Chapter 236 : Using the Fake to Confuse the Real (3)
Chapter 236: Using the Fake to Confuse the Real (3)
The sight of Sewoon casually lifting a great axe—nearly the same size as his own body—with one hand was utterly unreal.
But what was even more unreal was the death of Seo Dongtak, his eyes bulging wide as he lay trapped within ice.
‘…That infamous Taehosan-gun Seo Dongtak, taken down in a single technique?’
‘Can that even be called a single technique?’
‘A master said to be aiming for the position of next overall escort leader of the Green Forest, dying such a dog’s death…!’
The Orthodox Sword Master and the Bamboo Slaughter Twin could not suppress their shock.
They had never imagined that the mysterious opponent who appeared out of nowhere would possess such overwhelming martial might.
At the very least, it was obvious he wielded power far greater than theirs.
However—
Shing!
Cha-cheng!
The choice the three men made was to direct their blades toward Sewoon.
“I don’t know what hole you crawled out of, but you think you can suddenly appear and run off with the treasure? Then you’ll have to hand over your life!”
“Looks like you picked up some half-baked Yin-Cold Art somewhere. That won’t be enough!”
“Withdraw while we’re still speaking politely! If you do, we’ll let the matter of Lord Seo slide!”
Greed and desire blinded even the wisest of men.
They had already been driven mad by the Heavenly Demon Treasure Map, to the point where they could no longer see reality properly.
How their actions unfolded without deviating even an inch from expectations—
Of course, watching them, Sewoon twisted the corner of his lips.
‘Well, this is exactly how it needs to be for my plan.’
Saaaa—!
Chwaaaa—!
“…!!”
“Hngh!”
With a chilling sneer, a ferocious aura surged forth from Sewoon’s entire body.
Though they were veterans hardened by long years in the martial world, the power before them was terrifying enough to send chills crawling down their spines.
Step.
As Sewoon took a step forward, he spoke.
“Pathetic and revolting. To watch insects struggle after being blinded by power that was never theirs to begin with.”
“…Y-you—!!”
“How dare you spout su—!”
The Net Bamboo Ghost bristled and tried to shout back at Sewoon’s abuse, but—
Sswaeek—!
Kwarurung!
Sewoon’s hand moved faster.
He swung the massive great axe like a club with one hand, unleashing a thunderous tearing sound through the air.
Yet Sewoon did not swing the axe toward his enemies.
Instead, he twisted the blade and smashed the broad side of the axe into Seo Dongtak, who had been turned into a frozen slab.
“Dodge!”
“Kgh!”
Only then did they realize and hurriedly raise their Qi-infused weapons.
Jjaeng-geong!
Tuduk!
In an instant, the destructive force contained within the axe shattered the ice, sending hundreds of ice shards flying toward them.
The Orthodox Sword Master focused Qi into his eyes and swung his sword like a raging storm.
Seogeogeok!
Seogeok!
Though the heavy sword of the Zhongnan Sect was known for its weighty and solemn nature, at this moment it poured forth with the principle of speed.
There was no other choice.
‘Impossible power! Each shard of ice is like a steel bolt wrapped in sword qi…!’
Just cutting down the shards made his breathing grow ragged.
That was because an abnormal energy was embedded within them.
Still, the Orthodox Sword Master was among the luckier ones.
“Guh!”
Red Bamboo Ghost, the elder of the Bamboo Slaughter Twin, let out a groan of pain.
A long wound had been carved into his shoulder.
He was smashing the ice shards with his cherished bamboo spear, but—
‘The shattered shards are even more dangerous!’
His Nine-Route Blood Lock Spear, which specialized in the principle of destruction, only made the ricocheting shards more lethal.
The more he deflected them, the more small and large wounds bloomed across his body—but he could not stop.
Because before his eyes lay the Heavenly Demon Treasure Map.
“Uaaaaah!!”
Chwarararang!
Titing!
Gritting his teeth as his muscles and meridians felt ready to burst, he forcibly deflected every shard.
“Try swallowing this, you bastard!!”
He redirected them all toward Sewoon.
…However.
That only invited a far greater tragedy.
Swish.
Watching the ice shards flying back toward him, Sewoon raised his other hand.
“That’s enough.”
With that lightly extended hand—
Wooooong!
Cheocheok!
Astonishingly, the countless ice shards froze perfectly in midair.
It was a bizarre sight, like hail that had been pouring down suddenly floating motionless in the sky.
“…!!”
Naeng Cheon-hwi stared with his mouth gaping wide enough to see straight through.
‘He stopped the ice shards with Qi?!’
‘H-Heavenly Grasping…!!’
The other three felt as if they had been struck on the head with a blunt weapon.
Yet it could not be helped.
Heavenly Grasping, also known as telekinetic control, was an art in which a supreme master with immense Qi stored in the Dantian freely manipulated distant objects using Qi alone.
It was a shocking power that moved matter entirely disconnected from the physical body.
‘Manifestation Realm?’
‘T-that lunatic crossed the Wall of the Manifestation Realm…!’
Heavenly Grasping was a supreme art that symbolized the Manifestation Realm.
However, there was something they did not know.
What Sewoon displayed was Heavenly Grasping of an entirely different caliber.
As stated before, Heavenly Grasping was a technique meant to fully control a single distant object.
Yet Sewoon, after exchanging offense and defense twice, had stopped every single ice shard—countless fragments shattered beyond number—one by one.
Something only possible at the extreme pinnacle of the Manifestation Realm.
It required an utterly absurd level of delicate Qi control, but those far beneath his realm could not even begin to comprehend the difference.
As everyone stood dumbfounded, Sewoon’s lips moved.
“Reverse.”
Paseuseu!
Wooooong!
At the same moment, the ice shards suspended in the air began to vibrate madly.
Sswaeaek!
Paaat!
They scattered with ear-splitting tearing sounds as they shot off in a single direction.
The Qi surging from Sewoon drove the ice shards like a raging storm, each one resembling a condensed Qi Pellet.
And instead of targeting Red Bamboo Ghost, who had attacked him—
“…H-hyung.”
“N-no!! Second Brother!!”
They flew toward the second brother—
Net Bamboo Ghost.
Pupuk!
Pupupung!
Horrific piercing sounds echoed through the surroundings, chilling to the bone.
Pishushuk!
Pishik!
In the end, countless small and large holes had been punched through his entire body, including his head.
Soon after, fountains of blood erupted from every hole in his body, and Net Bamboo Ghost met a miserable death with his eyes still wide open.
“Uaaah!! You bastard!!”
Having lost all his brothers one after another, Red Bamboo Ghost completely lost his sanity.
Regardless of whether the opponent was a martial artist of the Manifestation Realm who had used Telekinetic Control, he charged forward, swallowed by madness.
Ta-at!
Kicking off the ground with true force, he surged forward like a flash of lightning.
In a single step, Red Bamboo Ghost arrived right before his enemy’s nose and thrust his bamboo spear—into which he poured every ounce of his strength—straight toward Sewoon’s eyes.
But regrettably—
Whoosh!
The strike that contained everything he had built throughout his life of martial arts pierced nothing but empty air.
‘He disappeared…?’
He had not even blinked.
Yet the opponent who had clearly been standing right in front of him was nowhere to be seen.
Just as he hurriedly tried to twist his body and scan his surroundings—
Hwa-reuk!
Suddenly, a scorching sensation surged down from the crown of his head, as if he had been set on fire.
Startled by the burning heat like that of severe burns, he raised his hand in confusion.
W-why is the sky splitting in two…?
Chwaaaak!
Jjeojeojeok!
Red Bamboo Ghost’s body was cleanly split in half, like chopped firewood.
Without ever landing a proper blow, he was reduced to a cold corpse.
And then—
Behind the collapsing body of Red Bamboo Ghost stood Sewoon, calmly retrieving his great axe without a single drop of blood on it.
Saa…
The surroundings sank into icy silence.
“A… ah.”
The Orthodox Sword Master, whose complexion had turned corpse-pale, could not even finish a proper sentence.
His entire body had stiffened in fear at Sewoon’s martial might—so fast it could not even be followed by the eye.
Seeing that pitiful state, Sewoon clicked his tongue.
“Tsk. You were the same back then, and you are still the same now. Zhongnan is utterly contemptible.”
“…!”
In Sewoon’s mind surfaced the image of the Blood Cult invading Shaanxi, massacring innocent commoners, while the Zhongnan Sect declared a closed-off state and did absolutely nothing.
Step.
At that moment, Sewoon took one step toward the Orthodox Sword Master.
That single step made the man—who was the sect leader of the Zhongnan Sect—cast aside all dignity and shout in desperation.
“Don’t come! Don’t come!!”
But there was no way Sewoon would heed him.
Walking forward slowly with a face devoid of any emotion, he looked like a king of the underworld collecting lives.
‘I-I must live.’
Kwaduk!
Sensing his end, the Orthodox Sword Master poured all his Qi into the hand gripping his sword.
Saaaa—!
The Qi of the Zhongnan Sect’s supreme art, the Taiyi Divine Art, spread through his meridians and limbs.
‘This isn’t enough!’
“Kgh!”
A groan escaped him.
Chwaaa—!
There was only one reason.
He was drawing upon even his Innate True Qi, the very source of life itself.
The treasure map was already gone from his mind.
This was nothing but a desperate struggle to survive.
The moment Sewoon entered the sword’s domain—
Hwiik!
Pivoting on his right foot like a spinning top, the Orthodox Sword Master unleashed his sword like the waves of a vast sea.
Each time the sword’s trajectory covered the air, an immense weight pressed down, as if the world itself were sinking.
Kuuung!
Kwarururung!
Thirty-Six Swords of Heaven and Earth
Ultimate Technique
Eightfold Suppression
The eightfold-divided sword of the Orthodox Sword Master was like the Five Elements Mountain that once pressed down the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.
The principle of heaviness was being displayed to near perfection—
Yet Sewoon’s brows furrowed deeply as he gazed at the tip of that sword.
“Your sword is far too petty to contain the world.”
“…!!”
Pasuseuseuk!
With that single remark, the Orthodox Sword Master’s sword shattered in utter futility.
Just as the words implied, it turned to powder without leaving even a trace and scattered into the air.
Pasuseuseuk!
At the same time, the Orthodox Sword Master’s body also began to crumble into dust, just like his sword.
In a fleeting instant, Sewoon’s great axe descended countless times like bolts of lightning, and the result was total destruction.
Now, the only one left standing here—
“No… This can’t be real. There’s no way.”
—was Naeng Cheon-hwi of the Demonic Cult.
The shock was so overwhelming that he had been unable to speak at all.
Saaaa—!
Now, demonic qi openly overflowed from his entire body.
“…Tang Sewoon. You are Tang Sewoon.”
Gritting his teeth, he spoke.
Though his legs had nearly given out after mistaking Sewoon for the Heavenly Demon, he desperately clung to his sanity.
“I don’t care what tricks you learned somewhere—I won’t be fooled anymore!”
However, Sewoon stared at him calmly and slowly recited his words.
It was the moment to place the final stroke upon the scheme he had built.
“Do you truly believe that?”
There was only one plan Sewoon had prepared.
“Cheon-hwi of the Cold Ice Household.”
“…!!!”
Naeng Cheon-hwi froze in place as if struck by lightning.
Because something impossible had just happened.
The opponent had correctly named both the Five Great Demonic Houses, known only to followers of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and his own identity.
How could he possibly know the name of someone who had hidden his identity so thoroughly?
Thud.
Naeng Cheon-hwi dropped to his knees.
“O most exalted, most exalted master!”
And he prostrated himself in full submission before the returned Heavenly Demon.