Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 183 - The Hunting Hour
Chapter 183 – The Hunting Hour
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Though the White Lotus Cult’s Left Envoy of Light, Yeon Sa-uk, was young in age, he was by no means an easy man.
His eyes were small and narrow, with multiple folds of eyelids. Their resemblance to a lizard’s eyes gave him a chilling appearance.
His martial prowess was formidable, but considering the terrifying cruelty lurking behind those unnerving eyes, even elite martial artists of the White Lotus Cult had no choice but to be obedient.
Thus when Yeon Sa-uk gave a slight jerk of his chin, Jang-cheong had no choice but to rise without complaint and check behind the carriage.
‘Is this really an ambush? How could they suppress their presence and approach in this wide-open plain?’
Yeon Sa-uk was puzzled.
The Left Envoy himself was formidable, but his companions were no lightweights either.
It was the White Lotus Cult’s First Combat Unit.
The elite force ranked just below the Sect Master’s personal guard and the Mysterious Woman’s escorts.
Considering that no current Mysterious Woman existed in the Cult, their status rose even higher.
The First Unit numbered three hundred in total.
Those accompanying the Left Envoy now were selected from the best among them.
The Left and Right Envoys couldn’t have personal subordinates, so the First Unit was often requisitioned by them.
Could such elites have failed to notice a single rat’s approach?
While he was thinking this, Jang-cheong, who had drawn his long straight saber, reached a position where he could see behind the carriage.
What did he see?
Just as Yeon Sa-uk was about to call out…
-TAP.
A short leap, then a sickening sound of tearing flesh.
With a squelching sound, Jang-cheong’s neck was ripped out.
Yeon Sa-uk stared wide-eyed at the scene.
The beast that had suddenly lunged out and bitten into Jang-cheong’s neck.
No, the man.
The man turned his head, looked straight at Yeon Sa-uk, and smiled whitely.
A smile stained with blood.
* * *
Ju-seong roughly shoved away the man still spraying a fountain of blood from his torn neck.
The body crashed noisily onto the campfire.
The flames flickered, and the long shadows rippled wildly.
“GACK!”
Martial artists’ lives were tenacious. Even with his artery severed, the man thrashed and rolled on the campfire.
Sparks flew everywhere, and vision alternated between darkness and brightness.
In the flickering sight, the White Lotus Cult martial artists grimaced.
Meanwhile, Ju-seong deployed Celestial Eye. His pupils contracted and dilated at an unusually rapid rate.
He was adjusting to darkness and light in real time.
Normally, a person needs at least a quarter-hour to adjust to brightness or darkness.
But Ju-seong’s eyes, using Celestial Eye, completed the adjustment in an instant.
The advantage was beyond words.
-TAT-TAK.
Ju-seong lunged swiftly, approaching the martial artist who seemed least skilled based on his movements.
The man blinked, trying to follow Ju-seong’s movements, but such carelessness led directly to death.
The sword the man thrust out like a feeler couldn’t block Ju-seong’s approach.
Ju-seong’s hand slid along the blade. His index finger caught the man’s sleeve.
“Wha… ”
The martial artist let out a startled groan as his arm’s movement was restricted, and…
-CRUNCH-CRACK!
In the blink of an eye, Ju-seong pressed in shoulder-first and used a grasping hand technique to wreck the man’s arm.
Then before the man could scream, he drew the Crimson Iron Flying Knife and tore into the man’s armpit.
“Huh, aah?”
The man flailed.
He felt dampness under his armpit… was he sweating? But the amount was too much, which confused him.
Ju-seong abandoned him and tumbled away, rolling across the ground.
No sooner had he moved than someone’s attack blasted the ground where he’d been.
-BOOM!
Two were disabled. Three were remaining.
All appeared to be at the peak level, and the Left Envoy seemed comparable to Ju-seong.
At the sub-level of peak’s great completion, in other words.
One equal, and two martial artists half a level below.
Formidable opponents. A rational martial artist would retreat and wait for a second opportunity.
But does fire only seek dry kindling that burns well?
Damp timber was also inevitably reduced to ashes, and fire rode the wind, spreading freely from one ridge to the next.
Ju-seong forgot about advantages and disadvantages.
From his hands blazed crimson flames. Not ordinary flames, but flames mixed with the Yin-Yang Serpent’s fire poison.
Other poisons burned away when released with Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s internal energy, but the Yin-Yang Serpent’s fire poison was different.
‘Probably because they share fire’s nature.’
Now all of Ju-seong’s attacks carried the power to disperse energy.
The martial artist with the sliced armpit artery staggered until he reached the Left Envoy.
The Left Envoy, who had been sitting and glaring, rose with a cold expression, drew his waist sword, and lashed out with sword energy.
-SCREECH!
The stumbling subordinate was cut in half, and sword energy swept toward Ju-seong behind him.
Ju-seong used the sword energy as a signal, dropping fully to all fours like a beast and leaping.
Flames burned in both hands, leaving crimson trails.
The Left Envoy’s two remaining subordinates.
One was a middle-aged man with a full beard, the other a gaunt and skinny man with a pale face.
The middle-aged man stomped powerfully as he brought down his massive saber.
-WHOOORN!
The blade had several round holes drilled through it. Moreover, strange grooves were engraved across the blade face.
When he swung with internal energy infused, the blade produced an eerie sound… a kind of sonic attack that shattered the minds of those before it.
-WHOORN, WHOOORN!
Ju-seong slightly furrowed his brow and deflected the saber forcefully.
Ju-seong, who had learned Celestial Hearing, had keen hearing. Such sonic attacks affected him even more severely.
Seeing this reaction, the middle-aged man sneered smugly.
“Haha, you don’t like this sound? This is a treasured instrument containing a lion’s roar… it has the power to shake the souls of weak prey.”
-WHOORN, WHOORN!
He swung the saber in a cross pattern and continued.
“From what I see, you too have a fierce exterior but a tender deer’s heart inside.”
While the middle-aged man laughed heartily, Ju-seong used that opening to rush in quickly.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
The middle-aged man swung down directly at the charging Ju-seong, but…
-WHOORRRN!
Ju-seong ignored the grating sound and struck out with a palm strike, deflecting the blade face.
The force of the blow twisted the saber-wielder’s body.
Ju-seong slashed the man’s exposed flank once with the Crimson Iron Flying Knife and quickly leaped away.
The skinny man’s iron club slammed down where he’d just been with a crash.
Surprisingly, the skinny man wielded a heavy iron mace that contrasted with his thin frame.
-GRRR.
He dragged the mace across the ground as he rushed forward with quick steps, then swung it using hip and leg strength as if throwing it.
The man was practically being dragged around by the mace…
-CRASH, CRASH! BOOM!
Ju-seong sensed this opponent was no pushover either. The mace looked far heavier than it appeared. It seemed to be solid black iron.
Moreover, when hidden weapons or projectile force were sent at him, the free hand defended against them skillfully.
Meanwhile, the saber-wielder came charging again with his massive blade.
Ju-seong retreated continuously with coldly settled eyes. Backing behind the carriage’s shadow, his form was swallowed again by darkness.
The saber-wielder caught his breath, speaking with an incredulous expression.
“Huff, huff. What is he… ”
He noticed his breathing had become excessively rough.
The wound on his flank was quite sharp and deep, but for the rough warriors of the White Lotus Cult, this was merely a scratch.
“Damn it, it’s poison!”
The saber-wielder shouted. Then from the darkness, a silver point flew straight toward him.
The saber-wielder immediately tried to block it by channeling energy into his large saber, but…
‘My internal energy!’
Before he knew it, his internal energy had scattered like smoke. He scraped frantically, but could only output a tenth of his power.
-CLANG! THWACK!
The blade face he’d raised had a round hole punched through it, and behind it, his head jerked back with a thwack.
In his brow was just a hole the size of an iron ball, but the back of his skull had blown apart completely.
“What the… ”
The skinny martial artist with the mace cursed in bewilderment.
Meanwhile, the Left Envoy, who had been probing the darkness with his energy sense, spoke in an icy voice.
“If you don’t come out from behind that carriage, I’ll cut the woman and carriage in half together. You came to rescue her, didn’t you?”
“…”
Ju-seong showed no reaction, as if he hadn’t heard.
Even when the Left Envoy loudly rang his sword as if to show he meant what he said, there was no response.
The Left Envoy lowered his sword with a hollow expression and muttered inwardly.
‘Rescuing that woman isn’t his goal? Then what? Just some madman of the wilderness?’
He’d heard that due to Demonic Taotie Venerable’s mischief, demonic people were swarming throughout Gansu and Shaanxi regions.
Perhaps one of them had wandered to Qinghai.
Ju-seong, hidden behind the carriage, had his own reasoning.
‘They said their Sect Master wants Lady Wol-hyang. If so, he won’t sacrifice her carelessly.’
He slowly worked his brain behind the carriage’s shadow.
Two were remaining now.
The skinny one with the mace, and the Left Envoy.
The skinny one was truly strange.
After exchanging a few moves, he understood. The solid black iron mace wasn’t the man’s real weapon.
The mace was for restricting the opponent’s movement and disrupting footwork by channeling force into the ground.
The real weapon was the body technique performed with the other hand.
Meanwhile, the Left Envoy’s swordsmanship appeared quite accomplished.
-TAT-TAK, TAT-TAK…
The campfire slowly died. Blood had splattered everywhere, and firewood had been scattered multiple times during the fight.
The Left Envoy and his subordinate had no intention of gathering wood to stoke the flames again.
Their eyes were already adjusting to the darkness.
Moreover, it was a night with a faint crescent moon, so they wouldn’t be toyed with due to vision anymore.
Eventually, a silver point shot out from behind the carriage again.
The Left Envoy precisely deflected it by angling his blade face.
-SCREEECH!
With a spine-chilling sound, the Myriad-Year Cold Iron ball slid along the blade face and flew away.
But that wasn’t the end… a long needle flew right behind the ball.
The Left Envoy calmly struck down to deflect the needle.
He hadn’t devoted a large motion to deflecting the ball, which made this possible.
But an eye-blink’s gap had been created.
-SHHHRR.
Ju-seong released something from beneath his sleeve as he rushed at the skinny man.
The skinny man braced the mace shaft against his shoulder, drawing a large arc as if he’d been waiting.
-WHOOSH!
The mace swept horizontally in a great swing.
When Ju-seong lowered his stance, the man swept his long leg low as if to brush the ground.
-CRAAACK!
Ju-seong met it head-on, smashing his shin against the man’s.
The skinny man groaned in pain and withdrew his leg. His leg was completely shattered.
Ju-seong’s bones and flesh, reborn through Samadhi Body Refinement, were not something an equal martial artist could withstand in a direct clash.
The man tried to hop back on one leg, but…
“Where do you think you’re going.”
Ju-seong murmured coldly, yanking his left hand.
-CRUNCH!
At some point he’d scattered it… Heavenly Silkworm Thread, using the night’s cover to take position, wrapped tightly around the skinny man’s arm.
“Argh!”
Through Ju-seong’s careful control, the arm wasn’t completely severed… only several tendons were cut.
This loosened his grip, and the mace he’d been holding dropped.
The skinny man was clearly flustered, flailing…
-WHIP!
“URGH!”
When Ju-seong yanked the thread, terrifying pain bored into his arm, and he was helplessly dragged along.
Ju-seong used footwork while adjusting the skinny man’s position, gradually circling to the right. The Left Envoy was approaching.
In other words, Ju-seong was using the skinny man as a meat shield.
The Left Envoy hesitated to strike rashly, fearing his blade would cut the skinny man in half as well.
The Left Envoy and Ju-seong. The two men shared a remarkably similar vicious look in their eyes.
Two men with similar eyes circled around and around with the skinny man between them, as if dancing.
The skinny man caught in the middle sensed his fate.
‘This is checkmate.’
As they circled, the Heavenly Silkworm Thread wound around the skinny man’s entire body.
When Ju-seong yanked his left hand hard…
-SLASH-SPLATTER!
The skinny man was sliced into multiple pieces, spraying massive amounts of blood in all directions.
That was the signal.
A wall of blood raised for an instant in the air.
Ju-seong launched a palm strike with full power at the Left Envoy beyond that bloody wall.
The Left Envoy swung straight down, delivering his best single strike.
-CRACK-BOOOM!
Lightning seemed to strike the midnight grassland as a flash of energy burst forth.
-PITTER-PATTER…
The blood suspended in mid-air scattered as a red drizzle in all directions.
Then two men stood at opposite ends of a large crater, glaring at each other.
The two men had each retreated exactly one step.
The Left Envoy smiled slightly and slowly spoke.
“It is evenly matched.”