WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 331: Grandfather and Grandson (4)
──────
The Heavenly Demon Divine Armor's power fluctuations abruptly died away.
The Moyong Family Head had withdrawn them at once after sensing the strange tension between grandfather and grandson.
Jeong Yeon-shin's clear gaze seemed to have unsettled him in particular.
“...”
Many eyes were fixed on the clearing atop the nearly barren peak.
Dozens of Assassins’ Sect members who had posed as prominent figures in the great city of Taiyuan, Demon Wings prodigies, and the former Divine Sword Squad Leader.
All watched the Leader of Demon Wings and the Moyong Family Head with different expressions.
Emotions such as anxiety, shock, and doubt flowed into Yeon-shin's upper dantian. The crowd harbored all manner of thoughts.
They clung to the cliffs stretching out on either side, stood far off in one corner of the clearing, or waited halfway up the slope...
‘I have to get past this.’
Yeon-shin did not care what the Moyong Family Head thought.
The Northern Light Sword in his right hand gave off a faint warmth. So did the Light Wheel in his heart, which had begun to turn slowly.
The words a Family Head had spoken to the Imperial Hero grated on him. Moyong Jung-rak had babbled about tearing out all of Hyeon Won-chang's Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
“You have no class.”
The Leader of Demon Wings spoke to one of the Eight Family Heads.
“At your age, you still don't know how disgraceful you look.”
The words came out without thought.
Far away on the side slope, a hem of pink clothing flinched. At the same time, Yeon-shin faced the Moyong Family Head, a sharp blue gleam flashing in his eyes.
Translucent, colorless flower petals kept fading and reappearing before him.
He was restraining the activation of Ultimate Thunder so that he could sustain it longer.
At the same time, he measured the Star Radiance Great Sword Lord's sword domain.
An invisible aura that cut at his skin, the constantly trembling currents in the air, Moyong Jung-rak's balance on sturdy legs, and the opening stance of the hand gripping his sword all formed an unseen territory.
In Yeon-shin's eyes, the space was filled with countless trajectories.
They spread out from Moyong Jung-rak, having long covered a radius of more than thirty jang. It was as though he declared himself complete as a swordsman.
There was no one in the martial world who did not know the Moyong Family Head.
Yeon-shin recalled the martial arts he had accumulated.
‘How much of it will work against him?’
It had already begun. A clash with one of the Eight Family Heads.
“Your eye technique is extraordinary.”
Moyong Jung-rak met Yeon-shin's bluish gaze.
Wearing the inscrutable smile of a great martial noble, he shifted his grip on the sword hilt. Each movement of his fingers subtly changed the shape of the force wave.
The opaque current flowing between his thumb and forefinger turned swift, then heavy. He controlled it completely.
He seemed to be testing Yeon-shin's discernment. There was no telling how many principles of swordsmanship he had mastered.
“Liaodong is a harsh land,” Moyong Jung-rak said.
“It is unlike the comfortable soil of Huguang. It is an exceptionally unforgiving place. The swordsmen who form mountains of blades and forests of swords have inherited the temperament of the north. It is such a vicious land that those who have never lost a country cannot endure it.”
It was as though they were exchanging letters through their words. He was speaking indirectly to Yeon-shin.
A sword from the flowery lands of Huguang could not withstand the nature of Liaodong, where Moyong Jung-rak had been born and raised.
His attention was on Ma Yeon-jeok. He was merely provoking Yeon-shin while feeling out a powerful opponent. Anyone could see it.
The Moyong Family.
A martial family based east of the Liao River. They traced their ancestry to the Moyong Xianbei clan, descendants of Yan Kingdom's royal family, a kingdom that had fallen before the elven race appeared in the world.
Their resentment-filled Meteor Sword was famed as the fiercest of the supreme sword arts among the Eight Great Families.
Yeon-shin tilted his head slightly.
“Wasn't that kingdom destroyed long ago?”
“...Those without roots always speak that way. Even if you carry the bloodline of the Ma Family of Desolate Fortress, you are not much different.”
Moyong Jung-rak raised his sword. The hem of his white long robe lifted slightly.
A violent wind swept through.
Its cold touch brushed Yeon-shin's face. This was different from his battle with Jegal Cheon-sang.
It was not a sudden, frantic fight. He now faced the sword domain of one of the Eight Family Heads in a one-on-one life-and-death duel.
That was why the palm of his right hand, connected to the Northern Light Sword, accepted more Light Wheel qi than ever before.
‘Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art.’
Yeon-shin awakened every acupoint in his body.
Every muscle repeatedly contracted and relaxed. It was the opening stance for Force Projection through his entire body, though nothing showed outwardly.
The Moyong Family Head seemed to notice. The gaze fixed on Yeon-shin became fierce.
The Moyong Family's treasured sword flashed with a chilling gleam.
It was coming straight at him. Yeon-shin felt it.
He pushed off the ground first with his right foot. A powerful wind rose beneath him. The movement art, Wind Body. His figure vanished into the transparent wind blowing toward the peak.
The instant he lowered and raised his eyelids, Moyong Jung-rak's upper body filled his vision. He had crossed three jang in a single bound.
Ultimate Thunder had fully activated.
Swaaaak!
A gale wrapped around the blade of the Northern Light Sword as it swept upward. The mnemonic formula of Judging the Qilin turned even a casual slash into a swift sword.
Its tyrannical momentum was wholly contained in a single sword path, yet it held a purity reminiscent of the Clear Qilin.
Clang!
Moyong Jung-rak's sword hilt struck down on the Northern Light Sword.
It was an elegant defensive form, as though he had hammered down with the hilt.
For a brief instant, a heavy vibration spread in all directions. A long shadow fell across Yeon-shin's raised brows as a deep voice spoke.
“Black Star Concealed Advance.”
The words were swiftly uttered through lip-speech.
Moyong Jung-rak announced the name of his form while everyone around them knew who the Moyong Family Head was. It could only be called mockery.
He was preserving his own dignity while facing the Leader of Demon Wings, whose age and reputation were vastly below his own.
The descending sword strike's force wave was ferocious enough to whip Yeon-shin's hair into complete disarray.
It was a form that struck down with the sword hilt before dropping the blade. With a small movement of his arm, the Moyong Family Head produced world-shaking force.
Yeon-shin raised his sword as he invoked the second form of the Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art, retreating at the same time. The countering Nine Verdants Form a River bloomed from the thumb bracing the sword hilt.
Claaaaang!
An immense impact tore through his grip. The opponent's sword force ripped apart the flesh below his thumb and traveled all the way to his feet. His leap stopped cold.
The ground supporting his leather shoes caved in with a harsh sound. As Yeon-shin's eye level lowered, the translucent lotus flowers of Ultimate Thunder around him trembled once.
The Moyong Family Head's voice rang through the gap.
“You endured that. It is like facing Yeo-ui Cheon Ju.”
The source of the voice was higher than Yeon-shin's crown. The next words came from the same place.
“What do you think of Vast Star Filling Sword Rain?”
Before he had even finished speaking, Moyong Jung-rak unleashed his second form.
The sky rippled.
The force wave spreading broadly from his sword transparently blanketed the air.
He was unlike Yeon-shin, who wielded his entire body as a sword. The Moyong Family Head used a single blade of metal as a medium for inner energy mastery nearing its ultimate peak.
Meteor Sword Art, Vast Star Filling Sword Rain.
Saaaaa...
It sounded like sheets of paper rubbing together in the air. An overwhelming sharpness pressed down.
Invisible swords were falling from the sky.
There were at least dozens of them. With every fleeting moment they neared the ground, their force waves multiplied. Within an instant, sunlight twisted in all directions.
The intent and sword will contained in the form were clear. Yeon-shin's footwork seemed decent, so he was being told to try evading this as well.
