Chapter 126: Chapter 126

“What on earth is…”

Namgung Cheon gritted his teeth and glared at Jang Geon. He was putting so much force into it that reddish veins bulged around his eyes looking at Jang Geon, and his whole body shivered violently.

In contrast, Jang Geon, standing with his sword lowered, was calm and quiet like a night lake. In his pupils looking at Namgung Cheon, no excessive excitement was visible anywhere.

“What… trick…”

Seeing Jang Geon’s quiet appearance, Namgung Cheon hurriedly circulated internal energy throughout his body. It was to find another reason his body had frozen besides the simple reason of being overwhelmed by Jang Geon. His formidable internal energy rushed violently as if tearing through qi channels, blowing vitality throughout his whole body. Only then did Namgung Cheon feel his frozen body move slowly.

Simultaneously, due to the wave of internal energy he brutally spewed out, the momentum of the underground space also became far more advantageous to him. Just like at first, the one occupying the entire space was Namgung Cheon, and Jang Geon had taken on a shape of defending against him. Namgung Cheon assumed a stance to leap again and shouted:

“Trifling tricks are of no use! Before the sword momentum of the Northern Imperial Sword Form, such child’s play is—”

At that moment, Jang Geon slightly changed his stance. He didn’t move greatly either. He merely twitched his shoulders to change the direction of his body slightly.

However, at that single small motion, Namgung Cheon had to grit his teeth, feeling the pressure he had barely tried to escape cover his whole body again. Clearly reality was far more advantageous to him, yet at a single minor motion of Jang Geon, he felt as if he were suffocating.

Namgung Cheon spoke. It was a voice so suppressed it was close to a groan.

“…What is… this…? Sword momentum is clearly… advantageous to me…?”

“Momentum is not important. Because right now, the master of this sky is I.”

Jang Geon took a step forward. Namgung Cheon heard that footstep sound like thunder. Simultaneously, after frantically examining his condition, he could understand why he was being overwhelmed by Jang Geon himself.

Jang Geon’s eyes, toes, sword held in hand, standing posture, and so on—every single motion was directed at Namgung Cheon. Thus, he had preempted every single motion he would move a moment ahead.

Just as in Go where the outcome is decided by a single stone placed while foreseeing all future moves, Jang Geon’s every single minor motion pierced Namgung Cheon’s movements and cut off their pulse.

Jang Geon stepped a pace closer again. Namgung Cheon realized that if it went on like this, his head would be taken by Jang Geon’s sword without even putting up a proper resistance. His physical body was already overwhelmed. The sword qi swirling in the underground space did not reach Jang Geon. He had to either stand and die like this, or kneel and admit defeat.

Namgung Cheon felt as if Jang Geon, standing on the same floor, was looking down at him from a much higher throne for some reason. Clearly he was right before his eyes, yet he could not help but look up at him.

“…Truly, Imperial Sword Form… a king’s sword. Is this your King’s Way?”

“Anyone can become their own master, their own emperor, in the spot where they stand right now. Even without forcibly suppressing and bringing an opponent facing them to their knees, one can sufficiently become so.”

Jang Geon spoke calmly and stepped a pace forward again. Namgung Cheon felt the strength naturally drain from his knees at that appearance of Jang Geon drawing a pace closer.

“I… lost. With the Northern Imperial Sword Form, I cannot think of a way to beat you right now… A splendid sword art.”

Jang Geon’s steps stopped. Namgung Cheon’s trembling eyes held a momentum broken as if truly admitting defeat. The hand holding the sword also hung limply, and the sword qi burning blue on the blade subsided. The moment he admitted defeat, Namgung Cheon looked like an exhausted old man from a burly middle-aged man, as if he had aged ten years.

At that moment, his words continued:

“…However, I cannot end it like this. Before being a mere martial artist, I am a General of the Namgung Clan. Defeat of a mere warrior can happen anytime, but the Palace’s event must continue. And I come to guess that if you remain alive, there will be major setbacks in that event hereafter.”

Namgung Cheon’s eyes began to glow again. Looking at his words and eyes, Jang Geon realized that up above this underground space in Gowon City, some other scheme was unfolding. It seemed those dealt with at the tea house and Namgung Cheon were not all of the demonic practitioners.

“Forgive me for not accepting defeat cleanly…”

Right after he muttered so, a fierce vortex began to surge in the underground space. Starting from his eyes just like earlier, bulging veins rose up over his whole body, and dark blue energy welled up. Simultaneously, his face soon contorted like a fiend.

Demonic qi out of control ran wildly through his whole body, awakening violent power. Crunching sounds of bones colliding were heard as his height grew a span taller, and his relaxed robe strained taut with muscles filled inside. Thus, in a short moment, Namgung Cheon went from a gray-haired General to a single beast.

“Keu-heo-heong!”

Namgung Cheon roared as if having become a real beast like his outward appearance. The momentum of the Northern Imperial Sword Form lost its subtle qi art form and became a storm of chaotic demonic qi.

To a monster running wild while losing human form and streaming demonic qi, initiative held no meaning. Jang Geon faced Namgung Cheon’s dark blue glinting eyes and smiled bitterly.

“In the end, it turns out like this.”

Namgung Cheon charged toward Jang Geon in a flash while making a noise that was hard to tell whether a shout of resolve or a howl. A moment later than that, the floor flagstones between him and Jang Geon shattered with a crunch. Namgung Cheon, perhaps unable to handle his overflowing strength, grazed past Jang Geon and stopped only after crashing into the wall beyond.

“D-Damn it… I should have just stayed up above…”

Meanwhile, Son Gwang, who had been stealthily crawling toward the stairs he had descended, shivered and muttered at Namgung Cheon’s roaring shout echoing thunderously and the savagely surging demonic qi. Because he was not particularly outstanding in martial arts other than the Transmutation Art, even breathing was not easy in this underground space right now.

Seeing Namgung Cheon crash into the wall with a thud, he quickly looked for Jang Geon. He was standing in his original spot. No, he seemed to have moved a pace to the side.

“…Oh.”

Jang Geon was fine, but blood was smeared on his sword. As if it hadn’t been smeared in vain, on the chest of Namgung Cheon turning his body while shaking off broken bricks, a single sword wound continuing toward his flank could be seen.

However, perhaps because it failed to completely split the muscles and bones inside, no particular discomfort could be seen in Namgung Cheon’s movements.

“Keu-heo-heong!”

Namgung Cheon howled again and charged at Jang Geon. Energy that looked clearly black rather than blue now flowed down from his sword. That dark blade fell targeting Jang Geon’s head. Jang Geon avoided the sword by moving a pace to the side again and left one more sword wound on Namgung Cheon’s opposite flank. Red blood splattered.

If it had been Namgung Cheon until moments ago, that wound would have been fatal. Because of muscle pain and restricted movement, he wouldn’t have been able to block Jang Geon’s following attacks and would have suffered more wounds as a result.

However, Namgung Cheon, having lost his reason due to overflowing demonic qi right now, did not care about such things. When muscles split and tendons severed, he forcibly reconnected them with that absurd demonic qi. It was an action where his life would be in danger when he ran out of strength over time, but ultimately right now he moved without any hindrance despite deep wounds.

His sword moving violently sliced through space horizontally, targeting Jang Geon. Jang Geon raised Azure Dragon to block it and simultaneously stepped close to Namgung Cheon, pushing the blade outside his body. Thanks to that, Jang Geon and Namgung Cheon grew close enough for their elbows to touch.

“You-bas-tard-!”

Namgung Cheon, half a span taller than Jang Geon, bellowed and tried to slam his forehead into Jang Geon’s forehead as it was. At that, Jang Geon bent his waist backward to dodge and naturally raised his right knee high.

Namgung Cheon’s forehead and Jang Geon’s knee collided with a thud. Even for an instant, Namgung Cheon’s eyes unfocused. Without missing that opening, Jang Geon straightened his raised knee and kicked Namgung Cheon’s chest.

“Keuk!”

Following his dazed head, Namgung Cheon, whose breath was momentarily blocked, tumbled backward. Jang Geon tried to follow immediately, then paused. Namgung Cheon’s Northern Imperial Sword Form, which had not been withdrawn, had now merely become a vortex of demonic qi, but it was still swirling inside this underground space and interfering with Jang Geon’s movements.

Added to that, the net of qi Jang Geon had spread while engaging in close combat with Namgung Cheon was mixing with demonic qi, causing discomfort.

Meanwhile, Namgung Cheon, who had been thrown back, struck the floor with his fist and stood up. White in his eyes could no longer be seen.

“Keu-a-a-!”

Raising his body, he bellowed, gripped his sword with both hands, raised it high above his head, and ran toward Jang Geon. He paid no attention to the illusion of Jang Geon hacking at his body. He struck down his sword as if solely intending to chop his enemy in half.

Against him, Jang Geon also prepared a single strike. In this moment, the fastest and most fatal strike among the countless sword paths extending from Jang Geon, the most intense in the vast firmament.

The next moment, between Jang Geon lowering his stance while holding Azure Dragon and Namgung Cheon striking down his sword, light burst forth in a flash. And slightly slower than that light, a thunderous roar echoed.

“…Whoa.”

Son Gwang involuntarily let out a meaningless exclamation and raised his head. Where the flashing light vanished, there was Jang Geon maintaining his stance of slashing upward with Azure Dragon, and Namgung Cheon whose left arm was severed and split wide from his left flank to his right shoulder.

“…Heavenly Thunder, was that just now not Heavenly Thunder?”

“Since I drew the sky and unfolded thunderbolt, it would be fine to call it that.”

Even while suffering a major injury, Namgung Cheon could not conceal his astonishment.

“I thought the Heavenly Thunder Sword Art was the legend of our Namgung… No, it is not. How could a thunderbolt belong to a single family… It is a punishment fitting an emperor…”

Jang Geon slowly straightened his posture and flicked Azure Dragon with a swish. Because he had burned away the sliced flesh immediately with the power of thunderbolt, not a single drop of blood was smeared. On the sparks of torches rolling here and there, the blade of Azure Dragon gleamed blue.

Looking at him, Namgung Cheon suddenly raised his head at the stone dust falling above his head. The ceiling of the underground space touched by the end of Jang Geon’s upward slash came into view. That place was indented upward as if a thunderbolt rising from the ground had struck that ceiling, and messy dark traces remained around it.

Namgung Cheon looked up at it and said:

“…Still, you will not be able to stop the fight between the natives and the Martial Alliance. The tribe alliance will burn down Gowon City and march west.”

“Are you targeting the Great Warrior?”

At Jang Geon’s words, Namgung Cheon’s mouth shut. Jang Geon sheathed Azure Dragon into its scabbard and continued speaking:

“The Great Warrior and the shaman of the alliance are people who know that though revenge of the tribes is right, if it leads to war, it will turn terrible. That is why they tried to use that friend to find you and stop the plot inside Gowon City. So if he were assassinated in broad daylight by Central Plains people, and by those appearing to be the ones who slaughtered the tribes, the warriors already suppressed would run wild.”

Namgung Cheon, who had shut his mouth, spoke while receiving the falling stone debris as it was:

“…Grand insight, Jang Geon. No, is it because our pattern of action is too simple? That might be it. We fled for the past few hundred years, and for decades after, we were those who worried about making a living rather than revenge. Perhaps the grand scheme was too fast…”

He lowered his head and looked at Jang Geon.

“Still, the Great Warrior must already be dead. You are late.”

The moment his words ended, the ceiling of the underground space, which had been extremely weakened due to losing supporting pillars already shattered by the collision of the Northern Imperial Sword Form and Imperial Sword Form and the subsequent duel, could no longer endure after Jang Geon’s final strike and collapsed with a rumble.

Namgung Cheon, closest to those collapsing stone heaps, did not dodge and closed both eyes. As if this spot were his grave.

“Kkeueok!”

However, at that moment he flew backward from Jang Geon’s kick slamming into him. Rolling and crashing into a wall on one side, he wheezed, feeling the vision turn white at the pain of his whole body felt tingingly along with the upper body wound. Meanwhile, Jang Geon, who had avoided part of the collapsed ceiling, waved his hand to settle the dust and looked up.

The ceiling had not completely collapsed. Merely the part that suffered the largest strike from Jang Geon’s strike was caved in circularly.

Looking at the wide-open sky, Jang Geon could tell this underground space had not been very deep. In truth, this place was closer to an intermediate traffic route connecting various locations in Gowon City including the bookstore, rather than a secret space. Since two masters caused a mess and fought there, it made sense for the ceiling to cave in.

The sky beyond that hole was already dyed yellow. As Jang Geon basked in the light seeping from there, Son Gwang approached beside him and dusted off his clothes.

“You didn’t kill him?”

“Calling himself a General, he will know a lot. Being heavily wounded, he won’t even be able to resist properly.”

“Wasn’t the woman at the tea house preparing for torture?”

Jang Geon’s gaze turned toward Namgung Cheon trembling violently in pain.

“Well. She was preparing for failure, but would that man called General be the same?”

Son Gwang thought his words were plausible and nodded. No, to begin with, after seeing the duel between Namgung Cheon and him moments ago, respect for Jang Geon’s martial arts was growing profusely in his heart. Because he too was a martial artist of the Martial World.

At that moment, from the hole in the ceiling where stone dust fell, a horse snorting sound echoed. It was a voice exceedingly familiar to Jang Geon. Raising his head again to look at the hole in the ceiling, from one side of that hole, a horse head popped its face out abruptly.

“…Jojo?”

Just as Jang Geon wondered if above the underground space was the inn stable he had stayed at yesterday, he could discover a new face peeking out beside Jojo’s face. A face with a very impressive scar, yet despite that scar, a woman who was clearly a considerable beauty.

The name of that woman smiling brightly was Jeok-sein.