The sword I thrust pierced through Agwibu's gaunt chest. The sensation of crushing a heart through the blade's tip.
Thunk!
The axe that had been swinging without pause falls to the ground. The Demonic Qi that had been gnawing at the surroundings had long since scattered.
Agwibu, staring blankly at the sword sprouting from his chest, grips it with his scarred hands.
The back of his hand was cut so deep the bone showed, and one finger had flown off somewhere, adding another wound to his already mangled hand.
Squelch.
The sharp blade digs into his palm. It was a grip so strong it made me wonder how such strength could remain when his Dantian was crushed and his heart was shattered.
But the more strength I put into it, the deeper the wound became, and even so, I couldn't manage to pull the sword out.
"…Kugh!"
In the end, Agwibu spat blood and slumped over. The hand he had placed on the blade slid off.
Drops of blood fell steadily. Agwibu barely lifted his head, his eyes still wide open, glaring at me.
As if, unlike his broken body, his will remained unbroken.
"You… you little brat. I should have killed you… It's not too late even now. Surrender yourself at once."
"That's a bit unfair. If we're being precise, I'm the one with a grudge against you. There's no reason for you to hold a grudge against me. Though it seems you've found one now."
"That's what you… kuh! No."
The man spat blood again mid-sentence, his face growing even more haggard as he continued.
"You have talent in martial arts. You were born with a knack for killing people."
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Judging by the killing intent that's soaked into you, you've already killed many."
"…"
That's true. Even if time had rewound and made it all as if it never happened, my memories didn't disappear.
I killed to survive, I killed to avenge the dead, and in the end, I charged at the Heavenly Demon knowing full well I couldn't win. I killed myself, in a sense.
A martial artist's life is, by nature, a precarious dance teetering on the edge of a blade until the moment of the fall. But even among them, I was on the more extreme side.
That was only natural, since I had experienced the war with the Demonic Cult that had not yet come to pass.
I was certain I had seen more deaths and killed more people than anyone else in this era.
Agwibu stared straight at me, his eyes gradually losing focus.
"I know what you're trying to say. At your age, the reason you've turned out this broken is obvious."
"Broken, you say."
"If the way you casually radiate killing intent and cut people down without hesitation isn't being broken, then what is? Did you kill because you didn't want to die? Because you were a villain? Or for your own advancement?"
As he spoke, Agwibu curled up the corners of his trembling lips. The voice was laced with unmistakable contempt.
"Either way, it doesn't matter. In the end, you're still a butcher who reaches for his blade the moment things go wrong… kugh! That hasn't changed."
"Surely you're not about to say that you're not one of them?"
"Heh heh. As if. All martial artists and martial arts must disappear. Every last one of us, including me."
"…Agwibu. I have a rough idea of your circumstances."
The current Agwibu was a Demonic Cultist who had only just begun to make a name for himself, but before the regression, he had been a master who ranked among the top of the Demonic Cult.
He was as famous as he was strong, and his deeds were widely known.
He lost his wife to the Green Forest bandits, and when he went to the Hwangbo Clan to ask for help, the young head of the clan supposedly defiled and killed his daughter.
At this point in time, it was a matter the Hwangbo Clan kept under wraps, but before the regression, Agwibu had been at the forefront of exposing what had happened and bringing down both the Green Forest and the Hwangbo Clan, so it was a story known to the entire world.
In a way, it was a just revenge, and it was somewhat understandable why any martial artist, regardless of their alignment, would shudder at the thought of it.
"But what does that have to do with anything?"
"What…?"
Was it because I knew his past, or because his beliefs had been denied to his face? Perhaps it was simply a flash of insight before death.
Like a man about to die, Agwibu's hazy eyes suddenly lit up. His pupils, now sharply focused, sent a blazing glare my way.
"In my eyes, you and I, and even all the martial artists gathered here, are all the same. In the end, aren't we all just fools swinging our swords blindly, shackled by karmic debt?"
"I am! I am different! I only trained in martial arts to break the chain of karmic debt!"
"No. You merely made the entire martial world your target for revenge. If you truly wanted to break the chain of karmic debt, you should have first let go of your own. Perhaps there might have been another way."
"That's nonsense! Who in the world would just stand there and give up the power in their hands! I had no choice…"
"So because you had no choice, you decided to kill every martial artist in existence? If that's your reasoning, I fail to see how you're any different from someone who draws their sword the moment things go wrong."
"…!"
Agwibu gritted his teeth and glared at me. However, that gaze was no longer as intense as it had been moments ago.
"Didn't I say it earlier? That perhaps there might be another way. But because that other way doesn't come to mind, people like us draw our swords first and think later."
"I, am…"
"In the end, all you can see is the sword. In a way, you're no different from a blind man. And that's precisely why you became a martial artist, I suppose."
I let out a snicker as I looked into Agwibu's eyes, where conviction had curdled into stubbornness.
"Still, there is one difference between us."
"…"
Perhaps he sensed that death was near. Instead of using his remaining strength to speak, Agwibu opened his eyes wide, as if trying to hear even a little more of what I had to say.
"I won. Even if we're both butchers of men, and you're a blind man who can see nothing but the sword, isn't winning better than losing?"
"…"
Agwibu gave no answer. No—his breath had stopped while his eyes were still open. Perhaps it had stopped even before I finished speaking.
I slowly withdrew my sword. The moment I did, Agwibu's withered body, which had been leaning against my blade as if for support, collapsed to the ground on its own.
Thud.
