WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 295: Lotus (14)
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KWA-A-A-A-ANG!
The influential martial families watching had been completely cowed.
The arena had been in turmoil from the moment the wandering martial artist Geom Un-bi revealed his identity. Those from relatively weak families, or those with too much to fear, had already fled far away.
Very few people of the martial world had the nerve to face a Black Uniform of Desolate Fortress.
Even those who had initially pretended to be relaxed could no longer hide their shock as the duel continued.
A stir spread through the crowd.
"Isn't it even? No, isn't he winning? A woman honored as the Fist Exemplar for her fists is being driven back."
"To think someone could display such supernatural phenomena as the Ming Cult's..."
"I never thought such a person truly existed, even after hearing the rumors."
"Gongya Family Head! What is the meaning of this?"
"Have you truly joined hands with the imperial family's blade? It won't benefit you. Desolate Fortress may be powerful, but it has no spare strength, while the Zhuge Family Head has made this entire region his territory. How do you intend to withstand his sorcery arts and martial arts?"
The surrounding martial families looked at the Gongya Family with open hostility. The arrival of a high-ranking figure from Desolate Fortress had finally become real to them.
Only Gongya Su, the Second Young Master, whose mouth had fallen open before his eyes began to shine, and Gongya Jeong, the eldest daughter, staring at the arena in disbelief, reacted differently.
"I knew his background had to be extraordinary. No, he looks like one of the elven race. Does it make any sense for someone with that face to have grown up so rough? He must be related to the Tyrant Hero, Ma Yeon-jeok, if he can stay so calm about everything! I told you I was on brotherly terms with Seom-ye of Desolate Fortress! The Leader of Demon Wings! The Leader of Demon Wings!"
"Su-ah, quiet."
Gongya Jeong grasped her younger brother's sleeve, her gaze deep, and calmed him.
She could feel the gazes enclosing the Gongya bloodline like iron bars.
Friends they had long been close to, renowned figures, people who had enjoyed the Gongya Family's banquets, none were excluded. They simply stared blankly at the Gongya Family.
The martial families of Shanxi would no longer associate with the Gongya Family.
That was the fate of sects and families tied to Desolate Fortress.
Unless they were among the Eight Great Families or Nine Sects, powers that ruled their region or commanded broad respect, it was something they had to endure. The mutual noninterference of officialdom and the martial world, the freedom of the martial world...
'As long as the Zhuge Family Head lives, it won't be easy for this family to remain whole.'
Gongya Jeong forced down her resentment as she recalled the ten years' worth of techniques the Leader of Demon Wings had taught her.
They had exchanged martial arts. She wanted to think not as a member of a martial family, but as a martial artist.
"Hm..."
The Gongya Family Head said nothing.
He merely watched the current Leader of Demon Wings with a grave expression.
BANG! CRAAACK! KWA-A-A-A-ANG!
The two figures blurred again and again. They closed in and sprang apart as if their bodies lacked solid form, producing thunderous booms.
Each wave of aura created fierce winds, tearing even the awnings into disarray.
The shockwaves that churned along their movements were immense.
They resembled tangled strands of lightning. This was no longer a battle between people.
"So it wasn't time to worry about returning home... Shanxi has become a battleground for dragons and tigers."
The Gongya Family Head muttered quietly.
Though Shanxi was smaller than Huguang or Shaanxi, it was still a province.
Not a brick-built city, but one of the country's vastest regions.
It was broad enough to rival a modest foreign nation, yet Shanxi's powerful martial families were calling noisily like scops owls, swept up in the tidal waves that were Desolate Fortress and the Eight Great Families.
It had happened before they even had time to decide how to conduct themselves. It had been beyond their control.
'What are we supposed to do about this...?'
As everyone activated their eye techniques and strained to follow the movements of the two supreme masters, the nature of the fierce battle in the arena changed.
BANG!
Eon Hwa-ryeon's raised instep glanced off Jeong Yeon-shin's hand blade and fell away.
Her dangling left arm now looked crippled to anyone's eyes, mangled enough to expose red flesh. It no longer seemed capable of exerting any strength.
That was why she used Leg Arts, immediately restoring her innate balance.
They said the First Fist of the Eon Family was a master of fist and leg techniques. It meant she was thoroughly versed in using her body.
Swish! Swiiish! BANG!
Her Leg Arts were strange. She wielded her long legs like swords.
The sound of them cutting through the air was nearly inaudible, but each time a sharp force wave exploded, cuts appeared on Jeong Yeon-shin's skin. The pain burned like a scald.
The depth of her martial arts was extraordinary. She truly belonged to the Eight Great Families, the heavens of the secular martial world.
