Possessing Nothing

TL: Yul 

PR: Gort

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The Sword Saint glanced at Chung Myung’s head and body, which were not far from him. Even in this dire situation, the Sword Saint took care not to harm the cold corpse of his disciple.

He created a gap between the countless invisible swords for Chung Myung to lie in, and when Geniella’s attacks neared his corpse, the Sword Saint would purposefully step in front of the attack to parry it away. 

‘There’s no point…’

The Sword Saint put strength into his knees, which had buckled briefly. As he weakly straightened his body, he shook his sweat-drenched hair. 

He looked past the sweat drops hanging on the ends of his hair at Geniella. That monster of monsters didn’t even look exhausted, just amused.

“Haha…”

The Sword Saint stared at Geniella, laughing self-mockingly. His chest burned as though he was encased in a ball of fire.

However, he could still look at the situation with a cold heart due to his logical thought process. 

His body wasn’t in its prime. No, even if he was in his prime, he thought he would still lose.

Qi deviation had taken away the freedom of the Sword Saint’s body, but through meditation, he strengthened his heart and mind.

The martial arts that he gained through this couldn’t be said to be insufficient. 

It was that their existences were different. That was the only reason the Sword Saint’s invisible swords couldn’t threaten Geniella.

The sword could cut through her barriers, and it could even slice through her body. 

However, no matter what he did, it was impossible to kill Geniella. The Queen of Monsters regenerated her damaged body as she laughed, even if her heart was pierced, even if her head was sliced.

“Good,” Geniella clapped as she watched the Sword Saint lift his body up. Her smile brightly lit her face as she nodded. “You want to do more? I don’t really like men who quit early on. So, I’m saying that I don’t dislike you. If it wasn’t for the circumstance, I might really have thought about turning you into one of mine.”

She was speaking the truth. She didn’t hate people like the Sword Saint.

She loved people who struggled and tried not to despair, no matter how hopeless the situation was.

For hundreds of years, Geniella’s favorite hobby had been corrupting struggling humans with subtle cajoling and seduction until they begged to be turned into vampires. Every vampire she made over 700 years, save for Gemini and the Blood Demon, were all humans who had fallen for her manipulation.

“However, there’s no time for that,” Geniella sighed, genuinely disappointed. 

If she had more time, the Sword Saint would sink deeper into despair, and he would break his own conviction and vengeful heart, begging to be made into a vampire.

Geniella clicked her tongue and stretched her hand toward the Sword Saint.

BOOM!

Blood droplets shot through space. Geniella’s magic collided with the flow of invisible swords that protected the Sword Saint and bounced off. Her mouth twitched, and she smiled.

The Sword Saint took a deep breath and concentrated. His body was too weak to fight in close combat due to suffering from Qi Deviation.

Even if he tried his all to move his internal energy through his body, it was still the body of an old man.

It was incredibly inefficient to fight using an actual sword with his body. If it was a random martial artist, he could definitely suppress them with his body, but his current opponent was the Vampire Queen, who had reigned for centuries.

Thankfully, the Sword Saint’s martial art had shifted to a power that didn’t need his body.

The Sword Saint was already proficient in the two types of sword arts: the invisible sword and the flying sword. Through practice and meditation, he had been able to obtain a higher qi quality and quantity than what he had during his physical peak.

However… his opponent was strong. Against the immortal Vampire Queen, his invisible swords and flying swords were insufficient. 

If those two weren’t enough… what did he have to do? 

The Sword Saint focused more.

He knew very well that he would die here. His heart screamed vengeance for the death of his disciple, to kill that damned monster; his logical mind knew that it was impossible.

However, he didn’t back down. He couldn’t. The Sword Saint thought of the mental message that Lee Sungmin sent right as he left; the Wudang Sect’s main mountain was being attacked. 

‘How many survived?’

He knew that thinking that everyone had evacuated safely was greedy. However, at the very least, he wanted the children who could continue the name of Wudang to be safe, to run away. 

…No, was there even a point in that? The Apocalypse was already coming, and the future that awaited all was death.

