Chapter 375

Chapter 375

Who is Evil? (5)

“Ha! A piece of trash from the Demonic Cult talking absolute rubbish!”

The Alliance Leader bellowed, feigning complete ignorance while lashing out with his polearm.

Yet Il-mok caught the subtle reaction. The brief instant where the Alliance Leader’s features contorted in unease.

Whoosh.

Pivoting his frame to narrowly avoid the incoming halberd strike, Il-mok let out a mocking grin.

“Your performance is rather unconvincing.”

“Tsk. We shall see how long you can keep running your mouth.”

Deeming any further conversation entirely worthless, the Alliance Leader brandished his weapon without mercy.

The halberd, saturated with lethal energy, tore through the air at a velocity far too rapid for the naked eye to trace.

There was no wasted movement whatsoever. It was a remarkably efficient and lethal martial art, empowered with devastating force precisely due to its straightforward execution and incredible swiftness.

Though he had failed to recognize it previously, now that the truth regarding the Alliance Leader’s background was laid bare, Il-mok could sense the distinctive style of the royal court bleeding into his combat maneuvers.

Finding it far too risky to meet the strikes with brute force, Il-mok relied on precise movements of his feet to slide away or alter the path of the heavy blade by employing Soft Finger principles in retaliation.

Clang!

The Ascending Heaven Sword rang out against the polearm once more, with Il-mok attempting another redirection using his Soft Finger principles.

Suddenly, the warrior handling the polearm let go with his left hand, delivering a deceptive, abrupt thrust forward.

Paht!

With their right hands tightly locked in a stalemate between blade and polearm, Cheok Pae-myeong and Il-mok engaged in a rapid, intertwined struggle of Metal Claw Hand Techniques for a fleeting instant.

In the next breath, the Alliance Leader broke off the hand lock, but Il-mok rapidly drew his arm back.

‘Directly clashing internal energy is a massive gamble.’

If their open hands locked together, it would inevitably turn into a raw trial of spiritual reserves.

For a young cultivator like Il-mok, whose phenomenal breakthroughs completely defied his age, the solitary domain where he remained at a disadvantage against ancient masters was his raw internal energy capacity.

In particular, it was common knowledge throughout Jianghu that the Alliance Leader had experienced a miraculous stroke of luck during his early years, inheritance that provided him with a colossal and overwhelming reservoir of internal force.

Knowing now that the leader was merely an imperial lapdog, Il-mok could not help but suspect that even that legendary fate had been carefully orchestrated by the royal house.

Il-mok pulled his hand away to evade the direct test of power and bounded backward. Utilizing the recoil from their bound weapons, he opened up a massive distance, which Cheok Pae-myeong took advantage of by slicing his polearm across the empty air.

A crescent-shaped wave of energy erupted from Cheok Pae-myeong’s blade, slicing forward, but Il-mok activated Air Step to leap vertically into the heavens.

“Where did you pick up such an underhanded method!”

Determined to pursue the rising youth, the Alliance Leader mirrored the technique with his own Air Step.

Clang!

The spectacle of the two combatants bounding through the open sky, their blades clashing endlessly, made them look like transcendent beings locked in a divine duel.

They traded a multitude of strikes high above the earth.

Clang!

The Ascending Heaven Sword and the heavy halberd collided with immense force, and capitalizing on the backward momentum, Il-mok dropped straight down toward the dirt rather than maintaining his airborne state.

‘Constantly relying on Air Step is far too exhausting.’

Keeping his energy active to fend off the Alliance Leader while continuously stepping on empty air had depleted his inner reserves at an alarming rate.

Believing he had firmly grasped the upper hand, Cheok Pae-myeong pushed off the air once more to descend upon the falling youth.

‘Just a fraction more pressure, and the boy falls!’

Paht!

Clang!!

Il-mok redirected his momentum by striking the flat side of the descending weapon with the Ascending Heaven Sword, using the kinetic energy to launch himself horizontally across the ground. A specialized variation of Eagle Soars Over Plains.

Touching down upon the earth, the Alliance Leader spat out a mocking laugh at the youth while instantly activating his movement techniques to pursue Il-mok as he rolled across the dirt.

Il-mok, recovering from the roll with seamless coordination as though it were an intentional movement technique, stood up smoothly, angling his chest away to cleanly miss the incoming point.

The Alliance Leader kept up an unrelenting assault, forcing down any growing irritation.

‘A little bit further!’

To any external observer, Il-mok’s continuous retreats made it seem as though he were balanced on the precipice of total defeat.

Yet the dance of weapons continued for several more beats. No matter how wildly he struck or pushed forward, his halberd failed to draw blood from the warrior of the cult.

Immediately after the cultist tilted out of the path of the Alliance Leader’s heavy weapon yet again.

A detached, calm voice sounded directly in the older master’s ears.

“Your strikes are far more sluggish than I anticipated.”

The Alliance Leader’s brow twitched in confusion at the highly inappropriate comment.

Paht.

