Jin Hagyeong stood with his sword drawn, staring up the mountain.
Something had flashed beyond the fog.
The distance from the Colorful Lake's main camp to the mountainside was over two hundred Zhang, and the early morning fog filled the space between them, making it impossible to see clearly, but he could feel it quite distinctly.
It was because the vibrations under his feet had clearly changed.
Until just a moment ago, it had been intense enough, but it was the level of a battle that could exist within the bounds of the Murim.
The collision of Internal Energy against Internal Energy, a tremor that was audible and understandable.
However.
It was different now.
An inexplicable light was piercing through the fog, and the very quality of the vibrations had changed.
"This... I'm not the only one feeling this, am I?"
Jeon Rahwa stood next to Jin Hagyeong, her hand resting on her sword.
"Can you feel it too, Young Lady?"
"...Yes."
Jeon Rahwa's reply was short, but there was an edge to her voice.
But they had no time to fully register this immense threat.
Papat-!
"The flank!"
The moment Jin Hagyeong's shout fell, reddish-brown monk robes burst out from the foothills.
The remaining group of Rakshasa Monks.
Even at a glance, there appeared to be at least several dozen.
Due to the aftermath of the battle on the mountain, the scattered forces were flowing down the foothills toward them.
Their ranks were broken, and their chanting had stopped, but the hands gripping their Crescent Moon Sabers were still alive.
No matter how thoroughly they were crushed by Dong Bongsu's party, they were still the Rakshasa Monks of the Dark Rakshasa Way.
"Namu Amitabha—!"
The leading Rakshasa Monk rushed in, swinging his Crescent Moon Saber.
Sukeong—.
Jeon Rahwa's sword was faster.
Her sword, imbued with the Cold Qi of the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art, slashed upward diagonally, striking away the Rakshasa Monk's Crescent Moon Saber.
As the tip of her sword grazed the monk's robe, frost bloomed on the reddish-brown cloth.
At that, the Rakshasa Monk's shoulder froze over, and then.
Jjeong.
It shattered.
Paat—!
Jeon Rahwa immediately cut the Rakshasa Monk's throat.
Not stopping there, she lowered her body and charged.
Her sword drew a horizontal line, freezing the second Rakshasa Monk's knees, and sliced clean through the third's wrist.
Two Crescent Moon Sabers spun in the air and fell to the ground.
And before the two bewildered bald heads could even think 'what is this?', she cut their throats as well.
It was short.
But it was intense.
"Haa, haa-."
Due to the Cold Qi she had unleashed, her breath was turning into a thick white mist.
It was her first real battle, but surprisingly, she wasn't nervous.
As if she had always been waiting for this, she drew her sword and swept through the enemies.
"Move the children and the injured to the back first!"
As if to match Jeon Rahwa's movements, Jin Hagyeong shouted and swung his sword relentlessly with his left hand.
His empty right sleeve flapped violently along with him.
Hoae, too, did not panic at the sudden turn of events and pushed Seok Gyeong's back, moving the injured to the rear.
"To the front... We have to stand at the front, mister."
Hoae's voice was firm.
Seok Gyeong also gritted his teeth and stood on the defensive line.
The tip of his sword trembled, but its direction was aimed squarely at the enemy.
Four Rakshasa Monks rushed toward them, but.
Papat-!
Jin Hagyeong threw his body forward, and his sword moved.
It had not been long since he had lost an arm, so he was not used to it, but his aim was precise.
He sidestepped the downward arc of the leading Rakshasa Monk's Crescent Moon Saber by half a step, deflecting it with the back of his sword, and then aimed the tip of his blade at the monk's returning wrist, unleashing a full blast of Sword Qi.
Chachang—!
The Crescent Moon Saber was sent flying, and with the momentum, the Rakshasa Monk's wrist bent, forcing him to take a step back.
The other three pushed through the gap simultaneously.
Facing three with one arm, the angles were insufficient.
The moment Jin Hagyeong blocked the one on his left, his right side was open.
Swaek-.
A Crescent Moon Saber cut into the space where his empty sleeve was flapping.
Just then.
Kang!
