Chapter 39. Fierce Battle Aboard the Ship (4)
Dong Bong-su had not a single moment to hesitate.
The instant his sword strike finally landed on Dong Bong-su's body, Go San-gong must have thought he had seized victory, for he unfolded the final form of the Heavenly Wind Sword Art, Heavenly Wind Opening the Heavens.
Parararack-.
As if the sky were opening at the call of the wind, dozens of strands of sword strikes rained down upon Dong Bong-su with piercing sounds tearing through the air. Despite being a heavy sword style, the attacks were fast and filled with countless variations. Even if Dong Bong-su tried to evade, it seemed impossible to avoid at least one or two hits.
In reality, the blade lightly grazed Dong Bong-su's legs, chest, and arms, sending spurts of blood flying.
And yet.
At the very moment he should have been dodging, Dong Bong-su instead raised his sword and unleashed Straight Piercing the Yellow Dragon, thrusting straight toward Go San-gong's eyes. Casting defense aside entirely, his whole body was riddled with openings, and naturally, the wounds inflicted by Go San-gong's sword strikes multiplied exponentially.
Pabababak!
Blood sprayed and flesh was torn, yet Dong Bong-su's sword continued to press forward.
'Is this mutual destruction?'
Seeing Dong Bong-su charge without caring for his own body, Go San-gong judged it as such.
With a sneer, he mocked the act. If one intended mutual destruction, they should at least use a fitting technique. Only moves like Cold Yin Annihilation from the Cold Yin Asura Palm Art, or the Emotionless Sword Art, composed solely of mutual-destruction methods, could truly be called such.
'Straight Piercing the Yellow Dragon, of all things.'
Go San-gong withdrew the Heavenly Wind Opening the Heavens he had been extending and instead unfolded Heavenly Wind, Flowing Clouds, a horizontal strike. His sword swept sideways in a long arc, cleanly severing Dong Bong-su's arm that had been reaching toward him.
Pat-.
Dong Bong-su's right arm, still gripping the sword, flew high into the air before plunging down into Chaohu.
Pong.
'Not yet!'
Although his opponent now seemed nearly resigned to death and had become one-armed, Go San-gong did not lower his guard. From several previous clashes, he already knew that Dong Bong-su used bizarre unorthodox arts. This time, surely a sword would emerge from the left arm to launch another attack.
Pababak!
Go San-gong's sword swung once more, flying toward Dong Bong-su's left arm. Just as he expected, a sword burst forth from Dong Bong-su's left arm, and with the same momentum he had used to perform Straight Piercing the Yellow Dragon with his right hand, he attempted to unleash it again with his left.
However, the distance between them was already too close for Straight Piercing the Yellow Dragon to be properly executed.
And that was not all.
Go San-gong had already predicted every bit of it.
To anyone watching, the outcome of the battle seemed already decided.
Pak!
Puk!
Go San-gong's sword cleanly severed Dong Bong-su's left arm as well. Dong Bong-su was now in a position where he could no longer attack. No—he should have been.
But then.
If only Dong Bong-su's left arm had been cut off, the sound should have ended with just a single 'pak.'
Sound. Yes, there was one more sound. Puk. A concise yet unmistakable sound of penetration.
"Keuk ...."
What in the world had happened?
In Go San-gong's eyes, a novice's sword was embedded.
Kikikikik.
Dong Bong-su, his teeth clenched tightly around the sword hilt, was pushing forward with the same momentum as his charge.
Two-Item Insertion and Withdrawal.
The card Dong Bong-su revealed at the final moment was a technique that allowed him to withdraw two items from the Inventory Divine Art simultaneously. Go San-gong, focused only on the left and right hands, must have thought it was over the moment he severed both arms.
But it was not truly over.
Dong Bong-su drew swords simultaneously from his left arm and his mouth. Among them, the real attack was the novice's sword drawn with his mouth.
That attack landed beautifully, and Go San-gong's life came to an end.
Go San-gong's wish—to cut a man's throat, drink his blood, and sing a song like a true man—was fulfilled at the very moment he lost his life.
Only, the blood was his own, and the song he sang amounted to no more than a single syllable: 'Keuk'... yet in every other sense, it was exactly as he had desired.
Pukseok-!
So overwhelming was the power of Dong Bong-su's death-defying charge that the novice's sword pierced through Go San-gong's eye, penetrated his skull, and jutted out the back of his head.
Huuk huuk.
Gasping for breath, Dong Bong-su finally collapsed onto the deck.
The sacrifice required to kill Go San-gong had been far too great.
He had been crippled.
Both arms were severed, blood poured endlessly from the countless cuts covering his body, and he had suffered severe internal injuries.
If he remained like this for even a few seconds more, he would die.
However.
Putting aside the overwhelming pain, even in a situation where death was imminent, the smile forming at the corner of Dong Bong-su's mouth only grew deeper.
The reason was simple.
Flash-! Flash-! Flash-!
He knew full well that he would soon recover.
The instant Go San-gong's corpse collapsed onto the deck, three strange and mystical flashes of light burst forth consecutively from Dong Bong-su's body.
Once again, the moment of Evolution had arrived.
And not just once—three times in succession.
By killing Go San-gong, Dong Bong-su reached level 10.
At the same time, the arms he had lost regenerated, and all his wounds were healed.
The Holy light generated by Dong Bong-su's level-up spread beyond the deck of the sailing ship and throughout the Namgung Family estate, shining like the brilliance of broad daylight.
***
At that very moment, as the Namgung Family was illuminated by the light emanating from Dong Bong-su's body, the Danri Family of Bongyang was also as bright as day.
The difference was that the Danri Family was not merely illuminated—the entire estate was engulfed in flames.
"Kuaaah!"
Buildings collapsed as they were consumed by fire, and black-clad figures wearing dark masks were indiscriminately slaughtering the members of the family.
To stop them, the family's only armed force, the Cross Heavenly Sword Squad, was deployed, but every time the black-clad figures swung their swords, the heads of the Cross Heavenly Sword Squad members were severed.
By the time Danri Cheon-u awoke to the screams and the clash of blades, the name Cross Heavenly Sword Squad had already been erased from the martial world.
"......"
The Danri Family—everything that Danri Cheon-u was—was burning, and his family members were being brutally slaughtered, yet he could not speak a single word nor take any action. No, he could not even think.
'Why? Who on earth did this?'
Such thoughts should have come to mind, yet the overwhelming disparity in power left his body utterly limp.
Before long, he was the only one left alive within the estate. He had drawn his sword, but he could not cut down a single one of the black-clad figures. No—he could not even swing it. His body merely trembled uncontrollably.
Tadaktadak. Tabaktabak. Tadaktadak.
Cutting through the crackling of the burning estate came the sound of approaching footsteps.
They belonged to the black-clad figures who had created this scene of devastation.
They soon stopped at a distance of three jang in front of Danri Cheon-u.
There were only five of them. Although the Black Five Squad had already withdrawn, even so, that the Danri Family could be rendered this helpless by merely five people was something Danri Cheon-u could not believe.
"......Who are you?"
With a vacant expression, Danri Cheon-u stared blankly at the black-clad figure standing at the forefront.
The icy gaze of the black-clad figure instantly captured Danri Cheon-u's unfocused eyes, as if the flames were erasing the Danri Family from the world itself.
Without a word, the black-clad figure stepped closer to Danri Cheon-u.
Tak.
The black-clad figure stopped again at a distance of one jang in front of him.
Danri Cheon-u's lips trembled before he repeated the same words he had spoken moments earlier.
"....Who are you?"
The black-clad figure slightly lifted his head and spoke in a cold, indifferent voice.
"Does that even matter?"
Danri Cheon-u's lips trembled once more. He likely wanted to say something, yet the emptiness left him unable to speak.
Only after lightly biting his tongue did he finally manage to voice what he wished to ask.
" ....Th-then, what is the reason?"
Swoosh.
He asked, but there was no answer. Or rather, there was one—just not in the form of words.
The black-clad figure's sword slashed diagonally upward from below. That was the end.
From his lower right waist up to his left shoulder, Danri Cheon-u's upper body was cleanly severed and slid smoothly down his intact lower body before slipping onto the ground.
Hududuk.
From the neatly cut lower edge of his torso, shredded pieces of his internal organs spilled out. Even then, Danri Cheon-u's mouth retained the same shape it had held while asking, 'What is the reason?'
Puk!
The black-clad figure's foot crushed that mouth.
Only then did Danri Cheon-u receive an answer that was not quite an answer.
"Stop asking pointless things. It's something the likes of you don't need to know."
Though he had been the family head of Bongyang's greatest family, to the black-clad figure, Gwangun, he was nothing more than 'the likes of you.'
Thus, the Danri Family vanished from the world in utter futility.
If there was any small mercy for Danri Cheon-u, it was that Danri Ganghae and Danri Hee had been away from the estate and thus escaped this calamity.
But...
The misfortune was...
That this calamity had not struck only here.
Where thick 'clouds' hung over this place, deep 'shadows' were already being cast over the southern Anhui region, and Danri Hee had already stepped into the domain of those shadows.
***
Ascending Dragon Mountain.
It was a small mountain rising at the northern edge of Hefei. Judging solely by its height and scale, it was closer to a mere hill than something worthy of being called a mountain.
Even so, a mountain was still a mountain. From its summit, one could overlook the entirety of Hefei, and in the distance, even admire the mist rising from Chaohu.
Naturally, from the peak of Ascending Dragon Mountain, the Namgung Family estate adjacent to Chaohu could be observed at a glance.
The reason this modest hill bore the grand name Ascending Dragon Mountain was because the rocks clustered along its ridgeline resembled the shape of a dragon ascending to the heavens.
"Ah! S-stop! Agh!"
Atop the peak rock corresponding to the dragon's head, a scorching wind raged fiercely enough to drive away the night's chill.
A man lay behind a woman sprawled face-down, thrusting his lower body violently, while the woman, forcibly taken from behind, sobbed with her head lowered.
Strangely, the man's body shimmered with a silvery glow under the moonlight. This was a typical phenomenon displayed by one who had mastered the strange art Silver Naked Color Art.
In the current martial world, there was only one person who had learned this martial art.
Smiling obscenely as he continued the assault, that man was none other than...….
Puk puk.
"Ahh!"
Pa Gahyeol, the Silver Naked Color Demon and vice-leader of the Anhui branch of Heavenly Demon Castle.
Pa Gahyeol grabbed the woman by the back of her head, yanking her hair as he thrust his waist forward even more roughly. The woman screamed as she felt another wave of maddening pleasure.
Yet despite his violent movements, Pa Gahyeol's eyes were not on the woman.
Namgung Family.
His gaze was fixed solely on the faintly visible Namgung Family estate in the distance.