Chapter 177: Running Rampant (11)

“You said you came for your enemy?”

Eunsong asked quietly.

Ak Jupae clearly did not know exactly who his enemy was.

If he could have identified the person with certainty, there would have been no reason to cause all this commotion.

He could simply have found them.

And killed them.

He did not know.

He knew Mount Hua was responsible.

He had even learned that the culprit had used one of Mount Hua’s martial arts...

but he did not know who had learned that art.

Of course he didn’t.

That should have been the limit of what the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult could tell him.

“...Yes. My enemy.”

“Who?”

No answer came.

Eunsong narrowed his eyes.

His inference had been correct.

Ak Jupae knew only that it was a martial art of Mount Hua.

“You don’t know who it was?”

Falling Plum Elegy.

Only two people in all of history, past and present, had ever learned it.

But Ak Jupae—and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult—would know of only one.

Mount Hua’s Great Grand Master.

The great master who had created the art and personally wielded it.

Which meant the only sword marks left behind by it were centuries old.

That should have been the extent of whatever evidence the cult could present.

This time, however, Eunsong’s prediction was wrong.

Ak Jupae possessed one more piece of information.

“I don’t know? Me?”

“Then you do know who it was?”

“One of your... young disciples, isn’t it...?”

Eunsong stared directly up at Ak Jupae.

Unease filled his eyes.

“...What makes you so certain?”

The answer came not in words, but in the form of a massive arc of Saber Force.

Ak Jupae stamped down openly, force surging from him in violent streams.

Eun Jeong desperately thrust out his sword to block it, but it was not enough.

“...Brother!”

Before Eun Jeong could even shout, Eunsong was already moving.

White Sword Qi coated the cold blue blade of his Plum Blossom Sword.

He did not do anything so foolish as clash it directly against a saber wrapped in Force.

Just one step.

He stepped in and drove the sword straight toward Ak Jupae’s throat.

“...Too slow.”

It was useless.

Force gathered around Ak Jupae’s hand.

Then he caught Eunsong’s sword between his fingers.

Five fingers closed around the blade.

And that was not the end of it.

Ak Jupae tightened his grip and snapped the Sword Qi-coated blade in two.

CLANG—!

The sword broke in half with a clear, ringing note.

The Sword Qi shattered with it.

Eunsong barely managed to keep hold of the weapon...

but his palm was torn open, blood running down the broken blade.

If anything, he was fortunate the sword had broken.

Had Ak Jupae kept hold of it, there was no telling what would have happened next.

Black flames of Force were burning around that hand as well.

“...Ha.”

It was true that Ak Jupae had not advanced beyond the early stage of the Transformation Realm.

But apparently, when he accepted Demonic Energy and all but discarded his internal energy, he had gained some strange ability in return.

He could now manifest Force formed from Demonic Energy through his entire body.

Even with his bare hands.

It was absurd.

Even Eun Jeong could only manifest Sword Force through his sword. He could not summon Fist Force as well.

Simply being capable of producing Force did not mean one could produce it from anywhere one wished.

Force was a bundle of energy compressed and woven together to an extraordinary degree.

A brilliant radiance born from the harmony of one’s Heart Method, martial art, and internal energy.

It was common sense that the form of Force one could manifest depended on the martial arts one had learned.

Yet standing before them was a man who denied that very common sense.

A man closer to a monster than a human being, who had offered body and soul to Demonic Energy for the sake of resentment and revenge.

Even his once massive, powerful frame had withered away.

His formerly straight back had hunched until there was something grotesque about his posture.

His Force had turned black, and only a cold, piercing gleam remained in his eyes.

Eunsong understood that state all too well.

Only resentment and revenge were still holding Ak Jupae’s sense of self together.

Once those were gone...

he would let go of everything else as well.

Including himself.

And then a fallen Demonic Beast at the Transformation Realm would be born.

A disaster.

A Transformation Realm master of the Demonic Arts was already a disaster in his own right...

but if such a person became a Demonic Beast, lost all reason, and began tearing into everything around him according to animal instinct—

they might be able to subdue him.

Perhaps even kill him.

But there would undoubtedly be casualties.

Above all, most of the Branch Family disciples gathered here serving as guards would die.

And for now, Ak Jupae was likely still keeping his Demonic Energy under control for the sake of his revenge.

