Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time - Chapter 301

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈

Episode 301: Lotus (20)

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Jeong Yeon-shin was relieved.

Languid Flame Dragon, Hyeon Won-chang, and Shin So-bin had accepted Slayer Hero's invitation. Jegal Cheong-a also seemed to have vanished the instant her father appeared.

It was a great relief. He did not want her to see her father get hurt and die.

That was true even if she herself wished for her father's death after Immortal Dragon Jegal Hyeon had closed his eyes.

'Because they're family.'

It was fortunate that the other three were absent as well.

There was no telling how this fight would unfold. Even with the upper dantian's power bleaching his thoughts white, he could not predict it.

Perhaps that meant the forms of sorcery martial arts he would have to face were nearly limitless.

[That sword art interests me.]

He felt a transparent gaze. It came from the Zhuge Family Head, floating in the air.

Their eyes met at once.

'What?'

His mind suddenly turned cold. The upper dantian resonated. Through the overflowing spirituality unique to a peerless master, the man's emotions seeped into him.

Was this how it felt for a sheet of ice to pour down like a waterfall?

Madness.

Countless images surfaced. For an instant, Eon Hwa-ryeon's face seemed to flash through his mind as well.

But that image soon sank into indistinct thoughts and blunt, clotted masses of emotion. The man's inner world was like the depths of an ocean ravaged by a typhoon.

'He's not in his right mind.'

Yet the Zhuge Family Head's eyes were calm. They were still enough to bring mirror-clear water to mind.

He entered battle with chilling composure, yet his greater actions were driven by madness. Yeon-shin could not fathom his purpose.

But this was not the time to consider it.

[Are you trying to recreate it? The day you killed the Huangbo Family Head.]

The Zhuge Family Head spoke with the White Crane Fan covering his mouth.

[They say three exceptionally formidable Black Uniforms gathered here, leaving the livelihoods of everyone else under heaven behind.]

"You know a lot. Leave your last words if you have any. What happens today will spread as all manner of stories among idle gossips. That's why I'm keeping up appearances. Unlike you lot, Desolate Fortress has to look good to the common people too."

Ak Su-rim spoke while spinning her silver spear at her side. Her pitch-black hair fluttered wildly in the whirlwind she had created.

The Zhuge Family Head smiled.

[I am not like that man.]

"I know. You shamelessly colluded with two of the Thirteen Heavens, Tyrant Sword Sect and Yeoryeong. I can't imagine how many dharma treasures and riches you swallowed to create a domain this large. It's remarkable that your skill makes use of whatever you pour into it."

Her eyes continually swept the surroundings as her lips moved without pause.

How had she endured beneath Sword Star?

'She's buying time. As though she were surveying the terrain.'

Yeon-shin held the Northern Light Sword lowered in his hand, its blade stained with the energy of the Demon-Slaying Azure River Hand.

He knew why the Zhuge Family Head's sorcery martial arts had grown endlessly more powerful. Jegal Cheong-a had told him. The man had sacrificed even blood relatives to cultivate martial arts.

The Zhuge Family Head had already been a peerless master of sorcery martial arts. His path to greater power was simply different.

Ssssss.

Yeon-shin dried the heel dampened from stepping on some Gwi person with Samadhi True Fire.

Steam rose from his leather shoe and brushed his ankle. It was hot, yet cold at the same time.

This was a battle where even the slightest disruption to his condition could lead to a fatal wound.

The Zhuge Family Head's pure white robes floating before him bore no stains and did not stir in the aura. Was even his Protective Qi Technique woven through sorcery?

[Seom-ye. You have forgotten my words.]

Samadhi True Fire seemed to have drawn his attention. The Zhuge Family Head's eyes turned to Yeon-shin again.

"Conduct as though you cannot tell heaven from earth is no good. You will meet an early death. Even a flower without equal in all ages is meaningless if it cannot bloom. Even if your talent can be spoken of alongside all antiquity and the present, the powerful will not look kindly upon you."

The upper dantian's power instantly recalled what had happened at the Martial Alliance Assembly. Those had been the Zhuge Family Head's words.

[Ak Su-rim, thank you for buying me time.]

The Zhuge Family Head turned back to Ak Su-rim.

[Have you grasped the sorcery formation well enough? I have finished calculating my spells. You never dreamed that I would turn the tables on you, but thanks to that, I gained the time to bring myself into my finest state.]

"What?"

Her thick eyebrows shot up. The Zhuge Family Head lowered the fan from his lips.

With an exceedingly gentle motion, the tips of the White Crane Fan's ribs traced arcs through the air, leaving faint afterimages.

The translucent sorcery formation enclosing the entire Gongya Family estate hummed and resonated loudly.

[Wen Zhong Returns. Yin-Yang Divine Whip.]

Wooooong.

He spoke not only with his lips, but with martial power as well. It was lip-speech taken to its extreme. Dozens of melodic murmurs overlapped at the speed of a peerless swift sword.

Anyone who had not trained Sensory Training would have heard nothing but thunder. Sorcery mantras were said to gain power once they entered the world.

Wen Zhong was the name borne by the Daoist god of thunder when he had been human, and the Yin-Yang Whip was the weapon he wielded.

Crack! Rumble!

It happened in an instant.

The antique White Crane Fan's feathers split apart in strips.

Its ten ribs separated like daggers and began to roar monstrously.

They scattered above the Zhuge Family Head's shoulders, filled with tremendous inner energy, then surrounded him with long cords of colorless force qi, like yarn drawn from thunderclouds.

The Zhuge Family's secret fan art, the Yin-Yang Divine Whip.

It unfolded before anyone could blink.

Colorless cords rippled around the peerlessly handsome man in a black hat and white robes, like flowing strips of silk joining a celestial maiden's robes. An eerily transcendent air spread from him.

"The Yin-Yang Divine Whip of the Puhua Divine Technique?!"

Ak Su-rim's eyes sharpened as her silver spear darkened to black as well.

Though she had finished preparing to unleash the Ak Family Spear Art at its peak, she could not hide her surprise.

"You're using that without help from your household? Was the reason you stood still all this time to fully contain the formation within your own body...?"

[While you devised ways to counter me, did you think I had been sitting idle? I had to become formidable in my own right.

That is the only way to guard against an extreme variable like Ten Miles One Kill from the Dark Night Hall Lord. Do you think you have no such techniques?]

The Zhuge Family Head lightly turned his wrist.

[Therefore, I myself am now the Zhuge Family.]

Colorless nets were etched across heaven, earth, and every direction. It was a wide-ranging ultimate technique that attacked all three Squad Leaders at once.

When martial masters fought, if the difference in strength was clear, they had no choice but to observe their opponent first. The opening attack was generally not the weaker party's role.

Within the Gongya Family estate, where everyone held their breath, the world of supreme transcendence opened.

Rumble!

Wind and thunder roared.

It was the first time in his life.

Within the realm of Purple Uniforms, Jeong Yeon-shin faced a murderous strike rushing toward him. No, it was more accurate to say that an entirely different speed unfolded before his eyes.

The Northern Light Sword, already swinging upward, turned deep blue. The framework of inner energy formed from sacred dharma power had extended all the way to its blade.

Yeon-shin's senses no longer distinguished between his hand and his sword.

The sword art he had named Demon-Slaying Azure Steel Sword to counter the Zhuge Family Head carved a long blue trail.

Bang!

He cut through one cord of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip and met the second head-on.

The friction boring into the blade was immense.

It felt as though harsh sparks ran down to his grip. Though his heart was wicked, the man was a peerless master who had cultivated orthodox martial arts to their utmost.

The demon-slaying power produced by dharma power held only a slight advantage in compatibility. He was unlike the sorcery martial artists Yeon-shin had faced before.

Perhaps even that displeased the absolute master.

[Vast Thunder.]

A colorless pillar descended from the sky to the ground.

The violently heaving air scattered Yeon-shin's hair. It seemed that five bolts had been divided among the three of them.

The strike was so fast that it felt carved into the world rather than falling.

Yet the upper dantian blazing in Yeon-shin's mind had already pierced through the turbulent currents of energy in all eight directions.

He also recognized that the attack split according to each target's position.

'The crown of my head.'

Craaaaaack!

He caught it by crossing his left arm and the Northern Light Sword.

Something cracked inside him. His forearm bent at an angle, stretching even the ligaments.

His mind turned white. Dharma power could not completely swallow the sudden impact. Terrible pain shot into his head.

[Oh.]

The Leader of Demon Wings carried himself differently. With an indifferent expression, he swept his sword free as he strengthened his body with the Record of the Dharma Light Wheel and the Jeong Family Youth Technique.

Residual force waves fluttered like flower petals, accentuating the swordsman's figure. The Zhuge Family Head let out a quiet exclamation and flicked his index finger upward.

Inside the prison formed by the five cords he had raised with his other hand, Jin Myeong-jo moved in a dim, ink-colored blur, prevented from unleashing his technique.

Perhaps an earlier wound had burst open. Bright red blood dripped down. His clasped hands looked as though they held an invisible sword.

'If Senior Jin were at full strength...!'

Martial power was about to erupt from Yeon-shin's heel.

The Yin-Yang Divine Whip responded to the Zhuge Family Head's gesture. His fingers moved so fast they seemed segmented, like rays of light.

Two cords collided and flashed with lightning, while another struck the ground with monstrous force.

Crack! Boom!

Blue lightning born from friction swept through the air alongside boulders flung out with the force of a catapult. They carried dreadful power. Radiant River erupted continuously from Yeon-shin's left hand.

Kwang!

Chunks of stone mixed with sparks and scattered.

'Compatibility is useless like this.'

Yeon-shin narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the Northern Light Sword.

His face tingled as lightning and stone fragments exploded again. Attacks that filled his vision like a disaster came one after another.

The successive shockwaves were overwhelming.

It felt as though he had been dropped into the middle of a battlefield. Every attack path had been calculated with extreme precision.

The Zhuge Family Head did not direct sorcery attacks at the Leader of Demon Wings. Instead, he put all their power into unavoidable aftershocks. In a martial life-and-death duel, he was worthy of being called Zhuge Wuhou reborn.

Yet his gaze remained fixed ahead. His eyes shone green as they tracked the blurred movements of Ak Su-rim, who had become an immortal of the spear.

Most of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip's cords clashed against her. Every collision sent tremors racing in every direction.

Clangclangclang!

Heaven and earth shook.

That was no exaggeration.

The sky and ground trembled. It was a battle Yeon-shin had never experienced before.

[As expected.]

At last.

[You first, Desolate Divine Spear.]

The Zhuge Family Head descended. His wide sleeves fluttered like the wings of a giant white crane.

Tap.

Darkness rose from the tip of his foot as he stepped elegantly onto the ground, watching Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly plant his sword in the earth.

The Zhuge Family Head's domain covering the sky faded a little further. Had he drawn heavily upon the strength of the sorcery formation fused with his body?

Something unfolded.

One extremely short step altered the structure of the natural earth qi.

[Falling.]

A thunderous noise rang out, as though bolts of lightning were falling one after another.

The air twisted violently in places, and the moment Yeon-shin raised the Northern Light Sword, everything around him vanished.

The last thing reflected on his retinas was a young woman's face, eyes wide as her lips formed words.

"It's a formation! A formation! The Heaven-Piercing Falling Formation...!"

'Senior Ak.'

Darkness fell in an instant. He could feel nothing. That was why he sensed the severance so clearly.

Yeon-shin immediately examined his body and his surroundings.

The Light Wheel turning in his heart, the twelve regular meridians and minor meridians throughout his body still springy, the pulse of his heated muscles, the difference between the lengths of his inhalation and exhalation, signs of people outside...

'It isn't an illusion.'

When he forcefully activated the Heaven-Displaying Eye Technique, a faint blue light rose.

Light and shadow sharpened. The space around him resembled a darkened sky. His sense of distance was strange.

Swish!

He took a True Step and thrust out his sword, but he could not leave his spot. Only the air brushing his skin rippled faintly.

That was right. He had not moved at all.

Yeon-shin's senses, sharpened like a divine sword, accurately assessed his present state.

'The Heaven-Piercing Falling Formation?'

He had heard of it before. It was a secret formation that the entire Zhuge Family could deploy only when gathered at their main estate. The Zhuge Family Head had used it to create a one-on-one situation.

In the world of sorcery martial arts, it was a formation technique with standing comparable to the Mount Hua Sect's Plum Blossom Sword Formation or the Wudang Sect's Profound Void Sword Formation.

Fine. It did not matter. He did not know what was happening outside.

Getting out came first.

Boom.

The moment he clenched his hand, a drumbeat resounded inside his body.

Dazzling light rose within him, and enormous power began racing through the twelve regular meridians and every minor meridian in his body.

'Ghk!'

The pain, as though his blood vessels were tearing apart, was worse than before. Was it because the amount of qi he had stored differed so greatly from when he had gone to obtain spiritual medicine for Hye-ah?

The enhanced power brought strain in proportion to its strength. It felt as though he had taken Radiant River directly into his body without any filter.

Just as he wondered whether he should stop activating it, the twelve regular meridians and three hundred sixty-five acupoints tightened with a gentle sensation.

The oldest warmth he knew descended from the sky and embraced him tightly.

Mother.

It was the ultimate principle of the Jeong Family Youth Technique, which had reached Great Accomplishment the instant it was completed.

Kwang!

The body-protecting power endured the cracks forming inside him. His meridians and minor meridians accepted the violent force of Radiant River spreading throughout his body.

'Radiant River, Ultimate Thunder.'

From the Yongquan acupoint beneath his feet.

Wooooong!

Waves of martial power spread outward in dozens of concentric circles.

Pale clusters of light fluttered from his body in the shape of enormous leaves.

They released tremendous vibrations outward, bursting like colorless lightning.

Then.

Fwoosh!

A translucent flower bud completely enclosed Yeon-shin's body.

'Mother.'

Please break through my limits.

He took one slow step.