Wudang Sacred Scriptures

Chapter 214

Kwak Yeon raised the Cheonggang Sword in the Middle-Heaven Guard and said,

“Chief Protector, I am somewhat lacking in fist-and-palm arts, so I will use the sword.”

It was the formal courtesy one observed when drawing a weapon against an empty-handed opponent.

But the Black-Yin Demon God Kang Su, who knew Kwak Yeon had reached the Fire Realm, could feel the man’s candor.

“Do as you please.”

Answering readily, the Black-Yin Demon God frowned at the blade-light limning the Cheonggang Sword.

Even after seeing him raise Hand-Force, the man only lifted sword-qi?

“Dark Cavern Taoist, why do you not use sword-gang?”

“I, too, have circumstances I cannot disclose, as you do.”

To say he wished {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} to unfold the sword method he had trained would have been discourteous to an opponent.

Not knowing that, the Black-Yin Demon God took it as mockery and felt anger boil up.

“You can regret it after your breath stops. That, too, is your choice.”

With a barked shout, the Black-Yin Demon God stepped in.

—THOOM!

With a ripping air-report that shook the dining room, two tables and several chairs between him and Kwak Yeon scattered and flew.

‘To split my focus!’

As expected, amid the chaos of overturned tables and flying chairs, Kwak Yeon caught a pale blur knifing in.

He had already grasped the Demon God’s movement with the External Spirit Boundary; without hesitation he unfolded the First Sword Form of the Falling Star Nine Swords—Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes.

—SSSHHH!

Twenty-eight blade-shadows raised a wall of sword-qi in the face of the onrushing Demon God.

Though he was meeting gang-qi with sword-qi, he trusted the ascending art’s subtlety would suffice to block it.

The Demon God’s two hands sheathed in Hand-Force might endure, but the rest of his body would be shredded by sword-qi.

Even before Chwi Dugae’s warning to avoid close quarters, Kwak Yeon had already resolved not to yield that range.

His bout with the White-Haired Demon Queen had taught him well how troublesome a fist-and-palm master at close range could be.

So long as he did not let the Demon God inside half a zhang, he was confident the greatly advanced Falling Star Nine Swords would subdue him—it was only a matter of time.

Seeing the wall of sword-qi, the Black-Yin Demon God snorted inwardly.

‘They said his rivers-and-lakes experience was thin—indeed, a greenhorn.’

No one knew better than he that white-path fighters had a chronic malady: overtrusting pure inner classics.

A baseless belief that pure inner power does not easily run dry and grows stronger as a match drags on.

He knew such a malady sprang from the absurd creed that Orthodoxy will in the end defeat Demon.

Thus many a white-path fighter, looking down on a demon-path foe of equal inner level, ruined himself.

This greenhorn Dark Cavern Taoist before him would shortly be another.

SSWAAA—

At once, the Black-Yin Demon God fanned up the Ink-Slaughter gang-qi on his right palm and thrust it unhesitatingly into the wall of sword-qi.

—KLANG!

Though the blade bearing sword-qi cut his wrist, with Ink-Slaughter gang-qi fully raised he felt only a bite of pain.

The Cheonggang Sword that had sliced his wrist tilted at an uncanny angle and darted in with astonishing speed for the center of his palm.

—TZANG!

This stab to the palm center sent pain lancing to the elbow; but as great as the pain was, so too was the effect.

He had beaten aside the blade that stabbed his palm center.

‘Done!’

Let even a pebble strike the wheel of a running carriage and the whole carriage takes a great shock.

TZZUK!

As intended, the wall of sword-qi wavered—then tore open.

Leaping through the slit, the Demon God drove the left fist he had wound tight straight for the Dark Cavern Taoist’s chest.

Of course, his left fist blazed pitch-black with Ink-Slaughter gang-qi.

—KWHAAANG!

Ink-Slaughter Flash Fist!

It was a lightning blow whose air-report only broke after it struck Kwak Yeon’s chest.

‘It’s over.’

The Black-Yin Demon God felt a touch of futility.

He had expected the man to take a few moves, at least; it ended too easily.

He had thought a Fire Realm expert who killed Jegal Hidden Dragon with a single sword would not be easy.

Yet part of him had not excluded the possibility that the man’s might was exaggerated.

White-path types were forever praising someone as a talent for the ages, a heaven-sent new dragon.

And before you knew it, an earthworm had become a dragon.

Certain this Dark Cavern Taoist was one of those mud-dragons, he spurred on and drove the Ink-Slaughter Palm for the man’s heart.

As a demon-path man, bounty-hunting hurt his face, but the astronomical million in gold was a small salve.

He desperately needed funds.

He was already picturing a heart crushed and blood spraying from the Dark Cavern Taoist’s lips when—

—TZANG!

Agony like his left fist shattering tore through him.

Out of nowhere, the Cheonggang Sword’s blade was barring his left straight punch.

He had clearly beaten the Cheonggang Sword aside with his right.

Which meant the opponent had neither angle nor leisure to move it—did he?

The Black-Yin Demon God realized the man had mastered a truly marvelous sword method.

Otherwise, this made no sense.

‘So killing Jegal Hidden Dragon in one cut wasn’t mere luck.’

How the Dark Cavern Taoist had traced such a path to plant the Cheonggang Sword so swiftly before his heart—there was no need to solve it now.

At any rate, it only delayed the man’s end by a fraction.

He had pierced the sword-wall and closed to point-blank. Judging by the Dark Cavern Taoist’s pale face, he had clearly overstrained himself to unfold such a life-saving desperate move.

—PWAANG!

The Demon God lashed his right hand for the man like a bolt, then spread the five fingers he had gathered in advance wide.

‘This time it truly ends.’

His hidden ace—Five-Blossom Exploding Sever—burst right before Kwak Yeon’s nose.

—JJWAJJWAJJWANG!

Seeing the Demon God rip apart Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes with his right and dive in, then drive a left straight, Kwak Yeon instantly unfolded the Fourth Sword Form—Falling Star Eight Desolations.

A supremely swift cut that could manifest true steel in eight directions in a single form!

With that, he judged he could stop the Demon God’s straight punch.

He had ground it without cease, but he had not been certain; he raised all his inner true qi and unfolded Falling Star Eight Desolations.

The result was astonishing.

He could set the Cheonggang Sword before the Demon God’s straight punch—almost at his chest—with blinding speed.

The overdraw of inner true qi sent his qi and blood surging for a moment, but he felt nothing but exhilaration.

He had at last unfolded the true work of Falling Star Eight Desolations that he had yearned for so fiercely.

Had he evaded with lightness or raised gang-qi to meet it head-on, he would have had to put off seizing this true work to another chance.

But with the Demon God already at point-blank, he had no leisure to bask in success.

—PWAAANG!

Already the Demon God’s right hand, black with Ink-Slaughter gang-qi, had driven up to his very nose.

Then the five fingers, gathered to a point like Dragon-Claw Hand, flared open like a flower bud blooming.

—PAPAPAPAPAT!

Five black flashes shot in like arrows.

Finger-Force!

To split gang-qi into five strands.

It was an explosion at absurdly close range; there was no way to answer it directly.

Kwak Yeon vented inner true qi through the Bubbling Spring points in his soles, sprang his body backward with the Seven-Star Evasion Pattern of the Heaven-Earth Eight Desolations Steps, and at the same time thrust his left hand forward, unfolding the Western priest’s demonic posture, the Demon-Overwhelming Unstopping Form.

—SHUANG!

—KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!

Rather than contest the gang-qi, retreating as he did and, through Borrow-and-Fill Qi, taking in the five gang-qi strands with the Demon-Overwhelming Unstopping Form was a superb choice.

Most of the impact was unraveled by those two responses; as for the gang-qi that had pierced into his meridians, the externals within the great vessels rose as one and annihilated it in an instant.

That did not mean the crisis had ended.

With nimble lightness, the Demon God clung like a leech and lashed out with twin palms.

—SHUANG!

—SHHIT!

Both palms came in at exquisitely oblique angles; there was nothing for it but to yield ground. Worse, the range was too tight to unfold a sword form.

—SHUAAANG! RRRIP!

The front of his robe, torn by Ink-Slaughter gang-qi, flew as sooty powder; hair brushed by the Ink-Slaughter Palm sheared off in clumps as if shaved.

No matter how he changed line, the Demon God ghosted after him.

They said every fist-and-palm master was a grandmaster of lightness—once you let them in, you never escape.

He almost regretted being too confident before one manifesting Hand-Force.

In that instant, Kwak Yeon realized he had been thinking only of opening distance one-sidedly.

Wudang was the Big Dipper of fist-and-palm arts—and he himself had trained no little in them.

‘Right. There is no reason I can’t meet fist-and-palm with fist-and-palm.’

Though he had not been taught Wudang’s ascending fist canon, he was more versed than anyone in the Taiji Fist, foundation of all those ascending fists.

Of course, what he had been permitted to learn was only the Cotton Palm and the Taiji Fist—and he had clung to those to the death.

And he had the External Spirit Boundary, which could make up for what he lacked of ascending martial subtlety.

The Demon God’s strikes came at such murderous proximity that it was hard to read the next with eye-tracking.

Perhaps because he had reset his mind, he could feel the Demon God’s movements all the more distinctly with the External Spirit Boundary.

—SHHIT!

Kwak Yeon jabbed the butt of the Cheonggang Sword for the Demon God’s fist, which knifed in through the blind angle between shoulder and back.

—KWAANG!

A thunderous boom shook the dining room.

By then gang-qi had already risen on Kwak Yeon’s hands; the two streams of gang-qi had collided head-on.

Even as that happened, the Demon God’s palm, swollen vast with Ink-Slaughter gang-qi, hammered for his temple.

—SHUAAANG!

Even the wave of it stung the skin; a direct hit would pulp his head.

Kwak Yeon set the blade of the Cheonggang Sword almost flush to his temple and blocked the Ink-Slaughter Palm.

—TTAANG!

He yielded his body to the vector of Ink-Slaughter gang-qi carried up the sword’s body.

—WHIRL!

Thus, by the principle of divert-and-join, he spun—and at the same time swept the Cheonggang Sword, now surging with a zhang of sword-gang.

—SHU-GANG!

It was a simple form of Cross-Sweep Scattering a Thousand Troops; yet with the Demon-Overwhelming Unstopping Form’s subtlety within it, and sword-gang manifest besides, everything within the Cheonggang Sword’s path parted clean in two.

And within that path was the Black-Yin Demon God Kang Su, charging in with twin palms blazing with Ink-Slaughter gang-qi.

—SSLAK!

The Black-Yin Demon God’s upper body vanished.

Kwak Yeon realized the Demon God had arched his waist back at a bizarre angle and slipped the Cheonggang Sword.

Even so, with seven-tenths of his power locked into the spin, he could not halt the blade’s path at once.

At that moment, the Demon God’s right palm swung for the opening of Kwak Yeon’s exposed flank.