Guanyin Hall (2)

We sprinted for Guanyin Hall and, right before its gate, caught the fight between Emei disciples and Blood Cult fiends.

Spotting the young lady facing off against the man who looked like their leader, Jeong-an let out a scream.

“Senior Sister Jeong-hye?!”

“Jeong-hye” was apparently her fellow disciple under the same master—the one she had bragged about all the way here.

She had praised her endlessly as a wise one.

Seeing a middle-aged woman desperately fending off three top masters alone, the Scarlet-Lotus Sword, Hwa Yeong-bin, said,

“That must be Elder Gyeoljin. We must hurry!”

As he spoke and picked up speed, Bi Sayoung glanced at Jeong-an—then exploded forward.

Bang!

His figure shot ahead like an arrow.

He was using Bursting Advance Steps.

Learned from the Colossus Demon’s manual, that step art was so astonishing that you could almost understand why a Blood Cult text held it—despite not being a demonic art.

It only provided a brief instant of extreme acceleration—but that single utility was overwhelming.

With it, Bi Sayoung’s speed became a gale incarnate.

Jeong-an’s bright voice of awe floated from beside me.

“Wow—knew it!”

But when I saw the direction he took—straight toward the young lady Jeong-an called her senior, Jeong-hye—I couldn’t help a crooked smile. So he really was serious.

I grinned.

You couldn’t just ignore a friend’s crisis!

I also exploded into Bursting Advance Steps.

Wham!

Scenery blurred past at a terrifying clip.

The heightened speed—beyond my usual limit—thrilled through me.

My target was the man facing Jeong-hye.

He was obviously the Blood Cult’s local commander.

His cultivation looked about eighty years of inner strength.

Just then Bi Sayoung, having swept in like a squall and plucked Jeong-hye to safety, shouted,

“I’ll leave the rest to you!”

I rushed the demon and shouted back,

“Of course!”

I could have gone in silent for a surprise thrust—but chose not to.

He was exactly the opponent I’d been craving.

Someone to test who I was now.

There were many enemies left, but the Scarlet-Lotus Sword behind me could handle them.

And if he joined with Elder Gyeoljin, it should suffice despite their numbers.

This was the rare moment when I could fight exactly as I wanted—without thinking of anything else.

How glorious was that?

A smile tugged at my lips.

He fell back, taking a guarded stance.

He must have felt threatened by my speed.

Hm—if so…

Ordinarily, a foe two realms above me turtling up meant I should circle with phantom blades and footwork, biding time.

But—

I didn’t feel like that at all right now!

I drove straight in and unfurled my sword.

Seonu Thirteen Swords, First Form: Divine Responding Wing.

Sword-light bloomed into still brighter wings.

Shuaaa!

The demon snorted and swung his saber.

“Parlor tricks!”

He’d recognized an illusion blade and meant to crush it with brute force.

My smile returned.

How long had I waited for this situation since that day?

Buuuum!

As his powerful chop came down, my wing of light flexed and slid past the strike.

Like a real bird beating its wings—the exact movement Mukrang had shown my body.

I had only practiced it inside my head—but it manifested now, perfectly suited, perfectly natural. A jolt of rapture shot through me.

His eyes flew wide.

“?!”

The wing that had fended off his blow spread wide and wrapped him.

From the First Form, I flowed straight into the Eleventh:

Great Roc Ten-Thousand-Li.

“Heuk!”

Panic flared in his eyes.

He gritted his teeth and flung saber-qi in all directions.

“Hraaaah!”

Fwoooosh!

In the instant before the wings sealed shut, he blasted out blade-aura, shredding the cage of light.

A strong, airtight counter—worthy of a master beyond eighty years’ cultivation.

But it was exactly the response I’d expected.

My eyes flashed.

An opening.

“Haaah!”

Four-One Sword Method, Third Form: Three Talons, Three Severings.

In a heartbeat I’d shifted to his flank, releasing three needle-thin streaks like successive One Breath, One Kill thrusts.

Shweee!

“Grrk!”

A nick!

Blood spurted from his left shoulder and chest.

He had failed to evade all three.

I clicked my tongue.

“Tch.”

I’d hoped to end it there—but he wasn’t going down that easily.

