“You bastard!”
Shim Wol’s eyes widened in shock.
How could Bu Eunseol have arrived here?
“Shim Wol.” Surveying the surroundings, Bu Eunseol spoke in a low voice. “It’s over. Surrender.”
Shim Wol paused, then let out a low chuckle. “Heh, even you lie.”
Pointing at Bu Eunseol’s tattered clothes, he smirked. “To use qinggong so fiercely that your clothes are torn means you rushed here like a madman the moment you got word.”
As a prodigy from Manbak Hall, Shim Wol quickly grasped Bu Eunseol’s situation. “It’ll take at least an hour for your subordinates to catch up.”
“You’re mistaken,” Bu Eunseol said, looking down at Shim Wol with cold eyes. “Do you think I’d call my men to kill you?”
A blood-red glint flickered in his eyes, signaling his intent to strike Shim Wol down instantly if he resisted.
“That’s fine by me,” Shim Wol said, undaunted, lifting the paralyzed Jin Seol into his arms. “But if you do, your beloved Jin Seol will be torn to pieces.”
“…”
“Don’t follow me, or I’ll kill her right now.”
As Bu Eunseol stood still, Shim Wol smiled with satisfaction and prepared to use his lightness technique.
Swish.
Suddenly, a crescent-shaped blade shot up before Shim Wol’s eyes.
“What!”
Startled, Shim Wol leaned back. A black shadow emerged, targeting his vital points in rapid succession.
It was Mu Heon, the Death Spirit Corps Leader, who had guided Bu Eunseol here.
Possessing extraordinary qinggong, Mu Heon had followed Bu Eunseol and, using the moment of his explosive landing, concealed himself near Shim Wol.
Whoosh!
As Mu Heon unleashed a flurry of blade techniques, Shim Wol, dodging while holding Jin Seol, sneered. “Hmph!”
He instantly unleashed the power of the Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm against Mu Heon.
Boom!
Mu Heon, attacking like lightning, was flung back as if he’d hit a massive wall.
“!” Shim Wol’s eyes widened.
His left arm, holding Jin Seol, was wrapped in dark energy, coiling like a snake.
Exposing a vulnerability, Bu Eunseol had swiftly deployed the Wishful True Binding, ensnaring the arm holding Jin Seol.
Zing.
As the coiling energy spun rapidly, emitting light, Shim Wol had no choice but to release her. Otherwise, his left arm would have been shredded into dozens of pieces.
Thud.
Dropping Jin Seol, Shim Wol clicked his tongue and shouted, “Bu Eunseol, this isn’t the end!”
Boom!
He soared into the air, attempting to escape.
Splatter!
But dozens of silver-tinted hidden blades rained from the sky.
“What?”
Shim Wol was stunned.
Someone capable of matching Bu Eunseol’s peerless lightness technique was rare in the sect. Yet, in less than a quarter-hour, another figure had caught up at a similar speed?
Crunch.
Shim Wol unleashed the Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm again, shattering the incoming blades.
A man in a robe blending black and red stood tall.
It was Wi Cheongyeong, one of the Death Shadow Corps Captains.
“My Lord, are you alright?” he asked.
Yoo Unryong knew that even the Death Shadow Corps’s fastest warriors couldn’t match Bu Eunseol’s speed. So he had sent Wi Cheongyeong, the hall’s swiftest, to follow him.
“You said you told no one,” Shim Wol said, glaring at Jin Seol with rage-filled eyes.
He assumed she had colluded with Bu Eunseol to track him.
“Escape while you can,” Bu Eunseol said, giving Shim Wol a cold smile. “With your decent martial arts, you might evade capture for a while.”
His expression hardened. “But you won’t escape the Death Shadow Corps and the Martial Alliance forever. You’ll live as a fugitive, trembling in fear and misery until you die in some ditch.”
“You think so?” Shim Wol retorted.
“Are you banking on the shadowy forces that gave you the elixir?” Bu Eunseol smirked. “They’re desperate to stay hidden. Do you think they’d shelter someone like you?”
Shim Wol’s body trembled.
As Bu Eunseol said, no matter what he did, he’d be a fugitive for life.
“Heh, haha!” Shim Wol burst into maniacal laughter, turning to Bu Eunseol. “You think you can predict everything.”
Stepping toward him, he continued, “But your calculations are wrong.”
Boom!
A tremendous shockwave erupted from Shim Wol’s body.
An invisible, immense force spread, targeting the Green Fragrance Sect disciples, Jin Seol, Wi Cheongyeong, and Mu Heon.
Swish!
Bu Eunseol swiftly grabbed Jin Seol and leaped to the pavilion’s roof.
Wi Cheongyeong and Mu Heon evaded the attack, but the sect disciples couldn’t.
