Chapter 1235
CRACK-BOOM!
A black lightning bolt surged into the sky above the Demon Hall, splitting the heavens apart in an instant.
As his transcendent Land-Flying Technique unfolded, time itself seemed to flow differently for him alone.
Mountain ranges streaked past beneath his feet, rivers thinning into distant threads like strands of silk. Behind him, a long tail of white shockwaves trailed as he pierced through the barriers of the air.
CRACK-BOOM! KRAKOOM!
To those on the ground, all they could perceive was the black flash cleaving the sky and the thunderous roar—unable to even discern whether it was a person at all.
Rumble...
Slowing his descent, Bu Eun-seol's form gradually materialized like mist as he touched down.
He had arrived at the northernmost branch of the Demon Hall—Yangguan Branch.
Even for a master of Lightness Art, this was a distance that would normally take ten days and nights of relentless travel. Yet he had crossed it in less than half a day.
Clang! Shing!
From afar came the sounds of battle cries and weapons clashing.
Around a hastily erected earthen fortress, packed for the sake of their battle formation, a murky cloud of dust and a crimson mist of blood swirled together, rising into the air.
Before it, swarming like ants, were over ten thousand martial artists.
They were not from a single sect but were masters of the orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions who had gathered, lured by the Treasure Map of the Heavenly Demon Blade.
Clad in varied attire and wielding all manner of weapons, they surged forward in a chaotic tide toward the earthen fortress.
And in their eyes, without exception, burned greed.
None in the current martial world were ignorant of the truth—though the surface was peaceful, they were all hurtling toward ruin.
And in such times, what if there existed a treasure map left behind by the Heavenly Demon Blade, once hailed as the foremost in martial scholarship—before the emergence of the Seven Fingers Demonic Blade's Bloody Tears Seven Forms?
The moment one obtained it, they could rise as the unrivaled ruler of the martial world in an instant.
It was that very hope that drove them toward the jaws of death like moths to flame.
"The left defensive line is collapsing!"
"Reorganize the formation! Not a single one of them must break through!"
Before Yangguan Branch, Jo Nam-cheon and Won Se-mun desperately maintained their defensive formation behind the earthen walls they had erected.
But the sheer number of martial artists pressing in was overwhelming.
Every time a flash erupted from the blades of the Death Shadow War Unit's warriors, blood sprayed—yet the gaps were immediately filled by more fighters.
"We might have to deploy the Mind's Eye Mirror," Won Se-mun muttered irritably.
The Mind's Eye Mirror, rooted in the Mindscape, was a secret art that could allow three hundred soldiers to hold off three thousand elite troops.
"You think we can just reveal our trump card to defend some backwater branch like Yangguan?" Jo Nam-cheon snapped back.
"The Soul-Chasing Squad is on its way. Just hold out."
"They'll be too late."
Won Se-mun gritted his teeth as he swung his sword.
"If even one of our unit members gets hurt, I'm deploying the Mind's Eye Mirror—or abandoning Yangguan Branch. One or the other."
Jo Nam-cheon fell silent.
Truth be told, he had been thinking the same.
Keeping their secret arts hidden was important—
But not more important than the lives of their Death Shadow War Unit comrades.
Yet as time passed, the situation grew increasingly dire.
The enemy's numbers were overwhelming. Once they realized the defenders were focused on maintaining their formation, they charged without fear, intent on tearing down the earthen fortress.
—The time for a choice had come.
Won Se-mun and Jo Nam-cheon exchanged glances.
In a situation like this—
They wouldn't last until nearby reinforcements arrived, let alone Wi Cheon-gyeong, they wouldn't last long enough.
"All unit members, listen—!"
Just as Won Se-mun and Jo Nam-cheon raised their voices to shout—
KRRRUMBLE.
Suddenly, the sky darkened.
No—more accurately, a shadow rippling with black True Qi was staining the heavens black.
"T-That's—!"
Someone pointed upward and screamed.
Piercing through the black clouds, the silhouette of a person gradually descended, surrounded by a storm of razor-sharp energy.
The wind carried with it a terrifying Killing Intent, freezing the air and making the earth tremble.
BOOM!
When the floating figure finally landed—
CRACK—KABOOOM!
The ground split like a spider's web, shockwaves radiating outward in all directions.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
Nearby martial artists were sent flying from the impact.
Whoooosh...
As the wind howled and the dust settled—
A figure clad in blood-soaked black robes slowly revealed himself.
It was Bu Eun-seol.
Thump.
Behind him, his manifested Killing Intent writhed like a vengeful specter as he glared at the martial artists.
His eyes, veiled in Killing Intent and Demonic Energy, flickered alternately between an ink-black glow and a stark white radiance.
CRACK!
He drew upon his Internal Power in a single breath.
He had no intention of restoring the reason of these greed-drunk martial artists—nor of issuing any solemn warning.
All that was needed was to kill them.
They had fallen for the Empress Dowager's scheme, unable to restrain their greed, and had endangered his subordinates.
That was enough.
He needed to make an example of them—to punish one as a warning to a hundred—so they would never dare lay hands on the Death Shadow War Unit again.
Whoosh.
As Bu Eun-seol casually extended his hand—
Shwaaak!
A blade of darkness over ten jang long erupted explosively from behind him.
He had finally unleashed the Willful True Binding, which he had refrained from using until now.
Pah-pah-pang!
The heads of the martial artists standing before him shot into the air all at once.
The true qi blades manifested by the Willful True Binding spiraled violently, sending the severed heads soaring high into the sky.
Under normal circumstances, Bu Eun-seol would have stopped his assault here—
Shwak! Paa!
But he continued generating endless blades of the Willful True Binding, relentlessly beheading the martial artists.
Thud, splatter.
Wherever he passed, corpses piled up, and blood flowed like a river.
Step back, step back.
As the unexpected slaughter unfolded, the martial artists retreated in fear, step by step.
The Heir of the Demon Hall, the Martial Soul Lord, was known for his ruthlessness—but his blade was said to be wielded only against the wicked.
Even if they had been blinded by greed and attacked the Demon Hall's branch, no one had yet suffered harm.
So why were heads flying off immediately?
Flash! Paa!
A few brave martial artists charged forward—only for their heads to be severed on the spot.
In the end, the ten thousand martial artists who had surrounded the branch like ants froze in place.
"R—Run away!"
Rumble...
Sensing that something was terribly wrong, the martial artists turned tail and fled.
Dust clouds billowed as they scattered, and before long, only half of the ten thousand remained.
Trees cast shade, men cast names.
The Martial Soul Lord, Bu Eun-seol.
Just by appearing and making a single move, he had sent five thousand martial artists—once consumed by greed—scrambling for their lives.
"......"
A brief silence fell.
Though half the martial artists had vanished,
five thousand still remained.
"We outnumber him! The Martial Soul Lord is alone!"
A few martial artists, channeling their internal energy, shouted defiantly.
No matter how formidable the Martial Soul Lord and his hundred subordinates were, they couldn't possibly slaughter every last one of them—not when they had this place packed so densely.
"Deploy sword formations! Battle formations! Stand against him together!"
For generations, martial artists had researched and refined methods to oppose Absolute Masters of overwhelming martial prowess.
And those methods were—
Sword formations and combined attack arts, techniques that maximized defensive and offensive power through unified force.
"You two, stay out of this."
Bu Eun-seol spoke to Won Se-mun and Jo Nam-cheon, who guarded the Yangguan branch.
"Go inside. Watch quietly."
"But we—"
Won Se-mun and Jo Nam-cheon tried to insist they would fight as well.
But sensing the overwhelming killing intent and demonic energy radiating from Bu Eun-seol's body—
"We must not defy the Lord now."
They bowed respectfully, then hastily led their subordinates back into the Yangguan branch.
Meanwhile—
Zzzzeng! Paaat!
As orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic masters formed battle formations with their comrades,
millions of flashes of light erupted around the Yangguan branch.
Zzziiing.
Different forms of brilliance took shape.
When the five thousand martial artists simultaneously activated their formations, the sight was truly spectacular.
Shwaak!
Bu Eun-seol manifested a massive true qi blade with the Willful True Binding and swung—
Thwoom!
But the formations they had created flared with light, deflecting his attack.
Even when he unleashed the Fist Demon Seven Forms, capable of toppling mountains in a single strike, the result was the same.
With countless formations from various orthodox and demonic factions activated at once, their effects complemented each other, maximizing their combined might.
"We can win!"
The martial artists roared in triumph.
"Surround the Martial Soul Lord! Kill him!"
Maintaining their formations, the five thousand martial artists began their assault.
Smirk.
A cold sneer curled at the corner of Bu Eun-seol's lips as he watched.
If he truly unleashed all the power within him—
Even if fifty thousand martial artists formed formations instead of five thousand, he could shatter them in an instant.
But what he pursued was the path of martial arts—a realm where anyone could fight on equal footing, in perfect natural harmony.
Whooosh.
The moment his eyes flashed, the countless formations surrounding him instantly dimmed.
"Empty Extreme Realm."
A power that could be contained within a human body—
The absolute force of World and Realm Annihilation, erasing all but the most natural of things.
"Aaaagh!"
"The formations—they're breaking!"
Swiish. Shwaak!
Bu Eun-seol lunged at the screaming martial artists, cutting them down one by one with the Ink Soul Sword.
Terror-stricken, the martial artists broke into a chaotic stampede, fleeing in all directions.
But soon, they began to sense something strange.
Hadn't the Martial Soul Lord's attacks—capable of shattering even Mount Tai in a single strike—become utterly ordinary?
—"The Martial Soul Lord's strength has weakened!"
—"The battle formation's power may be gone, but the subtleties of martial arts can still be used!"
A battle formation manipulated the flow of qi that composed all things in the world,
either dominating space or gathering the strength of the martial artists within the formation to create a massive surge of energy.
However, all martial formations were still governed by the principles of martial arts,
and since the Empty Extreme Realm negated the power of supernatural abilities... the linkage of martial stances and the finesse of combined attack arts remained intact.
—"Strike now!"
Realizing this, the martial artists regained their courage and surged forward once more.
One against five thousand.
By common sense, this was an utterly impossible fight to win.
But they were mistaken.
Bu Eun-seol had not lost his strength.
Just as masters of the Martial Extreme Realm unleashed their limitless power,
the Domain of World and Realm Annihilation, manifested within the Empty Extreme Realm, was the space where he could fight with optimal force.
Rumble—!
Amid the suffocating encirclement where spearpoints formed forests and blades became seas, Bu Eun-seol stood unwavering.
—"Die!"
As dozens of long spears and great sabers stabbed toward his entire body like skewers,
Swish—!
With a sword cry that seemed to cleave heaven and earth, the Obsidian Soul Sword in his hand swept horizontally.
A simple, straightforward slash—yet its power was heavier than an axe and sharper than a great saber.
Shhk.
With a ghastly slicing sound, the waists of the first wave of charging martial artists were severed all at once.
Their weapons tore apart like paper,
and their upper bodies, flung into the air, rained down in a bloody shower upon the heads of their comrades behind them.
There were no openings. No—there was no chance to even look for openings.
The martial artists surged like waves, but Bu Eun-seol did not evade. Instead, he shattered their attacks head-on as he advanced.
Trying to exploit martial techniques or weaknesses was meaningless before overwhelming force.
Every time Bu Eun-seol's sword descended, the ground split, leaving dozens of bodies mangled in its wake.
Every time his sword rose,
a rain of blood fell, mingled with shattered weapons and severed limbs.
'Haa...'
The more enemies he cut down,
the hotter Bu Eun-seol's body grew, as if the spreading heat was evaporating his own blood.
Though his body gradually slowed, his killing intent and demonic energy swelled further, and his thirst for blood deepened.
Then, the Blade Essence of the Bloody Tears Seven Forms—once grasped from the hilt of Journey—rose incessantly in his mind.
'If I unleash this...'
In an instant, he understood.
If he unleashed the Bloody Tears Seven Forms,
he could expel the raging demonic energy and killing intent boiling inside him in a single burst.
—"Buy time!"
But at that moment, the martial artists, realizing they could never withstand Bu Eun-seol's might, shouted.
—"If we drag this out, we win!"
Forming groups, they moved chaotically, evading Bu Eun-seol's attacks.
At this rate, the battle would not end within a day.
No matter how transcendent Bu Eun-seol's martial prowess was, the moment his focus wavered even slightly, he could suffer a fatal wound.
Thud! Thud!
Surprisingly, this tactic proved effective.
Small wounds began to appear on Bu Eun-seol's body, and his movements grew increasingly sluggish.
Moreover, with the masters of the Righteous Faction and the Demonic Path entangled together,
their martial arts alternately shook his body, and the unorthodox faction's internal power seeped in,
causing the Martial Extreme Realm's regenerative power to plummet terrifyingly.
"Haa."
As he regulated his breathing and drew upon the Blade Essence of the Bloody Tears Seven Forms, a pale golden light began to spread through Bu Eun-seol's pupils.
The killing intent and demonic energy that had threatened to burn his body alive settled somewhat.
Though he had merely invoked the Blade Essence,
his senses sharpened astonishingly, and his mind cleared as if submerged in ice water.
'Movement.'
A strange realization flashed through his mind.
Watching the thousands of martial artists deploy their battle formations, preemptively blocking his movements and deflecting his attacks,
he recalled the dance of the three hundred court ladies who had barred his path in the grand hall where the Empress Dowager resided.
'That was no mere dance—it held the power to glimpse into the spirit and mind.'
Put differently,
wasn't the unfolding of martial arts also a manifestation of the will of the spirit and mind?
Zzzing—
As enlightenment dawned from their movements, light spilled from Bu Eun-seol's eyes.
A bizarre phenomenon occurred—the power of the Ancient Sword Forest and the effects of Phantom Restoration activated on their own.
'The Empress Dowager was a master of the Mind Seizing Secret Art.'
Until now, the Empress Dowager had used extreme techniques of mind control to manipulate others' spirits and lay traps.
Because of this, Bu Eun-seol had ceaselessly researched countermeasures, and—
In the process, he had unknowingly grasped the essence of the Empress Dowager's Mind Seizing Secret Art.
