‘These things.’
Bu Eunseol removed his hand from his right eye and looked down at his palm.
There, the strange pattern that had disappeared before was engraved once again.
Yet when he gazed at the pattern on his palm with blurred vision, it looked like the shape of an eye.
It was very similar to the eye engraved on the mysterious orb once possessed by the old man of the True Demon kin.
Swish.
Without realizing it, Bu Eunseol covered his right eye with his palm once more.
Then the back of his hand grew hot, and suddenly a mysterious light began pouring out.
Crack.
A form of light was created on the back of his hand, and even though he was covering his eyes, the scene in front of him started to appear clearly.
‘Those things.’
As the light flowing from the back of his hand grew stronger, the sticky entities visible beyond his palm became even clearer.
Inside the iron armor of the Black Gods, there were invisible, sticky currents filled with the power to maintain their form.
‘These so-called Black Gods are a collective entity connected by the power of the Dark God Heavenly Lord.’
He had wondered why they would not die.
No, why they could not be killed.
The Black Gods were nothing more than shapes made of black liquid, and the reason they could move while unleashing powerful martial arts was due to the power contained within those currents.
‘How do I know this?’
What his eyes were seeing now was the very nature of the power possessed by the Dark God Heavenly Lord.
Not only did he perceive that spiderweb-like waves and nerve-like connected currents were constantly vibrating to control the Black Gods, but he also instantly understood how the power of that nature operated.
‘Thinking comes later.’
His thoughts were accelerating endlessly, allowing him to perceive time so slowly, but because his blood was being lost, his consciousness was growing faint.
‘Then all I have to do is sever it.’
To block the continuously vibrating and connected currents, all he needed to do was introduce another vibration.
Crash!
Bu Eunseol immediately raised his Thunder Spirit Energy, and created a massive vibration to begin burning away the black, sticky liquid connecting the gaps between the armors.
Crash! Rumble rumble rumble!
Ziiiing.
At the same time, heat flowed from the light created on the back of his hand, and it began absorbing back the essence blood that had been stolen by the Black Gods.
Thud. Thud thud.
In the end, the Black Gods that had been sucking the essence blood from his body instantly turned into lumps of black iron and scattered in all directions.
Thud thud. Clatter.
[How…]
The startled voice of the Dark God Heavenly Lord came from the sky.
Even if the Black Gods were defeated, the stolen essence could not be reclaimed.
Yet how had that fellow restored his body to its original state?
Flash!
Regardless, Bu Eunseol kept his right eye covered and scanned the remaining crows with the light created on the back of his hand.
‘So the Black Gods weren’t real crows after all.’
When he looked with the flashing light eye, he realized that the Black Gods were not crows, but a kind of dharma energy dyed black.
It was probably Mixed Demonic Magic Energy.
And as expected, the Dark God Heavenly Lord was not hiding within the formation created by the crows.
Then where exactly was his main body hiding?
‘He is not here.’
He had merely been continuously observing the surroundings with the light from the back of his hand.
He realized that the Dark God Heavenly Lord, bound by a restriction, was staying thousands of li away from this place, and was creating and controlling the Black Gods with Mixed Demonic Magic Energy.
‘Then there is no need to bother clashing with him.’
Bu Eunseol looked at the white-clad woman who had fallen while covered by the Black Gods.
It seemed she had suffered severe injuries from the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s strike; her breathing was extremely faint, and most of the white energy she had been emitting had disappeared.
‘So the Mixed Demonic Magic Energy is this terrifying.’
From the sky, the Dark God Heavenly Lord spread his voice, and from the ground, through hundreds of crows made of Mixed Demonic Magic Energy, he was shooting invisible energy capable of collapsing a great mountain at his enemy.
Moreover, since his true body did not exist here... no matter what power was exerted, he could not be brought down.
‘At this moment, defeating the Dark God Heavenly Lord is impossible.’
But at that moment,
Fwooooosh.
Hundreds, thousands of Black Gods once again covered the sky.
Unlike before, they were not connected by transparent, sticky currents.
