Chapter 61
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: Sin - 3
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It was hard to tear their feet away. The enemies pressed relentlessly against the wanderers.
Not with martial arts or hidden weapons. The process was brutally simple.
Their bodies.
Those who had nothing but their own flesh threw everything they had into the fray.
"Hah!"
The Radiant Tiger of Fierce Combat's greatsword moved without cease. Sometimes slashing, sometimes thrusting. Relentlessly, as if shaking off the heavy darkness of night.
Each step seemed to bring three swings. And the Wind-Swept Plum Sword beside him wasn't slacking either. The Plum Blossom Sword technique, the essence of the Daoist illusory sword, unfolded endlessly.
Both were at a level where one could call them a match for a hundred. If their opponents had been mere untrained folk.
"Come on...!"
"Uwaaak!"
The fight dragged on in the most inefficient way. The enemies weren't wooden stumps, training dummies, or puppets.
They were living, breathing humans who could think and judge.
They screamed. They felt pain. Yet they didn't retreat. Grimacing, shouting with all their might, they somehow wedged their bodies between the blades.
The one-strike kills that had happened at first no longer occurred. Now, it took two or three strikes, stabbing the sword in deep before fully taking their lives.
It was no different from hell itself. One could mistake it for a mass suicide. Why didn't they dodge the blades? Had they all gone mad as a group?
And at the end of it all.
Flash. The first streak of blood appeared. Someone's nail had grazed the arm of the Radiant Tiger of Fierce Combat, who led the front.
The man, with a sword buried in his shoulder, staggered forward and tried to grab the Radiant Tiger's arm. It was chilling. If he hadn't countered with the Peng clan's footwork, he might have been in real trouble.
"You alright?"
"Fit as a fiddle! Just like morning exercise!"
The Radiant Tiger of Fierce Combat swung his greatsword boldly with a shout. But his slightly ragged breathing couldn't be hidden.
The keenly sharpened blade was already dulled. Smeared with flesh and blood.
'How many have I killed?'
It felt like countless, yet the corpses strewn on the ground numbered barely twenty.
Not one retained its full form. The wide-open eyes of the dead bulged with burst blood vessels.
The Radiant Tiger of Fierce Combat felt like he was facing something unprecedented. Something that couldn't be cut by a sword. Something that couldn't be overcome with techniques.
"Not yet?"
The voice of the Wind Yang Initial Sage rang out. He had been using his leg techniques.
His kicks, like iron clubs to low-level Demonic Cultists, weren't invincible after all. The steel-toed boots were starting to dent.
"Almost there! Hang in there!"
The Chain Iron Path had no time to respond either. A quick mental calculation of time and distance showed they were on track.
The hillside was coming up soon. The thick vegetation would make it hard for many to pursue. Their steps quickened dramatically. The Radiant Tiger seemed to have reached the base.
A Peng clan elite was no different from a master of lightness skill and footwork. Manipulating the Body Movement —the foundation of all martial arts.
They plunged through bushes and tree roots without hesitation. Toward the hilltop, the summit. The Chain Iron Path's plan was to crest it and break away from the battlefield.
That was when it happened.
"Watch out!"
Clang!
A bluish sword blade appeared before the Radiant Tiger of Fierce Combat as he hastily cleared the path ahead. It was the Wind-Swept Plum Sword's Plum Blossom Sword, flying in like an arrow.
The elegant silver blade tracing a graceful curve had blocked awls cunningly hanging in wait.
Sharpened from wood. Even a top expert couldn't dodge without a scratch.
But what could a mere scratch do?
"This."
"Let me see it."
The Chain Iron Path quickly snatched the awl, careful not to let the tip touch his hand.
Under the sword's light, the end gleamed strangely. Oily. Snake venom.
"If it had hit, it would've drained a fair bit of internal energy."
Not a trap for killing, but for attrition. The Demonic Cult demanded a war of exhaustion. A protracted battle.
Swoosh. The Chain Iron Path scanned the surroundings.
Traps hung between trees. The knots and bindings were famous among ronin, but this was different.
If trap mechanisms had schools, this was far cleaner. Not the flashy, precise work of clans, but simple, deadly, and easy for anyone to replicate.
Its origin wasn't the martial world.
"Military style."
Thoroughly practical. Surprisingly many from the military ended up in the jianghu upon retirement. Mostly ex-officers.
Those soldier types common among ronin—one must have joined the Demonic Cult. The Chain Iron Path eyed the trap with a complicated gaze.
"We've been had."
"What do you mean?"
"It was a drive hunt."
The Little Divine Dragon took up the grim mutter with a similarly dour expression.
The Demonic Cultists below the hill weren't climbing up after them. Had they given up the chase?
No.
The Little Divine Dragon switched places in his mind. What would he do if he were the enemy commander, a Demonic Cult general?
Looking back, it was all too simple. The single miraculously intact hut in the burned village. The boy's suspicious appearance and disappearance.
And the enemy's wealth of experience and knowledge.
