Chapter 495 ·The Old Man of the Mountain (2)

Rashid threw himself backward in desperation.

He swung his short blade roughly to shove away the cold woman's palm, deflected the red-haired one clinging to him like a venomous insect with his left hand, then flipped his body backward just barely enough to dodge the arrow.

Using the momentum, he planted both hands on the dirt and launched into a sweeping breakdance kick, barely knocking the two women back as they rushed him again.

When Rashid rose to his feet, blood trickled faintly from the corner of his mouth.

He'd strained himself too hard fending off the two women and taken internal damage.

But he didn't even have a second to catch his breath before the two women continued their coordinated assault again.

TWANG!

And right on cue, that damn arrow rocketed straight for his head.

Rashid refused to accept this.

He was not some disposable pawn mass-produced by the Brotherhood of Purity.

wasn't some brainwashed fake strung out on women and drugs.

He was a sincere devotee of Allah. A true blade forged to slaughter the infidels.

He had studied martial arts directly under the Old Man of the Mountain.

He was the man everyone believed would inherit the mantle.

There was a junior disciple breathing down his neck for the spot, but he had never even entertained the thought of actually losing it.

So how the hell was he getting pushed to the brink of death by three random bitches?

'It's her.'

His gaze locked onto Jeong Hyeon, the one who'd been targeting him with arrows this entire time.

As long as he killed her, the other two would lose any way to track him.

Rashid slipped into his ghost-like footwork once again to rush toward Jeong Hyeon.

Well, he tried to.

SWOSH!!

Like a mosquito that wouldn't die, her arrow chased him again.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Using the arrow as a pointer, Jin Hayeon easily tracked him down and unleashed a twin palm strike on him.

"Kugh…"

With every exchange, Jin Hayeon’s Yin Qi burrowed deeper.

Finally, a thin groan escaped him.

Even as that happened, Jin Hayeon kept alternating palm after palm without pause.

SWOSH!!

"DIE!!"

And right on cue, the arrow and the ferocious red-haired woman dove right back in for the kill.

***

While the three women cornered their opponent, Il-mok cast a brief glance in their direction and let out a soft sigh.

"Haah."

Looks like he didn't need to step in; the girls were more than capable of putting that guy in the dirt on their own.

However, his sigh was not one of relief.

'The Old Man of the Mountain is the problem.'

Il-mok still had his Force Qi Armor wrapped around his entire body as he scanned his surroundings.

But finding the Old Man's presence was still impossible.

At the same time, he couldn't just stand here burning fuel while waiting for the Old Man to make the first move. 

While it wasn't on the level of the World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm, Force Qi Armor still devoured internal energy at a vicious rate.

Worse, playing purely defensive meant the girls might get killed.

The Old Man had been targeting only him so far, but there was no guarantee that would continue since Rashid was in danger now.

'Damn it. If this were open ground…'

Then there'd be nothing to think about.

He'd just fire off miniature World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palms in rapid succession and scorch everything flat.

But using it here would annihilate not just the Old Man, but everyone nearby.

As Il-mok lamented the unusability of his trump card, something else surfaced in his mind.

‘Right. I just need to use something that won't cause friendly fire.’

The moment his thoughts settled, the Force Qi Armor wrapped around his body vanished like a mirage. Instead, a terrifying amount of Qi began funneling directly into his Ascension Sword.

Il-mok raised the charged blade into the air and the gathered energy burst outward before scattering in all directions.

The Heavenly Net Sword.

It was an old favorite of his.

A technique inspired by the ancient proverb ‘Heaven's net is vast and wide, yet nothing slips through.’

'If I can't find him, I'll trap him in a net.'

He was going to flood the entire area with Sword Qi and leave the Old Man nowhere to hide.

But he couldn't just cast it carelessly.

Uncontrolled threads might slice through the girls instead.

He controlled every single one of the hundred-plus Qi threads spreading outward and deliberately put half of them toward the women's vicinity in case the Old Man chose to strike there.

While the net of Qi rippled and swayed back and forth, Il-mok clicked his tongue in disappointment.

The net was too loose. 

There was no way he could cover the entire block with just a hundred threads.

The Old Man of the Mountain must have been weaving and dodging while remaining in stealth since he hadn't snagged on the Qi net at all.

Il-mok pumped out even more Qi to the technique and countless new threads continuously bloomed and spread from his sword.

Right at that moment, the dull sound of impact reached his ears.

Rashid had finally reached his limit, and Jin Hayeon's right palm had slammed into his abdomen.

"Gkh…"

As the assassin staggered, Seon-ah took the opportunity to dig into his side.

Meanwhile, Jeong Hyeon's arrow punched through his forehead.

"Cough!"

Immediately after, Jeong Hyeon vomited a handful of blood.

"Sit down and circulate your Qi! Now!"

Jin Hayeon barked the order and rushed toward her, and Seon-ah did the same.

While Jeong Hyeon dropped into the lotus position to regulate her Demonic Art, the two women stood guard over her.

Now that he didn't have to worry about the girls moving around and accidentally walking into his tripwires, Il-mok unleashed his Qi threads without any restraint.

As he packed more and more threads into the space, the net stopped looking like a web and started looking like a suffocating blanket.

Il-mok's head felt like it was on fire.

The sensation of splitting his awareness into thousands of fragments at once made his consciousness a blur.

‘Did I get too fixated on compression?’

Sword Qi. Sword Force. Force Qi Armor. World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm. Soul-Annihilating Primordial Sword Thunder.

