Chapter 88: The Final Stage
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Hyeop Mu-geuk quickly steadied his spirit and focused on the fight at hand.
Though he was quite puzzled why Yeop Hwon was letting out peculiar moans, there was no leisure to examine that situation in detail.
Right now, taking down the two Emotionless Swordsmen pouring lethal attacks at him was the priority.
On the other hand, Mun Bin, who had been standing like a borrowed sack of rice, turned his gaze toward where the sound came from and immediately wore a bewildered expression.
It was a natural reaction.
Because currently, Yeop Hwon, who was evading the fierce combined assault of the three unorthodox masters like the wind, was continuously letting out peculiar moans.
“Haang! Hang, haang!”
Mun Bin muttered internally, casting a dazed gaze.
‘What, could he be… senile…?’
For him, it was a reasonable suspicion.
No, why was he acting like that when he’d been fine until now?
Of all people, a seventy-year-old elder with completely white hair all over his body saying ‘haang, haang’… He was afraid it might appear in his dreams.
Meanwhile.
Gao Yue Sword Sect Master Moon Scar Twin Swords Gyu Geon, Trembling Martial Hall Master Pillar Splitting Sword Pa Woo-saeng, and Red Tiger Hall Master Tiger-Following Swordsman Geo Ja-woong, who were wildly unleashing fierce attacks targeting Yeop Hwon, were each greatly irritated.
‘Bastard!’
They cursed with their eyes identically.
Even after consuming seven-tenths of their internal cultivation, they still hadn’t dealt even a small wound to Yeop Hwon, and now that he was suddenly letting out sounds unpleasant to hear as if mocking them, they couldn’t help but be irritated.
The exchange of offense and defense continued along with the moans.
SWISH, SWI-SWISH, SWISH-!
“HWOO-AAAANG!”
Gyu Geon, Pa Woo-saeng, and Geo Ja-woong were now showing clear signs of exhaustion.
Trusting only their numerical advantage from the start and overexerting their strength, missing repeatedly, had caused fatigue to set in.
“Haaaang!”
“Crazy old man, shut your mouth!”
Gyu Geon, ten paces ahead, raised an angry shout and rapidly crossed both arms before his chest.
His twin swords struck together hard.
CLA-CLANG!
From there where sparks flew, flat horizontal sword energy in a crescent form burst forth.
Pursuing Moon Extracting Sword Piece.
It was an ultimate technique of Moon Stream Twin Sword Forms, the sword art representing Gao Yue Sword Sect.
Along with that, Pa Woo-saeng and Geo Ja-woong, who had occupied the space to either side of Yeop Hwon, also thrust and swung their sword and saber without anyone going first.
Suddenly.
KICK-!
Yeop Hwon released internal energy from both Yongquan Points while simultaneously leaping forward diagonally.
As if throwing his body forward to do an acrobatic flip.
Pa Woo-saeng’s sword, Geo Ja-woong’s saber, and Gyu Geon’s Pursuing Moon Extracting Sword Piece just barely sliced through empty air by a hair’s breadth.
Yeop Hwon leaped upward and whirled his thrown body in a circle before planting his feet on the ground, then immediately burst vital energy through both soles.
PA-BANG!
Along with a crisp sound, his figure pressed close to Gyu Geon’s face.
An admirable continuous motion exploiting a momentary opening.
Startled Gyu Geon quickly crossed his twin swords in an X when heavy sword power struck.
CLANG- KA-CRASH!
“Keck!”
Gyu Geon’s figure, wrapped in pure white energy wave, was pushed back twenty jang like a fallen leaf blown by wind.
Immediately following, Yeop Hwon’s pointed sound.
“Haang!”
At that moment, Geo Ja-woong and Pa Woo-saeng rapidly rushed targeting his back and extended their saber and sword.
Reading the movement, Yeop Hwon bent his body back hard and leaped again as if doing a flip.
SWI-SWISH- SWI-SWISH-!
Blades barely grazing past below his risen body.
Yeop Hwon let out a chuckle during that brief moment of flipping backward.
In truth, he wasn’t making those peculiar moans because he wanted to – it was an uncontrollable reaction.
It was because a tingling sensation kept occurring inside his body due to the realization of the initial gateway toward the realm of the so-called Senses of a Superhuman.
It was very similar to the phenomenon he had experienced during the treatment process for meridian blockage disease not long ago.
However, there was one thing clearly different.
Back then, thrills had continuously invaded as if a thin, soft cloth gently wrapped around his entire body and tickled while brushing through, but now that series of strange pleasure manifested limited to inside his body.
