Chapter 470: The Time of the Decisive Battle (1)
I didn’t know what kind of impression my final answer had left on Dao Zun.
Because her breath had already ceased.
After gazing at Dao Zun with an unreadable expression, I lightly waved my hand.
Then, Dao Zun’s corpse began to scatter like sand.
“Come out.”
“……”
“I know you’ve been watching.”
“My apologies.”
Before I knew it, Gunggi appeared before my eyes, his body drenched in blood.
With rare hesitation, Gunggi asked,
“Have you recovered your memory?”
I shook my head.
“It’s only temporary.”
“By that, you mean…”
I let out a faint chuckle and continued to stare at the crimson sky.
“After being defeated by Earth Sage and sealed within the fetters, I thought I’d never regain my sense of self again… but when coincidences overlap like this, such things can happen.”
“Coincidences?”
Tok. Tok. Tok.
“The ego of a human named Cheon Yura, a fragment of the fallen Earth Sage, and the new life this body has conceived.”
I lightly tapped my head, heart, and abdomen with my fingers.
“When these three factors blend together with divine timing, I, by sheer chance, was able to awaken for a brief moment.”
“Then what happens now?”
“As I said—it’s temporary.”
I chuckled faintly.
“It’s just a fleeting distortion. It will soon be mended. And this ego shall return once more into the fetters.”
“……”
“Still, it’s not all bad. I’ve gained an opportunity.”
I raised my sword and suddenly began to dance.
Like a swordmaster who had trained for decades, I moved with refined grace, unfolding a sword dance with elegance.
In truth, every movement I made was a complete unfolding of the sword art known as the Heaven-Slaying Demon Sword.
“How is it?”
“……”
“Martial arts… humans do create rather impressive things. Had things like this existed in the past, perhaps humans wouldn’t have been such a feeble race.”
“…I see.”
Gunggi responded with a disinterested tone, devoid of any emotion, causing me to pout ever so slightly.
“Even now, all you do is blindly rely on brute strength. That’s why you fail to comprehend the wondrous logic embedded in this dance.”
Unwilling to be outdone, Gunggi fired back.
“It was you who once said—‘Since your body is strong, there’s no need to use your head.’”
Flinch!
“…Did I?”
“You did.”
Among the Four Atrocities, Gunggi was particularly known for lacking in cleverness.
As befit the name Four Atrocities, he wielded cruel and merciless hands, yet he always enjoyed crushing his enemies head-on.
Perhaps it was that simplicity that allowed him to get along with the Divine Beasts to some extent?
“And above all, it was you who mindlessly relied on brute force in the fight against Earth Sage—”
“Now, that’s enough.”
I pressed down on Gunggi’s words with authority, cutting him off as he tried to bring up the past.
Though Gunggi jutted out his lower jaw in protest.
“In any case.”
Ignoring Gunggi’s reaction, I continued.
“To you, humans may still be nothing more than frail and pitiful creatures…”
“……”
“But the end of this path is far from shallow. Should one reach the very end, they may even…”
Gunggi didn’t respond, but inwardly, he agreed.
There was someone who came to mind immediately—someone who surely held the potential.
“That’s why I want to bet on this possibility.”
“You mean…”
A faint shadow flickered across my eyes.
“The fact that my ego has awakened now means that I’ve been acknowledged, if only temporarily, as a part of this world.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
Then, smiling brightly, I stretched my arm toward the sky.
“Eradication… or another chance. It means I can choose between the two.”
Flinch!
Gunggi’s shoulders trembled slightly.
From me radiated an endless madness.
No matter how benevolent I seemed, no matter how far from authority I appeared.
My true nature was evil.
And the madness in my laughter deepened ever more.
“Huhu… I’m looking forward to it. Just how strong has my husband become to stand in my way?”
The awakened ego was gradually merging with the previous one.
As mentioned at the beginning, this appearance was merely a temporary phenomenon born of overlapping coincidences.
Yet the madness he exuded, which I hadn’t faced in a long time, still radiated with the power to devour the entire world.
“After devouring all of Earth Sage’s plans, ‘I’ shall truly regain my freedom.”
And then—
“I shall annihilate all life on earth and fill this world anew with my vassals. To return once more… to that peaceful time.”
A single opportunity.
It was, in truth, the final chance, but conversely, also the greatest.
He had no intention of letting it slip by.
Still staring at the sky, he twisted his head at an unnatural angle and locked eyes with Gunggi.
“Gunggi.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Gunggi cautiously prostrated himself.
“The two who fled will seize another chance.”
Gunggi understood what he meant.
Assassins, but not assassins.
He had clashed with them several times already, and though he loathed to admit it, their persistence was undeniable.
“I will ensure they never stand before you again.”
“It seems even Yinglong and Qilin have awakened like you, so be wary of them as well.”
It was a passing remark, uttered lightly, but for Gunggi, it was not something he could ignore.
“Ah, one last thing.”
He looked down at his lower abdomen with a cold gaze.
A murderous intent, until now unexpressed, began to leak out.
“It would be best to eliminate this.”
The new life conceived in the womb.
Even during the earlier fight with the pair, his other personality had subconsciously tried to protect the life nestled there.
Undeniably, this life was one of the variables that allowed his awakening.
“But there’s no need to leave it as a variable.”
The Little Black Wolf that had already clung on couldn’t be helped, but this one was different.
His hand, placed on his abdomen, began to burn with intense heat.
It would be simple enough—destroy the organs and restore them with accelerated regeneration.
However—
“…Kugh!”
“My lord?!”
His back arched like a bow.
At the very instant he tried to erase the life inside, an overwhelming headache struck.
He abruptly halted his actions and clutched his head.
“Kkuuuugh!”
Blood vessels burst in his eyes.
This was no mere headache.
It was the soul’s resistance.
A vehement will from deep within, declaring it would never allow such an act.
“This… damn thing…”
What now hindered him was no longer simply the existence known as Cheon Yura.
To be precise, it was a third presence formed from a mix of Cheon Yura, Grand Heavenly Lord Han Seon, and the first Priestess Han Yeong.
He ground his teeth.
“A merged ego clinging so pathetically… Is it because it was carried in its own body, and thus considered flesh even if rotted?”
The pain didn’t matter. But if he pushed recklessly here, it might cause irreparable damage.
There was no clearer loss than fighting oneself.
“Fine, I’ll stop.”
He was going to fall asleep again soon anyway. It wasn’t worth taking on such risk for a minor variable.
As he willingly gave up, the headache quickly subsided.
“But the only reason I’m stopping… is because I’m confident ‘I’ will win.”
He gave a stern warning to the other ‘self’ crouched within him.
“Remember this. You are me. You can never again return to being the object known as Cheon Yura. Even if he brings something unknown to me, I will never let you go.”
His final words etched themselves into the slowly awakening other ego.
At the peak of Mount Tai.
Cheon Yura, who had been in meditation, opened her eyes.
Slowly regaining consciousness, she gradually stood up.
And then extended her hand forward.
Tststs!
Black smoke flowed from her hand and soon formed into the shape of a Little Black Wolf.
Cheon Yura murmured a self-mocking whisper to Yorang, as if confessing to herself.
“Your and Jin Yeomyung’s plan has ended up only half successful.”
-……
“I am me, but I’ve become something that is not me.”
Yorang gave no reply.
“What would Jin Yeomyung think of seeing me like this?”
Uuuuuung!
A gray aura stormed across her entire body.
The energy, reminiscent of scattered ash, was a power entirely different from the Heavenly Demonic Divine Art she had wielded until now.
Nor was it the white-tinged power of the Heavenly Evil.
It was a wholly new type of power, born from the fusion of the Heavenly Evil’s power and the Heavenly Demonic Divine Art.
What the former Heavenly Demon Founder had once feared had, to some extent, come true.
Cheon Yura smiled faintly.
“The worst part is, I don’t even feel bad about it.”
She had nearly killed her dearest friend and that friend’s lover.
At last, the heavenly timing had fully arrived, and the human race in this world faced extinction.
Yet even now, she felt not a shred of guilt.
Yorang asked her,
–Then what emotion are you feeling now?
“Will to fight.”
The ashen aura gathered into the form of a sword.
“I want to confirm which of us—Jin Yeomyung or I, who possess both the power of the Heavenly Evil and Earth Sage—is truly superior.”
–Us?
Yorang wasn’t focused on the word ‘us’.
Rather, it was the point about having gained both the power of the Heavenly Evil and Earth Sage.
Cheon Yura didn’t answer that curiosity and instead looked off into the distance.
“Isn’t that right, Jin Yeomyung?”
“……”
At her words, a man appeared before her, dressed in plain black martial arts robes with two swords crossed on his back.
That man’s name was Jin Yeomyung.
Cheon Yura wore a faint smile.
“It doesn’t seem that long since we parted, but the time each of us experienced since then feels quite long.”
“…Indeed.”
I nodded calmly.
The time I experienced from obtaining True Martiality at Heaven of Sacred Spirits in Nakyang to reaching this place felt vastly longer than the actual passage of time.
I looked at Yura.
Since she was connected to Yorang, I knew the result the moment I saw her.
Yura slowly approached and spoke.
“Do you know this?”
“Know what?”
“That I love you deeply, but also, to that same extent, feared you.”
“……”
Yura came right up to me.
Then gently reached out and caressed my cheek.
“I’ve always known what I was born with.”
Talent.
An overwhelming talent.
Though it had been created by Grand Heavenly Lord and the Heavenly Researcher, the magnitude of that talent was unrivaled by anyone in history.
“That’s why I never once doubted my talent itself.”
But then—
“You suddenly appeared one day.”
On the day of the Exchange Ceremony, the person named ‘Jin Yeomyung’ who appeared before Cheon Yura was baffling in many ways.
“Of similar age and barely on the brink of First Rate Martial Artist level… and yet, every time I took my eyes off you, you grew exponentially stronger, and before long, you had surpassed me by far.”
Yura let out a soft laugh.
“Sometimes, remembering that fact made me so jealous I couldn’t stand it. That someone existed with greater martial talent than me.”
I had some inkling, but Yura truly had...
“Oh, not that I disliked you.”
As if reading my thoughts, she pressed her index finger to my lips.
“Because I knew that your reason for becoming strong was me. There’s no way I wouldn’t know the devotion you gave your life for.”
She slowly put some distance between us.
“But.”
A tremendous pressure suddenly poured from her entire being.
The true nature of that pressure was none other than battle qi.
“Even so, I wanted to settle things with you once, with all my heart.”
What she meant by settling wasn’t just a simple duel.
It meant throwing everything away as martial artists and facing each other with life and death on the line.
Even while loving me, she harbored the pride of wanting to defeat me as a martial artist.
That pride must be what led to the current distorted butterfly effect.
“…Right.”
I removed one of the swords strapped to my back and tossed it to her, scabbard and all.
Recognizing the identity of the sword, she looked at me questioningly.
“…Why are you giving me the Heavenly Demon Divine Sword?”
I replied with a faint smile.
“Because this way wouldn’t be fair.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“…Fine.”
Yura did not refuse a second time.
As she slowly drew her sword, I too drew the Heavenly Record Immortal Sword from its scabbard.
How we managed to reach this point.
What happened with the Bongseon Ritual.
What state each of us was in now.
Who ended up how.
There were many complicated matters that ought to be discussed through conversation.
But between us now, no more words were necessary.
“Then, let us begin.”