Chapter 593
Dae-bo nodded his head and spoke.
"No matter how hard you try, it's useless. This body can never be destroyed."
With a sinister laugh, Dae-bo shouted:
"Die!"
He spread his arms wide, as if inviting Bu Eun-seol to cut him apart, and slowly advanced.
Swish! Swish!
The blades of the Willful True Binding slashed across his body multiple times, yet he didn't even flinch.
Thanks to the function of the Form-Condensing Demon Blood Energy, even fatal wounds would instantly regenerate.
Flash!
Bu Eun-seol drew the Moon Shadow Demonic Sword and unleashed Waning Moon Morning Star, the most powerful technique among the Formless Heavenly Flow forms.
Schlick!
Dae-bo's body split open in a cross-shaped wound, blood gushing forth—yet he still refused to die, enduring stubbornly.
Flash! Flash!
No matter what sword techniques Bu Eun-seol employed, no matter how many vital points he struck, Dae-bo shrugged them off effortlessly and continued his assault.
Undying and Invincible.
That was another epithet for the Form-Condensing Demon Venerable. And that name had not been given lightly.
CRASH!
Finally, Bu Eun-seol—who had been pouring out sword techniques—was slammed against one of the Grand Hall's walls by Dae-bo's fist energy.
Thud.
As Bu Eun-seol slowly rose from the rubble, Dae-bo snorted in derision.
"Don't look so composed. Your death is already a fait accompli."
"Is that so?"
Wiping the blood from his lips, Bu Eun-seol slowly flexed his fingers.
"Come at me."
"Hahaha!"
Dae-bo let out a grating laugh, amused by Bu Eun-seol's pretense of composure.
"You're suspicious enough as it is. I'll scrap the Great Art and just use you as meat instead."
Dae-bo swallowed hard as he stared at Bu Eun-seol.
"The discarded corpses and the occasional fishermen who wander here just aren't enough."
"So there was never any patient to begin with."
"Meat only needs to be tasty and tender—nothing else matters."
Dae-bo licked his lips.
"First, I'll capture you and find out who you are. Then, I'll turn you into meat!"
His eyes flashed once more as he charged forward with thunderous steps.
His appearance was eerily reminiscent of Hyeokryeon Eung, against whom no attack had ever worked in the past.
Moreover, his movements were so fast that Bu Eun-seol couldn't even employ Harmonization.
Confident in his charge, Dae-bo swung his hands wildly.
He was unleashing the Shape-Transforming White-Bone Claw—a technique said to tear flesh from bone even if only grazed by its forceful wind.
Huuuung...
At that moment, a sword-crimson energy began seeping from Bu Eun-seol's body.
Simultaneously, hundreds of Sword Rings surged forth like droplets of water from all directions.
Fwoooosh! Swish! Swish!
Like an endless rain, the hundreds of Sword Rings poured down relentlessly.
Then, they sharpened into sword qi and began tearing into Dae-bo's body.
"Kuhuhu..."
Crouching low, Dae-bo crossed his arms to endure the sword qi, a confident smile spreading across his lips.
"Nothing you do will work."
As long as his heart was protected, no fatal wound could end his life.
"If you're done with your tricks, I'll kill you again."
Just as Dae-bo straightened up, baring his teeth in a grin—
"Hmm?"
He frowned, sensing something amiss, and looked down at his body.
Despite the Form-Condensing Demon Blood Energy, which should have instantly healed his wounds and stopped the bleeding...
Why was blood still flowing ceaselessly from his injuries?
"Why...?"
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He summoned the Form-Condensing Demon Blood Energy with all his might, but instead of healing, the wounds only bled more fiercely.
Puzzled, Dae-bo examined the injuries carved into his flesh.
The sword qi Bu Eun-seol had unleashed hadn't just sliced through flesh—it had also darkened his skin, staining it black.
Death.
The sword qi Bu Eun-seol wielded wasn't merely cutting skin and bone.
It was severing the very life force latent within his body.
Dae-bo realized—this was an endless, pitch-black death.
"Bloody Tears Seven Forms..."
Dae-bo's eyes widened.
"How do you know that—?!"
The Bloody Tears Seven Forms—the sword art of Bu Jan-yang, once called the Demon Path's Foremost Bladesman.
Even the Three Realms, who had obtained fragments of its Blade Essence, had never been able to unleash its full power—this mysterious sword art...
How was it being perfectly replicated in his hands?!
"You..."
Drip.
Blackish-red blood spilled from Dae-bo's lips.
"You're him."
Click.
Sheathing his demon sword, Bu Eun-seol spoke coldly:
"Savor your death slowly. Remember all those you've killed."
