Free Web NovelUnhwi fell silent for a moment.
First, he had to make one thing clear.
Unhwi had not called them here. He had never asked for help.
But he could not point that out and move on.
They had come here risking their lives.
To help him.
How could he rebuke people who carried such feelings?
That was not the proper way for a human being.
At last, he opened his mouth.
“I met a man named Zhuge Xian.”
“......Zhuge...... Xian?”
Chief Seong seemed not to know the name, but Juchae and Gong Yeongheo were different.
The two men’s eyes widened.
Juchae spoke.
“Surely...... you do not mean that Zhuge Xian...... the Deputy Leader of the Murim Alliance during the Thousand-Year Chaos?”
Unhwi nodded.
“Yes. The man who stepped down from the Deputy Leader position midway.”
“Hah...... The past...... and the distant past at that...... I find it hard to believe he has been alive until now.”
“I understand. No matter how much of a genius Zhuge Xian was, and no matter that he was born of the Zhuge bloodline, it is too unrealistic. But I saw him with my own eyes.”
“.......”
“I spoke with him, and I came to understand his will.”
“When you say his will......”
“He blamed himself for failing to stop the Thousand-Year Chaos. To wash that away, he imprisoned himself here and controlled the Chaotic Heaven Ones.”
Everyone drew in a breath.
“Then the reason all these Chaotic Heaven Ones have gathered here now is......”
“Because he sent out his final will.”
Unhwi’s voice lowered.
“Right before he died.”
Silence.
A heavy silence flowed.
Ju Soa asked carefully.
“......Where is he now?”
Unhwi turned around.
Far away.
A shattered chair could be seen.
Someone lay collapsed beneath it.
The corpses of Chaotic Heaven Ones were piled over him, so he could not be seen clearly.
“He is there.”
“.......”
“He was a proper martial artist. A true martial artist.”
Respect dwelled in Unhwi’s voice.
“A man who upheld his conviction. A man who sacrificed himself for five hundred years to guard this place.”
Juchae asked,
“Why did he make such a choice?”
Unhwi slowly continued.
“As I just said, the inner reason was that he failed to stop the Thousand-Year Chaos. And the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of martial artists sacrificed in the Thousand-Year Chaos—they are the Chaotic Heaven Ones here now.”
Juchae was no fool.
He possessed a keen mind in his own right, and from Unhwi’s brief words, he was able to draw a conclusion.
“......The martial artists of the past were cursed, then. Cursed to be trapped here.”
“.......”
“Unable to die, unable to leave, losing themselves and becoming shells that know only slaughter.”
Unhwi nodded.
“Today, I intend to liberate them.”
Unhwi looked at the Chaotic Heaven Ones.
“Killing them is not murder. It is liberation. It is sending those who had to live as monsters for five hundred years—no, since even before then—to true death, and to true rest.”
Gong Yeongheo lifted his iron sphere.
“Then we will help as well.”
“You must be Senior Gong Yeongheo, the Invincible Iron Order. My greeting comes late.”
Gong Yeongheo shook his head.
“Is a greeting truly necessary between those who fight back-to-back on a battlefield?”
Unhwi nodded.
With that brief statement, he could immediately tell what sort of man Gong Yeongheo was.
Unhwi raised his sword.
The True Fire Heavenly Spirit Sword.
The other five also raised their weapons.
And then.
The monstrous screams rang out again.
Kraaaaaah—!!
The Chaotic Heaven Ones surged in once more.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
There was no end.
Neither Man Seokcheong nor Commander General Ma was a fool.
Chaotic Heaven Ones that did not attack?
Chaotic Heaven Ones running while staring only at one place?
To put it bluntly, the grudge those two had accumulated toward the Chaotic Heaven Ones far surpassed Unhwi’s.
They had not been in the Chaotic Heaven Region for only a day or two, so that was certain.
And such men would leave the Chaotic Heaven Ones alone? Impossible.
The Chaotic Heaven Ones outside were surely being killed off without distinction between Chaotic Heaven Ones and Chaotic Heaven Kings.
Then how was this number to be interpreted?
It was simple.
These were the Chaotic Heaven Ones that would have appeared in the future.
The Chaotic Heaven Ones that would pour out of the Chaotic Heaven Gate whenever it periodically opened.
They existed in another space, not this one, and as that space opened, they were all coming here.
In other words, the Chaotic Heaven Ones Unhwi and his group now had to face were no different from “all Chaotic Heaven Ones.”
Unhwi stepped forward.
“I will take the lead.”
***
He swung his sword.
The first Chaotic Heaven One’s neck was severed.
The other five followed.
Juchae’s sword flashed.
Gong Yeongheo’s iron spheres danced.
Chief Seong’s sword shot out.
Ju Soa’s sword flew.
Namgung Wonyang’s sword split the air.
Six people fought together.
Against the Chaotic Heaven Ones.
However.
Unhwi’s battle was different.
Different from the other five fighting together.
It was on another level.
He swung his sword.
Then swung it again.
A Chaotic Heaven King charged. Unity of Heaven and Man level.
In the past, it would have been an opponent he had to be wary of, but to the current Unhwi, they were merely targets to be cut down, not threats.
The Chaotic Heaven King’s sword pierced Unhwi’s shoulder.
Puk.
At the same time as that chilling sound rang out—
Slice.
The Chaotic Heaven King’s head shot into the air.
Unhwi pulled the sword out of his shoulder.
Smoke leaked from the wound, and the pierced injury closed in an instant.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal.
This was undoubtedly an ancient artifact.
He had never tested it, but it would likely regenerate even severed limbs.
The issue was duration.
Of its ten thousand years, nearly one-third had been used.
The question was how long the remaining two-thirds could last, and Unhwi intended to use all of it today.
It was true that he respected Zhuge Xian’s will.
It was also true that he wanted to protect that man’s value.
For a martial artist, there was no greater honor than to bring an end to the final moments of another martial artist who had sacrificed himself for five hundred years.
That was the path Unhwi had walked.
Unhwi respected those who staked their lives on the path they chose to walk.
However.
That was not the only reason he intended to use up the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal.
He intended to gain something.
The Three Profound Realms were undoubtedly an extraordinary realm.
It was also something he had newly created, and a realm he had taught Namgung Wonyang, who was fighting over there now.
But he could not be satisfied with this.
The true Five Realms of Martial Divinity.
He had to ascend to that realm.
With such an incomplete realm, there were many things he could not do.
Today, he would surely ascend.
Unhwi took his eyes off the Chaotic Heaven King’s head soaring into the sky and swung his sword again.
The next targets.
The heads of two Chaotic Heaven Ones shot into the air.
He moved again.
The legs of Chaotic Heaven Ones were cut away, bodies were split apart, and heads were cleaved open.
Even amid all that, Unhwi was also attacked, but the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal instantly regenerated every wound, and within that cold sensation of healing flesh, Unhwi suddenly realized something.
This is circulation.
Death and life. Destruction and regeneration. Wounds and healing.
All of it was repeating endlessly.
Unhwi killed the Chaotic Heaven Ones, the Chaotic Heaven Ones wounded Unhwi, those wounds recovered, and Unhwi killed the Chaotic Heaven Ones again. This very process existed within one immense circulation, and the thought brushed past him that perhaps this circulation itself was the principle of heaven and earth.
The equality of all things spoken of by the ancient sages.
All things are the same.
Life and death, great and small, noble and lowly—all are the same, and humans merely assign meaning to them.
At this moment, he understood those words with absolute clarity.
Those he was killing were already dead.
Seven hundred years ago, perhaps even before then, they had died during the Thousand-Year Chaos, only to be trapped here as specters because of the twisting of heavenly energy.
That was why what Unhwi was doing now was not murder, but liberation.
At the same time, it was death, and paradoxically, that death itself was the path by which they returned to true life.
Life and death are one.
He felt as though he now understood why the ancient sage had beaten a drum and sung when his wife died.
Death was not an end but another beginning, and life, too, was not a beginning but merely one part of a continuous flow.
Each motion of his sword became natural.
He did not force strength, nor did he deliberately employ technique. He simply moved as the flow carried him.
Yet that movement was the most efficient and the most lethal.
Through non-action, nothing remains undone.
The words of the ancient sage were being embodied at the tip of his sword.
Unhwi did not think.
He did not calculate his next movement, did not predict the enemy’s movements, and simply let his body move as it would.
Yet his sword pierced vital points precisely, his feet evaded enemy attacks precisely, and his body maintained the optimal posture precisely.
Unity of Heaven and Man.
It was not merely a realm that allowed one to handle the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
Heaven and man becoming one.
The spiritual energy of heaven and earth and one’s own energy becoming one.
It was not about forcibly drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, nor about forcefully fitting one’s own energy to heaven and earth.
It was simply flowing naturally.
As a river flows into the sea, as wind crosses a mountain, as clouds drift through the sky—becoming one with heaven and earth that naturally.
The doctrine of the mean spoken of by the scholars was ultimately in the same vein.
Not leaning to one side, neither excessive nor insufficient, and acting appropriately in accordance with the moment.
Unhwi’s sword was exactly that now.
A Chaotic Heaven King swung a fist from the front, another Chaotic Heaven King thrust a sword from behind, and a third Chaotic Heaven King struck with a palm from the side, but Unhwi slipped through all those attacks like flowing water.
Chief Seong, who had been cutting off another Chaotic Heaven One’s head, flinched for an instant.
He could not help it.
Because immediately after, Unhwi counterattacked, and at the same time, the heads of three Chaotic Heaven Kings shot into the sky.
This was not killing three with one movement.
It was three movements connected into one.
That connection was so natural that it merely appeared to be a single motion.
Sheathing the sword, drawing it again, swinging, thrusting, cutting—every motion continued without interruption, and between them, the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal healed his wounds. Even the cold sensation of that healing had now become part of the natural flow.
Overcoming oneself and returning to order.
The words of the ancient master.
Unhwi was now overcoming himself.
Fear, hesitation, attachment—he cast them all away and did nothing but swing his sword, and within that swordsmanship, he was discovering his true self.
What was order?
It was not form, but essence.
Not outward appearance, but the inner core. Not artificial rules, but natural order.
What Unhwi’s sword now followed was precisely that order. The order of heaven and earth. The principle of all things. The Way.
The sword shone.
White.
The power of the True Chapter of the Primordial Innate Mind Art enveloped his entire body, radiance flowed down from his hair, and within that light, Unhwi was entering deeper and deeper.
His consciousness expanded.
