Chapter 127: Wronged Ghost Summons Calamity (4)

Deep beneath South Peak, in the underground lightning prison.

Eunbyeok stood in the darkest part of that cave.

And Myeongjeok was collapsed on his knees.

He could neither understand nor accept his current situation.

He had lost?

I had?

Myeongjeok looked at his missing left arm.

Just like when Eunbyeok’s arm had fallen away.

His own arm had been severed as well.

Black blood kept pouring from his mouth.

The Plum Blossom Sword he had carried, worn smooth by years of use...

Was in that thing’s hand.

A Demonic Beast?

A beast?

But it was no ordinary beast.

It was a beast that used a sword.

From the moment his sword had been taken, there had been no chance of victory at all.

Just as the explosively surging Demonic Energy was about to make his mind reel, that thing had taken his back and struck.

His back had been taken.

He, an absolute master who had reached the very end of Transcendent Apex, had had his back taken.

No matter how sinister an object the Young Cult Leader’s left arm was...

Eunbyeok’s realm had been at least two full steps beneath his own.

A master at the middle stage of Transcendent Apex.

That was Eunbyeok’s most recent achievement.

But to call this merely the difference between the middle stage and the final stage would be absurd. The gap was enormous.

Myeongjeok stood on the threshold of the Transformation Realm and was a seasoned martial artist nearing fifty.

Eunbyeok was only a man in his mid-thirties who had barely left the opening stage of Transcendent Apex behind.

And yet Myeongjeok had been overwhelmingly defeated.

Even in sheer quantity of internal energy, he had been pushed back.

“T-this can’t be... Kgh!”

Black blood still gushed from his mouth.

The front of his robes had already been stained so black by the blood he had vomited that the embroidered plum blossoms could barely be seen.

Step, step, step.

Eunbyeok was approaching.

The Demonic Beast wearing Eunbyeok’s body was approaching.

No, that thing was not even a Demonic Beast. It was something beyond that.

Demonic Beasts fought like beasts.

But that thing...

It definitely used martial arts rather than moving like an animal.

And it used the martial arts Eunbyeok had learned.

Though no plum blossoms bloomed.

Its Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword was domineering and cruel.

The original profound subtlety, that wondrous quality that made truth and falsehood impossible to distinguish, had vanished.

In its place, there was only a vast darkness and a terrible aura of death.

And that had torn apart Myeongjeok’s own Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, the “original.”

He had filled the cave with plum blossoms...

But that thing’s Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword was like a monster of darkness and shadow, maddened by hunger.

Eunbyeok slowly approached.

Myeongjeok instinctively tried to flee, but soon struck the wall.

He felt the cold, hard cave wall against his back.

There was nowhere left to retreat.

“You bastard! Don’t you recognize your own master?!”

He shouted, but it was useless.

The pure internal energy of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method should have protected his mind and dantian.

But now that he had poured out all his internal energy to survive, to endure Eunbyeok’s attacks...

Even that was impossible.

Demonic Energy seeped into his head.

It crept into his dantian as well, slowly beginning to stain Myeongjeok’s body.

“Kgh...!”

He would rather have been of the unorthodox factions.

His acupoints, too accustomed to excessively pure internal energy, were swept up in agony as if they were being torn to shreds.

His dantian was the same.

It was a fierce pain, as if someone were trampling it down and crushing it to pieces.

Unable to endure that hideous agony, Myeongjeok finally collapsed to the ground.

But Eunbyeok still stood before him, still pouring out thick Demonic Energy without pause.

That was why words like disciple and master no longer reached him.

Even so, through it all, Myeongjeok saw the sword in Eunbyeok’s hand rise.

Was it trying to kill him?

In that instant, the terror of death swallowed him.

The Myeongjeok of ordinary times would have simply accepted death if he died fighting a powerful enemy...

But now Demonic Energy had shaken his consciousness and mind into disorder.

His thirst for life and his desire to avoid death made him throw away all dignity and prestige.

“S-spare me!”

He said it in desperation.

But he had never imagined the sword point would truly stop.

Myeongjeok looked up at Eunbyeok, then realized it had not stopped in order to spare him.

Eunbyeok’s left hand was approaching.

And slowly, it seized him by the collar and lifted him up.

The grip strength and arm strength were beyond comprehension.

On top of that, Myeongjeok’s left arm was already gone, so he could not even resist properly.

No, he did not even think to resist.

The enemy before him had already stolen his sword and cut off his arm.

Worse, his internal energy had hit bottom, so there was nothing he could do.

All that remained to him was to wait for death.

“I-I was wrong all this time. Yes? I was terribly wrong, so...”

But each time he moved his mouth, Demonic Energy began to gather in Eunbyeok’s left arm.

All the Demonic Energy around them rushed into the attached Young Cult Leader’s left arm.

At this rate, even if it merely released the energy it had gathered, Myeongjeok’s entire upper body would vanish.

He clamped his mouth shut.

But apparently, his careless words were not the issue.

That left arm greedily devoured every trace of Demonic Energy around it until it turned pitch-black.

In other words...

Until there was not even a hint of Demonic Energy left in the underground lightning prison.

“W-what is this...?”

Soon, that left arm released Myeongjeok.

Myeongjeok nearly suffered the humiliation of falling flat on his rear, but somehow managed to keep his balance and stay upright.

Then his eyes met Eunbyeok’s.

“...T-this is...”

The pupils were already gone.

No, there was no way to distinguish where the pupils even were.

The eyes were entirely black, without any whites at all.

The torchlight burning around them reflected in those pitch-black eyes and flickered.

“E-Eunbyeok, so... Kgh!”

But the Young Cult Leader’s left arm seized him by the nape again.

This time, however, it was not trying to kill or threaten him.

Just like that... the left arm dropped away from Eunbyeok’s body.

Myeongjeok felt chills run down his spine.

He had realized what it was going to do to him.

His left arm, severed in the exact same way as Eunbyeok’s.

The words he himself had always spoken.

And that wicked object, which had gathered every last scrap of Demonic Energy as if it were preparing to leave this place...

“N-no, surely...”

It was not entirely hateful.

No, originally, he had wanted this power.

A power capable of breaking even him.

If that were so, then perhaps...

If this power could so easily break even Myeongjeok, who stood at the final edge of Transcendent Apex and the threshold of the Transformation Realm...

Then was it not already a power that had reached the Transformation Realm?

But fear surged from the depths of his heart.

It was the power he had wanted so badly, yet a fierce instinctive warning told him he must not do this.

Just as he tried to flee.

The Demonic Energy that had seeped into his head blurred his consciousness.

“...Ahh.”

Myeongjeok’s eyes instantly went dull and unfocused.

In the meantime, the Young Cult Leader’s left arm began to move like a scorpion.

Using its five fingers as legs, the entire left arm moved swiftly and grotesquely.

Like a spider, it clung to Myeongjeok’s body...

And approached the severed surface of his left arm.

What followed happened in a flash.

The severed surface met the severed surface, and Myeongjeok’s eyes, whites and all, turned pitch-black.

Demonic Energy had already seeped deep into his head, heart, and dantian.

To make matters worse, Myeongjeok did not even have the silver needles Eunbyeok had received...

And the pure internal energy of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method that had once filled his dantian had already been exhausted.

“...Hoooo...”

The left arm, which had absorbed such dense Demonic Energy that it had turned completely black, gradually began to regain its original color.

The more it did, the more Demonic Energy piled up inside Myeongjeok’s body.

His dantian was already full of Demonic Energy, and even his Innate True Qi was being contaminated, causing him to lose the very essence of being human.

His heart, his head, all of it became steeped in Demonic Energy, seized by the hideous object known as the Young Cult Leader’s left arm...

Before Eunbyeok’s body, which had collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, Myeongjeok stood, exuding an entirely different presence.

“...There is a long road ahead.”

The whites of his eyes, which had been stained black, returned to their original color.

From the hand of Eunbyeok, now a cold corpse, he retrieved his own...

No, Myeongjeok’s Plum Blossom Sword.

He was no longer Myeongjeok.

With Myeongjeok’s memories, techniques, and body...

He was the resurrected Young Cult Leader.

*****

South Peak, entrance to the underground lightning prison.

Outside the cave, Jeongyang was waiting for Myeongjeok.

An absolute master who had passed the opening stage of the Transformation Realm, Jeongyang realized that the presence inside the cave had changed.

First, Eunbyeok was certainly dead.

His presence could no longer be felt.

Second, Myeongjeok was alive.

His energy was more intense than ever.

Third...

“The Demonic Energy is gone?”

Jeongyang looked into the cave with a bewildered expression.

Now, it was nothing more than an ordinary cave.

It was no longer filled with dense Demonic Energy.

Nor, under that influence, did it move grotesquely like a monster’s throat, producing hideous and bizarre creatures.

But he could not understand it.

How could all the Demonic Energy have vanished like this?

Had Myeongjeok completely destroyed the Young Cult Leader’s left arm and erased it so thoroughly that it could never revive again?

“...That cannot be possible.”

Jeongyang narrowed his eyes.