The carriage kicked up thick clouds of dust as it raced swiftly along the official road.
Bu Eunseol gazed out the window with an indifferent look in his eyes.
‘Chasing after a single moment of brilliance, is that it?’
He was recalling the face of Shin Do-unhwi, who had died without any lingering regrets right before his eyes.
The man had preferred a life that blazed brilliantly—even for just one day—over a long and peaceful existence.
‘I was never truly a martial artist.’
He had never desired a life that shone dazzlingly.
His only goal had been to live quietly, like a nameless wildflower that blooms and fades away unnoticed.
Yet somehow… little by little, he had come to understand the lives of martial artists and the hearts that drove them.
They lived every day on the razor’s edge between life and death, amid endless schemes, betrayals, and duels without end.
Because tomorrow’s survival was never guaranteed, they chose—even if only for a single day—to live without regret… to live radiantly.
‘Extinction Palace showed no reaction.’
Even though Shin Do-unhwi had died in such a wretched manner, there had been no notable response from Extinction Palace. They had likely abandoned him the moment he fell for Heavenly Mechanism Star’s temptation and chose the path of body modification.
—That person gave my half-brother an incredible secret art—one that will let him stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the strongest experts of this generation within a few years. Probably… a supreme expert who can surpass even you will soon appear in our palace.
That meant Extinction Palace had already selected a different successor and had accepted Heavenly Mechanism Star’s proposal.
Before long, the palace would produce a terrifyingly powerful expert.
‘Heavenly Mechanism Star.’
Bu Eunseol bit his lip.
He had long known that the man used people’s intense desires to turn them into pawns on his board.
He had been manipulating Gongsun Dankyung for a very long time, after all.
Through this incident, he had finally grasped exactly how Heavenly Mechanism Star manipulated others—and what his true intentions were.
‘Playing the role of a guide of fate.’
He offered help to those in crisis, indirectly steering their actions.
He gave advice to people standing at critical crossroads, making them trust and follow him.
He even infiltrated massive organizations like Extinction Palace, sowing discord and fanning internal conflicts so that they devoured each other while he observed.
Through long-term brainwashing and careful design, he either raised them as loyal subordinates or turned them into spies within enemy factions.
It was hardly different from what the Three Realms had once done.
No… it was even more meticulous and vicious.
Beneath the mask called Heavenly Mechanism Star lay thoroughly calculated psychological domination and long-term strategy.
Moreover, the entire affair with Shin Do-unhwi had been the Heavenly Mechanism Star—Chu So—testing what kind of person Bu Eunseol truly was.
‘And whether I am someone he can use as a chess piece.’
The purpose of this encounter with Heavenly Mechanism Star, just like with Gongsun Dankyung before, had been to assess what use Bu Eunseol could be to him, what kind of person he was.
In other words, the great master of the Demonic Path, the Martial Soul Command Lord, was someone he intended to employ in his plans someday.
‘I will definitely deal with him.’
Now he clearly understood the entity known as Heavenly Mechanism Star.
A being possessing intelligence beyond imagination, capable of predicting and seeing through the future had finally revealed himself in this generation.
And he was nothing more than a wicked existence that sowed chaos to satisfy his own selfish desires.
Click-clack, click-clack.
By now the carriage had left the capital far behind and was racing onward.
‘Come to think of it, I ended up riding a carriage after all.’
Among martial artists, there had once been an unwritten rule.
No matter what battle erupted, no matter how unavoidable the fight, ordinary civilians, coachmen, beggars, and women of the pleasure quarters—those who were not martial artists—must never be harmed.
But at some point, that unwritten rule had begun to vanish from the martial world.
No—it had been forced to vanish.
The martial arts of the martial world had grown so overwhelmingly powerful, and the range and destructive force of techniques had become so vast, that even unintentionally, anyone caught within a martial artist’s radius could no longer guarantee their own life.
After realizing this truth, Bu Eunseol had made a point of avoiding carriages whenever possible.
Especially when facing those from the Three Realms or the Three Families, whose cruel and mysterious arts often forced him to unleash techniques that had reached the Limitless Realm.
Yet now he was riding in one.
First, because his mind was still unsettled by Shin Do-unhwi’s death.
