Chapter 34: Chapter 34
“It’s finally a bit better.”
Cheon-hwi looked down at the plum blossom swordsmen spread-eagled on the ground, lightly resting the scabbard in his hand on his shoulder.
The condition of the plum blossom swordsmen was a mess.
Their faces were swollen here and there, and their Daoist robes were sullied with dust. It was to the point where he knew their bodies, currently hidden by their robes, were also a mess.
“Yeah. Now you look a bit like martial artists. If you are martial artists, you should have those kinds of eyes.”
Cheon-hwi was pleased that their gaze had changed rather than their physical condition.
Was it thanks to the repeated beatings?
Twelve days had passed, and now a venomous spirit began to dwell in their eyes.
Was that all?
Perhaps not wanting to experience the pain of being hit again, they became adept at dodging, and because he would end the spar if they somehow managed to land a single strike, they swung their swords with caution.
The effect resulting from that was incredible.
Their vision, which had been unable to focus due to tension, was suddenly grasping the opponent’s sword and martial arts, and the swords they swung became sharper and more efficient than before.
However.
“…Stop.”
“Please.”
“Save me…”
Tears obscured the vision of the plum blossom swordsmen.
They knew better than anyone that they had achieved tremendous growth in a short period of time.
But what did that matter?
Cheon-hwi’s sword forms, which had looked blurry, could now only barely be felt as afterimages of the scabbard.
In contrast to that, when they swung their swords, there was only the sensation of cutting through empty air.
A distant difference in martial prowess.
The more they sparred, the more they only realized the gap with Cheon-hwi.
And.
Smack! Smack!
“S-stop…”
In the end, all that returned at the conclusion was a beating disguised as a spar and pain.
Around the time the plum blossom swordsmen were lying sick in bed.
“Then, now that your eyes have been opened, shall we move on to the next step?”
At Cheon-hwi’s voice seeping into their ears, the haggard faces of the plum blossom swordsmen finally brightened.
“Finally…”
“…It’s over.”
“I-is it really true!”
“Then we no longer have to be hit…!”
“Ah! Boundless Life Buddha! Primordial Heavenly Venerable!”
Like meeting sweet rain during a drought, they cheered and wiped their tears.
It was not because they were moving on to the next step.
The very fact that they could escape this beating was what made them cheer.
But did they know?
That a path of suffering even more terrible than what they had been doing so far had opened up.
“Then get up for now.”
Cheon-hwi called for them to get up.
“Groan… “
As if the places they were hit still hurt, the moment they moved, the plum blossom swordsmen who contorted their faces in pain staggered to their feet.
When they all stood up, Cheon-hwi opened his mouth.
“The most important eyes have been opened…”
At Cheon-hwi’s stalling words, the plum blossom swordsmen focused and pricked up their ears.
“Now let’s move on to the next step.”
“N-no way…!”
“…R-right?”
Jeok-geom and Seol Ran’s complexions turned pale as if they remembered something at the words ‘next step’, and they pleaded with desperate eyes.
“Haven’t we already done it?”
“Martial Uncle, we’ve already done it.”
“I should have told you that learning has no end, right?”
However, Cheon-hwi coldly ignored their pleas and continued what he was saying.
“The next step is posture.”
“Martial Uncle, please, just not that…”
“Couldn’t we rather spar?”
As soon as the word ‘posture’ came out of Cheon-hwi’s mouth, the two convulsed.
However, Cheon-hwi still completely ignored the two and asked the remaining three flustered plum blossom swordsmen.
“You three there. You know the Three Talents Sword Art, right?”
“Ah…”
In an instant, Jeok-geom and Seol Ran limply collapsed as if their souls had been drained.
When the remaining plum blossom swordsmen looked at that sight with absentminded expressions, Cheon-hwi let out a much lower voice.
“You don’t know?”
At his urging, they urgently answered.
“A-we know it!”
“We know!”
“Of course we know it!”
“Then from now on, perform the Three Talents Sword Art ten thousand times every day.”
For a moment, the plum blossom swordsmen picked their ears wondering ‘Did I hear that wrong’, and then belatedly realizing that they had heard it correctly, they shouted in astonishment.
“T-ten thousand times? That’s impossible!”
“How can we do ten thousand times a day…!”
“It’s impossible!”
“What do you mean impossible. These two already accomplished it two years ago.”
Jeok-geom and Seol Ran trembled.
“Please stop…”
“M-my arms won’t go up. If you just let us rest for today alone…”
As if recalling that time, the two tore at their hair and blankly muttered.
“Then do you want to do it another way?”
The moment the corners of Cheon-hwi’s mouth twisted.
“I will swing my sword.”
“M-me too!”
Jeok-geom and Seol Ran drew their swords.
They began swinging their swords before anyone could say anything, and Cheon-hwi nodded with a satisfied expression.
Then he asked the plum blossom swordsmen.
“If you want to do it another way besides that, come here.”
When the plum blossom swordsmen hesitantly approached at his beckoning gesture, Jeok-geom and Seol Ran looked at them with pitiful eyes.
At that gaze, the plum blossom swordsmen realized that something was going terribly wrong right now and urgently opened their mouths.
“I-I will swing my sword too.”
“Martial Uncle, I too will use my sword…”
“Me as well…”
However, their words were meaningless.
Cheon-hwi already spoke as if he would not tolerate them swinging their swords.
“It’s too late.”
At Cheon-hwi’s coercive words, the three could neither do this nor that, and eventually flopped down to sit.
“What I will unfold from now on is a Yoga Qigong called the Body Transformation Art.”
Along with his words, he moved his hand.
Pababak!
In an instant, afterimages embroidered the empty air, and presently the acupoints of the three were precisely struck.
“It is a Yoga Qigong that has an excellent effect on loosening the stiff muscles of the entire body and making them flexible by striking acupoints like this, and is perfect for shaping a martial artist’s body.”
At the explanation that differed from their thoughts that it would be terrible, a sense of relief settled on the faces of the three.
However, that too was only for a moment, and as there were no changes despite their acupoints being struck, Jeok-un carefully asked Cheon-hwi.
“Was there such a martial art?”
“Why? Do you think there wouldn’t be?”
“Then why hasn’t anyone learned that martial art?”
“Because this has a problem.”
Cheon-hwi cut his words off.
At the word ‘problem’, Jeok-un and the other plum blossom swordsmen furrowed their brows.
“What kind of problem is it?”
“It hurts a bit.”
“It hurts?”
“Huh? Is that all?”
“Just how much does it hurt for…”
“Probably around the level of Muscle-Dividing Bone-Displacing?”
“M-Muscle-Dividing Bone-Displacing?!”
The three were simultaneously appalled.
What was Muscle-Dividing Bone-Displacing.
It was a method so evil and cruel that it would be used at the very end even in torture.
Yet it was a pain similar to that.
“I-I will swing my sword!”
“Me too with my sword!”
“I as well will…”
Right when the three were about to jump up.
“I told you earlier. It’s already too late.”
Crack, crack…
An ominous sound echoed.
The three stared at their bodies where the sound was echoing with anxious expressions, and presently let out screams as if piercing the sky.
“Guaaaah!”
Their arms, legs, no. The muscles and bones of their entire bodies were bizarrely twisting as if bugs were crawling around inside.
Cheon-hwi, who scanned them one by one as the Body Transformation Art properly unfolded, nodded with a satisfied smile.
“It worked properly.”
The Body Transformation Art was a Yoga Qigong of the Potala Palace that he had discovered in the Heavenly Demon Library, and was a unique martial art that maximized the flexibility of the entire body rather than internal energy.
‘It’s a good external art when training the physical body.’
He gave a small nod.
It was a very successful Qigong when he tested it on Jeok-geom and Seol Ran three years ago.
Cheon-hwi immediately smiled as he looked at the three.
“How is it? My words are right, aren’t they? Neither less nor more, but exactly around the level of Muscle-Dividing Bone-Displacing, right?”
At the terrible words that contrasted with his bright smile, the eyes of the three completely rolled back.
Gurgle…
Subsequently staring at the three who were foaming at the mouth in pain, he furrowed his brow.
‘Already passed out?’
Looking at the three whose screams had even disappeared as if they lost consciousness from the pain, he once again stretched out his finger and struck the acupoints on their necks.
Flash!
In an instant, the eyes of the three opened.
With their consciousness forcefully awakened, they rolled around, buried in pain once again.
“What are you losing consciousness for? I’m going to explain about the Body Transformation Art now, so keep your ears open.”
After spitting out unilateral words, he began his explanation.
“By making your entire body’s muscles and bones flexible, when you swing your sword…”
The explanation continued on.
However, was the pain too harsh to listen to the explanation?
The explanation Cheon-hwi gave them did not stick in their heads at all.
Like that, the time it takes to drink a cup of tea flowed by.
Thud…
Soon, the three whose Body Transformation Art had ended squirmed and then buried their faces in the ground.
Matching that, Cheon-hwi finished his explanation.
“…If it becomes like that, it becomes easier to swing your sword. Hmm? What are you doing? Get a hold of yourselves. Since you guys said you didn’t want to train, I even did this expedient method for you, so you can’t be collapsing, can you?”
Cheon-hwi sneered, but it did not reach the ears of the three who had already fainted at all.
And Cheon-hwi had aimed for that as well.
“It can’t be helped. Then next time, if you haven’t memorized the explanation I gave, I will give you double the pain, so memorize it well.”
After spitting out words like a bolt out of the blue to the fainted them, he turned his body.
Then, Jeok-geom and Seol Ran, who had stopped swinging their swords and were looking at the three with pitying faces, entered his line of sight.
‘Oho, look at these guys?’
He immediately opened his mouth towards the two.
“It seems you two have some leeway?”
“A-no we don’t.”
In an instant, the two were startled out of their wits and spurred on the speed at which they swung their swords.
“Yeah, you should.”
Whoosh… Whoosh…
Cheon-hwi, who was listening to the heavy sounds that were different from before, shifted his gaze.
‘Are they still there?’
He coldly glared at the ones who were only surveilling from afar without approaching anymore, ending with the person he killed three days ago.
“I’ll have to catch and finish them all off today.”
* * *
A group of shadows entered Hamyang County.
Swish… Swish…
The man at the head of the group, Silver-Hand Beheader, who had returned after reporting the situation to White Ghost Castle, was not in a very good mood right now.
‘Did I end up taking it all on in the end.’
He recalled his meeting with the Lord of White Ghost Castle.
The moment he, who was completely pure white from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, heard his report, he exuded an aura as cold as ice and chillingly spat out an order.
‘In place of the Supreme King Sect’s role, erase the Flying Wind Merchant Guild from the world.’
Originally, the mission he and the Soul Slaying Squad were entrusted with was to ambush and kill the plum blossom swordsmen and the core members of the Mount Hua Sect who came for revenge for the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
However, the plan twisted from the beginning.
The Supreme King Sect’s surprise attack, which he thought would unconditionally succeed, not only failed but also ended with the death of the Cold-Faced Blade Ghost, and the Supreme King Sect was annihilated by an unknown culprit who appeared from nowhere.
Since it was twisted from the start, they could not even carry out the succeeding mission.
In the end, he had to do it from the beginning.
Therefore, in order to execute the mission, he led the Soul Slaying Squad and came out of White Ghost Castle for the first time in nearly twenty years.
‘The grudge from thirteen years ago is deep.’
Silver-Hand Beheader held back a scoff.
There was only one reason for raising the Supreme King Sect and scraping together experts within Shaanxi.
It was to annihilate the Mount Hua Sect.
It was a golden opportunity for White Ghost Castle, whose prestige had fallen due to its tarnished reputation, to soar while ending the resentment of the Annihilation Squad Leader and the Annihilation Squad.
That was precisely this plan.
It was the Mount Hua Annihilation Plan.
‘Then, first I must meet with the subordinates I left behind to surveil, and then I must erase the Flying Wind Merchant Guild without a trace tonight…’
When he withdrew his movement technique upon discovering his subordinates just in time, the fifty Soul Slaying Squad members following behind him also came to a halt.
“Squad Leader.”
Looking at the Soul Slaying Squad members who were only about half the number of personnel from when he entrusted them with the mission, Silver-Hand Beheader raised his eyes.
“Sam-hon. Where are the remaining personnel?”
Silver-Hand Beheader’s pupils turned cold.
Facing a gaze that was beyond cold and chilling, Sam-hon trembled and answered.
“C-contact has been cut off.”
“Contact cut off?”
Sam-hon gave a faint nod of his head.
“We sent them one by one to keep an eye on the plum blossom swordsmen in the Flying Wind Merchant Guild, but contact with all of them has been cut off.”
“Didn’t you say they were all greenhorns?”
“The plum blossom swordsmen are. Their skills have only just surpassed the first-rate level and have not reached the peak.”
At Sam-hon’s words, Silver-Hand Beheader’s head rapidly spun as he began to deduce.
“It seems there is an expert of the elder level.”
“I cannot be certain, but that possibility is highly likely.”
“So they were there after all.”
Speaking as if he had already expected it, Silver-Hand Beheader furrowed his brow.
Even before starting the mission, unexpected sacrifices had occurred.
Silver-Hand Beheader took out a mask from his bosom and put it on, then parted his lips.
“The Castle Lord has handed down a new mission.”
As soon as Sam-hon and the other Soul Slaying Squad members heard those words, they bowed their heads deeply.
“Tonight, the Flying Wind Merchant Guild will be erased from the world.”
“Your command!”
The eyes of the Soul Slaying Squad members glistened.
Despite hearing Sam-hon’s words just before that there was an expert, not only Silver-Hand Beheader but all the Soul Slaying Squad members had the confidence that they would unconditionally succeed.
It was a matter of course.
The opponents were merely five plum blossom swordsmen of the Mount Hua Sect and one person presumed to be an elder.
In contrast to that, the Soul Slaying Squad was a military force capable of annihilating a sect overnight.
Failing was a difficult task.
‘It’s been a long time since everyone is mobilized.’
Silver-Hand Beheader smiled bleakly.
The Soul Slaying Squad was the most secretive group among the three martial squads existing in White Ghost Castle, and was a squad like a hidden weapon.
Thus, although there were cases where they were handed missions separately, it was rare for all members to carry out a mission like this.
‘Is it the first time since annihilating the Ghost Blood Gang ten years ago.’
He recalled the night they brought down the Ghost Blood Gang, which had once ruled Yulim County.
The night where bloodshed was widespread, and beautiful screams echoed from everywhere.
‘I’ll see some blood for the first time in a while.’
The moment he, filled with excitement, wore a twisted smile and swept his tongue over his lips.
Sseuk…
A shadow suddenly popped out in front of them.
“What are you doing here?”
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