Chapter 209. Nine in the Fifth Place (5)
Bang, bang, bang!
The void between Si-Hyeon and the Saber King shattered into pieces as she released Heavenly Demon Force from her eyes, striking the Saber King directly.
BOOM!
She had just used the Heavenly Demon Remnant Soul Gaze.
It was a demonic art the cult had created from the techniques of the Death Emperor Heavenly Palace, techniques they had taken after destroying and assimilating it.
The Death Emperor Heavenly Palace had been one of the Three Demonic Sects, three ancient Demonic Path forces that had long been at odds with the Heavenly Demon Cult.
The Death Emperor Heavenly Palace master's bloodline heirs possessed the ability to kill an opponent by simply glaring at them with bloodlust. This ability was so potent that it had become one of their main weapons.
The Heavenly Demon Remnant Soul Gaze had two parts: the first was the ability to kill an opponent just by glaring at them, known as the Extermination Glare, and the other was the ability to destroy whatever area it touched with the Heavenly Demon Force.
Since the ability to kill an opponent with a single glare only worked when there was a significant disparity in cultivation between the caster and the opponent, Si-Hyeon used the second aspect of the Heavenly Demon Remnant Soul Gaze.
The energy of the Heavenly Demon Remnant Soul Gaze broke through the sky and struck the Saber King once again.
BOOM!
While a loud noise rocked the air, the Saber King simply shrugged off the two strikes. He was using the Hegemon Clan's divine art, the Peerless Shield Aura.
The Saber King kicked the ground hard with his right foot, and concentric ripples spread out endlessly with him at the center. Shooting forward even faster than the circles spread, he fiercely cleaved down with his saber.
Rip!
Space itself was torn apart.
Everything disappeared.
Even the light was sucked into the void, revealing the blackness of the abyss before it, too, disappeared.
This horrifying attack with light-devouring power barreled down on Si-Hyeon's head.
In response, her hand turned stark white. As she drew a circle above her head with her hand, a white ring formed, emitting absolute frigid qi.
Ting~
Clenching her fingers into a fist, Si-Hyeon struck the center of the ring.
Crack!!!
It was a fantastic sight.
White ice rose upward like a volcano as black demonic qi blended in between the crystals, creating a perfect harmony of black and white.
Ding~
A sound so high-pitched that it couldn't be heard by normal human ears echoed as the Saber King's sword bounced off the ring, coated in white frost.
Thud!
The Saber King nervously shook his saber to fling off all ice shards. Then he swung his sword once more, this time from right to left.
Every move he made was incredibly simple.
Just single slashes. There was no complicated technique or anything.
However, Si-Hyeon couldn't underestimate those simple slashes. Nor could she easily dodge them as she wished.
While she could dodge them if she really tried her best, it was difficult to do so and counterattack at the same time. The domineering force and void-devouring power from the saber offset any of her attempts.
“Fine. Let's do this, Saber King. I'll make you regret ever daring to challenge the Heavenly Demon Cult in a show of force!”
Overwhelming force surged from her body, encroaching upon the enemy from all sides like a demonic army.
“I’ll kill you!”
At Woo-Moon's hate-filled shout, the Sword King just smiled faintly.
"You? Little trash of the murim, you’re nothing but a brat who only recently became a Paragon. Do you really think you can beat me?"
Woo-Moon unleashed Raging Storm as he charged the Sword King.
Clang!
The Sword King clashed with Woo-Moon, their swords producing a sharp, metallic reverberation.
‘He's strong!’
The Sword King was surprised by the force he felt through his sword.
“I'll kill you!”
Woo-Moon repeated the same thing and swung his sword once more. This time, it was Heavy Rain.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The sounds of their blades clashing echoed incessantly, and the Sword King's hand began to tremble slightly.
‘W-what the hell is going on...!’
While it had been quite some time since they had reached the Paragon realm, the Sword King and the Saber King had yet to reach the advanced stages.
That wall was so solid and tall that even after their relentless attacks, they were still lacking somewhat. That was why, with their careless attitude at the time, they had taken nearly fatal wounds at the hands of the Palm Martial Emperor and the Night Spear Devil, who had both reached the absolute pinnacle of their realm.
When Woo-Moon's Heavy Rain poured down, the Sword King made a logical but rather rushed assumption after blocking the first raindrop.
He assumed that, like most techniques, the first blow would be the strongest and that the raindrops would gradually get weaker.
However, that wasn't the case. Unlike most techniques, Woo-Moon's Heavy Rain would grow stronger as it continued.
Moments later, the raindrops had gotten so strong that it felt like the Sword King's palms were going to fall apart.
'This is impossible! How did this brat get so strong?'
The Sword King had been a Paragon for a solid decade. Meanwhile, Woo-Moon had barely been there for a year.
As Heavy Rain neared its end, the Sword King was shocked.
‘Hey... hold on a moment... I know this feeling! This aura... The Great Darkness Palace Master?!’
The previous Great Darkness Palace Master—in other words, the defunct palace master—used a unique technique that created aura beads to attack the opponent. One of those techniques was Ocean Jade.
Ocean Jade generated ripples of aura like ocean waves, which used the rebound force from the opponent blocking the attack in order to achieve greater and greater force.
The first wave was not particularly strong. The second wave absorbed the rebounding aura of the first to strengthen itself.
The third wave absorbed the rebounding aura of the second... and so on.
Each wave absorbed the next, and with each wave that was blocked, the next one would come even stronger.
Woo-Moon’s Heavy Rain was using the same principle.
While the amplification force wasn't as great as that of Ocean Jade due to the raindrops being scattered rather than one cohesive whole, there were enough of them that they rebounded off of each other, producing greater and greater power.
'There's no way the Great Darkness Palace Master would teach that brat his technique. But in that case... how is that possible?!'
The Sword King felt a chill down to his very bones.
All martial artists who surpassed the Absolute had the ability to read and copy the techniques of people weaker than them, even going so far as to perfectly imitate them. After all, they had reached the point of being able to create their own techniques that could stand as the foundation of a major martial arts school.
However, to be able to copy and assimilate a technique created after a lifetime of study and training by someone of the same level, and to copy it to absolute perfection not by being taught but by sheer virtue of facing that someone in battle...
That simply defied belief.
Either Woo-Moon's own unique foundational art was incredibly flexible and had excellent absorption abilities, or Woo-Moon's talent was so outstanding that it made the impossible possible.
One of these had to be true, and either was a dreadful thought.
With all these thoughts running through his mind, the Sword King realized that Woo-Moon, whom he had heretofore ignored, was a far more formidable opponent than he had thought.
Heavy Rain was nearing its end, and Woo-Moon swung his sword for the last time with everything he had.
CLANG!
The Sword King's hand and sword shook as he blocked the final raindrop. As he did so, the skin on his palm tore, and blood flowed down his wrist. Blood also flowed from the corner of his mouth.
"T-this... this is impossible. Just how?!"
The Sword King was wounded. On the other hand, Woo-Moon seemed perfectly fine, with only his face growing a little pale.
The Sword King was being well and truly pushed back.
He could not believe what was going on. He was shocked that someone who had just recently become a Paragon already seemed to have reached maturity.
"I'll kill you!"
Woo-Moon swung Lightflash.
CLANG!!!
Although the Sword King raised his sword to block it, he wasn't able to bear the force and flew into the air, tumbling into the ground.
His white robe, embroidered with plum blossoms, and his beautiful white hair and beard that he had grown like an immortal were stained with his own blood.
"Grandfather called a bastard like you his friend. And you, piece of shit, you murdered him! Well, here’s retribution!"
Woo-Moon strode toward the Sword King.
The Sword King drove his sword into the ground and barely got up. He glared at Woo-Moon and mustered more qi.
"I should have killed you a long time ago. I should have ignored our Martial Heaven's pride and uprooted and crushed you."
