Chapter 369: The Encirclement

***

Jin So-myeong, who had launched a surprise attack and cleaved five puppets, narrowed his eyes.

Honestly, he had wanted to target the Unity stage Dao Sovereign first, but he had no choice since the puppets blocked all directions.

‘Are the remaining ones fourteen Rank 7 puppets and one mid Unity stage expert?’

Although other enemies would flock if he dragged time even slightly, for now, that was the case.

‘Fortunately, the puppets are manageable.’

Once he split the power cores found with the Lightning Insight Spell-Breaking Eye, they could no longer move.

He had been worried because there were as many as four hundred Unity stage-level puppets, but at this level, it seemed he could manage to resolve it somehow.

Just as he was organizing the information he had grasped while conducting the surprise attack,

the opponent, who perceived the raid, formed hand seals, and the hundreds of eyeballs covering the sky rotated.

Grotesquely numerous pupils all stared over here.

A split second.

Pillars of light poured out from the blood-red pupils.

As the lava-like red heat rays approached, the earth surged.

Sss!

Although he had not even touched the heat rays, all the ground existing in the area melted down.

Although his skin, trained through body-tempering, stung as if burned, he ignored it.

What was important now was to quickly end the battle before other Dao Sovereigns flocked. He had no time to pay attention to minor injuries.

He snapped his fingers toward the center of the pouring heat rays.

While launching the Chaos Sky Shattering Annihilation Palm compressed into a bead shape,

he stepped on the empty air and charged instead of the half-melted, surging ground.

Swoosh!

Just before the heat ray that flew in like a ray of light split his forehead,

he turned his head. Evading the heat ray by a hair’s breadth, he continued to advance.

A split second.

The heat ray that brushed past his hair bent vertically and aimed at his temple.

At the simple yet fatal blow, the corners of his mouth naturally rose.

‘Skilled.’

He had judged him to be at a similar level to Yu Cheon, but that was a miscalculation.

One could tell simply from how he responded to the sudden surprise attack.

His opponent was an expert who had undergone numerous real battles.

He had hoped he might be able to cleave him in a single slash if things went well. Had he made a slight slip, it seemed it might turn into a prolonged battle.

Presumably…

it was not the time to save his means.

He caught the heat ray, which was on the verge of penetrating his temple, with his dharma domain.

Just as the rapidly slowed heat ray struggled to break free from the dharma domain,

Boom!

the Chaos Sky Shattering Annihilation Palm launched a moment ago exploded in midair, and pure white lightning poured down.

As the Five Elements Divine Thunder containing extreme chill swept the area, all directions were covered in ice.

The moment he tried to pierce through the heat ray weakened by the chill and advance,

the heat rays pouring in all directions drew a strange trajectory and gathered in one place.

They transformed like a red tsunami and blocked his front, but he did not stop.

Slash…!

As he cleaved and parted the bright red curtain, the tsunami soaring high into the sky, his vision cleared up completely.

The puppets that gathered in an instant emitted blue light and blocked his way, and the opponent was about to clasp his hands together.

Watching him emit massive dharma power, he narrowed his eyes.

‘As expected, this fellow also possesses the golden bead.’

The treasure presumed to have been bestowed by the Grand Unity stage expert.

Massive dharma power was pouring from the golden bead situated around the opponent’s solar plexus.

Feeling the vast energy weighing down his shoulders, he abandoned his final hesitation.

Indeed, now was not the time to choose between means and methods.

While unfolding the Blood Wings and the Heart-Shattering Blood Glyph simultaneously,

he pulled up the silver lightning he had saved as his trump card.

Crackle!

The moment the black lightning flowing along the blade was dyed in silver,

the rapidly flowing scenery stretched like taffy and soon fell into silence.

It was as if… the world had stopped.

It was different from unfolding the Annihilation Slash.

The world stopping now was a phenomenon caused purely by the difference in speed.

He swung his sword toward the puppets moving at a frustratingly slow pace.

A single instant, the time to blink once.

In a split second that could not be reached even if that instant was split into thousands,

Slash!

he easily cut out the puppets’ power cores found with the Lightning Insight Spell-Breaking Eye.

He passed through all obstacles leisurely.

The opponent, whose pupils had expanded to the limit, tried to clasp his palms, but he was too slow.

He was curious what kind of secret art would pop out if those palms collided, but he had no intention of verifying it.

He simply struck down with his sword,

and the two palms became unable to meet forever.

“Gah!”

A line of blood starting from his forehead ran down the bridge of his nose.

He thrust his hand-blade toward the opponent who stared with wide eyes.

Crack!

Grabbing the hand that had dug into the solar plexus, he violently pulled out the golden bead split in half.

According to what he had figured out while fighting Yu Cheon, if this golden bead was destroyed, it would transform into a bizarre monster and run amok.

Unless the power was completely depleted, if he packed a perfectly fine bead carelessly, the subdimension might collapse.

Bam!

Throwing it as far away as possible, he kicked off the air while packing the storage pouch.

He had already achieved his goal.

Having dealt with a Unity stage Dao Sovereign and roughly grasped the level of the enemies, he intended to withdraw.

As he tried to leave the battlefield with all his might, his speed suddenly slowed drastically.

‘Ah, slightly faster than expected.’

The silver lightning had run dry before he knew it.

Since it was his first time using it in real combat, he felt he had not used it efficiently.

Just as he unfolded the Myriad Flows Restoration divine ability to recover the depleted silver lightning,

Boom!

a formless shockwave bashed his back.

‘Urgh.’

Reconstructing his crushed spine, he grimaced.

A pressure as if the entire sky had become an enemy weighed down his whole body, and due to the bizarrely strong pressure, he could not even fly.

In the end, he crashed just like that and plunged into the ground, and,

Boom!

he was buried deep underground along with a giant pit.

Although his tendons were on the verge of snapping as he forced himself to move, he ignored it.

Staggering up, he grasped the situation to see what had happened.

‘They are already here. A fast response.’

Although the time taken to deal with the opponent just now was not even a few seconds, reinforcements had already arrived.

The Dao Sovereigns appearing from the horizon were forming hand seals, and one of the Dao Sovereigns was exceptionally familiar.

The old man who had pursued him from the Heavenly Law Palace.

When the old man carrying a gourd at his waist stretched out his hand, the edge of the pit soared high into the sky.

The sky was blocked by the heap of earth rising like a wall, and as the surroundings were submerged in a bizarrely dense darkness, even his divine sense was blocked.

‘A sealing art?’

Simultaneously with grasping what trick it was, the surrounding dirt wriggled and tried to bind his limbs.

He was about to strike down with his sword and slice it, but froze.

Suddenly feeling his hair stand on end, a chilly coldness flowed along his spine.

A bad feeling.

In a tension that turned his mouth dry, he swung up the sword he was striking down.

Ignoring the heap of earth trying to bind his limbs, he thrust his sword toward the front.

Clang…!

The tip of his sword collided with something that flew in from the darkness.

The split second the blade bent as if about to break,

he hurriedly twisted his wrist. Dissipating the impact by twisting the blade, he grasped what had attacked.

A golden bead. No, should he call it a golden figure?

The mysterious monster that appeared as soon as he killed Yu Cheon.

The monster that copied his appearance like a mirror swung a golden skewer to pierce his brow.

Crackle!

He unfolded the Lightning Escape Art using the silver lightning recovered with the Myriad Flows Restoration divine ability.

Kicking off the ground and evading the heap of earth just before it bound his limbs,

he concentrated on the golden figure holding the skewer that crudely resembled a sword.

He counter-stabbed the skewer flying toward the nape of his neck with the tip of his sword.

Clang!

He did not resist the brutal strength transmitted along the blade.

Tweaking his wrist minutely, he concentrated on slightly bending the trajectory of the flying skewer.

Clang!

Sparks flew in the void, and the skewer brushed past his jaw instead of the nape of his neck.

‘Perfect physical strength is overwhelmingly lost… but speed is manageable.’

Of course, that was when thinking positively.

Speaking a bit more calmly, he could barely respond only if he unfolded the Lightning Escape Art with the silver lightning.

Should he say it was befitting a treasure presumed to have been bestowed by the Grand Unity stage expert?

Befitting a monster that survived even after being hit by Genesis, it could not be faced by ordinary means.

Clang, clang, clang!

Observing the successive sword strikes flying in, he narrowed his eyes.

The sword swung by the golden figure was familiar.

A sword strike that trusted in a strong physical body trained through body-tempering and concentrated on swift swordsmanship rather than defense.

It resembled the sword he swung.

‘It is like looking in a mirror…’

The crude skewer gradually became thin and sharp, and before he knew it, transformed exactly like the sword he held.

The flat facial features were also the same.

Pupils formed in the empty eye sockets, and a nose and ears sprouted.

The appearance growing increasingly resembling him was chilling, and at the same time stimulated a strong curiosity.

This monster seemed to imitate the opponent, and he wondered how far it could copy him.

However…

now was not the time to afford a fight with such a monster.

Advancing the Blood Wings into the next stage, he simultaneously unfolded the last remaining simplified Moon-Deducing Dao Scripture.

He guided all of the wildly surging energy to the tip of his sword.

The sword swung in an unspeakable ascension drew a diagonal line, and,

everything touching the trajectory was parted.

Not to mention the golden figure that swung the sword silently like a ruthless slaughter machine, even the heap of earth covering the sky was entirely split.

The moment light poured from the wide-split heap of earth,

he kicked away the golden figure whose upper and lower body were separated, gathered the silver lightning on the verge of running dry, and unfolded the Lightning Escape Art.

Crackle!

He raced in the void at a speed difficult to control even for himself.

Had he made a slight slip, he would be surrounded, so he had to leave the battlefield as quickly as possible.

Simultaneously with escaping from the heap of earth that blocked his divine sense,

Swoosh!

a shadow cast, and thousands of arrows poured down.

Sensing a fishy energy from the arrowheads, they did not seem like something good to be hit by.

Clang!

Starting with deflecting the arrow aiming at his brow,

he spread the sharp energy flowing along the blade in a fan shape.

Slash!

As a giant crescent moon cleaved the void, all the arrows caught in the trajectory were split.

‘Hmm…?’

Around the time he felt suspicious at the appearance of it being breached more easily than expected,

Swoosh!

a black arrow popping out from the shadow aimed at his solar plexus.

He struck down vertically with the sword that had been scattering slashes.

Just as he tried to slice up the exceedingly suspicious arrow,

Swish!

just before touching the sword,

the arrow scattered like mist and dug into his forearm and flank.

Naturally, he tried to shake it off immediately, but it was not easy.

The mist permeating through the skin disintegrated into units smaller than dust in an instant, and dug deep inside his body.

Although he tried to slow down the speed with his dharma domain and burn it with lightning, it only flinched briefly and could not be blocked.

Although his brow naturally furrowed, he ignored it for now.

Deflecting the pouring arrows, he kicked off the air.

Rumble!

Draining the last remaining silver lightning, he got as far away from the battlefield as possible.

‘Still, what a relief.’

Since he unfolded the Lightning Escape Art with the silver lightning, no one could follow him. It meant that in terms of flight speed, he held the advantage.

How much had he flown?

Clad in the Infinite Void Formless Robe, he looked back at the battlefield that had receded into the far distance.

He was curious what had become of the golden figure split in half.

‘It would be nice if it ran amok properly and they fought among themselves.’

Examining the rear with such hope, unfortunately, the golden figure did not run amok.

When the old man carrying the gourd gestured, it transformed back into a bead shape and was retrieved.

He had expected it to run amok since it was like a mindless combat weapon, but friend-or-foe identification seemed possible to some extent.

‘By what criteria does it identify friend or foe?’

When facing them, the most troublesome thing was the golden figure that appeared when they were killed.

If he could grasp the operation principle and prevent himself from being attacked by the golden figure, his chances of winning would rise sharply.

Although this would not be a simple problem as it sounds, it was worth pondering.

‘Let’s think about this later.’

Setting aside the thoughts that suddenly arose,

he examined his body’s condition while replenishing the silver lightning with the Myriad Flows Restoration divine ability.

The black arrow that had turned into mist and permeated was still inside his body.

Although he did not know what this was, since it looked highly suspicious at a glance, he wanted to eliminate it as quickly as possible.

Crackle!

He tried burning it with lightning Qi and pushing it out with dharma power, but it only flinched slightly and clung tenaciously.

‘Seeing that there is a response, it doesn’t mean it has no effect… Should I push it out with stronger energy?’

Just as he narrowed his brows,

the foresight ability obtained by absorbing the inner core of the Three-Eyed Giant Cat warned of an ominous future.

He examined the surroundings with the Lightning Insight Spell-Breaking Eye, and discovered the enemies narrowing the encirclement beyond the horizon.

Over three hundred puppets, and over twenty Unity stage Dao Sovereigns.

‘They must have grasped my location.’

What he had roughly guessed was correct. The arrow that permeated his body seemed to be a tracking-type dharma spell.

Looking at the encirclement growing denser as time flowed, he dashed toward the part that was not yet completely blocked.

‘…Hmm?’

Just when he narrowly escaped the encirclement on the verge of completion,

he saw ten Dao Sovereigns hiding in front.

‘Did they open this side deliberately?’

He knew who blocked his front as soon as he saw them.

The Law-Decreeing Palace, which had been digging up the Heaven-Defying Treasure, had received a contact and set a trap.

How should he resolve this situation…?

His contemplation was brief.

Although he would end up being thoroughly surrounded if he kept going like this, he did not turn his direction.

He continued forward like a person who had noticed nothing at all.

Since things had turned out this way anyway, he intended to unfold the Moon-Deducing Dao Scripture.