They were pure Mixed Demonic Magic Energy created by the Dark God Heavenly Lord—essentially his own clones.
‘They cannot be blocked even by martial arts or supernatural powers.’
Bu Eunseol looked at the Black Gods while keeping his right eye covered.
Then he slowly lowered his hand and grasped the hilt of the Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
Clang!
With a clear metallic sound, blue flames spread from Bu Eunseol’s Silent Tiger Soul Sword.
At the same time, he swung the sword toward the pouring Black Gods.
It was not swordsmanship, but a sword dance as beautiful as a graceful performance.
Ziiiing.
Then a strange phenomenon occurred.
The space where the Black Gods were pouring in twisted, and time itself seemed to stop.
The current, past, and future figures of Bu Eunseol swinging his sword began to overlap.
They spread out again like countless branching paths.
Figures swinging not a sword but a fist, launching finger winds, or executing leg techniques appeared.
Fwoooosh!
Gradually, the past images of the Black Gods pouring in were erased, the future was erased, and finally, even the existence of the Black Gods in reality returned to nothingness.
It was as if he were intruding upon a realm that only gods could touch.
[You…]
Suddenly, the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s voice shook the sky.
[Were you the successor of this generation?]
‘Successor?’
[Heh heh heh, you’ve done another useless thing.]
The Dark God Heavenly Lord’s voice was filled with mockery.
[The successor of the Ancient Sword Forest is destined only to repeat the fate of becoming that person’s toy.]
It was only a short remark, but Bu Eunseol instinctively understood.
The Ancient Sword Forest Lord must have continuously produced successors through arrangements to stop the True Demon.
Sizzle.
But at that moment, a hot energy began rising from the Baihui acupoint, and his body trembled.
A pain as if his brain were crumbling spread through him once again.
At the same time, the pattern on the back of his hand slowly faded, and the energy absorbed into the Baihui acupoint began colliding violently once more.
[Not even a proper successor?]
The Dark God Heavenly Lord’s voice rang out.
[What a messy collection of junk powers mixed together.]
‘I must escape.’
Whatever the Dark God Heavenly Lord was saying no longer reached his ears.
The pain surging from the Baihui acupoint was already beyond what even Bu Eunseol could endure.
If the same seizure as before occurred again, he would die instantly at the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s hands.
Crash!
Bu Eunseol raised his inner energy with all his might and lifted the fallen woman into his arms.
Leaving those words behind, he leaped toward the floating woman.
Then, unfolding Swift Beyond Shadow accompanied by Thunder Spirit Energy, he escaped the area in an instant.
[Stop right there!]
The Dark God Heavenly Lord’s roar came from behind, but Bu Eunseol did not even look back as he fled the Ancient Sword Forest.
[Fine! I shall personally escort you!]
A thunderous shout erupted toward Bu Eunseol as he left the Gumo canyon area, and an enormous palm force shot toward his back as he fled at ultra-high speed.
Crash!
‘I cannot avoid it.’
If he twisted his body or tried to dodge, the woman would be hurt.
With no other choice, Bu Eunseol gathered as much inner energy as possible and concentrated it behind his back.
Boom!
Along with an explosion that shook heaven and earth, Bu Eunseol felt a pain as if his spine were being crushed.
‘Ugh.’
His mind grew distant, and a scorching heat like strong liquor rose from his chest all the way to his throat.
‘I must not lose consciousness.’
Ziiiing.
Then the back of his hand grew burning hot, and the pattern was engraved on his palm once again.
Shatter. Thud.
The Silent Tiger Soul Sword flew into his right hand as if drawn by a magnet and began emitting brilliant radiance.
It contained a transcendent power that Bu Eunseol had never felt even once before.
Thud.
When he pointed the sword at the sky, it seemed as though the power of the entire world was gathering at the tip of the blade. The earth vibrated with a low rumble, and the sky stirred with enormous waves within the silence.
“Haap!”
Bu Eunseol let out a powerful shout and unleashed that force toward the direction from which the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s voice had come.
At that instant, a deep silence enveloped the world.
The wind, time, and even space itself seemed to stop for a moment.
