Chapter 516
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 516
Chapter Title: Such a Cunning Bastard
"Is that finally the end of it?"
Ha Mu-baek stared silently at Chaos and asked.
[There is no end to my power.]
Chaos replied, directing its words toward Ha Mu-baek.
That voice echoed in the minds of Jegal Nam-cheon and Jegal So-rin as well.
Ha Mu-baek ignored it and raised his sword.
Then, as if playing around, he swung it down in a casual stroke.
Compared to the terrifying prowess he'd displayed until now, it truly looked like child's play.
That was why Jegal Nam-cheon watched with eyes full of doubt, wondering what on earth he was doing.
Abyss.
It was the single strike Ha Mu-baek had finally unleashed, though no one knew it.
Slice.
A sharp cutting sound rang out in an instant.
Greeeeek.
With a strange grinding noise, the body Chaos had formed split cleanly in half.
"Wha...?"
Jegal So-rin gaped in stunned disbelief at the sight.
It wasn't just the formed body that had been cleaved.
The stone at its core, where Chaos resided, had also been split in two.
"I didn't know what might pop out, so it was pretty exhausting waiting until the very last moment."
Ha Mu-baek said indifferently.
[Grr... you cunning bastard...]
Chaos's voice trembled, evidently shocked by that single strike.
[Infinity. It was Infinity. No, Ye-ui as well... You've obtained the power of their Abyss...]
Anger laced Chaos's voice.
It felt duped by Ha Mu-baek's sly scheme.
The body Chaos had formed slowly melted and flowed away.
What remained were the two halves of the stone.
"The formation's activation made it impossible to gauge your power precisely. So I had no choice but to wait until you revealed your true strength. All I did was wait."
Ha Mu-baek raised his sword once more.
And the moment he unleashed another playful vertical slash—
Boooom!
A massive clash erupted.
The split stone emitted a faint glow, enveloping itself in a barrier of energy.
Chaos had blocked the second Abyss.
[Damn it. Infinity. Ye-ui. To think they'd pass such power to a human.]
But Chaos's voice trembled even more violently.
The energy barrier soon faded, and the stone looked as if it might shatter at any moment.
[Grah! You think I'll go down this easily?!]
Was this its final struggle?
Chaos let out a furious roar.
The instant Ha Mu-baek raised his sword again, Chaos moved first.
The two halves of the stone shot forward at blinding speed.
One toward Jegal So-rin, the other toward Jegal Nam-cheon.
Ha Mu-baek's eyebrow twitched.
He swung his sword even faster.
Splat.
The half heading for Jegal So-rin shattered into dust and scattered.
Crack.
The one flying toward Jegal Nam-cheon broke apart as well, but some fragments embedded themselves in his chest.
"What the—... ugh."
Jegal Nam-cheon cried out in alarm, suddenly choking as if his breath had been cut off.
The fragment lodged in his chest burrowed straight into his flesh, heading for his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Having located Jegal Nam-cheon's wildly beating heart, it plunged right into the center.
"Hngh. Ack. Urk."
As he let out strangled groans, the stone fragment seized complete control over the invaded heart.
At that sight, Ha Mu-baek made his decision.
He raised his sword.
Chaos was devouring Jegal Nam-cheon right now.
He had to cut him down before the erosion went any further.
Jegal So-rin, sensing Ha Mu-baek's intent, floundered in panic.
She had no power to stop him, nor would he listen if she tried.
Yet she couldn't just stand by and let her grandfather sacrifice himself like that.
After agonizing, she finally squeezed her eyes shut.
Her racing thoughts had reached the conclusion that she couldn't stop Ha Mu-baek.
'I'm sorry, Grandfather...'
Part of what led her to that decision was the Primordial record left by Jegal Mu-gun.
Chaos, one of the Primordial fragments.
She knew that once her grandfather was consumed by it, he was no longer truly her grandfather.
The moment Chaos took him, her grandfather had already met his end.
The figure before her now was merely Chaos wearing his skin.
She repeated that to herself over and over.
Ha Mu-baek's sword moved again.
Once more, it was Abyss.
Now that he'd confirmed Chaos's true form, he would unleash his full power.
"Hmph."
A voice unlike any before leaked from Jegal Nam-cheon's lips.
With a snort, his figure vanished.
Traces of the formation's energy still lingered.
Chaos hadn't fully absorbed it yet, thanks to Ha Mu-baek's Abyss splitting it in two.
That energy surged toward Jegal Nam-cheon.
Ha Mu-baek grimaced.
'One last time.'
Immense as the energy in his dantian was, it wasn't infinite.
Destroying Chaos's formation and unleashing Abyss on it had consumed most of it.
With what remained, he could manage one more Abyss at best.
Unless he circulated his energy to recover, that was.
But this wasn't the time to leisurely cultivate.
Ha Mu-baek unleashed Abyss once more.
"Not a chance!"
Jegal Nam-cheon—no, Chaos—shouted loudly, infusing his own energy into the absorbed power and hurling a palm strike.
It too was the energy of Chaos's Abyss.
Roooar!
The two forces clashed in midair, twisting together to form a massive storm as they vied for dominance.
Ha Mu-baek furrowed his brow.
He was chiding himself for his slightly delayed judgment.
'Should I have struck immediately?'
But he was the head of the Jegal Clan.
No matter who Ha Mu-baek was, he couldn't kill the clan head over a single stone fragment without knowing the outcome.
If he acted on assumption without confirmation, wouldn't that make him a demon himself?
