Chapter 219
Chapter 219
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 219
Chapter Title: Remnants of the Heavenly Dragon
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I quietly gazed at him.
The neatly groomed appearance had long vanished. All that remained before me was a monster, its hair a tangled mess, barely clinging to its human skin.
"...Heavenly Dragon Society Leader."
Heavenly Dragon Society Leader Im Wolryong.
The former master of the now-defunct Heavenly Dragon Society.
I stared at him wordlessly. Suddenly, a guttural roar erupted.
"You!!! Damn!!! Righteous bastards!!!"
His explosive inner energy swept through the surroundings in an instant. Accompanied by a prickling chill, golden lightning engulfed him.
Yeongwol shrugged her shoulders and laughed. Her tone, now laced with formality as if she'd hardened her resolve, was utterly grotesque.
"You two must be acquainted, right? Hmm? Murim Alliance Inspector."
"......."
"His condition is a bit off, isn't it? But there was no helping it. Corpses that haven't been dead long are usually like this. Their souls linger in the body to some degree. So they repeat the things they did in life. They're not completely unresponsive either... so we just leave them like this."
Prickling lightning energy coursed over the ground. Shattered stones leaped into the air with a crackling sound.
That inner energy. That indomitable strength.
It was the same as the Heavenly Dragon Society Leader I'd witnessed with my own eyes back then.
And that's what made it all the more repulsive.
He had been so profound and unyielding...
A leader who always led by example from the front lines for his subordinates.
There had been no trace of greed in his swordsmanship. He was simply the head of a group, devoted solely to fulfilling his responsibilities.
Yet now, that sword was being defiled.
By those who sullied his life's will.
"......"
I hadn't shared a deep bond with him. If anything, we'd only exchanged a few words.
Even so, I knew he wasn't a warrior who deserved such humiliation.
It had been the same at Shaolin.
And now here as well.
"...You all."
Another reason for hatred had been added to my list.
"Why... go this far...?"
"What a strange question."
Yeongwol chuckled.
"The world belongs to the heavens anyway. We're just handling what's ours as we please-do we really need a reason for every little move?"
"......."
I quietly lowered the drawn sword.
Everyone has their own battlefield that suits them. And mine was undoubtedly right before my eyes.
"Okgyeong."
"Yeah?"
"Get some people over here. Things are about to get rough. I'll handle the Heavenly Dragon Society Leader."
I stepped into the battlefield where mere lightning energy overturned the ground.
"I'll leave that woman to you..."
Heavenly Dragon Society Leader.
We had once stood together on the battlefield...
Now, I raised my sword toward the corpse that left me no choice.
"Kill him. Definitely."
"How arrogant. Murim Alliance Inspector. Do you think his skills have diminished just because he's a corpse?"
Yeongwol, wearing the blood-red mask of the Sa Sect's young lord, drew her sword.
"You'll be the one dying here. I don't know how you survived in that state..."
Yeongwol spat out a strand of hair that had slipped into her mouth.
"This time, I'll burn every scrap of that corpse myself. So you can never come back."
Gu Okgyeong lunged forward. Amid the burst of dozens of slashes in an instant, Yeongwol's body was flung from the clearing.
All that remained were him and me. I stared at the Heavenly Dragon Society Leader.
His madness-filled eyes, drooling saliva, fixed on me. And I looked back at him.
"Kill... them... all...!"
For a warrior once revered by all, now fallen to the pits, there was only one thing I could do.
Let him rest, even if just for a moment.
"...Soon."
I lowered my honed sword to the ground.
The Nine Ghosts wailed.
"I'll make it quick and painless."
...
Yeongwol, roughly slammed into the ground, rolled across the dirt. But she quickly rose, neatly deflecting the incoming attack.
A flash of steel. The merciless downward slash was also brushed aside.
So she had been hiding her true strength after all. Poison wasn't her only trick.
Gu Okgyeong spun gracefully and kicked her squarely in the abdomen without mercy. Yeongwol slid back, spitting blood-mixed saliva.
"You're so stubborn. Planning to be like this even on our wedding night?"
"Wedding night my ass. Did someone shove a knife in your skull or what?"
"Why? Do you find it strange too? A woman loving another woman?"
"...Haa..."
Gu Okgyeong casually rested her sword on her shoulder.
"I've met every kind of bastard out there-think I'd care about that? But fuck, bitch. That's not the issue. Your shitty personality is."
"I just wanted to hold onto you."
"By turning me into a rag doll? Is that love? Affection? Smash everything I have, crumble it all, then take the empty shell-what the hell for?"
"...It has to be that way."
Yeongwol traced her sword blade with her fingertip.
A pale purple poison mixed with her sword aura began flowing from the tip.
"So you'll lean only on me."
"Crazy bitch."
No need to hold back anymore. She had come here to kill in earnest from the start.
She opened her meridians fully. Merging with nature, she unleashed her raw heartscape upon the world.
Roiling air currents. The extended energy devoured everything around her.
---Kwarrr rumble...
"You're dying here, Yeongwol."
The manifesting form descended. The pinnacle called the heart sword, born from her self-honed martial arts.
Shura Thirty-Six Blades
Remnant Demon One Thousand
The waves of air currents formed a shape and descended. The shadow of the woman, forged from days spent swinging her sword after her idol, enveloped her from behind.
It resembled being embraced by the shadow. But it was different. The heart sword wrapping her back completely held far greater power than it appeared.
Yeongwol's face twisted.
"W-What is that?!"
"...What the fuck. Are you jealous of a heart sword too?"
"Is that a remnant of the First Demon?! Why obsess over someone you met just once as a kid...!"
"Because she was a different kind of human from you. Fuck. Focus, will you? Make my revenge a joke and I'll kill you myself."
"...Ha! Both sides are...!"
Gnashing her teeth, Yeongwol assumed a stance.
"I just need to hold out anyway! The Heavenly Dragon Society Leader over there will join me soon! You should have fought together there! Gu Okgyeong! This time, I'll bind you in a space you can't escape! So your existence... can never slip away from me!"
"Crazy bitch."
Gu Okgyeong growled and advanced.
"Hold out? Fine. Try it. But all your judgments are wrong. You retarded bitch. You think he'll just hold out like you?"
"...What?"
"Wherever that guy was right before dying, I don't know... but not now. None of what you think."
Yeah. No.
Absolutely not. She knew better than anyone, having fought alongside him until now.
That power. That strength.
That sword. The heaviest sword in the world.
"Hold out, huh..."
Gu Okgyeong smiled chillingly.
"That's the Heavenly Dragon Society Leader's line."
...
The heart sword moved.
"Righteous scumaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
The bizarre voice exploded, turning heaven and earth upside down. The thunder dragon-shaped form swept the ground in mad fury, moving to devour me.
Formless yet mighty.
A mass of energy no one but another heart sword wielder could properly block head-on.
I raised my sword. I swung with all my might at the descending force.
It wasn't cloaked in a heart sword.
Just a swing of the Nine Ghosts.
But that alone...
---Kwaaaaaaaaang!!!!
The Thunder Dragon roared and crashed into the ground.
Prickling thunder energy swept the surroundings. Trees shattered in succession, and the overturned force bored deep holes into the earth.
Even the Heavenly Dragon Society Leader was temporarily incapacitated. He merely panted, staring this way.
That must be the soul remnant in his flesh mimicking human behavior.
Utterly revolting.
His actions, like forcibly binding the shadow of his living self, made me raise my sword once more.
A heart sword beyond the reach of low realms for even defense. But to me, it was different.
I held in my hand an artifact that was itself a heart sword.
Ghost Sword Nine Ghosts.
Three swords fused into one, with the sword that had spent the longest time with me at its core...
It had become a true ghost sword incomparable to any divine artifact in the world.
Nothing in the world cannot be cut.
A weapon that could reach anything unreachable.
Yet still insufficient. A weapon is just a weapon in the end. To truly shatter the foe, I had to draw on my own skill.
"...Hoo."
Slaying an acquaintance is never pleasant. But there are times when it must be done.
This was exactly that moment.
I closed my eyes. The qi throughout my body swirled, whispering to me.
Changes once unimaginable. Now, I could wield them all at my fingertips.
Bicheon Village's red clouds had truly become red clouds.
Now towering so high that rivals were hard to find.
Heaven was within reach.
Thus, I could temporarily become the false heaven.
Grip the sword and sing.
Shedding clumsy sword auras...
Not beast.
Not claw.
Not fang.
In the form I always swung.
What I ultimately desired...
Was always just one sword I could grip.
".......?!"
The Heavenly Dragon Society Leader reflexively looked up at the sky. Seeing the red-tinged clouds gathering to a single point, he hurriedly moved his thunder dragon.
The heart sword wailed pitifully relative to its size. But it couldn't halt the flow.
The red clouds rapidly converged on one point, boring a hole in the center and howling as they began a full sprint to form a single entity, sucked in like a vortex.
A sight like a hole pierced through the heavens. And all of it gathered into the vessel that could contain it.
Ghost Sword Nine Ghosts.
Orchestrated by White Night and Black Bead.
And embracing it all...
Blood Sword.
"......."
I.
Always wanted it.
Unshakable, unbreakable.
Steadfastly advancing no matter what.
To become the heaviest person in the world.
So grip it. Grip the sword.
The world's every red cloud sucked in and moved.
Condensing the energies of heaven, earth, and all things into sword form...
A sword that reaches the heavens.
A sword that paints the world red...
The heaviest sword in this world.
"...Nine Heavens Blood Demon Art. Eighth Form."
Everything ended, and the world grew still. The crimson world reduced to a single sword, quietly gripped in my hand.
What descended before me was both sword and not sword. The lingering spirit that wandered the nine heavens without releasing its sword had now returned to reality, all its experienced time condensed.
Simple and quiet.
A silent red time devoid of technique or flair.
But.
"Raksha Gate."
That was enough.
To divide the world in two.
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