It did not come at him like something a person could cultivate. The boundary between martial arts and sorcery arts seemed blurred.
This was plainly the realm of a peerless master.
Swish.
Yeon-shin placed the blade of the Northern Light Sword against his left shoulder, using its flat to shield the shoulder.
“Hm?”
Just as Moyong Jung-rak, who had raised his sword, let out a questioning sound, a slight tremor shook the ground beneath Yeon-shin's feet.
His body blurred, and a faint trail of light carved a straight line through the air.
Moyong Jung-rak's eyes widened. This was no ordinary lightness skill.
The Leader of Demon Wings suddenly appeared before him and rammed him with the shoulder overlaid by the sword blade. It was an elegant yet violent strike, like a comet.
Kwang!
Moyong Jung-rak's body was hurled away from the cliff. An enormous shock wave exploded in a circle from where he had stood.
The peak's ground crumpled. The harsh sound of shattered stone followed the paths of the two fighters.
The battlefield shifted into the air.
The Moyong Family Head twisted in midair and stepped on the air with Void-Stepping.
“That brat.”
His eyes narrowed.
The Leader of Demon Wings, who had delivered that savage blow, continuously kicked off the side of the cliff and charged after him.
A faint radiance spread from the leader's toes, staining the cliff wall pale. It was an auspicious sight, as though a constellation were being drawn across the vast ridgeline.
Behind them...
Rumble!
The edge of the peak where they had stood shattered beneath Vast Star Filling Sword Rain. The dry earth could not withstand the rain of Formless Swords.
As boulders plummeted into the distance with a roar...
‘I could not have seen wrong.’
Moyong Jung-rak thought of the form the Leader of Demon Wings had just used.
It resembled the body-barging art of Mujang Radiance Art. The ultimate technique the Heart Martial Union Leader had honed throughout a lifetime had manifested through the sword-braced shoulder of the Leader of Demon Wings.
It was a method that sought offense and defense in a single stroke.
Had the Leader of Demon Wings been wrapped in Protective Qi Technique on the level of a Divine Technique, Moyong Jung-rak would have suffered unexpected internal injuries even after blocking with his sword. It would not have ended with being pushed back as he had been.
“I admit that I underestimated you.”
At that age, the Leader of Demon Wings could contend in martial arts with the northern Dragon Fist, Yeo-ui Cheon Ju Bukgung A. His talent might even rival the Ming Cult's Laughing Heaven Unrivaled.
It meant he had a great chance of becoming a peerless martial artist who would stand at the Lord of Desolate Fortress's side, and in a short time at that.
This was a sprout that had to be cut down.
He could not hold back while thinking of the martial artist thought to be the Tyrant Hero. He had to give it his all. He was on the verge of completing the martial art that would reclaim the light of Yan.
If he cut down that young, radiant sword talent, then crossed swords with the one who had torn out the Heart Martial Union Leader's arm, he could fully embody all the enlightenment he had accumulated thus far.
Moyong Jung-rak's black brows hardened into a straight line.
Meteor Sword. Casting Calamity, Advancing Flash Thunder.
His body, standing on the air, distorted in place.
Then he disappeared completely.
The eyes that had watched the Leader of Demon Wings race along the cliff transformed into a blue-black streak and stretched out. It stopped directly before the Leader of Demon Wings.
Yeon-shin, running along the side of the cliff, performed a True Step on the spot. His reaction was as fast as light. The cliff wall crumbled with a crash, and his long hair flew back all at once.
Moyong Jung-rak suddenly appeared before him, generating an immense propulsive force wave with his inner power. The path of the incoming sword was far faster than Yeon-shin's hand.
Kwang!
White flashed before his eyes.
Like lightning had struck, he could see nothing. If it was this bad even with Heaven-Displaying Eye Technique activated, the Moyong Family Head's vision must have been the same.
Yet the pain of his grip being torn apart seemed to belong to Yeon-shin alone.
As did the dull, empty sensation of the Northern Light Sword's blade snapping cleanly in two...
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
