Chapter 342 : True Immortal and Martial God (2)
Chapter 342: True Immortal and Martial God (2)
【To think you would awaken so quickly...】
Hearing the flustered voice of the True Immortal, Jang Woo-hyun brought his outstretched arms together.
【Hear my words. The power of the Opponent of the Gods, Jang Woo-hyun, shall never reach me!】
The True Immortal shouted as though making a divine proclamation, while Jang Woo-hyun merged the separated Yin and Yang.
The Yin-Yang Great Explosion.
The technique he had used against the Great Ascension cultivators.
The two opposing forces merged before erupting in a sudden explosion.
That power annihilated everything.
Crack.
With the sound of something crumbling, the world filled with blood and flesh disappeared.
“......!”
Yet, as though it were a lie, the dozens of giants remained standing.
It was as if he had deliberately missed them.
Jang Woo-hyun widened his eyes and immediately gathered power into his fist before throwing a punch.
He had clearly aimed at the foremost giant, yet the result was different.
His fist struck nothing but empty space.
An explosion followed the beam of light that shot forward.
However, it inflicted no damage whatsoever upon the giants.
'Something is wrong with my body.'
Though startled for an instant, he quickly regained his composure.
Immediately afterward, countless blades appeared around him.
Thinking he might still be trapped inside the dream, he opened his Microcosm, Unity of Blade Mountain and Sword Forest.
The space resembling a starless night sky vanished, and the entire world became covered in silver.
Jang Woo-hyun's presence and influence spread outward.
Only then did he realize that his previous actions had not been an illusion.
As unbelievable as it was, he himself had attacked an entirely different location.
【Senior, this is how True Immortals fight.】
Lei Yunli's quiet voice echoed from within the Dragon King's Scale.
Her words reminded him of their earlier conversation.
-True Immortals manipulate Fate.
-It is more accurate to call it destiny than life itself.
The True Immortal had not manipulated his mind or shown him illusions.
Instead, he had twisted and fixed Jang Woo-hyun's destiny itself.
He had forced everything to flow toward a predetermined outcome.
Actions whose results had already been decided.
Moments ago, the True Immortal had declared that Jang Woo-hyun's power would never reach him.
This battle differed completely from every fight Jang Woo-hyun had experienced before.
Even when he aimed directly at the opponent before him, his attacks missed.
This was neither defense nor evasion.
Jang Woo-hyun's attacks simply could not reach the True Immortal.
KWAAAAAANG!
During the brief moment Jang Woo-hyun spent understanding the situation, the gigantic giants moved.
They forced their way through the world filled entirely with blades.
Enormous swords fell from the heavens, while blade-covered mountain ranges assaulted the giants.
Yet once again, every attack merely sliced through empty air or grazed past them.
Jang Woo-hyun changed his approach.
Responding to his will, countless blades surrounded every giant.
If direct attacks would miss, then he would simply assault them from every direction.
However, before his attack could begin, the enemy acted first.
【Having cast you into dreams and restricted your actions, I shall now foretell your future.】
Beginning with the first giant, the others followed.
Soon, every giant spoke in unison.
【Opponent of the Gods, Jang Woo-hyun.】
【You shall come to a halt here.】
【You shall fade beneath the traces of time.】
【You shall rot away.】
【You shall disappear here.】
Space rippled like the surface of a lake.
An incomprehensible force rushed toward Jang Woo-hyun.
He responded by swinging Baekmu.
“......!”
The sword vanished from his hand.
The blade that had seemed destined to remain with his soul forever crumbled into grains of sand.
And that was not the end.
Jang Woo-hyun's eyes widened as he saw his right arm fall away.
No sharp weapon had severed it.
It detached on its own.
Then it instantly turned into ash and scattered.
Before he could do anything, his body began collapsing.
His consciousness blurred.
The very existence known as Jang Woo-hyun was disappearing.
His legs vanished.
His face and body crumbled into ashes.
Just before the left arm—the final part of his body to retain its form—collapsed, he drew the Dragon King's Scale and swung it.
The moment Jang Woo-hyun hesitated before this completely unfamiliar style of battle, everything unfolded at once.
The instant the True Immortal twisted destiny, the right arm holding Baekmu disappeared.
There was no agonizing pain.
It simply felt as though his body were naturally being erased.
Watching his arm drift away as ashes, Jang Woo-hyun accelerated his thoughts.
Whoooong—
Just like when he had first experienced the Transcendent Sense Domain, time seemed to slow.
Time itself had not slowed.
Only Jang Woo-hyun's consciousness and thoughts had accelerated.
Within this altered perception of time, the destruction of his body felt as though it would last forever.
Existing within that separate flow of time, Jang Woo-hyun searched desperately for a way to fight the True Immortal.
He reviewed every ability and every martial art he possessed.
The countless martial arts he had mastered.
The Microcosms he could deploy simultaneously.
'These won't work.'
Though they possessed enough power to oppose a True Immortal, they could not free him from his current predicament.
The next things that came to mind were the martial arts Lee Tae-seong had displayed after ascending to the Upper Realm.
The Star-Destroying Fist.
The Galaxy-Cleaving Sword.
Both techniques possessed overwhelming destructive power.
The Star-Destroying Fist truly destroyed planets with a single punch.
The Galaxy-Cleaving Sword possessed enough power to split apart an entire planetary system like the Solar System.
Their destructive force could hardly even be called martial arts anymore.
They were genuine divine powers.
Yet even those were useless now.
No matter how overwhelming the attack, it could not overturn an already established destiny.
Countless thoughts appeared and disappeared within Jang Woo-hyun's mind.
Among them was the conversation about destiny.
'Changing destiny is difficult, but not impossible.'
The Great Sage Who Understands Heaven had compared destiny to a flowing river.
-You can be swept away by a raging current.
-Or dig through the earth and change its course.
-Sometimes you can bury it beneath soil.
-And naturally... you can also swim against it.
'There has to be another way.'
If manipulating destiny truly possessed no weakness, then battles between Martial Gods and True Immortals could never have existed in the first place.
When the True Immortal had spoken Jang Woo-hyun's destiny like a prophecy—
'I definitely felt some kind of power.'
He could not identify it precisely.
Nor could he wield it himself.
'Something like the laws of the world.'
It was a power Jang Woo-hyun had yet to comprehend.
The True Immortal could wield that power.
'If I direct all of my strength toward defense, could I deflect it?'
He had never tried, but it seemed possible.
The power wielded by a Martial God at the Primordial Unity Realm was simply that immense.
But it was already too late.
His body was already collapsing.
Perhaps the crimson-eyed True Immortal had deliberately appeared before Jang Woo-hyun fully completed his advancement as a Martial God.
'I need something else.'
What Jang Woo-hyun needed now was not merely the strength to endure or resist the current.
He needed the strength to swim upstream.
'What method is there?'
If he could interfere with time like Lee Tae-seong and influence both the future and the past, this would be easy to resolve.
But that was impossible for the current Jang Woo-hyun.
He had not reached such a realm.
No...
Even if given enough time, he would likely never attain it.
Interfering with time was Lee Tae-seong's unique ability, born from repeating thousands of regressions.
Even Jang Woo-hyun's talent could never replicate it.
'I have to find my own path.'
With his thoughts accelerated, he reviewed countless methods and martial arts.
Yet no certain solution appeared.
The seemingly endless moment was coming to an end.
His lower body had completely disappeared.
His consciousness continued fading.
Even his upper body and head were crumbling.
Within his fading awareness, one sentence surfaced.
-If it were you, instead of swimming upstream, you'd simply cut everything apart with your sword.
'Don't overthink it.'
From the very beginning, this incomprehensible force had been acting upon him.
If that was the case, then all he had to do was cut that force itself.
Most of Jang Woo-hyun's body had already disappeared.
Instinctively, his final remaining left arm gripped the Dragon King's Scale and slashed through empty space.
If destiny could be manipulated—
Then he would cut destiny itself.
Slash!
Something was severed.
Then the existence known as Jang Woo-hyun disappeared.
At first, he did not know what he had cut.
It was not destiny itself.
Nor was it the laws of the world.
His sword had not yet reached that level.
But he had undeniably cut something.
And it had worked.
【How...】
The crimson-eyed True Immortal stood frozen, staring at Jang Woo-hyun.
Jang Woo-hyun had undoubtedly died.
He had crumbled away like burned ashes.
Yet now he stood there completely unharmed.
It was impossible.
To ensure absolute control over destiny, the True Immortal had used his powers step by step.
He had first cast Jang Woo-hyun into a deep sleep.
Then distorted his actions.
Finally, he had granted him eternal rest.
Jang Woo-hyun should have died.
Yet he still lived.
Ignoring the bewildered True Immortal, Jang Woo-hyun raised Baekmu.
“Thank you.”
The experience of nearly being erased had instead become a blessing.
Within his unconscious state, Jang Woo-hyun had mastered a brand-new sword.
【What absurd nonsense are you speaking?!】
Jang Woo-hyun should have died.
Even if he had somehow survived, he should have been on the verge of annihilation or fatally wounded.
That had been his destined future.
Yet not a single wound marked his body.
It was as though he had returned to the past.
As though none of it had ever happened.
【Jang Woo-hyun, you shall fall into eternal rest here!】
【You shall lose everything!】
【You shall fade beneath the traces of time!】
【You shall rot away!】
The prophecies of the True Immortal poured forth.
His words became destiny itself, binding Jang Woo-hyun.
In response, Jang Woo-hyun raised Baekmu and slashed through empty space.
He was not resisting destiny.
Nor was he destroying the approaching force.
He simply cut something invisible.
Snap.
No sound actually echoed.
Yet Jang Woo-hyun clearly heard something breaking.
The new sword Jang Woo-hyun had obtained.
It was Causality Severance.
Cause and effect.
He severed the connection linking the two.
Rather than a martial art, it was interference with one of the world's absolute laws.
The moment causality was severed, the result never came to pass.
Jang Woo-hyun, who should have been swept away by destiny, remained perfectly unharmed.
His body, which should have turned to ashes, remained completely intact.
Cause no longer led to effect.
A power beyond the realm of martial arts.
It could not nullify everything.
But the chain of causality behind the destiny forcibly imposed by the True Immortal could be severed.
The True Immortal's power over fate no longer worked on Jang Woo-hyun.
【......】
The giants stood frozen with their mouths agape.
Even without skin, it was obvious they were overcome with shock.
Never before had they witnessed such a method.
Other Martial Gods condensed their power and wrapped it around themselves to resist destiny.
Their firmly established strength prevented destiny from twisting them.
But Jang Woo-hyun's method was completely different.
He prevented cause and effect from connecting.
Even True Immortals could not help but be astonished.
If one could interfere with the power known as causality, then twisting destiny would no longer be enough to kill them.
Though limited, it was undoubtedly a power worthy of being called divine.
【You... just what are you?】
A hollow voice escaped the True Immortal.
Meanwhile, Jang Woo-hyun prepared his next attack.
Alongside Causality Severance, he had gained another realization.
Looking upon the dozens of giants before him, Jang Woo-hyun casually swept his sword horizontally.
A simple and effortless movement.
But the result was anything but simple.
Splurt!
Without even expanding his Thought Fragment, the giants' heads were severed.
All at once.
It was not an invisible attack like the Mind Sword.
This time, the sword strike itself was clearly visible.
Nor did the attack end there.
The bodies of the dozens of giants suddenly split apart.
Their shoulders and limbs separated.
Enormous sword slashes burst through their chests.
It was as though someone inside each giant had swung a sword.
Jang Woo-hyun swung his sword once more.
Again, sword slashes erupted from within the giants' bodies.
The attacks burst outward from inside them.
Spatial Transcendence Sword.
Though he could not interfere with time like Lee Tae-seong, Jang Woo-hyun had mastered a sword art that transcended space.