Chapter 1247
Swish! Whoosh!
The sound of wind being sliced echoed repeatedly behind Baekri Mu-jo's back.
Dozens of martial artists descended, swords drawn, as if forming a protective guard around him.
A taut tension filled the valley.
"As expected."
Instead of looking at Yeop Hyo-cheon, Baekri Mu-jo fixed his gaze on the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King glowing red at the Dark King's feet.
"Now, the warriors of the Southern Fire Hall can be treated."
The Southern Fire Hall, which specialized in fire-based techniques, had recently suffered an inexplicable explosion during training, leaving over forty warriors severely injured.
At the time of the explosion, a black miasma had spread, and the wounded began exhibiting bizarre symptoms—their wounds festering while their internal energy surged backward.
Countless physicians had been summoned, but they all concluded that to cure such a strange affliction,
there was no other way but to use a peerless spirit medicine freshly unearthed, brimming with spiritual energy and earth energy.
However, the current martial world had been drained of spirit medicines and spirit beasts.
In the end, Baekri Mu-jo had wandered far and wide in search of a new spirit medicine.
And finally, following the faint traces of spiritual energy emanating from Tianshan, he had discovered the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King.
"Are you so blinded by the Ginseng King that you fail to see this Cult Leader standing before you?"
As Yeop Hyo-cheon clicked his tongue, Baekri Mu-jo clasped his hands together.
"This is a matter of saving lives. I trust the Supreme Cult Commander will yield it to me."
"Righteous faction types are truly peculiar."
Yeop Hyo-cheon shook his head with a pitying tone as his pupils darkened into pitch black.
"Once they believe their actions are just, they refuse to listen to anyone else."
"......"
Baekri Mu-jo lowered his clasped hands and stared coldly at Yeop Hyo-cheon.
"Are you saying you would choose to die a death far from home over a mere spirit beast?"
His tone was arrogant yet filled with conviction.
"Tsk."
Yeop Hyo-cheon let out a sigh.
The audacity to act like a predator eyeing its prey before the Dark King of the world?
Yeop Hyo-cheon spoke softly, yet his voice resonated throughout the entire valley.
"Many will mourn when the Martial Alliance's obituary is announced."
"Only the heavens know how this battle will end, don't they?"
"Is that so?"
A faint smile lingered at the corners of Yeop Hyo-cheon's lips.
"Then I suppose this, too, is fate."
Click.
Baekri Mu-jo slowly placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Yet Yeop Hyo-cheon remained relaxed, arms hanging loosely at his sides, grinning.
"Go on, then. Show me what you've got."
A shocking rumor spread through the quiet martial world.
—The Martial Alliance's Star Guard Division Leader, the Sacred Sword, Baekri Mu-jo, was slain by the Dark King Yeop Hyo-cheon in Tianshan!
The news was far too sudden.
He was the strongest among the Seven Great Leaders of the Martial Alliance—currently, in the absence of the Sword Sovereign, he could be called the Foremost Sword of the Righteous Faction.
And yet, he had been slain by the Dark King?
—The two clashed over a Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King they happened to discover.
Yeop Hyo-cheon, who had left the Demon Hall alone on a covert journey, had found the Ginseng King in Tianshan.
But then Baekri Mu-jo arrived with dozens of elite warriors from the Star Guard Division.
In the end, a battle erupted between the two over the spirit beast, and with a single strike from the Dark King, Baekri Mu-jo had breathed his last.
—This is beyond words.
Despite losing the Star Guard Division Leader so pointlessly, the Martial Alliance couldn't even protest.
Even the warriors of the Star Guard Division who had witnessed the fight could raise no objections—
for it had been a fair duel between two Grandmasters of Martial Arts.
—The Martial Alliance has lost a great star.
Baekri Mu-jo had not been seeking personal glory.
He had been searching for the spirit medicine to treat the forty-some warriors suffering from the explosion.
A righteous hero, performing such a noble deed, had crossed paths with the Dark King and met his end.
—Let us hold a grand funeral for the Star Guard Division Leader.
Upon hearing that the Division Leader had died trying to save the warriors of the Southern Fire Hall,
Baek Mu-seong broke his seclusion and personally presided over the funeral.
The Shaolin Abbot recited sutras praying for his peaceful passage into the afterlife.
All the leaders of the righteous faction mourned, lamenting the fall of a great star.
And this incident stirred a deep sense of crisis within the Martial Alliance.
—With the Demonic Path running rampant, we must begin stockpiling our strength.
Once the funeral concluded, Baek Mu-seong emerged from seclusion to oversee the Alliance's affairs while simultaneously discussing the eradication of the Demonic Path with key figures.
At this rate, the balance of power that had favored them would collapse, and the world might fall under the rule of the demonic martial factions.
A treasury shrouded in thick darkness.
Inside, all manner of bizarre treasures that had never seen the light of day lay in silent slumber.
At its center stood an iron coffin stained black, and before it, a figure in white robes stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing down at the coffin.
Embedded within the corpse's earlobe was not just the essence of a human—
but the Boundary-Prosperity Jade, crafted to replicate not only a person's traits but even the texture of their skin, the shape of their eyelids, and the finest of scars.
"......Now, I have attained perfect freedom, haven't I?"
This had been a plan meticulously prepared for a long time.
The moment this corpse was revealed to the world,
all the shackles that had bound him until now would vanish alongside the shell he had prepared in the light.
And with a new identity, he could finally advance the Grand Design that had been put on hold.
Swoosh.
As his fingers brushed against the cold cheek of the corpse, a dull ache shot through his index and middle fingers, making his fingertips tremble.
Long ago, when he had unleashed sword techniques beyond his limits, the nerves in his fingers had been severed.
Thanks to the aid of ancient spirit medicines and physicians who had reached divine levels of medical skill, he had barely managed to recover—
Yet even now, the pain would throb intermittently.
"Seven Fingers Demonic Blade......"
The very sword stroke he had used to cut that man down had nearly reduced him to seven fingers as well.
"It won't be long now."
Biting his lip, he dredged up memories from the distant past.
The world had been dyed crimson with blood.
Revenge.
That single word had upended the boy's entire existence.
But the martial prowess of the one he sought vengeance against—
Transcended the realm of mortals entirely, reaching the domain of the divine.
No matter how many martial arts of the current era he mastered to Great Completion, he could never defeat him.
An ordinary person would have despaired.
But the boy had been born with a legendary physique said to surpass even the Heavenly Martial Body—the Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Body.
And fueled by his burning hatred, its power had blossomed within him despite his youth.
―I must find a martial art capable of killing him.
With keen intelligence, the boy—
Entered the notoriously difficult-to-join Beggars' Sect, where he learned how to gather intelligence on martial factions and the wider Martial World.
―This is the only way.
Once he found his path to vengeance, he willingly walked into hell.
To the back alleys of Jinling, where the infamous assassin organization known as the Killing Pavilion abducted children and forged them into weapons of murder.
―First, break their minds.
The Killing Instructors force-fed the abducted children hallucinogens that gnawed at their sanity and poisons that amplified their killing intent as if they were mere meals.
Children who had once been comrades either succumbed to the drugs and became corpses—or turned into enemies who had to slaughter one another.
But the Killing Pavilion had no idea—
Of the boy's talent.
That he possessed eyes that could pierce not only the flow of martial arts, but human psychology, the flaws in knowledge, even the very source of killing intent itself.
That he was absorbing not just the Killing Pavilion's generations-old assassin secret arts, but even their hidden techniques in the blink of an eye.
By the time a year had passed—
The boy was effortlessly assassinating masters of the era, his identity so thoroughly concealed that he earned the epithet "Ghostly Spirit Assassin."
The Killing Pavilion felt not joy, but terror.
―To reach this level in just a year...
―A blade too sharp will cut its master's hand.
―It's time to replace the blade.
Assassins of the Killing Pavilion were nothing more than disposable tools.
They were controlled through alcohol and drugs, and once crippled or rendered useless, they were quietly discarded.
The Killing Instructors, threatened by the boy's terrifying growth, immediately decided to eliminate him.
