Chapter 101 : Chapter 101
Chapter 101. A Swordsman, to a Swordsman (2)
BOOOOOM—!
Dam Jeok-san’s sword momentum swept forth like a raging storm.
Jang Tae-san did not falter, even before that savage sword force, far fiercer than anything before. He maintained his breathing with unwavering composure.
The sword he wielded was still the Three-Extreme Contracting Fang Sword. Yet unlike before, he freely interwove variations and feints.
Even when he had been an anomalous being trapped within his own world, he had been threatening enough. Now, however, he had become a complete swordsman.
That was why.
Dam Jeok-san awakened the Predation ability he had suppressed until now.
‘This is no longer an opponent I can face while holding back my cards.’
Dam Jeok-san’s sword shot forward toward Jang Tae-san, wrapped in a dim, blazing flame.
As if he had been waiting for it, Jang Tae-san violently spun his blade, blocking the slashing strike.
That was where it began.
Jang Tae-san swung his sword carelessly, as though swatting at an insect. It was another ultimate of the Three-Extreme Contracting Fang Sword: Loose Yet Unfailing.
That seemingly casual sword move flew toward Dam Jeok-san’s throat in an instant, like a net that never missed its target no matter how sparse it appeared.
“Impressive…!”
Dam Jeok-san smiled brightly, even as a chill crept up the back of his neck.
He truly seemed to be enjoying this Life-and-Death Duel, where a single sheet of paper could mean the difference between life and death.
TAT!
His footwork quickened. A pale mist flickered around Dam Jeok-san’s ankles for only a moment. Before anyone realized it, his body had already slipped free from the trajectory of Loose Yet Unfailing.
The process was impossible to discern. It was as if he had severed space itself and moved through it. A body movement art bordering on divine technique.
The only one who grasped how Dam Jeok-san had moved was the Lesser Heavenly Demon, watching their duel from within the shadows.
‘Ha… do not tell me he imitated the Silent Devouring Demon Art?’
The shock left him at a loss for words. A body movement art that moved as if slicing through space by riding on cloud-mist was exceedingly rare.
Of course, it was not entirely unheard of. In truth, the Kunlun Sect’s Cloud Dragon Eight Great Forms bore considerable resemblance to a secret art of the Ming Cult.
However, there was no chance that Dam Jeok-san had learned the Cloud Dragon Eight Great Forms. When monsters first began to appear, the Kunlun Sect had stood at the forefront of the fight and had nearly fallen into ruin as a result.
—He was a man who suited the name Heavenly Demon even more than I did.
The Cult Leader’s words about the Martial Sovereign suddenly crossed his mind.
Looking at Dam Jeok-san, he felt he understood what kind of feelings had driven the Cult Leader to utter such words.
‘He is dangerous.’
The talent to perceive the essence of martial arts and then apply it at will. Even Bukgung Wan had grown up hearing, day after day, that he was a once-in-an-era genius.
Yet even to Bukgung Wan’s eyes, Dam Jeok-san was clearly an existence that lay beyond the bounds of common sense.
Was that not what a Heavenly Demon truly was? A calamity that shattered all worldly conventions and stood alone in dominion. Dam Jeok-san fit that definition disturbingly well.
Perhaps the Cult Leader had felt the same way when he gazed upon Man Su-geuk, the Martial Sovereign.
Whatever the Lesser Heavenly Demon’s thoughts might have been—
Dam Jeok-san continued to swing his sword without pause.
At some point, the two blades he wielded had naturally become imbued with the energies of the Heaven-Shattering, Star-Destroying Form and the Prajna Heart Technique.
There was no sign that he intended to use the Red White Extreme Smoke Slash. He was simply, effortlessly, handling two different kinds of genuine qi. It meant that, without even learning martial arts related to it, he had reached a level where he could freely control two distinct mental images.
The sword momentum unfolding from Dam Jeok-san’s right sword was rough and radical, as though utterly uncalculated. In contrast, his left sword displayed techniques as perfectly refined as those of a master who had devoted decades solely to the blade.
And yet—
Both swords were executing the same form. The only difference was that one was wrapped in the Extreme Heaven Strange Sovereign Technique, and the other in the Prajna Heart Technique.
“Dam Jeok-san, you are strong.”
The Three-Extreme Sword spoke as he stared at Dam Jeok-san with eyes that were nearly empty. Once again, a level of sword mastery beyond comprehension had driven his reason to the brink.
“The words of that sorcerer hiding like a rat were right. To meet my death at your hands would be an honor to me.”
As if determined not to lose the clarity that had returned to him in a flash of enlightenment, he continued speaking with utmost composure.
Yet regardless of his words, Jang Tae-san’s sword continued to move with elusive fluidity.
Searching for Dam Jeok-san’s opening.
“There is no need to go that far.”
Dam Jeok-san shook his head.
“Every swordsman has his own life.”
Even if it did not shine brilliantly, a life honed by the sword held value in and of itself.
“I mean that you do not need to bear the honor alone.”
CRUNCH!
Dam Jeok-san’s slash cleaved into Jang Tae-san’s shoulder. Unlike before, the wound did not easily mend itself.
Stagger—
Jang Tae-san could not recover from the injury. A dizzying pain surged through him, and his body swayed.
The Predation ability had manifested. Genuine qi imbued with the power of Predation relentlessly burrowed into Jang Tae-san’s flesh.
No—it did not merely burrow in. It churned, corroded, and ultimately tore him apart and devoured him. True predation.
“I, too, was honored enough.”
Dam Jeok-san did not stop his sword dance, even as he watched Jang Tae-san trapped in agony.
Jang Tae-san was driven back again and again. Backward, further backward. As though the moment when they had fought on equal footing had been nothing but an illusion.
And that momentum—
‘This… I have grown stronger than I imagined.’
Even Dam Jeok-san himself was taken aback.
Yet it was not strange. Ever since reaching the Ultra-Peak realm, the opponents he had faced had been so powerful that he had been unable to feel it.
The Sword Ghost, Wi Cheon-rak, and even the General of the North.
Each of them had been foes against whom merely enduring a single blow required staking his life.
And yet, no matter what—
Dam Jeok-san had survived among those monsters. No, more than surviving, he had forced his will through.
It was only natural that such brutal battles had caused Dam Jeok-san to grow at a terrifying pace.
Still, Jang Tae-san was not simply being overwhelmed.
Once more, a chilling light ignited in his eyes.
“Sword Dragon of this era! I will cut you down.”
These were not hollow words repeated for over a hundred years. Jang Tae-san’s gaze and voice were unmistakably fixed upon Dam Jeok-san.
The human Jang Tae-san had died a century ago.
But as a swordsman, by crossing blades with Dam Jeok-san, he had gained life once more—even if it was a life with a predetermined end.
On the verge of crossing the threshold of death, Jang Tae-san had shattered every belief he had accumulated until then.
He had been born a righteous martial artist who pursued justice and chivalry, yet he had lived seeking only his own profit and advancement. But at the final moment, he made a decision wholly unrelated to his own gain or glory.
Paradoxically, that decision led his martial path to the next stage. Yet Jang Tae-san could not wield that sword with a sound mind.
Because he was dead.
After death, he had endlessly repeated a single form, but few would call him whole.
Had he not met Dam Jeok-san, he would likely never have escaped that state.
If a sorcerer like Bukgung Wan or Bukgung Dantian had purified this Corrupted Land, Jang Tae-san would have been cleansed not as a swordsman, but as an anomalous being.
Jang Tae-san knew that Dam Jeok-san had given him this chance.
And to repay it—
“I am coming.”
He knew that he had to swing his sword with everything he had.
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACK!
As their blades collided, terrifying lightning erupted.
Jang Tae-san, who had been pushed back time and again, began once more to clash on equal terms. The esoteric truths of the Three-Extreme Contracting Fang Sword, long slumbering, burst forth without end.
But his opponent was the Sword Dragon of this era.
Dam Jeok-san had already adapted to Jang Tae-san’s sword.
The power of Predation gnawed at the gaps between Jang Tae-san’s genuine qi, while Dam Jeok-san’s overwhelming will tore those gaps open even further.
“Ghk!”
An inevitable rain of slashes, each forced to expose an opening.
Fresh wounds were carved into Jang Tae-san’s body. Like an ordinary human’s, they did not heal.
Yet Jang Tae-san did not remain idle either. As his body was cut five or six times—
SLASH!
He managed to leave a single sword mark upon Dam Jeok-san as well.
“So this is your true sword, Jang Tae-san.”
Dam Jeok-san murmured as he looked at the long wound left on his arm.
It was a sword filled with hesitation. A sword filled with anguish. A sword filled with baseness. Yet even bearing that trembling and wavering, it pressed forward toward what was right.
A heart that advances while carrying weakness is never weak.
That was something Dam Jeok-san himself knew better than anyone.
“I am the same.”
Before losing his dantian, he had been unbearably arrogant. He had believed he could overturn the world alone and sit upon the throne of the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle.
He had advanced without fear. He had been strong, and he had not been weak. Yet strength that did not embrace weakness was only half of true strength.
‘That is why I broke.’
Only after breaking did he realize that the world was inherently harsh, and that only those who endured that harshness and continued forward were truly strong.
WOOOOOONG!
Dam Jeok-san threw the Red Cloud Sword to the ground. With both hands, he grasped the sword bestowed upon him by his master—Sky Thunder.
The sword body of Sky Thunder swelled as though it might burst, filled with the surging waves of the Extreme Heaven Strange Sovereign Technique. The Prajna Heart Technique, which had maintained balance on the other side, vanished without a trace.
Only the blazing power of the Extreme Heaven Strange Sovereign Technique, which pursued the pinnacle of the Path of Domination, burned vividly.
The sword path Dam Jeok-san unfolded with Sky Thunder was, astonishingly, nearly identical to that of the Three-Extreme Sword, Jang Tae-san.
‘This is not a form that can be used twice.’
There was no point in naming it, either. It was nothing more than a dance offered by one swordsman to another.
Three-Extreme Contracting Fang Sword, derivative.
Nameless Sword Form.
Dam Jeok-san did not know that this firewood gatherers’ village bore the name Nameless Village because it had no true name. Yet as if he did, a nameless sword form pierced through space.
From Jang Tae-san’s fingertips as well, a sword form not much different from it unfolded.
The moment their swords collided—
BWOOOOOOONG――――――!!
A deafening roar tore at their ears.
Their sword strikes were alike, yet Dam Jeok-san’s blade began to push Jang Tae-san’s back first.
What decided the outcome was the pure disparity in power. Dam Jeok-san poured all of his remaining internal energy into that single strike.
In truth, Jang Tae-san was no different. Every last bit of demonic energy he could wield was gathered at the tip of his sword.
Though Jang Tae-san could use the entire Corrupted Land as though it were his dantian, there was a limit to how much demonic energy he could pack into a single blow.
‘I was slightly stronger.’
Dam Jeok-san had repeatedly endured battles that inevitably specialized him in one-strike kills. Brutal fights where he had to block, and at times neutralize, foes stronger than himself.
Through those battles, the power he could pour into a single sword strike had grown to a level far beyond that of experts of the same realm.
THUD!
Sky Thunder pierced Jang Tae-san’s chest, producing a dull, meaty sound.
Jang Tae-san felt something surge up from within. It was not blood—he no longer bled red blood.
It was demonic energy. The demonic energy that had been corrupting the land flowed backward and burst forth like vomited blood.
Dam Jeok-san did not flinch at the torrent of demonic energy pouring toward him. He drove the sword even deeper.
“Please…”
May my death help you take even a single step forward. Sword Dragon, may it leave even the faintest trace in your history.
“That is enough.”
Though he did not hear the words to the end, Dam Jeok-san answered softly, as though he understood them all.
The greatest courtesy one swordsman could show to another.
Soon after, Jang Tae-san’s breath ceased, and an immense amount of demonic energy poured toward Dam Jeok-san.
Predation had begun.
***
At the same time, in Shanxi, at the Martial Sovereign Castle.
The main estate of the Iron Blood Woo Clan, one of the Five Great Families.
After the Eccentric Hero Woo Gi-hwan ascended as the new Family Head, most of the Iron Blood Woo Clan’s council of elders and military forces were replaced.
Having narrowly escaped extermination, the clan instead enforced ruthless internal discipline under Woo Gi-hwan, whose fame as a great hero was widely known.
Woo Gi-hwan, who had wandered his entire life away from the clan, had been bound by it ever since, unable to take a proper rest even once.
It was to him that news reached—
“The Third Young Master is returning to the main castle?”
The news of Dam Jeok-san.
Some might call him a wretch who brought ruin upon the clan, but Woo Gi-hwan thought differently.
Even if Dam Jeok-san had been left alone, Iron Blood Tyrant Sword Woo Gi-tae would eventually have crossed the line drawn by the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle. And then, even as one of the Five Great Families, the Iron Blood Woo Clan would have been reduced to ashes.
That brat had instead saved the clan.
‘I would like to see his face at least once.’
The Eccentric Hero was a man with strong rebellious tendencies, to the point that after falling out with his clan, he had left the Martial Sovereign Castle and wandered as a ronin.
Perhaps because of that, the faction of the Eldest Young Master, now dominating the mainstream of the Martial Sovereign Castle, sat poorly with him.
Still, could the Third Young Master, Dam Jeok-san, truly become a substitute for him?
‘If even half of the rumors are true, he might be able to stand against the Eldest Young Master…’
Woo Gi-hwan never believed anything he had not seen with his own eyes.
That night.
The new Family Head of the Iron Blood Woo Clan, the Eccentric Hero Woo Gi-hwan, quietly left his seat.