When Dong Wolhyeon said nothing, Bu Eunseol’s gaze sharpened.
“The reason you rejected my proposal must be for the same cause.”
“……”
“Or perhaps… the culprits are connected to the Three Realms or the United Heart Society?”
Finally, Dong Wolhyeon broke his silence.
“No. If that were the case, the venerable Buddha Venerable would never have stood by idly.” Then he continued, “It is simply because the conditions you demand are things our society cannot grant.”
“Why is that?”
“We do not even know who the culprits are. And above all, the Returning to One Realm would rather die than ever return the remains of the Seven-Finger Demon Blade.”
He went on.
“In truth, the reason I came to find you was not primarily to recruit you into our society, but to propose a ceasefire.”
“……”
“With the Baekri Family and the True Demon faction already dominating the martial world, there is no need for us to clash with you.”
Dong Wolhyeon paused for a moment and shook his head.
“But it was impossible.”
“……”
“Because revenge comes first for you. You would never accept any proposal for a truce.”
“You know me well.”
Bu Eunseol nodded.
“If the United Heart Society were truly on the side of righteousness, there would be no reason for conflict with this Command Lord.”
Then, in an utterly cold voice, he said, “Let each of us walk according to our convictions. History will prove who was right.”
“I see.”
Suddenly, a sly smile crept onto Dong Wolhyeon’s lips.
“It has been confirmed that we cannot sway your heart after all. Truly regrettable.”
Sensing that the man was deliberately stalling for time, Bu Eunseol’s eyes grew razor-sharp.
“All that talk of earning goodwill was just a pretext—you lured me here to make attacking me easier.”
“Do not misunderstand.”
Dong Wolhyeon shrugged.
“It is merely that your unfathomable abilities as the Martial Soul Command Lord are very close to the goal our society pursues.”
“Goal?”
“Almost nothing is known about how someone so young became so powerful, or what kind of martial foundation you have built.”
Rumble.
At the same moment, the surrounding scenery began to shift once again.
“I thought today would be an unparalleled opportunity to measure it. Please understand.”
In the end, the United Heart Society had anticipated that Bu Eunseol would refuse the proposal.
By orchestrating this entire situation, they intended to uncover the depths of his martial prowess and secrets.
“Absurd.”
Bu Eunseol was dumbfounded.
“To harbor such rotten thoughts while claiming to save the world?”
He had held out a sliver of hope.
Since the United Heart Society was a coalition of various forces, he had thought there might be those among them who held a righteous banner. But they were no different from the Three Realms—ready to commit any atrocity in pursuit of their objective.
In the end, the martial world had gone mad, and only those who retained their sanity were suffering the consequences.
“No need for long words.”
Sring.
As the Silent Tiger Soul Sword was drawn, a low vibration spread in all directions, carrying forth a killing aura as sharp as the blade of a death god.
Thud, thud.
At that moment, a young man and woman slowly approached from behind Dong Wolhyeon.
They raised razor-sharp auras straight and tall, their gazes fixed solely on Bu Eunseol.
“I have brought disciples we poured our heart’s blood into raising—opponents you can never defeat.”
Dong Wolhyeon smiled as he looked at Bu Eunseol.
“I wish you good fortune.”
Swoosh.
Instead of replying, Bu Eunseol unleashed a lightning-fast sword strike, aiming to sever Dong Wolhyeon’s neck.
Flutter.
But the moment the blade touched him, Dong Wolhyeon’s body turned to white paper and scattered in all directions.
His true body had never been here.
All this time, he had been controlling a paper doll from afar with sorcery to converse.
“No chance.”
With Wind-Cloud Divine Qi, he could instantly trace the path of the man’s escape.
Boom!
In a single leap Bu Eunseol shot out of the inn and soared into the sky using Reverse Breathing Leap.
Yet somehow the young man and woman had already used Land Flight Technique to block his path in midair.
Ziiing.
A bizarre power spread outward, severing the sensory reach of Wind-Cloud Divine Qi.
Their overwhelming inner force waves were interfering with his-sensory expansion.
“Step aside.”
He felt no need to even engage them.
Bang!
Unfolding Swift Beyond Shadow, he evaded the two who blocked him and immediately tried to pursue the direction of Dong Wolhyeon’s aura.
Ziiing.
But at that moment, a transparent energy rippled outward, causing the scenery for dozens of zhang around to waver like water.
