Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 222 - Mixed Blood (2)
Chapter 222 – Mixed Blood (2)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Song-ah, the daughter of the true artisan from Hongbong Meat, had fallen when the masked Embroidered Uniform Guard shoved her. Now her eyes went wide.
The reason was the face revealed beneath the shattered mask.
It was only half a face, but starting from the blue eyes, the high nose, and that exotic cast to his features, anyone could tell it looked far closer to a Westerner’s face than that of someone from the Central Plains.
“Sir…”
Without realizing it, she called out to the masked Embroidered Uniform Guard, no, to the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard.
At once, he covered his face with one hand and barked at her.
“Do not look at me!”
She reflexively bowed her head.
She would have been startled even if he had only shouted, but a master of that level roaring with killing intent mixed into his voice made her ordinary heart jolt violently.
-Grit!
Yet even seeing her react like that only made the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard even more tense.
He had always been extremely wary of letting anyone see his face.
[Blue eyes?]
[Why is a bastard who belongs in the Western Regions here?]
[You damned foreign cur!]
Those were the things he had heard since before he could even walk.
The countless acts of discrimination he had suffered simply because he was different had tormented him and made him close off his heart.
If he had not met his master, his life might have twisted into something truly terrible.
Even so, he still did not want to show his face to anyone.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard, still covering the exposed part of his face, glared at Mok Gyeong-un, the one who had smashed his mask.
Then Mok Gyeong-un said,
“Why are you acting so shy about it?”
“What?”
“It’s not as if there’s anything wrong with your face, so why hide it like that?”
At those words, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s expression twisted savagely.
Was this bastard mocking him?
His face had already been exposed and he was highly sensitive about it, so his blood boiled in reverse.
‘This bastard, at least!’
-Papak!
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard stamped the ground twice.
At once his body scattered like an afterimage, split into two, and both figures rushed toward Mok Gyeong-un at the same time.
The two divided figures each unleashed a move.
‘Cloud-Sending Palm Category, Sixth Form, Secret Swift Softness from Afar!’
‘Terrain Fist Category, Fourth Form, Easily Shattering Grasping Shape!’
The figure on the left used a palm strike that rushed in softly from a strange angle that made the distance hard to judge, while the figure on the right used an overbearing fist technique weighted with brute force.
‘A soft palm and a heavy fist?’
-Papak!
Mok Gyeong-un also stamped the ground twice.
Just like the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard, his body split in two amid an afterimage.
Seeing that, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s eyes sharpened.
‘So it really is true.’
It was absurd.
He had entertained the thought as a possibility, but this bastard was truly using the same body-lightening movement as him.
How could that even make sense?
To begin with, movement methods of body-lightening arts were not things one could simply copy by watching.
You needed to know the qi circulation method and the mnemonic formula exactly in order to perform them.
But that was not what mattered right now.
‘I have to stay calm.’
Even if this bastard had only skimmed the surface and copied his movement art, he judged it impossible for him to have grasped its full depth.
And so the divided figures of the two men clashed.
-Papapapapak!
Their afterimages tangled together, creating a bizarre exchange.
Certainly, the movements of the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s two afterimages, as the original user of the art, were incomparably more natural.
But Mok Gyeong-un countered this by having both hands unleash different techniques.
‘Again?’
Fighting someone whose two hands were using different techniques like this was even more troublesome than dealing with a split body.
He had no idea how it was possible, but the techniques each hand used independently retained their full power.
-Papapapak!
‘Kgh!’
Because of that, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard was naturally forced back.
He truly did not know what this bastard was.
From the moment he split his body in two with body-lightening footwork, it was practically as if his thoughts themselves had split in two. Yet that was still not enough for him. He was even using different techniques with both hands.
‘What a monstrous bastard.’
Except for his master and those two inside the imperial palace, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard had always taken pride in the belief that no one in Kaifeng could match him in pure martial skill.
And yet he had never imagined he would be pushed back in an exchange of forms.
-Papapapapak!
In the end, unable to endure the contest of techniques, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard widened the distance first.
-Pat!
Of course, Mok Gyeong-un had no intention of letting him go.
He immediately tried to follow.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard glared at him, his expression turning grave.
At this rate, he could not defeat this man.
Then he had no choice but to use the secret technique that represented the sum of all his strength.
[Without fully mastering the true essence of this martial art, the limit of what you can properly handle is the Second Category. But if you ever truly face an unforeseen situation, then for a single move only, I will pass on to you the secret that will let you use even the Fourth Category.]
This was the greatest secret technique his master had passed on to him.
He was convinced that even a monster like this bastard would not be able to block it.
As he flew backward to widen the distance, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard planted his feet on the ground and bent his knees.
Then,
-Boom!
he kicked off the earth violently.
-Swaaaaaa!
A fierce gust swept out, the wind howled wildly, and something strange happened.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s figure split into four.
‘Four?’
A strange light flickered in Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.
He had thought splitting the afterimage into two was the limit, so he had not expected it to divide into four.
But unlike before, the method of circulating qi was completely different, so this was not the sort of move he could reproduce at a glance just by watching it.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard, now divided into four figures, charged at Mok Gyeong-un.
“Haaap!”
With a fierce shout, the techniques unfolded.
-Papapapapapapa!
They were made up of four entirely different martial lineages: fist, palm, leg, and claw.
Yet those martial arts linked together with astonishing cunning.
That was why their power was on a completely different level from when his afterimages had only split into two.
Its momentum was like a raging storm.
-Pat!
At once, Mok Gyeong-un, who had been pressing in on him, threw himself backward and widened the distance.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard shouted,
“Do you think you can escape?”
-Papapapapapak!
If a monster like this bastard was retreating, then it meant he had failed to find a way to break his secret art.
He could not let such a golden chance slip by.
At that very moment,
“At this level, even if it isn’t complete yet, it seems worth testing once.”
-Srrng!
Mok Gyeong-un drew the Evil-Answering Sword from the sheath on his back.
The instant it emerged, the Evil-Answering Sword gave off a sword cry and spewed a fierce, baleful sharpness.
‘That is no ordinary sword.’
It felt ominous even for a treasured blade.
But the sword itself was not the real issue.
The moment Mok Gyeong-un raised the blade and took a starting stance, the atmosphere changed.
Something like an intense sense of dissonance swelled sharply, like a volcano on the verge of erupting.
‘What is this?’
From the moment he used his secret technique, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard had been certain of victory.
Yet the strange pressure rising from Mok Gyeong-un was, for some reason, not heightening his fighting spirit but making him instinctively wary.
At that very instant,
-Pat!
Mok Gyeong-un, who had taken his starting stance, swung his sword at him.
The first sword-form was not especially strong.
It was ordinary to an extreme.
‘Was I worrying for nothing?’
If it was only this much, perhaps his caution had indeed been needless.
Did this fool really think he could face the Fourth Category, a secret art, with a move built out of something so plain?
-Papak!
Then the Fourth Category and Mok Gyeong-un’s sword move collided.
The Fourth Category came crashing in like four masters mounting a joint assault, sweeping forward like a storm. Its momentum was unstoppable.
‘I will end this for certain.’
Sharp aura alone was enough to protect his hands and feet, but the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard compressed his inner energy even further and transformed it into astral qi.
His two hands and two feet shimmered with blue light.
However,
-Chaeng!
It was when roughly three exchanges had collided.
At some point, Mok Gyeong-un’s Evil-Answering Sword turned pitch-black.
‘What in the world is this?’
The instant the astral qis collided, dark-blue sparks flew and a sharp pain surged through his palms.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard was inwardly shaken.
He did not know what this black, baleful aura was, but every time they clashed, it distorted his astral qi.
But that was not the only problem.
-Chachachachang!
‘One sword-form contains more than six changes?’
The sword principles contained within Mok Gyeong-un’s sword move defied ordinary common sense.
It was not moving into a second separate move. The sword-form simply kept unfolding, one variation after another, tracing wholly unexpected paths.
And each time another trajectory layered over the last,
-Chachachachang!
‘Damn it!’
The power of the move increased.
A moment ago, when their techniques first collided, he had clearly seen many flaws in it.
But as more trajectories piled on, not only did the flaws disappear, it became difficult to find even the slightest opening.
A sword-form that grew stronger and more perfect the longer it continued? What kind of sword art was this?
-Chachachachang!
The instant the sword principles surpassed seventeen transformations, three of the afterimages that had been unfolding the Fourth Category scattered away, leaving only a single figure to grow dense and real.
In that very instant, Mok Gyeong-un’s sword thrust toward the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s glabella.
His pupils shook madly.
‘I can’t block it.’
Without the least room to respond, the sword was about to pierce the center of his brow.
At the brink of death, countless memories coiled through the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s mind like the turning of a lantern before the eyes.
‘Is this how I die?’
At that exact moment,
-Pak!
The sword that had been stabbing toward his glabella with terrifying force suddenly stopped.
It halted just before touching his forehead.
-Drip.
Even so, it seemed the force had not been completely withdrawn, because a shallow cut opened at the center of his brow and blood trickled down.
-Gulp.
The sword had stopped at the very brink of death, and the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard swallowed dryly without realizing it.
Why had it stopped?
He could not understand it at all.
In the end, he asked,
“…Why did you stop?”
Mok Gyeong-un smiled as though it were nothing and replied,
“Your face almost ended up scarred.”
“Scarred?”
“Yes. If I’m going to peel off the skin of your face, it seemed better if it stayed as intact as possible. It’s a shame you still got one little scratch, but this much should be fine.”
-Shiver.
At those words, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard was so dumbfounded that gooseflesh rose across his skin.
The reason he had stopped his sword was merely to avoid damaging his face?
Had he truly intended to skin off his face?
“You insane bastard…”
-Swk!
At that moment, the blade of the Evil-Answering Sword angled toward the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard’s throat.
The black, baleful sword aura looked as if it could sever his neck at any instant.
“I said your face needed to stay intact. I never said I wouldn’t kill you. So calm yourself.”
“…”
Threatened like that, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard fell silent.
It was a perfect defeat.
He could not become a match for this monstrous bastard.
If even the secret art passed down to him by that person could not defeat his opponent, then perhaps the result had been fixed from the start.
Staring at the Evil-Answering Sword resting against his neck, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard asked,
“…Since I will die anyway, tell me one thing.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“That sword art that broke the Fourth Category… What is its name?”
“Ah, this sword art?”
“Yes.”
At the very least, he wanted to know this one thing.
Since it was a sword art that had surpassed the secret technique passed down by his master, it had to be some great and widely renowned art.
But the answer that came from Mok Gyeong-un’s mouth was unexpected.
“Hmm. What should I do about that?”
“What do you mean, what should you do?”
“I’ve only managed to create a single move so far, so I haven’t given the sword art a name yet.”
“W-what did you say?”
The moment he heard those words, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard felt his mind turn completely blank.
What had he just heard?
He had assumed that a peerless sword move of this caliber had to belong to some famous and overwhelming sword art.
But this bastard was saying that he had created it himself?
‘Ha…’
It was absurd to the point of disbelief.
Just what sort of existence had he been fighting?
How could he possibly say he had created such a terrifying sword move with his own hands?
“…I can’t believe it. You’re saying you made a peerless sword move like this yourself?”
“Would I have any reason to lie to someone I’m about to kill?”
‘!!!!!’
At those words, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard was left speechless.
If this bastard was telling the truth, then it was even more horrifying.
It meant he had lost to a monster who possessed not merely natural martial talent, but the makings of a grandmaster capable of founding his own path.
‘Can a person like this really exist?’
He was genuinely stunned.
To think he had come to cross blades with a monster who could create martial arts by himself.
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard, who had felt despair and even emptiness after his defeat, slowly relaxed.
He even began to feel that perhaps there was something fortunate about it.
For a martial artist, this might well be the finest death one could meet.
When else, and where else, could one meet an opponent like this?
‘Yes. Perhaps this is better.’
In the end, his life had been thrown around by that man’s hand.
Instead of becoming a burden to his master, perhaps it would be better to die here now.
Perhaps because he had settled his heart, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard spoke to Mok Gyeong-un with a relieved face.
“I have no more regrets. Kill me.”
‘Oh?’
A strange light flashed through Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.
He had met many people so far, but he had never met someone who truly arranged everything in his heart and accepted death so cleanly right in front of him.
Yet this man was genuinely accepting his own death without clinging.
He really was an unusual person.
“Kill me already.”
The blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard said it again.
Mok Gyeong-un stared at him for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“I do like how clean you are about it, but before I kill you, may I ask just one thing?”
At that, the blue-eyed Embroidered Uniform Guard answered firmly,
“Just because I accepted my defeat cleanly does not mean I owe you an answer to everything. So kill me.”
This was his final shred of pride.
And in any case, it was obvious what the bastard wanted to ask.
It would surely be something like why a Thousand-Household Commander of the imperial palace was a blue-eyed man from the Western Regions.
He did not want to wrangle over something like that even just before dying.
But contrary to his expectations, something completely different came from Mok Gyeong-un’s mouth.
“Is that so? That’s a shame. I was curious why you go around carrying something like a worm in your belly.”
‘!!!!!!’
The instant he heard that, the eyes that had already prepared themselves for death sprang wide.
What in the world was this bastard?
(c) Hanjung Wolya