Dong Bong-su had no time to hesitate even for a moment.
When his sword strike finally landed on Dong Bong-su's body, Go San-gong thought he had seized the upper hand and unleashed the final technique of the Heavenly Wind Sword Technique, Heavenly Wind Opening Heaven.
Thud, Thud, Thud—
As if the sky opened at the wind's call, dozens of sword strikes rained down on Dong Bong-su accompanied by sounds of cutting through air. Despite being a heavy sword, it was fast and had many variations. Even if Dong Bong-su tried to dodge, it looked impossible to avoid getting hit in one or two places.
In fact, blood splattered as the sword lightly grazed Dong Bong-su's legs, chest, and arms.
However,
At this moment when he should have been dodging, Dong Bong-su instead raised his sword and executed the Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon technique, thrusting toward Go San-gong's eyes. His entire body, which disregarded defense, was full of openings, and naturally the wounds from Go San-gong's sword strikes increased exponentially.
Thud, Thud!
Blood splattered and flesh tore, but Dong Bong-su's sword continued forward.
'Mutual destruction?'
Go San-gong judged it as such when he saw Dong Bong-su charging in without caring for his own body.
He sneered at that action with a smirk. To achieve mutual destruction, one must use an appropriate technique for it.
Only techniques like Cold Destruction of the Cold Yin Shura Palm Technique or the Merciless Sword Art, which consists solely of mutual destruction methods, could be called true mutual destruction techniques.
'Just Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon?'
Go San-gong retracted the Heavenly Wind Opening Heaven technique he had been extending and instead executed the horizontal strike, Heavenly Wind Flowing Cloud. His sword drew a long horizontal line and cleanly severed Dong Bong-su's arm as it stretched toward him.
Pat—!
Dong Bong-su's right arm flew high into the sky while still gripping the sword, then fell into Lake Chao.
Plop.
'Not yet!'
Although his opponent had become nearly self-abandoned and one-armed, Go San-gong didn't let his guard down. From their previous clashes, he already knew Dong Bong-su used strange death arts. This time, a sword would surely emerge from his left arm to attack again.
Swoosh!
Go San-gong's sword swung once more, flying toward Dong Bong-su's left arm. Just as he predicted, a sword popped out from Dong Bong-su's left arm, and with the same momentum from executing Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon with his right hand, he tried to execute Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon again with his left hand.
However, they were already too close for Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon to be properly executed.
Moreover,
Go San-gong had already predicted all of this.
The outcome seemed already decided to anyone watching.
Pak!
Puk!
Go San-gong's sword severed even Dong Bong-su's left arm. Dong Bong-su was now in a position where he could no longer attack. Or at least, he should have been.
However,
If only Dong Bong-su's left arm had been severed, the cutting sound should have ended with just one 'pak.'
Sound. Yes, there was one more sound. Puk. A brief but clear penetration sound.
"Kkeuk..."
What on earth had happened?
The Novice's Sword was embedded in Go San-gong's eyes.
Crunch, Thud.
Dong Bong-su's teeth firmly bit the sword handle and pushed forward with the momentum from his charge.
Two Object Entry and Exit.
The card Dong Bong-su pulled out at the last moment was the technique of simultaneously taking out two items from his Inventory. Go San-gong, who had only been focused on the left and right hands, must have thought it was over the moment he cut off both arms.
But it wasn't actually over.
Dong Bong-su pulled out swords simultaneously from his left hand and mouth. Among them, the real attack was the Novice's Sword pulled out with his mouth.
It splendidly succeeded, and Go San-gong met his end.
Go San-gong's wish—that a man should cut a person's throat, drink their blood, and sing—was achieved at the very moment he lost his life.
Except that the blood was his own and the song he sang was merely the single syllable 'kkeuk'… it was accomplished exactly as he wished.
Pierce—!
The power of Dong Bong-su's death-defying charge was so tremendous that the Novice's Sword pierced through Go San-gong's eye, penetrated the skull, and protruded out the back of his head.
Huuk huuk.
Gasping for rough breaths, he finally collapsed onto the deck as if falling.
The sacrifice to kill Go San-gong had been too great.
Because he had become disabled.
Both arms were severed, blood endlessly poured out from lacerations all over his body, and he had sustained serious internal injuries.
If he stayed like this for just a few seconds, he would die.
However,
Even setting aside the tremendous pain assaulting him, despite the situation where he would soon die, the smile forming on Dong Bong-su's lips only deepened.
The reason was.
Flash-! Flash-! Flash-!
Because he knew well that he would soon recover.
The moment Go San-gong's corpse fell onto the deck, a strange and mysterious flash burst out from Dong Bong-su's body three times in succession.
Once again, the moment of evolution had arrived.
And three times in a row at that.
By killing Go San-gong, Dong Bong-su reached Level 10.
Simultaneously, his lost arms regenerated, and all his wounds healed as well.
The holy light generated by Dong Bong-su's level up spread beyond the sailing ship's deck to various parts of the Namgung Family. Like the brightness of midday.
***
At the very moment the Namgung Family brightened due to the light emanating from Dong Bong-su's body, the Danri Family in Bongyang was also bright as midday.
However, the difference was that the Danri Family wasn't just bright—the entire family estate was engulfed in flames.
"Keuaaak!"
Buildings everywhere were collapsing, engulfed in flames, and black-masked figures in black robes were indiscriminately slaughtering the family's members.
To stop them, the Cross Heaven Sword Group, the family's only martial force, deployed, but every time the black-robed figures' swords moved, the heads of Cross Heaven Sword Group members were merely severed.
By the time Danri Cheon-u woke from sleep hearing the screams and sounds of clashing swords, the name Cross Heaven Sword Group had already been erased from the Martial World.
"..."
The Danri Family, which was everything to Danri Cheon-u, was burning, and the family's members were dying horribly, but he couldn't say anything or do anything. No, he couldn't even think of anything in the first place.
'Why? Who on earth would do such a thing?'
He should have been able to conjure such thoughts, but his body went completely limp from the overwhelmingly vast difference in power.
Before long, he alone remained in the family estate. He held his sword drawn, but he couldn't cut down even one of the black-robed figures. No, he couldn't even swing his sword. He merely trembled.
Tap, tap—
Through the sound of the Danri Family burning, footsteps could be heard.
They belonged to the black-robed figures who had created this carnage.
They soon stopped at a distance of nine meters in front of Danri Cheon-u.
Only five. Although the Black Five Group had withdrawn, still, for the Danri Family to be so helplessly defeated by just five people.
Danri Cheon-u couldn't believe it.
"...Who are you?"
Danri Cheon-u looked blankly at the black-robed figure standing at the front with a dazed expression.
The black-robed figure's terribly cold gaze quickly devoured Danri Cheon-u's unfocused eyes. Just as the flames were now erasing the Danri Family from the world.
The black-robed figure silently approached closer to Danri Cheon-u.
Tak.
The black-robed figure stopped again at a distance of one jang in front of Danri Cheon-u.
Danri Cheon-u's lips quivered, and he ultimately spat out the same words he had just said.
"...Who are you?"
The black-robed figure lifted his head slightly and spoke in a cold voice.
"Does that matter?"
Danri Cheon-u's lips trembled once more. Perhaps he wanted to say something but was too devastated to speak.
Only after biting his tongue slightly could he finally get out the words he wanted to say.
"...Wh-what's the reason?"
Slice.
He asked, but there was no answer. No, there was one. It's just that the answer wasn't words.
The black-robed figure's sword slashed diagonally from bottom to top. That was the end. Cut from the lower right hip to the left shoulder, Danri Cheon-u's upper body smoothly slid down his cleanly severed lower body to the ground.
Thud, thud.
Through the lower part of his cleanly severed upper body, shredded organ fragments spilled out. Even in such a state, Danri Cheon-u's mouth still remained in the shape of asking 'what's the reason.'
Crush!
The black-robed figure's foot crushed that mouth.
Only then could Danri Cheon-u hear an answer that wasn't an answer.
"Don't keep asking useless things. Because it's something the likes of you don't need to know."
Though he was the family head of Bongyang's greatest family, to the black-robed figure, Gwang-un, he was merely 'the likes of you.'
The Danri Family vanished from the world in vain.
At least fortunate for Danri Cheon-u was the fact that Danri Jiang-hae and Danri Hui had left the Danri Family and thus avoided this calamity.
However....
The unfortunate thing was....
That the calamity hadn't struck only this place.
If 'clouds' hung densely here, then 'shadows' were cast heavily toward the southern Anhui region, and Danri Hui had already entered within that shadow's domain.
***
Seungryong Mountain.
A small mountain rising at the northern edge of Hefei. In fact, considering its height and scale, it was difficult to even call it a mountain—it was more at the level of a hill. Nevertheless, since it was a mountain, if one climbed to its peak and looked down, one could see the entire view of Hefei, and in the distance, one could even appreciate the water mist rising from Lake Chao.
Naturally, from the summit of Seungryong Mountain, one could also observe at a glance the Namgung Family's manor adjacent to the Lake.
The reason this mountain was called by the grandiose name Seungryong Mountain, disproportionate to its scale, was because the rocks connected closely along this mountain's ridge resembled the form of an ascending dragon.
"Ah! St-stop! Aheuk!"
Right now, atop the peak rock corresponding to the head of the ascending dragon, a heat wave fierce enough to drive away the night's cold air was raging.
The man was roughly moving his lower body from behind the woman, and the woman whose back had been forcibly taken by the man was sobbing with her head bowed.
Strangely, the man's body was glowing silver, bathed in moonlight. This was a typical phenomenon that appeared in those who had mastered the strange art, the Silver Naked Lecher Art.
In the current Martial World, there was only one person who had mastered this martial art.
The protagonist who continued the rape with a fishy smile was none other than....
Pa, Pa.
"Aaah!"
The vice-leader of the Anhui branch of Heavenly Demon Castle, Silver Naked Lecher Paga Blood.
Paga Blood grabbed the woman's hair from behind and pulled it back while thrusting his waist forward even more roughly. The woman once again writhed, feeling maddening pleasure from it.
However, even while moving so violently, Paga Blood's eyes weren't on the woman.
The Namgung Family.
His eyes were only looking at the Namgung Family faintly visible in the distance.