The Genius Warrior Who Remembers Everything Chapter 37

Chapter 37. A Second-Rate Warrior Facing a Legend (2)

[Taeul Sect? Was there such a sect?]

[You know. The sect that got into the One Hundred Eight Peaks by spreading lies.]

[Ah, the Taeul Sword Emperor. Wow. I wonder if we can learn a move from the descendant of our Taeul Sword Emperor?]

[Be careful. There is a legend that no one who stood against the Taeul Sword Emperor survived intact.]

The ability to remember everything affected even my dreams.

Memories of the past that came through vividly even in dreams made me aware that I was dreaming, and most days like that left my mood foul all day.

Still, this time, I could not blame that memory. After realizing in my dream that I had been sucked into the Soul-Destroying Formation, I was able to come to my senses quickly.

“……Damn it.”

A murky fog covered my vision in every direction.

-S-save me!

-Someone help me!

-Is anyone there?!

In a place where the boundaries of time and space had vanished, screams that I could not tell were near or far pierced my ears.

They were probably the screams of the people who had entered the Soul-Destroying Formation, saying they would find a path.

Among the voices I heard one by one, there were none that sounded grouped together.

Hundreds of people had entered the formation, yet each had been cast into a different place apart from the others.

“Do the two million formation paths completely separate everyone from one another?”

This was why the Maoshan Sect’s spell practitioners had understood the structure of the formation, yet absolutely refused to enter it.

I tried to sharpen my eyesight, but my qi center was empty.

“Did I lose my senses? I had forgotten that I fired Radiant Heaven Divine Palm.”

It had happened so suddenly and without warning that even my absolute memory had failed to work.

“He really is a chilling bastard.”

I could understand the Shattering Form being overcome so quickly, considering that had happened in my past life too, but seeing Radiant Heaven Divine Palm deflected was still not easy to believe.

“And yet he threw me into the Soul-Destroying Formation. He was a sinister bastard even when he was young.”

In that brief instant, he had grasped the destructive force of Radiant Heaven Divine Palm, decided it would obstruct what he intended to do, and driven me into the Soul-Destroying Formation.

He was an enemy, but I had no choice but to admit that his mind worked quickly enough to be called sharp.

He did not care about means or methods for the sake of his goal, had the martial force and influence to push them through, did not dwell on small sacrifices, and raised up a greater cause.

Perhaps people followed him because they were fascinated by that powerful image.

“Now that I think about it, maybe that bastard is more dangerous than the Demonic Cult.”

Until now, I had thought my goal was simply to protect Taeul Sect under the influence of the Murim Alliance.

But even that would become meaningless if the ones moving the Murim Alliance ultimately pushed us into hell.

‘Perhaps I will have to fight Yong So-ah.’

No, there would surely come a moment when I had to fight him. Just thinking of how he had thrown me into the Soul-Destroying Formation made me feel as though my anger would not be appeased even if I tore off all four of his limbs.

But with only the Minor Heaven Sword Art learned, how could I face a monster who could even deflect Radiant Heaven Divine Palm? The anger that had suddenly blazed up like wildfire died down.

“My life, too, has no visible way forward, just like this Soul-Destroying Formation.”

In any case, what mattered was getting out of the Soul-Destroying Formation.

If I could not leave this place, then even One cycles of inner arts would become meaningless, and I would not get the chance to take revenge on Yong So-ah.

I immediately sat down and performed Qi Circulation. I felt my inner arts filling back up to some extent.

But during that short time when I had closed my eyes, the formation had taken on a completely different scene.

The fog in every direction had vanished, and now only pitch-black darkness blocked off all sides.

Even the screams of the people could no longer be heard.

Of the 2,100,000 formation paths in total, I had memorized only 1,800,000.

Had I memorized just a little more, I could have found the shape of the formation paths. But because I had entered the Soul-Destroying Formation without that preparation in the end, I had to fill in the remaining 300,000 paths myself.

An even bigger problem was that I could not determine which formation path I had begun from.

To identify the formation path, I had to be able to calculate the formation or open the upper qi center. I was in a state where I could do neither.

“I have something else I must not tell my junior disciples.”

I could not immediately think up a calculation formula, so there was only one choice available.

I sat down again, crossed my legs, and began Qi Circulation and Breathing.

Each time I circulated the Small Heavenly Circuit, the Spiritual Medicine forces sleeping throughout my body began waking one by one.

The vigorous force that burned away the dregs in my fine meridians and opened my acupoints moved from the Central Pole Acupoint to the Reaching Yang Acupoint, passed through the Spirit Path Acupoint, and asked where it was supposed to go.

And I began moving my internal qi toward the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.

Suddenly, the words I had heard when I first learned an inner arts method came to mind.

-Jin So-un, never try to open your upper qi center. Never.

