Light Novel: Volume 17 Episode 19
Manhwa: N/A
“What happened here?”
Yong Seolran blinked her large eyes.
Confusion was evident on her face.
Pyo-wol couldn’t hide his surprised expression at the unexpected scene either.
They were greeted by a trail of destruction that was almost as bad as a major earthquake. But, if an earthquake had truly occurred, the stone chamber they were in would have collapsed entirely.
Pyo-wol closely inspected the overturned land.
He soon deduced what had transpired here.
“Two absolute masters clashed here.”
“Absolute masters?”
“One is surely the Ghost King, and the other one is–”
One would have to see it to know.
It was then.
Boom!
A loud noise erupted from the other side of the ruins.
Animals scurried away in fear, and birds flew high into the sky.
Beyond the scattering dust, two silhouettes could be seen.
They were clashing high in the sky, cutting through the dust.
“Ha!”
“Cha!”
The ones fighting with ferocious cries were none other than the Ghost King and the Visitor of Life and Death, Kyung Musaeng.
“Did he follow us all the way here?”
“Who?”
“The Visitor of Life and Death.”
“The Visitor of Life and Death, Kyung Musaeng? You mean one of the Eight Constellations?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god!”
Yong Seolran clamped her mouth with both of her hands.
The Eight Constellations were amongst the top martial artists in Jianghu.
Although they were not affiliated with massive factions like the Two Strongholds, Three Schools, or Three Supremes, they still enjoyed a reputation that matched them based on individual strength alone.
Among them, the Ghost King and the Visitor of Life and Death were very special beings.
They were absolute masters, the highest ranked among the Eight Constellations.
“Why are they fighting?”
Yong Seolran, unaware of the history between the Ghost King and Kyung Musaeng, naturally questioned.
Pyo-wol didn’t reply and just watched their fight.
‘Did Kyung Musaeng follow us here?’
Both Pyo-wol and the Ghost King had moved covertly.
They hadn’t done anything to attract the attention of others, nor had they caused any trouble.
Since they did not leave any traces for pursuit, then it was obvious that Kyung Musaeng managed to accurately come to this place through the Soul-Binding Technique.
‘If he’s Kyung Chuwol’s descendant, then he must have some connection with the Celestial Martial Sect.”
The question is, what kind of relationship exists between the Celestial Martial Sect and the Kowloon Assassin Guild?
If the two organizations are related or cooperating, the problem becomes serious.
He wished he could personally subdue Kyung Musaeng to understand the situation, but he couldn’t.
The one who created the Ghost King was Kyung Musaeng.
It is a universal law that the one who ties the knot is the one to untie it.
He had to entrust and leave everything to the Ghost King.
Kwah!
The clash between the two became even more fierce.
With his immense inner energy, the Ghost King unleashed a devastating offensive attack, while Kyung Musaeng unfolded an unheard-of magic.
“Darkness Envelops the World!”1
With his incantation, the world turned pitch-black.
Darkness shrouded the earth and sky.
In the midst of it, Kyung Musaeng chanted a Three-Word True Incantation towards the Ghost King.
“Sky, thunder, annihilation!”
Boom!
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck towards the Ghost King.
The pure white lightning directly hit the Ghost King, but he remained unscathed.
He had unfolded a defensive barrier just before being struck by lightning.
The thunderbolt flowed along the defensive barrier before embedding itself into the ground.
Boom!
Where the lightning struck, a giant pit formed.
The pit was scorched black, emitting white smoke.
It was only because it was the Ghost King that he could redirect the lightning with his defensive barrier. Had anyone else been hit directly by that lightning, they would have been incinerated in an instant.
“My God!”
Yong Seolran was stunned by the two’s battle, which far exceeded her imagination.
Whether it was Kyung Musaeng raining down lightning or the Ghost King effortlessly deflecting and enduring those attacks, neither seemed human.
She glanced to the side.
Pyo-wol had been watching the confrontation without saying a word.
‘Could he fight on par with them?’
