Chapter 512
The sensation of a gate opening.
It was familiar. Up to this point.
Second Gate.
Blood Body Imperial Ring.
Thump.
His heart beat a second time.
Blood energy circulated through his entire body. Everywhere. Into every last corner. From the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. Wherever the blood energy reached, his body grew lighter. His arms, which had felt so heavy, became light as feathers. The cracks in his ribs began to mend. The swelling in his bruised cheekbone subsided. The blood running from his nose stopped.
His body temperature rose.
The ice energy vanished.
The frost covering the courtyard melted.
Steam rose from Unhwi’s body.
Third Gate.
Blood Wind Flying Emperor.
Thump.
The third.
The blood energy formed a current around his body. Unhwi’s robe fluttered despite the absence of wind. A current of blood energy. The stones beneath his feet cracked. Unhwi’s body rose ever so slightly.
Half an inch.
Off the ground.
The current of blood energy was supporting his body.
He could control it this far.
This was the safe limit.
The Heavenly Wayfarer’s words surfaced in his mind once more.
“The fourth gate will not be your obstacle.”
“You can control all four perfectly.”
In his previous life, he had not been able to control it.
The Heavenly Wayfarer had said this time would be different.
Unhwi decided to trust him.
Fourth Gate.
Blood Bullet Diamond.
Thump.
The fourth.
It was different from the other gates.
It did not open.
It burst.
Blood energy exploded outward from within Unhwi’s body. His muscles swelled. His body showed through the tears in his robe. Veins bulged across his forehead. His neck. His forearms. The blood vessels throughout his entire body rose visibly beneath his skin.
The blood energy began to condense.
Over his skin.
Crimson energy flowed along his flesh. It flowed, then stopped; stopped, then hardened. Like diamond.
It felt as though crimson armor were forming over his flesh.
And then.
His eyes changed.
Red spread through his black eyes. It was not bloodshot veins. His pupils themselves were turning red.
The moment came when he began to lose control.
His body tried to change. It tried to move independently of his consciousness. The impulse to kill rose from deep within his brain.
From the depths of instinct.
His entire body writhed.
He wanted to kill everything he could see.
No.
He had to kill them.
That was when the Heavenly Wayfarer’s words flashed through Unhwi’s mind.
“If there is one thing you fail to realize.”
One thing.
The Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art whispered to him.
Kill.
Stop thinking and move. Now.
In his previous life, Unhwi had resisted it.
He had suppressed it. Forced it back. Fought it. He had treated the killing intent as an enemy and tried to crush it beneath his will.
But he had failed.
He killed, and killed again. The more he suppressed it, the fiercer it became. Whenever his will and his killing intent fought, the killing intent won.
The reason was simple.
The Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art was a martial art of both body and mind.
That was why it had dragged him along in his previous life.
But the Unhwi of the present was different.
The question the Heavenly Wayfarer had given him.
He remembered what the Heavenly Wayfarer had said when they discussed the force of Heavenly Snow.
“Dominion is not the end.”
“When snow covers the world, does the snow rule the world, or does the world become snow?”
The disappearance of boundaries.
The boundary between ruler and ruled disappearing.
Unhwi understood.
The killing intent of the Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art was not his enemy.
It was Unhwi himself.
His body had created it. His blood energy had created it. His heart had pumped it forth.
If it was not an enemy, fighting it could never bring victory.
Because no one could fight himself and win.
Unhwi did not resist.
The killing intent rose.
He accepted it.
He did not push it away.
The killing intent spread.
He did not suppress it.
The killing intent filled his entire body.
And Unhwi acknowledged it as his own.
My killing intent.
My blood energy.
Mine.
Not something to fight, but something to use.
Not something to resist, but something whose direction he would determine.
The killing intent did not disappear.
It did not diminish.
It was still boiling inside him.
But now it had a direction.
A direction Unhwi had chosen.
The Heaven-Law Immortal.
The killing intent turned toward the Heaven-Law Immortal.
Exactly as Unhwi had decided.
Control.
Not control through suppression.
Control through changing the flow.
The one thing the Heavenly Wayfarer had spoken of.
“Erase the boundary.”
Erase the boundary between the Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art and Unhwi.
Neither the martial art leading him, nor Unhwi suppressing the martial art.
He himself becoming the martial art.
Crimson energy enveloped Unhwi’s body.
Blood energy.
A blood-red mist billowed outward with Unhwi at its center. The courtyard was dyed crimson.
More than fifty martial artists screamed.
“Ugh... aaagh...”
“R-Run...!”
Those touched by the blood energy collapsed. They could not even remain standing beneath the pressure of the blood energy Unhwi was releasing.
The Heaven-Law Immortal’s eyes widened.
“This is...”
The nature of his energy had changed.
Until moments ago, Unhwi had been at Unity of Heaven and Man.
But Unhwi now—
...What is this?
The Heaven-Law Immortal could not judge it.
It was not a realm.
It was not something that could be explained through realms.
Something that was not Unity of Heaven and Man was emerging from within the framework of Unity of Heaven and Man.
The vessel was Unity of Heaven and Man.
But the water within it was the Supreme Void Realm.
No.
It was surpassing even the Supreme Void Realm.
The Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art was capable of this?
Impossible.
This is something else entirely.
Unhwi raised his sword.
Slowly.
His eyes settled on the Heaven-Law Immortal.
Red eyes.
Deep eyes.
There was nothing within them.
All emotion was gone.
Anger. Humiliation. Vengeance.
All of it had vanished.
What remained was stillness.
The stillness of a man who had spent more than a decade on battlefields.
The stillness of a man who had killed tens of thousands.
The Heaven-Law Immortal looked into those eyes.
And for the first time in his life.
For the first time in centuries of existence.
He felt a chill run down his spine.
Those eyes.
Those are not the eyes of a young man.
How many must he have killed to possess eyes like those?
Unhwi took one step forward.
The courtyard split apart.
One step.
That alone.
The Heaven-Law Immortal stepped back.
One step.
Only after retreating did he realize what he had done.
He had stepped back.
A man standing at the very edge of the Supreme Void Realm.
Before someone at Unity of Heaven and Man.
“I would rather not have used this if possible.”
“...”
“You see, once I open the fourth gate of the Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art, I can kill my opponent without fail, whoever they may be.”
“You...”
“Because I could not control the backlash, I kept it as a move for mutual destruction. But that is no longer the case.”
“...”
“I am genuinely curious, so allow me to ask. Did you truly think I entered the Blood Heaven Sect without making any preparations?”
“...”
“Did you think accepting the position of Blood Heaven Arbiter and behaving like a madman was merely arrogance?”
“...Who... are you?”
“The Blood Heaven Arbiter.”
The Heaven-Law Immortal ground his teeth.
Unhwi took another step forward, and the Heaven-Law Immortal retreated another step in response.
He flinched.
Humiliation.
But his body had reacted first.
His instincts had screamed at him.
Danger.
Unhwi opened his mouth.
The formula flowed forth.
One sword of Heavenly Origin cleaves chaos apart;
Before all things are born, light already exists.
Heavenly Origin Boundless Sword, First Form.
Heavenly Origin Opens Creation.
It was the same form as before.
But the instant the sword rose, the Heaven-Law Immortal knew.
It was not the same.
The Heavenly Origin Opens Creation from before had been wielded by someone at Unity of Heaven and Man.
The Heavenly Origin Opens Creation now—
Light erupted from the sword.
It was not white.
It was transparent.
Light without color. Visible and yet invisible. A light perceived not by the eyes, but by existence itself.
Boundless Energy.
Something beyond Void-Origin Energy.
The energy Unhwi had reached while creating the Heavenly Origin Boundless Sword.
The limits of the flesh shattered open by the fourth gate of the Blood Demon Heaven-Collapsing Art.
The moment the two came together, Boundless Energy finally revealed its true form.
The sword descended.
The Heaven-Law Immortal crossed both arms.
He drew up his energy.
Heaven’s ordinance sets the celestial force and subdues heaven and earth;
Ten thousand arts cannot invade, and my Way alone endures.
Heavenly Ordinance Art.
First Form: Heaven-Subduing Barrier.
Golden energy wrapped around both arms.
This time, it was not a sphere.
A shield.
A golden shield rose before the Heaven-Law Immortal.
The defensive form of the Heavenly Ordinance Art, honed over hundreds of years.
Boundless Energy touched it.
Sound vanished.
From the courtyard.
From Heaven-Law Cliff.
From the world.
Every sound disappeared.
For an instant.
A fraction of a heartbeat.
And then—
BOOOOOOM—!!!
Sound exploded.
The golden shield shattered.
Golden fragments scattered in every direction. Each fragment cracked the stone wherever it struck the ground.
Blood erupted from the Heaven-Law Immortal’s arms.
His crossed arms were torn open. His robe was gone. Flesh split apart. Bone showed through. Transparent energy clung to the exposed white bone.
The Heaven-Law Immortal was driven backward.
Ten steps.
Twenty.
Thirty.
He smashed through an entire building. The walls collapsed. The roof caved in.
He vanished beneath the rubble.
Dust billowed upward.
The courtyard fell silent.
Complete silence.
Nearly a hundred martial artists lay prone on the ground. None could raise their heads. The pressure created by the mingling of blood energy and Boundless Energy was crushing the entire basin.
Unhwi stood there.
At the center of the courtyard.
Sword in hand.
Red eyes.
Blood-red mist.
Transparent light.
All three surrounded him.
The rubble shifted.
The Heaven-Law Immortal emerged.
He rose to his feet.
Both arms were mangled. The flesh was split open. Blood flowed freely. Bone was visible.
But he was standing.
The very edge of the Supreme Void Realm.
That had been no lie.
The Heaven-Law Immortal looked at Unhwi.
His face was covered in blood.
But his eyes were alive.
He clenched his teeth.
And kicked off the ground.
Heaven-Law force gathers thunder;
Cast once, and all beneath heaven and earth collapses.
Heavenly Ordinance Art.
Second Form: Thunder Prison.
Golden light erupted from the Heaven-Law Immortal’s ruined arms.
𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
From arms whose flesh had been torn apart.
From arms with exposed bone.
By sheer will alone, he drew up his energy.
The golden energy formed a sphere.
Not one.
Three.
All three spun simultaneously above the Heaven-Law Immortal’s head.
Lightning flashed inside each sphere.
Crackle. Crackle. Crackle.
Golden lightning.
The three spheres pulled at one another as they revolved. The faster they spun, the more everything in the courtyard was dragged toward them.
Stone.
Earth.
Debris.
Even the air itself.
Thunder Prison.
A prison of lightning.
The three spheres hurtled toward Unhwi.
The first sphere.
Unhwi raised his sword.
He split it apart.
Straight down through the center.
BOOM—!!
The bisected sphere exploded to either side, swallowing the courtyard. The roofs of two buildings were blown away. Walls collapsed.
The second sphere came from the left.
Unhwi twisted his body.
His sword swept horizontally.
Slice—!
Boundless Energy stretched far along the path of the blade.
Transparent light touched the sphere.
The sphere stopped.
Its rotation slowed.
Within the Boundless Energy, the golden light began to lose its meaning.
BOOOOM.
It exploded.
But not toward Unhwi.
Upward.
Into the sky.
A pillar of golden light pierced the heavens.
The clouds split apart.
The third.
It came from above.
Directly over Unhwi’s head.
He did not look down.
He looked up.
The third sphere was falling toward the crown of his head. Lightning lashed madly across its surface.
Unhwi raised his sword.
He thrust.
Upward.
The sword point pierced the center of the sphere.
BOOOOOOM—!!
The sphere exploded while still impaled upon the sword.
Golden lightning engulfed Unhwi’s body.
It raced down the sword.
Along his arm.
Across his shoulder.
Unhwi’s body disappeared within the lightning.