Chapter 97

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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**

“Void Steps?! Unbelievable!”

As the sound of astonishment escaped from Senior Sister Myeong-myeong’s mouth.

The Zhuge Family Head was floating in the air.

Even among technique martial arts, flying ability was an extremely rare anomaly and a difficult feat.

Needless to say, it was even more so for pure martial arts.

Since it was something possible only for someone belonging to the Ten Great Masters of the World.

Yet he stood in the air, and without even a tremor at that.

He was not just floating; he was dominating the air.

‘That is the pinnacle of the martial world.’

The devils he had met previously.

Someone like the Red Yang Demonic Immortal could not even be compared.

It was thanks to the subtle techniques added to his martial arts.

‘The amplification of true qi by the spirit of the Hundred Convergences acupoint, combined with the atmospheric control of his techniques, compressed the air layers to create a foothold.’

The principle came into view.

A move that applied the property of air being easily compressed.

Although it was a simple principle, complex mnemonics were woven together before it could be utilized as a practical anomaly. His accumulated qi volume and the capacity of his upper dantian’s spirit were insufficient to imitate it right away.

He simply took it into his eyes and engraved it into his memory.

At that moment.

‘!’

As if ice water had been poured over his naked body, a chill arose.

A green eye-light peered into his eyes.

The corners of the mouth of the man who stood straight in the air and cast down an arrogant gaze twisted slightly, the sort of thing people called a smile.

“It is suitable.”

A low word.

Even though he was at a distance far too great to hear a soft voice, it rang in his ears.

It was so even though it was not a voice specially loaded with internal energy.

It was thanks to the energy wave of a single person completely dominating the entire Yicheng branch of the Zhuge Clan.

At that moment, he realized.

‘Escape is impossible.’

Even if he wanted to follow his master’s words to flee upon meeting an opponent he could not face, he did not even have the ability to escape.

It was a feeling of helplessness he was experiencing for the first time since stepping into the Jianghu.

‘Is there really no way?’

His upper dantian grew insanely hot.

The world of intuition, which deepened day by day, drew countless lines.

Paths of escape.

Paths of counterattack.

Paths to create an opening through battle.

He calculated every single number of cases that could be counted.

Countless cases turned into lines and stretched out.

Among them, two lines stretched toward a northwestern path leading away from Zhuge Seok-yun who stood in the sky.

And.

‘Hup!’

They were completely erased.

He felt a shield that could not be broken by anything and a heat that could not be extinguished by any cold.

‘The Blood Lord!’

The existence of another of the martial world’s topmost predators, hidden by the majesty of the Zhuge Family Head, was perceived.

Indeed.

‘This Yicheng branch was a land of death.’

Countless numbers of cases between our current state and the goal of survival were drawn, blurred, and then erased.

The thousands of lines that stretched out were erased before they could even clear the manor, and the extremely few lines that did clear it crashed into the ground along the energy wave that dominated the entire space.

‘Is there… really nothing?’

Just when despair was about to encroach upon his mind.

He saw a final line.

A blue line.

The line forming a triangle that connected him, the Marquis of Divine Martialry Zhuge Seok-yun floating in the air, and below them was moving.

– It is suitable.

Along with the intention of being suitable as a foothold when someone climbed over a wall, a blurry image flashed before his eyes.

The sight of someone, connected to him and the Family Head by a line originating from what the Zhuge Family Head said, appearing along with numerous Zhuge Clan martial artists as they crossed the main gate of the inner courtyard.

And the voice that followed.

-…Fight.

A voice like a revelation, from which many things were omitted, rang in his ears.

However, that voice belonged to the Zhuge Family Head who had surrendered them to the land of death.

Yet the Family Head’s mouth was not open.

It was a prediction of the future.

The last one remaining among the countless lines of survival.

That single vertex crossed the main gate in exact alignment with a brief future.

He locked eyes with a young man who had an exceptionally pale face among the numerous Zhuge Clan martial artists.

The tip of the blue triangle’s vertex was touching his chest.

**

“Zhuge Jeong!”

“Three Absolutes Divine Dragon?!”

The name and moniker that came from the mouths of Yi Chae-yang and Myeong-hun.

