Chapter 156: Dual Polarity Divine Art
“Jang Mun-gyeong!”
“What business does the noble Adept Heu-do have here?”
Adept Heu-do spoke Senior Jang Mun-gyeong’s three-letter name with force, and Senior Jang Mun-gyeong replied to Adept Heu-do sarcastically.
A turbulent atmosphere flowed, enough to make an outsider think they shared a deep-seated grudge.
‘Adept Heu-do was the one who sent Senior Jang Mun-gyeong to me, so what do they mean by hostile?’
There was no one in our group who did not know that. Therefore, everyone was desperately holding back the laughter that was about to burst out.
However, the man from the Defeng Yin Clan, who was clinging tightly to Adept Heu-do’s side and venting his anger, raised his voice as if he were the most aggrieved victim in the world.
“Jang Mun-gyeong, you bastard! Even if you are one of the Ten Great Swords of the Realm, do you think you can get away with slaughtering innocent lives like this?!”
Anyone listening would think he was truly an innocent victim.
The man spouting nonsense next to Adept Heu-do seemed to be Yoon Jin-hyeok, the head of the Defeng Yin Clan.
Behind him, the pieces of trash from the Defeng Yin Clan were gathered.
Perhaps the hand Senior Jang Mun-gyeong had prepared was Adept Heu-do.
“If there is a right and wrong to distinguish, you should have proudly broken through the front gate and entered. Why did you cut them down like hunting rats?”
“I only treated rats like rats. I am merely doing what I must do, so it is none of your business, Adept.”
“Hahaha!”
Indeed, Senior Jang Mun-gyeong was arguing with Adept Heu-do without mentioning the shrine’s affair.
Looking around slightly, the pieces of trash from the Defeng Yin Clan were flocking from all directions.
This was a scheme to make the Defeng Yin Clan rely on Adept Heu-do and rush at us.
Seeing the subtle glances exchanged even as they stepped forward to fight, I could sense that they had already sorted things out by exchanging secret sound transmissions.
[It seems you have grown even further since I last saw you.]
The proof was the secret sound transmission that reached me just now.
[Go wild. I will cover your back sufficiently.]
“Let’s see if you can continue to be so arrogant before my sword.”
[And hide that Pine Pattern Ancient Sword at your waist before anyone recognizes it.]
‘Ah!’
Adept Heu-do was performing the feat of sending a secret sound transmission while spitting provocations at Senior Jang Mun-gyeong with his mouth.
Was this the Dual Polarity Divine Art of the Wudang Sect?
However, at the subsequent advice, I hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief and covered the pattern of the Pine Pattern Ancient Sword engraved near the hilt.
Fortunately, the pieces of trash from the Defeng Yin Clan were all focused on Senior Jang Mun-gyeong, so I was not caught.
As if he felt the stage was set to some extent, Senior Jang Mun-gyeong poured energy into the sword he drew and stepped forward.
“Whoa!”
Did they say you only see as much as you know?
In Senior Jang Mun-gyeong’s sword as he swung it, things that were not visible before came into view.
The breathing. The position of the feet. How the internal and external energies harmonized to finally thrust the sword.
The flow stood out clearly.
The wall, like a fortress, that I had felt from Senior Jang Mun-gyeong became even firmer.
It was only a lightly swung sword strike, but its completeness was so solid that I could not even dream of matching it.
Adept Heu-do parried such a sword lightly as expected.
*Ting!*
“Ugh!”
“Argh!!”
The aftermath of the sword qi parried like that inflicted deep wounds on the hands and feet of Yoon Jin-hyeok and another person hiding behind Adept Heu-do.
“Do not stand near me.”
Adept Heu-do gave a belated (?) warning to the injured.
‘Was it… on purpose?’
There was no way to know. Even if the swordsmanship the two displayed looked simple, its level was extremely high.
Although it seemed like a prearranged play, there was not a single lie in the skills colliding.
However, judging by the results alone, only the Defeng Yin Clan suffered losses.
This was because the most threatening person among the trash of the Defeng Yin Clan behind Adept Heu-do was immediately injured.
