Chapter 73
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Unfolding
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Their arrows were no slower than the sniper rifles from her previous life, nor weaker than armor-piercing rounds.
Speed surpassing the sound barrier, heavy internal energy imparting endless weight and power.
Even for a transcendent expert beyond human limits, they hadn't truly escaped mortality's chains, making hypersonic reactions all but impossible.
In other words, as they believed, it was potent enough to critically wound most transcendent experts—and lethal against the careless...
But the opponent was So-hyang.
If she could pierce the trajectory and target, the projectile's velocity was irrelevant.
Subsonic, hypersonic, even lightspeed—it held no meaning for So-hyang.
She snatched the arrow aimed at her throat.
The one targeting her head, she deflected with the back of the hand gripping another arrow.
Arrows for her heart, liver, and one ankle—she twisted her body to evade.
The arrow for the other ankle—she kicked it away with her foot.
In an instant, six arrows were neutralized and sent back with greater force, one piercing the leader elder's earlobe.
"Hah, heh heh heh..."
No fight left in him now. The elder knew he could have aimed for her head.
Laughable as it was to judge a superior expert, that witch was a top monster even among transcendent masters.
There had been no chance from the outset. Not even a sliver of possibility.
The leader elder knelt and slammed the ground.
"They say heavenly fortune favors the Third Imperial Princess—truly, those words ring true...!"
Whether So-hyang's visit coinciding with the assault was truly heavenly fortune was debatable, but that hardly mattered.
"-So, nothing more to show?"
Bored expression, quiet voice.
What mattered was that So-hyang was growing bored.
The techniques had been intriguing enough, but the gap in their absolute class was too vast.
Their combat stance had pleased her, yet now even that fighting spirit was waning.
All in all, disappointing.
No reason came to mind to indulge their antics any longer.
Then it was time to settle things.
So-hyang enjoyed combat but not slaughter—yet she offered no mercy to these who targeted her friend without justification and struck at her with lethal intent.
Even if ineffective, it was reason enough to die.
The spirit sword stored in her mindscape now filled her hand, its pristine blade gleaming as it awaited the swing.
"If you have last words, speak them."
This was So-hyang's final mercy—not a promise to heed them, but permission to voice what they wished at life's end.
To her, they were already as good as dead; her usually radiant milky-white eyes, brimming with joy and warmth, had rarely turned so coldly serene.
Even offered this last mercy, the assassins bound by vows of silence uttered not a word.
"......"
The leader elder was no different.
He merely pounded the earth in futile rage, his lips murmuring wordless incoherence.
Yet oddly, his pounding followed a peculiar rhythm, subtly vibrating the ground, while his mutterings lacked fervent emotion.
"Oh ho?"
As if performing some ritual.
Fragrance Smoke School, an outer path.
Molten Heat Flame Incense.
The successive taps and incantation channeled sorcery into the earth below, decomposing ley line energy into a kind of incense powder.
A Fragrance Smoke School spell—not for medicine or poison, but an outer path.
A simple explosion.
Crimson radiance seeped from below, the ground beginning to swell.
"Quite the desperate effort—"
But So-hyang was faster.
Before the full blast, she stomped with legs brimming with spirit energy, delving into the earth via infiltration meridian principles to quell the detonation.
"—but utterly futile."
Shattering the ritual with a massive projection of qi.
The crudest counter to sorcery, yet reliably effective.
Still, the assassins showed no shock that their leader's spell had been thwarted.
They simply seized the opening from her movement to swing swords and loose arrows.
"Hoo, I thought your will had broken...?"
No—it had. Despair and terror filled their eyes.
But an even heavier sense of duty compelled their bodies onward.
They had no choice; what mattered wasn't an unbroken spirit, but persisting even when broken.
Her waning interest reignited; So-hyang's lips began to curve.
Even with meager power, such resolve merited respect.
She hated wasting lives like theirs, but misdirecting that resolve was regrettable.
In her previous life, such conviction had abounded among fanatics and terrorists—lives she regrettably had to claim.
These were no different.
"...No helping it—"
In that instant.
Zhu Yeonhwa's hand, clasped in So-hyang's empty one, gripped tightly.
"So-hyang, my friend—if possible, could you capture them alive without killing?"
Lustrous golden eyes gleamed, vertical slit pupils like a reptile's.
Zhu Yeonhwa flashed her Dragon Eye, making her plea to So-hyang.
"I have a use for them, so please grant this friend's request."
So-hyang gazed at Zhu Yeonhwa with a subtle expression.
She had hinted at luring the assault along a predetermined path from the start, but now Zhu Yeonhwa was treating her less like a friend and more like a subordinate.
A request, not an order—yet the distinction felt thin.
Guiding her movements, manipulating the situation, using her as a chess piece to suit her designs.
On reflection, perhaps to Zhu Yeonhwa, the line between friend and subordinate wasn't so wide.
So-hyang understood the nature of a ruler's life, but it left her far from pleased.
Dodging the tenaciously charging assassins with dance-like grace, So-hyang pondered her next move.
"...Hah, hah—you...?"
Zhu Yeonhwa, struggling to keep pace with the acrobatic motions while hand-in-hand, urged her on with evident fluster.
"Hmm, sure, why not."
A friend's request regardless of form—so she'd comply for now.
"Capture alive..."
An eternal truth across East and West: subduing foes unharmed proves harder than killing.
Of course, So-hyang could smash their occiputs one by one or seal acupoints en masse with a finger snap...
But wouldn't that be dull?
"Then, shall we try something different?"
So-hyang began to stir her divine sense, enveloping a three-hundred-zhang radius—the barrier's span.
Divine sense: opening the mind's window and expanding an intangible domain to encompass space.
Until now, So-hyang had opened the window only halfway, restricting outbound information.
Allowing inflow while blocking outflow—a one-way conduit.
And now.
She flung the half-open window of consciousness fully ajar.
Divine sense was her very mind and spirit.
Things obscured by the half-closed window became visible from outside.
Much like that widespread adage from her previous life: if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back.
Now, if So-hyang peered into someone, they could peer into her.
Her presence erupted outward through the fully opened window.
Not the pure sword intent buried deep in her psyche, nor vast knowledge or sword arts profundities.
Merely the mind's surface—fragments of her ceaseless thoughts, as natural as breathing, and even those mere scraps.
But still.
Even such scraps were beyond their endurance.
notbreathinggraspingbreathweightofinhaledairribcageexpansiondiaphragmtremorleadingtooxygentransportintobloodstreamdictatingspecsofheartbeatbecomingbodystandardfingertipsensationendpointofbrainthoughtbutdon'tletitmovereactionsnotreflexescommands-
Like osmosis or backflow, the Palace Archer Unit members within range couldn't resist the overwhelming info-tide; their minds were ravaged.
Low-realm assassins lost consciousness standing, without a sound.
"-Wha... t... is... th... is...!"
Only the leader elder, his sorcerer's mind exceptionally resilient, writhed on the ground with headache and nausea.
A mere second at most.
Seeing the assassins teetering on death's edge, So-hyang startled and hastily retracted her divine sense.
"-Oh dear!"
Far too close.
Her instincts had barely withdrawn it in time; otherwise, even survivors would bear crippling aftereffects, unfit for normal life.
"This... more dangerous than I thought...?"
Did that League Lord friend routinely cram this into people's skulls?
She'd known before, but as a transcendent beyond laws, he was some personality-devouring monster.
The League Lord would protest innocence, of course.
He'd merely implanted the imagery of 'heaven' he'd comprehended.
Being high-dimensional info, it mostly flowed past incomprehensibly for most; he'd calibrated the impact against the volume.
Of course, no such restraint for So-hyang. Why bother? She'd endure.
By contrast, So-hyang's transmitted fragments delved into atomic-level insights on bodily motion.
Simply: like fixating on blinking or breathing when noticed, then amplified.
From breath units and blood flow to joint/muscle flexing and cellular metabolism—a vicious prompt expanding awareness.
Being universally human-accessible info, the consciousness-crushing force was incomparable.
The result: hundreds of assassins frozen like stone statues, fainted upright.
...Well, the original goal achieved, so she'd gloss over the hiccup.
"All subdued without injury. This suffice? ...Your Highness?"
No reply. Turning to Zhu Yeonhwa, still hand-in-hand, So-hyang found her oddly gaping blankly.
"...Ho."
"Ho?"
Of course, So-hyang had distinguished friend from foe, opening the window only to targets.
But as a first try, control was imperfect—and Zhu Yeonhwa bore the exceptional Dragon Eye insight.
Hand-holding skin contact at point-blank range compounded it; she got grazed by the info-wave.
"Breathandoxygenandheartbeatandbloodcirculationandbodystandardsperceivedasspec..."
In the end, blank eyes muttering bodily precepts, nosebleed streaming.
"Eh?"
Rarely flustered, So-hyang pondered solutions—then one struck.
"...Won't hear me, but naughty?"
Thumb atop middle finger, snapping to her forehead.
"-Tchak!"
A crisp knuckle-rap echoed.
Steam rose from the forehead; So-hyang rubbed it soothingly, catching the crumpling body to prevent harm.
"What in the—"
The barely conscious leader elder gaped at the sight.
Striking the Imperial Scion she was meant to protect with a knuckle-rap? Wasn't she the guard?
"-Don't give me that look. It was the proper remedy... ahem."
To shield mind and soul from info-overload, extinguishing consciousness was simplest and most effective.
Adding a shock to erase the last few minutes' memory ensured no aftereffects.
Probably.