Chapter 167
Chapter 167
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 167
Chapter Title: The Beast That Dreams of the Moon
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It's quiet.
No sounds can be heard. Just a faint breeze brushing past my face, that's all.
How long had it been since I'd thrown myself into such profound silence? I quietly savored the hush.
...Looking back...
I'd truly walked without rest.
The sword I'd swung just to survive had long since found its target.
I'd even caught up to a certain extent, stepping into the ranks of the masters.
But the dissatisfaction still gnawed at me, demanding more.
Greed. Call it greed.
That would be fair enough.
"......."
But what martial artist doesn't harbor greed? Would that even be a martial artist?
I wanted to look down from greater heights. I wanted to wield even more.
I didn't want to swing the same sword as yesterday. Each new day, I yearned to improve, even just a little.
That was the source of my strength. The fruit of my efforts.
...And yet.
I'd never dreamed of the exact form it would take when piled up.
"......."
The ideal me-
What did that even mean?
There was someone I wanted to surpass: the Heavenly Demon. Captivated by the sight of her that day, I longed to view the world from her vantage point.
A predator's gaze. The life of a genius born a hunter from the start.
I didn't covet it all. Just...
I wanted to surpass the sword she wielded from that position.
To prove that even someone born with nothing could achieve something.
To swing a sword while looking down alongside her.
"......"
But even standing in the same place as her, it wouldn't be the same sword.
A sword born in the heavens from birth could never match one that crawled up from the depths.
So what was my sword...?
What form would it take when I reached its end?
I open my eyes. I gaze down at my hands.
I gaze at the blood caked atop them.
I can't see it. But it's there. That's blood for you.
Hiding beneath the skin, shielded from the world, sometimes you even doubt its existence until you drag it out.
Effort in the unseen places. That was my essence.
"......."
I draw my sword.
I move slowly.
Nine Heavens Blood Demon Sword. It had brought me this far. That simple technique anyone could learn had given weight to my life.
Everywhere I'd passed left footprints. Those blood-soaked tracks, looking back, were etched so deeply they couldn't be erased.
The path I'd trodden.
The life I'd brushed past.
I poured it into the swing of my sword. I slowly reflected.
Even knowing it would take time...
Still, I looked back.
On the life I'd lived.
On the choices I'd deemed right.
"This is an investment. In my eyes, Third Brother, you'll climb higher than me."
I recalled the words of a friend now dead and gone. Seong Ja-myeong. The one who died in the darkness.
He closed his eyes. Until the very moment of death.
Convinced I'd rise higher.
"......."
The events at the Black Heaven Axe Sect.
When I picked up the Ice White Divine Sword.
When I exposed the corruption of the Sima family...
And surpassed it all to defeat the lord of Demon Valley.
That was when I realized the identity of my sword.
Born a beast without claws, I'd yearned upward.
Through death, I'd planted weapons in the empty spaces to serve as claws, one by one.
I wanted to climb. Like a salmon swimming upstream...
I wanted to keep advancing upward.
I never skipped a day. I kept swinging my sword.
Because I wanted to hold onto what captivated me.
Because I truly wanted to surpass the Heavenly Demon, I drew out everything I had and gave my all.
"...Ah."
I...
I wanted to fly.
Higher than the clouds in the sky. To the edge of life.
Higher even than those blood-red clouds at its brink.
Red Cloud.
Bicheon Village's red cloud.
I reaffirm my coiled desires once more. I draw them up through my body and spit them out from my sword tip.
A series of cliffs where straying even a little meant falling. Amid them, my blood-soaked footprints that pressed ever onward.
A beast's howl. Claws. Thrashing.
A roar.
"...Ha...!"
I laugh. Only after reflecting on it all does it finally come into sharp focus.
"...Become...the...Heavenly...Demon..."
Blood Tribulation. The voice of Blood Cult's young lord, Gok Cheong, who showed the essence of blood within it, flickers past.
What had I answered him?
What had I truly dreamed of?
Chasing an unattainable dream-that's what makes us human. Most human dreams are futile, and we call them dreams precisely because we can't have them.
But I...
I want it. Sincerely.
To grasp it with my hands. To seize it with the sword of an empty vessel.
How to grasp it. In what form to unleash it.
I begin to envision it. Continuously.
Weaving one into the next step...
Just as I always had.
"......."
Time passed. I crossed swords with the occasionally visiting Plum Blossom Divine Lord.
Time passed. A red aura infused my swings.