“Shall we do this for real?”
“Let’s do it!”
And the two giants began to clash in earnest.
*Clang, clang, clang! Clang! Clang!*
As the skill of one of the Ten Great Swords of the Realm was revealed, a terrifying wind of blades blew around them.
“Argh!!”
“Evade!”
The pieces of trash from the Defeng Yin Clan caught in it retreated in a hurry, but most of them suffered deep wounds.
This was because Adept Heu-do’s sword was strongly bounced off by Senior Jang Mun-gyeong’s hard sword, and Senior Jang Mun-gyeong’s sword was softly parried by Adept Heu-do’s soft sword.
However, the damage to the Defeng Yin Clan was not important to me right now.
‘It’s high…’
The feast of martial arts, which was nothing short of boundless, began to settle in my mind.
Just watching the flow of force extending naturally drew sighs of admiration.
Whether it was my own talent or an ability gained by connecting with the divine relic called the Meridian Mirror in the heavens, I had certainly acquired my masters’ martial arts at an unnaturally rapid pace.
It was good when I obtained martial arts easily, but as I gradually experienced the martial world, I realized that my foundation was not correct.
‘It’s different from my martial arts.’
Ultimate Extreme Strike. Ultimate Extreme Thunder. Spirit-Descending Hand.
They were all ultimate techniques, so they were great when executed, but the connections between them were no different from empty chaff.
It felt as if I had suddenly dropped from the sky to stand at the peak of a mountain.
Since the process of reaching there was omitted, none of them could display force naturally.
‘The masters said that strength is merely the result of training, not a purpose to be pursued…’
Was a result with the process omitted the result of training, or the pursuit of strength?
Watching the clash of absolute masters unfolding before my eyes, that sense of disparity erupted.
“My chest is stuffy…”
Was it a precursor to a heart demon? My chest felt stuffy, and my skin was itchy.
It felt as if my hands and feet were slipping out of control, wanting to run wild like a madman throwing a fit.
“Catch those kids!”
It was then.
In the midst of the area being devastated by the clash between Senior Jang Mun-gyeong and Adept Heu-do, Yoon Jin-hyeok, the head of the Defeng Yin Clan, shouted.
Since he did not dare to intervene in the fight between the two absolute masters, he meant to capture us instead.
At that moment, I felt my blood surge.
I threw myself forward without even looking back.
I charged headlong into Yoon Jin-hyeok, who was running toward us with glaring eyes.
*Thud!*
“Gah?! L-Look at this brat?”
A look of astonishment was clear on Yoon Jin-hyeok’s face as he looked down at me.
But I did not care about that kind of reaction.
‘Is it… not the Ultimate Extreme Strike?’
Under normal circumstances, the first clash was almost unconditionally the Ultimate Extreme Strike.
I would shatter the opponent’s routine with the ferocity of the Ultimate Extreme Strike.
‘Am I feeling ashamed?’
It felt like a denial of the masters.
‘No!’
If this continued, a heart demon would really come.
In the midst of that, a saying flashed through my mind.
[It is a body whose foundation was laid by Zhang Sanfeng, tempered by Bodhidharma, and refined by that Heavenly Demon bastard. Kaka! Your body is not that pathetic! Kakaka!]
Believe in the body that contains the masters’ breath intact!
The sensation that the stone monkey had driven vibrated once more.
At its foundation lay the Wudang Fist and Shaolin Fist.
The martial arts that were like my roots moved in response to my instincts.
“You brat!”
Yoon Jin-hyeok’s nervously extended palm strike resembled the Wudang Sect’s martial arts.
In response to it, my hand drew the routine of Tai Chi Chuan.
‘Wudang Sect’s martial art is the martial art of the circle!’
The routine, drawing a gentle circle, deflected the opponent’s force and naturally drew silk reeling.
At that moment!
*Bam!!*
“Argh!!”
My fist extended explosively through the gap created by parrying the opponent’s move.
In an instant, the temperament of the martial art changed abruptly.
Having suffered a loss from that blow, Yoon Jin-hyeok retreated.