Dae-bo's pupils darkened, stained black.
Only in death did he realize—the place he was destined for was hell.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Hundreds of wounds split open across Dae-bo's massive body, and blood cascaded forth like a flood.
As the Shape-Transforming Blood Demon Art—which had forcibly healed his wounds—shattered, all the injuries Dae-bo had sustained from Bu Eun-seol now split open anew.
Thud.
Collapsing to the ground, Dae-bo exhaled his last breath, spilling crimson blood and entrails.
Judging by the state of his ruined body, it wasn't just the wounds inflicted by Bu Eun-seol—every injury he had suffered before had reopened as well.
"Something's off."
Bu Eun-seol muttered as he surveyed the vast expanse of the Grand Hall.
"They built a facility of this scale, yet didn't bother setting up defenses against outsiders?"
After a moment of contemplation, he shook his head.
"No—they must have thought they didn't need to."
This Cold Moon Island was entirely populated by masters of the Return-to-One Realm.
Moreover, they had thoroughly investigated the personal backgrounds of all those who wielded demonic swords.
Given that they even used classifications like Heaven-Class, they must have ranked them meticulously.
They had been utterly confident that no one, no matter who they were, could ever escape.
"I'll slaughter them all."
Thud.
With a light tap of his foot, he activated the Resonance Mind Eye, allowing him to perceive the structure of the facility.
Step. Step.
Bu Eun-seol pushed open the massive gate on the left side of the Grand Hall and stepped outside.
Before him stretched a dim passageway—an endlessly flat path.
But with his superhuman sense of balance, Bu Eun-seol could detect that this long corridor was subtly sloping downward.
Creak.
When he opened the passageway's door again, a vast, dark space was revealed.
"Hmm."
As he descended to the lower level, a thick scent of blood and a chilling cold energy brushed against him from somewhere.
'Blood and cold energy.'
Bu Eun-seol moved toward the source of the dense cold energy.
When he found and opened a rusted iron gate, a surge of white frost instantly spilled out.
The space beyond the gate was lined with iron on all sides, its interior frozen solid.
And from the massive hooks embedded in the ceiling hung countless lumps of flesh.
'Corpses.'
The flesh stored here were human corpses.
Their entrails had been meticulously removed, making them look like butchered pigs.
This was likely where they stored the bodies of the martial artists and commoners they had killed over time.
"So they built this place to store human meat for consumption."
Cold Moon Island was a place where the corpses of Superlative Martial Experts were preserved and studied.
Though no one came here now, in the beginning, to maintain secrecy—
They must have strictly prohibited external contact and enforced airtight internal security.
That would have severely limited their self-sufficient food supply.
From the start, they had built this storage facility to roast and eat the commoners who came to the island, as well as those who failed the Great Art.
"They don't deserve to live."
Black True Qi seeped from Bu Eun-seol's body.
He had resolved to slaughter every last one of them on this island.
Step. Step.
Exiting the storage area, Bu Eun-seol moved toward the exit.
But then, a strange thought struck him.
"The Moon Shadow Demon Venerable's corpse."
Earlier, in the upper hall, the glass coffin containing the Venerable's remains had ascended.
That meant there had to be a space below where it had been stored.
So why couldn't he sense it?
Thud.
Bu Eun-seol tapped his foot again, spreading the perception of his Resonance Mind Eye.
But he felt nothing.
"There must be a hidden space."
Now that he thought about it, something had been strange from the moment he arrived.
This vast underground facility was completely devoid of people. Despite his fierce battle with Dae-bo, despite wandering through these halls—
Not a single soul was in sight. That didn't make sense.
Which meant those who conducted research on the corpses or carried out the Great Art—
They must be hidden somewhere.
Zzzziiing.
Bu Eun-seol heightened his Empty Mind Spirit Communion, meticulously scanning the area.
But there was nothing.
Astonishingly, even with this ability, he couldn't detect a single trace.
Despite the certainty that countless people must have come and gone from this storage area to retrieve human flesh—
Not a single mark remained.
'So what's visible isn't everything.'
The Return-to-One Realm was a place that used the profound and esoteric Great Art—capable of reshaping human flesh itself.
Creating an invisible space would be child's play for them.
'Hmm.'
Bu Eun-seol exhaled thoughtfully.
Destroying an already deployed spell or Esoteric Ritual Art wouldn't be difficult.
But detecting a spell or ritual that wasn't even visible? That was impossible.
"Then."
A flash of insight crossed Bu Eun-seol's eyes as he pondered.
"I'll just destroy everything."
The Two Spirit Energies within him embodied natural forces and were antithetical to sorcery.
So what if he unleashed the full might of these energies upon this Underground Castle?
