Chapter 179: Unexpected Move
The Three Talents Unified Qi Art is Master Zhang Sanfeng’s martial art!
If the ultimate that Master Zhang Sanfeng pursues is to become one with heaven and earth and wield them according to his will, wouldn’t this martial art, which currently only communicates with the martial arts of the other masters inside me, also be able to exert its power outside the body?
Whether it was possible to pull the power of the Three Talents Unified Qi Art outward was the key, but it seemed possible.
Whether it was by chance or designed that way from the beginning, it was because it had started to harmonize strangely well with the Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand since a while ago.
‘If it is the power of the Three Talents Unified Qi Art that even communicates the martial arts of Master Bodhidharma and Master Heavenly Demon, wouldn’t it be able to exert influence on others as well?’
My masters’ martial arts stirring and rising!
At the same time, the attacks charging at me!
My body instinctively responded and deflected the attacks.
‘Ugh!’
It felt like deflecting a fireball with my bare hands.
Soggy blood between my fingers brought a damp sensation.
The skin of my palm that deflected the attack was peeled, and flesh was torn off.
This was the price of deflecting a single attack.
‘It’s the death line.’
Everything visible in the surroundings felt like a warning from the Grim Reaper.
Cross the line, and you die.
Stay still in that spot, and you die.
Either way, you die.
It felt like entering a monster’s maw.
It was a situation where it was hard to preserve my life even if I focused only on what was in front of my eyes.
However, even though I was currently doing two things at the same time—responding and searching—the efficiency was not dropping at all.
‘It’s Sang-hwa.’
As if confirming my guess, the senses of my entire body stirred and rose for a moment.
It felt as if there was another me inside me. As if another head suddenly popped out from somewhere to assist me.
‘Tsk!’
The moment I dodged a spear blade that stretched out with the momentum to pierce my head, a powerful sensation rose in my mind like a raging wave.
In succession, among the attacks rushing from the left and right, I displayed my masters’ martial arts.
Flawless Heavenly Net!
The internal heavy strike technique is a fatal technique, but it has no effect on opponents with strong internal energy.
Since it uses internal energy to shake the inside, if they can overcome it, it will not work.
However, with this, the completed form of the Flawless Heavenly Net, the undefendable internal heavy strike, might be possible.
‘If I can expand my domain through the Three Talents Unified Qi Art, and the Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand can exert its power in that expanded domain, it’s possible…’
Both the Three Talents Unified Qi Art and the Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand were martial arts that were more than enough to be called absolute arts individually, but if they amplified each other’s power, I could look forward to even more.
The result of that touched the next incoming attack.
In a world where my senses ran to the extreme and everything looked slow, the strike of a long spear wriggled in like a nimble fish!
Dodging the thrust aiming at my head by a paper’s margin, the moment I grabbed the spear shaft, a stinging, severe pain rose in my palm like a fierce forest fire.
‘Did it work?’
It was a hand from which flesh had torn off enough for blood to gush.
Although I was prepared for my hand to be torn off the moment I grabbed this fluctuating opponent, my hand succeeded in firmly grasping the spear shaft.
It was a sensation as if something solid had suddenly appeared to wrap around my palm.
That was not the only thing that changed.
‘Caught you!’
On the surface, it looked like I had grabbed the spear shaft, but what I had grabbed was a certain energy that was united with that spear shaft.
Something as tough as beef tendon.
A certain resistance pulled hard at my fingertips.
‘As if I’d let go!’
If my fingertips were fishhooks, my hand was a fishing rod.
Grasping the fluctuating force as if it would break that fishing rod, I recalled the time I operated the Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand.
The feeling of holding and wielding the world!
Filling my hand with that sensation, I pulled with all my might!
*Crack!*
I heard something snap in my finger joints.
It was the sound of a ligament getting damaged.
It seemed it would be difficult to use my hand for a while.
But I smiled.
I had torn it out.
Although I could not completely cut it off, I grabbed and tore a portion of the flow of power they were sending and receiving among themselves through the Eighteen Arhat Formation.
Even a massive, impregnable fortress wall collapses from a crack that started in a small gap.
