Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 125 - Land of the Blind (4)

Chapter 125 – Land of the Blind (4)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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True to being black-path men, there was no warning before they struck. Blades flew at me from seven directions in an instant.

I tightened my grip on the sword. Mist bloomed from the blade, and from within it seven blades suddenly jutted forth.

“So you said you were a merchant, but you’ve been learning martial arts!”

Certainly, the talents I had bought recently had been working very hard. Originally, even if I spread it out as quickly as possible, I could only draw five blades from within the mist, but now seven were possible. The sword talent that had risen to intermediate grade was probably having its effect.

“Everyone, pile on!”

With that command, my vision darkened. Looking up, I saw dozens of black-path men rushing down on top of me. The weapons they held in both hands, true to black-path style, were inconsistent and all different.

In the darkness, the mist released by the Flowing Cloud Sword Art spread eerily. Perhaps because I was using Primordial Mixed Qi, it was thick with killing intent, like a mist concealing assassins.

“Aaaagh!”

People’s groans were drowned by screams, and a reddish aura floated in the mist, as though blood had mixed into it.

From this point on, it was wholly the realm of instinct. Each time I cut down one black-path man with my sword, another one was already raising his own blade and charging me. And when I cut that one down, there was yet another beyond him.

Meanwhile, the blind men had made only an initial strike and did not join the attack. The ones attacking now were all those who still had their eyes.

This, I supposed, was what they called a wheel battle. The tactic of constantly changing out the wheel so it kept rolling to the end, in other words a strategy to wear my strength away.

Once all my strength was drained, the blind men standing there with folded arms would step in.

Then, from beyond the range of my qi sense, a sickle came flying. I twisted instinctively, but the sickle raked across my waist. Blood poured out in splashes. I immediately pressed the nearby acupoints and stanched the bleeding.

“Heh heh heh. Your strength should be giving out about now, shouldn’t it?”

The one spinning a sickle round and round was the blind man who had guided me from the inn to this place. The blind men clearly were far stronger than those who still had sight.

“I am Ghost Twin Sickles himself. Even an ignorant merchant wretch like you must have heard the name, no?”

“No. First time hearing it.”

“Hmph. Then you’re deaf as well.”

Looking carefully at Ghost Twin Sickles, I saw that he held a pair of sickles with their handles linked by chains. That was likely how he could attack by throwing them and reeling them back.

“Pile on!”

At Ghost Twin Sickles’ words, the black-path men rushed me once more. I kept cutting them down.

With every step I took, my feet splashed. Blood had seeped in through my socks, and each movement left my feet soggy in a deeply unpleasant way.

“Hup!”

Once again, Ghost Twin Sickles’ sickles flew at me from a blind angle. Fortunately this time I was on guard, so they did not cut as deeply as before.

Blocking and cutting down the miscellaneous blades of these rabble was not much of a problem, but the sickles Ghost Twin Sickles launched were undeniably dangerous.

“How did a merchant come by this much force?”

The man called the Mara Blood Buddha looked at me and spoke in a voice that sounded almost admiring.

Certainly, I had already stepped outside the bounds of an ordinary merchant. I was not yet comparable to Golden Sword Na Han-geol, one of the Five Great Sword Masters Under Heaven, but I was saying I had become that kind of mutant.

Sweat and blood gathered at my chin and dripped down. My breath had been jammed up to the end of my throat for quite some time, and I had to shout at my arms and legs with my mind to make them creak into motion at all. That was because Ghost Twin Sickles’ sickles, which kept slipping in with exquisite timing while I cut down black-path men, had left a great many wounds on my body.

“Hoo.”

The tie that had bound my hair behind me seemed to have been cut by some blind swing of a blade, and my hair had fallen into disarray.

“You fought well enough. But it seems you’ve spent all your strength.”

The Mara Blood Buddha, who had been watching until now, spoke. In response, the black-path men fell back, and the blind men surrounded me. They were fewer in number, but the pressure they gave off could not be compared.

“Because of you, our losses are severe. One life of yours won’t be enough. I’ll have to pass word to my subordinates to cut off the heads of that brat and that commoner too.”

“Then I’ll have to kill you bastards quickly and go find them.”

“Kill us? In your current state?”

Certainly, objectively speaking, I was not in good shape. Every muscle in my body was screaming, and my Primordial Mixed Qi was running low.

But I had not come down here without any plan at all.

“Blood Buddha, since he is the one I brought in, I will deal with him.”

Without having the slightest idea what I was thinking, they were already discussing how to carve me up.

Naturally, the one who stepped forward most eagerly was Ghost Twin Sickles. The other blind men flew into a rage.

“Just because you seasoned him doesn’t make him yours.”

“He came into my territory, so why wouldn’t he be mine?”

For some reason, the blind men seemed to have a sense of rivalry among themselves. The Mara Blood Buddha laughed heartily, as though pleased.

“Still, since Ghost Twin Sickles put effort into this fellow, I would like to give him the first chance.”

“I will obey Blood Buddha’s words.”

The blind men’s noisy dispute was settled by a single sentence from the Mara Blood Buddha. It was a hierarchy as clear as that of the imperial army.

At the Mara Blood Buddha’s word, the other blind men withdrew, and the only one left was Ghost Twin Sickles. Ghost Twin Sickles cupped his fists at me in an exaggerated manner. It was plainly full of mockery.

“Thank you. Because of you, I’ll be able to grow stronger.”

“Grow stronger?”

“Something you need not know, little one.”

Ghost Twin Sickles kicked off the ground and charged me at once. The two sickles flew at the same time, one for my left shoulder and one for my right flank.

It was at that moment that the mist pouring from my sword stopped. The mist filling this place was all my own energy. All of that energy was drawn into my sword.

At the sword-tip, the mist gathered and whirled. All the blind men flinched. Since they could not see, they were even more sensitive to the movements of qi.

“…A Sword Pellet?”

By the time the Mara Blood Buddha realized it, it was already too late. Compared to the Sword Pellet of Cheong-ui, it was pitifully weak, but above my sword-tip it had clearly taken the form of a sphere.

And borne on a single current of wind, it shot toward Ghost Twin Sickles’ torso.

“Huh?”

Ghost Twin Sickles seemed not even to realize what had been done to him. Among them, it seemed, only the Mara Blood Buddha had reached the realm of the Sword Pellet.

Above my sword-tip it had been only a tiny sphere, but in Ghost Twin Sickles’ chest there now gaped a hole the size of a human head. Naturally, the sickles that had been flying at me lost all strength and fell pathetically right before my body.

Before Ghost Twin Sickles’ body could hit the floor, I caught his head in one hand.

“What are you…”

Though they couldn’t see, it seemed the blind men roughly sensed what I was doing. Even though I had no intention of actively absorbing it, Ghost Twin Sickles’ demonic qi was being sucked into my hand. Demonic qi that had lost its master naturally sought out a new master even more overwhelming.

Even if they couldn’t see it, they would be feeling the flow of that energy. The faces of the blind men, including the Mara Blood Buddha, turned pale.

“The Star-Absorbing Art?”

That phrase came from someone’s mouth. From their perspective, that was the only way it could feel.

But to be precise, I was not forcibly absorbing anything. Ghost Twin Sickles’ demonic qi was simply coming to me of its own accord.

“…Ahh.”

At that moment, the Mara Blood Buddha let out a weak moan.

“That is no lowly art like the Star-Absorbing Art. The Patriarch has appeared. The Patriarch…”

“Bl, Blood Buddha?”

The Mara Blood Buddha suddenly dropped to both knees and crawled toward me on all fours. Then he licked the tip of my shoe, soaked in blood.

“Ahh. O Patriarch, why have you come so late?”

I simply watched him quietly. Tears had begun to gather in those white eyes lifted toward me.

“I have made so many attendants for the Patriarch like this.”

“Yes. You have suffered much.”

I simply gave him that single line. Those blind men were not my subordinates, after all.

Even so, the Mara Blood Buddha trembled all over, as though my words filled him with tremendous ecstasy.

The Mara Blood Buddha groped over my body until at last he found my hand. Then he lifted my hand and placed it on top of his own head.

Through the baihui acupoint, the Mara Blood Buddha’s demonic qi too was drawn into me. Unlike Ghost Twin Sickles, the Mara Blood Buddha had a great quantity of demonic qi, and it was pure. Even as his skin shrank and his breathing turned ragged, his expression instead grew brighter. A face brightening while dying was so contrary to all common sense that it looked grotesque.

The Mara Blood Buddha twisted like a mummy, turned the color of dry earth, and collapsed to the ground. In contrast, my body, which had been exhausted only moments ago, became astonishingly full of strength.

“Hm.”

I grabbed my shoulder and rolled my arm. It had been my plan to recharge my stamina using the demonic qi of the blind men, but the head of the group crawling to me and offering up his life had been unexpected. In any case, the result was the same, so it was not something I needed to care much about.

“P, Patriarch?”

“Are you saying the return of the Patriarch that Blood Buddha spoke of was real?”

The blind men, on the other hand, were thrown into turmoil. It seemed that only the Mara Blood Buddha had truly been a remnant of the Demonic Cult, while the rest were simply black-path men who had long stayed here.

The Mara Blood Buddha had also been the strongest, and it appeared he had controlled them using demonic qi that let them grow stronger in the short term.

That meant the other blind men would not show me loyalty the way the Mara Blood Buddha had.

“Kill him!”

Perhaps because they felt an instinctive threat, all the blind men charged at me together. Certainly, their movements were threatening. If even the Mara Blood Buddha had charged in seriously, I might have had some trouble.

But my physical state right now was the best it had been since I regressed, and with demonic qi that felt ready to explode gathered in my dantian, I was probably at my strongest as well.

I felt waves of qi pouring in from every side. It was as though, for a brief instant, I had glimpsed the blind men’s field of vision. It felt as though I could see the flowing tides of qi.

Right now, my spiritual qi was exhausted, and all I had in my dantian was the demonic qi taken from the Mara Blood Buddha and Ghost Twin Sickles. That meant there was only one martial art I could use here.

“The Nine Nether Asura Sword?”

They really did seem to be heterodox veterans with deep experience. Even blind, they could identify the martial art by feel alone.

“Why is the supreme art of the One-Sword Asura here…!”

The Nine Nether Asura Sword dyed my Ancient Pine-Pattern Sword a dark crimson. The way demonic qi dripped from beneath the sword-tip made it look as though blood itself were falling.

The killing intent of the Nine Nether Asura Sword, unfolded with pure demonic qi, was chilling even to the one wielding it. To the blind men facing it directly, it must have felt nearly as though a blade had been set to their throats.

“Aaaah!”

The blind men, terrified by the killing intent, screamed and rushed me.

In the current situation, I thought I could probably have defeated even the blind men while they were calm. The frightened, panicked versions of them were no match for me.

In not even the time of a single gak, all the blind men were lying on the ground in hideous shapes. The corpses of those struck down by the Nine Nether Asura Sword did not look as though they had been cut by a sharp blade, but rather as though they had been torn apart by a wild beast.

“Hoo.”

Letting out a breath, I looked around. The scene lit by the small luminous pearl was a painting of hell.

“If you die here, there’d be no need for a coffin.”

I flicked the blood from my blade into the air and sheathed my sword.

Then I lightly wiped the blood from my face with my forearm and brushed my disheveled hair back.

At last, as I was leaving the plaza, I turned back once. The vivid corpses were being quietly covered by darkness. The reason was simple. The small luminous pearl that had lit the cavern was now in my possession.

Now it was time to go find Myeong-il and Yeo Hong-yang.