WeTried Translations

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◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈

Episode 387: Divine Sword Corps (3)

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A murky waterspout of force waves.

It seemed to reach the sky, only because the hemispherical space created by the Transcendent Martial Art did not extend to the true heavens.

At that moment, the waterspout made of Protective Qi Technique fragments was cracking the ceiling.

Kwakwakwakwakwa!

Fragments of the Light Wheel flickered faintly across the waterspout's surface before vanishing again.

The space formed through sorcery martial arts gradually cracked apart with a sound like boulders shattering.

Sichuan's Greatest Martial Artist was trapped within the waterspout.

She had been forcibly lifted into the air. The gourd at her waist had long since shattered.

"This... this is...!"

Protective Qi Technique shaped like golden feathers was endlessly shredded by the waterspout. Blood seeped through the gale of dimly glowing streaks.

The Golden-Wing Sect Master had routinely used Void-Stepping and Walking Upon Empty Space.

Simply lifting her into the air would not normally restrict her movements. Ordinarily, that was how it should have been.

[They say Sichuan's flower rain can trap even a flood dragon. A person will be no different.]

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke.

His Protective Qi Technique was based on Myriad Flowers Rain. It seemed disorderly at a glance, yet moved according to his thoughts.

Even Bright Dawn's waterspout allowed every trajectory within it to be regarded as an attack path. That was because he had added the principles of qi sword control.

"...!"

The Golden-Wing Sect Master could not attack. She could only writhe in the air.

The moment she tried to move her wrist, her entire elbow was lifted.

When she tried to release propulsive force waves from the Yongquan acupoints in her soles, blade winds that had suddenly thickened shoved aside her knees and thighs at an angle.

The fiercely raging flow was unimaginably complex. It was nothing like when the two had first met in the Golden-Wing Sect.

Blade winds bent and curved through the air again and again. Every trajectory was a variation. Newly accumulated years had been woven into them.

"Ah... aah...!"

[Die already.]

The Leader of Demon Wings silently looked up at her.

He saw through every movement of her muscles. He instantly perceived and responded even to the inner-power fluctuations arising from her acupoints.

He had mastered the human body. His senses transcended the ages.

Strength that had become equal.

Inner energy whose opposing natures no longer mattered.

Protective Qi Technique fragments whose rebound force had been raised to the limit.

Jeong Yeon-shin controlled all those streaks of light with Dragon Fan Treading Flowers, while the enemy's movements had been thoroughly dissected over more than two hundred exchanges.

The Golden-Wing Sect Master excelled at close-quarters combat and Claw Arts. Even the Transcendent Martial Art was an art that supported attacks at close range.

At the start of the fight, she had been helplessly thrown into the air by qi sword control.

Now, the completed form of Myriad Flowers Rain closed in on her as fatally as it had on the flood dragon.

A bird could not escape wind and rain.

Defense was impossible.

Kiaaaaaak!

Her scream resembled the cry of a bird of prey. It echoed loudly in every direction, as though she had screamed with her entire body rather than her mouth.

Jeong Yeon-shin stood still and maintained Bright Dawn.

'A little longer.'

The sensation of his upper dantian burning only proved that Bright Dawn was an ultimate technique capable of working on a transcendent master.

Dizziness was nothing. Even seeing the Golden-Wing Sect Master multiply before his eyes was bearable.

Then.

The translucent waterspout cracked against the ceiling of the Transcendent Martial Art with a violent snap, transforming into hundreds of gusts.

The waterspout unraveled into countless strands, drove away the nearby dust, and disappeared.

Saaah.

Faint starlight returned and seeped into Jeong Yeon-shin's body.

He lowered his eyelids for a moment.

The fragments of light gathered in his heart once more and formed a Light Wheel. It did not feel as powerful as before.

He had expended too much strength, but a period of qi circulation and breath regulation would solve that.

'That's a light price for defeating Sichuan's Greatest Martial Artist, a transcendent master.'

Jeong Yeon-shin thought calmly.

When he focused his eyes, his vision became much clearer. On the barren ground, stripped of every blade of grass and splinter of wood, lay a dust-covered heap of rags.

It was the Golden-Wing Sect Master.

Blood showed through the gaps in her shredded clothes instead of skin. Her red, glistening body was horrific to behold.

A dark-red patch spread across the ground beneath her.

Haaah...

A thin breath could be heard.

It was inner-energy breathing. Faint fluctuations of inner power suggested she had entered qi circulation and breath regulation.

Jeong Yeon-shin thought of the Ten Perfect Sect Master without meaning to. He had survived death two or three times at the hands of Jeong Yeon-shin and the Blood Flame Sect Master.

All peerless masters possessed disgustingly powerful innate qi. They were no different from the immortal nobles of the Blood Flame Sect.

'The head.'

Step.

Jeong Yeon-shin moved his heavy legs, activating the Jeong Family Youth Technique to stabilize his body. Her wheezing breaths gradually grew closer.

The Golden-Wing Sect Master's body twitched.

"Don't come. Go away..."

Jeong Yeon-shin did not answer.

The instant he stopped beside her, the dust drifting around his feet scattered sharply to either side.

At the same time, the flow of natural qi gathering toward her nose was cut off.

A step that pierced through momentum. It was Phantom Wing Step.

The Golden-Wing Sect Master's eyes trembled. Her pupils remained gold, as though they had always been that way.

"With a movement technique... you disrupted my qi circulation...?"

"I knew I would complete it through the eighth step if I fought you."

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke. It had been immensely enjoyable to counter her counterforms in turn, but that had not helped improve his movement technique.

He was not too disappointed. There would be many touchstones. Once he left this place, he would become a storm across the entire martial world. He needed to anticipate challenges from peerless masters.

"I'm glad I was able to refine Bright Dawn. Wasn't that Protective Qi Technique quite impressive?"

"That isn't... Protective Qi Technique..."

Those were the words of the defeated. Jeong Yeon-shin said only what he wished.

"You gathered that much strength at Unhoe Peak. There cannot be much fighting strength left among Sichuan's Demonic Sect, can there? Yeoryeong and the Tyrant Sword Sect must have limits to the influence they can exert beyond their own territories."

"I don't know... every little thing..."

The Golden-Wing Sect Master lay facedown, moving her blood-split lips. Soon, she raised her head slightly, and her eyes met Jeong Yeon-shin's.

"How... did you do it...?"

At last.

The attention of Sichuan's Greatest Martial Artist, who had looked down upon the world, turned wholly toward Jeong Yeon-shin.

It was the mad gaze peculiar to peerless masters, lunatics who built their martial arts upon the principles of all creation they had glimpsed and understood.

"What?"

"That technique just now... It wasn't only Myriad Flowers Rain. An emission mnemonic formula, force qi, qi sword control, different paths in every fragment... No human upper dantian can handle that. Did Wudang give you the Two Principles Mind Art so you could hunt me...?"

The Wudang Sect's Two Principles Mind Art was a peerless martial art said to divide one's thoughts into several parts.

Jeong Yeon-shin had considered it once as well.

Could he not use Ultimate Thunder, which detonated all his inner power through Radiant River, and Dragon Fan Treading Flowers at the same time?

Woooong.

While strengthening the major circulation of the Jeong Family Youth Technique to stabilize his body, he briefly shook his head.

"I tried making the act of overlaying the principles of qi sword control onto the Protective Qi Technique into a martial art of its own. It wasn't hard to envision the flow."

"...That's wordplay."

"You said that a peerless master's life-saving ultimate move is releasing all the martial arts they have honed throughout their life at once. Your Transcendent Martial Art, which broke away from its framework, broadened my understanding."

He had united two unique martial arts.

Jeong Yeon-shin ran his thumb across Lingering Thunder's hilt.

'I've grasped the thread. I can go further.'

The gold faded from the Golden-Wing Sect Master's eyes.

"It's different. The Transcendent Martial Art isn't a technique. It's a mental image. Even if you use your upper dantian as naturally as breathing, you can't do that..."

"Is breathing difficult?"

"..."

Jeong Yeon-shin refined his martial insight in the now-silent space. The Golden-Wing Sect Master was Sichuan's Greatest Martial Artist, acknowledged by the world.

Even this seemingly casual exchange carried insight and realization.

She stood at a height where she could make even what he already knew feel newly real. Her view on the Transcendent Martial Art was worth remembering as well.

'Not a technique, but a mental image...'

Jeong Yeon-shin repeated inwardly and adjusted his grip on the sword.

"You said earlier that you were going out into the world. I heard you don't move unless spiritual beasts are involved. Where did you intend to go?"

"...The southernmost end of this land."

"The Tyrant Hero from the main fortress has gone to catch the Hainan serpent dragon."

Jeong Yeon-shin spoke, remembering his maternal grandfather's face. His grandfather had mentioned it in passing while they spoke about his time as Purple Uniform in the martial world.

Did she know the former Divine Sword Squad Leader well? The Golden-Wing Sect Master changed her answer as easily as turning over her hand.

"Then west."

"Why?"

"My home is there. The mountains are beautiful."

She spoke, and Jeong Yeon-shin slowly nodded.

"See them after you die."

No answer came back. It had been over the moment Phantom Wing Step cut off her qi circulation. She had endured Bright Dawn with her entire body and could not treat her severe internal injuries in time.

The Golden-Wing Sect Master's complexion turned pale. Death approached rapidly.

Jeong Yeon-shin asked, "Why were you so obsessed with the flood dragon that you harmed innocent people and the people's livelihoods?"

"Because it is my heavenly mandate."

Just after she spoke of a will bestowed by heaven, a golden radiance suddenly rose.

Hwaak!

It spread to Jeong Yeon-shin's feet. It came from the Golden-Wing Sect Master's body.

For an instant, the image of a massive bird flickered above her body and vanished.

"People cling to their names... and want the attention of later generations..."

The Golden-Wing Sect Master spoke. A dry playfulness, occasionally seen when she drank, filled her eyes.

"But some beings wish to return to the heavens without leaving even a trace behind. Because they do not wish to be defiled by your hands."

A scene close to a miracle unfolded.

Her body turned golden. The way it rapidly faded was deeply mysterious.

Fluctuations of inner power brushed helplessly against Jeong Yeon-shin's trouser legs like a gentle breeze.

Could she truly have been something supernatural rather than human? Spiritual beasts were said to rarely leave traces of themselves on earth because human greed extended even to their corpses.

"I'm not dying because I lost. I am leaving the Sahā World and ascending..."

Boom!

A colorless ripple abruptly formed in the air and struck downward.

"...!"

A translucent wind pressed down on the Golden-Wing Sect Master and scattered. Her body immediately became distinct again, while the golden radiance disappeared without a trace.

"I have already thwarted your sorcery arts once, yet you're still trying such nonsense."

Jeong Yeon-shin flicked his hand once and adjusted his grip on the sword. Since arriving in Sichuan, he had encountered quite a few sorcery martial arts.

If the casting was not fast enough for use in battle, he could seal it with Force Projection.

It was time to end this journey through the martial world.

"Die already."

Lingering Thunder, the divine sword, became a chilling streak of light.

The sword strike descending from above severed the Golden-Wing Sect Master's neck with a dull thud. It was a weakened blow, but more than enough to take her head.

Thud.

Her face, filled with shock, rolled across the ground.

At the same time, the space overhead began to shatter. As the Transcendent Martial Art's domain broke, the night sky was revealed in full.

Jeong Yeon-shin immediately closed his eyes. He had dispersed the Force Projection power built up in his body with the Jeong Family Youth Technique, so he needed to circulate the Light Wheel and build qi storage, if only briefly.

Outside was a battlefield. With the Transcendent Martial Art's disappearance, the flood dragon's spirituality that had dwelled in his heart was fading as well.

'Remember the dharma power at its completed stage.'

As he imprinted the sensation of the Light Wheel in his mind, Jeong Yeon-shin worried about the senior Squad Leaders.

Many of those gathered outside were elites from major factions.

Each was stronger than ordinary wandering martial artists, and there were hundreds of them. It was a force that demanded everyone be prepared to die. How many more grueling fights awaited him?

'I haven't even treated the severe internal injuries.'

The consequences of killing Sichuan's Greatest Martial Artist were immense. Both his internal and external injuries were severe.

His acupoints had been severed and ruptured, while his wounds reached the bone. The Jeong Family Youth Technique he had briefly activated was only a temporary measure.

The Shaolin Myeongjeong Pill was gone. The secret elixir of the Heavenly Pillar Gate, which he had entrusted to Languid Flame Dragon, had been used for Marrow Cleansing and Bone Reforging.

There had also been miraculous medicine issued to Squad Leaders of the main fortress, but it had long since vanished without a trace under the Golden-Wing Sect Master's Claw Arts.

Saaah.

The night sky gradually widened.

Jeong Yeon-shin stood still and assessed his martial arts. The Thunderclap Flash-Ridge Sword Art and Sihwa Boundless Hand would not do. He needed something with little recoil into the body and low inner-power consumption.

'I'll use one-handed barehanded fighting, with sword arts as support.'

It was right after he recalled a fighting style inspired by the First Fist of the Eon Family.

Slowly.

The hemispherical space fully receded.

A vast night sky unfolded. The grassy scent unique to a mountain late at night hung in the air, thick with the smell of blood.

Beneath the densely glittering stars.

There was a field of corpses.

Broken weapons were embedded throughout the ground. Wide craters dotted the area, as though powerful wide-range ultimate techniques infused with profound inner energy had struck it again and again. A foul smell spread from the pooled blood.

It was a quiet night.

More than a dozen shadows stretched long between the countless scattered corpses. Each had turned their body or risen to their feet.

Faint starlight poured down over their pitch-black long robes.

"..."

Jeong Yeon-shin silently met their eyes, the Golden-Wing Sect Master's body split in two at his feet.

Footnotes:

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