Chapter 565:
Sa-ma quietly stared at Wei Yan-ho.
He had stopped moving. Just moments ago, he had been rushing toward Wei Yan-ho with all his might, but without even realizing it, his feet were now planted firmly on the ground.
A sense of wrongness.
A vivid sense of wrongness swept through his entire body.
His head slowly lowered.
His gaze fell upon his chest, where his heart was located.
Nothing.
There was no wound.
Neither his clothes nor his skin… nothing had been torn even slightly.
A hollow laugh appeared on Sa-ma’s face as he looked at his perfectly intact chest.
‘I wasn’t even cut.’
But he had been cut.
Sa-ma knew it. Wei Yan-ho’s sword strike had left his exterior completely untouched while precisely severing only his heart meridian. It had been cut so perfectly that there wasn’t much bleeding yet, but soon an enormous amount of blood would gush forth from the severed heart meridian.
Then it would be over.
He had never heard of anyone surviving with a severed heart meridian. No matter how perfectly Sa-ma had mastered control over his physical body, he couldn’t reconnect a severed heart meridian. All he could do was slightly delay the time until death.
“…What exactly did you do?”
Sa-ma’s eyes turned toward Wei Yan-ho.
Toward Wei Yan-ho, whose eyes still held a trace of dissatisfaction.
Sa-ma.
Despite having cut down one of the strongest warriors in the world and a bishop of the Demonic Cult, there was no sign of pride on Wei Yan-ho’s face.
“I just cut.”
“You just cut?”
“Yes. I just tried cutting.”
“Huu…”
These should have been incomprehensible words.
But Sa-ma understood. Wei Yan-ho had literally just cut. He had found the optimal trajectory to cut his heart, and at the perfect moment, he had swung his sword perfectly.
When all those processes became unified, only the result of ‘cutting’ remained.
What should this sword technique be called?
Heart Sword?
Or perhaps Formless Sword?
Whatever name one gave it would suffice. After all, things like Heart Sword and Formless Sword didn’t have predetermined forms.
‘He doesn’t even seem aware of it himself.’
Looking at Wei Yan-ho, Sa-ma let out a hollow laugh.
Did he even know what he had just accomplished?
Did he understand what it meant to have defeated everything with a single sword strike and cut out only Sa-ma’s heart?
Sa-ma shook his head.
He probably didn’t.
That only had meaning for Sa-ma.
Realms like Heart Sword and Formless Sword only held value for Sa-ma, who had not yet reached that level. What meaning could there be for Wei Yan-ho, who had already passed that stage and was heading toward the next level, to know where his sword had reached?
Wei Yan-ho was already looking ahead. He was pursuing something even higher, unsatisfied with even this level.
“Heu…”
Suppressed laughter escaped.
After dedicating his entire life to martial arts, to think this was merely a passing stage, not even the end.
Sa-ma slowly opened his mouth.
“What are you pursuing?”
“…Pardon?”
Wei Yan-ho asked back with a blank expression.
But Sa-ma didn’t get angry.
“What are you pursuing that you still wear such an unsatisfied expression?”
“Ah!”
Wei Yan-ho scratched the back of his head.
“I’m chasing a shadow, but it’s quite difficult to catch.”
“A shadow…”
Sa-ma couldn’t help but laugh.
A shadow could mean many things. But in this answer, the shadow could only mean one thing.
“The world is vast.”
To think there was another person who could make such a monster struggle with their shadow.
“Even with this sword, you couldn’t reach them?”
“Well, that’s…”
Wei Yan-ho answered in a sulky voice.
“For the first time, something similar seems to have emerged, but it feels somehow insufficient.”
“Is that so?”
Insufficient…
Sa-ma had no choice but to let out a hollow laugh.
That insufficient sword had cut his heart. An overwhelming strike that didn’t even make him think of counterattacking. That strike was insufficient?
“I’ve lived in vain.”
Blood began to flow from the corners of Sa-ma’s mouth. Blood flowed from the severed heart meridian and began to flow back up through his injured stomach to his mouth.
‘The Central Plains have always been like this, the Central Plains.’
Every time he thought he could surpass them, a new figure would appear. Just when he thought it was enough, they would be even stronger.
The same repetition of history.
It was the same detestable history repeating itself again, and Sa-ma was afraid.
“You are strong.”
Wei Yan-ho nodded.
Normally, he would have picked at those words to tease him, but he couldn’t do that to someone who was dying.
“But your strength will ultimately become a futile endeavor.”
Blood flowing out stained Sa-ma’s chest.
Anyone could see that life force was rapidly draining from him.
“…You are… you are strong. But you cannot… match that person. No one in the world… no one can stand before… that person.”
Wei Yan-ho’s face hardened slightly.
Wei Yan-ho knew who Sa-ma was referring to when he said ‘that person.’
“Has the Heavenly Demon really been revived?”
“…Heavenly Demon.”
Sa-ma twisted his lips into a smile.
“Not… revived.”
Sa-ma coughed violently.
“That person… was never dead from the beginning…”
Thud.
One knee touched the ground. One hand pressed against the floor. Having barely prevented himself from collapsing face-first, Sa-ma cackled with laughter.
His entire face flushed red.
“Strong… You are strong. But because of that… you will be even more powerless. If you weren’t strong, if you weren’t like that, you could at least give up! You will suffer because of your own strength.”
Sa-ma’s body slowly collapsed.
“Just watching that spectacle from hell should keep me from being bored.”
Wei Yan-ho quietly looked down at Sa-ma, who had collapsed on the ground.
Should he say it was fitting for a Demonic Cult bishop to curse until his dying breath?
“Harsh words.”
Wei Yan-ho turned his head away with a somewhat gloomy expression.
Killing people could never be a pleasant task. Even if they were people who absolutely had to be killed, even if they were people he had no choice but to kill, it was no different.
“Tsk.”
It wasn’t over yet. It was too early to indulge in sentimentality. Wei Yan-ho turned his head and moved his feet.
“Cough!“
His eyes caught sight of Dok-ma groaning with his body half-bent.
“…How?”
Dok-ma’s eyes were filled with shock and terror.
Unlike Sa-ma, who had acknowledged and accepted that his opponent was stronger than him, Dok-ma couldn’t accept this situation itself.
It might be natural.
Encountering opponents whose martial arts didn’t work against them was an experience that could be had without much difficulty when facing stronger foes. But for Dok-ma, who had studied poisons, opponents immune to poison simply didn’t exist. At least not until now.
They could endure it. They could suppress the symptoms. It was also possible to expel poison with internal energy. But opponents who were fundamentally immune to poison couldn’t exist in this world. They shouldn’t exist.
Yet now such an existence stood before his eyes. How could this shock be explained?
“How!”
Dok-ma shouted with a voice filled with rage and bewilderment.
But Wei Yan-ho remained calm even while looking at him.
“What do you mean, how?”
“…How can you not be poisoned? By what method!”
“You’re stating the obvious.”
Wei Yan-ho shrugged his shoulders.
“My master said that if I’m stronger than the poison, the poison wouldn’t dare to poison me. I’m stronger than the poison you use, old man.”
Of course, that strength wasn’t entirely Wei Yan-ho’s own power.
The reason Wei Yan-ho wasn’t poisoned was thanks to Baek Mu-han’s inner core, which didn’t allow other forces to dare penetrate Wei Yan-ho’s body. But Dok-ma, who couldn’t know these circumstances, wouldn’t be able to understand this situation.
“Heu…”
Dok-ma’s eyes turned blood red. From being too agitated, all the blood vessels in his eyes had burst.
“Wei Yan-ho, Wei Yan-ho… The one who could become the cult’s greatest enemy. When I heard that evaluation, I mocked the Mad Demon.”
Dok-ma chuckled bitterly.
“The fool who knew nothing was me.”
Dok-ma’s face was tinged with regret. In his eyes, he caught sight of Sa-ma’s body lying on the ground, growing cold.
“Kuk kuk kuk.“
Who could have imagined?
When he set out for this place with Sa-ma, he had never once thought he might die here. The only question was how quickly they could clean up this place and rejoin the main force.
They say life is unpredictable.
“Is this place to be my grave?”
Dok-ma gritted his teeth.
The heart that had been excited about opening the great undertaking was growing cold.
No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t see a way to avoid death. Wei Yan-ho seemed like a somewhat absent-minded fellow, but his sword, unlike his personality, knew no mercy.
Wei Yan-ho, who had killed Sa-ma in one strike, wouldn’t spare him. Even if Wei Yan-ho let him live, the others wouldn’t leave him be.
Especially…
‘Divine Strategist.’
The eyes of the Divine Strategist watching him from afar were utterly cold. It might be better to die. If he were subdued by that person, he would be neither dead nor alive until he spilled all the information he possessed.
“Damned Central Plains bastards.”
Dok-ma slowly raised his body.
Paaang!
Poison energy shot from his fingertips like lightning toward Wei Yan-ho. Wei Yan-ho waved his hand as if annoyed and blocked the poison energy.
“I keep telling you it’s meaningless, yet you keep doing that.”
“…Heu.”
The fact that the poison he had cultivated his entire life was completely useless was a pain greater than having to face death.
The demonic expression that had twisted Dok-ma’s face like a malevolent spirit slowly relaxed.
Wei Yan-ho’s eyes filled with interest.
Dok-ma had the eyes of an enlightened monk who had let go of everything.
“You don’t know.”
The voice that flowed out was extremely calm.
“How deep a resentment we carry.”
“…”
“How desperately we yearned for what you enjoyed without a care.”
“What are you talking about…”
“Death?”
Dok-ma said with a peaceful expression.
“What I fear isn’t something trivial like death. It’s the anxiety that if I fail to do what I must, our descendants might again live in suffering on that barren land. Compared to that terror, death is nothing. Do you understand what I mean?”
Wei Yan-ho narrowed his eyes.
“Now this is getting rather tiresome, so just behave and surrender quietly…”
Wei Yan-ho’s words stopped.
Startled, Wei Yan-ho couldn’t take his eyes off Dok-ma, his eyes growing extremely wide.
He was swelling.
Certainly.
Though subtle, Dok-ma’s body was definitely swelling.
“What, what are you trying to…”
“Kuk kuk kuk kuk!“
Dok-ma’s face and body swelled up. Blood vessels bulged out, and his entire body turned green in an instant.
“You should know too! Our pain! Our rage! Sacred Fire!”
Before he could do anything about it, Dok-ma’s body exploded. At the same time, acrid poison smoke erupted from his body as the center and began sweeping through all directions.
The green smoke filled and spread throughout the main headquarters of the Righteous Martial Alliance.
