Chapter 151
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 151
Chapter Title: Advancing Forward on the Ground (1)
Boom! Boom boom! Boom!
Red fireworks shot up one after another.
“Whoa!”
Star Garden Lord Gok Kang jolted upright from his seat in surprise.
“Ch-Chu Pyong! What’s going on?”
“……”
Chu Pyong couldn’t respond.
The Capturing Killers never let intruders escape. Not once in all their history. Every single intruder had been reduced to a bloody pulp before the Twenty-Four Maturation Sword Formation they deployed.
But this time, one had slipped through.
“Can the Maturation Sword Formation really be breached…?”
Gok Kang muttered in disbelief.
“I’ll go check it out.”
“Chu Pyong!”
“Yes, sir!”
“I love you.”
“Don’t worry too much. I’ll be right back.”
A heavy silence fell after that.
Chu Pyong had vanished like the wind, slipping away so stealthily not even the flutter of his robes could be heard.
“You fool… I really do love you. Sigh!”
Gok Kang shook his head and let out a deep sigh.
The Twenty-Four Maturation Sword Formation was an invincible array that could never be broken. Even the Star Garden Lord himself couldn’t pierce it. That was because the formation had been painstakingly devised by Buk Myeong himself.
And beyond it lay an inescapable rain of arrows.
Eight arrows, fast and powerful enough to be invisible, launched with deadly intent, followed by a shower of secret arrows…
It was better to submit and die quietly than to resist.
Yet that formation had been breached.
This meant the intruder already knew all about the Maturation Sword Formation. And not just that—they even knew the Star Garden’s back gate led straight to the Heavenly Annihilation Division.
As the saying goes: The good do not come; those who come are not good.
The intruder intended to pass through the Star Garden today. They had come fully prepared.
Which meant they had thoroughly investigated him—the Star Garden Lord—and Chu Pyong as well.
They knew everything about this side, while this side knew nothing about them.
Chu Pyong probably wouldn’t make it back alive. He was a master acknowledged even within the Heavenly Annihilation Division for his martial prowess, but what chance did he have against an enemy who already knew all about him?
“Sigh! Guess we’ll meet again in the next life. Yeah, that might not be so bad. In the next life, I’ll be born a woman for sure… My name? Gok Kang? Too rustic. Hehe!”
The Star Garden Lord walked toward his sword rack, one he hadn’t glanced at in ages.
The time to draw his blade had come.
“Hup!”
Chu Pyong, who had launched himself toward Gok Gu, froze mid-motion as a sudden wave of killing intent washed over him.
Swooooosh!
The killing intent seeped in like a breeze.
“W-What the hell are you?!”
Chu Pyong growled slowly, glaring into the woods.
The killing intent he sensed was so faint that the slightest lapse in focus would have let it slip by.
It was there, yet not… but undeniably present.
“Come out!”
Chu Pyong drew his sword, eyes fixed on the woods.
He was the Star Garden’s foremost swordmaster. In terms of swordsmanship, he outshone even the Star Garden Lord. This was a fact acknowledged by all in the Heavenly Annihilation Division, enemy and ally alike.
Yet even his warrior’s senses couldn’t pinpoint the hidden presence in the woods.
He knew someone harbored killing intent, but couldn’t locate them.
An extraordinary master.
‘A master of this caliber in the Central Plains martial world… Could it be Mian So Sal?’
Chu Pyong furrowed his brow deeply.
If it was Mian So Sal, today’s fortunes were grim indeed. But he quickly dismissed the thought.
‘No. Mian So Sal couldn’t breach the Maturation Sword Formation.’
The formation could only be countered by someone intimately familiar with it. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t breaching it so much as preemptively preventing its activation. Once triggered, no one in the world could escape it.
‘No matter who you are, as long as I guard this pass…’
Chu Pyong stood firm, blocking the path like a divine general warding off the gates of the underworld.
Swoosh!
Movement stirred.
‘Not this one!’
Chu Pyong’s instincts screamed that this wasn’t the source of the killing intent facing him. But something was definitely moving. He had no choice but to engage.
Screeech!
Chu Pyong whipped his sword out like lightning. In that instant,
Swooooosh!
The killing intent he’d dreaded so much activated—from the opposite direction of the movement.
Chu Pyong spun around and met the oncoming strike head-on.
The decoy movement from moments ago could be ignored. It was clearly the work of a novice, several levels below. The real threat was that elusive killing intent.
And now it was upon him.
Clang! Clang clang clang clang!
Chu Pyong deflected five daggers from behind him.
‘Daggers? Shadowless Darts!’
Only then did Chu Pyong realize who his opponent was.
Only one person in the world could infuse mere daggers with such devastating force: the wielder of Shadowless Darts. And no, it didn’t refer to Four Thousand Four specifically—it was the technique itself. Only that martial art could transform mere metal into the hidden weapons of an absolute master.
Currently, in the entire martial world, only Four Thousand Four could deploy Shadowless Darts.
“Four Thousand Four!”
Chu Pyong bellowed thunderously.
Though Four Thousand Four’s Shadowless Darts flew unseen and silent, Chu Pyong now had confidence he could handle them. Hadn’t he heard and felt them? The whisper of the darts in flight. Hadn’t he deflected five of them? But,
“Kuh!”
Chu Pyong winced and glanced down at his abdomen.
A dagger had embedded itself there unnoticed. Driven in hilt-deep… with crimson blood trickling down… He’d been struck by Shadowless Darts.
“Huhu! So that’s it.”
Chu Pyong nodded.
He realized where he’d gone wrong. It was that movement he’d dismissed entirely. The one he’d pegged as novice-level, a few tiers below… Yet it was undoubtedly the enemy’s doing, so he couldn’t ignore it.
He might have blocked it if he’d focused solely on the Shadowless Darts.
More than the fact of his defeat, Chu Pyong felt deep regret at not truly crossing blades with the Shadowless Darts.
“These daggers… They belong to the Capturing Killers… To be felled by our own weapons. By me.”
Thud! Thud!
Two more daggers flew in, embedding into his flesh.
“Kuh! Huhu! Hu… So this is it. Shadowless Darts.”
Chu Pyong had grasped the true nature of Shadowless Darts. That’s why he smiled. He felt certain he could win a rematch.
Thud.
Chu Pyong’s head drooped while he stood.
“Blood Capturing Sword. Hmph!”
Vanguard eyed the sword in Chu Pyong’s hand. Five engraved dots marred the center of the blade, each soaked deep in crimson blood.
The Blood Capturing Sword, which ensnared blood itself.
He could guess who its master was—the one slain by Shadowless Darts.
Chu Pyong, one of the Heavenly Annihilation Division’s top masters, known in the Central Plains as the Blood Capturing Invincible Sword.
Chu Pyong wasn’t one to die so easily. Even against Shadowless Darts, it should have taken at least a hundred exchanges to settle the fight. He was a true master among masters.
“Knew Chu Pyong would stand in the way. And you had countermeasures for him ready.”
“Sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.”
Four Thousand Four replied calmly. But there was no trace of apology or regret on his face. He had already forgotten Chu Pyong. His eyes were fixed ahead.
“Four Thousand Four, be straight with me. I can’t shake the feeling you’re connected to the Heavenly Annihilation Division. Doesn’t seem like you were just some murderer locked up in the Nineteen Hells.”
“I haven’t deceived you.”
“Then how do you know this place so well?”
“The Death Verdict mentions a ‘Secret Stash.’ I interpreted it as records on your sect… but I didn’t know which one. Turns out one of them is this place.”
“What?!”
“I only realized upon arriving here that this is one of the four places listed in the Secret Stash.”
“Hmph!”
Vanguard couldn’t argue.
The Death Verdict had been penned by the Green Reaper—or perhaps acquired by him from somewhere. It might have been a secret manual passed down through generations.
No one had ever seen the Death Verdict.
But everyone knew it belonged exclusively to the Green Reaper.
No one knew what was recorded in it or what martial arts it contained.
Four Thousand Four gazed ahead and spoke.
“Huhu! I figured chasing the White Frost Ants would reveal some rat hole into the Heavenly Annihilation Division… Honestly didn’t expect a gap this big.”
‘A big gap? Huhu!’
Vanguard let out a bitter chuckle.
Four Thousand Four had been extremely lucky. Knowing the formation in advance had allowed him to counter it. Otherwise, he’d have been turned into a pincushion.
This place was an iron fortress.
That was why they stationed White Frost Ants and Blood Ants here.
No one from the Heavenly Annihilation Division could invade it. Before anyone arrived, the White Frost Ants would stir, signaling an approach.
The same went for outsiders. The ants might not warn in advance, but the formation blocked the way.
Reviewing the Heavenly Annihilation Division’s internal map from Zhuge Soso, there was no weak point to exploit anywhere.
This place was one of them. It wasn’t weaker than others—quite the opposite. With the White Frost Ants and Blood Ants, it was even stronger against insiders.
Four Thousand Four said,
“I planned to break through here anyway… But without the Secret Stash mention, it would’ve taken me over seven days just to study it.”
Four Thousand Four was telling the truth.
“Fine. I believe you. So what’s your plan from here?”
“Kill the Star Garden Lord. Then incinerate the White Frost Ants and Blood Ants. Not a single one left behind.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yes.”
Four Thousand Four raised his hand.
There was nothing in Four Thousand Four’s hand. Just an empty palm. But Vanguard knew what it signified.
The White Frost Ants had come seeking Vanguard and Hanbi.
Those two strains were specialized solely for Vanguard and Hanbi. They ignored everyone else, homing in straight on those carrying the queen ants.
But at some point, something had gone wrong with the ants’ senses.
The White Frost Ants stopped seeking the queens and swarmed toward Four Thousand Four instead. Ignoring Vanguard and Hanbi, they converged on him.
One swarm, two swarms… another, and yet another.
All four swarms had buzzed straight toward Four Thousand Four. Probably even the ones heading for Jaja and Fox had been drawn to him.
Four Thousand Four had melted down those four swarms of White Frost Ants. Even the Blood Ants that followed had been liquefied.
The entire Seventeenth Squad was now free from the Heavenly Annihilation Division’s control.
The miracle wrought by Four Thousand Four’s raised hand—empty as it was.
It was as if his hand carried a scent overpowering even that of the queen ants.
This was a massive problem.
If Four Thousand Four willed it, he could command the White Frost Ants and Blood Ants at will. Meaning he could track down every last member of the Heavenly Annihilation Division’s squads.
Four Thousand Four stood.
“The Star Garden Lord has pulled back his men. He must’ve judged there’s no way to stop us here anymore. Huhu! Too careless. We’ve breached the Star Garden, but pushing forward will only get harder.”