Chapter 1179
As Namgung Jeong stood with his jaw slackened to the point of losing all dignity, Namgung Un bowed his head with an embarrassed expression.
"My apologies. Brother Bu specifically told me not to relay such words, yet I've made another mistake..."
Regardless of their bond, Bu Eun-seol was a man of the Demonic Path.
Moreover, given the vast difference in status between them, for someone so far beneath him to say such things could only be taken as an insult to Namgung Jeong, the Family Head of the Namgung Clan.
"It's fine."
Having regained his composure, Namgung Jeong shook his head.
"Your sworn brother has already transcended the distinction between the Orthodox and Unorthodox Paths to become a grandmaster of this era, has he not? I won't dwell on it."
Rustle—
Just then, from deep within the trees, countless masked figures emerged into view.
In an instant, Namgung Un's expression stiffened.
Their numbers roughly amounted to two hundred.
And unlike the masked men they had faced until now, these exuded an entirely different level of aura.
'Was Brother Bu's prediction wrong?'
With a force of this size, it could hardly be called a small-scale ambush.
Not only his own life, but even Namgung Jeong's could be in danger.
"Family Head."
Namgung Un spoke to Namgung Jeong.
"I will break through the encirclement. Please retreat."
"What a pity."
Namgung Jeong gazed at the distant sky and gave an unexpected reply.
"Had I known it would come to this, I would have stalled for a little longer."
If he had known that he and Namgung Un would be fighting a bloody battle against such numbers—
He couldn't help but regret not imprinting his wife's image in his eyes just a little longer.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
Shaking his head, he stretched out his hand.
The Golden Needle Sword at his waist leaped into his grip of its own accord.
"Had I been alone, this would indeed have been a fatal trap."
Just by observing the masked men's momentum and formation, Namgung Jeong could instinctively tell—
These were individuals who had mastered Secret Arts capable of perfectly countering the Emperor Sword Form.
But Namgung Un had cultivated an eccentric and unique Sword Studies that even Namgung Jeong could scarcely measure.
Moreover, after traveling the martial world with Bu Eun-seol—
And surviving numerous life-and-death battles, he had become a seasoned veteran.
The battle about to unfold would be a fierce struggle where victory and defeat were impossible to predict.
"Today, I'll finally see just how far the Family Head's swordsmanship has reached."
A mountainous aura erupted from Namgung Jeong's body.
Though he had briefly fallen into despondency after reuniting with his beloved wife in his Mindscape—
Not only had he been reminded once more that Namgung Un was the fruit of their love,
But seeing his son, now grown into a magnificent warrior standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him—
A blazing will and fighting spirit ignited anew in his heart.
'Un's talent has yet to fully bloom.'
Namgung Un would grow even further—limitlessly.
It was his duty to witness the day his son would reach the very ends of the heavens.
Around the same time—
The carriage carrying Daoist Master Yeong-cheong, en route to the Wudang Sect, also came to a halt.
"This is strange. For roughly half an hour, it feels as though we've been circling the same place."
The voice of Song Hyeon, the first-generation disciple driving the carriage, was laced with bewilderment.
Yeong-cheong stepped out and surveyed the surroundings.
All around stood rows of larch trees, eerily identical in appearance.
Upon closer inspection—the shape of the fallen branches, the direction of the moss on the rocks—it was as though identical copies had been endlessly stacked together.
Whoooosh—
Before long, a sinister mist seeped between the trees, swallowing the entire field of vision.
"A peculiar Art of Spells."
A quiet sigh escaped Yeong-cheong's lips.
"A battle formation that mimics ghosts building walls to block the path."
In an instant, he discerned that someone had deliberately lured the carriage here.
Right then—the forest's silence shattered.
Whoooosh—
A sudden cloud of mist billowed forth—
And over a hundred assassins materialized soundlessly, encircling the carriage.
All wore masks, their exposed eyes pitch-black as if tainted by some sinister Great Art.
"Having suffered defeat, you should have quietly returned to your dens. Why bar the path with reckless folly?"
