Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 192 - Trial (2)
Chapter 192 – Trial (2)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Everyone in the training ground was utterly shocked.
It was something no one had expected.
The Society Leader, who was called one of the Six Heavens and one of the peaks of the present martial world, and who was known to have crossed beyond the wall beyond the wall, was literally a grandmaster-level absolute master without an equal.
The sword-riding technique he displayed was not a method that some brat no more than a younger master should have been able to stop.
And yet the unbelievable had happened.
Chaenggeurang.
The flying sword had stopped directly in front of Mok Gyeong-un and fallen.
It was not only the two of the Five Tigers who would bear responsibility for the next generation, Mong Mu-yak and Seop Chun, Third Guard Captain of the main hall, who were stunned by this. Even the executives, Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon and Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon, could not help but be shocked.
‘What in the world… How did he do it?’
Hwan Ya-seon stared at Mok Gyeong-un with wide eyes.
He was still maintaining his formal posture, not even lifting his head.
Yet the sword had fallen in midflight.
Judging by the Society Leader’s reaction, that was absolutely not something he had done himself.
‘So this brat is that one?’
An unusual light appeared in Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon’s eyes.
That was only natural, since he was the man who managed even the intelligence division of the offices directly under the Society Leader, and therefore knew nearly all of Mok Gyeong-un’s background.
Only about a month ago, he had been a mere brat brought in as a hostage from the righteous-path Yeon Mok Sword Manor.
According to the report he had heard from Son Yun, the King of the Fate Blade, the boy had talent for the sword, but he had started martial arts too late and thus had little hope.
And yet this kind of thing was possible for such a boy?
‘What in the world is this brat?’
By his qi sense, the energy felt from him outwardly was that of a master at peak level.
At that level, one should not be able to stop a sword-riding technique, but rather should have been pierced through in an instant.
So how in the world had he done it?
Unlike those two, who were full of questions, there was one person who was instead filled with admiration.
It was none other than Blue Spirit.
‘Ha.’
Blue Spirit was watching everything from inside the wooden puppet.
No one here knew Mok Gyeong-un’s true strength, but she knew what he was really capable of.
‘…This sentient being is truly a monster.’
She could not help but marvel.
That was because, even though Mok Gyeong-un had crossed the wall and reached the Transformation Realm, a sword-riding technique was an even higher-order art, and was not yet something he should have been able to deal with.
Yet after seeing the true qi in the sword severed twice, she could be sure.
‘To handle death aura this delicately…’
Admiration rose on its own.
In the end, a sword-riding technique is a high-order art in which true qi is gathered into the sword itself and then wielded.
Because of that, in practical terms it was impossible to sever that true qi connection using the kind of method Seop Chun had used.
Yet Mok Gyeong-un had taken a difficult gamble.
Using death aura, which disrupted the force of life, he had scattered the Society Leader’s true qi concentrated into the sword-riding technique.
It might sound easy at first hearing, but in truth it was nothing of the sort.
To send death aura outside the body, make it cross space, and intervene in a rapidly moving sword-riding technique required control that was just that minute and delicate.
This was something impossible without truly inborn sense and extraordinary concentration.
‘The potential and rate of growth of this sentient being…’
He had stepped beyond the realm of human beings.
Seen from close by, it was so astonishing that the only word that came to mind was monster.
And separate from that amazement, a concern arose here.
‘…That was a mistake, sentient being.’
Blue Spirit looked at the Society Leader, his face wrapped in bandages so that only his eyes were visible.
That man was likely that bastard’s descendant.
Whether son or grandson.
‘This only ended up earning that bastard’s wariness.’
Since his life had been in danger, it had been unavoidable, but it would have been better if he had instead moved his body and barely managed to evade it.
Breaking a higher-order method in this way made it more likely that he would instead attract caution.
If she were the one in that position, she might have killed Mok Gyeong-un here.
But then,
“Hahahahahahahaha.”
The Society Leader, who had been looking at Mok Gyeong-un, suddenly burst into hearty laughter.
Then he coughed again.
“Cough, cough.”
Blood stained that cough.
Seeing this, Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon spoke in a flustered voice.
“Society Leader. You must not overexert yourself.”
“Cough, cough.”
Swish.
While coughing, the Society Leader lightly waved one hand as if to dismiss the concern and said,
“No. No indeed.”
The Society Leader straightened his back.
Then, walking toward Mok Gyeong-un, he said,
“Now then. What excuse will you make now? Will you say once more that it was not you?”
“…”
At those words, Mok Gyeong-un gave no reply.
Then Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon pressed him.
“Will you not answer at once!”
“…………”
“This brat truly…”
It was just as the enraged Mong Seo-cheon was about to lose his temper.
Mok Gyeong-un opened his mouth.
“There is no helping it. Yes, I did it.”
As he said those words, Mok Gyeong-un lifted his head and looked the Society Leader straight in the eye.
At that sight, Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon was dumbfounded.
Who stood before him now?
It was the Society Leader, head of the Heaven and Earth Society.
How could someone who had sworn loyalty and submission to the Society act so brazenly?
“How insolent.”
Seureung.
Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon half drew the sword at his waist from its sheath.
At once, Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon stepped in front of him, clasped both hands in salute, and said,
“Vice Society Leader. Please calm yourself.”
“Calm myself? Are you covering for him just because he is your disciple?”
“How could that be? But is it not true that a disciple’s fault also belongs to the teacher who instructed him? If so, then please rebuke me instead.”
“Do you really call that…”
“Enough.”
Swaaaaaaaaa.
At that instant, the overwhelming force that pressed down over the whole area made both Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon and Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon look toward the Society Leader in astonishment.
‘Impossible true qi.’
‘How can this belong to one whose illness is so deep?’
The energy pouring out from the Society Leader was so immense that even those two masters were left breathless in shock.
Watching that, Mok Gyeong-un’s left eyelid twitched even harder.
He had only partially opened that eye, and yet it was already enough to inspire awe.
He had wanted to know what it meant to cross beyond the wall beyond the wall, and this was certainly far beyond anything he had imagined.
‘…Impossible.’
Even with only part of that power released, it seemed likely that if the Society Leader used his strength properly, he could wipe out everyone here, himself included, in not a few exchanges but only a few moves.
The level itself was completely different.
Was this what the peak of the present martial world was?
As he stood astonished, the Society Leader spoke.
“Since you have confessed with your own mouth that you did it, shall I also hear how you did it?”
At that, Blue Spirit hurriedly advised him.
“Make something up. In the first place, no living human can sense death aura, the energy of the dead, so there is no way for them to know.”
“Yes. I should.”
Naturally, Mok Gyeong-un had also intended to do so.
But then,
“That energy with which you interfered in the true qi of the sword-riding technique and made it scatter… It is quite unusual.”
‘!!!!!!!’
At those words, Mok Gyeong-un’s expression hardened.
Blue Spirit was equally shocked.
“Impossible.”
Death aura was not, in the first place, an energy that could be sensed.
Since a living human could not feel the force of death, none of the martial artists who had fought Mok Gyeong-un until now had been able to notice it.
Yet was it possible that the Society Leader had felt it?
Though momentarily startled, Blue Spirit quickly regained her calm and said,
“He may just be baiting you because he cannot sense the energy itself. Do not fall for it, sentient being.”
“…Do you really think so?”
Mok Gyeong-un found it just as puzzling.
The great strength of death aura was that it was an energy living humans could not perceive.
If it could be felt, then that advantage disappeared.
So Mok Gyeong-un carefully parted his lips.
“You flatter me. I merely applied the true qi of my sect.”
“Your sect?”
“Yes.”
The reason he redirected it to his sect was because of an unspoken law of the martial world.
No matter how much one had sworn loyalty, martial arts were still a martial artist’s valuable asset and secret, so unless the case was extraordinary, one did not probe into them.
That was what Mok Gyeong-un was aiming for.
However,
“Hmm. Is that so? Yet by my senses, the Shadow Sect Master’s qi has a yin-cold nature, whereas your energy seems rather complicated.”
“…”
At those words, even Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon frowned and looked at Mok Gyeong-un.
Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes narrowed.
He had hoped the Society Leader was merely testing him, but it now seemed the Society Leader truly was sensing his energy.
He might well have been shaken, but Mok Gyeong-un calmly opened his mouth.
“It is because I learned various martial arts before receiving my master’s teachings.”
“You learned various martial arts?”
“Yes. There are also the martial arts of Yeon Mok Sword Manor… and I believe the Society Leader knows well enough why I came here in the first place.”
At that, the Society Leader’s eyes turned strange.
That was because he understood at once what Mok Gyeong-un meant.
The Moon sword form.
This brat had deciphered that cursed secret manual that no one else had been able to learn.
Recalling that, the Society Leader gave a faint laugh and then, clasping his hands behind his back, said,
“I had wanted to see it once, and it seems this is the reason you were chosen by that secret manual.”
“Pardon?”
“Shall I have another look?”
With those words, the Society Leader inclined his head.
At once the sword that had fallen to the ground shot at Mok Gyeong-un.
“Just dodge it!”
Blue Spirit cried out.
But Mok Gyeong-un was thinking otherwise.
He felt he had to know for certain whether the Society Leader was merely probing him or whether he had truly sensed the death aura.
If he really had sensed the death aura, then the fact that he kept testing him like this only made the matter even more doubtful.
So,
Chaenggeurang.
Mok Gyeong-un again dispersed the sword intent qi of the incoming sword-riding technique by concentrating death aura.
“Did I not tell you just to dodge it?”
“No. Let us see first.”
“What?”
“I need to know whether he truly sensed the death aura.”
If a man in the Society Leader’s position could sense that energy and was suspicious, then it would be difficult to keep on avoiding it forever anyway.
Mok Gyeong-un judged that it would be better to confirm whether it was true.
It was right then.
“Your senses are excellent. Then can you handle two as well?”
“Pardon?”
Swish.
The Society Leader lightly waved his hand while holding the sword-finger mudra.
At that, two swords drew themselves from the wall and flew simultaneously toward Mok Gyeong-un.
Shuk. Shuk.
The two swords flew in from different directions, one aiming at his head, the other at his chest.
‘Damn…’
Blue Spirit clicked her tongue.
It took tremendous concentration to interfere even with a single sword-riding technique.
But to perform sword-riding techniques from different directions meant that the Society Leader had already grasped the weakness in the way Mok Gyeong-un dispersed the energy.
It seemed there was a reason he was called one of the Six Heavens.
‘This time there is no choice. He will have to dodge or block.’
She assumed that even without her saying so, Mok Gyeong-un would be forced to move.
But then,
Shuk. Shuk.
Even as the swords came right up to him, he did not move.
Panicked, Blue Spirit cried out,
“Sentient being!”
It was then.
Chaenggeurang. Chaenggeurang.
‘!?’
A shocking sight unfolded before her eyes.
The two swords flying in from different directions simultaneously lost their force and fell to the floor.
Blue Spirit was left blank.
He had dispersed the true qi of the sword-riding techniques coming at him from different directions almost at the same time?
‘This brat… Ha!’
How could he do this to such a degree?
Without concentration close to splitting one’s mind in two, it should have been nearly impossible.
It seemed she had underestimated the sentient being.
But she was not the only one startled.
“You are in earnest surprising me.”
At those words from the Society Leader, Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon looked at him with eyes gone wide.
Judging by the unusual light in the Society Leader’s eyes, he truly meant it.
‘The Society Leader… has been surprised?’
Even gravely ill, the Society Leader was still one of the Six Heavens, one of the peaks of the present martial world.
And yet some brat had astonished that grandmaster-level absolute master?
No, it was almost absurd to keep calling him a brat at this point.
The moment he could block the Society Leader’s sword-riding technique like this, he had already gone beyond the level of a mere younger master.
‘What in the world is this bastard?’
Where had such a person suddenly come from?
He had gone far beyond the level where one could dismiss him as a mere righteous-path hostage.
He looked extremely dangerous…
Pak.
Then it happened.
Kung.
At some point, the Society Leader’s figure had appeared directly before Mok Gyeong-un.
The Society Leader placed a hand on the shoulder of the kneeling Mok Gyeong-un.
Swoosh.
‘I missed the movement.’
Mok Gyeong-un had reached the Transformation Realm and mastered Na Yul-ryang’s Bright Manifest Water-Crossing Step, which gave him tremendous high-speed movement, so he had been confident he could handle most speeds.
Yet the Society Leader’s movement technique was completely different from the Bright Manifest Water-Crossing Step.
It was a movement as though he were dragging space itself.
And besides,
‘This is?’
The floor caved in around the soles of the Society Leader’s feet.
How could a footwork art with such heaviness possess this kind of speed?
As he stood wondering, it happened.
Paaaaak.
‘Hup!’
At that instant, Mok Gyeong-un frowned and looked at the Society Leader.
The internal power pressing in through his shoulder.
It was like a violent wave crashing in from the great sea.
Normally, if one injected internal power into another’s body, one approached with caution because that person could be injured.
But the Society Leader was doing nothing of the sort.
Kkwak.
The Society Leader’s vast internal power tried to wreck his insides.
If he simply stood by and let it happen, his heart meridian might rupture and his life could be put in danger.
In the end, he had no choice but to resist.
Mok Gyeong-un raised death aura and used it to scatter the Society Leader’s energy as it surged into his body like waves.
Shuuuuuuu.
If it had been energy on a similar level, he would have scattered it easily.
But the Society Leader’s true qi, having crossed beyond the wall beyond the wall and reached the Profound Realm, was at a level even Mok Gyeong-un, who had reached the Transformation Realm, could not approach.
The true qi pouring into him was so vast that even death aura could not scatter it all.
Tutuk. Tutuk.
His clothes were stained red with blood around the shoulder.
That was because his blood vessels were bursting.
Grit.
Mok Gyeong-un clenched his teeth.
If even death aura would not suffice, then there was only one method.
‘I have to let it flow through.’
Instead of recklessly opposing the energy pouring in through his shoulder, Mok Gyeong-un guided it toward the Yongcheon acupoints in the soles of his feet.
Then,
Jjeojeojeojeok. Kwadeudeudeuk.
The stone floor of the training ground cracked apart, and the aftermath of the true qi surged upward.
“Oh? So you can let the energy flow through. Impressive. Then shall we see whether you can also let this through?”
Swaaaaaaaaa.
At that moment, the Society Leader’s energy grew even stronger.
Twice the amount of energy from before was now pouring in.
‘Hngh.’
At that, Mok Gyeong-un’s face reddened and the veins all over him stood out.
He had already reached a point where the strain on his body was severe.
At this rate, he might really become crippled or die.
Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon, who had been watching in silence, finally stepped forward.
“Society Leader. That is enough…”
“Do not interfere.”
Vice Society Leader Mong Seo-cheon blocked him.
If the Society Leader had decided to kill him, then no one was allowed to object.
That was true even if the person objecting was the Shadow Sect Master, Mok Gyeong-un’s teacher.
‘How did it end up like this?’
Shadow Sect Master Hwan Ya-seon grew more and more restless.
Mok Gyeong-un was his disciple and, at the same time, effectively a member of the Fire Worship Sect.
He could not lose him in a place like this.
Then,
Pak.
The Society Leader withdrew his hand from Mok Gyeong-un’s shoulder.
The instant the hand left him, Mok Gyeong-un, apparently suffering severe internal injury, coughed up blood and dropped to both knees on the floor.
Kung.
Looking down at Mok Gyeong-un, the Society Leader clicked his tongue.
He had poured in his true qi so aggressively that all the blood vessels in his body had nearly ruptured.
In such a way that he could not even guide it all away.
When true qi reached a level that burst blood vessels, anyone would have found the pain difficult to endure.
Yet this brat had not let out even a single groan, nor shown the slightest sign of pain.
Apparently he had not passed through Corpse Blood Valley for nothing.
“Interesting. There is not just a single kind of energy inside your body, but quite a number of different kinds.”
“Haa… haa…”
“Your inborn sense, your mental strength, your endurance, none of them are ordinary.”
Everyone looked at the Society Leader in confusion at these sudden words of praise, after everything had felt as though he was about to kill Mok Gyeong-un.
Had Mok Gyeong-un somehow passed the Society Leader’s test?
Then the Society Leader said something that no one present had expected.
“All of this is not a vessel that the Shadow Sect Master can contain.”
“Society Leader, what in the…”
“Stay where you are, Shadow Sect Master.”
The Society Leader raised a hand toward the Shadow Sect Master as if warning him not to step forward.
Then he looked at Mok Gyeong-un and said,
“What do you think? Would you become my fourth disciple?”