Chapter 511 - Let Me Hold It Just Once.
The sun had risen.
Depending on how you looked at it, it was an obvious statement.
It was normal for the sun to be in the sky during the day, but.
That wasn't the issue right now.
'It's the middle of the night right now....'
It was the time when the sun had already set and the moon had taken its place.
That was the natural order of the world.
What on earth was that?
It was to the point that no matter how much I looked, it made no sense. I raised my head and gazed at the empty sky.
A sun that rose at night.
Right now, a sun was blatantly floating in the sky.
And that wasn't all.
'It's even affecting the sky.'
That sun was affecting the surrounding sky.
Where had the darkness that should have covered everything in black gone? The surroundings were deep blue.
'Is it a power similar to Red Heaven?'
A secret art of the Guga clan that dyes the sky red with heat erupting from the physical body, bolstering strength.
'To be precise, it's closer to a barrier, but.'
One might think Red Heaven dyes the sky as its name suggests, but strictly speaking, it was akin to establishing a domain.
It emitted dense, scorching heat and expanded a domain in the surroundings.
It was merely so vast and towering that it gave the feeling the sky itself looked red.
Then what about that?
'... I don't know?'
I didn't know.
Damn it, I didn't know a single thing.
'Is that really a martial art?'
A sun floating in the air.
I was calling it a sun because it looked like one, but it surely wasn't the real sun.
It was simply floating there.
It was merely hovering in the air carrying enormous heat.
That alone caused the illusion that the sky had brightened.
What kind of martial art was that?
'It's a martial art I don't know.'
Since Father was using it, it was surely a martial art of the Guga clan. Yet it was a martial art I was seeing for the first time.
A power I hadn't even seen in that moment when I fought Father in my previous life.
Not to mention....
'... I hadn't even properly seen Father looking like he was truly trying to fight in the first place.'
Father with his hair dyed red.
It was a sight I had never once seen.
That meant.
'Even when he fought me in my previous life. It means he wasn't going all-out.'
It was a bitter fact.
Even though I had already known that.
[Hehe.]
As I was staring at the small sun, Sin Noya let out a hearty laugh.
[... It's absurd.]
'What is it?'
[What does that look like to you?]
What it looked like?
'A sun?'
Nothing else came to mind.
[... Yes, it's normal to see it that way.]
'Then what is it.'
A small, burning sphere.
What else would you call something so bright it devoured the surrounding darkness if not a sun?
At least, no other word came to my mind.
That was why I didn't know what answer Sin Noya wanted.
[That is not a sun.]
'I know that much.'
I was calling it a sun, but I didn't think it was a real one.
It was only because there was no other name to give it.
'Then does Noya know what that is?'
The power of Guga that even I didn't know. Did this mean Noya knew of Father's ability?
When I asked, mixing in doubt, Noya carefully spoke.
[That is the manifestation of will.]
'Excuse me?'
Will.
It might have seemed like a random topic, but for a martial artist, it wasn't such a distant word.
Mind.
To a martial artist, the mental image is like a mirror.
Tempering and refining the physical body, filling the vessel with internal energy to achieve growth.
The body, repeatedly struck, broken, and regenerated, gradually grew stronger.
The more that happened, the denser one's mental image naturally became.
A martial artist's growth was not merely the growth of the physical body, but also the growth of the mental image.
The mental image of a martial artist who continued to grow in that manner ultimately took form.
Watching the sun Father had created, I spoke.
'So, it's something similar to the Heart Sword, is that what you're saying?'
The pinnacle of the sword.
The supreme realm that a swordsman who has trained to the extreme finally reaches.
Not the apex reached as a martial artist or the Hwagyeong, but the realm of the mental image reached solely as a swordsman.
It was called the Unity of Body and Sword.
They say it is the state where body and sword become one.
If forced to point out the difference between ordinary swordsmen and them.
'Whether they can use the Heart Sword or not.'
Whether they can give form to an extremely refined mental image.
That would be the difference between a swordsman who has achieved the Unity of Body and Sword and one who hasn't.
Honestly, I didn't know for sure.
If I picked out those around me who had achieved the Unity of Body and Sword, the Demon Sword Queen was the only one.
I wasn't sure about the Sword Demon, but I suspected he hadn't reached it.
If that bastard had truly reached the Unity of Body and Sword, he would have been far more insufferable.
Anyway, so.
'That's the power of the mental image?'
That absurd power floating in the air was truly the manifestation of will?
It was on a level I couldn't understand no matter how I looked at it.
The principle of martial arts was to contain internal energy in the body and use it.
