Close to Ink, Black as Ink

Yuseong was confident in his abilities.

Unless it was Hae Cheongyeong himself, the opponent was merely a thought manifestation.

He thought that even if he couldn’t win easily, he could at least put up an equal fight.

“Kuk!”

That expectation was thoroughly shattered.

Far from being equal, he could barely keep up at all.

Hae Cheongyeong’s attacks were faster than light, heavy enough to crumble mountains, and continued endlessly like waves.

At first, he died without even knowing how he died.

Right after hearing Hae Cheongyeong’s voice, his consciousness cut off and the scenery changed.

Even if he wanted to resist, he couldn’t.

Even when activating Asura Perception Way to extend his perceived time to the limit, he couldn’t even catch a fragment of the movement, so how could he resist?

“…How perplexing. Your physical abilities, mental strength, and internal energy are impressive, but why is your martial arts skill like this? Moreover, there are many problems with your martial arts. Not just the level, but there’s an awkwardness like wearing ill-fitting clothes. It’s amazing how you managed to grow so unbalanced.”

Around the hundredth death, Hae Cheongyeong started holding back.

Even then, it only meant dying in two hits instead of one, but Yuseong struggled and resisted as much as possible, and as the number of deaths increased, the time he could hold out gradually lengthened.

“Be careful. A touch means death.”

When Hae Cheongyeong formed hand seals, dark blue mist began spreading in all directions.

Yuseong deployed Cloud Mist to clash with the dark blue mist that could dissolve even earth.

Fortunately, Cloud Mist blocked the dark blue mist’s expansion, but as a price, Yuseong lost track of Hae Cheongyeong’s movements.

Crunch!

“Three thousand nine hundred eighty. I’m sure I told you not to block head-on but to deflect.”

‘I can’t deflect your attacks!’

Of course, though his survival time increased, death remained unchanged.

The palm strike that broke through Blood Energy and Cloud Mist’s defense to hit his chest shattered every bone in his body and turned his internal organs to mush.

Feeling his body that had met death restore to its original state, Yuseong immediately leaped backward.

Of course, he didn’t just retreat.

A massive Thorny Vine rose from where Yuseong had stepped and lunged toward Hae Cheongyeong.

“Just this much!”

Using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art’s unique energy flow specialized in attacks, Hae Cheongyeong tore the Thorny Vine to shreds and slightly furrowed his brows.

Yuseong’s forms charging toward him and forms moving away in different directions.

“Such a shallow trick…”

Nine Phases Manifestation.

Shaolin’s highest-level movement technique pursuing the ultimate in illusions.

Though impossible to distinguish through energy sensing and the clones could exert some physical force, they were still just clones.

Heavenly Demon Dominion Step.

With one step, the ground within a hundred-meter radius sank.

After confirming all forms except one outside the Heavenly Demon Dominion Step’s range had dispersed into smoke, Hae Cheongyeong used his phase-shifting technique to move behind the only remaining Yuseong and swung his sword.

“Oho.”

Without even looking back, Yuseong accelerated to dodge the attack.

Though Hae Cheongyeong’s sword strike was like a beam of light, Yuseong had started dodging from the moment Heavenly Demon Dominion Step was cast.

Looking at Yuseong who had dodged his attack with amusement, Hae Cheongyeong swung his sword downward.

Though it was a simple downward slash, the result was anything but simple.

Slash!

With a chilling cutting sound, the clouds, mountain range, and earth in the sword’s trajectory split apart.

The only thing not split was Yuseong, who had thrown himself sideways a step ahead of Hae Cheongyeong swinging his sword.

“You’ve grown. Your skill at running away has definitely improved.”

Hae Cheongyeong continued swinging his sword but Yuseong narrowly avoided them by using the grown Thorny Vine as foothold to move.

The experience built up through 3,980 deaths and sharply honed combat sense let him predict Hae Cheongyeong’s attacks.

But even that had its limits.

Like a hunting dog herding prey, Hae Cheongyeong was gradually cornering Yuseong, and when there was nowhere left to dodge, he launched a lethal strike.

“Three thousand nine hundred… Hm?”

Hae Cheongyeong’s eyes widened.

Yuseong, who should have died split in half, dispersed into smoke.

That could only mean one thing.

‘This was a clone too?’

At that moment, Hae Cheongyeong turned and swung his sword following an intense premonition.

“Kuk!”

Along with an earsplitting metallic sound, a groan burst from Hae Cheongyeong’s mouth.

The sound of air being torn came after blocking the attack, followed by a shockwave.

The attack’s true form was a brilliantly shining golden arrow.

‘Let’s see if you can withstand this too!’

Confirming Hae Cheongyeong’s feet were bound, Yuseong pulled the bowstring again.

The bowstring’s tension enhanced with magic power was tremendous, making sounds of tearing muscles with each pull, but its power was absolute.

The arrow shot at supersonic speed had power comparable to a railgun and was sufficiently effective even against Hae Cheongyeong.

‘This time for sure!’

Bang!

The arrow flying toward Hae Cheongyeong exploded midway.

The moment Yuseong recognized this fact, he used Flash Step to throw himself sideways.

Slash!

A sudden sword pierced through Cloud Mist like paper and left a deep wound in his side.

Grabbing the sword trying to cut a semicircle through his waist and throwing it in the opposite direction, Yuseong took a breath and assumed a combat stance.

Burning pain surged but he gritted his teeth and endured.

