“What… what is this…?!”

Shin Juje recoiled in shock.

It was obvious.

The flames of Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art were being forced back.

They were both at Three Flowers at the Crown, so how?

In that brief instant, a blade shot through the fire.

The flustered Shin Juje failed to react. Instead, Shin Juyang beside him reacted. He raised his sword and knocked the incoming blade aside.

Kaaang-!

The one that was knocked away was Dong Murin’s sword, yet the one whose expression hardened was Shin Juyang.

“…A second swing… has this much destructive power?”

He had not said it out loud, but the arm that had swatted away Dong Murin’s sword was trembling, if only slightly.

He felt it clearly.

This bastard was strange.

Dong Murin’s sword swept again. Malefic flame flared up once more and flew at the two brothers.

The brothers kicked off and retreated at once.

A severed flap of robe cloth fluttered, then ignited in midair.

Shin Juje shouted sharply.

“Brother!”

After a brief exchange of glances, the two brothers sprang apart left and right as if they had agreed beforehand.

Dong Murin’s eyes sank into a cold calm.

The ash-gray remnants drifting over the ground were striking, but not threatening at all.

He looked to either side. The two brothers rushed in.

Their sword stances, the direction of their feet planting into the earth.

It was undeniably the martial arts of Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace, memorized and memorized again in his head, yet it was slightly different.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art

Flame Dragon Ascends to Heaven

Two dragons crashed down over Dong Murin.

In that brief instant, Dong Murin twisted, seized one dragon’s head with his left hand, and hurled it to the opposite side.

He regained his balance at once and chopped his sword down from above.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art

Demonic Flame Roars at the Heavens

Black flame exploded from Dong Murin’s left hand.

Shin Juje’s flame dragon vanished in an instant.

“That can’t be…”

Shin Juje’s face went pale. He flicked his gaze aside. Shin Juyang, unable to properly deal with the dragon he had created only for it to turn back on him, was panting with his entire body burned.

This went beyond strange. It was uncanny.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art was clearly a peerless martial art.

Shin Jueon had coveted it for a reason, and its might was truly overwhelming. He had even mixed it into Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace’s secret arts to forge a new style of techniques.

For it to be suppressed this completely made no sense.

“Just what… what kind of martial art is that you’re using?!”

With that shout, Shin Juje kicked off and swung his sword in a wide arc.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art

Karmic Inferno Extinguishes the World

Red flame burst from his sword and raged like a storm.

Even as the Annex walls melted and the flames of calamity swallowed everything, Dong Murin did not waver in the slightest.

Of Seol Unhwi’s teachings, the core was one thing.

Immovable.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art could only unleash its full might if one held an immovable stance.

Like now.

His shoulder twitched. His sword cleaved forward through empty air.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art

Flame Spirit Descends upon the World

Black flame formed a towering pillar, spearing through the ceiling as it surged upward. Then it became arrows that poured down upon Shin Juyang.

Shin Juyang’s eyes widened.

It was far too different from ordinary martial arts.

Could a martial artist at Three Flowers at the Crown even produce something like this?

“What kind of twisted martial art is this!!”

He shouted as he slashed desperately.

Every martial art he knew spilled out.

Arts specialized for defense, arts specialized for offense, arts specialized for evasion.

He stamped the ground again and again like a madman, but…

There were too many.

Puh-buh-buh-buh-buk-!!

More than ten flame arrows pierced his body. Blood poured from everywhere but his head.

“Keuk…!”

Shin Juyang dropped to one knee, then collapsed forward at once.

There was no feeling in his limbs.

He could feel something approaching.

Inevitable death.

“Bro… Brother-!!”

Shin Juje, his body a mass of burns, kicked off to protect his brother.

Bloody tears ran from both his eyes.

His qi surged explosively.

It was not ordinary energy. It was clearly innate true qi.

He was staking his life on a single move.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art

Heaven-Mixing Great Flame

As his gaze sank into cold stillness, his lips began to move quietly.

The divine demon descends and burns all things.

The ultimate sword cleaves the void and slays the enemy.

While the incantation flowed, a silent composure settled inside Dong Murin.

“Just as my lord taught.”

He remembered what Unhwi had emphasized.

True malefic flame did not come from rage.

It rose from complete inner peace, from a stillness like a deep lake.

In Dong Murin’s heart, emotion no longer rippled.

His thirst for revenge, his longing for his father, everything sank beneath a quiet surface.

Yet, paradoxically, within that perfect calm, a purer and more powerful killing intent bloomed.

That was the essence of Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art.

Absolute destructive power manifested not through emotion but through will, not through anger but through cold clarity.

The killing intent pouring from Dong Murin was colder than any fury and purer than any hatred.

A flame as cold as ice.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art

Overturning-Heavens Demon Severance

Black flame formed a colossal blade. That blade cleaved Shin Juje’s wall of flame in a single stroke and flew at him.

“Ah…!”

Shin Juje tried to dodge in a panic even as he cried out, but it was too fast.

Seogyeok-!

His right arm was severed at the shoulder. Blood geysered upward.

“Aaaargh-!”

Shin Juje screamed as he toppled to the ground.

It was over.

In Shin Juje’s eyes lingered bewildered disbelief, and that was only right.

