Whooooosh.
With the sound of the wind, a pitch-black space in which nothing could be seen unfolded around him this time.
Bu Eunseol silently walked onward.
His expression remained unchanged, regardless of how the scenery transformed.
Swish.
A blade flashed in the darkness with a thin whistle as it cut through the air.
The passing blade viciously sliced Bu Eunseol's forearm.
Though it had merely grazed him, the wound split wide open and streamed with fresh blood.
It was a double-edged saber of the sort favored by assassins.
Spurrrrt! Paaat!
With every step he took, blades sprang from the darkness and cruelly carved his entire body.
His arms, legs, shoulders, neck, cheeks, eyes...
The agony of severed blood vessels and flayed skin continued without pause.
In less than half a quarter-hour, Bu Eunseol looked like a man drenched in blood.
Yet he showed no reaction and merely continued forward.
One step, two steps... After walking for roughly half a quarter-hour, the darkness finally began to recede.
This time, a space as white and transparent as light spread out before him.
Crack.
The instant Bu Eunseol stepped into the white space, his body buckled.
Tens of thousands of geun of pressure were crushing his entire body.
Whoosh.
A mysterious radiance poured from Bu Eunseol's blood-covered eyes.
This time, he drew up every last measure of his internal energy and began resisting.
Drip, drip.
His bent body gradually straightened, and his hair rose toward the sky.
As he raised his internal energy, an even more powerful pressure descended upon him with a deep hum.
Crick.
Bu Eunseol clenched both fists, kept his back straight, and silently endured the pressure.
Half a quarter-hour passed, then a full quarter-hour. Before long, nearly the span of a single meal had gone by.
He was holding out with his internal energy, but the cascading pressure showed no sign of ending.
An ordinary person would have felt terror akin to death.
Bu Eunseol merely stood tall where he was and impassively continued raising his internal energy.
How much time had passed?
Thrum.
With a low vibration, the pressure crushing his body vanished completely.
Had he fled rather than resisted to the very end, he would instead have lost his sense of self and become bound to this Mind World.
He moved forward once more.
The path gradually widened, and an endless grove of green bamboo came into view.
'There is no end to it.'
Bu Eunseol murmured with an indifferent expression and stood at the center of the bamboo grove.
After looking in every direction, he closed his eyes.
Then he slowly reached behind his back and tightly grasped the hilt of the Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
"Come at me."
The moment those words left his mouth, streams of blue smoke surged from among the bamboo toward him.
Whiiiiirl.
The blue smoke soon assumed the forms of sword-wielding assassins.
With his eyes still closed, Bu Eunseol moved like lightning and cut down the assassin stabbing at his back.
Slash! Pat!
The assassin split in two, turned back into blue smoke, and scattered in every direction.
The assassins alternated between smoke and shadow as they stabbed at Bu Eunseol's vital points.
Swish, swish!
He repeatedly cut them down with the Silent Tiger Soul Sword, yet each time, they transformed into smoke.
Ghosts without physical form had appeared, rendering every cut useless.
Clack.
As Bu Eunseol watched the strange assassins that could neither be cut down nor destroyed, he lowered his stance and raised the Silent Tiger Soul Sword into a high guard.
"Interesting."
Whoomph!
The assassins approached as mist and encircled him. Just as they were about to rain down their attacks...
Shwaaak!
A deafening whistle suddenly tore through the air.
Bu Eunseol was spinning the Silent Tiger Soul Sword like a top, drawing in the assassins who had transformed into blue smoke.
Rushhhh!
With the roar of a fierce wind, the smoke coiling around the Silent Tiger Soul Sword transformed into a massive whirlwind.
Rumble!
It soon dispersed into the distant sky and vanished without a trace.
He had easily disposed of the smoke-shifting assassins through an ingenious method.
[That man.]
The black shadow manipulating the Mind World from within the darkness could not conceal its disbelief as it watched Bu Eunseol break through each Mind World in succession.
The trial before him was the seventh level of the Mind World, the Seven Mists Purgatory.
One had to disregard every illusion while invariably responding to everything real.
Mistaking reality for an illusion meant death. And mistaking an illusion for the truth?
One would remain trapped in the Mind World forever.
The problem was that distinguishing illusion from reality within the Seven Mists Purgatory was impossible.
[How did he grasp the essence of the Seven Mists Purgatory when it has never once appeared in the martial world?]
Bu Eunseol uncannily identified and silently endured the pain inflicted by illusions, while responding instantly to every real threat.
[Could his ability have reached the same absolute realm as the Heavenly Demon Emperor?]
In truth, the shadow was overestimating Bu Eunseol.
Bu Eunseol had peered into other people's memories many times through Mind Worlds and Illusion Upon Illusion.
More importantly, throughout his travels in the martial world, he had endured every manner of suffering, enough for the journey itself to be called an ascetic ordeal.
His flesh had truly melted from his hands and feet, and he had resisted crushing pressure before. He had also been cut countless times by exotic weapons much like the double-edged saber.
That was why he could so easily determine what was true and what was false.
Step, step.
Covered in blood, Bu Eunseol slowly continued forward with the Silent Tiger Soul Sword in hand.
This time, the path was somewhat longer and steeper.
White light flowed from the end of the road as it gradually rose like a staircase.
He slowly entered the passage from which the light emerged.
"...!"
Beneath a warm sun stood an old house.
There, an elderly man was hunched over in the yard, arranging funerary urns.
Clatter.
The Silent Tiger Soul Sword slipped weakly from Bu Eunseol's hand and fell to the ground.
That benevolent smile was unmistakable.
How could he ever forget that face?
It belonged to the man he had never forgotten for even a single day, the man he yearned for even in his dreams.
His grandfather was standing before him.
"Grandfather."
As he quietly spoke the word, his stomach burned as though he had swallowed deadly poison.
His eyes dimmed like a guttering candle.
"Grandfather, you are always somewhere beyond my reach."
He knew it was an illusion.
Yet Bu Eunseol stumbled forward, determined to reach the place where his grandfather stood.
"Somewhere within this vast and boundless universe... you must have been reborn and begun another life, Grandfather."
If his grandfather had reincarnated after drawing his last breath...
He would surely have opened another quiet funeral home like this and gently comforted the spirits of the dead.
[What is this now?]
Meanwhile, the Seven Mists Purgatory Formation remained shrouded in profound darkness.
[The man who saw through truth and falsehood amid suffering akin to hell, and shattered every illusion...]
The shadow could not conceal its disbelief as it watched the light in Bu Eunseol's eyes grow hazy.
[Has lost his mind to the power of the Bewitching Remnant Formation, which merely shows him an image of what his heart desires?]
Bu Eunseol was already entering the funeral home as though he had accepted the illusion as reality.
With every step, his eyes grew more bewitched, while his once-pure spirit became increasingly clouded.
"I know this is an illusion."
After entering the funeral home, Bu Eunseol smiled faintly.
"Even so, I wish to see Grandfather up close."
Only now could he understand how Namgung Jeong, the Palace Master of the Southern Palace, had felt in the past.
When assassins of the Martial Alliance disguised as a force from beyond the border had ambushed him...
He had accepted the illusion of his wife despite knowing it was false.
"It truly feels as though I have returned to those days."
A contented smile unconsciously appeared on Bu Eunseol's face.
Until now, he had seen his grandfather in countless traps and Mind Worlds, and he had overcome them all.
But his grandfather's figure within the Seven Mists Purgatory Formation was different.
Not only was it indistinguishable from reality, but every sight and sensation matched reality perfectly.
Afraid it would shatter if he approached or disappear if he turned away, Bu Eunseol cautiously stopped and gazed at his grandfather.
"Had I known revenge would be this difficult, I would have followed you back then, Grandfather."
His longing ran so deep that Bu Eunseol had deliberately immersed himself in the Mind World to reunite with his grandfather.
"Seol-ah."
At that moment, his grandfather turned away from the funerary urns and looked at Bu Eunseol.
"It has been hard, has it not?"
His grandfather stroked Bu Eunseol's head with a gaunt hand.
"But are you not this old man's grandson?"
Then he smiled brightly.
"You will endure every trial... and become a ray of light that brightly illuminates this dark world."
Trickle.
Heavy tears rolled down Bu Eunseol's face.
Even within the illusion, his grandfather believed in him.
He believed Bu Eunseol would overcome every trial.
That faith remained unshaken.
It gradually purified his clouded spirit.
'Even within an illusion... Grandfather is still protecting me.'
Ziiiing.
Clear light returned to Bu Eunseol's eyes.
Clack.
He used Void Grasp to draw the distant Silent Tiger Soul Sword into his hand. As though resonating with his heart, a lustrous, ancient light spread from its blade.
Flash!
The transparent sky was severed in a brilliant flare.
That light cut through the funeral home and sliced the eyes of the shadow hidden in the darkness, the one who had unleashed the Seven Mists Purgatory.
[A-Argh!]
As an agonized scream rang out...
Flutter.
The transparent sky, the fading sunset, and even the tranquil funeral home began scattering like sheets of paper.
The Mind World of the Seven Mists Purgatory had been shattered.
Shaaaa.
At last, every scene vanished.
Bu Eunseol realized that he was still standing in the long corridor.
There was only one difference.
The side walls of the passage, which he had been unable to see before, were formed from men in black.
Blood streamed from every one of their eyes.
Such an extraordinary Mind World could only have been created by staking the bodies and life force of all those martial artists.
"How...?"
At the end of the corridor, someone clutched both eyes and trembled.
It was the old eunuch who had guided Bu Eunseol here.
Step, step.
Bu Eunseol walked impassively down the corridor and passed the old eunuch.
"Was the secret art of the Mind World also passed down through the Imperial Palace?"
Bu Eunseol murmured in a low voice, but the old eunuch covered his mouth and could not utter a word.
He instinctively knew that a single foolish remark would see his head separated from his body.
When Bu Eunseol finally reached the end of the corridor, a vast hall appeared before him.
"Haa."
Looking inside, Bu Eunseol released a deeper sigh than ever before.
An unreal sight filled his vision along with the pungent scent of musk.
Across the gleaming floor of the hall, three hundred palace maids wore gauze robes sheer enough to reveal their undergarments.
They danced beautifully in ordered ranks like the petals of an enormous flower.
Rustle, rustle.
The palace maids whirled and bent as though tracing predetermined paths, their arms and fingers flowing softly.
Their heads tilted back in time with a steady rhythm.
Though no music played, he seemed to hear the beating of drums. The sound of their silk skirts brushing the floor rang out like sobbing.
It was an exquisitely beautiful dance.
Yet their gazes were vacant, and even their smiling mouths were utterly devoid of life...
They resembled a host of women possessed by ghosts and made to dance together.
Jangle.
The golden step-sway hairpins and jade ornaments in their hair collided whenever they bent at the waist and performed their seductive dance.
They poured out a sharp and deafening metallic sound.
'How grotesque.'
This hall was supposedly where the Empress Dowager awaited him.
How could such an unholy scene be unfolding here?
'Moreover, this is no simple dance.'
Bu Eunseol narrowed his eyes and stepped forward.
Rustle, rustle.
But the paths traced by their dance were so rapid and complex that he could advance no farther.
"Hmm."
Bu Eunseol tried to take another step, but the women blocked his movement without ever seeming to cease their dance.
Moreover, whenever the palace maids moved...
Chime, chiiime.
The many leaf-shaped ornaments hanging from the ends of their golden step-sway hairpins made a raucous sound that grated on his nerves.
'She wants me to break through this.'
Bu Eunseol calmly watched the countless palace maids dancing densely enough to fill the entire hall.
Ssk.
Then he slowly moved into the spaces between them.
Three hundred red sleeves sliced through the air and billowed at once, resembling a massive wave of blood.
They ceaselessly confused his vision, yet Bu Eunseol continued forward without the slightest wavering.
Once he had passed through the palace maids' dance, he finally saw the Empress Dowager seated upon a lofty throne.
Ordinarily, he would have offered some greeting such as, "This humble one has come in obedience to Your Highness's summons."
Or he might have said, "May Your Highness enjoy boundless longevity."
But there was no need for such stale formalities now.
Through this affair, the Empress Dowager had revealed her complete hostility toward him.
"To gather so many eyes and ears for the sake of one lowly martial artist... This is an honor beyond my station."
The Empress Dowager smiled, paying no heed to Bu Eunseol's stiff tone.
"The winds of the Imperial Family cannot be compared to the blade winds of the martial world."
She looked down at Bu Eunseol and spoke coldly.
"In the martial world, one loses one's head for executing a technique poorly. In the Imperial Palace, merely standing in the wrong place can scatter one's three souls and seven spirits."
After pausing briefly, she continued in a low voice.
"It is said that one who understands the tide of the age is a true hero."
She looked Bu Eunseol directly in the eyes.
"The natural order of the world is now collapsing. If a talent such as you fails to stand in the proper place, you will have forsaken the mandate bestowed upon you by heaven."
"Are you telling me to betray the Emperor?"
"I am advising you to return to the place where you rightfully belong."
The Empress Dowager spoke plainly without evasion.
"In return, I will tell you everything."
"..."
"On my honor, I will immediately tell you everything you wish to know, including every truth you have searched for so desperately."
Astonishingly, the Empress Dowager knew precisely what Bu Eunseol desired most.
And if he stood at her side?
She would immediately reveal every truth she knew.
"If everything you have sought until now can be attained, surely the price is worthwhile."
"Then allow me to ask you something."
After a brief silence, Bu Eunseol spoke.
"Are you certain that what you know is the truth?"
His eyes froze as cold as a glacier of the North Sea.
"I am asking whether it is a truth you personally saw, heard, and verified."
"Why does that matter?"
"Suppose the Great Murder Star of the martial world drew his blade and killed someone, and Your Highness heard the tale."
Bu Eunseol continued calmly.
"But the testimony of those who actually witnessed the scene could be entirely different. The person killed by the Great Murder Star might have been unspeakably evil, or at the very least, there might have been a reason that made his death inevitable."
When the Empress Dowager offered no reply, Bu Eunseol spoke again.
"As I wandered the martial world, I encountered many things I had believed to be clear truths... only to find they assumed an entirely different shape once I held them in my hand."
First came his grandfather, once called the Seven-Finger Demon Blade.
Then came the bloodbath at Saha Manor, the Heavenly Emperor, and the Buddha Venerable.
There were also the members of the orthodox faction and the Martial Alliance, and even the Baekri Family and the True Demon Palace.
Everything he had once believed to be a clear truth had proven false when he approached its true substance.
In the end, it was just as the Heavenly Demon Emperor always said.
The truth had to be uncovered personally.
One had to see it with one's own eyes and hear it with one's own ears.
"Not the Seven-Finger Demon Blade, Bu Zhanyang..."
The Empress Dowager's smile twisted subtly.
"You are the very image of Sado Muryeong."
Her words revealed that she had instantly understood two things.
Bu Eunseol's example referred to none other than the Seven-Finger Demon Blade, Bu Zhanyang, and his conviction regarding the truth had been passed down from the Heavenly Demon Emperor.
In other words, she was indirectly revealing that she knew both men well.
The Bu Eunseol of the past would have reacted differently.
His spirit would have been greatly shaken, or he would have struggled desperately to wring any information he could from the Empress Dowager.
"People who have tasted bitterness at the hands of those two..."
But now, he merely responded with a strange smile.
"Often say the same thing to me."
"How regrettable."
Realizing that this was an unequivocal refusal, the Empress Dowager clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"With wings, you could become a divine dragon."
"I am merely a wolf wandering aimlessly through the martial world."
His words meant that he would never become a servant of the Imperial Family.
They also reaffirmed that he was solely a disciple of Nangyang Pavilion who pursued the martial path.
"I had intended to share a bowl of rice cakes with you and the members of the Imperial Family in the Imperial Garden... but I see no need now."
The Empress Dowager snorted and waved him away with a regretful expression.
"After all, you are destined to die young."
"If a martial warrior steeped in blood were to enjoy a long life, that would be the stranger tale."
Though her words had been a vicious curse, Bu Eunseol calmly cupped his hands as though he had received a blessing.
"Then I shall take my leave."
After offering his respects, he immediately departed the hall.
The Empress Dowager remained upon the throne and watched until Bu Eunseol had completely disappeared from sight. Her eyes narrowed.
'Hmm.'
In truth, she had intended to kill him immediately if she failed to win him over.
She was confident she would not lose even against Sado Muryeong.
Moreover, since Bu Eunseol had come here alone, it would not have been difficult to kill him and fabricate a reason afterward.
Yet in the end, she had been unable to act.
He resembled an abyss whose depths could not be fathomed.
She had felt an ominous premonition that if she struck, he would swallow her instead.
'Does he possess the ability to harm this body?'
She recalled her past clash with a terrifying blade wielder who should never have been provoked.
'No, that cannot be.'
Of course, if they fought, there was no possibility of her defeat.
But what if she suffered even the slightest injury and her old wound reopened?
Every plan she had built until now could dissolve into nothing.
Sssst.
At that moment, a beautiful woman in Miao dress appeared beneath the Empress Dowager's throne, wearing brilliantly colored clothing like a phoenix. She dropped to one knee.
"Your Highness."
"What did you see?"
At the Empress Dowager's question, the woman bowed her head and continued.
"He is a hero with a steadfast heart unmatched under heaven."
"But he is also a great demon of the world, harboring terrifying killing intent and demonic energy."
The countless palace maids had not danced to seduce Bu Eunseol.
Nor had they danced to disrupt his mental strength.
Their purpose had been to employ the power of Mind-State Insight, which could perfectly examine the defining qualities of Great Grandmasters who had reached the absolute realm.
"Just as I thought."
The Empress Dowager stretched her red lips into a long smile.
"A man who races forward like a madman with nothing but revenge in his heart... could never be a virtuous sage or a hero."
In the past, Hyeokryeon Eung had been determined to select Bu Eunseol as a Ten Demon Warrior on Hell Island.
He had done so because he recognized that Bu Eunseol possessed the qualities of a great demon of the world.
But Hyeokryeon Eung had only discerned it through prolonged observation.
From the beginning of the contest and throughout the months they lived on Hell Island, Hyeokryeon Eung had watched Bu Eunseol closely and intently.
This Miao woman, however, had done something else.
She had astonishingly seen through him at a single glance.
The profundity of the secret art she had unleashed was beyond measure.
"In that case..."
The Empress Dowager murmured softly.
"We need only liberate the heart he is suppressing so fiercely."
Then, with a wicked smile, she uttered something utterly shocking.
"Just as we once did to the Seven-Finger Demon Blade."
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