CHAPTER 191
Aranseol crushed the ground beneath her feet and launched like a cannonball.

Her silhouette became a crimson thunderbolt once more, streaking downward.

Three blood-swords rose to meet her.

Every one of them carried Sohan's swordsmanship—nothing like the decoys from before.

KAANG! KANG!

Aranseol swatted the incoming blades aside with blistering speed, endlessly kicking off surfaces between the crumbling debris.

The distance between Sohan and Aranseol shrank again at a terrifying pace.

Just as Aranseol targeted Sohan's neck once more—

One of his swords bent mid-flight, snaking toward her flank.

She deflected it without breaking her stance.

THUD—

But before she knew it, another colossal greatsword had begun crashing down above her.

Even Aranseol couldn't redirect those things over and over again.

She had no choice but to pull back, widening the distance from Sohan.

KWAAAAAANG!

Meanwhile, an explosion of sound rolled in from the opposite side—the Regular Army and the Holy Church's combined assault. The tremors reached all the way here, shaking Sky Castle and the black roots, sending debris raining down.

Aranseol wove through the falling wreckage with agile precision.

Sohan, however, attacked without hesitation even in those conditions. His swords harassed Aranseol ceaselessly, unconstrained by the chaos of the space.

Drip—

But Sohan wasn't in perfect shape either.

He'd grafted a piece of Bloody Crown's flesh into his own body, but it was far from a complete form.

He had some regeneration, but it was negligible.

On top of that, his bleeding simply refused to stop, no matter what Aranseol had done.

Sohan realized what school of swordsmanship was behind this.

"Master's technique, huh."

"Don't call him that."

Aranseol, who had nearly closed in again, was knocked back by his swords, retreating into the air.

The Sword Lord Soun's blade.

Wounds he inflicted never closed, no matter what.

The reason was that his cuts were so exquisitely precise that the body didn't even register it had been cut—and so it couldn't heal.

Aranseol was Soun's disciple, too.

Before anyone realized it, she had achieved mastery—and was now wielding Soun's own swordsmanship.

"Impressive. Danmyung really is something, I suppose."

Sohan tore a strip from his robe and eyed Aranseol.

Then he wrapped the torn fabric around his neck first.

Emergency treatment, but it would never fully heal from that alone.

He needed proper medical attention.

Just then, a gust of wind blew and fluttered the torn robe.

Beneath it, red flesh could be seen—fused and entangled with his heart.

The moment Aranseol saw it, she understood it was whatever was summoning the Transcendents.

If Harua had been here, he'd have identified it instantly.

Aranseol lacked knowledge when it came to Transcendents.

But one thing was certain: she needed to cut that thing down along with Sohan.

'Time's running out for both of us.'

Sohan would die without proper treatment.

Aranseol was in danger from a potential Transcendent intervention.

In the end, one of them had to die for this to be over.

And so, in that moment, both of them knew.

The battle between them was about to reach its conclusion.

Their eyes met.

Instinct clashed, and the end became clear.

Aranseol and Sohan moved simultaneously.

Aranseol's body drifted into the air and began to plummet.

Sohan knew full well that in a straight fight, the current Aranseol would beat him.

Her approach meant his defeat.

A colossal greatsword erupted from below Aranseol's position. He was clearly trying to buy time with it again.

Above, the Transcendent's presence in the sky was growing ever more palpable. Even Aranseol could feel it clearly now.

She had no intention of wasting any more time.

'If I can't block it in the first place—'

A crimson current swirled in Aranseol's eyes.

'—then I cut through it instead.'

Having made her decision, she clenched Danmyung tight.

In that same moment, an immense current of energy gathered around the blade.

Red lightning scattered in every direction, its power on full display—

Aranseol swung her sword directly at the oncoming greatsword.

KAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAK!

Sparks erupted between the greatsword and Danmyung, flying everywhere.

No matter how overwhelming its size, the greatsword was ultimately something Sohan had created.

Its durability had limits.

Aranseol's Danmyung carved through Sohan's greatsword, advancing without pause.

Her muscles swelled even larger than before, channeling raw power.

The greatsword split apart.

A single swordswoman had cleaved a mountain-sized blade in two.

KAAAAAANG!

At last, the greatsword broke in half—and the instant Aranseol's body lurched forward from the momentum—

She spotted a sword flying at her face.

Hidden behind the splitting greatsword.

A sword Sohan had turned the situation against her with.

The blocked field of vision, the strength pushed to its absolute limit.

The sheer exertion had left Aranseol's mind momentarily hazy.

The bloodstained blade aimed for her head.

At this rate, it would pierce straight through.

Aranseol bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, forcibly snapping herself awake, and wrenched her arm up with everything she had.

The strain tore through her arm, feeling like the muscle would rip—but she had no other choice.

She channeled every ounce of strength in her body and severed the incoming blade.

But just behind the sword she'd deflected—

Another blade wove in with lethal precision, crossing paths in its approach. She hadn't seen that coming.

By the time she spotted it, there was only one thing Aranseol could do.

CRACK!

Sohan's sword buried itself deep into the arm she'd thrown up.

The blade punched clean through and out the other side.

The force behind it was so immense that Aranseol's body was launched into the air.

Before Aranseol could even stifle a scream—

The sword lodged in her arm began to tremble.

This sword was under Sohan's control.

Which meant that just because it was stuck—

Didn't mean it was over.

SLICE!

Aranseol's right arm flew skyward.

Along with it, Danmyung—still clutched in her right hand—was flung upward.

In an instant, her right arm was gone.

But what truly mattered to Aranseol wasn't the arm—it was losing Danmyung.

Her only weapon was gone.

At this point, Sohan's next move was already decided.

Before Aranseol—

Sohan, gripping a single sword, charged at her like a man possessed.

Without her right arm and without Danmyung, Aranseol had no means to stop him.

A smile crept onto Sohan's lips in that moment.

But as Sohan looked at Aranseol, he felt something—an inexplicable sense of unease.

This should have been the moment he savored victory.

So why was he feeling uneasy?

A sense of wrongness born purely from instinct.

In that unease, something flickered briefly before Sohan's eyes.

It was himself—as a child.

An endlessly young age, when he knew nothing about the world.

His father had beaten his mother to within an inch of her life, then taken every last coin in the house and vanished.

After that day, his mother changed.

Because he resembled his father, she screamed at her own child and beat him.

Young Sohan cried, begged, and cried again—but his mother never stopped.

Her abuse grew worse and worse, until finally she crossed a line that should never have been crossed.

「Look at this. You think being a man makes you any different? You were born a man, so you thought only men could do whatever they want? You're all the same! Shove it in and you're all the same!」

She sexually abused Sohan, pouring out her indiscriminate hatred toward all men.

Sohan was tortured by her relentlessly, until a neighbor heard the child's screams and reported it.

His mother was arrested. Sohan had to survive multiple surgeries, including a hernia repair.

A few days later, he received a piece of news.

His mother had killed herself in prison.

She was a pitiable woman.

Raped by a man, impregnated, forced into marriage with him.

Even that life was destroyed—battered and robbed by her husband, then abandoned with nothing.

Her life was tragic, if nothing else.

But not to Sohan.

Hatred.

Hatred for his mother.

A deep, deep loathing and revulsion toward women, lodged inside him.

That revulsion had buried itself in the marrow of Sohan's bones.

He trampled women beneath him, thrashing against the unfulfilled horror of that day.

He craved them, kept them beneath him, and looked down on them under the guise of lust.

But none of it changed anything.

He was still that abused boy from that day.

Before long, Sohan realized.

Unless he ended his mother with his own hands—

This resentment would never end.

To release the agony of his unresolved hatred, Sohan had joined Black Dawn.

Solely to resurrect his mother and kill her with his own hands.

To purge the torment of his grievance.

Before Sohan's eyes.

Aranseol came into view once more.

His sword was already aimed straight at her.

A sword driven to sever Aranseol's life.

Before that sword—

Aranseol's left arm moved.

The Sword Lord Soun had once said something.

A swordsman who remains a swordsman even without a sword in hand—that is a true swordsman.

It had sounded like nonsense at the time, yet Soun was living proof.

He was the strongest swordsman even without a blade.

And now.

From Aranseol's grasp, a sword forged of crimson lightning erupted.

The same realm Soun had reached—a swordsman who needed no blade.

Aranseol had, at long last, clawed her way to that level.

A realm she'd grasped by trading even her own lifespan, fighting tooth and nail.

To Aranseol, Danmyung had only ever been a means to grow stronger.

It had never been the thing that proved she was a swordsman.

The moment Sohan realized this, for some reason—he smiled.

Did I truly want to kill my mother?

I don't know.

I don't know.

That's probably why I kept it as a lifelong question and never sought the answer.

Because he had been trapped there forever—in that place, on that day.

Even with a master who genuinely tried to teach him the sword standing right before him—

All he could think of was himself, crushed beneath his mother.

Eclipsing Heavenly Sword

Sohan's sword was cut.

Then, Sohan's body was cut.

Once hailed as a genius—the Sword Lord's disciple, destined to one day become a Lord himself.

He met his end at the hands of a fellow disciple who shared the same master.