WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 95: The Sharpest Blade in the Darkness (2)
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“In a battle on this scale, the last ones standing win.”
Song Baek of the Radiant Flower Escort Agency was the first to sense that something was wrong.
Jin Sowoon had taken both his Gate I and Gate II Tokens, and the blundering antics of the senior brothers from Mount Cang Sect’s main branch whom Song Baek had been counting on had allowed Jin Sowoon’s group to escape. Song Baek had been so anxious that he could barely sleep, but today, he had finally managed to breathe a little easier.
“There are nearly a thousand people here. Every last one of them is a martial artist. Not even the Namgung Clan or the Iron Sword Sect has any chance of surviving.”
The one speaking so reassuringly had once served as a military officer on the front lines.
Having come from a garrison and commanded thousands of soldiers, they had extensive experience in large-scale battles. That made Song Baek trust them all the more.
“I’ll leave it to you, Commander Yeom.”
Commander Yeom valued hierarchy and had never stepped forward during any of the previous incidents. Yet after Song Baek lost the Gate Tokens and watched the Mount Cang Sect senior brothers turn into water ghosts, dragging him down with them, he had been left stunned. Only then had Commander Yeom begun to show their worth.
They had caught up with the group they had lost in Zhenjiang at Suqian, then passed them in Xinyi and waited there.
That would have been impossible without knowing how to organize troops in military fashion and march them efficiently.
Now, all they had to do was watch the battlefield descend into chaos, then attack whoever seized the Gate Tokens of the Taeul Sect, Namgung Clan, and Iron Sword Sect.
After that, they could proceed to Gate III.
That was what Song Baek had been thinking when it happened.
“What is that?”
Once the battle began, the torches lit by nearly a thousand people made the Puyang Plains look as though a festival were being held.
“What is it?”
“Over there...”
The spot Song Baek pointed to was blanketed in darkness, as though a hole had opened there.
“Isn’t it strange that there aren’t any torches over there?”
Commander Yeom stared at the area before shaking their head.
“It’s only natural for people unaccustomed to war to fail to maintain their formation.”
“Is that so...?”
Commander Yeom had shown nothing but reliability until now. Song Baek no longer had the confidence to insist on his own judgment.
“Huh?”
Then another huge hole suddenly opened in the sea of torchlight.
“C-Commander Yeom! Look! Another hole opened over there!”
Commander Yeom frowned at where Song Baek pointed.
“Young Master, if you know nothing about war, stay quiet. Torches going out during a night battle is perfectly normal.”
Still, that spot was not even at the heart of the battle.
It was no different from where they stood, at least in terms of its position on the battlefield.
At that moment, Song Baek’s eyes widened.
The darkness that had emerged from the huge hole began to move.
Like countless candles snuffed out at once by a sudden gust of wind, torches went dark in succession, forming a path of darkness.
“T-There!”
“Young Master!”
“Look over there, damn it!”
“...!”
The path of darkness was heading straight for Song Baek’s group.
“Hup!”
Realizing something was wrong, Commander Yeom immediately seized a torch from a nearby martial artist and rushed forward.
Swoosh.
Commander Yeom was swallowed by the darkness without leaving even a trace behind.
“W-What is...”
Before Song Baek could finish, darkness fell all around them. Only then did the screams begin.
“Aaagh!”
“S-Save...”
“Eek! A g-ghost!”
Never before had the sound of flesh being pierced seemed so loud.
Frozen by a terror whose source he could not understand, Song Baek forgot even to run. He reached into his robes and grabbed a signal flare.
It was the most instinctive thing he could do. He only wanted to escape this darkness.
Pshhh.
The signal flare that should have shot into the sky and illuminated the night flew into the darkness instead, then exploded.
Song Baek could not even scream at what the flare revealed. His mouth simply fell open.
-----!
A monster stood within the darkness, its skin completely flayed away so that the movements of its organs and heart were plainly visible.
A bone resembling a sword protruded from its hand.
‘A corpse... moving...?’
Song Baek could not even finish the thought before the darkness swallowed him whole.
#
“Whenever the darkness appears, send sword qi or fist qi into it. You can’t fight them with an ordinary sword.”
Namgung Seonhwa cut down what might have been her thirtieth or thirty-second enemy and thought bitterly.
As if that were easy.
Her dantian was already beginning to run dry. She had resisted alongside the Changgung Unit with the Firmament Sword Formation, but even the formation she had believed invincible could not withstand the endless tide of torches and people.
“Young Lady!”
The Firmament Sword Formation shattered, and the Changgung Unit scattered in every direction.
Dozens of injured people lay across the ground with every step she took, yet the people rushing at her with swords and torches did not seem to have decreased at all.
“Young Lady! Enter the sword formation!”
Gang Seopyo, who had followed despite being injured, cried out desperately.
“Captain Gang! The Changgung Unit has already fallen apart!”
“We’ll deploy a different one!”
“What?”
A different sword formation? Was Gang Seopyo talking about the Imperial Sword Formation? She had not learned that yet...
“The White Tiger Sword Formation!”
Ah.
Only then did Namgung Seonhwa remember the formation she had learned just to earn herself a warm meal.
“But there’s no one around us...”
“I’ll do it!”
When she turned, Dongryong stood there, covered from head to toe in blood.
“When did you...”
“Young Lady! Quickly!”
There was no time to ask when he had arrived. Gang Seopyo and Dongryong took up positions around her.
“Deploy the formation!”
At Dongryong’s shout, Namgung Seonhwa and Gang Seopyo began swinging their swords.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
They barely deflected the swords flying at them, then stabbed their enemies in the vital points. The injured enemies collapsed to the ground.
More enemies surged through the gaps they left behind.
Following Dongryong’s lead, they changed positions and gained brief moments of rest.
It was strange.
The White Tiger Sword Formation did not possess the destructive power of the Firmament Sword Formation, but it was flexible and required less strength.
Once a sword formation broke, it was nearly impossible to reform it. Yet because this one only required three people, dissolving and reforming it was as easy as turning over a hand.
Dongryong was even more surprising.
He possessed less than twenty years’ worth of internal energy, but once the formation was established, he displayed skill equal to any Changgung Unit member. No, he was currently leading the White Tiger Sword Formation.
“What about Geumpyo and Eunho?”
Even in this desperate situation, she thought of the two disciples who felt like younger siblings to her. Their difficult journey together had made them as close as family.
“First Senior Brother told us that since we can’t use sword qi, we should form formations with the others.”
“Ah...”
In the chaos of battle, she had forgotten about those dangerous beings. Part of her had wondered whether they could even intervene in such a chaotic melee.
She had found the instruction to strike empty space even harder to believe.
“Over there!”
Dongryong suddenly stopped swinging his sword and pointed to one side.
Darkness fell ten zhang away, then advanced in a straight line.
Torches went out and people vanished as though water had been poured over that area alone.
“Young Lady!”
“I saw it!”
This time, Dongryong fell back while Gang Seopyo and Namgung Seonhwa stepped forward.
What she had hoped was impossible was actually happening.
Namgung Seonhwa scraped together every last bit of internal energy she had.
“Now!”
At Gang Seopyo’s shout, she drew out all her strength and fired sword qi. Unbound by any form or technique, it contained only the destructive force of sword qi itself.
There was not even a trace of sharpness to it...
Yet.
“Kiek!”
The rapidly approaching darkness stopped, and an animal-like shriek rang out from within.
“Eek!”
What emerged from the darkness was a corpse-like figure whose skin appeared to have been completely flayed away.
The sight of organs moving inside its rib cage was even more horrifying.
After briefly revealing itself, the monster tried to hide in the darkness again by surrounding itself with something like a black shell.
But Gang Seopyo and Namgung Seonhwa had reached their limits.
They despaired at having to let such a terrifying enemy escape before their eyes.
“Chaa!”
At that moment, Dongryong shot forward like lightning.
“Dongryong! No!”
Dongryong forced his way into the darkness and unleashed a barrage of attacks on the exposed monster.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
They were simple attacks without sword qi, but every time Dongryong struck the monster’s bones, the black shell that had been repairing itself peeled back once more.
“How is he...?”
On top of that, Dongryong’s attacks were so swift and efficient that they targeted nothing but vital points.
He stabbed its heart, its organs, its eyes, and the inside of its mouth.
Each time, the monster visibly panicked.
“Captain Gang!”
“Yes, Young Lady!”
They did not need a long conversation.
