Chapter 1252
Shudder.
The Buddhist Venerable, who had been trembling in shock, looked down at the eyeball clutched in his hand.
'This bastard...'
Then, he realized something terrifying.
Bu Eun-seol wasn't merely the inheritor of "Bu Jan-yang's Heavenly Might Star."
Every piece of information he had believed to be true until now needed to be completely revised.
'I must report this.'
Fwip!
With all his strength, the Buddhist Venerable hurled the eyeball high into the distant sky.
Whoooosh!
The eyeball shot upward at an imperceptible speed before vanishing into the far heavens.
"...!"
Watching this, Bu Eun-seol instinctively understood.
If he didn't destroy that eyeball, something catastrophic would happen.
—KREEEEEEE!
A harrowing scream echoed from the distant sky.
Bu Eun-seol shot upward like lightning.
While still maintaining the Ink Soul First Form with the Ink Soul Sword, he unleashed the Bloody Tears Seven Forms toward the soaring eyeball.
KOOOOOM!
The impossible occurred when he executed the Bloody Tears Seven Forms mid-Ink Soul First Form.
Sssssk—
A mysterious circle formed, as if life and death, creation and destruction, had fused into one.
Fwsshh!
Encased in light, the mystical circle instantly reduced the True Demon's eyeball—speeding far into the distance—to dust.
"HAAHP!"
With a sharp exhale, Bu Eun-seol descended back to the ground—
And swung the Ink Soul Sword once more toward the Buddhist Venerable, who still lurked within the darkened space.
Flash! Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!
With the Ink Soul Sword, now imbued with the combined power of Ink Soul First Form and Bloody Tears Seven Forms, he struck the Buddhist Venerable's body thirty-one times.
Thud.
As Bu Eun-seol landed, faint beams of light began spilling from the Buddhist Venerable's body—pierced by sword energy.
His Heavenly Dipper Body had been shattered.
"How...?"
Blood trickled from the Buddhist Venerable's left eye, twisted in agony.
"...How is this possible?"
Though his entire body was being torn apart—
The Buddhist Venerable clutched only the hollow socket of his left eye, trembling violently.
"So it was the same principle as the Overlapping Pupils People."
Even as his body was being obliterated—
Bu Eun-seol observed intently as the Buddhist Venerable writhed in pain, gripping only his left eye socket, and muttered under his breath:
"You shared not just abilities but even life force through the True Demon's Corpse."
Through the True Demon's Corpse, the Buddhist Venerable had—
Distributed his very life force not to a single body, but across countless shadows.
That was why, even after his grandfather had killed the Buddhist Venerable in the past, he still lived.
The core condition for his survival—
Was that not all of the True Demon's Corpses, which contained his life force, had been completely destroyed.
"Now that the eyeball is destroyed, every remaining Buddhist Venerable's eyes must have been damaged."
"You will...!"**
The Buddhist Venerable snarled with venomous hatred.
"PAY for this!"
BOOM!
Simultaneously, his withered body exploded in all directions.
Unable to withstand the power of Bu Eun-seol's mystical Sword Form, his flesh burst apart.
But his life was already scattered across the True Demon's Corpses hidden everywhere—
Meaning this battle had merely severed one of the Buddhist Venerable's eyeballs.
'No—I've discovered a way to kill the Buddhist Venerable.'
He could destroy the True Demon's Corpses.
If he destroyed them one by one, the Buddhist Venerable's existence would naturally be erased.
Sssssk—
A black mist descended from the sky and began seeping into Bu Eun-seol's left eye.
The True Demon's Corpse, destroyed by the Bloody Tears Seven Forms, had once again taken the form of black mist and been absorbed into his body.
"In the end, it's not destruction—but sealing it within my body."
Even when the corpse shattered... the authority contained within did not vanish.
Meaning only the form of the corpse was destroyed—not its essence.
Thud.
Just then, a black shadow descended from the sky.
It was No Trace, leader of the Death Soul Squad.
"Lord."
No Trace bowed respectfully before speaking.
"The Buddhist Venerable certainly lived up to his name."
To uncover the mastermind behind this incident—
Bu Eun-seol had taken measures to track the movements of those who approached him.
As a result, they had traced where the Buddhist Venerable had emerged from—and seized his trail.
"According to the Unit Members lying in wait... it seems unlikely that place is his true stronghold."
No Trace handed over a map detailing the location of a certain Secluded Valley.
"It doesn't matter."
Bu Eun-seol accepted the map and replied indifferently.
"I never expected to cut off the Buddhist Venerable's breath in one stroke."
A heavyweight cannot be killed in a single move.
But if you sever their limbs one by one—
Eventually, you will reach the torso and head.
There was no need to rush. They would deal with this step by step.
"I will enter first to scout the interior. Until then, do not allow any Unit Members inside."
Fwip!
With those words, Bu Eun-seol soared into the sky in an instant.
Having tracked the Buddhist Venerable's movements through the Death Soul Squad's intelligence network spread across the Central Plains, he had located his stronghold.
Now all that remained was to destroy the Demon Monk's footholds one by one through that place.
A cold night mist crept down the mountainside.
The Death Soul Squad had tracked the Buddhist Venerable's stronghold to a deep, damp secluded valley.
Even at high noon, not a single ray of sunlight pierced through—a ravine long abandoned by human footsteps.
Somewhere within its depths lay the Buddhist Venerable's secret base, its true nature never once revealed until now.
Bu Eun-seol suppressed his breathing as he stepped through the gaping maw of the entrance.
Inside, mysterious formations and the Art of Spells had been deployed—things an ordinary martial artist could search a hundred years for and never find.
But to Bu Eun-seol, now the foremost master of formation studies in the martial world,
the deliberately angled rocks and unnaturally twisted branches stood out like beacons.
Crack-crack-crack!
In an instant, he pinpointed the formation's flaw and slipped through effortlessly.
'Perhaps Shaolin has been safeguarding the True Demon's Corpse for generations.'
As he advanced, Bu Eun-seol suddenly recalled
the black void that had made the Buddhist Venerable vanish in an instant.
The True Demon's left eye possessed
not only the power to erase one's presence from sight and senses,
but also a supernatural ability to conceal itself entirely.
'With such power, even if surrounded by thousands—no, tens of thousands—one could disappear completely and reappear elsewhere in an instant.'
All this time, under the name of the Buddhist Venerable,
he must have been manipulating shadows and orchestrating countless schemes by wielding the corpse's power.
"Perhaps the True Demon's Corpse doesn't contain just a single power..."
Bu Eun-seol's eyes narrowed as he sank deeper into thought.
"But multiple abilities, unlocked depending on the wielder's skill."
He took a slow breath and murmured under his breath,
"But I can erase the Buddhist Venerable."
The Buddhist Venerable had linked his life force to the corpse, spreading it like roots.
Unless every shadow was annihilated at once or the corpse itself destroyed, eliminating him would be impossible.
But since he could destroy the corpse...
Each time the Buddhist Venerable appeared, he could sever another thread of his life.
"Reaching the Void Extreme Realm was sheer luck."
Had he not attained it, he would have already been obliterated by the Vajra Annihilation Wave.
Moreover, even within the Domain of World and Realm Annihilation, which nullified all power,
the corpse's abilities remained active. Future battles with the Buddhist Venerable wouldn't be so simple.
"That he maintains such youthful vigor at his age must also be thanks to the True Demon's Corpse."
In the end, the Buddhist Venerable's longevity and vitality were undoubtedly sustained by the corpse's power.
Tap.
At the path's end loomed a massive boulder.
Groan—
Pushing it aside, a frigid draft brushed his face.
A passage leading underground stretched before him.
'This...'
With every step, a nauseating stench assaulted his nostrils—
a hellish miasma of rotting corpses and acrid medicinal herbs.
He moved swiftly through the pitch-black tunnel without a torch.
The passage ran deeper than expected.
After descending another ten zhang, the stench grew unbearable.
The reek of putrid flesh, medicinal ingredients, and something indescribably foul mingled in the air.
And along the walls—
Strange, glowing symbols were faintly etched into the stone,
repeating in patterns like some archaic script.
"They look like characters."
Even Bu Eun-seol, who could decipher oracle bone script, couldn't recognize these.
The Buddhist Venerable had obsessively pursued knowledge in his search for the True Demon's Corpse.
Perhaps these markings were an ancient script created by the True Demon himself.
'This unease...'
The deeper he went, an inexplicable dread settled over him.
It stemmed from knowing exactly what kind of man the Buddhist Venerable was—
a Demon Monk who would commit any atrocity without hesitation for his goals.
At the tunnel's end stood a massive iron door.
Though rigged with intricate mechanisms, they posed no obstacle.
Clank.
He disarmed the traps instantly, then bisected the door with a single stroke of his Ink Soul Sword.
Crrrr—
Amid the screech of metal, the interior was laid bare.
What awaited him would have stopped the breath of even Bu Eun-seol, a veteran of countless battlefields and horrors.
The cavernous chamber was packed with glass tubes and experiment tables.
Dozens of chains hung from the ceiling, suspending human figures.
Some had their chests split open; others had limbs grotesquely rearranged.
All were young, their bodies honed through rigorous martial training.
Bu Eun-seol's gaze came to rest on one particular spot.
A corpse with a pallid face and hollowed-out eye sockets.
Wasn't that none other than Seong-ryun of the Beggars' Sect—one of the Martial Alliance's Great Righteous Experts—whose neck he himself had severed?
"That one..."
Around Seong-ryun's severed neck, meticulous stitch marks formed a perfect ring.
Though his robust physique remained intact, both eyes had been gouged out, as if even in death, he could not escape suffering.
"So, you've been studying my martial arts for a long time."
These were all individuals who had died by his hand.
At the time, he had taken care to leave no traces behind.
But if it was the Buddhist Venerable—who possessed the True Demon's Eye—then he might have found a way to uncover the remnants of his martial techniques regardless.
"Cheon Hwa-in?"
Surprisingly, next to him lay the Mount Hua Sect's Cheon Hwa-in.
His condition was even more grotesque.
His arms had been extended to four in number.
"Attached to his back and sides..."
Upon closer inspection, the shape and calluses of each of the four hands were entirely different.
They had clearly been grafted from separate individuals.
Beyond that, other horrific hybrids—stitched together like broken dolls forcibly mended—lay silent atop the experiment tables.
'Buddhist Venerable.'
Bu Eun-seol clenched his teeth.
Rage surged within him.
Huuuuung—
The violent wave of energy radiating from him caused the surrounding temperature to plummet, and the spreading killing intent froze the very air.
This Demon Monk, who had lived for two centuries, had spent his long years not saving sentient beings, but...
...consuming the corpses of young and talented martial artists as mere materials for his experiments.
"To think a man who was once a disciple of the Buddhist Order would commit such acts..."
Throughout his travels in the martial world,
Bu Eun-seol had witnessed countless atrocities—the Three Realms cultivating Human Flowers or experimenting with the corpses of past masters.
But never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the Buddhist Venerable—
A man once revered as the Holy Monk, a pillar of the Righteous Faction—
Would scavenge the bodies of the righteous youth and subject them to such cruel experiments.
'I will make you pay for this.'
Suppressing his fury, Bu Eun-seol examined the corpses once more.
Upon closer inspection, every single corpse had hollowed-out eye sockets.
'The Buddhist Venerable implanted the True Demon's Eye in them.'
Perhaps, in his quest to master the eye's power—
Or to harness its full potential—he had plucked out their eyes for experimentation.
"Did he delve into some vile medical art separately?"
Judging by the state of the cavern, it must have been constructed decades ago.
Did the True Demon's Eye contain knowledge that enabled such experiments?
Or had he committed these atrocities in pursuit of the eye itself?
Why had he continued these experiments for so long?
"If I had accepted the power of the vessel..."
Bu Eun-seol looked down at his left hand.
Through the Nine Heavens Radiant Cloud Wine and the Dragon-Phoenix Ring,
He had inherited fragments of the True Demon's memories and insights in visions—but he had rejected the vessel's power.
Because of that, he couldn't be certain what exactly would have happened.
"Perhaps accepting the vessel would have meant becoming another True Demon."
The countless limbs crudely grafted onto the corpses were meticulously connected down to the veins.
Whether it was the True Demon's knowledge or the result of two centuries of research, one thing was certain:
The Buddhist Venerable had acquired medical arts so transcendent, they surpassed even the legendary physician Hua Tuo.
Thud.
Was it due to lingering resentment? Or simply a muscle spasm?
A sound of bones echoed from one of the glass tubes.
"Just wait a little longer."
Bu Eun-seol murmured softly as he gazed at the corpses.
"I'll grant you peace soon."
Beyond the cavern lay a narrow passageway.
Small chambers lined both sides, each reeking of blood.
Peering inside, he found figures clad in bloodstained robes, dead.
They seemed like fallen physicians who had sold their souls to the Buddhist Venerable—learning his medical arts in exchange for slaughter and experimentation.
"He killed all those who remained when he abandoned this place."
Had he sensed death approaching? Or had the Buddhist Venerable discerned the Death Soul Squad's capabilities?
Realizing this place would be discovered, he had erased all traces.
Crunch. Crunch.
At the end of the passage stood a massive circular metal door.
Over two zhang in height, its surface was engraved with intricate patterns—
Pulsing faintly with a crimson glow, like a heartbeat.
Clank.
When Bu Eun-seol opened the door, his eyes widened.
"This is..."
Inside the cold stone chamber—
A metal bedframe, layered with overlapping machinery and steel, stood upright.
And at its center was a person.
Bound in white restraints, unable to move—
Further secured by metal bands wrapped around the chest, waist, thighs, and ankles.
A second layer of binding, ensuring the captive could not budge.
"Grotesque."
A steel mask covered the head, irregular holes punched through for breathing.
It resembled the masks that heretical cultists would place upon sinners who had strayed into heresy before execution.
"He's alive."
Bu Eun-seol detected faint breathing from the figure within.
"Why was this one left behind?"
After slaughtering everyone else inside so thoroughly—why spare only this man?
"Hmm."
Upon closer inspection, thick tubes and mechanical structures were connected to his back.
They seemed designed to forcibly link the Governing and Conception Vessels—the meridians that circulate internal energy—to an external source, as if to inject something into him.
"The subject inside appears to be another test subject as well."
Judging by the tools within,
the experiments conducted here seemed even more grotesque than those performed on Seong-ryun, the Great Righteous Expert of the Beggars' Sect, or Cheon Hwa-in of the Mount Hua Sect outside.
"Does this have no connection to the True Demon's Corpse?"
At first, he had assumed these experiments were meant to modify either the Buddhist Venerable's own body or the True Demon's Corpse.
But now it seemed this was merely research to amplify power?
"All I need to do is confirm it."
Ssshk—
With a single stroke of the Ink Soul Sword, he severed not just the binding cloth and iron restraints but also the connections to the metal bed.
Tssssss—
White steam hissed out from multiple points,
and as the torn wrappings parted, the shape of a person slowly became visible.
A single eye glinted beast-like through the slits of the iron mask, while the rest of the body was wrapped in black leather.
The exposed skin was riddled with stitched scars, resembling nothing so much as the nightmare visage of a vengeful ghost.
"You—"
Fwip—!
Before Bu Eun-seol could finish, the masked man vanished.
His movement was so fast it defied the eye's ability to track.
Shink!
Simultaneously, a razor-sharp hand blade stabbed toward Bu Eun-seol's forehead.
It was a technique from the Hundred-Kill Secret Art—an assassin's killing method.
Thud!
Dodging the strike, Bu Eun-seol felt the stone wall behind him crater like soft tofu.
The masked man had flicked his wrist, sending out a blade of hand energy (sugang) with terrifying ease.
"Did they leave behind a madman trained in the Killing Arts, just to slaughter anyone who followed the trail here?"
This man's martial prowess was at a level where he could effortlessly take down even the Chiefs of the Death Shadow War Unit.
[Haa...]
The iron-masked man let out a guttural, animalistic groan.
He seemed to have lost all reason, trained only to brutally murder whoever stood before him.
"No choice."
If someone like this escaped into the outside world, countless would die.
If there was no information to extract, he had to be eliminated immediately.
Flash—!
Bu Eun-seol unleashed the Meteor Chasing Moon technique in an instant, aiming to pierce the masked man's throat.
Or at least, he should have pierced it.
Swish—!
Not only did the masked man flawlessly read the sword's trajectory and evade,
but he also instantly counterattacked with a sweeping hand strike.
'This—'
No master Bu Eun-seol had faced until now had ever dodged Meteor Chasing Moon with such ease.
Sensing something amiss,
he deliberately slowed his movements, exchanging a dozen blows to observe.
At first, he thought the man had simply been trained to counter the Formless Heavenly Flow, perfectly blocking the opening strikes.
The Buddhist Venerable had long studied the wounds Bu Eun-seol had left behind, so it was hardly surprising that he had taught countermeasures against those attacks.
But the masked man's Assassin Secret Arts felt... familiar.
Moreover, the rhythm of his breathing, his habits, even the way he moved—all of it tugged at Bu Eun-seol's memory.
When their eyes met through the mask's slits—that single, gleaming beast-like pupil—a lightning-bolt realization struck him.
'No way.'
Struggling to steady his thoughts, Bu Eun-seol attempted to remove the mask.
But the man possessed power akin to the One Hundred and Eight Stars—his supernatural abilities were formidable.
Combined with his hyper-speed movements and erratic footwork, forcibly removing the mask without damaging it was no easy feat.
'Fine.'
In an instant, the colors of the surroundings dulled, and the masked man's lightning-fast movements slowed to a crawl.
Bu Eun-seol had activated the power of the Void-Severing Realm.
Fwip!
Sensing the shift, the masked man tilted his head slightly before lashing out with both hands.
His hand blades were sharper than any divine sword—capable of splitting flesh and bone with the barest touch—
yet Bu Eun-seol didn't evade. Instead, he calmly flicked his sleeve.
A dark, rippling force spread out, shaking the masked man's body.
Zzzzzz—
Simultaneously, a low vibration hummed from the iron mask.
Bu Eun-seol was using the principles of the Yin-Yang Twin Palms—the same technique the Buddhist Venerable had once employed—to send continuous tremors through the mask.
Snap.
The vibrations finally severed the leather strap holding it in place.
Clang.
As the mask fell away, a face marred by scars was revealed.
In that moment, Bu Eun-seol's pupils trembled like rippling water.
Though the original features were nearly obliterated beneath layers of wounds, he recognized the man instantly.
"Seok U-haeng."
The Ten Demonic Heir who had once detonated thousands of pounds of gunpowder in the underground waterways,
taking the Extreme Killing Secret Pavilion's masters with him in mutual destruction.
The man who had lived aiming to defeat Bu Eun-seol, even for just one day.
He hadn't died.
Instead, he had been imprisoned here—inside the Buddhist Venerable's experimental chamber.