Chapter 540
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 540
Chapter Title: I Am Your Master
“Yes.”
Ha Mu-baek nodded heavily.
“I may be weaker than you now, but I am the sect leader of the Infinite Sword Sect. And your master. So put aside your needless worries.”
Those were weighty words.
Ha Mu-baek gazed at Wi Ji-gun with complicated eyes.
Then he nodded once more.
“Understood.”
Ha Mu-baek straightened his posture.
As Wi Ji-gun unleashed his aura again, the sword brimming with killing intent hurtled toward Ha Mu-baek once more.
This time, Ha Mu-baek did not dodge.
He too summoned his energy.
He met the intense killing intent head-on with killing intent of his own.
The killing intent Ha Mu-baek drew forth to counter his master’s vast and ferocious aura was so thick and profound it sent shivers down the spine—heavy beyond measure.
It was the killing intent layered upon layer from the karma of slaughter Ha Mu-baek had accumulated over time.
In this one thing, Wi Ji-gun could not match his disciple.
The Blood Cult and the Demonic Cult.
It was the karma Ha Mu-baek had piled up across two wars against them.
Even without summoning tremendous power, Ha Mu-baek’s viscous killing intent devoured Wi Ji-gun’s in an instant.
And in that moment.
The thing inside him raised its head.
And opened its eyes.
Eyes gleaming demonically, overflowing with murderous fury.
Even as he clashed energies with his master, Ha Mu-baek instantly locked eyes with the bastard deep within.
‘Damn bastard.’
Even though that thing was Ha Mu-baek himself.
Curses poured out unbidden.
It was another self forged from his slaughter karma—yet now it had emerged as shackles.
The instant he believed one of his two grudges had ended.
Suddenly, it had appeared in Ha Mu-baek’s inner world and claimed its place.
Was it a backlash from Luoyang’s traveler’s inn, when Ha Mu-baek’s shift in heart had shrunk its territory?
Resistance for having lurked in silence all this time?
Whatever the case, it unleashed the fiercest killing intent yet.
The day he razed the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
When he swept away the Blood Cult remnants beneath their headquarters.
Even fiercer than then—the killing intent surged forth.
Ha Mu-baek directed it straight at his master.
His face contorted in agony.
Wi Ji-gun regarded his disciple’s expression with calm composure.
‘Was it this intense? Is this what tormented you so?’
Wi Ji-gun felt his very flesh quiver at the killing intent pouring from Ha Mu-baek.
He knew his disciple was powerful.
But killing intent this vicious?
What path had he walked?
How deep did the hatred run from losing his parents?
How much blood soaked that blade!
‘I was too blind.’
Wi Ji-gun berated himself.
Only now, facing it, did he grasp the heart demon’s immense, deeply rooted enormity.
‘I was too neglectful.’
Wi Ji-gun did not evade Ha Mu-baek’s torrent of killing intent.
He poured every step of his own journey into his energy.
The blood staining Wi Ji-gun’s sword transformed into killing intent, bolstering his aura to confront Ha Mu-baek’s.
It was feeble as fireflies before the moon.
Foolish as a mantis blocking a chariot.
Yet Wi Ji-gun’s eyes remained serene.
Not the slightest tremor.
Only profound pity for his disciple.
Even that pity wove into his energy.
Rumble rumble rumble boom.
The earth trembled, dust billowing upward.
Ha Mu-baek’s face twisted further.
His expression warping in proportion to his mounting agony.
Wi Ji-gun, by contrast, stayed utterly calm.
Though crushed beneath overwhelming power, he radiated tranquility.
Judging by faces alone, their positions seemed reversed.
Ha Mu-baek could bear it no longer and moved to withdraw his energy—but Wi Ji-gun noticed and quietly shook his head.
Ha Mu-baek clearly saw the gesture.
Thus, he could not pull back.
[You’ve still got some reserve. Pour out every last shred of killing intent until nothing remains.]
His master’s transmission voice resounded in his mind.
[But then Master will…]
He did have power left.
If he unleashed his full strength, his master wouldn’t endure.
No—something catastrophic would unfold, beyond imagining.
[It’s fine. I am your master. Mu-baek.]
Ha Mu-baek felt irrefutable, absolute conviction in his master’s calm, resolute tone. He squeezed his eyes shut.
He summoned energy from his dantian.
Withdrew the mental force suppressing the rampaging beast spewing bloody light from its eyes.
‘Kyahahahahaha!!!!’
Mad laughter hallucinated right in his ear.
Ha Mu-baek’s aura transformed entirely.
The purest killing intent in existence.
It encroached upon the surroundings.
This barren wasteland—stubborn weeds clinging to life—vanished without trace in an instant.
The vicious killing intent claimed the area as its unassailable domain.
Ha Mu-baek’s immense inner power and realm, fused with the heart demon’s malice.
