The Great Heavenly Demon Sovereign - Chapter 477

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 477.
[Uuugh…]
The Strange Being let out a groan as Bu Eunseol evaded the finger strike, blood-red light beginning to pour from its eyes.
Whoosh.
The Strange Being extended its index and middle fingers once more, pointing them directly at Bu Eunseol.
The posture resembled the stance of a master swordsman who had perfected an exquisite sword technique when facing an opponent.
‘Flawless.’
Bu Eunseol marveled at the sight.
The Strange Being’s stance revealed not a single opening, and boundless power accumulated at the tips of its fingers.
Should I show even the slightest vulnerability, the finger strike would surely sever my neck in an instant.
‘Conversation can wait.’
I had originally come to speak with the Strange Being.
But in this state, I could not even approach it, let alone engage in dialogue.
“Forgive my rudeness.”
I pressed my index and middle fingers together, forming a finger strike of my own.
Though I did not channel my inner energy, the moment I assumed the stance, I unleashed a sharpness rivaling that of a keen blade.
Crack!
The Strange Being’s finger strike suddenly pierced toward my chest.
Even before the technique fully unfolded, the fabric of my garment was already tearing near my chest.
‘So fast.’
The Strange Being moved faster than the sound of splitting air could propagate.
I dared not meet the technique head-on, instead redirecting the flow of the attack diagonally to my right with a subtle movement of my fingers.
But in that same instant, the technique transformed, and the finger strike was now thrusting toward my lower abdomen.
Slash!
The speed at which the technique shifted was like lightning itself.
I immediately deployed my movement technique and retreated, but the Strange Being was already closing in rapidly.
Its finger strike was now targeting the Zhongfu pressure point near my chest.
‘I cannot evade this.’
Unable to counter the technique, I had no choice but to meet the Strange Being’s finger strike with my own fingers directly.
Boom!
As our fingers collided, a whirlwind erupted in all directions, scattering the hair that had been obscuring the Strange Being’s face.
Only then could I see the Strange Being’s visage clearly.
Its eyes were sharp as blades yet righteous in their gaze, and it was an elderly man with a prominent nose and tightly pressed lips.
[Krrgh.]
The old man, whose eyes dripped with killing intent, suddenly began radiating a dark, demonic light.
Uuuoong.
Black energy like storm clouds began billowing from the old man’s entire body, and suddenly the finger strike technique transformed.
Keeeee!
A piercing screech that seemed to tear the eardrums echoed throughout the cave, and pitch-black energy instantly engulfed the cavern.
In that moment, I felt a pain as though my eardrums were being torn apart.
[Kaaht!]
With the old man’s hoarse shout,
[Whoooosh!]
A sound like silk tearing apart, and simultaneously, a torrent of dark saber energy poured down.
That saber energy soon transformed into a colossal blade that cascaded toward Bu Eunseol’s head.
‘Blood Dew Seven Techniques?’
In that instant, Bu Eunseol’s eyes widened.
The saber technique this old man wielded was precisely the saber energy that erupted when deploying the Blood Dew Seven Techniques, manifested in the form of a blade.
‘Chilji Demonic Sect!’
Bu Eunseol’s chest pounded violently.
‘I’ve finally found him.’
[Thump-thump.]
My heart raced like a madman’s.
To wield such perfect and terrifying power despite possessing no inner energy—
This was proof that he had mastered the Blood Dew Seven Techniques completely.
[Crack!]
While Bu Eunseol’s mind wandered for just a moment, the sharp saber energy was already cleaving through his skull.
‘There’s no escape.’
The old man’s saber energy had seized complete control of time and space.
No matter what method Bu Eunseol employed, there was absolutely no way to evade it.
[Clang!]
As the saber energy struck the skull, a clear ringing sound erupted, and Bu Eunseol was thrust backward.
Unable to avoid the saber energy by any means, I had instead frozen my head solid using the Grand Glacial Seal technique from the Glacier Eternal Stream method.
‘I have the Shenshui Essence to thank for this.’
Because the Shenshui Essence infused into me by Gong Son Dan Ah remained within my body, even when I pushed the Glacier Eternal Stream method to its maximum, there was no significant strain.
It seemed that the Shenshui Essence and the Glacier Eternal Stream method were fundamentally aligned, protecting my meridians and vital points.
[Whoosh.]
Walking forward toward the old man again, Bu Eunseol furrowed his brow.
‘His inner energy is completely sealed. Yet how can he unleash such saber energy?’
Bu Eunseol pondered for a moment, then something clicked, and he nodded.
‘I see. He has cultivated the Blood Dew Seven Techniques to the realm of transcendence.’
That black saber energy doesn’t contain inner energy at all.
It was merely the residual trace of the blade path that naturally erupts from the first move of the Blood Dew Seven Techniques.
[Throb, throb.]
Even though the strike contained no inner energy whatsoever, my skull still throbbed painfully.
If the old man hadn’t lost his inner energy? Even if I had deployed the Adamantine Indestructible Body technique instead of the Grand Glacial Seal, my skull would have split in two.
[Whoooosh!]
Then once more, black saber energy poured forth from between the dark clouds,
[Crack!]
Curving smoothly like a whip, it cleaved toward Bu Eunseol’s waist, threatening to split him in half.
He unleashed the Blood Dew Seven Techniques once more, scattering blade energy in all directions.
‘Still impossible to evade.’
Clang!
Bu Eunseol deployed the Great Tranquility Ice Palm again, blocking the blade energy that carved toward her ribs.
Despite the numbing effect of the Great Tranquility Ice Palm, she felt a sharp pain as though her ribs were shattering.
‘This is the Blood Dew Seven Techniques.’
Though the old man repeated the same initial move consecutively,
it transformed into an inescapable killing stroke that burrowed deep into Bu Eunseol’s body.
The Way of the Blade.
This old man had ascended to a realm of blade mastery that even Bu Eunseol dared not pursue.
Roooaaarrr!
The old man unleashed a tremendous roar that seemed to shake Chamhoe Cave itself.
Enraged beyond reason that Bu Eunseol refused to die despite his relentless blade strikes.
‘His mind is fractured.’
Observing the wild, inverted gleam in the old man’s eyes, Bu Eunseol could discern that his spirit had been shattered beyond repair.
‘What am I to do?’
In that moment, the old man conjured another blade and prepared to unleash a torrent of blade energy upon her.
In such circumstances, there was no choice but to draw upon all her inner force and suppress him by overwhelming power.
‘Better to offer my neck than endure this humiliation.’
Bu Eunseol’s pride was wounded.
Unable to withstand the techniques of a dying old man, forced to exhaust all her inner force merely to suppress him?
Whoosh.
Bu Eunseol withdrew her blade and clasped her hands together as she spoke.
“Elder!”
At her sudden shout, the old man instinctively halted his assault.
“I cannot contend with your techniques now. Allow me time to contemplate them, and I shall return for further instruction!”
Conversation could wait.
Bu Eunseol wished to study and internalize this old man’s techniques, then suppress him without drawing upon her inner force.
“Grant me a moment.”
As she turned her body,
Whoosh!
Two streaks of pitch-black blade energy simultaneously blocked her front and her escape route.
The second technique of the Blood Dew Seven Techniques—a variation of the Four-Layered Bow transformed into a new form.
As the blade energy carved toward her body,
Shimmering!
Bu Eunseol’s form became translucent, then spawned ninety-nine shadows in the empty air.
Crack!
Her body turned transparent, and the blade energy the old man unleashed scraped against the cave wall before dissipating.
“I used inner force to evade just now… but wait for me.”
Without turning her head, Bu Eunseol murmured in a low voice, then calmly walked out of the cave.
As his figure completely vanished,
―Uuuuuugh!
The old man bound in chains wailed mournfully from within the prison.
When Bu Eunseol emerged, the demonic cultivators who had been resting in the cave rushed out.
“What happened?”
And at the very front stood Tak Il Hon, his eyes wide open.
“Did you actually fight him?”
“Well, I simply exchanged a brief conversation through physical means, that’s all.”
“A conversation through physical means?”
At that moment, a portly elder walked out from among the demonic cultivators.
“I see. Your inner energy remains intact.”
Having deployed the Extreme Speed Shadowless Technique at full power, a faint shimmer of vital energy rippled from his body.
Moreover, having continuously unleashed the Great Frozen Palm, wisps of pale cold still emanated from him.
“Indeed, it is.”
When Bu Eunseol readily admitted this, the portly elder’s eyebrows shot upward.
“How is that possible?”
“I had hidden my power beforehand.”
“Hidden it beforehand?”
“Before entering Shaolin, I dispersed roughly half of my inner power throughout the Eight Extraordinary Meridians and the Three Yin Meridians.”
Upon hearing this answer, the portly elder and the demonic cultivators exchanged glances.
To distribute and store inner power accumulated in the dantian across the Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Three Yin Meridians was theoretically possible at best.
For such a feat to be achievable, one would need to possess an unimaginable level of inner power.
“With such reserves, you could have subdued that old man locked in the prison in a single breath?”
To the portly elder’s suspicious question, Bu Eunseol passed him by with a weary expression, muttering softly.
“It would wound my pride.”
“Huh?”
“How could a vigorous young man overpower an elder through sheer force?”
Bu Eunseol’s eyes gleamed as I bit my lip.
“I decided to fight without using my power until I could subdue him.”
“That’s…”
The old man’s mouth gaped open like a fish.
The old man confined in the Stone Chamber Prison was someone they could not dare face, even if their inner power remained intact.
Truly Death itself.
A terrifying figure who struck fear even into demonic cultivators who had transcended life and death.
Yet the young man before them bore an expression of misfortune, as though he had simply taken some unlucky blows during a sparring match?
“Then, I shall rest for a while.”
Bu Eunseol moved forward with weary, listless steps.
As he disappeared into the cave, the demonic cultivators exchanged glances and blinked repeatedly.
The demonic cultivators here were once geniuses of martial arts who astonished the world in their youth.
And having grown old, they had become great demonic masters who dominated Tianxia.
They too could not even imagine reaching the same level as Bu Eunseol at that age.
“What… exactly is that person?”
At Tung Bo’s words, Tak Il Hon replied flatly.
“Just a thief.”
“A thief? That one?”
The elders shook their heads.
“If that one is a thief, then I am an immortal who never ages.”
“That’s just what he claims himself to be.”
As Tak Il Hon smacked his lips and muttered,
“Hmm.”
The elders each let out a grunt of acknowledgment before turning their bodies back toward their respective caves.
“That one.”
Tak Il Hon gazed toward where Bu Eunseol had vanished, his expression vacant.
From the beginning, it was clear that he was no thief but rather a young master of martial arts of the highest order.
But why?
Why would he stake his life in a struggle against the one called Death imprisoned in that dungeon?
―My pride would not allow otherwise.
As Bu Eunseol’s stubborn gaze and voice suddenly surfaced in his mind,
“Hehehehe. Ahahaha!”
Tak Il Hon burst into bewildered laughter.
Thud.
As his laughter ceased,
“A madman obsessed with martial arts, after all.”
He muttered as if spitting out the words, then turned away.
Meanwhile, Bu Eunseol, who had entered the cave, began to review the fight up to that point.
‘He is formidable. Overwhelmingly so among all the masters I have encountered.’
The old man imprisoned in the dungeon had subdued Bu Eunseol in an instant without using any inner energy whatsoever.
This was because he had cultivated the Blood Dew Seven Techniques, an ultimate secret art, to the realm of mastery.
‘If I could master the Blood Dew Seven Techniques and deploy it freely in any form I wished… I would truly reach an invincible realm.’
If I could master the Blood Dew Seven Techniques to that degree, I would be fully capable of countering the ‘phenomena’ displayed by masters of the Limitless Realm.
‘But Chilji Demonic Sect must have also reached the Limitless Realm.’
Chilji Demonic Sect had pacified the Demonic Path and ascended to its pinnacle,
yet the period during which he actually operated in the Murim was not particularly long.
However, the people of Murim predicted that he had at least reached the threshold of the Limitless Realm.
Considering the martial accomplishments he had established while standing alone and supreme in the Murim… he was certainly not inferior to Jeong Ma Ssang Cheon Je.
‘But…’
Bu Eunseol shook her head and stroked her chin.
Upon witnessing the old man’s deployment of the Blood Dew Seven Techniques, Bu Eunseol sensed something amiss.
‘Could it be that the Blood Dew Seven Techniques was created to fight against masters two or three levels higher than oneself?’
The Blood Dew Seven Techniques contained no defensive techniques.
Bu Eunseol believed this stemmed from Chil Ji Ma Do Bu Chanyang’s own yearning for death.
Yet the techniques the old man unleashed were not merely a longing for self-destruction alone.
It was as though he sought mutual annihilation with one far stronger than himself.
The blade’s momentum was extraordinarily narrow and directed inward, each move infused with a self-destructive transformation.
As if he meant to deliver death simultaneously upon both himself and his opponent.
‘That cannot be.’
Bu Eunseol shook her head.
The old man’s mind was not intact.
Perhaps this was why he could not unfold the Blood Dew Seven Techniques according to their original form.
Yet what truly seemed strange was his appearance.
‘His face is far too different.’
I had once seen a portrait of Chil Ji Ma Do Bu Chanyang in his middle years at the Bi Young Gak.
Rather than possessing refined features, his face had radiated an unyielding spirit and a palpable savage beauty.
Yet this old man, despite his face contorted in frenzy, possessed facial features that were quite smooth, did he not?
‘It is incomprehensible.’
Bu Eunseol reclined against one side of the cave.
There was nothing to be understood in the present circumstances.
A situation where even a glance could trigger the Blood Dew Seven Techniques from this terrifying Gwae Noin—hardly conducive to leisurely conversation.
All that remained was to hone my martial arts and achieve equal footing in technique-by-technique combat.
* * *
From that day forward, Bu Eunseol remained in the cave, locked in endless combat with the imprisoned old man.
Yet the old man’s Blood Dew Seven Techniques transformed infinitely—not merely technique-by-technique exchanges.
Without inner power, defense itself became impossible.
‘Perhaps it is the sense of security from unconsciously wielding inner power?’
Because I could use inner power, I could fight without fear or hesitation.
With five hundred years of immense inner power flowing through my body, there was no risk of death from the old man’s techniques.
‘Because such a safety mechanism exists, there is no progress even in extreme combat.’
My inner power reserves were far too vast and deep, and when danger arose, it would naturally manifest.
In essence, I could not stake my life on victory.
‘It is fine to abandon the fight midway and return. But if I continue fighting with this inner power, I will not prevail even after a year.’
Eventually, Bu Eunseol ceased visiting the prison and confined herself within the cave.
Immersed in meditation, I endlessly researched the secret of reducing my inner power to its absolute minimum.
To fight the old man—who wielded the Blood Dew Seven Techniques without power—under identical conditions.
Yet this proved no simple task.
Humans are designed to unconsciously unleash all their abilities when facing absolute desperation.
Moreover, temporarily suppressing or restraining five hundred years of accumulated power was virtually impossible.
‘It cannot be done.’
As I reviewed and studied the inner power techniques, frustration drove me to strike the cave wall lightly.
Thud.
Yet because I unconsciously unleashed my inner power, the cave’s ceiling resonated with a tremendous boom.
Thud.
At that same moment, a stone fragment fell from the ceiling to the floor.
Whether by chance or design, it maintained a perfectly spherical form, like a medicinal pill.
―The Five Animals Frolics of Hwa Ta, who was called the Sage of Medicine, and the fundamental teachings of the Jeonjin Sect, which was the wellspring of Daoism…
Suddenly, the Daoist secrets that Gong Son Dan Ah had given me in the Gugok Mountain Underground City surfaced in my mind.
There had been a staggering five thousand characters written in minuscule script, and out of respect for her sincerity, I had memorized every word of those secrets before burning them.
Yet at the end of that scripture lay a rather absurd technique called the Elixir Refinement Secret.
―The dantian is empty and thus can be filled; even if it becomes full, it can be made as deep and round as an abyss.
Refine fierce power, release sticky power, and at last you may become one with the cosmos….
It was a secret method to concentrate overflowing internal energy and then disperse and store it in places other than the qi sea acupoint.
―What fool would ever master such a secret?
At the time, even as I memorized the scripture, I could not suppress my laughter.
From a martial artist’s perspective, the deeper and thicker one’s internal energy, the better.
No one would bother to concentrate their internal energy only to disperse it elsewhere, deliberately weakening their power through such a technique.
‘But now, such a situation has come to pass.’
I smiled faintly and recited the scripture of the Elixir Refinement Secret.
The first stage of the Elixir Refinement Secret was to imagine two separate spaces within the dantian and temporarily store internal energy in one of them.
Of course, it was impossible to actually divide the dantian into two spaces, and concentrating formless internal energy was equally impossible.
But the cultivation method of internal energy teaches that all things are functions of the mind, and the body merely responds accordingly.
Unlike the body, the mind has no definite limits, and thus can be expanded or contracted infinitely.
‘It works.’
I instantly divided my dantian into two spaces and concentrated my internal energy in one of them.
‘How could this be so simple?’
In truth, such an Elixir Refinement Secret typically required ten years of cultivation before it could be used, even for those with deep internal energy.
But I could already wield yin-yang transformation freely, and my internal energy level was unmatched in this age.
Without realizing it, I had leaped over ten years of time.
‘This is…’
Yet something was strange.
As I concentrated the internal energy in one space, it began to take on a form as deep as an abyss, smooth and perfectly round.
‘It’s as if I’m nurturing an egg.’
Creating a separate space within the body through meditation to concentrate internal energy.
This very secret was the method by which Moo Hak Dae Jong Sa could completely control his formidable power, and the secret to generating an inner elixir…
Yet I, knowing nothing of such things, was driven solely by the resolve to face the old man in fair combat.
I created this new space and quietly accumulated my internal energy within it.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————