WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 49: The Six Stars of Heaven (2)

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The Six Stars of Heaven (2)

Crack! Crack!

Mumu rolled his neck, working out a stiffness.

"What was that just now?"

Hwang Won's eyes narrowed at the sight of Mumu saying it so casually. A wariness had crept in.

'This one's no ordinary boy.'

Not just some muscle-bound freak. A worthy opponent, at long last. Within the academy, the Six Stars of Heaven sparred with one another from time to time as a form of exchange, but never with real killing intent, never with everything on the line. Maybe that was why Mumu's display was enough to stir his competitive blood.

"Not bad. Taking that and staying on your feet." "What are you talking about?" "Judging by muscles developed beyond anything normal, that's not the result of proper training. Are you from the Black Path, by chance?"

At Hwang Won's question, Mumu tilted his head. Lim Jeong, sprawled on the ground, forced his mouth open with what strength remained.

'Run!'

Hwang Won couldn't be reasoned with right now. He was convinced they'd broken in to steal the treasures of the secret archives.

'Too soon. Not yet.'

Mumu might have monstrous strength, but the man before him was one of the Six Stars of Heaven. Step outside Changcheon Martial Academy and into the wider martial world, and any one of them could be called the ruler of an entire region without anyone blinking. Just then, Mumu seemed to notice Lim Jeong and spoke.

"What'd you say?"

'.......'

If he hadn't caught it, fine, but did he really have to ask out loud like that? Even with his mind growing foggy, Lim Jeong was floored. Still, he mouthed the words with everything he had.

'I said run!'

"Oh-ah-ah-oh?"

'Run. Away!'

"Ah. Ah. Ahng?"

'.......There's no way he'd actually say something like that!'

He had no strength left to keep going. The internal injuries were dragging his eyelids down.

"Trying something clever, are you. I won't allow it."

That was when Hwang Won, one of the Six Stars of Heaven, moved. The instant his toes left the ground, light as a feather, his body rose slightly, and then he vanished from sight entirely.

Shhk!

A blurred shadow appeared behind Mumu an instant later. A movement skill beyond imagining. Appearing behind him in the blink of an eye, Hwang Won launched a blistering roundhouse kick at Mumu's neck.

Thud!

The moment it struck his neck, Mumu's body staggered and slid sideways.

Shhhhhhk!

Five paces, just like that. Unlike being caught off guard from a surprise attack, this time Mumu had his calves and toes braced, and even so the force behind it was tremendous.

'From behind?'

Mumu, clearly startled by something he'd never experienced before, frowned and grabbed at his neck. His muscles had held, but something had dug into the flesh, and it hurt.

"Ow."

'Ow?'

Hwang Won raised an eyebrow. He'd meant to snap the neck that time too, and yet it was completely unharmed.

'That toughness isn't ordinary. But still...'

Shhhk!

Hwang Won moved again, his form rippling like a shadow, circling around Mumu. Afterimages of him spread out around Mumu as if surrounding him from every side.

Whip!

Mumu swung a hand out to catch him, but it only brushed through an afterimage and touched nothing. All that was visible to the naked eye was shadow.

'Interesting.'

He'd never experienced anything like this, someone moving so fast the sound barely reached him. Whenever he tried running at full strength, didn't the ground itself break apart?

Thud!

A kick came flying in from behind. Struck across the back, Mumu was shoved forward and nearly stumbled. The spot that got hit actually hurt. It was rare for him to feel pain from something in his life.

"Now it begins."

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

The words had barely left his mouth before Hwang Won's kicks came raining in from every direction.

'Crazy Wind Shadow Leg!'

The third technique of Hwang Won's signature martial art, the Wind Shadow Leg Style. Every kick sent Mumu's body bouncing this way and that, trapped inside and unable to find his footing.

'Faster. Faster still.'

Speed was mass. The greater the speed, the greater the power behind the technique. With Mumu locked inside a wall of blistering afterimages, Hwang Won readied his finest strike. Driving deep into the floor, he kicked upward, lifting Mumu's body into the air, then leaped even higher, drew his legs together, and spun.

'Boundary-Breaking Whirlwind!'

Hwang Won's leg technique became a small whirlwind and crashed down onto Mumu. Seeing it coming, Mumu tried to catch the two spinning legs,

Bang!

"Huh?"

but the Reflective Force carried in that spin flung both his hands away.

"I did say speed was mass, didn't I."