An unimaginable scene unfolded.
A realm dominated by absolute death.
Absolute Death Zone.
The domain radiating from Ha Mu-baek earned the name.
It expanded, reaching Wi Ji-gun’s position.
Wi Ji-gun summoned all his energy to resist the absolute killing intent.
The entire domain drowned in death—but one life endured.
Wi Ji-gun alone defied the slaughter, rejecting oblivion.
Ha Mu-baek kept his eyes tightly shut.
Unable to face his master, he glared instead at the damned thing inside.
Even blind, he knew the devastation around him.
His peerless energy sense painted it more vividly than sight.
In the realm of the mind.
Ha Mu-baek’s eyes, fixed on the blood-eyed madman, burned red too.
Blood tears.
Tears of blood.
Since witnessing his parents’ gruesome deaths.
Shed once then—never again.
Now, beholding his heart demon unleashed toward Master Wi Ji-gun, Ha Mu-baek wept blood.
When he confessed the heart demon’s birth, hadn’t his master said it was part of him?
Thus.
Unleashing this vicious realm of absolute death upon his master was no different from doing it himself.
Hence, blood tears as he glared at the bastard.
‘Kyahahaha!’
Laughter rang out again.
The thing sought to seize control of Ha Mu-baek’s body.
Caught off guard by the unforeseen ploy, Ha Mu-baek scrambled to resist.
Too late.
He drew his sword, gripped it reverse.
Slamming it into the earth.
Ha Mu-baek uttered nothing—but the thing seemed to mutter low.
‘All of you, die! Kehhehehe!’
‘No, stop!!!!’
Not this.
Ha Mu-baek desperately fought to halt his own actions.
Tried reclaiming the surging energy.
He failed.
It was too swift.
Lurking deep in his psyche, it had prepared this.
Boom rumble crash!
The ground upheaved.
Split asunder.
Black, venomous killing intent erupted—coiling into a dragon’s form, lunging at Wi Ji-gun.
‘Dodge, please dodge!!!!’
Ha Mu-baek’s anguished cry—mouth frozen shut.
Wi Ji-gun gazed calmly at the oncoming black dragon, then drew his blade.
One straight thrust.
A simple pierce.
No technique from the Infinite Serene Eight Ultimate Sword Sea.
A path as plain and half-hearted as Ha Mu-baek’s Abyss.
Yet the result differed vastly.
At the tip: a fingernail-sized white orb.
Tiny sword orb.
It struck the dragon’s brow.
The black dragon thrashed—then dissolved.
‘Kiiiiii!!!!’
The inner demon wailed.
Ha Mu-baek reeled at the inconceivable sight.
His chest twinged sharply.
‘Why… why does this hurt…?’
Startled anew.
An unforeseen sorrow invaded his heart.
‘Truly extraordinary…’
Wi Ji-gun betrayed nothing, but cold sweat soaked his back.
A small enlightenment—yet he surmounted a towering wall.
Purely his own insight, untainted by primordials or beasts.
A strike embodying all he had seen, heard, felt, lived.
No mere trifle.
Vast enlightenment. Monumental breakthrough.
Not simple killing intent.
Ha Mu-baek sensed slaughter because Wi Ji-gun had infused a trace.
A trace—yet encapsulating every drop of blood and hatred he’d known.
The heart demon ceased shrieking, descending into frenzy.
[Let it be. Watch. Feel.]
The transmission echoed in Ha Mu-baek’s mind once more.
Mind-to-mind, it pierced even his fixation on the demon.
Wi Ji-gun had sensed his struggle to contain it.
[You felt it, didn’t you? I’m weaker than you, but not crumbling to your heart demon. I am your master. Mu-baek.]
Warmth infused the transmission.
Ha Mu-baek surrendered to the words.
Obeying, he observed the heart demon.
Watched. Felt.
With restraints gone, the shrieking demon rampaged wilder.
As if avenging its prior pain.
Energy erupted madly from every pore.
Yet it couldn’t manifest the Abyss.
Ha Mu-baek’s pure revelation—even a near-twin demon couldn’t ape it.
Merely mimicking one facet of his energy deployment.
The heart demon manipulated the body.
Raised the sword higher. Slammed fiercer into the ground.
Vast killing intent billowed—a colossal black killing dragon emerged.
‘Magnificent. Truly so.’
Wi Ji-gun admired purely.
The power the heart demon wielded at will—all Ha Mu-baek’s.
The prior display defied measurement; this dwarfed it, summoned effortlessly.
Pride swelled for his disciple’s heights—even as remorse flooded for overlooking the pain buried so deep.
He’d known, but not its profundity.
Had he truly grasped it, he might have purged the demon sooner.
‘Water under the bridge. The present matters.’
Wi Ji-gun shed futile regret.
He focused on the massive black killing dragon bearing down.