Chapter 224: Blood Sea Demon Yun Sak-2
Chapter 224: Blood Sea Demon Yun Sak-2
The two men who had created that tremendous collision, Seonwoo Jin and Yun Sak, were now staring at each other with the sinking flagship between them.
Each stood atop the mast of a ship positioned on either side of the flagship, utterly unmoving despite the violent rocking of the vessels.
Yun Sak ground his teeth and muttered as if chewing and spitting out the words.
"You bastard...."
His eyes blazed and seethed with fury.
If one could kill with a glare alone, it felt as though Seonwoo Jin would have been torn apart on the spot.
But before that murderous gaze, Seonwoo Jin was grinning.
Because he could read the surprise and bewilderment mixed within Yun Sak's killing-intent-filled eyes.
He was clearly bewildered by Seonwoo Jin's 'Opening Heaven,' which had deflected his own quick-draw head-on.
Seonwoo Jin smiled a bloody smirk and opened his mouth toward the man standing on the mast opposite him.
"Hyeolhae Mado Yun Sak! Is that all you've got?! If so, I'm sorely disappointed! If that's the full extent of your power, then rescuing your son is going to be a bit difficult!"
Those words precisely struck the weakest part of Yun Sak's heart.
Being unable to rescue his son.
At that, Yun Sak's expression twisted like a demonic ghost.
"Uwaaaaaaah! I'll kill you!"
He let out a monstrous howl and flung his body like a fired arrow.
Paang!
He stepped once on the sinking flagship, then flew straight toward Seonwoo Jin.
He was in the stance of a quick-draw, gripping the blade and preparing to strike.
But this time, Seonwoo Jin did not collide head-on.
He let out a derisive chuckle at the sight of Yun Sak, who seemed to have lost his reason, and then fell effortlessly down from the mast.
It was a movement technique as swift and natural as flowing like the wind.
Hwiiiiik!
"You think you can get away?!"
Yun Sak drew his blade toward the ship Seonwoo Jin had moved to.
Shaaaaaak!
In an instant, a line of light was drawn horizontally across the ship and the river.
Then, a moment later, the ship slowly began to split diagonally.
At first, the ship peeled apart slowly, as if sliding, but soon it was caught in the surging waves and split apart with a crack. The pirates aboard the vessel at this sudden catastrophe could not help but scream.
"Uwaaaaaah! The ship!"
"Fa-faction leader! Why our ship?!"
"We're falling! Save us!"
Yun Sak paid no heed whatsoever to his subordinates' outcries.
The only thing he cared about was the location of Seonwoo Jin, who had evaded his quick-draw.
He had cut both the ship and the river, but he had failed to cut Seonwoo Jin himself.
Seonwoo Jin, who had escaped Yun Sak's slash with wind-like movement, was now soaring upward toward Yun Sak.
Paak!
Then, grinning at Yun Sak, he brought his sword down.
He had drawn out his opponent's quick-draw. Now it was his turn.
Mukrang Sword Technique, First Stance.
Opening Heaven.
Chwaaaaaaak!
Seonwoo Jin's sword strike, tearing through space itself, descended upon Yun Sak.
A massive abyssal rift was opening before Yun Sak's eyes.
"Keuk?!"
Yun Sak only now realized his own rashness.
To face an opponent possessing such a sword strike and recklessly fire off a quick-draw he could not even properly aim, exposing an opening—it had been a massive blunder.
But regret was always too late by nature. Yun Sak gritted his teeth and swung his blade with desperate force.
It might not have the power of his quick-draw, but it was a slash that compressed all his enlightenment.
Shwiiiiik!
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
In that moment, with a tremendous roar that was unbelievable as a mere collision of sword strike and blade strike, Yun Sak was flung backward like a cannonball.
His slash had failed to break through Seonwoo Jin's Opening Heaven.
Peo-eong!
Raising a massive spray of water, his body plunged into the river.
It was a violent speed, enough to make one wonder if he would embed himself straight into the riverbed.
Tadak!
Seonwoo Jin landed back on a ship and waited briefly for him to emerge.
It was because he knew that, although Yun Sak had failed to break Opening Heaven, he was not yet dead.
But as time passed, he did not rise back to the surface.
It was as if he had simply drowned as he was.
Seonwoo Jin gazed at the dark water's surface for a moment, then flung his body toward another ship.
After all, the ship was sinking, so he could not remain on it for long.
Pabak!
But just as Seonwoo Jin was flying through the air, moving toward another ship,
with a huge spray of water, Yun Sak shot up like a dolphin.
Chwaaak!
Seonwoo Jin's eyes clearly registered his heavily injured, bleeding body, and despite that, the gleam in his eyes that flashed like a wild beast's.
It was a gaze filled with killing intent just as before, but unlike before, it was a cold, rational gaze that had not lost its reason in the slightest.
Mukrang said,
-Indeed, he was aiming for that.
'It seems so.'
From his past experience fighting the Hainan Sect, Seonwoo Jin knew all too well that if he fought Yun Sak on the water, he himself, lacking in water techniques, would be at an absolute disadvantage.
That was why he had agitated him, trying to make him lose his reason....
It seemed the battle-hardened veteran had grasped that fact immediately.
Shwiiiiik!
Yun Sak's quick-draw drew a line across space once more.
It was a line of light that seemed to split the sky in two, encompassing Seonwoo Jin, who was already hurling himself through the air.
Shaaaaaak!
An illusion of his slash cleaving the heavens appeared, and in the next moment, Seonwoo Jin was able to safely leap onto the ship he had initially aimed for.
Tadak!
It was because Seonwoo Jin's movement technique, which had reached the peak, allowed him to kick off the empty air, accelerating and escaping the line Yun Sak had drawn.
In movement technique, Seonwoo Jin was decidedly superior.
At that, Yun Sak fixed Seonwoo Jin with a sharp glare and fell back into the water.
Pungdeong!
Seonwoo Jin focused intently on the water where he had fallen.
But in the darkness of this late hour, he could not visually determine his underwater position.
The same was true of the Mind's Eye, which perceived surroundings through the flow of air.
Perhaps if Seonwoo Jin himself entered the water, but otherwise, he could not feel Yun Sak's movements within it at all.
He felt a sense of frustration at the fact that he could not read his opponent, something he had not experienced in a long while.
It was then.
Chwaaaaaak!
The ship Seonwoo Jin had been on was suddenly split in half.
At the abrupt twisting and wrenching, the pirates who had been watching Seonwoo Jin with bated breath screamed out.
"Uwaaaaaah!"
"The shi-ship?!"
In that moment, Seonwoo Jin could immediately grasp what Yun Sak was thinking.
It appeared he was trying to eliminate his footholds to create an opening.
Seonwoo Jin threw his body toward another nearby ship without hesitation.
Pabak!
Since he had just used his quick-draw, he would need a little time before he could use it again. Seonwoo Jin seized that opening without missing a beat and moved directly to another ship.
Tadak!
Seonwoo Jin landed safely on a nearby vessel. As he thought, it seemed his opponent could not use a quick-draw and immediately attack again right away.
But the moment he thought that, the ship he was on split apart as well.
Chwaaaaaaak!
"Hm."
It appeared the bastard intended to eliminate every last foothold.
Seonwoo Jin clicked his tongue and immediately flung his body toward another ship.
"Tch!"
Pabak!
And a moment later, that ship, too, split in two and sank.
It was a relentless course of action, as if he gave absolutely no thought to the fact that his own subordinates were aboard those ships.
Flinging his body toward yet another ship, Seonwoo Jin frowned.
'Troublesome.'
If Yun Sak had decided to sink all the ships without hesitating to kill his own subordinates, then that was clearly no ordinary matter.
If he made a mistake, he could end up in the same situation as Jeung Chil when he fought Oh Ik-deok of the Hainan Sect.
He needed some kind of countermeasure.
***
Hyeolhae Mado Yun Sak rose to the surface between the ships he had cleaved, took a single breath, and then submerged again like a dolphin.
And he advanced toward the next ship.
Even at this very moment, a sense of urgency pressed upon him at the thought that his precious son might be in danger, but as a battle-hardened veteran, he knew well.
That the longest way around was often the fastest way there.
That the one who became impatient first here would be the one to lose.
Furthermore, against an opponent who could evenly match his quick-draw strike for strike, maximizing the opponent's weakness rather than confronting them head-on would be the quickest way to deal with them.
And above all, his own body was not in normal condition right now.
'Keuk!'
Yun Sak, who had been swimming like a dolphin toward the next ship, suddenly clutched his chest and vomited blood.
Ulkeok!
It was the price for having forcibly taken the opponent's sword strike earlier.
He had roughly sealed his blood points to stop the external bleeding from the lacerations all over his body, but the internal injuries he had sustained then continued to tighten their grip around Yun Sak's throat.
He could not even tell how much longer he could keep moving.
But after vomiting a handful of blood, Yun Sak immediately cleaved through the current again and began swimming forward.
He was vaguely deducing.
That this fight was a battle of endurance.
That if only he could endure his internal injuries and eliminate all the footholds, his victory would be assured.
And in the end, he endured to the very last.
Kwajijijik!
Yun Sak endured the sharp pain piercing his chest and finally split the last ship apart.
Now, the bastard's footholds had all vanished.
Of course, fragments of the ships filled the surface of the river, but there was no way someone who did not know water techniques could step on such things and contend against him.
Now, the match was as good as over.
But just as Yun Sak, who had sunk the last ship while enduring the sharp pain, was thinking such a thought,
he suddenly realized something.
That along with the last ship, the bastard's presence had also vanished....
"!"
Yun Sak was horrified.
The bastard who had been hopping around the ship like a grasshopper just moments ago, dodging him left and right, had vanished without a trace in an instant.
It was nothing short of mind-boggling.
'...Concealment?'
That seemed to be the case.
Because otherwise, it was inexplicable.
But concealment that could fool his senses—he simply couldn't accept it.
Was the bastard some kind of supreme assassin or something?
Yun Sak focused his entire mind to locate the bastard's position beneath the water's surface.
But it was impossible.
For one, there were far too many places the bastard could hide.
The entire river surface was covered with the wreckage of the ships he himself had destroyed.
Yun Sak felt his breath growing increasingly short.
It was time to surface again and draw breath.
But he couldn't surface so easily.
Because the bastard was surely hiding somewhere among those fragments, waiting for him to emerge.
If he, short of breath and with internal injuries to boot, took that same attack again, the match could end right there.
Yun Sak gritted his teeth.
He had thought that destroying all the ships would end the fight, but the situation had instead been reversed.
The bastard was truly maddening.
***
At the same moment, Seonwoo Jin, concealed upon a piece of floating debris, was focusing his mind to read the movements beneath the water's surface.
But it was by no means an easy task.
He had to use the Light Body Technique to reduce his body weight and lessen the pressure on the floating debris, while simultaneously adapting to the unfamiliar vibrations underwater.
Moreover, even as time passed, there was no movement from Yun Sak.
Surely, unless he were a fish, he couldn't remain underwater indefinitely, yet he wasn't surfacing.
If he had surfaced thoughtlessly, that moment could have decided the match, but it seemed the bastard had also accurately grasped the situation.
He was indeed a formidable opponent.
'But... how long can he keep that up?'
The bastard would have to surface eventually, one way or another.
And the longer that took, the more disadvantageous it would be for him.
With what little breath he had left, he wouldn't be able to execute the same sword strike as before, and his internal injuries would only worsen with time.
So for Seonwoo Jin, all he had to do was wait for the bastard.
The moment the bastard surfaced, the match would be decided.
It was when Seonwoo Jin was thinking such thoughts.
Suddenly, he felt a violent vibration at the tips of his fingers, which were lightly submerged in the water.
Something roughly the size of a person was rapidly rising toward the surface.
'Is it him?!'
Seonwoo Jin immediately prepared to strike.
The moment the bastard surfaced, he intended to unleash 'Opening Heaven.'
The next moment, it burst upward, kicking up a spray of water.
Chwaaak!
"?!"
Seonwoo Jin, about to launch his sword strike, hesitated for an instant.
Because at the very last moment, he realized that what had surfaced was not the bastard.
'A corpse?'
Indeed.
What had surfaced was a dead man's corpse.
It seemed the bastard had hurled the sunken corpse upward.
'Clever. He used his head.'
It was a decent method, in its own way.
Because he had very nearly been fooled.
But since he had already considered that possibility, the attempt had proven futile.
At least, Seonwoo Jin thought so.
Until that moment, when the back of his head suddenly went cold.
"?!"
At the bone-chilling sensation, Seonwoo Jin hastily launched his body upward.
Paaak!
In that instant, the river split apart and the bastard's sword strike came crashing toward Seonwoo Jin from beneath the water.
It was a situation he hadn't been able to prepare for.
"Keuk!"
***
Yun Sak was a man who had lived his entire life on rough seas.
As such, his Water Technique was far superior to what Seonwoo Jin had expected.
Above all, his senses underwater were so acute they could rival Seonwoo Jin's Mind's Eye above water.
Acute enough to feel the subtle hesitation in Seonwoo Jin's movements when he had thrown the corpse upward.
For Yun Sak, that alone was enough.
'Hup!'
Yun Sak used all his remaining breath and executed his sword strike.
Shwiiiiik!
His sword strike, delivered with all his might, was splitting the river and the bastard as if by miracle.
If the bastard couldn't sense the vibrations beneath the water, this could end the fight.
Kwaaaaang!
A powerful impact was felt.
It seemed the bastard had blocked his sword strike. Ending the bastard with this single strike appeared to have been too ambitious.
But it didn't matter.
Just as he himself hadn't, the bastard wouldn't have taken his sword strike without suffering damage, and now that he had revealed himself, he could never be a match for him in the water.