Ordinary martial artists did not touch the upper qi center unless there was an extraordinary reason.

It went without saying that doing so inside the Soul-Destroying Formation was madness to anyone’s eyes.

Even those Demonic Cult bastards, who were full of lunatics under heaven, would surely shake their heads if they saw me now.

‘Even so, I have to do it.’

Thanks to the Calm Heart Pill, I could block Qi Deviation once, so this was the insanity I could attempt.

The internal qi that had been waiting hesitantly began moving again.

It asked me again and again if this was correct. Was I truly right to enter here?

I sent my intent and drew up the internal qi in a single breath.

CRASH.

A thunderclap rang inside my head along with a tremendous impact.

CRASH.

While my whole body trembled numbly, as if all my nerves were burning, pain surged in like a flood as though my consciousness would break.

Urgh.

The impact that shook all my acupoints threw my insides into disorder, and blood flowed from the corners of my mouth.

CRASH.

Amid a suffocating pressure and pain like every pore was being pierced by needles, a strange sensation that I could not tell was agony or ecstasy arose in my head.

RUSHHHH.

A sound like valley water flowing echoed inside my head, and the pain that had covered my entire body changed all at once into a cool, refreshing sensation.

The coolness drifting inside my head raced all over my body and began opening the blocked acupoints.

In the middle of that, this tremendous force absorbed every remaining trace of Spiritual Medicine force and strengthened itself even further.

‘Stop, stop.’

The pleasant feeling was pleasant, but the internal qi began to swell so much that I feared I might no longer be able to control my inner arts.

The force that surged in even more greatly than when it had pierced the Hundred Convergences Acupoint ignored my intent, raced all over my body, and widened paths as it pleased before stopping at a certain point.

‘No way.’

As if it disliked the blocked middle qi center, my internal qi rubbed its head against it furiously and tried to bore through.

Urgh.

Because it tried to force open a blocked place, my five viscera and six bowels turned over, and I spat blood without pause.

At this rate, I could not avoid Qi Deviation.

‘Since I have already opened the upper qi center and have the Calm Heart Pill anyway…… it is do or die.’

CRASH.

The moment the flow of internal qi and the direction of my intent aligned, it pushed against the middle qi center with even greater excitement.

CRASH.

With a great impact that shook my entire body, even the middle qi center was finally pierced through, and my internal qi raced through my whole body with nothing to obstruct it anymore.

Only after the energy had roamed every corner of my body for quite some time and settled in my qi center could I open my eyes.

“Phew…….”

The inner arts I felt in my qi center amounted to roughly one hundred years.

My upper and middle qi centers had opened, and there was no obstruction in the flow of internal qi.

In an instant, I had reached the realm of Five Dragons Offering the Sage.

What my eyes saw became clearer, and the sensations coming through my five senses allowed me to perceive myself from an objective distance.

Simply put, I had reached the realm where masters could snatch objects flying in from their blind spots without looking.

“Heavenly Fortune helped me.”

It was a perilous gamble I would never even have thought of attempting without the Calm Heart Pill.

Thanks to that, I had pierced through even the middle qi center and absorbed all the Spiritual Medicine force that remained inside my body.

Once my five senses opened, I began feeling the flow of the formation.

The Eight Trigrams, the Twelve Branches, the Sixty Jiazi, and the formation paths created by the 365 changes.

I felt the flow, compared it with the formation paths filling my mind, and identified where I was and where I had to go.

Before I knew it, the clouds and mist in every direction had changed back to red. And I was certain.

“I can go.”

I moved my foot in one direction.

The red fog that had blocked everything murkily was instantly pushed far away and opened a path.

It meant I had taken the proper formation path.

Another step.

The red fog changed into yellow fog.

It was proof that I had entered a different formation path.

Another step.

Once again, the fog suddenly pulled back and opened a path.

Then I encountered darkness.

This path was one the Maoshan Sect’s spell practitioners had not yet calculated.

Even so, I could not turn back or retreat as I would inside a cave.

The formation path would begin again, and in the end, it would ultimately run into the same curtain.

“I have to fill in the formation paths that could not be completed.”

At the same time as I sent internal qi into the upper qi center, I began recording all the formation paths of the Soul-Destroying Formation on one wall of the library in my head.

After filling the entire wall, which rose endlessly high, a space appeared on the lower left where the 300,000 formation paths had to go.

It was a place that could never be filled by calculation from the start.

I inferred the common laws of the other formation paths and began remembering new formation paths.

It was without question sheer madness, but I did not stop because, for some reason, I had the absurd feeling that it was possible.

Was it because I had opened the upper qi center? The missing numbers began to fill in according to each subtle principle.

One formation path recorded another formation path, and the two formation paths thus created went on to record four more formation paths.

