WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 172: The Black Flame Dragon Swallowing the Sea of Blood (2)
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Seong Moran, who was traveling with Cheol Sunjik, did not say a word the entire way.
The Jukhyeon Sect, which ranked second among the One Hundred Eight Peaks, and the Iron Sword Sect, a long-established power in Hefei, had always looked down on each other. Traveling together was bound to be awkward.
‘That isn't all.’
More than anything, what had happened during the regular examination made Seong Moran uncomfortable around Cheol Sunjik.
From her straightforward perspective, Cheol Sunjik was an unpleasant person to deal with. He was always calculating, and his outward appearance never seemed to match what lay beneath.
“Hohoho. It seems you dislike me, Miss Seong.”
As though he had seen through her, Cheol Sunjik did not seem bothered by Seong Moran's attitude.
“What?”
Seong Moran feigned ignorance, but Cheol Sunjik only wore an easygoing smile, as if even that amused him.
Annoying bastard.
“Or perhaps you don't trust me.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about...”
“You've been following behind me this entire time. Is it because you distrust me too much to show me your back?”
“...”
Only then did Seong Moran realize she had kept herself behind Cheol Sunjik and the Twelve Peak Alliance the entire time. Still, being caught did not fluster her.
“My last memory of you was particularly unpleasant.”
Cheol Sunjik clicked his tongue and laughed at her sharp answer.
“Isn't it an unwritten rule of the martial world to leave what happened during the regular examination there?”
“Forget the outcome, but remember the process. That's a martial artist's instinct.”
“That is true.”
His attitude made it clear that he did not care whether she trusted or suspected him. Seong Moran was the first to speak again.
“What exactly are you plotting this time?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did the Twelve Peak Alliance follow Young Master Jin?”
“Isn't it only natural for Academy students to take an interest in the Academy Representative's actions?”
Seong Moran's eyebrows rose at the shameless reply.
“So you skipped the Soul-Destroying Formation event because you intended to investigate by sending someone else?”
“...”
For the first time, Cheol Sunjik's expression stiffened.
“Did you think we wouldn't know? The Orthodox Society acted first, but then the White Path Society and the Twelve Peak Alliance planned to do the same thing, didn't you?”
“So you knew.”
Cheol Sunjik merely shrugged, as though it did not matter.
Seong Moran's cheek twitched.
“You people truly are shameless.”
“We had no choice. If only the Orthodox Society and the White Path Society learned about the Soul-Destroying Formation, the Twelve Peak Alliance would suffer considerable losses.”
Seong Moran voiced the fundamental question.
“Could you not simply follow Young Master Jin from the start? The Twelve Peak Alliance is still only one of the One Hundred Eight Peaks.”
Cheol Sunjik smiled as if speaking to a child.
“When an established system collapses, chaos follows. Young Master Jin is trying to destroy that system.”
“The Young Master Jin I know seems different from the one you know.”
Cheol Sunjik shook his head as if to say they were not different at all.
“Even now, isn't that obvious?”
“What is?”
“To save someone close to him, the Academy Representative has forgotten his duty and come to Sichuan. He has even mobilized Tiger Hall.”
“That is because there is something dangerous here.”
Cheol Sunjik took a message scroll from his robes and handed it to Seong Moran.
“This is the Beggar Sect's investigation into what occurred in Sichuan. Their findings clearly state that the mass deaths during the regular examination happened because the students were attacked after suffering severe injuries during the grueling entrance examination.”
Holding the message scroll, Seong Moran could not continue speaking.
“The Beggar Sect concluded that the enemy was not especially powerful. The Elder Council's event has a grand name, but it is little more than an outing. The danger Representative Jin spoke of does not exist.”
“...”
Cheol Sunjik smiled broadly.
Seong Moran found that face so irritating that she wanted nothing more than to punch it.
“Whether he failed to investigate properly or overreacted to a minor matter, he is unfit to be the representative either way.”
Quiet laughter broke out among the Twelve Peak Alliance members.
“That is why a system is necessary. A person who stands out alone, whether capable or incompetent, will eventually cause problems.”
“Is that why you came all the way here to remove Young Master Jin as representative?”
“...Let us say we came to correct what is wrong.”
“So you never intended to listen to Young Master Jin in the first place.”
“There is no reason to follow what is wrong.”
Seong Moran turned away, as though she had heard enough.
Cheol Sunjik did not seem ready to end the conversation.
“It seems Miss Seong trusts Representative Jin completely. Do you truly know him that well?”
“No.”
“Oh? That is unexpected...”
“It would be more accurate to say I don't know him well. I don't even know what is in his heart.”
“What?”
“But I do know this much. Whenever he says something is dangerous, it is truly dangerous.”
Seong Moran continued without the slightest hesitation.
“It was the same at Demon Spirit Plateau, during the regular examination, and at the Soul-Destroying Formation. There were countless times when I traveled with him and our lives were in danger, but whenever he truly said it was dangerous, a threat on an entirely different scale arrived.”
She looked at Cheol Sunjik and the Twelve Peak Alliance members watching her.
“That is why this is frustrating. No matter how much he says it is dangerous, you refuse to believe him. No, you don't simply refuse to believe him. You become even more suspicious and bring danger upon yourselves.”
Cheol Sunjik shook his head, disagreeing with her.
“He judges danger only from his own position. Just as the Jukhyeon Sect and Taeul Sect cannot be viewed on the same level, what is dangerous to him is often not dangerous to us.”
Seong Moran's lips moved, but she soon closed her mouth.
There was no point trying to persuade him further.
It was more urgent to confirm what kind of danger Jin Sowoon had warned of and stop the others.
Cheol Sunjik continued.
“Representative Jin is a man completely consumed by his own stubbornness...”
“Shut up!”
At Seong Moran's shout, he wore a pleased expression.
To him, the fact that his opponent had unilaterally ended the conversation proved that his logic had won.
Seong Moran, though, did not look defeated. Her face was grave as she pointed to one side.
“Look over there.”
A sinister shadow lay beneath the moonlight.
“...”
“...”
Cheol Sunjik and the Twelve Peak Alliance abruptly stopped their movement arts.
Each of them began drawing their weapons.
“Watch the surroundings.”
After speaking to the Twelve Peak Alliance, Seong Moran slowly approached.
A foul smell pierced her nose.
‘A corpse...’
Darkness covered everything, making it impossible to see.
Seong Moran swiftly took flint from her robes and struck it.
Click.
Click.
Whenever a spark fell, the surroundings briefly appeared, then vanished again.
Sighs escaped the Twelve Peak Alliance members.
“What is this...?”
“Aren't those Academy students?”
“What happened here...?”
Cheol Sunjik approached Seong Moran.
She struck the flint again, revealing the corpses.
“They are Qingcheng Sect disciples and disciples of the Fragrant Manor Sect, Qingcheng's affiliated lay sect.”
Something was strange. The group they were originally meant to encounter was Group Two, which consisted of Mount Hua Sect, Kongtong Sect, and their affiliated lay sects.
Yet the people before them belonged to Group Three, the Qingcheng Sect and its affiliated lay sects.
She did not know how events had become so tangled, but the situation had clearly gone far more wrong than even Jin Sowoon had expected.
“Was something so urgent that they couldn't even recover the bodies?”
“...”
Cheol Sunjik looked toward Seong Moran, who did not answer.
“Miss Seong?”
“The Jukhyeon Sect... you said it was stronger than Taeul Sect, didn't you?”
Seong Moran pointed at the bodies scattered across the ground.
“Then how does it compare to the Qingcheng Sect and its affiliated lay sects?”
“What are you getting at?”
The Twelve Peak Alliance continued guarding their surroundings as they examined the corpses.
“They really are Academy students.”
“This one is a disciple of the Azure Crown Sect.”
“There is a disciple of the Azure Leaf Sect as well.”
The identities of the corpses were revealed one after another.
“Is the danger Young Master Jin spoke of nothing to Young Master Cheol?”
“...”
“I intend to find the other survivors, just as Young Master Jin said. What will you do, Young Master Cheol? Do you still refuse to listen to him?”
Instead of answering, Cheol Sunjik looked over the corpses again, his face drained of color.
There was only one choice he could make.
“...Lead the way. I will follow.”
#
Looking into the space darker than darkness itself, Jin Sowoon spoke.
“Do not break the lantern under any circumstances.”
“What?”
Before Nam Hwaseong could answer, Jin Sowoon moved first.
Jin Sowoon shot forward like lightning and disappeared into the darkness.
At the same time, fierce sounds of metal clashing echoed from within.
Clangclangclangclangclangclangclang!
Before the sound of metal striking metal could fade, explosive booms began tearing through the air.
Boomboomboomboomboom!
Golden radiance surged within the darkness. It resembled clouds charged with lightning before a storm descended.
“What in the world...?”
Rumble!
The shadows of enormous figures emerged from the black mist.
They fought fiercely, fell, and clashed again in an endless cycle.
Bzzzzzzzz!
At that moment, a stabbing pain pierced Nam Hwaseong's head, and he clutched it.
He dropped to the ground in an attempt to ease the pain, then suddenly felt killing intent descend on him. Startled, he unleashed fist qi behind him.
Boomboomboomboom!
He felt his attack strike something within the darkness where there should have been nothing.
A chill crept into his heart.
‘I would have died if I had been even a little later.’
The sharp sensation of a sword filled with unmistakable killing intent told him this was no sparring match for a lesson. This was a true attack driven by the intent to kill.
Nam Hwaseong pushed his five senses to their limits and began searching for the unseen enemy within the dark space.
“Are you there?!”
As though trying to cast off his fear, Nam Hwaseong shouted and hurled himself forward.
Yet an overwhelming impact struck his abdomen, flinging him backward.
“Cough, urgh!”
After a single exchange, he knew enough.
The opponent hidden in the darkness was no ordinary martial artist.
Nam Hwaseong immediately prepared the Samwon Sect's ultimate move, the Deer-Horn Radiant Fist.
Green radiance flickered from both his fists, lighting the darkness and intermittently revealing shadows concealed within it.
“Hup!”
Trailing green light like a firefly's tail, Nam Hwaseong's Deer-Horn Radiant Fist shot forward. The moment it reached a point in the darkness, it spread green light in every direction and targeted the opponent's vital acupoints.
Bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbang!
He launched thirty punches in a single breath, yet surprisingly, he did not feel flesh tearing beneath his fists.
It was as though he were swinging underwater. His hands and feet felt heavier than usual.
“Arghhhhh!”
He poured out all fifty years' worth of his internal energy. As the blazing light of the Deer-Horn Radiant Fist swept away the darkness, the opponent's true form gradually emerged.
Nam Hwaseong's eyes trembled violently.
‘How many are there?!’
At least a hundred people stood in the area revealed by the light.
He could not even guess how many more were concealed within the darkness.
In the brief instant his mind wandered, countless streams of sword qi poured out of the dark.
“Damn it.”
He unleashed fist qi like a storm, but he could not block them all. Worse, he could not defend against the hidden force concealed among them.
Boomboomboom!
Nam Hwaseong's body was struck by the hidden force and sent flying as if fired from a cannon.
Crash.
Something shattered behind him, but Nam Hwaseong could not afford to pay attention. He leaped to his feet and assumed a stance.
The enemy had hidden within the darkness again, concealing their form.
“If you are so confident, come out! Let's fight fairly!”
Was it responding to Nam Hwaseong's words?
The darkness slowly began to recede.
A moving form appeared within it.
Slither, slither, slither.
To see the true form of what emerged, Nam Hwaseong had to crane his head straight up.
“...!!!”
The instant he saw that thing, every hair on his body stood on end.
“Th-the Azure-Scaled Single-Horned Demon Dragon?”
It was a demonic beast called a dragon because its body was so immense and heavy.
An enormous serpent, so vast that even a martial artist who had traveled throughout the martial world might never see one, flicked its tongue toward him.
Nam Hwaseong instinctively stepped back. Then another sound came from behind him, and he snapped his head around so hard that it felt as though his neck would break.
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
An eight-legged spider the size of a house.
“Th-the Human-Faced Blood Spider?”
The horrific monster, with a face resembling that of a human and four fangs, tilted its head as it looked at Nam Hwaseong.
“Ugh, aaagh!”
His plan and his investigation of Jin Sowoon no longer mattered.
‘I will die! I'm going to die!’
Nam Hwaseong used the Deer Horn Wind-Cloud Steps, desperately trying to escape the area.
The Azure-Scaled Single-Horned Demon Dragon moved its enormous body with ghostly speed and coiled around him in an instant.
“Arghhhhh!”
As Nam Hwaseong's body was lifted into the air, all manner of demonic beasts surged in from the space where he had thought only the Human-Faced Blood Spider existed, all scrambling to taste his flesh.
“Fuck, I'm all muscle! I won't taste good!”
He swung his fists and fired fist qi, but the creatures ignored him as though he had done nothing, opening their hideous jaws wide at him.
-Nam Hwaseong!
A majestic voice rang through his mind at that moment.
-Burn the talisman.
It was a voice he usually hated hearing.
Yet that voice was salvation itself, and Nam Hwaseong burned the talisman in his hand.
Whoosh.
The talisman immediately caught fire and turned to ash. At the same time, the sound of fabric tearing came from the air, and Jin Sowoon, wielding a golden sword, leaped through the gap in space.
“Lower your head, Nam Hwaseong!”
“Arghhhhh!”
