Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 239 - Innate True Qi (1)
Chapter 239 – Innate True Qi (1)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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It was a night when the moon was unusually white and bright.
Ju Un-hyang was walking from a private cultivation room in the Embroidered Uniform Guard training hall back toward the lodgings.
After walking for some time, he stopped near the rear gate pavilion that led into the lodgings.
‘What is this?’
Two Imperial Guard Bureau warriors were standing watch under torchlight at each of the pavilion doors.
By the time it neared the Ox Hour, dawn was approaching, so there were sometimes men dozing off, but the sight of both of them with their heads lowered felt strangely off.
Ju Un-hyang approached them and examined them.
-Slide.
He lightly prodded them.
But even then, they did not stir in the slightest and kept their heads lowered.
So Ju Un-hyang placed his fingers on the pulse points at their necks, and then,
‘…Acupoint sealing.’
Acupoint sealing was a method of pressing certain acupoints of the human body to put someone to sleep or leave them unable to move, and they were in exactly that state.
‘To do this here.’
The Imperial Guard Bureau warriors were not especially skilled in martial arts, but for someone to do something this bold in a place that could be called the territory of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who in the world could it be?
Ju Un-hyang slowly raised his qi in caution.
Something felt ominous.
-Snap!
At that moment, the sound of fingers flicking came from the corner of the wall to one side.
When he turned his head, he saw the outlines of two figures in the darkness beyond the torchlight.
Concentrating his qi and sharpening his vision, their forms became clear.
‘Mok Gyeong-un?’
It was none other than Mok Gyeong-un, one of the younger talents of the Heaven and Earth Society.
But who was the one kneeling right in front of him?
With the head covered by something like a hood, the face could not be seen.
Yet the appearance of being subdued was unsettling beyond words.
‘What is this?’
His wariness of Mok Gyeong-un had already risen because of what had happened earlier in the day, so his mind grew complicated over how he should take this.
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un beckoned to Ju Un-hyang.
As if telling him to come closer.
‘He is bold enough to seal the acupoints of Imperial Guard Bureau warriors within the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s own grounds. If I avoid him, he will probably try to make contact in one way or another.’
He did not know what the man’s purpose was, but it did not seem like a situation he could avoid.
After all, they were staying in the same lodgings.
Ju Un-hyang slowly walked toward them.
As the distance narrowed, Mok Gyeong-un smiled affably and said,
“At last there is a chance for us to speak quietly.”
“A chance to speak?”
Then had he been waiting for him all this time?
Though he answered calmly as if it were nothing, Ju Un-hyang’s vigilance increased.
“You are truly bold. Setting aside the acupoints of the Imperial Guard Bureau warriors, what is that fellow?”
At Ju Un-hyang’s words, Mok Gyeong-un replied with the same smiling face,
“There are not many places here where one can have a quiet conversation, after all. So I prepared a modest seat.”
“Prepared a seat?”
“Yes. Though someone else tried to book it first, so I kindly received the concession.”
-Tap.
Mok Gyeong-un placed his hand on the head of the kneeling figure in trainee clothes whose hood still covered his face.
At once, the trainee’s body trembled.
Judging by the reaction, he seemed terrified.
‘Who in the world is it?’
From the clothes alone, it was hard to tell.
But he was not particularly curious.
If he tried to rescue that trainee from Mok Gyeong-un’s hands out of some shallow sympathy, it might only bring about more troublesome matters.
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un removed the hood from his head.
‘Wi Bu-cheong?’
The face was unexpected, and inwardly he was puzzled.
Why was this man, who could be called one of Prince Gyeong’s chosen candidates, caught in the hands of that unsettling fellow?
While he was still puzzled, Mok Gyeong-un smiled and said,
“He did something interesting to your neck pillow.”
“Something interesting?”
Ju Un-hyang glared at Wi Bu-cheong with suspicious eyes.
‘!?’
He was so full of fear that he could not even properly meet his gaze.
He was a disciple of Gwi Sa-man, the Evil Silence Sword, Sixth Alliance Leader of the Evil Alliance, and he had always acted more arrogantly than anyone, as though there were nothing in the world to fear.
Yet that sort of man was now making such a face.
‘What did he do?’
As he wondered, Ju Un-hyang soon spoke.
“…Poison.”
“Yes, exactly.”
At Mok Gyeong-un’s affirmative answer, Ju Un-hyang clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had known it before, but perhaps because he had been taught by the Evil Alliance, infamous for its wickedness, this man had become even bolder.
To think he had planned to poison him in a place like this.
‘It seems I must have irritated him quite a bit.’
Because the man kept glaring at him whenever he had the chance with murderous eyes, Ju Un-hyang had expected some troublesome business to occur before long, but that it would be tonight was truly absurd.
Mok Gyeong-un asked as if curious,
“You do not seem particularly surprised?”
“There is nothing especially surprising about it.”
At Ju Un-hyang’s words, the corners of Mok Gyeong-un’s lips slowly rose.
As though something had piqued his interest.
“It makes me want to speak with you more deeply.”
“I do not.”
When he rejected him outright, Mok Gyeong-un gave a short laugh.
Then, tapping the head of the terrified Wi Bu-cheong with his fingers, he said,
“Come now, let us talk a bit more. Before that, what shall we do with this one? Since he is meant as a gift, would you like to take him in one piece?”
He was passing the choice over.
At that, Wi Bu-cheong looked at Ju Un-hyang with pitiful eyes and moved his eyeballs up and down.
As if begging for help.
‘Please! Please!’
The man he had wanted to kill so badly had now become the only lifeline he had.
This bastard truly was like an evil ghost.
After staring hard at the scene, Ju Un-hyang said,
“I refuse. Taking as a gift someone who tried to harm me seems excessive. If you are going to give him as a gift, I would be grateful if you cleanly dealt with him yourself.”
“Murder by another’s hand?”
At that, Mok Gyeong-un said with a smile.
He was sharp enough to grasp his intention at once.
If he was going to gift him, then naturally he should finish the business to the end so there would be no trouble afterward.
Meanwhile, Wi Bu-cheong’s eyes widened as if they would burst.
‘What, what are these bastards?’
Between these two people, who were calmly haggling over his life as though they were buying and selling an object, he felt like he was going mad.
If Mok Gyeong-un had not sealed only his mute acupoint, he would have screamed or at least begged for his life, but there was nothing he could do.
He had no idea how he had ended up trapped among lunatics like these.
At that moment, Mok Gyeong-un grasped his head and neck with both hands.
“Murder by another’s hand… You are rather calculating, considering the one who aimed for your life is right before you. To turn down such fun.”
As he said that, he smacked his lips.
At the sight of that, Ju Un-hyang steadied his breathing.
It seemed this fellow might be even more dangerous than he had first thought.
Without showing it, Ju Un-hyang spoke as calmly as ever.
“Unlike someone, I do not have a powerful backing.”
That man had the Heaven and Earth Society and Imperial Noble Consort Seo behind him.
By contrast, from Ju Un-hyang’s position, killing Wi Bu-cheong himself would lead to troublesome consequences.
The man was the disciple of Gwi Sa-man, the Evil Silence Sword, Sixth Alliance Leader of the Evil Alliance, and he also belonged to Prince Gyeong’s faction.
He had not even become part of the Embroidered Uniform Guard yet and was still only a trainee, so if he rashly killed him, the Prince Gyeong side would most likely cling to the matter.
Even if the man had tried to poison him.
“A powerful backing… You exaggerate. Fine. Then let this be a small gift from me.”
“What?”
That very instant,
Mok Gyeong-un seized Wi Bu-cheong by the hair and jerked his neck back.
Then he whispered into his ear, while the man could do nothing because of the sealed acupoints,
“Did you know? A poison of this sort acts very slowly if it enters through the skin. But there is a way to make it act quickly instead.”
‘!?’
Wi Bu-cheong’s pupils trembled.
How did this bastard know something that even the very person who had given him the poison needle did not know?
That question flashed through his mind.
-Thrust!
The poison needle drove into Wi Bu-cheong’s right eyeball.
‘Nnghhhhh!’
Even though his mute acupoint was sealed, once the needle pierced his eye the pain was so intense that he convulsed and even let out a groan.
‘!!!!!!’
Even Ju Un-hyang, who was watching the scene, was for a moment left speechless.
He had never expected Mok Gyeong-un to drive the poison needle right into the eyeball.
Wi Bu-cheong continued convulsing in pain, but before long his movements stopped.
Yet his face had grown vacant, as if his mind had gone blank.
‘Ha…’
Ju Un-hyang clicked his tongue at the sight.
He was truly bold.
That man also had no ordinary backing, yet there had not been the slightest hesitation in Mok Gyeong-un’s hand.
Mok Gyeong-un smiled brightly and said,
“Is it a satisfactory gift?”
He was smiling with a radiant face, but he was filled with nothing but malice.
‘…Dangerous. Truly.’
His instincts were warning him strongly.
They were telling him not to get entangled with this man.
As his thoughts became somewhat tangled over what to do, Mok Gyeong-un began walking toward him.
“Now that I have given you a gift, shall we learn a little more about you?”
-Slide.
Mok Gyeong-un’s figure blurred before his eyes, and in the next instant he had closed the distance right in front of him.
‘Fast.’
His movement technique was beyond imagination.
Ju Un-hyang hurriedly leaped backward.
-Pat!
It was the Soundless Hidden Shadow Step, which he had learned from his second master.
Soundless Hidden Shadow Step was a movement art of the Soundless Kill Sect, one of the four great assassin groups, and while it could not be said to be clearly superior to the movement art of his current sect, the Kongtong Sect, it was capable of such marvelous movement.
-Whirl!
While flying backward, Ju Un-hyang turned a somersault and passed behind Mok Gyeong-un, who had been trying to seize him.
“Ho.”
‘Take this.’
Even before flipping, Ju Un-hyang had already spun his qi in reverse circulation, and the instant he took the rear position he struck a palm at Mok Gyeong-un.
-Shrrr!
The palm, carrying a rotating wind pressure, aimed for Mok Gyeong-un’s back.
But Mok Gyeong-un bent his waist and simultaneously twisted his body to the side, then immediately struck Ju Un-hyang’s head and neck in rapid succession with a kicking technique.
-Papak! Thud!
Hit in both neck and head at once, Ju Un-hyang’s body crashed hard toward the ground.
The pain was so great that he nearly lost consciousness for a moment.
-Crunch.
Grinding his teeth, Ju Un-hyang launched another reverse-spinning palm strike toward Mok Gyeong-un’s ankle just after Mok Gyeong-un landed lightly from that kicking move.
-Shrrr!
This time, even Mok Gyeong-un failed to avoid it.
The instant it struck his ankle, Mok Gyeong-un’s body was flipped and flung away by the fiercely rotating compressed wind pressure.
‘It worked.’
By his guess, even Mok Gyeong-un, who seemed to have reached the utmost extreme of the transcendent peak realm, could not endure this power.
But his satisfaction lasted only for an instant.
Rather than falling over, the flung Mok Gyeong-un regained his balance far too easily.
-Pak!
“What an interesting technique.”
‘What is this bastard?’
Ju Un-hyang was dumbfounded.
It was Reverse-Circulation True Force, powerful enough to nearly reduce even a slab of Qi-Resistant Stone to powder and fragments.
It had struck his ankle head-on, yet he was far too unharmed.
No.
He was not completely unharmed.
The flesh near the torn ankle had split slightly, and blood was flowing from it.
After regaining his balance and standing upright at once, Mok Gyeong-un looked at the wound on his ankle and frowned faintly.
‘Even though I blocked it with death aura, it still wounded me.’
Death aura was the qi of death.
Most kinds of true qi could be scattered by it, but Ju Un-hyang’s move had not scattered at all and had instead pierced through his death aura to wound him.
‘As expected, is it because of that qi?’
The qi he felt from Ju Un-hyang’s middle dantian was of a different nature from ordinary internal energy.
It felt as though it were the complete opposite of his death aura or demonic aura.
The corners of Mok Gyeong-un’s lips slowly rose.
“I am becoming more and more interested in that power.”
With those words, he began walking toward Ju Un-hyang once again.
Enduring the pain, Ju Un-hyang forced himself back to his feet.
‘One mountain after another.’
This was a complete monster.
To have reached such a realm at that age, while he himself had only grown stronger through several fortunate encounters, meant this was a true genius.
He had no confidence in defeating him.
But he could not simply accept it in silence like this.
-Pat!
Judging that he could not defeat Mok Gyeong-un with his current strength, Ju Un-hyang shot his body toward the main hall of the Six Service Offices of the Embroidered Uniform Guard while trying to shout.
At that very moment, Mok Gyeong-un’s figure blurred and reached him at once.
‘Insane!’
He was even faster than before.
Appearing right in front of him, Mok Gyeong-un struck his throat with the knife-edge between thumb and forefinger.
“Keh!”
Once his throat was hit, he could not shout.
As he staggered and was driven back, Mok Gyeong-un seized his wrist with a lightning-fast grappling technique and twisted it behind his back.
With him immobilized like that, Mok Gyeong-un placed his left palm against his chest.
Then he blew death aura into the activated middle dantian.
-Shuuuu.
He meant to find out what exactly this strange qi in Ju Un-hyang’s middle dantian was.
It was at that very moment.
-Woooo.
The middle dantian in the region of the heart heated as though fire had flared up.
That surging hot qi began powerfully pushing back Mok Gyeong-un’s death aura.
Mok Gyeong-un’s eyebrows rose.
‘What in the world is this?’
-sentient being, what is wrong?
Blue Spirit asked, puzzled.
-The qi in his middle dantian is completely pushing back the death aura.
It was a phenomenon he had never experienced before.
The qi of death scattered and weakened the qi held by the living.
Yet the qi in Ju Un-hyang’s middle dantian, in this heart region, was instead strongly resisting the death aura and pushing it back so it could not approach.
-I have never seen inborn primordial qi this pure and powerful before.
-Primordial qi? Did you just say primordial qi?
-Yes.
-Ha!
At Mok Gyeong-un’s words, Blue Spirit could not contain her surprise.
When Mok Gyeong-un had said Ju Un-hyang possessed an unusual qi not in his lower dantian but in his middle dantian, she had only half believed it.
But now that she understood it was pure primordial qi opposing death aura, she could at last be certain.
-sentient being. It seems this fellow… has learned the breathing method of the immortals.