How to Live as an Immortal Chapter 76

Chapter 76

Ha, was I your Mara?

***

The mont Ga-on finished gathering his enlightennt and steadied his breathing, steam leaked out through his teeth. A rough and violent sound, like that of a train.

The heavy snow that ca crashing down evaporated before it could even touch his shoulders.

At the mont he awakened to the teaching the old monk had failed to pass on, the ancient martial art that had been at a standstill advanced by one stage.

He had rely aid his sword forward, yet the illusion that his body had swollen spread among everyone present.

At that, X laughed hollowly.

A spiritual bearing so firm that even a heat haze ford.

That realm had already stepped beyond the laws of physics.

Sure enough, sothing flashed—and the blade of a sword was suddenly thrust toward the end of his neck.

A speed so fast it was hard to believe it belonged to a human.

X retreated while releasing blue currents, but Ga-on did not miss even that and followed close behind.

Now even Umbrella Tower was no longer capable of containing the fierce clash between the two. There was no need to say who struck first. They had both embodied the very concept of cutting. Before them, there was nothing that could not be severed.

Thud.

Part of the observatory was slashed diagonally and fell down below.

Only afterward did the booming crash echo throughout Eden Park. From the unexpected shock, the exterior materials peeled away, and the massive concrete structure reaching a full 267 ters shook violently as a bonus.

If Ga-on pursued the line of counter that pierced openings, then what X pursued was the line of aftermath. In other words, the ultimate principle of striking later yet arriving first.

Like a relationship of mutual restraint where one devours the other, the two swords tangled around each other like serpents.

Ga-on rotated clockwise while X rotated counterclockwise.

Rotation and reverse rotation.

As the two different storms collided, Umbrella Tower twisted once again.

As perfectly equal exchanges—like reflections in a mirror—continued endlessly and recorded a thousand strikes every second, Ga-on whipped his body even harder.

It felt as though he might collapse at any mont, yet within it he could feel a sense of liberation.

When had I last swung my sword to my heart’s content?

Was it when I first deflected a shell with the flat of my blade? When I cut a building in half?

No matter how much I thought about it, the only answer that ca to mind was now.

“You’re still growing even after coming this far. Indeed, your persistence is impressive.”

Now, it would not have been an exaggeration to say there was no longer a difference in rank between the two, yet X reacted calmly.

Because the counterweight to place on the scale that balanced them still existed.

Shraaak.

The mont the raincoat spread open, four arms revealed themselves from within.

Each gripping swords of different forms.

A pair of ultra-high-temperature blades and a pair of ultra-vibration blades.

There was nothing impossible for a full-body prosthetic created from the essence of modern engineering. One such capability was attaching and detaching body parts that humans originally could not possess.

Looking at the six arms spread wide open, one word ca to Ga-on’s mind.

“Asura.”

“As expected, you thought of that as well?”

Ga-on had been gaining the upper hand little by little, but the situation reversed once four additional swords were added. Since thrusts ca in from five directions, even blocking them beca overwhelming.

Looking down at Ga-on arrogantly, X twisted the corner of his mouth.

“Where did all that montum from earlier go?”

Amid the torrential rain of sword strikes that surged like a storm.

Under the endless pressure, Ga-on prescribed himself a desperate redy. He decided to offer up his neck. Only to the extent that it would not be completely severed.

The very act of making such a decision was suicidal, but Ga-on possessed a trait different from others.

“Right, right. You don’t die! Yes, that’s it!”

X slashed wildly like a madman, yet that final step—just that one step—failed to reach.

Barely forcing the situation through sheer stubbornness, Ga-on expanded his territory and aid for the newly protruding swords. No matter how terrifying those weapons were, before a monomolecular blade they were no different from straw.

However, X was not soone who would fail to notice such signs in advance. Whenever Ga-on aid for an opening, he responded with the sa monomolecular blade, never giving even the slightest pretext.

In the razor-sharp exchanges that continued without pause, Ga-on’s neck was severed and his consciousness was cut off several tis, yet his fighting spirit never broke.

Thud.

It was then, amid the endless tug-of-war, that the rooftop collapsed.

As the center of gravity tilted to one side, the stairways supporting the observatory also toppled like dominoes.

And thus, the chain collapse began.

Breaking through the cloud of dust, the two leaped out. Even while sliding down the outer wall of the observatory as if using it as the ground, they did not withdraw the killing intent directed at each other.

However, both of them had escaped the strobe phenonon.

Due to the nature of ancient martial arts, which could only exert their true power when perpendicular to the ground, the wall made entirely of glass panels was unsuitable to serve as foothold.

“With this, you must have lost your power.”

“You, don’t tell ……”

“That’s right. The one who destroyed the axis of the observatory was .”

After realizing they shared the sa martial art, he had induced the current situation in order to exploit that weakness. If the subtlety of rotation could not be utilized, then the side with more effective strikes held the advantage.

Cornering Ga-on, X drew in even the positional energy generated by the fall and unleashed his final technique.

It was the ultimate martial art manifested through six arms.

[Sunmudo Final Secret Technique Black Lotus Flower]

The six trajectories that curled inward from the outside and slaughtered the opponent resembled a lotus flower, which was how the technique earned its na.

Naturally, true to its origin, there were no blind spots whatsoever.

Ga-on, who faced it head-on, also keenly realized it.

One hand could not block ten hands. Even if he countered while drawing the optimal route, gaps inevitably appeared.

And allowing even a single gap ant being gruesoly chopped to pieces.

If his consciousness were cut off and Jin Geon happened to witness him reviving, the relationships he had painstakingly built after coming to Mars would turn into ashes.

Becoming a fugitive would be an added consequence.

As the distance between him and the blades pressing in from all directions narrowed, his sense of crisis also grew clearer.

Within thoughts expanding endlessly, Ga-on realized sothing.

Even the seemingly perfect Black Lotus Flower had a flaw.

At the beginning of the battle, Ga-on had seized one sword.

What should have originally been six slashes had been reduced to five. A technique whose balance had collapsed could not possibly remain perfect.

Certain that he could evade it, Ga-on forced his blade into the storm raging in chaos.

The mont the five entangled lines converged into a single point and stopped.

The direction was correct, but—

‘I’m being pushed back.’

There were five blades that needed to be brushed aside. Even by simple calculation, he needed five tis the force. If he could not overco this difficulty, his entire body would be shattered along with the monomolecular blade.

Kiiiik.

Within mories that flashed past like a revolving lantern, that monuntal day suddenly ca to mind.

The day the old monk cut the boulder.

Back when I was immature, I did not know it, but now I could be certain. He had also used rotation.

There was no need to hesitate over whether the answer I had found was wrong. The existence of X itself served as proof.

Pshhhk.

A drug cocktail poured out from the hormone regulator and rushed through his entire body.

His mind heightened without knowing limits.

Falling into a state of selflessness, Ga-on dismantled and reassembled the path he had walked until now.

Centrifugal force was, after all, rely a conceptual term—a concept beloved by humanity and an extension of inertia seen everywhere.

And inertia was a phenonon born from action and reaction.

If there was no place to plant my feet and form an axis—

‘Then I transfer it.’

That was all.

The mont his perspective shifted, the limits that had defined him peeled away like a layer of skin.

The journey of the past three hundred years had not been in vain. Through relentless training, he had reached the point of constructing a virtual main axis.

[Arhat First Form False Rotation Axis]

The rotation manifested using the shoulder as an axis transferred into the forearm. The monomolecular blade trembled finely and deflected the five swords in a single instant.

X, whose Black Lotus Flower had been broken, could not hide his shock.

“What….”

There was not even a foothold in the empty air, but such restrictions no longer ant anything to Ga-on.

The advantage of the False Rotation Axis was that the axis could move freely.

No matter the posture, he could employ the subtlety of rotation just as before.

The countless branching paths created from that granted Ga-on infinite possibilities.

Crack.

The backlash grew just as strong, and his muscles and bones shattered, but Ga-on did not care. They recovered in an instant. Rather, he even used that as a ans to raise his pace.

“Now.”

The ground was not far away, so it was ti to fire the celebratory cannon.

Ankles and calves, knees, thighs and pelvis, waist, shoulders, and arms.

As the arbitrarily designated axes resonated with one another, the rotations overlapped.

X unfolded Black Lotus Flower once again, but before the condensed power, it was aningless resistance.

Crack.

In the blink of an eye, the swords he had been so proud of shattered into pieces and scattered among the falling piles of concrete.

Seeing Ga-on reach a place he himself had never attained, X laughed emptily.

“Ha, were you my Mara.”

“Farewell.”

The mont the falling Ga-on swung his sword, the world split in two and let out a scream.

***

Umbrella Tower, with only its skeleton exposed, was still spewing out piles of concrete. Perhaps it would not stop until its body completely collapsed.

Moving here and there while cutting apart the falling debris with single strokes, Ga-on soon discovered X not far away.

His six arms had been destroyed so miserably that not even one remained, yet he was still operating.

“Do you still have business with ? I said it before, I am only here to uproot Eden……”

“That’s enough. That’s not what I want to hear.”

“Then what is it?”

“That swordsmanship. Who did you learn it from?”

Perhaps because it was an unexpected question, X was able to laugh cheerfully despite his defeat.

“Hahaha, you are bold to the very end.”

“Just answer.”

“If you intend to trace the origin, that’s unfortunate. I learned it through self-study.”

“I see.”

It did not seem like he would lie after coming this far, so Ga-on accepted it readily.

“Even if I ask what your identity is now, you probably won’t answer.”

“Amal Kam. I am Amal Kam.”

“You……”

Ga-on’s expression stiffened at the unexpected response.

“Do not look at with such eyes. I simply judged that this would make things fair.”

Amal Kam. It was a na I had heard once before.

“I heard you were dead.”

“What you know is not the entirety of the world. The truth disappears quietly where nothing exists and no one knows. Is that not the sa with your own existence?”

“I’ll admit you have quite the tongue.”

Heh heh, Amal smiled faintly and added.

“As long as you cannot escape death and continue wandering through this present life, we will et again soday. It is my karma to save the sentient beings who cannot settle their karmic debts.”

“Don’t spout nonsense.”

Although I grumbled while stomping on his head, the lights of the full-body prosthetic had already gone out. He was unpleasant to the very end. Even so, what I gained was not small.

I had even been able to identify the identity called Amal Kam.

It seed like I could pin everything on Yang Hu without hesitation.

Feeling sowhat relieved, Ga-on turned his back. But upon seeing the face of the person who had approached, his expression hardened.

“Mr. Geon.”

For a mont I beca wary, wondering if he had overheard the conversation, but that did not seem to be the case. There was no need to even confirm it.

“Please explain. How were you able to use that swordsmanship?”

Because an even greater bomb had just been dropped.

“Mr. Ga-on, or rather Sword Demon Yang Hu.”