WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 77: The Black Flame Dragon Surpassing the Gate (5)

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Autumn mountain fires were nothing unusual.

Especially after a summer drought, when fallen leaves had piled thick across the mountainside, even the slightest wind could start a wildfire.

To prevent that, people from nearby villages prepared their winter firewood in advance and made firebreaks to keep the flames from spreading too far.

"But the Twin-Curtain Strongholds didn't allow the villagers onto the mountain."

For bandits trying to hide, nothing was better than a dense forest.

To preserve it, the Twin-Curtain Strongholds had forbidden not only logging but even herb gathering. Now, the dense, dry forest no longer concealed them. It had them by the throat.

The bandits charging down the mountain faltered as the oil-doused road erupted into an inferno. In that instant, the flames spread in every direction.

More than a thousand bandits tried to turn back uphill, but that was even harder.

"Argh!"

"Move!"

"Ah, it's hot!"

They became tangled up and fell over one another, and their ranks quickly collapsed.

The bandits who tried to flee off the road and through the mountain were swallowed by flames that had grown fiercer in the meantime. Unable to endure the heat, they rolled wildly across the ground, allowing the wildfire to spread even faster.

"This is impossible."

Eunho stared blankly at the smoke-blackened sky.

The fierce wind quickly drove away the black smoke, but it also made the flames burn harder, as if they had swallowed an elixir pellet.

Though all thousand-plus bandits had learned martial arts, there were clear differences in their attainments.

Those with little internal energy could not hold their breath. They inhaled smoke and began collapsing unconscious.

"Did you expect the wind to come, Sowoon?"

Yang Gunbaek asked as they pushed their hair back against the howling wind. Without answering, I drew the Black Dragon Sword.

"Get ready."

At my words, the three brothers each drew their swords.

"They can't escape toward the mountain because of the fire. But they'll come down the oil-doused road."

"We'll go too."

Yang Gunbaek stepped forward with the Hao Sect members.

"We have to press them while they're disoriented from coming through the flames."

Before I had even finished speaking, a tremendous roar split the air.

Kwarararang!

The Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe joined forces, gouging out the earth and scattering mounds of dirt in every direction.

"The flames have weakened! Get through as quickly as possible!"

At that resounding shout, the bandits searching for an escape route began pouring onto the road.

Some had clothes on fire and frantically tried to extinguish them, only to be trampled to death by the bandits charging from behind.

Crack!

The great trees left standing for an ambush along either side of the road caught fire and toppled across it.

"Argh!"

"D-dodge!"

"Save me!"

In the end, bandits who had given up on following the two stronghold leaders began running toward another path beyond the mountain.

Even as the bandits scattered in every direction, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe had no room to command them.

To clear a path, the two had to keep joining forces to scatter earth around them.

Kwarararang!

As their powerful energy burst outward, dirt and boulders flew everywhere, suppressing the flames to some extent.

Yet once the two passed through, the bandits following behind them were burned to death.

"Damn it!"

Driven mad by the mounting deaths, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade unleashed his movement art to its limit and charged down the mountain, no longer caring about the One-Eyed Blood Axe.

"Listen carefully."

"All of a sudden?"

"If they survive, the village's tragedy will happen again."

"...Yes."

"Remember what you saw from the hill."

I meant that they were not to show mercy.

Understanding my words, the three brothers clenched their jaws.

"Let's go!"

At my shout, the three brothers and Yang Gunbaek's group began running.

They were utterly different from when they had first feared the bandits' overwhelming presence. Now, they were filled with courage.

"Jin Sowoon!"

The Golden-Faced Buddha Blade spotted me as he charged forward like a boar with its tail on fire, then accelerated even more.

I increased my speed with the Peerless Wanderer Divine Art and met him head-on.

Bang!

"I'll kill you!"

As his saber, filled with blade energy, came down to split my head open, I unleashed Lotus and sent the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade flying into the inferno.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

With a crash too thunderous to believe it came from a human body, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade broke several trees before crashing into the flames.

"Arrgh!"

In the meantime, I unleashed the Breaking Strike Form of the Lesser Heaven Sword Art and began cutting down bandits who had rushed out for air.

"S-save...!"

"Urgh!"

Sword strikes aimed at vital acupoints scattered blood everywhere and deepened the chaos.

Every form took a life. Each time my sword swept out without pause, another bandit died.

Their comrades were dying before their eyes, but the bandits could not stop running.

Their ragged breathing had already paralyzed their reason. It drove them onward without end, forcing them to crawl forward even if they fell.

Bang!

A massive impact suddenly struck me as I swung my sword, forcing me back two steps.

When I looked up, the One-Eyed Blood Axe was radiating dense killing intent.

"You're quite the insolent brat."

"How was this junior's move?"

"You've made the wrong choice!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Every clash between the blood axe and the Black Dragon Sword sent explosive cracks throughout the area.

