Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 152 - Talent (2)
Chapter 152 – Talent (2)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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The black-red poison aura rising from Mok Gyeong-un’s two hands.
It was the sign that appeared when one used the Toad Venom Devil Palm from the Wave Demon Poison Scripture.
Watching this, Blue Spirit inwardly clicked her tongue.
‘Can he really even acquire poison arts on the spot?’
Because his body had already been no different from a Poison Person to begin with, she had wondered, but to think it was actually possible.
Poison arts were on a different track from all other martial arts.
Yet seeing him embody it in an instant, his talent was truly frightening.
‘If it is this boy……’
It might truly be possible.
That is, avenging the grudge she had carried for a hundred years.
But for now, he still needed more experience and time.
The true strength of the Heaven and Earth Society was not something so easy.
Therefore,
-Hey, sentient being. Are you not revealing too much power?
Blue Spirit warned Mok Gyeong-un in a low voice.
When an awl is too sharp, it pierces the handle.
One had to reveal just enough. If he showed too much talent, it might only arouse suspicion instead.
At her words, Mok Gyeong-un answered,
-I am going to change the method.
-Change the method? What are you talking about?
-It seems that if I want to make contact with the Society Leader, halfway measures will not do.
-What?
At those words, Blue Spirit expressed concern.
-Sentient being. Your rate of growth is astonishingly fast, but for now you are only ahead among the younger generation. You must not grow impatient.
-That is not it. But I think I will need the best possible choice.
-The best possible choice?
Just what was this boy thinking?
Had they not decided he would build up his strength as much as possible under the Shadow Sect Master’s protection?
Did he intend to overturn the plan and throw himself into the Society Leader’s succession struggle?
As she thought that, Mok Gyeong-un kicked off the ground and dashed toward Wu Ho-rang, the trusted subordinate of the Society Leader’s third disciple Wi So-yeon, who was still bewildered.
-Pah!
The trail drawn by the black-red haze was as bold as it was headlong.
It even looked like a crashing wave.
“Tch!”
Wu Ho-rang’s complexion darkened.
The moment he became certain that Mok Gyeong-un had learned the Wave Demon Poison Scripture of Baek Sa-ha, the Annihilation Poison King, he judged that facing him in close combat had become dangerous.
-Pah-pahk!
Wu Ho-rang hurriedly used a lightness technique and widened the distance.
It was troublesome enough already because he also had to dispel the poison aura in his chest.
He had thought he could subdue the fellow easily because he held the advantage in internal power, but the situation had changed.
‘I cannot understand it.’
How was he able to use the martial art of the Annihilation Poison King?
Poison arts were not something one could learn this quickly.
-Paaaaa!
At that moment, as Mok Gyeong-un swung out a palm strike, the black-red haze of poison aura flew at him diagonally.
Wu Ho-rang raised sharp blade intent in his saber and split the attack before him.
-Chwaaaak!
After cutting the poison aura, Wu Ho-rang created wind pressure with the broad blade of the Nine Harmony Blade.
-Papaaaang!
The scattered poison aura was blown back by the wind pressure.
Passing through the scattering poison aura, Mok Gyeong-un kicked the body of Wu Ho-rang’s Nine Harmony Blade like lightning.
-Tanggang!
Then, like a hawk snatching prey, he tried to seize Wu Ho-rang’s shoulders with the fingers of both hands.
Wu Ho-rang threw his head back and kicked Mok Gyeong-un’s thigh.
-Thud!
And taking that rebound, Wu Ho-rang widened the distance again.
‘Troublesome.’
With poison, even a single graze was lethal.
No matter how much he protected his body with qi, he could not afford to let his guard down.
Then Mok Gyeong-un smirked and provoked him.
“How are you planning to subdue me if all you do is dodge?”
‘This bastard!’
He was angered by the provocation, but he had to respond coolly.
Against a master of poison arts, merely closing in put him at a disadvantage, so he had to keep the distance and defend against the poison aura somehow.
-Tatatatatatak!
Wu Ho-rang, who had far more practical experience than his junior fellow disciple Yeop Wi-seon, did not fall for the provocation and instead kept even more distance.
But there was one thing he overlooked.
The moment he tried to pull away, a sharp edge shot toward the space between his brows.
So,
-Chaaaaeng!
Wu Ho-rang hurriedly swung his saber and blocked it.
What had aimed at his brow was none other than Mok Gyeong-un’s sword.
-Kkiriririri!
Blue sparks flew as the edges of sword and saber collided.
But seeing the crack through the sparks, Wu Ho-rang frowned.
That was because a split was appearing on the edge of the Nine Harmony Blade where it was meeting Mok Gyeong-un’s sword.
‘Damn!’
Wu Ho-rang infused qi into the blade and made it recoil.
-Chaaaaeng!
At the same time, he unfolded Full Wheel Blade Membrane, the fourth stance of the Bright Sun Saber Art, a unique supreme art of Son Yun, the Fate Blade King.
The path traced by the sharp blade intent he created formed a single membrane.
The Bright Sun Saber Art had six offensive stances and three defensive stances, and among them this was the defensive stance with the fewest openings.
-Cha-cha-cha-cha-chaeng!
Wu Ho-rang’s Full Wheel Blade Membrane clashed with Mok Gyeong-un’s unstoppable sword stances, creating the sort of metallic shriek that seemed enough to tear the ears.
‘What in the world is this boy?’
It was not only poison arts. His swordsmanship, too, was no ordinary level.
If he was the Shadow Sect Master’s disciple, he should have used a saber, so how had he learned swordsmanship of this level?
It was then, just as Wu Ho-rang was wondering.
At that moment,
-Pahk!
-Cha-cha-cha-cha-chaeng!
Mok Gyeong-un’s Evil-Answering Sword plunged into the spaces of the Nine Harmony Blade as Wu Ho-rang formed the blade membrane, then began spinning there on its own.
In that instant,
-Pahk!
Mok Gyeong-un lowered his body flat toward the ground, and then,
‘Profound Flow Kick Art, eighth stance, Flying Profound Rising Strike!’
Rotating long across the ground with the force of his kick, he burrowed low and then kicked straight up into Wu Ho-rang’s jaw.
‘A kicking art?’
Not only poison arts and swordsmanship, but now even a high-level kicking art like this?
How many martial arts had this fellow learned?
-Pahk!
Wu Ho-rang hurriedly threw his head back.
But the subtlety of Flying Profound Rising Strike lay not only in the rising kick, but also in the downward smash that followed.
-Pahk!
“Kuh!”
With his right shoulder smashed downward, Wu Ho-rang’s knees buckled.
Seizing that chance, Mok Gyeong-un tried to drive a Toad Venom Devil Palm strike into Wu Ho-rang’s chest.
At that very moment, Wu Ho-rang let go of the Nine Harmony Blade.
Then he kicked off the ground and rolled backward.
-Pah-pah-pahk!
This was no time to think about pride.
If he took a poison palm here, the match would be decided.
But in the next instant, Mok Gyeong-un once again unfolded a kicking art against him as he rolled across the ground.
‘Profound Flow Kick Art, ninth stance, Violent Rain and Raging Wind!’
-Pah-pah-pah-pah-pahk!
Mok Gyeong-un’s kicks flew in with countless afterimages.
Their power was wildly changeable.
‘Damn it!’
Because his posture was unstable, Wu Ho-rang raised sharp blade force with his bare hand and swept it long across the ground, striking upward.
Then fragments of the ground mixed with the sharp force and surged upward, colliding with Mok Gyeong-un’s kicking stances that were creating afterimages.
Taking advantage of that gap, Wu Ho-rang tried to right his posture.
At that very moment,
-Pang!
‘What!?’
Mok Gyeong-un suddenly kicked off the empty air in the middle of using his stance.
Then he flipped through the air, spun his body, kicked off the air once more, and launched a saber stance at Wu Ho-rang.
That saber stance was,
‘Flying Exchange Ghost Blade Method, third stance, Reflected Calamity Blade Suppression!’
It was the Flying Exchange Ghost Blade Method, the Shadow Sect Master’s unique supreme art.
Reflected Calamity Blade Suppression, which could be called the most tyrannical stance among the Flying Exchange Ghost Blade Method, slashed diagonally from Wu Ho-rang’s shoulder down across his chest.
-Chwaaaak!
“Kuh!”
A scream burst from Wu Ho-rang’s mouth as the saber cut him.
Then, unable to regain his posture, he stumbled and collapsed straight to the ground.
‘……Ha!’
There was someone secretly watching their fight.
That person was none other than Seo Hye-in, leader of Choyeon Unit and one of Jang Neung-ak’s five, no, now four, trusted followers, the Fourth Sacred Mountain.
She could not hide her genuine shock.
‘How can this be……’
She had been hiding her presence and lying in wait for Mok Gyeong-un on Jang Neung-ak’s orders.
But because Wu Ho-rang had appeared first, she had remained hidden and merely observed the situation.
‘……He was this strong?’
The real reason she had hidden herself and watched the situation was to learn Mok Gyeong-un’s true intentions.
If he showed signs of making contact with Wi So-yeon, then it would be an act of betraying her own master, and she had intended to judge him while watching.
Yet something unexpected had happened.
‘He defeated Wu Ho-rang?’
Who was Wu Ho-rang?
He was the eldest disciple of Son Yun, one of the Five Kings, the Fate Blade King, and the Great Unit Leader of the Jue Que Corps.
That alone was already remarkable, yet he was also one of the Five Tigers, known to possess the greatest martial power among the Heaven and Earth Society’s rising talents.
To defeat someone said to have no equal unless one was an executive of valley-master rank or above, this was a shock in itself.
And even more astonishing than that was,
‘Just how many martial arts has he learned?’
If her eyes had not deceived her, all the martial arts Mok Gyeong-un had just displayed were supreme martial arts.
The Wave Demon Poison Scripture of Baek Sa-ha, the Annihilation Poison King, the Flying Exchange Ghost Blade Method of the Shadow Sect Master, a kicking art with wildly shifting changes and tyrannical momentum, and a marvelous sword art she seemed to have seen somewhere before, yet whose openings were hard to find.
Each one was a high-level martial art that seemed extremely difficult to learn.
‘Amazing.’
Because he had exchanged only a few moves with Wi Maeng-cheon, she had guessed he might be at the transcendent realm, but she had never dreamed it would be to this degree.
‘……I would not be a match for him.’
She thought she had to admit it.
At this level, he seemed capable even of fighting Go Yeon-hu, the Eternal Overlord Devil Fist, the First Sacred Mountain and another of the Five Tigers, who was called the strongest of the Five Peaks Assembly.
‘No. That part I cannot say for sure.’
Even among the Five Tigers, she believed that Go Yeon-hu, the First Sacred Mountain, was stronger than Wu Ho-rang.
If she had to name someone who could face Go Yeon-hu, she would have said it was the one she believed stood above all the other Five Tigers.
Go Yeon-hu was truly that strong.
But that was not the important thing right now.
‘Is this actually a good thing?’
Her lord’s mood had already been very poor because the Second Sacred Mountain of the Five Peaks Assembly, the Eyeless Sword Wi Maeng-cheon, had died, and because he had failed to secure the support of Baek Sa-ha, the Annihilation Poison King.
If Mok Gyeong-un, who was a joint disciple of the Annihilation Poison King and the Shadow Sect Master and who had defeated Wu Ho-rang to become one of the new Five Tigers, entered under her lord’s banner, then her lord’s sour temper would improve.
‘And since he already suspected that it was Wu Ho-rang who killed Wi Maeng-cheon, it becomes all the more killing two birds with one stone.’
Thinking this had turned out well, she was about to step out.
The match was already over, and since Mok Gyeong-un had so miserably defeated Wi So-yeon’s trusted follower, there was no longer any chance of him entering under her banner, so there was no more reason to hesitate.
But it was then.
“Well now, that was a most entertaining sight.”
-Start!
‘Wh-when?’
At the rough voice suddenly coming from behind her, she was startled and hurriedly used a step technique to widen the distance.
Since when had that person been behind her?
She had not felt even the slightest trace of a presence.
-Pahk!
Once she had widened the distance, she quickly turned her head.
But no one was there.
‘!?’
What was this?
She had clearly heard the voice from behind.
As she was left puzzled, a voice came from behind her once more.
“I have been watching with you this whole time, so why are you jumping so much?”
-Shiver!
At those words, goosebumps rose all over her body.
Then that meant someone had been behind her all along and she had not known it until now.
Seo Hye-in, the Fourth Sacred Mountain, was trembling so much that she could not bring herself to turn her head.
Then the owner of the voice said,
“I had thought I might yield one or two to my junior brothers so it would not end too flatly, but now it seems far too wasteful to do that.”
‘!!!!!!’
Could it be that the one behind her now was……
‘The Great Young Master?’