Chapter 271

Chapter 271

Thunder energy soars to the heavens.

Pajijijik!

Thunder energy that penetrated like small static electricity became a thunder spear, finally transforming into thunder that bit the black tail. Thunder energy biting the tail descending while pushing in so much yokai power that even space was distorted.

One cannot block it.

The moment I realized it, I gritted my teeth and swung my sword five more times in rapid succession, adding more thunder energy. And maintaining that standoff only briefly.

Tung—!!

-Ho.

My sword strike finally deflected one tail.

-Splendid!

Silent.

Feeling the roar ring out loud enough to deafen ears, I spat out the surging blood and turned my gaze toward Nakcheon. Nakcheon barely receiving the combined attack of eight tails while regenerating his broken arms and legs.

-You are.

“Uicheon Gate Lord Baek Riyun. Childeayo Nakcheon. Correct?”

-That’s right. Uicheon Gate Lord, I remember hearing that. If you’re a Baek Ri, are you Baek Risan’s sibling?

“I’m his older brother. It seems you know Risan.”

-……No wonder you seemed familiar.

Nakcheon, who scrutinized my face closely, let out a hollow laugh and raised his black sword. And watching us, Heukya let out a nasal sound.

-I seem to see you frequently lately. Boy.

“I wish we didn’t have occasions to meet, Heukya.”

-Huhu. Your bloodline is uniformly hostile to me. Whether because of similar ways of thinking or similar positions…….”

“What are you babbling about?”

-Don’t you need to know? There won’t be much time for conversation anyway.

“I want to have as much conversation time as possible though.”

Feeling internal energies gathering from all directions through energy sensing, I gripped the Uicheon Sword fiercely. If not for the Uicheon Sword’s divine ability of being absolutely indestructible, it wouldn’t be strange if it were already half-broken.

‘She’s become a monster.’

Having received it, I now clearly knew. That the power condensed in each individual tail in no way fell short of the Sipcheon.

Yokai power was seriously condensed. To the degree of damaging even laws. To the degree of not permitting even deflection.

Power that escaped both normal bounds and the world’s laws. Even if I received it, how many exchanges could I withstand? Twenty exchanges? Thirty exchanges?

-Your skills have improved greatly.

-It feels like just yesterday when you were trembling before me watching your comrade die.

As if reading my complicated thoughts, Heukya, who had been swaying her tail, leaned against her own tail with a bewitching smile.

-Though the intent is obvious when those who didn’t try to converse with me are all trying to converse today, I’ll consent this time. If I sweep you away as is, you won’t even serve as entertainment.

“How very grateful.”

-Ho. You seemed to have quite a strong ego…… Won’t you stand on your pride?

“There’s no pride that takes precedence over human lives.”

-That is wrong.

“What?”

At Heukya’s decisive declaration, I frowned and asked, then Heukya draped herself lazily over the tail she’d erected while answering.

-Boy. Do you believe in the afterlife?

-Humans seem to pursue the afterlife, talking about souls and reincarnation, but in reality, no afterlife exists. Everything that treads upon the earth is a component of the world, and you standing before me now are no different. I am the same.

When made, they move. Then at some point they break down and are recycled.

The world is structured like that. Souls are merely one organ mechanism inserted in between.

-Souls, when they lose their flesh, scatter and drift, then change form and are reborn into new flesh. Do you know what happens to souls reborn like that?

“……I don’t know.”

-They lose all qualities they possessed. Memories, ego, and even the essence that being possessed.

Souls aren’t discarded but recycled. Can that be considered reincarnation?

It cannot. Reincarnation means ‘I’ as a being am reborn, but at the point of losing all memories and essence, ‘I’ as a being meet my end the same as death. Just as human nature is completed through innate flesh and acquired education, even with the same soul, the endings they meet can differ vastly.

-Since there’s no afterlife, good deeds are ultimately meaningless. Once you die in this world, there is no next. Sacrificing for others? Nothing could be more foolish.

-Yet despite that, will you try to help others? For what amounts to self-satisfaction, will you waste this one and only life?

How foolish?

Watching Heukya say such things with a mocking face, I slowly released the strength from my grip. Because it was an unexpectedly weighty topic.

“Wasting one’s only life…….”

-Humans live briefly. Merely decades, at most a hundred and some decades—humans live like flames and die like moths to flame. Then shouldn’t they live that brief life more intensely than anyone, burning brightly?

Your way of life is wrong. Humans should live like yokai. If restraint in life means being unable to do what you want to do before dying, isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?

Watching Heukya speak with such purport while smiling, I smiled broadly.

“Those are correct words.”

-Ho, you acknowledge it more readily than expected…….

“From a yokai’s perspective, that is.”

Does the afterlife not exist?

I had considered that might be the case. Ascension, Nirvana, and so on—I’d never heard of the dead actually returning to life. The afterlife’s appearance circulating in the human world was ultimately only metaphysical and strange things.

There is no afterlife. Even if there were, it would be vastly different from what humans imagine. An incomprehensible, inscrutable domain, so trying to understand it is meaningless.

When I learned of Mother’s death and agonized over it many times, I had such thoughts too. However, the conclusion ultimately converged on one thing.

“Humans live briefly.”

“From you yokai’s perspective, human lives have no meaning at all. For yokai who live hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, what meaning could human lives, which are but fleeting moments, have?”

Originally, one human’s life doesn’t carry great significance. As Heukya said, humans can only live mere decades, and from a macroscopic framework, that’s merely a stroke with no meaning at all.

“That’s precisely why humans pursue the eternal.”

-The eternal?

“I mean they pursue something that will remain in the world even after I die.”

At minimum, the desire for someone to remember me even after I die.

At maximum, the grand dream of wanting to carve a mark in history.

That ultimately exists because humans live briefly. Yokai focus on endlessly raising their own strength, thus trying to survive, but some humans want their names to rise even higher even if they die right now.

“You live tens of thousands of years, but because humans live briefly, they want to live eternally.”

“Those gathered here are only such people. Those who try to practice righteousness and chivalry through martial arts. Those who hope their names stand upright in the world even after death.”

They are called martial artists, read as chivalrous warriors.

“I stand here wanting to be a martial artist, a chivalrous warrior. That’s also why I stand before you. Heukya.”

“Does this answer your question?”

-I see.

After briefly staring at me while thinking about something, Heukya let out a small mockery. The voice that followed.

-You create scars upon yourselves and console yourselves that they’re proof of eternity…….

-You humans are truly ignorant and pitiful people.

The drooping tails straighten stiffly. As if she’d given enough time, the yokai power densely filling the air brushed past my nape.

-Half a shichen.

“……What do you mean?”

-If you can endure before me for half a shichen, you can survive from this place.

“You mean you’ll let us go?”

-Huhu. Though I won’t try to let you go, the heavenly energy speaks thus. That your fates will be decided at that point.

Tung.

Lightly approaching and pushing, I blocked the tail with my sword blade flat, then Heukya looked down at us from some distance away. Her gaze, which had been leisurely and gentle until just now, turned chillingly cold.

-The entertainment was sufficiently enjoyed. Then now.

-Die.

──The sky covers us.

Cheonroesin Jin

Tongcheon

The moment I recognized it, I drew up Cheonroesin to escape the attack and moved my form. However, my legs wouldn’t move.

‘What……!’

Space is severed.

As if speed didn’t matter, watching the tail flying toward me while shattering the very space I could move in, I gripped my sword tightly. An overwhelming difference in skill. An utterly unblockable attack.

Death was near.

“Was it sufficient?”

Feeling it at that moment, I quietly raised the Uicheon Sword while asking in a low voice. And.

“Mm.”

The next moment.

“Truly sufficient. Uicheon Gate Lord.”

A storm tore through the distorted space.

Kkigigigigigeuk—!!!!!

A strike far transcending the human realm was shattered by something equally far transcending the human realm. A strike that literally seemed to have cast off human origins, breaking through all martial arts frameworks.

“I can easily handle about one.”

“You must handle at least two.”

“I don’t have the hobby of boasting about doing what I haven’t tried, but.”

I can do it.

Watching Ilryun say so while smiling, I steadied my breathing. Because as Ilryun said, we’d bought enough time.

“So the Young Hero is the Uicheon Gate Lord. Hehe. Certainly the atmosphere is similar to Benefactor Baek Risan. Most audacious.”

Songbyeok Jinin.

“Even one would be a struggle to handle. Damn it.”

Dokgo Cheon.

“Ilnachar has left the battlefield. Uicheon Gate Lord. Should we join your side now?”

The Sword Sovereign.

“Let’s join in.”

Even Daesageom.

Watching the renowned masters of the martial world all approach my side in unison and take combat stances, I let out a bitter smile. And watching our appearance, Heukya let out a mockery.

-Lowly creatures have gathered.

-Do you think you can handle me just because you’ve all gathered like that? Even if everyone attaches to me, it won’t be enough.

“It won’t be enough. If we respond in an ordinary manner.”

-Hmm?

Without answering Heukya’s words, I quietly put my hand into my bosom while spinning my head for objective force assessment. A situation that wasn’t optimistic.

‘Songbyeok Jinin and Dokgo Cheon together make one.’

‘The Sword Sovereign makes one.’

‘Daesageom can handle one, and Ilryun can handle two.’

With the group’s joining, we could occupy five tails. Considering we had to seal all nine tails and also deal with the main body, about five more would be vacant.

‘If they could have joined faster, Nakcheon alone could have handled five……’

Though he didn’t show it, I could tell. Nakcheon was currently injured. Even trusting yokai’s unique regenerative power, it would be difficult to expect forces of more than three tails immediately.

Even briefly was fine. I had to show power of two or more Sipcheon. Meaning I had to show forces close to Transcenders like Ilryun or Taeak.

Was it possible?

‘It’s possible, so I’m standing here.’

Seueueu.

-What are you trying to do?

“A shortcut.”

At Heukya’s appearance watching me with interest while crossing her arms and swaying her tail, I smiled broadly and pulled my hand from my bosom. Soon after, a small wooden box trailing out below my sleeve.

[Daehwandan]

-A spiritual elixir?

“A spiritual elixir. A specially manufactured one at that.”

Opening the wooden box, I placed the crimson-gold pill in my hand and manipulated the air. Characters rapidly flashing before my eyes. The final bastion saved until the very last moment.

[Will you proceed with artifact specialization?]

[*Caution. This is a supreme-grade spiritual elixir! Once used, it cannot be reversed……!]

“There’s no need to hesitate.”

I had to use it now.

I immediately threw the Daehwandan into my mouth.

[……Artifact specialization completed by consuming spiritual power.]

[The user’s skill will rise to maximum for two shichen!]

Cheonroesin Jong

My body transformed into lightning.

Gaebyeok