WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 321: Xuanyuan (16)
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* * *
On the roof of an ancient pavilion.
Hyeon Won-chang's lips parted slightly as he looked toward the distant city gate.
Thud!
Amid a faint cloud of dust, a boy brushed off his sleeves while an old woman lay sprawled inelegantly at his feet.
"Did you hear that...? Another martial artist!"
"Get inside! Hurry and lock the doors!"
Several townspeople fled in alarm. Taiyuan had become a mountain of blades and a forest of swords because of the masked swordsmen.
The urgent footsteps ringing out from every direction made it clear this was far from the first time.
Standing on the roof, Hyeon Won-chang stared intently toward the commotion.
'What was that just now?'
That was unlike his young friend.
Even in a single exchange, the current Leader of Demon Wings was the sort to thoroughly humiliate an opponent.
That was why so few among the countless martial artists of the main fortress dared ask Jeong Yeon-shin for instruction, and why the Chief Steward's Office of Desolate Fortress had recognized that quality and been deeply pleased by it.
He had only just risen to Black Uniform, yet he had been asked to disrupt the Martial Alliance's grand founding ceremony. They had said that was what the esteemed Ma Family bloodline was for.
Of course he was bound to keep rising.
Jeong Yeon-shin had been going through a severe turbulent period for nearly a year, but today he had slammed Elder Bamboo Sword Geum Yeon-sang into the ground with an unusually simple method.
His Force Projection and handling of martial power had been strikingly simple. That was not something that normally happened.
The result itself was not surprising.
The person who had killed Hyeon Won-chang's mother was someone who had merely lorded it over others through seniority within the Assassins' Sect. Such a person could not possibly have cultivated martial arts capable of facing the Leader of Demon Wings one-on-one.
Hyeon Won-chang had thought Jeong Yeon-shin would regard an old monster like that as he would a monkey. Perhaps he would only consider drawing his sword if there were ten of them.
That was precisely the problem.
Was something wrong with the Squad Leader's body? He was too far away to tell what had happened.
'If I leave during the examination, there's no telling what pretext those snake-like old men will find...'
He needed the mnemonic formula.
The binding seal within Hyeon Won-chang's body was practically a disease.
The Seven-Pillar Forbidden Acupoint Grand Method.
The spiritual medicine he had taken alongside marrow cleansing and tendon transformation from birth had settled into his body as a particular constitution.
If someone forcibly tried to release and draw out his inner energy, his martial power and vitality would disperse at the same time. It was a secret art even the Moyong Family, who had abducted him, had failed to unravel.
"It has already become innate qi. There must be a prescribed method for handling this."
"Mm. You are right to assume there is a particular mnemonic formula. That is how his qi structure was arranged. Good heavens, for their study of the human body to run this deep... The Ming Cult truly was a terrifying place."
"A den of monsters. To bestow secret arts like this upon mere gatekeepers."
"It would be faster to improve the Star-Absorbing Method of the main family so the Young Family Head can take it with ease. Hm? The Geum child has regained consciousness. I will strike his sleep acupoint."
Those were the words exchanged beside young Geum Seon-hwi's pillow.
The physicians of the Moyong Family.
They studied martial arts as scholars did. At the edge of Geum Seon-hwi's vision, while needles covered his entire body, Great Ritual Sword Moyong Gi-hwang and the Young Family Head stood with their arms crossed.
Their presence crushed the boy's childhood fantasies of prestigious orthodox sects.
It was as though Geum Seon-hwi had acquired a constitution akin to either the Sun God Meridian possessed by that opium fiend or the damned short-lived constitution the young Squad Leader had been born with.
It was the will of the Ming Cult's martial lineage to never leave anything beneficial to its enemies.
This was wholly different from Jeong Yeon-shin's talent, which had created the key mnemonic formula for the City of Master Craftsmen at once.
He needed the mnemonic formula.
He had to obtain it if he wanted to use the immense power inside his body.
"Tsk..."
For a while, Hyeon Won-chang could only stare blankly at Jeong Yeon-shin.
A strange feeling stirred in his chest.
'Bamboo Sword Geum Yeon-sang. She really is... dead.'
The elders who ruled the Assassins' Sect with tradition as their vested right.
They had turned young Geum Seon-hwi into a wooden doll and frequently restrained his older brother Geum Jon-hwi's righteous deeds.
During the Heavenly Demon's Tomb Uprising, countless elders had practically handed Geum Seon-hwi over to the Moyong Family before retreating. Even then, bound together under the name of a sect, they had sought only their own safety.
All under the family creed that protecting the Heavenly Demon's legacy came first.
They had all seemed like monsters, as though brainwashed. Regardless of martial strength, that was how Hyeon Won-chang saw the old monsters of the Assassins' Sect.
He had known them since he was far too young, and the sect's foundation itself was bizarre.
Yet.
Even that iron wall of killing intent was made of people.
They did not die only at the hands of the inhuman figures of great sects. They could also breathe their last beneath the strikes of Jeong Yeon-shin, who had shared meals with Hyeon Won-chang for quite some time...
'Though I haven't seen many people who weren't like that.'
It was a matter of making it feel real.
"Martial artists dislike underhanded methods?"
"Don't they? Yesterday, some children from the martial academy passed by saying they would cut off an assassin's head and all that."
"Haha, orthodox or unorthodox, they are all people who kill others in the end. Even the righteous deeds of those called great heroes are usually murder, so we can use our throwing daggers like righteous men."
"How can I tell...? Whether my throwing-knife art is like that or not."
"If your past actions are worth reciting in a poem, that is enough. Hmm... What about an assassin who takes the head of a powerful man for a single copper coin offered by a child whose parents were killed by bandits? The elder grandpas would not like it much, though."
His brother Geum Jon-hwi had become exactly as he said.
Even after surviving the Heavenly Demon's Tomb Uprising, he had devoted his life to righteous deeds. He had cut down corrupt officials, the Demonic Sect, and at times even certain hypocrites among the orthodox sects.
They said that wherever he went, he left behind a letter detailing the dead person's evil deeds.
He had devoted his life to it. To changing how the sect was seen.
After escaping the Moyong Family through sheer luck, Hyeon Won-chang had wandered the martial world as a wandering martial artist's sword page. Even while serving that sword, he would occasionally hear the epithet Slayer Hero.
He learned of his collateral-line brother's desperate struggle to change the sect.
Yet Hyeon Won-chang did not return. The Moyong Family had filled him with disgust.
Only recently, after reuniting with Geum Jon-hwi, had he heard how the Assassins' Sect had changed.
His brother had said it. The disciples receiving new teachings now followed him completely.
Only the Elder Council remained unchanged, and the future of their prestigious sect would certainly differ from the elders' wishes.
"If you return, I will honor you as sect leader. Your martial arts may not yet match this elder brother's, but another path will open once your binding seal is removed. There are many martial arts of our sect that you have not yet learned. I will devote everything to restoring your roots. ...I will cut down Bamboo Sword and anything else that stands in the way."
He had ignored those words.
Yet Bamboo Sword Geum Yeon-sang's death made something feel real. The decline of the Elder Council had truly been inevitable.
Swish.
The old people who had suddenly blocked his path had little time left to live.
"Do not move."
"The examination has not ended. Take another step, and we will declare it void."
Those with tranquil presences surrounded Hyeon Won-chang.
Their faces were hard to read because gauze veiled everything below their eyes, but Hyeon Won-chang sensed a strange emotion in their wrinkled gazes.
It seemed to be hostility toward the young Squad Leader.
Their old friend had been killed in a single move. It was as though a blade had cut into the pride of these stubborn old people.
"Do not give him time to rest! Stop his energy-circulating meditation!"
"The Leader of Demon Wings must not be given time!"
Below, elite masked swordsmen rushed toward Jeong Yeon-shin.
The force with which they surged forward, leaving deep footprints in the earth and walls alike, was truly terrifying.
It was as though human arrows were shooting in from all directions.
The clash began.
Thud!
A shockwave erupted where Jeong Yeon-shin stood. The circular wave spread outward, stirring dirt into a hazy cloud.
"This is as far as it goes. Let us continue the examination after the battle settles. The Moyong Family's eye technique will discover us eventually."
"Mm. The Assassins' Sect will withdraw."
"Geum Seon-hwi, obey the Elder Council's orders."
The flat voices characteristic of assassins struck Hyeon Won-chang's ears.
He looked at the old people before him for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth. His words began with something he had contemplated for a long time.
"That final mnemonic formula. Does it really exist? The situation is ugly enough to give me all kinds of thoughts. You dare tell a master of Demon Wings to retreat while leaving the Leader of Demon Wings behind."
"...What is the intent behind that question?"
One elder who met Hyeon Won-chang's gaze asked in an exceptionally dry voice.
Great Tongue Sword paid no heed.
