Boom!
Black lightning shot into the sky above Majeon and began cleaving through the heavens in an instant.
As Bu Eunseol unleashed his transcendent sky-treading flight art, it seemed as though time flowed differently for him alone.
Mountain ranges swept past beneath his feet, while rivers dwindled into distant, slender threads.
A long tail of white shockwaves streamed behind him as he broke through the wall of air.
Boom! Kabooom!
The people on the ground perceived nothing more than a black flash cutting across the sky and a thunderous roar.
They could not even tell that it was a person.
Rrrrumble.
As he slowed and descended to the ground, Bu Eunseol's figure gradually took shape like mist.
He had arrived at Majeon's northernmost outpost, the Yangguan Branch.
Even a qinggong master would have needed ten days and nights to cross that distance, yet he had arrived in less than half a day.
Claaang! Clash!
Shouts and the clash of weapons carried from afar.
Around an earthen fortress hastily erected after tamping down the soil for a formation, clouds of pale dust and crimson blood mist rose and mingled together.
Before it, some ten thousand martial artists swarmed forward like a colony of ants.
They did not belong to a single sect. They were masters from orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions who had gathered to obtain the Heaven-Severing Demon Blade's treasure map.
Martial artists in different garb and wielding all manner of weapons surged toward the earthen fortress like a tangled wave.
Greed shone in every one of their eyes.
The present martial world was peaceful, but everyone knew it was actually heading toward ruin.
In such circumstances, what if the treasure map left by the Heaven-Severing Demon Blade, whose blade art had been called the finest in the martial world before the Seven Blood Tear Forms of the Seven-Finger Demon Blade appeared, fell into their hands?
The instant they obtained it, they could become the hegemon of the martial world in a single bound.
That hope was driving them into the jaws of death like moths flying into a flame.
"The left defensive line is collapsing!"
"Reorganize the formation! Not one of them can be allowed inside!"
Before the Yangguan Branch, Jo Namcheon and Won Semun had erected the earthen fortress and desperately maintained a defensive formation.
However, far too many martial artists had gathered.
Whenever a flash rose from the sword tips of the Death Shadow Corps warriors, blood sprayed into the air, but another martial artist immediately filled the vacant place.
"It looks like we'll have to unfold the Mind's Eye art."
Won Semun muttered irritably.
The Mind's Eye art, which was founded upon the Mind World, enabled three hundred troops to face three thousand elites.
"We can't expose our prized secret art merely to protect the Yangguan Branch, can we?"
Jo Namcheon shouted in irritation.
"They say the Soul-Pursuit Corps will be here soon, so hold on."
"They'll be too late."
Won Semun gritted his teeth as he swung his blade.
"If even one of our members gets hurt, I'll either unfold the Mind's Eye art or abandon the Yangguan Branch. Those are the only choices."
Jo Namcheon closed his mouth.
He had already been thinking the same thing.
Keeping their secret art hidden was all well and good.
But it was not more important than the lives of their Death Shadow Corps family.
As time passed, however, the situation grew increasingly unfavorable.
The enemy was far too numerous, and once they realized the defenders were concentrating solely on defense through their formation, they charged fearlessly in an attempt to tear down the earthen fortress.
―'It is time to choose.'
Won Semun and Jo Namcheon exchanged glances.
At this rate, they would not be able to hold out until Wi Cheongyeong arrived, much less until the forces from the nearby branches did.
"All members, listen!"
Just as Won Semun and Jo Namcheon raised their voices,
Thoom!
The sky suddenly grew dark.
No, to be precise, a shadow stirring waves of black true energy was dyeing the heavens dark.
"Th-that is..."
Someone pointed at the sky and shouted.
The shape of a person could be seen slowly descending through the black clouds, while sharp energy swirled around him like a storm.
The wind carried such terrifying killing intent that the air seemed to freeze and the earth to quake.
Bang!
At last, the shadow floating in the sky landed.
Crackle. Rumble!
The earth split like a spiderweb, and a shockwave spread in every direction.
Rumble.
The nearby martial artists were hurled away by the impact.
Whoosh.
The wind blew and the dust cleared.
A figure dressed in blood-soaked black martial robes slowly revealed himself.
It was Bu Eunseol.
Tap, tap.
Behind Bu Eunseol as he glared at the martial artists, tangible killing intent writhed in the shape of an evil spirit.
In his eyes, shrouded in killing intent and demonic energy, an ink-black radiance and a white radiance flashed in turn.
Whoomph!
He raised his internal energy in a single breath.
He had no intention of restoring reason to the greed-addled martial artists or giving them a stern warning.
He only needed to kill them.
They had fallen into the Empress Dowager's scheme, failed to rein in their greed, and placed his subordinates in danger.
He had to punish one as a warning to a hundred, ensuring that no one ever dared touch the Death Shadow Corps again.
Clamp.
Bu Eunseol lightly extended his hand.
Slaaash!
Black blades more than ten jang long erupted from behind him.
He had unfolded the Wishful True Binding, which he had not used for some time.
Pat, pat, pat!
The heads of the martial artists standing before him shot into the air all at once.
The blades of true energy created through the Wishful True Binding stirred an enormous vortex, sending the severed heads soaring high into the sky.
Under ordinary circumstances, Bu Eunseol would have stopped attacking there.
Slash! Paaat!
He began creating the blades of the Wishful True Binding without pause and cutting off the martial artists' heads.
Thud, thud. Trickle.
Corpses piled up everywhere he swept through, and blood flowed like a river.
Flinch, flinch.
Faced with this unexpected turn, the martial artists retreated one step at a time in fear.
Majeon's successor, the Martial Soul Command Lord, was known to be coldhearted, but they said his stern blade was directed only at the wicked.
They might have attacked a Majeon branch after being blinded by a treasure map, but not one person had yet been harmed.
Yet he had immediately sent their heads flying?
Flash! Paaat!
Several martial artists courageously charged him, only for their heads to fly off at once.
In the end, all ten thousand martial artists who had surrounded the Majeon branch like ants froze in place.
―'L-let's run!'
Rumble.
The martial artists who sensed that something had gone wrong immediately turned and fled.
Dust billowed through the air, and before long, only half of the ten thousand martial artists remained.
Was it not said that a tree was known for its shade, and a man for his name?
It was the Martial Soul Command Lord, Bu Eunseol.
Merely by appearing and displaying a single move, he had sent five thousand greed-crazed martial artists fleeing with their tails between their legs.
"..."
Silence lingered for a moment.
Half the martial artists had disappeared.
Yet five thousand still remained exactly where they were.
―'We have the advantage in numbers, and the Martial Soul Command Lord is alone!'
Several martial artists shouted after circulating their internal energy.
No matter how extraordinary the martial arts of the Martial Soul Command Lord and his hundred or so subordinates might be, they could not possibly kill every person densely surrounding this area.
―'Let us each unfold our sword formations or other formations and oppose him!'
For a very long time, martial artists had researched and developed methods to contend with absolute masters possessing overwhelming martial prowess.
Those methods were none other than sword formations and joint attacks.
They allowed martial artists to combine their strength and maximize both defense and offensive power.
"Do not step forward."
Bu Eunseol spoke to Won Semun and Jo Namcheon, who were defending the Yangguan Branch.
"Go inside the branch and quietly watch."
"We can also..."
Won Semun and Jo Namcheon tried to say that they would fight as well.
However, they sensed unbearable killing intent and demonic energy pouring from around Bu Eunseol's body.
―'We must not talk back to the Command Lord right now.'
After respectfully saluting him, they led their subordinates and hurried inside the Yangguan Branch.
Meanwhile, the martial artists began to rally.
Claaang! Paaat!
Masters from the orthodox factions, unorthodox factions, and demonic path joined forces with their respective friends and comrades to form battle arrays.
Hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of flashes began spreading around the Yangguan Branch.
Ziiiing.
Lights of all different shapes formed.
As the formations created by groups among the five thousand martial artists unfolded simultaneously, the sight was truly magnificent.
Slash!
Bu Eunseol unfolded the Wishful True Binding, created an enormous sword of true energy, and swung it.
Twang!
The formations they had created shone and repelled his attack.
He unleashed the Seven Fist Demon Forms, whose single blow could topple Mount Tai, but the result was the same.
As the countless formations of the orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions unfolded all at once, their functions complemented one another and maximized their power.
―'We can win!'
The martial artists let out jubilant shouts.
―'Surround the Martial Soul Command Lord and kill him!'
Maintaining their formations, the five thousand martial artists began attacking Bu Eunseol.
Grin.
A sneer spread across Bu Eunseol's lips as he watched them.
He considered what would happen if he properly unleashed all the powers contained within his body.
He could destroy a formation created by fifty thousand people in a single breath, much less one made by five thousand.
However, what he pursued was the path of martial arts, an utterly natural realm in which anyone could fight on equal terms.
Vwoong.
As his eyes flashed, the countless formations spread in every direction instantly lost their light.
The Void Extreme Realm.
The absolute power of the Realm of Destruction and Extinction, which left behind only that which was utterly natural and could be contained within a human body, had been unleashed.
―'Uuaaagh!'
―'The formations have broken!'
Shhing. Slash!
Bu Eunseol charged at the screaming martial artists and began cutting them down one by one with the Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
The martial artists fled en masse, beside themselves with terror.
Soon, however, they noticed something strange.
Had the Martial Soul Command Lord's attacks, which could destroy even Mount Tai in one blow, not become exceedingly ordinary?
―'The Martial Soul Command Lord has run out of strength!'
―'The functions of the formations are gone, but we can still use the principles of martial arts!'
A formation manipulated the flow of energies that composed all things in the world.
It either dominated space or gathered the strength of the martial artists constituting it to create an enormous power.
However, the principles of martial arts were applied to all martial formation arts.
Because the Void Extreme Realm erased supernatural power, the interlinked martial forms and principles of joint attacks remained intact.
―'Strike!'
The martial artists who realized this charged again with their courage redoubled.
It was one against five thousand.
By common sense, this was an impossible battle that could never be won.
But they were mistaken.
Bu Eunseol had not lost his strength.
Just as masters of the Limitless Realm unfolded Infinite Reversal Power, the domain of the Realm of Destruction and Extinction emitted from the Void Extreme Realm was a space in which he could fight with optimal strength.
Rumble!
Bu Eunseol stood tall at the center of that suffocating encirclement, where spearpoints formed a forest and blades formed a sea.
―'Die!'
Dozens of long spears and great blades thrust toward Bu Eunseol's entire body as if to skewer him.
Shhing!
With a sword cry that seemed to split heaven and earth apart, the Silent Tiger Soul Sword in his hand swept horizontally.
It was the simplest of horizontal slashes, yet its force was heavier than an axe and its edge sharper than a great blade.
Slice.
With a chilling cutting sound, the waists of the first martial artists to charge were severed all at once.
Their weapons tore like sheets of paper.
Their upper bodies flew into the air, spraying blood as they rained down upon the heads of the allies following behind them.
There was no opening.
No, they could not even attempt to seek one.
The martial artists surged forward like waves, but Bu Eunseol did not evade them. He advanced while shattering their attacks head-on.
Martial techniques and attempts to exploit openings were meaningless before overwhelming force.
Whenever Bu Eunseol brought his sword down, the ground split and dozens of people were reduced to pulp and sent tumbling.
Whenever he swept the sword upward, blood rained from the sky.
Fragments of weapons and severed limbs mingled in that gruesome rain.
'Haa.'
The more enemies Bu Eunseol cut down, the hotter his body became.
The spreading heat seemed to evaporate the blood around him.
Though his body gradually slowed, his killing intent and demonic energy swelled further, and his thirst for blood deepened.
Then the essence of the Seven Blood Tear Forms, which he had once obtained from the hilt of Journey, surfaced endlessly in his mind.
'If I unfold this...'
He realized something in that instant.
He knew what would happen if he unfolded the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
He would be able to discharge the powerful demonic energy and killing intent boiling inside his body all at once.
―'Stall for time!'
Just then, the martial artists who believed they could not possibly withstand Bu Eunseol's martial prowess shouted.
―'If we draw this out, we win!'
They moved erratically in groups while evading Bu Eunseol's attacks.
At this rate, the battle would not end within a day.
No matter how transcendent Bu Eunseol's martial prowess had become, a momentary lapse in concentration could still leave him fatally wounded.
Pat! Pat!
This strategy proved unexpectedly effective.
Wounds began accumulating across Bu Eunseol's body, little by little, and his movements grew increasingly slow.
Furthermore, masters of the orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions were tangled together.
Orthodox and demonic martial arts shook his body in turn, while unorthodox internal energies were injected into him.
The Void Extreme Realm's power of recovery fell at a frightening rate.
"Haa."
Bu Eunseol raised the essence of the Seven Blood Tear Forms and regulated his inner breath. A sickly yellow radiance began spreading from his eyes.
The killing intent and demonic energy that had seemed ready to burn his entire body were thereby brought somewhat calmly into order.
He had merely raised the essence of the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
Yet his senses became astonishingly keen, and his mind snapped awake as if he had submerged his body in icy water.
'Movement.'
A peculiar insight swept through his mind.
He watched thousands of martial artists unfold formations to block his movements in advance and ward off his attacks.
The sight recalled the dance performed in the Empress Dowager's great hall by the three hundred palace maids who had obstructed his path.
'That was not a simple dance. It possessed the power to peer into the mind.'
He considered it another way.
Was unfolding martial arts not also a display of the mind's will?
Ziiiing.
As he gained insight from their movements, light streamed from Bu Eunseol's eyes.
A strange phenomenon occurred in which the powers of the Ancient Sword Forest and the functions of Illusion Upon Illusion activated of their own accord.
'The Empress Dowager was a master of mind-capturing arts.'
Until now, she had manipulated the minds of others and created traps through vicious mind-capturing secret arts.
As a result, Bu Eunseol had ceaselessly researched methods to counter her.
In that process, without realizing it, he had grasped the essence of the Empress Dowager's mind-capturing arts.
'At the Imperial Palace, she used the sound of the golden step-sway hairpins.'
Chime, chime.
The golden step-sway hairpins worn by the palace maids had constantly produced chiming sounds.
At the time, he had thought nothing of those sounds.
Clink, clink.
But the sound of the martial artists' weapons now was similar.
'She saw through the mind with sound.'
People thought sound was nothing more than vibrations flowing through empty air.
After all, a shrill sound could shake the blood and qi and send the pulse soaring, while a tranquil melody could flow like fine wine and calm one's breathing and heartbeat.
The instant sound passed through the ears and reached the brain, it became a force that stirred the mind.
'To discern an enemy's mind through sound...'
In the meantime, sword aura grazed his flank and left a deep wound.
Grin.
A smile naturally flowed across his lips.
This was what a fight should be.
He had not yet poured out all the killing intent and demonic energy contained within him.
Pat, pat, pat!
Dozens of sword auras poured toward him.
Pat, pat!
Ignoring his injuries, Bu Eunseol broke through as if intending to receive them with his body.
Then he drew the Silent Tiger Soul Sword back behind him.
―'Kyaaaaaaaah!'
At the same time, an agonized, heaven-rending wail spread outward.
He had gained another insight.
Now he intended to express that will through the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
Vwoom!
Pitch-black blade energy wrapped around his body, and a cold energy swirled near his Naohu acupoint.
The killing intent and demonic energy spreading through his body began gathering in his right eye.
Trickle.
Blood suddenly flowed from Bu Eunseol's eye as he attempted to unfold the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
They were blood tears.
It was exactly like the name of the blade art.
Blood tears truly began gushing from his eye.
"Grrrgh."
The tears of blood continued to flow.
His demonic energy and killing intent intensified until it became difficult to keep his mind clear.
Chime.
Suddenly, a concealed transparent chain wound around the Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
Then astonishing things began to appear before his eyes.
Among the clustered martial artists, some were wrapped in strange things.
They were living snakes.
No, their very forms could not be defined.
They flowed like black slime and writhed without end.
Scales rose in overlapping layers like those of a snake, but patches had rotted away, and eyes and teeth sprouted from every split in the decaying flesh.
Each breath released black smoke so foul it made bile rise in his throat.
"Uwooo!"
At the sight of those forms, Bu Eunseol unconsciously released a long, drawn-out howl.
His killing intent and demonic energy erupted with such force that they left the mind reeling.
Vwoosh!
Bu Eunseol immediately unfolded the Seven Blood Tear Forms toward those wrapped in the strange shapes.
Slaaash!
As an enormous half-moon wave of blade energy spread without end, the bizarre forms were cleaved apart one after another.
One fell, then ten, then twenty...
The enormous blade energy accurately singled out those wrapped in the bizarre, snake-like forms.
The martial artists joined forces and resisted with the martial principles embedded in their formations.
But before the blade energy of the Seven Blood Tear Forms, even the principles of their sturdy formations tore apart miserably like thin sheets of paper.
Only the martial artists wrapped in those bizarre shapes were singled out with perfect accuracy and felled one by one like leaves before an autumn gale.
―'R-retreat!'
The martial artists at the front tried to step backward in terror.
Rumble.
But the pressure of the martial artists surging from behind forced them toward the blades of the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
Slash! Slash!
It was less a battle than a slaughterhouse where chunks of meat were fed into a massive millstone.
Bu Eunseol's entire body was dyed red with blood, and only his eyes and teeth gleamed white.
Even amid the horrific sounds of bones breaking and flesh bursting, his breathing did not falter.
Rather, his sword momentum grew more savage as time passed.
He looked like a black grim reaper riding a cloud of doom and indiscriminately devouring every life on the battlefield.
―'We were wrong.'
Only then did the martial artists realize it.
They had not surrounded the Martial Soul Command Lord.
Five thousand of them had been trapped with this single predator.
Swiiiish!
Above the earth that had become a sea of blood, only a battle demon crushing human bodies remained.
Above all, his movement and deployment of the blade art were faster than light, leaving the martial artists utterly unable to respond.
No matter what they did, they could not stop even a single gesture of Bu Eunseol's hand.
He accurately selected and killed every martial artist wrapped in a snake-like form.
Clamp.
His killing intent was finally vented, and Bu Eunseol stopped moving.
"Hehehe... Hahahahaha!"
Bu Eunseol released wild laughter powerful enough to shake the mountains, rivers, grass, and trees.
The sound of his laughter sent chills down the spines of the survivors.
Calling him "a righteous man within the demonic path" until now had been completely mistaken.
He was more brutal than the Blood Demon, said to have gone mad for blood.
More vicious even than the Human Demon, who slaughtered his enemies so cruelly that the survivors spent the rest of their lives in terror.
He was the very embodiment of a terrifying great demon.
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