Chapter 432
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 432
Chapter Title: Those Bastards, You Mean?
Thud. Thud.
Ha Mu-baek's footsteps echoed off the walls.
Even as he descended underground, there was no trace of dampness.
He had no idea what method they used to maintain such a steady environment.
Unlike the decayed state visible above ground,
this place seemed frozen in time, just as it had been when first created.
But Ha Mu-baek showed no interest in any of that, pressing straight ahead with an impassive face.
How long had he walked?
A dead end appeared.
Ha Mu-baek frowned.
His path had been blocked in a place with nothing around.
His master hadn't said a word.
There was no way his master had led him here just to toy with him.
'Is this the start of the trial?'
That was the most logical assumption.
Ha Mu-baek scanned his surroundings.
If it was a trial, there had to be something here.
"There it is."
What caught his eye was a handprint etched into one of the walls.
Ha Mu-baek pressed his palm against it.
Nothing happened.
In trials like this, the usual step was to channel internal energy.
So Ha Mu-baek circulated his Infinite Yielding Divine Art and sent it flowing into the print.
The wall glowed faintly, as if reacting to the Infinite Yielding Divine Art—
Grriiind.
With a deafening noise,
the wall where his hand rested slowly slid aside.
A gap opened, just wide enough for one person to pass.
Ha Mu-baek nodded and stepped through.
It was an incredibly thick wall.
By his estimate, nearly half a jang—about 1.5 meters.
At that thickness, it was less a wall and more a boulder.
There was nothing he couldn't shatter by force,
but smashing a rock like this underground—who knew what might happen?
If the ceiling collapsed here, even Ha Mu-baek might not escape unscathed.
Another long passage stretched ahead.
After walking and walking,
he passed through an opening shaped like a small door,
only to face another dead end.
Ha Mu-baek examined his surroundings.
Nothing.
Or so it seemed.
Upon closer inspection,
assuming this was a room,
there was a slight depression in the center.
As if inviting him to sit cross-legged.
Ha Mu-baek sat in the hollow and circulated the Infinite Yielding Divine Art once more.
Then, a change occurred.
Boom!
A rock dropped from above the door-like opening, sealing the entrance.
He was trapped in a small stone chamber.
And then,
a sinister energy began seeping from all directions.
The relentless force invaded his body, clashing fiercely with the Infinite Yielding Divine Art.
They were polar opposites.
Ha Mu-baek frowned.
It felt familiar, like something he'd sensed before.
'This is... Myogu's energy?'
It matched the poisonous aura he'd felt from him.
More precisely,
Go Hu-rak.
Yes,
it resembled his energy.
Especially the quality that countered the Infinite Yielding Divine Art.
'Is this the energy of the Ten Thousand Desolations?'
He had no clue how it ended up in his sect's ancestral chamber.
But he had to overcome it.
Ha Mu-baek pushed the Infinite Yielding Divine Art to its limits.
A fierce surge erupted from his dantian, racing through his limbs,
then burst from his pores, aggressively repelling the invading energy.
At that moment,
the Ten Thousand Desolations' energy reacted strangely.
It snatched a strand of Ha Mu-baek's energy and burrowed in.
Then it triggered an eerie vibration, stimulating him.
The vibration rippled through the Infinite Yielding Divine Art, from pores to meridians to the dantian itself.
As the vibrations intensified,
Ha Mu-baek felt a bizarre impulse rising.
;Kill. Kill them all.;
It was an overwhelming murderous urge.
Killing intent.
The vibration stimulated the deep-seated killing intent in Ha Mu-baek's heart, amplifying it hundreds, thousands of times over.
'Ugh.'
Ha Mu-baek bit his lip and regained his composure.
'So this is it.'
Then he understood.
Why his master
had said he couldn't enter the ancestral chamber.
Why he needed to cleanse the blood scent.
If it was this bad now, when his master said it was fine,
what about his past self?
'I definitely would've been consumed by this impulse.'
What would have happened then?
If he'd succumbed to the desire to slaughter everything?
In this tiny stone chamber,
the only target was himself.
Under an impulse amplified thousands of times, dominating his body, he surely would've turned on himself.
Meeting his end right here.
His master, who had entered first, must have foreseen that outcome.
'But why no warning?'
He could've prepared him in advance for such a trial.
The lack of any mention
'might be linked to the next trial.'
Knowing his master,
there was surely a reason for sending him alone without a word.
Ha Mu-baek steadied his mind.
The blood scent ingrained in his body,
the killing intent—
all burned away upon reaching his current realm.
An impulse triggered by this level of stimulation
was something he could easily shake off.
His internal energy surged even stronger.
For about a quarter of an hour,
with Ha Mu-baek showing no reaction and his Infinite Yielding Divine Art only growing fiercer,
the vibrations gradually subsided, and the Ten Thousand Desolations' energy began to weaken.
Soon after,
when the space was filled solely with Ha Mu-baek's Infinite Yielding Divine Art,
Rumble.
One wall slid open.
A torrent of internal energy swept through her body, filling Yeong So-hyang with exhilaration that made her tremble all over.
Won Pyeong-sam's words echoed in her mind, infused with new insights.
With each full circuit of her internal energy,
her realm deepened further.
A long while later,
she opened her eyes.
Black light filled them, then faded.
"Excellent."
Won Pyeong-sam was genuinely impressed.
