The Terminally Ill Young Master of the Baek Clan

Creating an Absolute master required an enormous amount of resources.

It’s not just about money.

First, the absolute necessity of time.

Additionally, the genius, a talent that could only be proven by completely dedicating oneself to martial arts, was also required.

It was equally important to have a master who could guide this heaven-sent talent on the right path.

It would be even better if there were elixirs.

However, the most important thing among them was practical experience.

One must place their life on the line several times.

Experiencing a life-and-death struggle in an ice hell and surviving it was necessary for such tempering.

Whether their deeds were judged as evil or heroic, they only became known as masters after countless life-and-death battles and victories.

Therefore, in the martial world, Heuk-am could only be an incomprehensible existence.

Where did such an Absolute master come from?

Heuk-am, who suddenly appeared as if fallen from the sky, overwhelmed the Sword Emperor, the best swordsman of the orthodox faction, unilaterally.

However, Heuk-am himself was not surprised at all.

He was clearly a man close to the pinnacle of martial arts. Probably, in both the Central Plains and beyond the Great Wall, there would be no one closer to the pinnacle of martial arts than him.

Furthermore, he was by no means someone who just fell from the sky.

As strong as he was, he paid a greater price than anyone else.

That’s what he thought.

If martial arts were about climbing one’s own mountain, he was climbing the highest peak covered with eternal snow.

Looking in all directions, there was no one climbing a higher mountain than him.

Not even someone who had caught up to a similar height.

If it were the masters of the past, there might be no one stronger than Heuk-am, but didn’t they either become immortals or disappear?

“Disappointing, truly disappointing!”

Heuk-am felt a loneliness akin to severe cold.

How blessed would it be to have an adversary who could fight alongside him at the highest level.

But when someone tried to climb to the same height, he had to kick them down.

It was very frustrating, but there was no choice.

Heuk-am shouted at the Sword Emperor, “Is that all you have to show?”

The Sword Emperor’s supreme ultimate technique, which seemed to stop time, was destroyed by Heuk-am’s supreme ultimate technique.

The Sword Emperor fought to protect Wudang.

But Heuk-am’s supreme ultimate technique was different from his.

At this moment, he was like a mirage.

When climbing a snowy mountain, there were times when the peak seemed right in front of you. If you were deceived and pushed a little further, just a little further, you would surely die.

Even if you thrust your sword thinking you could pierce it, it would never reach Heuk-am.

Thus, it was called the Untrodden Zenith.

It was one of the many supreme ultimate techniques Heuk-am had achieved.

Swae-aek—

The Taiji Wisdom Sword once again brushed past Heuk-am’s head.

The darkness in Heuk-am’s hand grew larger.

It was a palm technique that could be mistaken for the Great Seal of Vajrayana, the martial art of Tantric Buddhism from Tianzhu, but in reality, it was different.

The true identity of the palm technique was the Heaven-Shrouding Dark Cloud Palm practiced only by the Heuk-am lineage of the Evil Cult.

When the dark clouds passed by, nothing remained.

With the intention of finally smashing the Sword Emperor’s head, Heuk-am did not hold back.

Whiiik—

But the Sword Emperor managed to dodge it.

Just when it seemed to hit, he slightly turned his head and deflected the palm technique.

“Heuu.”

Heuk-am let out a faint laugh.

The black Aura Qi of the Heaven-Shrouding Dark Cloud Palm possessed a cloud-like nature.

Even if deflected by the soft sword, the minute clouds of Aura Qi would destroy the opponent’s body.

The Sword Emperor recognized this and deflected it.

“Good!”

Heuk-am seemed about to use the Heaven-Shrouding Dark Cloud Palm again but instead kicked up like lightning.

That kick carried monstrous strength capable of shattering even a solid castle gate in one blow.

The Sword Emperor raised a sword and hid his body behind it.

Heuk-am’s foot struck the Sword Emperor’s sword.

Thud—

A hollow sound rang out as the Sword Emperor was flung into the sky.

Despite kicking the sword blade, there wasn’t even a scratch on Heuk-am’s shoe.

However, the Sword Emperor was also unharmed. He absorbed the impact and was flung away but suffered no injury.

Heuk-am pounded the ground and leaped up.

The force of his leap was so destructive that the snow piled up in that spot disappeared, leaving only a round dirt mark.

Like in a legendary duel, an aerial battle began.

Heuk-am twisted his body with astonishing flexibility. Then, with the back of his hand, he swung to crush the Sword Emperor’s skull.

The Sword Emperor’s body seemed to stretch out.

Heuk-am’s backhand once again brushed past the Sword Emperor’s body. Heuk-am’s eyes sparkled.

‘Yoga art of Tianzhu…?’

