WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 108: The Grand Journey Through Hellish Chaos (7)
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Moyong Jaehwa accepted the bow with a dazed expression.
“B-but, Brother, how could I possibly...?”
“Don’t you know how to use a bow?”
“No, it’s not that...”
I took hold of his fingers. Thick calluses covered his index finger, middle finger, and thumb, hardened and split open so many times that it was impossible to tell how often they had healed. They were calluses that could never form on a swordsman’s hand.
“What’s the problem?”
“...”
Moyong Jaehwa looked at the injured Baek Wongak, then at the Moyong Clan martial artists watching him.
“Did you promise not to use any other pursuits when you left the clan?”
The Moyong Clan had been ashamed that their eldest son, Moyong Jaehwa, had immersed himself in pursuits other than the sword.
“...How did you know that?”
“What matters more, that promise or those people’s lives?”
“Of course...”
“Then that settles it.”
That promise had delayed the emergence of the Shattering Bow, the One Bow Against a Thousand, for far too long.
“...”
I placed a quiver in Moyong Jaehwa’s eager arms.
“You can’t save them with a sword. You can save them with a bow. What is there to hesitate over?”
I had no need for the Shattering Bow who would emerge after the Moyong Clan’s fall.
I had no need for the Shattering Bow who, after the Orthodox-Demonic War turned in the Demonic Cult’s favor, stood alone against their massive army.
“Forget whatever the Wind-Splitting Sword said. When you’re protecting people precious to you, what does it matter whether you use a sword or a bow? Use what you’re best at.”
“...!”
Moyong Jaehwa’s gaze wavered violently.
“Do you still have something to think over?”
“It’s not that. I’ve never learned the way of the bow. I’ve only used a bow when I was playing by myself...”
I gave a short laugh.
“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you what I learned.”
The Shattering Bow, who had stood alone against ten thousand members of the Hellish Hungry Ghost Unit in Guizhou, would now stop the Twelve Peak Alliance.
#
Moyong Jaehwa felt utterly bewildered.
How did Jin Sowoon know he enjoyed archery? And what did he mean by telling him to use it against their enemies?
He had only used a bow to clear his mind. Whenever he shot arrows, he could forget his worries about the clan and himself.
Yet now he was being told to hold back enemies with it. He had no idea where to begin.
“Gyagyagyagak!”
Jin Sowoon grabbed him and launched him into the air. The ground quickly fell away beneath him, and he landed atop the tree where the Ghost Bow Sect’s young master had been hiding.
“Among the people I know, there was someone who tried to stop ten thousand enemies alone.”
Jin Sowoon drew an arrow.
“He stepped forward without fear to buy time for millions of people to evacuate.”
Far in the distance, members of the Twelve Peak Alliance came racing toward them after seeing the signal flare launched by the Ghost Bow Sect.
“Everyone thought it was impossible. Something like that only happened in legends.”
Moyong Jaehwa became so absorbed in the story that he forgot their desperate situation and swallowed hard.
“W-what happened?”
“He stopped them.”
“Gasp!”
“People call the sword the King of All Weapons, don’t they? After seeing that sight with my own eyes, I came to realize something. The sword may be the King of All Weapons, but the most terrifying weapon in the world is the bow.”
The Twelve Peak Alliance rushed down the broad road without slowing.
They looked ready to charge in at any moment, and Moyong Jaehwa’s palms began to sweat.
“B-Brother.”
Jin Sowoon calmly drew the bowstring.
“Watch carefully. This is the way of the bow he left behind.”
Ping.
The arrow flew toward the Twelve Peak Alliance in a clean arc.
One arrow was not enough to stop nearly five hundred people.
“Huh?”
Moyong Jaehwa’s eyes flew open.
The arrow Jin Sowoon had fired began splitting into dozens.
Neigh!
The Twelve Peak Alliance martial artists and their horses, who had been charging forward in haste, froze in alarm.
“How can you use the Ghost Bow Sect’s Illusory Arrow...?”
“It isn’t theirs.”
“What?”
“What I learned was how to place my own realization within an arrow. Just now, I merely placed the Taeul Sect’s sword art inside an arrow.”
Jin Sowoon then began reciting the key principles of the way of the bow he had just displayed.
“Can you really teach this to me?”
Moyong Jaehwa had studied martial arts more deeply than anyone since childhood. He knew how advanced this way of the bow was and how many years it must have taken to perfect.
“I only kept it safe. I’m giving it to the person he wanted to receive it most.”
“You mean that person is me?”
“He believed his hesitation had cost him his family, and he hoped it could become an answer for someone who faced the same dilemma. I don’t qualify. You are the rightful heir.”
“...What is it called?”
“It has no name. He wanted the person who inherited it to name it.”
“...Heaven-Breaking... I’ll call it the Heaven-Breaking Divine Bow.”
A strange smile appeared on Jin Sowoon’s face.
“That’s an arrogant name.”
“No. It’s an incredible martial art worthy of a name like that.”
“Then you have nothing left to hesitate over, right?”
“Yes. Could you buy me a quarter hour? Only a quarter hour.”
There was no way Moyong Jaehwa could absorb every essential principle of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Bow in such a short time.
He took only its most important elements and combined them with the Heaven-and-Earth Shattering Flash Sword.
For some reason, the principles that had seemed so complicated when he had only heard them began giving him the clearest and most satisfying answers once they were woven together with the Heaven-and-Earth Shattering Flash Sword.
It felt as though two halves that had long been separated had finally met.
The Twelve Peak Alliance members, startled by Jin Sowoon’s Illusory Arrow, began peeking out again one by one.
Jin Sowoon fired another arrow, and the people waiting below joined in.
The real arrows concealed among the Illusory Arrow pierced the Twelve Peak Alliance martial artists, forcing them to duck back into cover.
After repeating that several times, hiding from the arrows and peeking out again, the people within began moving busily. Before long, they started protecting their front line with shields.
Ping.
Shushushushuk.
The arrows hidden within Jin Sowoon’s Illusory Arrow rained down on the Twelve Peak Alliance, but every one of them was blocked by shields.
Worse, for every two arrows, they threw a flying sword to knock one of Jin Sowoon’s arrows from the air.
His imperfect Illusory Arrow had been countered.
The distance had already shrunk to nearly eighty zhang.
“Are you still not ready?”
“Ah! S-sorry. The Heaven-and-Earth Shattering Flash Sword fit so perfectly that I tried working in the Flashing Light Cloud-Parting Sword as well...”
“You brat! Focus. Unit Leader Baek’s life is in your hands.”
“Yes!”
Moyong Jaehwa answered and nocked an arrow.
Even while standing atop a tree, he did not sway in the slightest.
He closed his eyes for a moment. The instant he opened them again...
Thrum.
An arrow flew forth with a deep resonance unlike Jin Sowoon’s.
Not in an arc, but in a straight line.
Not dozens of arrows, but one.
The Twelve Peak Alliance members smirked at the incoming arrow, casually pushing their shields aside and raising their swords to knock it away.
Boom!
The arrow pierced through the right shoulder of the martial artist who tried to strike it aside and drove him back two zhang.
Horse-Piercing Arrow.
An arrow powerful enough to pierce through a horse and the armored martial artist riding it.
The Twelve Peak Alliance martial artists, horrified by its power, stumbled over each other as they retreated behind the rocks.
Soon, not a single person remained in Moyong Jaehwa’s sight, and the path before them lay wide open.
“You saved Unit Leader Baek.”
The people who had charged forward ready to slaughter Moyong Jaehwa’s companions did not even dare breathe.
That sudden silence felt overwhelmingly thrilling to Moyong Jaehwa.
###
The current Martial Arts Academy regular examination was chaos beyond measure.
Nothing could be predicted.
In the southeastern region, bandits and Japanese raiders had joined forces, leaving countless candidates unable to clear Gate I. In the northwestern region, people believed to be heretical martial artists had clashed with candidates, resulting in a large number of unexpected eliminations.
In the northeastern region, the Mantong Office was investigating nearly five hundred deaths and a mysterious individual believed to be responsible.
The results were as hard to predict as before, with many unexpected candidates being eliminated while others rose to prominence.
Daoist Myeonghyeon, who had been watching the Twelve Peak Alliance closely, summoned the Orthodox Society members of the Elders’ Council when they stopped at Mount Song and made no further moves.
“We should never have expected anything from those fools. Wasn’t their original purpose to recruit the Taeul Sect?”
“Still, the two sides have turned against each other. Isn’t that a good result?”
“That’s not the problem. I heard some members of the Twelve Peak Alliance had their Academy Admission Tokens stolen.”
The Orthodox Society had sixteen members. They made up more than half of the Elders’ Council’s thirty members. Each of them could shake the martial world with a single gesture, and perhaps because they understood the weight such a gathering ought to carry, they never stopped blaming one another.
“Let us settle down for a moment. Can the Orthodox Society achieve its great undertaking if we are not united?”
Daoist Myeonghyeon, the Orthodox Society’s current Society Leader, spoke sternly, but more than a few people clicked their tongues at his words.
His campaign promise to place the Mantong Office under the Orthodox Society had been postponed again and again, reviving the questions surrounding his qualifications.
“Unity, my foot. The Orthodox Society’s name is about to be dragged through the mud. What will you do if one of our people fails to enter the Martial Arts Academy as the top student?”
“Then there is nothing we can do.”
“Ha... Is that supposed to be an answer?”
Daoist Myeonghyeon had also been unable to hide his frustration after his plan to pressure Jegal Somyeong into placing his disciple in the Mantong Office fell apart. Still, Jin Sowoon, who had ruined that plan in the first place, was continuing to run wild, and Myeonghyeon believed a new opportunity had come.
“Society Leader. Are you saying this without realizing that the Taeul Sect entering the Martial Arts Academy could greatly affect the Martial Alliance’s order in the future?”
Despite the grave question, Daoist Myeonghyeon stroked his beard leisurely.
“Hoho, why say something so alarming? The Martial Arts Academy was established to select and cultivate talented people through fair methods so that they may serve the peace of the martial world. What could be wrong with them entering after improving their abilities?”
“Ahem. Hm.”
Everyone knew that. Yet the academy’s founding purpose and the way the world truly worked were two different matters.
“I believe Elder Cheon is concerned that Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect may enter as the top student.”
“That is exactly what I wanted to say.”
The Martial Arts Academy assigned responsibilities and privileges strictly according to grades.
Whoever entered as the top student affected the character of that entire class. The academy students’ freedom mattered, but it was even more important to remove any potential source of disorder in advance for the Martial Alliance’s sake.
“It seemed those Twelve Peak Alliance fools might finally do something useful, but as expected, they failed. In the end, we will have to act.”
“What are you suggesting, Society Leader? Do you not know what will happen if we interfere in the Martial Arts Academy regular examination privately?”
“Of course we cannot interfere privately. But do you wish to see a Taeul Sect disciple enter the academy as the top student, Elder Gang?”
“...Ahem.”
“Do you know this? Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect, who is now expected to take first place, is the person the Grand Strategist once gave an Academy Admission Token to.”
“What? Why would such a person take the Martial Arts Academy regular examination?”
“Why he is taking the regular examination and where that Academy Admission Token went are not important. What matters is that Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect is someone Jegal Somyeong has their eye on.”
“...”
“What do you think will happen if Jin Sowoon of the Taeul Sect enters the Mantong Office, or even the Profound Mystery Pavilion?”
“Hoho.”
“It would be the first time since Grand Strategist Jegal Somyeong took control of the Mantong Office that someone from the Martial Arts Academy entered its ranks. And that person would be a Taeul Sect disciple.”
The Mantong Office was the institution that moved the Martial Alliance.
To control the Mantong Office was to move the Martial Alliance freely. If someone entered it as an academy graduate, what might such a young person with immense authority do? They could not even imagine it.
“Until recently, the Taeul Sect was considered a sect that should be removed from the One Hundred Eight Peaks. If a disciple from such a disregarded sect enters the Mantong Office and gains power, do you truly believe peace within the Martial Alliance will continue?
“They will use words like reform and progress to throw the Martial Alliance’s order into chaos.”
The elderly council members closed their eyes and sighed, as though the thought alone terrified them.
Once everyone’s attention had turned to Jin Sowoon and the Taeul Sect, no one questioned Daoist Myeonghyeon about what had happened with the Mantong Office.
They were more afraid of someone they considered insignificant sharing authority with them than they were concerned with bringing the Mantong Office under the Elders’ Council’s control.
“That is true. When an unskilled person swings a sword, innocent people bleed.”
Even the elders who had once looked down on Daoist Myeonghyeon began nodding one by one.
It was remarkably easy.
Daoist Myeonghyeon found himself grateful to Jin Sowoon, the person who had once made him gnash his teeth.
“We wish to hear the Society Leader’s wise counsel.”
“We wish to hear the Society Leader’s wise counsel.”
Every voice was filled with respect and impatience.
After allowing the silence to soothe their impatience for a moment, Daoist Myeonghyeon moistened his lips and began to speak.
Footnotes:
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