He grasped his loosening mentality. Even if he were going to die, he wouldn’t die just now. If he didn’t die, if he was still alive… no one knew what would happen next. Maybe the fate that was set in stone could really be changed.

‘I have lived enough.’

He lived for too long. His body should have died a long time ago; the only reason why he was still alive was because of his determination to grasp onto his collapsing body.

He had lived due to his determination, but he couldn’t reach a higher realm. He had often thought there was no point in extending his life if he couldn’t improve.

No.

There was definitely a purpose in forcing his dying body to move and to live. Because of that, the Sword Saint was alive now.

He thought of Chung Myung.

Disciple…

When he thought about it, he was too greedy. Impressed by Chung Myung’s talent, he had taken him in as a disciple and never let him out of Wudang Mountain. 

Every day, the Sword Saint made him practice martial arts. Chung Myung had easily and impressively become a Transcendent martial artist, but the Sword Saint had no memory of ever complimenting him sincerely.

He was too greedy. He had thought that since he was his disciple, that sort of realm was a given.

He thought his disciple had to reach a higher realm and become stronger. The Sword Saint taught him harshly.

Chung Myung, who had never left the mountain for many decades, only swinging his sword, had never complained.

That child always had a faint smile, listening quietly to the annoying and old master.

And he had died. A futile death, unable to do anything… without a chance to show the world the martial skills he had engraved in his soul for dozens of years.

The Sword Saint’s heart seemed to rip apart as he thought of Chung Myung’s death. Why…why was he so greedy…

Why didn’t he tell him to descend the mountain and travel the world for a year, no, even just a month… Was that that hard to say?

Geniella did not stop advancing. At this moment, she had no interest or care about what the Sword Saint was thinking.

She was not interested in who Chung Myung, whom she killed, was to the Sword Saint or how much he was suffering from his meaningless death.

The Sword Saint scraped up his remaining superior Qi.

The technique that supported his dying body was a Daoist secret art that was passed down through the generations in the Wudang Sect. Through the secret art, the Sword Saint’s collapsing body connected with the mountain, and he could live by leaching off of the mountain’s energy. 

The superior Qi in the Sword Saint’s body was the mountain’s energy. To the Sword Saint, using the mountain’s energy this much was like a martial artist bringing out his Vital Qi. 

The Sword Saint burned his soul as he used the mountain’s energy as his own Qi.

“So desperate,” Geniella smirked as she looked at the struggling Sword Saint. She did not feel a hint of danger. 

In this world, no existence could instill a sense of danger or fear in her. Maybe the Lord of the Sama Order or Heoju could, but they were already long dead.

The Sword Saint closed his eyes, ignoring Geniella’s mocking laughter. The invisible swords that surrounded him faintly glowed and disappeared. 

The Sword Saint wanted to do something. Geniella knew that, but she did not raise her guard. 

Even though tonight wasn’t a night of the full moon, she was still a predator with absolute power.

Even if the Sword Saint was planning something, Geniella did not feel a hint of danger from him. 

She was arrogant, which led to her letting her guard down. 

To be honest, even if she weren’t overconfident, even if she didn’t let her guard down, the end result would not have changed at all.

Tok.

Geniella’s head fell down. At that moment, Geniella did not feel a blade cutting into her neck. She did not even realize her head was rolling on the ground.

Her body walked without realizing the absence of the head.

PABABABAK! 

Geniella’s body was split into dozens of pieces of flesh, and a blade storm arose after, cutting those pieces into hundreds of pieces. 

“…huuu…”

The Sword Saint swallowed his breath.

The space was filled with cuts, yet there was no sign of invisible swords. 

The Sword Saint had advanced a step farther.

The Sword Saint used his soul as a power source to forcefully take a step into the next realm.

He did not move. He couldn’t. 

Because his consciousness was ahead of his body, he knew that if the body walked to follow him, this forced trance would be shattered.

The hundreds of thousands of pieces of flesh that once made Geniella moved and connected together. Geniella’s body, which was cut into a shapeless mess, regenerated.

