Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 187 - Mysterious Woman Valley
Chapter 187 – Mysterious Woman Valley
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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As the mounted men drew closer, Ju-seong could tell they were no ordinary band of brigands.
Just the fact that they had human heads dangling from their saddles set them apart.
Hollowed-out skulls with specially treated skin.
This made them light, bouncing up and down with the horses’ galloping.
Yellow cloth was wrapped around their arms, and their weapons ranged from massive crescent blades to long spears to bows… all varieties.
“The court’s eyes don’t reach this far into Qinghai, so all sorts of bastards run wild.”
Not only the court, but the Martial Alliance also didn’t closely oversee Qinghai.
At least the Kunlun Sect was far to the south, but wasn’t Qinghai Province rather vast?
The times were so turbulent with demonic people running rampant that the bandit gangs had apparently turned crueler as well.
Ju-seong spurred his horse and rode directly toward them. Wol-hyang followed closely behind.
“Lady! Will you be alright?!”
Ju-seong’s shout came on the wind. Wol-hyang raised her voice to answer.
“I need to stretch now that I’ve recovered my martial arts. Help me if it gets dangerous!”
“What convenient talk is that.”
Ju-seong grumbled, then fixed his gaze straight ahead.
At the forefront. A man with long, loose hair stared straight at Ju-seong.
A giant, his entire body covered in tattoos. He carried a massive saber on his shoulder, steering his horse with only his thighs, not even holding the reins.
“Central Plains bastard!”
He spoke the Central Plains tongue with a strange accent, making a throat-slitting gesture with his thumb.
“I’ll take everything from you! Your life and wealth, horse and woman!”
It was obvious from one look that he lived that way.
The only problem was that his forces and skills didn’t seem to be that of mere third-rate thugs…
“Well then, let’s see how well this blade cuts.”
Ju-seong murmured coldly. The moment of collision approached.
Ju-seong watched as the leader’s massive saber swept toward him in a great arc, aiming to bisect him.
Rough-textured internal energy rose massively over the saber, making a thunder-like roar.
-BOOOOOM!
But Ju-seong remained utterly still, gripping the horse’s back tightly with both thighs as he simply thrust out both palms.
On his palms gathered vermilion energy, but its texture was worlds apart from ordinary projected force.
The internal energy seemed to have solidified in that very shape, statically aligned, with particles of energy twinkling like stars.
‘Sword Energy?!’
The leader sensed extreme danger from that configuration, but it was already too late to withdraw his blade.
He instead channeled even more power into the arm swinging the saber, striking harder, but…
“Foolish. What is strong is naturally broken by what is stronger.”
That was a grave error.
The leader’s saber energy, upon meeting Ju-seong’s Sword Energy, shattered pathetically, and cracks began spreading across the blade like a spider’s web.
In an instant, fractures decorated the entire blade. Through those cracks, vermilion light burst forth, and then…
-CRACK-BOOOOOM!
With a blinding flash, the entire saber shattered into pieces.
Then, radiating from Ju-seong’s palms in a fan shape, those fragments shot out like projectiles.
Dozens, hundreds of shards of shattered steel, infused with vermilion energy, swept through the bandits.
-THWAP-PAP-PAP-PAP!
Blood and flesh flew chaotically, and the terrible screams of horses and men shook the air.
“AAAAARGH…!”
The leader clutched his shredded hand and groaned quietly, while Ju-seong ignored him and leaped among his subordinates, rampaging like a wild beast.
Sword Energy required the martial artist’s direct control to maintain, so it wasn’t possible to project Sword Energy itself at long range.
Of course, with greater advancement, like the Sword Saint had demonstrated, one might control Sword Energy apart from the hand.
Ju-seong wasn’t at that level yet, but…
-CRASH!
Even just gripping Sword Energy in his hand and swinging was terrifyingly powerful.
What happens when you beat a sawdust pile with a solid wooden club? The sawdust scatters pathetically in all directions.
If ordinary sword energy was sawdust, Ju-seong’s Sword Energy was the solid, heavy wooden club.
“…Die!”