Even the bandits who had been charging madly sensed danger and detoured around us.

I withdrew the Breaking Strike Form of the Lesser Heaven Sword Art and immediately unleashed the Twin Heavens Sword Art.

The Black Dragon Sword created afterimages like the ribs of a spreading fan as they shot toward his vital acupoints.

"You bastard! You were hiding your skill!"

The One-Eyed Blood Axe's remaining eye blazed.

At times, his blood axe swept through empty air as he tried to strike an illusory sword. At others, it happened to strike the true blade and block my attack.

Still, the endless stream of subordinates behind him, along with the internal energy he was using to ward off the flames, made his movements increasingly complicated.

"You bastard!"

A lion's roar burst from the inferno, and the blackened Golden-Faced Buddha Blade sprang out.

"I'll strip your flesh from your bones and chew it all to pieces!"

I took two steps back and unleashed the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art.

* * *

Geumpyo, Eunho, and Dongryong were too overwhelmed to think straight after the battle began.

They formed a sword formation and faced the enemy, but the bandits had no intention of dodging or blocking the swords they sent out. They only wanted to flee the flames like madmen.

"Eunho! Dongryong! Keep the sword formation together! Nothing else matters!"

"Brother! There are too many!"

"Just maintain the sword formation! Then... then..."

Geumpyo felt he had to say something, but he did not know what.

Would this battle ever end? How long did they have to fight?

Even if their opponents were fleeing the flames in blind panic, could the three of them truly handle them alone?

The martial arts of the Twin-Curtain Strongholds' two leaders were clearly beyond anything they could contend with.

"Then what?"

As Eunho shouted at him, Geumpyo snapped back to his senses and blurted out whatever came to mind.

"Senior Brother will come! Would he have started this battle if he thought we were going to die?"

"Isn't that just Senior Brother judging us by his own standards?"

There was nothing Geumpyo could say to that.

They had received a mission to conquer a mountain stronghold, yet had decided to take on the strongest force among the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds. The very idea was already far from ordinary.

"Urgh!"

"Argh!"

"D-damn it..."

As Geumpyo lost focus for a moment, he heard bandits dying beside him. When he turned, Dongryong was cutting them down with sword forms he had never seen before.

Every form was one they had learned at the Taeul Sect, yet their trajectories were different. They were vicious, as though each sword path followed the most efficient route for killing.

Even while maintaining the sword formation, the killing intent radiating from Dongryong chilled Geumpyo to the bone.

"Damn it!"

Cursing, Geumpyo met Eunho's eyes and nodded.

Eunho knew what state Dongryong was in, and his expression was grim as well.

The Heavenly Killing Star was an innate nature that craved blood.

As Senior Brother had said, if the Heavenly Killing Star awakened before Dongryong could deepen his mental cultivation, something terrible would happen.

"Brother!"

"Right!"

They had not spoken, but Geumpyo and Eunho already understood each other.

"Argh!"

"Urgh!"

The number of bandits falling to their swords gradually increased, and Dongryong's killing intent slowly began to subside.

"Brother! There are too many enemies!"

Thanks to their qi circulation, their internal energy was barely holding out, but many bandits still remained alive.

Some had gradually come to their senses and were detouring around the three brothers. Others took defensive positions to stall for time.

Fifty Hao Sect members guarded the well and kept the bandits from reaching it, but there were too many enemies. They were gradually being surrounded.

Nor could they hope for Jin Sowoon's help. At the foot of the mountain, he was fighting the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe while cutting down fleeing bandits.

At this rate, they might die before Jin Sowoon arrived.

"Keep your heads straight! Think only about the enemies in front of you!"

Geumpyo shouted desperately as he swung his sword.

Then dust rose heavily outside the village, accompanied by cries of exertion.

"Let's go!"

"Uwaaaah!"

Village Chief Huh and the villagers who had evacuated earlier came running with farming tools in hand.

"Save the children first!"

"Don't leave any exhausted bastards alive!"

There were sickles and hoes, along with axes and sharpened bamboo poles.

People who had never learned martial arts approached the exhausted bandits and struck them down without mercy.

"S-save me!"

"My son starved to death because of you!"

"Have you forgotten how you dishonored my younger sibling?"

"Kill them!"

The hands of people filled with resentment were no less vicious than those of martial artists who had trained all their lives.

* * *

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Sword forms from the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art swept through every direction, slicing through the bandits' necks as they engaged the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe.

Both men were already wounded all over, but facing two masters in the Peak Realm at once was still too much for me.

If not for the Ten Thousand Seas Heaven and Earth Sword Art and the Myriad Blossoms Invincible Fist, whose myriad principle made an opponent feel as though they faced more than one enemy, I would not even have been able to hold on.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I will kill you!"

"Die!"

The Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe ignored defense, narrowly avoiding only fatal points as they charged at me without restraint. That made them even harder to deal with.

"Even if I die, I'll take you with me!"

"I have no desire to go with you."

"Hmph!"

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Blade energy exploded in every direction, unable to distinguish friend from foe.

Bandits dying to the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade's blade energy looked at him with eyes full of betrayal, but he paid them no attention and continued firing blade energy at me.

"Your movement art is quite impressive!"

The One-Eyed Blood Axe ground his teeth as he spoke to me, unable to catch me.

"That's because it was created by the two greatest masters in history."

"Yes, how bitter it must be to die by our hands with such excellent martial arts."

"I'll say it again. I have no intention of dying by either of your hands."

"That isn't for you to decide. We decide that."

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The blood axe swung, firing flaming chunks of wood like hidden weapons.

As I narrowly evaded them with the Taeul Eighty Thousand Divine Steps, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade swung his saber.

At this rate, I would inevitably tire first.

"This ends here!"

"Haaah!"

I circulated the Taeul True Scripture at full power and unleashed the Myriad Blossoms Invincible Fist as I launched myself into the air.

Just as the One-Eyed Blood Axe and Golden-Faced Buddha Blade swung their weapons toward me!

Swoosh! Bam!

"Eek!"

"Damn it!"

A boulder as large as a house flew at the two men, and they scrambled away in panic.

Landing on the ground, I looked behind me and said, "Why are you so late?"

"Didn't you send me to the other side in the first place?"

"I thought you'd read the situation and take care of it."

In that brief time, Bang Duchil and his group had dealt with the bandits who fled to the other side, then run along the road to reach us.

"Rest if you're tired. I'll take care of the rest."

He looked completely different from before, when he had doubted my plan from beginning to end and shown open hostility.

"I'm fine. I need to help my junior brothers."

"Then let's finish this quickly."

At the exchange between us, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade and the One-Eyed Blood Axe's faces turned red.

"You damned bastards!"

"How dare a bunch of brats!"

Seeming to know they could not afford to drag this out, Bang Duchil immediately brought his palms together and gathered his internal energy.

His martial robe swelled as if it would burst, and a powerful wave of energy erupted from him.

'As expected of the Heavenly Vajra Limitless Physique!'

The One-Eyed Blood Axe went pale at the energy wave, unlike anything he had felt in his life.

"What kind of internal energy is that...?!"

The One-Eyed Blood Axe charged forward, then kicked off the ground and turned to flee.

At that moment, with a movement of energy that made the air ring like a giant bell, Bang Duchil's signature Gale Divine Palm poured from both his hands.

Booooom!

The Gale Divine Palm unleashed successive explosions of air, extinguishing even the blazing flames in an instant and grinding every bone in the One-Eyed Blood Axe's body to dust.

"Insane..."

The Golden-Faced Buddha Blade stared with his mouth wide open as he charged toward me.

"This isn't the time to look over there."

I fired the Mad Heaven Divine Palm at him as well.

Papapapapang!

The Golden-Faced Buddha Blade urgently changed direction, but he could not escape the Mad Heaven Divine Palm at its maximum range.

As air and flames exploded at once, the Golden-Faced Buddha Blade's body burst apart.

Whoosh.

Even the flames had died out in the space where the Gale Divine Palm and Mad Heaven Divine Palm had momentarily blown away all the air.

"......"

Within it, Bang Duchil's eyebrows trembled as he stared at me.

"What's wrong?"

"......"

Instead of the silent Bang Duchil, Baek Soryeong approached from behind, where she had been wielding her flexible sword.

"I've never seen anyone with greater internal energy than Bang Duchil."

That seemed to be why Bang Duchil was so shocked.

He had probably never seen someone his own age with more internal energy than him.

"You really... took down the Twin-Curtain Strongholds. And fairly easily, at that."

Wildfires burned throughout Mount Cheonmok, and bandit corpses lay piled beneath them like mountain peaks. There were still many remnants at the foot of the mountain, but with both stronghold leaders dead, the Twin-Curtain Strongholds were as good as finished.

"It was thanks to you."

As I clasped my hands lightly in thanks, Baek Soryeong and Bang Duchil's subordinates returned the gesture.

"......"

Bang Duchil stood there staring at me like I was some strange animal. After Baek Soryeong jabbed him with her elbow, he hesitantly clasped his hands.

"Sorry for doubting you."

"That was understandable. In any case, it isn't over yet, is it? Let's finish this properly."

"Fine."

Just as we were about to head down the mountain to deal with the remaining bandits, Eunho, who should have been maintaining the sword formation below, came running up to us, panting heavily.

"Senior Brother! Something's wrong! Please save Dongryong!"

Before he could even finish, I drew up every last bit of internal energy I had left and unleashed the Peerless Wanderer Divine Art.

Footnotes:

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