Second, because the coachman—who had spotted Bu Eunseol walking alone—had earnestly begged him to take the empty carriage.
Bu Eunseol had hesitated for a moment but lately, surprise ambushes from the Abyss forces—including the Three Realms—had almost completely ceased.
The distance to the next relay station was only about forty li and he had gained confidence that he could definitely protect anyone within a ten-zhang radius around him.
So, breaking his own principle just this once, he had boarded the carriage.
Thud.
Suddenly, a dull sound rang out and the coachman tumbled from his seat.
Sensing the situation instantly, Bu Eunseol used his internal energy to forcibly halt the carriage.
He approached the fallen man.
‘Was he ill?’
His super-senses had detected nothing beforehand, and there were no signs of attack on the coachman’s body.
Just as Bu Eunseol crouched down to check his pulse—
Flash!
The fallen coachman abruptly opened his eyes wide.
“I’m sorry.”
The man stood up, scratching his head.
“I suddenly felt dizzy and must have fainted for a moment.”
Despite falling from a speeding carriage, not a single hair on him was harmed. In fact, he was even smiling.
“That’s fortunate.”
Feeling something off, Bu Eunseol reached out.
“Still, let me check if you’re injured anywhere.”
Flash!
But in that instant, sword energy grazed right past his ear.
It was razor-sharp and powerful enough to slice metal like tofu—and he couldn’t even detect where it had come from.
Whirr!
Bu Eunseol twisted his body like lightning, evading the sword qi at an angle.
Even so, he couldn’t avoid it completely; several strands of his hair were severed.
Thud.
When he landed again, his face was rigid with tension.
From the coachman’s index and middle fingers, terrifying sword energy was coalescing.
‘He was a martial artist?’
Bu Eunseol’s senses were as keen as any master under heaven; his intuition was unmatched.
The coachman had unmistakably been an ordinary person with no martial training.
Yet he had reached a level so profound that even someone like Bu Eunseol—whose realm surpassed Tranquil Clarity—could not detect it until the moment he unleashed his art.
“Huu…”
But something was strange.
The eyes of the coachman who had fired the sword qi were bloodshot red, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.
He looked exactly like a bloodthirsty killer gripped by murderous madness.
[You… have reached your limit. Therefore, you must die.]
At that moment, the coachman spoke in a bizarre voice.
[No more… beings like you should exist.]
The voice carried an eerie resonance. It was as though someone else was speaking through the coachman’s mouth.
“Reveal your identity.”
The coachman continued in that strange tone.
[We are beings who have protected truth and upheld laws and order since the beginning of time.]
The words were so grandiose they sounded absurd.
But Bu Eunseol’s expression grew grave.
The word “laws”… wasn’t that the very thing Heavenly Mechanism Star had obsessively repeated to Gongsun Dankyung?
“Protecting truth and upholding laws and order…”
Bu Eunseol’s eyes flashed.
“Heavenly Mechanism Star. Are you manipulating another person again?”
But the coachman gave an unexpected reply.
[A powerhouse who has rejected the covenant must no longer appear.]
“Covenant?”
[Beings like you have destroyed the order of the martial world across generations and sown chaos.]
The words were completely unforeseen.
If that was the case… then the one controlling the coachman wasn’t Heavenly Mechanism Star, but the blue-robed old man who had once urged him to accept the covenant?
[Since this is the first time, I will show you mercy.]
“…”
[Disperse your internal energy at once. Then it ends.]
For a martial artist, having one’s internal energy destroyed was a fate more painful than death.
“That’s not difficult.”
Yet Bu Eunseol nodded calmly.
“When all my tasks are finished, I will destroy it myself.”
[You refuse?]
Bu Eunseol narrowed his eyes as though he couldn’t understand.
“Didn’t you just say you protect laws and order?”
[That is correct.]
“Then why demand I destroy my internal energy just because I became strong? What kind of law and order is that?”
[If someone outside the covenant possesses overwhelming power, they destroy order and bring chaos.]
“If that’s what you want to claim, then show proof. What have I destroyed? What chaos have I caused?”
[So you refuse.]
The coachman declared firmly.
[This is your final warning. From now on—even if you remain alive… it will not be living.]
“What did you say?”
[You will shed tears of blood and regret everything.]