I stared for a moment at his form sprawled across the pool of blood he had made, then turned around.
There, a martial artist had been quietly watching me this whole time.
"Thank you for waiting."
"…Even if I hadn't waited, nothing would have changed. I alone. Cannot defeat you."
The martial artist, who had not spoken a single word until now, finally opened her mouth.
Her appearance evoked a rotten, withered tree, but her voice was clear and beautiful. Yet, as if speaking itself was painful, she frowned and paused mid-sentence from time to time. This, too, was probably one of the side effects of the demonic arts.
"Agwibu's thoughts. Differ from mine. But he was a comrade. His last wish. I did not want to interfere."
"Is that so."
With those words, the martial artist resumed her stance. I pointed my sword at her.
Forcing a clash with Agwibu left my entire body covered in wounds. Even now, blood streams down without pause, and the Demonic Qi churning through my insides twists my gut.
I'll probably need to recuperate without moving for a few days. But I still have enough strength left to cut down one more.
"Do you have any last words you want to leave behind?"
"…Perhaps. You might be right. All of us. Blind men blinded by revenge. What I wanted to kill. The Sama Clan. But."
"But what you tried to kill was me and Tang So-wol, who had nothing to do with it."
"I'm sorry."
A short apology from the guy. A stark contrast to Agwibu, who believed all martial artists must die, and the more talented ones even sooner.
But a single apology isn't enough to settle the line we've crossed with each other.
The fist artist, well aware of this, took his stance and spoke.
"Gwimongmanyeo. Sama Su-ryeon."
"Cheon Hwi. No alias."
Taking the belated introductions as a signal, the two of them assumed their respective starting postures.
Demonic Qi, beginning from Gwimongmanyeo's fist, soon spread through her entire body.
A mad act of wrapping her whole body in Fist Energy. Naturally, it made her body a bit faster and a bit tougher, but at the cost of dozens of times the internal energy consumption—a truly insane move.
No matter how fast her demonic art progressed, this was impossible at the Peak Realm. Unless she was drawing on True Origin Vital Energy.
Perhaps, whether she won or lost against me, Gwimongmanyeo's life would be cut short before even One Da-kyung had passed.
As if determined not to waste a single moment of the remaining time, Gwimongmanyeo immediately kicked off the ground. She looked like a piece of firewood burning in a dark flame.
Thud!
The distance closed far faster than before. A fist wrapped in Demonic Qi shot toward my heart.
But I had already sensed the situation half a beat ahead through the killing intent I had scattered around and the Qi Sense that came from it.
Avoiding it wasn't all that difficult.
Whoosh!
The fist swept through empty air, and the Air-Splitting Sound burst out at the same moment the Fist Wind brushed past my head.
And before the wind even settled, a leg shot up. Her intent to shatter my chin was so fierce that my chin tingled with phantom pain before it even touched.
Thanks to that, the moment her thigh twitched, I had already twisted my head far aside to dodge.
Seizing the opening, I swung my sword toward the Gwimongmanyeo's neck.
Clang!
The sword bounced back with the ring of metal. But unlike before, not a single scratch was left on it.
Her skin was already as tough as bark, and now she had wrapped internal energy around it—it would have been stranger if a scratch did appear.
I gripped the sword tightly so the recoil vibrating through my hand wouldn't make me drop it, and continued the exchange.
The Gwimongmanyeo, now a living piece of firewood, swung the power she gained by burning her own life, and I either dodged it or deflected it with my sword to twist its direction.
Midway through her Fist and Leg Art, she would raise her nails to show off her claw techniques, or open her palm wide to use palm techniques, but none of it meant much.
Her intent was obvious, and her techniques were far from refined. Honestly speaking, the Gwimongmanyeo, who kept extending her limbs endlessly, was inferior to the Agwibu who had unleashed his ultimate technique.
Even considering that the Agwibu's martial arts were extremely aggressive while the Gwimongmanyeo's arts focused on solidity, her skill was lacking.
But the Gwimongmanyeo did not stop. No, it would be more accurate to say she could not stop. How much could someone who had already burned their life hesitate?
I simply continued swinging my sword, deflecting her attacks.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Her sword aimed at the exact same spot on my neck. That she was still alive when she should have died dozens of times was surely thanks to her peculiar demonic art.
How long did we continue this stalemate of attack and defense?
Perhaps even her True Origin Vital Energy was beginning to run dry, as the Demonic Qi that had been burning her entire body slowly started to fade.
I swung my sword once more at her neck, which was no longer protected by internal energy.
Clang!
The sword was still deflected. Only a few shell fragments fell away.
Even knowing that her death was slowly approaching, the Gwimongmanyeo stubbornly thrust her fist and swung her leg.
So I, too, drove my sword into her neck again and again.
Crack! Crunch! Squelch!
Was it the reward of striking the same spot over and over? The shell on the Gwimongmanyeo's neck gradually crumbled, and now, faintly, sword marks were finally beginning to appear.
It was like a tree slowly toppling after countless axe blows.
Confirming the crack, I focused the killing intent I had been faintly scattering around me into my sword. Internal energy naturally followed.
But this wasn't enough. I squeezed out every last drop of the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art's internal energy that remained, and sharpened my mind… my will.
A single strike that was somewhat beyond me in my current state.
Swoosh!
The same Aura as before. The same trajectory. The same speed. Except for one difference.
A faint red current rising along the blade.
The Gwimongmanyeo's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the Sword Qi. And then.
Squelch.
Her startled head shot up into the air.
The fire from the firewood went out.