Jeong Yeon-shin continued tracing the paths of her limbs. His supreme eye art, the Heaven-Displaying Eye Technique, was active.
Whenever his eyes, glimmering with blue Radiant Net, moved sharply up and down, left and right, blue afterimages lingered behind them.
'Next, right fist.'
CLANG!
He knocked Eon Hwa-ryeon's right hand upward.
The burden from the back of his hand to his shoulder was immense. The backlash from repeatedly using Radiant River still remained.
It wasn't easy to receive her punches. Her qi storage alone exceeded his.
He did not care.
With every exchange, a strange sensation deepened.
Thud!
He stomped down her sharply rising knee strike, then struck her temple with the back of his hand.
CLANG!
It felt as though lightning had struck his hand.
A powerful numbness ran through him. Fragments of martial power scattered in every direction, and the recoil from her battered Protective Qi Technique created a small storm.
'Again.'
Jeong Yeon-shin overlaid the illusion of being slapped across the face.
They were sharing sensations every time they collided. It was a function of the upper dantian. Judging by Eon Hwa-ryeon's eyes, which occasionally wavered, she too seemed to have realized it, though late.
Was it because of the discarded dharma treasure before their long exchange began? Or perhaps because both were supreme masters who used their upper dantians to the utmost?
'Is this a fortuitous encounter?'
He thought as he flipped backward through the air. At the edge of his vision, Eon Hwa-ryeon threw him off and rose with a fierce shout.
Mysterious strength seemed to flow from her tangled short black hair. She truly was powerful.
'That's why... I understand, vaguely.'
He understood what kind of sensation Three Flowers Gather at the Crown was built upon.
It differed from the Lord of Desolate Fortress's perception, which had seemed to look down from an immeasurable height.
His palms, shoulders, and waist ached terribly from firing Radiant River in succession, yet the pain no longer weighed on him.
He could now guess what kind of driving mechanism those annoyingly swift monkeys used to circulate their inner energy.
It was different from before, when they had simply seemed fast. If he personally underwent their closed-door training, he would change even further.
'Though I don't have time for that now.'
Once he experienced a sensation, he never let it go.
Shing.
He drew the Northern Light Sword downward.
He could not keep abusing Radiant River here. Nor could he use Ultimate Thunder. He had to retain enough strength to face the Zhuge Family Head.
Since Eon Hwa-ryeon showed no sign of retreating, he had no choice but to end it with the Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art.
Eon Hwa-ryeon stood tall and watched him.
"..."
Neither spoke further.
Clear sunlight caressed the arena, now reduced to ruins, while the winter wind swept dryly over their skin.
Then Eon Hwa-ryeon's body vanished.
Thud!
There had not even been a sign of Force Projection gathering.
She suddenly appeared before Jeong Yeon-shin, her visible form seeming segmented as she planted her foot into the ground and wrapped colorless, blazing force waves around her right fist.
It was Force Projection powerful enough to crush a mountain with one punch. She was worthy of being the Eon Family's foremost master, the woman who made the Zhuge Family Head invincible.
Space twisted wildly in that instant.
Jeong Yeon-shin's eyes shone blue. It was a fist strike he had never even heard of.
The path of the strike came straight at him, as though it had bypassed conscious thought, yet it looked strangely complex.
It contained the principle of the Dull Sword, forcing its opponent into a state where evasion was impossible. The force waves, distorted as though they could end only after colliding, gouged the ground and tore apart the air.
Fwaaaash!
At the same time, the realm of supreme transcendence unfolded.
Time slowed for both of them. The moment began to feel eternal, enough for him to feel every strand of frigid wind brushing his cheek.
'My husband.'
Eon Hwa-ryeon remembered the contemptuous gaze the Zhuge Family Head had given her.
"What gave you the confidence to reject the counterform? This was always how it would end."
It had been after she lost to Seom-ye at the Martial Alliance Assembly.
She had loved a wicked person, then made a choice she could not be ashamed of as a martial artist. In the end, she had become someone who had wronged her beloved.
Her focus returned to the opponent whose sword came at her.
A remarkably handsome youth. His eyes flashed with blue Radiant Net like unrestrained lightning. He was worthy of bringing about the end of the direct heir to the Eon Family Divine Fist.
It was only an instant.
From far away.
Uuuung.
A pebble that had fallen before Shanxi's martial families glowed faintly.
At the same time, the mental force in Eon Hwa-ryeon's upper dantian, aligned with the martial power of her lower dantian, shone white. For a brief moment, she felt melancholy.
It was not her emotion. It belonged to the Leader of Demon Wings. She could even sense its direction. A young man who had died clutching a fan came to mind.
'Yes, I see. You were angry. Not my husband, you.'
Pale light rose one after another, from the dharma treasure to the crown of Eon Hwa-ryeon's head, where the power of Three Flowers Gather at the Crown manifested without limit, then through the eye technique the Leader of Demon Wings had activated, and finally into his upper dantian, glowing with unnatural brightness.
Mysterious energy crashed together and connected like constellations.
Uuuuuung!
A flower bud sprouted in Jeong Yeon-shin's mind. It resembled a lotus in his mental image, something not yet capable of blooming.
Swish!
At that moment, his sword had already torn upward through the force waves of Eon Hwa-ryeon's punch and reached her side.
Of the two upper dantians that had resonated in that fleeting instant, the Leader of Demon Wings possessed far greater power.
He could read the storm of force waves tangled to the limit as if it were his own.
The hundreds of sword paths that had risen in his mental image finally converged into a single line. Having completed its calculations, the Northern Light Sword drew a pale curve like ghost fire.
Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art, Light Sword Like Phosphorus.
Uuung.
A pure white trail was carved into the air.
The gleam of martial power flashing from the blade resembled a river glittering beneath the sun.
It was as if the Sanzu River, shining on the road to the underworld, flowed toward her. Fragments of force scattered the light like flower petals.
Splaash!
Eon Hwa-ryeon's abdomen split diagonally.
The wound was terribly deep. Her organs had been completely severed. The force waves from her punch, which had failed to fully extend, dispersed dimly.
The two stood facing each other.
Eon Hwa-ryeon spoke first.
"Did you feel it?"
"Yes."
"I learned the secret of your talent. Such a mysterious gift... I didn't realize it was this extraordinary."
"Thank you. I felt something I hadn't expected."
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke slowly. Eon Hwa-ryeon slightly raised her chin.
"Good. Very good. Your senses will remember me."
"Yes."
"There's a secret manual in my robe. The Eon Family Fist Manual. If you visit Jinju, could you... deliver it to my family?"
"If I don't die on the road."
His answer was brief.
Eon Hwa-ryeon smiled silently.
"Even at the end... I was right."
Her blood-darkened lips drew a faint curve.
"If I had remained at the side of Crouching Dragon Rebirth... I would have been forgotten as someone insignificant. With no one to think of me, buried beyond the memories of an indifferent beloved. That would have been... far too empty a death."
Her words trailed indistinctly through the blood gathering in her throat. It was a small whisper, saying that she should escape through the martial arts that had been with her all her life.
Eon Hwa-ryeon's staggering feet planted firmly on the earth.
Thud.
Colorless force waves flowed from her calves to the ground beneath her feet, gripping the earth. At the same time, the tendons throughout her body grew indistinct.
It was her final Force Projection. Her superhuman balance seemed to declare that a great martial magnate among the Eight Great Families would not lose her dignity even in death.
She stood perfectly straight.
Her spirit was immense. As a fist master, her form was perfectly beautiful.
Hoo...
Holding the Leader of Demon Wings's gaze, she let out her final breath.
The fist master who stood foremost among the Eight Great Families, renowned throughout the country, kept her eyes shining brightly even as she died. Jeong Yeon-shin did not look away.
Soon.
The final trace of Eon Hwa-ryeon's breath slowly scattered.
The inner-energy breathing of a supreme master no longer flowed from her. Only the striking image of her two bloodied fists, hanging diagonally at her waist, remained.
The corners of Eon Hwa-ryeon's lips stayed slightly raised as she slowly stiffened.
Having stepped upon the lotus of the Sanzu River, she looked at the person who would be proudest of who she was now.
In her fading sight, where time seemed to flow backward, a young and handsome scholar of the Zhuge Family smiled warmly with the Four Books and Five Classics in his arms.
"..."
Silence fell around the arena.
The private details of the Eight Great Families' supreme masters were closely guarded secrets, yet they drew enormous interest. Everyone knew their names, so even their smallest actions became objects of attention.
Eon Hwa-ryeon, the Fist Exemplar. The First Fist of the Eon Family.
She was forty-three years old.
"Farewell."
The Leader of Demon Wings of Desolate Fortress accepted the question the First Fist of the Eon Family had thrown at him. Standing before a life made of conflict and martial arts, Jeong Yeon-shin took in her choice.
It was something he would have to remember for a long time. How should a martial artist die to leave behind fewer regrets?
Jeong Yeon-shin began walking slowly. Ignoring the crowd's silent horror, he sought the whereabouts of his seniors.
Step.
Silence crunched beneath his feet.
The Leader of Demon Wings crossed the final stage of an enormous mission alone. Now, he had to kill one of the Eight Family Heads.
Footnotes:
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