Monochrome Sovereign (Novel) - Chapter 101 - A Change of Perspective (1)
Chapter 101 – A Change of Perspective (1)
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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“Ah, I’m full.”
He needed to slowly nourish his body with a controlled diet, but he had been far too hungry. For the first time in his life, Yeon Ji-pyeong ate five portions in a single meal.
Thanks to that, his stomach bulged out. Still, he didn’t hate this feeling of fullness.
Leaving the dining hall, Yeon Ji-pyeong suddenly turned his eyes.
‘Huh?’
Yeon Ji-pyeong blinked his eyes.
‘Who is that?’
Walking wherever his feet took him, he had arrived near his older brother’s residence before he knew it.
However, next to his brother’s residence, inside the Courtyard of Graceful Swallows, someone was chopping firewood.
At a glance, their appearance seemed like someone he was seeing for the first time. Yeon Ji-pyeong, whose curiosity was piqued, stealthily headed towards the front of the Courtyard of Graceful Swallows.
Thwack!
A large piece of firewood split in half from the smoothly swung axe.
Surprise colored Yeon Ji-pyeong’s face, which had been full of curiosity.
‘Gasp!’
Thwack!
The firewood split once again.
It was an unremarkable swing of an axe. It wasn’t struck with all their might, and it was even with one hand rather than both.
The firewood sharply split apart from the smoothly drawn arc of the axe swing. The energy carried on the blunt axe blade was reviving its sharpness.
What was surprising was the quality of the energy gathered on that axe and its movement.
Even though it contained a minuscule amount, an intense momentum like a flood spewed forth. The swinging form seemed like nothing special, yet it was extremely beautiful.
‘An expert!’
It was incredible. It was a level that, at least for the current Yeon Ji-pyeong, would be difficult to dare face.
Tick!
‘Eh?’
The axe missed its mark. The bounced firewood flew far away and fell.
A complex look appeared on the face of the woman, Muk Bi.
“Excuse me…”
Yeon Ji-pyeong realized his mistake and stood up.
“I apologize. I was blankly staring without realizing it. I was being rude, right?”
He honestly apologized.
Muk Bi didn’t know why the other person was apologizing. Although she was curious why he was watching as if chopping firewood was some grand task.
“No, it’s fine. However…”
Muk Bi, who was about to ask who he was, paused for a moment.
Regardless, she was a guest. A person she didn’t know had a high probability of being someone from the Yeon Clan.
Muk Bi bowed her head.
“I am called Muk Bi.”
“Ah, yep! I am called Yeon Ji-pyeong! Nice to meet you!”
Silence ensued for a moment.
Yeon Ji-pyeong blinked his eyes, and Muk Bi averted her gaze in awkwardness.
Meanwhile, Muk Bi thought.
‘Yeon Ji-pyeong? Then that person’s younger brother?’
She had heard a lot about Yeon Ji-pyeong while coming here. It was said that although he was young, he was a rare genius and a child with a gentle personality.
Muk Bi looked at Yeon Ji-pyeong again.
Yeon Ji-pyeong’s face, looking at her with sparkling eyes, indeed looked as gentle as she had heard.
Muk Bi cleared her throat.
“Um, so I am…”
“You are a guest!”
“Yes?”
“Uh, are you not?”
Muk Bi scratched her head.
She was indeed a guest. However, Yeon Ho-jeong and Yeon Wi had told her to treat this place like her own home, and to treat everyone like one family.
“A form of… a guest? Should I say…”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that?”
Muk Bi thought of a way to cut off this awkwardness and the conversation that would clearly become tedious.
It was exactly to mention Yeon Ho-jeong.
“I came with Yeon Ho-jeong, that person.”
Yeon Ji-pyeong’s eyes widened.
“B-Brother has arrived?”
“Yes? Ah… yes. That’s right.”
“Gasp! I didn’t even know! I thought he would come much later, but so quickly?!”
Joy appeared on Yeon Ji-pyeong’s face.
However, that was only for a moment.
“Huh? But…”
That person?
Somehow, her word choice was strange. That person, that person…
“Keheuk!”
Yeon Ji-pyeong dashed over and grabbed both of Muk Bi’s hands.
It was so sudden that she couldn’t even dodge. Muk Bi looked down at Yeon Ji-pyeong with a bewildered expression.
Yeon Ji-pyeong spoke with a serious face.
“Sister-in-law!”
