Chapter 510
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 510
Chapter Title: Vanish
Whoosh.
Flames erupted from Ha Mu-baek's hand.
Mu-pung turned to ash and scattered, leaving no trace that he had ever been there.
"Mu-pung, huh. Vanishing without even a whisper of wind, just like his name."
Ha Mu-baek muttered calmly.
A death without pain or trace.
That was the final wish he had clung to.
When he had opened his mouth under Ha Mu-baek's interrogation, he must have been prepared for it.
And so.
Ha Mu-baek unleashed the hottest blazing true energy he could muster.
Mu-pung had likely turned to ash before he could even register the heat.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze shifted back to the formation.
"Gotta keep going, right?"
He turned and took a step forward.
"Wh-what the hell...?"
Jegal Nam-cheon stammered in disbelief as he watched the extreme yang flames Ha Mu-baek had conjured.
He had no idea how many times he had uttered those same words already today.
Is that even human?
Really?
Such doubts kept swirling at the center of his mind.
[Hoo. Impressive. That's not primordial power.]
Chaos's assessment echoed in Jegal Nam-cheon's head.
"Then what the hell is that...?"
[It's a fragment of the Li from the Ten Thousand Phenomena, infused with extreme yang energy. But there's no trace of the Ten Thousand Phenomena in that power... so it's either from the martial arts he cultivates or energy gained through spirit medicine.]
Even with Chaos's explanation, the doubts refused to leave Jegal Nam-cheon's mind.
The moment a person brushed against those flames, they turned to ash and vanished.
Not even the ash lasted; it burned away in an instant—an extreme yang energy unlike anything else.
Was that monstrous power something one could simply obtain?
Then why had he never heard of it?
Even the Jegal Clan's records mentioned such extreme yang energy only in the rarest of cases.
At best, in legends of the Fire Dragon.
Hm?
As his thoughts reached that point, an unbelievable suspicion surfaced in Jegal Nam-cheon's mind.
Did he obtain the Fire Dragon's energy? No way... that can't be...'
Even if it were true, it was too absurd to accept.
Jegal Nam-cheon examined the formation again.
The third layer had been broken.
The blazing true energy he displayed then hadn't been that intense, meaning he had neutralized the first three overlapping formations without going all out.
Six remained.
Twice as many as before.
Yet Jegal Nam-cheon's eyelids twitched uncontrollably.
A creeping unease stirred in his chest.
"We can really stop him, right?"
He asked Chaos in a voice thick with anxiety.
Chaos had said it clearly.
Once the nine-layered overlapping formation was complete, no being under heaven could overcome it.
[......]
Chaos offered no reply.
That silence only deepened Jegal Nam-cheon's anxiety.
"Hoo."
She had focused intently, reading character by character, and managed to get through about a quarter of the book.
The moment she lifted her eyes from the pages, a deep breath escaped her.
Deep.
So deep and vast, broad beyond measure.
The instant she thought she understood something, the next part proved her wrong.
She glanced up at the ceiling for a moment and closed her eyes.
Jegal So-rin rubbed her eyelids.
"What in the world is this?"
She was utterly entranced, drawn into it despite herself, yet she still couldn't comprehend it fully.
Even more astonishing was that she could feel her own realm elevating.
And that was after just skimming through it once, barely reading a quarter.
Even then, what she knew paled in comparison to what she didn't.
Yet she could tangibly sense how her thinking on formations had transformed.
At the same time, her martial prowess had advanced.
"Is this even possible?"
Jegal So-rin murmured in a daze.
It was all so inexplicable, but she reached for the book again.
Just as she was about to continue reading.
Kaboom!
A distant explosion and tremor seemed to rumble through.
Her head snapped around.
She rose from her desk and stepped out into the front courtyard of the annex—no, the study hall.
In the distance, flocks of birds burst from the mountainside.
Yet the Jegal Clan grounds remained utterly still.
As if no one else had felt the blast and quake that Jegal So-rin had sensed.
Just then, a maidservant hurried by.
"Did you not hear anything just now?"
"Pardon? No, miss, I didn't hear a thing."
The maidservant replied to Jegal So-rin's question before vanishing in quick steps.
Since the maid knew nothing of martial arts, Jegal So-rin thought that might explain it. She asked a warrior from the clan, but received the same answer.
Had it not been for the birds suddenly taking flight, she might have dismissed it as her imagination.
But the abrupt exodus of the flock was clearly unnatural.
It meant something had happened near where they rose.
They had scattered too quickly for her to pinpoint the exact spot, but she had a rough idea of the direction.
"Well then."
Even so, she returned to her quarters, grabbed her sword, and headed out.
She left the clan grounds straightaway and dashed along the mountain paths of Yongjung Mountain.
Her lightness skill was noticeably swifter than before.
It wasn't just a feeling; it was fact.
She was employing it herself, after all.
How can reading a formation manual bring about changes like this?
It remained utterly mysterious and wondrous.
The only change in her daily routine had been that formation manual from the Radiant Lord of Cycles Heaven Formation.
She hadn't intensified her martial training or lightness skill practice, so the cause had to be that book.
"Hm?"
Mun In-baeksong examined the report he had just received.
It concerned the border between Jiangxi and Hunan—terrain where battle might have erupted depending on the situation in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
After hearing that Ha Mu-baek had crushed the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest, he had immediately withdrawn his forces. Now the report said the Righteous Heaven Alliance had dispatched new troops there.
"Fierce Dragon Corps. Weren't they the meat shields at the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest? And they're sending them?"
