Part 35 - Netherworld Mado (2)
"Two."
Geumju recoiled in shock and sprang away from where she stood.
"…?!"
She couldn't understand it.
How could the one she had blasted away moments ago be standing right beside her?
And the finger he had in his mouth—whose was it?
His lips split into a long, grotesque grin.
Crunch, crunch—.
She heard the sound of bones being chewed right beside her ear.
Panicking, she hurriedly widened the distance and checked her hand.
Where her right pinky had been was now completely empty.
"Wha… ah…?"
As she stared blankly at her hand, a low, chuckling laugh from the Dark Heaven Venerable One sounded again right next to her.
"Aaaaargh!"
Shrieking, she drove a powerful blow straight into that white mask.
With a tremendous tearing boom, his head snapped far back.
Head still thrown back, he whispered as if murmuring.
"Three."
This time, it was her left index finger.
Crunch, crunch.
Having already lost three fingers, Geumju let out a furious scream.
"You—who used to cut down girls begging for their lives and bathe in their blood—how can you scream over three fingers?"
If she were an ordinary person, she would have gone mad long ago, but internal energy nearing that of a master was protecting her upper danjeon.
The sorcery she had invoked was protecting her soul.
Barely.
Geumju screamed spasmodically,
"You bastard! Bastard! I'll grind you up and drink you!"
***
Geumju unleashed every ounce of her strength on the Dark Heaven Venerable One.
Again and again, she poured out her attacks.
She mobilized every Jeol technique she knew.
But her fingers only kept dwindling away.
That white mask before her eyes—no matter how many times she struck it, it seemed to take no damage; no matter how many times she pierced it, it did not pierce.
"Undying…?"
At Se-a's murmured voice as she watched from afar, Gyu shook her head.
"No. That is…."
***
"…That's an unbelievable realm. What in the world is that thing called the Dark Heaven Venerable One?"
The bulky man groaned.
The wounds he'd taken while fighting Geumju were no joke.
Blood seeped out through the bandages wrapped around his body.
And yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the skill unfolding before him.
"It's seriously absurd."
The young beauty watching this not-quite-a-battle with him clicked her tongue.
"It looks like he's getting hit—no, he is getting hit—but he's not taking any damage at all."
Even to their eyes—both belonging to martial artists of considerable level—Geumju's attacks were far too fast and far too powerful.
And with those irregular trajectories added in, it was the kind of assault they could only barely manage to block.
They hadn't even blocked it properly—wasn't that how they ended up staring death in the face?
Yet this being called the Dark Heaven Venerable One was treating Geumju's attacks like a joke.
At first glance, it looked as though he was simply enduring every blow.
But the longer they watched, the more they arrived at a chilling conclusion.
"What the hell is that?"
Gooseflesh rising along her neck, the young beauty couldn't look away from the bizarre spectacle.
"…Isn't it insanely cool?"
***
"Is he dodging Geumju's strikes by a hair with faster footwork?"
At Se-a's question, Gyu shook her head again.
"No. I didn't realize at first either, but now I understand."
She had focused all her inner power into her eyesight.
"He's sending every attack into the ground."
Each time Geumju's blow touched him, the ground under the tip of his foot split open with a crack.
The fissures carved a spiral pattern.
Following his lightly stepping toes, lotus blossoms seemed to bloom—like that.
***
"But what principle is that even using…?"
The young beauty asked with a scowl, but the bulky man only shrugged.
"No idea. Honestly, I can make a guess, but…."
"Then guess. You know I learned almost everything I know through self-study."
The bulky man scratched his head.
"First, taking the hit might be using the principle of Penetrating Force in reverse. And with the tip of his foot, he's applying the subtlety of Silk-Wrapping Force, then discharging the opponent's force into the ground."
After he finished, he shook his head.
"No… but then the hostile flow of force passing through the inside of the body would—"
Listening to his rambling for a while, she sighed.
"You don't even know what you're saying, do you?"
"…Honestly, no."
The young beauty snorted.
***
"Gyu, I'll be honest—I don't understand a single thing you just said."
As the head of an intelligence organization, Se-a knew far more theory about martial arts than most martial artists.
But even she couldn't grasp anything about the upper-tier martial arts Gyu was describing.
"It's fine."
Gyu answered without taking her eyes off the Dark Heaven Venerable One's movements, not even for a moment.
"You can forget everything I said."
"Then?"
"To put it simply: the essence of force possessed by several different sects has been consolidated into that movement."
"So if I restate it—he mixed martial theories with completely different origins and completed them into one?"
"Yes."
Gyu wasn't merely refusing to look away—she couldn't.
Even while watching with her own eyes, she couldn't believe them.
Se-a moved closer and asked in a quiet voice.
"…Could that be a technique of the Sword Clan?"
The Luoyang Sword Clan was known—officially or otherwise—for gathering every kind of martial art.
If it was that Sword Clan, perhaps they really could have melted multiple sects' secret arts together and created a new martial art.
"…It might be. But that isn't the core issue—whose technique it is, or who created it."
Gyu clenched her teeth.
They said the martial world had eccentric masters as countless as grains of sand.
Sometimes people created martial arts so complex they were hard to comprehend, yet somehow still worked in theory.
"Miss."
For example, even her own sect had something like that.
Ten Swords, Chaos.
Like a mythical ultimate art no one in this era could master.
"…The problem is how he can use that."
And not only in real combat—
But continuously.
Without a single mistake.
Only then did Se-a fully understand, her brows knitting.
Even someone like her, who only skimmed the world of martial arts, felt stunned—so what must it feel like for Gyu, standing before her own wall?
"…So that Dark Heaven Venerable One is doing the impossible—making it real."
"Yes."
It was an incomprehensible domain beyond what Gyu could explain.
Dark Heaven Venerable One, the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan—had he crossed the wall itself?
Was that massive wall something she could only watch helplessly, despite being praised for her talent?
Had a boy still in his teens leapt right over it?
Something hot surged up from deep in her chest.
It wasn't directed at the Dark Heaven Venerable One as an existence—
It was awe toward Yeon Sang-hyeon, and a fierce competitive spirit.
***
"And one more thing."
"What is it?"
The bulky man held up a finger.
"The fingers. The fingers."
"Huh?"
After staring at his finger with an odd look, the young beauty's whole body broke out in chills.
"…!"
The Dark Heaven Venerable One hadn't merely been taking hits and redirecting them.
In the middle of it all—
He was tearing off and eating Geumju's fingers.
At the very end of those horrific attacks she was unleashing at full power—fast, strong, and wildly irregular—
One by one.
Carefully.
***
From the beginning, killing Geumju would have been absurdly simple.
Back in that building, when she was slammed into the floor, it could have ended with a twist of her neck.
A master?
A temporarily elevated realm meant nothing.
Even if a "gatekeeper" had been here in his place, the process might have differed—but in the end it would have concluded cleanly with Geumju's defeat.
The bizarre martial art she possessed was hard to guess the origin of, but that didn't make it particularly difficult to deal with.
He simply had no intention of letting her go easily.
So he experimented—one by one.
Since becoming a Disciple of The Ruler Of Darkness, he had never properly unleashed his techniques.
His body had been too perfect from the start, and then demonic energy from The Ruler Of Darkness came to dwell within it.
A power that could corrode reality, rot it away, and warp it—this demonic energy was far beyond all reason.
Those without inner power often had their very mind shattered and their reason stripped away simply from being influenced by it, and would frequently go mad.
Martial artists with inner power were too weak.
Too slow.
And he couldn't find a single one who truly understood the martial arts they had learned.
They merely mimicked—trained as taught, repeated as trained—like puppets.
Sometimes there were a few with a hint of promise, but not enough to make him feel even the slightest threat.
Honestly, killing them was easier than moving facial muscles to form an expression.
Of course, he couldn't deny that killing them was rewarding.
In some ways, it was even enjoyable.
As a Disciple of The Ruler Of Darkness, devouring villains was also his mission as the Dark Heaven Venerable One—and as Swordless Yeon Sang-hyeon, it was the cornerstone of realizing a grand plan.
And yet there was a thirst he could not quench—
The emptiness he felt as a martial scholar.
So he decided to experiment.
Geumju, at least as a test subject, had sufficient potential.
She had grit, and her stamina was excellent.
And she had more than enough reasons to be tormented for a long time—making it all the better.
So he did, in reality, what he had once only imagined in his head.
He embodied complex martial principles with his own body.
He tested theories that arose on the spot and put them into practice immediately.
He enjoyed the sensation of his body moving as if it had already remembered everything.
He recalled the past—
The memory of when he first took up the sword.
The moment he gripped it and felt intoxicated by the omnipotence of believing he could do anything with it.
Why had he forgotten that joyful memory until now?
***
"Ten."
Crunch, crunch.
Geumju screamed as she stared at her hand, now missing every finger.
It felt like a nightmare.
But no matter how much she screamed, no matter how she thrashed, reality didn't change.
The Dark Heaven Venerable One looked down at her and smiled broadly.
"And then…"
His form vanished.
"Keuhk…"
Geumju spat blood and collapsed on the spot.
Behind her, he appeared—his hand gripping her heart, which had been pounding strongly only a moment ago.
"With this, eleven."
CRACK!