'The Imperial Palace used the sound of golden hair ornaments.'
Clink, clink.
At that time, the golden hairpins worn by the palace maids had continuously emitted a delicate, tinkling sound.
Back then, he had dismissed it as insignificant, but now—
Clang, clang.
The clashing of weapons from the martial artists unfolding before him was eerily similar.
'They pierced through the mind with sound.'
Sound was nothing more than vibrations flowing through the air—yet,
a sharp noise could stir the qi and blood, making the pulse surge, while a tranquil melody could flow like fine wine, calming breath and heartbeat alike.
The moment it reached the brain through the ears, it became a force that shook the mind.
'They grasped their enemies' spirit and mind through sound...'
Just then, a sword aura grazed his side, leaving a deep wound.
Heh.
A smile naturally curled at the corner of his lips.
This was how a battle should be.
He had yet to unleash all the killing intent and demonic energy still coiled within him.
Slash, slash, slash!
As dozens of sword auras rained down before him—
Crack!
Bu Eun-seol charged forward as if intending to take them head-on, disregarding his injuries.
Then, he pressed the Ink Soul Sword against his back.
—Kyaaaaaaah!
A harrowing wail erupted in response.
Another realization had struck him,
and he sought to express that will through the Bloody Tears Seven Forms.
Hummm!
A black blade aura enveloped his body, and a chilling energy swirled near the Brain Gate Acupoint before
the killing intent and demonic energy surging through his veins began converging into his right eye.
Drip... drip...
Suddenly, blood spilled from Bu Eun-seol's eyes as he prepared to unleash the technique.
Blood tears.
Just as the name of the sword technique suggested,
thick streams of crimson tears now poured from his eyes.
"Ghhh..."
As the bloody tears flowed,
his mind grew hazy—his demonic energy and killing intent flaring violently—
Clink.
when suddenly, a translucent chain, previously hidden, coiled around the Ink Soul Sword.
And then, astonishing things became visible.
Among the swarming martial artists, some were wrapped in bizarre... things.
Were they living serpents?
No—they defied definition.
They writhed endlessly, flowing like black slime.
Their scales overlapped like a snake's, yet parts of them were rotted and split open, revealing eyeballs and teeth within.
With every breath they took, they exhaled a nauseating black miasma.
"Ugh!"
The moment he saw them, Bu Eun-seol let out an involuntary roar.
His killing intent and demonic energy erupted explosively, enough to shatter one's spirit and mind.
Whoosh!
Immediately, Bu Eun-seol unleashed the Bloody Tears Seven Forms toward those wrapped in the grotesque forms.
Shoooom!
A massive crescent blade aura spread outward, and the monstrous serpent-like entities were sliced apart one by one.
One, ten, twenty...
The enormous blade aura precisely targeted only those entwined with the abominations.
The martial artists combined their strength, resisting with the profound principles of martial arts embedded in their battle formation—
but before the blade aura of the Bloody Tears Seven Forms, even the sturdiest of formations was torn apart like flimsy paper.
Only those wrapped in the grotesque forms fell helplessly, like leaves in an autumn gale.
—Retreat! Fall back!
The frontlines, gripped by terror, tried to stumble backward—
Rumble...
but the pressure of the martial artists behind them forced them forward, straight into the path of the blade aura.
Slash! Slash!
This was no longer a battle.
It was a slaughterhouse, where chunks of flesh were fed into a massive grinding stone.
Bu Eun-seol's entire body was drenched in blood, only his eyes and teeth gleaming white amidst the carnage.
Amid the horrific sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing, his breathing remained steady.
If anything, as time passed, his sword aura grew even more ferocious—
like a black Death God riding a cloud of slaughter, indiscriminately reaping lives across the battlefield.
—We were wrong.
Only then did the martial artists realize.
They had not surrounded the Martial Soul Lord.
Five thousand of them had been trapped by this single predator.
Sssssk—!
Upon the blood-soaked earth, only a war demon, crushing human flesh, remained.
Above all, his movement speed and sword technique unfolded faster than light—rendering the martial artists utterly helpless.
No matter what they did, they couldn't stop even a single motion of Bu Eun-seol's hand.
As he systematically hunted down those entwined with the serpentine abominations...
Ssshh...
At last, the killing intent subsided, and Bu Eun-seol halted.
"Heh... heh... HAHAHAHAHA!"
His mad laughter shook the mountains and rivers.
Those who survived felt their spines turn to ice.
Calling him "the righteous one among the Demonic Path" had been a grave mistake.
He was more brutal than the Blood Demon, who had gone mad with bloodlust.
More ruthless than the Human Demon, who slaughtered enemies so horrifically that survivors lived in perpetual terror.
He was—
the Great Demon himself, the very incarnation of dread.