WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 302: Softened Nezha
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* * *
Just after the fierce battle that would decide the fate of Shanxi’s martial world began.
High in the sky.
Bluish moonlight softly enveloped the woman riding a sword.
Baek Seo-gun stood atop the blade and looked down.
Even as the roar of fierce winds deafened her ears, she did not blink once.
From outside the reinforced sorcery formation deployed by the Zhuge Family Head, she observed the battle. Her eyes followed the clash of rare masters, moving in small, ceaseless motions.
Boom! Boom!
Shockwaves reached even beyond the sorcery formation’s barrier. The sword beneath her feet trembled faintly.
‘Crouching Dragon Rebirth.’
The Zhuge Family Head’s martial prowess was truly tremendous.
Was it because he had accumulated such immense training, then received the full support of Yeoryeong and the Tyrant Sword Sect?
They said that, free from the Sword Star’s restraint, he had spent years constructing sorcery formations and risen to stand at the Sword Star’s heels. Now, he might even rival the Heart Martial Union Leader.
Ever since the Martial Alliance Assembly was formed, there had been much talk among the upper ranks of the martial world.
As a member of the Zhuge Family, where completing oneself as a martial artist required enormous wealth, was he not gathering the martial world’s resources to satisfy his own greed?
In fact, signs had emerged that part of the vast flow of money poured into the Martial Alliance Assembly had disappeared.
Yet the banner of overthrowing Desolate Fortress was at the height of its influence, and through it, the Zhuge Family Head had gained the means to complete his martial arts even after leaving the assembly.
It was the result of his position as the Martial Alliance’s Chief Strategist and his collusion with two of the Thirteen Heavens.
‘The Zhuge Family’s secret art, the Puhua Divine Technique.’
Masters of sorcery martial arts generally found it difficult to display their full strength.
Even lighting a single fireball required meticulous control of inner energy and mantras. Before they could properly deploy the arts they had learned, masters of swift swordsmanship often took their heads.
The Zhuge Family Head himself had been known as one of the weaker Eight Family Heads in terms of personal martial prowess.
But if an absolute master of sorcery had fully established his domain.
If that person was the Zhuge Family Head, who had been called a peerless master even in ordinary times, when he was unprepared.
Kra-ka-ka-boom!
The battle unfolding beneath that barrier would shake the future of the martial world.
All the peerless masters who had lived long lives as extraordinary talents continued to grow stronger, but the Zhuge Family Head’s explosive increase in power was at least understandable. It stemmed from an attainment that had surpassed the realm of inspiration.
It was unlike the Tyrant Sword Sect Master’s inexplicable increase in martial skill.
The carrier pigeons already flying in every direction from the Gongya Family would soon change how every sect and faction conducted itself.
‘But...’
Baek Seo-gun suddenly turned her gaze to the side and narrowed her eyes.
Far below.
Someone lurked along one side of the barrier.
Long hair, black as ebony, flowed down the figure’s back, while a vivid crimson long robe covered the body. The unusually pale skin could not be due to moonlight alone.
The figure stared as though intending to pierce the sorcery formation itself. That gaze held an obsession bordering on madness.
The opportunistic gaze fixed on Seom-ye was extremely sinister.
A pure-blood noble of the Blood Flame Sect, a possessor of the True Blood Physique whom blood demons revered as sacred.
‘They say she now acts as a tyrant over her clan.’
The Blood Flame Sect’s Shanxi branch had been destroyed at her hands. She was an exceptionally dangerous individual.
According to the Heart Martial Union’s informants, she was the next Blood Flame Sect Master, the one who had inherited the Blood Flame Sect Master’s legacy.
She was also the culprit who had once kidnapped Jeong Yeon-shin and taken him to the Blood Flame Sect’s main headquarters.
Because of the reports on Seom-ye she had received from her subordinates, Baek Seo-gun had managed, with difficulty, to obtain even a facial-feature portrait of the Seventh Apostle.
The unseen sword was always the most dangerous. More so when its wielder was an expert of that caliber.
If she joined forces with the Zhuge Family Head, who had the support of two of the Thirteen Heavens, Seom-ye’s life would be in undeniable danger.
The Sword Venerable’s lips parted slightly.
“How dare you.”
A resonance like a lion’s growl rang out.
Fwoooosh!
The sword carrying Baek Seo-gun plunged downward.
A faint force wave from sword flight blended with the rushing wind. Her short gray hair was swept high, and the ground rapidly expanded as her speed increased.
The Seventh Apostle abruptly whipped around. Her face, too, rapidly grew larger as Baek Seo-gun closed the distance.
“What?”
Irritated surprise colored her voice.
A faint blood-red glimmer flashed beneath her feet in an instant. As though avoiding the diagonally descending strike, she shot through the distant air.
* * *
A sphere of darkness had suddenly swallowed the Leader of Demon Wings. It was the true essence of the Zhuge Family’s secret sorcery formation, the Heaven-Piercing Falling Formation.
The battle centered around that bizarre shape.
The Zhuge Family Head sought to slice Jeong Yeon-shin apart with ten colorless threads drifting through the air.
Two Black Uniform members of Desolate Fortress sought to protect their youngest junior.
The martial nobility and other onlookers gradually failed to hide their alarm.
Most stood elegantly atop rooftops and walls. Despite their polished appearances and fine silk garments, unease showed on every face.
“We chose the right side. We were right to seek the elder’s opinion.”
“The Zhuge Family Head truly is Crouching Dragon Reborn. How could anyone defeat him?”
“What overwhelming, invincible might... The martial world’s balance will change.”
“Family Head! I have sent a letter to the Beggars’ Sect branch!”
“Well done. I will reward you handsomely. We may gain access to even more valuable information in the future.”
They had already exchanged more than a hundred moves.
The earth-shaking battle had continued for a long time.
The life-and-death duel was gradually converging on a single conclusion.
Whenever the ten strands of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip inscribed themselves through the air in every direction according to the principles of the Eight Trigrams, Ak Su-rim and Jin Myeong-jo, standing with their backs to the sphere, would immediately trace the supreme forms of the Ak Family Spear and the finger trajectories of Flash Blood Claw Art.
The ground burst apart each time.
Kra-kra-kra-clang! Boom!
The Zhuge Family Head laughed.
[You arrogant vermin, how dare you cherish your junior! Behave as the imperial court’s lapdogs should!]
A fierce gale rose from the claw force waves scattered with Jin Myeong-jo’s blood. Then, a huge shockwave exploded with a clang.
Two strands of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip, which had reached deep along the sphere’s side, were knocked away.
Jin Myeong-jo’s arm, extending from a pitch-black sleeve, trembled intermittently. He had not fully recovered from the piercing wounds he had suffered at the start of the battle.
He had reached his limit. Only his bloodshot eyes continued to burn coldly.
“...”
[Your eyes seem to speak of honor. But are those the expressions people joining forces should wear?]
The Zhuge Family Head brushed away the strands of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip that had reached his white robes. Two strands merged into one, instantly gathering an amplified force wave before sweeping outward.
It was the mystery of sorcery and sword flight. The sound of tearing air was deafening.
The whip shot directly toward the sphere imprisoning Jeong Yeon-shin.
Just before the sphere could be cut in two, a small figure holding a spear landed before the attack.
Boom!
Her first step had already become a True Step. A faint vortex rose from her flexibly twisted waist to the spearhead.
It was a Spinning Thread Force technique that sent an earthquake-like resonance through the air. Ak Family Spear, General Calls Thunder. There was not the slightest waste in the sequence. In an instant, the force of her Force Projection multiplied again and again.
The spear shaft bent like a beam of light, then lashed at the threads with a violent shockwave.
The Zhuge Family Head’s lips curved smoothly upward.
Boom!
Cough!
The short-haired girl in Black Uniform vomited blood. Two threads had pierced both her shoulders.
Of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip, most of which had been shattered, only three strands returned to the Zhuge Family Head in rippling waves.
[There were thirty-six variations within a single trajectory. You were capable of defending against all ten strands of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip.]
Six Directions Voice Transmission became sound transmission, flowing only to Ak Su-rim.
[But after you married out of your family, I was the first to create the manual for countering the Ak Family Spear. Your spear strikes cannot escape this Family Head’s eye technique. Has this not continued until now? Though I am very grateful for it.]
Thud.
Ak Su-rim used her spear shaft to support herself, exhaling raggedly as she tried to steady her disrupted inner-energy breathing. The strike of a peerless master did not end with a piercing wound.
The internal heavy-hand technique was constantly embedded within it, so she also had to withstand the force waves flowing into her body.
Jin Myeong-jo stood blankly beside her in much the same state. Tremors ran through Ak Su-rim’s entire body as well.
Her lips twisted into a strained smile.
“No wonder Ye-rim and Immortal Dragon seemed close... You used the children’s interactions like that? How many sparring matches did you spy on? Your filth reaches the heavens. You really are a bastard.”
[When a supreme expert from one of the Eight Great Families enters Desolate Fortress, why should I care for the martial world’s principles? Had the Annihilation Squad Leader come instead of you, the situation might have changed. Lord of Ruyi Spring might even have stood a chance of winning alongside your two juniors.]
“So you have at least heard of the Three Black Uniform Masters. Yet you could not even plant a spy in the main fortress.”
[This has gone on long enough. Die.]
Then.
Behind Ak Su-rim.
Cracks spread across the black sphere.
Rumble.
Light spilled out, accompanied by tremors that pounded all the way to their feet. Radiance stretched in every direction, as though a flower bud were blooming.
The moment the sphere shattered and crumbled, the crowd surrounding the battle stirred loudly.
[Hm?]
Broken strands of the Yin-Yang Divine Whip rose around the Zhuge Family Head, who had voiced his doubt.
It was a truly wondrous sight. Threads of force qi repaired themselves and floated in the air, enough to calm much of the murmuring crowd in an instant.
“It’s over.”
“Even if the Leader of Demon Wings emerges from there...”
“Look at the Desolate Divine Spear. And the Divine Blood Extreme Demon.”
“Now it’s one against one.”
“The youngest Black Uniform against the Zhuge Family Head.”
“Let’s go. If we are to meet the Wolsung Sect’s demands... we must first inspect the ledgers of our affiliated merchant groups again.”
Step.
The peerless young nobleman stood with his sword hanging low, his bearing extraordinary.
A translucent lotus enveloped his entire body.
With hair fluttering beneath the moonlight, his features and bearing distorted reality itself. Rather than a living person of the present age, he seemed to have stepped from a distant legend.
If it were only his looks, one could compare him to Song Yu or Pan Yue. Yet the presence cutting into their skin was something else entirely.
The martial world had always been a place where people elevated one another’s reputations through grandiose epithets.
“That lotus, that beauty. He brings to mind a Buddhist guardian deity. Prince Nezha, perhaps. He does not have three heads, but his aura and dignity...”
“What a pity. Such a young life about to be lost.”
Some of the crowd gasped and whispered.
The Zhuge Family Head let out a clear laugh.
[It would have been better for you if you had died in there. Better than closing your eyes after being consumed by a helplessness you have never known in your life.]
“Senior Ak, Senior Jin, how are your injuries?”
Jeong Yeon-shin let the lotus dim for a moment and examined his seniors on either side, while keeping the Zhuge Family Head contained within his sharpened aura sense.
Melancholy showed in the gaze that swept over their wounds. Jin Myeong-jo only widened his eyes without answering, while Ak Su-rim made a great fuss.
“That should be enough for you to leave.”
“Go where?”
“I told you to run if the balance of our combined attack broke! Think about your age! There’s no shame in it! We’ve lived enough and killed enough, haven’t we? We have no regrets about crossing the Sanzu River.”
“Senior Ak, Senior Jin, how are your injuries?”
“You’re really going to repeat yourself?”
She panted, offering a weak smile.
Rustle.
Snow-white sleeves fluttered across from them. Was the Zhuge Family Head celebrating the first step toward his long-cherished ambition?
With his hands behind his back, he looked relaxed enough to grant them a brief respite in the middle of a life-and-death duel.
The two stood facing one another. It was truly one against one.
[You cannot flee. I will not overlook the highest-priority target for extermination, and with your sluggish inner-energy control, you cannot escape the Yin-Yang Divine Whip. It will remain so even if you are wrapped in that strange power. You are a child who has not achieved unity of essence, qi, and spirit.]
“Sluggish...?”
As Jeong Yeon-shin stared at him, the pebble in his breast reacted.
It was the dharma treasure once carried by the First Fist of the Eon Family.
As the Zhuge Family Head’s words sent blood rushing to his head without his realizing it, a strange sensation flowed into the upper dantian heated by that pressure.
It was an extremely peculiar feeling.
The resonance that had occurred during his life-and-death duel with the Fist Exemplar naturally returned to him. The world Eon Hwa-ryeon had felt, the five senses possessed by the First Fist of the Eon Family.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s talent missed nothing.
“Your senses will remember me.”
For an instant, he thought he heard her voice. Something like a gentle spring breeze entered his mind and stirred an old question.
“...You need not concern yourself with the state of my essence, qi, and spirit.”
Jeong Yeon-shin moved his lips slowly.
“Because it isn’t necessary.”
* * *
Broad moonlight fell over a vast cluster of enormous halls.
The fortress rising at the center of the sprawling grounds was veiled in deep dusk.
A hazy glow played across the marble walls, but the young maid entering the inner fortress could only keep her face rigid with tension.
She held a single book, carefully wrapped in silk cloth, against her chest.
‘Does this make sense?’
She kept repeating three questions. Me? Really? Does this make sense...?
“You might earn as much of the Lord’s favor as the dirt beneath the Lord’s fingernails. You were born with quite clear innate qi, after all. Small mistakes do not reach the Lord. Only I hear them loudly. Do well.”
The words of the head attendant with a boyish face had long since faded to the back of her mind.
The strangely warm, pure-white hemp clothes worn by Desolate Fortress workers felt unfamiliar anew. Had they always been this rough?
She did not know how she had climbed the stairs that curled upward like the body of a dragon from legend. The cool scent unique to marble swept over her skin.
Grrrk.
When she suddenly came to herself, enormous stone doors were opening on their own before her.
‘Ah.’
She was dreaming.
At least, it seemed so.
Her vision distorted as if she were drifting through a dazed dream.
The moment the fragrant scent of grass reached her nose, the instant she glimpsed a figure reclining against a tree trunk, her soul sank into the sea of dreams.
Her consciousness seemed to overflow.
Her mind had gone completely blank. Her mind could not fully accept the overwhelming presence that had come over her like a vast ocean.
Overwhelmed, her mind instinctively avoided comprehending clearly the being so high and distant that the figure seemed like a celestial god.
Swish.
With her consciousness floating blankly, she untied the cloth in her arms and took out the book, walking toward the celestial god.
At once, she opened it and began turning pages. She vaguely heard something about which page it was. The Lord of Desolate Fortress saw through the book’s entire contents with perfect clarity.
Rustle.
At some point, the maid had dared to sit beside the Lord of Desolate Fortress. She realized that the old secret manual in the Lord’s hand was the original text of the book she had just opened.
Soon, the two books floated in the air, opened to the same passage. It was an utterly mystical sight, yet the maid breathed in a hazy, dreamlike calm.
The writing in the original came immediately into view.
It was regular script written in an unpracticed hand.
The ink and variation in pressure were a mess. The characters formed perfect lines, yet the strokes repeatedly darkened and faded.
Perhaps the writer had never seen good calligraphy, or perhaps whoever had taught the brushwork had been careless.
Then.
The Lord of Desolate Fortress raised an arm.
Swish.
A long finger lightly touched the words Magpie Bridge.
The Lord’s finger, white as porcelain against the dark ink, slowly descended to the end of the mnemonic formula.
[That is enough to extract a mnemonic formula suited to your heart. There are three core principles. Fortune Arises from the Minute, Qi and Life Connect at the Acupoints, Great Magpie Bridge. A diagram of the human body will not be necessary. You will know when you feel it. My elder brothers may scold me if I show them the completed version with all the unnecessary details.]
“Bring the Ma Family Head.”
The crystal-clear voice tickled the maid’s ears.
One white finger traced back up from the end of the formula, then lightly brushed down the old paper once more.
The Lord paid no heed to the maid, who had risen with unfocused eyes.
[It is Qixi Festival.
The Cowherd, who lived east of the distant stars, meets the Weaver Girl on the other side.
The village is excited. Children and adults smile.
They say it is the day for people who like each other. It looks foolish, but fun. It is funny how they fly kites together and deliberately try to tangle the strings.
Eldest Brother was given a kite shaped like a hawk. He said he would fly it with Merchant Guild Head Kang’s daughter.
I have none. I gathered sticks to make one, but the Chief Steward stopped me.
Father said that if the evil energy that harmed Mother spread far enough to reach the fields, it would be a disaster... I think he is right.]
[I should create a Magpie Bridge within myself.
How sturdy must the bridge joining both sides of the sky be?
I thought of the Qihai acupoint at the navel and the Mingmen acupoint on the back. They are the most useful acupoints among the pathways of inner energy. I wonder what will happen if their functions combine.
I do not think qi deviation will come. It feels like it will protect my internal organs... My instincts have never been wrong. That is why it is fun. Shall I carefully make it pass through the abdominal artery? Together with Mother.]
[Qihai acupoint and Mingmen acupoint.
Even if the two do not touch, would they not be connected if I layered a bridge of inner energy across the minor meridians between them?
It works. I should weave it into the minor circulation portion of the Jeong Family Youth Technique.
Mother’s intent reaches here as well. One would be likely to get hurt if the visualization used to handle qi was not gentle.
You are on the other side of my Magpie Bridge.
It is warm.
I do not need a kite.]
For a while, moonlight seeped into the silence.
It did not last long.
“You may say anything.”
A soft, warm whisper brushed over the leaves in the hall.
“Your life has already repaid it.”
Thrum.
The book beneath the Lord of Desolate Fortress’s fingertip produced a faint afterimage and pulsed once.
It was a dharma treasure whose profound martial intentions had accumulated over long years, finally gaining wondrous spirituality.
Footnotes:
[1] “Softened” is homophonous with “lotus” in the Korean title, linking the lotus imagery in this chapter to Nezha, the Buddhist guardian deity invoked by the onlookers.
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