Chapter 419: Chapter 419
I thought of Murong Gang from my previous life.
Despite wielding martial arts domineering enough to earn the title Sword-Breaker, he had never tired or fallen first during the numerically disadvantaged battles against the Demonic Cult.
Looking back from this life, it had been a truly baffling phenomenon.
He had clearly used techniques incomparably more explosive and wasteful than the Taeul Sword Art—so how had he fought day and night without rest on less than Five Cycles of inner arts?
‘That had been the thing I was most curious about.’
I raised my head and fixed my gaze forward once more.
Nearly a hundred Wudang disciples were charging in with menacing force.
These were not the sort of half-baked fighters who had relied on nothing but numbers in the past.
The elite of the elite.
Warriors already approaching completion.
Before, the pressure would have set my heart racing and sent heat rushing to my head.
But now I felt as calm as any ordinary moment.
One step. Then another.
I watched the enemies closing in.
A mind that would normally have been racing to recall their past-life counterparts and find the right countermeasure was quieter than it had ever been.
In that serene stillness, a passage from the Taeul True Scripture flickered through my thoughts.
Where the truth of all creation resides, the shackles of the immeasurable are futile.
A passage that had brushed past on a whim sent a shiver coursing through my entire body.
The battle had not even begun, yet I felt neither fear nor dread.
“Strike!”
“CHARGE!”
Three men thrust simultaneously with the Returning Cloud Sword.
It was a sword not rooted in the Taiji fist tradition, so I could not divine its shattering method—yet somehow, my hand reached out without hesitation.
Snowflower, channeled through the Flowing Cloud Divine Art, blossomed.
The three who had been thrusting found their bodies wrenched in directions counter to their intent and slammed face-first into the ground.
“Huh?”
They struggled to twist back, but their momentum-caught bodies crumpled, and the arms gripping their swords bent in directions arms should never bend.
“UGHHK!”
“GAAAH!”
One fainted from the sheer agony. The other two I promptly dispatched with Phantom Shadow Kicks.
THWACK-THWACK!
Acrid dust billowed as the two slammed into the manor’s stone wall.
Seven more disciples immediately charged in.
Minor Heaven Sword Art
Breaking Strike Form.
The Red Radiance Sword, brimming with killing intent, drove into only the most critical vital acupoints, tearing through one opponent after another.
SWISH, SWISH, SWISH—
One with a long gash across his chest. One whose tendons were severed, sword clattering to the ground.
Those who recoiled at the sword wound connecting shoulder to back all sprayed fountains of blood, their bodies contorting grotesquely in agony.
“UGHHK!”
“GAAAH!”
Into the midst of that, the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist came crashing down.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-CRACK!
Before they could so much as examine their wounds, arms shattered, faces caved in, and ribs splintered as bodies were launched in every direction.
“……”
“……”
The Wudang disciples faltered, stupefied by the speed of it all.
Dumbstruck by the unexpected turn of events, their eyes darted about like lost puppies searching for their master.
“You idiots!”
The Hall Master, his face even redder than before, bellowed.
“What are you waiting for?!”
Ingrained fear moved the body of its own accord, and the Wudang disciples charged with terror they could not hide.
There was something I had come to understand through countless wars: conditioned behavior was certainly useful on the battlefield, but only in the macro sense.
In a one-against-many situation, it amounted to nothing more than a pointless waste of energy.
CRACK—
A warrior whose morale had broken spent every ounce of rational thought not on fighting, but on suppressing his fear.
CRACK-CRACK—
Both arms, both legs, both shins—each broken individually, the warriors tumbling to the ground in heaps. Casualties piling up in one spot were nothing more than obstacles that narrowed the field of movement. Nothing more, nothing less.
SCREEEECH——
Crimson Sword Qi erupted wildly from the Red Radiance Sword, raining down on the Wudang disciples.
“Block it!”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BANG!
It posed little real threat to disciples of Wudang’s caliber, but the Sword Qi had never been meant for that.
The sand and dust kicked up by the explosions settled, and in that instant—
“Th-there!”
Above their heads, the blossoms of Illusion Swords were descending.
WHOOOOOOSH—
Dozens, hundreds of Illusion Sword petals bloomed as blade fragments scattered like flower petals in every direction.
“Do not be deceived by the clumsy tricks of an Illusion swordsman!”
A shout befitting a disciple of a prestigious great sect, coolheaded and sharp.
“GRAGH!”
Yet the very warrior who had called for composure was the first to take a sword wound across his chest, erupting in a fountain of blood.
“GAAAAAH!”
