Chapter 211. Nine in the Fifth Place (7)

Chapter 211. Nine in the Fifth Place (7)

“Song Woo-Moon! Why are you here...?!”

As he looked around, panicked, Woo-Moon responded coldly.

“If you’re looking for the Sword King, don’t bother. The geezer’s dead.”

The Mu Heons’ hearts skipped a beat.

They could all feel it.

If they confronted Woo-Moon here and now, they would all die. It was as simple as that.

The moment Si-Hyeon and Woo-Moon reconciled and the identities of the Sword and Saber Kings were revealed, the operation had already failed.

‘Then...!’

While Martial Heaven itself was arrogant and proud, the Mu Heons were different.

The Martial Spirits, Mu Heons’ troop[1], was created in order to allow Martial Heaven’s destruction of the murim to proceed smoothly. They possessed plenty of the awareness and cowardice that the core Martial Heaven group did not.

‘Flee, now!’

Woo-Moon clearly had to be far past the threshold to the Paragon realm considering that he had defeated the Sword King; even thirty Absolute Masters couldn’t take him down, much less three. The Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Mu Heons looked at each other for a split second, then immediately fled in different directions.

The life or death of the other Mu Heons was already out of the question, and they didn’t even care to begin with.

“W-w-w-where... w-w-w-w-w-where-e-e a-a-are you-u-u g-g-g-oing?! S-s-s-ave me?!”

Woo-Moon cut off both legs of the screaming Eighth Mu Heon and flew forward.

Ma-Ra, who was always following him like his shadow, moved as well—in the opposite direction this time.

“Did you really think you could escape?!” Woo-Moon sneered.

The Seventh Mu Heon cursed Woo-Moon, wondering why he had to be the one the Paragon chased first.

While he wanted to look back to see how close Woo-Moon was, he didn’t dare to do so. He knew that if he slowed down even in the slightest, he would die.

However, there’s always that pesky part of you that makes you look back even when you shouldn’t. And the Seventh Mu Heon looked back just in the nick of time—he was barely able to catch a glimpse of the blade before it glid through his neck.

Swish!

The Seventh Mu Heon’s head shot up into the air with a spray of blood, and Woo-Moon kicked off the ground and flew off to chase after the Tenth Mu Heon.

In the meantime, Ma Ra appeared in front of the Ninth Mu Heon.

“Die.”

With this soft word, Ma-Ra pulled on the Formless Silk that had somehow ended up wrapped around the Ninth Mu Heon’s neck.

Squelch!

The Formless Silk was even sharper than normal thanks to Ma-Ra’s qi, and it severed the Ninth Mu Heon’s neck as if it was nothing but jelly.

“Agh!!”

At the same time, Woo-Moon unleashed his Sword Heart. Since there was no one around him that could threaten him, he felt free to experiment.

The moment Woo-Moon focused his thoughts on the back of the Tenth Mu Heon’s head, a significant amount of the qi in his dantian vanished.

At the exact same time, the sword in Woo-Moon’s heart appeared in the Tenth Mu Heon’s brain. The man died without even being able to scream, his brain turned to mush.

When Woo-Moon returned to where the Eighth Mu Heon was, he saw that the latter was already dead, his body turned to rags by the angry soldier’s spears.

’Is Si-Hyeon doing okay?’

Si-Hyeon and the Saber King were so closely matched that it was difficult to say who was stronger. However, in terms of mental state, Si-Hyeon was in a far better place than the Saber King. After learning that Woo-Moon was alive and confirming his steadfast love for her, Si-Hyeon was full of confidence that she could fight and win.

Meanwhile, the Saber King was in the exact opposite situation.

The original plan had been to use the Justice Coalition and the Hegemon Clan to eliminate or at the very least weaken the Heavenly Demon Cult, while forcing Woo-Moon and Si-Hyeon to kill each other. However, not only had that plan failed spectacularly, but Woo-Moon had also taken down the Sword King without even being injured in the slightest!

Seeing this, the usually domineering Saber King also started to feel as though he might lose.

As thoughts of defeat began to circle in his mind, his movements became passive and heavy, and he began to be pushed back little by little.

That small gap gradually grew as the fight continued. Si-Hyeon could naturally see what was going on, and she had no intention of letting this opportunity go to waste.

Squlech!

“Ugh.”

The might of the great saber was so incredible that the sky itself trembled as if terrified; the dirt and rocks on the ground rose into the air and were sucked toward the collapsing space around the saber.

“Agk!!”

The vacuum’s strength was so great that the surrounding martial artists weren’t able to keep their footing, and the makeshift barracks at the back collapsed.

Crack, crack, crack!

The demonic qi whips that Si-Hyeon had created got caught in the great saber’s aura and snapped, and the feathers themselves couldn’t overcome the strength either, dissipating.

As everything around it collapsed, the Saber King’s Hegemon Iron Destruction Chop grew closer and closer to Si-Hyeon, and she gathered all of the demonic qi in her entire body, too.

‘Fine, Saber King. I’ll accept your wager! Darkness Drowns My Light!’

Her hands were slim and her skin was as clear as lamb-suet jade. Hher fingers were long and thin, and her nails were dainty, neither too big nor too small. They had a beautiful curve in a blushing pink.

There wasn’t a single wrinkle on her hands, to the point where it seemed as if they were sculpted from marble rather than being human hands.

Words simply could not describe how beautiful these hands were.

Her hands moved slowly, confronting the approaching Saber King’s great saber, which was moving with unprecedented strength.

A black aura rippled in front of her hands. Then, those surrounding them were able to witness something they had never seen in their entire lives—pure nothingness. All light vanished around them, leaving nothing but darkness. Even the sun was nowhere to be seen.

For just a single moment.

When the light reappeared, what was left under the hot midday sun was a slightly pale Si-Hyeon and a completely bloodied Saber King.

“Cough... cough, cough! W-what a... terrifying... technique.”

The Saber King fell to one knee.

“This is a technique I created myself so I could take revenge on you all.”

The Saber King’s stature had diminished.

At a closer look, it was apparent that his body had been corroded by the light-devouring darkness, and most of his skin and flesh had disappeared.

“It’s over now, Saber King.”

‘North Wind.’

As North Wind blew out from the tip of Woo-Moon’s sword, the sixty or so people in front of him, including the Hegemon Clan warriors and the Mu Heons, turned into blocks of ice and their limbs fell off.

As Woo-Moon’s cultivation improved, the Gentle Celestial Sword’s techniques also evolved, and now each technique had additional effects.

When he unleashed Raging Wind, a real tornado formed, tearing flesh off and shattering bones. When Heavy Rain came in, it wasn’t just a rain of sword qi; the actual moisture in the air would gather and form real raindrops. Each of those raindrops had the power to pierce through human bodies due to Woo-Moon’s sword qi being imbued into them.

North Wind and Cold Snow now contained a frigid qi that was very much like the frigid yin qi of the North Sea Ice Palace, which had the effect of turning the target into a block of ice.

“Ugh!”

Crack.

Even outside of North Wind’s actual striking range, another forty people were frozen to the bone.

Ccrack!! Crunch!

None of them died right away. However, those who tried to move without thawing themselves out first had their legs crumble to pieces underneath them.

“Agh!!!”

Well, that didn’t mean they could just choose not to move. The frigid yin qi had already spread throughout their body and was turning them to ice not just on the outside but all the way through, even their heart and brain. Either way, they’d die

Having killed over a hundred people in a single blow, Woo-Moon proceeded to launch a Dragon Bind Tiger Strike.

ROAR!

The roar of the dragon and the howl of the tiger echoed at the same time.

“Agk!”

“AGHHH!”

The enemies around Woo-Moon clutched their ears in agony. The twenty or so people closest to him immediately died, their internal organs ruptured by the sheer power of the roar. Meanwhile, the thirty or so people outside of the technique’s actual range rolled across the ground with blood flowing out of their ears.

Meow?

Eun-Ah, who was fighting far away, suddenly perked up her ears and looked toward Woo-Moon.

1. Remember, Mu Heon is Martial Soul/Spirit in Korean. ☜