Knowing almost all martial arts in the martial world, Heuk-am momentarily mistook the Sword Emperor’s movement for that.

The Sword Emperor of Wudang couldn’t have learned the martial arts of Tianzhu, yet the Sword Emperor did something even more astonishing.

He released the sword in his hand.

Then, he softly grabbed Heuk-am’s arm and pulled gently.

In an instant, the positions of Heuk-am and the Sword Emperor, who was above, were reversed.

The Sword Emperor then tapped Heuk-am’s arm, shoulder, and neck in quick succession.

Amid the soft strikes, a powerful force infiltrated Heuk-am’s body.

If it were an ordinary person, their insides would have been destroyed by this single move, resulting in death. It was undoubtedly the Cotton Palm technique of Wudang.

“What a pathetic move…”

However, Heuk-am not only sneered but also expressed anger.

“Did you think you could survive by letting go of your sword?”

He judged it as a shallow trick to reverse the situation with an unexpected attack after releasing the sword.

However, Heuk-am’s body was too resilient to be destroyed even by the force of the Cotton Palm.

He grabbed the Sword Emperor’s arm and swung him in return.

His strong arm swelled, and a sound like a catapult being launched echoed.

Whooong!

The Sword Emperor plummeted to the ground like an arrow.

And Heuk-am also quickly descended using the Tianjin Hammer technique, with the intention of shattering the Sword Emperor’s entire body.

The Great Mountain Hand of Heaven-Shrouding Dark Cloud Palm, which the Sword Emperor couldn’t block with the Taiji Wisdom Sword earlier, was unleashed.

Kwaaang!

A loud explosion that even the bad weather couldn’t hide resounded.

However, Heuk-am’s expression wasn’t good.

He sensed it from the moment of descent.

The sound of impact that should have occurred when the Sword Emperor fell was absent.

As expected, there wasn’t even a trace of blood where the Great Mountain Hand had smashed.

“…”

And there stood the Sword Emperor beside it.

For the first time, Heuk-am showed a surprised expression, then he laughed.

Without any hesitation, he rushed at the Sword Emperor.

And the Sword Emperor—he, who had been narrowly dodging Heuk-am’s attacks by a hair’s breadth, suddenly remembered—he recalled his past when he fought on the edge of life and death, in the realm of life and death.

Whiik—

Heuk-am’s palm force couldn’t even graze the Sword Emperor’s body.

Not even the hem of his clothes was torn.

That didn’t mean the Sword Emperor had the upper hand. Even a single clash could end the Sword Emperor’s life.

But his mind was freer than ever.

The Sword Emperor finally realized something he hadn’t been able to let go of.

‘I thought I had discarded the sword, but I hadn’t.’

Contrary to Heuk-am’s misconception, the Sword Emperor hadn’t let go of the sword to launch a surprise attack.

He simply thought it was unnecessary.

By letting go of the sword under the winter sky, he finally discarded everything.

Whiik—

The Sword Emperor even stopped counterattacking Heuk-am.

He just continued to evade the palm techniques by a hair’s breadth.

Training alone for 1,000 days was better than training under a good master for 100 days.

Even better was to engage in martial combat for ten days, and better still was to experience a single life-and-death battle.

Heuk-am had come to prevent the Sword Emperor’s ascension, but instead, he was helping the Sword Emperor achieve his final enlightenment.

While dodging Heuk-am’s hand, the Sword Emperor placed his hand on his own chest.

Thud.

With that one move, the vessel inside his body shattered.

He scattered all his delusions that he thought had contained the vast ocean.

True Qi flowed out like waves.

The powerful energy waves filled the surroundings of the Sword Emperor and Heuk-am.

Heuk-am also realized the anomaly.

“What are you doing!”

The Sword Emperor did not answer.

The body he newly acquired with the help of Golden Needle Phantom and Zhang Sanfeng, he now abandoned.

Heuk-am pounced like an enraged beast but couldn’t harm the Sword Emperor immediately.

The dense energy waves distorted the laws of the world and scattered even Heuk-am’s Dark Cloud Aura Qi.

And the Sword Emperor felt something filling his empty body.

It wasn’t Qi or the original essence.

It was the mind.

The Sword Emperor drew a sword forged by his mind from his chest.

It had no form, but because of that, it was invincible.

Heart Sword.

A sword of the mind that could even cut down immortals.

For the first time, a sense of crisis appeared on Heuk-am’s face.

It wasn’t just because he realized he couldn’t block the Heart Sword with his supreme ultimate technique, the Untrodden Zenith.

It was a more human and even childish emotion.

Jealousy, regret, anger.

The emptiness felt when the partner you were in sync with lost interest in everything and tried to leave.

“Where are you going!”

