—Kwaaang!
Kwak Yeon’s body flew into the wall of the sealed room and smashed against it.
He had blocked the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape sweeping toward his side with the So Cheong Sword Art’s sword form, Heavenly Pillar Firm and Strong, but its force was so overwhelmingly powerful that he could not withstand it.
Ghhk!
Through the excruciating pain that felt as if his bones were shattering, Kwak Yeon realized that the Martial Supreme Venerable’s force had even broken through his protective sword aura.
The pain in his flesh was not the problem.
The inner power and true qi throughout all his major points were in turmoil.
In the previous clash, his inner power and true qi had merely surged. This time, they were vibrating, losing their direction and failing to find a path.
Rather than fearing how extraordinary an Entrance-to-Divinity Realm Venerable was, Kwak Yeon raged with humiliation.
Because he thought the reason the man was toying with him, despite being able to kill him with a single sword strike, was to humiliate him.
At the boiling rage, the black energies inside his major points rose vigorously.
Uuuung!
The inner power and true qi mixed with the black energy swelled even further.
Even if I give up my bones, I’ll take at least one piece of flesh.
As Kwak Yeon rose, his eyes gleamed with an even deeper killing intent.
Sssseung!
Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak frowned as he watched Kwak Yeon raise White Astral Qi on the Blue-Steel Sword and pour killing intent from his entire body.
Kwak Yeon did not know why, but showing emotion during a duel was forbidden.
Having been waiting for an opportunity, Kwak Yeon moved.
—Shwit!
Appearing before the Martial Supreme Venerable with Body-Shifting Phantom Exchange, Kwak Yeon scattered the Cloud-Flow Sword without delay.
—Chwaaang!
The instant the Martial Supreme Venerable’s whole body was trapped within shadows of White Astral Qi—
“Even beings without life, bereft of flesh and body, still wear the bridle of desire to exist.”
Along with the Martial Supreme Venerable’s ringing shout, Kwak Yeon saw a massive wall pushing toward him.
—Kwaaang!
Kwak Yeon’s body struck the charging wall and was flung backward.
—Udangtangtang!
His body rolled several times and only stopped once it crashed into a corner of the sealed room.
“Ghhk!”
For the first time, Kwak Yeon let out a groan at the pain that felt as though his chest had been crushed.
The shock this time was so powerful that his inner power and true qi were completely shaken apart, separating into the inner sphere and outer sphere.
The black energy that had been enlarging his inner power and true qi was also in the outer sphere within his meridian points, so naturally it was being separated as well.
Only then, sunk in killing intent, did Kwak Yeon feel the high wall of the Entrance-to-Divinity Realm.
He understood why Entrance-to-Divinity masters were called Venerables and placed among those nearly divine.
To the current him, it was a wall he could not cross no matter how desperately he struggled. And that meant he could not escape death here today.
Crack!
Because Kwak Yeon did not want to meet his end in a state of submission, he somehow rose by bracing the Blue-Steel Sword he had managed not to lose against the floor.
—Kadeudeuk!
Raising his head, Kwak Yeon saw the Martial Supreme Venerable holding both hands wide open and extended.
Only then did he realize that the wall that had struck his chest had been a palm art of the Great Hand Seal.
The Martial Supreme Venerable raised one open hand toward the zenith.
“Kneel!”
Together with that thunderous command, Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak began pressing down with the hand he had raised.
—Chwararang!
Kwak Yeon saw a massive hand-shadow appear over his head and press down, but since he still had not calmed his inner power and true qi, he was forced to take the full weight of the Great Hand Seal’s hand-shape.
“Accept that principle as your foundation, and do not delay in reflection.”
With the Martial Supreme Venerable’s shout, Kwak Yeon’s inner power and true qi were suppressed as if a mountain were descending upon him.
—Deudeudeuk!
Along with it, Kwak Yeon’s body also slowly began to sink.
I will never submit!
Kwak Yeon drew up his anger toward the world and his killing intent toward the Martial Supreme Venerable, seizing the black energy that was trying to break away from him.
Uuuung!
As he had thought, the inner power and true qi that had been shrinking were assimilated into the black energy and revived.
