Chapter 107
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 107
Chapter Title: Dragon Scale
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For now, Seonwoyong decided he would no longer hold back.
He resolved not to be bound by the past Woo Cheonso any longer.
It wasn't a conclusion reached through deliberation.
It was the conclusion of Seonwoyong's heart, and his two hands were already in motion.
His right hand moved to draw the Victory Sword from its scabbard in his left hand.
A suffocating killing intent crushed down on everyone.
The blade of the Victory Sword had emerged into the world.
“Everyone, cut off one of your arms.”
Seonwoyong's voice was ruthless but quiet.
Yet imbued with immeasurable inner strength, its words rang crystal clear in every ear.
The startled Dae Jongdo was the first to look up and scrutinize Seonwoyong's expression.
Oh no. His eyebrows were already arched, and the corners of his mouth twisted.
He had calculated that even the old Woo Cheonso would tolerate matters up to this point, but his reckoning had gone awry.
Even the past Woo Cheonso would have been impossible to defy, let alone this man who had ascended to some unfathomable new realm.
“Master, please set aside your wrath. They are all ignorant young cultists.”
At the same time, he whirled around and urgently commanded the Ming Cult experts encircling them.
“What are you lot doing? Hurry and throw yourselves down for two full prostrations, each with six head-butts to the ground.”
A head-butting prostration meant slamming the forehead three times against the floor with every bow—an act symbolizing absolute loyalty.
But the experts ringed around that spot were filled only with doubt and resentment, so such obedience wouldn't come naturally.
“How does loyalty just spring up on its own? I met that fellow for the first time today, and he doesn't impress me much, so let's meet again some other time.”
Blood-Spattered Saber King Seong Ilchung voiced what the other experts were thinking.
As he spoke, Seong Ilchung paid Seonwoyong no heed at all, instead waving the saber-bearing hand toward Dae Jongdo.
It was precisely then.
Seonwoyong's Victory Sword lightly sliced the empty air, and Seong Ilchung's one hand was severed clean and dropped to the ground.
Without so much as a scream or groan, Seong Ilchung gazed down at the wrist-down portion flopping on the dirt.
It was unmistakably his own hand gripping his cherished saber, yet it felt utterly alien.
Only then did Seong Ilchung lift that arm to inspect his severed wrist.
Sliced in an instant by something impossibly sharp, the cross-section was flawlessly clean.
White bone, the marrow within, the red muscles and vessels encasing it, and the skin beyond—all laid bare in vivid clarity.
It had happened in a blink; no pain yet, no blood.
But the very next instant, a scorching agony blazed up from his spine like firebrand, and jets of blood burst forth.
Only then did a groan leak from Seong Ilchung's lips.
“Ugh.”
“You, staunch the bleeding quick. It won't fester too badly.”
Seonwoyong, observing the spectacle with icy detachment, muttered as if offering consolation to Seong Ilchung.
Seong Ilchung stared straight at such a Seonwoyong.
He had already pressed the meridian with his remaining left hand to halt the bleeding from his severed right arm.
He too was one of the Seven Kings whose fame thundered through the martial world.
Such a man summoned his fallen hand through the air with a void-grasping technique.
Prying loose his own right hand, which still clutched the saber hilt with unyielding grip, he muttered.
“You served hard all these years. Now go back to the earth first and feed the worms.”
With that, he flung the severed hand onto the nearby ground and seized the saber in his remaining left hand.
“I still have one hand left, so allow me to receive your instruc—”
Seong Ilchung had straightened toward Seonwoyong, murmuring those words.
Shwick! Boom.
Seonwoyong thrust out his left palm in a light push, and Seong Ilchung soared backward, struck dead-center in the chest by the palm strike.
There was no time to guard or evade—a strike swift as lightning, fierce as a raging torrent.
Blood-Spattered Saber King Seong Ilchung might have been one of the world-shaking Seven Kings, but before Seonwoyong's palm force, he was helpless.
Only after delivering the blow did Seonwoyong open his mouth.
“I've already taken one hand from you. We're done.”
A moment later, Seong Ilchung staggered out from where he'd been embedded in a nearby wall.
His chest clothing was utterly gone, exposing the carnage within in stark relief.
His chest was a pulped mess of blood, one rib shattered and jutting out.
Seong Ilchung raised his remaining hand as if to speak.
No saber remained in it. He stood a moment longer, then vomited dark crimson blood and crumpled.
“And what are the rest of you waiting for? Cut off one hand each and get out.”
