Chapter 145: The End of Childhood (4)

In life, Eunbyeok’s realm had reached the middle stage of Transcendent Apex.

But now he was only a corpse without a will.

A cold body, nothing more.

Because something that had been dead for quite some time had been raised again, even the internal energy he had possessed in life was gone.

“......You cannot test me with something like this.”

Soyak murmured in a low voice.

Eunbyeok’s corpse tried to say something, forcing its stiff jaw open.

But opening its mouth would not make words come out of a throat that had rotted away.

And Soyak showed him no mercy.

This time, she had to give him a proper funeral and let him rest.

To do that...

She needed to subdue Eunbyeok completely, now that he had become a moving corpse.

CHARRRRR—!

The clashing swords slid past each other at an angle.

Eunbyeok’s blade swept just barely over Soyak’s head.

Soyak lowered her body as she was.

And cut through Eunbyeok’s ankle.

SHNK—!

Cold, hardened muscle.

Bones already dried out.

The sensation of her sword tip touching and passing through was different from cutting a human being.

Soyak made full use of Sword Qi.

This living corpse might be able to manifest Sword Light, but it could not reproduce Sword Qi.

And perhaps because of that...

Eunbyeok’s sword had been badly chipped from the clash just now.

“Master!”

At Soyak’s call, Eunsong gripped his sword and leaped in as well.

With Eunbyeok’s current realm, internal energy, and level of skill...

Even Eunsong could handle him.

But the corpse stubbornly aimed only at Soyak.

Whether Eunsong drew his sword and charged in or not...

It raised its sword tip toward Soyak and lunged.

Attacks with no regard for its own body.

“......How vile.”

It was something he could do because the body belonged to someone else.

All the more because it was a living corpse.

It was no different from insulting and defiling the dead.

Soyak thought the same thing Jeonggang did.

Eunbyeok had not been kind.

He had not been just.

He had not been admirable.

But if someone asked whether he deserved to have even his corpse insulted like this after dying in terrible pain...

Cheonju and Cheonhwa would probably shake their heads too.

After all, the marrow-cleansing he had given them had been real, and in any case, it would help them survive in the martial world.

If one asked whether that act could be judged as wholly evil...

There were people who were desperate to receive that very same marrow-cleansing and could not.

Though he had given them pain and tears...

It was also true that he had given them strength and ability.

“Is it enough for you to use a living corpse like this?”

Soyak asked in a low voice.

But the living corpse’s rotten vocal cords still could not produce sound.

It merely nodded its head.

Soyak felt some place inside her heart turn cold.

The Demonic Cult’s Young Cult Leader.

That was the kind of person he was.

And in that instant, Soyak’s sword, which had been radiating the brilliance of Sword Qi, drew a strange trajectory.

CLANG—!

From the clash a moment ago, Eunbyeok’s sword was badly chipped.

Soyak struck that weakness again, exactly as it was.

Sword Qi, holding fierce light and an unfathomably sharp edge, dug into the same place once more.

And this time...

Eunbyeok’s sword could not withstand Soyak’s Sword Qi and finally broke.

No—more precisely, it would be right to say it had been cut.

Eunbyeok’s blade, split in half, flew through the air and stabbed into the ground.

Soyak slashed across Eunbyeok’s open, empty chest in a crossing stroke.

For that instant, the living corpse stopped moving.

Because its upper body had been cut into four pieces, severing every connection point between its muscles.

Soyak swung her bloodless sword as if shaking off blood.

Then she returned the blade to its sheath.

The living corpse of Eunbyeok, unable to move an inch, collapsed in pieces.

But there was a reason a living corpse was called a living corpse.

It did not die by ordinary means.

Eunbyeok’s corpse, split into six pieces including the severed ankle...

Crawled toward itself, trying to stick back together again.

Soyak frowned.

Something like this had never happened before.

The true qi of the Harmonization Scripture was the natural enemy of all immortality and undying existence.

In other words, immortals who regenerated through Demonic Energy were supposed to lose that immortality before Soyak’s internal energy.

“......How badly must he have been steeped in Demonic Energy?”

But Eunbyeok did not die so easily.

Only then did Soyak realize that the Demonic Energy dwelling in Eunbyeok was far greater, deeper, and more vicious than she had imagined.

An ordinary level would not be enough.

Then she only needed to pour in something beyond that “ordinary level.”

She drew a deep breath, and internal energy surged up from her dantian once more.

The sleeves of her white martial uniform fluttered in the rushing pressure of the wind.

Her black hair, dark as bundled silk, also lifted and whipped about.

“Haa......”

With her left hand, she gripped the sheath.

With her right hand, she gripped the sword hilt.

She lowered her stance, extended her right foot, and settled her weight on her left.

Then she poured her internal energy into Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

If it were any ordinary sheath, it would have been natural for it to split and burst apart, unable to withstand Sword Qi.

But Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge’s sheath was different.

Even though fathomless Sword Qi must have been filling it from within, outwardly it was still and silent.

As though...

All the power that had been suppressed inside it would be unleashed in a single instant.

The moment the thing tried to rise again...

Soyak drew Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge from its sheath.

A wave of internal energy, concentrated to an unfathomable degree, poured out as it was.

It was...

Though incomplete, almost like Sword Force.

KIIIIIIING—!

A sharp roar rang through the air.

A precisely forged new moon of Sword Qi swept over the thing’s body.

Both Jeonggang and Eunsong widened their eyes at that unfathomable radiance.

“Grrrgh......”

That was probably the only scream a rotted, ragged throat could produce.

And the thing that toppled backward again could no longer properly rise.

Because everything from beneath its jaw to above its navel had been completely vaporized.

All that remained were its head, its wrists, and its lower body.

There was no way to connect those pieces back together.

Even if they were forcibly joined, it would not be able to move properly.

But there was a greater problem than that.

Because of the pure, unfathomable true qi of the Harmonization Scripture that Soyak had poured out, all the Demonic Energy dwelling in the corpse had been neutralized.

Eunbyeok’s scattered corpse no longer so much as twitched, cooling once again.

And Soyak set Samadhi True Flame blooming at her fingertips onto those pieces of corpse and burned them.

“......So this is the end.”

Jeonggang spoke bitterly.

Eunsong did not feel particularly pleasant either.

Eunbyeok had been a bad Brother.

An Eldest Brother who had envied and hated him and his junior brothers.

Even so...

He had never imagined Eunbyeok would meet such a miserable end.

Still less had he ever thought such an end was deserved.

“He will never be raised again.”

Looking down at the body as it turned to a handful of ash, Soyak murmured.

Everyone fell silent.

And the first person to break that quiet silence...

Was Jeonggang.

“Why are you all looking so gloomy?”

“......Great Grand Master.”

“If you sent a suffering child away so he could rest in peace, you should be glad. Now, come and have a cup of tea.”

Soyak and Eunsong both knew those words were not sincere.

But right now, they could not deny them.

Because if they did not let it pass that way, their anger might become too much to bear.

“Master.”

“What is it, Soyak?”

“The other day, you said you could not trust the Sect Leader, did you not?”

Eunsong glanced at Soyak.

Then he nodded.

“Yes. I did.”

“And now Master Eunbyeok, the Sect Leader’s disciple-grandson, has suffered a calamity.”

“......He has.”

“Then, to be honest... I think it would be right to examine the person standing in the middle of all this.”

Eunsong narrowed his eyes.

There was no logical proof.

Just because they suspected the Sect Leader, and just because something had happened to Eunbyeok, the Sect Leader’s disciple-grandson... ℯ

Was there any guarantee that Myeonggon was involved in all of this?

But to put it another way...

He was the most suspicious.

Was he not the one positioned between them all, the eldest first-generation disciple who held the status of next Sect Leader and the senior-most disciple of Mount Hua?

There was no possible way he “knew nothing.”

Jeonggang, who had been preparing tea, heard Soyak’s words as well.

He added his own.

“It cannot be called a wild guess. Though there is no evidence, it is a hypothesis worth considering.”

“But searching someone of the senior-most disciple’s standing without proof will not be easy.”

“If one goes through proper procedures, yes.”

Eunsong’s eyes went round.

“Then how, exactly......”

“We simply sneak in. Secretly.”

Jeonggang gave a small laugh.

Eunsong froze.

Soyak’s eyes went wide.