Yeong-cheong had already deduced that these masked men were assassins from sects that had failed in their invasion of the Central Plains.
"......."
But there was no reply.
Instead, the lead assassin silently drew his sword.
The motion carried nothing but razor-sharp killing intent, honed solely to cleave through flesh.
Shhk!
At that signal, the masked men erupted into chaotic motion, unleashing a storm of terrifying Killing Moves.
Taking a deep breath, Yeong-cheong began executing his Fist Technique with deliberate slowness.
It was the essence of Taiji Fist—
Continuously weaving gentle circles that absorbed every attack before redirecting them far away.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
But then, something utterly unexpected happened.
The masked men disregarded the subtlety of Yeong-cheong's principle of "using softness to overcome hardness"—
And instead shattered his Taiji Fist with sheer, unrelenting sword techniques of brute force.
'They came prepared with counters.'
In battles between Masters, even the slightest factor could determine life or death.
Moreover, no matter how exceptional the Martial Arts, once the initial techniques and subtleties were exposed, their profundity would inevitably be lost.
Therefore, the true martial techniques of each sect's leaders are kept in utmost secrecy, rarely revealed under any circumstances.
Especially Daoist Master Yeong-cheong—as the sect leader of Wudang, he had almost never publicly sparred with others.
So how in the world could these men—
—instantly dismantle his Taiji Fist?
Zzzing—
The masked men's sword energy contained immense internal force, and with each blocked strike,
the reverberations traveled up his wrists, sending tremors through Yeong-cheong's body.
Yeong-cheong continuously executed Grasp the Sparrow's Tail, the foundational posture of Taiji Fist, coiling and deflecting the incoming sword energy—
Yet each time, the sword energy curved gently in response, piercing toward his vital points.
This was a dismantling technique that had perfectly analyzed his habits and martial methods.
'Even my habits have been completely deciphered...'
His expression darkened endlessly.
Not because his life was in danger—but because he had sensed the presence of a spy within Wudang.
There was no other explanation. Without an insider, how else could they know his habit of blending the ever-shifting Two Modes Sword into his Taiji Fist, alternating between feints and true strikes?
Pat! Pat! Pat!
In the meantime, Yeong-cheong employed an exquisite technique—concealing a single lethal strike within twelve feints—
But the masked men were utterly unfazed, ignoring all the intricate variations,
and instead slashed at his body with the fastest, simplest straight-line attacks.
'My disciples' presence is gone too.'
The auras of his Shangqing Palace disciples, who had accompanied him both for training and as guards, had also vanished entirely.
Pat! Pat! Pat!
By now, crimson lines had been drawn across Yeong-cheong's body.
The sect leader of Great Wudang—
Unable to properly unleash his martial arts against these masked men of unknown origin,
found every technique he deployed anticipated and instantly countered before he could even complete his movements.
Drip—
Before he knew it, a blade had pierced his forearm, and a wound had opened on his flank.
'A meticulously laid trap, indeed.'
Not only had they discreetly eliminated his guarding disciples, but they had also deciphered the habits of martial arts he had honed for decades.
This was no impulsive assassination attempt—it was a plan long in the making, executed with precision.
Swish!
With a violent Sound of Breaking Air, the masked men's sword techniques began to completely penetrate Taiji Fist's defenses.
Yeong-cheong twisted his body in desperation, but the razor-sharp sword energy tore through his sleeve as it passed.
Pat!
Another crimson line appeared as a cold sensation grazed his shoulder.
Their attacks appeared extremely simplistic, but due to their mastery of Wudang's martial arts and their Grand Perfection,
even if it weren't Yeong-cheong—even if any Wudang master stood in his place—none could withstand them.
Sssk—
A sharp blade of sword energy skimmed past Yeong-cheong's neck.
At this rate, his head would roll before they even reached forty exchanges.
In that life-or-death moment, just as Yeong-cheong finally attempted to summon his Jade Dew True Qi—
"Keeheeheehee!"
A bizarre laughter suddenly echoed from the distant sky.
"Oohohohohoho!"
