Chapter 329
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 329
Chapter Title: You've Gotten Pretty Strong
It was a tale from an incredibly distant past.
There was a woman of the Bing Clan.
Her swordsmanship was unrivaled under heaven, and her formations and spells were the finest through the ages.
She had two disciples: Han Baek-rang and Tak Ji-myeong.
Han Baek-rang learned the sword and formations, while Tak Ji-myeong mastered formations, spells, and the sword.
Han Baek-rang and Tak Ji-myeong.
Both men harbored deep affection for their master in their hearts.
They knew they shouldn't.
But they couldn't control their feelings.
Eventually, they journeyed to the North Sea.
And there, they discovered the millennial ice crystal.
They established their base there.
Bing Ok-ryeong devised new sword techniques and formations, gathering followers.
Han Baek-rang and Tak Ji-myeong became her right and left hands, living hectic days.
Thus, the Ice Heaven Palace was born.
In time, Bing Ok-ryeong found a lover.
Regrettably, it was neither Han Baek-rang nor Tak Ji-myeong.
Han Baek-rang accepted reality and walked his own path.
But Tak Ji-myeong did not.
He seemed to accept it on the surface.
Yet deep in his heart, resentment toward his master Bing Ok-ryeong took root.
Resentment and a thirst for revenge against the master—no, the woman—who had ignored his love.
Clutching that bitterness close to his chest, Tak Ji-myeong let the years pass.
He married a woman, had children, and even watched his grandchildren grow.
In the process, he solidified the Tak family's position as the true power behind the Ice Heaven Palace.
Tak Ji-myeong discovered it purely by chance.
Driven by his thirst for vengeance, he immersed himself in training and passed the years until his mastery of formations and spells rivaled Bing Ok-ryeong's.
While researching formations powered by the ice crystal's energy, he scanned the surroundings.
To map the terrain where the crystal's energy extended.
Then, by accident, he slipped into a deep cavern.
He delved so far that its depth was unknowable, and there, like a miracle, was a dark cave.
"N-No... this can't be..."
Tak Ji-myeong couldn't believe his eyes.
The entity before him.
Was no ordinary thing.
A hornless dragon.
A flood dragon, no less.
And one on the verge of becoming a fire dragon.
It had fallen into a deep slumber for its final molt to ascend.
"H-How is this possible here...?"
The frozen extremity of the North Sea.
How could a fire dragon's flood dragon be in such a place, not even an ice dragon?
Surveying the surroundings, Tak Ji-myeong soon understood why.
The land where the millennial ice crystal resided.
Deeper still, its polar opposite—fiery energy—overflowed.
Or perhaps the ice crystal had formed to suppress that rampant fire energy.
Here, the flood dragon blocked the crystal's energy with its body, feeding on the subterranean flames.
"Heaven's fortune indeed."
Finding a flood dragon on the brink of ascension, utterly defenseless—it was heavenly luck, as he said.
But.
"It's not meant for me."
That was the truth.
With his current power, he couldn't claim it.
A fateful opportunity lay before him, but it wasn't his.
His master might have seized it, but Tak Ji-myeong shook his head.
He refused to tell the master who had betrayed him.
'If I can't have it.'
Resolved, Tak Ji-myeong drew twelve daggers from his robes.
Daggers forged from shards of the ice crystal the size of rice grains and cold iron.
Ice Dragon Cold Snow Daggers.
A wondrous weapon completed not long ago.
Not his own, but destined to be the Ice Heaven Palace's treasure.
A component for the ultimate formation their palace lord planned to create.
Tak Ji-myeong had overseen its crafting, producing twelve in total.
Now, he decided to use them for himself.
His mind pierced extreme limits, weaving a formation.
And the Ice Dragon Cold Snow Daggers plunged into the ground.
He was forming a seal to bind the fire dragon.
The moment the tenth dagger sank in.
Woooong.
