Chapter 123

Ung Gyo asked back in alarm.

“T-To the point of death?”
“Yes.”

I explained it as briefly as possible.
Ak Mu-jin’s original attainment in the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art was the Fifth Stage.
But whether because of the Defeated-Spirit Paste or not, his reinforced body had become far tougher than before. As if it had reached around the Sixth Stage.
Up to now, we had stimulated his reinforced body through strikes for the sake of attainment, but from here on, we had to hit him for the sake of Ak Mu-jin’s survival.
If we couldn’t calm the energy rampaging through his body, things might become truly dangerous.
We had to forcibly wear down Ak Mu-jin’s reinforced body so that this energy would be consumed.

“Then in what way- huh!”

Bang!
Ung Gyo barely dodged Ak Mu-jin’s mindless attack.
Another innocent boulder behind him was smashed apart.

‘If someone slips up and fails to dodge, it won’t end with just a few broken bones.’

I shouted quickly.

“From now on, don’t question anything and do as I say. First, everyone throw away your weapons.”
“What?”
“I said don’t question it!”

The Longevity Ten all threw away their weapons at once.
Weapons meant nothing right now.
If they poured internal energy into them and slashed, they might somehow leave a scratch, but all that would do was ruin the weapon.

“Move in coordination. Never try to face him alone. Dodge him, or use palm arts to push Unit Leader Ak back! And all guards except Guard Im, get in among the Longevity Ten and divide Unit Leader Ak’s attention. Keep moving, keep shouting, keep waving your arms, and make it hard for him to judge where he should attack!”

I gave orders in a hurry.
To subdue Ak Mu-jin, I had to strike his weak points, but after taking the Defeated-Spirit Paste, all the patterns from before had collapsed.
Their positions, sizes, and even their clarity had all changed.
So I needed time to figure them out again.

“Remember this. Your goal isn’t to subdue him, it’s to buy time!”
“What should I do, Young Lord?”
“Guard Im, protect me.”

More than ever, I had to sharpen my senses to a razor’s edge.
To understand the new pattern, I needed to fully trace it at least once from the very first point where the changes began to the last.

‘Focus.’

I had to finish this before the Longevity Ten and the guards grew exhausted or got badly hurt.
I narrowed the range of my senses and examined Ak Mu-jin’s insides again.

Originally, Ak Mu-jin had seventy-two weak points.
They shifted positions according to a certain pattern.
But now, sensing them at all wasn’t easy.
It was probably because his attainment in the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art had risen, and because the energy of the Defeated-Spirit Paste was raging through him like a storm.

‘The changes are too fast too.’

Compared to when he was at the Fifth Stage, the speed at which the weak points changed position had roughly doubled.
It felt as though the few weak points I had managed to identify with difficulty were all blinking at once.

‘This got troublesome.’

Even if I figured out every position, it would be impossible for the Longevity Ten to land precise strikes at that speed.
By the time I opened my mouth to give an order, the weak point would already have vanished elsewhere.
In the end, I would have to deal with this myself.

‘Geo-gwol point, Daechu point, Cheonchu point……’

I calmly tracked the changes in the weak points.
Meanwhile, the Longevity Ten and the guards were locked in a desperate struggle with Ak Mu-jin.

“Hah!”

The Longevity Ten were desperate.
As I had ordered, they repeatedly fired palm force at Ak Mu-jin’s torso.
Not to injure him, but to interfere with his movements somehow.

“Over here, Unit Leader Ak!!”
“Waaaah!”

The guards also circled around while shouting at the top of their lungs.
They waved their arms like mad to split his attention, and the instant Ak Mu-jin tried to change direction, they threw stones to steal his timing.
It looked a little ridiculous, but without them, the Longevity Ten might already have taken several blows each and become unable to fight.

‘Was the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art always this terrifying?’

I was impressed inwardly.
It was already like this without reaching Great Completion, so what would it be like if it did?
Could it perhaps become the greatest body art under heaven, one that could even endure the Aura Qi of Extreme Demonic masters?
But perhaps the truly frightening thing was that it had not reached Great Completion.

“Urgh. It feels like my nose is going to fall off!”

Because unless it had reached Great Completion, it gave off that horrible stench of a rotting corpse.
The Longevity Ten were struggling hard, but every so often they writhed in agony like that. They even retched from time to time.
There was no expert whose five senses weren’t keen. The greater the expert, the more keenly they would smell that corpse stench.
The Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art was a terrifying body art that could lower an opponent’s effective level by at least half a stage.

‘Just hold out a little longer.’

Thanks to the Longevity Ten and the guards sacrificing their sense of smell, I was gradually mastering the pattern of the weak points.
I had to memorize each position the instant I sensed it, so it was consuming an enormous amount of mental energy.
At last, the newly discovered weak points passed seventy-two.
Wondering how far the number would go, I kept focusing.

‘Eighty, ninety……’

The number of weak points kept increasing.
They kept appearing and disappearing like stars flickering into life and fading away.
One hundred, one hundred ten, one hundred twenty, one hundred thirty, one hundred forty, and then.

‘One hundred forty-four?’

The moment I confirmed the last one, I was struck speechless.
It had doubled from the original seventy-two.
If going from the Fifth Stage to the Sixth Stage did this much, then how many would there be by the Seventh, Eighth, or Tenth Stage?

‘This martial art is insane.’

Normally, an external martial art had one weak point.
But the higher one’s attainment in the Corpse-Body Reinforcement Art rose, the more the number of weak points increased geometrically.
At a glance, it looked as though having more weak points would be bad for survival, but the truth was the exact opposite.

The deeper the attainment, the faster the weak points changed as well.
When hundreds, thousands of points crossed in a single instant, who could possibly target and strike them?
Perhaps someone beyond the Extreme Demonic Realm could.

Thud!
For some reason.
Ak Mu-jin’s mad rampage stopped as if by a lie.

Kkiik.
His head turned mechanically.
The blurred, unfocused eyes fixed on one exact spot.
It was me.

‘No way, did he sense my Qi sense?’

The moment I confirmed all the weak points, Ak Mu-jin reacted.
As though he had realized who the most dangerous enemy was.
As if proving I was right, Ak Mu-jin kicked off the ground.

“Stop him!”

Ung Gyo cried out in alarm and thrust both hands forward.
Palm force struck Ak Mu-jin’s side, but he did not stop.
Instead, Ung Gyo, the one who attacked, was pushed back by the rebound.

Thud thud thud!
Ak Mu-jin charged straight ahead like a bull.
The Longevity Ten tried from all sides to shove him with palm techniques, and even braved the corpse stench to grab and throw his body from behind, but it was useless.

“Stop, Unit Leader!”

One of the Longevity Ten forcibly kicked at Ak Mu-jin’s leg to stop him.
Kwaduk.

“Ugh!”

His ankle twisted.
The one who got hit was fine, while the one who kicked was the one who suffered.
Ung Gyo and one other of the Longevity Ten threw themselves at Ak Mu-jin again.
Whooong!
But the moment he swung both arms, Ung Gyo and the others were helplessly flung away.
Having shaken off the obstacles, Ak Mu-jin charged straight toward me.
I bit down hard on my lower lip.

I could dodge Ak Mu-jin’s attack with my footwork.
But to end this situation, there were still two things I had to do.
First, I had to confirm that the weak points I found were correct.
If I made a mistake, I would end up just like the Longevity Ten Hero with the broken ankle.
Then everyone here might be slaughtered by Ak Mu-jin.

Next, I had to strike at a perfect opening.
I wouldn’t be given many chances.
To drive in an extremely precise blow, I had to seize a single chance perfectly.

‘I need more time.’

But how was I supposed to stop Ak Mu-jin?
The only usable people right now were Ung Gyo and Im Yeon.
Coldly speaking, the guards were useless in this situation. Even now they were shouting from behind, but Ak Mu-jin was paying them no attention at all.
But Ung Gyo had been thrown away and was sprawled on the ground, and Im Yeon didn’t have the ability to stop Ak Mu-jin’s charge.
Even though I had ordered her to protect me, Im Yeon was lacking in both martial strength and experience when it came to protecting me.
However.

“Young Lord!”

Im Yeon didn’t care about any of that.
To follow my order, she stepped in between Ak Mu-jin and me.
Instead, I was the one who shouted at her.

“It’s dangerous, fall back!”
“It’s all right! I’ll hold Unit Leader Ak until your preparations are done, Young Lord!”

Im Yeon gripped her sword tightly.
There was no other way now.
I had no choice but to trust her.
Preparing myself to step in the moment she was in danger, I kept my eyes on every movement Ak Mu-jin made.

Sword Qi gathered on Im Yeon’s blade.
She shifted slightly off Ak Mu-jin’s path and drew her sword across.
A faint line of blood.
But the line vanished almost at once, as if it had never been there.
Perhaps because of that, Ak Mu-jin didn’t even look at Im Yeon. He moved only toward Baek Su-gyeong.

‘I have to stop him.’

Im Yeon gritted her teeth and unleashed several sword movements in an instant.
The result was the same.
Before long, Ak Mu-jin had closed in on Baek Su-gyeong and attacked him.
Baek Su-gyeong dodged it smoothly with his footwork, but Im Yeon knew.
That if she did not tie Ak Mu-jin down, something dangerous would happen.

Was it because the situation was urgent?
Out of nowhere, Im Yeon felt the shoulder wound she had taken earlier throbbing.
Even though the bleeding had definitely been stopped, and even though the wound powder made by the Ink-Needle Hall Master had worked wonders.
So even though she knew very well that a few sword strikes couldn’t possibly reopen the wound, it still felt that way.

‘I have to protect the Young Lord.’

In that fleeting instant, Im Yeon thought.
At the Golden Resonance Vault, at the Guardian Court, and going even further back, in many more places.
Up until now, she had always only been a burden to the Seventh Young Lord.
She had only ever received help, never becoming a source of strength.
How long was she going to stay like this?
When would she finally be able to keep the vow she made to Seventh Young Lord at the Guardian Court?

‘At least now, I have to show him that I can be a guard he can rely on!’

The more strength she put into her grip, the more the throbbing in her shoulder increased.

But Im Yeon realized instinctively.
That ordinary sword forms could not stop Ak Mu-jin.

‘Then……’

One sword art crossed her mind.
Demon Thunder Blood Wind Sword.
A peerless sword art created by her grandfather.

• Yeon-ah, remember this. Even if a moment comes when your life is in danger, you must not use this sword art.

Every time he taught her swordsmanship, her grandfather had always warned her of that.
Back then, she hadn’t known why.
Why train in a martial art you must never use?
Even so, Im Yeon obeyed that warning.
To her, her grandfather had been her whole world, and the only person who had raised her with love after she lost her parents as a child.

But one year ago, her grandfather disappeared.
Leaving behind only the words that a secret no one must ever learn was hidden within this sword art.
From then on, her life changed into a journey to find her grandfather.
It was for reasons tied to that chain of events that she came to belong to the Guardian Court and came to harbor hostility toward the Heaven Rebelling Society.
That had certainly been true until she met the Seventh Young Lord.

The Seventh Young Lord had shown her unwavering trust.
Even knowing she had approached him with impure intentions, he didn’t cast her out. Instead, he protected her at every dangerous moment.
That she would no longer show him weakness, that she would become a proud guard. That was why she had sworn it in the Guardian Court’s prison.
Because she had found a sense of duty.

That was why she realized that now was the moment she had to break her grandfather’s warning.
She judged that unless she used the Demon Thunder Blood Wind Sword, she would not be able to stop Ak Mu-jin’s steps.

Im Yeon threw herself toward Ak Mu-jin.
The forms of that sword art, which she had never once used before, poured toward Ak Mu-jin’s back.

Chwachwachwak-!
Dozens of lines of blood were carved in the blink of an eye.
But frustratingly, they restored themselves almost at once.
Without despairing, Im Yeon unleashed the ultimate move.
Demon Thunder Blood Wind.
The move that gave the sword art its name thrust straight forward.
A blood-red gale that seemed to devour everything it touched stabbed forward as if to pierce straight through Ak Mu-jin’s back.
Kkagagakang-
The deeper it stabbed, the shorter Im Yeon’s sword became.
Unable to pierce Ak Mu-jin’s skin, the sword was breaking from the tip onward.
But the blade, now only about three inches, created a slightly deeper wound than before.
Only then did Ak Mu-jin’s body finally begin turning slowly toward her.

Hazy eyes.
Whites of the eyes stained black.
Black saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth.

A sight horrifying enough to make her hair stand on end just by looking at it.
Ak Mu-jin suddenly seized Im Yeon’s throat.
His hand was so fast she hadn’t even been able to think of dodging.

“Ghk.”

Im Yeon’s airway closed off.
As she struggled, the shoulder wound finally split open. Not only the bandage, but even her clothes were soaked in blood.

Ak Mu-jin drew his free opposite hand back with force.
If that fist shot forward, her head would vanish without even a shape left.

Was this the end?
She had wanted to meet her grandfather no matter what.
She had to find where he was.

Im Yeon’s vision gradually blurred.
Then, a wind passed by.
A wind even swifter than the blood storm she had created with her sword.
At the same time, Ak Mu-jin’s grip loosened.

“Ghk, khk!”

Im Yeon collapsed to the ground and gasped for breath.
Then Baek Su-gyeong’s voice reached her ears.

“You held out well.”

Baek Su-gyeong’s figure vanished.
Ppababababak!
Baek Su-gyeong moved so rapidly and erratically that she couldn’t even properly follow him.
And a moment later.

Kooong-
Ak Mu-jin collapsed as black energy burst out from his whole body.
At a glance, his eyes had returned to normal.