WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 432: Wings Flying South (2)
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The second participant stepped onto the platform.
It had been an Infinite Martial Contest from the start.
Anyone could step up as long as they had registered.
“Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
The third participant quickly fell, and the fourth stepped up.
“Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
“Geumpyo of Taeul Sect...”
By the time the fifth participant climbed onto the platform, the crowd was growing increasingly excited.
After the first, they thought, No way.
After the third, they thought, It can’t be.
By the fifth, they were asking, Is this real?
“Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
When the fifth participant was finally knocked out of the training ground after fifty exchanges, the spectators erupted into louder cheers than ever.
“Waaaaah!”
“Taeul Sect is the best!”
“Geumpyo! Do you remember me?! We were close when we were kids!!!”
Geumpyo was far younger than his opponents, and his clothes were nothing impressive.
Seeing someone like him win again and again was enough to set ordinary people’s hearts ablaze.
Taeul Sect’s martial arts tournament grew more heated than ever.
“He’s pretty good...”
“So he didn’t get into the Martial Arts Academy for nothing.”
The protesters, on the other hand, had sunk into a gloomy mood.
Taeul Sect’s level was far beyond what they had expected.
“More importantly... he’s far more accustomed to fighting than I thought.”
Young talents and divine prodigies often displayed exceptional skill in forms and practice.
Yet many of them lacked real combat experience.
There was a world of difference between wielding a weapon to learn and wielding one to kill an opponent.
“Where did he gain that kind of experience?”
An Academy brat was controlling the fights with remarkable ease.
His ability to adapt made him seem like someone who had fought for his life every single day.
“Do we need to raise their spirits by losing one after another?”
They had never imagined losing to Taeul Sect.
Still, if this continued, they would become tools for displaying Taeul Sect’s strength.
They could not afford to surrender the momentum any longer.
“Have those lacking experience step back. I’m not saying you’re beneath Taeul Sect’s level. That brat simply has an abnormal amount of combat experience.”
The suggestion was accepted, and several people preparing to step forward moved back.
There were only five Martial Arts Academy graduates in Taeul Sect anyway.
They could step forward after all of them had withdrawn.
“...Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
Once they changed the order, the effect was immediate.
Fights that had not lasted fifty exchanges now stretched to a hundred.
Geumpyo gradually began breathing harder.
“...G-Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
The seventh.
The fight had surpassed two hundred exchanges, and Geumpyo had suffered more than five wounds.
“Are you all right?”
Gang Chaeseok asked Geumpyo, who had collapsed against his shield while gasping for breath.
“Huff, huff, I-I’m... I’m fine.”
“Stop if it’s too much.”
“...”
For some reason, Geumpyo’s gaze shifted behind him.
There.
Swipe.
Jin Sowoon was still holding up a thumbs-up as he drew it across his throat.
“I-I’m still fine!!”
Gang Chaeseok had seen the whole thing, and his face turned to stone.
He did not look fine at all.
At that moment, Geumpyo sprang to his feet, swayed, and picked up his sword and shield.
The eighth.
Jeon Sukya, the Guishan Swordsman active in Hunan Province, stepped onto the platform.
After a fierce battle of three hundred exchanges, Geumpyo was covered in wounds large and small.
The previously heated atmosphere had cooled into silence.
“Huff, huff, huff.”
The contest had become so brutal and one-sided that everyone held their breath, anticipating a grim outcome.
“...I thought your arrogance was unwarranted, but you did possess this much skill?”
Jeon Sukya spoke for the first time.
“But this is as far as you go.”
The Guishan Swordsman’s sword, clearly influenced by Mount Cang Sect’s Slicing Blade Sword, stabbed in from every direction.
After two hundred and fifty exchanges, Geumpyo could do nothing but retreat. He curled up as tightly as possible and hid behind the Vajra Shield.
Clang, clang, clang, clang.
The Vajra Shield was a fine artifact, but it could not cover his entire body. His injuries continued to multiply.
Splurt.
