C 419
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"What happened?"
Yong Seol-ran blinked her big eyes.
Her face was filled with confusion.
Pyo Wol couldn't hide his bewildered expression at the unexpected sight either.
The devastation that greeted them was almost like an earthquake. Had there been a real earthquake, the stone chamber they were in would have collapsed completely.
Pyo Wol studied the devastated landscape carefully.
As a result, he was able to quickly figure out what had happened here.
"Two absolute masters fought here."
"Absolute masters?"
"One must be the Ghost King, for sure. And the other is..."
You'd have to see it to believe it.
At that moment.
Boom!
There was a loud explosion on the other side of the ruins.
Startled, the animals ran for cover and the birds soared high into the sky.
Two figures could be seen beyond the dispersing dust.
They were fighting high in the sky, piercing through the dust.
"Huah!"
"Chah!"
The ones who were fighting fiercely as they shouted were none other than the Ghost King and the Master of Life and Death, Gyeongmusaeng.
"Did they follow us here?"
"Who is that person?"
"The Master of Life and Death!"
"The Master of Life and Death, Gyeongmusaeng? One of the eight constellations, you mean?"
"Yes!"
"Oh my goodness!"
Yong Seol-ran covered her mouth with both hands.
The Eight Constellations were the top martial artists in Kangho.
They didn't belong to any of the major sects like the One River School, the Three Gates, or the Three Clans. However, they had the reputation of being individually powerful enough to compete with them.
Among them, the Ghost King and the Master of Life and Death were very special beings.
This was because they were the absolute masters who stood at the top of the eight constellations in the sky.
"Why are they fighting?"
It was a natural question for Yong Seol-ran, who didn't know the tangled relationship between the Ghost King and Gyeongmusaeng.
Pyo Wol didn't answer and just watched them fight.
Did the Master of Life and Death follow us here?
Surely, Pyo Wol and the ghost king had been on the move stealthily.
They hadn't done anything that would make anyone notice them, and they hadn't caused any particular trouble.
No doubt due to the Soul Binding Technique, the Master of Life and Death had found this place despite giving no reason to be followed.
There must be a connection with the Heavenly Martial Sect if the descendant of Gyeong Chu-wol is clear.
The question was what kind of relationship the Heavenly Martial Sect and Guryongsalmak had.
The problem would be serious if the two organisations were somehow related or working together.
Pyo Wol wanted to subdue the Master of Life and Death directly and find out the situation. However, he couldn't.
It was the Master of Life and Death who created the Ghost King as he is now.
He who tied the knot should untie it, that was the law of the world.
Pyo Wol had to leave everything to the Ghost King.
Kwaang!
The clash between the two intensified.
The Ghost King unleashed a ferocious attack based on his tremendous internal energy, while the Master of Life and Death unleashed unheard-of techniques.
"Darkness reigns!"
With his incantation, the sky turned pitch black.
Darkness had covered the entire world.
In the darkness, the Master of Life and Death chanted the three-part mantra.
"Heaven, Thunder, Destruction!"
Kwariung!
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the Ghost King.
The pure white lightning struck the Ghost King directly. But he was unharmed.
He had spread his protective aura just before the lightning struck.
The lightning that passed through the protective aura hit the ground instead.
Kwaang!
A huge crater was created where the lightning had struck.
The crater was charred black. White smoke rose from it.
The Ghost King had managed to change the direction of the lightning with his protective aura. However, if anyone else had been hit directly by such a bolt of lightning, they would have been incinerated in an instant.
"Oh my goodness!"
Yong Seol-ran was astonished. The battle between the two was far beyond her imagination.
Whether it was the Master of Life and Death who kept striking lightning bolts, or the Ghost King who withstood the attacks with ease, neither of them seemed human.
She glanced to the side.
Pyo Wol was watching the duel between the two with his lips tightly sealed.
Could he fight them as equals?
If that was the case, it was indeed a remarkable achievement.
They were already at the top of their game, and they were old. But Pyo Wol was still young and full of energy.
If Pyo Wol's martial arts skills were at the same level as theirs, then he might be able to overwhelm them with his youth.
Pyo Wol was a person whose thoughts were difficult to understand.
Even now, watching the duel between the two, it was impossible to know what he was thinking.
At that moment, the duel between the two became even more intense.
The Ghost King unleashed his cultivation technique and flew higher into the air.
"Do you think you can escape my grasp? Ghost King!"
The Master of Life and Death shouted angrily, stirring up the wind.
He rode the wind and followed the Ghost King.
At that moment, the Ghost King changed its direction high up in the air and plunged straight down on the Master of Life and Death.
Whoosh!
It was like a falling meteor.
If the Ghost King collided with him like that, no matter how powerful the Master of Life and Death's magic was, he couldn't avoid taking considerable damage.
The master of life and death gritted his teeth and shouted
"Turn, Sever, Wind!"
In an instant, the wind whipped, bent, and changed direction.
As a result, he narrowly avoided the Ghost king's attack. However, it had cost him a great deal of magical energy.
The combination of his internal strength and mental strength was what he referred to as magical power.
Just as the human mind has its limits, so too does magical power.
The creature he had created, the Ghost King, was indeed extremely powerful.
This was only natural.
It took a great deal of resources to create him.
His identity was unknown to him.
It was here, in the ruins, that he found him.
In the ruins, he found a body that had been dead for some time, but to his surprise, it was still breathing.
It wasn't really dead, but it had been wounded so deeply that it could have stopped breathing at any moment.
This was indeed a tenacious vitality.
At that moment, he had an idea.
To apply the secret arts he had found in the dwelling of his ancestor, Gyeong Chu-wol
, to the man.
His finding of Gyeong Chu-wol's dwelling was no mere coincidence.
After moving to the Divine Martial Alliance, Gyeong Chu-wol continued to study the mystical arts, but he was never able to complete his research.
The reason was due to a visitor one day.
This visitor was in possession of mystical arts that surpassed those of Gyeong Chu-wol.
His name was Gi Jin Hwi.
He was a martial artist based in Heavenly Martial Gate.
Their feud was long-standing.
The foundation of Gyeong Chu-wol's mystical arts was the Gi Jin Hwi family. He stole a book containing the secrets of the Gi Jin Hwi family and fled. In order to capture Gyeong Chu-wol, Gi Jin Hwi risked his life.
Gyeong Chu-wol eluded Gi Jin Hwi by going through the Divine Martial Alliance and entering Heavenly Martial Sect. However, in the end, Gi Jin Hwi found Gyeong Chu-wol and recovered the secrets that Gyeong Chu-wol had stolen from the Gi Jin Hwi family.
But Gyeong Chu-wol's legacy didn't end there. He left behind a descendant.
That was Gyeongmusaeng.
Gyeongmusaeng continued his father's legacy by dedicating himself to Heavenly Martial Sect. He came here to find his father's roots and found the stone room where his father had conducted his research, and he learned the mystical arts.
He was completely unaware that later on, the demonic doctor, Gwak Nosaeng, discovered Gyeong Chu-wol's stone room.
He thought that there was little to gain for someone who did not know the mystical arts from viewing the murals in the stone room. So, he had neglected the murals in the stone room.
However, Gwak Nosaeng was able to create the Living Jiangshi by combining the enlightenment he obtained from the mural with medical arts.
Thus, the legacy left by Gyeong Chu-wol had a significant impact on the two of them
Determined, Gyeongmusaeng immediately set to work.
He invested all the elixirs from Gyeong Chu-wol's chamber into the ghost king. Then he applied the techniques that Gyeong Chu-wol had left behind.
This process took a whole year.
Gyeongmusaeng used all his strength and in the end, the Ghost King was created.
The Ghost King opened his eyes.
He had come back from the brink of death.
Gyeongmusaeng burst out laughing at the masterpiece he had created. In his mind, the ghost king was now a powerful weapon that he could use at will. Contrary to his belief, however, the ghost king was not completely subjugated.
The ghost king still had free will and refused to submit to Gyeongmusaeng.
It was then that Gyeongmusaeng realised that Gyeong Chu-wol's techniques were not perfect.
Perhaps it was only natural.
It would be impossible for martial arts related to life to be easily perfected. That's why Gyeong Chu-wol had left them as theories, without doing any real experiments. It was only natural that side effects would occur when such martial arts were suddenly put into practice.
The problem was that the side effect was disobedience with a free will.
Gyeongmusaeng tried to subdue the ghost king and make him obey him. But the ghost king spent his whole life avoiding Gyeongmusaeng.
The ghost king was curious about his past life.
He wanted to know what kind of being he was before he became the ghost king.
However, neither of them achieved their goals and continued to this day.
In the end, Gyeongmusaeng believed that the ghost king would return here.
Just as salmon return to the place where they were born, he thought that the ghost king would eventually return here to find his origin. Furthermore, the ghost king had an excellent guide, Pyo Wol.
That's why Gyeongmusaeng was the first one to arrive here and wait for Pyo Wol and the ghost king.
Gyeongmusaeng shouted.
"Be quiet and obediently be my tool, Ghost King!"
.
"I am not a tool. I am a man. A human being."
"You are nothing but my creation, nothing more, nothing less."
"Leave me alone!"
The Ghost King's roar swept through the ruins.
The Ghost King was furious.
He unleashed his hostility on Gyeongmusaeng, who persistently pursued him and tried to force him.
"What am I? Am I even human?
It was a question about his origin that he had always had.
No one could answer him.
The Ghost King was furious.
He unleashed all his anger on Gyeongmusaeng for making him like this.
"Kuaaaa!"
His roar echoed through the sky and earth.
The bushes in the rainforest shook violently as if caught in a storm.
The Ghost King exploded with all his might.
His figure, surrounded by dark energy, was terrifying enough to make the flesh crawl. But Gyeongmusaeng, who faced him, was no ordinary man.
Armed with a variety of magical techniques, he was the nemesis of the Ghost King.
"Thunder, wind, capture, fall!"
He recited the four-character mantra.
Only one more character was added, but the burden on him increased tenfold.
That was the downside of using a mantra in magic techniques.
Blood oozed from Gyeongmusaeng's lips.
As a result of using the four-character mantra, he suffered severe internal injuries.
Wind was added to the lightning attack.
The wind enveloped the ghost king and the lightning struck.
"Kuaaaa!"
The Ghost King screamed.
Even with his protective energy, he couldn't completely deflect the power of the lightning.
It felt as if every single nerve and muscle in his body was on fire.
Even the greatest of masters would have been paralysed instantly, and their hearts would have stopped beating. But the ghost king was still moving.
He could see Gyeongmusaeng.
The one who had created him.
The one who claimed to be his master.
It all began with him.
That's why he endured the pain and attacked him with all his might.
To put an end to it all.
"Huuaaaah!"
The Ghost King spat out everything he had.
Kwaaaaang!
The Ghost King and Gyeongmusaeng collided. Then a blinding light engulfed the area.
"Ugh!"
Yong Seol-ran hastily closed his eyes.
Immediately after, a huge storm hit her.
"Aaah!"
Yong Seol-ran screamed as she was thrown backwards.
She flew almost twenty feet before her body came to a stop and crashed into a large tree.
Yong Seol-ran opened her eyes carefully.
A shattered world lay before her.
Everything was shattered.
The rainforest that had grown for thousands of years, the precariously held ruins.
All had been destroyed without a trace.
The only one standing in the middle of it all was Pyo Wol.