No matter how they thought, with Shin Juyang and Shin Juje already on the verge of dying, there was no way their minds could explain this situation.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art was clearly a peerless martial art.

Shin Jueon had not been greedy for nothing.

Yet in front of Dong Murin’s martial art, it was powerless, like a child’s toy.

Shin Juje raised his sword with his remaining left arm and shouted.

“How… how can there be a martial art like this? No matter how demonic the path, this makes no sense!”

“Doesn’t make sense?”

Dong Murin let out a short chuckle.

“It’s a martial art he created. Of course it’s above trash like yours.”

“He…?”

“Seol Unhwi. My lord.”

In an instant, the brothers’ faces filled with horror.

A martial art Seol Unhwi created?

At that young age, could he create a peerless art like this?

“That’s a lie… No matter how much of a genius he is, that can’t be possible…”

But reality was right in front of them. Dong Murin’s Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art overwhelmingly surpassed their Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art.

But the most important thing was something else.

An absolute, unchanging truth these two brothers would never realize.

“What matters is not the martial art, but the person.”

Yes. No matter how one dressed it up, this was the truth.

Whatever the peerless art might be, if the one using it was not peerless, then it was no longer a peerless art.

That conversation from his talk with the Spear King had pointed to the ultimate pursuit a martial artist should seek.

Dong Murin walked forward slowly and extended his sword.

Puuk-!

Shin Juje’s throat was pierced.

“Keo… keok…”

Dong Murin, who had watched with cold eyes, drew his blade free and swung it.

Seogyeok.

Shin Juje’s head fell to the ground.

Dong Murin stared at it rolling for a moment, then turned his head.

He could see Shin Juyang, collapsed on the floor and twitching.

“Sp… spare me…”

Dong Murin’s brows furrowed hard the moment he heard it.

No matter how important immovability was, this was not it.

“So the young Palace Lord of Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace is reduced to begging for his life.”

“…What could be more precious than life…?!”

With the last light before death already upon him, Shin Juyang had no way to live.

“Something more precious than life? There is exactly one.”

“That’s… what…”

“Conviction.”

“…What…?”

“Your pathetic whining comes before your conviction, and my desire to become strong comes before my desire for revenge.”

“…”

“That is conviction. Carrying your will through, in any moment. You… are done.”

What was the point of talking to a corpse?

It only made his mouth hurt.

He walked up and cut Shin Juyang’s throat.

With the sound of seogyeok, the head fell away.

Dong Murin stared at the two brothers’ heads lying together, then slowly slid his sword back into its scabbard and looked around.

This place could no longer be called an Annex. It had already been reduced to scorched ruin.

Tsk.

After clicking his tongue lightly, he picked up the two heads and started walking.

This result was inevitable.

There was a saying that a martial artist is completed by the number of people they have killed.

Whether it was truly right or wrong aside, a martial artist who had killed many was different in presence from the very start.

From the moment Dong Murin changed his name to Han Murin, he had lived brutally and fiercely.

These two, plainly speaking, were hothouse flowers, and there was no way such flowers could beat weeds.

Dong Murin headed for the Palace Lord Hall.

As he walked to the entrance of a place that had almost no shape left, he saw Flame King Hwa Munyeom and Shin Jueon fighting while bleeding from head to toe.

He owed Flame King Hwa Munyeom a great deal.

Even if it had begun as pity or guilt toward his disciple, he could not deny what he had received.

The martial arts he received from him.

And the martial arts he received from Unhwi.

He had been searching for a way to mix those two, and Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s help had been a large part of how Dong Murin could wield Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art with that ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) level of mastery.

He intended to repay it all.

He watched quietly, then set the two heads in his hand down on the ground.

Then, without a shred of hesitation, he stomped on them.

Kwa-jik-!

At that sound, Shin Jueon’s gaze, mid-technique against Flame King Hwa Munyeom, snapped toward Dong Murin.

Dong Murin met his eyes.

This time as well, there was no hesitation.

He stomped the remaining head too.

Kwa-jik.

Seeing the two heads completely crushed, Shin Jueon staggered on the spot as if he had been greatly shocked, despite being a master of Limitless Manifestation, and Flame King Hwa Munyeom did not miss it.

Puuk-!

Shin Jueon’s solar plexus was pierced.

Flame King Hwa Munyeom quietly watched him crumple weakly, then stomped on Shin Jueon’s dantian.

Kwaaaang, a thunderous boom erupted, and an immense storm of power whirled in all directions.

The release of Heaven-Earth Apex energy latent in his dantian emitted a shock great enough to scour clean even the remnants of the Palace Lord Hall, which had already been all but collapsed, and…

Dong Murin, who had pushed himself a bit too far, swayed for a moment where he stood.

Someone steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

It was Unhwi.

The moment he saw him, the crushing weight that had pressed down on his whole body vanished at once.

He felt incomparably light. Light enough to fly.

He smiled brightly.

“I’m fine.”

“How do you feel.”

His smile deepened.

“I feel like I’m going to fly.”

Then…

“Go and finish it.”

Dong Murin nodded and turned his head.

He could see Shin Jueon, gasping for breath.

There was only one meaning to the “finish” Unhwi spoke of.

Settling the grudges and bonds tied to the target named Shin Jueon.

“I’ll be back.”

Leaving Unhwi behind as he nodded, Dong Murin started walking.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep