WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 304: Softened Nezha (3)
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A force wave took the shape of flower petals.
Translucent and flickering, it grazed the Zhuge Family Head’s face before falling away.
Saaa...
Jeong Yeon-shin felt the divine power within him surge like waves as he shattered all ten strands of the Zhuge Family Head’s Yin-Yang Divine Whip.
As the wondrous faculty of his upper dantian, corresponding to spirit among essence, qi, and spirit, enveloped his entire body, his inner energy followed the speed of thought. It was as though he had finally put on clothes that fit.
He had entered an entirely different world.
[Ink Qilin, by the Law’s Command...!]
Alarm seeped into the Zhuge Family Head’s incantation as black cloud-mist coiled around his feet. The instant he witnessed Jeong Yeon-shin’s world-shaking Force Projection, he leaped far back.
As a sorcery practitioner, the Zhuge Family Head was adept at opening distance. His pure white robes snapped violently, as though a storm had settled within them.
His display of close-combat martial arts had vanished.
That alone stunned the surrounding crowd. Even the expressions of the masters whose eye techniques shone in their eyes changed.
Yet a peerless master who sacrificed face gained a considerable advantage.
Fwaaaash!
His evasive footwork was incredibly swift. Before anyone could blink, the Zhuge Family Head had retreated three jang.
His lips shaped the character for “vast.” A peerless master who had prepared sorcery martial arts for a decisive battle treated even an instant as time to ready a powerful strike.
For him, that was Vast Thunder, the martial art that had rendered the Blood Guard Squad Leader unable to fight.
Thud.
Jeong Yeon-shin landed amid fragments of the White Crane Fan and bent his knees slightly.
No one saw him straighten them. The moment his body vanished, a thunderous roar swept through the battlefield.
Krrrrraaaang!
The ground tore open in a long line, exposing its red-brown flesh as if a dragon’s body had swept over it.
Steam rose from the monstrous friction and curled through the sky, blurring the sun.
The instant the Northern Light Sword struck the Zhuge Family Head’s Protective Qi Technique at the abdomen, Jeong Yeon-shin raised his left hand from point-blank range and unleashed the second form.
It was aimed at the enemy’s chest. Space warped and bent along the hand he thrust out from his pierced shoulder.
The moment Radiant River palm force, vibrating with Helix force waves, entered the Zhuge Family Head’s collar, flesh and blood burst forth with a boom as though being vomited out.
Fragments of the brutally torn, colorless Protective Qi Technique mixed into it a moment later.
Pwahk!
The sound came after the strike.
The battle had changed completely.
The Zhuge Family Head’s eyes flew wide as his body was flung into the air.
‘This bastard read the qi structure of my Protective Qi Technique...!’
Jeong Yeon-shin had not simply driven in a powerful blow.
Radiant River palm force, stirred by Helix force waves, had entered the tiniest gaps in the Protective Qi Technique as though filling them, then exploded. It was a move that completely destroyed an inner-energy barrier.
This was nothing like before, when he could not close in through speed alone. Leader of Demon Wings Seom-ye’s ability was now being fully unleashed.
He could not allow any distance between them.
The world held as many methods of battle as it did martial lineages.
The Zhuge Family Head had entered the Leader of Demon Wings’ striking range to make certain of cutting Desolate Divine Spear’s throat. A martial artist who used sorcery martial arts, of all people.
It was a fatal mistake, especially in a battle where a single blow could take either life.
Had he continued widening the distance, the battle would not have unfolded this way.
Whoooong!
The two rose roughly three jang into the air. The fierce wind buffeting their ears felt like wind from another world.
Both felt it.
Dim white light scattered beneath Jeong Yeon-shin’s feet as he pursued the Zhuge Family Head.
His lightness skill, Ten Miles of Deep Light, would never allow an opponent to open distance. Neither would Jeong Yeon-shin’s innate combat sense.
[Nine-Cloud Blazing Flame Crown...!]
“Too late.”
The Northern Light Sword moved upward, soaked in the blood of its battered owner.
The blade seemed to drift through a different stream of time, its Judging the Qilin fast-sword force waves wrapped in dim, colorless aura.
Radiant River’s aura burst from his arm, propelling him forward.
The sword’s trajectory suddenly vanished as it shot upward, then reappeared at the Zhuge Family Head’s abdomen, where the Protective Qi Technique was being rebuilt.
A shockwave flared like fire along Jeong Yeon-shin’s forearm, followed by a long roar.
Krrrang! Kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!
Colorless currents scattered from the Zhuge Family Head’s body. The Protective Qi Technique across his entire body had shattered from a single strike.
The sword blow had penetrated deep enough to split even his dantian. Its precision bordered on the essence of a swift, decisive battle.
He descended slowly.
Jeong Yeon-shin held his sword low as his tattered black robe billowed, while the Zhuge Family Head, unable to control his body, plunged straight down.
Thud.
A dull sound rang out. The peerlessly handsome man sprawled wide and groaned.
Jeong Yeon-shin stepped beside him and flicked the Northern Light Sword, scattering blood. The sound rang especially clearly through the silent battlefield.