It turned out they had already laid a mysterious formation around the inn, trapping him inside.
Thud.
When Bu Eunseol landed back on the ground, the man and woman simultaneously drew the treasured swords at their waists.
“Don’t do anything pointless.”
Bu Eunseol extended his left hand in warning beforehand.
“I have no intention of fighting you. I am going to break the formation and leave.”
Flash!
Using Waning Moon, Dawn Star, Bu Eunseol scattered enormous cross-shaped sword energy, intending to shatter the strange formation that sealed heaven and earth in all directions.
Pa!
But the moment the sword energy touched empty air, it instantly shattered into tens of thousands of fragments and scattered.
What had been deployed here was less a proper formation and more a grotesque sorcery that nullified all power.
Ziiing.
Bu Eunseol then tried to employ Crystal Divine Energy to dismantle the sorcery permeating the area.
Ziiing.
It was useless.
Even with Crystal Divine Energy that possessed the power to break illusions, he could not dispel the sorcery here.
‘If too much time passes, I’ll lose him.’
With no choice, Bu Eunseol began drawing up inner power to unleash Harmony.
Suddenly he noticed a faint gleam flashing in the eyes of the young man and woman.
‘Something’s wrong.’
―I have brought disciples we poured our heart’s blood into raising—opponents you can never defeat.
Dong Wolhyeon’s earlier words flashed through his mind.
‘Never defeat…’
Perhaps their true purpose was not to defeat him in combat… but to observe and analyze his martial arts.
‘There is definitely an ulterior motive.’
The mysterious gleam in their eyes was both wondrous and deeply unsettling.
Bu Eunseol immediately halted the activation of Harmony and spoke to the pair.
“Dispel the sorcery placed here.”
The man replied, “I cannot dispel it.”
Then the woman beside him said coldly, “Knock me down. Then it will open.”
“I have no desire to fight.”
“There is no other choice.”
Whoosh!
The man and woman simultaneously formed sword seals and launched an immediate attack on Bu Eunseol.
Slash! Papapap!
Their swordsmanship was refined, yet to Bu Eunseol’s eyes it was nothing.
In a single breath he could have severed both their necks.
Yet for some reason, he unfolded the demonic path’s supreme sword art—Dragon-Slaying Demon Sword Form.
Ssssk.
Though not an especially profound art, when wielded by Bu Eunseol it became a devastating swordsmanship capable of overlooking the world.
Clang, clang!
The pair instantly countered with sweeping sword strokes to block the attack.
At that moment, an even denser white light flowed from their transparent eyes.
Flash!
In that instant Bu Eunseol’s swordsmanship changed, drawing a violet sword energy in a zigzag through the air.
It was the unfolding of Unmatched Thunderbolt Form.
The man had no time to block; a wound instantly appeared on his throat.
Yet as if nothing had happened, faint light flowed from the split skin and the wound healed in the blink of an eye.
‘Hm.’
Ordinary martial artists would not see the energy enveloping their bodies but Bu Eunseol, possessing the Three Divine Energies, could clearly perceive that whenever the man was wounded, light flowed from the woman’s body.
Flash! Flash!
This time Bu Eunseol attacked the woman.
Her wound closed instantly as well—only now the light flowed from the man’s body instead.
‘They are employing a great art that utilizes Yin-Yang Creation.’
In the martial world, many strange great arts have been passed down.
Among them are those that amplify or unite the yin and yang energies of a man and woman.
Clearly these two had perfected a method of completely assimilating each other’s yin-yang energy, merging their very life forces into one.
‘In other words, unless I kill both simultaneously, they take no damage.’
But flawlessly severing the life of two moving experts at the exact same instant was extraordinarily difficult.
The United Heart Society had turned these two into invincible masters through bizarre means.
‘How vicious.’
To those unaware of the truth, such an art might seem quite romantic, perfect for lovers to use.
But Bu Eunseol knew exactly how cruel this art truly was.
No matter how deeply lovers loved each other, perfectly uniting the energies of two different bodies was impossible.
To complete such an art, they had no choice but to employ a secret method that divided each person’s vital essence in half and fused the halves into one.
In short—the two of them had sacrificed half their natural lifespan to perform this art.
“Is it worth offering your entire life for?”
To Bu Eunseol’s question, the man answered calmly, “For the sake of the great cause, what is one life worth?”
“What exactly is this ‘great cause’…”
As Bu Eunseol opened his mouth, the woman—who had spotted an opening—unleashed a silent, traceless sword art targeting his flank.
However, to Bu Eunseol—who had mastered the Beast Way and could be called a Wind God—such a stealthy ambush was meaningless.
The moment she reached out to strike, the Silent Tiger Soul Sword instead severed her wrist in a single stroke.
Splash!
Blood sprayed momentarily, but light immediately flowed and the wound closed in an instant.
An astonishing recovery speed.
“If you do not dispel the formation, I will really cut you down.”
Despite Bu Eunseol’s warning, the pair only assumed even firmer stances.
They clearly intended never to let him pass.
“Very well.”
Bang!
Bu Eunseol raised his power and immediately unfolded Waning Moon, Dawn Star.
The enormous cross-shaped sword energy precisely sliced between the two, separating them completely.
Slaaash!
The sword energy passed through, and their bodies should have vanished without a trace.
Yet-
Sizzle.
The two returned to perfect condition in the blink of an eye, even though they had been reduced to blood-soaked husks.
‘So I must catch the perfect instant and kill them simultaneously.’
As long as they stood side by side without moving apart, killing them with zero margin of error was exceedingly difficult.
Moreover, their martial arts were outstanding and highly specialized in evasion.
No matter how quickly he unfolded sword techniques, the time required to kill both would inevitably contain a minuscule discrepancy.
Slaaash!
In the end, Bu Eunseol chose the simplest method.
He unfolded the Wishful True Binding, intending to sever both their breathing passages at once.
Shuuut!
Dozens of thread-like strands of true energy, sharp as blades, surrounded the pair simultaneously.
Slaaash!
The moment he severed their necks-
Ziiing.
Suddenly the man and woman overlapped their bodies.
At the same instant, a mysterious light began to spread.
Papapapa. Shlarararak!
The razor-sharp Wishful True Binding pierced into their light-transformed bodies.
Ziiing, ziiing.
Yet something strange occurred.
From their torn bodies emerged blade-like strands of true energy eerily similar to the Wishful True Binding, which then completely annihilated the energy blades Bu Eunseol had unleashed.
Shlarak.
The pair—who had merged into a single light—split apart once more, resuming their stance and looking down at Bu Eunseol with arrogance.
“No matter what martial art you unfold, you cannot cut us both down at the same time.”
At the man’s murmur, Bu Eunseol unfolded swordsmanship again.
This time he alternated between the Soul-Annihilating Hand—a supreme art passed down through the generations of the Heaven and Earth Severing Sect—and the Ten Thousand Thunder Blood Sword.
Flash! Flash!
Though neither technique was particularly exquisite or powerful in itself, when wielded by Bu Eunseol they erupted with force capable of splitting mountains and cleaving the earth.
In the end, unable to find any way to block Bu Eunseol’s swordsmanship, the pair overlapped once more and emitted light.
Clangclangclangclang!
When the light faded, the two stood shoulder to shoulder, spinning a single long sword like a windmill as they rapidly deployed defensive forms.
Once again, it looked as though they were imitating and splitting Bu Eunseol’s swordsmanship in two.
After pouring out more than thirty moves in an instant without breaching their defense, Bu Eunseol thrust out a fierce single fist.
Kwaaaang!
A tremendous gale roared forth, accompanied by pressure powerful enough to rupture their internal organs.
Yet once again the pair overlapped, emitted light, and countered with a similar fist strike of their own.
‘As I thought.’
Bu Eunseol gave a faint nod.
They focused solely on defense.
They barely attacked at all, only pretending to counter when he showed an opening.
‘Their goal is not to defeat me…’
Moreover, each time they were struck, the transparent light flowing from their eyes grew denser.
Whenever cornered, they overlapped and blocked the assault with the mysterious power that emerged.
‘…They are absorbing my martial arts.’
Bu Eunseol finally understood why Dong Wolhyeon had confidently sent these two against him.
The United Heart Society—unlike the Three Realms, who experimented on countless martial artists and commoners—had chosen themselves as experimental subjects.
‘Which means they can instantly comprehend my martial principles.’
Nangyang Pavilion techniques were optimized for analyzing the subtleties of an enemy’s martial arts. Yet even so, it could only fathom the subtleties—it could not instantly replicate the opponent’s martial techniques.
Because every sect possesses its own secret principles, with hidden formulas that amplify power or unleash profound mysteries.
Without knowing those principles, no amount of copying movements could ever reproduce the same forms.
Yet through combat these two had instantly understood not only the visible techniques of Bu Eunseol’s martial arts but also the underlying secret principles, mastered them on the spot, and unfolded them identically.
‘To the point they could instantly copy even my makeshift Wishful True Binding.’
A smile played at the corner of Bu Eunseol’s mouth.
In truth, had he seriously unfolded the Wishful True Binding, he could have created an enormous sword ten zhang wide or transformed it freely into any shape.
But the version he had just used was not the genuine technique; it was merely a superficial manifestation of true energy into blade form using the Transforming Energy Responding Form principle.
And yet the pair had emitted almost identical true energy using the same makeshift Wishful True Binding principle to block the attack.
‘They intend to uncover the secrets of the Wishful True Binding, the Seven Blood Tear Forms, Harmony, or the Three Divine Energies.’
In fact, Bu Eunseol had many ways to quickly dispose of the pair or shatter the formation.
He could seize an opening to unleash Harmony, or perfectly sever their vitality with the Seven Blood Tear Forms.
He could imitate the Bullet King’s Inner Bullet Qi to blow a hole through their skulls in one strike.
There was even the simple and convenient method of poison.
In this confined space, if he unleashed poison, they would instantly turn into bloody corpses.
Yet Bu Eunseol deliberately dragged out the fight while observing them.
He had to uncover exactly how they absorbed martial arts.
If they could instantly absorb every martial art he displayed without any limitation, then from that day forward he would have to either gather all his forces to wipe out the United Heart Society—or abandon any thought of resisting them.
With such an ability, they could eventually steal all martial knowledge, and the hegemony of the martial world would fall to the United Heart Society.
‘When they overlap their bodies and emit light, they absorb martial arts…’
Bu Eunseol deliberately unfolded ordinary high-level demonic path martial arts and, after close observation, managed to grasp the general mechanism of their method.
‘In the end, it is not martial arts at all—it is sorcery.’
What they were using was not the subtlety of martial principles.
Likely—similar to the Mosan Sect’s sorcery—they employed some mysterious secret to receive the pouring martial principles in the form of light.
Otherwise they could never nullify such rapid successive attacks while simultaneously countering with identical martial arts.
‘In other words, the United Heart Society is using sorcery techniques long extinct in the martial world to achieve martial augmentation.’
Thud.
At that moment the man stopped moving and made an extremely sinister expression.
“Junior sister. He is deliberately stalling to figure out our ability.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The woman murmured lowly.
“In any case, he cannot leave—so eventually he will hand over every martial principle to us.”
In that instant Bu Eunseol’s eyes flashed.
The word “hand over” suggested that every martial principle they had extracted from him so far was being instantly transmitted somewhere else.
‘I’m fortunate I never unfolded Vacuum.’
Had he rashly used Vacuum against them, not only would his trump card have been exposed, but he would have personally delivered every one of his martial principles into the hands of the United Heart Society.
“That one seems to have learned poison arts too. I’ve been scattering White Soul Powder since earlier, yet there’s no reaction at all.”
Because Bu Eunseol had already entered the initial stage of Poison Saint, scattering mountain air poison was less effective than throwing flour—utterly meaningless.
Since it could not harm him in the slightest, Bu Eunseol had not even noticed the faint poison.
The woman spoke coldly, “No matter how much time you waste, if you cannot kill us, you cannot leave.”
Then she declared confidently, “Unleash any attack you wish. Even the Infinite Reversal Power would be fine.”
An astonishing statement.
It implied they could receive even a transcendent power like Infinite Reversal Power through their principles.
“Overconfident.”
Bu Eunseol smiled.
“But that very confidence has finally revealed your weakness.”
In that instant, multicolored waves began to ripple from Bu Eunseol’s pupils.
As his eyelids slowly lifted, an intense wave spread outward, and a light began to flash—as though it pierced through the boundaries of all matter and saw through everything.
Once again, Bu Eunseol began to display a mysterious ability.
Just as he had done against Han Sangja before, with a single word or expression he pierced straight into the depths of his opponent’s abyss.
He possessed an insight and observational power comparable to that of the Demon Emperor.
Moreover—like the Demon Emperor’s Infinite Reversal Power—through eyes, voice, pulse, minute body temperature, and other biological reactions, as well as the flow and waves of energy, even in the briefest instant he could see through his enemy’s psychological state and mind.
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