Chapter 179: Running Rampant (13)

Not a self-proclaimed genius, but a true genius acknowledged by all.

In the first place, among those who reached the Transformation Realm, very few had never been called geniuses.

Comprehension that left their peers far behind.

Absurdly high achievements.

An instinctive understanding of internal energy and martial arts...

The Flame-Saber Lord, Ak Jupae, had been almost the textbook definition of a genius.

And the years had proven it.

There were many child prodigies.

Yet scarcely a handful of them were still called geniuses once they became young adults.

There were many promising young dragons and phoenixes.

Yet after they aged beyond the ranks of young talents, barely a pinch of them continued to be called geniuses.

And even among those few grains of sand...

only one or two would ever reach the Transformation Realm.

A once-in-an-era genius.

The pride of a sect.

That was what a Transformation Realm master represented.

A supreme realm that martial artists could scarcely dare look up to, much less set their sights on attaining.

That was why Ak Jupae had been able to become lord of the Heaven-Net Platform, one of the Alliance Leader’s closest confidants, even though he had only just entered the Transformation Realm.

Even if he was merely at its early stage.

Even if his Sword Force was incomplete and had yet to settle into a perfectly solid form.

It was still something utterly beyond comparison with Sword Light or Sword Qi—a “privilege” belonging solely to the Transformation Realm.

With absolute destructive and cutting power, it could snap even a peerless treasured sword unless the weapon was protected by at least Sword Qi.

A hardness forged by man through the attainment of martial theory.

Absolutely not.

Absolutely, impossibly not.

This was not a power a girl barely into her teens could acquire simply by shutting herself inside a cave for three years.

It should have been impossible.

“...A trick.”

That was why Ak Jupae refused to believe it.

The martial world was filled with countless eccentrics and extraordinary figures.

And with more bizarre martial arts than anyone could possibly name.

Why should Mount Hua be any different?

A strange art that created the illusion of sword control.

A strange art that created the illusion of Sword Force.

Could that ancient Mount Hua library truly contain not even one such manual?

Ak Jupae already knew of the Falling Blossom Meteor Fist.

A devastating fist art whose final form could briefly call forth power one realm above the practitioner’s own.

This had to be some martial art that applied the principles of the Falling Blossom Meteor Fist to the sword.

That would explain how a Transcendent Apex martial artist could momentarily produce something resembling Sword Force.

That was the conclusion Ak Jupae reached.

And because of it, he made a fatal misjudgment.

He assumed Soyak’s paper-thin Sword Force...

was inferior to his own roaring blaze of Sword Force.

“Then come test whether it’s a trick.”

“...Let us see whether you can withstand this.”

Ak Jupae’s eyes darkened further.

The blood vessels around them bulged, then blackened as well.

Soon, flames of Force erupted so fiercely around his saber that they seemed capable of melting the blade itself.

Flame-Dragon Saber Canon, ultimate move.

Back-Scale Ignition.

The fiery breath of an enraged dragon.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you feel even the slightest regret... for killing my son?”

Soyak narrowed her eyes.

Only cold starlight gleamed within them.

Her answer was as cold as ice.

“I felt nothing.”

“...Die.”

Black, blazing Force poured down along the saber.

Everyone—

everyone—

held their breath without realizing it.

Soyak slowly lowered her sword...

then turned her wrist and slashed upward.

It was not even a formal technique.

Just a single rising cut.

Yet the violently blazing black flames of Force could not so much as brush the hem of Soyak’s clothes.

“...How?”

As though they had been denied permission to approach her.

With one swing of Soyak’s sword, the flames of Force that had seemed impossible for anyone to stop were split apart.

Severed cleanly through the middle, they faded away.

And the more they disappeared, the brighter Soyak’s sword became.

The power of the Harmonization Scripture.

Soyak’s internal energy, writhing in the form of the black qilin, was the natural enemy of all things undying and immortal.

All the more so when what it faced was Demonic Energy.

“With Demonic Energy... you cannot defeat me.”

Each time her sword moved, the fiercely blazing Force of the Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae was simply erased.

But Ak Jupae was still a genius.

Even now, after reaching the Transformation Realm, accepting Demonic Energy, and growing into middle age—

he was still a genius.

Once.

Then again.

Every time their blades met, he felt it.

I can’t win.

I’m going to die.

The terror of death stimulated Ak Jupae’s comprehension.

That dazzling genius within him, not yet entirely devoured by Demonic Energy, blossomed once more.

At the very edge of the cliff, it shone brilliantly.

“NOT YET!!!!”

The remaining flames of Force around his saber compressed.

Black.

Darker still.

They churned as though they would swallow every trace of light in the world.

And then...

at last, they solidified into the shape of the Flame-Dragon Saber he had once wielded.

He had crossed a wall within his realm.

A feat that was difficult every single time—more difficult than advancing from Transcendent Apex into the Transformation Realm itself.

He had not done it deliberately.

Soyak had shown him how she “compressed” her Sword Force.

So he had simply tried to do the same.

That idea and opportunity, combined with the desperation of being driven to the edge of death, had stimulated his genius-level comprehension.

Yet Soyak’s eyes remained cold.

“I won’t give you an honorable death.”

CLAAANG—!!!

A strange sound rang out.

Ak Jupae’s descending saber, wrapped in Force, collided with Soyak’s rising Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge...

and snapped apart.

Ak Jupae saw it clearly.

Soyak’s Sword Force, compressed so densely that it almost resembled Sword Light—

cut through his dark, black Sword Force like tofu and reached the saber itself.

A weapon deprived of the protection of Force was helpless before it, no matter how extraordinary a treasured saber it might be.

Soyak continued her swing without the slightest hesitation.

And the Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae’s saber broke in half.

“NOT YET!!!!!”

But Ak Jupae did not give up.

He was fifty years old this year.

There had been times when he had been pushed back in battle.

There had been times when his weapons had broken.

And yet he had survived until now.

To survive meant to overcome.

It meant killing the opponent and escaping death.

Ak Jupae had no doubt that this time would be the same.

Force surged from the saber whose blade had been reduced to half its length.

A saber blade formed entirely from pure Force.

Though it had grown from the remaining physical blade as its root...

it would not have been wrong to call nearly half of it a saber created from internal energy alone.

Soyak frowned.

Creating a weapon from internal energy alone and wielding it—

that was not a technique permitted to the Transformation Realm.

Sword Qi and Sword Force were “extensions” of a weapon.

They could extend what already existed, making it longer or larger.

But they could not fill in what was missing and create something where nothing existed, as he had just done.

This could rightly be called a momentary miracle born from genius.

Even if the Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae survived today, he would probably find it difficult to reproduce.

Even Soyak, as she was now, could not create such a thing.

But being unable to use the same technique did not mean she could not defeat it.

Ak Jupae’s vision had already narrowed.

He was obsessed with somehow restoring his broken saber, maintaining the weapon, and defeating Soyak with the Force he had compressed into completion.

He caught the saber that had been knocked away by her rising slash and brought it down again.

But Soyak’s sword had already risen into a high guard.

And that stance...

was the opening posture of the technique that had killed his son.

Falling Plum Elegy, First Form.

A Fallen Blossom’s Fleeting Glory.

A falling flower—the brilliance of its single fleeting moment.

Soyak stepped diagonally aside.

A flash flickered from her fingertips.

The technique that had taken Ak Seowon’s life...

this time took Ak Jupae’s wrist.

His saber spun through the air, its flames dying away.

Dark crimson blood burst in every direction.

Dark red plum blossoms bloomed in scattered spots.

Ak Jupae’s face twisted.

Blackened veins bulged across it as though spreading over his entire face.

Because he knew that sword path.

The sword path he had spent years searching for.

The sword path that had killed his son.

“So it really was you—!!!”

“I don’t need your understanding.”

And from the hands of Soyak, who had now reached the Transformation Realm...

the second form of Falling Plum Elegy emerged after an absence of countless years.

A sword path that had never once appeared in the world since it was last wielded by Mount Hua’s Great Grand Master and founding ancestor.

Falling Plum Elegy, Second Form.

Blossoms Know No Proper Path.

There is no correct path by which a flower must bloom.

Nor is there any proper road that the branches of a flowering tree must follow.

Just as the Great Way has no gate.

The sword path of Falling Plum Elegy, executed through the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge with the internal energy of the Harmonization Scripture.

With all three elements finally united, Blossoms Know No Proper Path revealed its true power.

Through the tip of her sword, Soyak felt both lightness and heaviness.

Freedom and constraint.

Whatever the direction.

Whatever the place.

Wherever Soyak chose to swing, her sword would move lightly while carving out a heavy path.

It would trace that path freely—

and advance where no one else could intrude.

SHRAAAK—!!!

Before the severed wrist and saber had even struck the ground—

Soyak’s second form carved diagonally upward, deep across Ak Jupae’s chest.