“KURHK!”
“M-my eyes! My eyes!”
Sprays of blood flying from every direction alongside Illusion Swords and Variation Swords.
Compounding chaos shattered their formation ever faster, and the number of those falling grew by the moment.
RUMBLE——
And then, with an ominous tremor that shook the very air—
Radiant Heaven Divine Palm
A thunderous palm force engulfed the disoriented Wudang disciples.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-BOOM
The palm force, angled at subtle deflections, tore viciously through the ground, and the marble paving the grand riding ground shattered into razor-edged shards that rocketed toward the Wudang disciples.
“SHIT!”
“AAGH!”
The irregular barrage of broken stone forced oaths crude enough to make decades of Dao cultivation look like a joke, and those caught in the marble bombardment bled to a man.
‘I’m not tiring.’
Large-scale Illusion Swords followed by the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm.
Despite pouring out that much inner arts, I felt not an ounce of strain.
If anything, my body felt looser, more alive.
Was this what it felt like to be Murong Gang, who had seemed to grow more invigorated the more he fought?
Without a master or anyone to teach me, I had always tried to find my own solution to the problem of collapsing from exhaustion after every battle.
That solution had been spiritual medicines and Moving Circulation.
Even as I had sensed my body reaching its limits, I had kept averting my eyes from reality.
Telling myself this was the only right path.
And through a brush with death, I had realized it.
That I had been walking the wrong path.
Spiritual pills and Moving Circulation had been the easy path for me.
But I should have been walking the right path, not the easy one.
The right path was always painful and grueling, so one’s gaze naturally drifted toward the easy road.
‘Just like these people.’
The Wudang disciples who encircled me, glaring as though I were an enemy they could not suffer to exist under the same sky.
Acknowledging one’s sins and repenting was no easy task, even for one who had accumulated Dao power.
It was only natural that they would seek the easy path.
‘And that is why they must be made to see.’
Wudang was the root of the Daoist tradition in the murim.
If the plan was not to rip the root out and overturn the entire murim, then the root had to be healed.
They had to be shown that only walking the right path was the true Way they claimed to uphold.
That it would be painful, yes—but that was the only road that could avert annihilation and catastrophe.
Just as I had faced reality and crossed through the agony of life and death.
“So repeat after me—you’re all fucked!”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BANG!
Illusion Swords and Sword Qi stormed through the ranks, smashing the Wudang disciples one by one.
A few dimwits had thrown all semblance of Taiji’s subtlety to the dogs and charged in like brutes, but as if that would work.
Their inner arts were in a different league to begin with.
SNAP—
“GAAAAAH!”
An agonized scream as an arm bent in a direction it never should have.
A Great Yang Fist detonated against a torso, spraying blood.
It would be a long convalescence before that one used martial arts again.
THWACK—
Similarly, I drove another man into the stone wall, then turned to crush the next one when—
TAP! TAP! TAP! TAP!
Nine figures dropped from above, encircling me as they landed.
TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!
Twenty-seven more followed, forming a ring around the first.
‘Nine Palaces Sword Formation!’
The Wudang warriors locked into the formation and activated it.
RUMMMBLE—
Enormous pressure bloomed outward from the formation’s core, exerting its influence in all directions.
WHOOOOSH—
The warriors of the outer ring rotated in the opposite direction from those of the inner ring, gathering and discharging energy with devastating force.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BANG!
Sword Qi came pouring out like a storm.
Following the principles of the Nine Palaces, the qi seized all eight directions, and the final surge engulfed my entire body.
WHOOOOSH—
Through the nine blades of the Nine Palaces Divine Movement Sword Art wielded simultaneously, the Nine Palaces Linked Sword of the twenty-seven outer warriors stabbed inward in a surprise barrage.
No room to dodge or flee.
The old me would have been quite flustered. But now—
‘If I can’t run, I’ll just break it!’
A foot-long Sword Force surged atop the Red Radiance Sword.
Pitifully short compared to before, yet I felt no fear or hesitation.
I was confident.
This much was enough.
At the same time, a passage from the Sword Demon’s—no, from the martial arts Baek Hae-gwang had imparted—flickered through my mind.
Even in the moment of defense, destroy your opponent. That is Perfection in defense.
Three Forms of the White Moon Governing Heaven
Second Form
Extreme Might
Countless crimson arcs of Sword Force crashed against the Sword Qi like waves.
Wudang’s Sword Qi, infused with the Nine Palaces Sword Formation’s power, was said to rival Sword Force.
The Nine Palaces’ Sword Qi absorbed and deflected the Sword Force spreading in every direction.
‘The greatest strength and greatest weakness of any sword formation is that multiple people wield it.’
Unless they had spent decades synchronizing, or shared a bond of perfect unity like the Gold-Silver-Copper Brothers, cracks always existed in a formation.
And as long as one had enough endurance to withstand the formation’s pressure, one could exploit those cracks to shatter it.
I spotted it—one man in the outer ring, his face contorting.
‘There you are!’
He was struggling, barely holding on, his brow deeply furrowed.
I immediately poured force into that point, prying the crack wide open.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—
Starting from that small fracture, one strand of Sword Qi shattered.
The warriors around him tried to pour more strength in to compensate, but I was a step faster.
BOOM-BANG!
Sword Force detonated, and the qi storm swallowed the Wudang warriors. The Nine Palaces Sword Formation, which had held together flawlessly, shuddered violently.
A formation that had lost the Nine Palaces’ harmony was no different from a chaotic melee.
And a melee—
“Come on in, you bastards.”
—was my specialty.
I shattered the formation with Sword Force, then detonated the Sword Qi to drive the chaos even deeper.
“Wh-what?!”
“I can’t see!!”
“Where is he?!”
And I twisted the blade to its flat and swung the Minor Heaven Sword Art without mercy.
THWACK-THWACK! CRACK-CRACK!
SNAP-SNAP! CRACK-SNAP!
Arms and thighs, shins, ribs—faithfully broken, one spot at a time.
Those who had hung back and hesitated, I let off with broken bones or shallow cuts.
Those who had led the charge radiating killing intent, I made certain to sever their tendons and wound their qi centers.
“AAARGH!”
“KURHKK!”
“BLEARGH!”
If they had the will, they would recover. If not, they would fade away.
But it did not matter.
‘A bit of culling wouldn’t hurt.’
The enemy we would ultimately have to face was clear.
And to face that enemy, everyone would need to unite.
Filtering out impurities was an unavoidable necessity.
So whether they overcame this and came back, or never came back at all, it was fine either way.
If there was nothing to lose, there was even less reason to hold back.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
SNAP—
More than half the Wudang personnel were demolished, and those still standing now numbered fewer than thirty.
I shifted my gaze to one of them.
“Hey. Hall Master.”
The face of the Hall Master who had issued the commands had gone deathly pale.
“It’s getting a little lonely with your boys dropping one by one. How about you come down here and fight too?”
The Hall Master was trembling head to toe, as if he had seen a ghost.
“Y-you…… what…… what in the……”
Fair enough—even I would be just as stunned.
He could not have predicted that the me who had extracted Dam Ak would be this different from the me standing here now.
“I-I only wanted to get you to retract your testimony. How did it……”
The Hall Master, unable to grasp the situation, turned to me with a question.
“C-can you handle the consequences of this…… doing something like this against Wudang?”
“Fuck, anyone listening would think I started this.”
“Wh-what?”
“If you’re just going to sit there like an idiot, at least cheer or something.”
SCREEEECH——
A lance of Sword Qi shot toward the Hall Master like a bolt of light.
“HKGH!”
The Hall Master reacted a beat too late, hastily drawing his sword to parry—
“KURHK!”
He coughed blood, perhaps from an unseen earlier strike.
“What a joke.”
A Hall Master who sat on his ass playing ostrich while his juniors were being beaten to pulp.
Somehow it reminded me of the useless superiors from my past life, and my mood soured further.
“Fuck—if you’re sitting in a chair with enough authority to give orders, at the very least you should have been prepared to take the worst of it yourself!”
I fired off a Fist Projection from the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist.
Ten projectiles aimed at nine vital points and the qi center.
I could not predict how Wudang would respond to this, but I absolutely could not stomach letting it slide.
‘Fuck it, I’ll figure it out somehow!’
And just as the ten fist strikes closed in on the Hall Master’s body—
WHOOOOSH—
A white wind blew.
No—it only felt that way.
A martial arts uniform of flawless white, without a single speck of dust.
The man wearing it appeared before the Hall Master like a gust of wind and swept his sword in a gentle arc.
The fist strikes that had been hurtling forward were swept along as though caught in a current, scattering in every direction before detonating.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BANG!
Then, as if nothing had happened, the man in white stood with his sword angled behind his back.
“Yong So-ah.”
Yong So-ah, who had been gazing down at the wretched state of his sect members with emotionless eyes.
When that gaze shifted to me—
“Jin So-un. As I thought, you……”
His voice, too, resonated without a single trace of feeling.
“You are an existence that must disappear.”