Hwang Won landed the Boundary-Breaking Whirlwind squarely on Mumu's chest, laughing under his breath. The rotational force gathered at his two toes had sharpened to a razor's edge.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

The destructive power of the Boundary-Breaking Whirlwind punching into his chest sent Mumu crashing to the ground.

Boom! Whirrrrrr!

Hwang Won kept spinning, determined to finish it. But something felt off. By now the chest should have been torn open by that rotation, should have caved in, and yet it wasn't breaking through, as if he were spinning against solid stone.

'In that case...'

Mid-spin, Hwang Won lifted one leg.

Whoosh!

His raised right leg flushed with a shimmering white haze. Materialized leg ki, given form.

'I didn't think I'd need to use this one. Heavenly Strike Leg!'

Still spinning, Hwang Won drove the Heavenly Strike Leg straight down onto Mumu.

Kaboom!

The force was so great the floor shattered, sending debris flying in every direction. As dust and fragments surged upward, Hwang Won pulled his body back. Retreating ten paces, he folded his hands behind his back.

"Heh."

It felt good to finally stretch his limbs after so long. Watching this, Lim Jeong's eyes filled with pity. Monstrous strength or not, it hadn't been enough against one of the Six Stars of Heaven.

'Kid... I told you to run.'

Though, running would have been hopeless too. The man was a movement skill master even the Western Wind Lone Angle himself had acknowledged. Apparently satisfied that he'd finished Mumu off, Hwang Won turned to collect Lim Jeong once more.

"Now then, Administrator Lim, let's get you back up..."

Hwang Won flinched.

He stopped mid-turn.

'What's wrong with him?'

Lim Jeong wondered, puzzled, as Hwang Won's head snapped around, eyes sharpening. The pale haze of debris and dust was clearing, and a shadow stood revealed within it, someone standing perfectly still. It was Mumu. But something was different.

'!?'

Mumu's frame looked slightly smaller than it had a moment ago. Not that the muscles had shrunk, exactly, more like they'd compressed, drawn tighter, the lines between them cut far sharper now, and his skin looked faintly flushed.

'He's... changed.'

The transformation was unmistakable. Mumu cracked his neck and shook himself loose.

'First time I've ever turned every single Ki-Restraining Bracelet to four.'

His body felt lighter somehow, and the strength came easier than before.

Grip!

He clenched his fist, and every muscle along his arm rippled in response. Hwang Won's eyes, already wary a moment ago, sharpened further still.

"......This is unsettling."

He hadn't imagined the boy would take a Heavenly Strike Leg loaded with leg ki and come away without a scratch. And what was this transformation, this strange pressure now bleeding off him? This clearly wasn't an opponent he could handle halfheartedly. He would need everything he had.

Grrk!

Gritting his teeth, Hwang Won moved. Where he'd only been running at eighth-grade Force of ki a moment ago, now he pushed to tenth grade. The difference in his movement was unmistakable.

Shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk!

Hwang Won's form vanished from sight entirely, and only the faint flicker of a shadow slipping between the Luminous Stones on the floor betrayed that something was moving. He circled endlessly, hunting for an opening in Mumu's defenses.

Whip whip whip!

'Go for the weak points.'

He needed a vital spot, something that could end this in one strike. Mumu's muscles were so thick everywhere else that Hwang Won searched for the places no training could ever harden: the Cheondol point between the collarbones, the Gallbladder Meridian under the arm, the Hoeeum point at the groin, the eyes, the nose, the mouth.

'Feint left, leave an afterimage, then cut in low from the right.'

Shhk!

Exactly as planned, Hwang Won deliberately slowed on the left, leaving a trailing afterimage. At the same instant he twisted his body through an exquisite step, cutting toward the right...

A chill ran down his spine.

Just as he moved to strike, he couldn't hide his shock. Mumu's pupils had shifted, and they were looking directly at him.

'He saw my movement?'

Just then Mumu's hand shot out toward him. Hwang Won hurled himself backward in a panic. Mumu's swinging hand missed by a hair.

'Ha...'

He hadn't quite believed it, but the boy really had seen through his movement. Even among the Six Stars of Heaven, he'd always taken pride in the fact that only Meok Chong-un, ranked first among them, could track his full-speed movement with any accuracy. And yet this baby-faced kid was watching him dead-on.

'Fine, then.'

Hwang Won drew even more life energy up through his Yongquan point. Even if the boy could see him, following that movement was an entirely different matter. He would push his speed higher still, make his position utterly impossible to pin down...

Kaboom!

At that instant, the floor where Mumu had been standing shattered, surging upward like a wave.

Flash!

'What!?'

And there was Mumu, standing directly in front of Hwang Won mid-flight. Startled badly, Hwang Won twisted his body and changed direction at once.

Bang!

For a moment it looked like his form was pulling away from Mumu. Then, the very next instant,

Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash!

Mumu changed direction too. Unlike Hwang Won, who moved in silence through the marvel of his Body-Lightening Technique, the floor shattered under Mumu with every step he took, and yet his speed was nearly matching the man's own.

'What, what is this thing?'

For a moment Hwang Won couldn't hide his shock. He tried to shake Mumu off, but the boy clung on like something possessed.

Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash-crash!

'This is insane!'

The ground kept breaking apart beneath them, uneven now, making it hard even for Hwang Won to keep his footing while running. This went beyond anything reasonable. Why did the Body-Lightening Technique exist in the first place? To move faster through efficient footwork, to eliminate wasted motion, to keep the legs from being overloaded. And yet this kid was steamrolling straight past all of that logic. Running like a wild thing with no technique at all, and somehow those monstrous thighs and calves made it work anyway.

'...This can't go on.'

Hwang Won changed his plan. Keep going like this and all he'd be doing was running to avoid getting caught. He still held a slight edge in speed. In precision too. So it had to come down to that.

'The Ultimate Technique.'

That alone gave him a chance. His finest Ultimate Technique, capable of doubling his full-speed velocity. Using it left him nearly drained afterward, but it was the only answer that could bring this thing down.

Whoosh!

Hwang Won's legs flushed white with leg ki. And with it came a burst of acceleration.

Bang-bang!

His form tore through layers of air. Faster than Mumu now, if only for an instant, Hwang Won ran up along the cavern's wall in a blur and reached the ceiling. Once there, he launched himself down at Mumu below.

'Wind God Thunder Fall!'

Craaash!

In the blink of an eye, Hwang Won's Wind God Thunder Fall came down as though to split Mumu in two. It looked like nothing less than lightning itself.

'What a terrifying Ultimate Technique!'

Even Lim Jeong couldn't hide his shock at the sheer force of it. At this speed, this power, who could possibly stop that technique? And in that very instant,

Grip!

"Hah."

Mumu had pressed his clenched fist down to the ground, and now he swung it up in a great arc to meet Hwang Won's descending secret art. Air tore apart as the Wind God Thunder Fall met Mumu's fist.

Baaaang!

The force of the collision was so great that shockwaves rippled outward and struck every corner of the cavern. Incredibly, the two forces were evenly matched.

'This can't be.'

Hwang Won was speechless. His secret art, his Wind God Thunder Fall, blocked cold by nothing more than a plain fist.

"H-how could a mere fist stop the destructive force behind that speed..."

Speed was mass. Combined with Force of ki, that weight carried something close to ten thousand geun of destructive power.

"What about speed?" "What?"

Rumble!

Just then, the muscles of Mumu's right forearm rippled as if howling. The elbow that had bent slightly on impact snapped straight open. And in that instant,

Crack!

The floor sank nearly six jang deep, centered beneath Mumu's foot. An explosive counterforce erupted at the same time, and Hwang Won's body, barely holding on, was flung upward.

Baaang!

"Guhk!"

Coughing blood, Hwang Won's body shot upward, slammed into the ceiling, and punched straight through it.

Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash!

His body, buried deep in the ceiling, eventually fell back down through the hole it had made.

Thud!

Hwang Won lay sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed in a great X, twitching. Every bone in his body felt broken or fractured; his body wouldn't answer him.

'My secret art... my secret art... how...'

Wind God Thunder Fall. This secret art had been built to face down a supreme master, refined over ten long years of sleepless devotion. And it had shattered against a single punch. While he lay reeling in shock, Mumu walked over and muttered, utterly unable to make sense of it.

"Why bother running around when you could just get stronger?"

'!?'

He was genuinely floored. It's not me who's wrong, it's you who's beyond all reason! He wanted to scream it, but his mouth only worked soundlessly before the pain overwhelmed him and he passed out.

'......Unbelievable.'

Watching all of this, Lim Jeong's jaw hung open, his mind snapping fully awake. The six pillars Changcheon Martial Academy took such pride in. And one of them, Hwang Won, a man whose martial prowess ranked among the rulers of entire regions, had been brought down by a brand new cadet with a single punch.

'No, wait. How did a monster like that ever get admitted as a cadet?'

Footnotes:

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