WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 96: The Sharpest Blade in the Darkness (3)

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“First Senior Brother likes money.”

Eunho, Seong Moran, and Choe Mubin had come under concentrated attack from the Dark Soul-Severing Unit at the start of the battle.

Having heard that the Dark Soul-Severing Unit hated light, Eunho had set fires all around whenever an opening appeared.

By the time the flames spread in every direction, many applicants had already sensed that something was wrong and begun to flee.

The problem was Seong Moran, who had exhausted all her internal energy holding back the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

“But I heard men feel burdened when a woman’s family is too rich.”

“That... may not always be true. A new junior sister named Wang Soso recently joined the sect. Her family is extremely wealthy, but First Senior Brother didn’t seem particularly bothered by it.”

Seong Moran had spent all her internal energy and stamina. She could no longer fight.

While trying various ways to get her back on her feet, Eunho had noticed that she reacted whenever First Senior Brother came up.

That was why they were having such an inappropriate conversation in the middle of a battlefield.

“Wang Soso? You mean the only daughter of the Wang Family Estate? Wang Soso joined the Taeul Sect?”

“Did you know her?”

“Of course I do. The Wang Family Estate is one of the three greatest merchant families under heaven. And she’s incredibly pretty... Damn it, I thought Hong Junior Sister was my only rival.”

“What?”

“Did the two of them ever have feelings for each other?”

Was something like that truly important on a battlefield where lives hung in the balance?

Eunho wondered the same, but when Seong Moran’s swordsmanship grew fiercer as she asked, Eunho answered readily.

“They barely had time to see each other in the first place.”

There were rumors within the sect that Jin Sowoon would become the Wang Family Estate’s live-in son-in-law, but that was not something worth mentioning now.

“A man and woman can develop feelings for each other in no time.”

Seong Moran’s sword began to slow.

She looked dejected and increasingly exhausted. Eunho blocked an attacker who came at her from behind.

“To First Senior Brother, Junior Sister Wang is no more or less than his youngest sibling. She isn’t even his type.”

“Really?”

Seong Moran swung her sword with a whoosh, and its tremendous force turned two applicants into bloody pulp.

It was remarkable that she could so lightly wield a greatsword twice as heavy as an ordinary sword, even in her exhausted state.

“Then what kind of woman does Young Master Jin like?”

Eunho had never cared about First Senior Brother’s taste in women, so there was no way to know.

Still, this was no time to worry about details.

Eunho said whatever seemed useful.

“He likes strong women.”

“Huh?”

“Women who never give up, no matter the circumstances, and press through every trial.”

“...Is that really a type?”

Eunho realized the mistake but did not change expression. First Senior Brother had taught Eunho that confidence was everything when bluffing.

“You know what First Senior Brother is like. He’s more ruthless, persistent, and mentally strong than anyone.”

“...Well, he does look stubborn enough to seem insane.”

They were talking about Jin Sowoon, but Seong Moran’s sword was gradually slowing again.

Her arm trembled as she blocked the enemy’s blade.

Internal energy was no longer the issue. The long battle had pushed her to the brink of collapse from exhaustion.

“Oh, there’s one more thing. This one is certain.”

“What is it?”

“He likes women who eat well. Women who aren’t picky and eat heartily.”

“Really?”

As Eunho spoke, they took out a large handful of jerky from the pouch and stuffed it into their mouth.

It was meant to show Seong Moran so she would naturally follow suit.

“I eat well.”

Seong Moran grabbed a handful of jerky and crammed it into her mouth.

Since the plan was working so well, Eunho decided to shamelessly press on.

“And he likes women who work well in a sword formation.”

“...”

Despite the urgency of the situation, Seong Moran took the time to shoot Eunho a suspicious look.

“Matching a sword formation means matching one’s actions and heart, doesn’t it? First Senior Brother likes women who communicate well.”

At Eunho’s confident words, Seong Moran’s sword forms gradually steadied as she began matching the formation. Choe Mubin, who had struggled because Seong Moran kept rushing ahead, gave a small nod of thanks.

“Anything else?”

“Hmm... First Senior Brother also likes women who take good care of their junior brothers.”

Eunho could not have imagined what consequences those lies would bring, but for now, they had no choice but to keep making things up.

After all, Jin Sowoon had ordered Eunho to fight beside Seong Moran and protect her.

