other Demonic Cult swordsmen.
Despite its grotesquely bizarre motion, the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword effortlessly deflected it.
Ting!!
For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed Muhktar Khan's face.
Middle-aged.
After his tribe was massacred by the Heavenly Demon, he had rebuilt it from nothing to this point—his practical combat experience was on a level Il-mok could scarcely match.
No matter how Il-mok swung his sword, Muhktar Khan handled it with ease.
Until now.
Chaeng!
But at some point, the situation shifted.
The young fool, meant as a sacrifice for the holy war, was responding differently.
‘This punk is clearly weaker than me. How in the world?’
The grotesquely bizarre movements from his peculiar curved sword. Plus the speed and power gap from their difference in realm.
No matter how they clashed, it should have favored him.
Yet the young fool was somehow blocking and deflecting his blade, even landing occasional counters.
And Il-mok, having yielded control to the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, understood why.
He also knew what antics it was pulling.
‘Crazy bastard….’
With insight and qi sense exceptional enough for even the Heavenly Demon to acknowledge his talent, it read the enemy's movements.
It wasn't mere reaction to what it saw.
From habits and forms observed in prior clashes, from the opponent's stance and qi flow, it predicted the next move.
But even predicting a move first couldn't overcome the realm gap entirely.
Thus, the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword avoided direct clashes.
Slower than the foe, it swung its sword a step ahead along the predicted path.
Weaker than the foe, it emphasized the essence of power to the extreme.
Chaeng!!
At the moment of contact, it switched to the essence of deflection, shedding some of the enemy's force.
A contradictory act.
Swinging with full power, then altering the path at the last instant.
The reason such contradiction was possible was simple.
Though he had yielded bodily control, he hadn't lost his sense of self—Il-mok could feel it.
The horrific pain transmitted throughout his body.
With every swing of the sword by the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, his muscles screamed in protest.
A full-power swing employing simultaneously the essences of the first two forms, Collapsing Soul Sword, emphasizing power, and the first four, Soul-Cutting Flash, emphasizing swiftness.
Muscles and joints already pushed to their limits, then blending in the first seven forms, Flowing Soul Sword, emphasizing deflection, for a new strike at the end.
But the real issue wasn't the forms themselves.
While the first fourteen forms of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword discussed sword-swinging methods, the latter eight discussed qi manipulation.
Chaeng!!
Muhktar Khan, clashing weapons with Il-mok, furrowed his brow at the odd rebound force.
It was the power of the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's latter first form, Rebounding Soul Sword.
And furthermore.
“!?”
A sudden pale qi energy forced Muhktar Khan to urgently twist his head aside to evade.
Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's latter third form, Traceless Soul-Shaving Sword.
Originally a technique creating two sword qis while swinging the sword with swiftness akin to Soul-Cutting Flash.
One wrapped around the sword as it swung, the other secretly shot at the foe like a hidden weapon.
And the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's ego possessing Il-mok's body was deploying Rebounding Soul Sword and Traceless Soul-Shaving Sword simultaneously.
Imbuing rebound force into the sword qi on the blade, while separately firing a pale sword qi for ambush subtlety.
In the process of deploying essences from different forms at once, the internal energy racing through Il-mok's meridians underwent drastic shifts.
His meridians twisted from the unnaturally abrupt flows, and the stench of blood rose from his gut.
Muscles, joints, meridians screaming, internal injuries piling up, yet.
“Heh heh heh.”
A bizarre laugh leaked from Il-mok's mouth.
Even after that, the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword blended various essences in its swings, his body shrieking in response.
Observing internally the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's mad self-destructive fighting for a moment.
Chaeng!!
Blocking a fierce curved sword swing and letting his body fly back on the rebound.
‘Get out now.’
Il-mok's eyes returned to their characteristic listless gaze as he abruptly seized control again.
- Tsk. Still a long way off.
Ignoring the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's disappointed grumbling, Il-mok eyed the rapidly closing enemy.
It wasn't the horrific pain wracking his body that made him reclaim control.
He knew he couldn't face this far superior foe otherwise.
He had simply come to that realization while observing the fight.
‘If I could just ignore the pain, I could do this plenty well myself?’
Thanks to calmly observing the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's combat, he now understood why it always nagged him.
How one-dimensionally he had been executing the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword.
Watching his body move like a puppet was utter shit, so he decided to try it himself. Just like the demonstration.
Leveraging his extremely heightened focus, he stared down the leader.
Not just the curved sword or the arm wielding it.
The foe's overall stance. Where his eyes were focused. Even the aura emanating from his body.
‘Lower left.’
Reading the enemy's move, he twisted his body and thrust his sword simultaneously.
His body rioted in protest.
Move like this, and the whole thing would break down.
But.
‘Dead either way. What's not to try.’
Gritting his teeth, he ignored his body's warnings.
Perhaps because he moved a step ahead.
Chaeng!
The clash with the foe's sword brought no heavy pressure like before.
It was laughable.
The pressure from the enemy's curved sword had vanished, replaced by him wrecking his own body.
Even in this fool's paradise equivalent, Il-mok simply swung his sword and propelled his body.
When he first learned the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, Il-mok had thought it was a sword pursuing perfection.
But he had misunderstood what that ‘perfection’ meant.
Training Soul-Stealing Ready Sword taught him to draw from any stance. Collapsing Soul Sword, to swing powerfully from any stance. Soul-Cutting Flash, to slash swiftly from any stance.
Flowing Soul Sword taught deflection from any stance. Soul Jade Shield, blocking from any stance.
Thus, he had thought the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword a technique unleashing power, swiftness, deflection, illusion, and more essences ceaselessly, stance-independent.
No, through various incidents at the Demonic Path Academy, he had vaguely grasped the true meaning.
He had mixed essences in swings during the berserk Chui-whan's assault and Instructor Jeong Gyu-seok's ambush.
But Il-mok had ignored that realization.
Fear of going mad.
Unlike other Demonic Cult madmen obsessed with martial arts, he didn't want to become a lunatic.
Out of that fear, he had executed even the latter eight forms simplistically.
Freely chaining forms, yes—but never blending multiple in a single motion.
But not anymore.
Joo Seo-yeon and the rest were all utterly disagreeable. Creatures whose thinking defied common sense.
Yet he couldn't just let them die.
So.
‘I’ll survive and return.’
Even if elevating his demonic art realm meant suffering graver insanity.
‘With these damn cult lunatic bastards.’
Even if excessive demonic art operation ground his bones and muscles, twisted meridians and organs!
Swaeaeaeak!
Il-mok's swung sword aimed for Muhktar Khan's heart.
Chaeng!
Muhktar Khan blocked Il-mok's sword and twisted his head aside.
A pale sword qi formed by Traceless Soul-Shaving Sword's essence targeted his head.
Naturally, Muhktar Khan wasn't naive enough to fall for a technique he'd seen once.
However.
“!?”
Shockingly, the hazy sword qi flying as if to strike his head bizarrely altered its path. Like a snake.
Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's latter fourth form, Heartless Serpent Swap. Blended with Traceless Soul-Shaving Sword to make sword qi—not the sword—bend and weave with deflection essence.
Startled, Muhktar Khan urgently leaped back, barely evading the sword qi.
Il-mok swung toward the retreating Muhktar Khan.
Movements encompassing all essences and subtleties of the first fourteen and latter eight forms—ever-changing, myriad transformations.
Even Il-mok himself couldn't precisely grasp how he was wielding the sword.
No, he chose not to grasp it.
The moment he questioned his movements, all insights would vanish like a mirage—he sensed it instinctively.
Thus, Il-mok abandoned doubt, immersing solely in the fight.
And at some point.
Il-mok physically felt why the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword had handled his body so roughly.
All senses focused on the foe to predict moves, fully immersed in life-or-death combat—perhaps that's why.
The screams from his body no longer reached him.
- Form transition is slow!
- Isn't the qi flow unnatural?!
Even the drivel from the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword in his head sounded distant.
Chaeng!
The desperate battlefield faded from mind.
In Il-mok's head, sunk into a trance, only the sword remained.
Il-mok didn't realize it, but at some point, the other self had also fallen silent.
As Muhktar Khan swung his curved sword once more, a single path appeared in Il-mok's eyes.
A path utterly beyond his current level to follow, but Il-mok didn't care.
The internal energy remaining in his dantian surged up at once, racing through his meridians.
No scream from his pushed-to-extreme body could halt him.
Internal energy, flowing per the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's myriad subtleties and essentials, converged to a single point.
The energy gathering along Il-mok's sword toward that single path formed sword qi, which slowly condensed further.
And when the sword tip reached the end of the sword path he had seen.
For the first time, the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword's other self uttered utmost praise.
- Perfect!!
A brilliant cluster of stars gleamed on his sword.
It was sword gang.