"Is my suspicion so strange? Everyone from the direct line but me is dead. When the Heavenly Demon's Tomb Uprising broke out, I doubt you gathered any secret documents related to the direct line. You would have been more concerned with securing another piece of the Heavenly Demon's legacy guarded by the family. Something like the ancient Protective Qi Technique known as the Heavenly Demon Armor."
"......"
"Did you not lie to the Young Sect Leader down there, Brother Jon-hwi? To delay day after day the appointment of Slayer Hero Geum Jon-hwi as sect leader. Whether it is this body with lowborn blood flowing through it, or Brother Jon-hwi from the collateral line... I cannot help thinking neither of us may be satisfactory to you."
Whoosh! Boom! Craaash!
As shockwaves mingled with the winter wind and repeatedly rang out in the distance, the elders did not answer. They only stood loftily, as if preserving their dignity.
Like a breeze that brushed dryly over their skin in that moment.
Hyeon Won-chang nodded, as if to say he had expected as much.
"Deception is an assassin's foremost virtue. Elders, you truly are outstanding disciples of the Assassins' Sect."
"How dare you insult us?"
A voice came from beside him. It sounded like a wildcat hissing.
Hyeon Won-chang silently narrowed his eyes.
'There is no final line to bring it to completion. That means there are only the manuals of the branch families...'
His binding seal slept in the form of innate qi.
If disturbed carelessly, he would die young. If his luck was truly damned, he might roll back his eyes and cross the Sanzu River right here.
But the situation was urgent. If Jeong Yeon-shin's earlier method had been caused by internal injuries, he could not possibly withstand the Moyong Family's elite sword corps.
It was the crisis a Black Uniform supreme master, the inevitable target of countless major factions, was bound to face.
Hyeon Won-chang suddenly felt stifled.
His Squad Leader was living a time-limited life, yet why were there so many people who would not even leave that life alone?
'Wait, time-limited...?'
A clear fire suddenly lit in Hyeon Won-chang's eyes.
He had protected Jeong Yeon-shin longer than anyone in Desolate Fortress. He had always sensed the boy's nature.
When he flashed blue-white light from his eyes and created unexpected forms, when he drew dazzling trajectories with his sword in battles where victory was impossible.
"Young Master Jeong! It seems you have grown taller!"
"Brother Hyeon's complexion looks better too."
He had watched closely as a comet burned through its remaining time. The young star had called him someone like an elder brother.
'To hell with the Assassins' Sect.'
Hyeon Won-chang asked himself.
...Do I possess courage and spirit?
Do I have the courage to step into the same realm as my younger brother?
At that moment.
The Geum Seon-hwi within him did not answer.
Hummm.
Only the Desolate Sword hanging at his waist answered for him.
That was enough. Hyeon Won-chang straightened his shoulders and stopped hesitating.
More than ten lines of mnemonic formula rose in his mind, linking together as they seeped into the meridians throughout his body.
He continually recalled the delicate sensation unique to the Radiant Art Formation.
'Seven-Pillar Forbidden Acupoint Grand Method. Time-Limited Unsealing.'
Pale streams of light began to flow through the elders' dark encirclement.
* * *
* * *
"The Family Head will come."
A huge man clad in a white long robe spoke.
Great Ritual Sword Moyong Gi-hwang.
Wearing a Bull Demon King mask engraved with ox horns, he carried the seasoned presence of a swordsman who had survived a hundred battles.
Though his arms were crossed, formless sword qi flowed from his entire body, gouging countless circles into the ground around his feet.
The young man in the Great Sage Equaling Heaven mask stood a short distance away and spoke.
"Before then, we need to retrieve it."
"You speak of the Heavenly Demon Armor when you cannot even deal with the Leader of Demon Wings before your eyes?"
"You know it is only a matter of time. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to kill Desolate Fortress's greatest rising talent."
"You sound certain."
"I sent the Meteor Sword Formation in first. I thought Uncle might hesitate to face the exhausted Leader of Demon Wings."
A cloud of dust lay before the two men. The clashing of blades and the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart continued from within.
Moyong Myeong-jun had retreated as soon as he faced Jeong Yeon-shin.
He had boldly approached, but the Leader of Demon Wings' gaze had been far from ordinary.
His courage to face a supreme master's life-saving ultimate move had vanished in an instant.
He had decided it would be best to step in and claim the credit only after several breaths had passed.
That time was now.
"I will go."
The reply that came back was merciless.
"I will not."
"I know. You favor my sister."
Moyong Myeong-jun gave a faint laugh.
His uncle, second only within the family, did not see Moyong Myeong-jun as material for the position.
He believed Moyong Su-ran, whose talent and character both shone, was better suited to become Family Head.
He had even said that the current Young Family Head's disposition was better suited to being a hidden sword.
Moyong Myeong-jun did not care and entered the dust.
A shadow stood there with its shoulders slightly slumped. He could not even guess how many corpses lay around it, and the thought sickened him.
The people who had attacked the Leader of Demon Wings were swordsmen Moyong Myeong-jun had personally trained.
"Lotus Nezha! Those Shanxi bumpkins call you the incarnation of Prince Nezha!"
He shouted.
"But if you struggle so greatly against the swords of my mere subordinates, then those lotus petals said to be sharp enough to cut off the Zhuge Family Head's head will never reach me!"
"...Come here."
A low voice sounded out. Moyong Myeong-jun's shoulder twitched faintly.
At the same time, his feet pounded into the ground as though erasing that unsightly reaction.
"The stench of blood is thick. As expected, you have not even formed an inner-energy barrier! I have heard it well from my Family Head! That the Leader of Demon Wings' Protective Qi Technique is unremarkable compared to his swordsmanship! If you still have strength left, come at me!"
A fairly long time had passed since the initial clash.
His uncle, who had come to look upon him coldly after a certain incident, would not help him.
That strange man would be pleased if the Young Family Head died here, then push Moyong Su-ran forward. Great Ritual Sword Moyong Gi-hwang was a hypocrite who valued honor while being as underhanded as anyone.
Moyong Myeong-jun wanted to drain the Leader of Demon Wings' strength somehow. If he could personally cut off the man's head, so much the better.
Then.
Tap tap tap!
A strange presence raced along a distant wall. It was very small.
A squirrel with soft brown fur darted over the walls. A small wooden case was tied to its tiny back.
A pure fragrance spread through the air.
'Shaolin's spiritual beast...? The one said to excel at tracking...'
Moyong Myeong-jun's eyebrows shot up.
The battle had gone on too long. It would not have been strange for some unexpected complication to arise.
"That thing! Catch that first! It must not reach the Leader of Demon Wings!"
Whoosh!
More than ten figures raced toward where he pointed.
Every one of them was a swordsman with a blade at the hip. The battle with the Leader of Demon Wings had only just reached a lull, but the instant the order fell, they cut through the air using the swift Body Movement Scripture.
The wind violently whipping past Moyong Myeong-jun's ears felt immensely reassuring.
"Swordsmen, reveal your true intentions!"
Moyong Myeong-jun's shout was closer to an order to taunt him.
The masked swordsmen responded.
"This fight is dragging on! Are you not bored?"
"Is the one before us truly Lotus Nezha?"
"They say the current Leader of Demon Wings has a violent temper, and he proves the rumor with the ruthlessness of his attacks!"
Moyong Myeong-jun's lips curled upward.
"You came seeking the Heavenly Demon Armor. As expected, you have nothing now. Neither a Protective Qi Technique nor strength worthy of the name Lotus Nezha..."
Suddenly, the Young Family Head of the Moyong Family's vision turned white. A dry burst of light obscured his eyes, and he did not see the elongated shadow coming in behind it.
Without leaving any trace of presence, it passed over Moyong Myeong-jun's neck.
Slice.
The presence that suddenly stepped beside him was utterly hollow. It was terror itself.
"Young Family Head Moyong, your pointless drivel is hastening your death."
A cheerful voice rang out right beside him.
Moyong Myeong-jun only moved his lips as his eyes lowered. Of course, he could not see the thin crimson line across his own neck.
"...Demon Wings itself is his Protective Qi Technique."
The shadow of a reaper with a hero's headband around his forehead whispered.
When he flicked his sword once, the pale aura of the Radiant Art Formation scattered. At the same time, Moyong Myeong-jun's head fell to the ground.
Across from him, every swordsman who had extended a sword to kill the squirrel lost their heads as well.
At the same time.
Within the hazy dust.
The running squirrel's gaze met Jeong Yeon-shin's.
They were old acquaintances.
The numinous squirrel cut the cord around its waist with its tiny front claws, and the wooden case tied to the Shaolin spiritual beast's back crossed the air, drawn by the sudden force of attraction.
The sight stopped the swordsmen rushing in behind it.
The wooden case flew into Jeong Yeon-shin's hand.
Tap.
Five bloodied fingertips traced the grain of the wood.
That small sound brought silence. The Leader of Demon Wings had replenished his supplies.
"Look at Lotus Nezha."
The Imperial Hero's voice echoed ominously.
Footnotes:
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