Chapter 168
Chapter 168
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 168
Chapter Title: Brutish Ambush
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It was a shock to both sides. Bang Jun and Ok Gi-rin never dreamed that Wi Seong-cheon would be right above their heads. And to launch such a brutish ambush, of all things.
Wi Seong-cheon had also acted on impulse. He had slipped past the Yi Cheon Academy students that Ok Gi-rin was exploiting and made his way to where the man was.
Perched high in a tree, he had planned to wait and watch for now. Rather than attacking Ok Gi-rin outright, he intended to observe the situation until the students returned from scouting with even a sliver of twin stone. Once he confirmed it falling into Ok Gi-rin's hands, he would strike at the first opening.
But as he listened to the bastard's prattle, blood rushed to his head. He could have pretended not to hear and ignored it. He simply had no desire to.
Instead, he gave in to the impulse to stomp that slippery mug flat.
‘Well now.’
This was more than a little unexpected. Even an impulsive ambush was far from reckless. Wi Seong-cheon was confident he could subdue Ok Gi-rin in a single blow.
Perhaps his lack of absolute certainty was the miscalculation.
‘Solid.’
It hardly qualified as a miscalculation, though. Wi Seong-cheon knew next to nothing about Ok Gi-rin. He was aware that the Primordial Fragrance Sect, to which Ok Gi-rin belonged, practiced the Absorbing Star Great Law.
Not all Absorbing Star Great Laws were created equal. The Heavenly Flower Sect's Vortex Flow and the White Flame Witch's Spectral Soul White Robe both derived from the Blood Cult's Single Heaven One God Martial Art, so they weren't all that different.
The Primordial Fragrance Sect's specialty, however—the Yin-Yang Joyous Union Secret Art—was a martial art of an entirely different nature.
‘A filthy, repulsive art.’
That was how the White Flame Witch had described the Yin-Yang Joyous Union Secret Art. She had never elaborated on precisely what made it filthy and repulsive.
Crunch....
More strength poured into the foot grinding down on Ok Gi-rin's face. Yet from some point onward, Ok Gi-rin's body refused to yield. His upper body was bent backward at a precarious angle, as if his spine might snap, but it went no further.
Crack, crunch!
The muscles in Ok Gi-rin's bent knees bulged with a thunderous swell.
"You...."
Ok Gi-rin's face writhed beneath the mud-caked shoe sole. Blood streamed from his crushed nose, his features twisting in agony.
"You bastard!"
With the curse, Ok Gi-rin snapped his waist upward. Wi Seong-cheon, propelled skyward by the explosive force from below, clicked his tongue in amazement. He had thought he pressed down properly, but this was freakish strength.
Regaining his composure amid the surprise, Wi Seong-cheon twisted his body midair.
Bang!
A thick tree trunk served as his launchpad. Ok Gi-rin's eyes flashed as he glared at Wi Seong-cheon hurtling toward him.
Pababak!
Offense and defense traded blows in an instant. Bang Jun let out an involuntary gasp of admiration. The seamless follow-up to the ambush flowed like water, while Ok Gi-rin's parrying hands were astonishingly precise.
Still, some ground had to be lost, and Ok Gi-rin's feet slid back several steps.
‘Flexible and tough. And fast.’
They had only clashed hands a handful of times, but Wi Seong-cheon was stunned by how fluidly Ok Gi-rin's body moved—far better than he had anticipated.
He had assumed the Absorbing Star Great Law meant a specialization in qi manipulation. Clearly, a misjudgment.
"You've bitten off more than you can chew!"
Pushed back a few steps or not, Ok Gi-rin vented his rage instead of swallowing it. Much like Sang Gwan-hu, he despised Wi Seong-cheon as well. He had pestered the White Flame Witch time and again in hopes of prying secrets of the Absorbing Star Great Law from her lips, only to suffer rejection after rejection.
Ok Gi-rin's ornate robe billowed outward. The vast qi power he had amassed through the Absorbing Star Great Law now cloaked his entire body. Wi Seong-cheon held back from charging in recklessly and stole a glance at Bang Jun. Bang Jun was doing the same.
"Shall I lend a hand?"
Bang Jun murmured to Ok Gi-rin. At the words, Ok Gi-rin rolled his eyes and shot him a glare.
"No need!"