He could completely eradicate all the artificially or malevolently placed spells hidden in this place.
Zzzzt.
Bu Eun-seol drew up the Thunder Essence Divine Qi within his body.
Purple lightning surged violently around him, soon staining even his eyes with an amethyst hue.
Zzzzzzt.
His body became so obscured by the violet lightning that it was nearly invisible.
KWAOOOOO—!
As he unleashed the gathered Thunder Essence Divine Qi in all directions, the surroundings began to ripple like waves.
The visible scenery remained the same, yet an undeniable sense of dissonance lingered.
'Something's slightly off.'
In fact, it almost felt as if the landscape itself had subtly changed.
After carefully observing his surroundings for a long while, Bu Eun-seol finally grasped the secret of this place.
'They divided the space by hiding the door.'
No matter how powerful the spell, it was impossible to perfectly separate such a vast space.
The Gui-il Realm had concealed a door—something akin to an extremely potent spell—that only they could traverse.
The reason the Underground Great Battlefield was so massive was precisely because it had been divided into two separate spaces from top to bottom.
Clunk.
The iron gate before him was at least three feet thick, so colossal and heavy that even when he applied his Internal Energy, it only rattled without budging.
'It doesn't open with brute force.'
KWAZZZZT!
As Bu Eun-seol poured out his Thunder Essence Divine Qi once more, the gate creaked open on its own.
And with it, a previously unseen landscape unfolded before his eyes—along with the movements of countless people.
A scene far larger than the Underground Castle he had witnessed in Sichuan stretched out before him.
Endless rows of windowless buildings, all painted in dark, gloomy hues, stood in every direction, teeming with people coming and going.
And every single one of them—
Their skin bore the same mutations as the villagers, though their extremities remained intact.
"These creatures don't deserve to live."
If even one of them escaped this island, it would mean the birth of another flesh-eating Killing Ghost in the martial world.
Whoooosh.
Drawing upon the Great Stillness Heat River True Qi, Bu Eun-seol began melting the hidden iron gate.
Hssssss.
The thick steel door, now glowing red-hot, melted like molten candy, ensuring no one could escape.
Swish!Splaaaat!
Simultaneously, Bu Eun-seol unleashed the Willful True Binding.
Razor-sharp blades hundreds of feet long materialized, swiftly beheading every moving figure in sight.
It was a one-sided slaughter—yet not a flicker of emotion surfaced on Bu Eun-seol's face.
These were all demons who had repeated cruel experiments and feasted on human flesh.
He was merely crushing vermin that spread nothing but harm, severing their heads without hesitation.
Splaaaaash.
Blood flowed like rivers, and the interior was so densely carpeted with corpses that there was no space left to step.
Some tried to flee, others unleashed bizarre martial techniques—but in Bu Eun-seol's eyes, they were nothing more than bothersome insects.
Step. Step.
After felling every last one inside, Bu Eun-seol entered the massive building from which most of the people had emerged.
Clank.
Inside, a passage stretched forward, steeped in darkness.
Moving swiftly, he reached the deepest part—where a familiar iron gate stood.
It bore the same distinctive emblem as the one he had seen beneath the Taiping Mountain Sword Tomb.
'So that place was also created by the Gui-il Realm.'
Just like the underground iron gate of the Taiping Mountain Sword Tomb.
The five holes at the top showed signs of frequent use by many people.
But the lowest hole barely had any traces of being touched.
Click.
Using the Glacier Thousand Streams Art infused with Water Essence Divine Qi, he forged a key and opened the gate in one swift motion.
Unlike the Sword Tomb, however, the iron gate did not swing open—instead, a secret passage materialized on the opposite side.
'Why go to the trouble of creating such a mechanism?'
After scrutinizing the interior of the newly revealed passage, Bu Eun-seol stepped inside without hesitation.
The space inside was a stone chamber spanning roughly 35,000 square feet, filled with transparent glass tubes covered in black cloth.
Within the tubes, black pipes with deep grooves stretched out like spiderwebs.
Thud.
When he pulled back one of the cloths, he saw a tube filled with transparent liquid—
And floating inside, a half-dissected corpse.
The very same corpse of the Moon Shadow Demon Venerable that Dae-bo had shown him earlier.
"Wait."
But then Bu Eun-seol's eyes sharpened as he examined the glass tube.
He had spotted an inscription carved into the pedestal beneath it.
Earth Demon Star, Moon Shadow Demon Venerable.
"Earth Demon Star?"
Bu Eun-seol's mind sharpened in an instant.
Why was the inscription of the One Hundred and Eight Stars carved here?
"No way..."
He pulled aside the cloth covering the adjacent glass coffin.