—Taang!
Kwak Yeon raised the Blue-Steel Sword to the middle of the sky and cut the Martial Supreme Venerable’s hand-shadow.
—Kakagagang!
With a thunderous crash like an iron net being torn apart, the Martial Supreme Venerable’s hand-shadow scattered into pieces.
Once the pressure of Mount Tai crushing him vanished, Kwak Yeon straightened his body.
Huff! Huff!
Kwak Yeon breathed roughly and gathered the scattered inner power and true qi.
Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak’s eyes darkened as he watched Kwak Yeon cling to his inner demon to the very end.
“Hah. You are even less easy than I expected.”
Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak shook his head with a low sigh and said,
“Child, whatever the result of this may be, do not resent me. The one who forced me to use such means is you yourself, who has been blocking your own ears.”
Sunk inside the reason of killing intent, Kwak Yeon did not notice the profound concern contained in those words of the Martial Supreme Venerable.
He merely thought they were words adding an excuse to the act of killing him, and grew even more furious.
“I have no intention of politely offering my neck, so Alliance Leader, stop wasting your strength now.”
At Kwak Yeon’s gaze, full of killing intent, Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak nodded.
“Good. Come now. This is my final sword.”
—Shuaaaang!
When the Martial Supreme Venerable formed a sword seal with his fingers and extended it forward, a resonant hum rang out, and a vivid blue sword-shape formed in the air. It was clearly larger than before, and its blue sword aura was distinct.
Since Kwak Yeon had resolved to scatter cleanly into ash with this one exchange, he poured all his rage thus far into it.
As if responding, the black energy inside his major points surged up all at once.
Uuuung!
White Astral Qi bloomed on the Blue-Steel Sword as if the blade were about to burst apart.
It was stronger than any White Astral Qi he had ever produced, but Kwak Yeon knew it could not defeat the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape.
I’ll at least crack it.
Kwak Yeon thrust the Blue-Steel Sword toward the rushing sword-shape.
—Shuut!
At the instant the blue sword-shape was about to touch the tip of the Blue-Steel Sword—
“A pure person worries with sacred thought, and casts autumn frost upon grave error.”
Once again, the Martial Supreme Venerable’s clear voice rang powerfully through the sealed room, but Kwak Yeon let it pass this time too.
He assumed that reciting a maxim with every technique was some strange habit of the Martial Supreme Venerable.
That it was the arrogance of a Venerable, rebuking his opponent.
—Kwareureung!
White Astral Qi surging from the Blue-Steel Sword collided head-on with the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape, and a thunderous roar erupted.
Then, in an instant, Kwak Yeon’s White Astral Qi began breaking apart.
—Jjeojeojeong!
Watching fragments of White Astral Qi scatter into sparks and disperse, Kwak Yeon imagined his own end.
He had expected it, but for his White Astral Qi to break so easily.
In any case, from the moment he entered a direct contest of inner power, there was no turning back.
The instant he retreated here, the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape would pierce his heart in a flash.
Kwak Yeon had no choice but to keep drawing up inner power and true qi with a thin thread of hope and endure.
A sword-shape made solely from sword aura, without reliance on a physical object, required enormous inner power and true qi.
Therefore, if he somehow held out, the Martial Supreme Venerable would ultimately have no choice but to withdraw the sword-shape.
That did not mean he could avoid death, but he was certain he could at least wound the arrogant pride of a Venerable.
—Jjeojeojeong!
Contrary to Kwak Yeon’s expectation, however, the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape showed not the slightest sign of shrinking, and his own White Astral Qi kept breaking and diminishing.
—Jjeong!
At last, Kwak Yeon’s White Astral Qi shattered into pieces and vanished. At the same time, the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape touched the tip of the Blue-Steel Sword.
It’s over!
The Blue-Steel Sword, now nothing but a lump of steel because its sword aura had vanished, would soon shatter to pieces.
Then his hand and arm would break one after another, and his whole body would be reduced to pulp.
Shuuuk!
But the Martial Supreme Venerable’s sword-shape did not break the Blue-Steel Sword. It seeped into it.
“......!”
Kwak Yeon thought the Martial Supreme Venerable intended to make him wither to death through an internal-striking method.
Perhaps he needed to show Wudang Sect a disciple’s corpse whose four limbs were intact, or perhaps he had some other reason. What did it matter?
Twinge!
The Martial Supreme Venerable’s true qi pierced through the Blue-Steel Sword, causing a sharp pain as it broke through the center of his palm and flowed into his major points.
The direct contest of inner power and true qi had now continued inside Kwak Yeon’s own major points.
Kuung! Kuung! Kuung!
The Martial Supreme Venerable’s true qi advanced through his major points without hesitation, brutally smashing apart Kwak Yeon’s inner power and true qi as it resisted.
And that was not all. Every time it occupied a meridian point, it shattered the outer sphere lodged inside it.
Kwareung!
Naturally, even the black energies clinging to those meridian points broke apart and vanished with it.
Kwak Yeon thought Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak intended to completely neutralize him with true qi before killing him.
Otherwise, there would have been no need to deliberately break the outer spheres inside his meridian points; he would have sent the true qi straight to his dantian.
Why in the world is he forcing such a humiliating death on me?
As the Martial Supreme Venerable’s true qi advanced in that manner, one of the black energies clinging to his meridian points began to move.
It seemed to fear death like a living creature.
That black energy detached from the meridian point and retreated, and each time it passed through other meridian points, the black energies stuck there joined it.
Kwak Yeon knew the destination of the black energies was his dantian.
But the dantian was a space forbidden to external energies.
There was only one way: to accept them together with his own inner power and true qi through qi circulation.
Grrrrrr!
The black energies rampaged through his major points, howling to be let into his dantian.
Kwak Yeon assumed the black energies meant to resist from the dantian, their final stronghold.
But allowing unpurified external black energy into his dantian was an extremely dangerous thing. More than anything, it might collide with his own inner power and true qi and cause deviation.
Kuung! Kuung!
Feeling the Martial Supreme Venerable’s true qi pursuing the black energies closely, Kwak Yeon decided that worrying was useless.
So what? In the end, this will soon end in death anyway.
It was the moment Kwak Yeon used his intent to circulate qi.
“When the heart and body are bright, even in darkness, one sees the blue sky!”
At the Martial Supreme Venerable’s shout, Kwak Yeon’s mind cleared as if he had been struck by lightning.
When the heart and body are bright, even in darkness, one sees the blue sky.
It was the eight-character maxim the Supreme Patriarch had engraved on the foundation stone of Yueyang Tower.
At that instant, Kwak Yeon realized that the eight-character maxims Martial Supreme Venerable Cheol Gun-ak had shouted with every technique were not merely arrogant rebukes, but words of mind-purification.
At the same time, all those maxims connected in one unbroken chain.
All life beholds its end; only those who strive ahead may gain what remains.
Life struggles to exist because it sees that it has an end.
Thought is born from the soul’s envy; it then hastens toward the realm of desire.
If one desires beyond the shame of the soul, then falling into the extreme of that desire is inevitable.
Even beings without life, bereft of flesh and body, still wear the bridle of desire to exist.
Even beings without a body of their own, beings without life, are bound by the desire to truly exist.
Accept that principle as your foundation, and do not delay in reflection.
One must accept that principle as the basis, and must not neglect self-reflection.
A pure person worries with sacred thought, and casts autumn frost upon grave error.
A clear person worries in sacred thought and brings autumn frost down upon great error.
When the heart and body are bright, even in darkness, one sees the blue sky.
Thus, when the heart and flesh are bright together, one comes to see the blue sky even amid darkness.
Kwak Yeon suddenly realized that the Martial Supreme Venerable had not been trying to kill him.
He had been trying to strip away the black energy inside Kwak Yeon’s major points.
Kwak Yeon immediately stopped the intent of his qi circulation.
The black energies that had been mixed with his inner power and true qi and charging toward his dantian collided with it as the gates of the dantian shut.
Kwakakwang!
It was as if a massive bomb had gone off inside his major points.
From the shock, Kwak Yeon’s consciousness went dark.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter