The Heavenshaking Spiritblade cut through the air as it shot toward Mae Wuidong.

Mae Wuidong twisted his body in a hurry to evade, but it was already too late. The blade skimmed past his shoulder, and blood sprayed.

“Khup…….”

Mae Wuidong retreated and checked the wound at his side. It wasn’t deep, but blood kept flowing. But what shocked him even more was the speed Unhwi had just shown.

‘Triple Profound Realm…… seeing it directly, it’s absurd. It’s like the speed of someone at the very end of Unity of Heaven and Man.’

The thought lasted only a moment.

Mae Wuidong’s eyes turned cold, and heaven-and-earth spirit-energy erupted from his entire body.

The hand gripping his sword moved in a dazzling blur.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Spring Breeze, Flowers and Willows

From Mae Wuidong’s sword flowed sword-qi like a gentle spring breeze. But that warmth was only a mask.

The sword-qi flowed with the flexibility of willow branches, then in an instant surrounded Unhwi on all sides.

Each strand traced a different trajectory, completely sealing off Unhwi’s retreat.

Unhwi swung the Heavenshaking Spiritblade to block, but the might of that heaven-and-earth spirit-energy was beyond imagination.

PUUK-! SEOGEOK-! PUUK-!

Three blades of sword-qi carved through his arm, his leg, and his side at the same time. Unhwi’s clothes tore, and red blood seeped through.

“Hup…….”

Unhwi let out a small groan.

He had stood in that realm himself once, so Unhwi understood the difference in realms better than anyone.

Triple Profound Realm or whatever else—this was not the same thing as Realm of Martial Divinity.

No matter that he was reincarnated, there was a limit to how much a gap in realm could be bridged by experience alone.

Whether one used heaven-and-earth spirit-energy or not—its difference was absolute.

And the only thing that could overturn something absolute had to be something in the same category.

Mae Wuidong spoke with a sneer.

“Did you cheer when you wounded me?”

“…….”

“Did you convince yourself you had the advantage when you planted your sword in my side?”

Mae Wuidong swung his sword again. This time it was harsher.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Autumn Moon, Cold River

From the tip of his sword burst sword-qi like cold moonlight. It was as frigid and sharp as ice, and even the sound of it slicing the air was chilling.

HWIIIIING-!

The sword-qi flew toward Unhwi’s chest. Unhwi barely raised his sword to block.

KWAHHHHHNG-!!

The shockwave slammed him hard into the wall. Cracks spread through it, and chunks of stone fell away.

“This is the price of charging in while ignoring the difference in realms.”

Kuh-luk.

Unhwi spat blood. Mae Wuidong’s heaven-and-earth spirit-energy didn’t only inflict external wounds—it shook his internal meridians as well.

Mae Wuidong approached with a relaxed expression.

“Have you come to your senses now? If you’re going to challenge a Realm of Martial Divinity-level master, at minimum you have to stand in the same realm—”

“The difference in realms—yes. There is clearly a difference.”

Unhwi’s eyes began to turn red.

“But it isn’t as though there’s no way to fill that gap.”

“What?”

“Overturning an absolute gap requires absolute martial arts and absolute experience.”

Unhwi slowly rose and drew up all of his Void-Manifest Qi.

Then he changed its nature completely.

Upper dantian, Iceheart Dantian, true dantian.

Power spread outward in sequence.

“First Gate. Blood Gate Panting Breath.”

A vibration that began in Unhwi’s dantian spread through his whole body. Blood-qi writhed and surged upward, and his blood-vessels dyed themselves crimson.

Hot power wrapped his body as if lava were flowing through his veins.

Mae Wuidong’s expression began to harden.

“Don’t tell me…… Blood Demon…… Soaring-Heaven Art……? It already makes no sense that you can use Blood-World Encirclement Dominion—how can you—”

Unhwi ignored him and opened the next gate.

“Second Gate. Blood Body Yellow Transformation.”

The blood-qi that had been wrapping Unhwi’s body overflowed outward.

A vivid red aura—so clear it could be seen with the naked eye—shrouded him.

That blood-qi writhed like something alive, vibrating the surrounding air.

Mae Wuidong’s mouth fell open.

“How…… the Blood Demon Soaring-Heaven Art……? That, that is something only the Heavenly Daoist (the Original) can—!”

“Third Gate. Blood Wind Flying Panic.”

In an instant, Unhwi’s body became light as a feather.

Riding the current of blood-qi as he rose into the air, he looked like a blood-colored afterimage. Freed from restraint, he moved through the empty air at will.

Mae Wuidong could not contain his shock.

Opening the Blood Demon Soaring-Heaven Art to the third gate—an ultimate secret of the Original Blood Cult?

This meant he had already begun to step beyond the human domain.

Mae Wuidong swung his sword in panic.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Myriad Thunderbolts Unleashed

Heaven-and-earth spirit-energy transformed into lightning and poured down indiscriminately toward Unhwi.

With a roar like the sky collapsing, dozens of lightning strikes filled the air. It was a spectacle—yet each bolt held power that could shatter steel into pieces with ease.

If you met it head-on, it was a different story.

Unhwi’s eyes flashed.

KWA-REU-REU-REU-RUNG-!!

Mae Wuidong’s eyes widened.

Unhwi was evading every attack as if he were dancing.

It was footwork Mae Wuidong had never seen in his life. Cheonrim’s drifting phantom steps? Snow-Something steps?

It was neither.

Riding the current of blood-qi and moving freely through the air, Unhwi’s motion was not human. He was so fast that afterimages lingered in the air.

“……What…… is that……? Just because you opened to the third gate, you can move like that? That makes no sense.”

Before Mae Wuidong’s mutter even finished, Unhwi’s sword shot toward his chest. The Heavenshaking Spiritblade, wrapped in blood-qi, was like a blood dragon’s fang.

Mae Wuidong set his sword across to block.

KWAHHHHHNG-!!

The impact drove him back hard. A Unity of Heaven and Man master being pushed back by someone below—something that should be impossible by common sense.

Mae Wuidong wore a face that could not believe it, but Unhwi did not stop. If anything, he attacked even more fiercely.

But Mae Wuidong was no ordinary man either. He was startled, but he did not collapse easily.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Yin–Yang Supreme Ultimate

Mae Wuidong’s sword-qi suddenly split into black light and white light, then intertwined and formed the shape of a supreme ultimate. That sword-qi, forged from the harmony of yin and yang, collided head-on with Unhwi’s blood-qi.

KWAHHHHHNG-!!

A tremendous explosion erupted as the two forces crashed together. Pillars collapsed, and the floor split.

But in that instant, Mae Wuidong seized an opening. Using the chaos of the explosion, he fired a blade of sword-qi like a hidden dagger.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

One Sword Breaks Heaven

All of his heaven-and-earth spirit-energy concentrated into a single line, and the sword-qi flew toward Unhwi’s side. Unhwi sensed it too late and twisted his body, but—

SEOGEOK-!

It carved deeply across his side.

Between the gushing blood, Unhwi ground his teeth.

His head buzzed and rang.

The Demonic Miasma was unmistakable. The sensation of damaged meridians was unmistakably bad.

Mae Wuidong sneered.

“……You’ve traded meetings with the Heavenly Daoist (the Original) a few times, so you must have become a disciple. From the look of it, you can only open to around the third gate. Fine. If I kill you here, the Preceptor will be troubled, and I’ll be troubled too. So we’ll stop here—”

Before he could finish, Unhwi spoke.

“Fourth Gate.”

Unhwi’s voice rumbled low. In that instant, the air grew heavy.

“Blood-Bullet Adamantine Body.”

In a flash, the blood-qi wrapping Unhwi began to compress explosively.

All the blood-qi in his body gathered into a single point like a gigantic vortex. As it did, a series of sounds rang out from his flesh like metal slamming into metal.

KWANG, KWANG, KWANG, KWANG!

Each time the blood-qi compressed, Unhwi’s muscles, bones, and blood vessels strengthened.

As if he were being hammered and compressed like iron being forged.

His body was no longer human. It was becoming an indestructible adamantine body tempered by blood-qi.

A blood-red radiance poured from Unhwi’s eyes, and his blood-vessels stood out vividly like a dragon’s scales. Even the blood that had been flowing from his side began to slow. Blood-qi was sealing the wound.

Mae Wuidong felt gooseflesh rise across his body.

“F-Fourth gate…… how…….”

Opening the ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) fourth gate of the Blood Demon Soaring-Heaven Art.

The greatest secret of the Original Blood Cult—an absolute martial art said to be usable only by the Heavenly Daoist (the Original). And if it was opened even to the fourth gate, everything changed too drastically.

How Unhwi knew it—none of that mattered anymore.

That he was unleashing that at ‘only’ this realm—

It was the same as declaring he meant to die together.

And it couldn’t be stopped.

Unhwi slowly clenched his fist.

Blood-qi pouring forth under the opened fourth gate wrapped around his knuckles.

It was an openness he felt for the first time in a long while.

But that openness would soon return as immense pain.

That was why he had to hurry as much as possible.

“Let’s begin again.”

Unhwi’s voice was cold and imposing.

And in that moment, Mae Wuidong felt something from Unhwi.

That overwhelming presence. A weight as if he were facing the Heavenly Daoist (the Original), the supreme ruler of the martial world.

Unhwi moved at once.

Tuk.

With the sound, Unhwi’s body extended in a long reach.

Blood-Sky Annihilation Fist.

Blood-qi exploded from Unhwi’s fist.

That punch—pure physical power layered with blood-qi—held force that could tear space itself.

Teeth clenched, Mae Wuidong gathered all of his heaven-and-earth spirit-energy into one.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Returning to Void and Silence

From his sword poured a colorless, scentless power.

It looked like the empty air itself, but inside it hid a terrifying suction that swallowed everything. This was the supreme ultimate of the Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword—an absolute defense and absolute offense that returned all of an opponent’s attacks to nothingness.

The strike Unhwi had just unleashed dispersed into smoke and scattered in the air, yet Unhwi did not so much as tremble.

He gripped the Heavenshaking Spiritblade tight at his waist and hurled it forward.

Blood Dragon Heaven-Extinguishing Slash.

A gigantic blood dragon surged up from Unhwi’s sword.

That dragon stretched dozens of jang in length, its entire body formed of blood-qi.

Blood-red flames burned in its eyes, and from its mouth blood-qi poured like a waterfall.

The blood dragon tore across the air toward Mae Wuidong. Its momentum looked ready to split heaven and earth, and everything nearby shrank under its killing intent.

It was obvious.

This was Unhwi’s final move.

And yet that move…… was excessively destructive.

It was unmistakably the strike of mutual annihilation.

‘……This insane bastard…….’

Mae Wuidong swung the sword in his hand with all his strength.

Once more, his sword-qi formed the shape of a supreme ultimate.

Heaven-Earth Profound-Mystic Sword

Yin–Yang Supreme Ultimate

The two forces collided head-on.

KWAHHHHHNG-!!!

All of Cheonsu Mountain shook.

Buildings collapsed in a chain, and the earth split deep. The shockwave tore up even trees dozens of jang away, and dust and shards of stone blasted in every direction, completely smothering the battlefield.

That explosion was like heaven and earth collapsing.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep