“Now, may I ask whether it can be considered that the conditions set by the Chief Instructor have been fulfilled?” Seon Woojin—no, So Okrim—asked again. Yeop Hyocheon suppressed the bursting anger and forced a smile.
“Of course. Thanks to you, I’ve opened my eyes.”
Swallowing a wry smile, Yeop Hyocheon nodded.
“And I shall keep my promise.”
“Thank you.”
So Okrim shrugged his shoulders. Though he had used the Bone-Shrinking Technique to reduce his size, a somehow domineering and heavy presence still lingered.
“Then.”
After politely saluting, she spun around and immediately descended from the sparring platform.
“That person is strong.”
At that moment, Bu Eunseol spoke.
“It seems his skill has improved even more than during his past battle with the Sword Demon.”
“Were you there too, Lord?”
“How could I miss such a confrontation? I disguised myself and secretly went to watch.”
After taking a deep breath, Bu Eunseol muttered lowly, ”From now on, more training….”
Shaking his head, he showed a smile to Yeop Hyocheon and clasped his hands together.
“Thank you. For arranging such an occasion.”
That smile fully revealed the joy of a young grandmaster who had encountered a new powerful rival.
“I’m glad you say so—it makes it worthwhile.”
Hiding his stinging insides, Yeop Hyocheon nodded with apparent satisfaction, as if he had arranged the spar between Seon Woojin and Bu Eunseol purely for the latter’s benefit.
“I believe the gains from this match will be considerable.”
“Thank you. Then.”
As even Bu Eunseol turned away, the smile that had covered Yeop Hyocheon’s face froze into something cold.
“Did those bastards feed me nonsense?”
The Martial Alliance had secretly sent him a letter ahead of time.
It claimed that Bu Eunseol and Seon Woojin were the same person, and that he would certainly come to the Majeon to negotiate over this matter.
—The fact that they sent such information to me instead of the Sect Leader means…
At the time, Yeop Hyocheon had been extremely pleased. It meant they had not only realized he was constantly watching for a chance to surpass the Demon Emperor, but also knew he desperately wanted Bu Eunseol in his grasp.
If the two were indeed the same person? He would immediately obtain the perfect leverage to bind him.
In the end, trusting the letter, after much deliberation he had arranged the confrontation between Bu Eunseol and Seon Woojin.
But it was flawless.
Which meant either Bu Eunseol and Seon Woojin were absolutely not the same person… or there existed a subordinate whose martial prowess matched Bu Eunseol’s exactly.
The latter possibility was almost nonexistent.
In the end, he had been toyed with by their scheme.
“So that’s why the Sect Leader stopped paying attention.”
Seon Woojin no longer operated in the Martial Alliance.
Whether Bu Eunseol is Seon Woojin or truly someone else… no one can interfere anymore, and using a dual identity won’t serve to trap him either.
Most likely, the Demon Emperor had perceived that Bu Eunseol would perfectly prove his identity no matter what crisis arose, and thus halted any monitoring of Seon Woojin’s movements. Moreover, he had consistently accomplished things previously deemed impossible and displayed unfathomable, unpredictable actions.
“No, there is still an opportunity.”
Recalling something, Yeop Hyocheon wore a faint smile.
“That old monster has begun a new Absolute Demonic Blade Project…”
A cruel smile curved at the corners of his gently smiling lips.
“It’s actually turned out well. That way, my own plan will gradually reach completion as well.”
Twisting his lips slightly, he slowly turned around.
Whenever the blowing wind brushed past the leaves, a soft whispering sound spread.
Atop a towering mountain peak that seemed to touch the clouds stood a small hermitage.
The aged hermitage bore the full marks of time, and around it lingered a stillness that transcended the flow of years.
At the end of a sheer cliff, the courtyard in front of the Dharma Hall was paved with a moss-soft stone path and at the top of the stone steps leading there stood an old monk whose face was as wrinkled as tree bark.
The old monk’s expression was serene, his gaze transparent and clear.
Entering the Dharma Hall, he stood before the window overlooking the distant cliff and closed his eyes.
Breathing quietly as if in meditation, with eyes half-closed.
His internal energy was so profound… that with every inhale, the surrounding air was drawn into the hall.
“What brings you here?”
At that moment, the meditating old monk slowly opened his mouth.
“That you would come seeking me.”
As the words ended, suddenly a shadow of a man in white robes appeared before the Dharma Hall.
He was natural and calm as if he had always been there yet his eyes blazed like molten lava.
The Golden True Dragon, Baek Museong.
He had suddenly come to this deep mountain temple.
“Hmm.”
Without turning his head, the old monk clicked his tongue while gazing at the distant scenery beyond the open window.
“Your energy has become turbid in the meantime. I can hardly recognize you.”
“Master.”
Baek Museong addressed his master—the living legend of the righteous faction, the Buddha Venerable.
“Is it true that bringing me here was merely a ploy to buy time?”
That single sentence carried layers of profound implication.
The Buddha Venerable remained motionless, turning his back in silence.
Grip.
Baek Museong’s clenched fist burned like charcoal in his eyes.
If no answer came, he had come prepared to force one.
“You’ve fully matured as a killer.”
Then the Buddha Venerable spoke.
“To perfectly synchronize your breathing with the occasional breeze.”
“Answer me.”
“You were desperate enough to forge a blade in your heart.”
“I requested… an answer.”
Sighing, the Buddha Venerable spoke again in a low, repetitive tone.
“Yes.”
At the calm reply, Baek Museong’s gaze blurred slightly, his eyes trembling.
But he quickly steadied himself and asked again.
“Why?”
“To break the cycle of evil.”
Still facing away, the Buddha Venerable said calmly, “At first, I truly believed you were his bloodline. Back then, you were the sole survivor of Saha Manor. You had lost your memories and have yet to recover them.”
Pausing briefly, the Buddha Venerable continued.
“But you were not.”
“So you sent me wandering the martial world? So they would never find me again?”
“Yes. The greater your fame and martial prowess grew, the more suspicion they would harbor, endlessly investigating you.”
The Buddha Venerable sighed.
“That would buy more time.”
In truth, Baek Museong had known for a long time.
His master, the Buddha Venerable, had never truly regarded him as a disciple.
He had merely treated him like bait and sent him into the martial world.
Even so, he had not minded.
During his journeys, he had walked the path of chivalry; as the Buddha Venerable’s disciple and a secular disciple of Shaolin, he had committed no shameful acts. He believed that by doing so, his master might one day look upon him again. He thought the master would devote himself to raising him instead of some Absolute Demonic Blade Project.
But that had been an illusion.
From the beginning, the Buddha Venerable had cared nothing for what he did.
No—he had no interest at all.
As a result, feelings of inadequacy and anxiety had piled up in his heart.
He was not the Buddha Venerable’s disciple… merely a tool to divert attention.
Perhaps it was precisely that sense of inadequacy that had kept him from ever showing his true self, forcing him to live pretending to be generous, a good person, wearing a mask.
“Because of the Absolute Demonic Blade Project?”
At Baek Museong’s direct question, the Buddha Venerable nodded calmly.
“Yes.”
“You revived a plan that had already failed and used me as a shield?”
“You know nothing.”
“I do know.”
Click.
Drawing the greatsword from his back, Baek Museong said, “Because I learned a sword art identical to the Seven-Finger Demon Blade.”
“Hahaha. Did they tell you that? That the Absolute Demonic Blade Project is to birth an absolute master to prevent those who would cause total annihilation?”
“Is it not?”
“I will tell you the full truth.”
Retrieving his gaze from the window, the Buddha Venerable slowly turned.
“The truth of the Absolute Demonic Blade Project is not to punish the evil that destroys the world… but to eliminate its cause.”
“The cause.”
“Yes. And to do that, the Hundred and Eight Stars must first be eradicated.”
At the unexpected answer, Baek Museong’s eyes widened.
“If all Hundred and Eight Stars are eliminated, the proxy war between the Baekri Family and the True Demon will cease as well.”
“What does that—”
“The Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits have always inherited the Baekri Family’s will to oppose the True Demon. The Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends inherited the True Demon’s will to disrupt the martial world.”
Standing tall in the Dharma Hall, the Buddha Venerable looked down at Baek Museong.
“In other words, the birth of the Absolute Demonic Blade Project was intended to kill the Hundred and Eight Stars.”
A deathlike silence lingered for a long while.
The Absolute Demonic Blade Project—known as a plan to execute the Heaven-Dark Star that causes annihilation—was actually a plan to silence the Hundred and Eight Stars forever?
“What does it matter if the lineage is severed? They’ll be fine anyway.”
At Baek Museong’s question, the Buddha Venerable shook his head.
“According to Moryun’s words… the Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits are linked to the Baekri Family’s fate, and the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends to the True Demon.”
The Buddha Venerable narrowed his eyes to slits, almost invisibly.
“In other words, killing them all would weaken both the Baekri Family and the True Demon.”
Looking at the greatsword Baek Museong carried, he shook his head again.
“And what makes that possible is precisely the Seven Blood Tear Forms. But its true power can only be unleashed by Seven-Finger Demon Blade Bu Zhanyang alone.”
“…”
“However, the complete sword manual has vanished, and even if one mastered both the full manual and the sword forms, unless it is him… such power can never be displayed.”
The Buddha Venerable asked Baek Museong,
“Do you know why?”
“I do not.”
“The Seven Blood Tear Forms require complete understanding and embodiment of death. Like an ascetic monk contemplating the koan of death without cease.”
He continued, “Thus, unless one’s mind and spirit align with Bu Zhanyang—who constantly witnessed others’ deaths and yearned for his own—it is useless.”
The Absolute Demonic Blade Project.
In the end, it was a plan connected to the Baekri Family and the True Demon—to completely eradicate the Hundred and Eight Stars.
‘He’s secretly trying to manipulate me.’
Baek Museong instinctively sensed that the Buddha Venerable’s words were not the complete truth.
Even if they were true, another truth surely lay behind them.
‘Like that Three Realms.’
Beings like the Baekri Family or the True Demon were known only to a tiny few in the Three Realms.
He himself had only learned of them after becoming the Commander of the Martial Heaven Division. Yet he had never once heard of the truth behind the Absolute Demonic Blade Project or the secret of the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
In other words, the Buddha Venerable was not giving him information… but saying this:
—You are merely being used by them.
“Do you think I will turn my heart?”
At Baek Museong’s question, the Buddha Venerable smiled faintly.
“Far from it.”
“Then why tell me such things?”
“Because you are not a child who will remain loyal there.”
The Buddha Venerable already knew Baek Museong had entered the Three Realms and surmised he would not obediently follow them.
‘Has he become an old monster?’
Grip.
Baek Museong clenched his fist tightly.
The Buddha Venerable was no longer a saint of Buddhism.
Having lived and survived far too long like a demon, he had become a wraith consumed by senile desires.
Otherwise… he would at least have tried to stop him from entering the Three Realms.
At the very least, he would have given him a chance to live as a human.
Yet he watched whatever happened to his former disciple as if it were irrelevant—or rather, as if it were fascinating entertainment.
“I was a puppet, then.”
Lowering his head, Baek Museong’s tone changed—no longer addressing the master he had long respected, but speaking coldly and arrogantly as to an adversary met in the martial world.
“I understand.”
Rip.
He tore his sleeve.
“From this day forth, I sever the bond of master and disciple.”
Thud.
Tossing the torn cloth at the Buddha Venerable’s feet, he declared with utmost solemnity, “Henceforth, you and I have no relation whatsoever.”
“You are pure. You always were.”
The Buddha Venerable sighed deeply.
“In such a situation, what meaning does a master-disciple bond hold?”
A cold, dispassionate reply.
Baek Museong’s body trembled once more.
Not from disappointment or betrayal but from emptiness.
From the beginning, he had never been a disciple.
Merely a loyal consumable to execute the Buddha Venerable’s plan.
“Thank you.”
Baek Museong stared straight at the Buddha Venerable.
“For cutting away even the last lingering attachment.”
Then he continued, “And, for the sake of the one-time disciple bond, I came to inform you of a few things.”
“What.”
“The Hidden Forest Pavilion Lord, Mok Do-in.”
Baek Museong said calmly, “The one managing the Martial Alliance’s Solitary Enlightenment Hall Leader—he is the very butcher who annihilated the Blood Shaolin.”
Having entered the Three Realms, he had learned one shocking fact.
Mok Do-in was the one who conveyed the will of those above even the Three Realms—the ones balancing the martial world—and enforced their forced oaths.
He was also the fiend who had swept away every soul in the Blood Shaolin long ago.
As a part of his identity as Baek Museong still remained, he had intended to tell this to the Buddha Venerable.
“You are still soft-hearted.”
The Buddha Venerable shook his head.
“You must have thought that by telling me such a fact… you might once again be acknowledged as a disciple.”
“Is that so?”
“It is not you, but Baek Museong’s true heart that thinks so.”
He gazed at Baek Museong with eyes flashing with mysterious radiance.
“Well, even if not, you probably thought it could pit them against this poor monk.”
In that instant, the smile hanging at Baek Museong’s lips vanished completely.
Seeing the Buddha Venerable’s expression, he realized one terrifying fact.
‘He couldn’t possibly not know…’
A living history of the martial world for two hundred years—the Buddha Venerable—could not possibly be ignorant of the identity of the butcher who destroyed the Blood Shaolin.
“It was only natural. After all, that place also nurtured the Seven-Finger Demon Blade.”
No—the Buddha Venerable was no different from an accomplice to the butcher.
He had known the Blood Shaolin would be annihilated yet stood by and watched.
“Did you truly think this poor monk remained ignorant of even that until now?”
Hearing those words, Baek Museong nearly let out a hollow laugh.
The Buddha Venerable was no mere old monster.
He had merely worn the shell of a benevolent Buddhist saint.
He had become a new monster never before seen in the martial world.
“I will go.”
Baek Museong turned.
“We shall never meet again.”
But at that moment, two shadows rose from the ground before him as if sprouting from the earth.
Both wore masks.
The one on the left was a muscular man wearing unique metal gauntlets. The one on the right was a young woman bearing twin swords that flowed with mysterious radiance.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“The new Absolute Demonic Blade Project has now nearly reached completion.”
Pointing to the pair, the Buddha Venerable said, “So as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Then, in a low voice, “Since you have come this far, show me what you learned in the Three Realms.”
“You wish to gauge the Three Realms’ strength through me?”
“Do not worry. I have absolutely no intention of killing you.”
“Because I was once your disciple?”
“Of course not.”
The Buddha Venerable smiled benevolently.
“If you live, I can more closely grasp the movements within the Three Realms, can I not?”
Grasping the movements of the Three Realms is difficult.
But tracking the long-nurtured Baek Museong’s actions is not.
Even now… the Buddha Venerable still regarded Baek Museong as a mere consumable.
“Heh heh heh heh.”
Lowering his head, Baek Museong looked up at the sky and burst into anguished laughter.
“Hahahaha!”
Since becoming the Buddha Venerable’s disciple, his entire life had been covered in lies.
No—there had never been anything real.
The bloodline of the Baekri Family was fake; being the Buddha Venerable’s disciple was fake.
Even the martial arts he had learned until now were fake—arbitrarily modified from Shaolin techniques, not the Buddha Venerable’s true secret arts.
Crack.
The sound of bones came from Baek Museong’s face.
His skin darkened, and even the shape of his eyes and their color gradually changed.
Crack crack.
Finally, with his physique hardened, Baek Museong said, “Fine.”
Sring.
He immediately drew the greatsword from his back.
“No further conversation is needed.”
Kuoong!
With a vibration that shook the earth, black mist spread in all directions.
Soon, with the sound of tearing air, various forms of sword energy poured toward the pair.
Baek Museong had unleashed his unique Swift Sword Chain Form.
Click.
As sword energy poured forth, the masked man stepped forward and lightly waved his metal-gauntleted hand.
An imperceptible formless fist power instantly spread—its form and technique strikingly similar to Shaolin’s Arhat Divine Fist.
Kwaaang!
When sword energy and fist power collided, an explosion rang out; sharp shockwaves scraped the ground, and it was as if lightning struck the sky.
Pat!
As if by agreement, Baek Museong and the man charged each other.
Closing the distance, the two engaged in close-quarters combat.
Clang clang clang!
As Baek Museong swung his greatsword, his hair soared skyward and flames hot enough to melt iron blazed from his eyes. In contrast, the metal-gauntleted man’s gaze remained ice-cold and still, his movements utterly disciplined.
Whenever Baek Museong unleashed sword energy, the man blocked every single strand with exquisite precision using his metal gauntlets.
Clang clang clang!
Having blocked the rain-like sword energy completely, the man suddenly spread his gauntleted hand.
A sharp radiance shot toward Baek Museong’s chest.
“Hmph.”
Snorting, Baek Museong split the radiance.
The chest was the most heavily defended area for any martial artist—no matter how profound the technique, it cannot be pierced.
Kwang!
Yet at that moment, with an explosion, Baek Museong’s body was violently pushed back.
He had perfectly blocked the radiance the man unleashed yet suddenly, with the blast, a needle-like pain stabbed his shoulder blade and ribs.
“To still be able to move after exposure to Bone-Penetrating True Energy… you must have received the Clear River Realm Method.”
Clicking his tongue, the Buddha Venerable nodded to the masked woman who had stood silently watching.
At once, the woman drew her twin swords.
Chaang!
She began wildly swinging not at Baek Museong, but toward the ground.
Pat pat!
Each time, with sharp winds, blood began flowing from Baek Museong’s body.
She was not firing sword energy directly.
She used the ground as a medium to instantly strike the enemy’s body with sword energy—a bizarre technique never seen in the martial world.
Paat!
Seeing through the woman’s method, Baek Museong immediately leaped into the air.
The masked man, as if waiting, unleashed thirteen cannon-like fist powers.
Since Baek Museong was airborne, even if he blocked them, by the principles of martial arts he would inevitably suffer disadvantage.
Ssssss.
Yet black mist rose across Baek Museong’s entire body as he hovered.
Chwaaaaa!
Tiny, razor-sharp sword energies poured down like a torrential rain.
It was the Seven Blood Tear Forms, First Form—Life Lodges, Death Returns variant.
But something strange happened.
Suddenly the two masked figures overlapped, as if becoming one body.
Flash!
A light that seemed to erase the entire world burst forth.
When the white light finally faded…
Thud.
Baek Museong, who had been airborne, crashed to the ground in an instant.
As he staggered, planting his greatsword to rise again, the masked pair had already pressed their weapons to his throat.
In that moment, the focus in Baek Museong’s eyes completely vanished.
Even while using the Seven Blood Tear Forms of the supposedly invincible Seven-Finger Demon Blade Bu Zhanyang… he had been utterly defeated by the bizarre martial art those two employed, suffering a miserable loss.
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