WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 179: The Black Flame Dragon Swallowing the Sea of Blood (9)

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Ilgak's body trembled as he watched Jin Sowoon walk toward him after leaving Moyong Jaehwa.

'He really... he really came through that path of death. He really...'

He didn't know why he felt this way, but it was similar to the feeling he had experienced when he attained enlightenment before the Buddha.

"You really came..."

Jin Sowoon tilted his head at Ilgak's words.

"What do you mean?"

"...I never truly believed you would make it here."

"I said I would come, so I came."

Ilgak's lips trembled.

"...Is that all there is to it?"

Jin Sowoon answered indifferently, as if it were nothing remarkable.

"Yes. Is there supposed to be something special about it?"

Did this man not realize how difficult the things he said so casually were? How extraordinary the actions he took for granted truly were?

'Is the vessel itself simply different?'

Jin Sowoon pointed the Black Dragon Sword at the blood-robed men.

"Academy Student Ilgak, can you keep going?"

"...."

"If you can't, it's fine to fall back. It looks like they're about to retreat anyway."

"If Benefactor Jin is fighting, then naturally I must as well."

"Haah... That damned 'benefactor' this, 'benefactor' that."

Jin Sowoon shook his head and strode forward as though it were only natural.

As Ilgak followed, he caught sight of Jin Sowoon's back radiating a brilliant light.

'Shakyamuni...?'

He rubbed his eyes and looked ahead again. Jin Sowoon had turned around and was staring at him with a sullen expression.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Y-Yes, I'm coming."

For some reason, Ilgak felt as though the confusion clouding his mind had been swept away.

#

The Academy students who had regained their senses still could not process the sight before them.

Moyong Jaehwa, the eldest son of the Moyong Clan, one of the Five Great Clans, had been scorned for trailing after nothing more than a disciple of the Taeul Sect.

Yet there he stood alone, bow in hand, blocking the blood-robed men.

Each arrow he fired sent those cruel blood-robed men stumbling back in terror. The sorcerers who had been wielding vile dark arts buried their clattering bells deep inside their robes, afraid they would become his targets.

Just when they thought they might survive thanks to his aid,

that thing appeared.

A monster that should not exist in this world.

A jiangshi, said to silence crying children through nothing but the tales passed down about it.

They felt more despair than wonder or curiosity.

As they watched Ilgak, the strongest member of the Orthodox Society, get helplessly pushed back by the jiangshi, they believed their lives had come to an end.

Then he appeared.

'Jin Sowoon?'

The man responsible for shattering the Orthodox Society's traditional status as the elite among elites of the Martial Arts Academy.

He should have been carrying out the Academy's academic schedule right now, yet he had appeared here.

No one felt hope at the sight.

They could not believe Jin Sowoon could resolve a situation that even they, and even the elders, could do nothing about.

Jin Sowoon's arrival should have done nothing but make their fear of death more immediate.

'It should have...'

The grotesque, terrifying Iron Zombie was battered and broken.

It was tossed around like a toy.

The jiangshi that had emotionlessly unleashed killing moves bared its teeth and moved desperately.

It was a shocking sight.

Shocking enough to send even the blood-robed men, who had trusted in the jiangshi, into a panic.

The Academy students suffering from the backlash of the dark arts, their insides churning and their heads ringing, could not look away.

Then, at last, the jiangshi's body was cut apart.

"My heavens..."

"How could this possibly..."

"Amitabha."

Exclamations of shock rose from all around.

No matter how high his grades were or how skilled he was, Jin Sowoon was still supposed to remain beneath them.

Yet he alone had accomplished what none of them could.

"Huh..."

The joy of surviving a brush with death was overshadowed by the shock of seeing the preconceptions buried deep in their minds overturned. No one could shake off their dazed expressions.

"Hey, you idiot!"

Jin Sowoon shouted at Nam Hwaseong.

"You're supposed to pour in a reasonable amount of energy! Why don't you just fire a palm strike straight into your middle dantian while you're at it?"

