Chapter 330
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 330
Chapter Title: What a Monster
Han Seol-bing nodded and led Bing Chwi-seol and the other martial artists back a good distance.
All the way to the Tak Clan walls.
Ha Mu-baek had warned that it would get rowdy. They might need to retreat even farther.
Han Seol-bing didn't let her guard down.
Tak Yo-beom watched Bing Chwi-seol retreat.
"Heh. Where do you think you're going? You belong lying beneath my waist."
His voice boomed deeply.
It wasn't a loud shout, yet it rang clear in everyone's ears.
Bing Chwi-seol's face hardened.
She had no choice.
It was an utterly humiliating taunt.
Tak Yo-beom swung his other hand.
Flames roared to life, surging toward Bing Chwi-seol.
Bang!
They halted in midair.
Ha Mu-baek had already erected a barrier of qi that blocked the flames in the sky.
Tak Yo-beom's gaze shifted to Ha Mu-baek.
"So. Ha Mu-baek. I need to deal with you first."
His voice dripped with eerie menace.
He swung both hands again.
Fresh flames hurtled toward Ha Mu-baek.
Bang! Boom!
But they couldn't pierce Ha Mu-baek's qi barrier.
The flames burned even more fiercely, like the hellfire of purgatory.
The roaring inferno shifted from red to yellow, then blazed into pure white.
In that moment,
Ha Mu-baek felt a faint heat.
To breach his qi barrier, the flames writhed wildly, sparks scattering everywhere.
The sparks hit the Tak Clan buildings in spots.
And soon.
Whoosh.
Fires erupted.
"Fire!"
"It's burning!"
People who had been watching anxiously from all over the Tak Clan estate came rushing out.
The Tak Clan retainers all knew about the war between the clan head and the palace lord.
They had marched out for battle.
They knew it was rebellion.
That's why, when the palace lord appeared, everyone had hidden in fear.
Those still left in the Tak Clan were mostly non-martial folk.
Tak Yo-beom eyed his retainers scrambling out from everywhere.
"Useless trash."
As they fled in all directions, he swung his hand once more.
His new Ice Heaven Palace—no, Flame Heaven Palace—had no need for such rabble.
This time, it wasn't mere flames.
It was fireballs.
They poured down like rain from every direction.
A literal rain of fire.
Ha Mu-baek grimaced.
To unleash such a lethal move on his own retainers.
The man was insane.
During the palace lord battle, he'd only glimpsed him—he hadn't seemed this mad then.
That energy spewing flames.
It must be the cause.
Otherwise, no one changes like that in an instant.
Now, madness gleamed in his eyes too.
Ha Mu-baek swung his hand.
Countless qi barriers materialized in the air.
The small barriers precisely intercepted the fireballs, vanishing along with them.
The Tak Clan retainers had no idea.
They were wholly focused on fleeing.
Only Han Seol-bing, Bing Chwi-seol, and her subordinates saw it clearly.
They were stunned by the fire rain pouring like a thousand flowers and showers.
But Ha Mu-baek's single gesture summoning those myriad qi shields.
They forgot even to be shocked.
Each barrier perfectly sized for its fireball's path.
Was this even humanly possible?
Even with vast inner energy.
To instantly create barriers of exact sizes before so many targets?
If he'd just blanketed the whole area with one massive barrier, they wouldn't be this shocked.
That would just mean immense energy.
Tak Yo-beom's gaze snapped back to Ha Mu-baek.
"You dare!!"
"You mad bastard."
Ha Mu-baek smirked back.
"I'll judge you myself!"
Tak Yo-beom plummeted toward Ha Mu-baek.
As he thrust his right hand forward, roaring flames coalesced into a sword shape.
A literal flame sword.
Shing.
Ha Mu-baek drew his sword.
Pure white sword qi formed along the blade.
Tak Yo-beom swung as he closed in, and Ha Mu-baek met it.
Boom!
A massive explosion echoed, flames scattering everywhere.
Fires flared up in places.
Tak Yo-beom kicked off the ground, pressing his assault.
Tak Clan Ice Heaven Ice Soul Sword.
The Tak Clan's strongest sword art.
Now wielded as a flame sword.
A sword technique based on ice qi, yet it spewed fire qi without a hint of awkwardness.
As if it had always been designed for fire.
Tak Yo-beom knew why.
The vision in the underground cavern.
It had been shown there.
Tak Ji-myeong had crafted it that way.
For the descendant who would one day absorb the dragon's fire qi.
Tak Clan Flame Heaven Fire Soul Sword.
That was its name now.
Whoosh.
The more they clashed swords, the more the fire qi invaded Ha Mu-baek.
Flames flickered on his robes, dying out.
His robes began to scorch bit by bit.
'This energy is unnatural.'
What on earth had been buried underground?
This pure fire energy from him.
Unrelated to the abyss or primal forces he'd faced at Shaolin recently.
Yet it could change a man in moments.
"Kekekehek."
Tak Yo-beom laughed maniacally.
'But only the energy is unnatural.'
Yes.
He wielded immense power.
But his sword mastery was merely early transcendent realm.
Pathetic compared to Ha Mu-baek.
He was merely matching him with sheer fire qi might.
Tak Yo-beom had no clue.
Intoxicated by his new power, he lashed out wildly.
As his flame sword assaulted Ha Mu-baek, flames also surged from his body toward him.
"Ha Mu-baek, Ha Mu-baek—they hyped you up for nothing! Kehahahaha. Right? Hocheon Corps Leader or whatever, that's all you're worth. Not like you're So Hwi-woong or something!"
With that shout, five streams of flame spiraled toward Ha Mu-baek.
Boom!
A qi barrier in the air blocked them.
Drip.
Ha Mu-baek slid back slightly from the shockwave.
He grimaced faintly.
"Brutishly overwhelming."
Indeed.
In sheer energy volume.
Tak Yo-beom surpassed him there.
With his string of recent insights and awakenings, Ha Mu-baek hadn't felt short on inner energy lately.
Yet now, against this foe, he did.
His low mastery let Ha Mu-baek handle him like this.
'How can a human hold such energy?'
Beyond Ha Mu-baek's common sense.
No human could contain that much.
Even his Infinite Bright Wheel Eye confirmed it.
The man's energy overflowed.
His dantian was indistinguishable amid the fullness.
His body not exploding was miraculous.
Now, his flame sword—like hellfire wrapped around him—crashed down on Ha Mu-baek's head.
Bang!
He blocked with his sword, but flames flashed from the man's body.
The qi barrier intercepted them.
Bang! Bang!
Tak Yo-beom swung his left fist.
It blazed fiercely.
Ha Mu-baek countered with his left fist.
Coated in pure white qi.
Boom!
Another massive clash.
The Tak Clan estate was now a sea of fire.
All buildings blazed.
Inside the Tak Clan walls, only Ha Mu-baek and Tak Yo-beom remained.
The retainers had all fled outside.
Atop the walls, only Han Seol-bing and Bing Chwi-seol watched the duel.
Bing Chwi-seol's subordinates couldn't withstand the energy and had retreated farther.
Even she was channeling all her qi just to endure.
Her ice arts partially countered Tak Yo-beom's fire, making it possible.
"Seol-bing. Are they even human?"
Bing Chwi-seol asked.
"I don't know about Tak Yo-beom, but the corps leader definitely is."
Han Seol-bing replied calmly.
She couldn't fathom how Tak Yo-beom became such a monster.
But one thing was clear.
The winner of this duel.
'Obviously the corps leader.'
Tak Yo-beom wildly amplified his flames; now even their forms vanished in the blaze.
Only the constant booms hinted they still fought.
"Whew. What in the world was buried under the Tak Clan...?"
Bing Chwi-seol shook her head.
Han Seol-bing wondered too.
Such fire qi from northern soil.
Riddled with questions.
Whoosh!
Then.
Fierce winds blew, scattering the flames.
Revealing the two men.
Gale-force winds poured from Ha Mu-baek's body.
Normally fanning flames higher.
Yet around him, they burned wildly but couldn't approach.
Unable to breach his wind barrier.
Tak Yo-beom's face glowed red-hot, like his own flames.
No—his flames were pure white now.
Scorching white fire.
"You worm!!"
Tak Yo-beom raged at Ha Mu-baek's unyielding form.
The flames shifted color again.
To blue.
Blue flames beyond white.
Now the heat reached even Han Seol-bing and Bing Chwi-seol.
The scorch marks on Ha Mu-baek's robes turned to tiny flames.
The blue fire seemed poised to pierce even his winds.
But Ha Mu-baek swung his sword, cleaving it.
And blue flames rose anew.
Tak Yo-beom thrust his now-blue flame sword at Ha Mu-baek.
Ha Mu-baek met it with his qi sword.
Clang!
The tips collided with a shattering sound.
Tak Yo-beom's flame sword dissipated.
But soon reformed in blue flames.
"Such a hassle. Really."
Ha Mu-baek muttered sincerely.
Tak Yo-beom's vast energy, exceeding his own, protected him.
Before Ha Mu-baek's strikes landed, the fire qi crumbled, nullifying the attack too.
Overwhelming mastery blocked by overwhelming volume.
The surroundings were already an inferno.
No more dragging it out to wear him down.
His energy seemed bottomless, like a fountain.
Ha Mu-baek resolved to pierce him in one focused strike.
Infinite Nothingness Eight Severing Sword Wave.
First form: Sky Cleaver.
Sensing the dire swing, Tak Yo-beom erected a flame wall before him.
A massive barrier of roaring blue fire.
Rooooar!
A colossal boom and storm gale shattered the flame wall.
Tak Yo-beom slid back from the shockwave.
Yet.
He wasn't harmed in the slightest.
Ha Mu-baek eyed him knowingly.
"What a monster."
He hadn't expected Sky Cleaver to be blocked like that.
Not by such an immense energy wall.
As he'd muttered, the man was a monster.
No human.
Ha Mu-baek drew deep from his dantian.
Full power.
Energy swirled around his body.
Channeling it into his sword.
How long since he'd gathered like this for a single strike?
Tak Yo-beom began wrapping himself in blue flames again.
'End it with one sword.'
Ha Mu-baek raised his blade.
'Cloud Sunder.'
From his hand, the second form of Infinite Nothingness Eight Severing Sword Wave unfolded.