Chapter 507
Red patterns surrounded Unhwi.
In a circle.
From every direction.
The patterns shone. The air grew heavy. Pressure could be felt within the formation. Unhwi’s body became faintly heavier. It was restricting his movements.
Seop Gyeong plunged into the formation.
Within his own formation, Seop Gyeong became faster.
Twice as fast.
Three times.
The formation was amplifying his movement art.
Seop Gyeong’s short sword aimed for Unhwi’s throat.
Fast.
The full power of Manifestation of the Boundless, further amplified by the formation.
Swish.
Unhwi tilted his head.
The sword brushed past his ear.
But Seop Gyeong did not stop.
A continuous assault.
Thrusting, slashing, rising, descending.
The short sword attacked Unhwi from every direction. Empowered by the formation, Seop Gyeong moved from side to side around him.
Afterimages remained.
Three images of Seop Gyeong.
Four.
It seemed as though there were more than one of him.
Unhwi blocked.
Clack.
Dodged.
Swish.
Blocked again.
Clack.
They exchanged three moves.
On the fourth, Unhwi’s robe was cut.
His left forearm.
A shallow wound.
Blood welled out.
Unhwi looked down at it.
He acknowledged it.
The internal energy of Manifestation of the Boundless, amplified by the formation.
In speed alone, Seop Gyeong was comparable to someone in the early Harmony realm.
Seop Gyeong’s eyes flashed.
I wounded him.
Once more.
Seop Gyeong plunged in again.
With everything he had.
He accelerated within the formation.
His body blurred.
The afterimages increased to five.
Short swords rushed in from five directions at once.
A formula flowed from Unhwi’s lips.
One Heaven-Defying Sword shatters ten thousand Ways.
Gods and demons recoil, and heaven and earth weep.
Heaven-Defying Vast Azure Sword.
Seventh Form: Heaven-Defying Shattering of the Way.
Unhwi’s sword moved.
Once.
Horizontally.
It seemed slow.
𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺
But everything vanished where the sword passed.
The formation vanished.
The red patterns disappeared like smoke.
Along the path of the sword, the patterns split, shattered, and scattered.
Heaven-Defying Shattering of the Way.
A sword that shattered ten thousand Ways.
Whether it was a formation, an art, or a martial technique.
It nullified the opponent’s technique itself.
The formation disappeared.
Seop Gyeong’s afterimages disappeared.
With the formation’s amplification gone, the afterimages vanished as well.
Seop Gyeong’s true body was exposed.
Directly in front of Unhwi.
Three feet away.
He was frozen in the posture of thrusting his short sword.
He had not stopped of his own accord.
His body had locked up from the shock of the formation being broken.
He had poured his internal energy into the formation, only for it to be extinguished all at once.
The backlash was forcing his energy into reverse flow.
His blood and energy twisted.
“Khup.......”
Seop Gyeong spat blood.
Then again.
“Keugh......!”
His knees buckled.
One knee struck the ground.
Unhwi looked down at him.
“Setting a formation and fighting within it was not a bad choice.”
“.......”
“But you failed to account for the backlash if the formation was broken.”
“......You bastard.......”
“You lack experience in actual combat.”
Unhwi spoke.
“You have likely carried out many assassinations, but faced few opponents head-on.”
Seop Gyeong clenched his teeth.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at Unhwi.
“......Negotiation.......”
“You are still saying that?”
There was no emotion in Unhwi’s eyes.
“The man who caught Wonyang’s sword between two fingers is now kneeling and begging to negotiate.”
“.......”
“Are the man you were then and the man you are now truly the same person?”
Seop Gyeong closed his mouth.
“You flaunt your power before the weak and kneel before the strong.”
Unhwi raised his sword.
“If you had been like the Twenty-Third or Twenty-Fourth Seat, I would have left you alive.”
“.......”
“But not you.”
A formula flowed from Unhwi’s lips.
One sword of Heavenly Origin opens chaos.
Before all forms are born, light already exists.
Heavenly Origin Boundless Sword.
First Form: Heavenly Origin Creation.
The sword rose.
Toward the sky.
Light erupted.
It was not the blue sword force of the Heaven-Defying Vast Azure Sword.
White light.
It was not merely dazzling.
It seemed capable of blinding the world.
The mere sight of it created the sensation that everything had stopped.
Void-Origin Energy.
Energy beyond the Heaven-Defying Vast Azure Sword, refined through the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
The sword descended.
Once.
Kraaaaaang—!!!
The sound filled the valley.
It was not the sound of a sword cutting through the air.
It was the sound of space itself breaking.
White light extended in a straight line from Unhwi’s sword.
Seop Gyeong saw it.
That was all he could do.
He could not evade it.
He could not block it.
Not while his knee was on the ground.
Not while his internal energy was flowing in reverse.
The white light touched Seop Gyeong.
All sound vanished.
For an instant.
The world fell silent.
Then—
Kwoooooom—!!
An explosion erupted.
Where the white light had passed, the earth had split in a straight line.
Ten yards long.
The fissure was narrow, but its depth could not be seen.
Cold energy rose from between the cracks.
Trees had fallen.
Those touched by the light had not been cut.
They had frozen and shattered.
Fragments of wood lay scattered in every direction, covered in frost.
The rocks had broken.
A blue boulder had been split in two.
Its exposed surface was frozen white.
Seop Gyeong lay at the center of it all.
He was not standing.
He lay on the ground.
From his chest to his abdomen, a straight wound had split him open.
Deep.
Bone was visible.
The edges of the wound were frozen white.
His blood had frozen before it could even flow.
Seop Gyeong’s eyes stared at the sky.
Still open.
His mouth moved.
“......This is.......”
Blood bubbled at the corner of his lips.
“......the Boundless...... Sword.”
His eyes went still.
The short sword fell from his hand.
Clatter.
A faint sound.
That was the last of him.
Unhwi sheathed his sword and turned.
Northwest.
Heaven-Law Cliff lay in that direction.
The direction Gwak Hyeongjin had given him.
Three hundred li beyond Long Forest Mountain.
Behind the cliff.
Unhwi unleashed his lightness art.
At full speed.
The wind pulled at his robe.
There were more bloodstains on it now.
Some of them were his own.
Blood ran from the wound on his left forearm.
It was nothing of consequence.
Unhwi’s eyes remained fixed ahead.
Heaven-Law Cliff.
One hundred men.
The commander of the Heaven-Law Platform.
The end of the Supreme Void Realm.
The source of all of this.
What had happened at Heaven Beyond Heaven should have ended at Heaven Beyond Heaven.
The Heavenly Wayfarer had issued his warning, and with that, Unhwi had ended all ties with the commander of the Heaven-Law Platform—the Heaven-Law Immortal.
He had neither intended nor had any reason to continue dealing with him.
But the man had not been satisfied with that.
Wounded pride.
And arrogance.
He had tried to issue a pathetic warning.
The Supreme Void Realm was indeed formidable.
It was indeed difficult to face.
But that had been true before Unhwi reached the Five Realms of Martial Divinity.
Now that he had entered the Five Realms of Martial Divinity—
Even if he could not recover everything from his previous life, he could at least reproduce a semblance of what he had once been.
The speed to keep pace with his opponent.
Judgment.
The ability to read the next move.
And new martial arts besides.
This was not arrogance.
It was confidence grounded in reason.
The Supreme Void Realm.
He could reach it.
Unhwi ran.
The forest swept past him.
The mountains swept past him.
He did not stop.
Heaven-Law Cliff was drawing closer.
***
Blue Rock Valley.
It was quiet.
The wind blew.
A cold wind.
The remnants of the ice energy Unhwi had left behind.
The frost in the courtyard had not yet melted.
The blue rocks were covered in white.
Han Soyeong opened her eyes.
She saw a ceiling.
No.
It was not a ceiling.
It was the sky.
The night sky.
Stars hung above her.
She was lying in the courtyard.
......How long?
She tried to estimate the time.
The sun had set.
She had faced Unhwi before sunset.
At least one double-hour had passed.
No.
Two.
She tried to rise, but for a moment, her body would not move.
Her left arm.
It was still stiff.
Ice energy remained within it.
She could feel nothing from her shoulder to her fingertips.
She could not tell whether it was merely the lingering effect or whether the arm had died completely.
But judging from Unhwi’s words, it was far more likely that only the aftereffects remained.
Her right hand moved.
She planted it against the ground.
She raised herself.
Halfway.
Pain struck her neck.
In two places.
The first was at the front of her throat.
The wound from the sword.
Shallow, but a clear straight line.
The blood had dried.
She touched it with her right hand.
Dried blood stained her fingertips.
......He carved a scar into me.
He had not killed her.
He had drawn his sword across her throat, yet had not killed her.
He had only left a scar.
A scar that would never disappear.
The other pain came from the back of her neck.
Not the back of her head.
Her cervical spine.
The place where Unhwi’s left arm had struck.
A dull ache °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° remained.
That was what had taken her consciousness.
Han Soyeong slowly rose.
Her legs trembled.
But she stood.
She looked around the courtyard.
It was covered in frost.
The place where Unhwi had stood.
His footprints remained imprinted in the frost.
The entire path of his movement was still there.
Han Soyeong looked at the place where she had fallen.
Then she looked in the direction Unhwi had left.
North.
Toward Heaven-Law Cliff.
......He knows where the headquarters is.
Han Soyeong’s eyes trembled.
Unhwi’s words returned to her.
The Heaven-Law Platform has only two possible endings. It will either become an organization that exists in name alone, or it will disappear.
They had not been empty words.
They were the words of a man who had crushed three outposts in a single day.
And he had not even been wounded.
A martial artist at Unity of Heaven and Man had crushed three or four others at the same realm, yet had not suffered so much as a wound.
An overwhelmingly powerful man.
He could not be judged as someone at the same realm.
Never.
Han Soyeong touched the scar on her throat again with her right hand.
What Unhwi had left behind.
Later, Ju Soa will come looking for you.
Ju Soa.
The woman whose throat Han Soyeong had touched with one finger.
The Entry-to-Divinity realm.
A realm far beneath Han Soyeong’s.
Unhwi had said that once the woman grew stronger, he would send her to find Han Soyeong.
You may kill her. If you can.
Han Soyeong understood what those words meant.
Unhwi was certain.
Certain that Ju Soa would become stronger.
And certain that Han Soyeong would live with this scar until that day.
The scar on her throat was that promise.
A token.
Han Soyeong leaned her back against a rock.
She looked up at the sky.
The stars were out.
It was a cold night.
Feeling began to return to her left arm.
Very slowly.
It tingled and ached.
The ice energy was leaving.
Han Soyeong thought of Unhwi’s eyes.
Cold.
Yet he had not killed her.
I saw the spirit of a martial artist in you.
The corner of Han Soyeong’s mouth moved faintly.
It was not a smile.
It was bitter.
......The spirit of a martial artist.
She had never heard such words within the Heaven-Law Platform.
Within the Heaven-Law Platform, Han Soyeong was the Twelfth Seat.
Her rank was not low, but neither was it particularly high.
The Heaven-Law Platform was an ancient organization.
Hundreds of years created customs.
And customs became walls.
Han Soyeong had sharpened her sword within those walls.
She had sharpened it as a martial artist.
But the Heaven-Law Platform was not a gathering of martial artists.
Perhaps she had been wearing clothes that did not fit her all along.
From the man who had come to kill her today—
For the first time, she had been called a martial artist.
Strangely, it did not feel unpleasant.
To hear a true martial artist say that she possessed the spirit of one was both acknowledgment and liberation.
What if—
What if Han Soyeong had truly died at Unhwi’s hands?
How would the Heaven-Law Immortal have reacted?
And if Unhwi had proven weaker than expected and died at the Heaven-Law Immortal’s hands, what would the Heaven-Law Immortal have thought?
Would he have believed that he had avenged one of his people?
Or would he simply have been pleased that he had killed the man who wounded his pride?
Strictly speaking, the two were different.
Whether he cherished his people or not.
That difference was truly enormous.
Han Soyeong removed her hand from the scar on her throat and stood upright.
Feeling had not fully returned to her left arm, but she could stand.
She could walk.
She turned her head and searched for her sword.
It was embedded in a rock.
The sword Unhwi had knocked away.
She gripped the hilt and pulled it free.
She held it in her right hand.
Then looked down at the blade.
Traces of frost remained upon it.
Marks left where Unhwi’s ice energy had brushed across the steel.
Han Soyeong sheathed the sword.
Ju Soa.
She remembered the name.
And thought—
You people are truly blessed.