Chapter 416. Move Aside, You Rabble.
Was the White-Clad Scholar especially disadvantaged against Cheonak?
Perhaps it was because Cheonak had grasped all of the White-Clad Scholar’s methods. The exchange between the two looked like a senior brother beating an insincere junior brother who had wandered off onto side paths and neglected his training.
In the end, Gongson Sim and I had no choice but to rescue the White-Clad Scholar as though dragging him out of a mud puddle. If we left him any longer, it looked less like he would be doing a Lazy Donkey Roll and more like he would be trampled while lying flat on the ground.
In the midst of continuing the fight…….
I heard Eldest Brother’s clear voice. But this time, there was emotion in it.
“……Move aside.”
Who was he telling to move aside?
Then the Cult Leader’s voice flowed out as well.
“Move aside.”
And who was that directed at?
Cheonak, who had been facing the three of us, slipped a step back, glanced toward the Cult Leader, and uttered the same words.
“Move aside.”
Only then did we realize that the Sword Demon and the Cult Leader had begun a one-on-one clash. We moved together and watched the duel between the two.
The first “move aside” had been Eldest Brother speaking to Shit-Pants, and the second had been the Cult Leader speaking to the Blood Demon. Where the smug Shit-Pants and Bloody Shit-Pants had withdrawn, Eldest Brother was finally swinging the Radiant Sword against the Cult Leader.
I watched with my arms crossed beside Cheonak and muttered.
“……Somehow, they both seem emotional.”
Cheonak nodded.
“When the one who gave orders and the one who carried them out fight, it is always emotional.”
To begin with, Eldest Brother was not a man who feared defeat. Somehow, the two of them seemed to be fighting even more fiercely than when it had been many against one. The Cult Leader, who had seemed as if he would be taciturn in battle, opened his mouth.
“You mean to say you will not use the consummate techniques you suffered to master, and will fight with martial arts like these?”
Eldest Brother must not have been able to control his emotions either, for he answered at once.
“Wasn’t the absolute master we wanted supposed to slaughter his enemies with a single sword stroke?”
“With your realm, that is impossible.”
The Radiant Sword suddenly turned pitch-black, dropped vertically, and embedded itself in the ground. For the first time, the Cult Leader pushed off the earth and retreated, and from the Radiant Sword buried in the ground, ominous black sword qi rippled out in every direction.
Unexpectedly, at that moment, we heard the coachman’s voice.
“……Cult Leader.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the Cult Leader caught a long sword that had flown over and drew it.
Was the Cult Leader also a swordsman?
With his hand still gripping the Radiant Sword, Eldest Brother spoke as if inviting the Cult Leader in.
“Come in.”
The Cult Leader, who had been a short distance away, smiled faintly and charged with his sword in hand. When Eldest Brother pulled the Radiant Sword from the ground, the sword qi that had been crawling along the floor surged up from every direction and swallowed the two of them.
In an instant, all around became still.
Eldest Brother had trapped the Cult Leader within the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield and engaged him there. The Demon Sword Soul Battlefield was a pitch-black sphere. Since I was already watching, I went closer and examined its surface. Cheonak came up beside me and thrust a finger into the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield. Then black qi that jutted out from the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield suddenly seized Cheonak’s hand and pulled.
Seeing Cheonak start in surprise and yank his hand out in horror, I barely held back my laughter.
‘……Is he an idiot?’
The surface of the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield was uneven. Dark and pale portions were intricately mixed together, and the inside could not be seen.
Cheonak said,
“The Cult Leader went in on purpose. It seems he had wanted to enter for some time.”
We were all waiting while surrounding the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield, but then we retreated at the same time.
As if the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield were about to tear open, a sword suddenly protruded, scraped along the wall, and then disappeared.
The Demon Sword Soul Battlefield was clearly right before my eyes, yet it felt as though someone’s scream and laughter were overlapping from an extremely distant place.
Was it the wailing of ghosts?
Shit-Pants came over beside me and said,
“The Demon Sword Soul Battlefield is clearly advantageous to Master, so why did he insist on entering it? You really can’t know what’s in a person’s heart.”
Bloody Shit-Pants answered Shit-Pants’ words.
“That is the Cult Leader’s nature. Only then can he trample his opponent.”
The Blood Cult Leader stabbed the Daeun Sword into the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield and, while burning away the black soul qi that came surging along the blade with blood qi, said,
“……It is not a complete Demon Sword Soul Battlefield. Whether it is unfinished or lacks internal power, originally, when two enter, one must survive for the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield to break.”