The Black Tyrant Ok Gi-rin was every bit as prideful. He might swallow his pride and join forces against a Heavenly Being or Sword Peak, but his foe was a mere Latent Dragon.
The sub-branch leader of the Heavenly Flower Sect, who caught nothing but bat chatter.
"I'll smash your dantian to pieces!"
Ok Gi-rin bellowed. He couldn't kill a Yi Cheon Academy student. As long as he didn't kill him, that was fine.
Crush the dantian and sever the tendons in his limbs. Leave him alive but wishing he weren't. He would still be breathing, after all.
‘Can't let this drag on.’
He fixed his glare on Ok Gi-rin, who advanced wrapped head to toe in protective astral qi. A drawn-out fight might draw third parties eager to play the fisherman's profit.
Neither man relished the idea.
There would be no tentative probing with restrained power. Full force from the start. As Wi Seong-cheon unleashed Return Flow and Spirit Ignition, Ok Gi-rin's foot slammed into the ground.
Ruuuumble!
The earth trembled as if struck by an earthquake. The shower of falling leaves disintegrated in midair, annihilated by the qi pouring from Ok Gi-rin before they could touch down. Wi Seong-cheon raised both hands toward the recklessly charging foe.
Kwaaang!
A deafening explosion erupted. Wi Seong-cheon's body lurched backward, his feet skidding across the dirt. He had met the charge head-on.
The strain transmitted to his body, however, was minimal. The Heavy Divine Body Stance allowed his exhausted frame to absorb the force with fluid grace.
He flowed with it without resistance. Yet he did not yield ground indefinitely. In an instant, his legs rooted like the trunk of an ancient tree.
Unyielding Mind-Body endured once, then his entire body spun, redirecting the power.
Thwack!
Ok Gi-rin's body whipped backward. It had happened in the blink of an eye, the moment of contact.
‘Plum Blossom Grafting...?!’
Turning the enemy's force against him. A basic martial concept, but to execute Plum Blossom Grafting with such precision? Astonishing. Yet the returning strain was slight. Ok Gi-rin snapped his body forward and thrust out his twin palms.
‘What an odd fellow.’
Wi Seong-cheon narrowed his eyes. Ok Gi-rin's combat style was utterly unexpected. A face like a gigolo's, a build far from burly. A lecherous nature, clad in flowing, flamboyant robes that he swayed his hips in.
And yet his style of fighting was crude at worst, manly at best.
‘His internal energy is immense. And his body techniques are top-notch.’
The title of Black Tyrant was no empty flattery. Rather than raise his hands against the surging twin palms, Wi Seong-cheon shifted his feet with agile footwork, deflecting them aside.
‘His moniker is Flash Wave.’
Even the Haomen intelligence network offered scant details on Ok Gi-rin's martial arts. Nicknames, however, were the most prominent identifiers in the jianghu.
His right hand extended, then retracted. Qi gathered there. The massive qi condensed in an instant.
Light lanced out without a sound. A single palm thrust from within the flash scattered rays in all directions. The dispersed light rippled outward like waves, engulfing everything ahead.
Rumble!
The space where Ok Gi-rin had extended his hand was swept clean. The extreme yang gang qi did not ignite into flame, but it birthed heat haze and scorching winds.
It had missed. He knew as much, but there was no cause for concern. The Extreme Flame Flash of the Yin-Yang Joyous Union Secret Art could be unleashed repeatedly.
‘Where are you?’
Wi Seong-cheon had vanished from sight. Ok Gi-rin scanned his surroundings with senses spread wide.
"You rat!"
Found him. Ok Gi-rin twisted his body at once. Had he truly located his foe, or been led to him? The question flickered through his mind, but he pushed it aside. His piercing single palm drove forward.
Wi Seong-cheon burrowed in deep while keeping his body wide open. It was neither an attacking nor defensive stance. He had no idea why, and there was no time to ponder it.
Realization dawned soon enough. It came right before the extended palm could erupt into Extreme Flame Flash and spew light. Because Wi Seong-cheon had boldly spread his arms wide.
‘Going to grab it?’
Absurd. Ok Gi-rin knew full well that the Latent Dragon's arsenal favored body techniques, joint locks chief among them.
But these were arms swathed in protective astral qi—no, extreme yang qi that incinerated anything nearby. How did he intend to seize them? There were limits to recklessness.
Fine, have at it. In that fleeting moment, Ok Gi-rin sneered inwardly. He wouldn't drop dead from this strike. His arms would burn to cinders instead, dooming him to a lifetime as a cripple. A fitting price for such fleeting, reckless hubris.
‘Now.’
Right before Ok Gi-rin's palm could burst with Extreme Flame Flash.
That was the instant Wi Seong-cheon had targeted. The moment when internal energy flowed from the dantian through the meridians and vented outward. The split second when internal energy transformed into qi according to the technique's formula.
In that instant, the energy was at its purest—easiest to manipulate.
The White Flame Witch's Spectral Soul White Robe preyed on that very moment. He had been stunned when she first revealed its formula to him.
An ultimate supreme art of an impossibly exalted level. In the end, though, she had been right. In the absorption process, the principles of Spectral Soul White Robe and the Heavenly Flower Sect's Vortex Flow were not so different.
Both struck at that split second. The Vortex Flow clashed repeatedly with the foe, probing for the Qi Explosion Point capable of detonating their qi, then seized their energy in one explosive instant.
Spectral Soul White Robe was far more demanding without pinpointing the explosion point, but the core principle of targeting that instant remained the same.
Intensive training had honed his senses to a razor's edge. Acquiring the Dragon Jade had massively amplified his innate qi, pushing his perceptions into realms unattainable through cultivation alone.
‘Got it.’
Wi Seong-cheon's hands flared wide.
Keeeen!
Strands of qi, visible to the naked eye, wove between his fingers. He flicked them like plucking strings on an instrument as he closed in on Ok Gi-rin's arm.
Ok Gi-rin's qi, on the verge of transforming into Extreme Flame Flash, intertwined with the qi lacing Wi Seong-cheon's fingers.
The entwined currents flowed into Wi Seong-cheon. In moments, his hands gleamed with pure white light. Absorption. He seized the foreign qi and ignited it on the spot.
Boom!
Ok Gi-rin's arm shuddered violently. Moments ago it had been sheathed in dense qi; now, not a trace remained.
In that razor-thin instant, Wi Seong-cheon's Spectral Soul White Robe had incinerated his qi and claimed it for his own.
Different paths or not, Ok Gi-rin had mastered the Absorbing Star Great Law's Yin-Yang Joyous Union Secret Art. He knew exactly what had transpired in that split second.
Which was why he reeled in shock. It was utterly impossible.
"You mad bastard!"
He had no chance to finish. His qi-less arm was caught in Wi Seong-cheon's grasp. Ok Gi-rin yanked desperately to free it, but escape was impossible from that iron grip. Not from the very instant he realized he needed to and tried to act.
Crack!
Wi Seong-cheon snapped Ok Gi-rin's arm with ease. He clamped the elbow joint and wrenched, then crushed down on the forearm.
No body, no matter how tempered, could withstand a joint locked and pressed.
"Argh!"
Even as pained groans escaped him, Ok Gi-rin pressed his attack. At this range, his body techniques exploded with ferocity. Wi Seong-cheon had weathered this surprise several times already. Unfazed, he twisted the broken arm behind Ok Gi-rin's back with one hand.
Crunch!
The shattered joint ground out of alignment. Ok Gi-rin's jaw dropped, his movements freezing.
Wi Seong-cheon spun the twisted arm tight against the man's body and swung his opposite hand upward.
Smack!
The palm cracked across Ok Gi-rin's jaw. His gaping mouth snapped shut, eyes rolling back.
He didn't stop there. Ok Gi-rin's consciousness clung on, and Wi Seong-cheon's ire remained unquenched.
The hand that struck the jaw reared back. A tightly clenched fist rocketed forth in a short, brutal jab. It clipped the jaw tip once more, then dipped to smash the throat.
The center of the chest. The solar plexus. The dantian. Lower still.
"Hm."
The thrusting fist faltered for a beat. Ok Gi-rin's consciousness had already fled after that first jaw strike.
He was spared knowing just where Wi Seong-cheon had aimed—and hesitated.
‘Hitting that with my fist would be a bit much....’
That was the reason for his hesitation. Wi Seong-cheon lowered his fist and raised his knee instead.
Crack.
At the clear sound of an egg shattering, Bang Jun instinctively squeezed his thighs together.