He had passed on all his insights,
but only once.
To reach such a level so quickly after hearing it just once...
'I've underestimated the Zhuque Blood Spirit Body.'
Won Pyeong-sam felt it keenly.
In a year, she wouldn't just transcend the demonic realm—
she might surpass him entirely.
"Master."
Yeong So-hyang's lips moved.
"Yes."
"What's the difference between your demonic art and the Demonic Cult's?"
Won Pyeong-sam had kept calling it heavenly void arts, but Yeong So-hyang bluntly labeled it a demonic art.
Her words twisted his face in fury.
"Demonic Cult? Did you say Demonic Cult? Right now?"
His voice trembled with rage.
"Yes."
"Those bastards with that Shakyamuni scum as their leader?"
Yeong So-hyang was slightly taken aback.
Calling the Demonic Cult bastards.
She'd never heard anyone speak that way before.
Even Ha Mu-baek,
who hated and despised the Blood Cult and Demonic Cult,
had never dismissed them as mere vermin.
Her master's attitude wasn't mere contempt.
It was the gaze reserved for utterly insignificant nothings.
Contempt? Disdain?
No, something even more worthless.
"Those scum left the heavens centuries ago to establish themselves in the Central Plains someday. They created their group from scraps inferior to heavenly void remnants, and dared call their arts demonic arts. Lumping heavenly void arts with such trash—it's utter nonsense."
Yeong So-hyang could hardly believe it.
Wasn't the Demonic Cult supposed to be the world's greatest single force?
Yet her master regarded them as less than dirt under his toenails, with utter arrogance.
Perhaps she'd joined something far grander than she'd imagined.
"What is the heavens like?"
She couldn't help but ask.
She'd thought mastering her master's arts was all that mattered.
But witnessing that arrogance sparked pure curiosity.
"I can't tell you the details of the heavens yet. Though I've taken you as my disciple, allowing an outsider in is solely up to the great sovereign, the Heavenly Lord. Only with his permission can I properly reveal the heavens to you."
It was disappointing, but if that was the rule of the heavens, nothing to be done.
"But Shakyamuni's Heavenly Demon Divine Art is rumored to be the world's greatest demonic art... Is that worthless too?"
Won Pyeong-sam rummaged through his memories at her follow-up.
Among the records left in the heavens,
there was no Heavenly Demon Divine Art among the arts they took.
Just Shakyamuni's arts
and traces of those cursed foes found by chance in the Heavenly Mountains,
sent together...
'World's greatest... No way?'
Won Pyeong-sam had a hunch.
The records noted many fine arts taken by Shakyamuni back then, but none worthy of 'world's greatest.'
At least not compared to the Central Plains martial world he'd experienced.
Peerless, perhaps—but supreme? Absurd.
Among what they had, the only thing fit for such a title was
'Emptiness. That alone.'
That cursed, damned existence.
From primordial times.
Its energy countered their root, the Ten Thousand Desolations' energy.
Acquired by chance but unfit for the heavens,
it was handed to Shakyamuni and sent to the Central Plains.
Why they hadn't taken true heavenly void arts.
They took arts mimicking heavenly void and called them demonic arts.
Probably because
of the Transcending Demons realm.
Transcending Demons meant shedding heart demons, unmoved by any temptation.
But they interpreted it as merely shedding 'demons,' labeling the arts demonic.
Truly foolish.
Of course, those who ventured to the Central Plains had called them demonic arts to instill fear,
but Won Pyeong-sam had no way of knowing that.
Besides,
the nature of that internal energy and aura made it natural to call it 'demonic.'
Because it was infused with all sorts of heart demons, as he called them.
The world knew nothing of that.
The arts of the heavens—
that is,
the arts pursuing the Ten Thousand Desolations' energy—
began entwined with every heart demon in the world, shedding them one by one to ascend realms.
Upon reaching Transcending Demons, one truly entered the heavenly void stage.
Won Pyeong-sam explained this principle of heavenly void arts to Yeong So-hyang.
And then,
"What those Shakyamuni scum called Heavenly Demon Divine Art isn't true heavenly void. Its foundation is actually a cursed energy. Yes, 'Heavenly Demon' might fit well enough. But 'divine art'? Preposterous."
"What is that energy?"
"A fragment from the primordial being that ravaged this world. Called Emptiness. They brought it to the Central Plains and likely dubbed it the Heavenly Demon Divine Art."
And so Yeong So-hyang
learned one secret.
"Then, how does it compare to the Blazing Sun Heavenly Void Art?"
Trouble creased Won Pyeong-sam's face at her words.
One was the primordial fragment itself.
His art merely mimicked a shard of the Ten Thousand Desolations.
Without a true Ten Thousand Desolations shard,
it was indeed inferior to Emptiness.
Won Pyeong-sam confessed it all honestly.
"Shards of the Ten Thousand Desolations haven't appeared in the world for thousands of years. But don't despair. One surfaced recently—that's why I came to the Central Plains. Our fateful meeting is thanks to that too."
Yeong So-hyang's eyes sparkled at his words.
"So you sought the Haomun because..."
"Yes. To trace it."
"Then?"
"If fate aligns, the Blazing Sun Heavenly Void Art may achieve its true form."
Hope bloomed in Yeong So-hyang's eyes at Won Pyeong-sam's words.
An art stronger than the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
With that,
she could complete her revenge alone.