Namely, along the energy meridians, pressure points, and such – not through external bodily contact.
Simply put, the operation of internal cultivation itself was continuously generating pleasure that made it impossible to suppress peculiar moans.
It hadn’t been like this from the start.
It had just naturally raised its head while continuing this fight.
That mysterious feeling that made his hair stand on end, passing through inside his body with a tingle.
Yet there was no bewilderment.
Rather, he had been waiting for such pleasure to occur.
Why?
Because Cheol Ryu-heun had already mentioned such a phenomenon last night.
-Unlike the General Manager, Elder, you will experience a certain phenomenon during tomorrow’s fight where you maximize your senses. Well, it’s the effect of having suffered from meridian blockage disease. Anyway, don’t be unnecessarily surprised then, and try to manage it well. If you can turn that phenomenon into another great achievement, it’s the same as obtaining an awakening of senses that exceeds that of your late master.
When he had asked if there was any technique for mastering it, Cheol Ryu-heun’s answer had been extremely simple.
-Like folding and unfolding a fan, the wind goes upward. It’s no fun if I tell you everything. The remaining realization is your share.
FLUTTER-
The moment Yeop Hwon landed after spinning one revolution in reverse, fluttering his robe hem.
SHWING- SHO-SHWING-!
Pa Woo-saeng and Geo Ja-woong each twisted their upper bodies and sent slashing attacks from their sword and saber toward his rear.
In an instant, Yeop Hwon.
“Hang!”
Flipped his body far back as if lying down.
Thus, the sword shadow and saber shadow cut past through the space above him, and immediately after.
PA-FWAP.
Using the force of flipping his body, Yeop Hwon touched the ground with his left hand, did an acrobatic flip, then stepped footwork to increase the distance further.
At that moment, Gyu Geon ground his teeth.
‘Urk… that bastard!’
The twin swords in both hands WOONG! vibrated.
The effect of massive vital energy, that power.
Though his chest stung severely from internal injury received from Yeop Hwon’s earlier sword strike, he was about to execute a maximum cultivation sword form without caring.
CRASH!
Having kicked off the ground, he shot past Geo Ja-woong and Pa Woo-saeng’s sides in one stroke and charged toward Yeop Hwon’s front.
SHU-SHUK!
The twin swords laden with mighty energy moved targeting his left shoulder and right side, spitting out cutting sounds.
In an instant, Yeop Hwon’s eyes flashed with peculiar light.
He could see.
The gap.
The momentarily slowed sword work of the opponent led fatalistic attack into the space where he could drive in his sword tip.
SPIN-SPIN.
Yeop Hwon’s figure spinning like a top out to Gyu Geon’s right.
Following that.
SCHUCK-!
The blade wrapped in pure white sword energy was at some point deeply driven into Gyu Geon’s right neck then SCHUCK smoothly withdrawn.
“Guh… rk…”
Gyu Geon collapsed limply onto the ground with a phlegm-rattling sound as his last, and died.
Red blood soaked the earth.
PA-FWAP.
Yeop Hwon’s figure shot forth forward.
Distance compressing in one stroke.
Fluttering robe hems, blade slicing the wind.
Yeop Hwon’s sword crossing the front horizontally revealed a majestic force like a white mountain peak, vibrating the air.
Maximum cultivation was contained in the white sword energy burst along the long trajectory.
It was none other than Thousand Peaks Assault Sword, a form from the middle chapter of the White Peak Sword Scripture.
Before the swift continuous motion offensive, startled Geo Ja-woong and Pa Woo-saeng each raised their weapons before their chests.
KRA-CHA-HA-HANG- KABOOOOM!
The moment the long-shot Thousand Peaks Assault Sword flogged both their weapons and created a resonant thunder.
“Urk!”
“Aaaak!”
Geo Ja-woong and Pa Woo-saeng, having received great impact inside their bodies, let out groans as they were bounced backward.
Soon, blood trickled from the corners of both their mouths as they caught their balance and stood.
The aftereffect of internal injury.
Just as the Emotionless Swordsmen group that had pressed Hyeop Mu-geuk, Geo Ja-woong and Pa Woo-saeng also couldn’t withstand Yeop Hwon’s surprise maximum cultivation sword form because they had consumed a massive amount of energy.
Just then.
Yeop Hwon was finally ascending to new realization.
TINGLE-TINGLE, TINGLE-TINGLE.
Right after executing Thousand Peaks Assault Sword, the moment he compressed the series of internal cultivation like folding a fan, then spread it across the entire twelve standard meridians and eight extraordinary meridians as if widely unfolding again, the tingling pleasure was maximized.
Simultaneously, the upper dantian reacted violently.
Following that, when he operated a massive amount of vital energy to concentrate it toward his brain, the pleasure that had been stimulating inside his body subsided cleanly as if by magic, and a different strange sensation rapidly awakened in his head.
‘I did it!’
It had simply been an act led by instinctive judgment.
Wondering if this was what Cheol Ryu-heun’s words had meant.
So he had rapidly moved his internal energy technique, using the moment when both had been bounced far away.
It was a kind of gamble.
However.
He had succeeded.
What he had urgently attempted, hoping to realize it before concluding the fight, had brought such a result.
Now let’s verify!
Having shouted internally, Yeop Hwon dashed like an arrow toward the two people about a jang away.
‘Ah!’
Startled Pa Woo-saeng, without even leisure to wipe the blood from his mouth, forcefully extended the sword in his right hand.
Maximum cultivation drawn up even enduring worsening internal injury.
A single thread of long sword energy was fiercely released, displaying power like small tremors.
As if transparent waves were spreading through the air along that path.
Vibration Releasing Sword Light.
It was the ultimate thrusting form within Three Vibration Sword Technique, representing the position of Trembling Martial Hall Master.
The faint vibration accompanying the sword energy was a characteristic unique to the energy technique – the internal cultivation mental technique that had to be mastered to execute Three Vibration Sword Technique ultimate techniques.
However.
WHOOSH!
In the gap of an instant, Yeop Hwon did not stop charging and sharply ducked his upper body, letting the vibrating Vibration Releasing Sword Light barely slide over the back of his head.
A feeling that the flow captured in his eyes had temporarily slowed a bit more.
Having pressed close to Pa Woo-saeng’s front, Yeop Hwon thrust the sword in his right hand to pierce through his abdomen.
PU-SCHAAAK!
“Kuh!”
The moment Pa Woo-saeng burst out a short cry of pain, Geo Ja-woong’s saber form from beside him rushed in rapidly.
WHOO-WHOO-WHOO-WHOO-WHOO-WOONG-!
The saber laden with vivid energy emitted thick edge and bloodlust along with a disordered trajectory.
A form like a leopard wildly tearing apart prey with two front paws bearing sharply raised claws.
It was Leopard Transformation Wild Shadow, an ultimate technique of the unique martial art Leopard Form Saber Technique laden with maximum cultivation.
In an instant, Yeop Hwon, led by a keen energy sense that outpaced his own eyesight, responded reflexively.
SPIN.
With the blade driven into Pa Woo-saeng’s abdomen, he quickly turned his body to the side, simply using him as a shield.
SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWAK, SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWA-SCHWAK-!
Before the fiercely poured power of Leopard Transformation Wild Shadow, Pa Woo-saeng’s body was hacked apart, creating a fountain of blood.
While Geo Ja-woong was flustered, unable to stop his attack in time, Yeop Hwon had at some point withdrawn his sword SCHUCK and pressed close to his flank.
An exquisite movement accomplished in the blink of an eye, and a sword strike linked with that motion sharply sliced the wind.
SHO-SHWING-!
Within the blade crossing space horizontally, laden with white sword energy, was contained heavy power reminiscent of a mountain peak.
PU-SCHAAAAK…!
His waist neatly severed by the once-again-executed Thousand Peaks Assault Sword from the middle chapter of the White Peak Sword Scripture, Geo Ja-woong met his death like that.
THUD.
As Yeop Hwon tied things up, Hyeop Mu-geuk over there also cut down the two Emotionless Swordsmen’s bodies and put an end to things, then regulated his breathing.
“Whew…”
Soon, the two turned their heads and exchanged gazes, wearing thin smiles.
It was a wordless congratulation on each other’s achievements.
Mun Bin, watching those two, was impressed once again.
‘They really won! Without a single wound on their bodies…’
In the blink of an eye.
KRAAAAAAAASH…!
Along with a terrifying thunder, a figure dropped THUD down through the air into the center of the garden.
KU-KUNG-!
A back colliding with the ground.
The identity of the figure lying there in a spot sunken in like a pit was Netherworld Sword Fork Jeo Gyeom.
Right on time, Ximen Yue had just revealed himself atop an old tree outside the eastern wall of the manor.
And.
FLUTTER-
Cheol Ryu-heun appeared in the garden, fluttering his robe hems, stood at a distance of about one jang, and spoke indifferently.
“Get up. Unless you want to eat an ultimate technique lying down.”