WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time ◈
Episode 403: Realm Beyond Compare (3)
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Jeong Yeon-shin’s hair streamed behind him.
He was facing a combined attack from peerless masters. They had no reason to wait for him to complete his ultimate technique.
Saaah-
It came from overhead.
The Formless Sword, a faint elongated shape that had been taking form, scattered into pieces. It had begun to whirl in the shape of a blade, only to break apart into fine gray-white fragments of inner energy.
Clear sunlight shattered in every direction.
The milky force qi wrapped around Jeong Yeon-shin’s limbs turned to mist and vanished in a rush.
The Imperial Sword Art technique Namgung Mu-jin had employed had come undone.
A strange light entered Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes.
Their swords were still locked together.
A crushing weight traveled from the hand gripping Lingering Thunder to his elbow. The Formless Sword was a peerless technique in its own right. Namgung Mu-jin should have suffered a tremendous backlash when it was broken apart, yet he had not yielded an inch.
It was the strength of his foundational cultivation. Though he had thrown himself into the Martial Dragon Society, orthodox martial arts still supported the acupoints and Eight Extraordinary Meridians throughout his body.
‘Inner power beyond any of the Eight Family Heads I’ve seen, and swordsmanship at the peerless realm...’
Jeong Yeon-shin circulated the Radiant River mnemonic formula through the Yongquan acupoint in his sole.
The ground tore open beneath him. In that brief instant, a large spiral pattern was carved into the earth under his foot. It was a powerful propulsion force wave.
[You bastard...!]
Namgung Mu-jin’s face froze in astonishment before white light flashed in his eyes.
Jeong Yeon-shin’s right leg snapped up like a whip and slammed into his abdomen. It felt solid. The strike had sunk in deeply.
Crackle!
Colorless lightning scattered. Namgung Mu-jin’s inner energy barrier reacted violently. The Namgung Family’s Heavenly Thunder Protective Armor was why his body remained intact.
Still, the Force Projection from Jeong Yeon-shin’s Leg Arts had landed cleanly. It was clear from the way Namgung Mu-jin’s mouth fell slightly open.
Jeong Yeon-shin frowned inwardly. He had meant to burst the man’s abdomen with that blow, but a peerless master’s life was stubborn, as expected.
Like the Salamander of the Ten Perfect Sect, who had made a habit of playing dead.
Then it happened.
A bizarre sensation rose along his back. It felt as though dozens of needles were plunging into him at once. An arrow that had already drawn close was releasing invisible force-projection power.
The Dark Night Hall’s Phoenix-Chasing Radiance Bow Art.
The pressure was immense. The surrounding landscape blurred.
Jeong Yeon-shin poured strength into the toe embedded in Namgung Mu-jin’s abdomen. He unleashed the principle of Force Projection through his entire body, exploding Light Wheel qi through the Taichong acupoint below his big toe.
Clang!
Jeong Yeon-shin’s somersault was brilliant. His purple robes fluttered as he soared upward, driving his opponent back.
The instant Namgung Mu-jin, reduced to a wall to step on, stepped back one pace, an arrow struck the ground at his feet with a boom and shook the earth.
The ground split with a crack.
Cracks raced in every direction like a spiderweb. Pale dust rose amid the harsh roar. It was the aftermath of the Dark Night Hall Master’s arrow.
At one edge of the devastation.
Step.
Jeong Yeon-shin landed gracefully, sword in hand. Beneath his purple hem, the white blade angled toward the ground.
Lingering Thunder’s edge scattered soft sunlight through the silence.
“...”
Silence followed. Any martial artist would have rubbed their eyes at what had just occurred.
Seom-ye, the Leader of Demon Wings.
One of the Lords of the Thirteen Heavens and Namgung First Sword had each struck with lethal ultimate moves, yet he had received the combined attack of two peerless masters alone.
He had calculated the gap between the Imperial Sword Art, renowned as a divine ultimate art, and the Phoenix-Chasing Radiance Bow Art with exquisite precision.
His moves were direct yet profound, and his aura sense reacted quickly enough to seize an instant.
“...Should we move closer? Did we fall back too far?”
Yeon So-ha craned his neck forward and whispered to the Divine Sword Squad Leader.
“Wouldn’t it be better to stay a little closer to Squad Leader Jeong?”
“Squad Leader Jeong...?”
“With skill like that, I think it would be safer to stay reasonably close. If we were caught off guard, we’d only become a burden. Hero Yong and I both have to avoid the arrows of that Dark Night Hall monster anyway. At least for now.”
“Hero Yong? You mean me?”
“They say clinging to an old rope keeps success and distinction far away. Apparently, it’s a famous proverb in the distant eastern lands.”
“Who told you that?”
“An elven fortune-teller I met in Liaodong. He wore the broad-brimmed black hat of an easterner, so it was obvious at a glance that he was from the east.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met a single fortune-teller worth their reputation...”
“I think I might have. That gives me chills.”
Their casual exchange had struck at the heart of the matter. There was a range in which the divine sword Lingering Thunder could deflect a peerless master’s strike in time.
At that moment, Yong Hui-myeong and Yeon So-ha walked into Jeong Yeon-shin’s sword domain. They stopped twenty paces away, behind Jeong Yeon-shin.
‘The Squad Leader measured it perfectly.’
Jeong Yeon-shin recalled the origin of Ten Miles of Deep Light, his lightness skill. The tale of Cheong Myeong’s younger brother, who had died to Ten Miles One Kill, and Yong Hui-myeong’s martial insight had provided great inspiration.
As the Divine Sword Squad Leader had contributed to the creation of that martial art, he could judge Jeong Yeon-shin’s sword domain. He must have clearly seen their exchange just now as well.
“Twenty paces. I see.”
Sword Howling Emperor Namgung Mu-jin murmured. A chill, sword-like gleam flashed in his eyes as he glanced at Yong Hui-myeong and Yeon So-ha.
“Thirty paces, perhaps. To think you can extend your sword so broadly while facing both the Dark Night Hall Master and me alone. You truly are a master rarely seen under heaven.”
He lightly brushed his abdomen with his left hand. The dented portion of his clothes, where Jeong Yeon-shin’s Leg Arts had struck, smoothed out once more.
“Still, no swordsman can speak of the Imperial Sword Art in my presence. And you dare speak of legitimacy? Are you in your right mind?”
His voice carried anger, but it also held a trace of friendliness.
After exchanging blows, he openly acknowledged the stature of a life-or-death enemy. Was that the nature of the Martial Dragon Society? It suited a man so obsessed with martial arts that he had even turned his back on his family.
In fact, he was counted among the few swordsmen who might one day challenge the Heavenly Nemesis Sect Master.
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke.
“If you hadn’t focused the Imperial Sword Art’s force on my limbs, that Formless Sword would have been completed. I wouldn’t have been able to break it.”
“You sound like the head of my family’s Council of Elders. You’ve only faced my nephew’s half-baked sword.”
Namgung Mu-jin continued, an arc forming along his beard.
“The Imperial Sword Art has become far too familiar to the martial world. Even Se-jin was defeated by you when you were still an inexperienced boy, wasn’t he? The martial art you first revealed to the world, on the other hand... Yes, that palm art called Radiant River struck your opponents’ blind spots with lethal precision.”
“You’re in no position to talk after having your technique broken. You have lost the martial way.”
Jeong Yeon-shin said.
“Congratulations on your achievement.”
He recalled the day he had learned to imbue his sword with qi.
White Qilin Namgung Hwa-shin, his opponent in the Desolate Exam, had stood guard for him. Unlike the people of Jeong Family Manor, who found authority in third-rate martial arts, Namgung Hwa-shin had congratulated him.
That day, Jeong Yeon-shin had received congratulations on his progress in martial arts for the first time in his life.
It had been the first time Jeong Yeon-shin had felt the spirit of chivalry that he could never find in the narrow martial world of Jeong Family Manor. It had continued afterward.
Clear Qilin Namgung Se-jin had bowed to Jeong Yeon-shin to apologize for his younger sister’s misdeeds, despite being the Young Family Head and nine years older than him.
Jeong Yeon-shin slowly parted his lips.
“How many people from the main fortress have you cut down?”
“Not even five, I think. Our society has not been especially hostile to Desolate Fortress.”
Namgung Mu-jin answered readily. Invisible waves of inner power emanated from the middle-aged swordsman as he gave a deliberately playful shrug.
He seemed to be settling the internal injury inflicted by Radiant River.
The Namgung Family’s Heavenly Thunder Imperial Divine Art was a divine ultimate art with a long history. It was famed for greatly enhancing mysterious yang qi and keeping qi deviation at bay.
Jeong Yeon-shin did not care.
“Why did you let the Lord of Yeoryeong’s ploy draw you in now?”
“For the greater cause.”
Namgung First Sword of the Martial Dragon Society truly seemed to acknowledge the Leader of Demon Wings. His low voice carried great weight. Some of it sounded sincere.
“The greater cause?”
“Even as the famine grew severe, your side did nothing but tighten its grip on the martial world. You banned indiscriminate exploitation and forced those who carried swords to choose. Pass the military examination, take the Desolate Exam, or work the fields and feed yourselves... You told them to submit to the nation’s order.”
“...And what is wrong with that?”
Jeong Yeon-shin’s head tilted slightly.
“There are those who may one day reach Martial Extreme and shed their human frame. Such people are drawn by their innate heavenly mandate and will grasp weapons one way or another. They alone possess the qualities to raise the stature of humanity. People like you, Laughing Heaven Unrivaled of the Ming Cult, and farther ahead, the Heavenly Nemesis Sect Master or the Northern War God.”
“...”
“But why should people like you be born only in martial sects? Should such martial talents be made to work the fields when they scarcely have enough time to grow stronger?”
Whether it was sincerity or a ploy, Jeong Yeon-shin could not tell.
Blue robes, the symbol of the Namgung Family, billowed in the wind. Was this the unique madness of a peerless master from the Thirteen Heavens? Bloodshot veins spread through Namgung Mu-jin’s eyes.
“We need transcendent beings who are not bound by something as trivial as rainwater and soil. That age is coming. Common people who, driven by one wretched famine, finally devour their own children. A woman who steals silver from the embrace of a lover who hid their status, then is cut down by the lover’s guards as she flees... How futile and pitiful is all this? How low are we meant to sink?”
The story of the lover who hid their status seemed to be Namgung Mu-jin’s own.
That was the feeling Jeong Yeon-shin got. The foremost martial noble of Southern Zhili, a man close to a warlord, could not possibly be joined with an ordinary commoner.
Crack!
A sound like dry earth splitting rang out. Namgung Mu-jin’s voice gradually grew louder.
“We martial artists have surpassed the limits of flesh through martial arts. Should we not prove human dignity through martial arts? Prove that we are not insignificant creatures at the mercy of a bad harvest! Prove that we have the heavens above, not only the hell of hungry ghosts below! Through the emergence of a Martial God who will carve humanity’s boundless potential into all creation...!”
“...”
Jeong Yeon-shin suddenly thought of the Blood Flame Sect members who drank blood like water. The Martial Dragon Society was no different.
The Demonic Sect.
They were completely mad. If madness were a martial art, this would be its ultimate secret. The thoughts of a major faction of the Thirteen Heavens were this alien.
“Martial arts are also human wisdom! What is wrong with putting our heads together with those who share our purpose and pursuing the ultimate truth? I, I am heartbroken! How many martial talents have withered without ever blooming because they had to tiptoe around you bastards...!”
“You seem to have lost chivalry as well.”
Jeong Yeon-shin’s words were the turning point. Namgung Mu-jin’s face twisted in rage, and a heartbeat-like resonance spread from his treasured sword.
Thump-
[Sword Night, Moon-Painting Light.]
The overflowing spirituality unique to a peerless master thundered through Six Directions Voice Transmission. Namgung Mu-jin’s eyes had already turned incandescent white.
The symbol of a peerless master.
A method of achieving transcendent feats through martial arts.
‘Transcendent Martial Art.’
A massive shadow covered Jeong Yeon-shin. A colorless sword thirty meters long took shape above his head. It formed at a speed incomparable to when the Formless Sword had been created.
Its intent was clear.
Namgung Mu-jin had no intention of saving any of his strength to face the Divine Sword Squad Leader.
At the same time.
A diagonal line made of light flickered in the air, connecting Jeong Yeon-shin to some distant point in a single thread.
It was as if moonlight had unspooled like a skein of thread. Soft white light glimmered along the line, whose end could not even be guessed.
[Shooting the Moon in One Path.]
Perhaps it was because the faded elf had cultivated for such long years. Spirituality so abundant that it seemed impossible to contain swept across the ground like an echo. It was the Dark Night Hall Master’s Transcendent Martial Art.
“...”
The shadow of a blade lay over the ground like the night sky.
A youth with a line of light trailing behind him, and a middle-aged man commanding a giant sword overhead.
Whoooong-
A gale raged as though it were thrashing within a cave. The roar of the wind was tremendous.
Holding Lingering Thunder low, Jeong Yeon-shin slowly spoke. Namgung Mu-jin’s twisted arguments ran through his mind once more, and fierce resolve began to gather around his lips.
“Have you ever seen an eclipse?”
His mutter carried the roar of a lion. The voice of his maternal grandfather, once burned into his mind, rippled through his heart.
“Look at the Divine Sword Squad Leader.”
Footnotes:
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