FLAP! FLAP!

Wherever the dazzling, swirling five-colored flags passed, Hidden Moon Forest’s special-grade assassins—the Hidden Moon Adepts—rose up like ghosts.

The fact that the Hidden Moon Adepts had their faces painted and wore gaudy, colorful clothes was not only to masquerade as acrobat troupe members.

It was so they could assimilate into the hallucination conjured by the Hidden Moon Annihilation Formation that the five-colored flags stirred up.

The Dark Cavern Taoist was already ensnared by the Hidden Moon Annihilation Formation, with everything around him turned into pitch-black heaven and earth—so he could not see them even at arm’s length.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill tasked with commanding the special-grade Hidden Moon Adepts, saw the Dark Cavern Taoist standing with his eyes closed and gave a smile of satisfaction.

It was obvious the Dark Cavern Taoist was trying, like other inner-power masters, to raise his awareness and sense the danger approaching.

But the Hidden Moon Forest’s special-grade Hidden Moon Adepts did not reveal killing intent. And they did not raise their inner energy either.

So right now, the Dark Cavern Taoist was no different from a blind man with his eyes open.

The instant Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, saw the tenth Hidden Moon Adept rise up like a ghost, he sent a signal at once.

WHIIIIISTLE!

At the Third Kill’s signal, the Hidden Moon Adepts charged at the Dark Cavern Taoist all at once, shooting forward like arrows.

Every one of those Hidden Moon Adepts held a special knife called a Hidden Moon Blade.

A Hidden Moon Blade was made of Black Shadow, so it broke easily. Therefore it could not function as a weapon at all.

It had only one effect: it could pierce any protective Steel Aura.

That was why the Hidden Moon Adepts used it as an assassination tool.

It fit perfectly with the purpose of special-grade assassins who killed inner-power masters. If the assassination failed, there was only death, so the Hidden Moon Adepts did not need any means to protect themselves.

As Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, watched the Hidden Moon Adepts’ Hidden Moon Blades strike toward the Dark Cavern Taoist from all directions like black poisonous fangs, he shouted inwardly in triumph.

If the Dark Cavern Taoist had drawn his weapon and prepared, he might have been able to cut down a few of the Hidden Moon Adepts.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, thought it was because the Dark Cavern Taoist lacked experience.

They said his martial arts are strong, but he’s a greenhorn with shallow rivers-and-lakes experience—so it was true.

Either way, today’s killing would remain a legend of the Hidden Moon Forest.

Because putting down a master of the Transformation Realm was a tremendous achievement.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, drew his blade to sever the Dark Cavern Taoist’s neck once it was skewered like a spit by the Hidden Moon Blades.

At that moment, Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, heard the sound of something crumbling.

SHRRRASH!

Even amid the clamor of the instruments, that alien sound bored into his ears.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, widened his eyes and saw the Hidden Moon Adepts’ Hidden Moon Blades shattering.

That the Hidden Moon Blades were crumbling into pieces in empty air, where there was nothing at all, was utterly absurd.

Was there an invisible wall?

The Hidden Moon Blades had already reached past the midpoint, and now even down to the hilts they were crumbling.

In that instant, Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, saw a faint blue radiance flicker in the air.

Steel-Aura Curtain!

As an experienced assassin, Mo Geumgak recognized it in a heartbeat.

A curtain of Steel Aura.

Even though Hidden Moon Blades were made of Black Shadow and broke easily, they did not usually shatter against a mere curtain of sword aura.

We have to stop.

But the Hidden Moon Adepts had already thrown themselves in at full strength—there was no way to stop.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, realized they had been caught in the Dark Cavern Taoist’s trap.

He could not understand it at all.

There was never any information anywhere that the Dark Cavern Taoist could deploy a Steel-Aura Curtain.

He was a Transformation Realm master who had achieved Steel Aura Sword-Aura, so he could deploy it.

But spreading it in a wide range like this, in a circle, while it rotated—was on an entirely different level. And so was sustaining it for this long.

Because most Steel-Aura Curtains existed only briefly before vanishing.

