Chapter 145: Chapter 145

Chareureureureuk—!

Dozens of iron plates fired along with a bizarre noise cut through the air and embedded straight into the shimmering space around Jang Geon’s body. A series of explosive booms echoed with a *kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa*, shaking the space around Jang Geon.

The fired hidden weapons were closer to throwing spears than blade projectiles. As thick, large iron plates were fired with immense momentum, even the Body-Defending Qi Jang Geon created based on his entire body’s internal energy shook, unable to absorb all that shock. Several iron plates trembling in midair breached the Body-Defending Qi and grazed Jang Geon’s thigh and shoulder as they passed.

With a *puk* sound, Jang Geon’s martial robe was torn, and blood droplets splattered into the air.

“Hahaha! It pierced through!”

Dang Sa-woon cheered, intending to immediately follow up by firing the remaining iron plates of his armor.

However, even though his skin was cut by the iron plates that pierced his Body-Defending Qi, Jang Geon’s steps did not halt. On the contrary, the instant he was cut, he stopped the vibration of Azure Dragon, lowered his body’s center of gravity, and shot forward with explosive momentum. This was because concentrating internal energy at the tip of the blade to strike was far faster and more powerful than scattering internal energy to maintain Body-Defending Qi.

In an instant, Jang Geon’s body stretched out like an afterimage, arriving right in front of Dang Sa-woon’s nose.

“Eo?!”

Dang Sa-woon’s eyes widened round. It was an unhesitating advance that completely betrayed the expectation that he would flinch from being cut by hidden weapons or be flustered by his Body-Defending Qi being breached.

Paaang—!

The tip of Azure Dragon’s blade plunged in a thrust toward Dang Sa-woon’s chest. Dang Sa-woon instinctively rattled the remaining iron plates of his chainmail, gathering internal energy to his chest.

Kkang—!

Along with a sharp metallic sound, dozens of iron plates attached to Dang Sa-woon’s chest armor shattered into pieces. Unable to withstand the shock, Dang Sa-woon’s body was pushed back over ten paces, gouging up the hard dirt of the ground.

“Keuheok—!”

Vomiting red blood from his mouth, Dang Sa-woon clutched his chest and coughed. Even though he had gathered internal energy to block it, the destructive heavy weight contained within Azure Dragon had cracked his sternum.

Jang Geon took another step forward without stopping.

Dang Sa-woon gritted his teeth, twisted his body, and flicked the chains at his waist. Small iron flails extended like whips, targeting Jang Geon’s ankles and neck. However, Jang Geon lightly swung Azure Dragon to strike away the incoming chains and brought his sword down diagonally toward Dang Sa-woon’s neck as he was.

Ssweack—!

The air cut by the blade screamed. Dang Sa-woon threw his head back and rolled on the ground. The dirt on the ground where he had stood was gouged long and deep.

Rolling away to escape, Dang Sa-woon barely pulled himself up, looking at Jang Geon with a terrified face.

“This monster-like guy…!”

Dang Sa-woon panted, placing a hand on his chest. His heart was pounding as if it would burst. The martial arts of the man he had thought to be a simple sword-wielder already surpassed the high-level masters of general rank in the Demonic Palace.

Jang Geon lightly shook off his blood-stained shoulder and tightened his grip on the hand holding Azure Dragon. The scorching energy of Samadhi True Fire wrapped around his entire body, instantly searing shut and stopping the wounds on his shoulder and thigh. The blood droplets stopped, and haze-like smoke rose from the wound sites.

Dang Sa-woon could not close his mouth seeing that scene.

“…Are you even freely employing internal heat cauterization? Just what on earth is your identity?”

Jang Geon aimed Azure Dragon’s blade obliquely without an answer.

Dang Sa-woon bit his lip and flicked his fingers. Small devices from all corners of his armor began operating with *tik, tik* sounds.

“Fine. I shall show you all the hidden weapon arts of our Palace!”

His entire armor twisted all at once, making noisy metallic sounds. All sorts of blades, gears, and fine needles attached to the chains organically intertwined, transforming Dang Sa-woon’s entire body into a single massive lump of weapons.

Jang Geon narrowed his eyes and composed his breathing.

Jarreureureuk—!

After that noise, iron plates were fired with a *pyu-byu-byuk* sound of escaping wind. Jang Geon ran without stopping, holding Azure Dragon to block the incoming iron plates. As the fired iron plates met the blade of Azure Dragon, metallic *ti-ti-ti-ting* sounds echoed.

Dang Sa-woon puffed out his cheeks in anger upon seeing Jang Geon’s face rapidly approach after deflecting all the fired hidden weapons. The instant Jang Geon instinctively held his breath upon seeing that, pitch-black smoke spewed from Dang Sa-woon’s mouth.

It was too close to block by swinging Azure Dragon, nor could it be deflected and blocked like hidden weapons. So Jang Geon pushed straight through, penetrating the black smoke and swinging Azure Dragon. The dark-blue blade sliced through the wall.

“Keup!”

Dang Sa-woon rolled his body sideways, barely avoiding a fatal wound. The armor chains torn as they were cut by Azure Dragon scattered with a rattling noise. Blood was already pouring heavily from his left shoulder where the armor had been ripped away.

Rolling across the ground, Dang Sa-woon immediately stood up and swept his right hand across his waist. Then he threw hidden weapons as his hand caught them. Even amidst pain, flying daggers cut through the air with a *sswe-sswek* toward Jang Geon.

Even while his skin stung from the poisonous mist, Jang Geon looked precisely at the incoming flying daggers and deflected them with minimal movement. Subsequently, he closely pursued Dang Sa-woon who was stepping backward.

Dang Sa-woon kept stepping backward, continuously throwing hidden weapons with his intact right hand. Some flew straight like flying daggers, while others bore thin blade wings that rode the air currents to display unpredictable movements. But against Jang Geon, who already felt the airflow through Tai Chi and sensory perception, they were of no use.

Ultimately, in a very short moment, Jang Geon caught up with Dang Sa-woon. Iron plates were no longer visible on Dang Sa-woon’s armor. What he had fired at Jang Geon moments ago seemed to have been the last. Perhaps because of that, as Jang Geon drew exceedingly close, Dang Sa-woon untied small pouches and scattered the sand contained inside with a swift flick.

Holding his breath once more, Jang Geon closed his eyes and passed through the sand. And with his eyes closed as he was, he swung Azure Dragon toward Dang Sa-woon.

“Euk!”

The blade drawing a horizontal arc sliced Dang Sa-woon’s abdomen. Because of the armor, it could not completely sever his waist. Feeling it solely through other senses with his eyes closed, Jang Geon raised his left hand that had been holding the sword. Samadhi True Fire flowing in an instant coursed down his left arm.

And the instant he thrust out the Dragon-Subduing Palm, Dang Sa-woon, who was gritting his teeth and bleeding, also thrust out his palm toward that hand.

Palm collided with palm, echoing a heavy *thud*.

Simultaneously, Jang Geon’s Samadhi True Fire penetrated Dang Sa-woon’s interior, burning it away. Dang Sa-woon could not even let out a proper scream this time either, and his right arm snapped backward. His body turned sideways, dragged by his snapping right arm.

It would have been natural to collapse as he was, but Dang Sa-woon pulled his backward-bent waist forward with all his strength, thrusting his face with bared teeth toward Jang Geon. Between those teeth, a long iron needle was clamped.

Still closing his eyes and holding his breath, Jang Geon ducked his body low to dodge the iron needle and struck the hilt end of Azure Dragon upward against Dang Sa-woon’s closely attached jaw. At that shock, the clamped iron needle snapped in two, and his teeth crushed with a crunch.

Struck on the jaw, Dang Sa-woon’s eyes blurred and loosened. Yet even amidst that confusion, his left foot tapped the ground. At that, a small blade sprouted from the tip of his shoe. Even while falling backward, Dang Sa-woon raised his foot and aimed that blade toward Jang Geon’s face with a swift flick.

In the end, the blade grazed the tip of Jang Geon’s chin. It was literally just a grazing, so only faint blood droplets beaded up. In exchange, Dang Sa-woon’s left leg was severed from the thigh.

With even one leg severed, Dang Sa-woon collapsed onto the ground with a thud, and Jang Geon, who had sliced off that leg, stopped in the posture of having swung his sword with his eyes closed.

When the movements of the two stopped, silence suddenly fell around them.

The Martial Alliance warriors who had been screaming and the Demonic Practitioners who had also been exposed to the indiscriminate hidden weapon attacks all focused on the two.

Jang Geon, who had been standing motionlessly, slowly opened his eyes. Dang Sa-woon lay collapsed on the ground in a battered state, coughing up blood. Coughing up blood like that, even with his life hanging by a thread, he was staring at Jang Geon. As if waiting for something.

And Jang Geon, who had opened his eyes, met that gaze with a settled look, then suddenly spilled black blood from the corner of his mouth.

Spilling dead blood like that, he spoke.

“…This is quite potent.”

“Keuheok, keok…! Q-Quite potent? It’s not that you feel like dying… Quite? Haha…”

Lying on the ground, Dang Sa-woon laughed grumpily as if finding it absurd.

The poison smoke spewed from his mouth, the poison sand that seemed scattered randomly but followed its own rules, the Poisonous Palm contained in his facing palm, and finally the extreme poison, Soul-Chasing Poison, smeared on the blade that grazed Jang Geon’s chin.

Though not noticeable, poison had also been smeared on all hidden weapons Dang Sa-woon had fired until now. Yet Jang Geon, who had broken through all of it and mangled him, was bleeding from his mouth but did not seem severely injured. From the perspective of Dang Sa-woon, whose very leg was severed, it was absurd.

However, to Jang Geon, who had already mastered the essence of Samadhi True Fire, poison entering from the outside was not a major problem. Of course, that did not mean it was not painful. Burning away poison that entered the body using Samadhi True Fire bore pain like piercing the body with a heated iron needle. The poison that entered through his chin at the end had tried to go straight to his brain, making it quite dangerous as well.

Jang Geon felt that once today was wrapped up, he would need to rest for a few days to recuperate his body. In any case, the one standing was him, while the one lying collapsed on the ground with mangled limbs was Dang Sa-woon.

It was Jang Geon’s victory.

“…A mess. Damn it…”

Dang Sa-woon muttered while looking up at the sky in helplessness. However, composing his breathing for a moment, Jang Geon immediately stepped up to him and raised Azure Dragon. Dang Sa-woon let out a dry laugh again, as if finding Jang Geon’s matter-of-fact attitude quite remarkable.

The blade severed his smiling neck. The cut head rolled across the ground.

Having finished off Dang Sa-woon, Jang Geon flicked Azure Dragon with a swift motion and turned around. And he met the gazes of the remaining Demonic Practitioners. Unlike the Martial Alliance warriors who lay fallen or incapacitated from hidden weapon injuries, most of the Demonic Practitioners who were standing looked fine. They moved through demonic power even with hidden weapons embedded in them.

Beyond the Demonic Practitioners, Jang Geon could spot the unharmed Alliance Leader looking at him with complex eyes, Namgoong Cheon behind him, and Yang Goeng crumpled in a corner. He lowered his eyes to meet the Demonic Practitioners’ gazes again.

“It’s time to wrap this up.”