Muk Bi thought that weighing whether the time she resolved to annihilate Valley of Piercing the Sun herself or right now was a more astonishing situation was an exhausting task.
* * *
Baaaang!
The eighty-geun heavy weapon even contained the White Tiger Qi, boasting a steel-like offensive power.
The Jade Gauze True Qi harmonized the strength and flexibility of his body, and his muscles, which were being tempered even at this moment, created explosive output and resilient endurance.
Even so, he was pushed back.
Clang!
Yeon Ho-jeong’s body bounced backward.
The sword Yeon Wi held was an incredibly common longsword. The internal force emitted from that longsword was mighty like a tidal wave. The sword blade, which weighed less than a tenth of Yeon Ho-jeong’s axe, was producing a sense of weight of a thousand geun.
Boom!
Yeon Ho-jeong, who had retreated, charged in again.
From the moment he executed the footwork of the White Tiger’s Sovereign Step, he had assumed a state of complete battle readiness. With the resolve of taking one step forward and ensuring a certain kill with the second step, he deployed his martial arts without hesitation.
Crackle!
It felt as if invisible flames were blazing around the swinging axe.
Despite wielding a massive heavy weapon, it was fast, and amidst that, it was also a strike that maximized the advantages of a heavy weapon. It possessed a destructive power that any peak master would be reluctant to dare face head-on.
Yeon Wi’s sword drew a linear movement.
Claaaang!
His upper arm and shoulder muscles flinched.
Yeon Wi couldn’t help but admire his son’s monstrous strength.
‘Where does this strength come from?’
A martial art that contested for the top even among the clan heads of the Seven Great Clans, no, the Six Great Clans. Furthermore, right now, he wasn’t suppressing his skills like before. Even if it wasn’t his full power, he was genuinely wielding his martial arts.
If it was a powerful strike enough to make the muscles of such an absolute peak expert unconsciously tighten, it must be considered a martial prowess that would work anywhere under the heavens of the Central Plains.
Chiiiing!
Yeon Wi’s sword, which came into contact with the axe, instantly drew a soft movement.
‘……!’
Yeon Ho-jeong’s expression suddenly changed.
Like a snake, the sword blade rode down the axe blade, flowed onto the shaft, and aimed for his wrist. The movement was so natural and smooth that he had momentarily lost it from his sight.
Paaahk!
Taking both hands off the shaft, he struck the end of the shaft with a kick.
Clang-clang-clang!
The axe shot out from a close distance. Yeon Wi’s sword struck the axe blade with twelve continuous sword strikes in an instant, reducing its power.
Thud!
Yeon Wi’s eyes widened.
Although he didn’t raise his head to look, he had realized that his son had already moved into the empty air above his head.
‘Fast!’
The fire energy pouring down towards the crown of his head was immense.
The white metal energy changed into red fire energy. The time it took to transition from the White Tiger Art to the Vermilion Bird Art was fast like lightning.
That wasn’t all.
“Ha-ahp!”
It was an uncommon shout. Equipping red wings on both his legs, he struck down with a white storm contained in his right fist.
The Four Gods Martial Arts, he had simultaneously manifested martial arts of two different attributes.
Kaaaaang!
The floor of the training ground that the fist pierced into, the destructive power of that fist strike created hairline cracks all over the training ground.
A powerful fist method, it was a power that transcended imagination. He had manifested the Sovereign Tiger’s Nine Thunderclaps of the White Tiger Art in a fist form.
Paaaaahk!
Yeon Wi, who evaded with the Heavenly Net Divine Step, approached using the technique of the Bow Body Springing Shadow.
‘……!’
It was an incredible speed. It was just as fast as the Blood Wing Sweeping Heavens of the Vermilion Bird Art.
It wasn’t because Yeon Wi had learned a footwork as fast as the Blood Wing Sweeping Heavens. This was purely due to his realm of martial arts. When his internal energy, physical body, and enlightenment combined, he was able to produce such speed with just simple footsteps.
Flash!
Yeon Ho-jeong evaded Yeon Wi, grabbed his axe that had fallen on the left, and corrected his posture.
Yeon Wi, who sharply turned his direction in an instant, had somehow reached one zhang in front of Yeon Ho-jeong.
The weapons of the two drew out speeds of a divine skill.
Clang-clang-clang! Chi-chi-chi-ching!
The weapons clashed eighteen times in a single moment.
Yeon Wi’s sword speed went without saying, but Yeon Ho-jeong’s axe speed had also surpassed the limits of a human. Among the martial artists who wielded heavy weapons, it would be difficult to find someone who showed this level of fast martial arts.
‘Strong.’
Yeon Wi was finally able to realize his son’s realm, which had leaped several stages higher than before he left home.
‘He became incredibly strong!’
Internal energies of unknown origins were accompanying Yeon Ho-jeong.
However, that kind of thing wasn’t important. His son hadn’t grown by learning other martial studies; it was certain that he had learned them to supplement himself after he had already grown.
In other words, his son’s enlightenment was already completed to the point that it wouldn’t lack even if he embraced various martial arts. No, perhaps it was even beyond that.
The exquisite routine felt through the weapons, the supreme martial logic felt from his quick-witted responses; it was unimaginable where his limit even was.
‘Just how?!’
It was questionable if even Yeon Ji-pyeong, who was called a rare genius, could be like this. He had broken through the ten, twenty years of time of other people in a mere few months.
If Yeon Wi was astonished by his son’s tremendous growth, Yeon Ho-jeong was also newly surprised by his father’s steel-like martial arts.
‘He is stronger than Myeong Cheon!’
Although they were currently a public enemy of the Murim, originally, the Nine States Myeong Clan was a rare martial family that had carried on the reputation of being the Number One Clan under Heaven for a hundred years.
He was stronger than the head of such a clan. They had learned the fake Four Gods Martial Arts, so the overall balance of their martial arts would have been disrupted, but even considering that, his father’s martial arts exceeded Myeong Cheon’s.
‘Amazing. There are so many things I lack…!’
The sword power of his father, who genuinely deployed his martial arts.
Although it was difficult to compare to himself during his days as the Dark Emperor, melted within it was the enlightenment of an ideal martial artist who had flawlessly built up many parts that even he had been missing.
It was perfect. It was complete.
He had felt it before, but his father’s martial arts was a complete martial path with nothing to add and nothing to subtract. For Yeon Ho-jeong, it was a culmination of the Orthodox Path’s martial arts that would be difficult to realize even after decades passed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
At some point, Yeon Ho-jeong pushed Yeon Wi back.
The White Tiger’s Sovereign Step gained strength the more it rode the momentum. With powerful continuous stomps and the Sovereign Tiger’s Nine Thunderclaps, the fangs of the beast grew larger and sharper, and it became even fiercer.
Yeon Wi received Yeon Ho-jeong’s martial arts with the exquisite sword logic of the Iron Sword Great Extension.
‘Yes, if it’s this much.’
The pressure of the fighting spirit pouring in was even more tremendous than the martial arts being manifested. The killing intent of a warrior sweeping away enemies with overwhelming momentum, the majesty of a general was there.
‘If it’s this much, he will be able to fully receive this sword.’
In an instant, Yeon Wi’s eyes flashed.
Claaaang!
The axe lost its path against the terrifyingly strong sword.
With just a single sword strike, the White Tiger’s Sovereign Step lost its momentum, and the fangs of the Sovereign Tiger’s Nine Thunderclaps were cut off. It was an incredible sword power.
However, it didn’t end there. Mighty true qi instantly gathered at the tip of Yeon Wi’s sword.
It was right then.
Hwaaaaahk!
Yeon Wi saw a giant hand dye his vision in darkness.
The technique transformation that approached while squirming seemed like looking at a single dragon. Yet, it was fast. It was an attack that he could block but couldn’t evade.
Surprise appeared on Yeon Wi’s face.
‘Reverse Dragon Palm!!’
A powerful force was felt from the palm force extended out without even taking a half-breath rest. It was an ultra-high-speed attack that utilized his strong cardiopulmonary ability.
He didn’t have time to show his newly gained enlightened sword. Yeon Wi quickly shifted his internal power and blocked the palm technique.
Kwaaang!
Yeon Ho-jeong stepped back about a dozen paces.
On the other hand, Yeon Wi stood firmly in his spot.
“Huu.”
Yeon Ho-jeong shook his hand and corrected his posture.
“As expected, it doesn’t work.”
Yeon Wi’s eyes shook.
“Did you perhaps know?”
“Pardon?”
“I am asking if you were reading my next attack.”
Yeon Ho-jeong tilted his head.
“That is not so. However, seeing a slight gap uncharacteristic of your martial arts, I simply attacked because I clearly thought it was a weak point.”
“……!”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“It is nothing.”
Srrk. Tak!
Yeon Wi sheathed his sword.
“Let’s end the sparring here.”