Jin Sowoon descended like lightning, splitting the Azure-Scaled Single-Horned Demon Dragon in two.
Nam Hwaseong's suspended body fell to the ground with a thud.
“Argh!”
Despite the impact, Nam Hwaseong sprang to his feet and took a fighting stance.
Jin Sowoon turned to him and shouted.
“You fucking bastard! I told you not to break the lantern!”
“I-I didn't break it!”
“Then why did the Blood-Seeing Death-Spirit Soul-Chaos Formation activate?”
“The Blood-Seeing what?”
“It's an illusion formation! Have you learned banishing evil and suppressing spirits?”
“I-I have learned the Demon-Subduing Mantra...”
“You bastards treat the Demon-Subduing Mantra like it's the answer to everything. Go on, try using it against Demonic Cult members!”
Jin Sowoon cursed in a way Nam Hwaseong could not understand.
Nam Hwaseong instinctively realized that something had gone terribly wrong.
“W-what should I do?”
“What do you mean, what should you do? Your mind isn't steady enough to withstand this illusion.”
“Then I...”
Jin Sowoon adjusted his grip on his sword.
“...We cut our way out.”
Nam Hwaseong stared blankly at him.
They were surrounded by demonic beasts, and he could not even tell where the entrance or exit was. They were going to escape?
“Wake up, idiot!”
“H-huh?”
A sharp slap struck Nam Hwaseong's cheek.
“Get your head together, you bastard! Do you want to die here?”
“...N-no!”
“On a battlefield, listen only to the commander's voice. Don't trust that pathetic brain of yours. Understand?”
“Y-yes...”
Jin Sowoon placed two Demon-Subduing Talismans in Nam Hwaseong's hands.
“You survived, so I'll give you two. Survive one more time, and I'll give you three.”
“Th-thank you.”
“From now on, we're escaping their illusion formation. Don't look anywhere else. Stay close and follow only me. Understood?”
“Y-yes!”
“Let's go!”
Jin Sowoon immediately charged toward the demonic beasts blocking every direction.
Golden radiance gleamed from his sword. At some point, a long golden thread had extended from his left hand.
When the enormous Human-Faced Blood Spider opened its hideous maw to swallow Jin Sowoon, he swung his sword.
Slash, slash.
Whenever the glowing golden thread shot out, the massive creature was bound tight and could not move. Whenever the golden sword swung, the massive creature was cleaved into two or three pieces.
Jin Sowoon cut down demonic beast after demonic beast as he moved forward.
Boomboomboom!
Boomboomboom!
Unreal scenes unfolded right before his eyes, but Nam Hwaseong moved exactly as Jin Sowoon shouted.
“Fire your fist qi!”
“You bastard! What are you saving your internal energy for? Will you take it to hell after you die?”
“Is this all the Samwon Sect's ultimate art can do?”
“Hit them, hit them! Illusion formations have weak durability. Keep hitting them, and they'll eventually break!”
Strangely, the force constricting them from all sides began to weaken.
Breathing gradually became easier, and the demonic beasts even seemed to be shrinking.
‘On a battlefield, trust only the commander's voice. On a battlefield, trust only the commander's voice.’
Nam Hwaseong frantically repeated Jin Sowoon's words to himself and moved his feet as though his life depended on it.
How long had they run?
At some point, Jin Sowoon vanished along with the demonic beasts surrounding him.
“J-Jin Sowoon! Jin Sowoon! Where did you go?”
Just as Nam Hwaseong called for Jin Sowoon like a chick searching for its mother, someone grabbed the back of his neck and lifted him.
“Gah!”
Nam Hwaseong struggled in terror, but a familiar voice rang beside his ear.
“It's me! Stop struggling! You're heavy!”
Riiip!
With the sound of a huge sheet tearing, the space before him changed in an instant, revealing clear moonlight.
“Pant, pant, pant. W-what was that?”
He could feel the dirt beneath him and the coldness in the air.
He had escaped the illusion formation Jin Sowoon spoke of and returned to reality.
“J-Jin Sowoon...”
Before he could feel joy at escaping the illusion formation, questions filled his mind.
He belonged to the Twelve Peak Alliance and had come here to monitor Jin Sowoon.
‘But...’
Jin Sowoon had saved him from that illusion formation.
“Th-thank you, Jin Sowoon...”
The reply was as brusque as could be.
“Shut up and get up. The main event starts now.”
“H-huh?”
Jin Sowoon was already staring only ahead.
And before them stood the blood-robed men Nam Hwaseong had seen within the illusion formation.
Footnotes:
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