Yun Sak surged toward the surface at full speed.
"Puha!"
First, he drew in a desperate lungful of air, his breathing having reached its limit.
Then he moved to swing his blade at the bastard again.
As expected, blood was streaming from the mouth of the bastard, who had been sent flying into the air.
He had sustained serious internal injuries.
"It's over!"
Yun Sak moved to swing his blade at the bastard.
But the bastard, who had been flung high into the sky, was a step ahead.
Though he had surely sustained internal injuries, the bastard had swung his sword first while Yun Sak was catching his breath.
Hwaaaaak!
The moment the bastard unfurled his sword, a look of alarm flickered in Yun Sak's eyes.
Because the bastard's sword was multiplying into dozens, hundreds of sword shadows.
It was like looking at the sun radiating light in all directions.
But Yun Sak gritted his teeth.
Because he instantly assessed that, though it looked dazzling, it was nothing more than an Illusion Sword.
Resorting to such petty tricks—it seemed the bastard was making his final desperate struggle.
Ignoring the fantastically multiplying sword shadows, Yun Sak moved to swing his curved blade again toward their center.
This time, it truly seemed he could end it.
But at that moment, the bastard shouted first.
"Go!"
What?
A look of confusion rose in Yun Sak's eyes.
And the next moment, he was aghast.
Because the hundreds of sword shadows that had been mere illusions just moments ago had suddenly taken on substance and were closing in on him from all directions.
Though he could not have known it, Seonwoo Jin's 'Emptiness is Form' had been unleashed.
Shwiiiiik!
"Keuk!"
Yun Sak couldn't comprehend this situation at all.
But not understanding it didn't mean he could just sit there and take the hits.
Realizing he couldn't defend against each of the bastard's sword strikes individually, Yun Sak released his internal energy in a single burst.
"Hap!"
Then, tangible Energetic Force erupted from Yun Sak's body, forming an absolutely impenetrable barrier.
It was his Protective Strong Qi.
Hwaaaaak!
Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tung!
His Protective Strong Qi was able to nullify Seonwoo Jin's 'Emptiness is Form' without much difficulty.
But that didn't mean there was no cost.
"Keulleok!"
As Yun Sak retracted his Protective Strong Qi, he had to vomit blood once again.
Because his internal injuries were steadily worsening.
In particular, using the Protective Strong Qi just now had definitely been too much.
Yun Sak spat out the blood as quickly as possible and hurriedly raised his blade to defend against Seonwoo Jin's attack.
Because he thought the bastard wouldn't miss the opening he had just shown.
But.
"!"
Scanning his surroundings, Yun Sak realized.
That while he had blocked the bastard's attack with his Protective Strong Qi and vomited blood, the bastard's traces had vanished once again.
"This bastard...."
Yun Sak ground his teeth.
Because he immediately realized what was happening.
The bastard had chosen a war of attrition against him, wounded as he was.
Pungdeong!
Yun Sak's body fell back into the water.
It was a repetition of the same situation as before.
'Keuk!'
Underwater, Yun Sak clutched his chest.
It wasn't good.
The situation might be the same as before, but his condition was not.
His internal injuries had worsened considerably compared to earlier.
Recklessly using his Protective Strong Qi had been the decisive factor.
Yun Sak's heart grew increasingly impatient.
Now, there was truly no time left.
If he wasn't careful, he might collapse without even getting to properly fight the bastard.
***
Meanwhile, Seonwoo Jin's condition was also not good.
Because after taking Yun Sak's sword strike and sustaining internal injuries, he had immediately had to deploy the Illusion Sword technique and 'Emptiness is Form.'
So even though Yun Sak had shown an opening, he hadn't been able to bring himself to attack him.
Because if he recklessly attacked in that state and was blocked, there might be no next move.
Seonwoo Jin, barely maintaining his concealment, forcibly suppressed the blood that threatened to surge up.
His internal injuries would worsen, but he had no choice.
Because if he vomited blood now and revealed his position, it would be the end.
'Huuuu.'
Seonwoo Jin quietly took deep breaths and soothed his internal injuries.
As expected, Yun Sak, one of the Three Demons of the Southern Sea, was no easy opponent.
Setting aside his martial arts, the man himself was terrifyingly tenacious and seasoned.
He had never imagined it would become a battle of endurance rather than a battle of martial arts.
He had succeeded in rattling him, and thought he could deal with him easily....
It seemed that picking a fight with him on the water in the first place had been a reckless act.
But there was no use regretting it now.
Now, he had to endure somehow.
And this time, he had to end it for good.
Because if he couldn't, he would have no strength left to attempt anything further.
In a state of extreme tension, Seonwoo Jin began to wait for the bastard to surface.