Chapter 181. Let There Be Light.

For a moment, I was spellbound by the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven I had created. This was neither a normal martial art nor a normal phenomenon. Even the phrase “two forces cannot coexist” was insufficient.

After all, something possessing the energy of fire and something possessing the energy of ice could only continue to exist if one extinguished the other.

But the internal energy that created this phenomenon was a continuous force.

In other words, it was like forcibly maintaining a situation that should not exist.

It was a phenomenon that strayed from the principles of the world, so judging by martial theory, it felt as though it was heading toward the demonic path.

Perhaps it should be called a method of defying Heaven.

I looked at Master Yukhap and the old demon, who were locked in a fierce battle, then hurled the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven into the air above the troops surrounding us.

Defying Heaven or whatever, I didn’t care.

To begin with, the demonic path was the wicked mindset of those whose thoughts were furthest removed from ordinary people’s, so whether I killed them with a Heaven-defying method or stomped them to death, it was all the same.

All I had to do was kill them.

Crackle, crackle, crackle!

The Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, raising a deafening roar, poured out light in midair. From within the conflict between the blazing Flame Flower and the freezing White Flower as they tried to devour each other, rays of light burst forth in every direction.

To my eyes, it was a beautifully dangerous sight.

At that moment, the old man flung away the charging Master Yukhap and shot up into the air.

Just then, I saw openings all over the old man’s body, but I did not dare think of attacking him with my wooden sword.

Because I was in a situation where I had to run away first.

‘That bastard underestimated me.’

Was he slow on the uptake? Or was he overconfident in his own martial arts?

I ran at full speed, grabbed Master Yukhap by the shoulder, and then sprinted for my life in the opposite direction from where I had thrown the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven.

Master Yukhap, being dragged along by me, pointed at the old man.

“That madman is….”

Even as I snatched up Master Yukhap and ran frantically, I turned my head and watched the sky.

The old man was thrusting out both palms toward the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, which had soared high and was spinning fiercely.

It looked as though his intent was to push the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven farther away. In my judgment, it was an extremely foolish and ignorant response.

Before I knew it, Master Yukhap and I were standing there in a daze, only blinking.

All sound around us had vanished.

“…….”

When the palm force erupting from the old man’s two palms touched the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven.

The Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven sucked in the surrounding objects like a whirlwind.

First, the old man’s arms, extended with both hands outstretched, vanished as if being sucked into the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven. Then, in a silence that felt endlessly distant, the old man’s body also scattered into dust and disappeared.

And there, where the sun and moon had vanished.

There was light.

Master Yukhap held his sword out in front of him and said,

“Ah, damn it.”

At the same time, I also sighed.

“Ah, this is a bit much.”

Soon after, Master Yukhap and I were swept up in the aftermath of the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven and sent flying, screaming.

“Uwaaaaaaagh!”

Master Yukhap’s scream, growing more and more distant, was mixed with curses aimed at me.

“Yi Jahaaaa! You son of a biiiiitch!”

Listening to Master Yukhap’s curses, I desperately clung to consciousness. I didn’t know why, but as I felt a refreshing sense of relief, as if my chest had been blown wide open, laughter came out on its own.

“Uhaahahaaaaaagh!”

It was a strange cry mixed with both laughter and screams.

In the air, I seemed to be getting faster, and also seemed to be getting slower.

Had I lost consciousness? Or was I drifting through a dream?

It was confusing, going back and forth like that, but since I was originally a confused person, I was not particularly afraid.

People’s arms and legs passed before my eyes, and weapons floated here and there as if someone had unleashed Sword Control through Qi. In an instant, a corpse suddenly appeared before my eyes, so I slapped the wandering soul across the face.

Thwack!

Only after I heard the thwack ring out against my back at the same time did every kind of noise come rushing in, as if my muffled ears had newly opened.

I had struck my back against something like a cliff and was now descending toward the ground while spinning. Since everything around me was a complete mess anyway, I deliberately spun my body even more violently.

Even after touching the ground, I rolled six or seven times before staggering to my feet and looking around.

Inwardly, I was not satisfied with the landing.

“Three… four points out of ten!”

Perhaps a typhoon accompanied by light had passed through, because the surroundings had opened up in all directions and the view was very pleasant. Since the area was quiet, for a moment I was confused as to whether this was a dream or reality.

In any case, I realized it clearly this time.

Although there were still many masters in the martial world stronger than me, at the moment I used the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, I truly seemed to be the fourth calamity of the martial world.

At first, I had used it without thinking….

But the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven was an ultimate technique that made me shrink back every time I used it. Since I could one day die from the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven I had created, I resolved to reduce the situations where I got angry like a nasty-tempered brat.

Of course, there was a very high chance I would only make the resolution and then forget it.

I looked around Uh향곡, where a typhoon had just swept through, and said,

“Master Yukhap……?”

I did not know who had died or which bastards had survived, but for now I searched for Master Yukhap first.

The troops the old man had brought could not all have died. They had established an encirclement from the east, west, south, and north, and since the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven had exploded in the sky to the southwest, remnants would still be alive here and there. But because the old man had underestimated the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, charged at it, and been annihilated, I was no longer tense.

The fact that the old man had underestimated the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven meant, in truth, that he had underestimated me. I had run away repeatedly, entrusted the vanguard of the wheel battle to Master Yukhap, and pissed with my back turned, so it was only natural he would underestimate me.

But he probably never realized, right up until the moment he died, that all of it had been strategy.

I found Master Yukhap sprawled out flat on his back.

Even in the midst of all that, the longsword was still stuck to his hand. Despite having fainted, he had not let go of his sword.

“So he was a swordsman.”

One had to be at least this much to introduce oneself somewhere as a swordsman. Since he did not seem to be a dead swordsman, I kicked Master Yukhap with my foot.

“Get up.”

At that moment, Master Yukhap opened his eyes with a start, like a disciple caught secretly napping.

“……!”

Master Yukhap sprang upright and looked left and right, searching for enemies.

“Is it over?”

“No idea.”

Only then did I survey the chaos and look for survivors. For the moment, I could see no survivors, only corpses. There were hands and weapons buried in the ground, as well as torn clothes and small ornaments.

I realized that the farther away from the place where the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven had exploded, the more intact the corpses gradually became.

The problem still remained that using the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven in a one-on-one situation was far too slow. The fact that as its power increased, I would not be able to remain unscathed either, was the second problem.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

If I wanted to use the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven properly, I would also need to learn a technique that could protect my body.

Either by conquering Golden Turtle (金龜), the final realm of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art.

Or by learning a defensive technique through the Moon Shadow Heartless Art.

Or perhaps by creating a defensive technique that combined sun and moon.

Instead of thinking that I ought to finish off the bastards who were barely clinging to life, I stopped walking for a moment, pondering defensive techniques.

In any case, I saw no survivors.

For a while, in that desolate, chaotic place, I sat down on a large boulder that stood there with solemn dignity and crossed my legs.

The realm of Golden Turtle was too high, as I had experienced in my previous life.

I had to conquer Chogye and then advance to Golden Turtle, so I had no way of knowing how many years it would take.

The Moon Shadow Heartless Art was the same.

Because I had learned it late, it would take time to reach the realm of the Full Moon (滿月).

In the end, the conclusion was once again a combination of sun and moon.

As if falling into a trance, I simultaneously wrapped the energy of sun and moon around both hands. At that moment, Master Yukhap’s voice sounded.

“Sect Leader, stop already. What are you doing now?”

Hearing Master Yukhap, I sharply reduced the qi I had poured into both hands, gathered it into a taiji shape in my palms, then withdrew the energy and committed the final sensation to memory.

Master Yukhap came closer and asked me.

“What was that just now?”

“I’m thinking about a defensive technique.”

Master Yukhap tilted his head and asked me.

“You mean a technique like the Sword Curtain (劍幕)?”

“Sword Curtain? Show me.”

“Don’t say it so easily, as if you were telling me to flip over a gambling card. It is not an easy martial art.”

Master Yukhap put some distance between us, raised his sword, then used the index and middle fingers of his left hand to run along the blade from bottom to top, forming a sword seal.

Sword qi and the qi of a finger technique met, producing a strange phenomenon as if a sheet of paper were being drawn out. Then, when Master Yukhap turned his wrist, the sword spun once, and a sword curtain formed along its trajectory.

Master Yukhap said to me.

“This is the foundation of the Sword Curtain.”

“That’s the foundation? What’s the next stage?”

This time, Master Yukhap rotated his sword without forming a sword seal, and the dense sword qi appeared to create a shield. It was the same technique, but the demonstration showed that its level was higher.

It only looked easy because Master Yukhap executed it with such skill.

I applauded Master Yukhap’s outstanding demonstration.

“Excellent.”

At that moment, I saw one of the wounded bastards who had taken part in the encirclement crawl out from the wreckage a short distance away and try to flee…

I sent sword qi flying with a sword-drawing form. The sword qi sliced through the fleeing man’s body.

Splurt!

When things fell into a brief lull, there were times when human psychology made you wonder whether you should go easy on someone. But if I spared bastards like that, it was obvious they would eventually gather one by one and become members of the Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare that would come after me again.

They would either become part of the Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare or lend strength to the Cult Leader.

One way or another, the path of the Demonic Way lay directly opposite my own.

I had no choice but to kill them.

I jerked my chin toward Master Yukhap and said.

“Let’s talk while we deal with the remnants.”

The principles of the Six Harmonies Sword Art that Master Yukhap pursued came to mind, so I asked.

“Are these kinds of principles hidden throughout that sword art you said pursued simplicity? In other words, you’re saying you can unfold a Sword Curtain even while performing a simple downward strike.”

Master Yukhap nodded.

“That is so. A downward strike is not merely a downward strike. There are dozens of variations. Sword qi, sword wind, sword curtain, chopping strikes, heavy strikes—even a downward strike that focuses solely on speed and the cutting power of the sword can be considered a very high realm. But all training in this begins with the simplest downward strike. It cannot be mastered with ordinary perseverance.”

Only after hearing Master Yukhap’s explanation did I feel that Alliance Leader Im Sobaek’s swordsmanship was truly extraordinary. I could not say it to Master Yukhap, but Im Sobaek’s swordsmanship seemed likely to belong to the category of heavy strikes. It was not even a simple principle of the Heavy Sword (重劍).

Whenever something came to mind, I asked Master Yukhap.

“What is Sword Force (劍强) like in actual combat?”

“The principles of Sword Force differ from sect to sect, but in the end, it is a matter of operation. To put it simply, Sword Force is a single decisive blow. Because it consumes a great deal of compressed internal energy, one must consider carefully whether to use it or not. It feels like expending, all at once, the internal energy needed to unleash ten sword qi attacks. If it were you, in the middle of combat, would you use ten sword qi attacks or one Sword Force?”

“It would depend on the situation. Using Sword Force when fighting many opponents would be idiotic.”

“But if you met an opponent stronger than you, you could combine it with psychological warfare and end the match in one stroke. Like that reckless technique you unleashed.”

Because the man whose martial level in my previous life had been similar to mine was the Ghost Demon of my previous life, there was no great difficulty in conversing with him. This was an extension of the sword discussion in Uhhyanggok.

Just as I began to wonder why this previous-life Ghost Demon bastard was explaining swordsmanship to me so kindly, he asked me.

“How exactly did you unleash that dangerous technique?”

I looked at Yukhap, who had asked in a rather cautious tone.

“Want me to tell you?”

Master Yukhap spoke as if he did not expect much.

“Well, if you tell me, that would be good.”

I said in a serious tone.

“First of all, it’s essential to build up internal energy of extreme yang and internal energy of extreme yin. You could call them the prerequisites.”

In truth, the prerequisites alone were an impossible domain for the vast majority of martial artists.

Master Yukhap stared at me silently.

“……”

“What? What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Master Yukhap let out a short sigh, then walked ahead by himself.

“Let us go.”

“Why are you sighing? I’m telling you.”

“I said, let’s go.”

“We’re already going. All you have to do is learn extreme yang and extreme yin. Since ancient times, martial arts are meant to be trained slowly. Do not rush. Didn’t you say that not rushing is precisely the martial learning of the Six Harmonies? Slowly……”

Master Yukhap shouted something that sounded like an irritable outburst, then ran forward.

“……”

Judging by how things looked, the bastards who had survived by luck were fated to be beaten to death by Master Yukhap.

Then again, the Ghost Demon and the Mad Demon had joined forces to fight, so it would have been extremely difficult for bastards like these to return alive. I could guarantee that even if I had not used the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven, the result would have been the same.

Of course, based on the spirit of “if not, then whatever.”