Chapter 339 – When Heart Reaches Its Peak, Heaven Moves (2)

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The leader martial artist’s eyes trembled faintly. Behind the mask, his face was rigidly tense.

At his feet lay Nam Woo-saeng, the Azure Sky Escort Agency’s head escort, severely injured. Nam Woo-saeng’s martial prowess was significantly inferior to his own. But Nam Woo-saeng was an owner of tenacity and fighting spirit who never surrendered easily.

He supplemented his insufficient martial arts with willpower, and with all his strength, managed to get past three martial artists to reach the leader. Nam Woo-saeng briefly restrained the leader, and in that short moment, Dam-ho slaughtered the subordinates.

It was only after the leader martial artist defeated Nam Woo-saeng that all his subordinates were annihilated.

“Kreeeak!”

Nam Woo-saeng lay at his feet, groaning despite his severe injuries, but he was already no longer of the leader’s concern.

“How dare!”

Terrifying murderous light exploded from the leader martial artist’s eyes. The subordinates who fell to Dam-ho were those he had spent long years carefully cultivating.

They were more like disciples than subordinates. He had built up considerable affection. Their deaths greatly amplified the leader’s killing intent.

“Fist Demon!”

He walked toward Dam-ho.

Dam-ho also walked toward him.

The leader martial artist’s voice turned hoarse:

“Do you know what you’ve just done?”

Dam-ho stared silently at the leader martial artist. The leader’s eyes became even fiercer.

“How dare you, to kill my disciples…”

“Jin Gung-ja.”

“……”

“Right?”

Suddenly the leader martial artist’s body trembled as if struck by lightning. It was completely unexpected.

The killing intent that had been exploding from the leader martial artist’s eyes suddenly subsided like cooling water. The air about to erupt froze coldly. At the center was the leader martial artist himself.

Dam-ho carefully observed the changes in the leader martial artist.

The leader didn’t answer. But Dam-ho thought he had already heard the answer.

The leader’s gaze, breathing, and skin responses all spoke to that.

Suddenly, silence descended.

The leader martial artist stood still and didn’t move. Dam-ho didn’t move either.

The fierce world came to a halt.

There, in the center, stood the leader martial artist and Dam-ho.

It was the leader martial artist who spoke first:

“How did you know?”

The words admitted that he was Jin Gung-ja.

Dam-ho’s eyes sank deeply.

He had suspected, but hearing the truth directly from the other’s mouth carried different impact.

If the other was truly Jin Gung-ja, he would be from a generation before Master Hyeon-so. He would be from the same era as Cheon Gung-ja, Master Hyeon-so’s master and the previous Mount Hua Supreme Sword.

That meant he was Dam-ho’s martial uncle.

“You were the one who ambushed at Danli too, weren’t you?”

“How much do you know?”

Jin Gung-ja’s voice sank coldly.

He was the one who ambushed Wind Moon Emperor Dan Gong-wol in the village where the Heavenly Evil Cult’s altar stood, and he was also the one who launched a surprise attack on Dam-ho.

Dam-ho hadn’t forgotten those memories. He remembered his footsteps, his feeling, his gaze, his breathing, everything.

“I won’t ask why. I won’t ask why one who led a death squad to ambush the Demon Cult’s main branch defected and joined the Heavenly Evil Cult.”

“Infinite Buddhas!”

Unconsciously, a Buddhist prayer escaped Jin Gung-ja’s lips.

Dam-ho walked toward him again.

“But today I’ll kill you.”

“Even knowing I’m Jin Gung-ja?”

“That’s exactly why I’m killing you. You’re already a person who doesn’t exist. If it becomes known you’re alive, Master and Mount Hua would be shaken.”

“Hmph!”

Jin Gung-ja let out a quiet sigh and removed his mask. Then a clear face was revealed. Distinct features and eyes gleaming with mystery, and hair and beard tinged with blue-green radiance added to the mystique.

Though Jin Gung-ja was from a generation before Master Hyeon-so, he actually looked younger than him.

He was Jin Gung-ja, a disciple of Cheon Gung-ja, the previous Mount Hua Supreme Sword, and an outstanding swordmaster.

A member of the death squad and the pride of Mount Hua Sect. He now stood as an enemy facing Dam-ho.

Jin Gung-ja’s gaze shifted from Dam-ho to the dead subordinates.

“After all, they were practically your martial brothers and sisters. They too had learned Mount Hua martial arts.”

“Bullshit.”

“Though just scratching the surface, they learned the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword. Could they really be considered different from you? You killed such children.”

“Even sophistry has standards.”

“How did someone as rigid as Hyeon-so produce an absolute tyrant like you? Hyeon-so was never so unyielding.”

“Don’t soil Master’s name with that filthy mouth.”

“Like it or not, I become your martial uncle. Ho.”

“Are you done talking?”

“Ha! Indeed, truly unreasonable. Very well. I won’t try to persuade you further. But understand this one thing. All that I do now, you won’t understand, but it’s all for Mount Hua Sect. Someday you too will realize this truth.”

“That day will never come.”

Dam-ho answered decisively.

At such uncompromising firmness, Jin Gung-ja flinched.

His gaze toward Dam-ho held reverence.

‘How did such a monster appear in Mount Hua?’

The Mount Hua he remembered was a place of elegance and leisure. Their spirit pierced heaven but wasn’t tyrannic.

Even Cheon Gung-ja, the senior he most respected, though his martial prowess was among the world’s finest, lacked this tyrannic nature.

If only he had more time, if only he didn’t have his assigned mission, he wished to speak more with Dam-ho. Unfortunately, however, the time given to him wasn’t abundant.

“Finally asking, what’s your position in the Heavenly Evil Cult?”

“One of the Five Evils, young one.”

“Five Evils?”

“That’s all I can tell you. The rest you must discover through your own strength.”

Swish!

Jin Gung-ja drew his sword.

Suddenly, the energy barrier surrounding Dam-ho and Jin Gung-ja vanished without trace. While conversing with Dam-ho, he had used the energy barrier to block sound waves. That’s why Nam Woo-saeng and the survivors couldn’t hear their conversation at all.

Jin Gung-ja raised his sword toward Dam-ho. Dam-ho recognized that his basic sword posture was the Primordial Pure Sword Method, one of Mount Hua’s supreme sword techniques.

Only those of elder rank or above could learn this Mount Hua fundamental secret art…

Though Jin Gung-ja had joined the Heavenly Evil Cult for some reason, his roots remained Mount Hua. Therefore, his most confident martial art was also Mount Hua’s supreme technique, the Primordial Pure Sword Method. However, it had been modified by integrating his own insights, becoming unrecognizable in its original form.

“Come then. You’re still a senior from my lineage, so I’ll give you three seconds.”

CRASH!

At that moment, Dam-ho struck the ground with his answer.

A deep footprint was left where he struck. The trace of deploying his charging technique.

Dam-ho rushed toward Jin Gung-ja.

Kwaaaaa!

Before his body even arrived, tremendous pressure bore down on Jin Gung-ja.

Jin Gung-ja’s pupils shook.

Like pressure from the deep sea, it constricted his entire body. And Dam-ho’s fist flew toward his forehead.

‘Three seconds generous? Insane!’

He regretted his words spoken just moments before.

Dam-ho wasn’t an opponent he could match even giving first strike advantage. He cast aside pride and wielded his sword to attack Dam-ho.

Zzzzang!

His sword and Dam-ho’s fist clashed in midair. In an instant, Jin Gung-ja’s sword bent like a bow.

Twang!

The sword that had bent to its limit returned to its original shape, flinging Jin Gung-ja backward. Jin Gung-ja deployed the Dark Fragrance Step to regain balance.

At that moment, Dam-ho rushed at him.

Straight-line charging technique, Destructive Pursuit.

Like a charging bull, Dam-ho’s momentum crashed toward Jin Gung-ja, who deployed the Primordial Pure Sword Method’s absolute technique.

Swish swish swish!

Rain-like sword energy fell toward Dam-ho. But before the sword energy could even reach Dam-ho’s body, it was swept away by violent energy and disappeared without trace. He deployed the Violent Demon Energy.

Following that came the Explosive Demon Strike.

CRASH!

“Ughm!”

A stifled groan escaped Jin Gung-ja’s lips.

Though his sword blocked and absorbed most of the shock, tremendous force pierced through his entire body. But like a master of his level, he endured the pain and deployed the Swordsaint Blood Spirit Technique.

Suddenly, Dam-ho was engulfed by crimson blood mist.

Dam-ho’s eyes trembled faintly as the blood mist covered him.

Within the crimson haze, countless shadows rose. Pale faces as if not of this world and blood-stained bodies.

The already dead, vengeful spirits.

Dam-ho’s eyes narrowed.

The faces of the vengeful spirits surrounding him were familiar.

Namgung Su, Cheon Oh-gyeong, Tang Sa-il, Sa Woo-yeon… All were people he had killed. They appeared as vengeful spirits before Dam-ho’s eyes.

Uuuung!

They hurled curses at Dam-ho. Hundreds and thousands cursing simultaneously. It was difficult even to comprehend. Instead, the air rippled.

Tremendous resentment poured down on Dam-ho.

It was a sight to make even the most courageous freeze in horror. Though not real but illusion, it was vivid enough that one couldn’t resist.

At that moment, Dam-ho struck the ground with his fist. Energy condensed to its limit erupted in chain explosions through the earth.

Kwakwakwaboom!

Explosions radiating from Dam-ho’s center spread in circles.

Everything swept by the explosion disappeared.

The vengeful spirits’ curses too.

The deep crimson blood mist as well.