‘He never said what method I had to use, did he?’

Thinking about the distant future was a luxury right now.

#

I moved toward the darkness.

The opposite of how I had fled from it in my past life.

I pursued it relentlessly.

As I moved between patches of darkness, I also checked on the martial artists from Namgung Seonhwa’s and Seong Moran’s sects.

I would have to face countless political enemies within the White Path going forward. If it became known that Seong Moran and Namgung Seonhwa had followed me only to come to grief, the Azure Emperor Divine Sword and the Iron Sword Sect Leader would not stay quiet.

“I already have enough political enemies in the White Path. I don’t need more.”

The battlefield darkness had swept through was littered with corpses.

Killings and violence during the Martial Arts Academy regular examination were left uninvestigated, and applicants generally observed a minimum degree of restraint among themselves. But Demonic Cult martial artists had no reason to follow the customs of the White Path.

Having abandoned stealth entirely, they tore corpses to pieces rather than merely finishing them off, just as they had in my past life.

Their goal was to conceal their identities.

The ones who had initially targeted us were now making those fleeing this battlefield their highest priority.

This was my first chance to reveal the Demonic Cult’s existence to the world. Although the applicants who had come here for my Gate Token had been my enemies, I still ran myself ragged to save as many people fleeing the battlefield as possible.

“They won’t believe it all at once.”

The entrenched forces of the White Path, who thought themselves the eternal rulers of the martial world, would refuse to face the truth before their eyes.

But if this happened twice or three times, they would at least become wary.

Then they would not throw the Martial Alliance’s low-ranking martial artists into the Demonic Cult’s elite like idiots.

“Maybe I’m asking for too much.”

There had been many battlefields like this in my past life.

Whenever darkness fell over Martial Alliance martial artists, the Dark Soul-Severing Unit moved in.

If someone reported that darkness had killed people, the only answer they received was to stop talking nonsense.

Two thousand low-ranking Alliance martial artists died that way.

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit was what the Alliance’s low-ranking martial artists feared most.

They left deep scars even in the minds of those who survived, and the survivors spent the rest of their lives avoiding darkness.

“Which makes me curious. How long does it take to create one Dark Soul-Severing Unit member when the unit only operated with twenty people throughout the Orthodox-Demonic War?”

“Kehk.”

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit member, whose vocal cords had melted away, died with bloody tears streaming down their face.

“That makes ten.”

Including the one I had first killed with the Mad Heaven Divine Palm, eleven.

“It’s a shame the Sojeong Unit bastards won’t pay me a monthly wage.”

In my past life, the Sojeong Unit had said they would pay half their monthly wages for the rest of their lives to anyone who killed even one Dark Soul-Severing Unit member.

“Kh.”

An applicant lay at my feet, clutching an injury and trembling in fear. Fortunately, it seemed the Dark Soul-Severing Unit member’s bone blade had only pierced the applicant’s arm.

“Are you all right?”

“W-What the hell are those things?”

The applicant trembled as they looked at the Dark Soul-Severing Unit member in my grip.

Their appearance was horrifying, after all.

“I don’t know. They seemed unrelated to the examination, so I was catching them.”

“...”

At the mention of the examination, the applicant’s eyes shook with complicated emotions.

“I-I came to take your Gate Token.”

The applicant looked as though they could not understand why I had saved them.

“Do you still want to challenge me?”

“...”

Perhaps ashamed of their circumstances, the applicant lowered their head.

“No matter how fierce the examination becomes, aren’t we still members of the same White Path?”

“...”

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit member’s corpse in my hand went limp.

Every corpse except the first one I had killed with the Mad Heaven Divine Palm had shown the same phenomenon.

When I threw it to the ground, the corpse melted with a hiss and a puff of smoke.

After the heart stopped, the Bone-Dissolving Powder solution embedded in the body automatically burst, erasing all traces.

“The Martial Alliance won’t believe this either.”

The applicant answered my self-mocking words.

“I saw it! I saw it clearly with my own eyes!”

“Then you must make it out alive.”

“...”

“Avoid the darkness and get as many survivors as possible to flee.”

“What about you?”

My condition was bad enough to worry even a stranger.

“If I don’t move, there’ll be no one to deal with them. Then the number of meaningless victims on this battlefield will keep growing.”

“...”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“...Thank you.”

The applicant looked at me with indescribably complicated eyes, then nodded and supported someone who could not walk.

After taking two or three steps, the applicant turned to look at me again.

“Take care of yourself. I’ll repay this debt without fail.”

My internal energy was empty.

It had already run dry long ago.

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit members’ bones had been modified to be as hard as steel, and I had to pour in internal energy to destroy them in one blow.

“I can’t use the Azure Dragon Bangle either.”

The only method that came to mind was the Azure Dragon Bangle.

Even setting aside how much internal energy it could draw from demonic qi, if anyone on this battlefield saw me use the Absorbing Star Grand Art, I would be considered one of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit without question.

That did not mean I had no other option.

“I can’t rest. I have to gamble.”

Every step made my muscles crack.

My joints screamed, and my blood raced faster than ever.

But if I didn’t move now, no one here would survive.

If there were no survivors, the Demonic Cult’s existence would never be revealed to the world.

Bang.

With the sound of air tearing apart, I leaped into the next patch of darkness.

I drew the Flying Dragon Claw, but its golden radiance had lost its initial brilliance.

I swung the Demon-Severing Radiant Whip toward a spot where I sensed absolutely nothing.

Slash.

As expected, I had lost too much strength.

The Demon-Severing Radiant Whip bounced away weakly, and the white bone blade in the darkness pierced the hearts of two applicants.

“You bastards, I’m your opponent!”

Bababababang!

Dozens of fist images were swallowed by the darkness. The one who had pierced their hearts blocked every fist image with their pliant fluid body.

Slash.

I lashed the retrieved Flying Dragon Claw like a whip.

At last, the black fluid body split apart, revealing the Dark Soul-Severing Unit member’s true form.

The muscles of their faceless head formed a grotesquely animated expression.

The moment I drove the Twin Heavens Sword Art into them...

Sssrrrk.

The fluid body that had been split in half swallowed my entire body again.

In the end, I had been swallowed within their fluid body.

-Who are you?

“This feels disgusting.”

Once trapped within the fluid body, there was no way to escape.

My body would be restrained, then an unseen bone blade would pierce through me and kill me.

-What are you?

“I’m the reaper who’ll send you back to the Demon God.”

I activated the Azure Dragon Bangle to its limit.

With this much suction, light should have leaked through the Flying Dragon Claw, but because I was inside the fluid body, the strange phenomenon was not visible outside.

-Absorbing Star Grand Art?

“You know it well.”

-Impossible! You, Lord Monstrous Demon’s... Kehek!

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit member tried to continue speaking, then struggled to escape my grip. They could not break free from the Azure Dragon Bangle’s suction.

The fluid body surrounding me gradually began to fall away, and I quickly reduced the Azure Dragon Bangle’s suction.

-Kehk, why would Lord Monstrous Demon’s child...

Their form visibly aged and withered, but their original appearance was so monstrous that it barely showed.

“Go ask the Demon God.”

When I cut off their head, a fountain of red blood sprayed in every direction.

“As expected, demonic qi is difficult to absorb.”

I had absorbed at maximum output in a short time, yet the internal energy filling my dantian was negligible.

-It was you.

Then another Dark Soul-Severing Unit member spoke.

“You really don’t give me time to rest.”

I immediately threw myself toward them, but surprisingly, they moved rapidly backward.

-Did you kill all the members by yourself?

It was a strange feeling.

In my past life, the Dark Soul-Severing Unit members had said nothing but “Die” and animalistic shrieks. This one’s voice was calm, unlike the others.

-You must be the one behind all this.

“Interesting. Are you the captain of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit?”

The fluid body in the darkness rippled clearly.

-You are dangerous. You are someone who will ruin the great plan.

“That’s right. I intend to return exactly what you have done.”

I poured every bit of recovered internal energy into the Peerless Wanderer Divine Art.

Bang.

As I shot toward them with the sound of tearing air, they retreated at full speed.

Then a shriek that seemed to tear through my eardrums echoed in every direction.

Screeeech-----

Even those fighting frantically across the battlefield instinctively dropped their swords and covered their ears.

At the same time, the patches of darkness spread everywhere to extinguish torches stopped dead and began gathering here.

“W-What in the...?”

“D-Did you see that? Can shadows move so deliberately?”

“Hey! Look over here! I-It’s corpses!”

“Bleurgh!”

As the darkness gathered in one place, those nearby began to panic at the mountain of corpses and sea of blood created by the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

The war over Gate Tokens was over.

“Won’t your great plan collapse now that your identities have been exposed?”

-I do not know how you learned of this, but you and those people will bury your bones here today.

The gathered darkness surged, then expelled black gas in every direction.

“Fuck!”

The moment I saw the black gas, I cursed instinctively and shouted.

“Run! It’s poison!”

Bone-Eroding Black Qi.

It was the peculiar demonic qi flowing through the bodies of Dark Soul-Severing Unit members who had undergone the Fluid Bone Sword modification.

Calling it poison was not entirely accurate, but it functioned like poison.

The instant it entered the body, it eroded the bones and slowed one’s movements.

Those with weak internal energy became rigid as stones, while even strong martial artists struggled for a long time to purge the demonic qi.

The bones of Wudang Sect’s Taejeong and Mount Hua Sect’s Yeon Umun had been found blackened and decayed because they had fallen victim to that Bone-Eroding Black Qi.

I had moved first, but I was trapped inside the Bone-Eroding Black Qi as well.

The applicants who reacted later, along with their accompanying martial artists, suffered the same fate.

Having already revealed themselves amid the chaotic battlefield, they became even more ruthless and vicious.

They no longer cared about leaving traces behind before nearly a thousand people.

“These insane bastards.”

I extended the Demon-Severing Radiant Whip, caught a Dark Soul-Severing Unit member, and activated the Azure Dragon Bangle.

I drew in internal energy with all my strength, but the amount absorbed into my dantian remained negligible.

“Geumpyo, Eunho, Dongryong! Run!”

Starting from my waist, my entire body slowly began to go numb.

I shouted with all my remaining internal energy, but it did not feel as though my voice carried.

‘Is this the end...?’

Though countless people surrounded me, I could sense nothing.

Even my senses had dulled. I thought all that remained was for a Fluid Bone Sword to pierce my heart.

Then my right hand twitched.

The sensation began at my fingers and climbed up my arm to my shoulder.

At that moment, I remembered something I had obtained on Demon Spirit Plateau.

‘The Heavenly Demon Supreme Bangle.’

It resembled the Azure Dragon Bangle, so I had named it the Red Phoenix Bangle and carried it around.

The Red Phoenix Bangle was neutralizing the Bone-Eroding Black Qi on its own.

Without time to think further, I moved the Red Phoenix Bangle from my right hand to my left, alongside the Flying Dragon Claw.

Then I reached into the darkness, seized a Dark Soul-Severing Unit member, and activated the Azure Dragon Bangle.

-Kehehehek, gurgle.

Internal energy flooded into me through my left hand.

This was different from before, when I had filtered out dense demonic qi and recovered only a tiny amount.

An immense amount of internal energy, like a vast sea, instantly filled my Governing and Conception Vessels.

The internal energy circulating through my entire body burned away every trace of Bone-Eroding Black Qi invading me, then settled into my dantian as though it had always belonged there.

The Flying Dragon Claw extending from my left hand flashed with its original brilliance.

As the darkness peeled away, all seven skulls stared wide-eyed.

-What is this?!

I operated the Taeul True Scripture according to the principles of the Adversarial Demon Scripture.

It was the same internal energy as before, but the qi I released was completely different.

It was light and clear, yet above all, firm.

I scattered the Twin Heavens Sword Art in every direction. It did not matter where I cut or whom I deceived. The Dark Soul-Severing Unit was that close to me.

Slash. Slash. Slash.

Each swing of my sword tore through darkness, followed by the grotesque screams of Dark Soul-Severing Unit members.

-You had been hiding such a strange method.

The captain, who had lost two members in an instant, clacked their skull as they spoke.

-But do not think you will escape alive.

“I don’t think I can face all of you yet, either.”

They were enemies even the Ten Greatest Masters Under Heaven had failed to survive against.

Without an ambush and the Adversarial Demon Scripture, I would not have been a match for them from the start.

“Still, I won.”

-What?

“The sun is rising.”

Regardless of the fierce battle that had raged through the night, brilliant light began to shine over the devastated plain.

-D-Damn it.

“Tell the current Heavenly Demon. The martial world now knows that the Demonic Cult exists.”

Footnotes:

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