―A shame, but necessary.
Just as the Pavilion Master made that decision—
Whoosh.
Suddenly, all the torches in the chamber were extinguished, and a flash of light flickered.
An eerie silence descended.
Within mere breaths, the Art of Killing techniques unfolded—severing the heads of the Killing Instructors in a single stroke.
―H-how...
―If you discard others, you must be prepared to be discarded yourself.
The Pavilion Master immediately tried to counterattack—
But snap-snap-snap.
Golden needles, fired from the boy's fingertips, had already sealed his acupoints with pinpoint precision.
A method far more refined, far more ruthless than anything the organization had ever taught.
The boy hadn't learned the assassin secret arts—he had reassembled their very principles.
―This brat...
Only then did the Pavilion Master realize—
This was no viper's spawn, but a tiger's cub.
Something that should never have been picked up and raised.
Thunk.
A hidden weapon pierced his forehead, and the Pavilion Master died on the spot.
Whoosh.
Expressionless, the boy set the chamber ablaze, having single-handedly exterminated the killing instructors.
He had to erase everything—his past, the martial arts he'd learned, the traces of his existence.
So that in the future, no intelligence network under heaven would ever uncover his trail.
―Now, to the Daoist sects.
Having mastered the essence of assassin secret arts, he could disguise himself as any kind of person.
To fill the gaps in the martial arts he'd learned, the boy—
Became a naive country bumpkin and entered the declining Daoist sect, the True Mystic Gate, a sacred land on the verge of ruin.
There, he restored and mastered their lost esoteric ritual arts, even grasping their underlying principles to create entirely new techniques.
―Only by learning the origins of all martial arts and esoteric rituals scattered across the Martial World can I complete the Art of Killing capable of assassinating him.
An opponent he could never defeat in a direct confrontation.
He would perfect an assassination technique that guaranteed mutual destruction—and exact his long-awaited vengeance as swiftly as possible.
Before long, the boy had become a young man.
All this time, he had sought out the foundational sects of martial arts, either becoming a disciple or stealing their secret manuals.
Using them as a foundation, he restored lost martial arts or modified them freely, making them his own.
By mastering and reassembling their origins, he created entirely new assassination techniques that had never existed before.
―This should... be enough.
At last, he had completed the Art of Killing that would surely kill that man.
Though he couldn't defeat him head-on, an ambush would give him a fighting chance.
―Let me prove my Art of Killing by slaying the sect leader of the Cold Moon Sword Sect.
To kill the leader of the Cold Moon Sword Sect—a master swordsman said to rival even the Sword Sovereign, a peerless expert of the "Subtle Sword."
Through the snow-covered mountain range, he came across a corpse that had not been dead for long.
It was none other than... Shangguan Jieyun, the sect leader of Tianhua Sect—reputed to be stronger than even the leaders of the Nine Great Sects.
"This..."
As he examined the corpse,
he realized that the very enemy he sought vengeance upon had been the one to cut down Shangguan Jieyun.
Only one man could wield a saber as thick as a sage's forearm like a needle, piercing three hundred sixty-five acupoints with blade energy—
that man was none other than the Seven Fingers Demonic Blade.
"His strength has been underestimated."
The enemy who had plunged the martial world into terror was
not merely the Great Killing Star of this era... but the greatest blade master of all time.
The moment he bent down to scrutinize the saber marks more closely—
PAAH!
With a sudden explosive sound, the corpse instantly burst apart, its fragments embedding themselves like hidden weapons, quill-like and bristling.
"Ugh—"
A pain akin to death spread through him.
Bu Jan-yang had infused the corpse with multiple layers of overwhelming blade energy through some arcane method—
ensuring that any Tianhua Sect master who discovered Shangguan Jieyun's remains would die a second time.
Chiiii—
White steam rose from his body as he plucked out the razor-sharp bone fragments one by one.
The blade energy, laced with death, was draining his life force.
"He cannot be defeated."
Despair engulfed his entire being.
To infuse a lifeless corpse with yet another layer of annihilating blade energy—just how?
