Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Black Mysterious Sword Emperor
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"If it was a lie that I'm Dugu Yujin, then wouldn't that mean there's someone bold enough to impersonate the Demonic Heaven Lord right in the heart of Demonic Heaven? That would be quite the astonishing feat. You'd need guts of steel for that."
The man muttered in a tone laced with mockery.
His words confirmed that this was indeed the Demonic Heaven headquarters.
"Fine, then untie these for me. If you're really the Sword Emperor, it shouldn't matter whether I'm wearing these pathetic chains or not."
The man nodded.
"Hm. You know, that makes sense when you put it like that. I figured you were some reckless lunatic who charged in without a second thought since you went after the Mountain King, but I like that you know your place."
Clank, clunk.
As the man's lips curled into a smirk, the thick shackles binding me split cleanly in half and clattered to the floor.
I glanced sideways at the severed chains.
The cut edges were as smooth as glass.
I could generate sword gang in midair to slice or shatter things myself, but doing it this delicately without a visible blade was impossible for me.
'Formless Sword.'
The shapeless blade conjured from the intent in the upper dantian. It was also called the Mind Sword.
And it was the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor's signature technique.
Only then could I accept the unbelievable truth that the man before me was Dugu Yujin, my comrade from my past life and one of the Three Heavens Seven Absolutes' Black Mysterious Sword Emperor.
I rotated my stiff wrists and asked.
"What happened to the Mountain King?"
"He woke up a full week before you did. He's a transcendent master who's shed his mortal shell, after all, far beyond ordinary human limits. Still, he was out of it for three days. His men carried you and the Mountain King all the way here."
"He's up, then."
At that moment, the Mountain King, Gong Tae-gun, smashed through the wall of the adjacent room and appeared with a serene expression. He hadn't even put much force into it—just walked forward and shouldered his way through.
"Sorry for blocking your path out of nowhere. We had our own circumstances."
The Mountain King clasped his hands in a remarkably polite greeting.
Maybe it was because he was the king of bandits among bandits, but he carried an air of refinement that didn't suit his kind.
Of course, with a tiger pelt draped over his head like some savage, it clashed horribly.
"As an apology, from now on, all the heroes of the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds scattered across the Central Plains will treat you with the same respect they give me."
"How the hell are those guys supposed to recognize my face and treat me accordingly?"
"What nonsense. How many young men in the world have shaved heads?"
I'd just tried picking a casual fight, but the bandit bastard tilted his head like he'd seen the dumbest thing ever, and irritation bubbled up inside me.
'Shaved head... Come to think of it, that girl from earlier had one too.'
As that thought crossed my mind, the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor spoke up.
"You can go now. I still have business with him."
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor waved his hand, and the Mountain King silently smashed through another wall.
Dust billowed from the crumbling wall, filling the room, but not a speck landed on the Sword Emperor's robes.
Even his protective aura had a formless quality.
"Say whatever you want to say."
"Nothing in particular."
"Hmm. Doesn't seem that way to me."
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor's golden eyes gleamed as if piercing straight through me, while he tapped his temple with his index finger.
"Thanks to this one's upper dantian, I know quite a lot. I can see exactly what impudent thoughts you're having, even if I try not to."
'That nosy old bastard. I want to smack him.'
"Impudent fool."
Whack!
An invisible strike hammered my crown.
I rubbed my throbbing scalp and thought.
'Not a lie, huh.'
The upper dantian was essentially the brain—the vessel for the shen among essence, qi, and spirit.
As the most complex organ in the human body, mutants with naturally developed upper dantians—like fortune-tellers or sorcerers with supernatural powers—often gained abilities or senses detached from conventional martial arts.
Transcendent masters could also develop their upper dantians postnatally by passing through the death gate. Foresight in battle was one example.
Those who perfected arts like Weisinmu could wield human will and thought like inner energy.
And while the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor lagged in essence and qi, his upper dantian spirit alone rivaled the Heavenly Demon's.
Even Shaolin's fabled other-mind insight among the six supernatural powers was, at its core, mind arts pushed to the extreme.
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor—undisputed world's best swordsman now without the Heavenly Demon, perhaps the greatest in history.
The orthodox sects called the Righteous Heaven Alliance Leader, Sword Sovereign of the Blue Heavens, the world's best, but having seen both in my past life, I knew the Sword Emperor held the edge.
He wasn't inferior to the founding Heavenly Demon, Bodhidharma, or True Man Sam-bong. Reading minds was hardly surprising.
I just hadn't known it was possible until now.
Even as past-life comrades, the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor and I had little interaction.
I burned with rivalry against the Asura Demon Buddha, who had a disadvantageous matchup against me, or the Heavenly Demon, who was strong as a species—but my reaction to the Sword Emperor was lukewarm.
What was the point of beating a wind-addled geezer?
If he weren't an absolute master who could sustain himself with breathwork alone, I'd have seen him shitting and pissing himself uncontrollably.
So why?
Why was this man, who should have been in that state, perfectly fine now?
Ordinary people lose memory and judgment with age, but the Sword Emperor had already shed his bones and returned to youth, maintaining the look of a man in his forties.
The biggest reason a martial artist would lose their mind was heart demons, but what could plague an absolute being who gazed down on the world from the clouds?
"Who was that little girl with the Divine Physician earlier? The one with the white hair."
"Why show interest in her?"
His tone remained leisurely, but his voice had sunk cold. It was hard to fathom.
"Like I said, reading your shallow thoughts is no trouble for me. Your tastes in women too."
......Big-breasted older sister? Pretty standard. Well, boys your age are all the same.
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor muttered to himself in a strangely relieved voice.
"Her name is Dugu Yuyeon. As the surname suggests, she's my daughter."
"I figured."
I kept my voice flat, but inwardly I was shocked.
The Black Mysterious Sword Emperor having a daughter? I hadn't known that in my past life.
I questioned how someone so pale could come from a man whose title crammed in two "black" characters.
But setting aside the doubts, my rapidly spinning upper dantian pieced together the info I'd gathered here into a hypothesis.
The Divine Physician treating me in Demonic Heaven's main base, out of nowhere in the southernmost reaches of the Central Plains.
The snow-white girl hovering nearby.
The pulse of the girl when she'd grabbed and shaken my hand—reflexively checked.
And the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor doting on her... his own daughter.
'I get the gist.'
But the Sword Emperor wouldn't know my conclusion.
From the moment he'd claimed to read minds, I'd erected a solid mental barrier.
A technique I'd devised to slay seductive fox spirits that disrupted my focus at random.
I hid my deeper thoughts and shoved trivial stuff like my womanly preferences outside the thick walls.
No matter how absolute the master, they weren't omnipotent—just as supernatural insight couldn't grant omniscience.
Even with other-mind insight, he couldn't read every vast detail etched in a person's conscious and unconscious. With a deliberate barrier, the limits were clear.
'Why bother building mental walls against a sword hand in the first place.'
Anyway, overshadowed by the Heavenly Demon, the Black Mysterious Sword Emperor was a freak beyond norms.
I'd dismissed clashing with a senile old man as pointless back then, but seeing him banter with that smug face stirred the petty Wudang Ghost Axe in me that couldn't stand losing to anyone.
The Sword Emperor, who had been staring at me, soon shook his head side to side.
"It's unreasonable for a young pup like you to lie down while an elder like me stands. Come find me once you're recovered."
He grumbled casually and turned to leave.
His long robes fluttered with his sauntering steps.
About an incense stick later, when the Divine Physician returned.
"That goddamn bandit bastard wrecked my infirmary...! I finally patched you up!"
The first day in Demonic Heaven faded into evening amid the Divine Physician's furious rampage at the sight of the room strewn with broken wall debris.