Chapter 578

CRAAASH—!!

Explosions rang out in rapid succession.

As martial artists fought all across the sparring platform, several people stopped moving and fixed their eyes on a single spot.

They had no choice.

“Don’t run away!!!”

Fighting spirit powerful enough to fill the entire sizeable platform.

Overwhelming hard aura, along with a secret technique painted in color.

The Peng Family’s future young Family Head, born with the greatest physique in history for maximizing the strengths of his family.

Peng Dojun was drawing out every ounce of his power and making his presence known.

...He really does look like a wild boar.

Ink-black hard aura burst in every direction. At a glance, it could have been mistaken for demonic qi, but it was denser and darker than that—closer to something truly ink-black.

The energy gathering behind him even looked like an actual wild boar.

Maybe it was just my imagination. I had called him a wild boar so often that I might have finally started seeing one.

His realm has definitely risen.

I knew because I had faced him myself. We had sparred before.

Peng Dojun carried himself completely differently from how he had at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.

CRAAASH—!!!

Apparently planning to go all out from the start, he unleashed his secret technique and swung his blade.

“HOOO!”

The Heavenly Martial Body.

Overwhelming physical ability. Senses developed to such an extreme that, even without spiritual energy, he could feel spiritual force.

More than that, it was a physique optimized for martial arts. The amount of inner qi that could flow through his meridians, and the rate at which it increased, were both absurdly high.

When I had asked Peng Dojun about it before, he had said that whenever he absorbed inner qi, he could gain more than other people.

An utterly unreasonable, unfair body.

A body born certain to become an absolute master.

People used to say that, unless something extraordinary happened, the next greatest man under heaven would be Peng Dojun of the Peng Family.

But plenty of extraordinary things happened.

For some reason, after Yoo Cheongil’s death, the talents of the younger-generation prodigies meant to inherit his era had become anything but ordinary.

Peng Dojun was monstrous enough to deserve being called a monster, yet above him stood Sword Peak, the greatest of the younger generation.

And even apart from her, there were strange bastards like me, the Young Cult Leader, and plenty of others. It was a chaotic age overflowing with talents capable of defeating Peng Dojun.

Still.

Even so.

He possessed the Heavenly Martial Body.

“HAHAHAHAHA—!!!”

Peng Dojun trained and trained without rest. I had seen it myself.

That bastard cut down on sleep to train.

He accepted all the Peng Family’s support without hesitation, yet even after taking it, he never refused harsher training. He was a training addict.

Unlike me, who did it because I had no choice, he was an actual lunatic who enjoyed it.

[What a petty thing to say. Are you claiming that you train against your will?]

What was that supposed to mean? I was right. I did train against my will.

Who trains because they want to?

I did it to survive.

And then, somehow, I kept doing it.

[For someone who claims that, you train more than that Peng brat.]

I don’t sleep much by nature.

I was only making use of my spare time. That was all.

[Hmm.]

The Heavenly Demon did not say anything else after my excuse.

Was it because there was no point talking to me?

Or—

Is the Heavenly Demon focused on that fight too?

CRAAASH—!!

Explosions continued without pause.

The blade Peng Dojun swung felt like a boulder crashing down.

No, like he was swinging an enormous boulder itself.

That was proof of how dense his hard aura had become.

“...Impressive.”

“...That’s one of the orthodox faction’s younger-generation prodigies?”

The Demonic Cult’s younger martial artists voiced their admiration at Peng Dojun’s strength.

Naturally. They were not weak themselves, so they could not fail to understand how astonishing what Peng Dojun had achieved was.

The quality of Black Cloud is different from before.

Black Cloud, the Peng Family’s signature martial art.

It generated terrifying destructive force by coating the body in black blade aura.

Before, it only wrapped around him... but now it’s almost like a storm cloud.

The aura surrounding him was far from ordinary. It looked difficult to deal with.

Heavenly Sword’s response proved as much.

“...Hmm.”

He was busy widening the distance, weaving around Peng Dojun’s blade force.

Whenever Black Cloud brushed the ground, it gouged through the platform.

Its power was vicious.

At first glance, it would not have been strange to think Heavenly Sword was being completely driven back.

No.

He was not.

He isn’t being pushed back.

He was only dodging at his convenience.

Heavenly Sword’s face remained expressionless, and his breathing was perfectly steady.

Black Cloud’s momentum was heavy, but not so overwhelming that he could not evade it. Peng Dojun’s attacks were too straightforward.

The question was—

Does Peng Dojun not realize that?

Would Peng Dojun truly fail to notice while pouring out Black Cloud like that?

BOOM.

After fighting for a while, Peng Dojun stopped in the middle of the platform.

“Hey.”

He lowered his blade and spoke with a glare.

“How long are you going to keep feeling me out? Haven’t you done enough already?”

As expected. Peng Dojun had noticed.

He knew Heavenly Sword was deliberately avoiding a real fight.

“If we keep going like this, I won’t be able to face our leader.”

“Our leader?”

“...That handsome young man is their leader?”

“The Sword Saint’s inheritor? Even that giant is this strong, so then...”

Fuck.

Peng Dojun said that loudly enough to drag everyone’s attention toward me.

Why could he not have stayed quiet? Why the hell was he mouthing off like that?

“Hmm...”

Heavenly Sword looked at Peng Dojun after hearing that. Then he tilted his head and continued.

“If you want me to get serious, shouldn’t you give me a reason to? I told you before, didn’t I?”

A faint smile touched Heavenly Sword’s lips.

“The Peng Family’s martial arts are not attractive enough for me to bother taking.”

“You bastard...”

RUMBLE—!!!

Maybe the words had provoked him, because Peng Dojun’s energy grew even stronger.

What was that?

It was a feeling I had never seen from him before.

“Fine. Then I’ll show you.”

A deep grin spread across his face, baring his white teeth.

CRACK—!

Cracks began spreading across the Black Cloud wrapped around him.

WHOOOOOSH—!!!

The shattered black energy engulfed both Heavenly Sword and Peng Dojun.

The Peng Family’s secret technique was being unleashed again.

“...Mm.”

I suppressed a sigh.

Would that really work?

A faint uneasiness passed through me.

*****

-Son.

The words he had heard from childhood were simple.

-You are the Peng Family’s future.

He was the Peng Family’s future.

Because he had been born with the Heavenly Martial Body, he would surely become the greatest man under heaven.

Throughout history, the Peng Family had stood among the five great families and had never once fallen from being a renowned house.

Even so, it had never produced the greatest man under heaven.

The same was true of his grandfather, Blade God Peng Seolhyuk, who had been called the greatest genius the Peng Family had ever produced.

His grandfather, too, had carried all of the Peng Family’s hopes and been expected to become the greatest man under heaven.

But in the end, he had been outdone by Sword Saint Yoo Cheongil and failed to become one.

Yoo Cheongil, who had killed the Heavenly Demon, was the greatest man under heaven.

They said he had possessed strength worthy of being called the greatest man of all time.

Perhaps, if not for someone like him, his grandfather could have become the greatest man under heaven.

But results were results.

In the end, he was merely a failure who had not become one.

Peng Dojun respected his grandfather, but he understood that fact.

That was why he needed to be different.

I will become the greatest man under heaven.

If a man was born and took up a weapon, he ought to see the end of it.

He believed he could do it.

He had no interest in the weak and wanted to crush the strong.

He had no interest in those born in the same era as him.

They would all stand beneath his feet.

What a shame. You should not have been born in the same era as me. But you were, so what can you do?

Struggle.

Struggle all you wanted while he climbed.

He had lived carrying that arrogant thought.

And Peng Dojun had possessed the talent needed to maintain that arrogance.

Until he met her—

-Sword Peak wins!

He lost at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.

A rising talent from Mount Hua had forced him to his knees.

...Monster.

She was a monster.

She dismantled every one of his attacks and pushed him back as though it were nothing.

His strength and speed should have been greater.

In that moment, Peng Dojun had felt a wall before him.

Ha ha!

Ridiculously, he had been happy.

The wall was not merely towering above him. It was rooted beneath his feet.

And the fact that he could break through it and climb higher filled him with excitement.

Yeah. It shouldn’t be easy.

It should not be easy.

There needed to be walls like this for it to be interesting.

He had thought Sword Peak was the only wall.

The other exceptional talents were insignificant. Poison Dragon? Cloud Dragon? Meaningless. Thunder Dragon? He and Moon Dancer seemed somewhat worthwhile.

But even then, they were beneath him.

He thought he only needed to watch Sword Peak.

But there was someone worse.

There was an even greater monster.

Even now, remembering him sent chills down his spine.

Bang Seongyeon.

He was called the Moon Hero now, but back then, he had been someone without even an epithet.

Peng Dojun had only taken an interest because Bang was called the Sword Saint’s inheritor.

But the moment he saw him, goosebumps had risen all over his body.

What the hell is this bastard?

Just looking at him made Peng Dojun feel as though his knees would buckle.

An overwhelming presence pressed down on everything he possessed.

It was pressure on an entirely different level from what he had felt facing Sword Peak.

So this is...

This is the inheritor of the greatest man under heaven.

If I defeat this bastard...

This was the fortress wall blocking his road to becoming the greatest man under heaven.

He had become certain of it, and that impression had not changed even now.

It’s hard.

It was hard to keep up with him.

Every time Peng Dojun saw him, Bang had changed and grown beyond measure.

Could it be that the person destined to become the greatest man under heaven was decided from the beginning?

That pathetic thought sometimes coiled through his mind.

Not a chance.

He would break through and rise again.

Peng Dojun was that kind of man.

-It is the Peng Family’s martial arts.

That was why—

-Even what the Blade God left behind was so pathetic that I never bothered learning it. He was right.

-I’m bored. I don’t want to fight you.

He had to crush that damned bastard somehow.

The bastard who had dared to look down on both him and his grandfather.

The Peng Family’s secret technique.

He forced it into existence through the darkness.

He would create his own domain and stand atop it.

The Peng Family did not chase after things like night or moon.

Only ink-black.

Their foundation was darkness. They pursued overwhelming strength that contained nothing.

This, too, was for that purpose.

Inside a space where nothing could be seen, Peng Dojun moved.

He could see it.

The place where Heavenly Sword stood quietly.

I’ll cut him down.

He moved toward him.

He did not want to drag this out.

But then—

“I told you.”

“...!”

Heavenly Sword looked directly at Peng Dojun.

“The Peng Family’s martial arts do not interest me very much.”

CRACK—!!

BOOM—!!

The backdrop collapsed.

The secret technique Peng Dojun had created crumbled in an instant beneath Heavenly Sword’s hand.

“Is that all?”

Standing there, Heavenly Sword looked at Peng Dojun and spoke.

“...Ha.”

Peng Dojun let out a hollow laugh.

As expected.

There are plenty of monsters in this world.

But—

“Not a chance.”

He, too, was a monster.

I didn’t want to use this yet.

He had not wanted to use something incomplete.

More importantly, this was power he had been cultivating to fight Bang Seongyeon.

But he had no choice.

He wanted to land at least one solid blow on that bastard.

Peng Dojun gathered strength in his dantian.

Then—

“Black Night Heaven-Shaking Force.”

The signature martial art Peng Dojun had created himself unfolded.

A dark sky erupted into existence.