Chapter 299
Chapter 299
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 299
Chapter Title: Ten Thousand Calamities Drunk
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Chwi Paegwang had hated alcohol ever since he was a child.
His father, who worked as a coachman, squandered every penny he earned on wild drinking binges at inns and taverns.
Because of that, his mother had abandoned him and fled long ago.
Left alone in that freezing house, Chwi Paegwang despised both his father—who would stumble home blackout drunk, screaming obscenities and lashing out with violence—and the liquor that had turned him into a monster.
The first decision he made upon reaching adulthood?
Independence.
He left the family that could offer him nothing but harm and settled down in a new village.
Having watched his father handle horses all those years, he landed a job tending to them at a stable.
But disasters strike without warning.
One day, his entire life flipped upside down.
Dragged along to a boisterous drinking party at an inn by his senior coachmen, Chwi Paegwang hesitated.
In that raucous crowd, could he really ignore their insistent urging to drink?
After agonizing over it, he finally took his very first sip of alcohol.
And the next day.
When he regained his senses, the area around him was drenched in blood.
And there wasn't a single living soul left nearby.
Screeech!
Tilted cross-shaped sword strikes poured down in unison.
With them, the sealed petals were sliced away, revealing Chwi Paegwang's body once more.
But he was far from unscathed.
Blood was gushing from his scalp in thick streams.
He had barely escaped Hyeok Mulin's Demonic Flower Calyx Pierce before crossing into the Yellow Springs, but he couldn't avoid sustaining a mortal wound.
Crimson blood dripped down, blurring his vision.
Huff— huff—
The black flower that had just engulfed him...
Thinking back on it twisted Chwi Paegwang's lips into a grimace.
"No way..."
Just then, his senses snapped back into focus. He snapped his twin blades up, warily scanning his surroundings.
"Where are you?!"
All he saw in his field of view was Byeok Jang-ho, cowering against the wall in terror—shaking uncontrollably, curled up tight with his head bowed.
Hyeok Mulin was nowhere to be seen.
Then.
"Hoh."
Chwi Paegwang's movements froze solid.
"To survive that..."
The voice rang out right behind him, tickling his ear.
Whoosh!
Twisting his body in an instant, Chwi Paegwang lashed out wildly with his twin blades.
But Hyeok Mulin effortlessly dodged by taking a single step back.
Hyeok Mulin stared intently at his blood-soaked form.
"Looks like the strike landed properly."
Earlier, while watching the duel between Geomjon and Geomseon, his battle lust had boiled over. The technique he had awakened to and wanted to test was this very one.
When Geomseon had shown him her sword before, it had inspired him with the image of a plum blossom slowly unfurling.
Reimagined in Hyeok Mulin's own style, it became the Demonic Flower Calyx Pierce.
And it had been a resounding success.
This was the first time he'd ever used it on a real opponent, but its power and overwhelming presence exceeded even his expectations.
Yet Chwi Paegwang had somehow survived.
'To charge right through it.'
Not by defending, but by advancing.
Once trapped inside the jaws of the Demonic Flower Calyx Pierce, no defensive stance could withstand it.
But there was one way.
Sacrificing limbs if necessary and hurling your entire body forward to break through.
And that's the path Chwi Paegwang had chosen.
A fatal wound was a small price to pay for the one shot at survival.
'Well, that's fine by me.'
He had come all this way—losing his opponent to a single sword stroke wouldn't balance the books.
With a smirk, Hyeok Mulin leveled his sword tip at him once more.
Then.
"...You bastard."
Chwi Paegwang fixed his bloodshot eyes on Hyeok Mulin.
The aura from that sword art earlier had unmistakably been demonic energy.
Realizing he was facing a demon, Chwi Paegwang recalled his name.
And something clicked. He opened his mouth.
"No way... Heav—"
"Yes. The Heavenly Demon."
Hyeok Mulin cut him off, answering before the word could finish.
Chwi Paegwang's shock at the confirmation was fleeting.
"...I see."
His thoughts cleared in an instant.
Why the Heavenly Demon was here, why he had sought him out—none of that mattered anymore.
This place had become a battlefield.
And on a battlefield, any enemy blocking his path—Heavenly Demon or otherwise—had to die.
That was all.
But even so, Chwi Paegwang's instincts screamed the truth.
Having barely escaped his grasp with his life, he stood no chance of victory right now.
'Not like this, at least.'
Clack.
Aiming his twin blades straight ahead, Chwi Paegwang sharpened every sense, zeroing in on Hyeok Mulin's fingertips.
From here on, not a single mistake could be tolerated.
Any error meant death.
Locking eyes with Hyeok Mulin, Chwi Paegwang soon stepped forward.
Tat-tat-tat!
Low to the ground, he surged straight ahead. When he closed to about a zhang and a half...
Shuuuuk!
A blade slipped from his hand like water, flying toward him.
Hyeok Mulin casually shifted his head aside to dodge. It smashed into the wall with a thunderous crash, kicking up dust.
At the same moment, Chwi Paegwang thrust his remaining blade at Hyeok Mulin's lower abdomen while charging.
Hyeok Mulin lightly sidestepped, slipping behind where Chwi Paegwang had been.
An easy attack to evade.
A blade optimized for slashing loses its edge when used for thrusting.
As Hyeok Mulin turned back to face him after dodging, something felt off.
"...?"
Chwi Paegwang hadn't reemerged from the rising dust cloud.
Not that he had fled.
His presence lingered right there before him.
