WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: BerageeBomb
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◈ I Obtained the Martial God’s Book ◈
Chapter 8: Night Hunt
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Heavenly Demon Divine Art was a rice cake on a shelf far too high to reach.
First, I needed to find a ladder I could climb right now.
It had to be a martial art that someone like me could obtain.
I wrote place names one by one in the dirt.
The Northern Sea possessed the Ice Soul Divine Art.
It was a Peerless-rank cultivation method that protected the body with frigid qi and froze one's enemies.
I erased it at once.
It was tens of thousands of li away, and it would not take root in anyone who did not carry the bloodline of the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
At Shaolin Temple on Mount Song was the Muscle-Tendon and Marrow Cleansing Scripture.
It was a Mythic-rank divine art said to open blocked meridians, cleanse the bones and muscles, and remake one's body.
Below the Celestial Origin-rank Azure Heaven Sword Scripture, it was one of the three strongest divine arts among the orthodox faction.
Wudang had the Great Clarity Limitless Scripture.
The Martial Alliance had the Vast Heaven Righteous Qi Divine Art.
I erased those as well.
Before a remnant of the Demonic Cult could even climb the wall of the Scripture Pavilion, the 108 Arhat Formation would come to greet them.
Beyond Poison Valley in the Southern Barbarians was a cave containing the Ghost Shadow Steps.
It was a movement art that let one walk like a ghost, concealing one's form, and it was not a fated opportunity reserved for someone else.
I erased that too.
Poison Valley itself was a gate of death.
Without internal energy to protect my body, I would die of poison before I ever reached the manual.
My thoughts turned toward demonic arts.
The first one that came to mind, the Remnant Soul Demonic Art, was frighteningly fast.
It took ten years to reach first-rate with an ordinary demonic art, but the Remnant Soul Demonic Art took only three months.
The problem was that everyone who learned it became a deranged murderer.
I erased it.
I had no intention of begging for power, going mad, and dying in a gutter.
Then I remembered the white-clad martial artist at the entrance to Blue Stone Valley.
That stroke had descended toward the crown of my head, then turned at the wrist and curved in diagonally.
Even now, I could see its path clearly whenever I closed my eyes. The moment the name Plum Blossom Sword had surfaced in my mind was just as vivid.
The branch in my hand stopped moving.
I had never learned swordsmanship, neither in this world nor in reality.
I had read the names of Mount Hua Sect's martial arts in the game.
But there was no way I could have known which move I was seeing.
Yet last night, I had known.
I pressed a hand to the center of my chest.
There was a faint but unmistakable presence there.
If that presence had let me dodge the Mount Hua warrior's sword, it must also have told me the name of the move.
Then this thing did at least two things.
First, it carved the paths of martial arts I saw into my body like instinct.
Second, it discerned and told me the names of those martial arts.
For now, though, all I had was the three-character name.
Perhaps my martial knowledge was lacking. Or perhaps the artifact had yet to awaken.
Knowing the name of a move did not make that martial art mine.
Without the formulae of a cultivation method to govern internal energy, it was only an empty shell.
I might be able to clumsily imitate last night's stroke, but I could not perform Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword.
Even if I could, orthodox or unorthodox martial arts were both unsuitable as ladders to the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
I erased it.
The ground was a mess of marks and erasures.
I considered countless other fated opportunities and wondrous treasures.
There was not one I could claim.
They were too far away, their entrances were blocked, they required a bloodline, or they were traps that required me to risk my life.
Knowing something in my head and running it down to seize it with my own hands were entirely different matters.
Right now, I was nothing more than a demonic foot soldier who had crawled out of a burning hell.
Still, I had not gained nothing last night.
If I knew a name, I could guess at its roots.
If I knew its roots, I could guess what sort of person stood before me and what weaknesses they might have.
It was not power that would fill my stomach or cut off an enemy's head.
But for someone at the bottom with no cards to play, it was precious capital.
I swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm water from my waterskin and closed my eyes.
I laid out the board again from the start.
This time, I narrowed the range to the mountain range around Blue Stone Valley, where I was hiding.
What useful thing had been buried nearby?
My train of thought, which had run from Blue Stone Valley to the Blood-Hand Demon Venerable, stopped on the two words Demon Venerable.
Demon Venerable did not refer only to the Blood-Hand Demon Venerable.
There was a Demon Venerable who held power now, and old Demon Venerables who had long since died.
My eyes flew open.
It was somewhere around here.
It was a hidden fated-opportunity event revealed in the latter half of the 《Records of the Martial God》 scenario.
A wandering martial artist who did not even know a third-rate martial art got lost on a mountain path and fell down a thousand-fathom precipice.
At the bottom of the valley, where they had to await death with broken bones, they discovered a hidden cave.
Inside sat a skeleton in meditation.
On the stone wall facing it were tens of thousands of sword marks, desperately carved by someone's hand.
[Hidden Fated Opportunity: You have discovered the resting place of the Ghost Sword Demon Venerable.]
[Would you like to learn the ultimate art, Ghost Sword Art?]
Ghost Sword Demon Venerable was the title borne by the Demon Venerable who had reigned two generations before the current ruler of the Demonic Cult.
He had been defeated in the cult's struggle for power and driven out.
Mortally wounded, he fled into these mountains and died alone.
Even a Demon Venerable who had commanded the world would die like a beast once deprived of power.
Before his death, he carved the martial arts and grudges of his entire life into the stone wall.
That was the Ghost Sword Art, an ultimate art of practical combat that intertwined cultivation method and swordsmanship.
Twenty years after finding and learning the Ghost Sword Art in that cave, the nameless wanderer would earn the title of a new Demon Venerable.
Of course, in terms of rank, it could not compare to the Azure Heaven Sword Scripture or the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Even so, it was a Transcendent Pinnacle martial art of practical combat that had raised a low-ranking warrior to the realm of Ultimate Demon.
With my head about to fall from my shoulders, I had no room to be choosy about the quality of a martial art.
It was like placing a hundred-year-old mountain ginseng before a newborn who had not even been weaned.
At the moment, I was likely the only person in the world who knew about it.
I had never actually obtained that martial art in the game.
By the latter half of the scenario, my character had already acquired something better.
The reason I knew of it was simple.
《Records of the Martial God》 had high freedom, so even the people in the game could obtain fated opportunities at any time.
Whenever someone obtained something, a notification appeared immediately.
There were too many martial arts below the Pinnacle rank, so I kept those notifications turned off. But whenever one at the Transcendent Pinnacle rank or above appeared, I checked it.
Across orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions, 《Records of the Martial God》 had one hundred fifty-seven Transcendent Pinnacle martial arts.
There were fifty-five Peerless-rank martial arts.
There were eight Mythic-rank martial arts.
There were exactly three Celestial Origin-rank martial arts.
You could choose only one faction per playthrough, so you could learn only a third of them.
Even within the same faction, that number shrank sharply once affinities and interests were considered.
Even Transcendent Pinnacle martial arts were rare.
Unless it was a sect-defining ultimate technique of a great sect, one would not even catch a glimpse of a Peerless-rank art.
All eight Mythic-rank arts already had owners, and more often than not, they could not be obtained.
So the standard path was to obtain and learn a Peerless-rank art before aiming for a Celestial Origin-rank one.
Players had special privileges, so they could obtain up to the Transcendent Pinnacle rank simply by following faction quests.
Then why was I coveting someone else's fated opportunity when I had never given it a second glance before?
I had no quests now.
Even if I did, every route required me to become a murderous fiend.
There was a good chance I would die before that.
Three hundred li northwest of here rose Black Fang Mountain, like the black teeth of a beast.
North of it lay the sheer Heartbreak Cliff.
The manual was in a hidden cave beneath that cliff, concealed by brush.
Three hundred li.
I could not use the official road.
Avoiding people and traveling through the mountain range would take ten days. Taking the rough mountain paths around it would take fifteen.
Winter was at my back, and the Martial Alliance's flags would likely stand at every pass.
Still, I had a goal.
Not going because it was difficult was different from being unable to go because it was far away.
If a Transcendent Pinnacle martial art awaited at the end, the effort of walking was a price I could gladly bear.
I stood.
I wiped away everything I had scrawled in the dirt with the sole of my shoe.
* * *
Before leaving, I washed my face in a stream.
The reflection in the water was a sight to behold.
Half my eyebrows had burned away, and my face was black with soot.
It was better this way.
No one could tell which side I belonged to with this face.
I untied the red sash around my chest.
Walking three hundred li of mountain roads wearing the Demonic Cult's mark was like pinning a target to my back.
I was about to throw it away when my hand stopped.