An ignorant person couldn't predict it. But a seasoned, experienced warrior could.
In the sudden night raid and assault, the Chain Iron Path had made the best call. Just as everyone expected.
Yes. The enemy general had anticipated that too.
Rumble. Twenty new cultists appeared. Unlike the villagers who barely had proper weapons.
Seemingly looted from somewhere, each held a fine sword or blade. At their head stood a man silently glaring this way, wielding two axes.
His white robes stood out even in the dark. The number five embroidered on his chest.
The Fifth Messenger.
He remembered.
Back in the north, he had gone by the name Jo Ryang.
Unable to learn martial arts, he couldn't rise in rank, but he had innate talent and strength. His axe-handling skill caught eyes, landing him a spot in the military.
From private to squad leader, then to platoon sergeant. Soon, he caught the eye of a company commander's bodyguard and learned much.
How to set traps. How to fight by the book. And how to predict enemy movements.
He even reached the highest post attainable without internal energy: senior company sergeant.
He thought he had given his all. So he set down his axes and returned to his family.
And then.
- Father, it hurts! I'm sorry! It hurts so much!
- Myungjin!
What had caused it?
The times were harsh. Successive famines had turned hearts violent. People died easily over minor quarrels.
Not heavy provocation, but martial artists drew blades anyway. To "teach a lesson," they plunged a sharp edge deep into Myungjin's shoulder. If it had only damaged the muscles and bones, he could have swallowed his grief.
- Ah... Father! Aaaak!
He had seen it on the battlefield. Those dying from tetanus all met gruesome ends. Muscles seized, backs arched in agony.
In indescribable torment, they begged from their beds to be killed.
Myungjin did the same.
- Father! I'm sorry... I'm so sorry! Please...!
In a world where people died so easily, he had only hoped his own son wouldn't.
"Now I'll come to you."
The enemy was from the Northern Hebei Peng Clan, holders of great renown. A fitting final opponent.
Hatred knotted in his heart fueled his strength. Eyes rolled back red, ears rang with Myungjin's death cries. The Fifth Messenger raised his axes high.
Kaaang!
Clash.
The first exchange was even. The Radiant Tiger's greatsword and the Fifth Messenger's twin axes couldn't decide the victor. Soon, the twenty men charged in, and the melee ensued.
The wanderers, running low on energy, against twenty third-rate ronin cultists. Could they match?
No chance. Weapons are merciless.
Kaang! Kaaaang! The axe blade was already nicked. The Radiant Tiger wielded his massive sword with precision. A slight twist, a touch of skill.
A degree's difference in angle changed the force. The axe blows didn't yield, but the depth of technique differed.
Axe forms honed alone in the wild plains versus sword arts refined and evolved through generations.
By the fifth clash, the Fifth Messenger already felt himself being pushed back. The foe felt like a towering mountain.
It didn't matter. None of these twenty had come expecting victory. All 121 cultists thrown into the Ear plate today were volunteers.
They had come to this land because living hurt more than dying. Their mission was clear.
And when it came to executing the mission, no soldier surpassed a senior company sergeant.
"...!"
Sssak!
In the heat of battle, the Fifth Messenger suddenly hurled an axe.
A flicker of panic crossed the Peng clan's swordsman's face. That axe should have blocked his own sword. In exchange, the Peng sword would cleanly sever the Fifth Messenger's neck.
But that axe was now flying straight at the Radiant Tiger's face.
'Damn! Mutual destruction?'
The Radiant Tiger hastily adjusted his internal energy. At that moment, a jade-colored barrier unfolded, blocking the axe.
"Danger!"
"Buy you a drink if I live!"
With the Little Divine Dragon's aid, he escaped the crisis. Or so he thought—until he realized even that was part of the enemy's plan.
In that single breath holding the barrier, a cultist tackled the Little Divine Dragon and fell.
All eyes in the area snapped there for an instant. Plum blossoms were embroidered on the cultist's back. The Radiant Tiger's sword swiftly swept the corpse aside.
And then, truly, the Fifth Messenger swung his remaining axe with all his might.
"Haaap!"
The axe and sword crossed.
Thud. The Fifth Messenger's headless body crumpled. But he looked peaceful, somehow.
"Kuhp!"
Not so for the Radiant Tiger's side. In the final moment, the Fifth Messenger hadn't blocked the sword.
He had simply thrown the axe he was swinging. Whoosh, it flew on a poor trajectory, missing vitals.
Just struck the leg. Shallow, but not to be ignored.
As the Radiant Tiger gritted his teeth and pulled out the axe, blood began to flow. Deep muscle damage.
Everyone sensed it.
"Leave me and go!"
"We can't... do that."
The option of dashing away with lightness skill to shake them off was gone. The Wind-Swept Plum Sword, seeing it, smashed the gourd at his side.
The signal from the Divine Immortal. Thousand-Li Fragrance, to alert the main force of their peril.
A faint scent spread through the night air. The distance to the main body was exactly a day's travel—two hours at most for the swift-footed.