For they belonged to the Zhuge Clan’s Eldest Young Master.

“The one who was said to be suffering from an incurable disease?”

Yi Chae-yang shook her head at Immortal Mang-won’s question.

“I heard he recovered from his illness. And the method used to cure that disease was…”

The moment her words were about to continue, a gale arose in the air and blocked her mouth.

“Quiet.”

The one who folded his opened folding fan with a snap along with those words was Sagacious Eye Scholar, the second-in-command of the Zhuge Clan.

A young man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sagacious Eye Scholar took a step forward and spoke.

“I am Zhuge Jeong. I hear a little Bringer of Chaos has appeared in the Wudang Sect?”

Zhuge Jeong’s eyes were fixed on the youngest of the group.

They were fixed on Yeon Baek-jung.

– He was said to have contracted an incurable disease… What a pity. If not for that, the Eight Talents of the Rising Wave would have been nine.

That was the public’s evaluation of the Three Absolutes Divine Dragon, Zhuge Jeong.

He was Zhuge Jeong, who possessed martial talent counted among the best even among young people of the Jianghu near thirty years of age.

Of course, that was strictly his reputation before he fell ill with the incurable disease. The possessor of that reputation stepped forward enthusiastically as if to restore his former glory, and spoke in a healthy voice that showed no trace of illness anymore.

“My father said it. There would be no better sacrifice for my re-debut into the Jianghu than the greatest genius of the Wudang Sect.”

Re-debut.

It meant he had completely recovered from his illness.

Seeing this, the Wudang Sect disciples were indignant.

“How can you do this even after joining hands with the Blood Cult!”

“Can you really show your face after abandoning the orthodox path!”

Zhuge Jeong replied with a sneer to the Wudang disciples’ accusations. A strange madness was harbored in the eyes of Zhuge Jeong, who had departed from the orthodox path.

“Having crossed the threshold of death countless times, I realized it. Orthodox or unorthodox? Black or white? They are meaningless. There is only survival and death. Since only the great bloodline that endures the dawn sunrise can save us. I, we, have merely stood on the side that is immortal. You, Wudang Sect, vanish while opposing the great blood.”

Only then did Zhuge Jeong’s appearance enter the eyes of the disciples.

A skin far too pale to be called healthy.

The blood energy pulsating and surging beneath it.

‘A practitioner!’

It was a word that came to everyone’s mind.

A blood ghoul who walks in the daylight.

Even though the renowned senior of the Zhuge bloodline whom they had faced, the Wind-Water Divine Dragon, could not stand under the sunlight, the much younger Zhuge Jeong was capable of it.

While it was an area of talent.

‘Killing karma!’

He felt that he had stood under the sunlight through countless deaths.

A sense of disgust arose above the upper dantians of the Taoist disciples who lived according to the ledger of merits and demerits.

“How could you!”

No matter how the Wudang Sect disciples reacted, Zhuge Jeong was composed, as if he had already departed from human morality. His interest seemed to lie solely in Yeon Baek-jung, and without responding to the others, he continued his words only to Yeon Baek-jung.

“I have heard a lot about you. It will be quite a sight to hang your head at the vanguard of destroying a rootless sect that relies on a few geniuses.”

The Eldest Young Master of the Zhuge Clan kills the greatest genius of the Wudang Sect.

By that fact alone, the Zhuge Clan’s credibility and morale, which had fallen to the ground with the retrieval of the death-exemption decree, would rise once more.

One could tell it was a move that would alter the course of the war.

That was why he had stepped forward.

Zhuge Seok-yun, the Marquis of Divine Martialry.

That Marquis of Divine Martialry, the head of a family that had strayed from the orthodox path and entered the realm of non-humans, opened his mouth.

“If you defeat Jeong-er, I will not hand you over to the Blood Cult.”

“If you do not wish to be miserably bred. Fight.”

At the words of the Family Head standing in the sky, Immortal Mang-won tried to step forward.

However.

Kuoooo-! Phwahak-!

A wild wind blew from the sky and drew a line on the ground.

Atmospheric manipulation.

The wall of true qi wind from the Wind-Calling Art activated by a technician who had reached the pinnacle of the technique school erected a barrier between the Wudang Sect warriors and Yeon Baek-jung.

A resolve that dared not permit it.

The southeastern wind blowing from far-off Chibi fundamentally blocked any interference from the Wudang Sect martial artists.

“Just watch. The sight of your hope being extinguished.”

Along with those words.

The duel between the two began.

**

He received his opponent’s routines while taking into his eyes the blue line that was still not extinguished and the triangular surface it drew.

Tjeong-! Tjeong-!

The depth of his internal power was similar to that of the Wind-Water Divine Dragon, but his skill in linking routines was superior.

‘At least the level of the Young Spirit Slayer.’

Even if he fell short in utilizing internal power, the skills of the practitioner Zhuge Jeong, who possessed the power of a blood ghoul in his body, were close to or even surpassed those of the Young Spirit Slayer.

Fwhrrr!

He restricted the sword paths along the swaying flames.

Even if he controlled the blood ghoul’s flames through the convergence of sword qi and force waves.

Wheeeing.

With a single light wave of the fan.

“The wild wind rises, breaking ridges and severing rivers, swift! ”

A gale arose in accordance with the rapidly chanted mantra.

It was a power that distorted even the flow of sword qi and shook the atmosphere.

‘This is.’

The moment he suffered it, he instinctively felt.

‘It is more than his own full power.’

It was the power of a deity drawn in through technique preparations, not the internal power Zhuge Jeong had accumulated in his body.

Since techniques could easily exert power beyond that accumulated through training by using treasures, talismans, and formations.

He could feel it even better because the power exerted by the Wudang Sect’s technique studies disciples was not much different.

The source of technique power prepared for a long time.

A giant southeastern wind drawn from the distant Yangtze River gathered at the tip of Zhuge Jeong’s folding fan, which shook like a plantain fan, and accelerated.

The heat he had packed onto his sword blade shook like a runaway colt, threatening to burn the hand gripping the sword hilt.

Slash!

Along the strongly swung sword blade, the flames of blood energy vanished in an instant, as he had swept away the air layer with his sword strike.

“They call you an peerless genius! That is an excellent judgment.”

He approached while offering praise.

A smile even appeared on his lips.

His gestures, which had seemed awkward, became nimbler the more he moved.

Countless pieces of information flowed into his head from those gestures.

From the sight of him crying out to be saved by the ceaseless blood, to the sight of him recovering his health after giving up on being human.

Fragmentary information flowed into the realm of his upper dantian’s perception.

The fan routine of the man who had become a non-human entity after struggling for survival and eventually came to ignore human morality hammered against the sword stances of the Four Symbols Flowing Sword.

Tjeong! Tjeong! Tjeong!

Even though they were stances executed with a light folding fan, each and every one was heavy.

Rather than due to profound internal power, the wind pressure of the wild wind drawn by techniques weighed down upon the sword blade.

The gravity control of the Four Symbols Flowing Sword and the fan cultivation of the technique’s wild wind accumulated roaring sounds and internal injuries in each other’s bodies with every clash.

Every time, based on the Primal Chaos Tai Chi Art’s force field, he controlled the shockwaves hitting his fine meridians and let them flow out of his body.

“Are you not a mortal? How are you restoring internal injuries?”

However, he did not have the spare energy to answer Zhuge Jeong’s question.

A pure difference in skill.

It was a difference of more than ten years of time.

He had to acknowledge it and seek a path of survival.

Since the line of life felt through the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition was still connected to Zhuge Jeong’s heart.

‘The neck and the heart.’

An instinctive judgment arose that a path of survival would open only if he defeated Zhuge Jeong.

Since they were the only weaknesses that could kill a practitioner who was close to immortal.

‘He must be killed in a single blow.’

Because he could not overcome Zhuge Jeong’s fan cultivation, which mobilized techniques, with raw strength.

He had to dismantle the opponent’s stance just as he had done to the Young Spirit Slayer.

‘Endure and induce.’

Light changes according to the movement of the moon.

Lunar Shift of Light.

Just as the orbital speed changes according to the trajectory of the moon, he altered his sword speed to match the opponent’s routine.

Kagagagak!