Time passed. Still wandering in longing, yet...
At last, I grasped it.
The true nature of the imagery within me.
"...Heavenly Tribulation."
The reason martial arts and manifested aura seemed so distant.
I voice it.
At first, that's how it was. A wretched thing that brought only pain.
But not now. Through countless fierce battles, leaning on each other at the edge of life...
Now, to this thing I'd grown incomparably close to, I asked.
"Do you trust me?"
"......."
Heavenly Tribulation answered with a cry. In it, I glimpsed the goodwill it showed me.
We were born as two separate beings, but now we leaned on each other.
You gave claws to a beast without them.
I lent a body to a fate born without one.
"Help me."
Heavenly Tribulation's imagery overlays my own.
At last, unified intent flows along the aura.
Only then do I realize.
The seventh form of the Nine Heavens Blood Demon Art.
That I'm ready to cultivate White Malignant Divine Blood.
"...Let's advance."
I whisper to myself as I rise.
I don't know how much time has passed. Even so...
I can definitely feel it.
The edge of the Flower Realm.
A massive wall now coming properly into view before my eyes.
Opening Heaven lies ahead.
No time to stop.
. . .
"I request a spar."
"...Hmm."
Two months.
The Plum Blossom Divine Lord stared blankly at Red Cloud, who stood before him with an unkempt appearance.
His aura had changed. What was once calm had grown even calmer.
Anyone else might think... he was no different from an ordinary person.
But not so. He could tell.
The wildness that once showed on the surface had all turned inward. The ferocity it projected had lessened, but...
The claws he possessed had grown even sharper.
"Very well."
He draws his sword. At that moment, he senses it.
The potential of the opponent before him.
"...Oh...?!"
Just one day.
Only a single day since his last visit.
Yet in that time, he'd finally taken the next step. From foundations to design...
A martial artist perfectly connected stands before him.
How much effort had he poured in? It's unimaginable. The time he'd spent was truly...
Like the ascetic path of a seeker of enlightenment.
He's mad. Truly mad.
Had he ever seen a ghost so obsessed with the sword in his life?
What kind of temperament allows stacking time like that? How?
A life surely filled with pain, doubt, ruin, and horror.
Yet he'd... somehow overcome it all...
And found his own sword?
This is a monster. A heterogeneous being born not of talent or fate...
But of piled-up effort...!
The sword in his grip trembles. Not from fear.
He wants to clash swords. With that completed blade...
To confirm with his own eyes what lies beyond it.
"Normally."
He chuckles.
"I'd yield the first move as always... but today is different. I won't hold back. You know why better than anyone."
"Yes."
"I'll seal only my mind sword. Everything else, I'll come at you with full force. Best not think of stopping halfway. It wouldn't be good for either of us."
"I know."
"...One question before we begin."
The Plum Blossom Divine Lord asked, facing the thickening blood aura beginning to flow.
"What did you see atop that cliff?"
"...That's..."
The rippling energy rises as sword aura, wrapping the blade.
Strands gather, forming aura.
The aura swells for an instant, taking shape, then completes fully.
The hide of a beast with four eyes.
Up to here, it's the same as before. But the martial artist before him takes one step further.
Effort is quiet. Repeating days that seem meaningless to others.
But when piled high, the fruit ripens clearly at the branch's end.
From incomplete manifested aura.
To a complete stage of imagery.
The Plum Blossom Divine Lord's eyes widened. Unable to contain himself at the change unfolding before him, he unleashed his own aura.
A settled form. A silent beast.
The moment he beholds that perfected exterior, only a hollow laugh escapes.
"Hahaha! You truly... make no sense...! Come! Beast of martial arts! Steel that dreams of becoming the moon!"
He saw talent. Countless talents.
Even the mad talent that could mimic swordplay just by swinging.
But that's not the kind here. The sword before him tells no such tale.
A story so ridiculous and laughable you can't look at it without tears.
The tale of a man who walked a thorny path to the end and seized what he desired.
A seeker of the martial way.
Knowing he couldn't obtain a miracle...
And so spilled his blood to draw one himself.
"In my life... I've never seen a madman like you... You said you'd bite the Heavenly Demon?! You can do it! I, the Plum Blossom Divine Lord, guarantee it! You're the kind of man who ultimately wins!!"
Have you ever imagined a beast biting the heavens?
The Plum Blossom Divine Lord could answer.
Impossible right now, perhaps...
But someday, that absurd feat would be achieved-by the beast standing before him.