WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 588: Yong Soa (4)
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They said joy comes after hardship.
No matter how severe the trial, hardship does not last forever.
Even the longest cave has an exit, and no matter how deep a winter night grows, dawn eventually breaks.
But dawn still seemed far away for us.
We fought desperately to drive off the demonic beings rushing at us with the intent to die together.
After barely breaking through their carefully constructed defensive line, we finally found the Orthodox Society members in the middle of the dark night, radiating like stars.
“Fuck, what did you say?”
“...What did he just say? Did he curse?”
Yong Soa was gone.
Yong Soa alone was missing.
Damn it...
If someone here had learned a tracking art, they might have found signs of Yong Soa disappearing along the way. But it was even more doubtful that anyone among these privileged elites possessed such a skill.
“Answer me! Didn’t your senior ask whether you just cursed?”
With chapped lips and hollow eyes, the figure lightly shoved my shoulder while giving off a faint killing intent.
“Why aren’t you answering? Do you not see your senior as a senior?!”
It was obvious why they were lashing out over such a pathetic excuse.
They were too proud to ask for help from people whose operations they had been obstructing, just as we had been obstructing theirs.
They also knew very well that we could not easily abandon them in this situation.
“Answer me! Does the Taeul Sect not even know the basic courtesy one must show a senior of the martial world...?”
Of course, I had no intention of tolerating someone too stupid to grasp the situation.
Grab!
“Argh!”
His wrist twisted easily. There was already a gap in our physical strength and internal energy, and he was exhausted on top of that.
Perhaps the pain felt like his bones were about to pop out, because he desperately flailed his free hand.
Shing! Shing! Shing!
I let out a low growl at the Orthodox Society members reaching for their swords.
“Fuck, just draw them. I’ll kill you here, then bury you so deep no one will ever find your bodies.”
“...”
“...”
The shaken men all turned to look at Moyong Seol.
Perhaps they had decided Dang Seohui was impossible to reason with anyway.
“M-Moyong Seol! Do you really think this is right?!”
The Orthodox Society and the White Path Society.
They usually pursued their interests as separate groups, but both ultimately existed within the hierarchy of the Martial Alliance, that enormous organization.
From Moyong Seol’s position, it was only natural for her to stop me...
“A member is someone who follows the orders of their leader.”
Moyong Seol ignored them with an expression even colder than mine.
For some reason, the men looked more humiliated by her dismissal than they had been by mine.
“Argh! Argh! P-please, it hurts...!”
I twisted his arm until it was just short of breaking, then released him.
It had not broken, but the strained ligaments and muscles would make it difficult for him to use that hand for a while.
“When did you part ways with Yong Soa?”
“...”
When he did not answer, I slowly stepped on his calf.
“Argh!”
“Still not answering?”
“H-half a day! It’s only been half a day!”
He finally seemed to understand our positions in the hierarchy.
Still, even if it had only been half a day, considering the distance we would have to backtrack, Yong Soa was effectively another day away.
‘Fuck, is he already dead?’
Could that distance even be shortened?
“W-wait! W-where are you going... sir?”
The idiotically polite Orthodox Society member stopped us as we turned away.
“What does it matter to you where we’re going?”
“Y-you have to take us with you... sir!”
“Why would I?”
“...”
The Orthodox Society member only moved their lips, apparently unable to find an answer.
Then, as though they had realized something, their eyes widened.
“Could it be that you intend to go to Yong Soa, sir?”
The moment our eyes met, their tone became excessively deferential.
“I cannot be certain, sir, but it seems the enemy is actually after Yong Soa. We were never attacked even once on the way here, so...”
What followed only deepened my disgust toward them.
“You knew that and still left him behind?”
“...”
“Ha! Hahaha!”
A hollow laugh escaped me at the absurdity of it.
Every person here had bragged about being close to Yong Soa in my previous life.
Even when they later held important positions in the Martial Alliance, they had always acted as if Yong Soa and they were one.
Yet they had discarded Yong Soa without a shred of hesitation, as though he were an object.
For their own sake alone.
“I knew they were trash, but I didn’t think they’d do this even to one of their own.”
It had been a mutter, but they seemed to understand the context. The Orthodox Society members all frowned deeply.
Even so, not one of them dared object.
They must have understood very clearly who held the upper hand now.
“R-right now, shouldn’t informing headquarters that enemies have appeared be the priority instead of going to save Yong Soa? Ahem, let’s leave together.”
“Was that why you abandoned the injured too?”
The person speaking for them bit down hard on their lip.
“That can’t be...! We were trying to request help as quickly as possible to save them.”
“And you left Yong Soa behind for the same reason?”
“Y-Yong Soa isn’t someone who would die so easily.”
Yes. This was exactly it.
I had resented and cursed Yong Soa so much in my previous life, but Yong Soa had not made every decision alone.
He had simply made the biggest choice among all their choices.
Which meant that all of them...
“Is this the righteous path and chivalry you bastards are always chanting about?”
“W-we...”
They should have been ashamed, yet their expressions and attitudes suggested they could not contain their resentment.
There was nothing more I needed to say to them.
Desperate voices rose behind us.
“I-if you save us, Mount Cang Sect will reward you.”
“I’ll speak to my grandfather...! I’ll have him invest in the Taeul Sect!”
It was a strange feeling.
Their desperate cries did not reach my ears at all.
Instead, I sped up.
Had they listened to our desperate cries this coldly in my previous life too?
#
Hundreds of demonic beings charged forward.
“Waaaaaah!”
“Waaaaaah!”
The pressure of the oncoming crowd alone was enough to make it hard to breathe, while the foul demonic qi made even the view before him seem hazy.
An ordinary person would have been crushed by that terror and fled, but Yong Soa’s hands moved even faster.
He unleashed a storm-like barrage unlike anything he normally showed, yet his movements never wavered.
Each sword point accurately struck the demonic beings’ vital acupoints.
“Urgh!”
“Guh!”
“Gah!”
No one remained standing after a single sword strike, and none who fell rose again.
Even the demonic beings flinched at the sight of their comrades dropping like puppets with their strings cut.
Around Yong Soa, the corpses of countless demonic beings began piling into a mountain.
“Kill!”
“Die!”
“Kill!”
“Die!”
Amid the killing intent and madness, Yong Soa saw his future.
The moment he broke through this crowd and reached the snake-eyed man, a black curtain fell before him.
Should he turn back and retreat?
Yet even in the future where he retreated, he fought endlessly until his strength ran dry, and the black curtain fell again.
‘Then...’
He stepped toward a future Dragon Eye had not yet shown him.
Clangclangclangclang!
He rose into the air as he deflected sixteen swords and sabers thrusting at him from eight directions.
Stepping on the sword tips of the demonic beings who reacted too late, he leaped toward the cliff with the momentum of Bow-Arrow Flickering Shadow.
“He’s escaping!”
“Catch him!”
Several demonic beings rose after Yong Soa like lone cranes soaring to the heavens, but he spun halfway through the air, kicked off the cliff face, and plunged back toward the ground.
“You little shit...!”
A massive fist force shot from the giant’s fist. Yong Soa’s Whirlwind Sword Art smoothly redirected it, and it crashed down onto the demonic beings below.
Boom!
The giant’s fist force exploded with tremendous force, scattering the demonic beings like fragments.
Though demonic beings had died at the giant’s own hand, the man did not move an inch.
“You are beasts.”
As if in answer to Yong Soa’s words, the giant immediately fired another crimson fist force at him.
Move after, control first.
He moved later, yet arrived first.
Slash!
Slash!
Yong Soa had already cut upward from the giant’s ankles, his blade about to reach the nape of the giant’s neck.
Slash!
The moment Yong Soa tried to sever his neck, the giant covered his own hand and used it to block Yong Soa’s sword, reaching for him with the other.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, Yong Soa slipped out of the giant’s grasp, cut down two demonic beings rushing at him, and charged the giant again.
“You bastard!”
To block Yong Soa’s incoming sword force, fist force burst from the giant’s fist.
Boom!
The shock from the clash of qi force was enough to push the giant backward.
He hurriedly raised his head.
“...?”
Yong Soa was nowhere to be seen.
“Ho, as expected.”
Yong Soa had already used the impact to close in on the snake-eyed man.
While the giant struggled to comprehend what had happened...
“Your skill has certainly improved.”
As though he had been waiting, the snake-eyed man stretched out a hand before him.
Yong Soa’s sword shone with a brilliant burst of qi as he unleashed the Whirlwind Sword Art.
Thirteen Taiji Stances.
The man’s eyes curved even more as he released yellow and red qi to block Yong Soa’s sword.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The force from the clash was deflected to one side, leaving the snake-eyed man to bear all the damage.
Yong Soa’s clear mirror and still water wavered.
It had been the same last time. Such a paltry martial art.
That only made him more curious.
How had this man destroyed his clan?
Why did Dragon Eye warn him of death through this man?
The difference in skill had never been clearer.
Even amid hundreds of demonic beings and two men, Yong Soa showed no sign of being overwhelmed.
Talent granted by the heavens.
Wudang Sect martial arts.
The ability of Dragon Eye.
Because of those three things, Yong Soa held onto a small hope.
‘Maybe...’
The hope that Dragon Eye might have been wrong.
As though responding to that hope...
Slash! Slash!
The snake-eyed man’s delicate fingers were cut off.
The demonic beings rushing in piled into layers of corpses, turning the ground into a river of blood.
“Whew, you truly do possess remarkable talent.”
Even so, the snake-eyed man did not lose his composure.
“You might even...”
As if he found this enjoyable, the corners of his mouth stretched wider.
“Be able to take revenge for Soa.”
“!!!”
That composure felt strangely unnatural.
Yong Soa’s qi force extended another foot.
The demonic beings caught in the indiscriminate Whirlwind Sword Art lost their hands, feet, and even their heads.
Yong Soa poured all his strength into Linked Life-Severing Sword as he attacked the snake-eyed man.
It was surely the final move that would take the frail man’s life.
But then...
[Don’t worry. That won’t happen.]
“Don’t worry. That won’t happen.”
A black curtain fell over Dragon Eye again.
‘...’
Yong Soa did not stop.
No matter what move followed, he had decided to take the snake-eyed man down with him.
Brilliant light scattered brightly enough to fill the entire clearing.
The snake-eyed man, swallowed by that glow, would surely be crushed by the qi and leave not even a corpse behind...
Splash.
At that moment, a vivid red dot appeared within the light.
Then the dots gathered together, beginning to form a clear shape.
It resembled the Demon-Subduing Madman Yong Soa had seen before.
But what sustained that form was entirely different.
Boomboomboomboom!
The qi force of Linked Life-Severing Sword blew apart the red shape, but the red giant that shattered into pieces restored itself even faster, as though it were playing around.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Boomboomboomboom!
Boomboomboomboomboomboom!
Qi force shot out again, and again, and again.
Yet for some reason, the red giant vanished and reappeared at once, then vanished and reappeared again.
Before long, the red giant took on the snake-eyed man’s form.
Its features were clearly similar, but its body was much larger than before.
It was nearly as large as the giant.
Red qi flowed from the torn corners of its snake-like eyes, while strange vapor rose from its entire body.
It was a being from a world Yong Soa had never seen.
The being that had torn through the black curtain was not as horrifying as he had imagined.
But the moment it took a step and reached out its hand...
“...!”
Yong Soa understood just how unnatural it was.
‘Its wounds...!’
The living flesh struck by sword force was torn and cut apart, yet rapidly restored itself at the same time.
The man’s fist art surged forward, thrusting straight into Yong Soa’s path.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The shock exploding from the end of the fist force ravaged Yong Soa’s insides.
“Cough!”
“I beg you.”
The snake-eyed man opened his lips.
“Please, please... hate me, will you? Hehe, don’t give up so easily.”
“...”
“Soa.”
“For Soa’s sake!! Hee hee!”
Flames blazed in Yong Soa’s eyes.
Footnotes:
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