That was clearly not a martial art created to be learned.

As he trained, he came to understand it.

The Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword was not a martial art created to be learned.

“...Damn it.”

Sometimes there were martial arts like that.

Martial arts that existed only in theory.

The Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword was the same.

The fact that it demanded Heaven-Toppling Cultivation as a basic prerequisite made learning it an act of madness.

“Damn it...!”

If either Cheonju or Cheonhwa had defeated Soyak,

this would never have happened.

There would have been no need to attach the arm of that cursed Demonic Cult bastard.

Eunbyeok lowered his gaze to his left arm.

A blackened dead arm.

It was gaunt and shriveled, skeletal like a corpse’s.

And yet it was astonishingly hard, and its grip was strong enough to crumple a coin.

“...It didn’t even hold a blade.”

It had not even taken hold of a blade wrapped in Sword Qi.

He had tested it himself, but it was hopeless.

The Sect Leader’s Sword Force had wounded it, but even that recovered in an instant.

Unless it was severed in a single stroke, it was immortal.

Eunbyeok could feel it clearly.

He had become stronger. That much was true.

The mystery of Heaven-Toppling Cultivation demanded by the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword was being resolved as the Young Cult Leader’s arm slowly burrowed into the channels of his body.

By now, it was to the point that turning his internal energy in reverse felt more comfortable.

After training like that for about half a month,

word reached him.

The source of all evil.

Cheon Soyak, who had gone out on the Roaming Pillar Journey, had returned.

*****

Red Tile Pavilion.

The residence and office of Mount Hua’s Sect Leader.

Jeongyang sat leaning back in a wooden chair carved in splendid phoenixes, one hand pressed to his forehead.

Myeongjeok, standing before him, wore the same hardened expression.

“She returned safely?”

Jeongyang asked again.

Namgung Hyeong had definitely said it.

That she would not return safely.

Because the Roaming Pillar Journey was long, rough, and difficult.

“...So I am told.”

Myeongjeok lowered his head.

Even though it was not his fault.

Jeongyang did not make the mistake of taking it out on him.

Still, did this not mean he ought to meet with Namgung?

“I heard Night-Heaven Hall was going to be sent out.”

“Night-Heaven Hall, you mean?”

Myeongjeok repeated the words back.

He too knew what kind of organization Night-Heaven Hall was.

Though only because Jeongyang had told him.

“Yes. He clearly said he would cut it off before it could grow any bigger.”

“But if that were true... did you not hear the news?”

“...Hah. It was absurd.”

That she had smashed up the inheritors of the Kill Veil together with Shaolin.

He knew Night-Heaven Hall used the Kill Veil’s martial arts.

And a safe house...

Could that really have been the Kill Veil?

The Kill Veil did not build hideouts like that in the martial world.

It left everything to individual ability.

“...What will you do?”

Myeongjeok asked quietly.

She had gained fame at Shaolin,

defeated the remnants of the Kill Veil, a public enemy of the martial world,

and returned after giving the divine relic back to the Shandong Ak Family.

They both knew it.

At this rate, Soyak would become the face of Mount Hua.

No matter how much they tried to put someone else forward.

There was only one way.

“What else? We have to drive that bastard Eunbyeok even harder.”

“He’ll have to build prestige somehow, no matter what it takes.”

“It will be enough for him to be known as a master of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword.”

Jeongyang curled up the corner of his mouth.

The Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword.

A martial art that had been permitted to only two people in all of history.

Other than the great grandmaster of Mount Hua who created that martial art, there had been only one.

Dark Lord, the Sword Ancestor of Mount Hua, born with a Heavenly Martial Body.

At the time, because of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword, he had been called a Sword Ancestor, beyond even the Sword Sovereign.

It meant that all under heaven had acknowledged him as the greatest sword of all ages.

“Can Eunbyeok do it?”

“That abomination has that kind of power.”

A grotesque thing that still lived and moved despite being black and shriveled.

The fiend that had been imprisoned in the underground lightning prison beneath Mount Hua’s South Peak.

The Young Cult Leader’s left arm.

In truth, Eunbyeok’s meridian channels were being reversed.

No, strictly speaking, they were being twisted.

Twisted into a form suited for Demonic Arts.

The Young Cult Leader’s arm, the one called the Little Heavenly Demon, was twisting Eunbyeok’s body.

But that was all.

The Demon-Repelling Silver Needles driven into his dantian, heart, and throat were remarkably effective.

Unable to occupy his dantian, it could not seize the center of the body.

Unable to occupy his heart, it could not take his life hostage.

Unable to occupy his head, it could not crush Eunbyeok’s sense of self.

If it had been the Little Heavenly Demon’s torso in Shaolin’s keeping, perhaps its heart,

or the Little Heavenly Demon’s head in Namgung’s possession...

then even the Demon-Repelling Silver Needles would have been useless.

But this was the left arm.

Not even the right arm he had mainly used, but the left.

Even so, there were times it did not obey and tried to harm Eunbyeok...

but that much could still be suppressed through the efficacy of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method.

At this rate, Eunbyeok would certainly become a master of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword.

By their hands, a disciple bearing on their name would come to dominate all under heaven.

“...If Eunbyeok truly masters the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword, no one will be able to say Mount Hua is inferior to Wudang or Shaolin.”

Jeongyang murmured in a low voice.

******

“I greet Senior Uncle Eunbyeok.”

Beneath the bright, clear moon,

it was Soyak who lowered her head to Eunbyeok first.

Eunsong was not much different.

He simply did not bow.

“What brings you all the way out here, Senior Brother?”

“I heard your adorable disciple had returned, so I thought I might offer her a welcome.”

Eunsong narrowed his eyes.

During the nearly three or four months since Soyak left, Eunbyeok had reduced his movements outside to almost nothing.

And the few times he had appeared, he had grown thinner and more haggard each time.

Eunsong had thought it was simply because of closed-door training.

But it was not.

That left arm wrapped in bandages.

Something about it was clearly not normal.

If it were only an injury...

then there was no reason he would have wrapped it in red bandages densely inscribed with the Taoist Canon.

Until now, it had been hidden beneath the long sleeve of his martial robe.

...Then why was he showing it now?

“I saw Cheonju and Cheonhwa for the first time in a long while, Eunsong.”

“...Senior Brother. Those two are my disciples now.”

“Yes. You took them away after defying the natural order.”

Eunbyeok glared.

Eyes bloodshot red.

And beneath them, deep shadows hanging low.

It was the dreadful face of a man who had not slept in peace.

“You call it defying the natural order... I will not deny it.”

Eunsong answered quietly.

From his own mouth, he had once said that taking disciples he had already taught away from their master was to defy the natural order.

But there was a difference between then and now.

Namely...

“However, does the same not apply to you as well, Senior Brother?”

“What?”

“That wager—did you not accept it as well? We both staked our disciples as the wager. Once it reached that point, what did it matter who defied the natural order? We both did.”

“...Hah.”

Eunbyeok rubbed his face, as if dumbfounded.

But he was not wrong.

Had they not, in fact, already placed their disciples on the table as the wager?

And not only that, it had been a wager formally witnessed by Grand Master Jeonggang.

“...It was an unfair wager.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Didn’t you ask for that wager because you knew that bitch would turn out to be such a monster?!”

In the end, Eunsong could not hold it in and burst into laughter.

Soyak stared up at him.

Really...

it was fresh enough to feel strange, seeing him mock someone’s stupidity so openly.

“You mean it was unfair because my eye for people was better than yours, Senior Brother? You have a talent for bringing laughter to your junior. HAHAHAHA!!!”

“Do you want to die? You dare mock your Senior Brother?”

“The one who mocked Senior Brother was Senior Brother himself. Please do not turn your arrow on an innocent man.”

The way he cut his laughter off short and pointed it out.

And yet the smile still had not faded from Eunsong’s lips.

Eunbyeok stared at that sight for a long while with his mouth clamped shut.

Then he drew his sword.

In an instant, Soyak stepped in front of Eunsong.

Her left hand resting on her scabbard.

“Soyak. Step aside.”

Eunsong’s voice was lower than usual.

Soyak moved without a word, but even as she did, she lifted her eyes to him.

Eunsong still had not drawn his sword.

“What is that left arm, Senior Brother?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“And the sword in your right hand?”

“I’m thinking.”

Eunsong frowned.

Soyak did too.

He was thinking?

About what?

Judging simply from the situation, he was probably thinking about what he was about to do here.

But was there any need to say that aloud?

No, from the beginning, that look in his eyes was almost...

like a man bewitched by something.

“I’ll put an end to that thinking for you.”

“With your tongue, perhaps. But not with a sword. You cannot beat me that way.”

Eunbyeok narrowed his eyes.

Then he leveled his sword at Eunsong.

Cold, chilling moonlight struck the blade and shattered into glints.

“You seem to have become poor at counting heads, Senior Brother.”

“...Hah?”

“Soyak is here as well. And as I recall, you were never skilled enough to crush the combined assault of two Transcendent Apex experts.”

That draw had been thoughtless.

That was the conclusion Eunsong reached.

Of course he wanted to kill.

Whatever it was, Myeongjeok and Jeongyang did not seem to have put him through anything resembling proper training.

And the reason for all of it was probably the defeat in that wager.

They were the kind of people who had put those pitiful young disciples through marrow-washing ordeals that brought terrible agony once every month.

“Senior Brother.”

Eunsong called to Eunbyeok quietly.

His eyes were as clear as a mirror, and calm as a silent pond.

“Are you suffering greatly?”

Eunsong’s gaze and Eunbyeok’s tangled in midair.

From those bloodshot eyes, both Eunsong and Soyak read resentment.

“If you tell me what happened, I’ll help you.”

“You really do take me for a fool.”

Eunbyeok ground his teeth.

Then he shoved the sword back into its sheath.

At that moment.

The left hand resting on the sheath caught the Plum Blossom Sword in a reverse grip.

And tried to wrench it free in a downward draw.

Chapter 96

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