Let alone that Eighteen Arhat Formation, which was a mess of a method to the point that my three masters evaluated it as insane.
A gap created in a place where such a massive energy flowed could not help but cause a collapse.
The result appeared quickly.
“Ugh!”
The Combined Mountain Fortress Leader, who formed the starting point of the formation, let out a groan and was pushed back. Blood flowed from his nose and mouth.
The others who maintained the Eighteen Arhat Formation also trembled, unable to handle the energy.
Their momentum was visibly dropped to the point it was obvious.
“Cough! Urgh!”
Vomiting blood heavily once, the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader glared at me and ground his teeth.
“What… did you do?”
“Hand play.”
I straightened my finger that was tilted slightly to the side.
*Crack!*
Along with the sound of bones scraping, thick blood flowed between my straightened fingers.
The Combined Mountain Fortress Leader’s face contorted frightfully.
“Make sense! It’s not something that can be broken in that way!”
“But, it worked, didn’t it?”
The Combined Mountain Fortress Leader’s face turned red and blue.
The composure he had shown while claiming to be the orthodox one against the Divine Monk had completely vanished.
It was only natural.
A method into which an asset Master Heavenly Demon evaluated as talented had ground all his talent had been absurdly broken.
Moreover, according to the masters’ thoughts, their bodies were already as good as ruined beyond recovery.
If one considered just how great the futility of wasting a lifetime would be, it was indeed fortunate he hadn’t gone mad.
“It must have been a lot of trouble for everyone to waste their time on useless things?”
“…Ugh!”
Even while gathering his collapsing energy, the killing intent he emitted was enormous.
It was to the point of making my face sting.
It amounted to throwing successive provocations, but it could not be helped.
‘Since it’s hard for me to fight long with this hand either.’
In fact, since that unidentified Eighteen Arhat Formation was broken, there was no problem even if I backed away like this.
But could I do that?
We fought risking our lives, so we had to see the end.
“Abandon any thought of returning alive, you!”
Having gathered the aftermath of his collapsed energy, the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader charged toward me.
He was not alone.
The eighteen warriors unleashed an offensive in unison.
A charge that disregarded their lives!
It was a determination to at least take me down with them.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
The Divine Monk intervened, cutting the waist of the offensive they were displaying.
The formation of the Eighteen Arhat Formation, which had held up firmly until just now, was split in half.
The nine warriors who were not caught by the Divine Monk still rushed toward me.
Although I could see their energy weakening with every step, their momentum was still like a storm.
The determination of those who burned their lives!
I wondered if I could handle them even if my hand were normal.
‘I can’t clench my fist, but…’
If it was swinging, it was possible.
The martial art to display was already decided.
‘The completed form of the Flawless Heavenly Net.’
After the Wudang Cotton Palm was blocked by the warrior using the black banner, though I hadn’t told anyone, I had felt guilt over that matter.
Because an immature disciple had made the great master’s teaching in vain.
Today, I wash away that disgrace here!
I stepped into the rough storm.
I wager everything on this blow!
I also threw my body, becoming a flame.
*Whoosh!*
The Combined Mountain Fortress Leader’s blow, which stretched out like lightning, parted the empty air.
It was an evasion made possible because it was a stance of the Arhat Divine Fist that I had experienced directly.
My hand, which seeped into the large gap created by the blow that had no path back, touched the opponent’s body.
*Thump!*
His body still had the lingering resonance of the Eighteen Arhat Formation that had handled the Divine Monk’s martial power.
Because the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader was the center of that formation, a thick energy was still flowing inside his body.
The Three Talents Unified Qi Art and the Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand demolished that energy.
The Flawless Heavenly Net that dug past that shook the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader’s inside.
“Pfft!!”
Blood sprayed from the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader’s mouth like a fountain.
As the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader, who was the center, collapsed, the formation shook completely and the other eight also staggered, but the spear blades burning with their final will fell, aiming fiercely at my head.
‘Deflect it and…’
To respond to that attack, I was about to lightly step with my footwork, but before that, something passed beside me.
“How dare you act insolently in his presence!!”