When the Sapa Network withdrew its forces, the Righteous Heaven Alliance had pulled back its own defensive troops.
Dragon Fang Corps and Dragon Horn Corps.
They were no pushovers.
It seemed the Righteous Heaven Alliance had decided to station troops there permanently, but assigning just the Fierce Dragon Corps?
Strange indeed.
It must have been Heavenly Eye Pavilion Lord Gong Son Dan-gyeong's doing, so there had to be some intent behind it.
He needed to figure it out.
Mun In-baeksong paused his work and sank into thought.
He sifted through his memories.
He recalled everything he knew about the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest and the Fierce Dragon Corps.
He had also obtained info that the Demon-Sealing Corps had been utterly shattered by some incident.
But precise details on what happened in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest eluded him still.
His Black Mist Corps dispatched there couldn't approach due to Ha Mu-baek's terrifying presence.
All he had was vague word of Ha Mu-baek's divine might.
Then.
A messenger pigeon arrived with an urgent dispatch.
"Hm?"
It was about the Fierce Dragon Corps stationed in Jiangxi Province.
[Fierce Dragon Corps Leader Ha Mu-baek, Vice Leader Han Seol-bing]
That was it, nothing more.
But the moment Mun In-baeksong read it, he instantly grasped Gong Son Dan-gyeong's intent.
"Ha, haha. When did the Dragon Training Pavilion instructor become Fierce Dragon Corps Leader? Well now. Time to tighten the reins."
The quality and speed of his intelligence were sorely lacking.
Mun In-baeksong resolved to properly discipline his Black Mist Corps members.
Ha Mu-baek's position had changed.
This was top-priority intel among top-priority, and it had taken this long to reach him—clearly a problem.
"Looks like we're supposed to steer clear of Jiangxi altogether. Tsk."
He smacked his lips in regret.
From the intel on Fierce Dragon Corps Leader Ha Mu-baek, another buried fact resurfaced.
The current Fierce Dragon Corps members were ones Ha Mu-baek had personally trained at the Dragon Training Pavilion.
He doted on his subordinates terribly, despite his gruff demeanor and cold actions.
His actual feelings were the polar opposite.
If that was how he treated his men, how much more for those he trained himself?
"The ultimate shield."
Mun In-baeksong murmured with a tinge of regret as he compiled his report for Gong Ya-jang-cheon.
Returning to the formation, Ha Mu-baek inspected the fourth layer.
Nothing was visible.
Previously, it had revealed a space crackling with lightning; now, it was shrouded in a curtain, hiding everything inside.
Even walking through the air and peering down from above yielded the same result.
A hemispherical barrier completely enveloped a fixed area.
As if refusing to reveal what lay within.
"Well, this is even better. But how many more after this?"
Counting what he could see so far, it was four layers deep.
Yet somehow, he doubted this was the end.
Ha Mu-baek raised his sword again.
As if to shatter the hemispherical barrier in one stroke, he swung.
The technique he chose this time was.
Infinite Wish-Fulfilling Eight Severing Sword Sea.
Fourth form: Soul Shredder.
The blade shot forth with momentum to pulverize souls, instantly demolishing the hemispherical barrier.
Kaboom!
Crack.
Shatter.
It happened in a flash.
Chaos poured in power to resist.
The moment Ha Mu-baek sensed it, he poured more energy into Soul Shredder.
With Chaos resisting, creating a momentary clash of strength, adding more power mid-exchange was effortless.
Thus, the fourth formation crumbled easily.
In that instant, the surrounding environment shifted dramatically once more.
Ha Mu-baek found himself trapped inside the formation again.
Regardless of his intentions, the next layer of the overlapping formation unfurled, swallowing him into its domain.
"Fascinating."
An overlapping formation was a formation within a formation.
Destroying the outer one should reveal a smaller inner one.
This was different.
Shattering the one before him caused the inner formation's domain to expand wider, engulfing even him.
This meant the inner layer's area overlapped and inverted with the outer, extending broader.
That would make the incantation far more complex and intricate.
Yet it had been deployed so casually—hence his wonder.
Had Han Seol-bing been there, she would have cried out that it was impossible.
With her profound mastery of formations, she would instantly recognize the sheer difficulty.
"Anyway, a desert this time?"
A vast sandy plain stretched before him.
Scorching sunlight beat down, and dry, rough winds grazed his cheek.
The air entering his nostrils was hot.
"Hmm."
Ha Mu-baek crossed his arms and surveyed the surroundings.
He had little experience with deserts.
The battlefields of the two great martial wars had scarcely featured them.
The intent of this formation was simple.
Wander the endless expanse until death, searching for the exit.
But Ha Mu-baek knew this place wasn't ruled by the infinite vastness before his eyes.
Having seen the previous shrouded formation from outside, he knew the approximate bounds of its domain.
Even if this layer extended a bit farther than the last, it was still finite.
"Moving would just drag me deeper."
Understanding the formation's design, he didn't budge.
He had already wandered the snowy plain formation.
This was no different; motion wouldn't yield answers.
Why take the hard road when an easy path lay open?
Ha Mu-baek lifted the sword still in his grip.
"Th-that... again?!"
He had already shattered four overlapping layers.
Each one must have drained immense energy.
Yet the man hadn't even twitched an eyebrow.
The fourth had seen Chaos intervene, and he had merely paused briefly.
[Now I can send my full power.]
The fifth overlapping layer.
The desert.
Chaos's stone pebble emitted a faint glow.
Ha Mu-baek gripped his sword in reverse and plunged it into the ground.
"Vanish."
With that quiet murmur.