The changing sword speed blurred the opponent’s striking point, and he received the wild wind and flames with the surface of his blade.

After dissipating the remaining force by twisting his wrist and moving his waist and lower body, he created an opening.

Once an opening was created, he continued his sword path without hesitation.

‘From the right flank.’

A single line reaching to the blood ghoul’s heart was drawn.

He made a judgment based on past information about Zhuge Jeong, who had been bedridden for a long time.

‘His real combat senses are still dull.’

Simultaneously with the thought, his hand moved.

The heavy sword of the Four Symbols Flowing Sword’s Supreme White Mysterious Light following the Lunar Shift of Light collapsed one side of the wild wind barrier wrapping around Zhuge Jeong’s body.

The sword qi, trained countless times while cutting down blood ghouls, ran blue along the blade and sharpened its edge.

The sword that moved so heavily parted the space between Zhuge Jeong’s right ribs while harboring the sharp intent to cut down even a Vajra Bloodline practitioner.

Phwahk.

At that moment, the lower part of Zhuge Jeong’s face entered his vision.

‘He’s smiling?’

Simultaneously with the intuition, he threw his head back.

At the same time, he opened his mouth.

“Hap!”

The sound wave cultivation he had performed off the cuff at the Zhuge Clan’s Yidu branch previously shook Zhuge Jeong’s upper dantian.

The split-second judgment saved his life.

The folding fan that was driving toward his brow was blocked by the force field of the Three-Section Brocade body protective qi and his true qi protective clothing.

As the sword stance could not proceed any further and stopped due to that movement.

He pulled out the sword that had been driven into Zhuge Jeong’s body and backed away.

Since the opponent was a practitioner.

‘.’

The sword wound vanished in an instant.

As if he had never been cut from the very beginning.

On the other hand, blood trickled down his own brow.

And they rushed toward each other once more.

At that moment.

[With your killing intent being so thick like that.]

An all-too-familiar voice echoed in his head.

‘Master? Is it a hallucination?’

The voice of the person who was not present in this place continued to ring in his head.

[Since you only think of killing your opponent, your routine has no choice but to be read.]

Those words struck his head.

‘That’s right.’

How had he pierced the shoulder of the Young Spirit Slayer with skills that fell short of the assassin’s?

It was possible because he had read the opponent’s intentions and calculated the moves.

The foundation of the Wudang Sect’s cultivation.

It was an achievement accomplished after thoroughly keeping the True Formula of Wisdom.

‘I threw away my own strengths and exposed my weaknesses to the opponent.’

Realization unfolded like a circuit in his Hundred Convergences acupoint and fine meridians.

‘Because the opponent was a blood ghoul, his routines were limited.’

The heart and the neck.

He had only targeted those two spots.

Just as the killing sword of the Young Spirit Slayer had only aimed at vital points, he had only aimed at Zhuge Jeong’s vital points while deploying defensive stances.

If the opponent possessed a similar insight, it was only natural for it to be read.

‘There is no need for that. No, it must not be so.’

Erase the purpose.

Since Wudang Sect’s martial arts were not martial arts created for the purpose of killing opponents.

‘One by one, step by step.’

Learn the person.

In this case, it was like learning the ecology of the blood ghoul.

Phwahk-!

Zhuge Jeong, who had been reading and responding to his routines until now, gave up his arm properly for the first time.

Although it was quickly restored by his regenerative ability.

He swung his sword as if possessed.

Emptying his thoughts, he deployed his sword by only reading the flow of true qi running in all directions.

The realm of the supreme.

Since the tactical battles of masters took place in the gaps where a split second was divided into split seconds again.

He minimized the damage by twisting his body at the last moment to avoid the iron fan that came down heavily on his shoulder.

Simultaneously.

Slicing.

Zhuge Jeong’s neck caught on the tip of the sword.

Thud. Trrrk.

Zhuge Jeong’s head, which fell to the ground, rolled and reached the feet of Sagacious Eye Scholar.

And a grand mantra echoed from high up in the sky, as the anger of a father who lost his son turned into an intent that shook the heavens.

“Call the wind, summon the rain, quake with thunder, and scatter into destruction.”

Along with the mantra, purple lightning arose between the dark clouds that hung heavily and massively.

