Chapter 504

The torches went out.

The flames themselves froze.

Only the moonlight remained.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

The man who had first shouted from the guard post was the last. He froze before the wooden barricade while attempting to flee, his body twisted as he looked back, his face still locked in terror.

Fifteen.

It was over.

Only Pung Jaeun and Gwak Sehyun remained.

Their inner energy at Unity of Heaven and Man had endured the Heavenly Snow Force. Endured it—but they were far from unharmed. Thick frost covered Pung Jaeun’s sword. Ice clung to Gwak Sehyun’s paired blades. White breath streamed from both men. Their faces had turned blue.

Fifteen men had frozen to death in the blink of an eye.

“Mad......”

The sound escaped Gwak Sehyun’s mouth.

“You madman......”

Unhwi looked at Gwak Sehyun.

“Mad?”

He nodded.

“You may be right.”

He raised his sword.

Pung Jaeun gritted his teeth and leveled his blade.

“Once you make an enemy of the Heaven-Law Platform, there will be no end to it!!”

“Gwak Hyeongjin told me the same thing.”

Unhwi stepped forward.

“So I gave him my answer.”

“.......”

“I am a man who knows no end either.”

And then—

“Does an ‘end’ shouted by common thugs hold any meaning?”

The words trampled upon their pride itself.

Before Pung Jaeun could say anything, Unhwi vanished from where he stood.

Pung Jaeun’s eyes searched for him.

Left.

He swung his sword on instinct.

It cut through empty air.

Nothing.

Right.

He felt the wind.

He turned.

Raised his sword.

Clang—

He blocked.

Unhwi’s sword collided with Pung Jaeun’s.

Pung Jaeun’s arm went numb. Cold climbed up his sword. The hilt froze. His fingers began to stiffen.

But he endured.

With the inner energy of Unity of Heaven and Man.

Teeth clenched.

“Gwak Sehyun!!”

Pung Jaeun shouted.

Gwak Sehyun charged from behind.

His paired blades aimed for Unhwi’s back.

Unhwi forced Pung Jaeun’s sword aside.

He turned.

Gwak Sehyun’s blades swept past Unhwi’s side.

His robe split.

They did not reach his flesh.

Unhwi’s sword rose.

It struck one of Gwak Sehyun’s blades.

Clang—

The blade flew from his hand.

The one in his right hand.

Gwak Sehyun slashed with the blade in his left.

Unhwi stepped back.

The blade passed directly before his face.

Pung Jaeun thrust from behind.

Unhwi lowered his body.

Pung Jaeun’s sword passed over his head.

Turning, Unhwi swept his sword horizontally.

Aimed at Pung Jaeun’s abdomen.

Pung Jaeun retreated. He evaded by a hair. His clothes were cut open, exposing his flesh.

Where the ice energy had grazed him, his skin had turned blue.

Pung Jaeun gritted his teeth.

Both men attacked at once.

Pung Jaeun from the front.

Gwak Sehyun from the side.

Sword and blade poured in from every direction.

Unhwi moved.

Blocked.

Evaded.

Struck.

Three movements as one.

Clang. Swish. Thud.

He blocked Pung Jaeun’s sword, evaded Gwak Sehyun’s blade, and struck through Pung Jaeun’s opening.

A wound appeared on Pung Jaeun’s left shoulder.

Shallow.

But ice energy seeped inside. His left arm began to stiffen. Pung Jaeun forced it out with his inner energy.

That took time.

During that time, Unhwi moved toward Gwak Sehyun.

Gwak Sehyun’s paired blades rose.

The blade in his left hand aimed for Unhwi’s neck.

Unhwi tilted his head.

The blade passed his ear.

Unhwi’s sword thrust forward.

Into Gwak Sehyun’s right thigh.

Deeply.

“Ghk......!”

Gwak Sehyun screamed.

His knee buckled.

One knee struck the ground.

Unhwi pulled out his sword.

He turned.

Pung Jaeun had expelled the ice energy from his left arm and was charging.

With everything he had.

A final strike.

His inner energy was concentrated within his sword. The blade radiated crimson energy.

Fire energy.

Fire energy opposing Unhwi’s ice.

A strike delivered with his life on the line.

Unhwi raised his sword.

He met it head-on.

Boom—

Impact.

The courtyard split apart.

Dust erupted.

Steam surged where fire and ice collided.

The dust cleared.

Pung Jaeun’s sword had snapped in two.

Still gripping the broken blade, Pung Jaeun stared at Unhwi.

There was not a single crack in Unhwi’s sword.

The True Fire Heavenly Spirit Sword.

Unhwi’s sword was buried in Pung Jaeun’s chest.

Deeply.

Pung Jaeun’s eyes opened wide.

Blood flowed from his mouth.

“......Monster...... How can this...... be Unity of Heaven and Man......?”

Unhwi pulled out his sword.

Pung Jaeun fell forward.

He did not move again.

Unhwi turned.

Gwak Sehyun was on the ground, clutching his thigh.

He was trying to escape.

One hand braced against the ground as he crawled on one leg.

Toward the wooden barricade.

Unhwi walked after him.

Not quickly.

Matching Gwak Sehyun’s pace.

Gwak Sehyun looked back as he crawled.

Unhwi was following.

Slowly.

Without haste.

Despair appeared on Gwak Sehyun’s face.

“......Please.......”

Unhwi did not stop.

At last, Gwak Sehyun stopped crawling.

There was no longer any point.

He turned over.

He looked up at Unhwi.

“Why...... are you doing this......?”

“I already told you why.”

Unhwi stopped before Gwak Sehyun.

“You reached for my people.”

“We were not the ones who did it! The Seventh Seat, the Ninth Seat, the Twelfth Seat...... and the commander of the Heaven-Law Platform......”

“The Heaven-Law Platform did it.”

Unhwi cut him off.

“It does not matter who carried it out. The Heaven-Law Platform did it.”

“.......”

“So the Heaven-Law Platform will repay it.”

Unhwi’s sword descended.

Slice.

With the sound of severed flesh, blood flowed from Gwak Sehyun’s neck.

His head separated from his body.

The courtyard fell silent.

Pung Jaeun, Twentieth Seat of the Heaven-Law Platform.

Gwak Sehyun, Twenty-Second Seat of the Heaven-Law Platform.

Standing in the courtyard, Unhwi’s expression remained cold.

Once something had begun, it had to be seen through to the end.

That was only natural.

Unhwi intended to make the world understand that touching his people could be repaid only with death.

More precisely, he had already made that clear long ago.

But people always thought the same thing.

Surely not me.

If the other side is powerful enough, filled with warriors stronger than him, surely he will bend that stubbornness and compromise.

No.

Unhwi had never done so. Not for a single moment.

One way or another, the other side would lower its head.

Either by kneeling or by repaying the offense with death.

One way or another, he always brought matters to an end.

The Heaven-Law Platform was no exception.

Either the Heaven-Law Immortal would die.

Or he would kneel and apologize for his wrongdoing.

Or—impossible though it was—the entire Heaven-Law Platform would bow its head and crawl beneath Unhwi.

Only one of those three outcomes would remain at the end.

Silently, Unhwi wiped the blood from his sword.

Then he began.

First, he severed the heads one by one.

Twenty-three heads.

He erected stakes along the wooden barricade.

Just as he had at Long Forest Mountain.

One.

Two.

Three.

Ten.

Twenty.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-three heads were placed above the barricade.

Moonlight shone upon them.

Unhwi entered one of the buildings.

He found paper and ink.

He sat at a table.

He picked up a brush.

He thought for a moment.

Then he wrote.

Eight characters.

—You trampled my courtyard. I shall trample your lair.

He set down the brush.

He carried the paper outside.

He fixed it to the stake at the center of the barricade.

Not beside the message at Long Forest Mountain, but here, at the center of this outpost.

Amid the twenty-three heads.

The wind blew.

The paper fluttered.

Unhwi turned away.

Once again, he did not look back.

He disappeared.

***

Two days later, one man arrived at the Spirit Heaven Mountain outpost.

Seop Gyeong.

Ninth Seat of the Heaven-Law Platform.

Small and thin, with the eyes of a bird of prey.

The man who had caught Namgung Wonyang’s sword between two fingers.

He had come to investigate the Spirit Heaven Mountain outpost after its regular communications ceased.

A report had already arrived stating that contact with the Long Forest Mountain outpost had also been lost.

Gwak Hyeongjin’s outpost as well.

Contact with three locations had been severed within a single day.

Tension spread throughout the Heaven-Law Platform.

Seop Gyeong entered the Spirit Heaven Mountain outpost.

The first thing he saw was the wooden barricade.

Something had been arranged along its top.

He approached.

Stopped.

Heads.

Twenty-three heads had been impaled upon stakes.

He saw Pung Jaeun’s face.

He saw Gwak Sehyun’s face.

Seop Gyeong’s expression froze.

“......What is this......?”

Gritting his teeth, he headed into the courtyard.

The corpses were not there.

Only the heads remained on the barricade.

The bodies had been stacked at one side of the courtyard.

Neatly.

Organized.

This was not mere humiliation.

It was deliberate.

They had been arranged to be seen.

Seop Gyeong returned to the barricade.

A sheet of paper had been fixed to the central stake.

It fluttered in the wind.

Seop Gyeong pulled it free.

He unfolded it.

Eight characters were written upon it.

—You trampled my courtyard. I shall trample your lair.

Seop Gyeong read the words.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

His brow furrowed.

My courtyard.

Blood Spirit Hall.

It referred to the Seventh, Ninth, and Twelfth Seats of the Heaven-Law Platform visiting Blood Spirit Hall.

That much was obvious.

But your lair.

That was the problem.

Seop Gyeong’s eyes narrowed.

A lair......

The word did not refer to an outpost.

The outposts had already been trampled.

Three of them.

The result stood before his eyes.

There was no reason to write I shall trample about places that had already been destroyed.

Then it referred to somewhere not yet touched.

Somewhere that could be called a lair.

Seop Gyeong’s eyes widened.

His hand trembled.

The paper shook.

Surely not.

The lair.

The lair of the Heaven-Law Platform.

Heaven-Law Cliff.

The headquarters.

He knows where Heaven-Law Cliff is?

Gwak Hyeongjin.

The pieces came together in Seop Gyeong’s mind.

Gwak Hyeongjin’s outpost had been struck first.

Then Long Forest Mountain.

Then Spirit Heaven Mountain.

The answer was clear.

Gwak Hyeongjin had spoken.

The locations of the outposts had been extracted from him.

And the location of Heaven-Law Cliff as well.

The moment Seop Gyeong reached that conclusion, his face turned white.

He crumpled the paper in his fist.

Turned.

And launched into movement arts.

At full speed.

As he ran, he shouted.

His voice, reinforced with inner energy, shook the mountain.

“Everyone return!! Return to Heaven-Law Cliff immediately!!”

His voice echoed through the mountain range.

Seop Gyeong vanished.

Silence descended upon the Spirit Heaven Mountain outpost.

The wind blew.

The crumpled paper lay upon the ground.

Twenty-three heads stood in a row beneath the moonlight.

Silent.

***

Blue Rock Valley.

A valley filled with blue-gray stone.

Beneath a cliff stood a single house carved directly from the rock.

Unhwi stopped at the entrance to the valley.

He sensed one presence.

The person was clearly circulating energy.

Unhwi did not conceal his own presence.

Frost formed across the courtyard.

The flow of energy inside the house changed.

The circulation stopped, and the door opened.

A woman emerged.

Han Soyeong.

She appeared to be in her late twenties.

Neat martial robes. Unmarked black clothing. A cold face.

She looked at Unhwi.

Her eyes narrowed.

She did not appear surprised.

No—she must have been.

She simply did not show it.

She was a warrior of the Heaven-Law Platform.

“Blood Heaven Arbiter.”

Unhwi answered.

“Han Soyeong, Twelfth Seat of the Heaven-Law Platform.”

Han Soyeong examined him.

Bloodstains marked his robe in several places.

None of the blood was his.

Han Soyeong’s eyes narrowed further.

“......Have you come from killing warriors of the Heaven-Law Platform?”

“I killed them. I destroyed their outposts.”

“......How many?”

“Three.”

“.......”

“Gwak Hyeongjin. Ma Seungnyeol. Noh Gyeongseok. Pung Jaeun. Gwak Sehyun. And everyone beneath them.”

The corner of Han Soyeong’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly.

“In a single day?”

“I was short on time.”

Silence passed between them.