Chapter 623
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 623
Chapter Title: Is It Possible?
Ha Mu-baek's dantian ceaselessly spewed out energy.
It was to counter the tremendous power Gongya Harang was drawing from Mount Hyeong's forest.
Ha Mu-baek gazed at the Gongya Harang across from him with deep, profound eyes.
'Primordial Origin and Myriad Desolation Interval. There's definitely a difference.'
It was certainly different.
If the Primordial Origin was the raw power of the world's foundation itself,
then the Myriad Desolation Interval was the makeup of the world.
To use a human analogy, the Primordial Origin was like the soul and essence, the innate vital energy, while the Myriad Desolation Interval was like the body and internal energy?
Right before his eyes was a subordinate of the Myriad Desolation Interval, drawing on the forest and darkness.
Since the Myriad Desolation Interval stood at the opposite pole from the Primordial Origin, there had to be something akin to an abyss within it as well.
The Gongya Harang before him was, strictly speaking, not human but a variant dark blood corpse puppet.
There was no way such a demonic creature could harbor an existence like an abyss.
'Somewhere in the world, there's a bastard who's awakened the will of the Myriad Desolation Interval.'
And recalling the place where the Myriad Desolation Interval had manifested...
Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
That was the place.
Gae Hong-cheon, who had awakened as the Asura Blood Heaven Corpse Puppet, had wielded the power of the Myriad Desolation Interval.
Though the primordial darkness had dwelled there as well, the Myriad Desolation Interval had been present too.
And only one person came to mind as capable of awakening that will.
'Gae Se-aak.'
Just seeing the Primordial Darkness and Myriad Desolation Interval coexisting within Gongya Harang's body right now left no room for doubt.
Ha Mu-baek raised his internal energy even higher.
Because Gongya Harang's aura was growing steadily stronger.
'If it's this hard just dealing with an interval... then what about Qian or Kun...'
Qian.
Kun.
The trigrams symbolizing heaven and earth.
As long as the world existed, there was no place without heaven and earth.
So he couldn't even begin to imagine the sheer magnitude of power those bastards could draw upon.
Not when even Gongya Harang, barely scraping together Mount Hyeong's energy, was this formidable.
And Gongya Harang was merely a puppet, nothing more.
That was why Ha Mu-baek was observing.
To test the limits of this being and whether he himself could handle it.
"Kyahahahahahaha!!!"
Gongya Harang burst into mad laughter.
Mount Hyeong's night, shrouded in thick darkness.
That darkness turned into ferocious weapons and surged toward Ha Mu-baek.
Ha Mu-baek's body emitted light, illuminating the darkness.
A light proclaiming that no darkness dared invade the space where he stood.
The dark weapons crumbled away upon hitting the shield of light.
Ha Mu-baek raised his energy and stared at Gongya Harang.
Gongya Harang, too, absorbed Mount Hyeong's energy and glared back at Ha Mu-baek.
The two stood at a distance, simply staring at each other.
To an outsider, it might look like a mere standoff.
But that wasn't the truth.
Their energies were locked in fierce combat.
Gongya Harang attacking.
Ha Mu-baek defending.
The wild, savage energy dominated the space around Ha Mu-baek and Gongya Harang with ferocious intensity, making it impossible for anyone to approach easily.
Ha Mu-baek observed the flow of energy while scrutinizing Gongya Harang just as intently.
He activated the Infinite Bright Wheel Eye to its utmost limit and fixed his gaze on her.
Especially on her upper dantian.
'Is it possible?'
The power newly awakened in his eyes during the recent breakthrough.
He was checking if he could apply that power to her.
Amid the fierce and brutal clash,
changes were occurring in Gongya Jangcheon as well.
Exposed to the ceaseless influx of Myriad Desolation Interval energy battering Mount Hyeong.
No, more accurately, baptized by that energy.
He had suddenly attained enlightenment.
Focus returned to Gongya Jangcheon's eyes, and their depth intensified.
"Harang..."
A low murmur.
Now, one energy appeared clearly in his vision.
Heterogeneous yet somehow familiar, its true nature unknowable.
Even its existence dubious, but now it stood out vividly.
Darkness.
The origin of that power, which he had suspected.
