Chapter 153: Moonlit Sword Blossom (2)
Murder Demon, So Munyak.
One of the Six Elders of the Heavenly Demon Cult and, as of now, one of only two killer-origin warriors within the cult who had reached the Extre Demonic level.
It wasn’t that the Hidden Shadow So Clan lacked warriors of Extre Demonic level, but as far as I knew, theirs had been invited from the outside.
‘A killer at the Extre Demonic level...’
A killer was soone who created unpredictable variables by surpassing the boundaries of their realm.
Even if she—no, the Moonlit Sword Blossom—tead up with , we still couldn't guarantee victory.
“You’ve interfered with my fun, so I suppose it’s only fair I leave your head behind, don’t you think?”
Sure enough, So Munyak seed more wary of her than .
“If you can.”
“Keh-heh, good. I’ll bring your head to the Elders’ Hall and uncover who you really are.”
…If he did sothing like that, it’d be hard for him to survive.
I couldn’t quite hide the disaster rising within .
Regardless of what I was thinking, it seed So Munyak had no clue who she really was.
‘Well, if I hadn’t heard about “that ti,” I probably would’ve thought she was just so unknown high-level martial artist.’
She must have trained in Bone Transformation Technique—the overall impression she gave off was subtly different.
Her attire, too, was far more extravagant than her usual simple martial robes, and she had perfectly concealed both her voice and her energy.
Trying to find traces of “her” in the current Moonlit Sword Blossom before felt like an impossible task…
And yet, the mont I saw her like that, a distant mory—now a private one belonging only to —suddenly resurfaced.
—About three years before she ascended to the position of Cult Leader, she grew tired of training and ran away from the cult on a whim.
—She flipped both the Mount Hua Sect and Zhongnan Sect upside down in search of recluses and eccentrics from the Murim.
—Thanks to the unique traits of the Moonlight Woman’s Sword, her identity remained undiscovered. At the ti, the elders of Mount Hua had called the masked woman “Moonlit Sword Blossom.”
“……”
Cult Leader, even at the very end, you still skillfully mixed truth with falsehood.
Well, I get it. Even at the last mont of life, it’s hard to confess such a ridiculous piece of your past so easily.
‘Wait, does that an she lied about other things too?’
As I beca montarily lost in a spiral of reasonable doubt—
“Focus.”
She imdiately saw through my ntal lapse and pointed out my distraction.
‘Damn it, letting my thoughts wander in front of a top-class killer...’
I gave a small nod and cleared my mind.
The opponent was a master who had reached the final threshold of the Extre Demonic level. Even a slight slip in focus could cost my life.
“Alright then… shall I toy with you a little?”
As soon as those words left So Munyak’s mouth, his body vanished.
“…!”
From the very start, he was different from other Extre Demonic-level martial artists who released an overwhelming, domineering energy.
Papapapat!
In an instant, thin silken threads spread around us, forming a dense web like a spider’s nest.
‘Sky Thread Trap!’
The fact that he had set it up around us instead of using it for a direct attack ant—
“He’s trying to seal off our mobility? How thoroughly unpleasant.”
“He probably plans to trap his prey and cook it at his leisure.”
In my opinion, So Munyak’s next move would be…
“Be careful. Dark Chaos Flying Knives might be incoming.”
Even before the words had fully left my lips—
Papapapapat!
Dozens of black throwing knives began flying toward us through the gaps in the Sky Thread Trap.
‘How troubleso!’
The sword qi of darkness—one of Murder Demon’s highest-level skills.
The very act of condensing that sword qi into flying blades spoke volus about So Munyak’s transcendental prowess.
More than anything, the fact that they ca from four different directions at once was simply unrealistic.
However—
I wasn’t alone here.
“…Hmph!”
Our swords moved as one, as if we had planned it beforehand, forming a smooth and flowing circle.
Heaven’s Net Stretches Wide
Ten Thousand Demons Bow in Reverence
It was like a manifestation of the Taoist symbol of the Taiji.
The sword forms of the Celestial Deer Sword and the Heaven-Slaying Demonic Sword blended into one perfect circle, deflecting the storm of flying blades So Munyak had unleashed.
Kagagagakang!
The deafening clash of tal rang out in all directions.
At the perfection of our coordination, she glanced at sideways for a mont.
“Jin Yeomyung, don’t tell you’ve broken through the wall?”
Hiding the numbness in my hand, I replied with feigned ease.
“Oh? The mysterious lady knows my na?”
“……”
The mysterious lady fell silent.
“Let’s focus, shall we? How about we deal with this situation first and talk afterward?”
“…Very well.”
Though her face was hidden by a mask, I was certain her lips must have jutted out like a sulky child.
This absolutely wasn’t revenge for being turned away at the entrance of the Lesser Demon Hall.
Really.
“They’re coming again!”
So Munyak’s assault wasn’t over.
Even though his first attack had failed, the top assassin of the Demonic Faction was already preparing his next move with perfect discipline.
Tsssss!
The Sky Thread Trap, which had shown no unusual signs until now, suddenly began emitting a chilling cold.
A state of Cold Silk—one that disturbed vision and disrupted the opponent’s sense of energy.
As mist began to enshroud the area on top of the midnight darkness, the sharpness of my senses gradually started to blur.
“Jin…myeong!”
As the fog thickened, even her figure, which had been shoulder-to-shoulder with mine just monts ago, started to fade.
“Young Lady!”
I called out to her urgently, but—
“……!”
Only the faint outline of her body was visible now, and even her voice no longer reached .
Despite being so close, the fact that even her voice was fading—
‘A formation!’
The mont I realized what was happening, So Munyak’s Dark Chaos Flying Knives ca slicing through the mist, seeking out gaps.
Pfft!
A black, lightless blade scraped past my forearm.
A few more knives ca flying right after.
“……!”
I managed to deflect them, barely, by pushing my concentration to its absolute limit.
‘It’s only pushing my senses to the brink of chaos—the space itself isn’t distorted.’
Proof of that ca as I was parrying the Dark Chaos Flying Knives. Right beside , her sword qi flared brilliantly and blocked the incoming blades from the opposite direction.
She, too, was holding her position and playing her role.
‘We have to synchronize.’
Now that even our sense of distance had been thrown into disarray, moving independently would be suicidal.
One wrong step and we’d end up as food for the Sky Thread Trap like the assassins earlier.
Flash!
At that mont, as if she had read my thoughts, her moonlight-infused sword qi blazed up from the hazy spot beside .
Her movents seed to say: ‘Follow .’
The mont I saw that, I ignited a fla along my own sword and mirrored her motion.
It was only the second ti we’d properly fought in sync.
And yet, for so reason, I felt an unexplainable confidence that things would go well.
‘To the ends… together.’
In that instant, our swords began to dance as one.
***
‘…What is this?’
So Munyak, Murder Demon, felt a sudden shift in the tide of battle.
Cold Silk Phantom Demon Formation.
A demonic formation so dangerous that even an Extre Demonic-level master caught in it would have to give up any hope of survival.
In fact, So Munyak had once used this technique to butcher the forr sect leader of the Zhongnan Sect, a man who had reached the Transformation Realm.
‘Even if both of them have reached the Extre Demonic level, they can’t possibly break this formation.’
There were, perhaps, no more than five people in the entire cult capable of breaking it.
Excluding the Cult Leader, there were the Sword Demon and the Saber Demon, whose martial skills were believed to surpass even the Extre Demonic level.
Or perhaps Jin Gun-ak, whose body was so absurdly durable that even the Sky Thread Trap’s cutting power might not pierce it?
‘Aside from those, there shouldn’t be anyone else…’
Clang! Clang!
At so point, his once-prized Dark Chaos Flying Knives had stopped being a threat altogether.
“How impudent…”
So Munyak had always taken pride in being able to kill most Extre Demonic-level opponents with his throwing knives alone.
The Dark Chaos Flying Knives weren’t just regular projectiles—they were a form of weaponized Qi, a manifestation of his will, a part of the Blade Guided by Intention school.
They shifted and transford endlessly with his thoughts—an ultimate killing technique.
And yet…
No matter how he altered their paths, his enemies perfectly complented each other, plugging every opening and nullifying every strike.
Even though the formation should have completely cut off communication!
‘These two are perfectly matched. Could they be from the sa clan?’
So Munyak, irritated, gave up on the knives and began controlling the Sky Thread Trap directly.
Kill the woman. Take the man back with one arm severed.
Even if they had miraculously fended off the Dark Chaos Flying Knives, there was no way they’d be able to resist the Sky Thread Trap as well!
But then—
“Hm?!”
Inside the Cold Silk Phantom Demon Formation, sothing strange began to happen—an abnormal amplification of Qi, even beyond So Munyak’s expectations.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
It was too overwhelming to be the output of just one ordinary martial artist.
The degree of that energy swell—
It was like standing before the ocean.
So Munyak instinctively realized what was causing that sudden surge of energy.
“Could it be… Qi Synchronization?”
In the martial world, the most basic cooperative formation was known as the Three Talents Formation.
Therefore, when only two people combined their energy instead of forming a full formation, it wasn’t called a formation at all—it was simply referred to as Qi Synchronization.
The problem was that to perform true Qi Synchronization, one had to fulfill a number of near-impossible conditions.
Yet sohow, this masked woman who had appeared out of nowhere, and the prey So Munyak had been targeting, were displaying a level of synchronization even a couple of ten years would find hard to achieve.
“Absurd.”
The mont he said that—
BOOM!
A massive black shockwave erupted, instantly destroying the Cold Silk Phantom Demon Formation.
***
As ti passed, So Munyak’s throwing knives beca increasingly lethal and precise.
‘As expected of So Munyak. Every single knives he throws carries serious weight.’
Still, she and I blocked every one of his fangs as though we shared the sa mind and body.
However—
‘This won’t do.’
Now that our mobility had been sealed off, unless we could do sothing about this formation made of Sky Thread Trap, we would surely be dried out and die here.
Even if that didn’t happen, once the Sky Thread Trap started closing in on us, there would be no way to survive with ordinary ans.
BZZT! CRACKLE!
‘It’s coming!’
Eventually, So Munyak seed to lose his patience. The once silent Sky Thread Trap began to tighten in with thunderous Qi, seeking to crush us.
Just then—
Clang!
A brilliantly blazing sword crossed diagonally in front of .
At first, I was puzzled.
But the mont I recognized her stance, I imdiately understood what she was asking of .
‘Qi Synchronization…’
I’d once perford a cooperative attack with sword qi when I was far less accomplished, back with Jeokun of the Azure Star Sect.
But that technique had relied on flying straight in a linear formation, and with So Munyak’s Sky Thread Trap wrapping tightly around us now, that wouldn’t work.
Unless we could blast away the entire surrounding space with overwhelming firepower.
‘Is it even possible?’
By normal standards, of course not.
Even a “Territory”, the hallmark of an absolute master, wouldn’t be enough to clear out this Sky Thread Trap.
‘But what if it’s Qi Synchronization?’
Thinking about how her Heavenly Demonic Divine Art and my Mystic Heaven Divine Art resonated—
‘There might… actually be a chance.’
The mont I realized that, I raised my Qi and crossed blades with hers.
Tsssss!
Our internal energies rged without the slightest resistance, blending naturally and seamlessly.
As if they had been one from the beginning.
Her intent flowed through the blade and reached .
—Follow .
We could barely hear each other, barely even see one another clearly—but in that mont, she and I shared a single will.
Qi Synchronization
Heavenly Demon Resonance Qi
For so reason, I knew exactly what to call it.
Our synchronized Qi shattered So Munyak’s Cold Silk Phantom Demon Formation in a single blow.
Reviews
All reviews (0)