With the single-minded determination not to waste the opening Dongryong had created, they attacked relentlessly.
For the first time since the battle began, hope stirred within her. Their attacks worked against an enemy whose physical form they had not even been able to pin down before.
“W-What?”
Something was wrong with the applicants and hired martial artists who had been rushing in for the Gate Tokens.
Namgung Seonhwa instinctively turned her head, and her eyes widened.
Darkness was forming once again, racing toward them.
Even the applicants already deep in battle sensed something was wrong with those creatures and began fleeing from the darkness.
But a battlefield packed with hundreds of people was not a place one could easily escape.
“M-Move!”
“What the hell is this?!”
“This wasn’t in the information!”
Dozens of martial artists were swallowed by the darkness in an instant. Then, just as it was about to engulf Namgung Seonhwa, Gang Seopyo, and Dongryong all at once...
Crack!
A shining whip flew in from somewhere and wrapped around the darkness.
A human-shaped figure was caught within the darkness, tangled in the whip and dragged across the ground.
“First Senior Brother!”
“Good work!”
It was none other than Jin Sowoon.
With the shining whip coiled around his left hand, he unleashed fist qi upon the darkness he had restrained.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The attacks were so fast and powerful that the ground caved in within moments.
Soon, the darkness flattened with a crunching sound and began gushing red blood.
The monster Dongryong, Namgung Seonhwa, and Gang Seopyo had been fighting must have seen the scene as well. It tried to quickly kill the three of them and leave.
But Dongryong’s relentless assault did not allow it to shake him off.
Crack!
The radiant whip extending from Jin Sowoon’s left arm wrapped around the monster’s neck.
“Keeek!”
Like an animal caught in a trap, the monster was dragged away, and its neck was severed.
When Namgung Seonhwa had struck it, its bones had felt like steel. Seeing them cut apart in an instant, she could not begin to estimate how much internal energy Jin Sowoon was pouring into fighting that monster.
“Young Master Jin.”
“Huff, huff... Are you all right?”
If anything, she should have been asking him that.
“Young Master Jin, what in the world are you...”
His face had gone pale, and the veins all over his body bulged as though they might burst.
Those were symptoms that appeared when one pushed internal energy to its limit.
He had already gone far beyond the dangerous stage of qi deviation. One mistake, and he could be crippled for life.
“Don’t move any farther.”
Namgung Seonhwa grabbed Jin Sowoon’s arm, but he took her hand instead.
“I still have to move.”
“What are you talking about, Young Master Jin? If you keep moving like this, you could really die.”
“Fortunately, I haven’t used innate qi yet.”
The corners of his mouth trembled as he forced a smile. The word “madman,” which Seong Moran had used more than once, suddenly came to mind.
“I’ve caught eight. I only need to catch eleven more.”
Namgung Seonhwa pleaded with him.
“You’ll die!”
Jin Sowoon let out a quiet breath. It seemed he had only just caught his breath.
Looking steadily into Namgung Seonhwa’s eyes, he said, “If I don’t move... other people will die.”
“...”
“I don’t want to see that happen.”
The words, ‘What if you die instead?’ lingered at the edge of her lips before she swallowed them back.
Before she could say anything else, Jin Sowoon continued.
“Please hold on a little longer. The applicants gathered here are beginning to realize something is wrong because of those creatures, and they are withdrawing. The battlefield will clear soon.”
“...”
“Lady Namgung...”
The only thing she could say now was something to ease his worries.
“...All right. I’m sorry. I couldn’t be of more help.”
“It’s not that... Please make sure you survive.”
“...What?”
Jin Sowoon gave her a warm smile that did not belong in the middle of a battlefield.
“I’ll be right back.”
“...”
Just as Namgung Seonhwa tried to answer, Jin Sowoon kicked off the ground and threw himself back into the darkness.
The light from the golden whip in his hand trailed after him like a shooting star.
“Are you all right?”
“He said... he would come right back to me, didn’t he?”
Gang Seopyo tilted their head.
“...I don’t think he meant it that way...”
“I heard him clearly. He said he would come right back to me...”
“...Young Lady, I think you’re exhausted. Please rest for a moment.”
“No, I’m really fine. I’ve recovered.”
For some reason, Namgung Seonhwa felt as though her depleted internal energy had already recovered by half.
Footnotes:
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