WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 353: Breakneck Rush (2)
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* * *
“...”
A heavy silence settled over the area.
The martial-world spectators surrounding the Golden-Wing Sect estate remained silent, as did the Thirteen Heavens experts from both factions, standing awkwardly amid traces of the sorcery formation scattered like ash.
Something clearly extraordinary had just happened.
The handsome young man, who had created an almost dreamlike atmosphere simply by standing there, had vanished without a trace.
Along with dozens of martial artists captured as human sacrifices and experts amounting to half the strength of both the Ten Perfect Sect and Golden-Wing Sect.
Everyone was supposed to have been taken away. That was what the Grand Method had been designed to accomplish, by none other than the Golden-Wing Sect Master, the greatest in Sichuan.
Rustle.
Her sleeves fell to her sides.
Her tightly pressed lips uttered no words, and her eyes settled into an utterly dry stillness.
That alone froze the surroundings. It was a presence that permitted no one to move, as though an invisible giant hand had descended upon the estate. It was something beyond inner energy.
Only masters who had reached the peerless realm could break that silence.
“Excuse me.”
The person standing guard beside her spoke.
After calling to the Golden-Wing Sect Master and falling silent for a moment, the Ten Perfect Sect Master slowly spoke again.
“What happened? I felt a spiderweb-like aura suddenly flow from that brat Dang Man-yeon’s body near the end of the Grand Method.”
“...It was taken.”
“That bastard stole control of its workings?”
“Yes.”
“How could that be? No, how could you possibly have let him take it? Even if that brat possessed some demonic power capable of bewitching people with his looks, how could someone like him...”
“He’s strong. I don’t know what he is.”
The Golden-Wing Sect Master muttered quietly.
The eyes of the martial artists gathered in the clearing, including the Ten Perfect Sect Master, widened.
The elite experts of Sichuan’s Thirteen Heavens knew the Golden-Wing Sect Master’s temperament and manner of speech well. She was not someone who praised even her Left and Right Protectors for their martial skill.
“Did neither Sect Master properly sense that person’s aura? How profound must his energy-concealing method be?”
“He has reached Return to Simplicity. We were thoroughly deceived.”
“Did Desolate Fortress send a peerless master as a spy?”
“That’s absurd. What resources could those imperial lapdogs possibly have? Even if we destroyed their Sichuan branch this instant, they would not dare say a word.”
“Could it be the Ming Cult’s Young Sect Master? Laughing Heaven Unrivaled, Yalu Jin. Not every peerless master would be able to casually interfere with a sorcery formation in the first place.”
“That arrogant man disguising himself as a servant? Isn’t that just as implausible?”
“Quiet.”
The Thirteen Heavens experts abruptly stopped arguing. The Golden-Wing Sect Master had turned away.
Step.
“We can perform it again.”
Nobody objected.
It had been a Grand Method from the start.
The Golden-Wing Sect had accounted for one or two failures. That meant they had prepared spare dharma implements to reconstruct the formation.
* * *
The current Leader of Demon Wings, who had to carry out his mission. The pitiful Tang siblings connected to him. The Golden-Wing Sect’s Right Protector, unaware that he had been chosen as their guide.
Jeong Yeon-shin did not feel particularly moved by the success of his interference with the sorcery formation.
He only briefly focused on the Light Wheel in his heart, which had given him a strange sensation.
Complete Three Flowers Gather at the Crown, the Protective Qi Technique, Transcendent Martial Art, and a second Light Wheel.
He would attain at least two of those soon.
He needed to focus on what was before him. Something important was upon him.
A formation.
A mysterious art no less profound than martial arts. Rather than entering the body, it distorted and delved into the principles of nature itself.
It was known as an exceptionally difficult and complicated discipline.
When properly refined, it could easily draw others into illusions. At higher levels, it was said that one could even use Commanding Wind, Calling Rain and control the weather at will, like the Zhuge Family Head.
And above even that.
Formations whose wondrous effects reached the heavens could create mystic places between one space and another.
Another space, difficult to perceive from outside. The tombs of ancient masters that caused bloodshed throughout the world over a single treasure map were like that.
They were usually spoken of as places beyond all reason.
The formation naturally deployed by a flood dragon was no different.
A grassland entirely severed from the outside world, forming a separate heaven and earth. Its scale simply surpassed the sorcery studies of ordinary humans by an incomparable degree.
‘The natural qi is dense. It can’t be compared to normal.’
If the Immortal Realm truly existed, would it be like this? Judging by the thick, cloudlike feeling pressing against his skin, it was perhaps seventy percent denser than before entering the formation.
Jeong Yeon-shin looked around.
He had not expected the space created by a formation to be so vast. Nor had he imagined people would be living inside it.
“Shouldn’t we tell the village chief?”
“No, look at that man. He’s the Fist-and-Kick Evil Ghost! From the Dragon-Slaying Alliance...!”
“They came all the way here after all...”
“Don’t move carelessly. You’ll be trampled.”
“Aren’t those children blood relatives of the Tang Sect in Sichuan? Their hands reek of oil. Their martial uniforms are similar too...”
“Oh...!”
A dozen or so short people in worn, ragged clothing glanced at the group and whispered among themselves.
Their speech did not sound like the current vernacular or any dialect Jeong Yeon-shin knew.
The rises and falls of their voices, the turns in their speech, all felt deeply unfamiliar. They sounded like people from a city long isolated from the world, with an order entirely their own.
Beyond them, the forest stretched endlessly, green upon green.
The dwarven race.
Their auras were faint. They seemed to be common folk.
“I...”
Jeong Yeon-shin slightly bent forward, resting his hands on both knees as he began to speak to them.
“The Sect Master’s mastery runs this deep.”
Wanyang, who had been immersed in deep breaths of inner energy, suddenly opened his eyes and cut him off.
“It is as if the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden herself descended into this world. What person under heaven could find and enter a flood dragon’s formation from the very spot where it stood?”
“...Yes, it’s remarkable.”
“Her realm has reached the heavens. It will be the glory of three lifetimes for you.”
Wanyang spoke in a low voice. The energy surrounding his body now wrapped around him like transparent, finely woven silk.
It was truly wondrous. He had reached the level of constantly manifesting the Protective Qi Technique.
Jeong Yeon-shin only stared blankly at him and offered no rebuttal. He was immersed in a mystery he had never experienced before.
‘The Golden-Wing Sect Master.’
An absolute master of sorcery arts and martial arts.
Since the founding of Ming, she had spent countless years amassing every sort of dharma implement, spiritual medicine, and sorcery knowledge before creating this miracle.
She had ultimately opened the formation where an ancient spiritual beast had made its nest. It was an achievement rare even across ten thousand ages.
She had unfolded a purple-hued martial world before Jeong Yeon-shin. He was grateful for that.
Then.
Perhaps their conversation had eased the tense atmosphere.
“A flood dragon’s formation? Really?”
“I thought we were certainly going to die...!”
The Poison Phoenix and Poison Dragon, who had stood frozen in their green martial uniforms, looked around in every direction.
The young lady and young master of Sichuan’s foremost martial-nobility family looked so remarkably alike that even their mannerisms were similar enough to seem faintly amusing.
“If we train here, the amount of qi we can store will be incredible.”
“Look at those flowers. What are they? I’ve never seen that species before. Do you think they’re poisonous?”
They made a fuss despite standing beside two overwhelming experts. Their already large eyes grew wider, then they simultaneously turned their gazes toward Jeong Yeon-shin and cautiously approached him.
Step.
“Are you truly a collateral relative, Brother? Which branch are you from? We’ve never heard of a Dang Man-yeon. Neither Man nor Yeon is part of our generation name. Did the Family Head secretly teach you?”
“I wanted to talk to you sooner. If those damned worm catchers hadn’t kept watching us...”
The short boy and girl chattered away.
“Shut your mouths.”
Wanyang gave the order coldly.
Whoooosh!
The aura pouring from his voice swept through the surrounding brush. Some blades of grass were left deeply flattened.
“...!”
The Tang siblings jolted to a stop.
They might be geniuses contending for the foremost position among Sichuan’s younger generation, but they could not compare to a veteran supreme master who had built a martial reputation over many years as one of the Golden-Wing Sect’s two Protectors.
Even with their fierce spirit and pride, they could not become one of the Hwanmyeong Five Absolutes. They would struggle even to follow at the heels of Seom-ye of Desolate Fortress, whom they admired.
“Who gave you permission to make a sound?”
Wanyang reprimanded the siblings in a stern tone.
“Discipline is not important only when hunting spiritual beasts. Having entered unfamiliar and dangerous ground, you should regulate your breathing and draw out your abilities. Otherwise, how could you even serve as bait?”
He clicked his tongue.
At a glance, he seemed as haughty as an elder relative of the Tang Sect. Yet the words he added while walking toward the dwarves were not.
Step.
“Now I understand why the Tang Sect declined. It was quite a sight. To think a Tang Family Head had a flying sword taken from him so pitifully... Though our Sect Master was his opponent.”
“What did you say?”
“You! How dare you!”
The twins’ eyes sharpened. Their reaction was close to fury. Anyone would have reacted that way.
Whoosh!
Jeong Yeon-shin considered how he would react if a martial artist of Demon Wings, rather than his father Jeong Ban-ak, were insulted.
As he watched thin whirlwinds rise around the Tang siblings’ feet and scatter the grass.
‘They say the divide between the jianghu and the martial world grows deeper by the day in these troubled times. One day, it will explode.’
He silently lowered one hand at an angle, blocking the siblings.
The flood dragon’s formation was an unfamiliar place. They needed to let someone who had been here before guide them willingly.
All the more so when he considered the Seventh Apostle and the Ming Cult’s Young Sect Master, who had not yet joined them for some reason.
Torture such as tendon-rending and bone-dislocating would not work against a supreme master who had attained Unity of essence, qi, and spirit.
‘In any case, did they come here?’
The smooth smile of the Seventh Apostle, with the eyepatch over one eye, crossed his mind.
“No! You can’t! You want us to open the village formation?”
“A long time has passed. Lowly creatures who make offerings pleasing to the flood dragon’s eye dare talk back.”
“Even if the Molten-Spirit Divine Fist says so...”
A dwarf’s words were cut short, followed by a dull impact and a brief cry.
Wanyang had kicked someone.
“I know that greedy flood dragon brought a sapling of the World Tree here.”
The Golden-Wing Sect Master’s right-hand man irritably curled his lips. With his low laugh, the air around him rippled translucently.
His inner energy had reached an extreme level. The dwarves crouched around their kicked companion and trembled.
“Your village chief must know every earth vein in this land. I will have him find the locations of the scattered sect disciples.”
There was no answer. Only groans came in reply.
Yet Wanyang did not press for one. He had recognized the submissive light in the eyes of those lowly creatures.
“Things no different from slaves. They only understand once you strike them.”
“Just like the Sichuan Tang Clan...” he muttered softly, then gestured at Jeong Yeon-shin with a smile. It meant for him to follow with the Tang siblings.
“...Let’s go.”
Jeong Yeon-shin had been turning his Light Wheel to stop that bastard from striking again. He patted the shoulders of the Twin Dragons and Phoenixes of Poison once each, then slowly began walking.
Not yet.
This was still the time to endure.
‘First, the safety of my seniors.’
He was no longer a boy who knew nothing of the world. He was an adult.
Step.
The ground beneath him was damp with just enough moisture. His concerns over the greater cause left their marks with every footstep.
* * *
A village surrounded by gigantic stone walls.
No, it looked more like a city enclosed within a fortress. It was far too enormous to be called a mere village.
The endless sounds of iron being hammered, the rough shouts, and smoke rising from all around.
It was brimming with life.
The group followed the dwarves, stepping where they stepped, and fell silent for a while. They had once again realized the scale of this mystic place where the flood dragon had made its nest.
“Stop!”
A voice laden with powerful inner energy rang out.
More than a dozen dwarf martial artists standing guard looked down at the group with stern eyes. Unlike those who had guided Jeong Yeon-shin’s group, they seemed to have properly learned inner cultivation arts.
They appeared to be living perfectly normal lives. They did not look like people caught up in a flood dragon’s ascension, as in an old tale passed down by word of mouth.
Jeong Yeon-shin was looking at them in fascination when...
“What...?”
A commotion rose from atop the stone wall. The dwarf masters who had gazed down at the group while stroking their dignified beards caught sight of Wanyang.
“Hey, Jang-sam! Who have you brought here?!”
The man who appeared to lead the gate guards shouted.
He was a master holding a white spear, with short but thick arms exposed beneath his sleeveless martial uniform. Despite his powerful aura, he could not hide his agitation.
“I’m sorry, Elder. We had no choice...”
The young villager guiding Jeong Yeon-shin’s group spoke. For a brief moment, his gaze passed over the belly of the dwarf woman standing beside him. It was round and swollen, near full term.
“You fool...”
With the dwarf spearman’s sigh, the gate guards spread out on either side and gritted their teeth as they sounded the alarm.
Clang! Clang!
The deafening metallic sound, carrying inner power, echoed in every direction.
They reacted like an army facing foreign invaders. The disturbance created by the Golden-Wing Sect’s Right Protector alone was that immense.
Wanyang snickered, stood straight, and spoke.
[Bring me the village chief!]