“What?”
When I looked at him in shock, the Blood Cult Leader looked back at me with an indifferent face.
“Why are you surprised? Demonic arts are originally like that.”
I was surprised because we had agreed to compete in the form of a sparring duel. In any case, you could not trust the words of people of the jianghu.
...The Sword Demon stood motionless within the pitch-black space of the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield and looked at the Cult Leader. The Cult Leader was trampling the spirits that rushed at him alone. He was fighting without a word. Even though there was little chance of cleanly eliminating the spirits unless he attacked the Sword Demon, the Cult Leader alone stamped on the spirits and swung his sword.
It was the Heavenly Demon Sword, seen for the first time in a long while.
After watching for a long time, the Sword Demon asked,
“How long do you plan to keep swinging your sword like a madman?”
The Cult Leader answered while cutting down a human-shaped soul that lunged at him.
“There is no end.”
“You always treated them like insects and acted as if you would kill them all at any moment. What unsightly behavior is this? A sparring duel? The dead cultists would laugh at you.”
The Cult Leader unleashed a stomping step, then poured palm force into the air. The insect-like soul qi writhing on the ground vanished in a single stroke, and the soul qi clinging to the ceiling, about to pour down, lost its form at once as well.
The Cult Leader approached and said,
“No. It was a good proposal. And not merely a sparring duel, but a Lazy Donkey Roll.”
“…….”
“If I kill them all, who am I supposed to command and live over?”
Without answering, the Sword Demon swung his sword at the Cult Leader. The exchange that unfolded without the use of footwork was emotional. As if drawing daggers stuck in a table and fighting with them, the two held their positions. In the end, the instant the Cult Leader’s sword cut the Sword Demon’s left arm, the Sword Demon ignored the blow and thrust out his left palm.
When the Cult Leader struck back with palm force…….
The Sword Demon’s body flew into the wall of the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield and slammed against it.
Kuwaaaaaang!
The Cult Leader approached and said,
“Only one part of you is impervious to blades? You truly did nothing but swing a wooden sword.”
The Sword Demon walked out of the darkness where he had been buried and swung his sword with a smile. His swordsmanship was not particularly being pushed back, but every time palm force collided, the Sword Demon was sent flying like a child and crashed into the wall.
The Cult Leader said,
“How strange. There were few subordinates who carried out orders as well as you.”
“Cult Leader, one needs time to break free from being a slave. To become independent, I also needed time to reconsider my own conduct.”
The two clashed again.
Behind the Cult Leader, a spirit took shape, and when it lightly raised its right hand, the form of a dagger rose up.
In the midst of that, the Sword Demon seized the Cult Leader’s sword with his left hand and thrust the Radiant Sword toward his chest. At the same time, the spirit gripping the dagger stabbed the Cult Leader in the back.
As a wave of qi burst from the Cult Leader’s body, the spirit that had been driven back vanished in midair.
The Sword Demon’s body was flung away as though struck by palm force.
The Cult Leader drove the Heavenly Demon Sword into the ground and said,
“Sword Demon, demonic arts were originally nothing more than martial learning the old cult leaders toyed with. To play their little games of hierarchy, they planted all manner of tricks even in martial arts. Just like now.”
Sword qi extending from the Heavenly Demon Sword filled the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield.
...I watched the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield shatter into pieces.
A ghostly wail, as if something were being annihilated, stretched outward, and the spirits scattering in every direction to avoid something crumbled like dust.
The sword qi extending from the Radiant Sword was deflected by the Cult Leader’s sword, and soon Eldest Brother and the Cult Leader clashed again. Eldest Brother had trapped him in the Demon Sword Soul Battlefield, yet he looked wretched, as if he had been the one beaten up instead.
‘He failed.’
Cheonak, who had been watching, murmured.
“……He’ll die at this rate. We can’t have that.”
Of course, he meant Eldest Brother might die, right? But the moment Cheonak said that, he shot forward like an arrow and attacked Eldest Brother.
What the hell kind of nonsense was this?
Thinking about it, with that intention, it seemed Cheonak was trying to force Eldest Brother out with a Lazy Donkey Roll before the Cult Leader killed him.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the Lust Demon cut in and attacked Cheonak.
Then the Blood Cult Leader also ambushed the Cult Leader.
Gongson Sim and the White-Clad Scholar jumped in as well, and a complete free-for-all broke out.
Well, well. To think there could be this much chaos even without me.
Only for a moment, perhaps, but no one paid any attention to me.
Come to think of it, if they left me alone like this, I could annihilate every single expert here, including the Cult Leader, all by myself.
Because I had enough time to combine the Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven.
Let me make this clear.
I let these bastards off once.
Because this was a sparring match, I couldn’t kill them all.
Perhaps the reason Shit-Pants had been struggling especially hard since earlier was also because enemies and allies were all mixed together, so he couldn’t unleash his ultimate technique.
Was that the weakness of a wide-area ultimate technique?
After catching the White-Clad Scholar as he came flying through the air, I joined in. I, too, followed after those who had been running their mouths earlier and muttered,
“……Move. You small fry.”
“…….”
No one moved. This time, the Cult Leader and Cheonak fought while practically back-to-back, or moving close enough that their shoulders might brush, and it was even more vicious and frightening than when they fought separately.
It was too chaotic to clean up this mess.
Maybe we should have done a rotation battle from the start.
Seeing it like this, Cheonak and the Cult Leader were using the chaos to steadily seize the advantage, and at one point, when Cheonak and Gongson Sim honestly competed in palm force……
Thwack!
The Cult Leader appeared lightly, as though teleporting, and tapped Gongson Sim on the shoulder with his palm. With one of his arms already caught by Cheonak, Gongson Sim took a palm strike from the Cult Leader, and his knee struck the ground.
Pak!
“Huh?”
The Swift Hall Master’s expression was truly something to behold. In that brief instant, he had been caught by an exceedingly clear Lazy Donkey Roll.
As Gongson Sim sprang to his feet and looked around in shock, Cheonak and the Cult Leader moved as if Gongson Sim did not exist. The moment Cheonak, together with the Cult Leader, forced Gongson Sim to withdraw, he grinned hatefully.
“Hehehe.”
Gongson Sim muttered as if he felt wronged.
“What in the world…….”
I spoke to my allies in a serious tone.
“We’ll revise the plan. Move. Regulate your breathing. I’ll buy time. Looks like those two have realized another way to fight efficiently. Think.”
I cut in as if slicing through the space between the Cult Leader and Cheonak, then swung Ilsal. Since I swung my sword as if to block the positioning for their joint attack, I naturally received the counterattack of the Three Talents.
“I said move.”
Then the Lust Demon, the White-Clad Scholar, Eldest Brother, and the Blood Cult Leader withdrew and steadied their breathing.
I swung my sword against Cheonak and the Cult Leader. When I swung my sword alone like a madman, Cheonak burst into laughter.
“What are you doing? You deranged Sect Master.”
Cheonak and the Cult Leader’s joint attack was extremely efficient against many opponents, but when I faced them alone, the two men’s movements soon became tangled. By now, I had grown familiar with the Cult Leader’s movements and Cheonak’s responses.
I blurred their vision with the Moon Shadow Heartless Art.
Cleaving through the cold qi I had scattered in advance, I sent out sword qi like feints. I deliberately aimed my palm force at the ground to raise heaps of dirt, and blocked the Cult Leader’s approach with sword wind. In other words, I fought as if enduring, buying time.
This was not a fight that would be decided at once by the level of our martial arts.
It was a confrontation where both I and my allies needed time to think.
I bought time for my allies against the Three Talents. When I endured the two-against-one fight for quite a long while, Cheonak opened his mouth as if displeased.
“Sect Master, that’s enough.”
In that instant, I swung an ordinary sword stroke once each toward the Cult Leader and Cheonak, then faced them down.
Somehow, not only the sound of the wind but even the warmth mingled in the sword wind was different.
For the first time, the Cult Leader and Cheonak retreated far back and looked at me with stiff expressions.
Surely the sun wasn’t rising already?
When I looked at Ilsal, the entire blade was already stained violet. As a gust of wind blew from somewhere, the violet qi that had been enveloping my body rippled and scattered.
The Cult Leader, who had been studying me intently, extended his palm, and the enormous palm I had seen earlier appeared, taking on a distinct form.
I split the palm with the simplest horizontal slash. The moment the enormous palm was cleanly cleaved in two, it vanished.
Strangely enough……
When the Cult Leader stopped attacking and smiled faintly, Cheonak also nodded several times at me with a satisfied expression.
Cheonak said to me,
“Splendid.”
It sounded as if a master were speaking to his disciple, so I couldn’t quite choose a reply.
The Cult Leader asked,
“Sect Master, what is the name of that martial art?”
“Violet Haze Divine Art.”
The Cult Leader nodded.
“It is not unworthy of the name Divine Art.”