WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 158: The Rear Waves of the Yangtze Push the Front Waves (32)
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Daaanggg!
Daang!
Gweeeng!
The bell was ringing.
All across Dongting Lake.
Ripples spread across the water, and the fog shuddered.
At the center of it all, Won Huiseung opened his eyes wide and regulated his breathing.
“Huu... Huu. Hup!”
He was trying to recover even a little strength.
‘It’s not over yet. Something’s about to begin. Are you going to sit here like this, Won Huiseung? At the most critical moment, are you really going to sit there like an idiot?’
He drove himself onward.
He kept breathing.
He continued supplying oxygen and true qi to his torn muscles and shattered joints. He stoked True Flame within his dantian, trying to reshape the Eight Extraordinary Vessels that had been pushed beyond their limits.
‘Just once is enough.’
If he could thrust his sword just one more time when it mattered...
But,
“Huu. Huu. Huk!”
It wasn’t working.
He could not gather even a handful of strength before it scattered again and again. The stamina and internal energy he had expended after being subjected to the dark arts were far greater than he had imagined.
Still refusing to give up, Won Huiseung kept breathing as he looked around.
Imperial soldiers and martial artists shouted themselves hoarse beneath the deafening bell.
And there was Yeon Sowol, facing Yang Hoeam.
“Hmm...?”
Won Huiseung narrowed his eyes.
Had he seen wrong?
Yang Hoeam’s eyes seemed to glow orange. Even from this distance, the vertical slit pupils at their centers were unnaturally clear.
And then there was this.
‘What is this presence...?’
He had never felt anything like it before.
Shiver!
For some reason, goosebumps rose over his skin.
Something was wrong.
Should that kind of presence really be coming from a human being?
Yet that was not the end of it.
The generals guarding Yang Hoeam took small porcelain bottles from their robes, tipped back their heads, and swallowed.
The same thing happened.
Orange eyes.
A presence that did not belong to humans.
Shudderrr.
Goosebumps raced across Won Huiseung’s skin as he clenched his teeth.
‘I have to recover. Recover... Even a little. Just a little...’
Gweeeng!
Daaanggg!
The bell kept ringing.
And something was beginning.
* * *
“You’re not even human anymore.”
After saying that, Yeon Sowol quickly corrected himself.
“No. You stopped being human a long time ago. Now you don’t even have a human shape.”
His gaze swept over Yang Hoeam’s orange eyes and blackened fingertips.
Yang Hoeam stared at Yeon Sowol without blinking.
His white hair and beard fell away. In their place grew glossy black hair that shone like scales.
“Yes. I’m something better than human. If you hadn’t interfered, I would have become something even greater than this. You ruined everything.”
During that brief exchange, two generals gathered at Yang Hoeam’s side.
Ha Taeseok, a senior sixth-rank Prefectural Inspector Commander.
Go Hyeon, a junior sixth-rank Prefectural Inspector.
They were renowned for their martial prowess even within Yuezhou’s Patrol Guard Army. Within the Inspector Corps, the provincial governor’s personal guard, they were counted among the top three.
Now, their eyes too glowed orange.
Yeon Sowol looked at them impassively and muttered, “Prefectural Inspector General Shin Gilrip was a loyal and righteous man, but everyone beneath him is rotten through.”
Ha Taeseok, the second-in-command among the Prefectural Inspectors, replied, “I knew something was off from the first time I saw you. We should’ve dealt with you long ago.”
Go Hyeon, a martial official respected by many of Yuezhou’s people, spoke as well.
“I didn’t want to do this either, but it can’t be helped. Not if it’s for something greater.”
“...”
Yeon Sowol said no more.
He was simply disgusted.
Step. Step.
The two approached.
The air throbbed from the internal energy pouring out of them.
Tremble.
Yeon Sowol’s hand shook.
That sinister presence did not feel human.
Compared to these two, perhaps even Yi Geuk, the Dragon King Stronghold Leader, had possessed a laughably feeble presence.
But though his hand trembled, Yeon Sowol did not hesitate as he gripped his sword and stepped forward.
‘Shallow.’
Huge.
Overwhelming.
Sinister.
Terrifying.
The energy itself was all of those things.
But the way it flowed...
‘It’s shallow.’
There had to be degrees even among demons.
Self-righteous certainty that interpreted the world through a single lens was usually like that. Some dogmatism was narrow and limited, its pathetic shallowness exposed the moment one looked beneath the surface.
Yet, on rare occasions, there was dogmatism so plausible that no words of denial came to mind.
The demonic qi these men gave off possessed a lofty quality.
Wooooong... Woooong...
That was proven by Clear Mirror, which had rung powerfully all along but now trembled as though being crushed.
But what use was that?
‘The people carrying it are pathetic.’
The ones holding that demonic qi were not proper vessels. They were neither human nor demon, only something caught awkwardly in between.
Demonic qi of lofty quality had mixed awkwardly into those half-formed things, causing what should have been proud and dense energy to sway and crumble.
It meant there were many openings.
Of course, others would have been crushed by that alone.
Slice!
Yeon Sowol was different.
The power of the Heaven-Killing Star within his sword qi tore through every principle.
Thud.
Had those two attacked with their own internal energy instead of demonic qi, things would have been different. Energy cultivated through a lifetime of bitter training was dense, tough, and unbroken.
Like Prefectural Inspector General Shin Gilrip, they might have been able to hinder the Heaven-Killing Star’s power, even if only a little, by endlessly exhausting their energy.
Crack!
But the two had chosen another path.
They had forcibly filled themselves with energy that was not their own, energy that did not even belong to humans. It was loose and broke apart in spurts.
It was enormous and sinister enough to compensate for those flaws, but what did that matter?
Before the Heaven-Killing Star’s power, it meant nothing.
Pop! Thud!
Sword qi carrying the Heaven-Killing Star’s power shot forward.
It swiftly broke through the loose, empty gaps in the sinister demonic qi.
This was unlike Shin Gilrip, whose defenses could not be pierced even after dozens of threads were cut in an instant.
This time, the blade reached its destination after cutting only a few threads.
Prefectural Inspector Commander Ha Taeseok’s head flew away.
Prefectural Inspector Go Hyeon was cut in half at the waist.
Watching the two roll limply across the ground, Yang Hoeam screamed.
“Urrrgh!”
He fled on all fours like an animal, shouting as he ran.
“What are you? What the hell are you?! How? You killed both of them with one strike? What are you?! How can a mere human do that?!”
Yeon Sowol was tired of answering.
His temples were already throbbing from having pushed himself too hard.
He pressed his lips together and pursued Yang Hoeam.
“I’ll help.”
Jin Hyeogo ran alongside Yeon Sowol, gripping his black spear.
Veins stood out across his face, which was twisted into a terrifying expression.
* * *
“Urrrgh! Go! Stay away! No... Not like this... I can’t!”
Unlike Ha Taeseok and Go Hyeon, who had rushed in first, Yang Hoeam was determined only to run.
He was difficult to catch.
With his inexhaustible, powerful internal energy, he was even faster than Yeon Sowol and Jin Hyeogo.
Whenever they aimed for a decisive blow, he somehow evaded it with animal-like instincts.
“Urrrgh!”
The moment Yeon Sowol’s sword qi was about to touch his arm, he even cut off his own arm first.
Fwoooosh!
Yang Hoeam’s arm flew through the air.
Blood poured from the severed end like a waterfall. Far too much blood to come from a single human arm.
“...No. He went that far?”
Jin Hyeogo grimaced in revulsion.
Yeon Sowol, though, clenched his teeth.
Whether he had understood it or felt it instinctively, Yang Hoeam had realized it.
He could not let the attack touch him, even a little.
The two pursued Yang Hoeam with everything they had, but time passed without them catching him. The best they could do was keep him from escaping the battlefield entirely.
Frustrated, Jin Hyeogo shouted in a voice that boomed across the field.
“Stop! Don’t you know it’s already over? You’ve disgraced yourself enough! Enough!”
“What do you mean, it’s over?! It isn’t! Not yet!”
Yang Hoeam flailed desperately.
Jin Hyeogo looked around.
The Patrol Guard Army was making its final stand, but that too was nearly over.
“What do you mean it isn’t over? Are you putting your faith in that Daoist ringing the bell over there? He doesn’t have much time left either!”
The one being defended in a last-ditch formation by every remaining member of the Patrol Guard Army was not Yang Hoeam, but the last Daoist.
Sweating profusely, the Daoist kept striking a bronze bell.
But it was painfully obvious that his fate would soon be sealed.
“No! It isn’t over yet!”
Grit!
Jin Hyeogo ground his teeth.
He muttered, “That’s all... Is that truly all you were? Were you really such a small man?”
Yang Hoeam, hearing him with his sharpened senses, snarled.
“Don’t talk nonsense! What do you know?! Aren’t you a Jianghu man? One of those Jianghu bastards who only ever lived as they pleased, caring nothing for the world as long as they could keep themselves comfortable! Who are you to lecture anyone now?!”
Jin Hyeogo looked at him with pity.
“You aren’t even human anymore. Look at yourself.”
As Yang Hoeam fled from Yeon Sowol and Jin Hyeogo, his body had twisted grotesquely.
His skin had become bumpy and hideous. His limbs had lengthened like a grasshopper’s. The top of his head rose like a mountain, while his lower jaw stretched long like a dog’s.
Even tiny hand-like things, thin as twigs, sprouted from his severed arm and wriggled.
What kind of beast in the world looked like this?
It was a hideous sight no one could bear to look at.
Yang Hoeam looked back at his own form and laughed.
“Ha! Hahaha! What’s wrong with this?! Isn’t it better than being human?! Better than a human! I’ll be reborn and live anew. I’ll live properly!”
“Why? Why have you gone so mad?”
Jin Hyeogo’s voice shook.
“Where is the man I remember? Where is the man who threw himself into every hardship without looking back because he said he would save all those suffering under heaven? Where is that great man who emptied his private fortune to create Wuling Island, who took in orphans, widows, widowers, and elderly people living alone...? Was all of it really... a lie? Was it all just an act?”
Then, suddenly, Yang Hoeam’s expression vanished.
His form was no longer human, but for the first time, his eyes looked human as he stared at Jin Hyeogo.
He spoke as though spitting fire.
“I never should have done it.”
“What?”
“I was mistaken. All my life. I thought humans were worth something.”
Grit. Grit.
His teeth ground together.
Yang Hoeam kept grinding his teeth as he fled. Bloody tears gathered in his eyes.
“I built Wuling Island. For orphans with nowhere to go. I gathered every bit of wealth I had earned, every worry I had carried, every conviction I had held throughout my life, and I built Wuling Island.”
He continued.
“Do you know what those orphans did?”
An orphan Yang Hoeam had personally taken in had died.
The child had been particularly clever and devoted to him. He even had a talent for writing.
Yang Hoeam had dreamed of adopting him and sending him into official service.
“They killed that child. A group of them beat him to death. Children who hadn’t even reached fifteen years of age. Fellow orphans. When I asked why, they answered proudly that he acted superior and looked down on them.”
Bloody tears dripped down.
“I tried to endure it. I tried to embrace them. They were ignorant. They had never received love. I believed they could change.”
Yet it never stopped.
When he took in orphans with nowhere to go, clothed them, fed them, and educated them, they divided into factions among themselves.
The stronger orphans bullied the weaker ones. They ruled over them. Some even tortured them to death, then claimed it had been a joke.
“And the widowers! Do you know what the widowers did?!”
Yang Hoeam shouted.
“They raped the widows. They raped them and killed them! They beat defenseless old people! One elderly man died after his bones were broken in thirty places!”
He kept speaking.
“And the widows! Do you know what the widows did? They starved an orphan only five years old to death. They threw the child around! They smothered the child with a pillow!”
The strength drained from Yang Hoeam’s voice, replaced by boiling rage.
“And the elderly! One of them poisoned the food. The food! Because someone insulted them! To kill that one person, they poisoned the food everyone ate. More than ten people vomited blood and died together.”
He laughed.
Yang Hoeam laughed now.
“I spent my entire life doing pointless things. My whole life, I only did pointless things. I wasted my precious life on things that weren’t important, things that had no value... That is humanity. That is what humans are. That is all they are! So how could I not be happy? I have finally cast off that lowly humanity! A path has finally opened for me to be repaid for the precious life I wasted on pointless things!”
Jin Hyeogo was speechless.
“My lord...”
As if devastated, he staggered to a stop.
Yeon Sowol did not.
Instead, he poured more strength into his Yongquan acupoint and surged forward.
He sprinted at full speed to catch Yang Hoeam, who had slowed slightly from screaming.
“Urrrgh! No! I can’t! Not yet... Not like this!”
Yang Hoeam fled in panic.
Yeon Sowol spoke to his back.
“You’re wrong.”
Yang Hoeam’s eyes rolled. His orange gaze was full of furious contempt, as though asking what Yeon Sowol could possibly know.
But Yeon Sowol spoke calmly.
“That isn’t all humanity is.”
“You...!”
“You just failed.”
“...What?”
“You failed. Not because humanity only goes that far. You failed because that was as far as you could go.”
The orange glow in Yang Hoeam’s eyes deepened.
“What kind of bullshit are you talking about? You’re barely twenty years old. What could you possibly know?!”
“I know.”
Yeon Sowol knew.
His homeland was no paradise either, but compared to this savage world of martial arts, it had been far more livable, far more sensible.
Yeon Sowol’s home.
“Humans are flawed. They can be trash. But is that all there is? Maybe paradise is impossible, but things can still become better than they are now. You just couldn’t do it.”
“Shut up!!!”
Foam gathered at Yang Hoeam’s mouth. His frantic footsteps slowed a little.
“You don’t know how insignificant humans are! You don’t know how vast, how vast and great the things beyond humanity are! You don’t know! You don’t know that this world is no more than a snail’s horn! You don’t know! This world! The human world is only...!”
“I know.”
As Yeon Sowol drove more force into the foot kicking off the ground, he murmured, “A pale blue dot.”
“What?”
“On that speck of dust, they lived. They live on.”
Yeon Sowol appeared before Yang Hoeam’s startled face like a ghost.
“Every hero. Every coward.”
Yeon Sowol’s sword cut through Yang Hoeam’s remaining arm.
He did not even use the Heaven-Killing Star’s power.
As though telling him to face that pain in full.
“Every emperor and every farmer.”
His sword cut through Yang Hoeam’s legs.
Yang Hoeam rolled across the ground.
“Every saint and every sinner.”
They lived.
On that single grain of dust.
“AAAAARGH!”
Yeon Sowol’s blade rained down on Yang Hoeam’s screaming body.
It cut through his waist.
It severed his neck.
It split his back.
Vertically. Horizontally.
It carved him into pieces.
Blood burst from the fragmented body.
It formed a pool and still did not stop, gushing like a spring.
Yang Hoeam’s severed head lay submerged in the blood, its mouth opening and closing.
Looking down at him, Yeon Sowol finished.
“Among them, you were a coward and a sinner.”
Footnotes:
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