Possessing Nothing

Volander would have died a satisfied life by now if he was fighting Lee Sungmin as a human.

Volander sincerely thought so. But… the problem was that he couldn’t die. His body would not feel pain no matter how many times he would have died already as a human.

“Are you fighting me while standing on the side of the other humans?”

Volander asked a sincere question.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to stop me. If Kim Jonghyun’s plan is fulfilled, this world will escape the fate of the Apocalypse. Connecting this world to the Demon Realm will cause a great disaster, but if you are as strong as you already are, you alone will be able to survive the invasion of the Demon Realm quite easily.”

“But several others will die.”

Lee Sungmin replied in a blunt tone. Volander smiled bitterly at the blunt and forward response.

“That answer makes me even more curious. Don’t tell me… Do you somehow think you’re still a human? Do you really think you can say that after looking at your own body?

“Are you trying to tell me I’m like you?”

“Right.”

Volander nodded slowly.

“But you and I are still slightly different. I… I’m desperate. I want to be a human again and am even more desperate to die as one. What about you? Do you want to save this world? There is no way for you to stop the Apocalypse from already happening. Even if you block me and even Kim Jonghyun’s plan, this world cannot escape the fate of a terrible End.”

He knew. If Lee Sungmin was alone, there would have been no way for him to stop it from happening. However, Lee Sungmin was not alone in this matter. Abel can do what Lee Sungmin cannot, and there were several others who had powers he did not and could assist him.

“I don’t care what happens anymore as long as I can become a human again. The only reason I’m even here is because of that.”

Volander’s sole and only wish was to become human and die anyway. Whether the Apocalypse came or whether this world was connected to the Demon Realm, Volander didn’t care since it was not his business to worry about.

However, Lee Sungmin is different. Even if Lee Sungmin was able to stop the several Catastrophes and somehow prevent the end, he would get nothing out of it. That was why Volander was confused.

What would Lee Sungmin get out of all of this?

The Apocalypse was already inevitable. Volander is right. For Lee Sungmin, people would die no matter which outcome came to be. Even if he somehow stopped the Apocalypse, several thousands of people would still have to die. There was no way damage would not happen.

And even if that happened….either everyone would die from the Apocalypse if it wasn’t stopped. And even if they lived and somehow stopped it, Lee Sungmin would surely become a turned monster without any rationality and drive except for carnage and murder. Was Lee Sungmin hoping that Teresa would be able to purify him if he completely turned?

“Come to this side.”

Volander reached out his hand.

“Kim Jonghyun has a lot of favors for you. If you want, Kim Jonghyun will be able to turn you into a complete human being, just as he will for me”

“……That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Lee Sungmin shook his head.

‘You have an earnest and honest heart,’

What Abel said to him lingered in Lee Sungmin’s head. Volander also had such a desperate desire. But what was Lee Sungmin desperate for? Lee Sungmin looked down at his spear, which did not stop radiating fierce internal energy from his dantian.

A better life than the previous one.

Becoming stronger.

Finding the end of all martial arts.

In his life so far, Lee Sungmin had found and seeked many goals. There were some that were already complete like becoming stronger than he once was, and there were some that he had yet to complete.

He hadn’t yet seen the end and pinnacle of all martial arts.

“It’s just a waste.”

Lee Sungmin spoke in a small voice.

“The way I’ve been living my life so far…… I didn’t have the luxury of being able to stop and look around me and say I was happy with the way I had lived. I’ve always been busy and there were a lot of things to do.”

A lot of things had happened for Lee Sungmin. He had never settled in one place and didn’t have the luxury to live a leisure-filled life. He suffered from the several penances on the Mountain of Mush and then went to train as an aesthetic martial artist at the Shaolin. After which, he immediately ran into more trouble and killed Dok Go after the man had turned into a vampire and killed the Sect Leader of the Mount Hua Sect. Knowing his weakness and that he still felt inadequate, Lee Sungmin had immediately gone out to seek for Denir and take the Trial of Time. Amidst all that, he followed the traces of Envirus to the sleeping forest, where he met Heoju and Rubia. As he hoped, he prevented Baek Sogo from dying in the dungeon. After that, he went back to the North to find this ‘fateful encounter’, that he was destined to meet.

A lot of things happened there, too. He met the Crazy Heavenly Demon and killed the Bloody Heavenly Demon. In order to keep his promise with Wijihoyeon, he went to meet her in Rubes but was met with battles against Transcendent Realm martial artists that were chasing his friend and learned about Beyond the Heavens.

Realizing his friend was cursed, and almost abducted by this organization, he left for the South despite himself being weaker than these Transcendent Realm Martial Artists and took the risk to kill them.

He had collected Heoju’s inheritances in the South and was even caught up with a large plot that was unfolding in the City of Endless Night. During that time, he had also met with Envirus and the Gumiho, Yana. He stopped Arbeth’s dreadful plotting and massacre and in the process of doing so, he had to intake a large portion of fear-based mana that overflowed into his consciousness and woke up the monstrosity within him. When he woke up he was immediately met with the death of the Crazy Heavenly Demon and had even lost Rubia… his only two comrades since coming out from the Trial of Time.

Getting himself together, he decided he would no longer lose any more friends and went to the Forest of the Elves and killed both Guan Zun and Qian Zun.

Every event was right after the next, he never had a chance to stop and take a break and choose his own direction of life.

That’s how Lee Sungmin had lived. Rather than what he wanted to do, he was alwats caught up in what he had no choice but to do.

…..No, he couldn’t necessarily say that.

Despite being things that he had no choice in doing, he also grew stronger and enjoyed those travels and new comrades.

There were good memories amongst those times.

There weren’t that many and he may have lost a lot of people and things in the process. He was still saddened at the loss of the Crazy Heavenly Demon and Rubia, and the loss of his late master, Sima Ryunju.

Lee Sungmin did not forget all of that. Maybe those events were chipping away slowly at his consciousness and mental walls which helped the monstrosity within his head grow stronger, but he would not stop growing in order to keep his values.

“It’s because it’s unfair.”

Lee Sungmin laughed. He had no choice but to laugh. He did live a better life than his previous one. He became stronger, but he had too few happy memories. Maybe, his previous life had more joy than this one.

At least at that time, he was able to feel cheap happiness by drinking and wasting the money he earned as a C-Class mercenary. Even if he was a low-level mercenary who didn’t know when his next day was going to be his last, there was no anxiety about it. At least at that time, he didn’t ever have to worry about losing his own sanity.

“Once I died, I came back to the past for some reason. With this second chance at life, I managed to get here. Yet, in this new life I’ve had…… I haven’t had a whole lot of happy memories. I have never been able to enjoy myself because I’ve always been having to grow stronger no matter which method I took.”

Krunggggg……

The purple internal energy inside Lee Sungmin’s dantian channeled itself into the spear.

“If the Apocalypse comes, this world will have no future to ever be spoken of. Even if it is connected to the Demon Realm, this world will not be the world we all knew. It’s… I can’t let that happen because I just want this world to continue the way it was supposed to. It would be unfair and wasteful if I didn’t try to do that much.”

Volander suddenly cackled at Lee Sungmin’s response. He found it similar to his own situation. He had lived as a Death Knight for hundreds of years. Finally, he had found a way to revert himself back into a human and die peacefully. He couldn’t go back on his actions now because it would just be unfair to stop after coming this far.”

“Come out.”

Volander manifested his sword in his hands once more as he mumbled to himself.

“We have too many similarities in our stories. Perhaps that is why both of us will not stop in doing whatever it takes to see our things through to the end. And that is likely why both of our deaths will be terrible.”

“No. I will be different.”

Swoosh.

As he stretched out his spear, Lee Sungmin shook his head in disagreement.

Brrrrr!

The space let out a horrid sound as it was torn apart with the spatial essence coated around Lee Sungmin’s spear. Lee Sungmin started to twirl the spear in his hand, approaching Volander. The space around Lee Sungmin became distorted and lightning bolts erupted from the tip of his spear with every movement.

Volander, who grabbed the sword from the air, did not back down and moved forward towards Lee Sungmin.

Whoosh…

The dark and murky death energy around Volander shifted around as he moved.

Twoong.

Volander smashed the ground and kicked up into the air.

[A match of stamina is useless. Just as you have nigh-infinite internal energy, Volander has achieved a state of complete corruption with the Devil he contracted and has bottomless amounts of mana.]

Volander’s body collapsed into the darkness. He swallowed Lee Sungmin’s attacks of lightning bolts into the shroud of black fog and made them disappear as if the attacks were never there in the first place.

[You’re at a disadvantage if you drag this out too long. If you continue to draw from the power of the monster deep within your dantian, you will inevitably break the seal inside your consciousness whether you want to or not. You have to end him completely so that there is nothing left of him if you want to finish this.]

Lee Sungmin’s only way of victory would be to annihilate Volander until there was absolutely nothing left.

Shwuuuuck!

Lee Sungmin stopped pouring out his internal energy into the lightning bolts that were erupting from the spear. The murky fog once again, rematerialized into Volander’s body and he closed the distance between himself and Lee Sungmin quickly.

Lee Sungmin’s eyes narrowed. This fight had a lot more meaning to Lee Sungmin than just accomplishing his goal of preventing the First Catastrophe from happening. The fight against Volander gave Lee Sungmin a lot of depth and insight into Sima Ryunju’s martial knowledge that he had inherited and allowed him to start seeing the ways to transform the Dark Storm Arts into his own technique for the spear.

The Dark Storm Arts was a martial art technique that was very simplistic in nature, yet extremely complex in detail. When Lee Sungmin had first learned from Sima Ryunju in the Forest of Fairies, his body could barely handle the movement alone. Now, he was starting to be able to fully manifest the technique in his spear.

As these changes were brought about, the light at the tip of Lee Sungmin’s spear shone brilliantly.

Looking back, Lee Sungmin had at one point wanted to see the very end of all martial arts.

When he finished the Trial of Time, he had been able to achieve Transcendence and start to see what lay beyond, but did not have enough time to finish it and see it all the way through.

But the Dark Storm Arts… was the martial art that Lee Sungmin had finally acknowledged to be the one.

It would allow him to see the pinnacle of all martial arts.

Lee Sungmin already had seen the ultimate techniques in his head as he inherited the martial sea of knowledge from his master. Even if he had never unfolded the most powerful techniques of the spear in real life, he had seen what those techniques were supposed to look like when his master had fought against Musin and Wolhu. Just by seeing such a great display of how the martial arts was supposed to be, and finally attaining the essence of it from his master, allowed him to pave the way ahead for him to finally use it with his spear.

As this realization was dawning on him, Lee Sungmin thought he saw something weird.

Sima Ryunju appeared by his side for some reason and was moving alongside him.

Was it a hallucination?

‘No.’

Lee Sungmin stretched his feet and leaned forward with his spear, but the image of Sima Ryunju was still faster than him.

‘Ah.’

Lee Sungmin instinctively knew. Even if he tried to speed his body up, he would not reach Sima Ryunju’s pure level of speed. But would it reach it if he were to outstretch his spear? Would he be able to make up for the lacking distance between himself and the image of his master if he did that? Lee Sungmin clenched the spear and reached out.

At that moment, Lee Sungmin did not think of unfolding the Nine Heavenly Spear Techniques with his spear. The most ideal attack he could use, was one of the techniques that Sima Ryunju had passed on to him, but could not use.

It was a spear technique that Sima Ryunju had made for him long ago after modeling it from one of the strongest techniques in the Dark Storm Arts method.

Lee Sungmin had seen this move in the snowy plains when Sima Ryunju fought against Wolhu and Musin, but this time he would have to do it with his spear.

Try it.

Sima Ryunju’s image was still in front of Lee Sungmin racing towards Volander. Sima Ryunju was the one who spoke, but did not turn around to look at him.

Sima Ryunju had long left this world and had surpassed the Realm of Transcendence. He had taken the path to the Absolute Realm. Sima Ryunju had already left and did not look back twice when making that decision, so there was no way he could look back at Lee Sungmin now.

So… Lee Sungmin had to do it on his own and meet his master later on.

Brrrrrrrrrrnnnnng!

At that moment, the internal energy from Lee Sungmin’s body gushed out like a waterfall and swelled around the tip of the spear. Sima Ryunju’s image that was in front of Lee Sungmin, disappeared. The view in front of Lee Sungmin suddenly became clear, as thousands of lightning bolts, murch faster and larger than ever before, were rotating around the spear.

Demonic Emperor’s Dark Storm Arts : Ten Thousand Thunder (萬塊雷)

Ten Thousand Thunder. Sima Ryunju’s martial arts technique easily overpowered the hundred-man formation of the Murim Alliance, one of the most powerful formations that could likely take down Transcendent Realm Martial Artists. But this time it was Lee Sungmin, and not Sima Ryunju, who unleashed the full might of this powerful technique. He did it with his spear and not his bare hands without dropping a single ounce of power from the original technique.

“Just like you.”

Yes, just like this old man.

Lee Sungmin’s eyes widened in shock. Unlike any of the techniques Lee Sungmin had unfolded before this, there was a single purple streak of light that divided the darkness… and then it began. Thunder and lightning raged and started to ravage everything around the space without discirimination.

At that point, the spear had already extended all the way through.

Hahahahaha!

The pleased laughter of Sima Ryunju resounded out in Lee Sungmin’s mind as the spear tore through everything.

“Ten Thousand Thunder.”

When the spear finished the trajectory of the technique, an entirely new sight was laid out before Lee Sungmin’s eyes.

It could no longer be an attack that could be defined as the full force of a Transcendent Realm Martial Artist. The power to transform and distort the space around Lee Sungmin was nothing compared to this. This attack was all-encompassing and completely re-shaped it to his will.

Volander, who rushed head-on, realized at the time when purple lightning covered his view. How phenomenal Lee Sungmin’s martial arts techniques really were. He realized that his rush would be nothing in front of this attack that threatened to re-shape everything in sight. Volander smiled bitterly and looked behind him for some reason.

Death Knight’s corps, led by him, was not by his side this time.

Even if they were, nothing would have changed. Volander continued to move forward with a smile. His soul morphed once again and charged straight forward as the phantom steed made its appearance for the last time. Riding on it, Volander ran forward for power. Facing the lightning head-on, he clasped the sword in his hands with as much strength as he could, but he knew this would be the last time he would ever wield it.

He jumped into the world of lightning.

His wish was denied. Volander felt as if he could hear the thousands of souls from the citizens of Germane laughing at him as he knew this was the end.

Just as they expressed their laughter and contempt as souls, Volander laughed louder.

“Yeah, you’re different.”

Volander smiled as he acknowledged Lee Sungmin.

“Was it just fate that I was destined to end sooner than you?”

First, the sword was erased in the world of lightning.

“You were more desperate than me.”

Then the Phantom steed was erased by the torrent of lightning bolts.

“I sympathize with you.”

Then Volander’s armor was erased.

“But in the end, you still won’t be able to avoid ruin.”

Swoosh.

The world that raged with unending lightning and thunder, erupted with brilliance for the last time.

BA-BOOOOOM!

The shockwaves swept the surrounding area. The piled up dust became a storm on its own from the mere aftershocks of Lee Sungmin’s final attack.

Lee Sungmin stumbled and sat down. He felt empty inside. A throbbing headache seemed to tear at his mind relentlessly.

tremble~

The spear he was holding, fell helplessly to the ground. Lee Sungmin looked down at his hands with shaking eyes. He felt the world was moving too slow as everything felt like a hazy bog. His senses slowly started to return and his arms that had been ripped horribly from unleashing this incredible technique, regenerated.

“Gasp!”

Lee Sungmin coughed up blood.

He did it.

His master may have ascended this world, but he had shown Lee Sungmin just how to finally walk down that path.

He unleashed the power of the Dark Storm Arts in full. It wasn’t any weaker than his own master. He had succeeded him.

Volander… Where was he? Lee Sungmin stood up breathing heavily.

[He’s completely gone]

Heoju replied to him.

[He must have gone back to the Devil he contracted with since his soul was completely disintegrated into nothing. It’s not a complete death that he wished for, but at least you’ll never have to see Volander again in this world]

“…Huuuu…….. Huuuuu…… Huu….”

[He was one of the Five Black Stars of Predator. Each one of them is already stronger than any Transcendent Realm Martial Artist you’ve encountered other than Musin.]

Lee Sungmin picked up his spear that had fallen to the floor.

“It’s not over yet.”

There was still more to do in the Necropolis of Germane.

Lee Sungmin walked, dragging his feet slowly.

He heard Volander’s words ring out before Volander had completely been erased from this world.

He said that Lee Sungmin still would fall into ruin.

But Lee Sungmin had no intentions of letting that happen.