Settlement (3)
BOOM!
Stored Jin and a form from the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven locked together, and a heavy, bone-deep peal of force erupted between them.
Gal Sahyeok took Yeophwa’s fist art head-on. The overwhelming power of the punch punched straight through the black wind coiled about him like protective qi and slammed into his flesh.
Hard.
The thought came to Yeophwa unbidden. The sensation was almost identical to striking a Demon Spirit Jiangshi saturated with demonic qi. Even with demonic arts, could a living man change this much in so short a time?
The doubt slipped out of him before he could stop it.
“What in the world have you done to your body?”
“I sold my soul to kill you!”
Gal Sahyeok actually answered the question. He was clearly no longer sane. Sharp killing intent poured from every inch of him, as if nothing in existence mattered except Yeophwa’s death. That talk of selling his soul made one thing certain: he had done something.
“It’s because of you! Because of you I ended up like this!”
“Even a thief has to have some sense of shame!”
Gal Sahyeok kept spewing resentment and curses. Yeophwa cut them off cold.
This bitter feud had begun with Gal Sahyeok—more precisely, with the massacre Paegeommun had carried out. If one traced the cause, the grudge started with Paegeommun’s crimes.
CRACK!
The jin force coiled around Yeophwa’s arm detonated, and the fist accelerated. Eighteenth form of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven—Under Heaven Wind Fiend. The sudden surge of speed outran Gal Sahyeok’s defense and landed clean.
Now!
The instant they touched, Yeophwa drove his true qi into Gal Sahyeok’s body. Nineteenth form—Under Heaven Flowing Cloud. The subtle principle of an inner-disruption method, slipping in like mist.
Anyone who had forced his way through the aftershock of their collision should have chaotic qi and blood. Inflicting internal injury ought to have been easy.
“GRAAAAH!”
Gal Sahyeok howled something halfway between a scream and a battle cry and charged again. He had clearly taken internal damage, yet he moved as if he felt no pain at all—a reaction utterly different from the other Paegeommun disciples Yeophwa had fought.
In Yeophwa’s experience, only one kind of being could do that.
I thought he was similar to a jiangshi, but I never expected him to match them even in this.
Inner-disruption methods never worked properly on jiangshi. They “worked,” strictly speaking, but the creatures simply ignored the damage and kept coming. Being already dead, they felt no pain; even when their qi and blood tangled, they forced the blockage open with vast stores of demonic qi.
Better to treat him as a jiangshi rather than a living man.
BOOM!
The moment the thought settled, the aftershock of two Peerless Experts colliding exploded outward. Pressure hammered Yeophwa from every direction. He reinforced his inner barrier and rooted himself so he would not be driven back—only for an unexpected impact to slam into him from the front.
It was Gal Sahyeok’s sword strike.
How did this bastard even endure the shockwave?
The answer did not take long to find. Even if his body had become jiangshi-like, surviving the aftershock of Peerless Experts was another matter entirely. The unnatural way Gal Sahyeok moved was clear proof he had not truly withstood it.
Don’t tell me… he’s charging in while simply ignoring the fact that the shockwave is destroying his body?
Yeophwa could have accepted that from any other Paegeommun dog. From Gal Sahyeok—the man who had always been meticulous about self-preservation—it was almost impossible to believe.
“Cough—!”
Blood sprayed from Gal Sahyeok’s mouth, yet he never stopped. He lunged with blind, possessed frenzy. Worse, Yeophwa could feel the man’s aura growing stronger with every passing breath. He was unmistakably devouring the vital essence and inner energy leaking from the corpses around them.
“Grrrraaaah!”
Gal Sahyeok no longer even formed human words; he only snarled. Yet as his reason vanished, the power of his forms grew even more vicious. Had discarding the self pushed him into a realm of no-self?
Wind coiled around his blade in layer upon layer, spinning into a vortex. A mere swollen sword-wind would have been shredded by the shockwaves, yet—
BOOM!
Even when the aftershock swept the area clean, the black gale did not vanish. It shrank for an instant, then ballooned back to full size. The structure of its true qi was that dense. Efficiency must have been abysmal, but he was simply overwhelming the problem with sheer demonic qi.
Taking that head-on would be fatal.
One glance was enough. A direct hit would grind him to pieces inside the gale. Blocking ordinarily would shred his protective qi into rags.
But I can’t dodge either.
The black vortex kept swelling. If he opened any more distance, closing it again would become impossible. That left Yeophwa only one answer.
Advance.
The knife-edged wind came crushing down from the front. Yeophwa thrust out an arm wreathed in jin force to meet it. Fist-wind and sword-wind collided.
Now…!
His fist-wind spun violently and began to suck the black gale into itself. Twenty-second form of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven—Under Heaven Flash. A form that absorbed an opponent’s aura and turned it to one’s own use.
I can’t seize it completely—the scale difference is too great—but!
Even a brief moment of enduring the clash of forces was enough. That moment bought Yeophwa the space for his next move.
Another step forward. He shifted the arm that had stopped the sword-wind, redirecting its path as if sliding it aside.
Neutralizing Jin—redirection through a shift of the center. Following the motion of the arm, the black vortex slid away as smoothly as water.
The sword’s path merely grazed past Yeophwa.
“……?!”
Even with almost no reason left, Gal Sahyeok’s eyes flew wide in shock. The youth had seemed to charge straight into danger—only to turn crisis into opportunity.
Yeophwa closed the distance again. His true steps rang out one after another—the footwork of the Diamond Step, accumulating force with every pace. Aura shuddered violently; the jin force coiled around his arm shuddered with it. Stored Jin combined with Under Heaven Rain-and-Talk.
Why use a form that had already failed once?
Their eyes met in midair. Yeophwa’s gaze held iron resolve—the look of a man who would simply try again and again until it worked.
Gal Sahyeok had seen eyes like those before.
“Yu… Unyeop…!”
The bodyguard who had once been a secular disciple of the Zhongnan Sect. The man who had ruined his arm. The meddler who had left a stain on his record. The one who had left him with a curse.
—When the young master grows up, he will come for revenge. Until then, wash your neck and wait.
That same ghostly, unbending gaze. For an instant, Yu Unyeop’s face overlaid Yeophwa’s. At the hallucination, Gal Sahyeok’s jaw clenched hard without his noticing.
Don’t make me laugh!
Teeth ground. Killing intent thickened in his eyes until it was almost solid—the pure will to murder the whelp before him.
But before that killing intent could become reality—
CRASH!
The fist art detonated. Stacked impacts exploded at once, painting concentric rings of force in the empty air. Even so, the jiangshi-like Gal Sahyeok withstood the Jin Release of the fist art.
Yeophwa had known he would. That was why—
THUD!
He stomped true step again. He reabsorbed the rebound of Under Heaven Rain-and-Talk, used the rebound of Stored Jin to accumulate force once more, and prepared Stored Jin and the form a second time.
The form-chaining I learned from Junior Brother Cheonhwa!
Keep detonating Stored Jin and Under Heaven Rain-and-Talk until the body can no longer endure. Only someone who had trained outer arts as relentlessly as Yeophwa could apply the forms this way.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jin Release force exploded in unbroken succession, as if he were pouring out every drop of long-held rage. The fist forms never wavered. Under the successive blasts of overwhelming power, Gal Sahyeok could do nothing but take the beating.
Don’t make me laugh! I can’t die like this—I can’t die the way that man’s dying words predicted!
The last shred of Gal Sahyeok’s reason screamed inside him. The craving to live twisted into hatred for Yeophwa and Yu Unyeop alike, and that hatred refined itself into blind killing intent.
THUMP!
As if answering that killing intent, the demonic qi he had been packing down and down finally stirred.
What was that just now?
The vile pulse reached Yeophwa as well. A chill ran down his spine. An inexplicable sense of crisis flooded him. Instinct roared at him to end Gal Sahyeok’s life this very instant.
But before he could follow that instinct and throw the finishing punch—
BOOM!
The aftershock of Peerless Experts colliding erupted again. Yeophwa reflexively braced, and in doing so lost the chance for the final blow. Gal Sahyeok was flung away by the blast, gaining distance—but he also tumbled hard across the dirt.
Then, slowly, he rose.
Yeophwa could not tear his eyes from every movement. The reason was the presence radiating from the man—a presence separate from mere aura, one Yeophwa knew all too well.
That’s… the unique presence of a Peak Expert?
Which meant Gal Sahyeok had become a Peak Expert.
What the hell is happening?