That minimal wait for confirmation.
Apparently, that brief time had been enough for Chaos.
The colossal force surged against Ha Mu-baek's Abyss like a tidal wave.
Ha Mu-baek gritted his teeth.
He gathered every last drop of his energy.
His dantian erupted with qi as if it might burst.
Rumble craaaash.
The ground shook and cracked.
Trees snapped in the storm and crashed to the earth.
Weaker ones were uprooted and flung into the air.
Boulders rolled and collided.
"Nngh."
Jegal So-rin mustered all her inner energy, straining to escape the aftershock's range.
She couldn't endure in that space.
Ha Mu-baek was pouring everything into this, leaving no attention for her.
Both Chaos and Ha Mu-baek were going all out.
Ha Mu-baek had used up all his energy, while Chaos had been bisected before fully gathering its own.
Thus, both were now desperately channeling their final reserves in a do-or-die clash.
As time passed, the outcome began to show.
Ha Mu-baek's Abyss started pushing back Chaos's bit by bit.
"Th-this—nngh."
Jegal Nam-cheon's face twisted savagely.
"Begone."
The moment Ha Mu-baek muttered it, his energy amplified once more, surging from his sword.
Abyss.
That strike engulfed not only Chaos's Abyss but Jegal Nam-cheon himself in one fell swoop.
"Th-this can't... impossible... such injustice...!"
With those final words, Chaos vanished into the Abyss's energy.
Jegal Nam-cheon left not even a trace behind.
Considering everything that had transpired, the anticlimactic end felt utterly hollow.
"Hoo... whew."
Ha Mu-baek let out a deep sigh before sitting cross-legged.
He'd poured out his energy right to the razor's edge.
He'd annihilated Chaos by the slimmest of margins.
Not a single drop of qi remained in his dantian.
Neither the Dragon Training Pavilion's flames, the Ice Crystal's frost, nor the Poison Crystal's venom.
No energy lingered.
Ha Mu-baek had converted it all into qi and fed it into Abyss.
But there was a small gain.
All those disparate energies had fused into one.
Previously, each occupied its own domain, activating only when Ha Mu-baek called upon it.
Now, they had all transformed into the qi of the Infinity Ye-ui Heart Method.
Thus, his qi could become flames, frost, or venom as needed.
In other words, his entire qi reserve could manifest as any of them.
He could now wield even more potent flames, frost, and venom than before.
Ha Mu-baek focused on circulating his energy.
Through his breathing, ambient qi was sucked into his nose, racing through his meridians to stack steadily in his dantian.
Even the formation's energy that Chaos hadn't fully absorbed flowed in with his breaths, settling into his dantian.
Thus, Ha Mu-baek's inner energy grew once more.
The moment Jegal So-rin barely escaped the aftershocks—as if by magic—the battle ended.
With her grandfather vanishing without a trace.
Jegal So-rin gazed at the meditating Ha Mu-baek with conflicted eyes.
'Was there no other way this could have gone?'
As that thought crossed her mind—
Jegal So-rin jolted in surprise.
Gwanggwang Hwanju Cheonhwi Formation.
She began to grasp it, piece by piece.
She'd only been watching the world-shaking battle and trying to flee its aftermath, yet enlightenment about the formation suddenly dawned.
No matter how sudden insights could be, this felt too abrupt.
There hadn't been any trigger.
Even so, Jegal So-rin had no intention of rejecting the enlightenment that had come to her.
While Ha Mu-baek focused on cultivation, she immersed herself in the formation.
"Shouldn't we go check?"
At his son's question, Jegal Go-pung gazed toward the mountainside where the overlapping formation stood.
It wasn't far from here, so they'd all felt the massive explosions and tremors from there.
Something had happened in the formation.
Yet they couldn't dare move.
Without Jegal Nam-cheon's permission after its completion, no one could approach.
"We stay here until the clan head sends word."
Jegal Go-pung told his son that, then stepped out of the office.
And was startled.
All the ones they were training as emissaries had gathered outside, bowing repeatedly toward the formation.
"The Gwaneum Deity is enraged."
"The Gwaneum Deity has descended to destroy the world."
They chanted as they prostrated endlessly.
When Jegal Go-pung appeared—
"The Grand Emissary is here!"
Someone shouted.
"Grand Emissary! Has the word of the Gwaneum Deity not come down?"
"Cult Leader! Has the Leader not arrived?"
They pleaded with desperate eyes.
The sight choked Jegal Go-pung.
These were the followers he himself had raised.
They'd even deployed suggestion formations around here to implant hints.
But still.
Their eyes...
'They're madmen.'
He'd made them that way, yet facing it head-on filled him with the thought.
And simultaneously, a belated worry: perhaps they'd created something far too dangerous.
'I must tell the clan head. The cult leader needs to appear now. Otherwise, we might not control these lunatics.'
The only one who could become cult leader was, of course, clan head Jegal Nam-cheon.
They'd planned for him to reveal himself as such in time, but that was far off.
Yet after seeing them today, Jegal Go-pung instinctively knew Jegal Nam-cheon had to appear as cult leader immediately.
'No choice.'
Without the clan head's permission, he had to head to the overlapping formation.
He'd investigate what happened, report the situation, and urgently request that Jegal Nam-cheon show himself as cult leader.
"I'll personally inspect where the Gwaneum Deity's wrath descended. All of you, pray here for the Deity's mercy."
With those words, Jegal Go-pung leaped into motion.