He staggered back, then launched a full-force counter, face contorting.

“Die! Wild Dragon Sunders Heaven!”

KRRAAAAA—!

A rampaging red dragon of saber-qi charged in a jagged path.

Wild Dragon Sabre Art—a notorious Blood Cult technique.

My heart thumped.

Could I do it?

Of all the things Black Wolf had shown me—aside from Emptiness Becomes Form, which I still couldn’t use—the one I’d most wanted to try was that single stroke that cut the Colossus Demon’s full-power rush with One Breath, One Kill.

Stemming a tidal onslaught by slicing the wrist—like stopping a runaway cart with a single pine needle.

It required the insight to observe an enemy’s offense from a plane above—and the precision to sever its pulse.

I’d always wondered:

Could I really pull that off?

Perhaps it was even subtler than Emptiness Becomes Form.

I didn’t think long.

Fixing on the red dragon lunging at terrifying speed, I readied myself.

Calm.

I exhaled and stilled my mind.

Insight.

I widened every sense, contemplating the entire raging mass of saber-qi.

Then I extended my arm—my sword as one with it.

Four-One Sword Method, First Form: One Breath, One Kill.

Shweee!

A line of light shot for the dragon’s “tail”—the saberman’s wrist.

Screee!

But I failed to chop it clean; my blade only sliced hard across it.

Damn!

The red dragon’s greedy maw filled my vision.

Then came the impact.

KA-KA-KA-BOOOOM!

The ground seemed gouged by a dragon’s thrash.

Standing amid scorched earth, he clutched a wrist cut a quarter through—blood spraying—and glared back at me.

Three paces away, I clutched my pounding chest and muttered,

“Whew… almost died.”

I’d dodged at the last instant.

Without Bursting Advance Steps—and without that slight cut twisting the saber-qi’s path—I might truly have died.

A bitter taste filled my mouth.

So that realm was still a stretch…

The brush with death cooled my head—and regret flooded in.

What madness, Seonu Jin—staking your life on baseless confidence.

But the feeling that I could do it had been so strong.

And in truth, I’d nearly succeeded just now.

Heat rose in my head again.

One more try might do it…

So much for regret. My hunter’s eyes fixed on him; my tongue wet my lips.

---

The Scarlet-Lotus Sword watched the two Flying Dragon men disappear ahead at a speed he himself couldn’t match.

Both were astonishing—but that friend Bi Sayoung’s footwork was beyond belief.

Even he, now brushing the threshold of the super-pinnacle, couldn’t keep up—he laughed hollowly.

Even seeing it, he could scarcely believe it. Judged on footwork alone, he’s a prodigy of the age.

And the other, Seonu Jin, amazed him differently.

With only about seventy years of inner strength, he was pressuring a Blood Cultist who seemed to have crossed the eighty-year wall.

‘A genius? Different in feel from my disciple.’

When his master, the Qingcheng Eccentric Immortal, first brought the blind youth Yi Geon and doted on him, Hwa Yeong-bin hadn’t even felt jealousy.

The talent had been too overwhelming for envy.

His own pride felt laughable.

And he also felt relief.

His life’s aim was to destroy the Blood Cult; he could no longer pursue his master’s dream of the mythic realm.

But he believed:

If anyone would fulfill that dream, it would be his disciple, Yi Geon.

Perhaps even revive the divine title broken a century ago.

Compared to that, this Seonu Jin was… peculiar.

‘He doesn’t feel overwhelmingly gifted like my disciple. And yet…’

What he was showing now—and the tales of what he had already achieved—were unbelievable, one after another.

Hwa Yeong-bin had once served in the Flying Dragon Unit.

Right after the Great Righteous–Blood War, he could not forgive the Blood Cult fiends who had taken his true love.

From then on, his life’s purpose had been singular: the Blood Cult’s annihilation.

But… the Flying Dragon Unit wasn’t the place for that.

Soon after joining, he’d felt despair.

The unit wasn’t for toppling the cult—just a garrison guarding borders.

So, realizing he could do nothing there, he finished his five-year term and left without regret.

And yet…

On the way here, reunited with his juniors, he had spoken at length with them.

And was shaken.

The Blood Demon’s history with Diancang; the Shadow Unit’s existence; Blood Cult forward bases burrowed into the orthodox world?

Those were the things they said they’d uncovered.

And each was something Hwa Yeong-bin had never learned in five years with the unit.

He felt self-reproach—what had he done all that time?

And the more he listened, the more it seemed that Seonu Jin stood at the center of it all.

A junior both astonishing and admirable.

And that sword…

He eyed Black Wolf in Seonu Jin’s hand.

It resembled very closely the blade of that man he had met once.

Could it be…?

By then, Hwa Yeong-bin himself had plunged into the Blood Cultists.

“Haaah!”

Shuhaa!

“Guhh?!”

“Gaaah!”

With his sweeping blade, a grand crimson dusk fell over the field.

A sunset stinking of blood.

The cultists began to scream in fear.

“T-the Scarlet-Lotus Sword!”

“How is the Scarlet-Lotus Sword here?!”

Standing at super-pinnacle’s threshold, Hwa Yeong-bin slew the three lower-pinnacle fiends who were pressing Elder Gyeoljin, then culled the rabble—it wasn’t difficult.

Even while massacring them, he watched Seonu Jin’s duel.

Despite facing a superior foe, Seonu Jin never let up his offense.

Nor had he lost the initiative from the start.

Since injuring his right wrist, the fiend was wielding the saber left-handed—less deftly. At this rate, Seonu Jin might truly fell someone two steps above.

“Haaah!”

Seonu Jin’s phantom blades fanned like radiant wings; the fiend gritted his teeth and slashed.

“That trick again?!”

His blade-aura carved deep, meaning to miss no more.

But even before it reached, the wings shattered in midair like breaking glass.

Pahh!

“?!”

Through the bursting light, he saw a killing thrust—Seonu Jin’s sword.

He recoiled in shock.

Shweee!

By a sheet of paper.

The streak of light skimmed his lapel.

Sensing opportunity, he snarled and chopped down.

“Wretch!”

A wild, irregular rush—like a mad dragon lunging.

KWAAAA!

The saber strike hit Seonu Jin.

—or seemed to.

The body caught by the raging force didn’t slice—it scattered into fluttering petals.

Afterimages? At that timing?

Hwa Yeong-bin exhaled in awe.

Drifting like wind-tossed petals, Seonu Jin emerged at the fiend’s back and loosed a dozen phantom blades.

“Not a chance!”

Grinding his teeth, the fiend swept them away—

But one “phantom” suddenly accelerated and slashed his thigh.

Shweee!

“Grrrr!”

Again, Hwa Yeong-bin marveled.

The blend of illusion and real blade was exquisite.

Wedded to that supreme footwork, it left even a two-steps-higher foe unable to respond.

Perhaps still a touch green—

When the fiend wobbled, Seonu Jin drove a straight thrust.

Too hasty, to Hwa Yeong-bin’s eye.

He called out in dismay.

“No!”

Sure enough, the fiend’s eyes flashed as he unfurled his opening move again—Wild Dragon Sunders Heaven.

“Hraaaah!”

KR-KR-KR-KRAAA!

A red dragon charged for Seonu Jin’s blade.

A head-on clash; with higher inner power and martial depth, the fiend held all the advantage.

He burst into laughter.

“Wahaha! Die!”

His dragonlike blade-aura plowed through Seonu Jin’s thin line of sword-qi.

The sword-qi scattered like sand.

“?!”

Only then did both he and Hwa Yeong-bin realize—

That, too, was a phantom.

Grinning fiercely, Seonu Jin finally stabbed with the real sword.

Far swifter than the decoy—One Breath, One Kill.

Thwock!

“Urk?!”

His sword pierced the fiend’s wrist—exactly.

The charging red dragon vanished into nothing.

In the next breath, a tiny twist of Seonu Jin’s hand lopped the wrist cleanly.

Splurt!

“Gyaaaaa!”

As blood fountained and the fiend screamed, Seonu Jin smirked and murmured,

“See? Works if you try again.”

Then a flash like lightning—he carved both shoulders.

The fiend could no longer resist.

Having felled a foe above his realm, Seonu Jin left Hwa Yeong-bin chuckling in disbelief.

It seemed Yi Geon had found himself a fine rival indeed.