Chapter 200: Chapter 200
Jan Chil’s pupils shook greatly.
It was an all-out strike.
It was a sword technique thrust perfectly toward a weak point, but it was blocked very simply.
‘How…?’
Jan Chil felt bewildered.
Assassins were those who stood on the edge of a blade.
That was natural since they were those who took human lives as commissions, were they not?
Therefore, if they succeeded in a commission, they could raise their ransom, but if they failed instead, they were bound to lose their lives as the price.
As such, they did not move hastily.
Because the failure of a commission directly linked to death.
They only moved when they had absolute certainty.
It was even more so in cases like Jan Chil.
He was a Heaven-class assassin who was counted among the best even in the Murder Screen, the largest force of assassins.
He was someone who had completed missions without a single failure for decades.
To that extent, his caution had reached the extreme.
This time as well, it was something he had unleashed after enduring and waiting while continuously killing his presence and traces.
Since it was blocked in vain, his shock was beyond description.
At that time.
“It was quite a decent sword art.”
Cheon-hwi praised Jan Chil’s sword.
It was crude and left no room for retreat, but instead, it contained everything in a single strike.
His soul and will, too.
“But I am just as disappointed. What should we do if a guy calling himself an assassin cannot come to his senses just because his sword was blocked a bit? You should make the next attack. Or are you just going to offer your neck like this? Tsk tsk, who was it that gave you assassin training?”
“…!”
At the sudden meddling, Jan Chil hurriedly came to his senses. Afterward, he gritted his teeth at Cheon-hwi’s expression that looked at him as if he were pathetic, and he put strength into his hand.
Squeeeze!
However, the sword held in his hand did not move at all, as if it were stuck in a rock.
“Do you think you can pull it out like that… huh?”
The moment Cheon-hwi continued saying something.
Claaang!
A sharp sound burst out.
Gon Son-seung, who had adjusted his grip on the sword, struck upward at the sword lodged in his shoulder.
As the aftermath of forcefully striking away the sword blade that had dug halfway into his left shoulder, blood soared into the sky.
“Keugh!”
However, Gon Son-seung merely let out a short groan and immediately leaped backward.
“Oh, you endure that? You are tough.”
The moment Cheon-hwi turned his gaze toward him, who had struck away the sword as if he did not care at all that a lump of flesh was cut off.
Tap!
Jan Chil leaped upward, and then he thrust his two feet forward toward Cheon-hwi’s face.
“Oh my. Look at this?”
Cheon-hwi looked at the two soles of the feet getting closer to his face, and then he turned his head to the side.
The moment he avoided the kick like that.
Swish!
Taking advantage of the gap where the strength in Cheon-hwi’s hand loosened, Jan Chil finally pulled out the sword that had been caught as if it were lodged.
“Hm?”
When Cheon-hwi wiggled his hand that caught nothing and looked forward.
“Keuk!”
Jan Chil, who had hurriedly retreated, stood side by side next to Gon Son-seung who was holding his wound.
“Heok, heok.”
“Huk, huk.”
The two let out rough breaths.
However, that was also brief.
“Damn it!”
Gon Son-seung took out Golden Spear Medicine from his top, and without even looking at the wound, he applied it to his shoulder.
“Keuk!”
He, who frowned as if the pain was severe, gritted his teeth and tore his clothes with a swish.
And then he wrapped it around his shoulder.
“You are more skilled at treating than martial arts.”
Cheon-hwi, who muttered while watching him treat it as a temporary measure, let his sword hang down.
Drops of blood fell drip, drip, and spread out in dots on the dirt floor.
“Seeing this, there is nothing more to see.”
Cheon-hwi’s lips tore into a long smile.
“Let’s finish this.”
Along with his words, Cheon-hwi moved.
Paat!
Jan Chil, who had been watching Cheon-hwi the whole time, gritted his teeth even harder at the presence that vanished in an instant.
“…Grind.”
Muscles bulged on his tightly closed jaw, and a cold murderous intent flowed in his pupils.
Jan Chil poured all his internal energy into his sword.
Originally, he would have left room to run away, but there was no time for that.
That was the same for Gon Son-seung next to him.
He raised his sword high with his intact right hand, and unleashed all of his internal energy.
Ooooo-
Light erupted from his sword.
The moment the Hainan Sect’s Primary Yang Divine Art combined with the sword to show off its majesty.
Swaeek!
Gon Son-seung swung his sword like lightning before that.
His final ultimate technique, the Anti-Heaven Sword, was swung with a momentum different from before.
Although his balance was disrupted because he lost one hand, its momentum was rather more upright and strong than the sword techniques unleashed before his injury.
“You have good eyes. To track the Divine Movement Hundred Transformations.”
Cheon-hwi half-opened his eyes as he looked at the Anti-Heaven Sword that was swung after finding his presence.
Was it because he felt a crisis to his life?
Gon Son-seung, who had not even been able to find his presence until just before, was looking straight at him and swinging his sword widely.
Cheon-hwi stepped forward.
Cheon-hwi’s sword, which approached toward the wildly driving Anti-Heaven Sword, soared into the sky.
Claaaang!
Cheon-hwi, who struck the Anti-Heaven Sword from bottom to top, approached right up to Gon Son-seung’s nose and stared at the astonished him, and then he smirked.
“You first.”
“M, monster…”
Slice!
A gruesome sound spread.
At the same time, Gon Son-seung’s head soared into the sky, and then scattered blood in all directions.
Simultaneously.
Taaat!
The assassins who had been hiding attacked.
Cheon-hwi’s sword was raised high.
At that moment, dark red plum blossoms bloomed as they combined with Gon Son-seung’s scattering blood.
A bizarre sight enough to take one’s breath away.
However, Cheon-hwi, who created that sight, merely slashed his sword down with an indifferent expression.
A simple sword path drawn from top to bottom.
However, the expressions of those watching it turned pale, and they had no choice but to stiffen.
It was because it was a sword technique they had seen.
And just a moment ago at that!
Seven Absolutes Plum Blossom Sword, Fifth Stance.
Falling Plum Heavenly Rain Flower.
The dark red plum blossoms holding blood poured down all at once like rain, and swallowed the assassins.
Although they had pale faces, the assassins who risked death ignored the plum blossoms and rushed in just like that.
The move of cutting flesh to sever bone!
Thinking that it was already too late to block the plum blossoms pouring down like a torrential rain, they gripped the swords and hidden weapons held in their hands even tighter.
And they tried to pierce through the plum blossoms, but.
Tap.
The plum blossoms blocked their approach.
Some assassins swung their hands and swords in order to strike away the plum blossoms, but.
Slice!
The plum blossoms burst, and the scattering petals touched them, creating bloodstains.
However, the assassins continuously rushed toward Cheon-hwi, as if they were used to this much pain.
And that was their blunder.
Swaaa-
The scattered plum blossom petals poured toward them even more intensely and quickly.
Inescapably dense.
Eventually, the petals covered them.
“Kkeuaaak!”
“Keoheok!”
“S-save me…”
Desperate screams and the sounds of pieces of flesh being cut started to ring out continuously.
Around the time the plum blossom petals holding their blood emitted their color brilliantly.
Swaeeek!
A sword popped out from Cheon-hwi’s side.
Jan Chil, who had focused on the single thought of entirely slashing apart while excluding everything else, rushed in as quickly as a single sword.
His sword, which unleashed an intense internal energy as if betting everything on this one strike, dug into Cheon-hwi’s flank, but.
“That again?”
Cheon-hwi looked at it indifferently, as if he already knew.
Cheon-hwi, who slightly pulled his left foot back, twisted his sword and extended it toward the flying Jan Chil.
Puk!
Cheon-hwi’s sword pierced his abdomen.
However, Jan Chil did not stop advancing.
As if resolving for mutual destruction, he grabbed the sword lodged in his abdomen with his left hand, and went on to thrust his sword with his right hand.
“You bastard will die here!”
Jan Chil’s eyes glinted with murderous intent.
A desperate gaze saying he would kill unconditionally.
Eventually, the moment his sharply shooting sword was about to reach Cheon-hwi’s neck.
“No, that is impossible.”
Cheon-hwi let out a sneer.
And then he extended his left hand forward.
“…!”
The moment Jan Chil glared his two eyes at the palm flying toward his chest.
Smack!
The Falling Flower Shadow Chasing Palm shattered Jan Chil’s ribs, and then sent him flying backward.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Jan Chil, who flew backward for about ten zhang while bouncing on the ground several times, lost his strength and soon stretched out fully in a large shape.
“U-uwaaak!”
“Heo, heok!”
The martial artists of the Soul-Snatching Sect and the Geumhwi Department were astonished as they saw Jan Chil who had collapsed right in front of them.
His appearance was miserable.
His abdomen had a hole pierced through so blood and intestines spilled out, and his chest was caved in along with a clear handprint.
“Keo, keoheok.”
Around the time he, who was barely holding onto his lifeline, vomited blood foam.
Step- Step-
Cheon-hwi approached him, and looked down at him with indifferent eyes.
“You guys should not have come to Shaanxi, even if you went anywhere else.”
“Kkeu, kkeureureuk-“
Cheon-hwi struck his sword down.
That time when the sword that accurately pierced his neck was lodged in the floor.
“Heup!”
At the sound of swallowing breath heard from right nearby, Cheon-hwi turned his gaze and looked at the martial artists of the Soul-Snatching Sect and the Geumhwi Department.
“Ah, you guys were here too?”
At Cheon-hwi’s words, they felt a shock as if their souls were fleeing.
His overwhelming martial prowess was also his martial prowess, but.
What dominated their minds was his killing sword that had not a single shred of hesitation.
“P-please spare me.”
Someone knelt down, and rubbed his two hands while crying subserviently.
However.
“No, all of you must die.”
Cheon-hwi spoke firmly.
“Because that way is clean.”
After a while, Cheon-hwi, who was looking at the surroundings filled with countless corpses, flicked his blood-stained sword, and muttered.
“Are those guys all that are left now.”
* * *
“Ugh.”
Cho Ryeon, who had fainted, woke up.
As soon as she regained her consciousness, she quickly looked around her surroundings.
“Here is…”
Then she discovered an expressionless man, and she frowned her eyebrows and parted her lips.
“What happened?”
“The Squad Leader suffered a defeat…”
“Enough. There is no need to speak further.”
Cho Ryeon bit her lip, and stood up.
“You must still take a rest.”
“In this state right now?”
Cho Ryeon spoke while gnawing her lips as if something made her so anxious.
“We must hurry and report to the main cult.”
Her eyes froze coldly.
“This mission has ended in failure, but there are still things we have gained.”
“I will look into that person in detail.”
“It is impossible for you alone.”
Cho Ryeon spoke firmly.
The Taoist named Cheon-hwi, whom she had directly faced in a martial arts spar, was not an ordinary person.
“I will have to go to the safe house first. Hiding our bodies first and conveying this to the cult is the priority.”
“Understood.”
Immediately, the two performed extreme footwork and entered a secluded mountain valley.
The two, who arrived near where a waterfall was falling, looked around the surroundings, and then extended their hands.
Then, the empty air rippled while causing waves like water, and soon the two were swallowed.
The two, who had stepped inside the illusion array, slowly walked toward the hut in front of their eyes.
“You convey this to the cult first. I will…”
The moment Cho Ryeon spoke, and completely opened the door.
“…!”
“Squad Leader!”
The two froze in that state.
“Munch munch, mm, you are here now?”
It was a safe house where no one should have been.
But inside, a man wearing dark red clothes was in the middle of tearing and eating meat while showing his back.
Cho Ryeon hurriedly flowed out a telepathic message.
‘Did they say someone was coming from the Divine Cult?’
‘I have never received such contact at all.’
‘Then that person is…’
The expressions of the two stiffened at the same time.
This place was the safe house of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
Those who knew the method to enter here were only those who held heavy responsibilities even within the Divine Cult.
Sseueueu-
Cho Ryeon raised her internal energy.
Around the time the cold chill lingering on her fingertips was about to encroach upon the safe house.
“Wait a moment. There is one bottle left.”
The man, who spoke words that did not suit the current situation where tension was taut, tilted his head back, and then raised the bottle in his hand and gulped, gulped down its contents.
At the same time, a familiar smell tickled her nose.
‘…Liquor?’
When Cho Ryeon frowned and glared at the back of the head of the man drinking straight from the bottle.
Tak.
The man put down the liquor bottle.
The man, who calmly wiped the liquor on his mouth with his sleeve, stood up, and turned his body.
“Keu-eu. Then shall we talk now.”
The expressions of Cho Ryeon and the man, who finally saw his face, were engulfed in astonishment.
“Y-you are?”
“What do you mean you, you know my Daoist title.”
The man, Cheon-hwi, smiled widely and spoke.
“How did you find this place…”
“Ah, there is no need to know that.”
Cheon-hwi lightly nodded his neck.
“From now on, relay the words I say to the Heavenly Demon Cult exactly as they are.”
“What nonsense…”
“I do not care whether you conquer the Central Plains, or well, dye the world in blood.”
Cheon-hwi’s eyes sank boundlessly.
Pupils distinctly divided into black and white.
Cho Ryeon could only be trapped in those abyss-like pupils whose end she absolutely could not fathom.
“But just one thing.”
At the same time Cheon-hwi brought out his words, he raised his Absolute Reigning Art.
Hwaaak!
The internal energy of the Absolute Reigning Art, which encroached the hut in a single breath, completely suppressed the two.
“Keuk!”
“Heup!”
The heads of the two naturally bowed down.
Absolute aura and intense presence.
The man who was next to Cho Ryeon was overwhelmed by that spirit, and his knees touched the floor.
Fortunately, Cho Ryeon did not kneel, but that was all.
‘I-it is hard to even breathe.’
As if she had encountered her limit, sweat flowed from her entire body, and her heart pounded.
As if it would explode right away.
‘What exactly is this energy? Even when comparing it with the Cult Leader’s Heavenly Demon Divine Art…’
Cho Ryeon stopped the thought she was having.
Thinking any further was no different from being disrespectful toward the Cult Leader.
At that time, Cheon-hwi’s lips parted.
“Instead, do not touch Mount Hua.”
Ending with those words, Cheon-hwi slowly took steps toward the door they were frozen at.
Step- Step-
One footstep, one footstep.
The two who were in front of the door felt their hearts beat loudly at the approaching sound of footsteps.
Eventually, Cheon-hwi’s feet passed by in their field of vision looking down.
However, they could not move.
Like that, an eternity-like time flowed for a moment, and when the sound of footsteps became so far away it could no longer be heard.
“Haa, haa.”
“Heok, heok.”
Their pale complexions slowly returned, and the two let out rough breaths.
When about one cup of tea’s time had passed like that.
“Who is he? Exactly who is he to…”
Cho Ryeon stared at the open door.
No, to be precise, while recalling Cheon-hwi who had left just before, she bit her fingernails.
“…Mount Hua, Mount Hua. Is it Mount Hua…”
She, who continued to repeat Mount Hua, frowned suddenly, and then swished her body around.
And then she let out a low voice to the man.
“Hurry and relay the information to the Cult. Everything that happened today!”
Meanwhile, Cheon-hwi, who came outside, dissolved his Absolute Reigning Art, and looked backward.
In fact, if he wanted to kill them, it was possible at any time.
However, he did not do so.
“It should be fine to spare them about once. Thanks to her, I also saw the White Hand Demonic Art.”
Cheon-hwi, who whispered as if it were no big deal, moved his steps toward the Mount Hua Sect.
“Then shall I slowly start returning now.”
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