Mount Meng, Yacha Valley.

Amid the greenery surrounding the Yacha Blood Gate,

the Sura Unit stood in ranks under Sword Ghost's command, letting Demonic Energy billow from them.

The goal was to synchronize with the Demonic Energy of their commander, Sword Ghost Danya, and add to the pressure.

But they did not know.

That the Demonic Energy they were giving off so freely

was instead making it possible to pinpoint their positions.

—SLASH.

One Sura Unit member died without even managing to scream.

The sword moving through the dark was quiet and swift.

Astonishingly, he was stepping the Extreme Night Myriad Shadows Step, the footwork of the Kill Veil.

—WHOOSH. THUD, THUD.

Another man's head rolled across the ground.

At the sound, one of the others turned this way and was just about to scream at the sight of his comrade's missing head—

when his own head too fell from his body.

The swordsman caught the head before it could go rolling away.

Then he carefully set it down on the ground.

So it would not make a sound.

Then the next one, and the next after that.

He killed the demonic humans one by one.

Every time the soot-blackened blade swung once, one life guttered out.

And yet the expert moving through the greenery seemed to feel nothing at all.

Because they were people of the Demonic Cult.

Creatures who had given up even their own humanity for the sake of serving the Malevolent God.

But even among them, there was one who had reached a realm.

One who had reached the end of Apex.

Sword Ghost's daughter.

Deputy Commander Dan Honga was exactly such a person.

"Who—?!"

She sensed him.

But she could not react.

The instant she opened her mouth,

the man's blade was already lodged in it.

Nearly sixty years old.

Dan Honga lamented how slow her reactions had become.

But the face visible beneath that black gat was clearly a man in his fifties, like her.

"How...?"

The man did not give her an answer.

He merely swung his sword.

Dan Honga died without ever getting one.

*****

Soyak absolutely refused to meekly accept her own end.

Using her sword as a prop, she painfully pushed herself up and glared at Sword Ghost.

Her gaze alone was vicious enough that it looked ready to kill him...

but her body was already ruined from head to toe.

"Your eyes are the one thing still working. I must make sure I watch that look die when you do. KHEHEHE...."

Sword Ghost no longer mocked Soyak.

Instead, he closed the distance in an instant and seized her right wrist with his left hand, twisting it.

"...Ugh."

"Did that hurt?"

"I have... one question...."

The Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge slipped free between her slender fingers.

Her wrist had been twisted so she could not put any strength into her hand.

He had bent it while pressing precisely against the tendon.

"How did you know... I am the Heavenly Killing Star...?"

"Obviously, your eyes. Any member of the Demonic Cult who has stood before the Heavenly Demon and the Young Cult Leader recognizes them. And... the game is over now, girl."

"I will never... obediently...."

Soyak clenched her teeth.

Then she balled up her left hand into a fist.

But Sword Ghost did not care in the least.

What could a young, tiny fist with barely a handful of internal energy left possibly do?

The hand that had twisted her right wrist moved up and grabbed Soyak by the throat.

Then he lifted her straight into the air.

"Ghk, khhk, hhk...!"

She tried punching the old man's wrist with her fist, the one gripping her neck.

But it was useless.

Had about half an incense stick of time passed like that?

In the end, Soyak was exhausted and went limp.

That slender body could not even struggle anymore.

Even the tips of her feet hung loose and twitched.

Her throat was being crushed, and she could barely breathe.

Her pupils blurred, and the color drained from her cheeks and lips.

Because she was desperately trying to force herself to breathe, her ribs and shoulders rose and fell so pitifully it hurt to watch.

"Haa... yes, after all, strangling someone to death is when killing a person feels best."

"Ggh, hhk, hhk...!"

Sword Ghost's right hand became a knife-hand.

Then pitch-black Sword Qi spread over his fingertips.

He meant to carve open Soyak's chest with it and pull out her heart.

And just when it seemed that was the end of it—

a sword shot out like a throwing knife from the greenery where the Sura Unit had been hiding.

"...Huh?"

Sword Ghost knocked it aside with his knife-hand wrapped in Sword Qi.

But strangely enough...

his fingertips began to tremble.

Because the rebound he had suffered was tremendous.

"W-What is this? Someone can pour this much internal energy into a sword and throw it?"

Cold sweat ran down his spine in an instant.

It was a feat even he, called Sword Ghost, could not perform.

The only person who should have been able to force this much internal energy into a sword was...

his own master, the Sword Demon.

It should have been only him.

But the Sword Demon had been an expert at the threshold of the Transformation Realm.

"Why are you so shocked?"

A black gat.

And a jet-black martial uniform.

A man sprang out from the greenery with a longsword drawn and landed lightly on the ground.

Even through her fading consciousness, Soyak struggled to look at him.

"That kid's going to die at this rate. Why don't you put her down first?"

"You lunatic. Do you know who I am before acting like this?!!!"

Sword Ghost Danya roared, cramming his voice full of Demonic Energy.

With Soyak being the closest one there, she coughed up blood from it.

The faint internal energy of the Harmonization Scripture still lingering in her blood vessels could not possibly offset it all.

"Khhk, hhk, haa...!"

"I said the kid's going to die."

A familiar voice.

A voice she had heard somewhere before.

That strange tone, like he was making fun of his opponent...

"And I took a request to make sure she doesn't die."

The soot smeared over the man's sword was forced away by the powerful flow of internal energy running through it.

And what revealed itself was—

Sword Force.

It was not merely Sword Qi close to Sword Force.

That brilliance, and that pressure making the air itself tremble.

That was unmistakably Sword Force produced by someone who had reached the Transformation Realm.

"...An expert of the Transformation Realm?"

Sword Ghost repeated it in a hollow voice.

It was the place he had longed for and longed for, yet never reached.

The realm he had wanted to reach even if he had to tear out and eat a young girl's heart.

And yet this man, who looked barely fifty...

was an expert of the Transformation Realm?

"The world's unfair, isn't it? I understand, old man."

The tiger of the sword that burned the sky.

Namgung Byeok, the Sky-Burning Sword Tiger.

One of the blades of the Reverse Heaven Society had revealed himself to the world.

"But still, you shouldn't bully a little girl."

"You bastard!!!!"

He shouted, but Sword Ghost knew exactly what he was worth.

He could not win head-on.

The opponent was an expert of the Transformation Realm.

The gap between Apex and Transcendent Apex was already great, and Transcendent Apex was the realm of mighty martial artists.

But the gap between Transcendent Apex and the Transformation Realm was greater still.

There was only one method left.

Sword Ghost's knife-hand turned toward Soyak's throat.

He was trying to take a hostage.

"Y-You said that girl has to live? If you don't do as I say—"

"If not?"

Namgung Byeok was already right in front of Sword Ghost's face.

There was no dodging it.

His sword had already been swung.

And that blue-white trajectory was already passing through Sword Ghost's knife-hand.

—SHRAAAK.

The right hand wrapped in Sword Qi was cut off limp and clean.

The old hand, its black nails grown long, spun through the air.

Dark red blood burst from the wrist in heavy gushes.

"AAAAAAH!!! My hand, my right hand...!!!"

The bastard all but threw Soyak aside as he let her go and immediately began striking pressure points.

At his wrist.

If left alone, it was the perfect place to bleed to death in mere moments.

"Whoa there, she almost hit the ground."

And Namgung Byeok swiftly caught Soyak's collapsing body with one arm.

He lightly pulled her against him, supporting her, then pointed his sword overflowing with Sword Force at Sword Ghost.

"You okay?"

"Y-You are... the one from then...."

"That's right, that's right. Still sharp as ever, aren't you?"

"Nam—"

Namgung Byeok pressed a finger over Soyak's mouth and blocked the word.

Then he shook his head.

It meant she was not to say that aloud.

Even in her dazed state, Soyak nodded and shut her mouth tight.

"You there, Mount Hua brats."

"...Yes?"

"Get over here and take care of her."

Cheongak nodded, then came running at once.

Cheonjeong had taken internal injuries and could not move easily.

Namgung Byeok handed Soyak over to Cheongak, then bared his teeth in a grin.

"Finished stopping the bleeding?"

The wrist had been cleanly severed.

Even with pressure point strikes, stopping the bleeding would not be easy.

Especially with the arterial blood running along the inside of the wrist.

Still, it seemed the bastard had somehow managed to stop the bleeding.

"You fucking...."

"You're old enough already. Watch your mouth in front of kids."

He had lost his right hand.

To a swordsman, the right hand was as precious as life itself.

He could still wield a sword with his left hand.

But how could that possibly compare to the right hand he had used all his life?

But there was no helping it.

The opponent was an expert of the Transformation Realm.

Even if he ran, he would be caught.

And besides...

"...The Sura Unit's been wiped out."

It seemed he had killed them while concealing his presence.

If even one of the Sura Unit had noticed and resisted, there would have been a disturbance.

And if there had been a disturbance, Sword Ghost himself could not possibly have missed it.

No matter how distracted he had been by the thought of that girl's heart.

"Looks like you're pretty skilled at skittering around in hiding!"

"You've still got enough energy left to bluff? Even though you're about to die, old man?"

"Y-You bastard!!! If only I had eaten that girl's heart!!"

"You were trying to use the Heaven Yin Blood-Siphon Scripture?"

Sword Ghost instantly clamped his mouth shut.

Dangerous.

How did that man know about the Heaven Yin Blood-Siphon Scripture?

Only some within the Demonic Cult knew of it.

Which meant that now, the only ones who should know were high-ranking figures in the Martial Alliance, the very people who had shattered and erased the Demonic Cult...

or people on that level.

"...Who are you?"

"If I were going to tell you that, why would I be wearing a black gat?"

Namgung Byeok raised his sword.

A famous blade forged by hammering refined steel over and over.

Blue-white Sword Force surged up again and rippled.

"And you've been living by the sword long enough. Why are you talking so much? No questions. No answers."

Chapter 87

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