“...”
Silence spread through the surrounding crowd. It was a stillness on an entirely different level from before, as though everyone had frozen solid.
Not one master watching the life-and-death duel spoke.
The absolute master of Shanxi lay at Leader of Demon Wings Seom-ye’s feet.
“Gasp... Gasp...!”
The Six Directions Voice Transmission that had feigned divinity faded. An ordinary voice escaped the absolute master’s lips.
It was not even speech.
Only thin, ragged breaths sounded at intervals.
Countless titles represented the Zhuge Family Head’s standing.
Crouching Dragon Rebirth, the cold-blooded peerless master, founder of the Martial Alliance Assembly, the incarnation of a sorcery formation containing the entire Zhuge Family.
That was why the sight before them did not feel real.
It took several breaths to accept it. The saying that one could see something with one’s own eyes and still not believe it had never fit better.
Then, the growing shock swept across the battlefield.
“Crouching Dragon Rebirth, the Zhuge Family Head?”
“How can that be possible? At that age...”
“We may be looking at the future Divine Sword Squad Leader. No, even if it takes years, it is already certain. More importantly... dispatch riders! Carrier pigeons! Rewrite every report! Our families cannot act rashly!”
The powerful clansmen in immaculate silk robes began making a commotion.
They called for carrier pigeons, horses, and people. Some carefully took spiritual beasts that understood speech from their sleeves.
They were the sort who acted like bats to survive in a world where transcendent masters roamed the wilderness.
The dignity they displayed among ordinary people was nowhere to be found. Such was the martial world, ruled by the law of the strong devouring the weak.
The Shanxi gentry possessed the refinement expected of their status, yet they could not hide their emotions now.
Astonishment filled their gazes as they looked back and forth between the sprawled Zhuge Family Head and the Leader of Demon Wings standing blankly before them.
Whoosh.
During that time, Jeong Yeon-shin examined his body as though meditating. He had to if he wished to fully grasp the method of upper dantian coordination he had just gained.
‘It can’t end as a one-time thing. It can’t be something that activates only through luck. Whenever I face a peerless master, I need to be able to use it.’
He would be able to.
They said the ultimate harmony of the upper dantian was no different from sorcery arts.
Dragon Fan Treading Flowers.
It had clearly surpassed the realm of forms. Though he had created it himself, its principles were difficult to fully unravel.
It had been completed by exquisitely scanning, sensing, and controlling his energy and body with extraordinarily sensitive senses.
It resembled the Yin-Yang Divine Whip wielded by the Zhuge Family Head. It carried an unreal, divine quality.
It felt as though he had woven into martial arts the upper dantian’s faculty, which had freely manifested premonitions and foresight since his White Uniform days.
The body that fully accepted it was strange as well. Could the Jeong Family Youth Technique he had scribbled out as a child be some sort of dharma treasure? Like the pebble trembling softly in his pocket.
‘Feeling the state of Three Flowers Gather at the Crown isn’t much on its own.’
It was the harmony created when his upper dantian, body, and senses became one.
He had honed his innate talent to its limit and now reached a realm that blurred the boundary between sorcery arts and martial arts.
It felt as though he had come close to the Azure Flame his maternal grandfather, Ma Yeon-jeok, had once shown him.
He no longer needed to flee before peerless masters. Jeong Yeon-shin knew it clearly. He felt that he could activate Dragon Fan Treading Flowers whenever he wished.
At the same time, he sensed the spirituality within the Zhuge Family Head’s upper dantian fading like a candle flame.
The enemy lay at Jeong Yeon-shin’s feet, staring blankly as his strength ebbed away.
‘The side effects are the problem.’
It was slightly different from when he had unleashed Azure Flame, First Form, the ultimate move of the Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art. It felt as if his head, rather than his body, were being crushed.
It was remarkably light recoil for an art that nearly defied Heaven, but it was not a martial art he could use consecutively.
Then, a whisper brushed the back of his neck.
“It’s the realm of peerless masters.”
It was Ak Su-rim. When the startled Jeong Yeon-shin stepped back two paces, she smiled.
“The Squad Leader’s Dragon Ring Sword and Zhuge Hound’s Yin-Yang Divine Whip. Neither seems like harmony of this world, right? They’re skills difficult to comprehend with human understanding. ...Your martial arts have entered that realm as well.”
She seemed to have sensed Jeong Yeon-shin’s aura. It was growing fainter along with the Zhuge Family Head’s vitality.
It was a decisive martial art for battles against peerless masters. He would step upon their lotuses as they did and contend with them from the same height.
Many meanings were woven into its mnemonic formula, but its purpose was one.
“You’ve done well. Finish it.”
A cool voice sounded nearby. Fine ripples of power scattered from Jeong Yeon-shin’s collar.
Blood Guard Squad Leader Jin Myeong-jo spoke through the principle of sound transmission from a distance.
Was he yielding all the credit to his junior? He stood apart from the battlefield, wrapped in black robes as moonlight broke around him. He looked exceedingly lofty and aloof.
After offering a brief bow of respect, Jeong Yeon-shin lowered his head.
The Zhuge Family Head lay there in defeat, his lips trembling.
Though he repeatedly twitched and tried to rise, he could not. Blood must have begun pooling in his throat. Even his voice broke intermittently.
“You... you bastard...!”
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“I was not wrong. With that little mind of yours... you could never understand. But... for the sake of the world, the Lord of Desolate Fortress must die. My entire life was devoted to that.”
“Why did you kill Immortal Dragon? Wasn’t he your son?”
The Zhuge Family Head’s rambling suddenly stopped.
He stared blankly at Jeong Yeon-shin with unfocused eyes, then moved his trembling lips with difficulty.
“You are speaking of me and the world right now. A son? What... absurd nonsense.”
Jeong Yeon-shin fell silent.
A sudden wind passed by, scattering his hair dryly.
He did not bother to brush aside the strands of black hair covering his eyes. He only thought about what a child meant to a father.
Soon after, emotion vanished from Seom-ye’s eyes. His gaze upon the enemy who had been so overwhelmingly threatening lost all feeling.
His face became like that of someone looking at a stone by the roadside.
It was Jeong Yeon-shin’s defense mechanism, born from never receiving a father’s heart.
Yet the Zhuge Family Head’s eyes widened as though he had suffered a terrifying shock.
His eyelids, which had always rested with elegance, rose until they seemed ready to tear and began trembling.
“You...!”
That was not an expression the adversary at the end of his life should wear.
At that moment, the Leader of Demon Wings was the person of greatest meaning in the Zhuge Family Head’s world.
They said peerless masters of the martial world were mad over martial arts. The head of a martial family was no different. His life was woven from martial arts.
He had spent every moment of his life competing in martial learning with other powerful clans.
The temperament of someone who committed acts like those of the Demonic Sect could not possibly be ordinary.
Such a person did not suffer over trivial matters and would bury even a child’s death beneath the cause he had chosen.
Jegal Cheon-sang, Crouching Dragon Rebirth.
His handsome face twisted horribly.
He was the sort of man who would have closed his eyes with a sneer if Jeong Yeon-shin had crudely tortured him or demanded answers for his crimes. Yet the impassive look on his enemy’s face seemed to inflict eternal shame and pain upon him.
“No... That cannot be.”
The martial artist Jegal Cheon-sang stammered.
“You, you cannot look at me... like that...!”
The face of the adversary who marked the end of his life could not be like that.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s face beneath the bleak, pale moonlight was dreamlike in its beauty and utterly indifferent.
So were the sinews and muscles visible through the shredded sleeves around his arms. It was as if his mind and body had been forged from a sword.
“Gasp! Gasp!”
Jegal Cheon-sang’s breathing grew violently irregular. Could there be a more miserable end for someone who had been so lofty in life?
“Go now.”
The bloodstained edge of the Northern Light Sword touched Jegal Cheon-sang’s neck.
The crowd held its breath. A death that would bring upheaval to the martial world was about to take place.
Then, a booming voice rang out as though it had been waiting for this moment, declaring the name of an office no one in the world could falsely claim.
“Five Military Headquarters! The Associate Director has arrived!”
It came from the manor gate.
Enormous inner energy rode the sound wave. Yet the message sweeping through the battlefield was far more destructive.
A Junior First Rank official who oversaw the empire’s military affairs had suddenly arrived, as though intending to stop the Zhuge Family Head’s death.
“An Associate Director?!”
“What is this...?”
“Quiet! Bow your heads!”
The crowd stirred.
The powerful clans and officials were tied together by the interests of cultivated land. Was there any other reason martial sects that killed as readily as they ate could openly establish themselves along government roads?
Noninterference between officialdom and the martial world was a principle that applied only to wandering martial artists. Martial families and high-ranking officials could never be separated.
That was why people began dropping to their knees.
Rustle.
The sound of hems brushing the ground filled the air. Someone who held their families’ interests like a leash had arrived.
In the midst of it all, the Squad Leaders of Desolate Fortress did not kneel.
Ak Su-rim and Jin Myeong-jo looked at their youngest member, while Jeong Yeon-shin looked at the Zhuge Family Head. Jegal Cheon-sang gazed up at him with a face stained by shame and pain.
The sword at his neck was not withdrawn.
“You... would never hesitate...”
Jeong Yeon-shin did not answer.
Woooong.
Pure white sword light coiled from his right hand.
The Northern Light Sword bit into Jegal Cheon-sang’s nape with a crunch. It held there for only an instant before Jeong Yeon-shin drew it upward. Red blood trailed in a long arc from the stroke.
The sensation traveling through the hilt was heavy.
He had severed the neck completely.
Thud.
The rolling head caught against a small pebble and stopped. Jegal Cheon-sang’s face, brows drawn together, looked to be in the utmost pain.
It was as though his heart had reached hell, along with his resentment toward Jeong Yeon-shin.
“So you do know me.”
He murmured calmly to the corpse.
Footnotes:
The original title’s “Softened Nezha” is a homophone of “Lotus Nezha,” alluding to Nezha’s lotus association.
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