Three bandits simultaneously thrust spears wrapped with energy, but…
Ju-seong didn’t twitch an eyebrow, just murmured softly.
“Solid and heavy.”
-TAK-TAK-TANG!
With one sweep of his Sword Energy-infused hand, all the spearheads were decapitated and flew away.
Ju-seong kicked off the ground and leaped.
-HISSSS…!
Saber energy shot at him from below, sent by the leader who had snatched a subordinate’s crescent blade.
With a glance, he saw the man had taken a subordinate’s weapon.
“Tch, then what’s that fellow supposed to fight with?”
Ju-seong clicked his tongue lightly, casually releasing palm force toward the saber energy rushing at his feet.
It was saber energy launched with full power… the force was considerable.
-BOOM…!
The two forces canceled each other out, bursting with an energy wave, and Ju-seong, who had used qinggong principles to make himself light, rose even higher.
Below him, the bandits looked like a swarm of ants. In the instant between ascent and descent…
Ju-seong felt a tingling sensation in his groin and a buzzing in his hamstrings as he shouted.
“Myriad Heavens Palm, you sons of bitches!”
Vermilion palm force dropped down…
“Wh-why is that thing getting bigger?”
One bandit murmured blankly.
As it approached the ground, the palm force swelled in size until it resembled the Great Hand Seal pressed down by a Buddha.
Wol-hyang, who had been circling the edges to pick off stragglers, also sensed the power of Ju-seong’s ultimate technique and nimbly used footwork to retreat to a distance.
Her technique seemed quite advanced… likely an upper-tier movement art.
The leader desperately unleashed his own ultimate technique to reduce the impact, but…
-CRACK-BOOOOOM!
How could one stop a natural disaster? To the bandits now, Ju-seong was nothing less than a calamity.
Grass flipped inside out, and the tremendous thundering echoed across the vast grassland.
Following the palm force he’d dropped, Ju-seong himself fell, adding the thousand-catty drop technique to make himself heavy.
He didn’t forget to use Sword Energy to protect his knees and spine.
This was the advantage of bare-handed techniques. Having reached Three Flowers Gathering and awakened Sword Energy, he excelled at using it to protect his body.
At greater mastery, this could even lead to cloaking oneself in Body-Protecting Sword Energy like the Green Forest King.
-WHOOOOSH…
The insane rate of descent.
Ju-seong’s cheek rippled like cloth in the wind.
One bandit, who had fallen from his horse and lost consciousness but recovered, saw Ju-seong’s descending form and shrieked in terror.
“N-No!”
Ju-seong answered firmly.
“Yes!”
-THUMP-CRAAAASH!
Power rivaling the Myriad Heavens Palm overturned the surroundings again. Possible only because Sword Energy protected his body after such a fall.
Performing the thousand-catty drop from such a height would normally turn him into meat paste, but…
“…Ugh, my knees.”
Ju-seong muttered, tapping his knees.
A martial artist who specialized in fist and foot techniques, and who upon reaching Three Flowers Gathering could protect his body with Sword Energy, could get away with just creaky joints.
Ju-seong surveyed the chaos he had created and whistled.
“Wow… This is completely…”
Toppled horses and men.
Few remained conscious, and every one of them was groaning with something broken.
Ju-seong found the leader among them and grabbed him by the collar.
“What do you lot do exactly?”
The leader assumed a resolute expression and replied.
“Man to man, we competed in strength, and I shall now serve you as my elder brother. This younger brother is in awe of Elder Brother’s formidable martial arts.”
“…”
Ju-seong wore a dumbfounded expression for a moment, but when the stench of the man’s sins invaded his nostrils, he snapped back to his senses.
-SLAP!
“This crazy bastard is spouting nonsense like a donkey in heat.”
Ju-seong was so flabbergasted he kept slapping the man.
“Why would I be your elder brother, you bastard. Are you insane? Have you lost your mind?”
“S-Sorry!”
Only then did the leader come to his senses and confessed honestly.
“We are the Yellow Wind Society, a bandit gang. Recently we’ve been contracted by the White Lotus Cult to scout the Qinghai region while clearing out the surrounding nomadic tribes.”
“…”
Mo Wol-hyang’s expression rapidly hardened. Understandably, it was shocking that the White Lotus Cult… practically her homeland… was employing such shameless scum.
Ju-seong turned back to the leader and asked.
“Why would the White Lotus Cult harass ordinary people? Are you telling the truth?”
“Ah, my lord! It’s the truth! We’ve already completely wiped out three settlements without leaving even a dog alive!”
“Is that so?”
Ju-seong tilted his head, then casually reached out and tore off one of the man’s ears.
“AAAAARGH!”
“But why are you bragging about it so proudly? Are your crimes something to boast about?”
“Heee, ughhh!”
The leader had thought he was proving his usefulness by citing his accomplishments. The world he’d lived in had always been like this.
Good and evil were meaningless… only how many lives he’d taken and how many people’s lives he’d ruined measured one’s worth.
Ju-seong struck hard to shatter the man’s dantian, then turned to Wol-hyang.
“What do you think the White Lotus Cult’s objective is?”
Wol-hyang shook her head as she answered.
“I’ve been away from the Cult too long to know their intentions. But it seems clear they’re planning to expand into Qinghai.”
The numerous nomadic tribes scattered across Qinghai.
They were accustomed to riding and fighting alongside their horses, and had accordingly developed unique martial arts specialized for mounted combat.
‘They’re a considerable force.’
The martial arts of the barbarians shouldn’t be underestimated.
They might be inferior in subtlety to these of the Central Plains, but in pure combat, they were immensely powerful.
After all, hadn’t the previous dynasty extended its command all the way to the distant Western Regions on the strength of mounted martial arts?
The White Lotus Cult seemed intent on establishing a foothold in Qinghai, but first wanted to clear out the local barbarians.
To prevent them from uniting against the White Lotus Cult, they were apparently using local bandit gangs to pick them off one by one.
Ju-seong stroked his chin in thought, then concluded that the situation here wasn’t his concern.
‘That man is at Kunlun Mountain… what’s there to worry about?’
With the Sword Saint of the Western Frontier at Kunlun here in Qinghai, why should he rack his brain over this?
Right now, Ju-seong wanted nothing more than to quickly join the Jiangnan front.
Wol-hyang looked serious, but there was nothing she could do immediately either.
“Let’s continue to where we were going.”
Ju-seong meticulously shattered every bandit’s dantian before riding on with Wol-hyang.
* * *
The Mysterious Woman. This was the title for the women who served the White Lotus Cult’s goddess, the Unborn Venerable Mother, and received her revelations.
Where Wol-hyang led Ju-seong was the highland region in Qinghai’s western reaches.
Gradually, low hillocks began to rise, and before he knew it, tall mountains stood like heavenly deities with the arid sky on their shoulders.
Wol-hyang led Ju-seong to a valley nestled between those mountains.
At the deepest point of the valley, a crack appeared as if a giant had thrust a sword into the earth and split it open.
The narrow, long fissure was a full four zhang wide, with a chain ladder visible leading inside.
Remarkably, it was made of cold iron chains, which was why it hadn’t rusted despite the passage of ages.
Being in the highlands, the surroundings were chilly, but warm air flowed from within the fissure.
“Mm, so this is a hot spring area too.”
Along with the heat came damp humidity.
Perhaps because of this, unlike the surrounding area filled only with yellowed, withered grass, thick green moss coated the entrance to the fissure.
Wol-hyang turned and said.
“The Mysterious Woman Valley has been a sacred site forbidden to men since ancient times, but… now there are no handmaidens or attendants to serve the Mysterious Woman, so Young Hero may enter as well.”
Ju-seong scratched the back of his head and replied.
“Even so, there’s surely a history and tradition long preserved. I’d rather not recklessly violate it. I’m a true gentleman who knows how to respect the will of the ancients.”
Wol-hyang twisted her lips slightly, then pulled out her hairpin and let her hair down loose.
“It’s warm inside. There’s a natural bathhouse too.”
When she vanished into the fissure, Ju-seong stood blankly for a moment before hurriedly following.
“Well, let’s go together. It looks quite dangerous, so I’d better escort you all the way inside.”