Chapter 87: Old Man
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The voice telepathy from the woman of unknown identity once again covertly tapped Ximen Yue’s ear.
<In truth, I’ve received orders to halt this mission. So please withdraw quickly.>
‘Halt? At this point?’
The moment Ximen Yue bit down on his lip, the figure of Seop Pyo on the opposite side rapidly vanished.
Deployment of Space Concealment Stealth Technique.
Simultaneously.
TU-TU-TU-TUT-
Five small black spheres dropped around where Ximen Yue stood, then burst with a loud sound.
KA-BOOM, KA-KA-BOOM!
Jet-black smoke spread thickly in the blink of an eye, completely obscuring Ximen Yue’s figure.
It was a scene as if wide ink-like pitch-black mist had been spread out.
Smoke Sphere Bomb.
A martial tool used to temporarily block vision.
Presumably, the owner of the voice telepathy, hidden somewhere around here, had thrown it in a surprise attack.
Soon, Seop Pyo appeared again like a ghost.
At Ximen Yue’s spot.
However, it was full of only jet-black smoke – he had already disappeared.
It seemed he had used lightness technique with concealed presence to swiftly escape during the short gap when the smoke bomb had burst.
‘Who’s behind this now!’
Having thus quickly kicked off the ground and emerged from the black smoke, Seop Pyo heard a thread of strange sound strike his ears.
SCHWA-RA-RA-RA-RAK-!
It was the sound of a gleaming sickle-chain rushing straight at him.
THU-THUNK-!
At the spot where the sickle-chain, deflected by the tree branch, was withdrawn SCHWA-RA-RUK!, someone was standing alone.
Roughly three jang distance.
A figure wearing a black mask and even a fluttering cloak.
Most likely a young woman.
The curves of the light armor clinging to the body beneath the cloak, and the shape of the eyes revealed above the mask, proved such a fact.
Seop Pyo was suddenly seized by a strange feeling.
Because the intangible aura coiled around the woman’s body gave a feeling quite similar to Ximen Yue’s, somehow.
Heavy and dark.
Though not as thick as Ximen Yue’s.
Suddenly, a covert voice reached the woman’s ear.
<I have somewhere to go briefly. Stall for time appropriately and then lure him as far away as possible.>
This time it was voice telepathy cast by Ximen Yue.
“There are many uninvited guests today.”
Seop Pyo stepped forward with nimble footwork before that mutter even ended.
SCHWA-RA-RA-RAK-!
The moment the woman grasped the chain with both hands and pulled it taut left and right, Seop Pyo’s tree branch fiercely struck down upon it.
CLA-CLAAAANG!
Along with the stinging metallic sound.
KABOOOOM!
As a heavy cutting sound burst forth, the woman’s figure was pushed back fiercely.
SCREEECH- FLUTTER-FLUTTER-
The sound of soles scraping the ground and the sound of the cloak fluttering mixed together.
By then, Seop Pyo had disappeared.
SWOOSH.
Space Concealment Stealth Technique.
The moment the woman caught her balance and stood, Seop Pyo suddenly popped out from behind her.
CLA-CLANG- KA-BOOM!
The woman’s defensive motion as she turned her body was supremely fast, but the cultivation loaded in the tree branch was so heavy that she was pushed back again.
Seop Pyo gave her no respite.
At some point, the executed Space Concealment Stealth Technique this time seized the space to the opponent’s right.
Seop Pyo’s offensive, appearing like a ghost and thrusting the tree branch.
Since it was a rapid and fierce attack laden with maximum cultivation, it wouldn’t be easy to receive it head-on.
He figured she would definitely dodge and calculated his next move.
However.
WHIT!
The woman instead twisted her body and swung the sickle-chain to meet it.
KRA-CRASH-!
Seop Pyo and the woman moved apart.
Due to repelling force.
Thus, Seop Pyo was pushed back about a dozen paces, and the woman about twenty paces, before fixing both legs and stopping dead.
Immediately after.
The woman, having adjusted her grip on the sickle-chain, staggered slightly.
It was the effect of having received Seop Pyo’s attack head-on.
Well, since it was maximum cultivation released by a legendary assassin of the previous generation martial world, not just any martial artist, it would be strange if she hadn’t received any impact at all.
However, from Seop Pyo’s perspective, it was quite surprising.
The one move he had just executed was power that should have left the opponent with great internal injury and more.
Yet aside from her body’s center wavering, she showed no other reaction whatsoever.
“Hmm… You’re strong.”
At the woman’s praise-like words, Seop Pyo immediately prepared to execute Space Concealment Stealth Technique without a word of reply.
His will was to capture the opponent before him instead of the masked young man who escaped, and uncover the inside story.
Just then.
SWOOSH-SWOOSH-SWOOSHT-
The woman suddenly multiplied into four, confusing his field of vision.
A high-level skill where it was difficult to distinguish with the naked eye what was real and what was phantom.
‘Phantom Technique…?’
Seop Pyo immediately retracted the Space Concealment Stealth Technique he was about to deploy and executed a tremoring stomp with massive energy invested.
KRA-CRASH-!
Centered on where his foot trampled, intangible energy spread roundly, and by that tremendous power, the entire grass undulated like a great wave.
All phantoms shook from the fierce shockwave.
‘Hmph!’
The moment the woman’s body center tilted, Seop Pyo pressed close to her front and struck down with his right hand.
Quick judgment, quick action.
The brief gap in which he neutralized the Phantom Technique before it could display its profound use and also performed a follow-up surprise attack was simply wondrous.
But then.
BANG-!
The instant the tree branch laden with vital energy struck down on the target – the woman’s left shoulder – a crisp explosion burst forth along with ashen smoke that WHOOSH! spread in all directions.
FWASSSS…
Even what he had thought was the real body had been a phantom.
‘What’s this?’
When Seop Pyo quickly heightened his energy sense to the fullest, a presence disappearing toward over there was detected.
To create yet another phantom in an instant and flee – was she perhaps a practitioner whose technique skills had reached their peak?
Seop Pyo immediately moved like a flash of lightning in that direction.
A lightness technique that rapidly closed the far distance in one stroke – yet the woman’s presence had moved that much farther away.
Though Seop Pyo raised his internal cultivation a level higher and increased speed, the opponent fleeing while concealing presence to the maximum also moved more rapidly.
How long had he run like that?
Suddenly, a transmitted voice like an echo across the air was heard.
-Old man, regrettably, the contest ends here.
It was Six-Direction Telepathic Voice – a transcendent method of amplifying sound with internal cultivation to burst it forth, making the direction impossible to determine.
Meanwhile, the faint presence had completely vanished.
Only then did Seop Pyo stop his movement.
It was already too late.
Because the masked person’s skill related to movement was estimated to be at a level not far from his own.
A sense of emptiness settling in his chest.
Soon, as Seop Pyo stored his internal cultivation, a light of anger welled in his eyes.
‘Old man, she said? Haa, these insolent lot…’
He was newly infuriated.
Well, setting aside that he’d let them escape, why were there so many who had thrown respect for elders to the dogs?
Anyway, he had come out to the secular world for no reason.
He should have just gone home earlier.
* * *
Metallic sounds and cutting sounds resounding through the spacious garden adjacent to the manor’s main gate.
CLANG- CLA-CLANG- SWI-SWISH- SWISH, SWISH-!
It was an arena where martial artists’ bloodlust and fighting spirit, and weapons’ sharp edges, wildly swept through.
Yeop Hwon and Hyeop Mu-geuk were currently engaged in strenuous combat, ceaselessly working their attacks against the unorthodox masters’ combined assault, which had divided into two groups.
In the midst of that.
‘Wow…!’
Dark Sword Fragrance Mun Bin, positioned beside Divine Wind and observing the sword fights around him, was greatly impressed inside.
The combined assault that several unorthodox masters deployed in succession was so murderous, like a pack of starving beasts attacking, that even spectators felt dizzy.
However.
The exclamation in Mun Bin’s chest was not directed at the unorthodox masters, but at Yeop Hwon and Hyeop Mu-geuk.
Because even though they were at a numerical disadvantage, the exquisite hand movements and body movements of those two had created a situation where the enemy was rather struggling.
Indeed.
The ones leading the flow of this fierce battlefield right now were Yeop Hwon and Hyeop Mu-geuk.
Sure enough.
“Urk!”
One Emotionless Swordsman let out a short groan and quickly stepped backward.
He had been stabbed in the left forearm by the thrusting form that Hyeop Mu-geuk had unleashed in a surprise attack along with a nimble evasive movement.
At that moment, the swords of the remaining two Emotionless Swordsmen flew in.
SHWING- SHO-SHWING-!
Two horizontal sword attacks simultaneously targeting upper and lower body.
A truly perfect rapid combined attack.
It was already too late to step back.
There appeared to be no space to dodge.
Suddenly.
KICK!
Hyeop Mu-geuk immediately kicked off the ground with both feet and leaped while letting his body fall backward as if lying down, and the swords swung by the two Emotionless Swordsmen barely sliced only the air above and below, futilely.
SWI-SWIT-
Hyeop Mu-geuk used the force of flipping his body backward as-is, turned one revolution, and landed on the ground again.
Following that.
TAP, TAP-TAP, TAP.
He stood farther away through nimble footwork.
It had truly been a close moment.
If his earlier motion had been slightly higher or lower, one of the two blades would have cut his body.
Yet there was no trace of anxiety in Hyeop Mu-geuk’s expression.
Instead, confidence and conviction occupied that place.
‘This is it!’
A sensation being inscribed on his body once more.
He felt it.
Definitely.
Just now when the two blades had rushed in, the instantaneous reaction of his body that had arisen like lightning – that was a motion created by the Senses of a Superhuman that Cheol Ryu-heun had mentioned yesterday.
How many times was this now?
Since starting the fight, he had thus evaded close crises relying on that sense.
Once actually entering real combat, the ascending energy sense bestowed by the achievement of Five Energies Gathered to Origin displayed power far more tremendous than initially expected.
Wasn’t his body, without even a single small wound, proving that excellent profound use?
The Emotionless Four Swordsmen, the elite masters of the Ashen Heart Sect that ruled as first in this region’s unorthodox faction, were by no means an easy group.
Of course, one had died by Cheol Ryu-heun’s terrifying attack, reducing them to Three Swordsmen, but each one’s martial prowess was sufficient to be called a first-rate swordsman.
If he hadn’t awakened to the ascending energy sense, by now he would have received several cut wounds.
In contrast, the two Emotionless Swordsmen who had swung their swords were silently shocked.
‘No, again…!’
‘There was no gap!’
It had been sword attacks simultaneously targeting upper and lower body without giving temporal or spatial leeway.
Yet Hyeop Mu-geuk had rendered their decisive combined assault futile with a single concise movement.
It was truly amazing sense.
To deploy such judgment and motion in the space of a split second…
Could such movement be possible when instinctive sixth sense, intuition, was maximized?
The two paused their follow-up offensive along with their doubts.
To catch their breath.
They were tired.
Not only inner power but even stamina had been considerably consumed.
It was natural.
Because they had been relentlessly pressing the opponent while unstintingly operating massive cultivation without rest.
It was the price of misjudgment.
Honestly, at first they had thought they could kill Hyeop Mu-geuk within thirty seconds.
In a flash.
FWAP-
The one whose forearm had been stabbed had at some point used footwork to press close to Hyeop Mu-geuk’s right.
The expressions of the other two Emotionless Swordsmen stiffened with a start.
Stop!
A belated mental cry.
The sword had already been thrust out.
SHWAAAT-!
It was the moment when the balance of combined assault they had maintained until now was disrupted due to a comrade’s surprise attack.
The heavy cultivation loaded in the sword, that massive vital energy, rushed in a straight line, representing the rage in his chest.
Immediately, Hyeop Mu-geuk’s ascending sense that made his whole body’s nerves stand on end drew out an exquisite sword form.
A rapidly twisting body, and a blade drawn forward by his hand.
In that short gap as if slicing and slicing an instant, the opponent’s sword appeared momentarily slowed, and that created the opportunity to completely overturn the tide.
Thus, no sooner had each other’s sword tips crossed with a minute difference than.
PU-SCHUCK!
A hair-raising sound of piercing flesh struck his ears.
The sword Hyeop Mu-geuk had thrust had penetrated the opponent’s chest.
It had hit precisely in the heart.
However.
The sword the Emotionless Swordsman had thrust passed over Hyeop Mu-geuk’s shoulder by a margin of one chon.
SCHUCK.
When Hyeop Mu-geuk swiftly withdrew his sword, the Emotionless Swordsman’s body THUD! collapsed lying on the ground.
Instant death.
With eyes wide open.
Mun Bin was seized by shivers watching that scene.
For an instant, he had thought it might be a reckless counterattack.
However.
Hyeop Mu-geuk had twisted his body minimally and squeezed into the minute gap within the opponent’s fierce sword attack to reap maximum effect.
‘My, beyond the rumors. The martial prowess of Flash Dagger Sword Wolf is…’
The moment he inwardly stuck out his tongue.
PA-KWAK!
The two Emotionless Swordsmen charged toward Hyeop Mu-geuk with bloodlust-filled eyes.
The fight of three martial artists resumed.
Just then, some strange sound rang from over there.
“Haaaang!”
Hyeop Mu-geuk, who had heard that sound while swinging his sword, scrunched up his face.
Su-suddenly? No, don’t do that! No, why again!
What he had just heard was Yeop Hwon’s peculiar moan that he never wanted to hear again.