Chapter 324 : Potala Palace (4)
Chapter 324: Potala Palace (4)
Tap.
Right after that tiny footstep echoed, Il-mok was already swinging his sword at the Left Great Virtuous One.
It was the pinnacle of lightness skill technique, Ethereal Shift, executed by combining various martial principles that he had realized in this life.
It was a supreme-level lightfoot art, but the movement was purely instinctive.
'Kill him.'
t was a movement born entirely from pure, unadulterated killing intent to slaughter the enemy as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the Left Great Virtuous One reacted to Il-mok's explosive movement.
Since he clearly didn't have the luxury to dodge, the Left Great Virtuous One thrust his vajra upward and blocked Il-mok's Ascension Sword.
BOOM!!!
The collision of sword and vajra sent a thunderous roar through the building. The Sword Thunder coating the Ascension Sword and the condensed Force Qi wreathing the vajra began devouring each other.
It was likely due to the sheer depth of the Left Great Virtuous One's internal energy that searing pain shot up Il-mok's sword arm.
The muscles and joints of his right hand practically screamed in protest, accompanied by a pain so severe it felt like the very fingers gripping the hilt were going to snap backward.
But that pain only stoked Il-mok's fury.
'Kill him.'
He knew exactly how that man had obtained his power.
Ignoring the pain in his arm entirely, Il-mok swung the Ascension Sword again.
BOOM!!
He continuously battered his sword against the Left Great Virtuous One's vajra.
'Kill him.'
Completely consumed by his killing intent, Il-mok's body had already forgotten the pain and was swinging the sword on its own.
The sword trajectories that carved through the air seek the optimal path to slaughter his opponent.
"DIE!!!"
And it wasn't just his physical body reacting.
Driven by Il-mok's will, his Demonic Qi grew sharper and more savage with every passing moment.
"Ngh..."
The Left Great Virtuous One, who had initially held the upper hand in their clash of internal energy, was forced to stagger backward with a horrified expression.
Driven solely by an all-consuming desire to kill, Il-mok's sword strikes were becoming absurdly fast and sharp.
It reached a point where even the Left Great Virtuous One, a master of the Realm of Truth, could barely react.
As he was driven back by the enemy's ferocious swordsmanship, the Left Great Virtuous One scowled.
'If only we had made our move a few years earlier!'
If they had seized control of the Potala Palace sooner and accumulated more internal energy, he wouldn't be getting pushed back so humiliatingly.
The Right Great Virtuous One felt the same.
He too was being gradually pushed back by Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang's relentless swordplay.
Perhaps because they were twins who had trained together for decades, the two could instinctively read each other's thoughts without exchanging a single word.
Even now, both arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously.
'I can't beat him alone.'
The instant the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones parried the lethal strikes from Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang respectively—
BOOM!
They used the momentum from the strikes to launch themselves backwards at each other.
Tap.
By crashing into each other, the two brothers perfectly canceled out their backward momentum and settled into a firm combat stance, standing solidly back-to-back.
The sight of two high monks with perfectly identical faces, both dual-wielding heavy Vajras while pressed together, was incredibly eerie.
If they just had one more person with them, they would have looked like an Asura.
But Il-mok didn’t give a flying fuck whether they were Asura or decrepit old monsters worse than garbage.
Tap!
The only thought in his mind was that they needed to die and be erased from this world.
Il-mok charged at the pair without a shred of fear and swung the Ascension Sword.
BOOM!!
One of the Great Virtuous Ones raised both vajras to block the Ascension Sword while the other thrust his vajra at Il-mok's torso.
Il-mok rode the recoil from the blocked strike and spun his body to barely dodge the second move.
At that exact same moment, Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang charged in from the opposite flank and swung his sword at the pair.
CLANG!
This time, the roles were reversed.
The one who had attacked Il-mok's torso blocked Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang's sword while the other thrusted his vajra at Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang.
Realizing that attacking separately was futile, Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang exchanged a glance and charged simultaneously from both sides.
The plan was to engage the twins from both sides at the same time.
CLANG!
But the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones' combined combat technique had reached an astonishing level.
Acting as though they literally had eyes in the backs of their heads, whenever one brother was pushed into a corner, they would seamlessly spin their footwork, allowing the other brother to effortlessly parry the blow. And whatever temporary opening that created was instantly covered by the brother who had just been saved.
To make matters worse, they moved through the building as one body despite being two, executing lightness skills and exquisite footwork in perfect unison.
With the left and right constantly swapping positions and darting around, Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang couldn't isolate either one.
And to top it all off...
CLANG!
The twins’ footwork was so exquisite that they actually managed to bait Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang into accidentally clashing their swords against each other.
The combined technique of twins who had trained together for decades produced far greater power than either fighting alone.
Meanwhile, Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang, who had never fought side by side in their lives, were actually getting in each other's way.
"Tch."
"Damn it."
When their sword paths interfered with each other mid-step yet again, both clicked their tongues and quickly pulled back.
Four streaks of Force Qi slammed into the spot where they'd been standing.
BOOM!!
After narrowly dodging the attack, Il-mok sent a voice transmission to Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang.
—I'm going to pull out of the building first.
Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang understood Il-mok's intent.
If they fled, perhaps the twins would show an opening while giving chase.
Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang answered with a look, and Il-mok launched himself toward the entrance.
Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang followed without delay.
"Hahaha!"
"You think such an obvious trick will work!"
The Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones chased them out of the building, but contrary to Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang's hopes, the twins remained glued together as one.
Even moving in tandem, their lightness skills and footwork didn't interfere with each other in the slightest.
Their tactical retreat out of the pavilion barely lasted a few seconds.
The moment they had put a decent amount of distance between themselves and the building, Il-mok abruptly spun on his heel and launched himself straight back at the twins.
But both Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang and the twins had completely misunderstood his intentions.
Il-mok's brief retreat was never meant to forcibly separate the brothers' unbreakable formation.
Vrriiiing!
As a terrifying amount of internal energy was violently compressed into the Ascension Sword, the sword began to sing.
In response to his will, a massive cluster of crackling Sword Thunder—far larger and denser than his usual strikes—wrapped around the blade and screeched like a beast.
And right before the Ascension Sword met the Great Virtuous Ones' vajras—
CRACK!!
—The massive Sword Thunder shattered, splitting into hundreds of Force Qi shards that scattered in every direction.
The actual reason Il-mok had dragged the fight outside the pavilion was entirely for the sake of the children.
He couldn't risk the captive kids getting shredded by the resulting storm of Force Qi fragments.
Faced with a rain of Force Qi pouring down right in front of their faces, the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones frantically swung all four vajras with panicked faces.
The four vajras whipped in every direction like a madman having a fit, violently shattering the incoming fragments to dust upon impact.
However, because the sheer volume of the shrapnel was so ridiculously overwhelming, the twins didn't have a single second to even think about counterattacking.
And in that brief window, Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang had already launched himself high into the air, soaring directly above the distracted Great Virtuous Ones' heads.
His sword was coated in densely compressed Force Qi.
"Turn to dust!"
Rather than targeting either brother specifically, the concentrated sphere of Force Qi that Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang had fired rocketed precisely into the dead center of the two monks.
Barely finished blocking all the qi shards, the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones went pale and dove in opposite directions to save themselves.
BOOM!!
The Force Qi sphere struck the ground and detonated with a thunderous explosion.
Tap!
Il-mok charged at the one who had fled left and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang went after the one who had fled right.
Having already suffered through the twins' combined technique once, Il-mok and Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang clung to their respective targets with vicious tenacity. Absolutely refusing to let the pair reunite.
Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang was pushing his opponent back fairly smoothly, but Il-mok was the problem.
His internal energy had always been lacking relative to his realm, and the reckless amount he'd poured into detonating the Sword Thunder had left his dantian running on fumes.
If he hadn't been absorbing Blood Qi from the monks he'd killed along the way, his reserves might have been completely empty after that last strike.
The Great Virtuous One in front of him seemed to sense this too, countering aggressively while scattering his immense internal energy with abandon.
But even with depleted reserves, Il-mok didn't care.
Even though every single muscle and bone in his body screamed in agony every time his blade slammed into the heavy vajra, Il-mok relentlessly rained down strikes to suffocate the Great Virtuous One without pause.
He was doing this to completely lock the brother down and prevent them from using their combination arts again...
Or so one would think, but that wasn't it at all.
'Kill him.'
The only thought in Il-mok's head was still to kill this man with his own hands.
He genuinely didn't care if it resulted in mutual destruction.
He wanted to kill him by any means necessary.
In all his time living as Il-mok, it had been a very long time since he had felt his rage spike to this absolute extreme.
The last time he felt this way was when the Martial Alliance's scheme killed Uncle Taehyeon.
Back then, Il-mok had completely lost his damn mind, to the point of screaming raw curses directly into the face of the Heavenly Demon despite the man's suffocating aura.
Faced with a relentless barrage of strikes from a man who clearly didn't care if he lived or died, the monk was eventually forced entirely onto the defensive.
He'd clearly spotted several opportunities for mutual destruction, yet the Great Virtuous One couldn't bring himself to take them.
As was typical of the greedy, his own life was far more precious to him than anything else.
'Damn it. If only I'd had more time to build my internal energy!'
The same regret repeated in the Great Virtuous One's mind, and then a strange thought surfaced.
'Wait. What if my brother runs while I'm stuck here?'
Perhaps because his life hung in the balance, a sudden wave of distrust toward his twin surged unbidden.
That distrust gave him justification for his own actions.
'Right. This one's almost out of internal energy anyway. If I just create some distance, I can escape easily. Hehehe, brother. I'll avenge you later once I've built up my power, so don't hold it against me. You're thinking the exact same thing anyway.'
With his calculations complete, the Great Virtuous One drew up the vast internal energy stored in his dantian and layered it onto his vajras.
Enormous Force Qi shaped like blades extended from both vajras, and the Great Virtuous One swung them at Il-mok.
When Il-mok swung the Ascension Sword to meet the vajras, a sly smile crept across the Great Virtuous One's lips.
He fully intended to ride the violent shockwave backward and sprint for his life.
But just before the weapons collided, the Ascension Sword twisted in a strange arc.
The Ascension Sword grazed past the incoming vajra and continued straight toward the Great Virtuous One's heart.
And Il-mok did this despite the fact that the monk's heavy vajra was currently hurtling straight toward Il-mok's own skull.
"Y-you insane bastard!?"
Realizing the man was genuinely committed to mutual destruction, the Great Virtuous One panicked and swung his vajra to swat away the sword, completely abandoning his previous trajectory to Il-mok’s skull.
CLANG!!
The force behind the vajra knocked Il-mok's right hand aside, and Il-mok used that very force to spin his body to slip into the Great Virtuous One's guard.
Shrrk.
The vajra in the Great Virtuous One's right hand grazed past Il-mok's torso.
THWACK.
And Il-mok’s left palm slammed into the Great Virtuous One's chest.
"Gkh..."
His heart instantly ruptured by the massive surge of internal energy behind the palm strike, and the Great Virtuous One sank to his knees with a short groan.
A second later, both Il-mok and the monk violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Cough..."
The difference was that the Great Virtuous One collapsed to the ground after that cough, while Il-mok remained standing on both feet.
Unlike the Great Virtuous One whose heart had quite literally exploded, Il-mok was merely vomiting blood due to the severe internal injuries he had racked up from fighting on an empty tank of qi.
Feeling slightly better after expelling the blood, Il-mok turned to survey the battlefield.
SHRRK!
Right on cue, he saw Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang severing the other Great Virtuous One's neck.
“... Rats, all of them.”
Just like the one Il-mok had fought, that Great Virtuous One had apparently died trying to flee.
Il-mok turned again and looked down the slope.
More than half the monks had already been dealt with.
"The G-Great Virtuous Ones have fallen!!"
The death of the Left and Right Great Virtuous Ones had shattered what remained of their fighting spirit.
Then Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang's voice reached Il-mok's ears.
"Sit down and circulate your energy for a while. This old man will handle the rest."
Il-mok deliberated briefly, then dropped to the ground and crossed his legs.
He wanted to help, but his internal injuries were severe and his reserves were completely spent.
***
He sat motionless in the lotus position for a while, fully concentrating on suppressing his internal injuries.
"Huu."
When Il-mok opened his eyes after completing only the bare minimum of recovery, the first thing he noticed was the smell of blood.
'...Better than the aphrodisiac incense, I guess.'
A sacred Buddhist temple reeking heavily of vile aphrodisiacs versus a sacred Buddhist temple reeking heavily of fresh blood. Honestly, he couldn't tell which was more sickening.
Il-mok shook his dizzy head slightly to clear it and looked up.
A shadow was blocking his view.
"How are you feeling?"
Il-mok rose to his feet and answered Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang, who was drenched head to toe in blood.
"I can move without issue."
The fighting appeared to be over anyway. Only the cleanup remained.
As Il-mok moved toward his companions to issue instructions for the aftermath, Hyeokryeon Cheon-gang stepped into his path and brought up something completely unexpected.
"Have you ever considered becoming the next Cult Leader?"