A faint vibration rippled, and a translucent barrier enveloped the flood dragon completely.
Harnessing a strand of the ice crystal's energy that reached this far, he sealed the flood dragon.
It was sealed in oblivious deep sleep for its final molt.
Without even opening its eyes.
"Hoo..."
Tak Ji-myeong exhaled deeply.
How much time had passed in this space?
He neither knew nor cared to know.
A flash of insight struck his mind, and he sat cross-legged right there.
The fusion of formation and spell to seal the flood dragon.
From that act, enlightenment dawned.
His realm elevated another step, Tak Ji-myeong collapsed the cavern he had entered and returned to the surface.
Deep into the night.
Tak Ji-myeong read the heavens.
A new ability unlocked after this enlightenment.
"A thousand years must pass."
He poured everything into a single sword and buried it in a secret place.
A sword that would respond only to descendants who mastered the martial art he left behind.
It would reach his descendants' hands in a thousand years.
And the arrangement he had laid for the flood dragon would complete then as well.
Tak Ji-myeong relocated his base to the flood dragon's sealed site.
Now, this land belonged to the Tak family.
Bing Ok-ryeong, receiving the Ice Dragon Cold Snow Daggers, read the heavens that night.
Sensing her disciple's change, she did so out of unease.
The hazy omens revealed nothing clear.
Only one thing was certain.
A calamity a thousand years hence.
She had to prepare for it.
Thus, her residence atop the ice crystal.
Palace Lord's Hall.
She wove a formation encompassing the entire structure.
To ward off any disaster.
And she crafted and left behind the palace lord's divine relic.
***
Tak Yo-beom gazed at the entity before him.
Unchanged from ten years ago or now.
A transcendent being.
But now.
"The flood dragon's corpse..."
Indeed.
The flood dragon's corpse lay deep underground.
Encircled by a pristine white barrier.
Tak Yo-beom stepped into the barrier.
Woooong.
The barrier tried to block him.
But as he presented his ancient sword, it parted effortlessly, as if nothing had happened.
At the center of the coiled flood dragon.
A red orb the size of a child's head rested there.
Not its inner core.
An inner core would be inside the corpse.
Without hesitation, Tak Yo-beom raised his sword and pierced the red orb.
In that instant.
Roooar!
A colossal blaze erupted, filling the space within the barrier.
In moments, the flood dragon's corpse was consumed by the flames.
The small sphere that seemed to be its inner core vanished too.
No—precisely, it was absorbed into the flames, amplifying their power.
Only Tak Yo-beom stood unscathed amid the inferno.
The red orb vanished, and the flames that filled the space surged into his sword, then into his body.
"Ah... aah..."
Tak Yo-beom moaned in ecstasy, overwhelmed by supreme pleasure.
In his mind unfolded the events of a thousand years ago.
As if he had witnessed his ancestor's deeds firsthand.
Even after unlocking the sword's secrets, some things had eluded him.
Now he knew it all.
The inexplicable grudge the Tak family held toward the Bing Clan.
He learned its root.
Once he absorbed all the energy.
Tak Yo-beom's eyes, eyebrows, and every hair on his body turned crimson.
Crack.
The ancient sword in his hand shattered, its purpose fulfilled.
In that moment.
A voice echoed in Tak Yo-beom's mind.
-Defile every woman of the Bing Clan and make them my slaves.
A voice dripping with venom.
Whose it was, was obvious.
Tak Ji-myeong.
His ancestor's voice.
"If it's my ancestor's dying wish, I must fulfill it. Keh heh heh."
A bizarre laugh escaped Tak Yo-beom's lips.
His pupils burned red.
Power overflowed.
With the blazing flame energy filling his body, he felt capable of anything.
He recalled Ha Mu-baek's display before the Palace Lord's Hall.
"Hmph, that trash."
The strike that rent and upheaved the earth.
He could do it with a single punch.
Fierce flames erupted from his body.
"Ice Allure Frost. I'll make you crawl like a dog between my legs. Keh heh heh heh."
Tak Yo-beom kicked off the ground and soared into the air.
Bursting through the cavern ceiling, tearing through the impenetrable earth, upward, ever upward.
***
Ha Mu-baek's group arrived at the Tak family grounds.
Ha Mu-baek peered underground.
And soon furrowed his brow.
"What is this?"
"Pardon?"
Han Seol-bing reacted to Ha Mu-baek's murmur.
"Deep below us. There's an ominous energy."
The formation and spell sealing the flood dragon.
They even blocked much of its energy from leaking out.
Despite the flame energy raging like a storm, Ha Mu-baek couldn't fully gauge its magnitude.
Moments later.
Rumble rumble.
A ferocious roar shook the earth violently.
Among them.
The family lord's hall.
It swayed perilously, on the verge of collapse.
"What a racket. Tch."
Ha Mu-baek eyed the Tak family lord's hall coldly.
"What in the world is happening?"
Han Seol-bing asked, slightly flustered.
Ha Mu-baek seemed to have an inkling.
"Something was down there, and the Tak family lord gained considerable power from it. You've gotten pretty strong."
Ha Mu-baek's expression remained unchanged.
But Han Seol-bing's face hardened.
It had to.
"Pretty" was high praise from Ha Mu-baek.
Boooom! Kraaang!
A massive explosion followed, and the ground directly beneath the family lord's hall erupted.
The shockwave shattered the hall to pieces.
Vast debris scattered in all directions.
And with it, a storm of tremendous energy swept through.
"Gasp."
"Urk."
Han Seol-bing, Bing Chwi-seol, and the others recoiled in shock, stepping back.
But in an instant.
The pressure and debris vanished.
Lowering their arms from their faces, they saw a pristine white barrier of pure energy radiating from Ha Mu-baek.
Encompassing them all.
Bing Chwi-seol stared in bewilderment.
She thought she knew him well, but no.
She knew nothing.
How do you even measure a man's realm like this?
Lost in such questions, she stared at Ha Mu-baek's back.
"Kyahahaha! Power overflows! Power overflows! Now I can smash everything!!!"
Tak Yo-beom's mad cackle, laced with eeriness, echoed from the sky.
Tak Yo-beom floated midair, wreathed in crimson flames.
Cold sweat beaded on Bing Chwi-seol's back as she beheld him.
She sensed the dangerous, immense energy pouring from him.
Even penetrating Ha Mu-baek's barrier.
What had happened in mere moments to transform Tak Yo-beom like this?
And what was that colossal blaze?
Tak Yo-beom looked down at the ground.
His eyes fell on Ha Mu-baek's group.
"Keh keh. You tracked us here well enough. Come to die?"
He casually flicked his hand.
With that gesture.
Roooar!
A massive blaze writhed and hurtled toward Ha Mu-baek.
"Wh-what... th-that's..."
One of Bing Chwi-seol's subordinates gaped, dazed.
The enormous flame shot through the air toward them.
An unreal sight.
The others were stunned too.
Bing Chwi-seol was no exception.
Only Han Seol-bing watched Ha Mu-baek's back, not the flames.
A sign of her trust in him.
Ha Mu-baek regarded the oncoming blaze calmly, as if it were nothing.
Bam!
The flames finally struck the barrier.
"Eek!"
"Kyaa!"
Terrified by the roaring inferno, people screamed and huddled on the ground.
The flames couldn't breach the barrier.
Yet witnessing the blaze raging right before their eyes was utterly terrifying.
Moreover.
The heat pierced the barrier, stinging their skin.
For Ha Mu-baek, immune to fire and water, such heat was trivial.
However.
'Pretty impressive?'
The energy transmitted through the barrier was quite potent.
Ha Mu-baek reshaped the barrier.
Enveloping the flames.
Open at the back.
"Step back a bit. Looks like it'll get messy."