Chapter 289 – Northern Sect Blade King (1)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy.
His other title, as the man who guarded the Emperor, was the Northern Sect Blade King, and he was one of the Six Heavens, the pinnacle of the current martial world.
The most famous tale about him was how, on the Yangtze River, he split apart three large ships led by the Yangtze River Waterway Stronghold with a single slash.
Because of that astonishing battle, Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy, newly raised his name into the ranks of the summit of the martial world, which had originally been called the Five Heavens.
-Shring.
The eyes of Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy, as he drew his saber, swept across Mok Gyeong-un disguised as a palace servant beneath a human skin mask, So Ye-rin, the Deputy Thousand-Household Commander, in palace maid garb and a black face veil, and Dam Baek-ha, whose whole body was smeared with scraps.
‘I am certain.’
He had been rapidly looking over the entirety of the outer palace after receiving the Emperor’s command, beginning from the inner palace.
Spreading his qi perception as widely as possible, he had found them in a single stroke.
Finding them had not been difficult.
No matter how much they reined in their qi, if one of the Six Heavens, called the summit of the Central Plains martial world, seriously went looking for them, it would have been stranger if he had failed to find them.
‘Faint qi.’
Gu Seong-baek’s gaze passed over the three of them and settled on one of the leftover barrels.
Though it was concealed, he had still sensed a minute trace of qi.
Judging by how utterly ordinary that qi felt, he concluded it must be the person they were trying to smuggle out.
And other than that,
‘There was a traitor among them.’
Gu Seong-baek’s gaze shifted to Mara Hyeon, the masked Thousand-Household Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
When their eyes met, Mara Hyeon immediately exhaled roughly and stepped back.
‘This… this is what one of the Six Heavens is…’
Mara Hyeon was beyond bewildered.
He had thought himself noticeably stronger after gaining his realization, yet merely the oppressive force of Gu Seong-baek’s qi made it hard for him to breathe. He was a monster through and through.
It was then.
-Thwack.
With one hand, Gu Seong-baek raised his treasured saber, the Geum O-wol.
The instant he did, his saber shimmered with a blue light.
It was blade astral energy.
‘What kind of condensation of qi is that?’
Seop Chun and Mong Mu-yak could not hide their confusion at the sight.
The way blue blade astral energy formed the instant he raised the saber, without even the slightest prelude, was awe-inspiring.
But the problem was the target of that awe-inspiring murderous force.
-Thwack.
Holding the great treasured saber Geum O-wol in one hand, Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy, swung it straight toward Mok Gyeong-un, So Ye-rin, and Dam Baek-ha.
The moment he swung, the blue blade astral energy took the form of a single immense blade intent and came crashing down in a merciless, overbearing slash.
-Kwaaaaaang!
Under the blade astral energy that stretched over a dozen zhang, the ground split apart and fragments blasted in all directions.
For a moment, the field of vision was covered by a storm of dust, but it vanished at nothing more than a light gesture from Gu Seong-baek.
Once the murky dust was gone, a strange light entered his eyes.
Because Dam Baek-ha, one of the Six Blood Saints, with both hands dyed red by Blood Jade Hand, and the veiled So Ye-rin, holding a sword shimmering with blue sword astral energy, had diverted the impact, the aftershock did not reach Mara Hyeon, Seop Chun, Mong Mu-yak, or the leftover carts.
“Not bad.”
It had not been a strike he had held back simply because they were people who had crossed beyond the Wall.
And yet those two masters had exquisitely redirected the force of his slash.
They were no ordinary opponents.
‘Those red hands. So it is the undying witch.’
The instant Gu Seong-baek saw Dam Baek-ha’s Blood Jade Hand, he recognized at once that she was the escaped prisoner.
He too was a member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, so he knew such information.
His sharp gaze turned toward the leftover barrel.
The conclusion was simple. These were escaped prisoners and the ones attempting to spirit them away.
-Swish.
Gu Seong-baek pointed at the leftover barrel with his left hand and said,
“Who is in there? Whom are you trying to take away…”
-Slither.
His words had not even finished.
Something blurred behind Gu Seong-baek and tried to cut off his neck in a single stroke.
It was none other than Mok Gyeong-un, wearing a human skin mask.
In the instant So Ye-rin and Dam Baek-ha blocked Gu Seong-baek’s slash, Mok Gyeong-un had used Bright Manifest Water-Crossing Step to move at extreme speed and aim for his back.
Yet,
-Paht! Chaaang!
Without even turning around, Gu Seong-baek moved his saber backward and blocked Mok Gyeong-un’s sword.
‘He blocked it without even looking?’
And it did not end there.
The moment Gu Seong-baek’s saber and Mok Gyeong-un’s sword collided,
-Bang!
The fierce recoil hurled Mok Gyeong-un’s body backward nearly a dozen steps.
-Chrrrrrrr!
The sword in his hand shook violently.
Then it cracked.
-Crack, crack.
‘An ordinary sword cannot endure him.’
He had seized one from a warrior of the Imperial Guard Bureau, but after a single clash, the life of the sword’s sword intent had already ended.
Mok Gyeong-un’s eyes narrowed.
He had already known his opponent was unimaginably strong, but this man was stronger than anyone he had met so far.
It would not be an exaggeration to say he had completely stepped beyond human limits.
‘This is the summit of the current martial world…’
He had heard that there was one of the Six Heavens within the imperial palace.
Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy.
‘Different.’
Mok Gyeong-un had once met another one among the Six Heavens.
That had been the master of the Heaven and Earth Society.
At that time, Mok Gyeong-un’s martial level had been lower than now, and the society master himself had been greatly weakened by illness, so although he had been strong, Mok Gyeong-un had not felt such utterly crushing pressure from him.
But a healthy member of the Six Heavens was altogether different.
He had reached the realm of a true superhuman.
-Sentient being!
At that moment, Blue Spirit, who had been watching from above, tried to descend to where Mok Gyeong-un was.
At that instant, Gu Seong-baek cut into the empty air with his left hand.
A sharp blade force flared and split the empty air.
-Blue Spirit!
-…I am fine.
Blue Spirit, who had been descending and then rose higher once more, clicked her tongue.
She had known that the higher a martial artist’s level was, the more sensitive his qi perception would be, but she had been keeping her spiritual power hidden as much as possible and was still some distance away.
Yet she had not expected him to send blade force at her with such precision.
“Hmm.”
Gu Seong-baek, after sending out the blade force, raised one eyebrow and then turned his head toward Mok Gyeong-un.
“How curious. I was certain there was something there.”
“…”
“Leaving that aside, you are a rather unusual one. You have clearly crossed beyond the Wall, yet the qi you give off is almost nothing. It must be one of two things. Either you cultivated some peculiar circulation art, or you are strong enough to deceive even this official.”
-Paht!
No sooner had he finished speaking than Gu Seong-baek’s figure appeared right in front of Mok Gyeong-un.
-Slash.
Gu Seong-baek’s treasured saber Geum O-wol cut at Mok Gyeong-un’s neck.
No, to be precise, it cut through an afterimage.
-Slither.
The afterimage with its severed neck scattered, and Mok Gyeong-un’s real body had already slipped in to Gu Seong-baek’s right.
Thanks to his extreme speed movement, he could at least contend with him somewhat in terms of speed.
However,
-Swish.
Gu Seong-baek lightly tilted his head back, avoiding the sword-finger imbued with blade force, and then seized Mok Gyeong-un’s wrist with a lightning-fast grappling technique.
In the same motion, he kicked at Mok Gyeong-un’s abdomen with terrifying speed.
-Thud!
‘Kgh.’
Mok Gyeong-un’s body shot upward.
In time with that, Gu Seong-baek tried to swing Geum O-wol, now laden with blade astral energy, at Mok Gyeong-un.
At that critical moment, a sword astral energy of blue light intercepted the blade astral energy Gu Seong-baek had sent.
No, it did not block it perfectly, as the one who did so was thrown backward.
‘Strong.’
The one thrown back was none other than the veiled So Ye-rin.
Sensing Mok Gyeong-un’s danger, she had cut in and blocked the blade astral energy, but its power was so overwhelming that she was blasted away instead.
And that was not the end.
-Shhhaaaak!
At that instant, Gu Seong-baek sent blade astral energies flying at them one after another.
It was Flicking Blade Astral Energy.
The incoming blue blade astral energies aimed precisely at Mok Gyeong-un rising upward and So Ye-rin as she was being hurled back.
-Deputy Thousand-Household Commander!
Mok Gyeong-un’s voice transmission sounded by So Ye-rin’s ear.
When she looked behind her, Mok Gyeong-un had already thrust out his foot toward her.
So while being flung backward, So Ye-rin hurriedly flipped in the air,
-Whirl!
Twisted her body, and kicked the sole of Mok Gyeong-un’s foot with her own.
-Bang!
The two of them kicked each other’s soles in midair, and their bodies were sent flying in opposite directions.
Because of that, the incoming Flicking Blade Astral Energies barely skimmed past between them.
Even while being thrown back, So Ye-rin, her wariness having grown stronger because of the gapless attacks coming at them, searched for Gu Seong-baek.
‘Where is he?’
But already, Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy, had moved toward the leftover barrels, and Dam Baek-ha was trying to stop him.
‘Blood Jade Hand, Eighth Form, Blood Claw Thousand Shatter!’
Raising Blood Jade Hand to its fullest state, she unfolded a killing move and attacked Gu Seong-baek.
The claw astral energy rushed to tear Gu Seong-baek apart with unstoppable force, but Gu Seong-baek lightly blocked it with his left hand alone, without so much as moving his right hand or the treasured saber Geum O-wol.
-Papapapapap!
‘Hah?’
Dam Baek-ha was incredulous.
She had not expected him to block the ultimate strike of Blood Jade Hand, laden with astral power, so easily.
He was not even using any special technique, merely blocking with casual palm forms matched precisely against her own killing move, yet it was all far too exquisite.
Thanks to that, she clearly understood one thing.
‘This bastard… has crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall.’
Dam Baek-ha clicked her tongue inwardly.
She had believed that after the generations of the old martial world were destroyed by the day of the great catastrophe, no more grandmaster-class experts like this would ever appear.
But it seemed many things had happened during the decades she had been imprisoned.
How else could a monster like this be blocking her path?
-Papapapapap!
-Blegh.
With every clash of hands against Gu Seong-baek, she felt pressure filling her body.
The qi transmitted through her internal organs, and bile rose into her throat.
Gu Seong-baek, confident of his superiority, was raising his power, and the aftershock of that was being conveyed to her more and more quickly.
-Crunch.
Dam Baek-ha’s eyes sharpened.
‘Even if this woman has done nothing for decades in the Underground Forbidden Prison and my qi has withered, I am still one of the Six Blood Saints of the great Blood Cult.’
-Crackle! Crackle!
Blue lightning sparks erupted from Dam Baek-ha’s right hand.
‘Hm?’
Sensing the manifestation of thunder force, Gu Seong-baek abruptly raised Geum O-wol to shield his face.
-Crackleeeee!
In the next instant, his body was shoved back about three steps by the force of the lightning.
‘The qi numbs under thunder force. In that case…’
While being driven back, Gu Seong-baek chose not to gather his qi into Geum O-wol, but instead to let it flow through.
As he used the method of moving the flower and grafting the tree and raised his saber upward,
-Crackleeeee!
The lightning flowing along the saber instantly spread out into empty air.
The blue flame crackling away like burning tree roots was a magnificent sight.
“Hmph.”
Dam Baek-ha snorted in irritation.
She had expected that since he had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall, he would be able to contend to a degree against thunder force, and sure enough, he had redirected it using the method of moving the flower and grafting the tree.
His reaction and judgment were far too quick.
It was then.
Mok Gyeong-un and So Ye-rin were charging at extreme speed behind Gu Seong-baek.
At the same time, Dam Baek-ha too was about to raise lightning once again and pressure him from the front.
In that instant,
-Thwack.
Gu Seong-baek drove Geum O-wol into the ground.
‘Earth-Shattering Wave-Cutting Form!’
-Shhhaaaak!
The ground split from where Geum O-wol had been plunged in, and then with blade astral energy, fragments of the ground broken apart around him shot out like hidden weapons.
‘Hah?’
‘Damn it!’
At that, Mok Gyeong-un, So Ye-rin, and Dam Baek-ha, who had all tried to attack him at once, hurriedly defended themselves against the incoming blade astral energy and fragments.
-Cha-cha-cha-cha-chaang!
Though they were merely blocking, the clash of metal and the shrieking break of the air spread in all directions like thunder.
It rang so loudly it hurt their ears.
And the rebounding fragments and aftershocks smashed apart the surrounding palace walls and threw everything into chaos.
-Kwakwakwakwakwaang!
Watching this duel, Mara Hyeon, Mong Mu-yak, Seop Chun, and the others were left speechless.
The battle had already gone beyond any level at which they could intervene.
If they carelessly stepped in to help, they might instead be severely injured or even lose their lives to one of the moves flying from those combatants.
“…So this is the clash of superhumans?”
“Damn it. To be held up in a place like this.”
At Seop Chun’s words, nearly a sigh of despair, Mong Mu-yak spat out a curse.
Who could have known that just as they neared the goal, not just anyone but an absolute master who stood at the summit of the martial world would appear?
At that moment, Mara Hyeon approached them and said,
“Staying here will not help them. If things have come to this, then while those people are fighting, we need to move.”
“Move?”
“Yes. If we keep staying here, we will only get in the way.”
Judging Mara Hyeon’s reasoning to be sound, the other two nodded.
At this point, the least they could do was avoid being a hindrance.
So they abandoned the remaining leftover carts and tried to move away with only the cart carrying the Sacred Fire Leader.
However,
-Rumbleeeee!
“There they are!”
“A fight is breaking out over there!”
From the direction of the outer palace’s south gate, the place they had to reach, a large crowd was coming.
They were warriors of the Imperial Guard Bureau and eunuchs of the Western Depot.
And that was not all.
-Rumbleeeee!
“Waaaaaaaah!!!”
“It is over there! Let the Flying Shadow Unit of the Imperial Guard Bureau head northwest!”
“Let the Granary Spear Unit of the Imperial Guard Bureau block the northern route!”
‘Damn.’
From every direction, all the forces inside the imperial palace capable of wielding force were now converging on them.
Since a battle fierce enough to shatter palace walls and buildings was taking place, it would have been stranger if no one had noticed.
The expressions of the three of them darkened rapidly as they were driven into a dilemma with no way forward or back.
From the moment they had been pinned down by Gu Seong-baek, one of the Six Heavens and the greatest master in the imperial palace, the situation had already reached the point where it could no longer be escaped.
‘Is it over?’
It was just as despair began to rise in them.
At that very moment,
-Shaaaaaaa!
Something bizarre happened.
Blood rose up from the ground and then began to float upward into the air in writhing streams.
At the ghastly sight, the warriors of the Imperial Guard Bureau and the eunuchs of the Western Depot and Eastern Depot who had been rushing toward them came to a halt, not knowing what to do.
“What in the world is this?”
Mara Hyeon touched one of the floating droplets of blood with his hand.
If it was an illusion, then the foul smell, the warmth, and the sticky texture should not have been there. It was unmistakably blood.
At this strange phenomenon, Mong Mu-yak and Seop Chun looked at each other.
‘This is?’
They knew what it was.
Because they had experienced it in that village on the day the rainstorm fell.
-Sha-sha-sha-sha-sha-sha!
Then the floating blood abruptly reversed course and surged upward like a rainstorm falling back into the sky, dyeing the heavens blood-red.
As everything around them became dyed in blood, every person who had gathered nearby was struck dumb with horror.
It was a sight that called hell itself to mind.
What sort of bizarre phenomenon was this, in broad daylight no less?
And while they stood there stunned, the blood surging backward through the air began to whirl together, and from within it, someone revealed herself.
Wearing a ceremonial crown and smoking a pipe, it was none other than Blue Spirit.
-Thwack.
‘What in the world is that?’
Gu Seong-baek, who had been in the midst of using an anti-person move, drew Geum O-wol from the ground and frowned.
What exactly was that inhuman existence?
No matter how he looked at it, it did not feel like a living human being.
As he was thinking that, Blue Spirit flicked her pipe.
-Whoosh.
-Shaaaaa!
Then all around where they stood, blood surged upward like a reversed waterfall and formed walls on all sides.
‘Surely not?’
Looking around, Gu Seong-baek realized that by means of these waterfalls of blood, he had been cut off from his surroundings.
Even the presence and figures of the warriors of the Imperial Guard Bureau rushing from every direction had been blocked out.
-Step, step.
As that happened, Dam Baek-ha, Mok Gyeong-un, and So Ye-rin moved to surround him from front and back.
-Swish.
Gu Seong-baek raised Geum O-wol to his shoulder and, without losing the slightest bit of composure, said,
“I do not know what sort of vile trick you have used, but do you think this will change the outcome?”
“Who knows. We have not gone all out yet.”
“What?”
As he asked that back, Mok Gyeong-un extended a hand toward somewhere.
Then,
-Crash!
-Shoot!
One of the leftover barrels shattered, and from within flew two swords.
They were none other than Ou Yezi’s demon swords, Evil-Answering Sword and Calamity Bane Sword.
-Thwack.
The moment Mok Gyeong-un grasped both demon swords in his hands, a sinister black qi began to surge up over his whole body together with demonic brilliance.
‘…He had been hiding his qi?’
At that suddenly surging vicious aura, Gu Seong-baek narrowed his eyes.
But that was not all.
-Gooooooo!
At some point, So Ye-rin’s hair had turned red and the blade she held became dyed blood-red.
The aura she gave off was bizarre and brimming with murderous intent.
-Cracklelelele!
Behind him, Dam Baek-ha stood with her entire body covered in blue lightning.
At the qi of the three, now wholly different from before, even Gu Seong-baek, the Southern Suppression Envoy who had until now appeared completely at ease, finally became truly serious.