Jang Pal, Du Chil, and Samdol had all died wearing this sash.
I folded the red sash neatly and tucked it deep inside my clothes.
I placed a hand over my chest.
The Book of the Martial God pulsed faintly in time with my heartbeat.
Until now, it had moved only to keep me alive.
As the sun sank, I headed toward the mountain range to the northwest.
Behind me, black smoke still rose in pillars into the sky.
It seemed the fire still had more to consume, even after burning the valley all night.
* * *
As I crossed a ridge at dusk, I lowered myself.
Below, a long procession followed the official road west beneath white banners.
The three characters for Martial Alliance gleamed in the evening light.
It appeared to be the main force pursuing the Blood-Hand Demon Venerable.
Just as I had expected, the orthodox faction's eyes were fixed on the monster to the west.
I pressed myself against a rock and waited for the procession to pass.
Even after its tail had vanished, I remained crouched for another meal's time in case of stragglers.
Only then did I cross the ridge.
Darkness fell.
I wedged myself between rocks and pulled dry grass and fallen leaves over myself.
I did not light a fire.
Smoke in the mountains was a target even ten li away.
The half of a charred rice ball I had been given that morning was my last meal.
My stomach clung to my back, but exhaustion weighed my eyelids shut.
In my shallow sleep, a golden character waited for me.
[Martial (武)]
Threads stretching from the character touched my fingertips.
Then it happened.
Woof. Woof.
The sound of barking dogs cut through my sleep like a blade.
It was coming up from the foot of the mountain.
There was more than one.
I poked only my head out from between the rocks.
Two torches swayed as they approached through the darkness at the mountain's base.
They were coming from a different direction than Blue Stone Valley.
They were combing the slope where I was hidden.
Fragments of men's voices drifted over on the wind.
"This way! There are footprints!"
They were probably not an elite pursuit unit.
It seemed more like people hunting remnants for a small reward.
That did not mean I could relax.
I was an empty vessel, unable to handle even a scrap of internal energy.
I pushed aside the grass covering me and gripped my sword's hilt.
The barking had drawn another handspan closer.
* * *
I assessed the situation and the terrain.
I could not outrun trained hunting dogs.
I could erase my footprints, but not my scent.
If I fled up the ridge, I would expose my back in open view.
If I ran downhill, I would be charging straight into their encirclement.
Only one path remained.
On my way up, I had heard water below the slope.
If it was a mountain stream, I could break my scent.
The problem was that the stream overlapped by about half with the route they were taking up the mountain.
Using the darkness as a shield, I would have to cut diagonally down past their flank.
I slipped out from between the rocks and descended the slope.
My overworked legs had stiffened like branches.
I gritted my teeth, forcing my buckling knees straight as I ran.
The torches were about three hundred paces away.
The lead hunting dog was likely less than half that distance away.
It was obvious which was faster, four legs or my two exhausted ones.
It would come down to the narrowest margin: whether it bit my back first or I threw myself into the stream.
I dodged stones and stepped around dry branches that might make noise as I descended.
I was halfway down the slope when it happened.
Woof!
A beast barked right behind me.
It had raced ahead of the pack.
The instant I turned my head, a black shape lunged at me.
Even in the darkness, yellow fangs gleamed.
The world slowed again.
No matter how swift the leap, its path followed a fixed course.
A body that had sprung for my throat could not change direction in midair.
I saw the opening.
I thrust my left arm into the middle of that path and caught the beast's jaws.
Crunch.
Its teeth sank into my left forearm.
Pain that pierced to the bone struck my mind.
The beast's entire weight crashed into me, and we tumbled together down the slope.
My back slammed into a large rock, stopping us.
The belly of the hunting dog that had bitten my arm was exposed.
I drove the sword in my right hand upward from below.
Thunk.
The blade tore into its innards.
As it thrashed, it clenched its jaws harder.
It felt as though my forearm would be ripped away.
I gritted my teeth and stabbed again.
I drove the blade deeper.
Only then did a crack! sound come from its jaw joint, and its strength gave out.
I pried open its jaws and pulled out my mangled arm.
Blood gushed out, soaking my sleeve.
There was no time to catch my breath.
"I heard something! Down there!"
The two torches halfway up the mountain turned and began following this slope.
The remaining hunting dog barked madly.
I staggered to my feet and ran into the darkness where I could hear water.
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