If so, that would be truly remarkable.
Those two had already experienced a lot in life and had grown old, but Pyo-wol was still young and vigorous.
If Pyo-wol possessed martial arts skills on par with them, he might be able to overpower the rest with his youth.
Pyo-wol was an enigmatic person.
Even now, as he watched the two’s confrontation, Yong Seolran could not tell what he was thinking.
At that moment, the fight between the two intensified even more.
Using Qi Control: Rushing Upstream,2 the Ghost King flew higher into the air.
“Do you think you can escape my grasp, Ghost King!?”
Kyung Musaeng yelled furiously, creating a gust of wind.
Riding the wind, he pursued the Ghost King.
At that moment, the Ghost King who was high in the air, changed direction and dove straight towards Kyung Musaeng.
Kooom!
He descended like a falling meteor.
If he collided with Kyung Musaeng at this rate, regardless of how profound Kyung Musaeng’s magic and cultivation were, he would suffer a massive blow.
Gritting his teeth, Kyung Musaeng shouted,
“Turn, cut, wind!”
In an instant, the wind whipped, bent, and changed direction.
As a result, he narrowly avoided the Ghost King’s attack. However, in doing so, he expended a massive amount of magic power.
Magic power was a combination of internal energy and mental strength.
Just as the human mind has its limits, so does magic power.
The creature he created, the Ghost King, truly possessed formidable strength.
Well, such a thing was expected.
Since it took considerable resources to create him.
Even he didn’t know the true identity of the Ghost King.
He just discovered the Ghost King in these ruins.
Inside the ruins, he found a body that hadn’t been dead for long. To his surprise, however, the body was still breathing.
He wasn’t really dead, but he had sustained such deep injuries that it wouldn’t be strange for him to stop breathing at any moment.
The body truly had a tenacious vitality.
At that moment, Kyung Musaeng had a brilliant idea.
It was to apply the magic he found at the residence of his ancestor, Kyung Chuwol, to the man.
His visit to Kyung Chuwol’s residence was by no means a coincidence.
Even after relocating because of the Celestial Demon Union, Kyung Chuwol continued to research magic. However, he couldn’t complete his research in the end.
This was because of a mysterious individual who visited him one day.
This individual possessed a magic that surpassed even Kyung Chuwol’s.
His name was Ki Jinwhi.
He was a magician from the Frenzied Warrior Sect.
Their enmity goes back a long way.
Kyung Chuwol’s knowledge and mastery of magic stemmed from the Ki family lineage. Having fled with a book containing the secrets of the Ki family, Ki Jinhwi risked his life to capture Kyung Chuwol.
Kyung Chuwol evaded Ki Jinhwi by seeking refuge with the Celestial Demon Union, before eventually relocating to the Celestial Martial Sect. But in the end, Ki Jinhwi still managed to find Kyung Chuwol and retrieve the stolen secrets from the Ki family.
Yet, Kyung Chuwol’s legacy didn’t end. He left behind a descendant.
That was Kyung Musaeng.
Kyung Musaeng followed in his father’s footsteps and committed himself to the Celestial Martial Sect. Then, seeking the origins of his father, he came here and found the stone chamber where his father had researched and learned the magic.
He did not know, however, that Demon Doctor Kwak Nosaeng would also discover Kyung Chuwol’s stone chamber later on.
He thought that someone who didn’t know the magic would gain almost nothing from seeing the murals inside the chamber, so he had neglected the murals inside. However, Kwak Nosaeng synthesized the insights from the murals with his knowledge of medical arts to create a living jiangshi.
In this way, the legacy left by Kyung Chuwol had a significant impact on both individuals.
With his mind made up, Kyung Musaeng immediately started working on his brilliant plan.
He poured all the elixirs in Kyung Chuwol’s chamber into the Ghost King and applied the magic Kyung Chuwol left behind.
It was a process that took an entire year.
Kyung Musaeng, with all his might and soul, cast the magic, and eventually, he was able to complete the Ghost King.
