Chapter 180: Running Rampant (14)

Ak Jupae could no longer say a word.

His upper body had been severed on a diagonal.

Which meant his lungs had been cut apart with it.

Without the ability to draw breath, he could not speak.

He could not even make a choking sound.

Soyak slowly looked down at his collapsing body.

Ak Jupae’s diagonally severed torso rolled across the ground.

His legs twitched a few times, and those black eyes glared up at Soyak, but...

That was all.

“...This is the price for your sins, Flame-Saber Lord.”

Not a single drop of blood stained the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

Every trace of it had been driven from the blade by the Force surrounding it.

Ak Jupae struggled to make one final attempt.

To turn himself into a Demonic Beast.

But it was impossible.

Even the Demonic Energy that had been circulating through the meridians of his entire body was fading now, no longer obeying his will.

The blackened veins bulging around his eyes, even the eyes that had turned utterly black...

All of them returned to normal.

His expression twisted hideously.

Enough to make even a rakshasa or yacha give him a wide berth.

Soyak merely looked down at him.

The reason his Demonic Energy no longer obeyed him was simple.

His upper body had been cleanly separated from his lower half.

There was nothing left connecting his brain to his dantian.

A severed limb could not be moved.

And neither could a dantian contained within a severed lower body.

No matter how incomprehensible Demonic Energy might be, no matter that it was a power that had flowed into this land from “outside”...

Humans still stored it in their dantian and used it from there.

The light slowly faded from the Flame-Saber Lord’s eyes.

Perhaps he was experiencing one final flash of clarity before death.

Perhaps his life was passing before his eyes.

But he could do nothing.

Neither his dantian nor his voice would obey him.

Blood poured out of his body at a terrifying rate.

With his wrist severed, he could not even seal his acupoints to stop the bleeding.

An enemy dying in silence.

Of course, Ak Jupae was only the “right-hand man” of Soyak’s true enemy.

The man she truly had to kill, the one whose death would bring it all to an end, was Sword Sovereign Namgung Ak.

And yet...

She had no intention of denying that this death carried a weight of its own.

Soyak slowly sheathed the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

The sound of the sword sliding into its sheath was the only thing that echoed across the foot of Mount Hua.

Ak Jupae’s eyes...

No longer moved.

There was no life left in them.

The faint gleam lingering in his pupils was nothing more than reflected sunlight.

“...I cannot pray for your peaceful rest.”

Even so, Soyak closed Ak Jupae’s eyes.

Then she slowly rose and turned toward Eun Jeong and Eunsong.

Toward the countless Branch Family disciples staring at her.

And...

Toward her Eldest Brother, hurrying down from the Daoist halls high above on Mount Hua.

“Soyak!”

It was Cheonjeong.

He was in such a rush that he misplaced his steps several times and nearly tumbled down the mountain.

Fortunately, he managed to land safely on solid ground.

It was his youngest junior sister, whom he had not seen in three years.

Even at fourteen, she had never been the sort of child anyone would call cute.

She had spent her childhood going hungry, so there had never been much childish softness to her face.

And calling her personality friendly would have been an even greater stretch.

That had not changed.

Living on nothing but fasting pellets had not done much for her height, either.

Had she grown even half a span?

Her arms and legs were still slender.

Her black eyes were still cold and severe.

And perhaps because she had trimmed it herself from time to time, even her hair remained almost the same length.

And yet...

Something about her was different.

It was not merely that her cultivation had risen.

Of course, the presence she carried now, born of both her accumulated internal energy and the realm she had reached, was unmistakably mature, but...

There was a world of difference between the early and late teenage years.

“...Eldest Brother. It has been a long time.”

The greeting itself might have sounded cold.

But warmth spread through Cheonjeong’s chest.

Because Soyak was smiling as she said it.

Brightly.

It was pure, heartfelt joy at seeing him again.

“Have you been well?”

“How could I have been well inside a cave?”

Soyak gazed silently up at the sky.

Having gone so long without sunlight, her already pale skin had become even whiter.

Like freshly fallen snow.

“Anyone who saw you might think you came from the Northern Sea Ice Palace.”

“With black hair and black eyes? How would that make any sense?”

Soyak returned his joke in kind, then looked down at Ak Jupae’s cooling corpse.

She pointed toward the guard still sitting on the ground.

“Could you have this taken care of?”

“T-take care of the corpse? How exactly should we handle it...?”

“...Clean it properly, prepare it for burial, and send it to the Shandong Ak Family Branch Estate.”

Soyak answered while glancing at Eunsong.

Eunsong nodded as well.

“Yes. If we are to observe proper principle, that is what should be done.”

“I think so too.”

“And you have no greeting for your Master?”

Eunsong grinned and chided her playfully.

Soyak slowly turned to him and offered an exceedingly formal cupped-fist salute.

“Your inadequate disciple, Cheon Soyak, has completed three years of closed-door training and returned to greet her Master.”

“Good.”

Without the slightest trace of hurt, Eunsong returned the salute.

Eun Jeong was smiling behind him as well.

The guards hurried over and began gathering the remains.

They took the broken saber with them too.

Ordinarily, the corpse of a dead Demonic Human would still be saturated with Demonic Energy, making it dangerous even to touch.

If someone of lower cultivation handled such a body, the Demonic Energy could corrode both body and mind until they were ruined.

Ak Jupae’s corpse was different.

The power of Soyak’s Harmonization Scripture had evaporated every last trace of Demonic Energy remaining within him in an instant.

Not only from his corpse.

Not even a wisp of Demonic Energy remained anywhere nearby.

“More importantly, you truly returned having reached the Transformation Realm.”

“...They were only small realizations.”

“When modesty reaches that level, the world calls it deception.”

Soyak lowered her eyes, visibly unsure how to respond, and Eunsong burst into hearty laughter.

Then he gestured up the mountain.

“Come. Now that you have finished your closed-door training, proper etiquette says the Sect Leader should be the first person you greet.”

“Yes.”

“But how did you know to come here? Did one of the others perhaps...?”

“I’m not sure myself. I simply felt as though someone was calling my name... and the owner of that voice...”

Soyak looked toward Ak Jupae, whose body was being carried away wrapped in clean white cloth.

Eunsong considered that in silence for a moment, then nodded.

“Sometimes fate leads people where they need to go.”

“...Perhaps that was it.”

“Or perhaps it was something only one who has reached the Transformation Realm could sense. In any case, congratulations.”

“Th-thank you...”

It had been quite a while.

Since anyone had congratulated her like this.

Even when she reached Transcendent Apex, no one had praised her in this way.

But in a sense, that was only natural.

No one had ever doubted that Soyak would eventually reach the very heights of Transcendent Apex.

Not even Eunsong.

The Transformation Realm was different.

No one had been certain she would reach it.

Much less at seventeen.

This exceeded every expectation by an absurd margin.

And she had not merely stepped into the early stage of the Transformation Realm.

She had reached its middle stage, capable of forming complete, solid Force along her blade.

The same realm once attained by Elder Jeonggang, the Mount Hua Sword Emperor who had passed his strength on to her.

Of course, their experiences were different, as were the lives they had lived. It would be impossible to claim that Soyak was already the equal of Jeonggang in the days when he had been called the Mount Hua Sword Emperor.

Even so, there was something deeply symbolic about it.

The lofty realm once reached by the man who had transferred everything he had to her through cross-body power transfer...

Soyak had climbed all the way back to it herself.

Soyak, Eunsong, Eun Jeong, and Cheonjeong slowly made their way up Mount Hua.

They did not use Lightness Arts.

They climbed one step at a time.

Asking another martial artist about their insights was normally considered discourteous, but...

None of them could contain their curiosity.

How had she reached this realm?

Had there been some rare opportunity, some decisive moment, some particular insight?

Soyak held nothing back. She told them everything she had thought about and everything she had realized.

It did not help much.

Because they already knew all of it.

“...There was nothing nearly as extraordinary as I expected.”

“Eldest Brother, the truly extraordinary things are the ordinary ones. The obvious things are the hardest to actually live by.”

“What does that even mean...?”

She had already explained it three times.

Soyak shrugged and tried a fourth.

“If people respected those above them, showed kindness to those below them, treasured their friends, lived righteously, cultivated themselves inwardly, and gave generously to others... then everyone would become a sage and virtuous exemplar. But the world isn’t full of sages and virtuous exemplars, is it?”

“...I’m asking what that has to do with anything.”

“...It just does.”

Soyak gave up on explaining it a fifth time.

They were almost at Mount Hua’s main hall.

Eunsong, however, seemed to have gained something from her words. He remained lost in thought, turning them over again and again.

Once they passed the main hall, the Red Tile Pavilion would be just ahead.