WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 333: Grandfather and Grandson (6)
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Every direction was engulfed in light. A sword domain given form through a divine art.
The Heart Sword bestowed by the Lord of Desolate Fortress was fundamentally a method of attuning an opponent’s energy.
Jeong Yeon-shin made the sword domain resonating with the Moyong Family Head’s aura his own.
Moyong Jung-rak’s life-saving ultimate move, which bolstered his sword strikes, consisted of fragments of qi. The Record of the Dharma Light Wheel could seize them easily enough.
Fwoooosh!
The vivid blue flames wrapped around the Northern Light Sword twisted into the shape of a blade. It was a force wave like blazing fire. The roar of burning air was tremendous.
[How dare you...!]
Moyong Jung-rak’s will faded like an echo.
Flames made of force waves surged over his entire body like wildfire, even as his treasured sword remained embedded in Yeon-shin’s abdomen.
The aftermath of layer upon layer of Force Projection tore through the surroundings like a storm.
It was no longer merely a single form. It was an eclipse, as though it had swallowed an entire sun that had looked down upon the martial world.
They were at close quarters.
And Yeon-shin’s sword was short.
The thunderous roar did not cease. Blurred hand movements flowed into devastating sword strikes, carving Moyong Jung-rak apart.
Clang, clang, clang! Blue sparks flew violently. Every strike carried immense force.
Throughout it all, the Leader of Demon Wings repeatedly tightened his grip on his sword.
The Leader of Demon Wings’ body convulsed from the penetrating wound, then settled beneath the control of the Jeong Family Youth Technique, only to convulse again. He did not even groan.
The makings of a Northern War God, never missing the point where a form would land. That savage momentum drew furrows across the Star Radiance Great Sword Lord’s brow.
‘This cannot continue.’
He, too, had been one of Liaodong’s foremost geniuses. He had been raised as the swordsman who would save his family from the incomprehensible threat of the northern demon race.
He had not coveted the Heavenly Demon’s martial lineage for his own glory.
To withstand a strike from the Northern War God, he needed armor woven from qi, the kind the Heavenly Demon was said to have fashioned long ago.
The sacrifices of lesser assassin sects had been unavoidable.
The instant the Leader of Demon Wings’ sword strike came at him, Moyong Jung-rak changed the nature of his Protective Qi Technique.
The mystic force wave spread through him, hot as fire, the moment it touched his collar. At the same time, the Moyong Family Head displayed his astonishing command of inner energy.
The outer layer of light transformed into the sturdy barrier of the Moyong Family’s Heaven-Transforming Divine Qi.
Boom!
Even so, the Leader of Demon Wings’ Force Projection penetrated his body.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Armor, reinforced with Heaven-Transforming Divine Qi, magnified the impact like kindling. Moyong Jung-rak’s vision shook again and again.
At the level of peerless masters, he met the Leader of Demon Wings’ gaze.
He had been constantly reconstructing the framework of power that formed his Protective Qi Technique when he suddenly felt something strange.
‘This brat...?’
The child’s eyes were strange.
While continuously unleashing sword strikes to break his Protective Qi Technique, he calmly stared at Moyong Jung-rak’s entire body with blue-lit eyes.
His retinas were filled with blue light. Moyong Jung-rak could not tell what they reflected.
The senses of a peerless master were sharper than needles. Moyong Jung-rak felt deeply unsettled.
It felt as though he had become one of the frogs that played beside the well in the inner courtyard of the Moyong Family when he was young.
A tiny creature that could do nothing but blink when a child, fascinated by the shape of its forelegs and hind legs, suddenly crouched down and cast a great shadow over it, before its limbs were crushed and it ultimately died beneath clumsy, innocent sword practice.
His mind clenched with a chill. He fell into an abyss beyond description.
Clang, clang, clang!
Before Moyong Jung-rak’s muscles could even move, Azure Flame’s blade lashed those areas in rapid succession.
The Neiguan acupoint on his right wrist, the Jianyu acupoint on his shoulder, and the Xuehai and Liangqiu acupoints at both knees, where his Leg Arts had nearly risen.
The moment each area rose, dozens of strands of lightning trapped and sealed it.
A shockwave violently shook the air. The Leader of Demon Wings’ eyes missed none of the recoil’s flow.
He forcibly kept Moyong Jung-rak bearing the backlash of his ultimate move.
The Moyong Family Head’s condition was worse than it had been immediately after piercing the Leader of Demon Wings with the Divine Spirit-Building Flash Halberd. Internal injuries had piled atop one another.
Such a thing was impossible without lightning-fast senses, discerning eyes, and profound knowledge of the human body.
The Leader of Demon Wings was someone with an uncannily deep understanding of the human body.
The Leader of Demon Wings’ vivid blue gaze saw through his opponent’s entire body.
Gooseflesh rose across the skin of the Moyong Family’s peerless swordsman. Strength left his hands.
Jeong Yeon-shin was absurdly young, yet his abdominal muscles and organs had been tempered to an extraordinary degree.
Even while clutching Moyong Jung-rak’s sword, he stood immovable like a thousand-year boulder. It was as though his entire body had been forged from martial arts.
Moyong Jung-rak shouted with his will.
[Do you know what you are doing...?!]
Anyone who slew the leader of an old martial faction alone became a target of the Central Plains martial world.
The slaughter of one of the Eight Family Heads.
It was not simply crossing the line the martial world had drawn, but smashing it to pieces.
They still regarded mutual noninterference between the government and the martial world as an unspoken principle. That was why no martial artist considered the Divine Sword Squad Leader a friend.
Without support, he would be alone wherever he went.
He would also draw the attention of peerless masters who stood apart in the martial world. Many among the supernatural phenomena of martial arts never remained in one place.
Those who used even the motion of wind-tossed branches as a touchstone for their forms would never ignore rumors of a rising talent they had never personally encountered.
He would have to face challenges from powerful people seeking fame as well. How many challenge letters would pile up?
[Can you bear the martial world?!]
Moyong Jung-rak felt no shame.
His lifelong wish had nothing to do with preserving face in the martial world.
Saving the radiance of Yan once possessed by the Moyong Xianbei clan, and freeing his family from the shadow cast by the Northern War God. That was all.
Yet Jeong Yeon-shin did not hear a word.
‘This is the principle of Harmonizing Force. Around the kneecap, the qi in the Inner Knee Eye acupoint bends freely, forming a structure that makes the Body Movement Scripture easier to use...’
As he struck down his opponent’s entire body, he examined the qi composition of the Heavenly Demon Divine Armor, strand by strand.
It was said to be an ultimate technique the Star Radiance Great Sword Lord had devised over his lifetime. Even without intending to, Yeon-shin could see it.
He also sensed an extremely fine net along the sword hilt in his hand.
At a glance, the Protective Qi Technique flowed like a cluster of light, but it had been woven into an incredibly intricate framework.
Force qi tailored like elegant clothing. It felt as though it proudly demanded to be seen. It was enough for Yeon-shin to surmise the Heavenly Demon’s disposition.
The mental image within the mnemonic formula seemed to tickle his entire body. It differed from Bodhidharma’s.
It was a will to engrave one’s presence upon all creation and become immortal. It transcended mere loftiness. It was wondrous.
As the instant-long gap seemed to flow like eternity, something hidden behind the ultimate technique suddenly spoke to Yeon-shin’s upper dantian.
[Insolent.]
It was incomprehensible. Was it spirituality imbued in the mnemonic formula of a formless divine art? Something that had flowed down like water across the span of countless years...
Yeon-shin thought without meaning to.
‘I could make one well, too.’
‘A Protective Qi Technique suited to Light Wheel qi...’
Craaaack!
Fragments of dark blue qi scattered before his eyes. The Moyong Family Head’s Protective Qi Technique was shattering to pieces.
A pale current, like a field of stars spread across the night sky, brushed through Yeon-shin’s hair and rose upward.
For a moment, he thought he heard laughter.
Then Yeon-shin realized he was standing on a mountainside reduced to ruins.
The Moyong Family Head lay at his feet. He had taken the full force of the blazing sword strikes. His body was no longer intact.
His lips moved.
“The Northern War God... Liaodong’s... invader...”
His voice escaped as a faint breath.
Glancing down at him, Yeon-shin slowly began pulling the sword from his abdomen.
With the Jeong Family Youth Technique, he adjusted the positions of the organs in his body and preserved his energy. He tightly bound the completely severed areas with the technique’s qi.
Clang.
The bloodied treasured sword fell to the ground.
Moyong Jung-rak’s muttering stopped.
He turned his head slightly. His gaze, which had been fixed on the distant sky, shifted to Yeon-shin. It met the eyes looking down at him as Yeon-shin stood there silently.
“Yes...”
The Star Radiance Great Sword Lord faintly raised one corner of his mouth.
“I, too, was a frog.”
His final breath scattered in a clear voice.
* * *
The Moyong Family’s Piercing Assault Sword kicked off another branch and flew away.
They had to deliver the shocking news to the main house.
‘How can this be!’
It was beyond anything they had imagined. They had never thought the Leader of Demon Wings would kill the Family Head.
How immense was the presence of a single peerless master in the martial world? As a messenger, the Piercing Assault Sword needed to deliver the news faster than anyone.
The main house could no longer hold its ground where it had settled.
The moment word of the Star Radiance Great Sword Lord’s death spread, martial artists with grudges against the Moyong Family would swarm in.
The countless enemies in the north would be the same. Having lost both its heir and Family Head, the family had to worry not about its line of succession, but survival.
‘Leader of Demon Wings! Leader of Demon Wings...!’
Fury surged within them.
They thought of revenge. How could they do it?
They had heard rumors that the Successor Beggar of the Beggars’ Sect was wary of the Leader of Demon Wings. The Sword Fangs of the Tyrant Sword Sect and the Bow Ghosts of Dark Night Hall would not look kindly upon Seom-ye of Desolate Fortress either.
If they searched further, they would find countless enemies.
‘The Leader of Demon Wings’ movements...’
Whoosh!
Their vision suddenly dropped. A hand abruptly seized the back of their head, then drove it down with a graceful technique, stopping their lightness skill.
They began to fall through the air.
They could not respond.
They felt the cold touch of a dagger against their nape. Unfamiliar qi also entered the paralysis acupoint at the back of their neck.
Thud.
The instant their entire body went numb and they sprawled across the ground, their spinning vision caught sight of a curved mouth. The figure was an assassin wearing a black bamboo hat.
It was the Slayer Hero, Geum Jon-hwi.
“I’ll question you later. There’s something urgent to handle.”
The Piercing Assault Sword was dragged back the way they had come, held by the nape.
The Leader of Demon Wings was the first person they saw. He lay beside the Family Head’s corpse, his eyes closed in a state that did not look ordinary.
Was his condition grave? He was certainly unconscious.
‘Naturally.’
The Piercing Assault Sword twisted their mouth.
“I heard from my subordinates that a thousand members of the martial army are heading north. The stated reason is reinforcement for the north, but...”
Geum Jon-hwi stopped speaking.
Ma Yeon-jeok, a man in a pink long robe, gave a faint nod. He sat beside his maternal grandson’s head, his face grave.
“That will do. Bring them here.”
He was not speaking to Geum Jon-hwi. The three Demon Wings masters, whose expressions were equally grim, reacted.
“Should we call this fortunate?”
The Languid Flame Dragon muttered as he took a gourd from his robes. His movements were swift as rays of light.
A treasure of the Heavenly Pillar Gate was in his hand. It was water from the lake where the World Tree had taken root. It was said to have an immediate effect on internal injuries.
Though the Languid Flame Dragon had refused it, Yeon-shin had thrown it into his travel bag, telling him to drink it instead of liquor and stop reeking of drunkenness.
“Elder, here it is.”
A Lesser Revitalization Pill came from Hyeon Won-chang. It had been a reward from a mission long ago.
He had accepted it only because someone had insisted that the Imperial Hero, occupied with studying Buddhist teachings, could not help but be lacking in martial arts and therefore needed to take care of his body.
Knowing a refusal would not work on a Squad Leader, he had kept it carefully stored away.
Now, it could be used.
“No, this is a Purple Cloud Pellet from the Mount Hua Sect, isn’t it? When did you put this in...?”
Shin So-bin awkwardly patted herself down, and a wooden box marked with plum blossoms came from within her robes as well.
Ma Yeon-jeok poured every elixir into his grandson’s mouth.
Normally, this was not how it should be done.
Secret elixir pills had proper rules for taking them.
The Jeong Family Youth Technique, however, was unrelated to such things.
Rustle.
A hand made smooth by reclaimed years pressed around Yeon-shin’s heart.
“Wake up.”
His mother’s hand settled over his grandfather’s hand.
A reaction came at once. Yeon-shin’s body made a cracking sound.
It was a strange sign.
Footnotes:
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