Through countless deaths, he had learned how fatal a mistake it was to look away even for a moment before an overwhelmingly stronger opponent.

‘Here he comes.’

Yuseong struck with his fist using all his might while kicking off the ground.

Shooting Star, Infinite Origin Force, Blood Energy, Cloud Mist, Tyrant’s Arms, Holy Avenger, Amplification, Shadow Moon Style 16.

His strongest strike pouring everything he could do clashed with Hae Cheongyeong’s palm strike as he emerged from the dust.

Crack!

Was this what getting hit by a truck felt like?

Intense pain rose throughout his body as strength drained away.

Lowering his head to meet his 3,981st death, Yuseong slowly raised his head when his vision didn’t go dark even after considerable time passed.

“…Lord Hae Cheongyeong?”

Hae Cheongyeong’s right arm that had received his punch head-on was gone, and his body was cracked all over like broken pottery.

Looking at the blank-faced Yuseong for a while, Hae Cheongyeong gave a bitter smile and said.

“To forcefully break through trials with otherworldly power… Though absurd, gathering and utilizing excellent weapons is also a clear ability. The end was somewhat acceptable.”

“Uh, is this over?”

“Your mental strength has reached its limit and this one’s existence time is almost up, so we must end here. Sigh.”

“Why the sudden sigh?”

“You didn’t receive even a speck of the essence of martial arts and enlightenment, only building up strange combat ability, so how could I not sigh? Setting aside spirit-energy-mind, I’m curious how even body-energy-mind could be this unbalanced. Barely achieving body-energy-mind unity and balancing spirit-energy-mind after fighting an absolute master 4,000 times. The martial artists would vomit blood if they knew.”

User.

A being who could raise stats and purchase various skills as rewards for solving problems by using other worlds and other people’s bodies, rather than honing their own body and abilities.

Though able to raise stats quickly and easily and learn unlimited types of skills, balance would inevitably collapse in that process.

Yuseong also knew this problem and occasionally tried to maintain balance through training, thinking he had some success, but after sparring with Hae Cheongyeong now, he could realize he had been having an absurd delusion.

‘I was completely dominated by power.’

A combat style overly dependent on the monstrous strength given by Tyrant’s Arms.

Using items themselves wasn’t a problem, but being used by items rather than wielding them was different.

More serious was the fact that he had become so accustomed to fighting using monstrous strength that it affected his combat ability even in situations where he couldn’t use Tyrant’s Arms.

‘Now I understand why I struggled against martial artists.’

Someone who didn’t properly know their own body versus someone who perfectly controlled their body.

It was obvious who would be stronger without even looking.

He could only win because he could predict movements through the synergy of Eye of Truth and Asura Perception Way – without those two skills, losing a hundred times out of a hundred wouldn’t have been strange.

However, now that he had achieved body-energy-mind unity, things were different.

Though his specs remained the same, his actual combat power had more than doubled.

“I’m quite satisfied with just this much.”

“This one is not satisfied. Do you know what a precious opportunity you’ve wasted?”

The statement that martial artists would vomit blood if they knew was no exaggeration.

Life-and-death sparring with a master was comparable to years of training alone.

Yet the result Yuseong gained from nearly 4,000 life-and-death battles with an absolute master was too pitiful.

“With luck you could have reached the manifestation realm, or at least the transformation realm, but just reaching peak supreme… What a waste, truly a waste.”

“Even if my realm is peak supreme, I think I could beat those in transformation or manifestation realm.”

“……”

Hae Cheongyeong was left speechless at Yuseong’s answer.

That statement was certainly true.

Though his martial arts realm was low, Yuseong had capabilities that overwhelmed profound martial principles and enlightenment.

Strength like the creation god Pangu who was said to hold up the sky and terrifying internal energy far surpassing thousand-year energy.

If he actively utilized his arms that could grab even sword lights and energy-controlled swords with bare hands, he could certainly defeat even masters of the Manifestation realm.

Hae Cheongyeong’s thought manifestation shook his head and said.

“It seems meaningless to evaluate a user by martial artists’ standards. However, there’s one thing I’d like to ask if you don’t mind?”

“Ask anything.”

“This one is not just a martial artist who reached the divine realm but also a sorcerer who can communicate with heaven. While fighting, I briefly looked into the depths of your mental realm and saw something quite dangerous.”

Yuseong instinctively realized the dangerous thing Hae Cheongyeong mentioned was the Outer God’s thought.

“I’m not sure if you know this, but that is a very, very dangerous being. I don’t know if you formally contracted with it or were infected by it, but I recommend removing it as soon as possible.”

“I know it’s dangerous. But is there really a need to remove it? It seems like it would disappear on its own if left alone since its power is gradually being absorbed by the surrounding stars.”

“That’s not disappearing, just changing form. Do you know the saying ‘close to ink, black as ink’?”

“Doesn’t it mean you become black when close to ink?”

“You know well.”

Hae Cheongyeong clicked his tongue as if finding it pathetic and said.

“Though I don’t know how you could build such a clear small universe in your mental imagery without even gaining enlightenment, that’s not the end. That’s merely a stepping stone to reach the transcendent realm beyond the mortal realm. You must continue comprehending and training to grow that small universe into a great universe to truly reach the transcendent realm. If your small universe continues absorbing that ominous being and grows into a great universe…”

Hae Cheongyeong paused briefly before continuing.

“I can only say nothing good will happen.”