Seonwoyong swept his cold gaze over the surrounding experts as he eyed the writhing Seong Ilchung on the ground, muttering.
Now they all stared at Seonwoyong with faces taut in shock and tension.
He had handled Blood-Spattered Saber King Seong Ilchung—the Phoenix Banner commander of the Great Cloud Bright Religion and one of the martial world's Seven Kings—like a mere child.
The world brimmed with experts, but this sight defied reality.
Over seventy experts ringed the hall.
Each was the sort who could carve out a name in the jianghu if they ventured forth.
Yet now they felt terror.
Seonwoyong's eyes conveyed this message to them:
—I could kill you all with a single sword stroke.
But if you each cut off one hand and leave, I'll let it go.
The most flustered of all was Dae Jongdo.
He hadn't foreseen escalation to this degree.
In his own estimation, he'd accurately gauged the old Woo Cheonso's temperament in acting as he did.
His scheme to plunge him into self-doubt and guilt, making him fully forsake Ming Cult affairs, had collapsed entirely.
Now he needed to contain the damage.
“Master. Please quell your anger. I will cut off one of my own hands. In exchange, spare them. They are all vital cult disciples.”
But Seonwoyong's response defied calculation.
“You'll get your own punishment apart. Wait in silence.”
With that, he moved at once.
His ghostly phantom shift wove through the experts' midst.
No one could counter or dodge Seonwoyong's movements.
They scattered every which way like a locust swarm, but the outcome was impartial to all.
In the gloom, the Victory Sword flashed white, tracing a beautiful arc like a mirage.
The arc was so swift and precise it resembled a peerless painter's single-stroke masterpiece.
A painting of a dragon ascending on clouds.
A moment later.
No one lay fallen in the hall, but none retained both wrists intact.
Agonized groans resounded in all directions.
Seonwoyong stood tall amid it all.
The Victory Sword had already vanished into its sheath.
“Now gather up all the fallen bits and bury them together. They're yours, so clean properly.”
Incredibly, they all began obeying Seonwoyong's words to the letter.
None dared resist or defy.
Watching them, a thought abruptly struck Seonwoyong.
‘So simple. What does it matter if it's the Three Elders or Five Commanders? Just make them cut off a hand each.’
Absurd as it was, it rang true.
More than lofty ideals or moral codes, immediate gain visible at hand and pain bearing down now dictated most folks' actions in the world.
In any case, a profoundly perilous notion began taking root in Seonwoyong's heart.
The group finished collecting their severed hands one by one and burying them in the earth.
Later, it would become the Heavenly Demon God Cult's first holy site: the Severed Hands Mound.
Someone jammed the great saber he had swung with that hand upside-down into the fresh mound, and several experts followed suit, planting their weapons.
“Then we'll withdraw.”
One announced as such and began departing slowly.
Dae Jongdo slyly mingled among them and turned his back.
But Seonwoyong was not one to let it slide.
“You, come here. You think you'll leave unscathed? This whole mess is on account of you.”
Indeed, both of Dae Jongdo's hands remained attached.
At Seonwoyong's summons, Dae Jongdo halted and threw himself prostrate on the spot.
“Disciple still has much left to do for the cult. Please show mercy...”
Cold sweat now trickled down his spine.
“I'm merely reclaiming what I gave you. Sever your limb meridians yourself and shatter your dantian.”
Dae Jongdo paled in horror at those words.
“How can you... Please forgive me.”
“You renounced me as master, so I hold no hopes for you. I did consider taking your life, but in light of your past devotion to the cult, know that and carry it out.”
“Master, your disciple erred. I'll cut off one hand, so...”
“Don't grovel so pitifully before all these cultists. Get on with it.”
The departing Ming Cult experts naturally watched the scene.
Dae Jongdo's rank and station in the cult were lofty, his usual authority immense—so his prostrate begging before Seonwoyong made for a startling sideshow.
Cut short by Seonwoyong's icy command, Dae Jongdo rose as if resolved.
He then reported to Seonwoyong.
“Disciple shall carry out your command.”
Seonwoyong nodded, his stern expression unchanging.
Then, as if unable to watch, he turned aside, looking away from Dae Jongdo.
Infuriating as he was now, a disciple remained a disciple; those days held no fond memories to speak of.
Yet Dae Jongdo's next move was wholly unforeseen.
Instead of severing his own meridians, he hurled his body into flight—fleeing.
Exploiting Seonwoyong's momentary lapse, he bet his life on it; his body technique flashed like lightning, soaring through the air in a heartbeat.
“Gasp! The nerve.”