Heuk-am intended to show everything he had never thought he would reveal.

However, even though Heuk-am intended to show everything to the Sword Emperor, the Sword Emperor was not thinking about Heuk-am.

He simply swung the Heart Sword he had drawn.

No one knew what would have happened if Heuk-am had been cut by that Heart Sword.

But the Sword Emperor did not cut Heuk-am.

He swung his hand upwards.

“…!”

The Sword Emperor cut the sky with the sword of his mind.

The thread of fate that bound him to the earth.

The latch firmly fastened on the gate of the heavenly realm.

He cut away his humanity.

To Heuk-am’s eyes, it seemed as if he were pointing a finger at the sky.

Thus, the Sword Emperor finally transcended his humanity.

A faint white something rose from above the Sword Emperor’s head and ascended.

It was ascension, and it was transcendence.

Heuk-am roared in fury, feeling mocked, and swung his hand.

“Uraaah!”

However, his hand halted abruptly before it could crush the Sword Emperor’s skull.

The trembling hand finally lowered.

There wasn’t even a trace of injury on the Sword Emperor’s body.

Breaking the corpse in anger could have been satisfying, but the Sword Emperor’s body no longer held any meaning as a corpse.

It was just a shell.

The husk left behind by a great man who had ascended.

“…”

He had tried to kick down the one who was climbing to the peak, but instead, the Sword Emperor had surpassed Heuk-am and ascended to the sky.

It wasn’t that Heuk-am hadn’t had the opportunity to ascend, but he remained on the ground.

He stepped firmly again.

Boom—

The finely controlled step evened out the ground that had been dug up.

Despite this, the Sword Emperor’s body remained standing upright, not falling.

The traces of the battle were erased, and the snow continued to fall.

Since the Sword Emperor’s clothes were not torn, the fact that Heuk-am fought him would be buried in the snow.

With a face that regained calmness, Heuk-am muttered, “…I won the battle, but I lost the war.”

It was his first defeat. The first in nearly several hundred years for the name of Heuk-am.

However, the Sword Emperor, who must have been a threat to the Evil Cult, was eliminated.

If he had entered the heavenly realm, he would not dare to interfere in earthly matters for a while.

Heuk-am trudged out of the basin.

Without a word, he silently returned to the abandoned mansion.

He would have to leave the mansion where he had stayed for quite some time. There was no more business in Wudang.

However, even Heuk-am did not expect to encounter an unpleasant face there.

“Hehe, hehe, welcome, Lord Heuk-am.”

There was someone bowing in a respectful posture, performing a full-body prostration.

Judging by the jangling silver ornaments on his face, it was evidence that he was a close confidant of Mang-hon.

“It seems you have successfully carried out the Heavenly Lord’s command.”

“…”

Straightening his back, he rubbed his palms together and asked obsequiously, “Has the Sword Emperor been eliminated?”

Heuk-am remained silent for a moment before answering, “He will no longer be a threat to the cult.”

“Oh my… indeed. Hehehe.”

He groveled as if he would lick Heuk-am’s shoes.

“Even the Sword Emperor is nothing but a worm before Lord Heuk-am… Hehe. The Heavenly Lord and Mang-hon will be pleased.”

“It’s not about pleasing your master.”

“Yes, of course. Hehe, what was the Sword Emperor’s end like? My master was very concerned because of him…”

“…”

“Did he squirm like a worm? Or did he beg for his life…”

Then Heuk-am grabbed him by the neck.

“Disgusting.”

He clenched his hand.

Crunch—

The neck bones of Mang-hon’s subordinate shattered, and he died with his tongue sticking out.

His eyeballs popped out, leaving a gruesome sight.

Il-Oh, who served Heuk-am, shivered at the sight.

Even though it was Heuk-am, the person was Mang-hon’s close confidant. Mang-hon would surely be furious.

Of course, whether Mang-hon was furious or not, Heuk-am wouldn’t care.

“Get rid of this.”

“Y-yes.”

Il-Oh hastily took care of the corpse.

Heuk-am quietly returned to his dwelling.

And a few days later.

Wudang announced news to the orthodox Murim that could be considered a cause for celebration.

It was said that the Taiji Sword Emperor Sage Jang Gyeonghad had ascended.

Having become an immortal in a living body, this was not a corpse-transcending immortal but had ascended to the rank of an earth immortal.

As a result, Sage Jang Gyeong’s memorial tablet was placed right next to the ancient tablet of Sage Zhang Sanfeng.

It was hard to believe, but Wudang staked the honor of their sect on the truth of the matter.

People mourned the fact that a star of the martial world had left the earth and also paid their respects.

Such news even reached Yi-gang and his party, who were heading to Kaifeng.

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