Now it was unmistakably clear.
As were the differences.
This deeper understanding came from his advanced grasp of the Dark Asura Hell Art.
His realm had risen not just one step, but several.
He had thought he had reached the pinnacle, but beyond that pinnacle lay yet another realm.
The path of martial arts was an endless journey through eons, with no end in sight.
"So even with your incomplete Dark Asura Hell Art, you saw this..."
A murmur filled with regret.
The remorse of not passing on the final formula to his sister surged anew.
Inferring and truly seeing were two different things.
Only now did Gongya Jangcheon realize.
That the Dark Asura Hell Art at its pinnacle could contend with the Curse of World Annihilation.
That if Gongya Harang had obtained the final formula and reached the pinnacle, she would have overcome the Curse of World Annihilation.
While facing Gongya Harang before Ha Mu-baek appeared, operating the Dark Asura Hell Art at its pinnacle, he had sensed and guessed at it.
Now, Gongya Jangcheon clearly saw that it wasn't mere guesswork but irrefutable fact.
Amid the tremendous storm of energy created by Ha Mu-baek and Gongya Harang.
"Harang... I'm sorry..."
As Gongya Jangcheon muttered those words, tears flowed from his eyes.
Tears he had forcibly held back until now.
They finally spilled over.
The five Blood Thunder Guards turned their backs to Gongya Jangcheon, surrounding the area.
There were no enemies targeting Gongya Jangcheon anywhere.
But they could not bear to witness their lord's tears, so they acted thus.
'Save her.'
The thought that flashed in Ha Mu-baek's mind as he regarded Gongya Harang.
He wanted to save her.
Behind him, Gongya Jangcheon was shedding uncharacteristic tears.
Ha Mu-baek, who knew well the position of an older brother with a younger sister,
wanted to save her if possible.
And not just that.
The absolute curse of the Blood Cult, said to be impossible to break no matter what.
He harbored the desire to shatter it as well.
'Looking at Bang Sa-uk's case, or Gongya Harang's internal energy, it has to be there...'
Ha Mu-baek poured even more energy into the Infinite Bright Wheel Eye, already operating at its pinnacle.
Was it the effect?
The area created by the radiance around Ha Mu-baek shrank slightly.
In exchange, he could now scrutinize Gongya Harang in even finer detail.
Reading the movements of energy within her body far more clearly.
Originally, the Infinite Bright Wheel Eye didn't work on corpse puppets.
Of course not.
They lacked internal energy.
The energy animating them was ultimately the energy of primordial darkness.
But now that he could infuse the Infinite Bright Wheel Eye with Primordial Origin and Myriad Desolation Interval energies instead of mere internal energy, he could clearly see the flows within the corpse puppets.
It was a gain from Mount Hwa.
And Bang Sa-uk.
When he met his end.
When the dark power dominating his body weakened.
The White Jade Lotus Art hidden in his upper dantian resurfaced.
In part due to his Vermilion Bird Blood Spirit Physique,
but in any case, that energy lurking faintly in his upper dantian had allowed Bang Sa-uk to briefly regain his original mind right before death.
That was exactly what Ha Mu-baek was searching for.
Gongya Harang's original internal energy from the Dark Asura Hell Art.
But it wasn't easy to spot.
Then.
'Hm?'
Sensing a fairly strong energy from behind,
Ha Mu-baek briefly averted his gaze from Gongya Harang and turned his head.
And confirmed Gongya Jangcheon.
'Fairly strong?'
This amid the swirling origin energy of the Dark Asura Hell Art.
Thanks to it, Gongya Jangcheon had stepped into a new realm, and he wasn't hiding it.
On the contrary, after stopping his tears, he was unleashing his power to the fullest.
That was the power Ha Mu-baek had suddenly sensed.
'Ah...!'
And from Gongya Jangcheon's internal energy, he could precisely discern its characteristics.
The advanced realm made his internal energy possess even more distinct traits.
Ha Mu-baek turned back to Gongya Harang.
In that brief moment, dozens of attacks had flown at him, but he had sensed them with his energy sense and blocked them all with his radiant energy.
Ha Mu-baek scrutinized Gongya Harang's upper dantian once more.
'Found it!'
And in the deepest corner of her upper dantian, hidden like a grain of rice, he located Gongya Harang's original internal energy.
Since the Dark Asura Hell Art itself was based on darkness, with the Myriad Desolation Interval as its origin,
it had been hard to find.
Due to its similarity to the two energies dominating her simultaneously.
However.
Thanks to Gongya Jangcheon's advanced Dark Asura Hell Art, he now knew its unique traits clearly, and used that to locate it swiftly.
'I'll nurture that.'
The problem was the overwhelmingly powerful Myriad Desolation Interval and Primordial Darkness energies.
He needed to either grow that one larger or shrink those two.
But both methods were difficult.
Like with Bang Sa-uk, driving them to the brink of dissipation in one go would be easy,
but the end result would be death.
The radiant domain spread around Ha Mu-baek.
It began expanding rapidly.
His dantian spewed out vast energy without respite.
"No way!"
Gongya Harang drew in even more of Mount Hyeong's energy, even more of the dark energy.
The dark blood energy deep underground was already depleted.
The darkness she was pulling now came solely from darkness itself.
Due to the difference between Primordial Origin and Myriad Desolation Interval, the dark energy drawn this way wasn't great.
It was minuscule compared to the Mount Hyeong forest energy brought by the Myriad Desolation Interval.
Ha Mu-baek's dantian poured out energy ceaselessly.
The two energies clashed, sending storms raging in all directions.
Ha Mu-baek's sword moved, scattering dazzling radiance.
The Infinite Unfettered Eight Severances Sword Sea unfolded toward Gongya Harang.
Under Ha Mu-baek's assault, who had spread the radiant domain, light engulfed the area around Gongya Harang.
The ultimate essence of the Infinite Unfettered Eight Severances Sword Sea was unleashed toward Gongya Harang.
Gongya Harang likewise deployed the Southern Fate Asura Hell Sword to its pinnacle.
Vast darkness swirled and collided with the radiance of the Infinite Unfettered Eight Severances Sword Sea.
Centered on her, light and darkness waged fierce battle for dominance.
Ha Mu-baek's eyes deepened further.
The Infinite Bright Wheel Eye was still steadily active.
And Ha Mu-baek's eyes found the method.
'The problem is that it's absorbing energy from all directions.'
Then.
Block the absorption.
That was the conclusion.
The movements of the Infinite Unfettered Eight Severances Sword Sea changed.
The sword path he had used to drive the darkness and Myriad Desolation Interval energies from her body
now shifted to severing the Mount Hyeong energy she was drawing and absorbing.
The radiance began to envelop Gongya Harang.
Though she drew in vast energy, Ha Mu-baek's own energy was equally immense.
And Gongya Harang's Southern Fate Asura Hell Sword realm couldn't compare to Ha Mu-baek's Infinite Unfettered Eight Severances Sword Sea.
Gongya Harang couldn't block the radiant domain gradually dominating the space around her.
Ha Mu-baek went all out.
No matter how mighty his energy,
it couldn't match the power of nature embodied by Mount Hyeong.
The reason Ha Mu-baek held the advantage against Gongya Harang wasn't anything else.
It was because she wasn't the one who had seized the Myriad Desolation Interval's power; she was merely a puppet receiving that energy.
If an enemy who had claimed the Myriad Desolation Interval's will stood before him, how would he have faced them?
He had no idea.
That was why Qian and Kun had suddenly come to mind.
But.
Now, it seemed he had the answer.
Since it wasn't power she possessed inherently, but drawn from outside,
sealing the space would suffice.
Thus, a massive radiant sphere formed centered on Gongya Harang.
The area occupied by the radiant sphere.
Inside it existed only Ha Mu-baek and Gongya Harang.
And once she was perfectly isolated from the darkness and forest, her energy rapidly diminished.
In the end, it was merely borrowed from outside; it wasn't her own.
"Th-this is..."
Gongya Harang faltered at the sudden turn of events.
"Is that... some kind of barrier?"
Gongya Jangcheon, still radiating powerful energy, murmured as he beheld the spectacle unfolding before him.
He had sensed that the energy ceaselessly flowing toward Gongya Harang was now blocked by that sphere of light, unable to enter any further.