“I will keep my promise.”

The promise that the Marquis of Divine Martialry spoke of.

For it meant he would give him a peaceful death rather than letting him be fed to the blood ghouls.

A bolt of lightning drove down onto the spot where he had been standing.

**

Ku-kwang!

The place where the lightning struck.

The body of a young Taoist boy burnt black to ashes should have been visible there.

However, there was only a black scorch mark in that spot.

A distance of one zhang from the spot where the lightning struck.

There, Yeon Baek-jung was held in the arms of a middle-aged Taoist with grizzled hair, Immortal Gangwon.

“Gangwon-ja! You have finally shown yourself!”

Sagacious Eye Scholar clenched his fists tightly.

The strength gathered here.

Excluding the Sword Immortal who was said to have been crippled.

Was in a state where they concentrated enough strength to face even the rest of the Eight Disciples of Sanfeng.

Furthermore, it was a situation where the Marquis of Divine Martialry could govern the flow of heaven’s path using the treasures deployed in the Chibi Wind-Worshipping Platform and the main hall of the Yungzhong Shrine of Marquis Wu.

The lightning that had struck moments ago.

Since he was capable of firing the Wind-Thunder Scattering-Destruction technique wildly for more than a day.

“Are you alright!”

From Immortal Im-won, one of the Nine Swords of Wudang, and the disciples of the Prosperity Star Unit under his command.

“Hap!”

The small number of people who broke through the east of the siege formed by the Zhuge Clan members and reached the inner courtyard was the Literary Star Unit that the Wudang Sect boasted of.

Those who arrived after breaking through the western siege while executing the Seven Stars Flying Sword’s swift sword were the Army Breaker Unit, a pillar of the True Martial Pavilion’s martial forces.

Finally, those who arrived along the siege line broken by Immortal Gangwon were:

“There are blood ghouls mixed in as well! Be careful!”

The most fierce sword of the Wudang Sect.

Even the Martial Star Unit.

While nearly half of the Wudang Sect’s strength was rushing in, the Zhuge Clan martial artists avoided clashes and cleared the way.

The characteristic of technique martial arts.

He completely released the technique power stored in the Marquis Wu statue of the Yungzhong Shrine of Marquis Wu.

From the Chibi Wind-Worshipping Platform, he drew the southeastern seasonal wind despite it being winter.

On top of that, the Blood Lord, who was one of the wings of the Six Great Evils and one of the two major bloodlines of the Dawn Sky Blood Cult, was also present.

‘All preparations are perfect.’

Even if those gathered here now were half of the Wudang Sect’s strength.

‘If the strength that came now is all of it, the Wudang Sect cannot leave this place alive today.’

On the contrary, because it was an opportunity to delete half of the Wudang Sect’s forces, the morale of the family members who had been tipped off in advance was gradually rising.

Just at the moment when the expectation that they could finally push the Wudang Sect out of Hubei and rise to the position of number one filled the chests of the Zhuge Clan martial artists.

A small sword wind arose.

‧

Along with a roar that surpassed human hearing frequencies, heaven and earth shook, and belatedly:

Phwahahak-!

Blood exploded along with a wild wind.

In that way, people, blood ghouls, and buildings exploded all at once while piercing the manor in a straight line.

‘What on earth is this!’

Sagacious Eye Scholar, who was fortunately not on that straight line, froze and struggled to somehow grasp this sudden anomaly.

However, it was a variable that could not be measured by his common sense.

Since a power capable of making all existences along a straight line for a distance of ten zhang vanish with a single sword was something impossible even for the current Zhuge Family Head.

Then, suddenly, a single name came to Sagacious Eye Scholar’s mind.

‘Could it be!!!’

Ttak. Teok. Ttak. Teok.

Above the space where a death-like silence had descended.

Only the quiet sound of a cane hitting the ground rang in people’s ears.

A low voice reached the Marquis of Divine Martialry who had risen high into the sky.

“Come down.”

With those words, the body of the Marquis of Divine Martialry shook greatly.

“The Sword Immortal!”

It was the moment the Sword Immortal, Immortal Jin-cheon, broke his long seclusion and stepped into the Jianghu. —