Chapter 290 – Northern Sect Blade King (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Blue Spirit, having manifested her spirit body, looked up at the blood-stained sky.

When she had still been at the level of a blue spirit, called a hundred-year revenant, it had been almost impossible for her to unfold her Domain of Ghost Intent in broad daylight, when yang energy was at its fullest.

That was because the dead belonged to the world of yin.

But Blue Spirit had drawn so close to the level of a purple spirit, said to be the farthest reach of a revenant, that even by day she could deploy the Blood Boundary of the Domain of Ghost Intent over a limited area.

‘…Still, keeping it up for long is too much.’

Because yang energy was so full and she had spread her domain over such a wide area, the consumption of her spiritual power was rapid.

Had it been night, matters would have been somewhat different, but it was not.

They had to hurry.

-Swish.

When Blue Spirit waved her pipe, hands of blood rose from the ground and threw the Imperial Guard Bureau warriors and the eunuchs of the Eastern Depot and Western Depot, who were already panicking over the sudden situation, into even deeper confusion.

“Wh-what in the world is this?”

“How can something like this happen in the imperial palace in broad daylight?”

“Do not panic! It is all an illusion!”

“Get a hold of yourselves!”

The commanders tried somehow to rally their morale.

But this was no mere illusion.

A Domain of Ghost Intent created by a revenant that had reached the very brink of the highest rank was literally a space of fear and terror.

-Paahk!

-Shhhaaaak!

“Aaaaagh!”

“Let go! I said let go!”

Because of the blood spikes and blood hands erupting from all directions, the scene was descending into utter pandemonium.

However, the eyes of the four within the center of the Blood Boundary would not see any of that.

She had thoroughly sealed off the domain around them.

Blue Spirit looked toward Mok Gyeong-un.

‘I have done as you wished for the moment, sentient being. But can you truly escape this?’

She was worried.

Their opponent was a true monster who had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall and reached the genuine Profound Realm.

No matter how much Mok Gyeong-un’s demonic aura had grown until it neared the Profound Realm, there was bound to be a difference between that and someone who had truly reached that domain.

She recalled what had happened just a short while before.

[Blue Spirit, is the Domain of Ghost Intent possible?]

[The Domain of Ghost Intent?]

[Yes. With the Blood Boundary, can you hold back the Imperial Guard Bureau warriors rushing in for a short while and isolate the space with that man as well?]

[…It is possible. But because the time is full of yang energy, I cannot maintain it for long.]

[I see. Then we will have to settle it within that time.]

[Wait, what do you mean settle it? Were you not asking me simply to isolate that monstrous man in the Blood Boundary for a while?]

[Yes, that is true, but with the three of us included as well.]

[You?]

Blue Spirit stared fixedly at Mok Gyeong-un.

He had insisted as though he had some sort of plan, and so she had done as he wanted.

Yet the opponent was one of the Six Heavens, said to be the summit of the current martial world.

Even if they attacked together, what were the chances they could really win against someone like that?

-Cracklelelele!

Dam Baek-ha, one of the Six Blood Saints of the Old Blood Cult, who had attained eternal youth and immortality and the power of thunder after consuming the blood of the spirit creature called the dragon turtle, raised her fighting spirit to its peak.

Even for her, who had lived such a long life, a world in which everything around her was dyed in blood could not help but look eerie and bizarre.

Yet there was something else that drew her eye even more.

‘Ahhh. To behold that sight once again.’

What entered Dam Baek-ha’s eyes was So Ye-rin, the veiled Deputy Thousand-Household Commander, with hair dyed crimson and a blood-stained sword in hand.

That phenomenon of the hair turning red was none other than the sign that Blood Heaven Great Patrol Skill, which only the bloodline of the Blood Cult’s cult leader could cultivate, had reached a certain realm.

As a loyal follower of the Blood Cult, she could not help but be moved by the sight.

But only for a moment.

-Slither.

Gu Seong-baek moved first.

And the target he chose was not either of the two standing in front of him,

-Slash!

‘So he is targeting me first?’

It was her.

Despite the size of his long saber, the weapon came flying at such terrifying speed that it looked as though it would sever Dam Baek-ha’s neck in a single stroke.

-Paht.

She barely avoided it by throwing her body backward with a movement art.

But as the saber passed just in front of her, it did not finish its full cut and stop only at the end.

-Paahk!

‘Monster of a bastard.’

Dam Baek-ha could not hide her astonishment inwardly.

Even for masters, withdrawing the force of a strike midway through the motion was no easy thing.

And more than that,

-Kwakwakwakwakwaang!

At the moment Gu Seong-baek’s treasured saber Geum O-wol halted mid-swing, the aftershock was powerful enough to split the ground and stir up fierce pressure winds, showing just how immense the true qi imbued in it had been.

To withdraw power like that mid-swing, he was indeed a monster.

-Bang! Whirl!

Twisting the saber edge that had halted, Gu Seong-baek now swung it in reverse, aiming once more for Dam Baek-ha’s head.

At that, Dam Baek-ha lowered her body to evade the path of the blade intent and then,

-Cracklelelele!

Closed in on Gu Seong-baek and tried to gouge out his heart with Blood Jade Hand laden with lightning and all her power.

But at that moment, Gu Seong-baek lightly leaned his body aside and then,

-Thwack!

Caught her wrist and drove up his knee.

-Thud! Crack.

“Agh!”

In a single blow, her arm bent the wrong way and the broken bone pierced through the flesh of her elbow.

It was agonizing, but enduring the pain, Dam Baek-ha tried to tear apart Gu Seong-baek’s left hand, the one holding her wrist, with Blood Jade Hand.

However,

-Paahk!

Gu Seong-baek yanked at her wrist, and her balance broke.

Seizing that opening, Gu Seong-baek released his hold on Geum O-wol and sought to punch through Dam Baek-ha’s face with a hand-formed blade astral energy.

‘This is bad!’

Yet at that instant, a blood-red sword came crashing down to sever Gu Seong-baek’s right arm.

It was So Ye-rin.

Since he had no choice but to evade, Gu Seong-baek released Dam Baek-ha’s wrist and retreated with six flowing steps of exquisite movement.

-Papapapapap!

As he tried to widen the distance, So Ye-rin chased in and unfolded a killing move.

‘Third Form, Loach-Form Secreting Sword!’

The sword shifted into variations, its trajectory wavering like a supple willow branch as it targeted seven major acupoints across Gu Seong-baek’s upper body at the same time.

-Shhhaaaak!

Yet astonishingly, Gu Seong-baek evaded all of her sword with nothing more than movements of his upper body.

And while doing that, he made a grasping motion with his hand and then,

-Thwack!

Used grasping objects through the void to draw Geum O-wol back into his hand, and in the same instant tried to cleave So Ye-rin in half.

Faced with that overwhelmingly domineering slash, So Ye-rin hurriedly raised the full power of her cultivation and lifted her sword to block it.

-Chaeeeeeng!

“Kuh!”

But because she was inferior in internal energy, So Ye-rin was driven backward with a cough of blood.

-Chrrrrrrr!

‘I will cut you down like this.’

Knowing himself to be far superior in raw internal energy, Gu Seong-baek seemed intent on overwhelming her by pressing that advantage.

-Chrrrrrrrr!

‘Second Form, Submerged Clam Master Sword.’

At that moment, while being driven backward, So Ye-rin bent her knees and kicked off the ground, suddenly exploding forward. She struck aside Geum O-wol and unfolded a retaliatory sword move.

-Chaang!

‘She used my force against me?’

A strange light entered Gu Seong-baek’s eyes.

He had never seen a sword move that used his own overbearing momentum against him through the method of moving the flower and grafting the tree.

-Shhhaaaak!

As the reinvigorated sword momentum came raging at him, Gu Seong-baek struck back in turn.

Her sword and his saber clashed, and blue sparks and tearing sounds of the air spread everywhere.

-Cha-cha-cha-cha-chaang!

They exchanged around eight forms in the blink of an eye.

-Flinch.

Gu Seong-baek abruptly lowered his head.

The instant he dipped his head, Evil-Answering Sword, wreathed in black qi, skimmed past the back of his hair.

At the same time, So Ye-rin also had to employ footwork and fall back.

Had she not, the sword Gu Seong-baek had just evaded might have pierced her instead.

And,

-Thwack!

Mok Gyeong-un’s sword attack did not end there.

‘!?’

Gu Seong-baek, who had ducked to avoid the first sword in that split instant, had his eyes shake at the sight of yet another sword flying at him from the left.

This was not merely a matter of swinging another sword in the opposite hand.

A completely different sword form was being unfolded at the same time.

In the right hand was a form of Moonless Void Sword. In the left hand was a form of Demonic Sword Skill.

‘Two entirely different sword forms with both hands at once?’

Quite apart from the fact that both sword forms were already of the highest grade, how had he mastered a technique so unique?

Even Gu Seong-baek himself, though he had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall, could not do such a thing.

He could not help but feel admiration inwardly.

-Thwack!

Judging that he could not avoid or counter both this time, Gu Seong-baek drove Geum O-wol into the ground to use it as a support, twisting his body.

-Slash!

The blade of the demon sword Calamity Bane grazed Gu Seong-baek’s left shoulder.

With a scorching sensation, he felt the demonic nature begin to burrow into the place it had touched.

‘Demonic nature?’

It felt as though the demonic nature was enlarging the wound.

At that strange sensation, Gu Seong-baek hurriedly cut away the skin of the grazed area himself.

-Slash!

At the same time, he hurled his body backward to avoid the sword form Mok Gyeong-un was unfolding.

-Papapahk!

He flipped through the air around four times in succession, widening the distance.

Not missing this opening, the three of them threw themselves toward Gu Seong-baek.

Gu Seong-baek then spun his body in midair and scattered Flicking Blade Astral Energy created with both hands, preventing the three from approaching.

-Shhhaaaak!

The incoming blade astral energies were blocked in turn by Mok Gyeong-un, So Ye-rin, and Dam Baek-ha with sword astral energy and claw astral energy.

Yet even though they were all astral forces, the difference in the true qi imbued in them was too great, so they could not help but be pushed back.

-Cha-cha-cha-chaang!

-Chrrrrrrrr!

This was true even for So Ye-rin, whose qi had been greatly amplified by Blood Heaven Great Patrol Skill, and for Dam Baek-ha, who was using the power of thunder as the force of a spirit beast.

The true qi of Gu Seong-baek, who had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall, was simply different in its very strength.

Yet there was one person who pierced through his attacks here.

It was Mok Gyeong-un.

-Chachachachachang!

With Calamity Bane in his left hand, using the mystery of the Qi-Transferring True Scripture to redirect the incoming blade astral energies back instead, Mok Gyeong-un charged at Gu Seong-baek with unstoppable momentum.

‘This one has greater internal energy than the other two.’

Gu Seong-baek must have felt that as well, for he abruptly stopped his spin and merely flicked one hand.

-Shoot.

-Be careful!

At So Ye-rin’s voice transmission ringing by his ear, Mok Gyeong-un kicked off the ground twice.

It was Wind God Steps, the movement art he had stolen from Mara Hyeon.

-Sliiiide.

Mok Gyeong-un’s body split into two left and right.

-Shoot.

And through the space between them, Geum O-wol came flying through.

-Slash!

‘Blade-riding technique?’

It was none other than blade-riding technique.

Also called controlling the blade with qi, it was a technique that only one who had crossed beyond the Wall of the Wall could display.

At that, Mok Gyeong-un reached a hand toward the saber.

-Swish.

If he could interfere with the connected true qi, he should be able to hinder the blade-riding technique.

He had once done something similar against the Heaven and Earth Society master’s sword-riding technique.

So he tried to disperse the qi connection using the Form of Attachment, one of the Eight Forms of Mind-Breaking.

Yet,

-Wooooong!

Qi gathered around the incoming controlled saber, and blue astral force immediately formed around it.

‘!?’

The qi that had been about to scatter instead condensed even more, and his interference failed.

Not stopping there, the saber now stained with astral force flew at him as if alive, unfolding a tyrannical saber move to cut through his body.

-Slash!

One of the split bodies vanished.

Seeing that, Gu Seong-baek moved his hand.

‘Now you are next.’

In response, Geum O-wol flew toward the Mok Gyeong-un who had not disappeared.

-Shoot!

It was so fast it seemed like a streak of light itself was charging him.

But at that very moment,

-Cracklelelelelele!

Lightning shot upward, and Geum O-wol, which had been flying through blade-riding technique, was deflected upward.

Below it stood Dam Baek-ha with both hands raised.

‘Her arm?’

A strange light entered Gu Seong-baek’s eyes.

The elbow that had been broken, with the bone even piercing out through the flesh, had somehow healed.

‘Annoying. Is that the power of eternal youth and immortality?’

At her astonishing regenerative ability, Gu Seong-baek clicked his tongue.

Then Gu Seong-baek, who had widened the distance from the three of them, drew Geum O-wol back to himself with true qi.

-Shoot! Thwack!

Gripping Geum O-wol, Gu Seong-baek looked at the three in turn and said,

“Though I came out in light spirits because of His Majesty’s order, this is not something that can be taken lightly.”

“Then I would be grateful if you simply withdrew.”

At Mok Gyeong-un’s sarcastic reply, Gu Seong-baek gave a faint smile.

Then he drove Geum O-wol into the ground and said,

-Thrust.

“I have my duties, so that would be difficult. Besides, chances do not come often to fight three martial artists all at once who are close to the Profound Realm.”

-Gooooooo!

No sooner had he finished speaking than,

The aura of Gu Seong-baek, raised to the full ten-tenths of his power, surged to a degree incomparable with before.

At that overwhelming presence, the eyes of the three of them became even more guarded.

Up until now, Gu Seong-baek, the Northern Sect Blade King and one of the Six Heavens, had still been leaving some margin in his strength.

Now he was preparing to use all of it.