Chapter 66 : Chapter 66
Chapter 066. Sword Ghost (4)
In Buddhism, there is a phrase called sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation.
If sudden enlightenment refers to obtaining Buddha-nature in a single breath through a flash of realization, then gradual cultivation refers to the act of laying the foundation through progressive self-discipline.
Those who discuss sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation say that both are necessary to reach perfection.
This is a Buddhist theory, but in Dam Jeok-san's view, there was an aspect that resonated with the principles of martial arts as well.
No matter how supreme the realization one obtains, everything is useless without training, and even a thousand years of penance is nothing but ridiculous gestures without the corresponding realization. For a martial artist to leap forward in the true sense, both sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation must be equipped together.
Dam Jeok-san realized it instinctively.
Now that he had recklessly attacked a transcendent at the Entering Transformation Realm, now that the Sword Ghost's single sword was about to cut off his neck, this was the very moment where sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation tightly interlocked.
However, the elation of realization was brief.
Dam Jeok-san became aware of the reality he faced.
The Sword Ghost's sword rushed in, harboring intense genuine qi. That single sword, capable of cutting down even a castle wall in one breath, was on the verge of taking his life.
“Squad…… Leader……!”
“No…… do…… not…….”
Voices filled with despair lingered in Dam Jeok-san's ears. Although it was clear that the situation was hopeless in their eyes as well, he still maintained a calm expression.
The voices lingering in his ears sounded startlingly slow. And that was the same for the Sword Ghost's slash.
The sword that flew in as if to behead him immediately transformed to become slow enough for him to read its trajectory.
Even so, it was still at a level that far exceeded the maximum speed Dam Jeok-san could produce. He succeeded in ‘seeing’ the sword, but there was still no way to block it.
Then should he die like this?
No, that could not be.
Unless he could do absolutely nothing, giving up while possessing clear consciousness did not fit the life he had lived at all.
‘Think.’
A way to survive…… no, that is insufficient. Nothing can be changed with just the resolve to survive.
I will cut him. I will definitely cut down the opponent in front of me. That level of resolve is necessary. No, even that is insufficient.
Certainty, not resolve, is needed. The certainty that he can cut the enemy with his sword, the certainty that he can break him, the certainty that he can kill him. Apart from whether it is actually possible, Dam Jeok-san must believe so.
Martial arts is a single sword that originates from the heart and is forged by the body. If one does not believe in the possibility, one cannot even forge the sword. Dam Jeok-san instinctively realized this simple yet complex principle. This was the fragment of realization he had obtained.
Dam Jeok-san looked at the Sword Ghost while harboring the certainty that he could accomplish anything. A swordsman with a monstrous presence scattering killing intent and ghost qi. The gap, to the extent that even the power of the Predator's ability felt useless, was clearly visible as if it could be grasped by hand.
However, Dam Jeok-san—
Was certain. That he could cut him. It was not a logical conclusion. It was merely a result randomly distorted within his heart.
But what mattered was faith, not fact. Complete faith without an ounce of doubt.
Dam Jeok-san's sword, filled with certainty, began to move.
The move he selected was the fastest sword he possessed. It was the Monkey-Destroying One Flash of the Heaven-Breaking Star-Destroying Style.
“Amazing will. But you are too slow.”
Seeing Dam Jeok-san struggling to wield his sword, the Sword Ghost moved his lips very quickly. Although ridicule lay at the base, admiration was felt.
The fact that a brat who was merely a Peak realm master ‘saw’ his sword came as quite refreshing to the Sword Ghost.
However, seeing was just seeing. The sword move the guy unfolded was too dull and slow, and it was full of openings.
“I would like to keep you alive until you ripen desirably if I followed my heart, but…….”
The Sword Ghost muttered as he scanned Dam Jeok-san's entire body. He was merely a Peak realm master now, but he was a gemstone that would advance beyond the Ultra-Peak realm to a stage even higher.
“When that time comes, my head will fall off.”
The Sword Ghost muttered as he pulled the corners of his mouth up crookedly.
The Sword Emperor is enough for someone who lights a fire in their eyes to kill me. The Sword Ghost could instinctively tell the moment he met Dam Jeok-san's eyes. The fact that this brat's essence was not much different from the absolute master who was well-versed in ten thousand swords.
If left alive, he will become a source of future trouble. I must kill him.
When the Sword Ghost harbored genuine killing intent, a spirit as sharp as frost suppressed Dam Jeok-san. However, Dam Jeok-san swung his sword without even a hint of hesitation.
If it had ended there,
The Sword Ghost would have indifferently cut Dam Jeok-san's neck.
But the guy's sword move began to change completely.
The openings that were incredibly sloppy disappeared, and the movements that seemed awkward as if they didn't fit his body changed naturally.
‘……Is he overhauling the move right now?’
In this situation where life and death come and go in a split second?
A mad action that even the Sword Ghost, who had a tough lifeline thanks to possessing a monster's body, had never attempted. However, not an ounce of delusion existed in Dam Jeok-san's eyes.
DRIP—
Dark red fresh blood streamed down from Dam Jeok-san's two eyes, nostrils, and corners of his mouth.
“Haa…….”
He was currently tasting the sensation of his brain burning white hot. Modifying the move of the Monkey-Destroying One Flash in real-time while swinging the sword was an eccentric feat that no Grandmaster would dare to attempt.
Dam Jeok-san was only miraculously implementing it because the ideal sword path clearly emerged in his mind as if he had received Heaven's Mandate.
Even that, if he slipped up even slightly, his dantian would be crushed once again.
Dam Jeok-san did not stop his sword even while intuiting that fact. Because any catastrophic result would be better than becoming a ghost by the Sword Ghost's hand.
Desperate measures.
Dam Jeok-san's sword, containing the will to desperately escape from death, broke down a certain wall that was blocking him.
CLANG!
The Monkey-Destroying One Flash advanced as if crushing space with speed transcending limits.
That single sword, which Dam Jeok-san unfolded by compressing his entire life, fulfilled its use by barely blocking the slash the Sword Ghost had indifferently struck.
COUGH—
Fresh blood spurred out like a fountain from Dam Jeok-san's mouth. His complexion, pale and sickly, was as white as a living corpse, but a refreshing smile hung on his lips.
The gradual cultivation he had endlessly accumulated even after losing his dantian reached the moment of sudden enlightenment and fulfilled its true value.
As the body, trained incessantly, endured the speed of the sword that broke through existing limits, and the mind, which repeated endless agony, accepted the idea that broke the existing mold.
Literally a great awakening. His single sword was at a certain limit point that a martial artist of the Peak realm could reach.
This was the beginning of the stage that people of the world named the Ultra-Peak.
“……You really realized it.”
The first person to notice that fact was neither Dam Jeok-san himself nor the Sword Ghost facing him, but…….
It was the Northern Heaven Sword Venerable Un Wol-hyang, who was contemplating the entire situation.
Her trembling voice soaked the desolate desert. Un Wol-hyang walked forward slowly as if she had no intention of hiding her presence anymore.
Not only the Monster Repelling Squad but even the Sword Ghost looked at her in a daze. A presence that overwhelmed the crowd. The pressure emitted by the Sword Venerable distorted the space.
“Congratulations.”
Un Wol-hyang, who had blocked the space between the Sword Ghost and Dam Jeok-san with her body before anyone knew it, opened her mouth.
Her hand briefly touched Dam Jeok-san's shoulder and then fell away.
“You reached that stage much earlier than expected. Leave it to me from now on.”
FLUTTER—!
At the same time those words ended, Un Wol-hyang turned her gaze toward the Sword Ghost, and the hem of her clothes fluttered intensely in the air.
“I have only heard that vulgar name, but this is the first time I am facing it like this.”
She spoke in a tone filled with contempt. The Sword Ghost's forehead crumpled hideously at the cold gaze that seemed to look at filth one could not associate with.
“Kuhuhu, the bitch uses her tongue quite well.”
However, that was also brief. The Sword Ghost smirked while regaining his smile.
“I will have to see if your sword is just as sharp.”
The Sword Ghost lunged toward Un Wol-hyang with those words. A fierce spirit that made it hard to believe he had just smirked in disdain. A speed that would cut off the neck of a decent Ultra-Peak master in a single stroke.
Unlike Dam Jeok-san, who had to advance to a new stage just to block a single sword, Un Wol-hyang deflected the Sword Ghost's first strike just by slightly twisting her body.
SLASH! With that sound, the Sword Ghost's sword cut across the air. Its aftershock shook the earth's axis and split the ground, but Un Wol-hyang thrust her sword without even checking it.
Because her martial nephew had risen to the Ultra-Peak realm. Because she judged that he would be able to easily block that kind of aftershock.
As expected, Dam Jeok-san lightly cleared away the aftershock of the sword strike that raged like a storm.
Soon after, Un Wol-hyang's sword flashed loftily without leaving even a shadow.
A movement deviating from common sense that was difficult to describe as simply fast and secretive. Her sword appeared abruptly right in front of the Sword Ghost's eyes as if falling from the void.
A technique close to magic, demonstrated by the profound principle of Shadowless that had reached an extremely high level.
Just when it seemed Un Wol-hyang's sword, which appeared unawares, would cut the Sword Ghost's neck.
GOOOOO—!
Along with a creeping ghost wail, a hemispherical red sword curtain unfolded from the Sword Ghost's sword.
And the shape of an evil spirit with its mouth wide open rising from the sword curtain.
The evil spirit's mouth caught Un Wol-hyang's suddenly flashing sword with the momentum to chew and swallow it.
A strange phenomenon that deviated from common logic, just like Un Wol-hyang's.
Furthermore, the Sword Ghost's swordsmanship, imbued with the power of a monster, was even more unpredictable and bizarre.
However, what dwelt in Un Wol-hyang's eyes upon seeing that was not bewilderment, but ridicule.
“Ridiculous, to think that all you came up with is this kind of petty trick.”
She spat out a cynical remark and chopped her sword down as is.
“I heard you accumulated power by scattering innocent blood, and it is a vulgarity exactly befitting that.”
With those words, a pure white radiance burned like white heat from Un Wol-hyang's sword.
FLARE!
The evil spirit biting Un Wol-hyang's sword was swept away by that bright light and scattered as a handful of ash.
“Trivial.”
“……!”
Sparks flew from the Sword Ghost's eyes at the following mockery.
It was a story he had heard often. Because even among the martial artists of the Unorthodox and Evil factions, let alone the White Path, it was rare to accumulate such vicious karma like the Sword Ghost.
However, among those who spoke such insults, those who possessed skills superior to the Sword Ghost were very rare.
No, there was only one.
—Living like a bug and causing only harm to the world, you are indeed a pest.
The very Murim Alliance Leader, the Sword Emperor. The absolute master of the White Path Murim who had pushed him to the brink of death. If the Cult Leader had not intervened, the Sword Ghost would have perished there.
For the first time since then, the Sword Ghost was being despised by someone stronger than himself.
No, that was not all.
“Martial Nephew, watch closely. Where you must reach.”
Un Wol-hyang was teaching Dam Jeok-san while treating the Sword Ghost like a teaching material. However, he wasn't even given the leeway to feel humiliation.
VROOOM!
An overpowering sensation, as if facing Mount Tai, was felt from Un Wol-hyang's sword. A status of a different dimension from the Sword Ghost, even though they were in the same Entering Transformation Realm.
It is known that her skill, having only recently reached the stage, is merely at the bottom among the Four Great Masters of the North. However, the Sword Ghost felt that this was incorrect information.
That woman is clearly stronger than old men like the Blood Death Lord or the Sword Addict. A level that might have reached just below the Eight Sovereigns of Murim.
Un Wol-hyang struck down with her sword without an inch of delay.
If the trap the Cardinal prepared to deal with her was merely something like the Sword Ghost, there was no need to hesitate anymore.
Because she cannot be stopped by ‘that’.
Her nerves were focused on Dam Jeok-san, not the Sword Ghost standing in front of her.
Hoping only that her martial nephew could find the path to advance through this sword, Un Wol-hyang struck down.
Soon after, her sword split the space.
Silence came upon the world.