It sounded less like human laughter—
and more like the wailing of a madman digging up graves in the dead of night.
At the skin-crawling sound, the masked men halted their movements, turning their heads toward the direction of the laughter.
Thud. Thud.
From the shadowed path of the darkened forest—
a figure slowly emerged.
His gait was unsteady, as if drunkenly mocking the world, the hem of his snow-white robe dragging through the mud.
But the Pine-Patterned Ancient Sword in his hand dripped with chilling droplets of blood—as if he had just sliced through someone's flesh.
"Song-ak?"
Yeong-cheong's eyes widened in disbelief.
The man chosen as the next sect leader, the one entrusted with Wudang's future—
Why was he standing there in the form of a madman, exuding a bone-chilling killing intent alongside the stench of blood?
"Heeheehee! What a delightful feast this is! Let me join in!"
The moment Song-ak kicked off the ground—
his figure scattered like a heat haze, and in the next instant, dozens of afterimages surged toward the masked men's faces.
"Guh—!"
Startled, the masked men frantically swung their swords, attempting to form a Sword Formation.
"Oh, this looks fun!"
As the formation took shape, Song-ak only grew more exhilarated, descending into frenzy.
The Sword Strokes he unleashed followed no fixed Sword Trajectory—one moment scraping the ground as if to slash downward, the next surging upward like a ghost's claw.
Seeming to aim left, he suddenly appeared behind the rightmost masked man, striking at his blind spot.
Flail! Flap!
At times, he would faceplant into the mud for no reason, then flail his body like a freshly caught carp.
It was an incomprehensible swordplay—one that mocked both reason and martial principles—the technique of a madman.
—What the hell?
Bewilderment spread through the masked men's eyes.
They had trained for years in dismantling Wudang's secret techniques, analyzing the habits and combat styles of key figures.
But they had never seen a sword dance like this—one without foundation, without form.
Before this mad Daoist's blade, all the counter-techniques they'd painstakingly mastered over the years were utterly useless.
That sword art...
Daoist Master Yeong-cheong, who had been observing Song-ak's swordsmanship, opened his mouth slightly.
Though Song-ak seemed like a lunatic swinging his sword wildly, wasn't there an extremely profound essence of Wudang swordsmanship embedded in every single one of his martial forms?
The Third Peak True One's...?
A single technique surfaced in his mind.
A Heaven-Transcending Art created by the Founder—one that harnessed innate, terrifying killing intent and madness through the Daoist principle of non-action, elevating all of Wudang's martial arts into an unpredictable Secret Art beyond anyone's comprehension.
"Gahk!"
"Ugh!"
But there was no time to be astonished.
In the blink of an eye, half of the masked men who had been pressing Yeong-cheong collapsed with screams.
Like a skilled butcher effortlessly carving meat, Song-ak recklessly tore through the spaces between bone and muscle with his Pine-Patterned Ancient Sword.
Every time his blade passed, arterial blood gushed like a fountain, and severed limbs flew through the air.
"Don't be fooled by his madness!"
The leader of the masked men shouted.
"He's using Wudang's Two Modes Sword Art!"
Though it appeared as though he was unleashing an extremely cruel and unpredictable method,
in truth, Song-ak was merely executing Wudang's Two Modes Sword in a grotesque manner.
"Deploy the Reverse Seven Stars Sword Formation!"
Having discerned that the origin of this frenzied swordplay was, after all, Wudang swordsmanship,
the masked men unleashed a sword formation designed to suppress all of Wudang's martial arts to the point of Grand Perfection.
Zzziiing!
As the Reverse Seven Stars Sword Formation activated, the power of Song-ak's swordplay diminished drastically, just as expected.
Swish! Thud!
Before anyone realized it, a long wound had opened on Song-ak's flank.
The formation's effect was potent—his mad swordsmanship had been completely neutralized.
"Die!"
At the very moment the leader spotted an opening in Song-ak's erratic movements and thrust a Killing Sword toward his throat—
Clang!
A pure metallic resonance rang out as a white blade radiating clear light intercepted the strike.
It was Daoist Master Yeong-cheong, who had drawn his True Martial Sword.
"Through madness, one enters sagehood; at the peak of madness, one touches the profound. One can reach the realm of sages through madness... and when madness reaches its zenith, one connects with deep and mysterious truths."
Long ago, when a Master from the Western Vajra Gate brutally murdered a young Wudang disciple,
Zhang Sanfeng, unable to suppress his erupting murderous heart, slaughtered the man in turn.
Legend had it that from this incident, he developed an art that instead harnessed killing intent and madness to maximize Wudang's martial arts.
And this was no mere tale—it had truly happened.
However, to execute this art, one had to be born with immense killing intent, just like the Third Peak True One.
Because the unleashed martial forms were excessively cruel, it had ultimately been sealed away in secret.
Someone recognized Song-ak's disposition and intervened.
Though Song-ak had been born with a pure Daoist heart, he also harbored tremendous killing intent.
Yeong-cheong realized that someone had taught him a method—similar to the art created by the Third Peak True One—
to sublimate his madness into Sword Studies.
But it's still somewhat crude.
Unable to stand by any longer, Yeong-cheong began transmitting the Third Peak True One's teachings—
recorded in the Purple Sun Treasure Tome, which only the sect leader could read—
on how to attain the Dao within madness.
"Can you follow the teachings?"
In response to Yeong-cheong's question, Song-ak—
Slick—
ran his bloodstained sword across his crimson tongue.
The air in the depths of the forest, where even moonlight could not penetrate, clung like spiderwebs, thick and viscous.
Not a single rustle of leaves could be heard—only the suffocating silence of death lingered.
And tearing through that silence, shadows like a swarm of bats soundlessly assaulted the carriage.
Shhhhkkk!
The sound of rending darkness was like the shriek of a serpent, like the howl of steel.
From the pitch-black void, a single black streak of light writhed like a living creature, lashing outward—
It was the Flood Dragon Sinew Cord, unleashed from the ring worn by Tang Gon.
"So it's true."
Tang Gon's voice, though quiet, spread through the air like shards of ice.
"You've completely deciphered our family's martial arts."
As his hand traced a bizarre trajectory through the air, the Flood Dragon Sinew Cord split into three strands and shot forth violently.
The essence of the Eight Great Secret Arts of the Tang Family, created by Tang Pae—
Tang Pae's Death Line was unleashed.
Shhhk!
The first line split the void,
and the masked man at the forefront was bisected without even a scream, his innards spilling in all directions.
The second line shot forth like the tongue of a giant serpent, piercing the throats of two others.
The third line intersected with the first two—
Boom!
—and from that point, venom exploded outward, forming a vast net of death.
"Gyaaah!"
The assassins trapped within melted like moths in flame, their bodies torn into two, then three pieces, scattering in an instant.
The battle ended in an instant.
Tang Gon stood at the center of the forest, where the metallic stench of blood and poison still lingered, gazing down at the Flood Dragon Sinew Cord that continued to emit a faint killing intent.
Drip. Drip.
The dark crimson liquid falling from the cord sizzled as it melted the stones beneath.
Catching his breath, the contents of the secret letter from the friend he respected surfaced in his mind.
―...(Earlier portion omitted)
There is a high probability that forces capable of interfering with our plans will launch simultaneous ambushes targeting their leaders.
However, to ensure no traces are left behind... (Later portion omitted).
Having long navigated the turbulent undercurrents of both major alliances, Bu Eun-seol knew the dark underbelly of the Martial Alliance better than anyone.
He had mobilized exceptional strategists to unravel Baek Mu-seong's sinister schemes, but soon realized it was impossible to perfectly predict their plots in such a short time.
So he immediately changed tactics.
Under the name of the Martial Soul Society Leader, he stirred the board himself, diverting the attention of Baek Mu-seong and the Buddhist Venerable toward him.
Baek Mu-seong, now the Alliance Leader and desperate for success, would never tolerate variables.
In the end, the stratagem succeeded.