As blood sprayed out, Jeon Sukya sensed victory and leaped toward the gap the shield could not protect.
“Have you not learned that martial artists do not carry shields because they inevitably create blind spots?”
Then.
Ping.
Something gleaming shot out and began winding around Jeon Sukya’s sword and arm.
“Wh-What?!”
Jeon Sukya hurriedly tried to tear away what had wrapped around his arm, but his palm force was nowhere near enough to pull free.
At the same time, his body was violently dragged forward.
Bang!
Jeon Sukya crashed into the ground as quickly as he had surged forward, then immediately sprang back up.
“Phantom Asura Kick!”
Several foot shadows had already appeared before Jeon Sukya’s eyes.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Jeon Sukya retreated to lessen the impact, but could not respond quickly enough to the line pulling at his sword.
“Flying Sword Emergence!”
The same illusory swords poured down before Jeon Sukya’s eyes.
Shrrrrrrk.
“N-No!”
Swept up in a storm of blades from head to toe, Jeon Sukya collapsed in a bloody heap.
“I was taught that a shield’s blind spot should be used to create an opening from the start.”
“...Who taught you such insane...?”
Jeon Sukya could not finish the question.
“G-Geumpyo of Taeul Sect wins!”
Geumpyo released the Flying Dragon Claw and trudged back to his place.
His shield and sword both hung limply at his sides. After roughly wiping away the blood running down his face, he took his place again.
Unable to watch any longer, Gang Chaeseok tried to stop him.
“Enough! You’ve already done more than enough!”
“...N-No. There are still people left.”
Gang Chaeseok’s heart ached.
Geumpyo had only just come of age, an age when he should have been enjoying the sweetness of the martial world. Yet he was desperately carrying such a crushing burden.
Why had this brat, who should have been carefree, become an adult?
Was it not because the adults had failed to act like adults?
Shame and anguish filled Gang Chaeseok’s chest until it felt ready to burst.
“You’ve done enough. You can stop now.”
“No! I-I can do it. I don’t want to go through a terrible future.”
“Geumpyo!”
It was impossible to tell how many days of recuperation he would need in his current state.
Why was this child putting himself through such pain?
“Geumpyo.”
A languid voice came from Taeul Sect’s side.
“Come down now.”
Geumpyo’s eyes suddenly brightened.
“B-But there are still people left.”
“I don’t like it much, but I’ll let it slide, so come down.”
“Th-Then the terrible fated encounter...?”
“Yes, I’ll let it slide.”
“Understood!”
Geumpyo quickly looked at Gang Chaeseok.
“I surrender!”
“...???”
“Ah, it’s too much. Too much. I really think I’m going to collapse!”
With that, Geumpyo trudged back toward the group.
“...”
Gang Chaeseok watched this absurd situation unfold, his face full of regret.
#
Eunho returned after defeating four opponents.
Saryeon defeated five, while Dongryong defeated eight.
Their results were modest compared to Geumpyo’s.
Still, considering that the protesters’ level had risen drastically after Geumpyo displayed such might, they were remarkable achievements.
Especially when Dongryong, who still looked as though he had not fully grown, defeated eight opponents.
Taeul Sect’s momentum rose once more.
Then Kwak Samnam collapsed from exhaustion after facing a single opponent.
Un Jihyang failed to defeat even one, and the atmosphere changed in an instant.
Song Jamun and Gong Jihyang also suffered consecutive defeats because of their lack of experience.
Wang Soso stopped the losing streak with three victories, but the earlier momentum was gone.
The protesters had realized the vast difference between the Academy-trained disciples and the ordinary disciples. Their confidence swelled, and they even began joking among themselves.
Taeul Sect’s side was more dispirited than ever.
“This is as far as we can go.”
Taeul Sect had few first-generation disciples.
They had been accepted during the sect’s hardest days, but many had also gone into the cities to earn money and naturally lost contact with Taeul Sect.
The sect had not possessed the means to support them at the time.
If the second-generation disciples stepped forward now, they would only suffer one-sided losses.
To Eunho, forcing inexperienced children out to be hurt was as foolish as it got.
“What are you talking about? We still have one left.”
My thoughts were completely different, of course.
“Who?”
“Gang Yuseong.”
Eunho turned slightly and looked at Yuseong, who was tense from head to toe.
“...Head Disciple, are you in your right mind?”
Insubordination was becoming routine now. Power really was frightening.
“Do you want to experience a ‘fated encounter’?”
“...Head Disciple, Jamun and Jihyang are injured too. Yuseong is still too young.”
“Yuseong.”
“Y-Yes!”
“You can do well, right?”
“I-I’ll do my... No, I’ll do my best!”
“No. You don’t need to do your best. Just do enough and come back.”
Gang Yuseong moved both his hands and feet at once in his extreme nervousness, drawing a round of laughter from the crowd.
“Wahahahaha!”
Eunho watched the scene with a miserable expression, then gritted his teeth and spoke to me.
“Are you really sending a child like that out there?”
He was seriously getting on my nerves.
Tap, tap.
“Argh! W-Wait!”
I struck Eunho’s paralysis acupoint and mute acupoint, fixing his gaze on the training ground before I spoke.
“Watch carefully. You’ll see how the person in Taeul Sect who understands the Taeul True Scripture best will develop. It is also the path you all must walk.”
#
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Countless gazes.
A martial artist looking at him with hostile eyes.
Even his body had stiffened from tension.
Cold sweat ran down his back, and his heart beat so quickly that his head spun.
Could I do this?
What if I lost disgracefully?
What if I only brought harm to Taeul Sect?
What if I did something hurtful to the people who had been kind to me?
One thought led to another.
Gang Yuseong loved Taeul Sect.
It had become even better after the sect’s finances improved, but he had loved it before then too.
They had accepted him as a disciple without conditions, even though he had brought along three sisters. When they learned that his parents were gone, they had grieved even more than he had.
Taeul Sect had become a new family for Gang Yuseong and his sisters.
And now.
His heart would not stop trembling because he was afraid he might bring harm to that family.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
He was afraid.
Afraid they would hate him.
Terrified.
Terrified of losing his family.
The hand holding his drawn sword would not stop shaking.
“Kid, do you even know how to hold a sword?”
Loud laughter broke out among the protesters.
This was wrong.
Who was he to stand here as Taeul Sect’s representative, as his family’s representative?
Tears welled up in his eyes.
Among the countless spectators, he saw his sisters watching with anxious faces.
Amid the tall adults, a small child tightly held an even smaller child’s hand, trembling in fear.
Could he truly protect those children until the end?
Could he go further and protect the people of Taeul Sect?
His heart beat so quickly that he could barely breathe.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to go back.
Then a familiar voice came through sound transmission.
[No one told you to protect Taeul Sect.]
It was the voice of the person who had been his goal and purpose since their first meeting.
[Do you think Taeul Sect is so weak that we would place that burden on you?]
Gang Yuseong unconsciously turned around and shook his head.
[Trust your family. Your family will not crumble or break so easily.]
At the word family, tears rushed into his eyes, and he finally began to cry.
“Sniff... sniff...”
At the sight of him crying just before the martial contest, not only the protesters but even the spectators burst into loud laughter.
“Kid, if you want to cry, get down and cry.”
The challenger did not hide their displeasure at the fact that their opponent was still an immature child.
“N-No. I’m fine. I can... sniff, I can do it.”
The challenger grew even angrier at Taeul Sect for sending such a child into the match.
“They must think their opponent is a joke just because it’s a martial contest. Let’s see whether they can still send disciples out to gain experience after one becomes crippled.”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The challenger’s robes swelled as immense qi spread in every direction.
Sand and gravel around the large training ground scattered in an instant, and a ferocious martial aura bore down on Gang Yuseong.
“Begin!”
At Gang Chaeseok’s shout, the challenger shot forward with the Bow-Arrow Flickering Shadow technique.
Footnotes:
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