Chapter 193
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 193
Chapter Title: This Much?
Ha Mu-baek's sword blocked all seven stars flying toward him.
The seven stars spun round and round, charging in from every direction.
It was truly an illusory movement.
However, Ha Mu-baek continued to wield his sword with a calm expression.
The Dan Mok Clan's Big Dipper Phantasm Sword Technique was a sword art he had already witnessed during the war with the Blood Cult.
He had seen it while swinging his sword alongside his comrades.
Thus, facing Gwang Hoe-cheon's sword posed no great difficulty.
Except...
Boom!Boom!Kwang!
An immense force transmitted through his sword.
The staggering amount of inner energy gained from the synergy of the Great Law and Blood Arts was truly overwhelming.
The techniques' precision was impressive as well.
It couldn't even compare to mere fist swings.
Why had this guy initially rushed in with punches?
He had assumed the sword at his waist was mere decoration.
"Khahaha! What's the matter? You can't fight properly!"
Was he intoxicated by the tremendous power of his own sword art?
Loud laughter burst from Gwang Hoe-cheon's mouth.
Ha Mu-baek did not reply. He simply wielded his sword in silence.
Clang!
Clang clang!
Clang!
The sounds of swords clashing rang out.
And occasionally...
Boom!Boom!
The clash of qi exploded, shaking the earth.
The blood-red sword targeted Ha Mu-baek's entire body.
Yet not a single strike inflicted any meaningful damage.
Not even the hem of his robes was brushed.
"Is this it?"
After fending him off for quite some time, Ha Mu-baek asked indifferently.
"As if!"
Gwang Hoe-cheon's robes fluttered wildly, swelling up.
The blood light deepened, grew larger, and lengthened.
With mere flicks of his wrist, blood qi swept through all directions.
Boom!
Ha Mu-baek's dark qi blocked the blood qi.
Step.
One step.
For the first time while facing Gwang Hoe-cheon's sword, Ha Mu-baek advanced.
And then his sword moved.
A single sword instantly multiplied into thousands, targeting Gwang Hoe-cheon's entire body.
Infinite Formless Eight Severings Sword Sea.
First Severing.
Opening Heaven.
For the first time in ages, a proper first severing fully unfolded from Ha Mu-baek's hand.
Until now, he had only employed abbreviated variations of the Infinite Formless Eight Severings Sword Sea's forms.
Executing a complete first severing from start to finish perfectly was truly a rarity.
Even the so-called Big Dipper Seven Stars were mere specks in the heaven Ha Mu-baek had rent open.
The thousands of swords seemed to swell into tens of thousands.
The sword that parted and dominated the heavens was Ha Mu-baek's.
Was it because the form was executed with dark-qi imbued blade?
Gwang Hoe-cheon fell under the delusion of plunging into pitch darkness.
In that instant...
Slash.
Everything below his right elbow was severed.
Slash.
This time, it was his left arm.
It was truly a fleeting moment.
An instant so brief it could be called a single breath.
Everything occurred within that span.
"Arrrgh!"
A scream erupted from Gwang Hoe-cheon's mouth.
Blood poured continuously from his cleanly severed elbows.
With both arms gone, he couldn't even attempt acupoint sealing to staunch the flow.
Blood drained from him at a rapid rate.
Gwang Hoe-cheon's face gradually paled.
Ha Mu-baek flicked his finger, sending a finger-wind to seal the meridians around the stumps. The bleeding gradually slowed.
"Is this it?"
Ha Mu-baek asked once more.
"Ugh."
Gwang Hoe-cheon couldn't respond properly.
He had no idea how he had been defeated.
Based on his overflowing inner energy, he had unleashed his most confident sword art.
He had been certain.
Even Thunderclap Kai couldn't have withstood it.
At best, over a hundred breaths? Perhaps even two hundred.
But what was this monster?
He had blocked all of his attacks.
Exactly once.
Yes, a proper assault just once.
And the result was his arms gone.
"Mon... monster bastard..."
The words the Blood Cultists had spat at Ha Mu-baek now spilled from Gwang Hoe-cheon's lips.
Ha Mu-baek simply shook his head.
"I'm a perfectly normal person. You're the monsters. You lot, brewing poison that turns people into flesh-devouring zombies."
The moment Ha Mu-baek's foot slammed into the ground...
Thud.
It drove straight into Gwang Hoe-cheon's gut.
"Arrrghhh!"
A massive scream burst from Gwang Hoe-cheon's mouth.
Inevitably so.
He had struck the most painful spot with the most excruciating force.
The moment the writhing Gwang Hoe-cheon collapsed...
Crunch.
Ha Mu-baek crushed his ankle beneath his foot.
"Kheuk."
The screams continued.
His body trembled violently.
Ha Mu-baek merely watched impassively.
As his eyes began to roll back white...
Ha Mu-baek's toe lightly smacked Gwang Hoe-cheon's temple.
Thud!
Truly just a light tap.
Lest he accidentally kill him.
"Ugh."
The measured pain halted his eyes from rolling back.
Instead, Gwang Hoe-cheon snapped to awareness.
"You can't lose your grip over something like this. You're still a long way off."
With those words, Ha Mu-baek's sword thrust straight through Gwang Hoe-cheon's dantian.
"Khek!"
A clean impalement.
The dark qi obliterated his lower dantian entirely.
His inner energy vanished in that instant.
"Don't even think about bursting your meridians for suicide."
Ha Mu-baek said indifferently.
Gwang Hoe-cheon's face twisted.
The moment he heard "still a long way off,"
Gwang Hoe-cheon abandoned all hope.
He had resolved to suicide by detonating his dantian.
Gazing into that mad monster's infernal eyes...
Death seemed preferable.
If he lived to suffer...
An ominous premonition arose that it might be walking into hell of his own accord.
But his opponent was faster.
The dantian was gone, and so was the inner energy.
Now he couldn't die even if he wanted to.
With both arms severed...
The only option left was biting his tongue.
But that wouldn't kill him.
It would merely draw some blood.
Now, Gwang Hoe-cheon's life lay wholly in Ha Mu-baek's hands.
In that moment, Ha Mu-baek cocked his head.
He had clearly annihilated the dantian, yet an alien energy stirred within the man's meridians at that instant.
A faint trace seeping into his middle and upper dantians.
'What is this?'
It was some energy beyond control. Not ordinary inner energy.
'If he's hiding more, I'll just smash it.'
Ha Mu-baek drew out the soul-confounding poison.
He held a minuscule amount to Gwang Hoe-cheon's nose.
The poison was inhaled the moment he breathed.
"Don't worry. That much won't turn you into a flesh-devouring zombie."
Ha Mu-baek had already roughly calculated the dosage.
"Kuhk. Arrrgh!"
Gwang Hoe-cheon writhed in agony.
Not ordinary pain.
Pain from the maddening surge of hunger and impulses.
Both arms gone, one ankle pulverized.
In such a state, there was no way to sate the urge.
He desperately wanted to shovel dirt into his mouth, but he had no hands.
The impulse dominating his mind seemed to numb even the pain.
Gwang Hoe-cheon slammed his face into the barren mountainside. He madly licked and scraped at the dirt with his tongue and teeth.
He chewed and swallowed the grit that entered his mouth.
A sight of utter desperation to devour anything.
"Damn bastards."
Ha Mu-baek crushed both knees at the spectacle.
"Argh. Agh. Chomp chomp."
Gwang Hoe-cheon let out a brief scream from the pain before fixating on devouring dirt once more.
He hadn't become a flesh-devouring zombie.
But he was no longer human.
"Looks like my calculations were off."
Currently, Gwang Hoe-cheon had no dantian and no inner energy.
For those lacking inner energy, the soul-confounding poison took immediate effect without incubation.
He had dosed based on someone with inner energy, so he inhaled slightly more.
The result was this.
A bit more, and he would have turned into a zombie.
There was no further point.
Ha Mu-baek shook his head.
"Now die."
The moment Ha Mu-baek raised his sword...
"Not yet."
A low voice suddenly emanated.
Ha Mu-baek's eyes widened.
Inevitably so.
The voice issuing from Gwang Hoe-cheon's mouth was not his own.
The instant Ha Mu-baek faltered...
Gwang Hoe-cheon rose to his feet.
As if indifferent to his shattered knees and ankle.
He stood, though staggering.
And then...
His elbows twitched, and arms sprouted forth.
His knees and ankle emitted grotesque sounds before returning to normal.
"You. Who are you?"
Ha Mu-baek demanded in a cold voice.
This was no human.
Nor a jiangshi.
An incomprehensible, bizarre entity.
Not Gwang Hoe-cheon.
Even if it had been moments ago, it clearly was no longer.
"Kukukuk. Guess? Who could it be?"
A grotesque laugh spilled out in an eerie voice.
His eye color changed.
No whites at all—just pitch-black orbs.
No distinction between pupil and sclera, filled entirely with void-like darkness.
"Impressive. Ha Mu-baek. I'd only heard tales, but experiencing it firsthand... I see why they warn about you."
"You. Who?"
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
His voice brimmed with killing intent.
Raw hostility toward this unknown adversary.
"Seok Mu-won."
Surprisingly, the foe revealed his name readily.
Ha Mu-baek furrowed his brow.
Added to the bizarre phenomenon, the surname immediately evoked a certain group.
"Demonic Cult bastard."
"Hmm. Sharp as expected."
Seok Mu-won affirmed.
"Then you're Seok Won-cho's..."
Hearing the surname amid this freakish sorcery, certainty dawned.
"My grandfather."
Ha Mu-baek's expression grew even fiercer.
Seok Won-cho.
The Demonic Cult Leader who had met his end at Ha Mu-baek's sword.
"Ha. Blood Cult bastards, Demonic Cult bastards. Why do you keep crawling out like roaches?"
Ha Mu-baek's sword was dyed dark once more.
The alien energy sensed earlier was demonic qi.
When had this bastard encountered Gwang Hoe-cheon and wrought such mischief?
"Kukuku. I am Seok Mu-won, but this body is undoubtedly Gwang Hoe-cheon. Whatever you do to it, it means nothing to me."
Seok Mu-won spoke with a fiendish grin.
"Damn Demonic Cult bastards. Still clinging to your freakish sorcery, I see."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Kukuku. Don't make such a face. This isn't simple sorcery. Thanks to you, I've lost one of my lifelong arts. Not a pleasant feeling."
Yet Ha Mu-baek remained scowling, dark qi surging.
"Well, since things have come to this. I suppose I should see just how strong you are. Find out how Grandfather met his end like that. If those techniques from before were all you've got..."
With those words, an unpleasant black energy began to creep from Gwang Hoe-cheon's body.
Ha Mu-baek said nothing.
Instead, he moved his sword.
Opening Heaven unfolded from his hand once more.
But it was different.
Faster than before, with more variations, and far stronger.
The result...
The sword pierced Gwang Hoe-cheon's body.
A massive hole gaped in its center. Unable to withstand the sword strike's force, the body flew backward.
Opening Heaven had not ended.
Under that tremendous power, Gwang Hoe-cheon's body began disintegrating from the extremities inward.
As if slowly dissolving into nothingness.
Despite the gaping hole in his torso, consciousness lingered.
No—precisely, it was Seok Won-cho's grandson's consciousness.
Thus, he felt every torment the body endured.
The horrific sensation of fingertips and toes disintegrating first, vanishing bit by bit.
Just as limbs scattered into dust, the torso too melted away.
The head, lingering to the last, vanished without a trace, as if it had never been.
"You filthy dog bastard..."
Ha Mu-baek muttered through gritted teeth, his face twisted in profound disgust.
"Kheuk."
The young man, seated in lotus position with eyes closed, snapped his eyes open and vomited blood.
"Huk. Huk. Huk..."
Heavy, ragged breaths.
"Truly a monster..."
The young man muttered lowly.
"Grandfather deserved to fall like that."
Seok Mu-won scowled as he spoke.
"But Father and I are different. Ha Mu-baek. Grandfather's demonic art wasn't true demonic art."
He regulated his breathing for a long while.
Slowly—but unsteadily—he rose to his feet.
"I used the Ten Thousand Demons Soul-Devouring Incarnation Great Law just to exploit those Blood Cult fools. Unexpectedly fruitful. Learned one ingredient of the Void Divine Art. Got a taste of Ha Mu-baek's prowess indirectly. Worth expending one of my three uses."
Though staggering with each step, Seok Mu-won muttered in satisfaction.