Splatter!
Blood sprayed as six disciples were torn to pieces.
Blood Demon Jeok Bung’s martial art.
It was swift beyond sight, wielding tyrannical power.
“I have the strength to kill you all!” Shim Wol roared, red mist spewing from his mouth.
‘He’s fully melded the artificial inner core.’
Bu Eunseol instantly recognized that Shim Wol had completely integrated the core, unlike others before him.
“Evacuate everyone,” Bu Eunseol ordered.
At his command, Mu Heon and Wi Cheongyeong began moving Jin Seol and the subdued disciples to safety.
“No one leaves!” Shim Wol shouted.
Whoosh.
With a surge of power, a dozen fleeing disciples were lifted into the air.
Flash!
Bu Eunseol closed the distance to Shim Wol in an instant, unleashing his sword technique.
Humm!
But before his black sword could touch Shim Wol, it was repelled into the air.
It felt as if a giant magnet had naturally pushed the blade away.
“The Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm repels all force,” Shim Wol declared.
Swish!
An invisible, razor-sharp force slashed toward Bu Eunseol’s head.
Splatter!
Twisting his body, he narrowly dodged, the force grazing him and tearing into the ground.
A trench, a foot wide and several yards deep, formed.
‘This is Blood Demon Jeok Bung’s martial art.’
The Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm.
The supreme technique Jeok Bung used before reaching the Infinite Realm. Invisible and capable of destroying anything at will.
“Die!” Shim Wol roared, spherical transparent currents pouring from his body.
Rocks, earth—anything the currents touched shattered.
“Aagh!”
Disciples who couldn’t dodge the currents turned to bloody pulp amid screams.
Whoosh!
Bu Eunseol unleashed the Supreme Heavenly Flow, pouring out Waning Moon, Dawn Star and Meteor Chasing the Moon. But no matter how powerful his sword forms, they couldn’t stop Shim Wol’s transparent currents.
‘Even the principles of Wishful True Binding can’t stop it?’
Even intangible forces could be made tangible using the Wishful True Binding. But Shim Wol’s frenzied currents, like transparent mist, nullified both his sword energy and the principles.
“Stop scurrying like a rat and fight!” Shim Wol bellowed, charging like a wild boar, the spherical currents destroying everything in their path.
‘I need to understand that power.’
The invisible, unstoppable currents.
Without knowing their nature, Shim Wol’s words could come true—Bu Eunseol and all the disciples here could be massacred.
‘Fine!’
Boom!
A powerful surge of energy erupted from Bu Eunseol’s body.
Crackle.
His hair turned white, and a blue-white current swirled around him.
He had unleashed the ultimate technique of the North Sea Ice Palace, the Heavenly Glacial Secret of the Great Glacier Emperor.
“Ice arts can’t stop this power!” Shim Wol sneered, charging at him.
But this time, Bu Eunseol didn’t dodge.
“Die!” Shim Wol roared, seeing Bu Eunseol stand firm, and unleashed the transparent currents.
Crack!
A massive blue-white ice wall formed between them.
Converting four hundred years of power into glacial energy, Bu Eunseol created a defensive ice barrier in an instant.
Boom! Boom!
But the ice shattered the moment it touched the currents.
Crack!
With all his strength, Bu Eunseol created one final crystal-clear ice wall.
Clang!
It too shattered with a deafening sound, and blood sprayed onto Bu Eunseol’s shoulder.
“Heh, learning some bizarre ice art…” Shim Wol’s mocking expression froze.
Bu Eunseol was looking at him with a calm smile.
“It’s a hand,” Bu Eunseol said.
Whoosh.
He lifted the shattered transparent ice into the air.
A clear handprint was etched into it.
The reason Bu Eunseol had created successive ice walls wasn’t to defeat Shim Wol.
It was to fully understand the nature of the Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm—how it attacked and what technique it used.
“An invisible hand, about thirteen feet long, vibrating at ultra-high speed,” Bu Eunseol muttered.
Jeok Bung’s Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm.
It was akin to the Wishful True Binding.
By concentrating immense power, it created ultra-high-speed, ultra-vibrating hands capable of crushing or slicing anything.
“So what?” Shim Wol’s blood-red eyes burned with killing intent. “What changes if you know that?”
Swish!
An invisible hand formed behind Shim Wol, striking at Bu Eunseol like lightning.
Pop!
But Bu Eunseol dodged effortlessly, as if he’d predicted the hand’s trajectory.
“You sensed the Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm’s hand?” Shim Wol’s eyes widened in disbelief.
According to his master, Jeok Bung, the hands created by this technique were imperceptible.
Even with heightened senses, how could Bu Eunseol dodge so clearly?
“Your real combat experience is sorely lacking,” Bu Eunseol said, narrowing his eyes and lowering his black sword. “No matter how invisible or powerful a weapon, if a third-rate warrior wields it, its trajectory is easy to predict.”
“…”
“Think of it as wielding two thirteen-foot whips.”
Shim Wol’s eyes widened.
Melding the artificial inner core had doubled his power instantly.
He could freely use Jeok Bung’s Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm, which required the Supreme Heavenly Realm.
But that was all.
Shim Wol had handled Manbak Hall’s affairs with sharp intellect and senses. But he rarely experienced life-or-death battles or martial world exploits.
In contrast, Bu Eunseol was a seasoned warrior, having fought countless life-or-death battles. He had refined his martial arts in combat, studying techniques to counter various enemy strategies.
The Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm, Jeok Bung’s supreme technique, was supposedly undetectable by senses alone. But when Shim Wol wielded it, Bu Eunseol could predict its trajectory as easily as a child swinging a blade.
He could even foresee how Shim Wol used the technique.
Experience.
That was the decisive difference between two masters of similar power, determining life or death.
“Don’t make me laugh!” Shim Wol roared, summoning his power.
Boom!
Instead of two long hands, dozens emerged around him.
They were so dense they were nearly visible.
It resembled the form of the Thousand-Armed Buddha.
“No matter how great you are, you can’t block the Heaven-Breaking Thunder Burst!” Shim Wol said with a cruel smile.
Dozens of thirteen-foot hands, capable of cutting anything, charging forward?
He was confident no master, not even Bu Eunseol, could stop them.
“Die!” Shim Wol shouted, swinging the dozens of hands in a circular motion as he charged.
Whoosh!
Bu Eunseol unleashed a torrent of glacial energy at Shim Wol.
But the hands of the Heaven-Breaking Rift Palm, and the Flame Energy that annihilated everything, had similar properties.
Crack!
It obliterated even the cold energy of four hundred years, charging forward.
“Haha! Useless!” Shim Wol laughed maniacally, annihilating the cold energy and closing within nine feet of Bu Eunseol.
“Die!”
As the dozens of invisible hands enveloped Bu Eunseol, Shim Wol froze. Though he easily dispelled the cold energy, his movements had slowed drastically.
‘The cold energy…’
The energy Bu Eunseol unleashed wasn’t mere “ice arts.”
It was the essence of extreme yin, capable of freezing a body with a touch or even the sky itself—the Heavenly Glacial Secret of the Great Glacier Emperor.
Flash!
Bu Eunseol’s black sword tilted at an angle.
Hundreds of sword rings bloomed around him and Shim Wol.
Spark!
A brilliant light flared above Bu Eunseol’s head.
From an invisible angle, a sharp beam pierced Shim Wol’s throat.
Seven Blood Tear Forms, First Form: Life Lodges, Death Returns form.
Creating sword rings around both the enemy and oneself in close combat, delivering a lethal strike in a life-or-death moment.
The supreme sword art of the Seven-Finger Demon Blade unfolded again.
“No chance!” Shim Wol roared.
Pop, pop!
Astonishingly, he absorbed the floating sword rings with the dozens of invisible hands of the Heaven-Breaking Thunder Burst.
The lightning speed hands obliterated the rings instantly.
“Haha!” Shim Wol laughed.
He had already mastered the counter to Life Lodges, Death Returns form, a technique Bu Eunseol had never publicly used.
“You’re done!” Obliterating the sword rings, Shim Wol pressed forward, enveloping Bu Eunseol with dozens of hands.
Like a flower bud closing, the hands swallowed him, leaving no room for escape.
“…”
But something was wrong.
The hands of the Heaven-Breaking Thunder Burst, meant to crush Bu Eunseol, began to fade.
Hiss.
With a sound like leaking air, the power of the hands dissipated.
“How…” Shim Wol stared at his abdomen, eyes wide.
A round hole had been pierced through his dantian.
Slide.
As his sea of energy was destroyed, his power scattered, and the flower bud-like hands vanished completely.
Drip, drip.
Looking at the blood dripping from his dantian, Shim Wol’s face was one of disbelief.
“How could this happen?”
He had obliterated all the sword rings rising from the ground and prevented Bu Eunseol from closing in. Yet, unnoticed, his dantian had been pierced?
“I destroyed all the sword rings, so how could you strike my dantian?” Shim Wol shouted.
‘The Sword Pavilion.’
Bu Eunseol’s eyes narrowed.
The only time he used the Seven Blood Tear Forms with others present was at the Sword Pavilion.
A spy there must have passed the form’s variations to the shadowy forces.
‘They’re too powerful.’
“How!” Shim Wol screamed.
Bu Eunseol extended his black sword. “The sword rings you destroyed weren’t all of them.”
Shim Wol rubbed his eyes.
Condensed sword energy, like a dewdrop, clung to the blade’s tip.
“Using the Nine Dragons Flashing Thunder, I embedded one sword ring at the blade’s tip from the start. While you frantically destroyed the others, I sent it into your dantian.”
“What?” Shim Wol gasped.
As Jeok Bung’s disciple, one of the Three Demons, Shim Wol’s insight was unmatched among the younger generation.
Yet, generating sword rings and embedding one at the blade’s tip to strike an enemy?
What kind of absurd sword technique was this?
“Don’t be ridiculous! How is that possible?” Shim Wol shouted.
“Martial arts evolve constantly. This technique isn’t even newly invented,” Bu Eunseol said.
While deploying the Seven Blood Tear Forms, he used the Wishful True Binding to materialize one sword ring like a dewdrop. Using Cheon Ungwang’s Nine Dragons Flashing Thunder, he aligned it with Shim Wol’s movements, launching it with the Extreme Swift Killing Sword method.
In essence, Bu Eunseol had reached a level where he could freely combine orthodox and demonic sword techniques without restriction.
“You thought you countered one form and attacked,” Bu Eunseol said calmly, looking at the stunned Shim Wol. “While you executed one form, I could unleash five.”
In a battle between masters of the Supreme Heavenly Realm, victory hinges on who can split time more finely and seize the critical moment. Though Shim Wol’s power reached the Supreme Heavenly Realm, his combat style remained at the Peak Realm.
Bu Eunseol was five times faster in execution.
“I was… a frog in a well,” Shim Wol muttered.
Gush.
A wound on his chest burst open, blood pouring out.
Hiss.
Defeated by Bu Eunseol, he faced either execution or lifelong imprisonment with severed limbs in the demonic dungeon.
“Thank you,” Shim Wol said with a faint smile, realizing Bu Eunseol had shown mercy by allowing him to take his own life.
“Mercy? No way,” he shook his head.
Bu Eunseol wasn’t compassionate enough to forgive someone who harmed civilians.
If Shim Wol didn’t reveal the spy who gave him the inner core, he’d ensure he couldn’t even die.
“You should’ve gone easier if that was your plan,” Shim Wol said.
Spurt.
Spitting black blood, he looked at his abdomen.
Bu Eunseol’s sword ring wasn’t merely sharp; it shattered his meridians with immense internal force upon impact.
“An impressive sword art, but you haven’t fully mastered it,” Shim Wol said.
As he noted, Bu Eunseol could barely execute the Seven Blood Tear Forms, unable to freely control its principles or power.
“You won’t talk?” Bu Eunseol asked.
“Who knows,” Shim Wol said, wiping blood from his mouth with a low chuckle. “Even if I told you who gave me the inner core, you’d gain nothing. They’d vanish.”
Bu Eunseol nodded.
The shadowy forces hid themselves meticulously.
Even those giving and receiving orders didn’t know the organization’s structure.
“They’re divided into three factions, each moving independently with different goals,” Shim Wol said, shocking Bu Eunseol. “They call themselves the Three Realms.”
“The Three Realms,” Bu Eunseol repeated, his eyes sharpening like blades.
In Buddhism, the Three Realms referred to the Heavenly Realm, Human Realm, and Earthly Realm—past, present, and future lives.
‘You know nothing.’
The voice of Nobong, the Blood Emperor’s heir, echoed in Bu Eunseol’s mind.
“Judging right and wrong is for trivial matters,”
At Cheonhwa Manor, Nobong had spoken cryptically to Namgung Un, trying to persuade him.
‘Great matters don’t allow such distinctions. You’ll understand when you lead the Southern Palace.’
‘Their goal isn’t martial world domination.’
Bu Eunseol instinctively knew the Three Realms didn’t seek to rule or destroy the martial world. If they did, chaos would have already engulfed it.
“The ones who gave you the inner core belong to the Three Realms?” Bu Eunseol asked.
“Yes,” Shim Wol replied.
As a Manbak Hall disciple, he had investigated the backers of the inner core and uncovered some of their nature. “They belong to one of the Three Realms, the Infinite Realm…”
Shudder.
Shim Wol’s body trembled faintly.
With one more breath, he realized death would take his soul somewhere unknown.
With all his strength, he uttered, “Hyeok Ryeon-eung, the Hyeok Clan Leader, gave me…”
His words trailed off.
Fear gripped him. His vision darkened, his breath freezing like ice.
When consumed by the inner core’s power, he felt like a god ruling the world and human lives. But now, facing death, fear of the abyss and damnation overwhelmed his body and mind.
Thud.
He collapsed, eyes wide open.