Jeon Rahwa, who had rushed over at some point, struck that Crescent Moon Saber away with her sword.
They had never practiced together.
Not even a glance was exchanged.
She had simply seen Jin Hagyeong's right side open up, and her body and sword had moved first.
Jin Hagyeong blocked the left, and Jeon Rahwa cut down the right.
Jin Hagyeong stepped forward to thrust, and Jeon Rahwa cut off the retreat of a Rakshasa Monk who had slipped behind.
Jin Hagyeong had used the sword of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, and Jeon Rahwa imbued her sword with the Cold Qi of the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art.
The quality of their swords was different, and the rhythm of their footwork was different.
Of course, they had never practiced together, but surprisingly, their combination worked well.
When Jin Hagyeong's Sword Qi created an opening, the sword of Cold Qi would cover it, and when the sword of Cold Qi slowed the opponent, the one-armed sword would finish them.
But they were not the only ones on the battlefield.
"Kill them!"
"Slaughter those bastards!"
All the warriors of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect who could fight, along with Hoae, Seok Gyeong, and the other still-green members of the Hero's Sect, fought the Rakshasa Monks with all their might.
No matter how elite the Rakshasa Monks were, these remaining forces, devoid of any masters, had no way of stopping Jin Hagyeong or Jeon Rahwa, nor could they stand against the venomous remnants of the Vast Heaven sect.
Before long, all the Rakshasa Monks who had launched the surprise attack were lying on the ground.
"Haa, haa...."
The Cold Qi dispersed from Jeon Rahwa's sword, and frost formed on the surrounding blades of grass.
"Hwook, hwook...."
Jin Hagyeong also panted as he lowered the tip of his sword.
"Are you alright?"
"...Yes."
Jeon Rahwa's reply was short, but the hand gripping her sword was trembling slightly.
It was the first time she had cut a person, but she still did not sheathe her sword.
Because the threat was not yet gone.
Kuuuung—!
As if to remind them of that very fact, a shockwave descended from the mountain.
It was on a different level from before.
The dirt beneath their feet jumped up, and the fog was pushed back in a semicircle.
Through the cleared fog, a pillar of light rising from the mountainside shone down indiscriminately, along with the sunlight.
It was a beam of light so intense that it was difficult to fully open one's eyes.
"...!"
"...!"
All eyes naturally turned in that direction.
But the light showed no signs of fading and was instead growing stronger.
"What in the world is happening.... No, what are they fighting?"
● ● ●
Wuuuuuuung-.
The sound vanished, and instead, only rays of light were pouring out from Beom-eum's body.
The world after the Sea of Ten Thousand Sounds had been broken was no different from losing his eyes for Beom-eum.
He had lived for twenty years with his eyes closed.
He could see, but he did not.
He did not see because he could hear.
Because when the melody of the chanting colored the air, that became Beom-eum's vision.
The beat of the Alms Bowl set the outline, and the sound waves of the scriptures filled in the details.
The chorus chanted by hundreds of Rakshasa Monks turned the entire mountain into a musical score, and on that score, Beom-eum heard everything.
But now.
The score he had been conducting was torn to shreds.
The Alms Bowl was in two pieces.
Half of the Dharma Artifact he had been with for twenty years.
The sight of only that half remaining on his palm was terribly unfamiliar.
The other half was probably buried somewhere in the dirt.
The Alms Bowl was not the only thing buried.
Gakjin's presence had also disappeared.
To be precise, his heartbeat had stopped.
Over there.
Not too far away, the eight-Zhang-tall giant lay on the ground like a rag.
Of course, he had already heard it all.
The sound of the three-pronged fork falling, the sound of bones cracking, and the silence of a heart that would never beat again.
The seemingly endless ensemble had finally ended.
Twenty years.
From the day he joined the Rakshasa Monk Corps, Gakjin was always by Beom-eum's side.
When Beom-eum opened a path with his chanting, Gakjin's three-pronged fork walked upon that path.
Melody and strike.
Beat and shatter.
When their breaths synchronized as one, none among their enemies could break their ensemble.
It was fun.
This is sincere.
It was joyful every time hundreds and thousands of screams formed a melody, the sound of fleeing footsteps created a rhythm, and the sound of a breaking sword marked the finale.
