Chapter 307

The moment Kwak Yeon reached the floor of the pitch-black cavern, he unleashed the Solitary Moon Illuminates Without Hindrance Technique.

SHRRRING!

His outer-body qi field spread throughout the entire cavern.

Moving slowly through the dense darkness, Kwak Yeon pushed the technique to its utmost and searched every corner of the cavern.

Yet he sensed no presence at all.

It was enough to make him feel foolish for having been so thoroughly on guard.

Granted, he had stopped several times during his descent along the cliff to search his surroundings, so the result was not entirely unexpected.

Even so, he was disconcerted to find that his prediction had been wrong yet again.

After spending the rest of the night resting among the ruined buildings, they had climbed the stone mountain at sunrise and discovered an enormous bottomless abyss at its summit, surrounded by rusted, collapsed iron fencing. Not once had anyone tried to stop them.

Kwak Yeon had therefore assumed that the hidden mastermind must have prepared some defensive measure inside the cavern.

The Wind-and-Sand Formation laid across the rocky region had been ingenious, but it was ultimately only a means of concealment.

That was why he had left the others at the entrance to the bottomless abyss and descended the cavern wall alone.

If danger awaited below, it would be easier for him to face it by himself.

Yet there was nothing amiss. It seemed he had made an unnecessary fuss.

Kwak Yeon could not make sense of the hidden mastermind’s actions.

Had they decided that merely concealing the Great Demon Prison was enough?

Had they already seized such complete control over the Demonic Eight Divisions that even the emergence of the Eight Demonic Venerables could no longer reverse the situation?

Whatever the answer, he now knew that the cavern floor was safe. It was time to signal the others, who would be waiting above in growing anxiety.

Kwak Yeon raised his head toward the cavern ceiling.

The entrance to the bottomless abyss was so impossibly high that it looked like a full moon suspended in a black sky.

Had it not been glowing blue with the color of daylight, it would have looked exactly like a full moon.

Climbing all the way back up there would take a considerable amount of inner power.

Kwak Yeon pulled the torch from his waist and ignited it with the Threefold True Fire.

FWOOSH!

The instant flames surged from the oil-soaked torch, a strange sound began to rise around him.

WOOOOOOO!

A chill ran down his spine, raising gooseflesh across his skin.

It was not the cry of a person or a beast. Nor was it a sound produced by any object.

Instinctively, Kwak Yeon knew that it came from beings that did not belong to this world.

Was this what the wailing of ghosts in the underworld sounded like?

He immediately realized that this phenomenon was the hidden mastermind’s concealed measure.

My prediction wasn’t wrong.

No one lay in ambush within the cavern, which meant this had to be a formation—one triggered by light.

Having already experienced the Wind-and-Sand Formation, Kwak Yeon admired the ingenuity of formations, but he did not consider this one especially threatening.

A formation ultimately did no more than deceive the five senses.

The ghostly wailing was already confusing his hearing. A mechanism that disturbed his sight would surely activate next.

Sure enough, blue shapes began appearing around him like phantoms.

Each one took the grotesque form of an evil ghost.

They all carried weapons, and their entire bodies were wrapped in blue radiance resembling ghostfire.

Even though Kwak Yeon knew perfectly well that they were illusions created by the formation, fear still rose within him.

More and more Ghost Generals appeared, surging up one after another until they were too numerous to count.

They must have laid down a proper formation as their final defensive measure.

Kwak Yeon watched closely, waiting to see what strange power the Ghost Generals would display.

WOOOOOOOO!

Yet even after he waited for some time, they did nothing but emit their eerie wails.

“...?”

The unexpected result left him baffled.

Why had they appeared at all if they were only going to stand there like statues?

Surely the formation was not merely intended to block the way by confusing his vision and assailing his ears, as the Wind-and-Sand Formation had.

Regardless, the Ghost Generals and their blue radiance were obstructing the path ahead.

Kwak Yeon wished he could break the formation and erase both these irritating figures and their wailing.

However, he knew virtually nothing about formations, and Jin Cheongha’s warning that one must never break a formation carelessly came back to him.

I’ll have to wait until the Young Castle Lord, who understands formations, comes down.

Kwak Yeon raised his head toward the cavern ceiling—and flinched.

The entrance to the bottomless abyss, which should have resembled a full moon, was gone.

In its place, a sinister energy that alternated constantly between blue and red churned into an enormous vortex.

WOOOOONG!

The Honwonmusang qi within Kwak Yeon surged upward.

“...!”

Only then did he abruptly realize that his mind and soul had been drawn toward the vortex.

He immediately lowered his gaze.

Kwak Yeon realized that he had been underestimating the formation.

It was the hidden mastermind’s final defensive measure. He should never have taken it lightly.

At the same time, its purpose became perfectly clear.

A Sealing Formation!

It was designed to trap intruders inside and wear down their minds and souls by throwing them into turmoil.

The statue-like Ghost Generals were not guarding anything beyond them.

They were guarding him.

Then I only have to break through.

No matter how formidable the Sealing Formation might be, it was still only a formation.

SHRING!

Although he believed the Ghost Generals to be illusions, Kwak Yeon drew the Blue-Steel Sword as a precaution.

Holding the torch in one hand and the Blue-Steel Sword in the other, he walked toward a gap between two Ghost Generals.

SWISH!

He had unquestionably stepped toward the space between them, yet a Ghost General was suddenly standing directly in front of him, blocking his way with a blade wreathed in blue radiance.

Is this another effect of the formation?

To test whether it was merely another illusion, Kwak Yeon changed direction.

SWISH!

Once again, a Ghost General’s blade barred his path.

In that case...

Without hesitation, Kwak Yeon slashed the Ghost General before him with the Blue-Steel Sword.

BOOM!

To his astonishment, the sword was thrown back with a deafening crash.

It wasn’t an illusion?

The Ghost General’s radiance flickered briefly, but it immediately returned to normal.

WOOOOOO!

Its eyes blazing with blue light, the Ghost General released another ghostly wail, almost as though it were mocking him.

Kwak Yeon was both irritated and bewildered.

He had not drawn upon sword aura because he had assumed the figure was an illusion, but the strike had unquestionably carried sword qi.

He did not know how the Ghost General had resisted even that, but he now knew that it possessed a physical form.

That also meant he could not escape the formation without breaking through the Ghost Generals.

Kwak Yeon suddenly thought of his companions.

They must have seen the torchlight and would already be making their way down the cavern wall.

Once they reached the floor, they too would become trapped within the formation.

Even his own mind was already being disturbed. The others would suffer far more severely.

I can’t allow that.

He did not know what means the hidden mastermind had used, but the Ghost Generals possessed physical bodies.

All he had to do was destroy them.

WOOOOONG!

Sword aura blazed along the Blue-Steel Sword.

KRA-BOOM!

The Ghost General was severed by the sword aura. Blue radiance poured from its body as it vanished.

At the same moment, a foul stench struck Kwak Yeon’s nose.

He did not know what caused the nauseating odor, but the realization that the Ghost Generals could be cut down brought him some relief.

There were many of them encircling him in layer after layer, but he only needed to carve a path in one direction. It should not prove too difficult.

That relief quickly vanished.

The Ghost Generals that had stood like statues began to move.

Kwak Yeon had no time to marvel at the bizarre spectacle.

SHWAK!

A blade wreathed in blue radiance thrust toward his chest.

CLANG!

The instant he knocked aside the blade in front of him with the Blue-Steel Sword, another swept toward his back.

WHISH!

Kwak Yeon turned with the Swallow-Turning Body and cut through both the blade and the Ghost General in the same motion.

KRA-BOOM!

The Ghost General was split apart by the sword aura and vanished in a burst of radiance.

Once again, the same revolting stench rose into the air.

Kwak Yeon was utterly dumbfounded.

He had never imagined that he would one day find himself fighting such unnatural ghosts.

However profound a formation might be, how could it grant physical form to apparitions resembling the dead?

He was not given long to dwell on the question.

The Ghost Generals were moving faster.

SWOOSH! SHIIK!

Kwak Yeon deflected the two blades closing in from either side with a sword form from Falling Star Myriad Transformations, then leaped toward the Ghost General thrusting its weapon at him from the front.

SHWAAANG!

Falling Star Rushing Thunder, the fifth sword form of the Falling Star Nine Swords, bisected the Ghost General.

BANG!

FLASH!

The blue radiance was washed away by the flash of White Astral Qi.

In that brief opening, three more blue blades came crashing toward Kwak Yeon.

Using Spring Light Scatters Snow of the Supreme Purity Sword, he guided all three blades aside, then swept the Blue-Steel Sword in a circle and unleashed the Seongra Heaven Sword Wall.

BOOM! BOOM! KRA-BOOM!

Three Ghost Generals were ground to pieces against the wall of sword aura erected in midair.

As their movements accelerated, the number of blades converging upon him continued to rise.

Even so, their attacks consisted of nothing more than simple thrusts and slashes, so they posed little concern.

The real problem was their sheer number—and the fact that nothing short of sword aura could destroy them.

There was another problem as well.

Lightness arts were completely ineffective against the Ghost Generals.

Whenever Kwak Yeon tried to escape with a lightness art, they invariably appeared in front of him and blocked his path.

He suspected there was a reason they moved like ghosts while maintaining their rigid, statue-like postures.

That, too, had to be one of the formation’s workings.

The more unnaturally the Ghost Generals moved, the more worried Kwak Yeon became for his companions, who were drawing closer to the cavern floor with every passing moment.

I have to cut them all down before the other three arrive.

Kwak Yeon drove the Honwonmusang qi to its utmost.

WOOOOONG!

A vast torrent of inner power and true qi raced through every meridian and major point in his body.

WHOOOOSH!

White energy gathered around him, and White Astral Qi surged from the Blue-Steel Sword.

I’ll send every last one of you back to the underworld!

Abandoning defense for offense, Kwak Yeon charged into the ranks of Ghost Generals closing around him in layer after layer.

Annihilation!

Wherever the White Astral Qi passed, the Ghost Generals’ blue radiance flickered and vanished.

Again and again, Kwak Yeon kindled white flames that extinguished their blue ghostfire.

Only one thought remained in his mind.

Every blue light he erased meant that much less danger for his companions.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BAAANG!

Blue radiance vanished cleanly in his wake, leaving only the foul stench behind as proof that it had ever existed.

Immersed in a sword dance devoid of thought and self, Kwak Yeon gradually erased himself from the blade of the Blue-Steel Sword.

As he disappeared, the formal structures of the martial arts he wielded also began to vanish.

No—they were not vanishing.

Every martial art was converging into a single form.

The Taiji Sword he had mastered through relentless training, the So Cheong Sword Art, the Supreme Purity Sword he had learned from sword formulas overheard in the True Martial Hall, the Cloud-Flow Sword, and even the Falling Star Nine Swords he had obtained through heaven’s own aid—

All of them were broken apart and made one.

Then even the sword-shape born from their union gradually began to fade.

All life arises from being; being arises from nonbeing.

Kwak Yeon had already realized that one had to disappear in order to exist.

He simply had not yet found the opportunity to let go.

Now he released his attachment to the sword-shape he had struggled so hard to comprehend.

As the sword-shape faded from his memory, Kwak Yeon realized that he himself had become the sword.

—One who awakens and becomes the sword may truly exist wherever one wills. This is what is called the Wisdom Sword.

Kwak Yeon remembered the transmitted voice of Uncheon Zhenren as he expounded the question for contemplation behind the Wisdom Sword of Taiji.

And in that moment, he knew with perfect clarity that he had attained the Wisdom Sword.