The Ghost King opened his eyes.
He had come back from the brink of death.
Kyung Musaeng burst into ecstatic laughter at the masterpiece he had created.
He thought he would be able to use the Ghost King at his disposal, but contrary to his expectations, the Ghost King wasn’t completely under his control.
He still had a semblance of free will, and therefore, he refused to submit to Kyung Musaeng.
Only then did Kyung Musaeng realize that Kyung Chuwol’s magic wasn’t perfect.
Perhaps it was natural.
Magic related to life couldn’t be easily perfected. Kyung Chuwol must have never experimented with his findings himself and just left it as a theory. So, with such magic hastily deployed, it was only natural that there would be side effects.
The problem was that the side effect resulted in having free will and disobedience.
Kyung Musaeng tried to subdue the Ghost King and force him into submission, while the Ghost King spent his life avoiding Kyung Musaeng.
The Ghost King was curious about his past life.
He wanted to know who he was before becoming the Ghost King.
Yet, both failed to achieve their goals and continued to be at odds.
Kyung Musaeng always believed that the Ghost King would eventually return here.
Like salmon returning to the place of their birth, he thought the Ghost King would eventually find his origins and come here. Moreover, the Ghost King had an excellent guide in Pyo-wol.
So, Kyung Musaeng arrived here before Pyo-wol and the Ghost King, waiting for them.
Kyung Musaeng shouted,
“Become my tool obediently, Ghost King!”
“I am not a tool. I am a human being. A human!”
“You are my creation, nothing more, nothing less!”
“Leave me alone!”
The Ghost King’s roar swept through the ruins.
He was enraged.
He was furious at Kyung Musaeng for pursuing him so relentlessly and trying to control his life.
‘What am I? Am I even human?’
It was a question he had always pondered about.
But, no one could provide an answer to his question.
The Ghost King was enraged.
He directed all his fury towards Kyung Musaeng who had made him this way.
“Kaaaah!”
His roar echoed so loudly that it shook the heavens and the earth.
All the trees in the area trembled violently as if caught in a storm.
The Ghost King unleashed everything he had in him.
The sight of his figure, surrounded by a dark ghostly aura, was terrifying to the point it could make one’s skin crawl. But, Kyung Musaeng, who stood against him, was no ordinary man.
Armed with all sorts of magic, he was the Ghost King’s nemesis.
“Thunder, wind, capture, fall!”
He chanted a four-word incantation.
He had merely added another word to his incantation, but the strain it put on him multiplied tenfold.
This was the downside of using magic incantations.
Deep red blood flowed from Kyung Musaeng’s lips.
He had suffered a serious internal injury as the price for using a four-word incantation.
He had added wind to the thunder.
As the wind surrounded the Ghost King, a thunderbolt fell.
“AAARGHH!”
The Ghost King screamed.
Even his defensive barrier couldn’t completely dispel the power of the thunderbolt.
Every nerve and muscle in his body burned.
Any other master would’ve been paralyzed immediately or had their heart stop beating. But, the Ghost King could still move.
He glared at Kyung Musaeng.
The one who created him.
The one who claimed to be his master.
Everything began with him.
And so, enduring all the pain, he risked it all and launched an all-out attack.
To end everything once and for all.
“RAAAGHH!”
The Ghost King unleashed everything he had.
Boom!
The Ghost King and Kyung Musaeng collided, causing a blinding light to engulf the area.
“Heuk!”
Yong Seolran hastily closed her eyes.
Following that, a tremendous storm hit her.
“AHHH!”
Yong Seolran screamed as she was blown backward.
Only after being thrown nearly two dozen meters and crashing into a huge tree did her body come to a stop.
Yong Seolran cautiously opened her eyes.
She saw a devastated world.
Everything was shattered.
The rainforest that stood and lasted for thousands of years, and the ruins that remained barely intact.
All of it crumbled, leaving no trace behind.
In the midst of all the destruction, only one person stood tall, and that was Pyo-wol.
LUNA-CAVE
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