Chapter 160: Time of Punishment (3)
Jeok Seongja, who had lost his parents to bandits and wandered as an orphan before being taken in by a Qingcheng Sect elder and becoming one of their Daoists, had never faced a single hardship during the years that led him to the position of Sect Leader.
There simply could not have been hardships.
After realizing he possessed the finest innate physique and natural talent, he had always devoured everything from the winner’s side.
When he was taught one, he learned not ten but a hundred, reaching the perfection of the Manifestation Realm at the youngest age in history, and ultimately seized the position of Qingcheng Sect’s Sect Leader.
But the problem began from that point on.
Living under the delusion that he was the greatest genius in the world, Jeok Seongja entered the Murim Alliance and suffered overwhelming defeat and frustration.
Because of two people.
Sword Emperor Yoo Jinhak.
Sword Emperor of Azure Heavens Namgung Myeong.
Upon seeing Namgung Myeong, he realized he was nothing more than a firefly before the sun.
And upon seeing Yoo Jinhak, he felt the immeasurable disparity—an unreachable Heaven Beyond Heaven.
The more one knew, the more one saw.
The moment he recognized the true essence of the martial prowess they had accumulated, Jeok Seongja wanted to crawl into a mouse hole.
A truth he hid from everyone in his sect—no, from everyone of the Jianghu.
The realm of perfected Manifestation he had achieved, and the so-called Form-Shaped Qi of his Wind Panorama Sword Qi, were all empty shells, fake constructs that were shamefully hollow beneath the surface.
Because of that, Jeok Seongja abandoned further martial training that very day and focused instead on expanding Qingcheng Sect’s influence.
If he could not stand above them as a martial artist, he intended to reverse the tide through the overwhelming power of authority.
But today, Jeok Seongja realized that all of it had been nothing more than a pitiful struggle, a desperate thrashing.
Before true strength, all other conditions vanished into futility.
……Why did those two men overlap with that bastard?
Indeed. Once again before Jeok Seongja’s eyes—
‘Impossible……!’
An owner of overwhelming talent that transcended common sense had revealed himself.
Kwagagaga!
Kwarurur!
Even at this moment, the slash he had created rushed forth to tear his opponent apart.
A destructive sword-qi, as though a god had clasped their hands and compressed a storm between them.
And facing it directly—
Swaeeak!
Chwarara!
Sewoon also swung his threads sideways, as though brandishing a blade.
It was not the countless bundles of thread from before.
Saaaa!
On a single strand, a vicious dark-green Form-Shaped Qi surged violently.
If his own Qi was wind, then his opponent’s was liquid.
A mysterious Form-Shaped Qi, thick and viscous like concentrated fluid, soaked into the black threads and flowed along them.
The moment he saw that Qi, Jeok Seongja realized instantly.
‘Ah!’
The Form-Shaped Qi Tang Sewoon had produced was not a forced imitation like his own, but a genuine Form-Shaped Qi.
And finally, in midair, slash met slash.
Originally, the collision of Qi and Qi—condensed manifestations of internal energy—caused enormous explosions.
But the sound that rang in the ears of the two was not an explosion.
Seogeogeok!
Hwareuk!
It was a sharply defined slicing sound, followed by something burning.
The moment the Dark Heaven Thread met it, it cleaved the Wind Panorama Sword Qi in a straight line.
And as the cross-section of the severed sword-qi was exposed, it was dyed a deep dark-green and vanished in an instant.
A ridiculous phenomenon—Qi burning away—unfolded before their eyes.
A fake shell could never defeat the real thing.
In the instant the Wind Panorama Sword Qi disappeared into nothingness, the attack had already arrived before Jeok Seongja’s eyes.
‘Krrk!’
Jeok Seongja hurriedly lifted his sword to block—
Seogeok!
What he heard was another slicing sound.
“Kkeuaaaak!!”
A scream of pure agony burst from Jeok Seongja.
Only belatedly did the elders and disciples of Qingcheng Sect witness the scene and cry out in shock.
“……!!”
“S-Sect Leader!!”
“His sword was cut……!”
Jeok Seongja’s sword had been cleaved cleanly in half.
The fragment lying on the ground melted away with acrid smoke rising from it.
It was due to the horrific poison contained within the Dark Heaven Thread.
But it was not only the sword that had been severed.
Pishushu!
Along the trajectory of Sewoon’s Qi, about half of Jeok Seongja’s elbow had been sliced diagonally away.
The arm opposite the one holding the sword dangled grotesquely.
Sewoon stared coldly at the figure—like a broken wooden puppet.
“Krr, krrr!!”
Jeok Seongja involuntarily let out continuous groans of agony.
A level of pain he had never felt before surged over him, enough to turn his mind white.
“How can you already be whining?”
Sewoon twisted his lips into a smirk as he spoke.
But Jeok Seongja could not respond.
He was trapped in pain too intense to even react.
He barely suppressed it with sheer will, but from the severed elbow, poison beyond imagination rampaged wildly through his body.
‘H-Hurts! This—this is impossible!’
Seogeok!
At that moment, a chilling sound rang out once more.
“N-No!!”
“Why would he……!!”
The Qingcheng Sect martial artists cried out in shock.
And understandably so.
Jeok Seongja had suddenly severed his own arm.
But their confusion quickly vanished, replaced with understanding as to why he had done such a thing.
Chiiiik!
Bubble bubble!
The fallen arm of Jeok Seongja was instantly stained dark-green and turned into nothing but a puddle of flesh and blood.
“U-Urgh!”
“Gweeegh!”
The poison fumes rising from it were so horrifyingly pungent that the Qingcheng Sect martial artists who caught even a whiff immediately began vomiting.
‘Since it evolved into Form-Shaped Qi, the poison of Angshin Tears has doubled at minimum. There’s no way they could endure it.’
The Dark Heaven Thread, strengthened to the extreme by the Divine Poison Qi and Sewoon’s will, boasted destructive toxicity.
“Y-You bastard……!”
Cheoeok!
Barely regaining his senses, Jeok Seongja lifted his trembling body and raised his sword with difficulty.
Perhaps because of his master’s wretched condition—
The Wind Panorama Sword Qi he reformed had entirely lost its mystical radiance.
With its outer shell gone, its pitifully poor quality was fully exposed.
Cheocheok!
Amid that chaos, Sewoon spread both hands wide again.
As the Heavenly Thread connected to his hands writhed—
“Uaaagh!!”
Swaeeaek! Swae-aek!
Chwaa-at!
Jeok Seongja swung his sword repeatedly in a convulsive panic.
It was not proper swordsmanship nor a technique.
It was nothing but the frantic flailing of a coward consumed by fear of Sewoon.
Even someone entirely unrelated to Jeok Seongja would have felt pity at the sight.
Paat!
Sewoon dashed forward without a moment of hesitation, pushing off with true steps.
‘A bastard who can’t endure even this much!’
Instead, an even deeper anger surged within him toward Jeok Seongja.
He had been a man who, because of his own desire, had addicted countless commoners and even tried to take their lives.
Yet he couldn’t endure even a single moment of the pain he himself was experiencing. Wasn’t that simply absurd.
Seogeok!
Hwarreureuk!
From midair, Sewoon’s Heavenly Thread, imbued with Angcheon River, surged like waves and incinerated all the sword flux the enemy had unleashed.
In the night where darkness had settled, like the dizzying dance of fireflies, dark-green sparks embroidered the sky.
“D-Don’t come! I told you not to come!!”
At last, before the successor of Qingcheng Sect, who was baring veins in his neck while brandishing his sword wildly—
Cheocheok!
“Hiik!!”
Sewoon arrived.
Chwaaaak!
In the instant the enemy faltered in confusion, Sewoon immediately brought down both of his hands in the shape of the character 예(乂).
Chwaaaak!
First, five strands of Heavenly Thread connected to his right hand met the halved sword of the successor.
Seogeogeok!
Jureuk!
“……!!”
Unable to withstand even a moment, all that remained was a broken hilt as the blade melted away in its entirety.
Chwararara!
Then, the Heavenly Thread linked to his left hand flew in ferociously.
Chwaaaak!
Tuduk!
“Guaaak!!”
The successor once again rolled his eyes back, groaning in agony.
The Heavenly Thread, which had shot in like a beast’s claws, this time raked across his left knee.
Just like his elbow, nearly a third of his knee was sliced away.
Chiiiik!!
The wounded area blackened as bubbles rose and boiled.
Piii!!
A ringing erupted in the successor’s ears, as though the world had burst open.
It was the ringing born from the pain he had only barely escaped—only for it to begin anew.
Jeobeok.
At that moment, Sewoon slowly approached the successor.
Though he had lost his sword, Qingcheng Sect also possessed palm arts such as the Crushing Heart Palm.
Swaeeak!
Chwaaa!
With a tearing boom that seemed to split the very air, the successor swung a hand-blade.
The instant the arc was drawn, a slicing sound echoed—
“Ah……!”
“-!!”
The martial artists of Qingcheng Sect let out another sigh.
Their eyes all spoke the same question.
……Just why, exactly.
Kuuung.
Suddenly, the successor’s body lost balance and collapsed to the ground.
“Heuuk, huk!! Kkeuup, ggeuk!”
Now sprawled on the floor and gasping, the successor’s body had lost not only one arm but also one leg.
With his downward-striking hand-blade, he had not split Sewoon’s body—but his own poisoned leg.
None among the Qingcheng Sect understood why the successor would mutilate his own body, but in truth, there had been no choice.
The moment one was poisoned by Angcheon River, a horrific pain ignited from the wound and stripped away all proper reason.
An extreme agony that rendered one incapable of sound judgment, as though driven into hallucination.
In the end, to sever the pain, one’s own body would be destroyed—such was the divine poison’s savage nature.
That was Angcheon River.
Cheocheok.
Sewoon halted his steps.
Before him, the successor lay sprawled in disgrace, belly exposed like a frog flipped on its back.
At that moment, Sewoon’s gaze—looking down at him as though he were an insect—and the barely recovered gaze of the successor crossed in the air.
“I-If you kill me, the Murim Alliance will not leave you be!!”
“…….”
What spilled from the successor’s lips was a threat.
But it held no weight whatsoever.
All that remained to him was one arm and one leg.
There was no way he could continue any real battle in such a miserable state.
Dragging himself backward with his lone arm, the successor shouted again.
“Q-Qingcheng Sect is part of the Murim Alliance!! I am an Elder of the Murim Alliance!! If you kill me, you will immediately become an enemy of the entire martial world!!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“……What?”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
“!!”
Sseuu!
Sewoon lifted one arm high.
This time, the Heavenly Thread infused with Angcheon River scattered into dozens of strands, spreading across the sky like a net.
If it descended as it was, the successor would be shredded into pieces and die instantly.
Perhaps sensing his own end—
The successor, eyes rolling wildly, crawled to Sewoon’s feet, tears and snot flowing together.
“Heuuuu, heuu. Please, please spare me. No—please save me, Clan Head of Tang! I-I was wrong! Just—just spare me alone!”
The martial artists of Qingcheng Sect felt disgust as they watched their leader, oblivious even to shame, grovel before them.
But the successor cared nothing about his disciples or the Elders watching him.
He wished only to preserve his life and flee this place as quickly as possible.
At that moment, Sewoon spoke quietly.
“You want me to spare you?”
“Y-Yes!! I-I will do anything for Clan Head Tang!! If you tell me to die, I will die!”
“Oh-ho.”
Ah!
By the time the successor realized he had spoken wrongly, it was already too late.
As he lifted his head, Sewoon clenched the hand he had held open.
“Then die now.”
“……!!”
Hwiik!
Seogeogeok!!
The net spread across the sky fell directly onto the successor.