Seomun Gwang let out a vicious smile.
“Even if you bastards stormed into our house, you didn’t bring a large army with you, did you?”
The Seomun family also possessed a formidable information network.
If Majeon had mobilized a large force, there was no way they would have failed to detect it.
Clearly, these intruders had come with no more than a single intelligence detachment at most, putting on a bold front.
“Since things have come to this anyway, I’ll take you all as companions on the road to the afterlife.”
All the Death Shadow Corps captains, including Yoo Unryong, clicked their tongues.
“The slaughter-madness has already seeped into his very marrow. There’s no room for redemption.”
Papak.
But at that moment, a dull impact sound rang out from the body of Seomun Kyung, who had been standing blankly.
Shockingly, he had used his internal energy to forcibly release the demon blood points that Wi Cheongyeong had sealed.
Srrrng.
The instant he freed his blood points, he drew the sword from the waist of a nearby martial artist and stepped to Seomun Gwang’s side.
“Yes! After making me suffer like this, in the end you’re stepping up to protect your father!”
Seomun Gwang burst into loud laughter.
Though Seomun Kyung had abandoned the sword, the fact remained that he was still a sword demon capable of dominating an entire region.
If he truly joined the fight with resolve?
He would become the greatest asset capable of sweeping away these vile Death Shadow Corps bastards.
“Everyone, listen! Now-”
Just as Seomun Gwang was about to order a full assault, his words were cut off.
Flash!
The sword Seomun Kyung held at his side had flashed like lightning and pierced straight through Seomun Gwang’s heart.
“Why… you…”
“They are not ordinary masters.”
Despite appearances, Seomun Kyung had seen through it.
He had instantly recognized that Yoo Unryong and Myo Cheonwoo were masters of terrifying skill and that even the family’s elite would not emerge unscathed if they tried to kill those two.
“In any case, you must pay for your crimes.”
He spoke with a devastated expression.
“Wouldn’t it be better… to die by my hand rather than be gruesomely killed by theirs?”
“You…”
Enraged, Seomun Gwang struck Seomun Kyung’s chest with full force.
Kwaang!
Seomun Kyung did not dodge; he took the palm strike head-on.
As he vomited blood and collapsed, Seomun Gwang tried to say something.
But no voice came out.
Thud.
With his eyes wide open, he died on the spot.
Srrk.
The fallen Seomun Kyung wiped the blood from his mouth.
The palm strike had shattered all his ribs, making it difficult even to breathe.
Yet he used the sword as a cane to force himself upright, then staggered toward the ten remaining martial artists beside where Seomun Gwang had stood.
Two had already been killed by Wi Cheongyeong.
Now only ten remained of the Twelve Fierce Dragons.
Flash!
Once again, he unleashed a full-power swift sword killing technique toward the Twelve Fierce Dragons.
“What the hell are you doing!”
The Twelve Fierce Dragons were greatly shocked and tried to evade,
Wuuung.
But the sword qi Seomun Kyung released had already descended from the sky like a net, instantly enveloping their bodies.
Flash! Flash!
At the same moment, dozens of streaks of light soared upward,
Pshht! Pssshk!
And the Twelve Fierce Dragons became headless corpses without even uttering a sound.
It was truly a terrifying sword art.
Shwaek!
Seomun Kyung did not stop as he continued to unleash sword techniques without pause.
Each time he drew a circle in the air, net-like sword qi poured forth, severing the heads of the elders standing among the family martial artists.
Thud thud thud.
In the end, Seomun Kyung beheaded his father Seomun Gwang, along with the Twelve Fierce Dragons, his father’s closest confidants, and the elders—more than thirty heads in total.
Tang.
Throwing down the blood-soaked sword, Seomun Kyung walked forward until he stood before Yoo Unryong.
Then he dropped heavily to his knees and spoke in a low voice.
“I knew my father’s evil deeds were because of me, yet I could not bring myself to stop him.”
“…”
“And I planned that, if this matter were ever exposed in the future, I would take all the blame upon myself and die.”
Thump thump thump.
Seomun Kyung kowtowed three times, forehead striking the ground, then continued.
“But belatedly, I realized that was the wrong course of action. That is why I killed everyone involved in the child abductions with my own hands.”
Blood poured from the gash on his forehead as Seomun Kyung lifted his head and earnestly pleaded.
“Considering that a son has punished his father… could you at least spare the innocent martial artists of our family?”
Seomun Kyung had personally punished his father and his father’s confidants in order to save the innocent members of the family.
“That is not something this Captain can decide.”
Yoo Unryong let out a deep sigh and gazed into the distant sky.
“However, your actions here may be taken into consideration, and it might allow you to avoid complete extermination of the clan—I cannot say for certain.”
Rumble rumble.
At that moment, a sound like a herd of cattle stampeding approached, and a vast number of people lined up before the Seomun family’s main gate.
They were government troops from the official bureau.
Just as Seomun Gwang had predicted, Yoo Unryong had come with only Myo Cheonwoo and a portion of the Death Spirit Corps’s intelligence detachment.
He had brought no army capable of annihilating the Seomun family.
Doing so would have been impossible to conceal from the Seomun family’s information network.
That was why Yoo Unryong had contacted the government bureau before coming here.
While Wi Cheongyeong and the others stirred chaos, they would surely find concrete evidence proving that the Seomun family had been behind the continuous abductions plaguing Giju Prefecture for the past several years.
Bu Eunseol’s divine strategy and marvelous tactics… had never once been wrong.
‘That man is pitiful too.’
Watching Seomun Kyung kneel in the distance and beg, Wi Cheongyeong inwardly clicked his tongue.
‘If he hadn’t despaired and had continued to train diligently in the martial arts, he could have grown into an unrivaled swordsman capable of threatening even the Command Lord.’
Though he appeared cynical and indifferent, Seomun Kyung undeniably possessed transcendent martial talent.
Even after abandoning the sword for several years, he had poured out such swordsmanship in an instant that he beheaded the core elders of the Seomun family.
If he had not given in to despair and had kept striving without cease?
He would surely have broken through his limits one day and become a righteous swordsman capable of posing a real threat to Bu Eunseol.
But that was mere supposition.
In reality, he had committed irredeemable atrocities and become the young master of a fallen clan doomed to ruin.
Rumble.
At that moment, children who had been discovered late and rescued by the Death Spirit Corps appeared.
‘They’re safe.’
Among those children, Wi Cheongyeong spotted the girl who had once tried to sell him flowers and let out a sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness.’
His shoes were soaked through with the blood flowing from his wounds and there was hardly a spot on him that wasn’t injured.
Yet seeing the girl safe and sound, a warm, proud energy welled up in Wi Cheongyeong’s body as though he had taken a miraculous elixir.
‘Truly fortunate.’
As he turned to leave,
“M-My lord.”
A trembling voice called out and stopped him.
When he looked back, the girl was running toward him.
She had seen it.
From afar, Wi Cheongyeong had spotted her and let out a relieved smile.
And she understood.
He had come here, staking his life, to save her.
“Thank you so much.”
Tears streamed down her face as she clutched the hem of Wi Cheongyeong’s robe and sobbed.
Born an orphan, she had lived her entire life enduring others’ contempt.
Yet a complete stranger—a martial artist she had never met—had risked his life to come here and save her.
It was a burning emotion she had never felt before.
“I just happened to come.”
Wi Cheongyeong deliberately spoke in an indifferent tone.
“I don’t have money right now, so come back tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
“I need to get paid.”
“…Yes!”
Wiping her tears, the girl broke into a wide smile.
At the sight, Wi Cheongyeong unconsciously smiled as well.
But he soon turned sharply and left.
Hehehe.
From a distance, Won Semun and Jo Namcheon watched with folded arms and sly grins.
“Look at that? Oh ho, the guy’s copying the Command Lord now.”
“Hey hey, look at him turning his head away to hide that proud expression.”
Even as government officials poured in, the muttering voices of Won Semun and Jo Namcheon echoed into the sky.
***
The Three Realms were created by the Baekri Family… but in the end, they became corrupt.
The Three Realms, who were supposed to protect the martial world, fell into uncontrollable corruption and instead became existences that would bring about the annihilation of the world.
The sages and righteous figures who had immersed themselves in the Three Realms, in order to prevent them from committing further evil, destroyed all the essence of martial arts, great laws, and various research results they had accumulated while ruling the martial world for generations.
Then they scattered and formed organizations called the True Three Realms or the Essence Three Realms, and devoted themselves to restoring the essence of power that the Baekri Family had left behind.
—We will never forgive those bastards!
The remaining members of the Three Realms could not contain their rage.
What had allowed them to dare oppose the Baekri Family in the first place was the countless secret arts they had acquired through long domination of the martial world, and the many forbidden techniques they had researched and recreated.
Yet they had arbitrarily destroyed all of it?
When the majority of the essences they themselves had created were lost because of the Essence Three Realms, the Three Realms burned with fury and hunted them down relentlessly to exterminate them.
But they could not track down every last one who had scattered in all directions…
As a result, the Three Realms became even more obsessed with obtaining overwhelming power.
Meanwhile, the Essence Three Realms, scattered far and wide, researched the Baekri Family’s power and finally achieved some degree of success.
However, unlike the Three Realms, they did not build any mighty organization or information network.
Because they would only become corrupt again.
In the end, they would turn into an organization no different from the Three Realms, which worshiped power alone.
—Find them!
The Three Realms searched with blazing eyes for the scattered members of the Essence Three Realms, who had betrayed them, destroyed all the essences they possessed, and were now restoring the Baekri Family’s power.
They captured and executed several factions and seized the power those factions had created, yet they still could not root out the hidden remnants of the Essence Three Realms.
—We will definitely restore it.
Fortunately, some of the Baekri Family’s outstanding medical arts, martial arts, and great laws still remained within the Three Realms.
And as long as they could obtain power, they would not hesitate at any method and would ally with any faction to conduct their research.
Time flowed on, and more than two hundred years passed…
—The descendants of the Essence Three Realms must still exist.
The Three Realms did not give up.
Mobilizing vast wealth and manpower, they endlessly pursued the descendants of the Essence Three Realms who had taken their essences and fled.
Western Regions, Mount Jumulma Peak.
The mountain peak, shrouded in pure white clouds, looked like an island floating in the sky.
The distant summit was wrapped in mystical mist.
Shuuk.
Suddenly, millions of points of light rose from the ground on that peak, gradually forming human shadows.
Srrk.
Once the shadows took on complete human form, they scanned the surroundings of the peak.
The shadow wandered without rest for three full days and nights.
Finally, beyond the mist, it discovered a small door.
That door had never been touched by human hands, and for hundreds of years its existence had remained unknown to the outside world…
It was the entrance to a place where mysterious forces gathered.
However, the door could not be touched by a human physical body; it could only be opened by possessing the origin of the power they held.
Ziiing.
Shockingly, the shadow opened the door without hesitation and stepped inside.
The long space shrouded in darkness resembled a spiraling passageway.
The farther one walked forward, the narrower the space became, accompanied by dizziness as though space and time were twisting, and illusions appeared.
When it finally reached the end of the passage, an endlessly contracting and expanding wave was felt.
The soul escaped the body and was being sucked toward the very end of the passage.
An ordinary person would have instantly become an idiot but the shadow exerted a mysterious power and easily resisted the force pulling at its soul.
Ziiiiing.
Finally passing through the end of the passage, with a strange vibration, a door opened, white light flashed past, and a new mountain landscape appeared.
A spectacular view unfolded—mountain ranges winding like a coiling dragon.
As it entered deeper into the mountains, a waterfall flowed; the water was crystal-clear, so transparent that the bottom could be seen.
The area around the waterfall was dyed in blue light, and moss and wildflowers grew on the rock walls, creating a scene like a beautiful garden made by the gods.
Thud thud.
The shadow naturally passed through that place.
Then a dense forest of trees hundreds of years old appeared.
Walking along the narrow path between them, small village-like buildings soon came into view.
The roofs were tinged bronze, the walls made of wood.
Moss and vines naturally climbed over them.
Rather than artificial structures, they seemed to blend seamlessly into nature itself.
Buildings harmonized with nature, the faint sound of a waterfall echoing from afar, the sky dyed red by the setting sun.
This otherworldly landscape, taking it all in at once… felt like stepping into an entirely different world.
“It was already on the verge of withering away and disappearing.” The shadow quietly shook its head. “Maintaining their lineage scattered without a main base… in the end, they’ve become nothing more than an outdated orthodox sect.”
Kuuung.
With a vibration that shook heaven and earth, the beautiful scenery began to slowly collapse.
Each time power flowed from the extended hand, the sky turned black, buildings crumbled, and the ground quaked. The flowing waterfall dried up in an instant, and even the surrounding vegetation evaporated.
Ssssk.
From among the collapsing buildings, hundreds of people appeared.
They all possessed the bearing of immortals, with eyes blazing like torches, and a mystical aura emanated from their bodies.
“Ridiculous.”
A white smile flowed from the shadow’s lips.
“Gathering together in a place like this—did it feel good?”
Then, from among the hundreds of elders, the one standing at the very front stepped forward.
“You are…?”
Upon discovering the face of the shadow hidden in darkness, the elder’s eyes widened.
“How did you get in here?” The elder spoke in a trembling voice. “Even if all the sect leaders of the Three Realms came together, they could never enter.”
The shadow smirked.
“It seems you’ve faithfully recreated the origin of the Absolute Realm… but you’re still far off.”
At those words, the elder’s complexion changed.
How could someone at the very pinnacle of the martial world speak of the origin of the Absolute Realm?
“Then you are not a demonic cultivator…”
Just as the elder, finally realizing the shadow’s true identity, opened his mouth to speak,
Wuuung.
Suddenly the scenery around the elder distorted, beginning to warp at the shadow’s gesture.
The elder tried to resist the pressure with mysterious power… but when the shadow’s gesture stopped,
Bang!
In an instant his body exploded into fragments, scattering in all directions.
“Don’t spout useless words.”
“Why are you committing such cruelty!”
Another elder standing behind shouted.
“Rather, it is we who should-”
Bang!
He too exploded before he could finish speaking.
“To prevent troublesome matters from arising later. It seems I should wipe you all out.”
As the shadow muttered lowly, yet another elder stepped forward.
“Has our sect incurred your grudge?”
“Has the martial world ever run solely on grudges?”
The shadow spoke leisurely.
“Grudges arise and disappear according to profit.”
The elder shouted with a solemn expression.
“Do you truly not fear Heaven!”
“Heaven?”
The shadow’s pupils flashed.
Slowly, it raised its right hand.
The sky was once again covered in thick black clouds, and the ground began to split with tremors.
“I am Heaven itself.”
Flash.
When the shadow fully raised its hand, time froze, space twisted, black flames poured down from the sky, and enormous pillars of fire erupted from the earth.
Then the hundreds of elders spread their hands.
Ziiing.
For a moment the entire world vibrated, and a wave of light that drove away darkness began to pour forth.
Kurrrung!
When the two forces collided, the boundary between light and darkness shattered, and all space was covered in the power of death and destruction.
Kurrrrr.
With an ear-splitting explosion, black light finally swallowed the entire world completely.
Shuuu.
When the darkness cleared, the Absolute Valley had vanished entirely.
As though it had never existed in the first place.
Only a black shadow stood tall in the empty void.
“As expected, it’s still not possible.”
The shadow withdrew its extended hand and looked down at its palm.
The palm looked almost transparent, as though it might disappear.
“I’ll have to go into seclusion again.”
The shadow spoke in a low voice.
“Still… I’ve eradicated a problem that could have upended all my plans. So it’s not exactly a loss.”
After a brief silence, the shadow smirked.
“This branch of the Essence Three Realms in the Western Regions was the closest to the true origin…”
An endlessly deep darkness flowed from the shadow’s pupils.
“Of course, that would be the doing of that monk from the Martial Sect.”
Before long the sky brightened again, revealing clear sunlight.
In that light, the shadow hidden in darkness was finally revealed clearly.
It was an extremely ordinary-looking old man.
It was none other than the Demon Emperor.
“Since seclusion will be rather long this time, it would be best to prepare thoroughly.”
Muttering something lowly, the Demon Emperor soon dissolved into millions of points of light and vanished into the distant sky.
The Essence Three Realms.
The righteous ones who had gathered to stop the evil deeds of the Three Realms and restore the complete power handed down by the Baekri Family—a portion of them had ultimately been annihilated by the Demon Emperor.
Three days later.
In the ruins of Mount Jumulma Peak, a hand suddenly burst up from beneath the earth.
Shuuk.
At the same time, an old man in shabby white robes appeared.
“Ugh…”
The staggering old man looked up at the distant sky and muttered lowly.
He was none other than Jeong Cheongja, the Scripture Pavilion Master who managed the archives of the Western Regions Essence Three Realms.
“Thanks to the Dharma Solemn Vessel in the Bright Light Pavilion, I survived.”
He had been calculating heavenly secrets in the Bright Light Pavilion, where the Dharma Solemn Vessel—which was said to influence all things in the universe—was kept.
Because of that, he had narrowly survived the power poured out by the Demon Emperor, which pronounced the end for all living beings.
Even so, his internal energy had completely dispersed, and his physical body was on the verge of crumbling into dust.
“Since things have come to this… I must inform that child of the method to find the hidden vaults of the Baekri Family that we have gathered.”
Papapak.
Jeong Cheongja extended his index finger and rapidly struck his own three hundred sixty blood points.
His body swelled grotesquely; with a retching sound, he spat out a mass of black blood.
Sssss.
The blood mass melted the ground, creating a deep pit.
“…”
With a grave expression, Jeong Cheongja pressed his index and middle fingers to his own throat and let out a deep sigh.
“At most… fifteen days.”
Even for a fatal wound that severed life, the ancient great law Absolute Soul-Returning Technique could keep breath in the body for a hundred days.
Yet even after using it, he could only last fifteen days.
“I must hurry to the Central Plains.”
Because there, the successor of the Essence Three Realms—So Okrim—was waiting.
Even if it meant dying, he had to pass all the hidden vaults to her.
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