My movement, immediately sticking to him, was the ferocity of the Shaolin Fist.
Wudang Fist and Shaolin Fist have clear characteristics revealed on the surface.
From Yoon Jin-hyeok’s perspective, the temperament was so different that he felt as if his opponent had suddenly changed.
*Papat!*
Driven onto the defensive in an instant, Yoon Jin-hyeok’s face hardened.
Every time we exchanged moves, the wounds inflicted by Adept Heu-do and Senior Jang Mun-gyeong tore open, and blood splattered.
However, there was still a lot left to be surprised about.
“W-What!!”
A movement that surprised even me unfolded before I knew it.
While preserving the flow of the circle, a headlong offensive continued.
With every stance, the form of my hands changed, and Shaolin Fist and Wudang Fist popped out irregularly.
Just when he thought it was Shaolin Fist, it changed into Wudang Fist to apply a grappling hand.
When he tried to shake it off, an explosive fist strike extended fiercely through the shaken gap.
“What kind of hodgepodge is this?!”
Perhaps because he was somewhat well-versed in lay disciple Wudang Fist, Yoon Jin-hyeok shouted, having recognized the range of the variations.
Now he did not even seem to be able to gauge what my martial art was.
However, Yoon Jin-hyeok’s reaction was already out of my concern.
I fell into the unexpected, subtle principles blended within the Wudang Fist and Shaolin Fist that I displayed instinctively.
In the way I exerted force when displaying Shaolin Fist, the subtle principle of the Ultimate Extreme Strike was implicitly substituted and applied.
When displaying Wudang Fist, the flow of the Spirit-Descending Hand guided the force.
Before I realized it, my masters’ ultimate techniques were already melted into my body.
‘I was the world’s biggest fool.’
I thought there was no process.
I thought I had just shamelessly received the results.
It was not so.
Processes that were too big and grand to be melted down all at once were contained within.
The answer lay within me!
The masters had already created the answer inside me.
I only had to find that answer.
Following the answer I found, that path opened up, and I became aware of a single flow.
‘I was merely arrogant.’
The masters had said.
That the martial arts of the earthly world today are incomplete.
I possessed the conceit that only I had inherited the complete lineage of martial arts.
Looking at the spectacle before my eyes, I felt how embarrassing that thought was.
Behold! The fruits of those who shed blood and sweat to transform incompleteness into completeness were blooming splendidly!
‘I was the one who was obsessed.’
Since when was it?
I think I felt that I was shabby.
Even though I claimed to dislike and feel burdened by being put on a pedestal by those around me just because I had gained some strength, on some level, I seemed to have enjoyed it.
That was why I clung to it.
To the special things that everyone would look up to.
I only thought about easily handling the specialty I had easily obtained.
This was the result of that.
My bare face, viewed more honestly, was embarrassingly like an idiot’s.
‘What is so great about such a fool!’
Thinking that way, my mind felt much more at ease.
I naturally let go of my pride and aligned my mind to my body.
At that moment, albeit briefly, I felt a sensation as if my spirit, mind, and physical body were one.
The sensation of everything inside me becoming as one.
It was also the moment when my divine power and internal energy moved together, and the Three Talents Unified Qi Art showed an unprecedented response.
That force was loaded into the extending fist.
“Heh?!”
Sensing that the force loaded in my fist was unusual, Yoon Jin-hyeok hurriedly tried to deflect it.
*Crack! Crash!*
“Aaargh!”
However, like a mantis trying to stop a carriage, his arm was crushed.
Failing to fully resolve the extending force, Yoon Jin-hyeok’s body was violently thrown to the ground.
I had unilaterally crushed a peak expert who dominated a region.
“Fuuu…”
Unlike Yoon Jin-hyeok, who fell screaming, my stomach felt refreshed.
While catching my breath from the refreshing sensation as if the lid of my mind had flown open, I suddenly noticed the change in my surroundings.
“…Huh?”
The clash between Senior Jang Mun-gyeong and Adept Heu-do had stopped at some point, and they were looking at me with eyes full of interest.
Everyone present was staring intently at me.