WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 76: When Water Is Too Clear, There Are No Fish (24)

──────

"Haah... Haah..."

Yeon Sowol staggered.

His eyes were wet and bloodshot.

Tinnitus rang in his ears as loudly as a chorus of cicadas.

Thick, metallic fluid kept welling up in his mouth.

Even in that state, Yeon Sowol looked around first, taking in the Guangdong Martial Alliance members with eyes that could barely see through the lingering darkness.

"Are... you... all right? Everyone?"

He tried to count them.

How many had fallen?

How many had survived?

One. Two.

One. Two. Four...

Again. Three. Four. Seven...

Again... One. Two...

He couldn't count.

"Are... are you all right... everyone?"

"Young Master!"

Someone rushed over and supported Yeon Sowol. Only then did he realize he had been swaying.

He turned to the person holding him up and asked,

"Are... you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine, Young Alliance Leader."

For some reason, their voice was choked with sobs, but Yeon Sowol still felt a little relieved. They said they were fine.

* * *

Yeon Sowol regained his senses about half an hour later.

He hadn't lost consciousness.

His mind had been honed to a blade's edge and refused to let his body rest, so he had simply lain there blankly with his eyes open.

Then, little by little, the tinnitus that had roared like cicadas began to fade.

"Ah."

It was as if he had been pulled out of water. His mind suddenly began to clear.

Blink. Blink.

With every blink, a little more darkness vanished from his surroundings.

What he had thought was darkness that had refused to disperse had only been the dimness clouding his own eyes.

"Are you feeling a little clearer now?"

He looked to the side at the voice. Noh Huideok sat leaning against a tree with a pale complexion. Noh Huideok's clothes were soaked in blood, and Noh Huideok's arms and shoulders trembled from time to time.

Yeon Sowol hurriedly sat up.

"Great Hero Noh Huideok! Are you all right?"

"Look who's worrying about whom?"

Noh Huideok reacted in alarm and pushed Yeon Sowol back down. The Guangdong Martial Alliance members had layered clean clothes together to make a soft bed.

"Urgh..."

Only then did Yeon Sowol feel the pain battering his entire body. It felt as though lightning were striking inside his head, forcing him to curl up and groan for a while.

Noh Huideok watched him with unsteady eyes, then sighed.

"Young Master Yeon... you..."

Still curled up, Yeon Sowol turned only his head to look up at Noh Huideok.

"Urgh. What... happened?"

"We won."

"The casualties...?"

"Half died, and half survived."

"Ah."

"It was a great victory."

"..."

"No one would believe us if we told them about today's battle."

"..."

"It was a great victory."

They had faced a demonic practitioner of the transcendent peak realm.

On their side, there had only been three first-rate martial artists.

Yeon Sowol, Noh Huideok, and one Alliance martial artist at the early first-rate level. The other twenty-seven had been second-rate.

It had truly been a battle they could not have won.

If not for the Demon-Severing Sword.

If the enemy's main martial art had not happened to be sound arts.

If Noh Huideok had not been a disciple of the Dian Cang Sect. No, if it had not happened to be Noh Huideok among the countless outer disciples of the Dian Cang Sect.

And above all else,

if not for Yeon Sowol.

Coincidence upon coincidence.

Miracle upon miracle.

It could only be called an extraordinary tale of the Jianghu.

Yet Yeon Sowol's gaze turned to the carts covered in cloth.

Drops of blood scattered all the way to the carts told him what they carried.

The corners of Yeon Sowol's eyes trembled, and Noh Huideok looked troubled. Then the surviving Alliance members abruptly cut in.

"Oh! It looks like the Young Alliance Leader is coming around!"

"Ah! He is! We were worried because he was just staring blankly!"

"Wow! Young Alliance Leader, what did you do back there? That Ghost Valley Cry nearly drove me out of my mind..."

"Same here. I couldn't even get my bearings and just crawled around trembling on the ground. Then I looked up and that bastard was dead with a sword stuck in his head."

"Exactly, exactly."