Every technique he'd mastered focused on compressing energy.

Maybe because he was in unfamiliar territory, scattering his Qi felt twice as difficult as compressing it.

Right at that very moment, a cluster of threads about three meters to his left was sheared away all at once.

Strangely, there was nothing there.

Snap!

But Il-mok didn't hesitate.

He seized every thread spread across the area and pulled them inward.

Trying to coordinate thousands of threads at once triggered a skull-splitting migraine.

But it wasn't wasted effort.

Slash!

As the swirling vortex of Qi threads was rapidly sliced apart from the inside, the outline of the Old Man of the Mountain finally started to come into view.

Tap!

Il-mok launched himself forward and swung the Ascension Sword.

BOOM!!

Right after the explosion, an annoyed click of the tongue cut through the dust.

"Tch."

The Old Man's grandfatherly smile had hardened.

For the first time, he looked like the killer he was.

Who knew if he was pissed off because his precious stealth trick got broken, or because his favorite student just died?

Clang!

Sparks flew as the Ascension Sword and the short blade slammed into each other again.

Thud!

Fists and legs collided in a blur and they traded five exchanges at a speed most masters couldn't even follow with their eyes.

Then the Old Man seized the rebound and retreated, swinging his blade through empty air as he went to vanish again.

Just like before, the Old Man's existence was completely erased.

Il-mok shouted first. "Don't step in! Stay there and guard Miss Jeong!" 

But weirdly enough, Il-mok didn't cast the Heavenly Net Sword again.

Instead, he closed his eyes.

When he'd pushed the Heavenly Net Sword to its limit moments ago, something had nagged at him. That sensation of controlling thousands of Qi strands and sweeping them across space had triggered something in his memory.

"Huuu…"

With his eyes shut, Il-mok pushed his concentration to its absolute limit.

Slowly, his will and martial intent began to bleed outward in every direction.

He began to recall every technique that uses will to harm enemies like the Mind Sword and the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Stride.

When he'd pushed the Heavenly Net Sword to its extreme a moment ago, Il-mok had suddenly recalled the sensation he felt when he knocked out the Lord of Herat with his will alone.

Once he connected those two distinct sensations, enlightenment came rushing into his mind like a tidal wave.

Slowly, he continued to spread his will and martial intent outward.

'This isn't enough.'

It wasn't a matter of how far it spread; but rather how dense it was.

Simply feeling his surroundings was insufficient.

He needed to bring every place his consciousness touched under his absolute dominion.

It was then that a specific memory flashed through Il-mok's mind.

It was the day his late Master showed him the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step for the very first time.

He remembered watching hundreds of nomads suddenly foam at the mouth and drop dead just because his late Master took a single step forward.

He remembered how his late Master looked like an actual god who held the power of life and death over everything his will touched.

The Territorialization of Willpower. 

Or rather, establishing a Domain of Willpower.

Using that memory as a guide, Il-mok flooded the area with his will.

Normally, the only thing a human being can control purely with their mind is their own body.

But Il-mok could feel it.

Slowly, the territory he could govern through will alone was expanding.

In a matter of seconds, Il-mok's massive Domain swallowed the three women. 

He could intuitively sense Jeong Hyeon's condition as she circulated her Demonic Art.

He could tell that Jin Hayeon was quietly using Yin Qi to expel the poison inside her even when her face showed nothing.

He could sense all of these through his Domain as if it were an extension of his own body.

He also knew with certainty that he could kill them with a single thought if he wished it.

Then his expanded Domain brushed against something else entirely.

The sensation was nothing like when it had enveloped his companion.

He understood instantly.

It was someone else's Domain.

No matter how much intent he poured against it, whatever existed within that Domain could not be harmed by his will alone.

But that didn't matter.

"Found you."

Il-mok's eyes snapped open.

He exploded toward the spot where the two domains met and swung the Ascension Sword wreathed in Sword Force.

RIP!!!

Even though it looked like he was just slashing at thin air, Il-mok’s brain registered the distinct sensation of cutting through something.

CLANG!!

With a clash of steel, the Old Man was forced into view.

The old man's eyes were bulging out of his skull in disbelief.

"H-how…?"

Il-mok didn't speak Arabic, but the look on the Old Man's face told him everything he needed to know.

"Go ask the King of Hell."

And the Ascension Sword came at the Old Man again.

CLANG!!

As their weapons collided with explosive force, the Old Man tried to use his old trick again to vanish out of pure reflex, but thanks to his new understanding of willpower, Il-mok could now vaguely grasp the true intent hidden within that previously incomprehensible movement.

‘He's severing his connection to the world.’

The act of severing one's very existence from this world.

It was a physically impossible feat, but not very surprising or strange either.

The World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm worked on a similar principle.

It was a technique that forced two mutually destructive and opposing energies to coexist through the power of will alone.

That was why Il-mok could only understand it vaguely.

And he knew right away that he couldn't replicate it.

At the end of the day, you could only use willpower on concepts you could perfectly manifest in your own mindscape.

Unless one had reached the absolute pinnacle of concealment arts, that technique could not be copied.

But it didn't matter

He did not need to copy it.

Since he already knew what it took to break the stealth trick, Il-mok found the Old Man's domain without difficulty.

Rip!

He swung the Ascension Sword toward it again.

As his conceptual veil was ripped to shreds for a second time, the Old Man stared at Il-mok in disbelief.

"Don't tell me, you’ve reached the same realm as the Grand General?!”