WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 351: Escape
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What are martial arts?
The process of mental cultivation in pursuit of enlightenment wore down the physical body.
People might seek the realm of sudden enlightenment, but until they reached it, they remained trapped within their flesh.
That was how the martial arts of Buddhist sects came to be.
What had once been used for self-defense and health gradually developed over time. Now, martial arts were revered alongside gold and authority as one of the three great powers.
Shaolin Temple still claimed to regard martial arts as one path toward enlightenment.
Yet warrior monks received more support and monopolized more positions within Shaolin Temple than scholarly monks. Its words and actions did not match.
The same was true of Wudang Sect, which had opened the way for Taoist martial sects beginning with Zhang Sanfeng.
Now there was even the Black Path, whose purpose was openly to gain strength through cultivation, while practitioners of unorthodox methods claimed that their arts were also one branch of martial arts.
Perhaps martial arts had fallen so low that they had become whatever anyone wanted them to be.
But...
‘Can this be called martial arts too?’
Ilgak let out a low groan as he looked at the being before him.
“Kehahahaha!”
It had a long snout, shaggy fur covering its entire body, and eerily flashing eyes that did not look human.
No matter how generously he judged it, it looked like nothing more than a bipedal demonic beast.
“You’re not bad, bald monk!”
No, perhaps this strange animal that could speak...
“Hehe. You blocked the Aberrant Fiend Demon Art this well? Have you learned the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic?”
...was claiming that what he displayed was martial arts.
“...Amitabha.”
Ilgak tried to use the Overlord Bead to widen the distance between them, but the bipedal beast... no, the furry human... in any case, he closed the distance with a mysterious four-legged gait.
“Hmm, that foul stench stabs my nose. Still, the best food often smells the worst. Hehe.”
Clack. Clack.
The creature clacked his teeth together as though he were already chewing something.
It stirred a deep, instinctive disgust within Ilgak.
“Could it be...?”
“Is there something you’re curious about?”
As sharp claws rushed toward him, an unpleasant curiosity rose within him.
Yet he felt as though even voicing the question would corrupt him, so he forced that curiosity down again and again.
“Kehahahahaha!”
Then, without warning, he threw back his head and burst into loud laughter.
It was only laughter.
But Ilgak’s head shook violently, and his heart pounded wildly.
“You bald monks are all so cowardly. Kehuh. What? Are you so frightened that I eat human flesh?”
“...!”
Was it because of the laughter?
Ilgak tried to restore his calm by invoking his unmoving mind, but his racing heart would not settle.
His heartbeat quickened, making him short of breath. As his breathing grew rougher, his hands clenched of their own accord.
Clang! Clang!
The aftershock of his fist force struck the air and forced the beast back.
Though he had been driven back in the exchange of strength, the beast could not hide his delight.
“Kehahaha. Baldies always react the same way.”
His fragmented words kept giving rise to terrible images.
Screams filled with pain.
The terror of watching one’s own flesh tear away.
The fear of something inhuman moving before one’s eyes.
The suffering of every frail being violently shook his unmoving mind.
Even with his unmoving mind shattered, his body clearly knew what movements it needed to make.
Arhat Fist, Dragon God Fist, Dragon King Wandering Fist.
He could not compare to Senior Brother Ilmyeong, but Ilgak had still mastered more than enough Shaolin martial arts.
“Amitabha.”
With a calm expression, he sent flowing fist force toward the beast.
The beast’s movements changed strangely.
The way he had crouched low and charged like an animal became humanlike. He stopped clacking his teeth on instinct and instead used hand techniques centered around his long nails.
Papapapapapak!
Fist force and hand techniques collided, sending powerful shockwaves through the area.
Eighteen Arhat Palms, Shattering Arm Palm, Great Strength Vajra Palm.
As he folded the space between them, palm force shot from Ilgak’s hands.
The beast, which had defended with claw techniques, soon stumbled backward as his hands and feet tangled.
One-Finger Divine Art, Vajra Finger, Dharma Flower Finger.
Whoosh!
Just as the finger techniques shot through an opening toward the opponent’s weakest vital acupoint...
Swish!
“Peekaboo!”
The beast vanished from before his eyes and reappeared three jang behind him. At last, he used those enormous teeth.
Crunch.
“Gahhh!”
The Academy student whose nape had been half torn away died on the spot without even having a chance to defend themself.
The inhuman creature rolled the torn flesh around in his mouth.
Chew. Chew. Spit.
“Doesn’t taste very good.”
“!!!”
“This one liked alcohol when they were alive! Calling themself a Taoist too. Kehheh.”
The beast tossed the corpse aside as though he were throwing away a tasteless apple, then turned his head to seek his next prey.
Ilgak’s whole body shook as violently as it could.
“M-Monk Ilgak...!”
Before Nam Hwaseong could stop him, Ilgak’s body became a streak of light.
A gleam appeared in the beast’s eyes as he leisurely picked at his teeth.
“Hehe, have you finally gotten serious?”
Even while watching Ilgak approach in a golden blaze, the beast showed no sign of tension. He only flicked his fingers casually.
Thud! Thud!
Two wounds burst open on Ilgak’s left shoulder, and his eyes widened.
He had clearly dodged them.
“Tsk, do you think the Unrivaled Vajra Art is some invincible shield?”
Just as the beast said, even his Unrivaled Vajra Art had been pierced.
Ilgak had been about to shake out his hands, but he withdrew the Dragon Flower Fist and unleashed the Demon-Subduing Ten-Aspect Palm.
Considering he had been attacked without warning, his response was extremely swift and nimble.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Even though he had changed attacks in an instant, the beast shifted his position as if he had predicted everything.
“I was preparing to hunt the Little Buddha. Do you think I’d lose to a cheap imitation? Kahaha.”
Then the beast assumed a strange stance, and his hands moved so quickly that they could not be seen.
A beat later, fist force burst forth and completely covered Ilgak’s body.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ilgak believed that he had grown accustomed to enduring pain, but this was different.
It did not simply strike his skin. It hurt as though his bones were breaking.
Worse, every place the fists grazed left behind a numb sensation, followed by a strange paralysis.
‘If I carry this within me, something terrible will surely happen.’
Ilgak desperately gathered the energy remaining inside him in one place.
But...
“...!”
Before he could expel it, his body reacted first.
His insides twisted sharply, and blood surged up his throat.
“Guh... Cough!”
Shaolin martial arts were unmatched in all the world when it came to stability.
Ilgak could not easily believe that he had suffered internal injuries.
Still, he had no time to hesitate.
“Guh!”
“Urgh!”
The moment Ilgak staggered, the Academy students who had bravely faced the beast began to die.
‘Is that why Unit Commander Jin couldn’t stop him either?’
The image of Jin Sowoon’s back suddenly came to mind, and it looked far more painful than he had imagined.
Ilgak roughly wiped his mouth and pressed his palms together.
Fortunately, after coughing up blood, his left arm, which had been slow to move, began moving again.
“Namu Amitabha...”
As he began reciting the formula of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, which he had repeated countless times while practicing wall-facing meditation in a state of selflessness, his wildly pounding heart seemed to stop entirely.
Every distracting thought swirling through his head shattered into the wind.
As one of his clasped hands slowly opened, countless hand shadows followed behind it.
“...Huh? He attained Thousand Hands?”
Even the beast’s once-relaxed eyes filled with surprise.
“Amitabha.”
Dense hand shadows followed each gentle motion of Ilgak’s hand.
Clang!
Hundreds, thousands of golden palms constricted the beast from every direction.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A golden radiance powerful enough to blind, as though the sun had descended upon the earth.
The overwhelming force that seemed capable of turning everything to dust revealed Shaolin’s true strength, which people often forgot because of its merciful nature.
But...
Twitch.
Was it because of his wounds?
His left arm, which should have continued forward, rattled weakly.
Ilgak gritted his teeth and thrust out his left hand, but the beast did not miss that opening. He pushed through Thousand Hands and escaped.
“Kahahahaha! That’s more like it!”
His condition was miserable for someone laughing so confidently, yet he remained triumphant even as blood flowed from his body.
Bulge. Bulge.
The creature’s wounds, which had been pouring blood, healed, and new fur grew over the patches that had been crushed flat.
The unimaginable sight violently shook Ilgak’s mind again, even though he had recovered his unmoving mind.
Having returned to his original, uninjured condition, the beast ran a hand through his mane and shook off the blood in one motion.
“I didn’t expect you to push me this far.”
Swish!
The beast folded space again and appeared before him.
“...!”
With his grotesque face twisted, he threw a punch.
Exposed to the attack without warning, Ilgak hurriedly raised both hands, but the beast did not care and drove his fist forward.
The moment his fist struck Ilgak’s body, with the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic drawn up to its limit...
Thoom!
Ilgak struggled not to be pushed back, while the beast put even more power into his strike to crush him at once.
Rather than pushing each other away, their colliding force spread in every direction.
Boom!
A deafening roar rang out, and a violent gale swept through the area.
“Ugh...”
“Cough...”
Those confronting each other nearby could no longer keep their balance.
“What is this...?”
They stood dumbfounded before a reality they could not believe even with their own eyes.
Whoosh!
The energy from the explosion settled.
The two figures at its center remained facing each other.
But...
“Monk Ilgak!”
Their conditions could not have been more different.
Ilgak kept vomiting blood, while the beast could not wipe the delighted smile from his face.
Just as the beast prepared to throw another punch...
“Hyahhh!”
Nam Hwaseong and the others rushed at him.
“Tsk, stay out of this, you worthless trash!”
Thoom!
Hand force burst from the creature’s casually swung fingertips.
Instead of helping Ilgak, the others were now in danger of failing to protect themselves.
“You were impressive, bald monk.”
“...”
All Ilgak could feel was how overwhelming he was.
Rather than fear the pressure and killing intent radiating from the opponent, Ilgak felt empty.
He had believed that training the mind and body while enduring pain was the shortest path to great strength.
He had believed that restraining desire and enduring harsh training were true martial arts, and that the martial arts of the Black Path, which sought the quickest road, would ultimately end in ruin.
He had believed that the strength of those who did not walk the righteous path would ultimately collapse before the strength of those who did.
That was martial arts.
‘But...’
What was this?
Instead of restraining his desires, this creature was ruled completely by them and even defied heaven’s laws, yet he was overwhelming them.
Those whom the beast killed so easily were not people who had made only a token effort.
And yet... and yet...
Such people fell and collapsed as helplessly as reeds.
‘...What are martial arts?’
Everything he had known and believed in absolutely until now shook violently.
Even the Buddha’s teachings, which had always weighed upon him like a thousand pieces of gold, became as light as the wind.
Carried on that wind came the beast’s voice, harsh enough to tear apart the air.
“But this is as far as you go.”
Dense black smoke gathered around the beast’s fist as he pulled his arm back.
Ilgak could not tell whether it was fist qi or fist force.
He knew one thing for certain. That energy would not bring a peaceful death.
“Die!”
Just as the beast prepared to throw another punch...
Boom!
Kwarararang!
A thunderous explosion erupted in the distance, loud enough to tear their eardrums apart.
Forgetting even that he stood at death’s door, Ilgak turned his gaze.
‘That’s where Unit Commander Jin...’
The last time he had looked, strange blue and red energy had filled the area.
He had been unable to stop worrying about the immense eruption of qi.
Yet he had been too busy dealing with the beast before him to pay proper attention.
But the energy that had surged as though it would explode only moments ago had completely vanished.
Kwararang! Boom!
Only the deafening noise continued to ring out.
Then...
Piiing!
With a sound like a whistling arrow, a large fireball flew through the air from within the explosion.
Normally, Ilgak and the beast would have ignored it and continued their fight.
This time, they could not.
The fireball was clearly coming toward them.
“...Je Geumhak?”
The beast stared at the fireball, his face twisting into a deep frown.
When he turned his head...
“Huh?!”
Ilgak also realized that what he had taken for a fireball was actually shaped like a person.
Then a voice came flying toward them.
“You... you son of a bitch!!!”
It was the crudest, most vulgar voice he had ever heard.
A scorching heat came with it.
“Baldy! Move out of the way!”
He did not understand what was being said, but he knew exactly who had said it.
Whoosh!
Without a second thought, Ilgak used the Nine Grades of the Lotus Terrace with all his strength.
“How dare a White Path brat...!”
The beast still threw his punch without any sense of danger.
Several black, hazy shapes of fist force flew through the air toward Jin Sowoon as he fell from above.
Ilgak knew how much terrifying power lay within that blurry-looking energy because he had experienced the beast’s fists himself.
“Unit Commander Jin, watch out...”
But when Ilgak looked toward him to speak...
“Die, you son of a bitch!!!”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Dozens, no, perhaps more than a hundred fireballs began pouring down without end.
Then...
Fwoooosh!
They burned away the beast’s hazy fist force and drenched his entire body in blazing heat.
“Gahhhhh!”
The beast, which had acted as though he knew no pain, screamed more like a beast than ever before.
Heat reached Ilgak’s scalp, and his eyes widened.
...This was...
‘F-Fire Rain?’
He had often seen those who cultivated the Yang Family Qi Art release flames.
There were also many masters at the main mountain who could ignite Samadhi True Fire, so that alone was not surprising.
But could a human create heat like this, as though they had stepped inside a kiln used to fire pottery?
...Could this also truly be called martial arts?
“...Amitabha.”
Ilgak felt that he understood less and less.
Then a Lion’s Roar jolted him awake.
“What are you doing, baldy?! Aren’t you going to fight?!”
His crude superior did not care in the slightest what injuries his subordinate had suffered.
Still, Ilgak knew that this was not the time to complain.
“Amitabha.”
He was not even reciting the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, yet his heart was calmer than it had ever been.
Footnotes:
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