Kwaaaaang!

When the two swords collided, a shockwave spread in every direction.

Snowdrifts exploded, creating a magnificent sight.

But the one pushed back was Unhwi.

Exactly three steps.

His arm tingled.

Heavy.

That was the first thought that came to him.

The Chaotic Heaven King he had seen before had possessed divine strength shocking enough to surprise even Unhwi, but this one was beyond that.

Truly, no matter how much he saw it, he could not understand it.

They did not use internal energy, nor did they operate the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

So how did these beings called Chaotic Heaven Kings “naturally” draw in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth every time they moved?

This was not simply a matter of realm.

More precisely, the energies “followed” not only these Chaotic Heaven Kings, but the Chaotic Heaven Ones as well.

That was the conclusion Unhwi had reached.

The source of the power they emitted was, in the end, their overwhelming bodies and the energies naturally drawn to them.

Strength entered his grip.

Just how rare it was to encounter Chaotic Heaven Kings in succession could be explained well enough by the countless conversations they had shared until now.

This was clearly strange, and there was clearly someone’s “intent” in it.

Hoo.

He exhaled.

He intended to play along. He needed information.

He immediately pushed off the ground.

Heavenly Ascendant Flowing Shadow Step.

His body shot forward. In an instant, he arrived right before the Chaotic Heaven King’s nose. He did not swing his sword. Maintaining his speed, he rammed into him as he was.

Kwaaaaang!

A thunderous roar burst out, the Chaotic Heaven King’s chest caved in, and his body was shoved backward.

When he raised his head, a streak of light was already being swung toward his face.

The Chaotic Heaven King reacted. He tilted his head back. An utterly natural movement.

And a sword brushed past right in front of his face.

Wind swept the surroundings. The Chaotic Heaven King thrust out the sword he was holding. A motion without order, yet mixed within it were the principles of void and reality.

It was clearly a meaningful attack. Most martial artists would have been pierced through and killed on the spot.

But Unhwi did not dodge.

It was a truly strange decision, but it changed many things.

Puk.

The Chaotic Heaven King’s sword pierced deep beneath Unhwi’s shoulder.

Blood surged up, and the sound of bone and flesh splitting rang out.

Then.

Puk!

Unhwi’s sword pierced the Chaotic Heaven King’s abdomen.

In the same situation, Unhwi’s decision was faster.

He drew his sword sideways as it was.

With a slicing sound, the Chaotic Heaven King’s abdomen split in half, and his organs poured out.

The Chaotic Heaven King vomited blood and stepped back.

He raised his head.

He was known to have no emotions, but he did feel bewilderment.

It was only natural.

Unhwi’s pierced shoulder had healed in an instant. No matter who saw it, this was an abnormal situation, and the Chaotic Heaven King was capable of judging that much.

Unhwi adjusted his grip on the sword and stood before the Chaotic Heaven King.

“Is there more you wish to see?”

“......Krr.......”

“Quiet.”

Unhwi reached out and seized the Chaotic Heaven King’s mouth.

“I was not asking you.”

The Chaotic Heaven King looked up at Unhwi. In his figure, shining under the sun blazing down from above,

the Chaotic Heaven King felt it.

The feeling called “reverence,” which he had forgotten, was beginning to arise.

“I understand it as five hundred years, but it seems there are more hidden truths than one or two.”

The Chaotic Heaven King could not open his mouth. Because Unhwi was completely sealing it shut.

“Someone controlling a Chaotic Heaven King...... enough to shake heaven and earth.”

When Unhwi tightened his grip, the Chaotic Heaven King’s mouth shattered with a crunch.

Then he slowly stepped back.

“Come. I will show exactly three moves, so understand them on your own.”

He placed the Trueflame Heavenly-Spirit Sword back into his storage belt.

“If you cannot even do that, I will shatter the standard by which you dared to test me, along with your neck.”

At Unhwi’s resolute words, the Chaotic Heaven King—no, the existence behind it—reacted.

The Chaotic Heaven King stopped completely.

