The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything - Chapter 335

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 335: Division (2)

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Blood flowed.

Screams filled the air.

Weapons shattered, and mounds of earth gouged apart by palm force exposed their raw insides.

Pandemonium.

There was a reason it was called pandemonium.

The people who had been comrades, rivals, and friends yesterday had become enemies today, raising their blades at one another.

The Orthodox Society and White Path Society had split apart, while the White Path Society and Twelve Peak Alliance kept one another in check. Yet they had once traded stupid jokes in their daily lives.

On good days, whoever had extra money would buy drinks for everyone, regardless of affiliation.

They had boasted that they would beat one another someday, saying that roughly three gapja[1] would have to pass before they could do it.

Yet those same people were trying to kill one another.

They swung their swords to avoid being killed, only to suffer grave wounds from the palm force sent their way.

No one remembered how it had started.

Or why they had begun fighting.

All they knew was that each had gone through something terrible, and when they returned, they sought the cause of that misfortune in one another.

“Stop this!”

A warning cry filled with Buddhist power rang out, but everyone merely flinched. No one stopped.

Ilgak had not known.

Enlightenment was useless when one’s life was in danger.

Then he realized.

He had only drawn everyone’s attention to himself.

He had made every arrow turn toward him.

“That’s Ilgak!”

His attempt to stop them somehow shifted the center of the battlefield.

The Orthodox Society members who had been locked in a desperate struggle against the White Path Society and Twelve Peak Alliance began gathering behind Ilgak.

Facing the clearly divided sides, Ilgak cried out in alarm.

“No! Benefactor Geum, why are you coming over here?!”

“Venerable Ilgak! If we don’t drive them back now, we might all die!”

“No, what is this...? Go away!”

How could fellow Academy students fight each other in the first place? Did no one understand how dire the situation was with the lecturers absent?

“The Orthodox Society has gathered around Ilgak!”

“Attack together!”

“Subdue Ilgak first!”

Ilgak’s group, which had been watching the battle from the sidelines, suddenly became its focal point. Though he had not wanted to fight, Ilgak had no choice but to draw upon his internal energy.

‘I should subdue them with as little harm as possible...’

A larger clash would only deepen everyone’s confusion.

He needed to restrain as many people as possible, calm them down, and resolve the situation.

Ilgak used the Twin Locking Art against an Academy student charging at him, intending to block the attack.

But then...

“Die, Baldy!!!”

The moment he tried to ease up, that one word(?) made him put more force into it instead.

Thud!

...The Academy student was driven deep into the ground.

‘Ah!’

“Wait, I mean...!”

“Cough!”

Seeing the student collapse while vomiting blood, Ilgak was startled and hurriedly tried to explain.

“N-no, it’s a misunderstanding! It’s because Benefactor Jin always teases me like that...!”

The people watching clenched their teeth as though they could not hear a word he said.

“No matter if he belongs to the Orthodox Society, how can a Shaolin Temple monk be so heavy-handed...?!”

“This proves it! The Orthodox Society must have orchestrated this to kill us!”

“There’s no need to hold back anymore! Attack!”

A wave of attacks came crashing in after that, leaving Ilgak no time to explain as he desperately moved his hands.

There was a vast gap in their levels, but his opponents were still fellow Academy students.

Even Ilgak could not easily subdue the coordinated formation they had formed.

Naturally, the Orthodox Society was not going to stand by and watch.

“Help Venerable Ilgak!”

“How dare they look down on the Orthodox Society!”

Whether he wanted it or not, Ilgak had become the center of the fight, and he had no choice but to put more strength into his attacks.

‘T-this isn’t right!’

With Ilgak joining in, the fighting only grew fiercer. What had been a three-sided clash gradually became the Orthodox Society against everyone else.

“Argh! I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll definitely kill you!”

At first, they had only traded insults. Soon, their words brimmed with killing intent, and the powerful murderous aura sweeping through the battlefield drove them to target one another’s vital acupoints.

At that desperate moment, when Ilgak could do neither this nor that...

-What the hell are you doing, Baldy?!

The voice of the culprit who always teased him and made him lose his unmoving mind at crucial times rang in his ears.

“Benefactor Jin?”

Jin’s normally mischievous voice shouted with even greater fury.

-Do you think this is the time for us to fight each other?! Is that really all you can manage, Baldy?!

Ilgak shook his head fiercely.

“N-no, you misunderstand, Benefactor Jin. I would never...”

-Then what the hell is going on?

What...? Was Jin hearing his voice? In this chaos?

There was no time to dwell on it. The situation was far too urgent to think calmly.

“I tried to calm them down and speak with them, but no one can control their emotions...”

-You seem awfully committed for someone trying to stop them.

“B-but you can see it too, Benefactor Jin. This is not a situation where they’ll listen just because someone tries to stop them...”

