Trial of the Vajra Golems
Pitch-black darkness held sway, unbroken by even the faintest sliver of light, yet Dokgo Jin’s eyes pierced straight through the gloom.
To his surprise, the vast hall was completely empty. Contrary to expectations that some grand, perilous ordeal lay in wait, there was only a cavernous void steeped in chilling air.
Is this really Mugeuk Gate?
His fleeting doubt lasted only an instant before his gaze locked onto the shadows lurking in the corners of the stone chamber. Bizarre, looming silhouettes stood motionless in the gloom.
Those are...
At that very moment, Ma Cheol pressed a subtle protrusion upon the stone wall.
Click.
With the crisp report of intricate mechanisms, the lamps mounted along the walls ignited in sequence, banishing the dark.
Fwoo-fwoo-fwoosh!
The pungent scent of burning oil wafted through the hall as brilliant light flooded every corner. Watching the lanterns ignite one by one in an empty hall without a single attendant was an uncanny spectacle.
Ma Cheol smiled, open pride coloring his expression. "Astonishing, isn't it? To think all of this is possible through the art of mechanics alone."
Dokgo Jin, however, paid no heed to his escort's boast. In the blossoming light, his eyes had already found what stood arrayed in two austere lines in the corner.
This is the first time I've seen them with my own eyes.
Though cast in the likeness of men, they radiated a chilling metallic sheen, towering with an imposing menace.
They were the Vajra Bronze Golems.
Remarkably exquisite.
Standing well over six feet tall, their steel bodies were sleek, unburdened by frivolous ornament. Exposed gears nestled within every joint gleamed with a sheen of dark oil, turning the shadows ominous. They radiated a mechanical dread wholly distinct from any living beast.
And there were twenty of them in total.
Seeing Dokgo Jin’s gaze linger on the automata, Ma Cheol’s lips curved faintly. "Splendid, are they not? Though maintaining them is a colossal ordeal."
"Who crafted such things?"
"An obvious question. There is only one eccentric under heaven capable of realizing mechanisms and bronze golems of this caliber in a single place, is there not?"
A title slipped softly from Dokgo Jin’s lips.
"...The Divine Mechanist."
"Precisely."
Divine Mechanist Yu Byeok.
Opinions might conflict endlessly over who held the title of the realm's greatest martial artist, but not a single soul dared contest that the foremost mechanist under heaven was the Divine Mechanist. From colossal lethal formations to contraptions smaller than a fingernail, he was an incomparable artisan who conjured things that had never before existed in the world.
"Is the Divine Mechanist currently staying within our alliance?"
"Haha, if only... but he is hardly a man to remain bound to any one place."
The Divine Mechanist was infamous for wandering the jianghu without destination, leaving a trail of bizarre eccentricities in his wake.
"A few years ago, he paid a brief visit to our alliance. Back then, no one realized that shabby old man was the Divine Mechanist. Yet somehow, our Limitless Hall Master recognized him at a single glance and proposed a wager."
The exact terms of the bet remained unknown, but the result was history: having lost, the Divine Mechanist conceded to the Limitless Hall Master's request and engineered this very hall—Mugeuk Gate.
"If you have admired them enough, step into the center."
Ma Cheol gestured with his chin toward a pure white circle drawn upon the bluestone floor.
"The moment you set foot inside, the trial of Mugeuk Gate begins in earnest."
Dokgo Jin offered no reply. Leaving Ma Cheol’s gaze behind, he strode slowly toward the white circle at the heart of the chamber.
Clack, clack.
His footsteps echoed with unnatural clarity.
As Dokgo Jin finally planted both feet within the circle, Ma Cheol nodded with satisfaction.
"I wish you fortune, Dragon Tiger Plaque Master."
With those parting words, Ma Cheol swiftly retreated to the entrance. An instant later, a heavy iron portcullis dropped, walling him off from the chamber.
Now Ma Cheol could only observe; he could no longer intervene directly. Of course, should a moment of true mortal peril arrive, he would halt the mechanisms. His eyes shone with keen anticipation as he stared at Dokgo Jin.
Let us see how the Dragon Tiger Plaque Master fares.
"Whew."
Dokgo Jin drew a brief breath, honing every sense in his body to a razor's edge. A heavy silence descended, like the stillness before a tempest.
And then, it began.
Ruuuuumble!
A faint shudder surged through the floor, swelling in a heartbeat into a tremendous tremor. It felt as though a colossal subterranean beast were thrashing beneath the bedrock.
The thick slabs of bluestone vibrated with an eerie groan.
Skrrr, rattle, clank!
From beyond the perimeter walls and deep beneath his feet, the thunderous clatter of countless intermeshed cogs and coiled mainsprings erupted in unison. It was the sound of the grand apparatus engineered by the Divine Mechanist awakening from its slumber.
At the same moment, the twenty giant shadows arrayed in the dark stirred.
Flash! Flare!
A chilling crimson radiance pierced the gloom.
Upon the helm-shaped visages of the Vajra Bronze Golems, red gems embedded between their brows unleashed the glaring light of singular cyclopean eyes. Twenty crimson eyes locked onto a single point: Dokgo Jin, standing within the white circle.
Clank—screeech!
To the screech of cold metallic joints grinding against one another, the stationary iron titans took their first collective step.
Thud!
It was not the sound of a single footfall, but forty massive iron legs slamming against the stone floor in perfect synchronization. The entire chamber shrieked under the blow.
They did not rush forward in disarray. Moving as if driven by the singular consciousness of an enormous living organism, they advanced with impeccably calculated footwork, constricting their perimeter around Dokgo Jin.
Through air thick with the stench of grease and raw iron, a suffocating pressure bore down upon him.
Incredible. To think these are not living creatures.
Intellectually, he knew they were merely lumps of forged metal. Yet watching them move under their own propulsion, he could not banish the impression that each and every one was alive.
Crafted by the Divine Mechanist, letting down my guard is unthinkable.
A black haze coiled around Dokgo Jin’s body—his Ink Flame Qi creeping into the air.
The foremost Vajra Bronze Golem hoisted a massive steel arm.
It was no ordinary punch. As internal gears locked into place, a powerful spring mechanism within its forearm snapped forward, adding devastating rotational force to the strike.
Screeech!
Tearing through the atmosphere with a violent sonic howl, an iron fist the size of a man’s head plummeted straight toward the crown of Dokgo Jin’s skull.
The trial of Mugeuk Gate had commenced.
The golem’s attack was surprisingly agile for its immense bulk, yet to Dokgo Jin’s eyes, it remained crude. It was slow enough that even a Second-Class Realm martial artist could avoid it with ease so long as their wits were sharp.
Dokgo Jin slid backward with a light step, effortlessly deflecting the trajectory of the iron fist.
And yet—
Before his heel even met the bluestone floor, an icy chill shot up his spine.
Glancing over his shoulder, Dokgo Jin was genuinely startled.
When did it—
Another Vajra Bronze Golem had anticipated the exact angle of his retreat, already thrusting a colossal iron fist toward him.
Dokgo Jin shifted his footwork instantly to evade the strike. Yet that was merely the overture. Wherever Dokgo Jin moved, another golem stood waiting without fail. Their maneuvers were so eerily precise that it seemed as though they had read his thoughts, securing his evasive positions before he even took a step.
A formation that calculates every single vector of retreat in response to an attack?
But something even more astonishing lurked beneath the surface. The heavy grinding of gears that had echoed when they first moved was no longer audible. The sound had not simply died; rather, an oppressive, suffocating silence swallowed it whole, as if smothered by an invisible barrier.
Dokgo Jin soon grasped the reason.
An absolute formation has been woven into the floor!
His heightened senses perceived an insidious flow of energy rising from the flagstones—a current so subtle that an ordinary master would never have noticed. Fortunately, it placed no restriction upon his own movements, but thanks to that formation, the presence of the Vajra Bronze Golems was thoroughly extinguished.
Being devoid of life, they had neither breath to betray them nor internal energy to govern. With their mechanical clamor erased as well, their strikes could only be countered if confirmed with the naked eye.
Quite troublesome.
Yet that was the extent of it. To Dokgo Jin, who could read the subtlest currents of the surrounding air, the absence of sound or martial presence posed no true barrier.
Circulating his Ink Flame Qi, Dokgo Jin wove gracefully through the relentless press of the bronze golems.
After half an incense stick’s time had passed, Dokgo Jin realized that merely evading their strikes would never see him through this gate.
Fine. Let us see just how resilient you are.
Darting past a golem, Dokgo Jin lightly planted a palm strike into its flank.
Clang!
Dokgo Jin flinched. The rebound nearly shattered his balance.
To think it would be this dense.
Though he had not infused a great amount of internal energy, the strike had carried enough force to cave in a deep handprint upon ordinary tempered steel. Yet far from denting the automaton, a staggering repulsive force surged back through his arm.
Had I committed more inner strength, I would have suffered a severe backlash.
The unknown alloy was formidable enough, but some peculiar mechanism nestled within seemed engineered specifically to rebound external shock.
Then what if I forgo direct physical impact?
Weaving through the relentless onslaught, Dokgo Jin flicked his fingers.
It was the Returning Seal Finger, dense with condensed Ink Flame Qi.
Clang! Cl-cl-clatter! Ping!
Orange sparks erupted like frantic fireworks against the gloom. It was a piercing finger art potent enough to bore straight through the skulls of Kunlun Demon Palace masters in an instant, yet against the Vajra Bronze Golems, it was useless. As razor-sharp as the finger qi was, it left only faint, whitish gouges upon their armored plating, failing to stall their ponderous charge by even half a pace.
Viciously durable.
Though he systematically struck across their bodies in search of a fatal weak point, he achieved nothing more than confirming their sheer invulnerability.
Of course, he was not without recourse.
If I draw Extinction now...
Channeled with Ink Flame Qi, the divine sword Extinction could sever even these impenetrable bronze automata.
Yet... would that truly be the correct path?
The trial could never have presumed that every challenger possessed a peerless divine weapon. Destroying the Vajra Bronze Golems by brute force was surely not the true condition for passing. Among the past challengers, there must have been those capable of breaking them, yet the fact that none had passed was proof enough.
Even as Dokgo Jin weighed his options, the automata pressed their assault without a moment's pause.
At last, an idea crystallized in his mind.
Destroy something other than the golems.
Having fully adapted to their offensive patterns, Dokgo Jin leaped into the air to slip past their reach.
Whoosh! Swiiish!
Rising two feet above the ground, his body spun like a top before plunging straight down toward the flagstones.
A spinning downward strike infused with Ink Flame Qi, unleashing a shattering shockwave through the earth.
It was the Swirling Quake Kick of the Dark Soul Style. Reinforced by his Ink Flame Qi, its devastating power was amplified to terrifying proportions.
I will shatter the very foundation driving these automatons!
Booooom!
To his astonishment, the floor beneath his heel rippled violently like liquid.
What is this?!
It was a phenomenon Dokgo Jin had never before experienced.
And in that very instant, the crimson gleam radiating from the golems' cyclopean eyes blazed with blinding ferocity—and their movements shifted.
They had become incomparably, terrifyingly faster than before.
Dark Sky Martial Emperor
Author | Jeong Cheon
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Executive Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. - Dreambooks
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