The growling sound stopped, the blood vessels and tendons that had been writhing madly stabilized, and most crucially, his gaze changed.

His eyes, which had been full of madness, became clear.

Without a word, he raised a hand and touched his mouth, then looked down at his abdomen, which had been split in half.

Then he looked at Unhwi.

That gaze was truly strange.

“Are you ready?”

The Chaotic Heaven King silently adjusted his grip on his sword.

“Then come.”

At Unhwi’s words, he kicked off the ground.

He was different from before. His movements were ordered.

In an instant, he stretched forward and chopped his sword down right before Unhwi’s nose.

From above to below.

It seemed simple, but this time too, there was plenty of intent to test him.

Unhwi silently raised his left arm. Tak.

The Chaotic Heaven King’s sword was caught in his hand.

Unhwi’s radiant white hair fluttered in the wind.

A wound formed on his palm.

It was cut long, deep enough for bone to be exposed, but Unhwi did not care.

His hand regenerated in an instant, and the cracked bone fused as well.

The Chaotic Heaven King’s gaze changed again.

It was “interest.”

The Chaotic Heaven King thrust out his foot.

Unhwi also thrust out his foot.

They struck each other’s abdomens.

Kwaaaaang!

Unhwi was pushed back one step, and the Chaotic Heaven King flew away as he was and slammed into a snowdrift.

As the Chaotic Heaven King immediately tore through the snowdrift and raised himself, Unhwi’s voice reached his ears.

“Two.”

The Chaotic Heaven King kicked off the ground again.

And in that instant, Unhwi’s eyes flashed.

How the energy flowing inside him had changed.

What footwork he was using now.

Because he had clearly realized it.

Heavenly Dragon Step.

Before the Thousand-Year Chaos, it had been the representative footwork of a sect called the Heavenly Dragon Sect.

That sect had produced a figure called the Heavenly Dragon Emperor, and the alliance leader before Venerable Goseung, who had served as leader of the Murim Alliance during the Thousand-Year Chaos, had been that very Heavenly Dragon Emperor.

His footwork, the Heavenly Dragon Step, swept the surroundings with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth as if a dragon in the sky were tearing apart all directions, clouding the opponent’s mind, creating openings, and striking them in an instant.

By the standards of the present era, the martial art’s grade was among the very highest of God-grade.

Perhaps it could even be considered a footwork of the Three Innate Realms.

The Chaotic Heaven King approached, devastating the surroundings.

The ground burst, and his body moved instantly in every direction.

He was so fast that afterimages remained, and if he shifted into attack from that state, all those afterimages would become real.

Unhwi stood still.

Only his gaze moved left and right, and in that brief instant, Unhwi’s gaze fixed on one place.

From there, something with storm-like force stretched out.

It was a fist.

Unhwi took one step forward.

Sword energy from the afterimages extending from behind him and both sides pierced through empty air.

And.

Sagak!

The Chaotic Heaven King’s real sword passed by, cutting a long line across the side of Unhwi’s face.

“Three.”

With that brief word, Unhwi’s foot rose.

Toward the Chaotic Heaven King’s jaw.

Kwaaaaang!

With a thunderous roar, the Chaotic Heaven King’s head shot upward. Only the sky filled his vision.

No.

Only the sky had filled it.

Something black appeared in the sky.

It stamped down as it was.

It was Unhwi’s foot.

Kwajik!

With a horrifying sound, the Chaotic Heaven King’s face was crushed as it was.

Unhwi brushed the dust from his body and looked down at the Chaotic Heaven King for a moment.

Three moves.

He had shown enough of what needed to be shown.

Just as he turned away,

Unhwi stopped.

He slowly turned his head.

The Chaotic Heaven King, whose face had been shattered, was rising again.

“Do you need more?”

The Chaotic Heaven King shook his head.

Then he suddenly picked up the sword lying on the ground.

He pointed it at Unhwi and nodded.

Unhwi immediately grasped what he meant.

“I showed everything that needed to be seen, but now there is something I must see?”

The Chaotic Heaven King nodded.

A hollow laugh escaped him.

Honestly, he was a little curious. Just what did he want to show?

“Try.”

The Chaotic Heaven King shook his head and pointed at Unhwi’s hand with his sword.

It meant for him to hold his sword.

Unhwi stared silently at the Chaotic Heaven King, then wordlessly drew the Trueflame Heavenly-Spirit Sword from his storage belt again.

The Chaotic Heaven King flicked his sword as if telling him to come in.

Just how good of a thing was he going to show?

Then the Chaotic Heaven King’s once-clear eyes began to sink back into madness.

He tried to let out a scream, but with no mouth, he could not properly release it, and only blood welled up.

It was a bizarre situation.

Without a word, Unhwi raised Void-Origin Energy. The radiance of his hair, which had settled down, shone again.

He kicked off the ground.

It did not reach the Heavenly Dragon Step, but in the end, martial arts changed depending on who used them.

Unhwi’s Heavenly Ascendant Flowing Shadow Step did not fall behind the Heavenly Dragon Step at all.

Unhwi, who had arrived right before the Chaotic Heaven King’s nose, swung his sword.

Toward the Chaotic Heaven King’s neck.

As if he had expected it, the Chaotic Heaven King raised his sword and blocked.

Kaaang!

At the same time as the roar burst out, the Chaotic Heaven King turned his sword.

Softly.

Drawing a circle.

In that instant, Unhwi’s eyes widened.

What the Chaotic Heaven King had drawn was a perfect circle.

Within that circle, yin and yang transformed.

From yin to yang.

From yang to yin.

Naturally.

Without interruption.

It was certain.

The sword art of Qingcheng Sect, Taiji Profound Void Sword.

Among them, the form called Yin-Yang Transformation.

And it was the unique sword path that only Qingcheng Sect could use.

A circular sword path.

A sword art containing the Daoist philosophy of taiji.

Unhwi had seen it in his previous life.

The sword art used by an elder of Qingcheng Sect.

Now the Chaotic Heaven King was using it. Not through the person controlling him, but as something intrinsic to this Chaotic Heaven King himself.

It was rough, but certain, and now it had become far too clear.

Chaotic Heaven Ones were people from the era of the Thousand-Year Chaos.

That war where tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, had vanished.

Survivors—no, victims—of that disaster where even corpses could not be recovered.

The Chaotic Heaven King’s sword flew.

Toward Unhwi.

Softly.

But lethally.

Unhwi stepped back.

The sword brushed right before his nose.

The Chaotic Heaven King swung his sword again.

From upper line to lower line.

This time too, it came flying while drawing a circle.

Unhwi blocked it with his sword.

Kaaang!

His arm went numb from the impact.

The Chaotic Heaven King withdrew his sword and swung again.

From lower line to upper line.

The connection was natural.

Qingcheng Sect’s foundational sword art.

The sword path connecting upper and lower.

Unhwi loaded energy into his sword.

Void-Origin Energy.

The sword shone white.

He swung it widely.

Endless Ice and Snow.

Kwaaaaang!

A white snowstorm exploded.

Sword energy spread in every direction.

The Chaotic Heaven King blocked it with his sword.

No, the moment he thought he had blocked it—

Seogeok!

The Chaotic Heaven King’s neck shot into the sky.

Looking down at the Chaotic Heaven King’s corpse as it collapsed with a thud, Unhwi’s eyes narrowed.

The motion with which he had tried to block the sword at the end.

The martial art that would have unfolded after that motion was clearly Return to One Toward Heaven, one of the Thirty-Six Swords of Qingcheng.

Unhwi shook the blood from his sword.

He steadied his breath and looked up at the sky.

What had the existence behind this Chaotic Heaven King tried to show him?

It was clear. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Who this Chaotic Heaven King had truly been.

What he possessed.

That was what it had wanted to show. Of course, all judgment was Unhwi’s responsibility, and Unhwi was a man capable of making a reasonable deduction from clues of this level.