Yet it was like the calm before a storm.
Wuuuung.
The power that burst from the tip of the sword soon became a single streak of light that tore through the sky and spread outward…
Kwaaaaaaaa!
A brilliant beam of light shot upward like a flash, slicing through the clouds and soaring as if it would cut through the abyss of the universe.
Soon the light fell back to the earth and covered the sky, and a radiance like a new sun rising illuminated the entire world.
[Urgh...!]
A short, agonized cry burst from the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s mouth.
It was a painful scream he had never uttered even once in his two hundred years of life.
[I will definitely… find you again and erase you!]
That desperate cry gradually faded into a low echo.
At the same time, all the Black Gods surrounding them disappeared.
‘Ugh.’
Enduring the pain as if his spine were being crushed, Bu Eunseol doubled his movement technique once more, and escaped the Gumo canyon area in an instant.
***
Having unfolded Swift Beyond Shadow at full power, Bu Eunseol continued heading south without pause.
‘Have I become the successor of the current-generation Ancient Sword Forest?’
Bu Eunseol’s eyes narrowed as he ran at high speed using his movement technique.
According to the Ancient Sword Forest Lord’s message, she had been born as the True Demon’s twin and had used the successors to interfere with his plans, capture him, or kill him in order to reform him.
However, as the cycles repeated, the True Demon would have grown stronger, and the successors born from the Ancient Sword Forest Lord’s arrangements would have instead become his prey—no, mere toys for his amusement.
‘Is it fate after all?’
To find his grandfather’s bloodline, he would have to perfectly understand the inner workings of both the Baekri Family and the True Demon anyway.
Moreover, having become the successor of the Ancient Sword Forest—which viewed even the True Demon’s subordinates as prey… he had ultimately become someone who could no longer coexist with them.
‘This power is complete, but I am incomplete.’
From the beginning, Bu Eunseol had energy blocked within his Baihui acupoint, and there was no way to resolve it. Yet even the complete power injected by the Ancient Sword Forest Lord had been absorbed into the Baihui acupoint, resulting in a mixed state of energies. Therefore, he did not even know how to use that ability and had to worry about collisions with the energy inside his body.
‘No, that’s not it.’
The Ancient Sword Forest Lord, who could see the future, could not possibly be unaware of the successor’s condition. The reason this situation was occurring to him was not simple misfortune, but clearly a profoundly mysterious arrangement.
Whoosh.
Bu Eunseol unfolded his light body skill at full power without rest.
Because of the pain spreading from his back, at some point he lost all sense of direction and simply ran recklessly.
Drip.
Meanwhile, a thin stream of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.
The forceful energy shot by the Dark God Heavenly Lord possessed overwhelming and lethal power capable of overturning the sea itself.
‘If the multiple forces inside my body—including the one that surged from the Baihui acupoint—had not been mixed... I would have died instantly from that single move.’
The reason Bu Eunseol had been able to endure the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s strike was not because of his thick inner energy, but because of the various forces mixed within his body.
The palm force shot by the Dark God Heavenly Lord had the power to pierce through mountains, yet because of the mixture of inner energy exceeding ten Jiazi, the Three Divine Energies, and other forces, along with the sudden surge from the Baihui acupoint, that sharp power could not penetrate his body.
‘Because the forces are chaotically mixed, I have become a body that cannot die in any situation… and the hidden arrangement activates only in times of crisis?’
Of course, the Ancient Sword Forest Lord would not have made such a sloppy arrangement.
But the actual situation was like this, so he could only laugh bitterly.
Moreover, his body was not completely unscathed.
After reaching the level of inner energy attainable by a human body, he had suffered numerous injuries, but excluding times when his power had vanished, he had never suffered severe internal injuries while in a normal state.
This was because his protective body true energy was thick enough to rival the Diamond Indestructible Body, and most injuries could be instantly healed by circulating his inner energy once.
The Dark God Heavenly Lord, without even revealing himself from thousands of li away, had shattered Bu Eunseol’s protective true energy—which no one in the world could match—with a single invisible palm force and inflicted injury.
But Bu Eunseol had no time to worry about his own injuries.
Tremble.
Because the body of the woman he was carrying trembled lightly, and black blood flowed from the corner of her mouth.
It was clear that the Dark God Heavenly Lord had not simply lifted her into the air, but had placed a powerful restriction on her in the meantime.
‘She must have been quite threatening.’
Her power was said to be a fake imitating the Baekri Family. Nevertheless, even after subduing her, he had placed a strong restriction to seal her power.
Just from that alone, it could be guessed how extremely wary a Four Divine Heaven Lord was of the Baekri Family’s power.
Drip.
Now blood mixed with internal organs was flowing from the woman’s mouth.
If left like this, she would soon stop breathing.
‘I must act immediately.’
Crash!
Bu Eunseol once again doubled his movement technique.
In an instant, he passed several mountain ranges and happened to discover a thatched cottage built deep within a secluded valley.
Judging by the dried herb remnants at the entrance of the cottage, it seemed a herb gatherer had stayed there for some time.
‘This should not be easily discovered.’
The cottage was so secretly hidden that it was almost invisible at first glance, and there was even a clear spring nearby, making it very suitable for a short rest.
Rustle.
Bu Eunseol descended to that place and immediately carried her into the cottage.
Inside, there was a bed and simple furniture such as a table.
Bu Eunseol laid the woman on the bed and brought her clear water to drink.
Then he quickly assessed her physical condition.
‘Her meridians are severely damaged.’
As Bu Eunseol had expected, the Dark God Heavenly Lord, despite his confident attitude, had apparently been extremely afraid of her exerting her power.
He had damaged her meridians as if melting them with the power of the black liquid he controlled.
‘First, I must help her overcome the critical phase.’
Her life was hanging by a thread; if he did not act immediately, her breathing would soon stop.
Bu Eunseol began treating her body using the Circulation and Healing Method from the Ban-Geuk Method.
Wuuuung.
Because the Ban-Geuk Method contained both yin and yang energies, it allowed inner energy to be accumulated faster than other heart methods and had exceptional efficacy in treating internal injuries.
‘It’s difficult.’
Bu Eunseol’s expression grew heavy.
He had returned the displaced internal organs to their original positions, but the damage to the nerves, muscles, and blood vessels was so severe that recovery through ordinary circulation and healing methods would be difficult.
Pop.
Bu Eunseol took out a Potential Demon Divine Pellet from his medicine bottle and placed it in her mouth.
Dry.
But her lips had become as dry as desert sand in the meantime, and her forehead was as hot as a ball of fire.
The vicious energy shot by the Dark God Heavenly Lord was devouring her body.
‘I must first replenish the energy in her body.’
After much deliberation, Bu Eunseol raised the Heavenly Glacial Secret.
‘The Four Divine Energies must not be injected recklessly.’
The only time he had previously injected the Four Divine Energies to treat someone was when he saved the Southern Palace Lord, Namgung Jeong, who had been dying from a stab wound by Namgung Pung’s dagger.
At that time, driven by Namgung Un’s desperate cries and plea, he had instinctively injected the energy somehow.
But the Four Divine Energies were not originally meant to be injected in that way.
All martial world practitioners cultivated inner energy heart methods, and those heart methods inevitably contained polar yin, polar yang, or energies such as wind-thunder or mixed origin.
If one injected a power like the Crystal Divine Energy without understanding this and recklessly, it could instead destroy their inner energy.
―Beautiful flowers should be given to beauties, and excellent treasured swords should be given to outstanding generals.
Suddenly, the words of Hwa Mugi, who had lured him at the Hongsa Gorge, came to mind.
―But you are an immature brat who doesn’t even know whether what you hold in your hand is shit or soybean paste.
‘What I hold in my hand.’
“Yes, that’s right.”
Bu Eunseol, who had been muttering softly, spoke aloud and slapped his forehead.
“Just as that person said, even though I possess a treasure, I don’t know how to use it.”
The Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra.
Not only could it resonate with the flow of another person’s inner energy, but at its peak, it was a heavenly outer skill that allowed one to discern every single force within the enemy’s body without even touching them.
With this, he could easily grasp not only the origin of her inner energy but also the flow of her true energy.
In the past, he had treated A-Yeon, the successor of the Sword Pavilion who had suffered severe injuries, using this ancient secret, yet sometimes he would forget the treasure-like powers he held in his hands.
Ziiiing.
When he spread the Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra, Bu Eunseol’s eyes turned white.
Then, spreading a transparent, hazy mist, he began to examine every inch of the white-clad woman’s body.
‘This….’
Instantly, his face hardened.
Because the woman’s organs had lost their elasticity like those of a hundred-year-old elder, and her meridians were extremely narrowed.
‘It wasn’t only because of the Dark God Heavenly Lord’s restriction.’
Bu Eunseol’s expression grew extremely dark.
Like the people of the United Heart Society, she had been raising her martial arts scripture by mortgaging her life force.
‘Come to think of it, the power of the Baekri Family can only be wielded by those of the Baekri Family.’
No matter how fake the power was, to imitate it, one would have to pay a corresponding price.
This woman, like Won Pung of the United Heart Society he had encountered, seemed to have been using such power by sacrificing her life force.
“For what?”
Bu Eunseol wore a bitter expression.
For what exactly were they pursuing strength while disregarding their own lives?
What goal did they desire?
“Cough.”
In the meantime, the woman’s forehead and both cheeks flushed red. Due to the severe injuries, she had even developed a high fever.
‘Thinking comes later.’
His grandfather had shown warmth even to the corpse of a stranger who had died away from home.
And Bu Eunseol had learned that warmth and compassion.
He could not simply watch a woman dying of thirst like this.
‘Moreover, there is far too much I need to ask her.’
There was an enormous amount of information he needed to obtain from the white-clad woman. She could not die like this.
Ziiiing.
Having perfectly resonated with and sensed the flow inside the woman’s body, Bu Eunseol began spreading the Heavenly Glacial Secret.
He was only cautious because it could become a conflicting power that might destroy her inner energy heart method.
In truth, since all Four Divine Energies were natural forces of nature, they were extremely compatible with the human body.
Bu Eunseol had perfectly grasped her true energy flow and the nature of her inner energy heart method with the Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra, and after confirming that injecting the Heavenly Glacial Secret would cause no major problems, he could inject it freely.
Shuuuuu.
A water-colored glow rose around the woman, and soon vitality returned to her skin as the heat began to subside.
‘It’s still far from enough.’
Simply cooling the fever could not restore her consciousness or heal her injuries.
He needed to replenish the lost moisture through the Heavenly Glacial Secret and improve her blood circulation.
Drip.
At that moment, clear fresh blood flowed from the corner of Bu Eunseol’s mouth, and large beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
The Four Divine Energies, being forces of nature, possessed the ability to maintain balance on their own and endlessly circulate life force.
‘The origin power has reached its limit.’
Tremble.
Gradually, his vision grew blurry.
Unlike the Thunder Spirit Energy obtained from lightning falling in nature or the Wind Cloud Divine Technique obtained from the Wind God Palace’s path, the Heavenly Glacial Secret had been injected by the Vice Palace Master of the Divine Water Palace, Sa Cheongha.
In other words, because he had not received the origin but had obtained it through the medium of Sa Cheongha, its purity was diluted. Therefore, unlike Thunder Spirit or Wind Cloud Divine Energy, it could not generate power infinitely.
Dry.
Before long, Bu Eunseol’s lips had also become parched.
Because he had poured out an enormous amount of the Heavenly Glacial Secret, the moisture in his own body was being lost as well.
‘How can I stop?’
His grandfather had always prioritized those in need over his own body.
If he had not helped, it would be one thing, but once he had extended his hand… Bu Eunseol too would save others even if it meant his own body being crushed.
It was the path of chivalry and righteousness that his grandfather had planted deep within his heart.
Wuuuung.
Before long, a majestic Buddhist light flowed from his entire body, surrounding him in a warm glow.
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