-You didn’t fail to stop them. Your beating was too weak.

“What do you...?”

At some point, the sound transmission stopped.

Instead...

“You sons of bitches!!!!”

A thunderous Lion’s Roar echoed throughout Mukrim.

Everyone’s gaze followed the voice upward.

A man in black martial robes flew through the air and landed squarely in the middle of the battlefield.

Boom.

The Academy students were not particularly surprised by Jin Sowoon’s sudden appearance.

They only thought another enemy had joined the fight.

The problem was...

“Jin Sowoon! I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Jin Sowoon! I won’t let you get away with this!”

All three factions were denouncing Jin Sowoon as their enemy.

Watching this, Ilgak could only click his tongue.

‘Benefactor Jin has entertained a presumptuous thought.’

Had he believed the Academy students would stop fighting once he appeared?

There were still so many people at the Martial Arts Academy who refused to acknowledge him as their representative.

Jin Sowoon appearing here was a bad move.

It would have been far more advantageous to use his cleverness and appear after the fighting had subsided.

Whether he knew that or not, Jin Sowoon’s eyes blazed fiercely as he growled.

“Who did you say you’d kill?”

Jin dodged the sword swinging for his head, then immediately swung his own.

Thwack!

He had struck with the flat of the blade, but the sound was so loud that even the Academy students rushing in nearby were startled.

Several white teeth and blood burst from the student’s mouth.

But Jin Sowoon was not finished.

“You said you’d kill me?”

Thud!

Jin kicked the collapsing student in the stomach, then began beating the spot that caused the greatest pain.

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

As though their bones had been pulled apart and their nerves shredded to pieces, the Academy student let out a scream far worse than anything a sword wound could cause and collapsed.

The brutal sight made the Academy students charging at Jin Sowoon hesitate.

But Jin moved first this time.

“You dare say you’ll kill me!!!”

The Academy student paled at Jin Sowoon charging like a vicious ghost with a sword blazing crimson in his hand. They tried to retreat, but they were a step too late.

“Where do you think you’re running?!”

Boom!

The upward blow to the Academy student’s abdomen knocked the breath from them and sent them airborne.

Whoosh.

The body that should have flown away like a cannonball was pulled back toward Jin Sowoon by the Flying Dragon Claw shooting from his left hand.

“Cough! N-no!”

Jin’s descending fist sent two teeth flying before driving the student face-first into the ground.

“You bastards!!! Is this the time for us to fight each other?!”

His thunderous voice was followed by another merciless beating with the flat of his sword.

“Gyaaaaaaaaah!”

The Academy student screamed from pain even more intense than being cut by a sword, as though their nerves were burning away.

Before long, the fighting died down, and everyone began watching Jin Sowoon.

“T-that’s Jin Sowoon. Shouldn’t we subdue Jin Sowoon?”

“...Why don’t you do it?”

As they passed responsibility back and forth, Jin Sowoon charged at his third victim and began another ruthless beating.

“Is this the time for us to fight each other?!”

“Gyaaaaaaaaah!”

The third victim screamed as they went to meet their grandmaster.

“Do you think it’s right for us to fight each other when we don’t even know what’s happening in Mukrim?!”

“Gyaaaaaaaaah!”

The fourth victim foamed at the mouth and fainted.

“Stop fighting! I said stop fighting!”

“A-all right!”

“Uuuurgh!”

The fifth victim threw away their weapon and surrendered, but still lost two teeth.

“Stop it, you bastards!!! This isn’t the time for us to fight each other!!!”

“W-we stopped! We stopped, so Jin Sowoon, you should also...”

“You still look like you want to fight, so what do you mean stop?!”

“N-no!!”

“Gyaaaaaah!”

The fighting had stopped long ago, brought to an end by everyone’s agonized screams.

Yet Jin Sowoon’s beating only ended after he had produced an eighth victim.

At last, Jin Sowoon’s gaze turned to Ilgak’s bald head, gleaming with sweat.

“If you’re going to stop a fight, stop it properly.”

“...”

As Ilgak watched him come over and complain...

‘Namo Amitabha...’

He was deeply confused over whether that beating had truly been meant to stop the fight, or whether it had simply been an outlet for Jin Sowoon’s anger.

The encampment had been filled with chaos, with everyone trying to kill one another.

The first piece of information I heard after barely(?) stopping them was grim.

“The lecturers never came?”

“We looked for the lecturers as soon as we arrived, but we never saw them. We also asked the people who reached the encampment first, but they said they had not seen the lecturers either.”

My concern deepened at Ilgak’s words.

I had not seen the lecturers’ corpses on the way here, so I had assumed they would be at the encampment...

Where had they gone? Had they died?

But I did not have time to think leisurely.

There was even worse news.

The second piece of grim news concerned the red light that had flared in Mukrim.

“So it was an ambush.”

And they had been ambushed not by monsters, but by people.

On top of that, most of the group members who had fired red signal flares still had not reached the encampment.

“That is probably why the fighting escalated.”

“Why?”

They had been ambushed, yet they were fighting each other... No matter how I thought about it, they were not in their right minds.

“According to a survivor’s testimony, the martial arts used by the attackers looked exactly like Mount Hua Sect’s...”

“...Are you sure?”

Even as I listened, I could not shake my doubts.

Why would Mount Hua Sect, no, the Orthodox Society, attack the Twelve Peak Alliance in Mukrim?

“We cannot know for certain. The only survivor who returned said only one word, ‘petals,’ before collapsing. They have not regained consciousness yet.”

Cheol Sunjik, who had been leaning against a rock with his arms crossed, added without uncrossing them.

I turned my gaze to him.

“Why were you just standing there?”

“If you want to speak, you should make sure the other person can understand you, Academy Representative Jin.”

“You could have stopped that fight.”

Cheol Sunjik uncrossed his arms and shrugged.

“There was no reason for me to.”

Why was he especially irritating today?

“Besides, perhaps the Orthodox Society wanted to use this opportunity to eliminate the Twelve Peak Alliance. Though they were rather clumsy about finishing it.”

“...The Orthodox Society has never had such thoughts.”

“If I were an Orthodox Society executive, I would leave Venerable Ilgak out of any plan like this.”

“What does that mean...?”

“He would not listen to reason.”

“...”

Why were these idiots trying to fight each other now too?

Were they expecting me to stop them again?

I raised a hand to stop them both.

“That’s enough. Nothing has been confirmed yet...”

“If we are being precise, the Orthodox Society is at the root of this incident.”

“Hm?”

“I heard the Orthodox Society went out to hunt a divine spirit. That is why the divine spirit’s curse spread, and now every living thing in Mukrim is trying to kill us, is it not?”

With every cold remark Cheol Sunjik made, the Orthodox Society members’ faces twisted further.

“They concealed their own fault and removed their political rivals. From one perspective, this may have been the best possible opportunity for the Orthodox Society.”

The Orthodox Society members who had been listening from a distance cursed and protested.

“What bullshit is that?!”

“Why would we need to...?!”

An unknown phenomenon bred anxiety, and anxiety spread before turning into anger.

The immense anger spreading through the encampment was about to become blades driven into one another’s skin.

‘Is this what they want?’

They lacked experience and were unaccustomed to crises.

Yet their martial strength far surpassed that of ordinary martial artists.

Fear of the unknown pressing in on them, combined with minds weakened by that fear, would soon create imaginary enemies that did not exist.

Had this not already proven that things had reached this stage?

‘I need to get us out of this state quickly.’

If I did not release this keenly sharpened tension somehow, chaos would descend again soon.

And next time, it would not end with injuries. People would die.

If that happened...

‘There will be no going back after that.’

I could not let them be toyed with by such a pathetic trick.

I took a deep breath.

“STOOOOOP!!!”

My Lion’s Roar, poured out with all my strength, made everyone cover their ears in pain.

“Stop it! Do you all want to get beaten up?!”

“...”

I needed to resolve this before my mind became more unstable.

“Nothing has been confirmed yet. Do not jump to conclusions, and do what needs to be done first. Form scouting teams, have the rest treat the injured, and build a palisade around the encampment.”

“They are accusing the Orthodox Society of being the culprit. Do you think we can just let that pass?!”

Yeah, they must have felt wronged. I understood how unpleasant it was to be treated as a culprit and looked at with suspicion for something you did not do.

“Do you want to get beaten up like those guys earlier?”

“...”

Ah, my thoughts and words had come out backward.

It was not important, so I let it pass.

“Do you think now is a good time to protest your innocence? Calm down, think coolly and rationally, then act!”

“Calm and rational...?”

They looked unconvinced, but I ignored it.

“Move it, quickly. The sun is already setting!”

The people who had been dragging their feet began moving one by one after Ilgak and Cheol Sunjik did.

They had not lowered their guard against each other yet, but that was still far better than letting them point swords at one another.

As expected, the sun set before we could finish even half the tasks I had ordered.

The people who had gone scouting with the Namgwon Sect returned without any notable results.

There was much to consider, including plans for the future, searching for other survivors, and making contact with the lecturers, but my mind would not work properly.

‘I’m tired.’

I had not slept at all during the journey, so I closed my eyes for a moment.

Then a hand suddenly shook my shoulder, and I snapped awake.

“Senior Brother!”

“Mm? What is it? No... What time is it?”

Outside the tent, I could hear weapons colliding and screams again.

“Are these bastards fighting again?”

I was going to beat these damned idiots to a pulp...

“It is not that... We are under attack.”

“What?”

“It is an ambush.”

Behind Eunho, whose gaze wavered anxiously...