As a voice like the Lion’s Roar burst out, a massive cloud of dust raced along the stone wall blocking the way.
The elven race supreme master’s immense qi storage gave his voice the force of a fist wind. The gate guards, who had been solemnly taking their opening stances, staggered where they stood.
“That evil bastard has come again...!”
The gate captain, the first to regain his balance, bit his lip.
When the Dragon-Slaying Alliance masters had first opened the formation and entered, he remembered the atrocities they committed as they ordered the dwarves to work for the alliance in exchange for killing the flood dragon.
Madmen who had even created a strange martial art called dragon-slaying arts.
They could not be opposed. They were far too powerful.
The dwarves had to forge weapons for them constantly. Naturally, they received none of the payment they should have been given.
Whenever the flood dragon let out a howl that seemed capable of overturning heaven and earth, those men hid in civilian homes until the dragon’s scales were no longer visible.
Then, claiming they were not ready yet, they made the dwarves offer things pleasing to the flood dragon’s eye at the altar so the flood dragon would not grow angry.
It meant they had been exploited twice over.
The clan trapped within the flood dragon’s formation had nowhere else to go and was used like slaves.
That continued until the Dragon-Slaying Alliance, having failed to achieve its goal, departed from this sacred yet unstable space.
Among them, the one who held every villager beneath his feet like a Prince of Commandery was the Molten-Spirit Divine Fist. He seemed even stronger now. It was unbelievable.
The gate captain thought, Could the newly arrived village chief handle that man?
As the swamp-like past surfaced in his mind and distracted him for a moment...
“You are urging your own death.”
With a single step of the Body Movement Scripture, the Molten-Spirit Divine Fist climbed the stone wall, seven jang high, and smiled at the gate captain.
“A weakling has far too many worthless thoughts.”
“...!”
Wooooong!
The gate captain jerked his head up. Wanyang, clad in a pale garment of inner energy, entered his sight.
The Protective Qi Technique, which had always reigned as invincible armor. It was the ultimate technique that led the Golden-Wing Sect’s Molten-Spirit Divine Fist, unlike other disciples, to pursue dragon-slaying martial arts barehanded.
To the dwarves of this city, it was synonymous with despair. Gloom filled the faces of the gate captain and the warriors on the stone wall.
Some tightened their grip on their weapons as if prepared to take him down with them.
Wanyang scoffed and took a step forward. He was right in front of them.
“A long time has passed. It is natural that you have forgotten.”
“What are you planning to do now?”
A voice suddenly interrupted from beside him.
Jeong Yeon-shin had somehow climbed onto the stone fortress.
Without waiting for an answer, he reached for Wanyang’s shoulder.
It was not a particularly swift move. Wanyang’s lips rose faster.
The Golden-Wing Sect’s Right Protector smiled as though this was just what he had wanted, twisting his body as he rapidly whispered through lip-speech.
“It was laughable to see weapons dare pretend to be people.”
Jeong Yeon-shin did not respond. He placed his hand on Wanyang’s shoulder, surrounded by a garment of inner energy.
That bastard’s words and conduct were trivial.
There were far more important matters. They had reached their destination, his brutality had gone too far, and this member of the elven race possessed a fairly interesting martial discipline.
Wooooong!
In an instant.
He fully sensed the structure of the Protective Qi Technique’s inner power beneath his palm. It was the process of dismantling it that he had always performed as naturally as breathing. Nothing about it differed from usual. Only the follow-up was different.
Within time flowing at an extreme crawl.
“...?”
Wanyang’s eyebrows rose. He seemed about to strike, as though he had sensed something.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s expression remained blank.
The elf’s reaction did not matter.
At that moment, Jeong Yeon-shin’s aura sense erupted from the center of his palm like a wildfire, swept across Wanyang’s shoulder, and raced through his entire body. Following that sensation, countless strands of energy spread like tiny blades and sliced through the Protective Qi Technique from within.
Reverse calculation of inner-power structure.
Sword qi.
Internal heavy-hand technique.
Then Jeong Yeon-shin activated the Absorption Formula of Myriad Flowers Rain through the Laogong acupoint in his palm.
Whoooosh!
Drawn by the powerful absorbing force wave, Wanyang’s Protective Qi Technique covered Jeong Yeon-shin’s hand, climbed up his arm, and then wrapped around his entire body.
“...!”
Wanyang’s face filled with soundless shock as Jeong Yeon-shin stripped away and put on the garment of inner energy that had surrounded him.
“Inferior quality.”
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke like a merchant who had just awakened to commercial instinct.
Footnotes:
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