Chapter 82: The Profound Demon’s Ghostly Sche
Yul Han’s eyes widened as he turned his gaze toward the source of the voice.
That was because he realized that the entity transmitting the voice directly into his mind was none other than the Lightning Cloud Blade.
“Spiritual awareness!”
He had heard stories of spiritual objects occasionally displaying spiritual awareness and behaving like people.
But he had never once heard of an inanimate sword possessing spiritual awareness.
“So it really is a demon’s blade… does it bewitch people?”
As if it had heard Yul Han’s muttering, the voice that had been resonating in his mind abruptly cut off.
And then—
“Huh!”
Yul Han’s eyes flew open.
Inside the White Cloud Pavilion so distance away, his master from his previous life—his master of the Righteous Will Sect—was beckoning him with his hand.
He was smiling brightly, just like in those old days, back when tis were good.
It was not just his master.
His senior brother and junior brothers as well. All of them were smiling and gesturing for him to co.
Step, step.
Yul Han’s eyes, as he reached out his hand and began walking, had already grown unfocused without him realizing it.
At a glance, it was clearly not a normal state, yet there was no one around who could stop him.
The eight old Daoists still did not even have the leeway to turn their gaze elsewhere.
Just like that, as Yul Han drew closer to the White Cloud Pavilion one step at a ti, his movents suddenly stopped.
“They’re dead. All of them are dead. I saw it with my own eyes back then.”
Perhaps the strained muttering gave him strength—slowly, focus returned to his eyes.
As if it refused to allow that, the scene shown to Yul Han changed.
Blood splattered across the snow-white martial robes of the master who had been beckoning him.
It was him!
The very bastard who had stolen his master and his senior and junior brothers from him.
Slash.
A chilling sound rang vividly through Yul Han’s mind.
Following that horrific sound, his master’s head flew through the air. The bastard’s sword, which had created that tragic sight, continued moving—still smiling—as it swung toward his senior and junior brothers who were beckoning him.
If he left it be…
“No!”
At that instant, a single sword appeared clearly beside his endangered senior brother.
It was the Lightning Cloud Blade.
A powerful feeling surged within him—that if he grabbed it, he could save his brothers.
Bang.
Without hesitation, Yul Han kicked off the ground and leapt into the White Cloud Pavilion.
Only then did confusion appear on the faces of the eight old Daoists as they sensed the intrusion of an outsider.
But there was nothing they could do.
Even just gathering the formation pressure pouring in from outside and directing it into the White Cloud Pavilion was already more than they could handle.
In that situation, Yul Han’s hand, having stepped into the White Cloud Pavilion, grabbed the hilt of the Lightning Cloud Blade.
Crunch!
In that instant, ti stopped.
No—rather, it seed to stop. The pressure of a formation that had endured for over a thousand years surged all at once through the Lightning Cloud Blade and poured into Yul Han’s body.
But it was pressure he had already overco once before. This ti was no different. Gritting his teeth, Yul Han easily endured the formation pressure and pulled the sword free.
From the mont it was drawn not by its own will, but by another’s hand, the Lightning Cloud Blade began to hum.
Wooooong.
Like the sound that had echoed when Yul Han’s true energy resonated with the formation pressure beneath the First Peak, a sound like a swarm of bees spread outward.
Yul Han grew desperate as well.
From the mont he endured the formation pressure and drew the sword, ti—which had begun to flow again, slowly—also released the bastard.
The sword that had been frozen along with everything around it began moving once more, aiming for his senior and junior brothers.
He had to stop it, but the Lightning Cloud Blade he held refused to move as he wished.
A sword was sothing that moved when swung! Yet the Lightning Cloud Blade was as immovable as if it were nailed into the air.
In his urgency, Yul Han circulated his internal energy not only to resist the formation’s force, but also toward the sword itself.
At that mont, as if it had been waiting for exactly that, an enormous energy began to pour out from the blade.
And then, the voice that had been silenced rang out again in his mind.
‘Give yourself to . If you give yourself to , I will erase that.’
The words—telling him to sacrifice himself to save his brothers—were a terribly sweet temptation.
But Yul Han knew.
Such temptations usually only took everything away and gave nothing in return.
So he gritted his teeth and resisted.
He endured, releasing internal energy toward both the formation pressure and the Lightning Cloud Blade.
Ti flowed so slowly that he could see the fluttering wings of butterflies flying nearby, yet to Yul Han it felt painfully short.
Because all of this was happening while the sword flew through the air, aiming for his brothers—brothers who were no different from his own flesh and blood.
The mont his resolve hardened—that he would never lose them again—the amount of internal energy pouring from his entire body skyrocketed.
Srrk.
Had it been pushed back in the struggle of strength? The bee-like hum from the Lightning Cloud Blade grew louder as it was drawn ever so slightly closer.
And the amount of energy surging from the blade also exploded.
The Qingcheng formation and the Lightning Cloud Blade’s power—Yul Han’s internal energy, fighting against both, was drained in an instant.
His dantian, which had seed as though it would never run dry no matter how much he drew from it, began to show its bottom.
Yul Han knew that if this continued, his completely dried-out dantian would shatter.
Yet he could not abandon the brothers who were still smiling at him.
“Ghk!”
Biting his lip, he drew out everything he had.
Fwoosh.
Like pulling the stopper from a brimful water jug, true energy poured out.
In that brief mont, the Lightning Cloud Blade was pulled slightly closer.
But that was all. Just as Yul Han’s internal energy increased, so too did the blade’s power.
Thus, a deadlock ford—a clash of pure strength against strength.
The problem was that Yul Han was not only fighting the Lightning Cloud Blade.
The eight old Daoists, unaware of the situation, were still pouring the formation’s pressure into the White Cloud Pavilion.
Yul Han had to fight against that imnse formation pressure as well.
And then, the balance of power—pulled taut in three directions—
Snap.
Collapsed, flinging apart like a severed cord.
As Yul Han’s internal energy was cut off, the balance shattered.
The recoil dragged out Yul Han’s innate true energy—the only force that could replace his completely dried-up dantian.
But as that innate true energy was pulled out, a halo of light ford around it, and in an instant, it dyed the surroundings blood-red.
That crimson light shone brightly and illuminated the bastard’s face.
After his regression, the bastard’s face, which had strangely remained blurry all this ti, finally beca clear.
And then—
“B-Brother…!”
A figure with eyes that looked a little younger, and more stubborn than they did now, was unmistakably the Cult Leader.
The Cult Leader’s voice, smiling foolishly as he looked at him, echoed through his mind.
In his previous life, his senior and junior brothers had been on the verge of death beneath the Cult Leader’s sword, while the Cult Leader himself had been forced to fight against their attacks.
‘Yes. We attacked first.’
He could not bla the Cult Leader. Choosing to clash that day had been their own decision.
Yul Han’s eyes, which had frozen on that thought, t the blood-red eyes of the man—no, the Cult Leader.
Strength drained from his shoulders.
He gave up pulling on the Lightning Cloud Blade, which was thrashing while suspended in midair.
He simply could not bring himself to cut down the Cult Leader.
As Yul Han stood there like that, the Cult Leader suddenly broke into a wide grin.
Still wearing that unreadable smile, the Cult Leader raised both hands and gripped his own sword.
And then—
Thud!
The Cult Leader drove the blade into his own chest and smiled deeply at Yul Han.
Once again, it felt as though the Cult Leader’s voice echoed in his mind.
But at that mont, another face overlapped the smiling face of the Cult Leader.
It was a completely unfamiliar face, one he had never seen before.
With blood-red pupils that looked as though they might start bleeding at any mont, that face stared at Yul Han and spoke.
The mouth moved, but no sound could be heard at all.
The instant Yul Han focused on it—
Rumble.
Like a waterfall flowing backward, the innate true energy that had been flung away surged back toward Yul Han, dragging with it the enormous power of the Lightning Cloud Blade and the vast internal energy ford by the Azure Cloud Crimson River Formation.
Boom!
It felt as though a massive Thunderclap Bomb had exploded inside his mind.
Guhk.
He spat blood. Even a nosebleed burst forth.
It was because energy far beyond his limits had poured into his body all at once.
As Yul Han’s mind shook, swept up in the true energy flooding in from outside, a completely different voice from before reached him.
‘Child. The arrangent I left behind by grinding down my soul ends here. From now on, its course rests with you.’
With those incomprehensible words, the voice vanished. And Yul Han’s consciousness drifted away into darkness.
Thud.
As Yul Han collapsed, the formation shattered.
The imnse internal energy that hundreds of Qingcheng martial artists had been pouring into the formation, and the power of the Lightning Cloud Blade that had been resisting it, both vanished without leaving a trace.
Only the Lightning Cloud Blade, emitting a cold blood-red sheen in the moonlight, lay beside the unconscious Yul Han.
The eight old Daoists, stunned by the sudden change, could only stare at the collapsed Yul Han with expressions of shock.
The damage to Qingcheng was severe.
Twelve old Daoists of the Sealed Sword Faction lost their lives as the price for remaining within the grounds, and of the young disciples who had stayed behind to support them, more than half—seventeen—were dead.
But the true damage ca from outside.
No fewer than four hundred Qingcheng martial artists had their internal energy drained.
Their dantians had been completely emptied. Normally, internal energy poured into a formation returns to the caster through their true energy.
That was precisely why the old Daoists had risked their lives to deploy another formation within the formation itself.
In other words, simply funneling the formation’s power into the White Cloud Pavilion had not been the old Daoists’ only task.
That was also why they had been able to maintain the formation for several days using such massive true energy.
However, when the formation shattered, the internal energy that should have returned never did.
There was still hope that half of them could recover their energy through energy circulation, but the other half had their internal energy drained to the very brink of their dantians shattering.
Those judged to be at risk even from imdiate energy circulation had to take dicine for the first ti since they began cultivating internal energy.
Tonics—ant to protect the organs and invigorate the blood.
Everyone who had participated in this incident were first-generation disciples with over sixty years of internal energy, or highly skilled second-generation disciples.
In other words, Qingcheng had scraped together every disciple worth anything.
And now, all of them had collectively lost their internal energy.
If soone learned of Qingcheng’s current state, it would be a perilous mont where the sect could be wiped out in an instant.
That was why the gazes of the Qingcheng people could not help but turn toward Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and the five squad-leader-level martial artists standing blankly within the grounds.
But at the mont, Qingcheng itself was not their concern.
“How is he?”
Iron Demon’s expression as he clung to the physician coming out after taking the pulse was grave beyond asure.
“I apologize. This is not the pulse of a living person—urk, keh!”
His words were cut off by a strangled cry as his collar was seized. Profound Demon spoke to Iron Demon, who looked as though he might twist the physician’s neck off at any mont.
“There isn’t even ti for that right now.”
At those words, Iron Demon released the physician’s collar as if throwing him aside. The physician fell flat on his backside, then scrambled away in a panic.
Turning his gaze from the fleeing physician, Iron Demon asked Profound Demon,
“So what do we do?”
“This makes three already. It ans the physicians we can find around Qingcheng are useless.”
“So?”
“Poison Demon. We need to bring the Fifth Elder.”
“You know there won’t be any ssage hawks in Qingcheng that can be sent to the Bright Cult.”
Profound Demon nodded at Iron Demon’s question.
“Then you or I will have to run.”
“No matter how desperately we run, it’ll still take at least three or four days.”
“Still better than wasting ti like this.”
“Will he hold out until then?”
“We’ll have to pray that he does.”
After a mont of hesitation at Profound Demon’s words, Iron Demon turned around.
“I’m counting on you.”
Iron Demon’s realm was higher than Profound Demon’s. Accordingly, the amount of internal energy he possessed was greater. While not absolute, lightness skill speed was influenced by the amount of internal energy one had.
That was why Iron Demon chose to run himself, leaving Profound Demon behind.
As Iron Demon rapidly disappeared into the distance, Profound Demon’s body moved like lightning.
The three squad-leader-level martial artists under Iron Demon, who had been standing blankly while staring at the room where Yul Han lay unconscious, collapsed instantly as Profound Demon struck their acupuncture points.
To his own squad leaders, who caught and carefully laid them down, Profound Demon gave an order.
“No matter what happens inside, you must never open the door.”
“We obey!”
After briefly glancing at his two subordinates who bowed without hesitation, Profound Demon stepped into the room where Yul Han lay.
Aside from faint warmth, there was not even the rise and fall of his chest—there was no sign at all that the Vice Cult Leader was alive.
He was not even breathing.
Looking down at the Vice Cult Leader, Profound Demon muttered,
“The greatest obstacle, Iron Demon, has been dealt with. Let us begin, Vice Cult Leader.”
Leaving behind words of unknown intent, Profound Demon lowered himself beside Yul Han.
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