The sound Beom-eum loved most in this world was the sound of a person breaking, and Gakjin was the musician who produced it best.
But now, it was a piece and a concerto that could no longer be performed.
His fingers gripping the half-Alms Bowl tightened.
What a shame.
It was not sadness.
Nor was it anger.
It was merely a great sense of disappointment that the 'amusement' had ended.
The corners of Beom-eum's mouth lifted.
A smile spread beneath his closed eyes.
It was a smile he hadn't worn in twenty years.
Because now, he could truly play.
That realization awakened something within Beom-eum's body.
It was not the chanting.
It was not the Internal Energy flowing through his Meridians.
It was something that had been inside his body since before he first put on the Rakshasa Monk's robes twenty years ago.
Hyuuuuuuuuuuuung-.
Something bloomed from the center of his chest.
It did not ride the Meridians.
It did not pass through the Dantian.
It was a resonance that rose simultaneously from his bones, flesh, and skin—his entire body.
Spiritual Root.
The Spiritual Root Beom-eum possessed was Rhythm.
The root of sound and the seed of vibration.
Regardless of this world's Meridian system, his very existence was an instrument, the Rhythm Spiritual Root.
The Rakshasa Monk's chanting was a degraded martial art that forced this Spiritual Root into the framework of the Meridians.
The internal rotation of the Sea of Ten Thousand Sounds—a Qi art that used bones as strings, flesh as membranes, and blood vessels as pipes—was closer to the essence of the Spiritual Root, but the moment it passed through the channels of the Meridians, it was inevitably far removed from Spiritual Energy.
It is different now.
He does not bypass the Meridians.
His entire body resonates.
Each and every bone vibrates, his blood vessels resonate, and his skin becomes a membrane, striking the atmosphere.
This is the Spiritual Root of Rhythm.
The original sound.
It was different in quality from Internal Energy.
This was Spiritual Energy.
The power that blossoms from a true Spiritual Root.
It had no need for the channels of the Meridians.
The body itself was the channel.
Light seeped out from beneath his monk's robes.
A faint yet even light.
A light different from the morning sun, neither cold nor hot, a light that should not have existed on this mountain.
That light began to tear through the threads of the reddish-brown monk's robes, one by one.
Beom-eum stood up.
Kuuung—!
With just that, all the energy of the mountain and the mountain itself were crushed.
Beom-eum had simply stood up with his feet on the ground, yet the earth within a radius of several dozen Zhang sank all at once.
The scattered debris around him was pushed outward in unison.
At the same time, Spiritual Energy poured out of Beom-eum's body, changing the very weight of the atmosphere.
"What in the world...?!"
Standing far off, Yan Bilyeong's sword cried from within its hilt.
It wasn't the sword that trembled, but the Internal Energy imbued within it.
"That person... he was some kind of incomprehensible being, not an ordinary member of the Dark Rakshasa Way."
The hand with which Myo Jinheo held his fan also began to flinch unknowingly.
Wuuuuuu-.
The mountain began to resonate with Beom-eum.
His closed eyes remained as they were.
Because there was still no need to see.
The moment the Spiritual Energy spread through the air, a sense of hearing on a different dimension from the Sea of Ten Thousand Sounds opened up.
The entire mountain could be heard.
The outline of the ruins.
The cross-section of the severed mountain ridge.
The shattered rocks and the uprooted trees.
And the man standing before him.
When Beom-eum's Spiritual Energy reached the man, Dong Bongsu, something strange happened.
He could not be read.
No, to be precise, he could be read but not grasped.
An intangible field spread around the man's body.
A strange Qi Field, perfectly assimilated with nature, was dominating the space itself.
It was so uniform and natural that it was actually abnormal.
"You... so you came from there as well."
The light completely tore through the monk's robes.
And then.
The intense rays of light, which seemed ready to rip the mountain apart, gently seeped into Beom-eum's entire body.
A lean frame with closed eyes.
The appearance of the Rakshasa Monk was nowhere to be seen.
He, the Cultivator who had revealed his true self for the first time in a very long while, Goeum, took a step toward Dong Bongsu.