WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Order
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◈ The Heaven-Slaying Sword ◈
Chapter 79: Chapter Nine - Mission, Espionage (10)
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Mok Ri-won let out a long breath and steadied his Qi Waves.
If he had not made the split-second decision to cover himself in a qi barrier the moment the explosion erupted, he would already have been charred meat.
Lowering his head, Mok Ri-won checked himself over.
His upper garments had burned away without a trace. His skin was slightly reddened, as though he had not fully dispelled the heat.
The throbbing pain was likely from the burns.
‘I can move.’
He could still swing his sword.
Something like this would not bring him down.
Mok Ri-won raised his head.
Oh Gang-ak was still chuckling, and Mok Ri-won exhaled sharply.
“Will you continue?”
Oh Gang-ak was covered in sword wounds, blood streaming down his body.
Judging by the way he staggered, he looked incapable of using any more martial arts or techniques.
Oh Gang-ak clicked his tongue at Mok Ri-won’s words.
“As if.”
Once more, Oh Gang-ak wrapped his body in calamity flames.
Every bleeding wound was seared shut, stopping the flow of blood.
“Do you think I’d give up over this? Huh? Of course not. Why would I be a Demonic practitioner if I gave up over a few scratches on my skin?”
Mok Ri-won’s attacks had been fierce, but not decisive.
For some reason, he had not struck a single vital point. His attacks had also landed in predictable places, making it possible to avoid fatal injuries simply by coating his skin in demonic qi.
Now that the bleeding had stopped, Oh Gang-ak could fight again.
After glaring at Mok Ri-won for a moment, Oh Gang-ak continued.
“…Right. You said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“I’ll let you live. That’s the greatest mercy I can offer.”
The Young Cult Leader’s words circled through his mind.
They overlapped with Mok Ri-won’s words.
Arrogant. Disgusting.
In a moment when they should have been busy exchanging killing moves, looking down on an opponent like that was arrogance beyond measure.
“What is it with that damned Star that makes you so confident? Just because it’s yours, do you think the whole world belongs to you too?”
Oh Gang-ak felt something boil inside him.
What could he call this feeling?
He hated his opponent’s very existence.
More than hating the sight of him alive and breathing, he hated even the record that such a thing had ever existed.
If only that thing did not exist.
If only that Star did not exist, everything would have been his.
The thought would not leave him.
Oh Gang-ak would never admit it, but the name of that feeling was undoubtedly envy.
“If you didn’t have that Star, you’d be nothing.”
“…It’s a Star I never wanted. And I will not depend on it.”
“That’s what they all say. Do you know what people with Stars have in common? They arrogantly believe they can control them. In the end, they’re just fools who will be swept away by fate and cling to their Stars.”
The Crimson Flame Demonic Arts churned, taking on an even more vivid shade of blood-red.
The whites of Oh Gang-ak’s eyes turned blood-red as well.
“Use your Star. I’ll crush it. I’ll show you that Star is nothing.”
He was superior to a Star.
Oh Gang-ak was confident he could prove it.
“What could a brat who has only reached the Peak Realm possibly know?”
Whoosh!
The Crimson Flame Demonic Arts grew more violent.
They expanded beyond Oh Gang-ak’s body, taking the shape of a fiend behind him.
The ultimate art of the Crimson Flame Demonic Arts.
Flame-Clad Fiend.
Qi Arts, a technique that proved one had reached the transcendent peak realm, began to unfold.
When Oh Gang-ak raised his arm, the fiend raised its arm.
The ghost that embodied his envy and rage reached for Mok Ri-won.
Boom!
The outstretched hand swept through the air.
Feeling Killing Intent heat his entire body, Mok Ri-won thrust out his sword.
Then he stomped down.
‘Not twice!’
He would not be caught by Qi Arts twice simply because he did not understand them.
After his match with Golden Sword, he understood Qi Arts clearly. He would not fall for them again just because they were Qi Arts.
Sssaaah.
Ink-dark Qi Waves rose from Mok Ri-won’s sword.
Once again, the first form of the Ten-Thousand Linking Principle Sword unfolded.
Soul-Seizing Swiftness.
A sword that obscured all instinct and emotion, leaving only meticulously calculated techniques to strike without pause.
A sword that tormented its wielder’s soul, tearing it out and leaving behind only the sword.
It began driving away the fiend’s outstretched hand head-on.
Crash!
Qi Waves battered Qi Waves while the sword struck away the hand, and a storm erupted in an instant.
Ink-dark wind scattered the flames, and the flames gathered again to form a hand.
Mok Ri-won stepped forward through it.
‘I can’t win like this.’
No matter how much damage he dealt to the Qi Arts, he could not defeat a Demonic practitioner.
At most, he could only whittle down Oh Gang-ak’s inner power.
And his own inner power would be exhausted faster than he could drain Oh Gang-ak’s.
‘I’ll close in.’
Tap!
Mok Ri-won took another step forward.
It was a mysterious step.
He was clearly stepping forward, yet every movement became a preparatory motion that supported his sword technique, blurring his form.
He accelerated again and again, sending the sword beyond his control.
The rotational force from each step joined that process.
This was footwork Mok Ri-won had created solely for Soul-Seizing Swiftness.
Ghost-Shadow Swift Steps.
Ssssss.
Mok Ri-won’s form blurred, creating the illusion that his body had split into several.
Oh Gang-ak laughed. “Kehah!”
“You think hopping around like that will accomplish anything?”
Extending the other hand that had been idle until then was itself a technique.
He was using the Crimson Flame Demonic Arts through the fiend’s body.
“I told you to use your Star!”
Oh Gang-ak clenched his fist, and the fiend clenched its fist.
As he thickened his Qi Waves, the fiend’s fist became clearer.
Bubble-like shapes boiled over it, seeming ready to burst at any moment.
Oh Gang-ak thrust out his fist.
Exploding Fist.
True to its name, explosions began erupting all along the fist’s path.
Mok Ri-won’s breath caught.
That was dangerous.
At the same time, his body dropped low.
Without slowing down in the slightest, he shot forward as though he had truly become a shadow.
Even then, his sword accelerated.
The sword, already beyond Mok Ri-won’s control, seemed determined not to lose the speed it had gained. It struck at the fist skimming over Mok Ri-won’s body and at the ground, scattering flashes of light without pause.
Five steps.
At that exact distance, the two men’s eyes met.
It was a human-scale distance, too close for the fiend’s bulk to interfere.
Oh Gang-ak ground his teeth.
Mok Ri-won narrowed his eyes.
Then the sword, accelerated beyond its limit, shot toward Oh Gang-ak’s arm.
“Don’t make me laugh!”
At that moment, an explosion erupted from Oh Gang-ak’s body with his shout.
Bang!
* * *
In that fleeting instant, Mok Ri-won sent Qi Waves beyond the reach of his sword.
He unleashed the inner power he had concentrated through Soul-Seizing Swiftness at Oh Gang-ak’s shoulder.
An ink-dark qi sword slowly pierced through the explosion, then lodged in his shoulder with a wet crack.
Drip, drip.
Blood pouring down was etched into Mok Ri-won’s vision.
Yet his heart was filled with despair as he watched it.
‘Too shallow.’
He had abandoned defense and launched that attack prepared to sever the arm, yet he had only pierced the shoulder joint.
Within that endlessly stretched moment, Mok Ri-won sensed his defeat.
The calamity flames drew closer.
There was nothing left to stop them.
‘Even after being so stubborn.’
Was he going to fail like this in the end?
A bitter smile crossed Mok Ri-won’s face.
His eyes slowly closed.
Then it happened.
Rumble!
An oppressive force that weighed down the space swept over Mok Ri-won and Oh Gang-ak.
Mok Ri-won’s eyes flew open.
Oh Gang-ak let out a hollow laugh.
“Get up.”
The calamity flames split apart with a roar.
Mok Ri-won lifted his head and saw the unfamiliar back of someone he knew.
“…Sword Dragon.”
“I said, get up.”
Deep blue Qi Waves enveloped the entire space.
Their density rivaled even Oh Gang-ak’s transcendent peak Qi Waves.
They were Namgung Jin-cheon’s Qi Waves. It was said that, in terms of inner energy alone, no one of his generation could match him.
Namgung Jin-cheon glanced back at Mok Ri-won.
For some reason, his jade-blue eyes were filled with anger.
“There will be no failure. Get up. We will capture that bastard somehow.”
As Namgung Jin-cheon turned back around, Oh Gang-ak began to cackle at the sight of his jade-blue eyes.
“Imperial Ruler Star!”
His shoulder felt stiff.
No, it felt crushed.
The Qi Waves were so suffocating that he could not imagine how much spiritual medicine Namgung Jin-cheon had stuffed into himself.
But that was all.
“You’re the same kind of worm!”
Oh Gang-ak’s Flame-Clad Fiend grew larger once more.
Again, it thrust out its fist.
Oh Gang-ak stepped forward with it.
His fist shot out powerfully, as though his shattered right shoulder joint did not matter at all.
Boom!
The air burst with a thunderous roar.
Watching it approach, Namgung Jin-cheon raised his sword.
“Who are you calling a worm?”
Kiiiing!
Blue Qi Waves wrapped around Namgung Jin-cheon’s sword.
Then the sword came down.
There were no complicated techniques.
Only overwhelming force.
It was a single sword strike he had trained with near obsession since the day of his match with Golden Sword.
Crack!
The Flame-Clad Fiend’s fist split in two.
“Ink Dragon!”
Mok Ri-won shot forward.
His inner power was nearly gone, and he was out of breath, but it did not matter.
‘I can still swing my sword.’
His body could still move.
He had enough inner energy left to coat his sword.
The attack he had launched before the explosion had damaged the Demonic practitioner’s shoulder so badly that it was completely unusable.
Then there was only one thing to target.
‘The uninjured shoulder.’
Mok Ri-won’s form scattered.
His sword began accelerating once again.
Thud, thud-thud, thud-thud-thud!
Striking the ground to build momentum, the sword gradually became a pale blur of light.
With Soul-Seizing Swiftness and Ghost-Shadow Swift Steps unfolding together, Mok Ri-won closed to directly in front of Oh Gang-ak in an instant.
Oh Gang-ak’s eyes widened.
‘Don’t make me laugh.’
This was not right.
He had wanted to defeat a Star, not be brought down by a combined attack like this.
He had wanted to crush a beast rampaging in Killing Intent, not be defeated by techniques.
This was not right.
Crack!
Oh Gang-ak thrust out his hand.
He withdrew the Flame-Clad Fiend and wrapped it around his uninjured arm.
This too was a technique of Qi Arts.
It was the essence of fusing with the Flame-Clad Fiend and embodying Qi Arts within his body.
The instant it shot forward.
Creak!
Mok Ri-won’s thrusting sword bored into Oh Gang-ak’s fist.
‘…Huh?’
The sight registered before he felt the pain.
The sword blade had bitten into the flame-wreathed fist and was slowly advancing.
From his knuckles to the back of his hand, past his forearm and elbow, all the way to his shoulder.
Screeech!
His arm was splitting vertically in two.
It was impossible.
Qi Arts could not be stopped by mere sword qi.
It contained intent within qi, the true meaning of the martial arts he had pursued for an entire lifetime.
It was the manifestation of will, not simple physical force. How could it be cut apart by a mere blade?
‘My whole life…’
The moment he thought of that, Oh Gang-ak realized something.
Did the lifelong ambition that had driven him, his dream of taking the Young Cult Leader’s seat and one day rising above all others, still remain?
‘…Does it?’
It did not.
From the day he met that bastard, from the moment that bastard ripped his face off, his will had become something else.
It had been tainted.
The Flame-Clad Fiend was no longer a fiend seeking the hegemonic path, but a loser filled with envy. Since that day, he had not grown stronger in the slightest.
He had already been at the transcendent peak realm on the day he lost the Young Cult Leader’s seat. Yet decades later, he was still at the transcendent peak realm.
Drip.
As blood scattered through the air, Oh Gang-ak realized.
‘I regressed.’
All the time he had spent consumed by envy, he had continued to regress.
Footnotes:
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