My mind, empowered through the upper qi center, forcibly created an overload, and the blood surging in could not be contained by the thin lining of my nose, so it poured out in streams.

By the time I thought I could fill a small gourd bottle with my nosebleed alone.

“It is done.”

When 2,102,400 formation paths were complete, the darkness before my eyes was no longer something to fear.

STEP.

The world suddenly brightened, and I felt a radiant mass of light.

When I took another step, the fog began to clear.

With each step I took, the fog thinned, and I began seeing those who lay dead around me.

And the moment I felt I had reached the end of the Soul-Destroying Formation.

A white wall rose before my eyes with no end in sight.

I stepped on one part of that wall.

WHOOSH.

The white wall lifted, and I entered a pitch-black cave again.

“Haa, haa.”

Before my eyes, ice hanging like stalactites gave off blue light and illuminated the cave brightly.

“Mita Sacred Water…….”

As soon as my tension loosened, I lost consciousness and collapsed.

***

When I came to again, my whole body felt light, as if all my fatigue had been washed away.

In addition, my qi center was filled with about half my inner arts. Considering I had not performed Qi Circulation and Breathing, I could tell that opening the upper and middle qi centers had made my natural speed of accumulation even faster.

“If someone saw me, they would think I had caused a blood calamity.”

My blue martial arts uniform was stained by the blood I had spat and the nosebleed I had poured out, soaked full of blood.

“There isn’t anyone to see me anyway.”

There was no one inside the cave.

Hundreds of people had entered the Soul-Destroying Formation of their own accord, yet this meant I was the only one who had reached this place.

“Haha, so this was true.”

The battle over Mita Sacred Water had become controversial not only because five thousand people were sacrificed, but also because Mita Sacred Water was never found in the end.

Thanks to that, some even said it had been false information spread by Hao Gate to bring chaos to the murim.

“But I end up seeing it with my own eyes after all.”

The Mita Sacred Water descending long from the ceiling emitted light on its own.

I hurriedly took out an awl from my clothes and held up the specially made water flask, then tapped the Mita Sacred Water.

CRACKLE.

The Mita Sacred Water snapped off and fell into the water flask, and the awl began freezing over with a crackle, so I quickly threw it away.

The Yin Qi of Mita Sacred Water was so strong that the palm holding the awl had already frozen solid.

When I drew up internal qi, my hand slowly thawed, and water streamed down from it.

It was truly a strange sight difficult to see again in the mortal world.

“In any case, the place where the Taeul Sword Emperor was sealed must be here too.”

My original goal had been to find traces of the Taeul Sword Emperor.

After entering the cave, the series of events that unfolded had fanned my suspicion even further.

“The Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation, which can never be broken and never disappears.”

What in the world had they spread this absolute formation, stretching thirty jang, to seal?

-The masters of the sun decided to separate Dark Heaven and Ten Thousand Swords from the mortal world.

From the start, the Soul-Destroying Formation was not something that could be dissolved with powerful inner arts.

The fact that they had spread a formation that separated even the soul from the mortal world meant the target’s influence had been that tremendous.

-Beside Chu’s platter. At the end of the hell where heaven and earth touch. There, they sealed Dark Heaven and Ten Thousand Swords. Then all under heaven was at peace.

The legend of the Taeul Sword Emperor was true, and they had spread the absolute formation known as the Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation to seal them away.

“It will definitely be here. Traces of my Grand Patriarch.”

I stepped toward the Soul-Destroying Formation on the opposite side of the path I had entered through.

Now, like walking down an alley in a neighborhood I knew perfectly, I felt no fear at all of the fog and darkness that blocked my surroundings.

With every step, the fog was pushed far away.

Between the fogs that parted as if guiding the way, I again faced a white wall.

I pried open part of the wall and pushed my body inside. A cavern appeared, filled only with darkness.

I closed my eyes briefly, drew up my inner arts, and sharpened my eyesight. Then I saw two human figures sitting at opposite ends of a space about ten jang in every direction.

One figure was that of an old man with white hair.

The other figure was that of a middle-aged man with black hair and a beard.

Drawn by a pull I did not understand, I approached the old man. Then I saw the densely packed characters written on the floor centered around him.

And at the very top of those characters, the eight characters carved most deeply.

Ten Thousand Swords under Heaven.

Taeul Sword Emperor.

Something struck my abdomen and surged upward.

It was the sorrowful emotion melted into the humiliating years that the forebears of Taeul Sect had endured over the past five hundred years, spanning both my previous life and this life.

The strength left the backs of my knees, and I knelt.

I bowed low where I was, without even having time to wipe away the tears flowing down, and spoke with a choking sob.

“Jin So-un, eighteenth-generation disciple of Taeul Sect, pays his respects to the Grand Patriarch.”