WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 68: When Water Is Too Clear, There Are No Fish (16)

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"Even tigers sometimes avoid dogs and wolves."

Yong Useok was the master of Iron Dragon Stronghold, which had once occupied the lowest seat among the Green Forest Eighteen Strongholds. Now a peak realm expert known throughout the land, he asked,

"Do you think they avoid them because they're afraid?"

"..."

Yeon Sowol couldn't answer.

Boom!

Clang!

He was too busy dodging and deflecting the relentless attacks raining down on him.

"No. Picking fights with things that barely have any meat on them is just a nuisance, so they let them pass. But even a tiger changes its attitude once it smells blood."

Boom boom boom!

Tiny explosions erupted around Yong Useok's broad saber, rapidly accelerating its blade.

Boom! Clang!

Saber qi rose from the blade tip as it brushed past Yeon Sowol's hair, tearing through the air and setting off a small explosion.

Neither the blade nor its qi touched him, yet the blast from that qi tossed his hair about and tore the skin on his forehead, sending a few drops of blood flying.

"The smell of blood."

The saber changed direction with a small explosion and came crashing down again.

Clang!

Yeon Sowol barely blocked it by raising his sword diagonally, then slid backward.

His arms trembled because he hadn't fully dispersed the martial force behind the strike.

His face had gone a little pale, but his eyes still shone brightly. He twisted his lips.

"You're incredible at rationalizing things. Coming from a bandit who ran away in a hurry with his bundle in hand."

"...Heh. That mouth of yours."

Yong Useok furrowed his brow.

Ssssss.

The smoke rising from his body grew thicker.

Yeon Sowol shook his head.

"People from the unorthodox schools don't change even after reaching a higher realm. That's not how you cultivate to the stage of maturity. Keep over-tempering your body like that, and your bones will eventually turn to mush, and you'll die."

"So you use martial arts from the Daoist tradition. You really do talk exactly like those Daoist bastards."

"The qi in your Eight Extraordinary Vessels is too mixed up as well. Qi of explosions? Such one-sided qi can only produce narrow principles."

"Right. I knew you'd say that too. The proper method. Precious teachings. I've heard it plenty of times."

Yong Useok calmly raised his broad saber.

"But everyone who said it died split in half. That's why I never got to learn the proper method."

Yeon Sowol slowly nodded.

"I'll teach you today."

"You? An upstart who isn't even orthodox. You have the look of someone who's learned an assassin's martial arts. Though it seems useless for anything other than ambushes."

"Who knows."

Yeon Sowol gripped his sword hilt tightly and stretched out his right hand.

Instead of using the breathing room he'd earned to rest, he closed the distance first.

"You're charging in now? Idiot. Why did you even learn assassin martial arts if you were going to do that?"

Yong Useok bared his teeth and gripped his broad saber with both hands.

"Hup!"

Then he suddenly stepped back in shock and violently swung his saber.

A man shot through the gap like a ray of light.

He passed Yeon Sowol, moving even faster than Yeon Sowol himself.

Clang!

A sword was knocked away by the broad saber. The man who had intervened spun with the sword's momentum and landed lightly on the ground.

The instant he landed, he kicked off again and shot forward like an arrow.

At that moment, Yong Useok's saber changed again.

He had been beating back their attacks with a succession of strikes that carried the principle of killing in a single blow. Now black smoke rose from his entire body as he further strengthened that succession of strikes, whirling his broad saber with dazzling speed.

Tiny explosions kept erupting, changing the saber's direction one after another.

Clang clang clang!

Sparks showered between Yong Useok and the man who had suddenly joined the battle.

Yeon Sowol didn't miss the opening and rushed in too.

The reason he had suddenly charged earlier was because of this man.

Yong Useok hadn't sensed him, but Yeon Sowol had. He had distracted Yong Useok in time with the man's assault.

"Hero Noh Huideok! Thank you! If you keep him occupied, I'll finish him!"

Noh Huideok, moving with dazzling agility as he unleashed swift sword strikes, answered without looking back.

"What about doing it the other way around? It will be difficult to break through his protective qi art. If Young Hero Yeon creates an opening, I'll find a way through it."

It was a reasonable judgment for Noh Huideok.

He had only been an outer disciple, but he had trained at the Dian Cang Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects.

Even against the protective qi art of a peak realm martial artist, he believed he could at least wound Yong Useok if he caught him off guard.

"You talk as if you can actually do it, you brats."

Rumble!

Small explosions burst one after another around Yong Useok's body. His protective qi art had activated.

Noh Huideok's sword, aimed at him, was knocked away by the blasts, and Yeon Sowol's sword was deflected off course as well.

Boom!

At the same time, an explosion around Yong Useok's broad saber accelerated it with lightning speed.

A faint red saber qi shot forward.

Clang!

With a small explosion, the air was shredded apart and a powerful martial force wave swept in every direction.

But,

Tap!

Noh Huideok leaped back a step faster than the explosion and landed lightly.

Sway!

Yeon Sowol bent like a reed, redirecting the force before regaining his stance.

It was power neither of them could easily withstand, but they each dispersed it in their own way through the unique principles of orthodox martial arts.

'These bastards...'

Irritation surged through Yong Useok.

"A swift sword. This one has learned properly too. Why do people with proper training keep appearing in a backwater like this?"

Noh Huideok curled his lip.

"You call this a swift sword? If you'd seen our sect's Sun-Shooting Sword Art, you'd have wet your pants already."

"...You're from the Dian Cang Sect."

Yong Useok glanced behind him.

His subordinates and Ma Gukdo were fighting desperately, covered in blood. Still, they were clearly being pushed back. He needed to help them quickly...

"Today, I'll have to push myself harder."

More smoke rose from Yong Useok's body. A heat haze curled in a circle above his back, swelling and bursting like clouds.

It was still night, before sunrise. Illuminated by the burning lanterns and torches, the curling haze almost looked like a brilliantly shining halo.

Noh Huideok sneered.

"You've got the atmosphere down. Are you going to use some unorthodox sorcery, like a proper member of the unorthodox schools?"

"You people always say things like that when you think you can't win."

Though Noh Huideok mocked Yong Useok outwardly, he sent Yeon Sowol another message through voice transmission.

「Young Hero Yeon, the enemy's momentum is unusual. We won't have many chances. Do you have an ultimate technique that can break through his protective qi art and wound him?」

Yeon Sowol whispered,

"I can kill him."

"..."

Noh Huideok glanced back at him with startled eyes, then nodded.

「Good. Then I'll hold him off from the front and try to create an opening.」

Noh Huideok tapped the ground and shot forward like a bird.

"Come, then."

Yong Useok faced Noh Huideok with a far more vicious aura than before.

Clang! Clang!

Blood flew before they had even exchanged several moves.

Noh Huideok's swift sword couldn't withstand the power behind Yong Useok's saber.

There were times when his swift sword landed first, but Yong Useok's powerful protective qi art deflected the blade each time, leaving him with nothing more than flesh wounds.

Noh Huideok, on the other hand, was cut across the shoulder and side. His hand split open, blood dripping steadily from it.

Yet Yeon Sowol didn't actively join their fight.

Instead, he pushed his qi sense to its limit.

'I have to read him. I'll get exactly one chance.'

Yeon Sowol deliberately kept the power of the Heaven-Killing Star hidden.

Yong Useok, a peak realm martial artist, seemed fundamentally different from everyone Yeon Sowol had faced so far.

'If I show the Heaven-Killing Star's power even once, it won't work a second time.'

Yeon Sowol's instinct was right.

The difference between late first-rate and peak realm was only one stage.

Yet an enormous gap lay between them, one that could not easily be crossed.

Yong Useok was different from Hang Inwoo, who had still fallen after seeing the Heaven-Killing Star's power. A peak realm martial artist's qi sense was far sharper. Once he saw that power, he would be bound to sense something.

So Yeon Sowol used every second and every opportunity Noh Huideok created to read Yong Useok.

His weakness.

His mistakes.

The way his qi moved.

The harmony of qi that formed his protective qi art.

Everything.

'Just once. I'll use everything I have.'

Yong Useok kept glancing at Yeon Sowol.

"Aren't you going to fight? Are you scared?"

He tried provoking him.

"Your friend is dying."

He tried making him anxious.

But Yeon Sowol didn't react.

He only watched Yong Useok with cold eyes, using footwork to measure distance and create angles.

Yong Useok found it unbearably irritating.

More irritating than Noh Huideok, who was flinging swift sword strikes right in front of him.

'Why? Why does he irritate me this much?'

At the end of that thought, he realized.

"You. Those eyes..."

Yeon Sowol's eyes.

"...Do you think I'm prey?"

They weren't the eyes of someone crushed beneath him.

They were the eyes of a hunter looking at a target that had to be hunted.

"Heh."

Yong Useok's face twisted.

He had nearly driven the stubborn Noh Huideok into a corner. Three more exchanges and he could have killed him, but...

"What the hell do you think I am..."

Clang!

Yong Useok knocked Noh Huideok away, then crushed the ground beneath his feet and charged at Yeon Sowol.

Flying forward.

To split Yeon Sowol, who was looking at him so coldly, in half from head to crotch.

He was incredibly fast.

Yeon Sowol didn't react at all.

Not a trace of true qi leaked from his body.

Yong Useok was certain.

"Idiot! You didn't expect me to charge you!"

He thought he had caught Yeon Sowol completely off guard.

Whoosh!

Crash!

Yong Useok's broad saber split the ground.

"Huh...?"

Yeon Sowol swayed as though bending, and somehow had already taken Yong Useok's left side.

'How?'

Even then, Yong Useok couldn't sense a single trace of true qi rising from Yeon Sowol's body.

He was still, like a cup that didn't spill a single drop of water.

Like a fish swimming without making a ripple.

The attainment Noh Huideok had shown, gathering every bit of energy so that none of it showed on the outside.

With that tranquil presence, Yeon Sowol used the assassin's movements he had learned from Eun-yeong.

His qi sense had already been exceptional by nature. His superficial collaterals and skin had undergone bodily cultivation, sharpening it even further. Then there was the Greater Rejuvenation Pill.

With qi sense sharp enough to be unmatched even among peak realm experts, he found it.

He silently stepped through the blank space untouched by Yong Useok's mind.

Yong Useok lost sight of Yeon Sowol's movement right before his eyes.

Unable to respond with his saber, all he could do was trust in his protective qi art.

"You bastard...!"

His true qi, filled with the energy of explosions, surged violently around his body.

Yeon Sowol's sword poured forth with martial force.

Every scrap of power was gathered without letting even a single point escape, condensed into a straight thrust.

It aimed for the gap in the protective qi art that his qi sense had found.

Boom boom boom!

The qi deliberately released by a peak realm expert created explosion after explosion, trying to drive Yeon Sowol's sword away.

But the sword path that struck precisely through the gap suffered only minimal impact from the blasts.

The martial force, condensed again and again, endured the remaining shockwaves.

"Aaargh!"

Yong Useok clenched his broad saber and swung it.

Yeon Sowol's sword was pouring toward his side.

He made his decision.

He would take the wound.

'Fine. I'll let him cut me a little.'

In exchange, he would take Yeon Sowol's head.

He intended to split the head of this young expert, who had been getting under his skin from the beginning, and seize control of the battle in one stroke.

'Still, I can't let the wound get too deep.'

He concentrated a little more of his protective qi art around his side while adding strength to the broad saber held in both hands.

A strike Yeon Sowol, focused on attacking, could never dodge.

But then,

Whoosh!

"Huh?"

Yong Useok suddenly felt a chill run through him.

'Just now...?'

The protective qi art he had concentrated at his side vanished.

The instant it touched Yeon Sowol's sword tip.

As if it had cracked and shattered on its own.

Yong Useok's will, contained in his true qi, had been severed, and the energy of his protective qi art dispersed like mist.

'What...?'

Unable to understand what had happened, Yong Useok pulled back even his descending saber and desperately twisted his body to evade.

Something that should never have happened had happened.

An unknown chill, rising from his instincts, consumed his body.

That was dangerous.

He didn't know what it was.

But he had to avoid it.

He absolutely couldn't let it touch him, not even graze him.

Boom boom boom!

He detonated his protective qi art recklessly, injuring even himself as he tried to force his body farther away.

It worked.

Yong Useok succeeded in pulling away.

Yeon Sowol's sword failed to touch him and cut through empty air.

'Yes! I dodged it...!'

The relief of survival.

The thrill.

Those were the last things Yong Useok felt.

Swoosh!

A tiny sword qi that carried no presence at all.

A sword qi that looked capable of doing no more than bringing down a single leaf left a minute wound on Yong Useok's side.

Yong Useok's consciousness went dark.

His pupils rolled upward beneath his eyelids.

His legs gave way.

Crack!

At that moment, Yeon Sowol's sword flashed back like a ray of light and sent Yong Useok's head flying.

Yong Useok's severed head spun through the air, spraying blood in every direction.

Everyone who turned at the sight froze in shock.

"Young Hero Yeon..."

"Killed a peak realm martial artist?"

"Two first-rate martial artists did it?"

"He cut off his head...?"

"Young Hero Yeon?"

Thud, thud.

The Undeserving One, Noh Huideok, stared at the head rolling across the ground. His lips parted.

"Wh... what... ultimate technique...?"

With unsteady eyes, he watched Yeon Sowol shake the blood from his sword.

Footnotes:

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