This time, the floating corpse was that of a middle-aged monk with a shaved head.
Earth Flying Star, Jade Flying Vajra.
He had been a prodigy of Shaolin, a peer of the Buddhist Venerable, but after saving Yang Rim, a disciple of the White Flower Sect who had been poisoned with an aphrodisiac, he had no choice but to share her bed.
Because of this, he was ultimately forced to leave the monastic life, becoming a martial artist who did much good in the Martial World.
However, he was eventually defeated and killed by his longtime rival, the Purple-Faced Overlord, a man who had wreaked havoc in the martial world.
It was said that Yang Rim had retrieved his body and buried it near the White Flower Sect.
Yet here his corpse was, preserved in this Cold Moon Island?
"The One Hundred and Eight Stars..."
At last, Bu Eun-seol understood everything.
Many of the superlative martial experts who once dominated the martial world must have belonged to the One Hundred and Eight Stars.
And the Return-to-One Realm had clearly scattered the demonic swords to seek out those among the Empty-Spirit Bodies who were born under these stars.
"For the sake of their Great Art... To find the One Hundred and Eight Stars... They forged demonic swords that only Empty-Spirit Bodies could awaken."
Among those who possessed the demonic swords, those born under the stars would inevitably be more likely to kill others and rise above them.
They lured them with the promise of becoming the Supreme Martial Lord, then conducted experiments on them in this Underground Castle.
Since the strong were born under the stars, they needed to find new stars to replace them.
"So this is what Yang Seol's faction meant by 'experiments.'"
The experiments mentioned by the Earthly Killing Star—but were they truly Yang Seol's doing? Or was it the Return-to-One Realm all along?
Could it be that the Return-to-One Realm was Yang Seol's true stronghold?
'No, that can't be.'
When Yang Seol-rin had left him behind, her eyes had been filled with concern—she hadn't seemed like someone capable of such atrocities.
'...No, I don't know anymore.'
Even Baekri Mu-jo, who had always been composed and stern, was in truth an inscrutable man of shifting emotions, with a ruthless side.
Did that mean all martial artists had hidden depths?
Was Yang Seol-rin, too, merely pretending to be good while plotting evil?
"To be denied even peaceful rest in death, exploited by the Three Realms..."
Bu Eun-seol's gaze darkened as he stared at Jade Flying Vajra's corpse.
His grandfather's remains were likely no different—preserved in some hidden Underground Castle of the Return-to-One Realm, in a wretched state.
The thought made unbearable fury surge within him.
Crack.
As he channeled his internal power, fissures spread across the glass coffin, and the preserving liquid drained away.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
From all directions, the sound of bell striking echoed—likely a security measure triggered by tampering with the coffins.
But since everyone inside was already dead, the alarm was meaningless.
Whoosh—!
Bu Eun-seol stretched out his right hand, pouring his energy into the coffin.
Flames erupted from Jade Flying Vajra's corpse, blazing fiercely.
He was using the Hot River Great Essence True Qi, infused with Thunder Essence Divine Qi, to cremate their remains.
Fwoom—!
The Ultimate Fire Wheel Energy within the technique generated heat ten times more intense than the Fire Essence Stones used in ordinary cremations.
Bu Eun-seol repeated the process, igniting the corpses of the martial artists in the other four coffins.
Whether due to lingering resentment or the strange preservatives injected into their bodies—
The charred bones left behind were all stained black.
"...No."
Bu Eun-seol's brows shot up as he uncovered the fifth coffin.
Red Blood Demon Emperor, Earth Strength Star.
The glass coffin bearing this inscription was completely empty.
"So that's why."
The disheveled man drinking himself into a stupor at the inn—
He, too, must have been a demonic sword wielder from outside, agonizing over whether to undergo the Great Art.
"He had no real choice."
The man must have known.
That the chances of the Great Art succeeding were slim, and even if it did, he would never escape their grasp.
And so he had hesitated, over and over, never making a decision.
If only he had left without hesitation.
But in the end, it seemed he had chosen to undergo the ritual—all to become the superlative martial expert he had dreamed of, one who could look down upon the entire martial world.
"Just how do they plan to alter the body?"
Preserving these corpses was meant to replicate the physical conditions of past masters.
But even if they obtained such remains, no matter how miraculous the Great Art was—
How could they perfectly recreate the unique physical traits of those legendary experts?
'I need to know what happens if the Great Art succeeds—what form they take, what abilities they gain.'
Lost in thought, Bu Eun-seol pulled aside the last shroud—
And his pupils dilated in shock.
Earth Hero Star, Bullet King.
Beneath the empty glass coffin, these words were inscribed.