He’s definitely mastered a Steel-Aura Curtain martial art.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, expected that while nine Hidden Moon Blades broke, the Steel-Aura Curtain’s energy would be exhausted.

Because deploying a Steel-Aura Curtain required tremendous inner energy.

But that expectation of the Third Kill’s was empty.

CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH!

The Hidden Moon Adepts’ hands burst apart. Then their wrists burst, and bloody chunks of flesh rained down like a shower.

POP-POP-POP!

Soon the destruction bit into their shoulders as if being eaten through and cut, and then their chests and heads were pulverized in succession, turning into meat fragments.

It looked as if a gigantic, invisible meat grinder in midair was grinding people to pulp.

Only after the nine Hidden Moon Adepts became bodies with nothing left but half did they finally drop to the ground.

TAP! TAP-TAP!

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, stared in shock at the scene: a circular boundary about ten feet around the Dark Cavern Taoist, splashed with blood and scattered meat.

He could not believe that all of this had happened within the span of a heartbeat after the signal that began the assassination.

The moment everything around him turned into pitch-black heaven and earth, Kwak Yeon immediately drew the Cheonggang Sword and spread the Seongra Heaven Sword Wall in a circle.

It was the first time he had displayed it in real combat since receiving it from Danmok Seong, the Supreme Branch Clan Master of the Danmok Clan.

It required tremendous inner energy, but it was also the perfect fit for guarding against enemies that appeared in darkness.

After building that defensive array with a curtain of Steel Aura, Kwak Yeon closed his eyes and entered meditation.

The more he tried to find flaws in the formation with his eyes, the thicker the darkness became. And when he moved a foot to try to break through, he could not even get his bearings.

For that reason, Kwak Yeon judged there was no need to rush and take needless risks.

No matter how profound a formation was, it could not, in the end, inflict physical harm by itself.

When he calmed his mind and sank down into it, he began to understand the formation.

The formation is only a phenomenon that has been spread out. And I am the one who fell into it myself.

It meant his five senses were not damaged—rather, through a mental illusion, it appeared that way, and he took it for reality.

And the panic from facing a formation for the first time is part of it, too.

Kwak Yeon abruptly realized that he had not, in fact, experienced hallucinations like this for the first time.

More than that, he had spent years inside hallucinations like this.

The Zen Chamber can be called a formation made by nature.

When yin-cold energy and yang-heat energy had assaulted him at the same time, he had pictured the Celestial Meridian Diagram and bound his mind in place.

Because of that, he had even discovered the true traces left behind by the Western Desert Priest.

Not only had he already experienced formations, but his current self had also mastered a heart method of insight called the Honwonmusang Technique.

His mind had grown that much wider, and more solid.

It was only that, from momentary bewilderment, that mind had briefly been shaken.

Right. It’s only my mind being led astray.

As the five-colored flags rapidly covered and overlapped in every direction, making everything look like it had turned black, the grating noise of those instruments added itself and amplified his unease.

Kwak Yeon suddenly recalled the words the Supreme Patriarch had left on the foundation stone of the Agyang Pavilion.

THE HEART’S ESSENCE IS BRIGHT—EVEN IN DARKNESS, THE TRUE SKY STANDS!

He had only thought it meant, “If you do not lose your resolve, you will remain beneath a bright sky,” a mere guide for living—but he suddenly realized it was a koan of the highest insight.

It meant the posture of living and the mind of mastering martial arts must be one and the same!

The reason the Supreme Patriarch had written a koan of insight on the foundation stone of the Agyang Pavilion was because he hoped many juniors would take it as their foundation.

Kwak Yeon could feel the Supreme Patriarch’s great heart.

At the age of first stepping into the rivers-and-lakes, the Supreme Patriarch embraced the world within his arms.

Compared to that, Kwak Yeon was only following his senior’s order to collect demonic energy, and he felt shame.

He had only thought of it as a vague duty he had to do, burdened on him like an assignment.

It’s only right that I collect it, thinking of the harm that will fall not only on fellow martial artists across the world, but on ordinary people as well.