So Hyeok Mulin waited outside, letting him reveal himself.
As the dust settled and visibility cleared, his figure finally came into view.
But.
Clack.
Chwi Paegwang was staring not at Hyeok Mulin, but at the crumbled wall.
He reached into the hole and pulled something out.
Swish—
In his hand from the wall was a single wine cup, strangely pristine—white and transparent as jade, revealing its contents clearly.
What it held was a clear liquor, shimmering like fine rice wine with a sweet aroma.
But this was no ordinary brew.
Ten Thousand Calamities Drunk.
A fiendish poison brewed for three thousand days from millennium-old viper gallbladders, frostroot ginseng slumbering beneath ten-thousand-year glaciers, and rare spirit herbs blooming amid rocky wastes.
One drop to shatter your inner energy. One cup to intoxicate even immortals and strip away reason—the legendary elixir now rested in his grasp.
Gazing down at the Ten Thousand Calamities Drunk, Chwi Paegwang's pupils brimmed with a profound hesitation never seen before.
'Do I really drink this?'
The moment it touched his lips, returning to his current state would be impossible.
But a glance at Hyeok Mulin brought swift resolve.
Fling!
He downed the cup in one gulp. His pupils dilated massively.
Crash!
The cup slipped from his hand, shattering against the floor.
Ragged breaths rasped through his parched lips. A feral twitch seized his clenched jaw.
His entire body flushed red, like flesh roasted under the sun.
From his bowed head, through the tangle of disheveled hair, bloodshot eyes gleamed.
"Kuhuh..."
A hoarse growl erupted from Chwi Paegwang's throat as his Adam's apple quivered ominously.
His unfocused gaze wandered the void. His eyes darted aimlessly.
Staggering about, he scanned the surroundings, searching for something.
At last, he found his fallen twin blades and gripped them anew.
And in that instant.
Clack.
The drunken lurch vanished like a lie.
His head whipped toward Hyeok Mulin with unbelievable speed—impossible for that body.
In a heartbeat.
A chilling glint flashed in his once-vacant pupils.
Boom!
Kicking off the floor, Chwi Paegwang hurtled toward Hyeok Mulin.
Gone was the stumbling fool; his form shot straight and swift as an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
'So that was the hidden move.'
Hyeok Mulin's gaze chilled as he watched the rapid approach.
Throwing the blade, the thrust at Hyeok Mulin—none of it had been serious.
The true goal: reaching the liquor hidden in the wall.
Fweeeee!
Unleashing Blood Wind Spiral Strike, his body spun wildly.
Twisting with bone-shattering force, he wove his twin blades into a vortex.
Everything the whirlwind touched would be savagely shredded as it bore down on Hyeok Mulin.
Facing that Blood Wind Spiral Strike and that Chwi Paegwang, Hyeok Mulin slowly shifted his sword.
Adjusting the angle precisely, he tilted it sideways.
The instant Chwi Paegwang closed in and brought his electrified blades crashing down in the vortex...
Slash—
A horizontal line sliced through.
And with it, both blades cleaved clean in half.
"...!"
Chwi Paegwang faltered, glancing down.
Seeing his weapons shattered in his grip, he couldn't hide his shock.
He had staked everything on this fight.
Drunk the one-and-only Ten Thousand Calamities Drunk to explode his inner energy flow, even abandoning any hope of returning to normal.
Yet why did his strikes still fail to touch the man?
He didn't know.
No answer came.
To uncover it—even with half his blades gone—Chwi Paegwang pressed on.
The vortex around his charging form dissipated, replaced by a gale-force flurry of slashes.
His staggering twin blades danced like living things, carving the air.
One aimed high from above, while the other sneaked low from below.
No fixed forms bound his Mad Wind Twin Slashes.
Unpredictable, erratic blades lunged at Hyeok Mulin's entire body.
Still not giving up?
Hyeok Mulin regarded him with impassive eyes.
And his sword moved again.
Slash.
Like slicing paper, he halved the already-bisected blades.
Then shattered the fragments completely.
But Chwi Paegwang didn't stop.
No blades? He channeled inner energy into his bare hands.
Slash.
Hyeok Mulin unhesitatingly severed both arms.
Then chopped off the elbows, sliced the shoulders.
Thus bereft of both arms, Chwi Paegwang finally understood.
Why no technique could reach Hyeok Mulin's body.
It was simple.
'Our levels were never the same.'
Ten Thousand Calamities Drunk, exploding inner energy, even tapping innate essence—futile.
From the start, Hyeok Mulin had stood atop a wall Chwi Paegwang could never scale.
Now he knew: victory was impossible.
Impossible even with a whole body—how much more with both arms gone?
Yet even realizing this, drowning in utter helplessness, he didn't stop.
Something still worked.
Chwi Paegwang lunged wildly, jaws gaping to bite Hyeok Mulin, head-first.
Watching that mad spectacle, Hyeok Mulin no longer dodged.
He simply stood there, gripping his sword.
Stab.
Chwi Paegwang's charging jaws halted just shy of Hyeok Mulin's nose.
Feeling the heavy resistance at his sword-tip, Hyeok Mulin met the gaze of Chwi Paegwang, who coughed up blood.
Slowly, his jaws sagged open. The light faded from his pupils.
And those eyes drifted off into the distant void.
"Even if it was the booze fueling you..."
Witnessing Chwi Paegwang's end, Hyeok Mulin murmured softly.
"Your willpower was unmatched."