"Y-You bastard... I'm suffering from internal injuries right now... Cough, cough!"

"Did you think I wouldn't know that the Samwon Sect's internal energy art is completely focused on recovery?"

"...T-That's a secret of our sect. How do you know that...?"

"Get it together. And I'll deduct the Demon-Subduing Talisman you tore up from your share, so keep that in mind."

"You bastard! Why are you deducting that from mine?!"

After cutting down the Iron Zombie and forcing the blood-robed men's unit to retreat, Jin Sowoon was now helping the Orthodox Society's Academy students as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As though it had always been his duty.

He approached those who had cursed him in the past one by one, sending energy into them and handing out medicine.

There was not the slightest awkwardness in his actions.

The ones who felt awkward were those receiving his help.

Some of them had desperately tried to obstruct Jin Sowoon during the regular examination.

And what had happened during the Soul-Destroying Formation incident?

Jin Sowoon had entered that deadly formation himself to clean up the disaster they had caused.

Yet that same man was now looking after the Academy students as though nothing had happened.

"...Monk Ilgak."

An Academy student from a Shaolin lay martial sect asked Ilgak,

"Do you know why he is acting this way?"

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Isn't he practically our enemy? Then why is he helping us like this? Could he be trying to use this to put the Orthodox Society in his debt?"

"...."

Ilgak frowned.

His eyes filled with disappointment.

"Is that truly all you can see?"

"...Pardon?"

The Academy student looked as though they did not even understand what they had done wrong.

Ilgak let out a long sigh.

"I no longer know what I have been trying to accomplish all this time in the name of righteousness."

"...Monk, what do you mean by that?"

"Do you know the Buddha's teachings?"

"O-Of course. I'm from a lay martial sect affiliated with Shaolin Temple..."

The moment Shaolin was mentioned, Ilgak cut them off in a heavy voice.

"Then why do you not live according to the Buddha's teachings!"

"W-What?"

The face of Ilgak, known as the Compassionate Buddha for never losing his gentle smile, hardened like a slab of iron.

"You could read the sutras ten thousand times and attain enlightenment a thousand times, but what use is all that learning if you do not put it into practice?"

"M-Monk."

"Benefactor Jin is a disciple of a Taoist sect, yet he lives according to the Buddha's teachings. How can you claim to have received Shaolin's teachings while harboring thoughts worthy of a devil!"

At Ilgak's roar, the Academy student from the lay martial sect hurriedly bowed their head.

"I-I'm sorry, Monk. I was narrow-minded."

"They say that the eyes of a pig see only pigs, while the eyes of a Buddha see only Buddhas."

Ilgak's eyes flashed sharply as he looked at the Academy student.

"Think again about what kind of eyes you are using to look at Benefactor Jin."

"...."

Ilgak glared at the speechless student before turning his gaze to Jin Sowoon.

Clarity filled his eyes.

"Benefactor Jin... is a noble person."

#

After more or less getting the Academy students settled, I climbed to the top of a nearby peak.

"Huff... huff... huff... W-Why did we climb all the way up here?"

And to top it off, an oversized deadweight had tagged along.

"If it's that hard for you, why did you follow me?"

Nam Hwaseong shouted indignantly, looking like a puppy betrayed by its owner.

"Fuck... What was I supposed to do, stand around awkwardly among the Orthodox Society people?"

You followed me for that?

"Then you could've stayed with Moyong Jaehwa."

"You think I'd be comfortable around Moyong Jaehwa?"

"Honestly... You should've behaved yourself better."

"...."

Shaking my head, I looked ahead.

In the distance, I could see the Corpse Mountain Blood Cult's unit retreating.

They had lost the Iron Zombie, so they probably had no idea what to do now.

They had lost one of the only three Iron Zombies in the Blood Cult, so their future plans must have been thrown badly off course as well.

"Don't tell me you're planning a counterattack?"

"A counterattack, my ass."

That was absurd.

Even without the Iron Zombie, the Blood Cult was still the Blood Cult.

Unless the Martial Alliance's main force arrived, the Academy students poisoned by dark arts could not stand against them.

For now, the best choice was to take the Academy students and flee as quickly as possible.

"Then why did you come all the way up here?"

"It'd be a shame to just let them go."

"What?"

"We've come this far. We should at least land a blow on the bastards who threw the martial world into chaos."

"...."

Nam Hwaseong looked at me strangely.

"What?"

"Did you get poisoned by corpse poison while fighting that jiangshi?"

What did he even keep that head of his for?

"This is why you can't have a conversation with an oversized sparrow."

"...Are you talking about me?"

Of course, I had not expected an opportunity like this from the beginning.

Who would have thought they would send one of their only three Iron Zombies with the advance party?

'That means the Blood Sea Jade must be here.'

The reason the Blood Demon Sect, one of the Demonic Cult's nine sects, had broken away from the Demonic Cult fifty years ago was because the Blood Sea Jade had been completed.

The Blood Sea True Energy was passed down from each Blood Demon to the next before their death.

Over five hundred years, that inherited Blood Sea True Energy had condensed into a single essence. That was the Blood Sea Jade.

'It was also why the Blood Cult, which had not mastered the Corpse Demon Spirit-Summoning Art, could control the Iron Zombies.'

The presence of an Iron Zombie meant the Blood Sea Jade was here.

And I had no intention of letting such a fine opportunity slip away.

A smile escaped me despite the grave situation.

'...I never thought I would find the material for the Scarlet Radiance Sword, one of the Fifteen Divine Weapons, here!'

Originally, the Blood Sea Jade had been nothing more than one of the Martial Alliance's spoils after the Sichuan Bloodbath.

The members of the destroyed Corpse Mountain Blood Cult possessed all manner of bizarre items, including vile objects for various dark arts and illusion formations, as well as things created while attempting to manufacture jiangshi.

The Blood Sea Jade was treated as one of those items.

Unaware of its true value, the Martial Alliance had thrown it into a warehouse and left it there.

After Jang Dowon later joined the Alliance, he recognized the Blood Sea Jade's worth and used that vile artifact to forge the divine weapon, the Scarlet Radiance Sword.

The Scarlet Radiance Sword was difficult to give up. I had even once wondered whether I would need to work for the Mantong Office for a while in the future just to secure the Blood Sea Jade.

'Strength amplification... Strength amplification...'

My mind began spinning rapidly.

In any case, someone among them was carrying the Blood Sea Jade right now.

And before the Martial Alliance completely subjugated the Blood Cult, I needed to steal it away.

"Let's go down."

"...Huh?"

"What? Do you want to stay here?"

"Fuck... If I'd known we were coming back down this quickly..."

Why did this bastard always complain after doing something I never even told him to do?

When I came down from the peak, I approached the Academy students.

I needed to get them back in order and send them to the Academy as quickly as possible.

They had to leave first before I could handle what came next without worrying.

I would send them ahead, secure the Blood Sea Jade, then send it to Jang Dowon so he could forge the divine weapon Scarlet Radiance Sword...

I was envisioning that brilliant future when Nam Hwaseong nudged me with his elbow.

"Jin Sowoon... Doesn't something seem strange?"

Only then did I lift my head to look at the Academy students.

"You bastard! Jin Sowoon!"

Someone suddenly bellowed from one side.

A middle-aged man was slowly approaching on unsteady legs, supported by an Academy student.

'Daoist Myeonghyeon.'

With a face full of rage, he began pointing at me.

"How dare you scheme against Mount Cang Sect? What are you all doing? Subdue that bastard at once and drag him before me!"

This man had only just escaped the dark arts, and his mind was still not right, yet the first thing he did was say that...

"Ha. Unbelievable."

I slowly reached for the Black Dragon Sword.

There was another bastard I needed to beat besides the Iron Zombie.

Footnotes:

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