Chapter 123 : Chapter 123
Chapter 123. Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable (6)
Dam Jeok-san faced the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable with both swords hanging loosely at his sides.
A peerless expert of the absolute realm, charging at him with killing intent. Had they fought a life-and-death duel without any interference, this was a man he would not have lasted even ten seconds against.
But now…
‘This is doable.’
The man had lost one arm and one leg.
Arms and legs were not merely parts of the body.
They contained the Twelve Meridians, the minor vessels spread throughout the body, and the acupoints through which internal energy flowed. Lose a limb, and the pathways of circulating qi inevitably twisted as well.
As if proving that fact, the momentum with which the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable bore down on Dam Jeok-san was far inferior to before.
If one had to compare, he was roughly on par with the Sword Ghost Dam Jeok-san had encountered in the Northern Demonic Realm—perhaps only slightly stronger.
‘But he is already in tatters.’
After taking the Space Sword head-on from the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle, he was essentially at the brink of death. One clean strike would be enough to kill him.
With that judgment, Dam Jeok-san adjusted his stance.
“Keuk.”
As the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable closed in, a terrifying pressure crushed down upon Dam Jeok-san’s entire body. Calling him “Sword Ghost–level” might have sounded casual, but the Sword Ghost had also been a swordsman who reached the Entering Transformation Realm. This was only natural.
Without hesitation, the man moved his one remaining arm. A sharply formed piercing hand thrust toward Dam Jeok-san’s solar plexus.
It was far too fast and precise to belong to someone who had lost half his limbs.
Even most Ultra-Peak experts would have lost their lives to that single move.
Dam Jeok-san crossed his twin swords and blocked the piercing hand.
KAAANG!!
A violent impact rang out, impossible to believe as a collision between steel and flesh. At the same time, Dam Jeok-san felt his insides churn violently, yet he raised his visual power to the limit.
If he allowed himself to be led by his opponent’s intent, his head would fall in the end. He had to find an opening—and seize it without hesitation to overturn the momentum.
As his eyes burned from pushing his visual power, openings gradually came into view. Gaps in the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s movements.
‘He is riddled with openings.’
That was only natural. He had lost one arm and one leg, and suffered internal injuries severe enough to match.
But not all openings were the same. Most of them appeared and vanished in a realm of speed Dam Jeok-san could not possibly intrude upon.
He could wait until the man staggered further. If he blocked two or three more killing strikes, such a chance might come.
Even now, the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s injuries were worsening by the second.
Yet Dam Jeok-san shook his head.
‘That does not mean I am completely safe.’
Each of the man’s strikes was transcendentally sharp. Thanks to the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle, they had fallen to a level he could barely block—but that was all.
At any moment, the man’s hand could shatter his ribs and crush his heart.
Just as urgently, Dam Jeok-san also had to bring this to a conclusion. A terrifying shockwave began to gather on his swords.
It was the prelude to his strongest and fastest single strike, Red-White Extreme Smoke Slash.
Red-White Extreme Smoke Slash had been designed from the beginning for situations exactly like this. He had devised it to land a decisive blow on the Northern General Jin Ryeo, an Entering Transformation Realm expert.
‘Faster. This is not enough.’
Urging himself on as he watched the shockwave form, Dam Jeok-san accelerated the speed of Genuine Qi racing through his acupoints to the extreme.
Extreme Heaven Strange Sovereign Technique and Prajna Heart Technique. The two peerless arts intertwined chaotically and settled upon both blades. The speed was overwhelming. One mistake, and he could fall into qi deviation. Yet Dam Jeok-san did not shrink from that danger.
And then—
The chance arrived.
Within the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s reckless killing move aimed at Dam Jeok-san, a thread-thin opening appeared.
The brilliant shockwave gathered on Dam Jeok-san’s sword burrowed straight into that gap.
Unique Ultimate Technique
Heterogeneous Resonance Knot
Red-White Extreme Smoke Slash
***
His reason was clouded.
The world was dyed red.
Nothing remained but hatred and killing intent.
After the Space Sword swept past him, the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable was moving almost entirely on instinct.
He forced his body—already long past the point of fatal injury—to move through demonic energy and sheer willpower. His sole purpose was to kill Dam Jeok-san.
The junior upon whom the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle had wagered the future.
The brat who had dared to carve into his flank.
‘I must kill him.’
In an instant, as his limbs were severed and his body utterly ruined, a dreadful premonition brushed across the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s Upper Dantian.
It came as several vividly clear images.
A young man wielding twin swords rampaged across blood-soaked land. And at the end of that land stood Blood God, the Palace Lord of the Blood Palace.
Blood God roared and attempted something.
The young man sneered, then honed space itself into a single slash—just as his master, the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle, had done.
The images flickered through the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s mind for only an instant before dissipating.
Yet as someone who was shedding his humanity and becoming something beyond it, he instinctively understood that this was no illusion.
A rare flash of foresight had brushed his Upper Dantian. With his limbs severed and the flow of qi and blood twisted, inspiration had burst forth uncontrollably.
It was not intentional, but what had been seen could not be taken back.
Kill Dam Jeok-san.
If he did not kill him here, the boy would someday become a great enemy who would uproot even the very foundations of the sect.
The Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable scattered killing moves while burning even his Pre-natal Qi. The flow of qi was unbearably violent. Qi and blood surged in reverse, and qi deviation advanced rapidly.
If it were an expert on the level of the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle, he might have found dozens of openings in him.
But the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable did not care in the slightest. His opponent was, at best, a mature Ultra-Peak expert. No matter how strange his Ability or how exceptional his talent, he could not possibly cross the wall of realms.
As he raised his hand blade to strike Dam Jeok-san’s neck—
GROOOOO!!
Suddenly, white and red, anomalous Genuine Qi erupted from Dam Jeok-san’s sword. The Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s brows twitched, but he did not stop.
No matter how dangerous that unknown sword strike was, it did not matter. He was prepared to accept even death if it meant severing Dam Jeok-san’s neck.
At the very moment the sharpened hand blade touched Dam Jeok-san’s nape, the red-and-white sword qi slammed into him at extreme speed.
As though Dam Jeok-san had caught up to his speed.
“Impossible.”
A denial escaped the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s lips.
This sword should only reach him after Dam Jeok-san’s head had fallen. Of that, he had been certain.
‘Because I am faster.’
Dam Jeok-san could not move at his speed. He had to believe that. This was an absolute wall formed by the difference in realms.
“What do you mean impossible?”
Even in a state where speaking itself was a struggle, Dam Jeok-san opened his mouth and sneered.
“It is not that I am fast. You are the one who has slowed down.”
He spoke as he poured Red-White Extreme Smoke Slash to its very end.
Just as he said, the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s qi and blood were tangled, his Genuine Qi surging in reverse, his movements growing slower and slower. His accumulated realm was collapsing.
Yet that alone could not explain it. Dam Jeok-san, though still crude, had undeniably caught up to his speed.
More precisely, they had met somewhere in the middle. Dam Jeok-san was ascending, while the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable was falling.
Of course, Dam Jeok-san knew why he had been able to ascend, even if only slightly.
The reason was almost laughably simple.
‘I just became used to it.’
After reaching the Ultra-Peak realm—or even before that—he had fought Entering Transformation Realm experts far too often.
Sometimes it had been sparring, sometimes life-and-death duels. But Dam Jeok-san had always entered those battles with the obsession to defeat them.
And that obsession had borne fruit.
By ‘adapting’ to their speed.
‘Of course, this is absurd.’
Simply exchanging blows with Entering Transformation Realm superhumans did not mean every Ultra-Peak expert could adapt to their speed.
This was only possible because Dam Jeok-san had devoured several experts who had reached the Entering Transformation Realm. Even if he had not fully digested them, their experiences and power had gradually seeped into him.
PUUK!
Dam Jeok-san’s sword arcs plunged deep into both sides of the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s chest.
“Kuhuhuhuhuh!”
Feeling the blades tearing through his flesh, the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable let out a mad, breathless laugh.
Left Protector ranked third within the Blood Palace.
A transcendent who had reached the threshold of the Eight Sovereigns of Murim.
And yet his heart was pierced by the blade of this brat!
As Dam Jeok-san twisted the swords, blood surged forth violently.
The Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable felt his spirit beginning to escape through his Upper Dantian. It meant he had suffered wounds deep enough to cause death. Of course. He had lost his limbs, and both sides of his chest were pierced. Even a Half-Demon with regeneration would find such injuries difficult to survive.
Moreover, there was a strange power within Dam Jeok-san’s Genuine Qi. A peculiar force that suppressed regeneration—something he had felt since the moment his flank was cut.
The Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable manifested his will to its limit, forcibly delaying his death.
Then he opened his mouth.
“You brat of the Martial Sovereign Castle.”
“Dying to a brat like me, and you are still calling me a brat.”
Dam Jeok-san frowned as he answered—
“This Palace stands one step removed from fate.”
The Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable did not care at all.
He had to change the horrific fate he had just seen, by any means necessary. If he could not kill Dam Jeok-san, he had to use another method.
Turn the boy’s attention. No matter how.
“Scour the North. In its deepest reaches, within a forest dyed black, a new fate is being born.”
“Black Sword Forest…?”
Though its power had been halved by the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle, it was still a mighty force counted among the Four Fiends of the Outer Path.
At those words, so evocative of that faction, Dam Jeok-san tilted his head—
SHRK!
And drew his sword, severing the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable’s head.
He had never intended to interrogate the man in the first place.
Predation begins.
Emotionless words filled Dam Jeok-san’s vision.
At the same time, without warning, an enormous torrent of demonic energy and wicked thoughts poured into him.
It was incomparable to anything he had ever devoured before.
Dam Jeok-san felt a sense of omnipotence so intense his entire body tingled.
If he could truly make this tremendous power his own, it felt as though he could even cleave the foothills of a massive mountain range.
Yet Dam Jeok-san did not become intoxicated by that feeling.
It was true that he had inflicted deep humiliation upon the Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable, and that he had personally severed his head.
But in truth, the one who had driven the man to the brink of death was none other than the Lord of the Martial Sovereign Castle. He had succeeded in predation—but could he truly subdue this power?
With that worry, Dam Jeok-san was drawn into a semi-transparent illusion—
[Do not worry.]
A heavy Telepathy resounded within his mind.
At the same time, a hand touched his back, and a stream of Genuine Qi seeped into him.
[Use this Seat’s Genuine Qi. Within your mental image, you should be able to reproduce the Space Sword at least once.]
How had he reached into his mental image itself? Strength beyond all discernible limits.
Casting aside his shock, Dam Jeok-san focused his mind.
On the enemy before him—Heaven-Transcending Blood Venerable.