With those words, a crackling sound came from the coachman’s body.
BOOM!
In an instant his body exploded with a deafening blast.
Splash!
It wasn’t a simple explosion. Like someone executing the Dragon-Subduing Heaven-Shaking Explosion, blood and fragments of flesh shot out like hidden weapons.
Even Bu Eunseol had not anticipated such a blast.
The fragments were powerful enough to pierce protective gang qi, and the killing radius stretched dozens of zhang.
In the end, he could not evade completely and was caught in the explosion.
Whoooosh.
As the dust clouds that had billowed in every direction slowly settled with the wind,
Ziiiing.
Bu Eunseol appeared, shrouded head-on by a wall of black true energy.
Unable to avoid the blast, he had instantly deployed the Wishful True Binding, creating a barrier of true energy.
Drip.
Blood trickled from Bu Eunseol’s body and near his cheek.
Even after unleashing the Wishful True Binding at full power, some fragments had pierced the energy wall and grazed him.
“To think a master of that level would detonate his own body…”
It was obvious, but self-detonation techniques like the Dragon-Subduing Heaven-Shaking Explosion grew exponentially more powerful the higher one’s internal energy. If it could breach a wall created by the Wishful True Binding, the coachman’s internal cultivation must have exceeded three hundred years.
Moreover, judging from how even the blood had been turned into deadly poison, he was clearly a master who had deeply cultivated poison arts as well.
Yet to detonate himself just to deliver one warning?
Was his life really worth so little?
If Bu Eunseol had been an ordinary martial artist, he would have been thrown into extreme confusion and unable to make sense of the situation.
But even now, he maintained terrifying calm and began analyzing.
“He was definitely an ordinary coachman.”
If the man had truly accumulated immense internal energy, mastered poison arts, and trained in profound martial skills, there was no way Bu Eunseol would have failed to notice.
He crouched and began examining the scattered remains.
Though the body had shattered into hundreds of unrecognizable fragments, some pieces of solid femur, vertebrae, and muscle tissue remained.
“He was not a martial practitioner.”
Judging from the size and density of the remaining muscle clumps, the coachman had clearly been an ordinary commoner with no martial training. Yet suddenly he had wielded the terrifying power of the Dragon-Subduing Heaven-Shaking Explosion as though he possessed vast internal energy?
“A great art or sorcery, then?”
If it had been a great art or sorcery, there should have been unmistakable traces left behind.
Bu Eunseol raised his Void Heart Command and scanned the remains once more.
If any force had been applied to an ordinary commoner’s body, evidence would surely remain. But there was nothing. The coachman’s body had been perfectly that of a commoner—without the slightest trace of any great art.
It was as though he had dropped from the sky and instantly transformed into a being with immense physical power and strength.
“Using another commoner again.”
Tap-tap-tap.
Bloodshot veins appeared in Bu Eunseol’s eyes, accompanied by a cold yellow gleam.
They spoke of laws and order while targeting him, yet they had used and killed an innocent commoner.
That meant a new target had appeared—one that had to be crushed as swiftly as the Three Realms.
—You have reached your limit. Therefore, you must die.
The coachman’s grandiose words suddenly echoed in his mind.
“This must be investigated with the highest priority.”
Executing light-body technique, Bu Eunseol headed back toward Majeon.
He needed to quickly determine what faction could instantly transform an ordinary human into a master, by what method it was possible, and who stood behind it.
***
Upon arriving at Majeon, Bu Eunseol mobilized every information network to investigate anyone who had approached the coachman.
But even after the Death Spirit Corps—one of the martial world’s best intelligence organizations—scoured every detail, they found nothing unusual in the coachman’s movements, nor any trace of a mysterious figure or faction making contact.
—We are beings who have protected truth and upheld laws and order since the beginning of time.
‘Since the beginning of time.’
The coachman had clearly stated that they had existed since primordial times.
If that wasn’t mere bluff…
If they truly had existed since ancient antiquity and had been carrying out activities to protect what they considered truth and law…
If such transcendent beings really existed in the martial world…
‘Surely someone must have recorded them?’
Records.
Humans have passed down knowledge and achieved progress by recording things for future generations.
If truly special beings existed in the martial world, if they had continued their lineage across ages, wouldn’t there be at least one sage who recorded it for the sake of posterity?
‘The Chief Inspector once said she saw books about the Baekri Family and the True Demon in the secret archive of the Jungson family.’
Gongsun Dankyung had obtained information about the Baekri Family and the True Demon from secret books kept in the Jungson family’s hidden library, hadn’t she?
‘If such books exist.’
If a sage had created such books, they would never carelessly leave them where ordinary people could reach them.
They would want only those capable of understanding to read them.
‘Majeon has such a place.’
The Myriad Demon Scripture Vault.
If it was the grand archive said to collect every secret manual of demonic martial arts scattered across the Demonic Path, perhaps it also held records or materials about beings who had existed in the martial world since primordial times.
“This way.”
Guided by a guard, Bu Eunseol ascended to the third floor of the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault.
Since obtaining the status of Majeon’s successor, he had been permitted to enter the third floor of the pavilion at any time.
But he had never bothered to do so.
All the martial arts he had learned so far—including the pinnacle arts of Nangyang Pavilion that formed the foundation of martial study—were already the absolute peak of both orthodox and unorthodox schools.
Having already mastered a wide variety, studying yet more demonic secret manuals would only create confusion.
Swish.
Ascending to the third floor, Bu Eunseol scanned the interior, eyes gleaming.
‘So many.’
The shelves on the third floor of the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault were densely packed with secret manuals containing supreme martial arts capable of dominating the world.
Though not quite as vast as the Martial Alliance’s Solitary Enlightenment Hall, there were far more books here than Bu Eunseol had expected.
‘All from the past.’
Flipping through a few manuals, he let out a soft breath through his nose.
In the Martial Alliance, brilliant talents constantly refined existing manuals and created new ones.
But Majeon made no such effort at all.
In the past, he had thought that was simply the difference between the Demonic Path—which cared nothing for training low-level warriors—and the orthodox sects.
Now he understood.
From the beginning, the Demonic Path had never concerned itself with low-level martial artists.
‘Because martial arts are power.’
In the Demonic Path, status and treatment changed drastically according to one’s strength.
Especially in the current martial world, where martial arts had developed so brilliantly that a single supreme expert could single-handedly collapse an entire sect.
From Majeon’s perspective, there was simply no need to painstakingly train low-level warriors who contributed almost no real power.
‘That’s why there are so many manuals on the third floor.’
The secret manuals shelved on the third floor were all rare and supreme arts—the very origins of present-day demonic martial arts.
And the fact that they had been generously placed here… reflected the Demonic Path’s values: they placed far greater importance on supreme prodigies capable of reaching the level of ultimate experts—prodigies who could replace tens of thousands of low-level warriors.
‘Nothing but martial secret manuals.’
Bu Eunseol searched diligently through the shelves, but aside from martial manuals, almost no other books were visible.
Only after scouring the archive to its very end did he finally find, in the farthest corner shelf, a section containing books on martial world history and various miscellaneous information.
But the quantity was pitifully small, and even those were mixed in with manuals on the origins of demonic martial arts.
‘In the end, this archive exists solely for rewarding merit.’
The Myriad Demon Scripture Vault was nothing more than a storage house for martial secret manuals—reflecting the Demonic Path’s intense emphasis on merit-based rewards and punishments.
In the Demonic Path, granting a martial secret manual was tantamount to granting power and authority.
‘So of course they would never keep books recording the past in a place like this.’
Still, since he had come this far, he had to at least check what was here.
Flip-flip-flip.
Accustomed to reading manuals, Bu Eunseol quickly skimmed through the books on the shelf.
‘Nothing.’
As expected, there was not a single book about beings who existed to protect the martial world’s laws and order.
Most of the documents weren’t even recent; they contained even less useful information than the books stored in the old Nine Deaths Squad branch archives.
‘A waste of time.’
Just as he was about to turn away, a strange thought occurred to him.
No matter how little the Demonic Path valued the distant past, would they really leave behind only such a deplorable shelf?
‘Even if martial arts are paramount, this is too much.’
If so, then either records were deliberately kept elsewhere…
‘Or kept directly under the Demon Emperor’s control.’
The latter was most likely.
Even to his successor—Bu Eunseol—the Demon Emperor had made sure information from the Shadow Pavilion remained inaccessible.
He understood better than anyone how much power information held.
Monopoly of information.
Perhaps the Demon Emperor had monopolized all of Majeon’s information to naturally create a situation where every demonic cultivator had no choice but to submit absolutely to him.
‘Then there’s probably nothing here after all.’
The Demon Emperor would never leave anything containing important information in the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault.
‘Perhaps it’s kept in the Sacred Demon Hall where he always resides.’
If so, there was no need to waste time searching here.
Just as he was about to leave,
Click.
A very faint sound came from the floor beneath his feet.
It was quieter than the sound of an ant crawling—so faint that even Bu Eunseol, with his extraordinarily sensitive senses, perceived it not as a sound but as an instinctive “feeling.”
‘A mechanism?’
Given that the third floor housed secret manuals of supreme demonic arts, it wasn’t strange for hidden mechanisms to exist inside the pavilion.
But Bu Eunseol had spent quite a long time here searching for recorded books.
So why had a mechanism suddenly activated for no apparent reason?
‘I see.’
After thinking for a long moment, Bu Eunseol finally realized.
‘Time.’
All the non-martial books in the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault were gathered on this one shelf.
In other words, this mechanism had been designed to detect anyone who stood in front of this shelf for an extended period flipping through books.
‘It singled out someone searching for books that are not martial secret manuals.’
Lowering his head, he raised his Void Heart Command and carefully scanned the surroundings.
But no matter how hard he looked, he could find no trace of where the mechanism had been installed.
That meant either the device was so exquisitely and covertly hidden that it could fool even his eyes, or some condition had not been met, preventing him from detecting it.
‘Information.’
Bu Eunseol narrowed his eyes.
The vast majority of people who entered the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault came to read martial secret manuals. Among them, probably not even one had come looking for information about the martial world.
So why install such a device?
Paradoxically… another name rose in Bu Eunseol’s mind.
‘The Demon Emperor.’
A man who understood the importance of information better than anyone and sought to monopolize it.
Naturally, he would have taken measures to prevent just anyone from accessing the information stored in the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault.
Only those he permitted—those who aligned with his will—would be allowed entry.
Huuu.
Bu Eunseol raised his energy and unfolded the Wishful True Binding.
Rumble.
As waves of true energy spread from his body throughout the archive, a low vibration sounded, and a small door appeared in the opposite wall.
As expected, the Demon Emperor had deliberately hidden the books containing information about the martial world in the Myriad Demon Scripture Vault, installing a mechanism so that only those he selected could enter.
Thud, thud.
Stepping through the door, he found a small space.
Inside was a secret archive that smelled of mold; every book was old and damaged.
“This…”
Bu Eunseol let out a soft exclamation.
All the original books had been moved elsewhere; what remained were only the damaged ones.
Even those were so decayed that touching them might cause them to crumble.
“There’s one.”
After diligently searching the shelves, Bu Eunseol found one relatively intact book.
It was an illustrated book filled with various drawings, and the content was extremely bizarre.
“…!”
As he turned the pages, Bu Eunseol’s hand paused.
Ghost-like figures were depicted wandering the martial world, turning people into monsters.
Turning to the next page, he saw that the monsters created by the ghosts ultimately ended with their bodies completely exploding and dying.
‘Similar.’
The coachman too had been an ordinary commoner, yet someone had turned him into a monster, and his body had exploded.
That meant… for a very long time, beings capable of transforming humans into monsters had been lurking in the martial world.
‘Everything is connected.’
These beings had not appeared suddenly. They had been secretly embedded in the martial world across generations.
If so, then all of this was part of an inevitable flow.
Bu Eunseol had already dealt with three of the Human Heavens, and now stood in opposition to Chu So, who possessed transcendent wisdom.
In other words, the emergence of these beings was inevitable—and closely linked to every enemy he had faced so far.
‘I will definitely find them.’
The Three Families that had hidden for generations, the Abyss forces, the kin of the True Demon—one by one they were being crushed.
Interfering with Bu Eunseol only hastened their own downfall.
His strength grew day by day, while the number of his enemies steadily dwindled.
Now only time remained.
He would find them all and bring them down without fail.
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