The Sword Saint’s eyes opened wider. His eyes were able to see… see what he couldn’t before. 

The small pieces of flesh were all interconnected by crimson lines.

He ground his teeth. His unflinching mind turned sharper. 

Cut. Cut. Cut…

The Sword Saint chanted through his tightly shut lips.

He was not wielding a sword. However, his heart became a sword: a blade that could, no, would cut through everything.

A sword, invisible and nonexistent, appeared out of thin air. No one could see this sword, yet the Sword Saint saw it clearly. 

This… was his heart. Cut. The Sword Saint thought again. 

Chung Myung’s decapitated heart appeared in the center of his mind.

“Master.”

That voice.

“Master.”

That voice. 

Master, did you cough? Master, how is your body doing? Master, I understand. Master, Is that so? Master, thank you. Yes, Yes, Yes.

That voice of a child that would never say no, never say that he didn’t like something…

The Sword Saint’s face suddenly seemed, somehow, much older. 

It felt as though Chung Myung’s corpse was pushing his back, urging him to go forward.

He needed to cut. No. He will cut. 

The Sword, created in his heart, appeared from the Sword Saint’s body.

Throughout his life, he had seen countless swords, but the one forged in his heart emitted a shine that made him sigh in admiration.

The Sword moved. The Sword of his heart was above the laws of this world; it could go anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere.

The Sword took on the shape of a sword but was not a sword, yet could still do everything a sword could.

He saw something.

It was so faint that he could not see it clearly. It looked… like a road. The scenery shook. Geniella disappeared, and his hands became empty; the Sword was gone.

A path was visible in the shaking landscape that seemed as if it would collapse or disappear at any moment. The Sword Saint stared forward blankly. 

He couldn’t even dare to look for the end of this path, yet he longed for it. He did not know what this road was, but he was overcome with the desire to reach the end.

The Sword Saint raised his leg to take a step into this road.

“It’s too early for you.”

A voice spoke from far away on the road. Where… had he heard this voice? This simple voice carried enough strength to push the Sword Saint’s body back.

Behind his back, the headless Chung Myung pushed his body forward. In the front… the voice told him not to come, pushing his body back. The Sword Saint couldn’t do anything and just stood there.

“It’s unfortunate.”

Ah, right.

That voice…

Cra…Crack!

The Sword Saint’s body collapsed like a doll, its strings cut.

Geniella looked down at the Sword Saint’s neck, broken in her hand. She frowned as she stared at the Sword Saint’s wrinkled face.

What was he thinking in his final moment? What did he see to be able to make such an expression?

“If I knew it would be like this, should I not have killed him?”

Geniella complained in a small voice. She hated being unable to hear answers to what she was curious about. 

However, it was too late. Geniella let go of the Sword Saint’s neck; his body crumbled onto the floor. 

“Was it strong enough for you to use your Demon Eye?”

Gemini, who had walked over to Geniella, asked as she tilted her head. Above Geniella’s head, a small spherical object floated in the air. It was a full moon that Geniella forcefully created by using her last Demon Eye. 

“I don’t know what it was, but it was dangerous,” Geniella spoke truthfully. She did not know what the Sword Saint did in his last moments.

Her body had split into countless pieces of flesh, and after… something happened faster than she could regenerate. If she hadn’t used her Demon Eye, she did not know what would have happened.

If she did not have increased regeneration under the full moon, what would have happened? What would have happened if the Sword Saint achieved what he was trying to do before Geniella grabbed his throat?

“I need to rest a bit,” Geniella spoke as she sat down. Her last Demon Eye created a full moon instantly, but it did not come without repercussion. It was her strongest defensive and offensive skill, but it brought severe penalties. 

“Can I trust you?” Geniella glanced over at Gemini and spoke.

Don’t worry, Queen,” Gemini replied, grinning.

—

Hey guys, I’m back… with some good news!

I’m finished with all my SATs and whatnot so I should have a lot more time to TL (I think I said this a lot lmao). But yeah