Wasn't this a power that seemed to have long transcended that principle? The manifestation of will, you say....
'... Ha.'
I had to hold back a hollow laugh at the thought that suddenly came to mind.
Because when I thought about it, it was somewhat absurd.
'A guy who hasn't even reached the pinnacle going on about principles.'
Far from mastering the main family's martial arts, I had raised my realm using demonic arts, yet here I was searching for the principles of martial arts — the sight suddenly felt laughable.
I knew.
That this was a feeling born of nothing but thirst.
'... The power of will.'
The thirst that arose from facing such vast power.
And also, the faint hope that since I knew it was the same martial art, I too might be able to unleash such power if I tried.
Having been through hell and gotten as old as I am, did I now think I was some kind of martial artist?
I bit my lip and came to my senses.
'This isn't the time to chase such romance.'
The scale was different.
I thought that if I took time and put in effort, perhaps I might reach it someday.
But that was something I could only do when I literally had time.
I turned my gaze from the sun back to the front.
I knew now wasn't the time to look at it in admiration.
'Where did you go.'
Father had disappeared after tossing out such a bizarre thing so suddenly.
I had been searching around the Dang Clan for a while to find him.
I had spread out my senses as much as possible, but I couldn't feel anything.
The senses that had grown stronger upon reaching Hwagyeong were enough to envelop the Dang Clan with plenty to spare.
Though there were other strong martial artists here, so the influence wasn't absolute.
Finding where people were was simple enough.
But the fact that I couldn't feel any trace of him at all meant.
'Could it be because of that?'
Only then did I look at the sun floating in the air.
Was its role not only raising heat in the surroundings but also blocking the spread of my senses?
I didn't know what principle it operated on, but if that was really true.
'It's a nonsensical power.'
No matter how I looked at it, it was the superior version of Red Heaven. It wasn't expanding a domain to raise heat.
Wasn't it a feeling of dominating that domain itself?
'What should I do?'
If my senses couldn't spread, how was I supposed to find him?
'... Damn it.'
I racked my brain, but nothing particularly came to mind.
Moreover, to be honest, I didn't think I necessarily had to find him.
Father wasn't the type to just go off and do something rash, and he had said he would return soon (?).
If I didn't want to get scolded, all I had to do was stay quietly in my room.
But for some reason, I felt like I had to find him.
'Something.'
How should I put it.
Should I say Father's eyes had been peculiar before he left?
That subtle difference nagged at me so I couldn't stay still.
'... Ugh.'
Of course, even if I followed him outside, that didn't mean I had a way.
The problem was that I had lost Father from the start.
'I couldn't follow him with my eyes.'
I couldn't catch Father when he increased his speed.
Should I say he vanished right before my eyes?
'We're definitely using the same martial art.... but the difference is this much....'
Huh?
While thinking, it suddenly came to me. A way to find Father right now.
I stopped dead.
After running around for a while, I halted my steps.
'... The same martial art.'
The Guga clan's bloodline martial art, the Nine Flame Fire Wheel Art.
It is a martial art that converts internal energy into flames to display overwhelming explosive power.
The important point here was.
That Father and I used the same martial art.
The moment I realized that, I released the Body Transformation Technique.
Crack-! My joints twisted violently and a wave of pain crashed over me, but I paid it no mind.
Or did I?
'... This is a bit too painful to ignore, though?'
Was it because I suddenly enlarged my body? The pain was considerable, but I had to endure it.
Releasing the Body Transformation Technique, the slight discomfort vanished and I felt refreshed.
Just like that.
Fwoosh-!
I formed rings of the Nine Flame Fire Wheel Art on my body and rotated them quickly.
Internal energy starting from my heart spread throughout my whole body.
The internal energy discharged through my body instantly became heat, and the heat soon transformed into flames that wrapped around my body.
It was a clear blue flame.
Flames that could no longer return to their original red color.
A shitty feeling flashed by, but I ignored it and focused elsewhere.
If one were to point out the difference between those called martial sects and the great families' inherited martial arts, it could be said to be numbers.
The number of people learning that martial art.
Going by that, it was natural for bloodline martial arts to be few.
Especially if one counted only the direct bloodline within those, there would be even fewer.
This was where the method came from.
Martial arts of the same type were bound to resonate, even if only faintly.
The only people of the Guga clan in Sichuan would be Father and me.
And within the narrower Dang Clan, even more so.
Thus.
I lit the flames, intending to find Father.
I was trying to forcibly cause a resonance.
That would make it easy to know his location.
Ah, of course.
'This... is a method that won't work if Father isn't using his martial art.'
I judged that he would be using it, based on my prediction.
My gut just told me so.
And so, the rings of blue flame gradually picked up rotation speed and grew in size.
A ring stacked atop another ring.
Fwoosh-!
As the heat intensified, before long, another one stacked.
A total of three rings.
It was about the time when merely maintaining them started to consume a lot of internal energy.
How much more should I expand them?
Could it be that, contrary to my expectations, he wasn't using his power? It was already well past the time I should have felt something.
'Is this not it?'
The moment I tried to withdraw my internal energy, thinking I might be doing something stupid.
Oong....
"...!"
I felt it.
I could sense my internal energy meshing with and hitting against something.
I turned my head.
Dragging my flame-wreathed body, I launched myself straight toward it.
The location wasn't very far.
Rather, it was strange that I hadn't found it until now.
With the Body Transformation Technique released, my body was fast, and it took only a few seconds to arrive at the location I was seeking.
Tap.
The moment I arrived at the place where the resonance was felt.
Oooong-!
"What is this?"
A feeling different from the resonance swept past my body.
I immediately knew it was the power of a formation.
However.
'... It feels like something's been torn?'
Traces were visible in the space where a formation should have been deployed.
Should I say they were traces of someone having forcibly torn it apart?
'...'
I wanted to think it wasn't, but I couldn't not know that these were traces made by Father.
Because the heat still remained burning hot there.
'What are you really doing?'
Setting aside why there was such a battle formation here, why had Father headed this way?
First, I threw my body inside.
After going a few steps inside like that.
"Huh?"
I had to widen my eyes immediately at the sight spread out inside.
It was hot.
Such firepower that it couldn't be compared to the heat I had felt until just now.
It filled the inside of the space, and at its center—
"What the hell is this now...."
Along with traces of the ground and rocks having melted, there was a deeply dug pit.
'Rather than traces of breaking in, these are traces of melting in.'
A tunnel melted and dug out quickly rather than drilled.
The flames remaining nearby were unmistakably the flames of the Guga clan.
Which meant these flames belonged to Father.
"..."
I had a bad premonition.
I didn't hesitate. I leaped lightly and threw my body into the pit.
Fwoosh-!
As I threw myself into the pit, internal energy naturally surged to protect my body.
The traces of internal energy used to excavate this were so immense that the energy within my body rose up involuntarily to protect me.
It was deep.
Deep, but descending wasn't difficult.
Tap-!
Speeding up and burrowing through for a few seconds, I passed through the passage and landed on the ground.
Immediately.
"... Hoo...."
Tension ran through my body. Goosebumps rose on my spine and cold sweat flowed.
It couldn't be helped.
'... What kind of murderous intent is this?'
Inside an unknown space, traces of faint toxic energy and heat that filled the surroundings.
Along with that, murderous intent was scattered messily in all directions.
Such dense and intense murderous intent that it was suffocating.
I slowly shifted my gaze.
To check what kind of place this was.
"..."
The moment I looked around, I had to swallow dryly.
Traces of something being torn and destroyed were everywhere, and the sword wounds carved deep and the martial artists' internal energy that stimulated my instincts were all too severe.
What on earth had happened to create such a space?
I found out the reason before long.
Because I found him as I turned my head.
Far away, leaning against the wall and gasping for breath, was the First Elder of the Dang Clan.
One of his legs was gone, vanished to who knows where, and the other ankle was also on the verge of being torn off.
That wasn't something that could be fixed with healing.
Perhaps he hadn't fainted, but his expression was crushed by fear, and water streamed from his eyes and nose.
I had to frown as I saw that.
What was that miserable sight?
'I haven't done anything yet?'
I had been planning to make him like that. To think he had ended up in such a state while I wasn't looking.
Wondering what kind of situation this was, I moved my gaze a bit more.
I could see it there.
I saw.
It was Father, standing far away.
Father was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, looking at something.
"Patriarch...?"
The moment I was about to call out to Father upon seeing that.
My vision expanded and I realized someone was in front of Father.
In front of Father, someone was half-kneeling, barely supporting themselves with a sword.
"... Huh?"
I couldn't help but be bewildered seeing him.
The figure gasping for breath, looking exhausted, was, surprisingly, the Heavenly Lord.
Just when I was wondering why that old man had suddenly popped up here.
[Well, well.]
Sin Noya suddenly spoke up.
[That kid goes around getting beaten up everywhere. Keke.]
"...?"
It was a remark I couldn't understand.