The timing was far too perfect. Yeophwa kept his gaze locked on Gal Sahyeok.
Gal Sahyeok’s mind drifted in a dreamlike haze. It was replaying a memory from the past—a conversation with the Formation Master.
“The method I will teach you for becoming a Peak Expert makes use of the nature of demonic arts—more precisely, the nature of demonic qi.”
“The nature of demonic qi?”
“Yes. Demonic qi absorbs and accepts every kind of energy, then concentrates it. If you keep accumulating demonic qi past a certain threshold, you obtain a half-formed Spiritual Nature.”
“Like a Demon Spirit Jiangshi transforming into an Ink Corpse Jiangshi?”
“Exactly so. The Ink Corpse is the representative example. Therefore, Strategist, you must become like those jiangshi.”
“You mean I must pile up demonic qi without restraint?”
“Even when you feel you have reached your limit, you must not stop. Even if you take internal injuries, even if you feel possession by the fire of deviation approaching, ignore it and accumulate energy even more greedily.”
The moment one stopped accumulating qi with this method, one died. The only path to survival was to form a Spiritual Nature.
“Of course the process will not be easy. But do not worry. I will perform a great art that will assist you.”
The Formation Master had smiled his kindly smile. Gal Sahyeok had felt unease, yet with no way to turn back he accepted the art. He had never dreamed that the “great art” would remake a human body into something like a jiangshi—or that the side effect would be the loss of sanity.
“Remember this, Strategist. Just one thing. Even a single firm goal will do—you must fix a clear purpose.”
The Formation Master’s final words echoed in his skull. A firm goal.
I want to live…
That was a desire every living creature possessed. It could serve as firewood, but it was too weak to become the spark itself.
Then he saw Yeophwa overlaid with Yu Unyeop, and that became the trigger.
I will kill him…!
Hatred. The pure, ugly killing intent that bloomed when the nightmare of the past overlapped with the bitter feud of the present. That killing intent finally gave meaning to the demonic qi he had been devouring without end.
Just as a Demon Spirit Jiangshi becomes an Ink Corpse Jiangshi, the Spiritual Nature born from demonic qi dragged a martial artist who pursued demonic arts into a new realm.
The end of a human who had chased demonic arts to their conclusion. The most fitting name for such a being was none other than Demonic Human.
The Spiritual Nature born of demonic qi elevates a martial artist of the demonic path into an entirely new realm—the final road of a human who pursued demonic arts to their end.
“Haha… hahaha… HAHAHAHAHA!”
The Demonic Human Gal Sahyeok burst into laughter. The feeling was indescribably refreshing—as if he had been reborn. Yet mixed into that mad laughter was killing intent thick enough to choke the air.
Staggering upright, Gal Sahyeok turned a smile that nearly split his face toward Yeophwa. Nothing remained in that gaze except the will to kill.
Gulp.
Yeophwa swallowed dryly without meaning to. The moment their eyes met, a bone-deep chill ran through him.
One instinctive step. That single step saved his life.
WHOOSH!
Gal Sahyeok, wind already coiled around his entire body, had closed the distance in a blink. The tip of the sword grazed past Yeophwa’s cheek by a hair. His protective qi shattered to pieces and a shallow cut opened on his skin.
Fast!
He had been watching, yet his reaction still came late. That meant the man’s speed had jumped. The movement recalled an Ink Corpse Jiangshi.
But he’s still slow.
The fact that Yeophwa could still react at all—even barely—meant the opponent was not yet a full Peak Expert. More precisely, he was in the middle of becoming one. If left alone, there would soon be no way to handle him.
Only one chance.
Even dodging the previous attack had been pure luck. He would only be able to endure one more exchange at most. So he wrung out every remaining scrap of strength and threw the deciding move.
CRACKLE!
From the jin force coiled around his fist came a sound like sparks leaping—the herald of the ultimate form he was about to unleash. Sensing the ominous shift, Gal Sahyeok swung a black wind compressed to the absolute limit.
The ultimate technique of the Black Wind Divine Art—Windwalk Annihilation.
Yeophwa drove his fist straight into that ultimate technique without the slightest hesitation. It was a single strike carrying the final form of the middle section of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.
A fist carrying the image of a thunderbolt crashed into the blades of black wind.
KRA-KOOM!
A roar like heavenly thunder and a burst of searing light exploded together.