"No, how did you even endure sound arts from that close? I was far away, and I was still spraying blood from both ends."

"Ugh. That's disgusting."

"You didn't?"

"I did."

At their bright, boisterous voices, Yeon Sowol smiled awkwardly.

One by one, the Alliance members gathered in front of him. They huddled together with shining eyes.

"Young Alliance Leader, Young Alliance Leader. Say a few words."

"Me? All of a sudden?"

"Ah, it was a hard fight, wasn't it? The leader has to say something."

"That's right. As long as it isn't too much, we'd like to hear a few words!"

Yeon Sowol broke out in a cold sweat.

It was stressful enough to have all these older men surrounding him with sparkling eyes and begging him to say something, but his state of mind wasn't good either. More than ten people had died brutally. It was hard to say anything that sounded happy. His mouth wouldn't even open.

Still, when even Noh Huideok gave him a meaningful look, Yeon Sowol forced out a few words.

"W-we won. We did."

Yeon Sowol wanted to crawl into a hole.

They had asked for something stirring, and this was all he could manage.

'I'm going to die...'

His body and mind were both unsteady when it happened.

"Waaaaah! That's right!"

"We won! Fuck!!!"

"Not a single defeat!"

"Hidden Sun Sword Yeon Seonhong took that demon's head!"

"Ghosts and demons quake in fear, wicked spirits and monsters lose even their forms!"

The Alliance members shouted the Golden Light Divine Mantra Noh Huideok had recited, raising a deafening cheer.

Yeon Sowol was a little taken aback at first, but...

"..."

Soon, his heart grew warm because he saw the tearful eyes of the Alliance members as they jumped and shouted.

Then,

"The Guangdong Martial Alliance is invincible!"

"What is there to fear? We slaughtered a transcendent peak realm master."

"I think we found ourselves one hell of a new home."

"We won... We killed that bastard!"

"We got revenge for them..."

"Young Alliance Leader Yeon! Thank you!"

"I told you, if we just follow him, we win!"

A thought suddenly came to him.

'No matter what, winning really is a good thing.'

What would they have done if they had come this far and still failed to win?

Because they had won, they had taken revenge. Because they had won, they could recover the bodies.

They could compensate the bereaved families.

They could stay alive and continue pursuing their cause.

How many things in this world did people risk their lives for, only to fail? Yet they had confronted an impossible enemy, won in the end, and survived.

As he thought about it, Yeon Sowol felt something hot rising in his chest as well.

"Young Alliance Leader! Say something else!"

"Young Alliance Leader! We'd like to hear another word!"

Seeing the martial heroes chattering away, Yeon Sowol could no longer hold back and shouted without thinking.

"First Under Heaven! Guangdong Martial Alliance!"

It was supposed to be The Foremost Sect Beneath Heavenly Road Mountain, but...

"Ooooooh!"

The response was fiery.

"Waaaaah! First Under Heaven!"

"Guangdong Martial Alliance!"

For this moment, everyone cried it out with all their hearts.

The Guangdong Martial Alliance, First Under Heaven.

* * *

After they had roughly finished cleaning up, all that remained was the Master of the Dark Shadow Pavilion's body, lying abandoned on the ground.

"What about that?"

When Yeon Sowol asked, Noh Huideok answered,

"I told them not to touch it."

"You did?"

"Yes. Nothing good comes from touching a demonic practitioner's body. You could pick up poison, disease, or some kind of scent."

"A scent?"

"Yes."

Noh Huideok spoke while watching the Master of the Dark Shadow Pavilion's corpse from a distance.

"Do you know of a place called the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult? It is also called the Demonic Cult."

"No... I've never heard of it."

"Many demons exist in this world, but that is the place that ought to be called the ancestral home of demons."

"A place like that..."

"Yes. One thing they are famous for is Ten-Thousand-Li Tracking Incense."

Ten-Thousand-Li Tracking Incense.

Yeon Sowol could roughly guess its meaning from the name alone.

"Does it mean an incense that can track someone across ten thousand li?"

"That is what people say."

"...Can a scent really do that? Wouldn't it fade with time?"

"It does not. Even if you wash it off, burn it away, or cover it with something else, it never completely disappears."

"The scent?"

"Because it is not a scent."

"What?"

"To be honest, I do not know the details either."

Noh Huideok smiled awkwardly.

"I only heard it from my teacher. My teacher said it was a scent, yet not a scent. My teacher said it was closer to a sword. I do not know what that means either."

"A scent... that isn't a scent, and is closer to a sword?"

It was a baffling thing to say.

Yeon Sowol looked back at the Master of the Dark Shadow Pavilion's body.

His heart felt heavy.

"So, something like that exists."

"Yes. A scent that can be detected from ten thousand li away and can never be erased once it touches you. Once it gets on you, you can never shake off the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's pursuit."

Hearing that reminded him of something.

'So that's how they found me...'

More than a year had passed since he killed the old man known as Killing Demon, yet the pursuer had only found him now.

He had kept wondering about that. Only after hearing this bizarre story about Ten-Thousand-Li Tracking Incense could he guess why.

"It seems you have some idea."

"Yes..."

"Then it is possible that person came from the Demonic Cult."

Noh Huideok glanced at Yeon Sowol's hand.

Yeon Sowol clenched his fist.

"...Ten-Thousand-Li Tracking Incense must be on my hand, then."

Feeling bitter, Yeon Sowol approached the Master of the Dark Shadow Pavilion's corpse.

"If it has already gotten on me, it doesn't matter, does it?"

"Yes. Touching that person more will not make much difference."

Yeon Sowol nodded, strode over to the Master of the Dark Shadow Pavilion, and searched the corpse's robes.

A few small one-nyang gold yuanbao. Several silver yuanbao. A few beads.

Then he found it.

"What's this book doing here?"

Yeon Sowol took an old book from the corpse's robes and read its title.

<Cotton Palm Art>

The characters meant cotton, palm, and art, the same character used in the terms for internal energy and external cultivation.

'What is this?'

Since it had the character for art in it, it seemed likely to be an inner cultivation method, but what did cotton have to do with a palm?

Yeon Sowol was about to turn away with the book when...

Whoosh!

"Ah!"

Noh Huideok suddenly rushed in, stepped in front of Yeon Sowol, seized his wrist, and stuffed the book into Yeon Sowol's robes.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

Startled, Yeon Sowol saw that Noh Huideok's face had gone even paler than before and was startled all over again.

"Great Hero...?"

「Lower your voice. Act natural.」

The reply came through voice transmission.

The person behaving less naturally than anyone else.

Noh Huideok broke out in a cold sweat, slowly pulled back, steadied their breathing, and carefully scanned their surroundings.

All while trying to look calm.

Yeon Sowol only moved his lips as he asked,

'Why are you doing this?'

The reply again came through voice transmission.

「I... heard stories. That the demons of the Demonic Cult seek out the most righteous and pure things under heaven. That the more righteous and pure those things are, the more terrible the demonic qi they harbor when twisted, becoming seeds for it. I had heard such rumors. But...」

Something suddenly clicked for Yeon Sowol.

What he had obtained from Killing Demon's robes after killing him had been Shaolin's legendary Greater Rejuvenation Pill.

'Then this book must be...'

「It is one of Wudang's mountain-guarding ultimate arts. Even among all those renowned ultimate arts, it ranks among the finest and is foundational to Wudang martial arts. Whenever people name the greatest palm techniques under heaven, it is always included.」

Noh Huideok's voice trembled as it reached him through voice transmission.

「Wudang's Cotton Palm.」

Goosebumps rose all over Yeon Sowol's body.

First Under Heaven! First Under Heaven!

As he stood there covered in goosebumps, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

'A palm technique?'

A martial art that struck enemies with one's palm.

Which meant...

「It is an unparalleled palm technique. No one can withstand it if the user lands a hit with their palm.」

Right. If he only had to hit someone with his palm...

Huh.

Yeon Sowol blankly looked down at his own hand.

Huh.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried