Chapter 31
Chapter 31
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: Chapter 3: The Duel (11)
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“Damn it. It's always like this.”
Cheonwi shouted toward somewhere on the left.
“Danmun!”
The murmurs from the spectators below swallowed up Cheonwi's voice.
Even so, Cheonwi knew. Danmun had heard his voice.
Oho didn't stay idle either. He shouted toward the underside of the eaves.
“Jeonno! You're up!”
“Understood!”
Three or four tiles slid away like they were melting.
Jeonno popped up. A hook was gripped in his left hand.
“Rope.”
Jeonno said in a shrill voice. A sturdy rope, tough as iron chains, shot up from below. The Stealth Squad members were forming ranks down there.
“Soyul, get down. We're leaving this place now.”
“Understood.”
“Take good care of it. If that gets lost, we're done for.”
“I'll guard it with my life.”
Soyul stuffed the brush he'd been scribbling with into his bosom. He slipped through the hole in the tiles with a whoosh and vanished. Cheonwi stopped worrying. Soyul was an exceptional squad member. Even in his late teens, his lightness skill and martial arts surpassed those of ordinary Stealth Squad operatives.
Cheonwi and Oho turned toward where Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman were.
The tension across the rooftops had already reached its peak. As the two masters prepared for their final clash, the aura they emanated dominated the entire area. Just watching sent prickling jolts through the air.
“Let's go.”
Oho said in a low voice.
Jeonno hooked the rope onto his grapple and began swinging it in wide circles. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, slicing through the wind before releasing it in an instant. With a whistle, the hook cleaved through the night sky.
Crack! Clang!
The flying hook wrapped around a roof beam.
Chaos erupted among the packed crowd below. But Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman didn't budge. Their eyes were fixed solely on each other. They had already entered their own world.
Whoosh!
Oho went first. Then Cheonwi.
The two crossed the sky along the rope. They soared over the gasps, cheers, and shouts rising from below. At the same time, far across on another rooftop, a hook came flying in. With a click, the rope went taut, and a figure appeared on it.
The one flying in from over there had red hair whipping in the wind and wielded a red sword.
None other than Danmun.
His striking appearance, especially under Dongpungneung's watch, had kept him from showing himself openly.
Unlike Cheonwi or Oho, a satisfied smile hung on his lips. After holding back for so long, his chance to cut loose had finally come.
'Crazy bastard. You think this is funny?'
Oho caught Danmun's expression just as he kicked off the rope and landed on the opposite rooftop.
At times like this, he was nothing but ugly.
Danmun seemed to be enjoying the situation. If Cheonwi spammed absurd schemes, it was always Danmun who turned everything into a mess. He was charging in with uncontainable glee.
“I'll take the center! Oho! Hwangryoman!”
Whether the three intruded or not, Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman were already leaping toward each other.
Roooar!
Dongpungneung's blade unleashed a terrifying roar. Few could produce such a sound from blade pressure alone. It was the hum of his internal energy stirring the air into waves.
Weeeeng!
Hwangryoman's sword cry charging back was no less formidable.
This was a full-force strike. It carried the intent to decide the fight in one blow.
'They'll trade at least one exchange!'
If it ended in one clash, they'd be in trouble. They needed to weather the first exchange and push into the next—that's when they'd settle it.
Creeeang! Crack! Crunch!
But this clash was too much.
The shockwave was immense. The rooftop swayed beneath their feet.
Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman each retreated half a step. It was even. Dongpungneung's blade hovered above his head, Hwangryoman's sword at waist height. In Cheonwi's mind, the next moves unfolded like prophecy.
Dongpungneung's blade would trace a crescent from the sky. A curving arc with a radius under a foot. He'd whip the concentrated energy around and slam it down. Hwangryoman, meeting it from below, would counter with a straightforward, linear strike—no feints, just the Army Marching Sword's rigid thrust to the solar plexus.
“Left Gimmul acupoint!”
Cheonwi shouted to Oho.
Like a carp swimming upstream, Cheonwi defied the shockwave from the first clash and wedged himself between the two. The space felt ample yet increasingly narrow. It was the pressure. Not a gap Cheonwi's internal energy could endure.
Whoosh!
He drew his blade and slashed toward Dongpungneung's right Suhyeol acupoint. Even slicing empty air, the blade stuck as if caught on something.
Oho's timely strike aided Cheonwi's blade tip.
Oho thrust toward Hwangryoman's left Gimmul acupoint. The pressure from the two masters crushing Cheonwi's blade halved instantly.
Once momentum built, it became a terrifyingly threatening attack.
An astonishing moment. Dongpungneung couldn't weather it without pulling his blade back.
Clang!
'Ugh!'
The blade descending on Hwangryoman flipped in an instant, deflecting Cheonwi's golden dao. The shock traveling up his arm was tremendous. It felt like his wrist bone was twisting whole.
“Don't interfere!!”
Dongpungneung bellowed, whirling his blade tip toward Cheonwi.
A desperate crisis.