Just as Bu Eun-seol had anticipated, the invasion by the Forces from Beyond the Frontier ended easily, and the assassination plan to eliminate future threats was executed.
If successful, it would uproot the source of calamity.
Even if it failed, they could condemn the brutal methods of the foreign forces and preserve the Orthodox Alliance.
"It won't be long now."
This ambush had failed.
Not only because of Bu Eun-seol's uncanny foresight, but also because his assistance had allowed Tang Gon's martial prowess to surge to unfathomable heights in an instant.
Leaving the cold corpses behind, Tang Gon lifted his gaze to the distant sky.
"The day I fight side by side with you..."
Thanks to Bu Eun-seol, he too could sense the dark clouds looming over the martial world.
In the battles to come, there would be no distinction between orthodox and unorthodox.
To stand proudly by his friend's side—
That was something Tang Gon had waited for his entire life.
Azure Heaven Alliance Leader Bukgung Ryeong stood with his arms crossed, his cloak fluttering.
Around him, the corpses of assassins who had targeted him mere moments ago lay shattered like broken toys.
They had all come prepared with perfect countermeasures against his Inner Energy Bullet Art.
Strange armor absorbed internal energy, and specialized battle formations dispersed rebounding force.
But the Bukgung Ryeong of today was not the same as yesterday.
Even before Bu Eun-seol's warning, he had already transcended the limits of his signature technique.
His martial arts were no longer simply about destruction.
They had evolved into a secret art—absorbing the enemy's force and detonating it within them.
They had perfectly blocked his bullets, only to be obliterated by their own power exploding inside them.
Gazing down at the rapidly cooling corpses, Bukgung Ryeong sank into deep contemplation.
"Masters of the Red Cloud Sect from Tibet."
These assassins, clad in bizarre armor, were experts from the Red Cloud Sect.
But behind them stood another mastermind.
"To think even the Buddhist Venerable—once called the spiritual pillar of the righteous faction—has been tainted by evil."
Bukgung Ryeong didn't want to believe it.
If even the Abbot of Shaolin, the last elder he had respected in the orthodox world, had rotted—
Then there was no hope left for the righteous path.
"Yet the intelligence he sent has never been wrong."
Unable to hide his gloom, Bukgung Ryeong exhaled heavily.
The great tree of the righteous faction had decayed from its very roots.
Now, the only ones left to uphold its banner were the Azure Heaven Alliance under his command.
"Hah..."
A sigh escaped him unbidden, a heavy stone rising in his chest.
"In the end, the fate of the martial world rests on your shoulders."
He was the leader of the Azure Heaven Alliance.
Bound by duty, he had to prioritize the prosperity of the righteous faction and the safety of his martial artists above all else.
But Bu Eun-seol was different.
Though he led a vast organization, he cast everything aside solely for the sake of a crumbling martial world's survival and justice.
He was the only man walking this lonely path, unacknowledged by anyone.
"For now, we must quietly gather strength, I suppose?"
Bukgung Ryeong looked up at the darkened sky.
Countless stars shimmered, but his eyes saw only one—the brightest among them.
The star of the Savior Star, the one who could save the martial world.
The road to Sichuan was tediously peaceful.
The creaking of the carriage and the rhythmic clatter of hooves echoed monotonously under the night sky.
Disguised as the Martial Soul Society Leader, Bu Eun-seol rode silently in the carriage on his way back.
KWA-BOOOOOM—!
Then, with a deafening roar that shook heaven and earth, the carriage was flung into the air.
Wooden splinters and shards of metal scattered in all directions as flames, like a ravenous beast, swallowed everything whole.
Before the shockwaves of the explosion could even settle, a figure emerged from the thick smoke like a specter.
An assassin clad in night-robes, as if woven from pure darkness itself.
"You're late."
Whoosh.
In that moment, Bu Eun-seol swept aside the swirling dust with a single gesture and spoke leisurely.
"I was starting to worry my eyes would rot from waiting."
Crack.
Perhaps caught off guard, the masked man tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes.