Boom!
With a deafening explosion, swords of true energy shot forth like rays of light.
They tore through the air as silvery trails, streaking forward like falling meteors.
The secret art of the Emperor’s Sword was on an entirely different level from mere sword control through will.
It read the practitioner’s very soul and in response, it unleashed sword energy that moved as though it were a living creature—an enigmatic and profound technique.
Papapapa!
The true-energy swords danced through the air, sealing off Bu Eunseol’s evasion routes and leaving him not even a moment to breathe.
Swoosh!
At that instant, a pitch-black hand thrust out from behind Bu Eunseol’s back.
He had instantly unleashed Wishful True Binding.
Ziiing.
The dozens of Emperor’s Swords, which had been soaring with free, lifelike trajectories, suddenly froze in midair.
In the current martial world, few could match Bu Eunseol’s mastery of the principles of martial arts. In a single glance, he read the paths of the Emperor’s Swords and casually seized them all with hands of true energy.
Thud thud thud.
As Bu Eunseol once again surged with powerful inner force, the blades of the captured Emperor’s Swords dissolved into mist and vanished from the air.
“You truly are the successor of Majeon.”
The old man gazed at Bu Eunseol’s face with hazy eyes and slowly nodded.
“You deliberately displayed the sacred arts of the Sacred Domain first.”
“What exactly is this ‘Sacred Domain’ you speak of?”
“Yes. If you inherited that bastard’s legacy, then pulling off such insidious schemes would be possible.”
‘So that’s how it was.’
Only now did Bu Eunseol realize that the old man was so obsessively fixated on something that he was incapable of having a normal conversation.
He wasn’t completely insane or devoid of reason.
But like a wounded beast, he had no will whatsoever to engage in dialogue.
‘Even if I explained, he wouldn’t believe me anyway.’
Moreover, Wishful True Binding was undeniably the exclusive martial art of the Demon Emperor. No matter how calmly they spoke, the old man would never accept it.
“I’ll kill you within the hour.”
The old man let out a sinister chuckle.
Because Bu Eunseol was young, he believed that if he could just suppress that mysterious power, he could easily overpower him with pure martial skill.
“Old man, you cannot defeat me.”
But the opposite was true.
Bu Eunseol possessed no such mysterious power, and his martial attainment far surpassed the old man’s.
No matter how desperately the old man struggled, he could never win.
‘Asking questions won’t get me a single proper answer anyway.’
Looking at the stubbornly set face of the old man, Bu Eunseol let out a deep sigh.
“There is no grudge between us, so I’ll simply leave.”
“Leave?”
“I came here only by chance while searching for something. That’s all.” Bu Eunseol spoke persuasively.
“Put yourself in my position. Since it’s my fault, I’m saying I’ll just go.”
Bu Eunseol did not wish to kill the old man.
For some reason, this stubborn, narrow-minded old fellow didn’t strike him as hateful.
In fact, that very rigid behavior somehow felt strangely familiar.
Ziiing.
But then something strange happened.
Bu Eunseol, who had been about to walk out, suddenly found he could not take even a single step. It felt as though he were trapped inside an invisible, transparent wall.
“An inviolable space.”
The old man smiled wickedly.
“Without my permission, you will never escape.”
Astonishingly, the old man had created an intangible barrier that completely enclosed Bu Eunseol’s body, though it remained unseen.
Bang!
Bu Eunseol immediately raised the Seven Fist Demon Forms and struck forward.
But only a vibrating sound echoed—nothing broke, and he could not advance.
Whoooosh.
In an instant, storm-like energy swirled around both fists.
The latter three forms of the Seven Fist Demon Forms, possessing unimaginable power:
Infinite Beginning, Infinite End, Eternal Cycle, and Remove the Old, Establish the New—all released at once.
Rumble rumble rumble.
A vibration as though the heavens and earth were collapsing filled the stone chamber.
Yet it was futile.
Even after pouring out power capable of shattering the ground, he could not break through. The inviolable space still enclosed him completely—from the ceiling to the walls to the floor.
“You must have stolen and learned the Fist Man’s fist arts.”
Watching this, the old man wore a victorious smile.
“But it’s useless. No matter how magnificent your martial arts, you cannot flee to the heavens or burrow into the earth, nor can you shatter it.”
If the old man’s boast was true, Bu Eunseol would remain trapped here, sealed in, waiting for death.
“Since this is boring, I’ll move up your time of death.”
A strange light flowed from the old man’s eyes.
Immediately, Bu Eunseol felt the surrounding space slowly contracting.
The inviolable domain was tightening, intending to crush and suffocate his entire body.
Srrrng.
Drawing the Silent Tiger Soul Sword, Bu Eunseol poured every ounce of power into raising his energy.
A colossal sword aura ten zhang tall soared skyward.
Or it should have.
Ziiing.
The sword aura struck the inviolable space and could advance no further—it was blocked.
Boom!
Refusing to give up, Bu Eunseol pushed his inner force to the absolute limit.
Finally reaching six hundred years of cultivation depth, golden light flashed from his body as a storm raged.
Flash!
At the same moment, a massive cross-shaped sword energy burst outward from the Silent Tiger Soul Sword in all directions.
He had unleashed the most powerful form of the Supreme Heavenly Flow—Meteor Chasing the Moon.
Boom! Boom!
Even as explosive noises rang out and cross-shaped sword energy capable of destroying the entire world poured forth, the wall remained unbroken.
‘This much?’
Bu Eunseol, who rarely showed surprise at anything, was genuinely shocked this time.
The Supreme Heavenly Flow unleashed with six jiazi of internal energy had almost no equal in raw power yet it couldn’t even shatter this mere transparent space?
“Dangerous fellow. If I’m careless, I might even suffer a counterattack.”
Watching Bu Eunseol unleash the supreme art from within the transparent wall, the old man shook his head.
“Just die like that.”
The transparent wall seemed to be gradually constricting around Bu Eunseol.
He tried pushing it back with inner force, but there was no response at all.
Three techniques remained.
The first: channeling the power of righteous, demonic, and Buddhist forces together with the Three Divine Energies into the Silent Tiger Soul Sword in the form of Harmony.
The second: the tenth form of the Supreme Heavenly Flow that returns everything to its natural state—Martial Mist and Waves.
And finally, the ultimate supreme sword art—Seven Blood Tear Forms.
However, none of these three supreme arts could be unleashed quickly.
Given the speed at which the wall was closing in, he could not use all three.
He would have to choose either Seven Blood Tear Forms or Martial Mist and Waves, and if that failed, then fall back on the Harmony technique as the best option.
‘This inviolable space is similar to the domain power of the One Hundred and Eight Stars. In that case....’
Having finished his thoughts, Bu Eunseol naturally lowered his sword.
Saaaa.
At that moment, faint mist began to spread around his body.
He had first unleashed the tenth form of the Supreme Heavenly Flow—Martial Mist and Waves, which returns everything to its natural state and cuts down the enemy.
Fwoooosh!
Gentle breezes and faint mist scattered in all directions.
Yet the transparent wall did not break; instead, it closed the distance even further, tightening the space.
“No martial art you use will work.” The old man spoke coldly. “You will simply struggle like that until you die.”
In that instant, a strange thought flashed through Bu Eunseol’s mind.
‘If one can truly create such a wall, is there any need to make the space so wide and then slowly constrict it?’
If he could genuinely create an inviolable space, he could crush and burst the body in an instant without dragging out the process.
Yet the old man had kindly explained it as an “inviolable space” and had begun slowly narrowing it over time.
This was surely not just to instill fear.
—All of the One Hundred and Eight Stars’ powers come with restrictions.
That was the truth Bu Eunseol had discovered after defeating many of them with their various abilities. They wielded supernatural powers so extraordinary they could be called demonic, yet precisely because of that, restrictions—or weaknesses—always existed.
If not, the One Hundred and Eight Stars would have long dominated the entire martial world.
‘Like the Earth Prison Star.’
The Earth Prison Star, Un Hakbi.
He could instantly strip away an enemy’s power and martial arts within his domain—an ability befitting a martial god.
But it carried a major restriction: no other living being besides himself and his target could enter the domain.
If the old man truly possessed the ability to create an inviolable space, he could twist the space in an instant and slaughter him like a chicken.
Yet he deliberately dragged it out slowly... which clearly meant there was some restriction he was hiding.
“Have you given up?”
Seeing Bu Eunseol standing blankly, the old man wore a faint smile.
It appeared triumphant, but to Bu Eunseol’s eyes, the old man seemed to be desperately suppressing extreme anxiety.
Like a child terrified his lie would be exposed.
‘So that was it.’
Finally, from the old man’s tone and gaze alone, Bu Eunseol unraveled the secret of this so-called inviolable space.
Click.
Suddenly, he released his energy and sheathed his sword.
Yet the constricting wall did not disappear.
“So this much isn’t enough?”
Muttering quietly, Bu Eunseol extended his index finger and rapidly pressed his own acupoints.
Papapak.
Once the acupressure was complete, his face turned deathly pale, and the intense energy flowing through his body vanished entirely.
He had deliberately sealed his own internal energy by pressing his acupoints.
Oooong.
Then the slowly constricting transparent wall began to fade away.
“As expected—there was never any such thing as an inviolable space.”
Confirming the wall’s disappearance, Bu Eunseol stared straight at the old man and shook his head.
“You simply used that grandiose term on purpose to hide the truth.”
The transparent wall the old man created was not an absolutely unbreakable inviolable space. It was merely a barrier formed by absorbing the energy and power of whoever was trapped inside and using that very energy to construct the wall.
In other words, because the wall was built from the power emanating from Bu Eunseol’s own body, no matter how mighty the martial art that struck it, it would not break.
Even using the Harmony technique would have been the same—the wall would simply have been remade from the power of Harmony.
“How did you...!”
The old man seemed momentarily stunned that Bu Eunseol had instantly grasped the true nature of the inviolable space.
“No, of course you would figure it out.”
He soon nodded as though he had expected it.
“Sado Muryeong. That wicked bastard’s disciple.”
“Disciple?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you saw through it with Emotion-Severing Secret?” The old man lifted the corner of his mouth. “Pretending ignorance is useless. Sado Muryeong’s technique has long been exposed.”
Then he spoke something shocking.
“Emotion-Severing Secret is not a power that breaks everything... it is a technique that peers into the enemy’s very soul.”
Emotion-Severing Secret.
Known to the world as the Infinite Reversal Power of the Demon Emperor—a force that shatters all things.
Yet in truth, it was a technique that elevated observation and insight to the extreme, allowing one to see through the enemy’s soul?
“Did you think I wouldn’t realize you were observing this old man’s physiological reactions, just like that rat?”
No matter how perfectly martial masters control their bodies, there are muscles that cannot be consciously controlled.
Heartbeat, breathing rate, blood vessel dilation, the pitch and tremor of the voice, body temperature, sweat—all reveal psychological state. Movements allow calculation of countless variables.
Emotion-Severing Secret.
It was the Infinite Reversal Power achieved through godlike observation and insight—piercing the enemy’s techniques and utterly dismantling their arts and power.
‘No wonder I was misunderstood.’
Looking back, at some point he had begun imitating the Demon Emperor’s methods.
Penetrating the enemy’s psyche, destroying their techniques, and breaking their spirit through words—that had become his primary combat style.
This time too, with a single expression and phrase from the old man, he had instantly identified and neutralized the flaw in the so-called inviolable space...
‘Of course he would assume I inherited such a technique from the Demon Emperor.’
“But you are mistaken about something.”
Even though his trump card had been broken, the old man still wore a smug expression, the corner of his mouth raised.
“Even if you figured it out, just what power will you use to block my attacks?”
If he used inner force, the inviolable space would reform and the old man could still wield his martial power.
In a situation where he could not even use the Three Divine Energies, let alone inner force, blocking the attacks of such a master was impossible.
Click.
Yet Bu Eunseol calmly drew the Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
He had crossed the line between life and death countless times. Among those battles, there had been times when—lacking even a shred of the Three Divine Energies or inner force—he had cut down powerful foes using only the principles of martial arts.
“Lacking inner force does not mean one cannot fight.”
At Bu Eunseol’s words, the old man scoffed.
“Nonsense!”
Boom!
With the sound of thunder, lightning-like palm force exploded from the old man’s hand.
Ssssk.
Bu Eunseol swung the Silent Tiger Soul Sword, dissolving each surge of palm force one by one.
What could be unraveled through the profound principles of swordsmanship, he unraveled; what could not, he evaded with footwork or by rolling his body.
Papapapapa!
No matter how powerful the palm technique, if it did not land, it was meaningless.
The old man’s palm arts carried tremendous force, yet to Bu Eunseol—who endlessly studied the subtleties of all martial arts under heaven—the refinement of those palm techniques was not particularly impressive.
‘Which means this old man specializes in sorcery arts.’
Even judging by his displayed might, he had stably entered the Limitless Realm. But if he mainly relied on mysterious sorcery, then his martial deployment itself was not particularly refined.
Whirrr.
Seeing Bu Eunseol continuously evade the palm techniques using only martial principles and footwork, the old man shouted with rising irritation.
“Try blocking this!”
Changing tactics, he shifted from Air-Splitting Palm—which carried destructive power from the moment it was launched—to Space-Severing Palm, which released its force at the precise moment desired, making defense impossible.
When using Space-Severing Palm, no matter how exquisitely one wielded a sword, dissolving the force became extremely difficult.
With no way to evade the force, a single thread of realization instead flashed through Bu Eunseol’s mind.
‘Why have I never used this until now?’
Swish! Thud!
At the same time, Bu Eunseol began moving with beast-like speed.
He was applying the beast martial arts of the Wild Beast Palace, exploding the latent power within his body.
Thud, thud.
Using beast martial arts, even without inner force, each leap covered three zhang.
Closing the distance in an instant, he unfolded his swordsmanship once more.
The stone chamber was not wide enough for endless retreat.
The old man circled, trying to make maximum use of the limited space, but Bu Eunseol relentlessly pursued him.
“Futile!”
Irritated, the old man unleashed dozens of palm forces in a single move, blocking his approach. When such an expert defended so determinedly, even Bu Eunseol could not easily bring him down.
Shrrk!
In the end, Bu Eunseol changed his swordsmanship once again.
He began timing his sword techniques to the exact instant the old man launched his palm force.
Anticipating the enemy’s movements and seizing the initiative first—that was the core essence of all martial arts.
Though the power of Bu Eunseol’s swordsmanship was not overwhelming, by reading the old man’s palm techniques first and seizing the initiative before they fully unfolded, the palm techniques could not chain together, and their power was drastically reduced.
‘This brat...’
The old man could not hide his astonishment as Bu Eunseol opposed him using only martial principles, without any power.
‘To think he had this level....’
Sensing Bu Eunseol’s potential and martial depth, the old man clenched his fist tightly.
‘This one will grow into a great enemy in the future.’
If he failed to kill him here, everything he had carefully planned would come to nothing.
‘Fine.’
Resolving himself inwardly, the old man gathered the last remnants of his sorcery power.
A dark light began to dye the entire stone chamber.
Through his own death, he activated a technique that turned the entire interior into a domain of death.
‘Death.’
The moment the old man finally shattered the inviolable space and unleashed his sorcery, strange sounds erupted from Bu Eunseol’s body.
The suppressed Three Divine Energies returned.
It seemed the force inside this secret vault—or the old man’s sorcery—had been suppressing the Three Divine Energies until now.
Rumble rumble.
Gurgle gurgle.
The strange energies rising from the old man’s body gradually took shape, coalescing into the form of a black reaper.
Haaaah.
The reaper opened its pitch-black maw wide and advanced toward Bu Eunseol.
It was death itself—something no power could block.
Yet Bu Eunseol felt no fear at all.
Death had always been by his side, and now he could express it through sword doctrine.
“Death with death.”
Kiiii.
From the Silent Tiger Soul Sword in Bu Eunseol’s hand, jet-black sword energy surged three zhang high.
It began to sever the shadow of the charging reaper.
Seven Blood Tear Forms.
The perfect sword doctrine of death, which only Bu Zhanyang, the Seven-Finger Demon Blade could perform—had once again revealed itself.
Fwoooosh!
The Seven Blood Tear Forms, which brings an end to all things, was not a power that delivers death—it was death itself.
While the domain could not be destroyed, the old man had given it tangible form as a reaper.
Paradoxically, that very act made it something that could be cut by the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
Sssss.
The mist completely cleared.
Before Bu Eunseol stood the old man, now a shriveled skeleton on the verge of death.
Because the final sorcery had been performed at the cost of his life force, his body was rapidly withering.
“I cannot understand it.”
Bu Eunseol murmured as he gazed at the sight.
“If you had wrapped that inviolable space around your own body, you would have been invincible.”
The inviolable domain the old man had deployed was far more suited to perfectly blocking enemy attacks than to killing the enemy.
If he had not been so intent on killing Bu Eunseol, Bu Eunseol would never have been able to defeat him.
But because he staked even his own life to create a domain of death in order to kill Bu Eunseol, he had ultimately walked the path of self-destruction.
Ziiing.
At that moment, the ceiling from which light had been descending slowly darkened.
Probably because the old man was dying, all the sorcery that had been active here was vanishing.
Then Bu Eunseol’s body began to glow faintly once more.
The eye-shaped bead shattered, and light began to spill from the embedded powder.
But that light soon turned pitch black, staining everything.
“So that was... it.”
The old man, dying with faintly open eyes, spoke in a low voice upon seeing it.
“...You are of that person’s bloodline.”
The old man’s expression was filled with regret.
Past remorse, missed opportunities, and irreversible choices were etched into his gaze like marks carved into his pupils.
“That person?”
Bu Eunseol’s eyes trembled faintly.
Wasn’t that the word most commonly used by the true demons’ kin when referring to the True Demon?
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