WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 481: Each One's Purpose (5)
──────
A crowd surged in like a raging tide.
Their sheer presence, vicious faces, and grotesque weapons turned the sight into a scene from hell.
They looked like hungry ghosts ready to devour everything in sight.
“Aaaagh!”
The excitement sparked by bloodshed and the madness born from facing death numbed the reason of the Black Path martial artists, who were already mentally unstable.
They became beasts driven by a single instinct: murder.
Just as Yong Soa had said, these back-alley thugs had neither discipline nor courage. Now, they charged at us like rabid dogs.
And rabid dogs were especially obsessed with their prey.
“If we kill Yong Soa, we’ll live! Kill Yong Soa!”
I hammered the target into the ears of those crazed bastards and drew as much attention as I could.
Yong Soa was already at the very front.
The Black Path martial artists pouring through the broken wall and shattered gate immediately spotted their target and rushed toward him.
I grinned.
“That’s it!”
“What are you so happy about?”
Blue qi force gathered around Yong Soa’s sword.
He was clearly drawing upon a vast amount of internal energy in an instant, yet the qi force channeled through the Whirlwind Sword Art did not waver in the slightest.
It showed how naturally and steadily he drew out and released his internal energy.
The two-foot-long qi force extended as though painted with a brush, carving through the air in a smooth arc.
“Gaaah!”
“Urgh!”
Nothing caught on the edge of his qi force.
It severed arms, necks, and bodies alike, yet the Whirlwind Sword Art cut through everything without the slightest resistance.
As though he were dancing.
With his sword, he painted his own image into every stretch of space.
Whenever the Whirlwind Sword Art swept like a brush, blood soaked the ground beyond his reach like spilled ink.
‘Is that bastard really using an orthodox assault?’
Even if this was only a gathering of third-rate thugs, anyone would have found it burdensome to face such a huge crowd.
Yet that irritating bastard did not waver at all.
‘It’s only because this is the beginning.’
At the same time, I was curious.
Could someone who fought while staying ahead of an opponent’s moves see every future against hundreds or thousands of enemies?
I knew that in my previous life, he had never lost a one-on-one battle except against Gwak Gung.
Still, that was only something I had heard through records and rumors. I had never seen it with my own eyes.
The more information I had, the better I could understand him.
“Yong Soa is here! Whoever takes his head will receive a reward of one hundred taels of gold!”
I kept using him as bait, drawing in more and more of the crowd.
But new orders rang out.
“There’s no reward! Just capture Yong Soa alive!”
“Kill everyone except Yong Soa!”
“Wear Yong Soa down with rotating attacks!”
Elite-looking Black Path martial artists shouted orders from within the mob.
Those who changed direction headed toward...
“!”
Me, naturally.
“Damn it...”
Yong Soa spun like a falling flower petal and cut down four thugs. Then he casually glanced my way.
“Looks like you’ve fallen into your own trap.”
I had no time to answer that irritating bastard.
The elite Black Path martial artists were rushing toward me like a raging tide.
Hummm.
The Scarlet Radiance Sword, filled with internal energy, gave off a crimson glow.
A desperate scream of unknown origin spread in every direction as sword blades unfolded like the ribs of a fan.
Shrrrng.
The red sword qi cut into their vital acupoints more sharply than any other sword qi, making them spill blood darker than the blade’s own color.
Shrrk.
Shrrrkk.
The Greater Heaven Sword Art flowed into the Twin Heavens Sword Art, and dozens of sword images stretched outward in every direction.
“M-My God!”
Fear filled the Black Path martial artists’ eyes at that unnatural sight.
“What are you doing? Block it!”
“Fuck!”
They cursed and wildly swung their weapons to hide their fear.
But there was no way their crude movements could stop the Twin Heavens Sword Art, which found weaknesses amid every change.
“Urgh!”
“Puaaagh!”
“Ghk! Ghk!”
It did not matter whether they could distinguish the illusion swords from the real ones.
If they evaded the first attack, I killed them with the second.
If they evaded the second as well, I killed them with the third.
The crowd was as numerous as waves, and that gave me a simple answer.
Kill whoever stood in front of me.
Compared to my previous life, where I had faced the same problem, this life felt far easier.
‘A tenfold difference? Compared to a hundredfold difference, that’s nothing!’
In the past, I had faced endless demonic beings using nothing but a mismatched combination of the Taeul Mind Method, Great Tremor Divine Art, Lesser Heaven Sword Art, and Flash Lightning Sword Art.
Now, the enemy’s numbers were limited, and so was the length of the battle.
There was nothing to feel burdened about.
Rumble!
When a storm of sword blades crashed into the heart of the enemy ranks like a falling meteor, the Black Path martial artists who had charged forward in madness flinched and began to regain their senses.
Numbers could overwhelm even a master, but the gap in skill was too great for Blood Heaven Fort to press its advantage.
The thugs trying to hold Yong Soa down and buy time were forced forward by the comrades pressing in behind them, throwing themselves at his sword.
And trying to break through me instead was no solution. My martial arts were far too advantageous in a one-against-many battle.
“Argh!”
“Save me...!”
“Keep pushing! It’s only Hwapung Manor!”
The Hwapung Manor martial artists stationed in the rear maintained their formation defensively and held off the enemy as best they could.
The Dragon-Phoenix Association also stepped in to help whenever they found an opening.
Despite the tenfold difference in numbers, the battle did not tilt decisively to either side.
If anything, the Black Path martial artists had lost their early momentum, while Hwapung Manor and the Dragon-Phoenix Association were growing more certain that they could win.
“W-What the hell is this?”
“They’re this strong?”
The elite Black Path martial artists who had charged at me without fear stared at their dead comrades, their eyes filled with terror.
Many began inching backward, no longer even thinking about the Blood Spear Unit holding spears to their backs.
To cement that thought in their minds, I unleashed my final technique.
[Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art]
[Heavenly Sword]
The ultimate secret art of the Taeul Sword Emperor.
The pinnacle of swordsmanship he had pursued.
The Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art.
Until now, I had only imitated it, but this time, I properly unleashed it.
The Ten Thousand Swords, divided into four, moved independently and formed countless sword images in the air.
Their number rose beyond dozens and into the hundreds.
The dense sword images filling the sky made it seem as though every person was being relentlessly targeted by a blade.
The Black Path martial artists screamed.
“A-Aaaagh!”
“W-What is that?!”
“This is insane!”
Terrified by the sword images filling the air like a sky full of arrows, they desperately tried to flee the range of the swords.
“Don’t move carelessly... Those are only illusion swords... Don’t push!”
Some quickly saw through them, but the reason of a few could not overcome the fear of the many.
The thugs began running without caring whether spears or swords were pointed at their necks.
I swung my sword.
Screeech!
The Ten Thousand Swords followed the Scarlet Radiance Sword and poured down all at once.
Most of the swords vanished as illusion swords, but dozens of martial artists were struck by sword qi, spilling blood as their heads rolled across the ground.
The damage was minor compared to what I had shown them, but it was enough.
The Black Path forces, including Blood Heaven Fort, had already fallen deep into confusion. They no longer had any intention of readily obeying oppressive orders.
And nothing was easier than dealing with enemies who had lost their reason and moved recklessly.
“Gaaah!”
“Urgh!”
“Argh!”
Yong Soa and I, along with the Dragon-Phoenix Association, cut down the Black Path martial artists as though mowing grass.
At this point, they no longer had the strength to break through our formation.
‘Are they moving?’
The three masters observing the battle from horseback leaped down and began running toward us, stepping on the heads of the Black Path martial artists.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
With every step, they closed a distance of ten jang. That alone showed their level.
Whoosh.
Tap.
Thud.
I was not the only one who stopped fighting at their arrival.
Yong Soa and the Dragon-Phoenix Association sensed the danger as well. They raised their guard and watched the intruders.
“Hehehe. I came to watch a fight for the first time in a while, and now I’ve become the spectacle.”
The person before me held an unusual weapon, a chain sickle with a blade attached to the end of a chain.
He wore a glove made of green hide on his left hand.
There was only one person in the Black Path martial world who used a chain sickle and wore a green-hide glove.
“Cheon Yobi.”
Once the leader of Gohanbang, Cheon Yobi was a traitor who had killed every member of his own organization and become its final leader.
“Hehehe... You know me?”
I did.
In my previous life, Cheon Yobi had thrown in with the Demonic Cult, and I had faced him as an enemy during the Orthodox-Demonic War.
I remembered Cheon Yobi particularly well because he had struck Moyong Seol and left her on the verge of death.
“Of course. I heard you’re an ugly bald old man who uses a chain sickle.”
I watched Cheon Yobi carefully arrange the few remaining strands of hair to cover the middle of his head, then snorted.
“Hehehe. I heard you had a foul mouth, but this is childish.”
Hm, was that not it?
Maybe that sort of insult only worked on bald monks.
“Oh, right. I was curious about something.”
I looked down, then back up, pointing at one spot with my chin.
“I heard your little fellow doesn’t work, so you only feel pleasure when you kill. Is that why you destroyed Gohanbang?”
“...”
The old bastard had been grinning with the few teeth he had left, but the smile vanished from his face.
Oh, so that was it.
“I was going to let you die without pain, but now I’ll peel away your flesh piece by piece...”
“And sprinkle salt on it?”
“I’ll sprinkle salt...”
Cheon Yobi stared at me blankly, as if wondering how I knew.
‘How else would I know? You said it all the time in my previous life.’
“Curious?”
“...”
Cheon Yobi pressed his lips tightly together and began spinning the chain.
Shrrrng.
The rapidly spinning sickle filled with qi and tore through the air.
I raised the Scarlet Radiance Sword and fired sword qi. The sickle bounced once off the sword qi, then flew straight toward me.
I bent sharply backward with the Iron Bridge technique. The sharp sickle cut several strands of my hair before returning along the path it had come from.
Cheon Yobi closed the distance in that instant, caught the sickle, and threw it at me again.
This time, the sickle itself spun fiercely as it shot toward me.
I blocked its path with the Lesser Heaven Sword Art and fired sword qi, but Cheon Yobi evaded the entire technique with a few twists of the chain and slipped through an opening.
Slash!
The hem of my martial robe was cut, leaving a shallow wound.
At the same time, I used the Twin Heavens Sword Art and trapped Cheon Yobi within a storm of swords.
Rumble!
We had exchanged moves, but I had not even given Cheon Yobi a scratch.
“You’re all talk.”
Perhaps it was because of the chain sickle, which was called the ultimate weapon of Change. Cheon Yobi seemed familiar with Taeul Sect’s Change and Illusion.
Then I only needed to fight differently.
[Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms]
[Extreme Swiftness]
I stepped forward toward the retreating enemy and unleashed Extreme Swiftness.
A sound like bursting air followed the Scarlet Radiance Sword as it cut through space.
Screech!
The flash of light struck Cheon Yobi’s sickle.
Bang!
Cheon Yobi retreated three steps, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.
“Oh? How do you know the Sword Demon’s sword art?”
Cheon Yobi smiled, exposing bloodstained teeth.
A chill ran down the back of my head, and I quickly ducked.
Just as expected.
Shrrrng.
A metal weight at the end of the chain barely passed over my head.
“The more I see, the more interesting you become.”
Cheon Yobi’s attacks layered change upon change and trick upon trick. There was nothing easy to predict.
Despite using a chain sickle, he deliberately kept closing the distance.
Nothing moved as I expected.
That unpredictability was probably why Cheon Yobi had been able to land a blow on Moyong Seol, even after she became the Sword Empress.
But unpredictability became predictability before someone with a memory like mine.
In the end, even unpredictability was just another habit.
‘Then...’
I deliberately let Cheon Yobi lead me as intended.
The gap between us was still too great for me to reach.
To kill Cheon Yobi, I had to move as though his unpredictability was working.
Slash. Slash.
Just as Cheon Yobi foresaw, my skin began to peel away.
Even when Cheon Yobi found openings that could disable an arm in one strike, he only cut away a layer of skin.
That made his obsession clear.
‘Crazy bastard.’
Even now, he was still doing this sort of thing. That was just like Cheon Yobi.
“Hehehe. Why aren’t you running your mouth anymore?”
Cheon Yobi seemed to think he had slowly gained the upper hand. He deliberately showed me an opening and waited for my attack.
Following his scheme, I thrust Extreme Swiftness of the Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms into that opening.
Screech!
The sound of air ripping apart rang through the space.
But only the sickle remained where the slash had passed.
Clang!
The sickle flew away after being struck by Extreme Swiftness, while the chain drew the path Cheon Yobi had taken.
The moment I turned toward Cheon Yobi, who appeared in my blind spot behind me...
Shhhk!
Something like grains of black sand covered my face.
“It’s Soul-Severing Sand. In only a quarter-hour, you’ll want to stab your own heart just to die. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure you live for at least one sichen[1]...”
Cheon Yobi stopped speaking.
“Why did you stop talking?”
I lowered the Dragon Scale Robe that had covered my face.
“H-How?”
Cheon Yobi was asking how I knew.
“Isn’t it more ridiculous that you thought you could hide it with a green-hide glove?”
Of course, I had anticipated this because Moyong Seol had been struck by the exact same trick in my previous life.
I quietly extended my left hand and returned the favor.
Thud.
A small sound came from Cheon Yobi’s stomach.
Cheon Yobi belatedly jumped back two steps, but the attack had already landed.
“Huh?”
Cheon Yobi examined the wound. When he looked confused, as though it were nothing, I told him.
“It’s the Silent Sound Azure Water Hand. It’ll probably slowly freeze your organs from the inside until your heart stops.”
I returned the same pain Moyong Seol had endured.
“Struggle all you want to survive. If you want, I can kill you.”
As soon as I finished speaking, a thin layer of frost began to form on Cheon Yobi’s face.
Even as chaos erupted all around him, Cheon Yobi sat down and began qi-regulating breathing.
Without pure qi or the Yang Family Qi Art, how long could Cheon Yobi withstand the Silent Sound Azure Water Hand?
“Argh!”
But that trial did not last long.
“S-Sorry, Elder!”
A Black Path martial artist fell while Cheon Yobi was regulating qi and touched his body. Cheon Yobi’s internal energy flowed backward, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Ghk... Ghk...”
With his internal energy flowing backward and cold spreading through his body, Cheon Yobi seemed to be in even greater pain.
But as his body froze, he could not even stab his own heart.
“Since you’re not answering, I guess you want to live. Do your best.”
I turned away from Cheon Yobi, who was slowly dying, just as Yong Soa cut off Poison-Hand Guanyin’s head.
Shhhk!
Yong Soa shook the blood from his sword.
The thugs seemed intimidated by the sight and could no longer approach him easily.
“You’re slow. The name Yong Soa is wasted on you.”
Yong Soa replied without emotion.
“You look like a mess.”
Not a single drop of blood had splattered onto his white martial robe.
“...But I was fast.”
Boom!
Gwak Susan, who had been fighting Lang Ajan, was sent flying by one strike and rolled to a stop before us.
Meanwhile, Ma Sejin, Seo Cheonpung, Wi Gongun, and Instructor Danmok had been keeping Lang Ajan occupied.
“Group Leader! What are you doing? Help us already!”
“Tsk.”
I gathered sword qi in the Scarlet Radiance Sword and fired it at Lang Ajan.
Screech!
The sword qi flew like a sharp blade and struck the Wolf Fang Club, making Lang Ajan stagger.
“Old man, stop and go home.”
“What?”
“Can’t you read the situation? It’s over.”
“...Hahahaha. You really aren’t in your right mind. It’s over, you say?”
I shook my head.
“Are your senses dull, or is your internal energy lacking? Can’t you feel it?”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you feel it? People are gathering.”
Lang Ajan finally straightened up and looked around.
“T-This is...”
“Right.”
A group of martial artists was approaching from the distance, their presence surging powerfully toward us.
“Have you heard of the Azure Dragon Pavilion?”
“Th-The Azure Dragon Pavilion?”
Lang Ajan’s face turned pale.
“And that’s not all. Since the Azure Dragon Pavilion has moved, the branch office that hesitated before will move too.”
Sure enough, another group of martial artists was racing toward us from the opposite direction. They were likely from the Martial Alliance branch office that had ignored Hwapung Manor, as well as White Path sects based in Kaifeng.
I gave Lang Ajan one final piece of advice.
“No matter how much you were paid, wouldn’t it be better to run?”
Unless Lang Ajan wanted to spend a lifetime in the Martial Alliance’s Golden Prison.
[1] Sichen: a traditional Chinese time unit of roughly two hours.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
