It was a hidden weapon coated with spatial essence, poison, and the internal energy of a Transcendent martial artist.
Yet, it didn’t do so much as leave a scratch on Lee Sungmin’s armor.
Although An Zun was shocked and flustered by the fact that it couldn’t even scratch Lee Sungmin’s armor, he immediately regained his composure and spread his arms wide.
He moved back as Lee Sungmin jumped towards him.
The billowing sleeves of An Zun’s robe started to flutter in the windy night.
From his sleeves, two short sabers emerged, and An Zun gripped them as he swiped down in a cross movement at Lee Sungmin.
Lee Sungmin swung at the dual sabers, compressing his surging internal energy into the tip of his Dragon bone spear.
Clang!
Even with the matched physical strength of the blades and the spear; at the collision, the dual sabers shattered on impact from Lee Sungmin’s spear.
No matter how much he matched the physical levels of Lee Sungmin or overcharged his internal circuitry to match Lee Sungmin’s massive internal energy reserves, he could not win any of their exchanges.
‘That spear!’
An Zun’s eyes locked onto Lee Sungmin’s spear. The spear was pure white, smelted and forged from the bones and adamantium lining of a Dragon. No matter how much an opponent sought to match Lee Sungmin, his spear would demolish all common sense.
An Zun twirled the bladeless sabers. In the meantime, the device installed on the handle was triggered as he ran his fingertips along the handle for the button on it.
Poochuck!
The edge of the handle exploded, and dozens of shrapnel were shot at Lee Sungmin.
There was no need to avoid it. Lee Sungmin knew it instinctively and charged forward, letting his purple flames of internal energy burn the small pieces of shrapnel to dust.
Knowing he could fully avoid all the shrapnel if he wanted, Lee Sungmin decided to be bold as he rushed towards An Zun, whose eyes showed a multitude of emotions.
They weren’t even equal. An Zun was a mid-tier Transcendent with his own evaluation. But when he judged Lee Sungmin… he figured that Lee Sungmin was much higher level than himself. Lee Sungmin had to be a high-level Transcendent martial artist in his mind.
His hidden weapons would never work on Lee Sungmin as they were right now. Only the weapons that could be coated in poison had a chance of doing anything. But even that was not certain.
‘I can’t even slow him down.’
An Zun grated his teeth at Lee Sungmin, who was simply attacking without any hesitation. It was an indirect insult to his entire martial arts and collection of hidden weapons. However, he couldn’t do anything about it since Lee Sungmin had the better weaponry.
An Zun loosened his waistband and held it in his hand. The sword that was hidden on one side of his sleeves had already been used, and the blade had been smashed and could not be used again.
However, An Zun lightly swung the hand holding the detachable handle and brought a coil out from his belt. It was a whip that would attach to the detachable handle, and he reconnected the two and proceeded to wrap it together with spatial essence.
‘How long will this last?’
An Zun swung his arm as he cracked the whip on the ground, crushing a small part of the ground with his small action.
This whip might work, but it also might not. An Zun knew that it boasted tremendous power due to the flexible and whiplash type movement of the whip, but was unsure of its durability thanks to Lee Sungmin’s ridiculous weaponry and armor.
It had the destructive power and sharpness of a sword, but was not even comparable to Guan Zun’s power with the sword.
Lee Sungmin saw this, and had no intention of letting An Zun take the initiative as he continued to unfold the Shadowless technique, as the next step started to create a black vortex with Lee Sungmin as the center. The ground shook within the residence of Tang Ah-Hui and the earth started to form spider web-like cracks.
Fababak!
Dozens of darkened images of Lee Sungmin’s figure started to dance from An Zun’s surroundings.
The Dark Storm Arts became a martial art technique that caused one to embody the destructive nature of an unpredictable thunderstorm.
Ring!
The whip cracked out trying to catch Lee Sungmin’s images, but dark black lightning crashed down immediately all around An Zun and destroyed the whip to pieces.
Ba-Boom! Boom!
Dozens of black tendrils of lightning crashed around the surroundings and destroyed the ground around An Zun and his whip.
An Zun barely withstood the explosion’s incredible firepower, as he was able to rouse his internal energy at the last moment and create a makeshift barrier of internal energy around his body.
An Zun panicked and started to move his hands around his body as fast as he could.
Every movement from An Zun’s arms, down to the smallest of movements, had weapons flying out from his sleeves.
There were dozens of types of daggers, miniature bombs, trap wires and awls that flew out.
‘It’s too difficult!’
An Zun was getting desperate as he threw out nearly everything he had hidden in his robes and belt. Every weapon he threw out, was also coated in spatial essence, nearly draining his mental power that was required to bend space to his will.
He was pouring out everything he had at this very moment in a gamble. Lee Sungmin was approaching him and was like the reaper of death in front of An Zun. His only chance at survival was to throw everything he had and hope that he could do something to Lee Sungmin.
However…. None of the weapons could get close to Lee Sungmin. The vortex of black and purple internal energy combined with the rampant black lightning strikes disintegrated every attack thrown at Lee Sungmin, as it was combined with his own spatial essence. For the few weapons that had managed to get through, they had been slowed down so much and couldn’t do anything against Lee Sungmin’s overpowered armor.
Lee Sungmin thanked McKendor and Selgerus in his mind. The armor and spear was certainly a treasure beyond words. It was certainly worthy of the treasures of the Great Yokai, Heoju. Lee Sungmin though briefly disregarded it as Heoju constantly nagged him about the so-called greatest treasure of all : the endless gourd of liquor.
[This son of a bitch…!]
Heoju grumbled as he was able to read Lee Sungmin’s thoughts.
An Zun continued to throw his hidden weapons despite their ineffectiveness while this was happening.
It was because An Zun knew. It would be impossible for him to escape from Lee Sungmin now.
No matter how stealthy he was, if he tried to escape right now, Lee Sungmin was too fast to even let him attempt escape.
‘It’s a forced outcome.’
An Zun thought as his eyes sank.
His clear understanding of the situation helped his head clear up. It was either Lee Sungmin or him. One of them had to die.
How long had it been since he had fully fought like this. Putting his life on the line with all of his greatest weapons, poisons, and techniques. It had been too long due to one thing, and one thing alone.
He was only in this situation right now due to his loyalty to that annoying woman, the Divine Maiden.
‘But…at least Tang Ah-Hui ran away.’
An Zun spread out his arms wide once more. The distance between him and Lee Sungmin was not far.
Rushing in was tantamount to instant death, but he still had one more trick up his sleeve.
There was no way to stop Lee Sungmin otherwise. His ridiculous reserves of internal energy, techniques, armor and spear were unbelievable.
How could one person obtain all of these things?
An Zun’s hands stopped throwing the countless hidden weapons he had. He had barely left these last few for this technique alone as a last resort. As An Zun resolved himself, his hands started to move in a blur. Thousands of daggers started to surround his figure.
An Zun appeared like a thousand-palmed buddha with daggers instead of hands. The daggers started to emerge further around his figure along with pulleys. There were one thousand wires attached to the daggers, forming a net that could rip apart and dice any opponent.
An Zun was coming. Lee Sungmin knew it. He knew that technique very well. How could he not?
In Rubes, Lee Sungmin almost died due to this attack. Although back then An Zun had been toying with him and being arrogant, purposefully not using his transcendent power of distorting space.
At that moment, the thousand hidden weapons all fired simultaneously.
Blatantly relying on his armor wouldn’t do him any good. He had to properly defend this time. Rousing his internal energy circuits within his dantian, Lee Sungmin started to prepare his body for the techniques he was about to unfold as he raised his spear and left foot.Hidden weapons were made to be lethal and fast acting. Therefore, Lee Sungmin decided he must react with an appropriate response as such. Nine Heavenly Spear Techniques 4th move : Lightning Annihilation (閃電毀滅)
Lee Sungmin’s spear thrust forward, wrapping itself in a gold and black light of internal energy.
It was his fastest technique to boot; especially so once he had implemented the Dark Storm Arts methodology into the technique itself.
Mixing the Blood Rings technique as well, red lightning surrounded the golden glow as the darkness of the night became bright as the sun in the quarters of the Tang family Main Branch.
BOOM BOOM BOOM Dozens of shots fired off and collided, the sound reverberating throughout the entire city. Lee Sungmin was reminded of just how large-scale the destruction would be in a fight against other Transcendent martial artists.
However, he was not done yet with his technique.
Lee Sungmin shook his hand holding the spear as black energy started to swirl in his hands and channeled itself into the spear.
The image of the spear started to multiply, from tens to dozens, to eventually hundreds.
The force of the Dark Storm Arts started to amplify the effect of Lee Sungmin’s Nine Heavenly Spears move, and caused the bright glow to swell to an enormous degree. The hidden weapons had completely vaporized.
An Zun noticed things were starting to go awry as he took out something from his belt. It was not a hidden weapon this time.
An Zun brought out a pill and resolved himself as he popped it into his mouth.
An Zun’s eyes shook as they turned blood-red and he rushed at Lee Sungmin.
‘Come.’
All Lee Sungmin needed was three steps.
With the first step, he swelled the lightning inside of the golden thunderstorm and compressed it down to cover his spear. The glow was now only coming from his spear, but didn’t dim in its brightness. The second step, Lee Sungmin started to pivot his weight into his shoulders, arms and waist as the spear started to crackle and tremble with power.And then there was the third and final step.
The thunderstorm exploded out once more from Lee Sungmin’s spear in a large vortex that started to sweep the trees and buildings off the ground.
An Zun took out a white and pristine dagger from the last subspace pocket he had left.It was his last bravado. and he knew it. He was going to die here, but he might as well try to take Lee Sungmin down with this act.
An Zun kicked the ground once more and jumped into the storm of light and darkness.
The bright burning sensation of lightning scorching his eyes could be felt. His internal energy, dantian, skin and muscles started to burn hellishly. This was the last time he would ever be able to move, as his nerves were still connected.
The hand holding the dagger moved. Suddenly, An Zun’s world became clear white. His memories started to rewind, and he recalled the events of his life.
After the disastrous defeat Tang Mugi, or An Zun had to Sima Ryunju, he wandered around aimlessly searching for a purpose. Eventually, he met an interesting man named Musin. A warrior comparable to Sima Ryunju, but was rather interesting when he came to Tang Mugi with a proposal.
Musin wanted to create a world without monsters. A world where only humans would be able to live in peace and harmony. And that he wanted An Zun’s help.
There were 5 other warriors of An Zun’s level when he first joined Beyond the Heavens. And the other 5 warriors all felt that Musin’s words were hiding something. Such a world was preposterous to create.
They figured Musin had something that was disturbing, but didn’t pry too much into it.
It was simple why they did so. Musin was indeed powerful and had the possibility of creating such a world. And if that did come, they were going to be guaranteed positions of power as the Six Divinities.
But An Zun was different in his purpose. He actually wanted to see such a world without monsters and believed Musin. It was because a monster had killed his daughter long ago in the ‘accident’; not a human.
He hated monsters. He truly did want to witness a world without them, and desperately held onto the conviction in that he would be able to help make such a world possible.
‘I wanted to see the world you make.’
He would not be able to see it since he was going to die here. But… he was going to contribute to that world right now, if possible. The man in front of An Zun right now was seriously dangerous.
He had grown this strong in only a few years. He was already in the Realm of Transcendence and was growing to become something even stronger if he was given more time. An Zun firmly believed Lee Sungmin could grow to become a threat to Musin.
Because of that, he had to at least stop his growth here. If he couldn’t kill Lee Sungmin, he would take him out of the picture.
Lee Sungmin’s eyes remained calm as a lake as he saw An Zun jumping into the large thunderstorm that was tearing his body apart.An Zun, who had lost his sight and most of his strength as his skin was starting to melt further, was aiming at Lee Sungmin with instinct alone.
Lee Sungmin at that moment noticed something in An Zun’s hand. It was a stainless white-colored dagger. Despite all An Zun’s belongings burning from the thunderstorm, An Zun’s dagger remained completely fine. It was suspicious.
[You’d better not get hit by that.]
Heoju suddenly warned Lee Sungmin as he noticed something was wrong with An Zun’s actions.Lee Sungmin remained calm and moved his spear fluidly as practiced thousands of times.
The bright glow that was lighting up the entire battlefield between Lee Sungmin and An Zun, died down. The surroundings started to become clear as Lee Sungmin stopped channeling his internal energy into the spear.
The trees and buildings had been obliterated from their fight, and the water from the lake had been dried up completely. All that remained were the craters in the earth and uneven land. Amidst this, there were two figures that were left there.
Lee Sungmin lowered his spear slowly. An Zun laid atop the tip of his spear with his heart pierced.
Despite his heart being pierced on impact, An Zun had tried to stab Lee Sungmin by swinging his dagger. His dagger was never able to reach Lee Sungmin though.
Lee Sungmin raised An Zun’s severed right arm, which he was holding in his left hand. The arm, which was blown right off its elbow socket, did not bleed.
The dagger, held tightly by An Zun’s right hand, looked more like an awl than a dagger.
No. To be exact, it seemed like a white tree branch that was broken off of something and used as a weapon. Lee Sungmin did not know exactly what it was, but he put it in his arms for now.
Then, he approached the body of An Zun. The body of the charred An Zun had had no semblance of its previous appearance.
Even the moment before his death, there was no fear or regret on An Zun’s facial expression. Lee Sungmin stared at An Zun’s body, and remained silent as he looked at it.
With this, Lee Sungmin killed three of the Six Divinities himself.
There was only Do Zun, Kang Seok and Wolhu left.
And… well, there was one even higher than those three, but Lee Sungmin brushed that aside temporarily.
He had questioned Qian Zun before his death, and regretted not being able to question An Zun to see if he could dig up any more information on Beyond the Heavens.
‘It’s too late to regret it now.’
Lee Sungmin turned around thinking it was a pity. Although he did not get information from An Zun, he succeeded in killing him as planned.
Now, you could leave and finally head back to the Sama Order.
He didn’t want to develop any more hatred and resentment with the other 5 Great Families. There was no need to do so, and no benefit from it.
There would have been deaths and bodies lying around in his surroundings if Tang Ah-Hui had not taken action.
But it seemed like Tang Ah-Hui had run and saved her life along with her family’s.
For those uninvolved in the fight, it probably only seemed like a lightning bolt had come and destroyed the entire Main Branch of the Tang Family.***
“This…… what the hell…….”
“It’s toxic in the surroundings, be careful.”Tang Ji-Woo spoke with caution to the people around him, as he noticed the density of poison in the atmosphere left behind from An Zun’s attacks.
By the side of Tang Ji-Woo, Tang Ah-Hui was nervously tapping her feet, wondering what to do. She didn’t even imagine that this would happen.
“Hey, there’s a body.”
One of the Tang Family warriors spoke up as he was searching the surroundings.
Tang ji-wWo and the other members approached the body. It was the body of Tang Mugi, their ancestor, but his facial features were nowhere to be seen from the gruesome nature of the death.
“Who is this……?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure that you were attacked by someone?”
Tang Ji-Woo asked his daughter, Tang Ah-HHui with careful words. He could not believe that a human being was able to cause such mass destruction of this level. But he was forced to swallow his doubts as Tang Ah-HHui nodded with an expression clearly showing that she was still in shock about the whole thing.
“What? Y-yes. There was someone who suddenly attacked me when I was about to sleep in my house.”
“Who the hell would do this…. What did we do to enrage such a person?”
“Wait- the tracks look like you and someone were fighting against someone. Who the hell fought did you fight with?”The warrior by Tang Ji-Woo informed him, and Tang Ji-Woo promptly questioned his daughter for details.
Despite asking her question after question, Tang Ah-Hui just shook her head.
“It’s…… I don’t know.”
Tang Ah-Hui did not want to talk about her ancestor and grandfather, Tang Mugi.
If she were to only inform them of his existence right now, she would be reprimanded by the family harshly right now for not telling them up until now.
“… Is this the body of him , maybe?”
“It doesn’t have a spear near it.….”
“The Ghost Spear is a master known to be in the Realm of Transcendence. I don’t think he would have died…….”
The crowd clamored with all sorts of talk. Tang Ah-Hui frowned as she looked down at the charred body.
She was in her own head, thinking her own thoughts about what could have happened.
Her grandfather would have surely fled, since he could escape anybody. She thought that the body was probably someone that got unlucky,
‘It must be a servant who got unlucky and didn’t escape.’
Tang Ah-Hui thought as she was unknowingly staring at the deformed body of her grandfather.
She was convinced that it had to be one of her servants.