Chapter 252. Within Ten Paces, You'll Find A Fragrant Flower (23)
Yang Moon-Yeol was an archer.
He grabbed the longbow on his back and nocked an arrow.
“Bastard! I’ll kill you! Don’t underestimate the power of Martial Heaven!”
His eyes sparkled with madness as he drew the bow to the limit. He imbued all of his qi into the arrow and bowstring, to the point that he spat blood when he let go.
Twang!
The arrow gained rotational power from Yang Moon-Yeol’s fingertips. It flew through the air, creating a powerful vortex that broke the ground and tore space itself apart.
“Die, Song Woo-Moon!”
As he shouted, Yang Moon-Yeol’s eyes suddenly widened. Then, the arrow that he himself had shot pierced his own forehead. The moment it had reached within ten zhang of Woo-Moon, the arrow had simply turned around, as if the tornado-like momentum behind it simply did not exist.
Silenced flowed in Martial Heaven.
Woo-Moon walked without stopping toward the same place he had been looking at from the beginning until now—the place where the Martial Heaven God resided.
Thud, thud.
Only the sound of Woo-Moon’s footsteps filled the space.
He entered the first floor and slowly walked up to the second.
The third... the fourth... the fifth.
Finally, on the sixth floor, Woo-Moon faced the Martial Heaven God once more.
“Have you arrived, Song Woo-Moon?”
“I gave it some thought and I decided that I have to teach you a lesson.”
“Teach me? What do you have to teach me?”
“You’ll find out in a moment.”
The Martial Heaven God narrowed his eyes and smiled. He then tapped the crystal coffin in front of him with his finger.
“Then I’ll tell you something, too. The reason why I kidnapped this child.”
Inside the crystal coffin was Gun-Ha, the girl that Dae-Woong and Jin-Jin had adopted as their daughter.
“And what might that be?”
“I have a desire. I want to break free from my form and become a true god.”
“And?”
“To do that, I need to perfect my martial arts.”
“And Gun-Ha is supposed to help you with that?”
“Yes. One of your wives, that girl named Si-Hyeon, accidentally consumed the Heavenly Demon Orb and became the new Heavenly Demon. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
Woo-Moon felt a heat exude from the Martial Heaven God Eun Jang-Cheon’s eyes. It must have been the manifestation of his desire, from the thought that what he had been wishing for would soon come true.
“If there is a poison, something that can detoxify said poison would be created next to it. The Heavenly Demon Orb created by the Heavenly Demon is the same. After the Heavenly Demon Orb was created, it was left untouched for an incredibly long time. After such ages, something with an opposing nature, the Heavenly Sacred Orb, formed next to it. My cultivation art is called the God-Slaying Self-Perfecting Art. In order to attain perfection in it, I need a pure, untainted child that consumed the Heavenly Sacred Orb.”
“But the Heavenly Demon Orb was stolen, and the Heavenly Sacred Orb also disappeared. Why did you neglect something that was so important to you?”
“Well, you know the age-old adage, nothing is done well unless you do it yourself. I trusted my subordinates, and that turned out to be a mistake. In any case, it’s not a problem. I didn’t need the Heavenly Demon Orb anyway, and if the Heavenly Sacred Orb was consumed by someone who wasn’t compatible, that person would die before a year passed, and the Heavenly Sacred Orb would find its way back into the world. So basically, if someone incompatible took it, I could just take it back from their corpse, and if someone compatible took it, well, that was my plan all along.”
“And you’re saying that Gun-Ha is in fact compatible and you are going to make use of her.”
“That is correct. This child has slept for quite a while and has finally digested the entire Heavenly Sacred Orb. So... Today is the day. Now, everything will be complete. In order to make sure this goes perfectly, I’ve even gathered all those useless low-level techniques like the Great Cosmic Absorption Art and compiled them into a peak-level devouring art.”
“It looks like she’d already finished digesting the Heavenly Sacred Orb before I even arrived, so why did you wait until now?”
“It’s simple. I wanted to show it to you. My new birth.”
Woo-Moon snickered.
“Right.... There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time now.”
“And what would that be?”
“When my clash with Martial Heaven first started, one of the Absolute Masters or Paragons here could have simply stepped forward and dealt with me. Then, the situation would never have come this far.”
“You’re not wrong. But at the same time, your presence here is of no consequence.”
“I beg to disagree. You see, I am no longer the same, and you haven’t killed Gun-Ha yet.”
“Haha. Do you really think that you can defeat me now? Just because you learned a new technique? Like that ridiculous thing where you use all of your qi to create that huge defensive qi barrier?”
“You beat me once and that makes you think you’re untouchable. That pride will be your downfall.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Woo-Moon moved.
Whoosh!
He appeared right in front of the Martial Heaven God.
“...?”
The Martial Heaven God’s eyes widened. But by the time that happened, Woo-Moon’s fist had already struck his face.
Bang!
He flew backward and broke through the tower’s wall.
“J-just how...!”
He couldn’t finish his words. Before he could even stabilize himself in the air, Woo-Moon disappeared before his eyes again. He looked up—right above him was Woo-Moon’s foot, which quickly slammed down.
BOOM!
The Martial Heaven God plummeted down. However, Woo-Moon moved even faster. He grabbed the Martial Heaven God by the neck and fell with him.
“The inferior can’t judge the cultivation of those superior to them. That’s why you never realized that I’ve reached an entire realm higher than three months ago.”
The Martial Heaven God Eun Jang-Cheon glared at Woo-Moon. His face was now full of blood—he couldn’t even remember when he had last felt that.
“Boundless! Are you saying that you’ve reached the Boundless Realm?”
“Yes.”
Woo-Moon slammed Eun Jang-Cheon onto the ground, then picked him up by the throat like a chicken and proceeded to punch him in the face again.
“T-this is... this is impossible... are you saying you’ve reached the Boundless Realm in three months? The realm I’ve never been able to reach?!”
“Yes. It wasn’t that hard after I changed the way I thought.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
Eun Jang-Cheon’s tone changed somewhere down the line.
In an instant, he let out an explosion of qi and escaped Woo-Moon’s hand. He glared at Woo-Moon, his eyes mad with rage.
“Someone like you, the trash of murim?! The disciple of that idiot Daoist Woo Bok-Hee?! It’s ridiculous even to entertain the notion that someone like you has reached a higher level than me!”
“And why not? You’re a bunch of losers anyway. It’s not like you’ve ever defeated my master, not even once, right? How can a bunch of people like you call themselves Martial Heaven?”
“AGHHH!”
Eun Jang-Cheon formed black and white aura spheres in both hands using all of his qi. He then fused them into one between his palms and shot the cluster of qi toward Woo-Moon.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Burning the Cosmos distorted space, causing it to crack as it headed toward Woo-Moon.
“I’ll show it to you, then. All the Myriad Things in the World.”
Woo-Moon’s sword moved casually. He simply cut through the air, aiming at nothing in particular. But Eun Jang-Cheon’s eyes widened once more—Burning the Cosmos was simply quelled down, as if the world itself did not tolerate its existence.
“Ke... keke.”
Eun Jang-Cheon, with his chest cleaved open, let out a low laugh.
Woo-Moon walked toward him and drove Boundless into his heart.
Squelch!
Hot blood splattered on Woo-Moon’s face, but he simply ignored it and casually spoke to Eun Jang-Cheon as if he wasn’t in the process of killing him.
“What did you say about our existences? That they were distorted? That we went beyond the rules of nature? No. Just as we humans were born from nature, the martial arts that we discovered and mastered were also given to us by nature itself.
“You said you wanted to be a god? No, you were already a god.
“Did you say that you wanted to be special? No, you’re no more special than a random street rat.
“You, too, are a part of nature. Just one among many.”
That was the end of what he wanted to tell Eun Jang-Cheon.
Now, if Woo-Moon infused his sword with his qi and turned Eun Jang-Cheon into a pile of pulp, everything would be over. He stood no chance against Woo-Moon’s blade.
“... together...” Eun Jang-Cheon muttered softly.
“What?”
“We’ll die together, Song Woo-Moon. And this world will go down with us,” Eun Jang-Cheon said with red eyes. His energy was now swirling.
All of his remaining qi was fusing together, as if he was using Burning the Cosmos inside his own body, waiting for the right moment to explode.
Eun Jang-Cheon’s last move was to pull his enemy down with him.
Woo-Moon tried to pull his sword out and cut him down. However, Eun Jang-Cheon grabbed its blade with both hands.
“We’ll die together.”
Woo-Moon frowned and then lightly responded, “I don’t think so.”
He kicked Eun Jang-Cheon’s head at the same time as he released Boundless.
Bang!
Eun Jang-Cheon’s head exploded like a watermelon struck by a stone, and Woo-Moon flew backward using the recoil. Then, his body exploded with an enormous force.
However, Woo-Moon was not affected by the explosion; he simply let the shockwave propel him back to the pavilion where Eun Jang-Cheon originally resided, where he landed gracefully.
He took Gun-Ha out of the crystal coffin and held her in his arms.
Eun Jang-Cheon had said that the world would die along with them. This was not a metaphor—he was fully confident that if he used Cosmic Annihilation, his suicidal technique, the entire Central Plains, and maybe even the continent, would be blown to smithereens.
Although he had used a considerable amount of qi fighting Woo-Moon, he thought that what he had left would be enough to produce that level of power.
However, the Cosmic Annihilation that he had used at the cost of his own life did nothing more than wreck Martial Heaven’s headquarters. Even the underground cave they were in hadn’t collapsed.
Holding Gun-Ha in his arms, he took a big leap—down to the center of the large crater that now decorated the bottom of the cave. There, he bent down and picked up something from the ground.
“Sorry for making you do this. You took the blow for everyone.”
It was other than Boundless.
Ding!
A large crack appeared on the blade. Then, smaller cracks, like a spider web, appeared from there and spread throughout the entire sword.
Crack.
Boundless completely disappeared, without leaving even a single speck of dust.
It had taken the brunt of the explosion while being embedded in the heart of Eun Jang-Cheon.
“Ah...”
At this moment, Gun-Ha woke up.
“Hey, sleepy kitty. Are you alright?”
“Yes, Eldest Brother! Uh, but... where are we? What’s going on?”
Woo-Moon laughed at her cute voice.
“Heh, you slept for too long. You even got yourself a big sister in the meantime.”
“P-pardon?”
Gun-Ha’s big eyes opened even wider as she wondered how to take Woo-Moon’s words. Then, she smiled bashfully.
“Is she a good unnie? Oh, is Jae-Hwa doing well?”
As it turned out, while on the way to the Heavenly Demon Mound where the Heavenly Demon Orb was located, Gun-Ha had been kidnapped by Martial Heaven and had been asleep since then. Fortunately, Eun Jang-Cheon had taken great care of Gun-Ha, and there was nothing wrong with her.
***
Hand-in-hand with Gun-Ha, Woo-Moon opened the door to the Heavenly Demon Cult’s headquarters.
“I’m back!”
There were still twenty-two days until the final day that Eun Jang-Cheon had spoken of.