Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 274 - Underground Forbidden Prison (5)
Chapter 274 – Underground Forbidden Prison (5)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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-Pajik! Pachichik!
Blue thunder and lightning spreading out like the roots of a tree.
An odd light entered Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes as he watched it.
After opening his Ghost Eyes and becoming able to see the substance of force, he had seen countless forms of force.
That included demonic power and spiritual power as well.
Yet the force he was seeing now was entirely different from all the rest.
‘……Its nature.’
It literally possessed a nature of its own.
It had lightning, that is, thunder power, a thing he had never seen not only in ordinary humans but even in those who had learned martial arts.
Could a human body even bear such vast force, something so close to nature itself, to begin with?
Suddenly the words his grandfather had once spoken came to mind.
[A person is born from nature and returns to nature. Therefore the human body, just like nature, forms a small balance of the Five Elements.]
His grandfather had said that if this balance were broken, the human body could not endure it.
And yet here before his eyes stood a human who remained perfectly fine even after breaking that balance.
At that moment, Cadet Yeom Gyeong, his eyes still unfocused, was gripping another object in the prisoner’s back, which was still bound, and trying to pull it out.
-Slide!
In that instant, Mok Gyeong-un’s form blurred.
Then, in an instant, he appeared behind Yeom Gyeong, seized him by the nape of the neck, and hurled him toward a corner of the prison cell.
-Boom!
“Ugh!”
Yeom Gyeong struck the bars of the prison cell, rolled across the floor, then held his head with a baffled expression as he looked around.
‘What in the world?’
Why was he inside a prison cell?
He clearly remembered pushing the meal cart into the cave.
Yet suddenly his memory had been cut off.
“Ah. So one more was pulled out.”
“What?”
‘Wait……that bastard?’
Was that not Cadet An Jong-hu?
He knew he had been assigned to the underground third level, so why was he here?
And that person in front of him was clearly a prisoner…
‘Huh?’
Then suddenly Yeom Gyeong looked at what he himself was holding in his hand.
It was some sort of sharp object split into three prongs, though he did not know what it was.
It was right then.
-Pajik!
The moment a flash burst before his eyes and something blue leaped out with a crack.
At the same time, the blue light spread throughout the entire prison cell, and Yeom Gyeong’s body was hurled once more into the iron bars.
-Pachichichik!
“Ggghghghgh!”
His whole body convulsed, and after letting out a grotesque cry, blood flowed from both eyes and nose before he collapsed unconscious.
Thin smoke rose from his unconscious body.
And on the opposite side, Mok Gyeong-un stood with one hand stretched forward.
-Pajik!
From the outstretched hand, a blue branch-like streak flashed.
That was thunder power.
Mok Gyeong-un looked at the palm from which thunder power was leaping and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Thunder power had suddenly spread from the bound prisoner’s body, and the force of it was no ordinary thing.
‘It stings.’
The force he had used to block the thunder power had stopped for an instant as though it had been paralyzed.
But that did not last very long.
‘Does thunder power weaken the force that activates it?’
Mok Gyeong-un instantly grasped the characteristic of this thunder power.
The moment one’s force was weakened by lightning, one could no longer circulate it properly.
This would be extremely effective against martial artists who handled internal energy.
Fortunately, however, his own force did not follow ordinary rules.
Death aura, being the force of the dead, had the property of scattering force, so though it seemed to take a momentary blow from the lightning, it overcame it quickly.
-Chakang!
At that moment, the prisoner who had been bound all over the body rose from her place.
As she straightened her body, thunder and lightning continued flowing from the restraints fastened to her wrists and ankles, and blue sparks burst from them.
-Pajik pajik!
Seeing this, Mok Gyeong-un realized that the prisoner was trying to remove the restraints.
Watching it, Mok Gyeong-un stroked his chin.
‘Hmm.’
At first he had thought he should kill her because she might interfere with his business.
But was there any need to do that?
Come to think of it, if this prisoner caused chaos in order to escape, then it would only scatter attention and be all the more helpful.
‘A useful card.’
Raising the corner of his mouth, Mok Gyeong-un immediately formed sword-finger.
As he formed the sword-finger, the air around it rippled and a sharp sword intent arose.
Having summoned sword intent, Mok Gyeong-un drew the sword-finger toward the prisoner’s restraints.
-Cha cha cha chang!
The moment the sword intent slashed through the restraints,
-Pachichichik!
The sharp force and thunder and lightning overlapped,
-Pakang! Pakang! Pakang! Pakang!
And the restraints fastened around her wrists and ankles split apart and fell away.
Once the restraints came free, the prisoner, who had been forced to stand bent over by the iron weights hanging from them, straightened her body fully.
‘……A woman?’
Because of the shaggy hair, blindfold, and gag, he had not known her sex, but the prisoner was a woman.
And her build was smaller than he had expected.
-Dudeudeuk!
As she moved her neck, perhaps because her body felt stiff, there came the sound of muscles loosening.
Soon the prisoner removed the blindfold, and next spat out the gag that had been stuffed in her mouth.
“Tweh.”
Having spat out the gag, she pushed back her long hair and revealed her face.
Though shabby from having been imprisoned so long, she had a very mature and beautiful face.
By appearance alone she seemed no more than in her mid-twenties.
‘Young?’
An odd light entered Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes.
According to what his subordinate Mong Mu-yak had said, if she came from the Old Blood Cult, then she ought to have been a very old monster.
Yet however one looked at her, she was young.
As he found this strange, she looked at the torch lying on the ground and frowned.
It seemed that because she had not seen light in so long, her eyes were reacting sensitively.
However,
‘Oh.’
It did not take her very long to adjust to the torchlight.
One could tell just by looking at how her pupils stabilized.
Having adapted to the light like that, she then looked down at her own palms freed from the restraints.
Then suddenly she burst into wild laughter.
“Kkallallallallallallal!”
She laughed like a madwoman, yet she seemed genuinely delighted.
After laughing like that for a long while, she snapped off and cut away her very long fingernails.
-Ppudeuk! Ppudeuk!
Even those long nails curled in circles made it possible to guess how very long she had been imprisoned here.
As she broke off her overgrown fingernails and toenails, Mok Gyeong-un said,
“It seems you have been confined for a long time. I hope you leave this place safely.”
There was no need for him to exchange words with her anyway.
He simply hoped that she would cause as much havoc as possible.
That way, all attention would be drawn toward this woman.
So Mok Gyeong-un tried to leave the prison cell.
However,
-Pak!
At the sinister force he sensed from behind, Mok Gyeong-un turned his body with a movement step and bent his head backward.
At that moment, a blood-red hand brushed past Mok Gyeong-un’s face.
But it did not end there.
That blood-red hand immediately unfolded claw-technique forms and came for Mok Gyeong-un’s throat.
-Papapapapapak!
It was a movement so swift that one could hardly believe it belonged to a person who had only a moment ago been bound in restraints.
Mok Gyeong-un tried to avoid it by stepping backward with his movement art, but she changed her move and instead attempted to seize his left arm with the method of seizing technique.
-Sseuk!
At that, Mok Gyeong-un unfolded Na Yul-ryang’s Bright Manifest Water-Crossing Step and moved at ultra-high speed.
In an instant, the distance between them widened to more than ten steps.
Having widened the distance and come to a stop, Mok Gyeong-un asked in puzzlement,
“Why did you attack me? Would it not be enough if we each simply went our own way?”
“Boy of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Do you dare think to deceive this lady with such shabby tricks?”
“Embroidered Uniform Guard? Ah……”
Mok Gyeong-un scratched his head.
Come to think of it, although he was only an apprentice, he was indeed wearing an Embroidered Uniform Guard uniform for the sake of the task.
From her perspective, anyone wearing Embroidered Uniform Guard clothing would be an enemy.
At that, Mok Gyeong-un said,
“You would have reason to misunderstand because of this, but I am not connected to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. I am simply Mok…”
-Pat!
It was before his words had even finished.
She kicked off the floor and lunged.
Her speed was so fast that in the blink of an eye she had closed to within three steps of Mok Gyeong-un.
Blue light flickered from both of her hands, dyed red like blood-jade, and then claw astral energy exploded outward.
-Chwakwakwakwakwak!
The claw astral energy that burst out instantly tore across the floor and came pouring toward Mok Gyeong-un.
At its tremendous power, Mok Gyeong-un let out a faint breath.
Judging from the force of it, she truly meant to kill him on the spot no matter what.
-Sseuk!
Mok Gyeong-un widened the distance with ultra-high-speed movement and avoided the claw astral energy surging toward him.
-Kwakwakwakwakwaang!
Its power was so great that the floor where the claw astral energy passed was carved deeply as if by the marks of gigantic nails.
-Kurururur!
Even the cave passage trembled.
Being so deep underground, it seemed particularly weak to shock.
Yet, as if she cared nothing for the trembling of the cave passage, she came surging again with terrifying momentum, her blood-red hands now carrying claw astral energy as well.
-Pat!
She closed the distance in an instant, but this time Mok Gyeong-un did not widen it again.
If he widened the distance, she would simply slash out with astral energy and send shocks through the cave, risking collapse.
To avoid that, close combat was the only answer.
Mok Gyeong-un shortened the distance against the woman charging at him and blocked her claw technique with his bare hands.
-Papapapapapak!
She had inwardly thought that she had to suppress him quickly because he had chosen to confront her head-on instead of fleeing, and yet an odd light entered her eyes.
That was because, though she had long been bound and her body was not yet loosened, this young fellow blocking her empty-handed was doing so rather well.
By outward appearance he was not yet even twenty.
Yet judged only by martial ability, that could never be true.
At that,
‘It would be wasteful to simply kill him.’
She decided that she should make use of a fellow like this.
If such a strong fellow fought her companions and caused chaos, it would help her leave this hateful prison.
-Pak!
Thus she changed form, and with the method of seizing technique seized one of Mok Gyeong-un’s arms in an instant and yanked.
Then, meeting his eyes directly, she flicked the fingers of her opposite hand.
-Ttak!
‘From now on, go kill your companions.’
She recited the formula inside her head as she issued the command.
Having been imprisoned here, she had done nothing but hone her illusion technique ever further over a very long time.
Now, if she stimulated both sight and hearing at close range simultaneously, she was confident she could drag absolutely anyone into illusion.
And yet,
“Are you asking me to have a staring contest?”
‘!?’
-Puk!
Mok Gyeong-un drove his forehead straight into her face.
After taking the headbutt, she staggered back two steps, clutching her nose with a dumbfounded expression.
‘What is this bastard?’
Her illusion had not worked.