Instead of retreating, Il-mok lunged directly into the Alliance Leader’s space.

“You are rushing toward your own grave!”

The older master swung his weapon automatically out of reflex, but Il-mok did not waver for a second even as the razor edge rushed straight toward his neck.

Clang!

Using a precise, sharp deflection with the Ascending Heaven Sword to alter the trajectory of the halberd slightly, Il-mok slipped deep past the reach of the weapon and into the master’s blind spot.

When the Alliance Leader attempted a sweeping low kick to create space, Il-mok extended his left palm beforehand as if he had read the move perfectly, pressing down firmly against the joint of the knee.

“Argh!”

The Alliance Leader tore his left hand away from the shaft of his weapon, unleashing a direct palm strike at the youth, who met the move by bringing the Ascending Heaven Sword around as if to slice it off.

Alarmed, the Alliance Leader snatched his hand back and swung the heavy polearm using only his right arm.

Il-mok simply shifted his head an inch to the side to dodge the incoming iron.

Slice.

The blade nicked him, carving a shallow line on his skin from which crimson droplets began to seep.

Yet the youth did not break his stance or step away.

At a proximity where a solitary blunder meant losing his life, he overwhelmed the Alliance Leader with incredibly rapid strikes.

After exchanging dozens of blows previously, a profound realization had dawned upon Il-mok.

“You have spent far too long resting on your laurels, haven’t you?”

The older man’s patterns were universally swift, compact, and aggressive, yet they lacked true depth.

It had nothing to do with basic forms.

“Can you even recall the last time your life truly hung by a thread?”

These were patterns designed without any expectation of a prolonged, complex exchange. The muscle memory of a master who only fought opponents far beneath his caliber.

“Ugh! Be quiet!!”

Driven to madness by the taunts of an adversary he believed he could crush at any moment, the Alliance Leader roared, swinging his weapon wildly.

However, discharging a long polearm with such thoughtless rage at zero distance was a fatal mistake.

Clasp.

Before the iron could complete its arc toward the youth, his left fingers shot forward, wrapping securely around the wooden shaft.

‘Exactly as I deduced.’

Just as Il-mok had calculated, the Alliance Leader was completely unaccustomed to chaotic battlefields where survival was a matter of inches.

A halberd offered superior reach compared to conventional swords or sabers. When paired with high-tier mastery, it was devastating.

By combining those traits, the master had grown used to dictating the flow of battle from a safe distance. Patterns that jeopardized only the target’s life, never his own.

Regardless of his past achievements, since taking up the mantle of Alliance Leader—and being revered as a member of the Twelve Heavenly Lords—he had undoubtedly only participated in safe, one-sided slaughter.

Furthermore, Cheok Pae-myeong had occupied the seat of the Martial Alliance for more than ten years.

By contrast, Il-mok had spent that exact decade surviving an endless series of lethal, desperate encounters.

People might attribute his growth to pure genius since he gathered critical insights and evolved after every battle with legendary masters, but the truth could be viewed from an entirely different angle.

Had he failed to grasp those life-or-death insights in the heat of the moment, his life would have been snuffed out long ago during that brutal journey.

Precisely like this very moment.

Clang!

In ultra-close quarters, blade and halberd Technique along with bare-fisted strikes, complex foot maneuvers, and low kicks clashed in a chaotic mess.

With no room to properly extend their primary weapons, both fighters utilized them as extensions of their fists.

They traded intricate, suffocating blows for a prolonged period.

Clang!

The Ascending Heaven Sword collided heavily with the halberd shaft.

Crack.

Their low kicks smashed into one another shin-to-shin before either could fully extend.

Their right legs remained planted like pillars into the dirt to preserve their center of gravity while their left legs and right arms remained completely locked in place.

The Alliance Leader targeted Il-mok’s chest with a left palm strike, and the youth threw up his own left hand to intercept the blow.

‘It is my victory!!’

The older master suppressed a roar of absolute triumph. Pure delight washed over his features.

He could now force a lethal internal energy struggle, or if the boy tried to break away, he could simply crush his chest cavity.

Right before their palms made contact, Il-mok tucked three of his fingers away, pointing his index and middle digits forward like an iron spike directly toward the center of the master’s open hand.

The older man sneered internally, channeling even greater force into his striking hand.

“Hmph. To think you would try such a pathetic trick…”

His mocking sentence died in his throat. Suddenly, a massive torrent of crimson erupted from his lips.

The older man’s palm had not been punctured by the youth’s fingertips.

“Wh… at?”

Somehow, an entirely separate blade was buried deep within Cheok Pae-myeong’s chest.

Il-mok’s final gesture of extending only his two fingers had never been an attempt to puncture the palm. It was a calculated use of Finger Sword to guide an Imperial Flight Sword Technique.

“Cough…”

As the great master vomited blood uncontrollably, the youth’s faintly mocking expression was the final thing mirrored in his fading sight.

“Always keep thirty percent of your capabilities concealed until the absolute end. Have you truly forgotten such a fundamental rule of Jianghu?”

As Il-mok dragged his leg back and yanked the Ascending Heaven Sword free from the older man’s torso, the master’s body collapsed forward.

Thud.

The youth stared down at the broken form of the fallen leader for a fleeting moment.

“The—the Alliance Leader has been slain!!”

“Alliance Leader!!”

Hearing the panicked, desperate screams of the orthodox sect warriors over the demise of their leader, Il-mok bounded directly into their ranks.

Slice!

With the great beast dead, the lesser creature that stood in front of it collapsed, and the scavenging jackals were torn apart effortlessly by the predator’s claws.

Il-mok, carving a bloody path through the crowd in a matter of moments, dashed toward the chaotic clash between Sword Venerable Namgung Jin and Seo Wan-pyeong.

Slice!

While cutting down the regular soldiers attempting to slow him down, Il-mok scanned the surrounding carnage, a somber expression overtaking his features.

‘…An immense number of lives have been lost in such a brief window.’

Scattered among the endless mound of bodies, countless corpses belonged to the righteous path.

While Il-mok and Seo Wan-pyeong were occupied with the Alliance Leader and Namgung Jin, the lethal efforts of Jin Ha-yeon, Hyeok-ryeon Seon-a, and Jeong-hyeon had claimed the lives of numerous orthodox martial artists.

However, those three individuals could not possibly shield every single member of the Demonic Cult, meaning their own allies’ bodies were strewn across the dirt as well.

The flash of sorrow vanished instantly.

Arriving at his destination, Il-mok launched an assault against Namgung Jin, who was currently driving his blade toward Seo Wan-pyeong.

“Tsk.”

Namgung Jin clicked his tongue in annoyance, shifting the angle of his blade to parry the youth’s incoming steel.

Using the kinetic push to steady his feet on the ground, Il-mok looked toward the veteran master before speaking directly to Seo Wan-pyeong.

“Senior Brother, leave the remaining fight to your junior.”

Seo Wan-pyeong was in a terrible state.

He had managed to avoid any instantly fatal cuts, but his entire form was carved with gashes, turning his dark garments completely red with gore, while severe trauma to his internal organs caused a steady stream of blood to leave his lips.

Hearing the confident words of the youth telling him to place all his trust in him, Seo Wan-pyeong stared at the boy’s shoulders with half-closed eyes.

Despite sharing a master, for some strange reason, on this day,

“Ha! You strike down the Alliance Leader and suddenly believe you can look down upon this master?”

Namgung Jin spoke with profound irritation, unleashing a burst of raw energy targeted at the collapsed Seo Wan-pyeong.

Boom!

However, Namgung Jin’s energy discharge was shattered out in the open air, erased completely by a swift strike from Il-mok’s Ascending Heaven Sword.

‘Phew. My dantian hasn’t recovered its full capacity, but that old man isn’t in perfect shape either.’

During his sprint over, Il-mok had cut down several orthodox fighters, pulling in lost energy through the medium of the Ascending Heaven Sword.

Paht!

The youth utilized his movement techniques to launch an immediate, unexpected charge at Namgung Jin.

At the same moment, he barked out an instruction to Ju Seo-yeon who was stationed nearby.

“Officer Ju! Pull Third Senior Brother back to safety immediately!”

“How dare you look away while facing me!”

Blinded by rage, Namgung Jin unleashed a flurry of heavy sword strikes at the youth, who blocked each one with a cold, expressionless face.

‘The rumors concerning the dominant heavy sword of the Central Plains belonging to the Namgung clan are entirely accurate. It is formidable.’

A deep numbness began to spread through his arms due to the sheer kinetic force behind each impact, prompting Il-mok to prioritize deflecting or slipping past the blows rather than meeting them head-on.

‘It looks like Officer Ju and Third Senior Brother have successfully made it to the rear lines.’

Letting out an internal sigh of relief, they continued to trade a rapid succession of sword strikes.

Suddenly, Il-mok’s features twisted in alarm.

‘Confound it.’

Powerful, suffocating presences were rapidly closing in from the northern direction.

“Degenerate scum of the Demonic Cult!! I, Yang Mu-ja, shall eradicate every single one of you with my bare hands!!”

Yang Mu-ja roared with a voice like thunder, cleaving the air as he rushed forward, with Fire Venerable and Fist King Hwangbo Ak charging right beside him.

Their vastly superior cultivation realms placed them far ahead of the main army, yet hundreds of orthodox warriors were running close behind them.

Il-mok, trapped in a brief moment of indecision, quickly made his choice.

Just as the youth opened his mouth to command the forces of the Demonic Cult to fall back.

“Halt!!!”

A booming command saturated with immense internal energy echoed loudly from the eastern horizon.

It was a voice he recognized from the aftermath of the destruction of the Ami Sect, right before his duel with Cheok Pae-myeong.

“You are all being manipulated!!”

It was undeniably the voice of the Leg King.