Woo-Moon just smiled.
"But you didn't do that. Your arrogance will eventually lead to your destruction," he said coldly.
The Sword King burst out laughing.
"Pfft... hahahaha!"
After he stopped laughing, the Sword King glared at Woo-Moon with bloodshot eyes.
"Don't be so arrogant, you brat! Even though I might end up dying to the likes of you, and even though Martial Heaven may take some damage, Martial Heaven will never fall! You're still nothing but a mayfly in front of the true power of our Martial Heaven!"
"True power? Pfft! Are you talking about the Martial Heaven Emperor or the Martial Heaven God?”[1]
As Woo-Moon approached, the Sword King gathered all of his qi and unleashed all he had in one single technique.
All the surrounding qi gathered to the tip of the Sword King's sword as if it was being drawn there. It was as if nature itself was assimilating into his blade. Then, that energy condensed into the shape of a sword.
Nature Sword.
Or at least an incipient form, as the Sword King’s wounds prevented him from summoning his power to the fullest.
“Foolish.”
As soon as Woo-Moon said this word, the Sword King's heart burst.
"S... Sword Heart.”
Reaching the Paragon realm meant that one obtained the ability to use the Sword Heart. However, even though they had the ability to use the Sword Heart, Paragons generally refrained from using it in battles against fellow Paragons.
Not only did it consume an incredible amount of qi, but their opponent also had a sword in their heart; they would easily be able to defend against it.
In that case, the attacker would be disadvantaged because they would have to use more qi than their opponent.
Even battling weaker opponents weaker, like those at the Absolute realm, didn't warrant the usage of the Sword Heart.
While a Paragon could kill a weaker opponent with the Sword Heart, there was no need to use such a qi-intensive method when they could easily do the same without the massive expenditure.
In other words, the Sword Heart was something hardly ever used.
However, Woo-Moon had just used that rarely used Sword Heart, and he had used it to kill the Sword King easily.
It wasn't actually because the Sword King was injured, but rather because he had just tried to use the Natural Sword.
The Natural Sword was a technique requiring a far higher level of comprehension than the Sword Heart. The Sword King was not at the level where he could use it freely, and Woo-Moon had simply
“Tut, tut. You can't forget this just because you don't get many chances to use it. The Sword Heart is faster than any other attack. The time it took you to form your Natural Sword was so long I could’ve had a cup of tea before I killed you.”
Woo-Moon was right.
The Sword King had overlooked the Sword Heart.
He had only thought about condensing his Natural Sword and destroying Woo-Moon, completely forgetting about the Sword Heart
It seemed he hadn't fought in a real battle for a little too long.
“Ugh...”
Not even a Paragon could instantly heal wounds suffered from the Sword Heart.
That was because the Sword Heart not only shattered its target into pieces, but its qi remained to prevent the flow of qi wherever it struck.
After spitting out blood, the Sword King glared at Woo-Moon.
“Cough... keke. So you're not that far behind, then. Well, that being is truly a god. The God of Martial Arts. Humans, humans can... never defeat a god.”
The Sword King recalled his memory of meeting the Martial Heaven God.
At that time, he hadn't been able to say or think anything. Even though the Martial Heaven God didn't emit any aura or special qi, all of his senses seemed to have frozen.
His vision went dark.
His mind turned blank.
Right after meeting the Martial Heaven God, if it hadn't been for the Martial Heaven Emperor injecting aura into their bodies and circulating it throughout their meridians, both the Sword King and the Saber King would have died.
That was a decade ago, on the day the Sword King ascended to the Paragon Stage.
‘Martial Heaven God...’
Sword King’s eyes filled with unbearable fear as he recalled that title.
The Martial Heaven God was an existence that could make even a Paragon tremble.
1. Now that both of them appear in the same chapter, here’s the thing: the Battle Emperor and the Martial Heaven Emperor actually share the same “martial” character. We decided to translate them differently because it’s rather easy to confuse them if one is Martial Emperor and the other Martial Heaven emperor. ☜