*Thud!!*
A spear that flew like lightning pierced one of them.
It was Yi Cheon-gyeong’s voice.
Whether he had a long conflict, he was later than the time I had designated, but his words raising me clearly revealed what resolve he harbored.
With that, monstrous things brushed past my side.
*Wrooooooo!*
A power akin to a natural disaster swept the remaining ones in an instant.
It was Old Man Jong and the Heavenly Demon Protectors.
It seemed they judged my job was done by knocking down the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader.
Or they were stimulated by Yi Cheon-gyeong’s intervention.
Moreover.
‘Sister Seol-ah and the Snow Shadow units too?’
Sister Seol-ah and the Snow Shadows also intervened in the battle.
However, unlike the other groups, instead of striking to kill, they subdued them and quickly moved to another place.
Meanwhile, the voice of the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader, who had fallen by my hand, was heard.
“If I… like you… had not caught… their eyes…”
Was it because it was a voice right before his breath stopped? Just hearing it felt like a heavy weight was hung on my body.
‘The Crane…’
It felt as if their identity was gradually being revealed, but I still couldn’t tell.
Those who used even such talent merely for experiments.
If such people began to emerge in earnest, it was scary even to imagine what else would pop out.
‘I might need new power.’
To block them, I might have to gather all the power I could gather.
[Why are you showing off? After making your hand such a mess.]
Amid my deepening concerns, Master Zhang Sanfeng’s rebuke fell.
‘It’s not the rating I expected…’
Even if not high praise, I thought I could hear some praise, but the evaluation was somehow very stingy.
“Eh? Didn’t I do reasonably well?”
[Making your hand in that shape while catching a mere thing like that?]
[It’s fine. He will get better after rolling around a bit.]
[Is it slowly my turn to roll him?]
Whatever the circumstances, fighting to the point where my hand was almost ruined seemed to be a deduction.
“Hahaha…”
It wasn’t praise, but when I understood the meaning contained within, a laugh came out for no reason.
It was indeed a relief that these were my masters.
***
Those who suddenly appeared and blocked our path. Although they were merely Green Forest bandits in appearance, we, who had been held back by those whose proper names we couldn’t even know, headed toward the place where the smoke rose after organizing our ranks.
“What is this?”
What we could see there was nothing but flames.
The Celestial God Fortress, a mountain fortress with its own history, was burning in its entirety.
“I smell oil…”
“They planned to burn the mountain as a whole?”
It meant someone had intentionally set the fire.
Moreover, the fire was already spreading to various places in the mountain, becoming a large-scale fire.
No one was putting out the fire.
“Did they flee?”
“Ha…”
To estimate, the faction gathered around the Celestial God Fortress was a bit over thirty fortresses.
It was a level slightly short of half the Green Forest forces gathered at Mount Tianzi.
If experts of the Crane like the Combined Mountain Fortress Leader were mixed here and there, it was a force that could not be easily dealt with.
Even with such a force, they avoided the fight and retreated.
It felt as if they avoided mutual destruction with us.
I guessed that force had a place where it would be importantly used.
Although it was a vague deduction, it wouldn’t be far off.
‘A plan into which those who are feared even by the Emperor and who view a force capable of confronting the Divine Monk as consumables put so much effort…’
For some reason, my stomach churned.
***
Baek Seol-ah, Han Yeong, and the Snow Shadows caught three of the eighteen.
However, while moving to a quiet place, their vitality rapidly scattered.
“Can you not save them?”
“Their qi vessels are completely ruined. Since there is a hole in their innate qi, all remedies are useless.”
“Is that so.”
Baek Seol-ah felt sorry for their deaths.
“As expected… it seems correct, right?”
“If it is a place that calmly does such things out of common sense… it can only be there.”
“Yes. My thoughts are the same.”
Baek Seol-ah felt the blood flowing inside her body turn freezing cold.
A grudge hundreds of years old emitted a cold chill as cold as the Yin-Cold Qi flowing in her body.
“This time, let us end this tedious ill fate.”
The descendants of the Pale-handed Divine Demon instinctively felt that the moment to step into the Martial World again had come.