Just that thought alone made Kwak Yeon feel as if his heart had grown spacious. Even the sense of distance from the people of the world seemed to vanish.

WHOOSH!

In that instant, Honwonmusang energy surged up and swept through every blood path in his body.

As his mind cleared, the instrument sounds that had resembled the cries of ghosts became mere noise.

When he opened his eyes, the darkness that had filled everything gradually thinned, and he could see the five-colored flags crossing without rest, whirling around him at high speed.

The Seongra Heaven Sword Wall had vanished, leaving behind corpses strewn in a circle—reduced to half bodies and clots of blood.

And he saw one person standing there with a clown’s painted face and gaudy, colorful clothes.

When Kwak Yeon turned his gaze toward that person, that person’s eyes widened with a start.

Mo Geumgak, the Third Kill, froze as the Dark Cavern Taoist opened his eyes and looked straight at him.

He can see me exactly!

Mo Geumgak realized the Dark Cavern Taoist had completely escaped the illusion of the Hidden Moon Annihilation Formation.

To deploy a curtain of Steel Aura, and then to pull himself out of the timeless illusion formation the Hidden Moon Forest prided itself on.

Mo Geumgak realized the information that the Dark Cavern Taoist was at the early stage of the Transformation Realm was wrong.

Either way, the moment an assassin revealed a trace, it meant there was no longer any hope.

More than that—the opponent was a master who far surpassed the early stage of the Transformation Realm.

Still, as Mo Geumgak watched the Dark Cavern Taoist draw the Cheonggang Sword, he held onto a single thread of hope.

No matter how much the man surpassed the early stage of the Transformation Realm, he had just spent an enormous amount of inner energy on the Steel-Aura Curtain.

He would not yet have fully replenished his inner energy.

Even if he could not kill him, if he only inflicted internal injury, it was success.

If the man could not escape the Hidden Moon Annihilation Formation, he would go mad.

Even if luck let him escape, the First Kill and the Fifth Kill waiting would deal with him.

And the First Kill had a trump card that could blow him away.

Mo Geumgak raised all his inner energy.

“TAH!”

Toward the man rushing in with all his power, Kwak Yeon slowly extended the Cheonggang Sword.

With only sword aura blooming from the Cheonggang Sword, he unfolded a sword form of the Cloud-Movement Sword Method: Cloud Sea, Slow Mountain.

There were many more he would need to handle, so there was no reason to waste inner energy.

The Cloud-Movement Sword Method, unfolded by the hand of a middle-stage Transformation Realm master, displayed the pinnacle of fluid grace.

It did not cut through the opponent’s blade aura.

It rode it and flowed.

Like its name—clouds crossing mountain ridges—it flowed along the terrain, then filled the valleys.

Riding the slicing wind the opponent raised, Kwak Yeon’s body swayed lightly, fluttering like a butterfly on a spring breeze.

The essence of Wudang martial learning—softness overcoming hardness—was blooming in full from the sword of a lay Taoist of Samryeong Palace.

Mo Geumgak displayed every last trick he had, but he could not even touch the shadow of the Cheonggang Sword that slipped over him like seepage.

In the end, he felt a single strand of wind touch his chest.

THUNK!

The instant that strand of wind pierced through his chest and went out his back, it felt as if his very soul was being dragged out with it.

Mo Geumgak saw a clown with a hole in the center of its chest topple backward.

He realized it was not that he had truly become a soul and watched it—rather, it was something his mind had embodied as an image.

That was the last thought Mo Geumgak had in this world.

As Mo Geumgak collapsed, spraying blood from his chest and back, Kwak Yeon made sword steel bloom from the Cheonggang Sword.

HMMMM!

It was because he had seen the energies embedded in the five-colored flags that still spun, trapping him.

He realized the flags were not mere cloth, but implements.

Holding the Cheonggang Sword with sword steel surging up nearly ten feet, Kwak Yeon threw his body toward the wall of flags.

Now it was time to shatter the formation’s substance and break out.