Whether he knew the Tongcheon Dao's forms or not, this was unblockable. Dongpungneung of the Shanxi giants, his momentum peaked from clashing with his rival Hwangryoman. Cheonwi lacked the energy to deflect that blade even once.
Screeech!
It was right then.
A blood-red blade light flashed in, deflecting the Tongcheon Dao's tip. Even without blades touching surfaces, a sharp clang erupted.
“Red hair!!”
It was Danmun.
Dongpungneung stepped back with a roar.
“What do you think you're doing!!”
Hwangryoman's side was the same.
Hwangryoman bellowed.
“Interrupting a one-on-one duel!!”
Below, it was worse.
The spreading murmurs among the spectators had swelled to near cheers.
Cheonwi ignored it all. He brushed off Dongpungneung's fiercely burning gaze and Hwangryoman's piercing glare with a casual remark.
“You should've kept your promise from the start.”
“Promise?”
“Just now. You were about to call off the duel.”
Cheonwi's voice was extremely soft. Or rather, it sounded that way. It wouldn't carry beyond the narrow rooftop space.
“…….”
Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman had no retort.
They'd been struck at the core.
In the eyes of the two masters, nothing else existed. No-self, focused solely on crushing the opponent.
That's fine.
That was the true way of a warrior. Cheonwi had only asked them to hold back this once. A vain hope, now proven so.
“As you know, I never made any promise.”
Hwangryoman broke the brief silence.
Now, his voice carried raw fury. He spat it out, unleashing internal energy that gripped like a vise around the heart.
“You made a mistake. No matter what, you shouldn't have interfered like this.”
“The duel is over either way. The mood's already ruined.”
Cheonwi's words rang like a declaration.
Dongpungneung shouted.
“It's not over yet!”
Boldly so.
Cheonwi laughed.
With a devilish smile, he shouted.
“Charge in one more time!”
No sooner said than done. Oho and Danmun moved simultaneously. The crimson dao sliced the wind toward the Tongcheon Dao's forms. The black-and-white dao shattered starlight, probing the Army Marching Sword's weakness.
Creeeang!
Claaaaang!
“You bastards!”
Alarm stained Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman's faces.
They'd instantly grasped the nature of Oho and Danmun's attacks.
Not mere ambushes.
The first intrusion hadn't been, nor this one.
Oho and Danmun were barely in their twenties.
Compared to the established Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman, they fell short in experience and power.
Yet their attacks were pure trouble for the two masters.
Not particularly fast, but hard to dodge. Not overwhelmingly powerful, but tough to block. They'd precisely targeted the fundamental flaws inherent in the masters' arts from their foundational stages.
Creeeang! Claaaaang!
The exchange didn't last long.
It couldn't.
They could induce a moment's confusion by targeting the forms, but any prolonged standoff would see them pushed back. Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman were masters worthy of that.
“That's it! Withdraw!”
Cheonwi shouted.
Oho reacted instantly. He unleashed a slash at Hwangryoman to create distance and leaped away. Danmun didn't move right away. He clearly hesitated, reluctant to end the rare fight. But a plan was a plan. He knew they couldn't win even if they kept going. Fortunately, he retained his senses and followed Oho's retreat.
The two vanished like the wind along the ropes.
The reaction from the heroes below was pure shock.
An unbelievable scene even with their own eyes. Warriors who'd only watched from between buildings began leaping into action. Taedongjang and Taehaengbang men moved first. Shouts of alarm rang out everywhere. The tangle turned into massive clamor filling the surroundings.
“You bastard……!”
Treading over the furnace-like cheers of the heroes.
Dongpungneung glared at Cheonwi.
Hwangryoman's gaze locked on Cheonwi too. Then he glanced at Dongpungneung. Their eyes met in midair.
Punish the interloper first?
Or resume the unfinished duel first?
Cheonwi didn't miss the conflict they faced in that instant. Perched at the eaves' edge, he asked.
“Not chasing?”
He didn't wipe the devilish smile. They couldn't even think to call it arrogant. Dongpungneung ground his teeth and countered.
“Should we?”
“Of course.”
Cheonwi delivered the finishing blow.
“If you're dead set on settling it, go ahead.”
He paused briefly.
“This stuff in my head will be unleashed on the world.”
Uncharacteristically slender for a warrior's finger, he pointed to his own head.
Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman couldn't stay calm.
They knew all too well what lurked in that head.
The weaknesses of Tongcheon Dao and Army Marching Sword.
The moment it spread, Taedongjang and Taehaengbang might lose their place among the Five Strongholds.
That was when Cheonwi retreated.
Dongpungneung and Hwangryoman's resolve was already shaken enough. Lingering too long before such masters risked disaster.
Cheonwi spun and kicked off the rooftop at full speed. His maximum velocity.
“After that bastard……!”
Dongpungneung instinctively leaped. But he halted just as he was about to kick off and glanced at Hwangryoman. 'Leave the pursuit to the subordinates and finish the duel.' That thought held him back.
Hwangryoman looked at Dongpungneung. His sword tip hung downward.
The blazing battle spirit refused to reignite. Cheonwi's parting words echoed vividly in his ears.
“The duel is over either way. The mood's already ruined.”