If a Demonic Human at the Transformation Realm deliberately unleashed his Demonic Energy into the surroundings...

every martial artist below the Apex Realm would eventually lose their reason.

They would be swallowed by the madness contained within the Demonic Energy.

Eun Jeong and Ak Jupae withdrew their Force-wreathed weapons and moved far apart.

A lull settled over the confrontation.

Eunsong used the opportunity to gesture for the Branch Family disciples to retreat.

It would be better for them to go back up Mount Hua.

Inside the temple grounds, the Sect Leader could protect them.

No matter how mad Ak Jupae was, he would not willingly face two Transformation Realm masters at once.

And by now, the sect should already be deciding which experts to send down.

They had to buy time somehow.

“...I don’t understand what you mean, Senior Ak.”

“It doesn’t matter. Where is she?”

“Who are you referring to?”

Black light streamed from Ak Jupae’s eyes.

It was Viciousness brought to a terrifying pitch, a glare formed entirely from Demonic Energy.

Then came a thunderous roar.

A lion’s roar.

“CHEON SOYAK—!!!!!!!”

The shout was so powerful it seemed capable of shaking the clouds apart.

Eunsong and Eun Jeong hurriedly circulated their internal energy to protect their ears, hearts, and minds.

It was a lion’s roar powerful enough to strike the entire body at once.

A righteous martial technique twisted by Demonic Energy until it was little different from the roar of a Demonic Beast.

The entire mountain seemed to tremble beneath it.

It was no illusion.

That truly was a roar meant to call forth a long-hated enemy.

Ak Jupae remembered as well.

The journey to the Shandong Ak Family.

The time he had traveled with Cheonjeong and Cheon Soyak.

It was hateful.

They had never become particularly close, but that girl had killed his son and then remained at his side.

She had even enjoyed safety under his protection.

How could a person do such a thing?

“...And what proof do you have that she is your enemy?”

Eunsong narrowed his eyes.

It was the most natural thing in the world for a master to protect his disciple.

“...They said it was an ancient martial art.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Senior Ak.”

“And that ancient martial art... once appeared outside the Mount Hua Sect.”

Only then did Eunsong understand how Ak Jupae had learned all of this.

After the War of the Righteous and Demonic, when Mount Hua rewarded Soyak’s father, the Black Plum Sword Lord—

they had granted him the Harmonization Scripture, the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge, and Falling Plum Elegy.

Neither the information nor the event had ever been treated as particularly secret.

From that, the Demonic Cult had found the name of Falling Plum Elegy, which had appeared in the world for a second time.

Then they had identified the sole survivor of the Flower-Halo Sect who had received those three sacred treasures.

Cheon Soyak.

Cold sweat ran down Eunsong’s back.

*****

Within the haze of her consciousness, Cheon Soyak was organizing the insights she had gained.

The years in closed-door training had been precious.

She had thought she understood herself.

She had not.

She had thought she understood her martial arts to some extent.

She had not.

Soyak’s small body was unmistakably floating in midair.

Three different sources of light slowly revolved above her head...

and around them, lotuses formed from thin veils of energy bloomed into existence.

Some of the baby fat had left her face, but her appearance had otherwise changed little.

She had grown taller, but by less than half a span, so the difference was hardly noticeable.

It was only natural.

She had spent three years eating nothing but fasting pellets, without touching so much as meat or anything with the warmth of cooked food, during the very years when she should have been growing the most.

But the insight contained within that small, slender body was the real thing.

Soyak slowly opened her eyes.

Then she lowered herself to the ground.

After three years of training, the soles of her shoes had long since worn through and split apart.

Barefoot, Soyak slowly planted her feet on the floor and reached toward the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

A fine thread of energy shot toward the long, slender divine sword and attached itself to it.

She lightly crooked a finger.

The sword flew into her hand.

She had drawn an object through empty space.

A Transcendent Apex master could, of course, imitate such a feat by expending an enormous amount of internal energy.

But Soyak had not used even a trace of internal energy.

She had truly entered the Transformation Realm.

And with that transformation, her perception had been honed and opened even further.

Enough that, from within this distant, secluded, sealed cave—

she could sense the roar of the lifelong enemy calling her name.

Soyak drew the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

Brilliant Sword Force spread over the black gleam of its blade.

And it was unmistakably...

Sword Force belonging to a realm that had been solidly and completely attained.