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Woooooong!
In the distance, the bamboo grove area shook.
‘It has begun.’
Seol Hong-baek gave orders to the White Lotus Squad.
“Block the entrance in a horizontal line. If the murderer tries to flee, use lethal force without hesitation.”
“We receive the Patriarch’s command.”
The White Lotus swordsmen fanned out at once.
Seol So-ha looked toward the bamboo forest with worried eyes.
“Will he be all right?”
“I saw the teacher at dawn. He’s completely different from a few days ago. From internal energy to body, there’s hardly a gap to find. He must have cultivated some divine art we don’t know.”
“But…”
“He’s nothing like when we had the spar. Even I, as I am now, would struggle to handle him.”
Seol So-ha looked at Seol Hong-baek in surprise.
His face was earnest. Though he watched the bamboo forest with concern, his words carried firm conviction.
“So don’t worry. Even if we miss the killer, the teacher will not be in danger. I will make it so.”
Drawing his sword, Seol Hong-baek continued,
“The Left Chief Constable will be here shortly with the captains. If they arrive before the fight ends, you will brief them.”
“Understood.”
Huk!
Seol Hong-baek flashed to the grove’s entrance.
‘Impressive.’
Jjeoong!
The downward strike carried a powerful sword pressure. The strength transmitted through the Indestructible Sword was unimaginable for someone with such a frame.
Retreating in succession, Jin-hyeon angled the Indestructible Sword to prevent a follow-up, then slashed down on a diagonal.
Chiring!
He let it slide off.
Bold and direct when striking, yet graceful when deflecting. The oblique flow along the sword’s path showed battlecraft beyond even Jeong Gyo.
Jin-hyeon raised his sword speed.
Chiririring! Chiring! Jjeo-ng!
The ten pouring blows were all slashes.
The Indestructible Sword is nearly half a foot longer than common longswords, so transitions should be larger.
Yet he was fast. There were almost no gaps between slashes. And being four or five times heavier than light swords, each stroke hit brutally hard.
Dong Neung, calmly parrying until he finally had to block, felt his whole right arm vibrate.
‘This bastard is strong!’
Dong Neung was greatly surprised.
He looked to be around the same young age as his disciple, Beon Kang, yet the level of martial arts he displayed was that of a mid-tier master of the Kangho. He did not use any special sword art, but there were no openings between his attacks, and although his speed bordered on fast-blade techniques, each strike still carried its full weight.
It was an attack in which the principles of the heavy sword were vividly alive. Even if you searched the whole world, how many future generation prodigies of this age could show such insight?
‘But…’
He was certainly a great master. He could even be said to be a talent beyond Dong Neung in his youth.
‘Still young.’
Skimming past the brutish thrust, Dong Neung went straight for Jin-hyeon’s neck.
It was a sword strike that slithered upward like a snake. It was stealthy and venomous.
Jin-hyeon turned his head aside.
Chwaak!
A small cut opened on the right of his neck.
If properly infused with internal energy, it would lose stealth. Yet, it was deadly even as is. Many masters would have had their throats pierced.
Jin-hyeon calmly evaded. He was cut, but with little internal force, the invading energy was weak.
Chiik!
The Heavenly Wolf True Qi expelled the invading energy at once. Before it even fully left, Jin-hyeon snapped a knee up.
Peong!
The midline kick was blocked by the left palm’s counter-force. Jin-hyeon’s posture wavered, and Dong Neung also backed three or four steps.
Jin-hyeon’s upper body whipped around with fearsome force.
Kwaang!
Even off-balance, he gathered power and unleashed a slash.
The might was tremendous. The ground split more than a few feet where the sword passed. Even Dong Neung would have lost a piece of himself if he hadn’t dodged.
Dong Neung’s eyes wavered.
‘This won’t do.’
He hadn’t used his main martial art, not wanting to leave traces.
But it was hard to beat such a foe without it.
‘I’ll finish it in three exchanges!’
Paaak!
Dong Neung retreated fast. Jin-hyeon pursued without hesitation.
Just then.
Teong!
A stale, gritty aura spread from Dong Neung’s body.
Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed. He caught Dong Neung stamping the earth hard.
‘Here it comes.’
Flash!
A hair-raising sword strike.
From right to left, a crosswise slash like lightning, at lightning speed.
Seuseuseu, Koong!
Six thick bamboo stalks were severed at mid-length. The bamboo leaves, losing their nests, scratched each other with a shriek and fell.
He ducked quickly, yet some hair was cut. Jin-hyeon immediately lifted the Indestructible Sword.
Jjeooong!
Not only the sword but even his arm was driven back.
With a thunderous defensive form that knocked the sword aside, Dong Neung’s blade split into three, aiming at forehead, throat, and solar plexus.
‘Phantom Sword!’
At this close of a distance, he unleashed phantom blades. Even the killing intent seeping from the blade’s tip was genuine.
‘Midline!’
The one aiming towards the solar plexus was the real blade. His qi-sense caught it in an instant.
Seogeok!
He spun aside to evade, yet his flank near the ribs was already cut.
An inch deeper and the invading force would have numbed bone and nerves. Jin-hyeon rotated a half-step more and struck crosswise.
Jjeong!
Even the rotational cross-strike bounced off.
Tremendous brute strength. Dong Neung finally bared his true power, the Ink-Rock Art that earned him the title ‘Mountain-Breaking.’
As Jin-hyeon, still off-balance, raised his sword again.
Killing light flashed in Dong Neung’s eyes.
‘This ends.’
Pararararak!
Twelve blades targeted Jin-hyeon’s whole body.
A strike that could neither be dodged nor blocked, They were not phantom blades. All 12 attacks were real.
An uncanny sword art defying belief. Power fed by internal energy, destruction wrought by exquisite technique. Dong Neung’s ultimate technique, the Red Leaf Sword Art.
Dong Neung’s secret art, the one personally affirmed by a Mount Hua elder to rival the martial arts of the Nine Great Sects.
In that instant, Jin-hyeon’s gaze flared.
Pababababak!
The twelve strikes shredded the ground where he’d stood.
Dong Neung’s eyes went round. It shouldn’t have been escapable or blockable. The blows should have diced him.
‘Where…?!’
His hair stood on end; he fell back by instinct.
Flash! Seogeok!
With the downward cleave from midair, dozens of jang of bamboo leaves burst skyward.
“Kh!”
Dong Neung’s face blanched.
The upper portion of the left clavicle was cleanly cut. The sword wound, which severed part of the upper trapezius, ran down across half of the left chest. It was not fatal, but it was an injury that would severely reduce his combat ability.
Jin-hyeon glared savagely at Dong Neung.
‘A pity.’
If Cross Soul-Slash was a grand, imposing attack and Tenfold Prison Wall was a fierce defense, then this technique, executed together with the half-step of Heavenly Evasion Steps, was raw slaughter in its purest form.
The War-Sword Three Arts’ final form, Ten Steps, Certain Death.
A battlefield killing sword said to slay anything within ten steps in a single stroke.
‘I thought I’d at least sever a bone.’
He showed only seventy percent, then aimed to wound fatally with Ten Steps, Certain Death at the moment of truth, yet it was evaded.
“You damn wretch, you dare deceive me?!”
“What are you on about, you lunatic.”
Paaak!
Stamping the ground, Jin-hyeon closed to Dong Neung’s nose in a flash.
Having shown a killing blow, he hid his power no longer. Closing in with rapid movement, he unleashed Cross Soul-Slash.
Jjeojeojeojeong!
To stop that one strike, Dong Neung had to swing four times.
‘Damn!’
The power of that attack was on a different plane from the previous ones. The already heavy blows had doubled.
Show weakness and you lose. Dong Neung forced down the blood surging up.
Jin-hyeon allowed no counter.
Fueled by a will to kill, the Heavenly Wolf Qi ignited and surged into the Indestructible Sword.
Jjeojeojeojeong! Jjeo-eong! Kwaang!
It got faster and heavier, stronger and fiercer.
‘This madman!’
Dong Neung’s face turned blue.
Even if he wanted to receive it with the Red-Leaf Sword Art, he could not. It was not even a refined martial art with elegant forms, yet the trajectory was extremely hard to read.
Whenever he tried to deflect and deploy the Red Leaf Sword, a cross-shaped strike came at the perfect instant. The foe would vanish when he blocks the crossing cuts, and then bite in from the side.
It was a possessed chain of blows. How he attacked so fast with that heavy sword was unknowable.
‘Was his true skill no less than mine all along?!’
Pu-hwaak!
Blood burst again across his shoulder. The pressure from the sword made the bleeding worse.
‘At this rate I’ll die!’
He felt death’s fear for the first time in ages.
When choosing his own opponent for a duel, he always picked someone who seemed just strong enough that he could win by a hair. The only reason he was still alive was because he had never once challenged a master who could overwhelm him
Suddenly he recalled what that damned Mount Hua elder had said over tea.
‘These are merely branch-line techniques, so this much is the best you could manage. With your talent, it will be hard to reach beyond this level for now. If you want to progress further, raise that downward-pointing sword upward.’
Fight stronger foes with your life on the line.
Nonsense. Die and there’s no growing stronger. Everything ends there.
‘You sons of bitches! As if the likes of you would know my heart!’
So he sought another way. Luckily, he found it.
There are some side effects, but once it is perfected, he will have gained an art that lets him look down on those hypocrites of the Nine Great Sects.
Jjeo-eong!
Blood finally flowed from his mouth.
The force that entered through the wound disturbed the left meridians. His internal energy wouldn’t flow. He had to purge it, but the foe gave no opening.
Buuung!
The heavy, edge-less sword fell like lightning, all the more brutal for its lack of a blade.
‘No. I can’t die here.’
The whites of his eyes, laced with blood, blackened in an instant.
‘I will not die!’
Huk!
For a moment, the world seemed to darken.
A bizarre energy spewing from Dong Neung’s body began to swallow the area.
No wind, no leaves brushing, no bamboo clacking could be heard.
“Kraaa!”
Roaring with surging power, he lifted and struck.
Jjeo-eo-eong!
The Indestructible Sword flew into the air.
From that one move he felt boiling ecstasy. And at once, a deadly sense of peril.
The foe who’d held the sword had vanished.
Puk!
Shifting left, Jin-hyeon’s hands dug into Dong Neung’s left arm and gripped bone. It was the Ten-Fingers Soul-Slaughter Art’s Eagle Killing Strike.
An outrageous burst of Qi-infused roar erupted from Jin-hyeon’s mouth.
“Uaaaap!”
Peok! Kwaddeudeudeuk!
The hand gripping on the upper arm and the hand gripping on the forearm pulled apart to either side.
With his bare hands, he tore off his left forearm. It was only possible because the meridians of his left side were already ruined.”
“Kraaaak!”
Screaming in pain, Dong Neung swung his sword at Jin-hyeon.
The strength was there, but the speed was gone. However grand a demonic art, it falters before agony and ruined meridians.
Puk!
Dong Neung’s sword stuck in the ground.
Lightning up Dong Neung’s left leg, Jin-hyeon pinned all four limbs with his own arms and legs.
“Ugh! Uaaah! Let go! I said let go!!”
“Patriarch!”
Startled, Dong Neung turned his head.
At that moment, Seol Hong-baek swept past Dong Neung.
Seogeok.
With surprise frozen on his face, Dong Neung’s head fell to the ground.
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