Seven Fingers Demonic Blade Bu Jan-yang.
He was a blade master who had reached an absolute realm—one that could never be attained, no matter how many lifetimes one spent training in martial arts.
Thud.
Finally, his legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees.
Everything he had done until now felt utterly futile.
Even if he spent a hundred years refining the Art of Killing, he would never be able to achieve mutual destruction with that man.
Sssss—
Just then, a chilling shadow formed behind the despairing youth.
"Do you wish to kill the Seven Fingers Demonic Blade?"
When he turned his head,
a shadow—devoid of presence or form, steeped in darkness—had manifested.
"I can grant you the power to kill him."
An ordinary person would have dismissed it as nonsense.
But the youth knew instinctively.
That this shadow before him was also an Absolute Master—one who could rival the Seven Fingers Demonic Blade.
"Or should I kill him for you?"
Though he knew it was absurd, the youth spat out his words as if chewing them.
"What meaning is there in vengeance borrowed from another's hand?"
Then he gritted his teeth.
"Even if I train in martial arts for a hundred years, I won't be able to take him down with me. It's pointless either way."
"Fufufu."
In response, white teeth gleamed coldly from within the shadow.
"The Seven Fingers Demonic Blade is strong because he has endured near-ascetic training. Enlightenment elevates a person into a domain of limitless growth."
"Asceticism? I've trained in martial arts prepared to die."
"Wasting time mastering and developing the martial arts of a vanished sect is futile. Only by learning proper training methods and the secret techniques that have reached the Heaven Beyond Heaven realm can you kill him."
The moment he heard those words, he understood.
That this shadow had been observing him all along.
"Who are you? Why have you been watching me?"
"Call it interest. A true Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Body appears perhaps once in ten thousand years."
The shadow extended a hand.
"Take my hand, and you will gain the power to kill him."
He stared fixedly at the pitch-black hand.
Though it resembled the grasp of a demon, to him, it was a hand of salvation.
For a moment, the youth's pupils blurred.
To others, he would have seemed to be staring blankly into the void—but in his mind, thousands of calculations were unfolding.
Flash.
His eyes gleamed once more as he—
Grip—
seized the offered hand with all his strength.
As if he would grasp even the devil's hand without hesitation if it meant vengeance.
Yet at the corner of the youth's lips lingered
a smile so subtle no one could detect it—cold enough to send shivers down the spine.
"Society Leader."
A man knelt behind the shadow, pressing his forehead to the ground before presenting a letter.
"A missive from that old man, Yeop Hyo-cheon."
Shwip.
The letter the man had extended with both hands was now in the shadow's grasp.
After reading it for a long while, the shadow chuckled low.
"The Martial Soul Lord's neck?"
Shaking his head, the shadow clicked his tongue.
"He doesn't want the neck—he wants the power Bu Jan-yang passed down."
"What shall we do?"
"Without the complete Sacred Heaven Jade, there is only one way to absorb another's unique traits."
A white smile curled at the shadow's lips.
"Contact that rotting corpse-wrestler, the Buddhist Venerable."
"Will he agree?"
"That Buddhist Venerable has always taken great interest in the Great Righteous Experts and the Ten Demonic Heir. He must have been putting great effort into the Martial Soul Lord for a long time."
The shadow's smile deepened.
"Wasn't his networking with all those factions just to uncover the secret of seizing those unique traits...?"
His voice carried amusement as he spoke.
"Let's use this chance to weaken that old monster's influence—and see just how formidable that corpse's power truly is."
"Understood."
The martial artist bowed and withdrew.
The shadow slowly turned in the darkness, stepping forward.
Gradually, a face as luminous as polished jade emerged.
And astonishingly—
it was none other than Baekri Mu-jo, the man believed to have been slain by Yeop Hyo-cheon.
He was the leader of the Same Heart Society.
The explosion at the Southern Fire Hall, the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King,
and even the sudden encounter with Yeop Hyo-cheon—
all these events had seemed like coincidences, but in truth, they were part of a meticulous Grand Design,
orchestrated by the hidden powers maneuvering the martial world from the shadows.