Chapter 134
Chapter 134
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: The Turning Point 4
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Mangryang was ceaselessly chanting an incantation.
The wounded and dying monsters clutched their severed limbs, gathering around Mangryang and surrounding him.
Mu-heun knew the monsters had something prepared. The sight made him anxious, but he couldn't ignore the River Guardians and the teenagers screaming as they charged at him.
‘Damn it… what should I do…’
The monks and warriors of Chipyeong Temple rushed forward, making bizarre noises… Mu-heun knew instantly.
It was already too late for them.
He could no longer sense a human scent from the River Guardians.
It seemed they had already been completely devoured by those grotesque insects.
But he didn't want to give up so easily.
He wanted to cling to even the faintest glimmer of hope.
If time and circumstances had permitted, he would have tried to find a way, no matter what.
But right now, he had no such luxury.
‘This is no time to waste on a slim possibility. From the young infected before me to the countless villagers, this situation could lead them all to their deaths. I have to make a choice.’
That wasn't all. If these monsters were to escape the cage he had created… the very future of the Central Plains would be uncertain.
Mu-heun felt the heavy burden of responsibility on his shoulders. In this urgent situation, the weight of so many lives forced him to make a swift decision.
“Damn it…!”
Mu-heun clenched his fists.
“I'm sorry.”
In the end, he had decided to abandon the River Guardians.
However, there were still those he could not abandon—the young children.
They still carried the scent of humanity. They were children who still had a chance to return to their parents' arms.
“Kahak!”
“Kuaaaaargh!”
The River Guardians charged, followed by the screaming children. Mu-heun had no choice but to raise his Sun and Moon Sword and slash several times.
Fwoooosh!
A slash wreathed in violet flames tore through the River Guardians. He decapitated the ones who were already lost, severing their arms and legs.
“Kieeeeeeeeeh!”
They shrieked as they felt their severed limbs burning.
He could see their suffering.
But Mu-heun immediately beheaded them, his extending sword moving without hesitation.
He had already made his choice.
Just then, Chang-yeon, the River Guardian at the very back, pushed past his fallen comrades and rushed toward Mu-heun.
His aura was that of a supreme master, so Mu-heun was in no danger of being defeated. Yet, for some reason, Chang-yeon's face showed no will to live.
Mu-heun gripped his Sun and Moon Sword and cleanly sliced off Chang-yeon's head.
Slice!
At that, Chang-yeon fumbled at his already severed neck and made an unexpected expression.
Seeing this, Mu-heun froze for a moment, stunned.
Chang-yeon was smiling brightly, just as he had when he came to Sichuan years ago. It was as if... he was thanking him for the kill.
Mu-heun lowered his head, bit his lip until it bled, and clenched his teeth.
Every year, Chang-yeon would come to Sichuan and say the same thing.
[Thank you so much for not forgetting our crumbling Chipyeong Temple and for continuously looking after us.]
And now, as Chang-yeon's head fell, it was as if he could hear the same voice.
[Thank you for saving our already collapsed Chipyeong Temple.]
Mu-heun had judged it impossible to capture the monsters while dealing with all of them, so he had no choice but to kill them.
He had decided to send them off with tears.
At the same time, he began to rapidly send and inject a sleep-inducing scent and a paralyzing scent into the teenagers charging from behind. Then, he tried to heal the children using the formation spread across the village.
“Kuaaaargh!”
The children screamed in agony, but this was all to buy time to catch the monsters without killing them.
‘Endure it!’
Mu-heun intended to kill the monsters in the moment the children were suffering from the paralysis, sleep, and poison of the Myriad Fragrances.
Just then, the monsters were chanting some other spell. Mu-heun began to slaughter them mercilessly, sparing only their leader, Mangryang, from whom he needed to extract information.
Mu-heun slammed a refined melody of ki into his Sun and Moon Sword, erupting with Heavenly Demonic Energy, and ruthlessly butchered Paenghu and Maek.
Then.
A Paenghu began to tear open its own chest.
Mu-heun could feel the horrific stench of plague erupting from the Paenghu's torn chest. The vile monster had unleashed the diseases it had collected by repeatedly spreading and retracting them.
The Paenghu let out a shriek that sounded like a cross between a dog and a monkey, and the plague began to spiral toward Mu-heun in a torrent.
But Mu-heun's sword did not stop.
No, it had no need to stop.
With the Myriad Fragrance Grand Restoration Formation already active throughout the village, a plague like this was of no consequence.
The Myriad Fragrances spread across the village and the formation that Baek Jung-hyeok, Mu-heun's past self, had devoted his life to devising began to resonate. In an instant, it started to analyze the plague unleashed by the Paenghu, and a counteracting scent poured out.
The fiercely advancing plague dissipated in a moment, and Mu-heun unleashed a burning black dragon from the tip of his Sun and Moon Sword, slicing down the Paenghu and incinerating it.
“Kuaaargh!”
At the sight of one Paenghu being gruesomely burned to death, the others all began to flee. A Maek, perhaps seeing this as an opportunity, tried to use clouds to invade Mu-heun's mind.
However, he was already prepared for this as well. Mu-heun was already protecting himself with a considerably powerful formation.
Moreover, the fleeing Paenghu could not escape either. He had already trapped all the monsters within a Cloud-Net Formation.
Realizing its mental attack was ineffective, the Maek also tried to flee, but not a single one could escape.
They were already caught in Mu-heun's net.
Mu-heun raised his sword again and began to kill the monsters one by one.
“Die, you trash.”
He beheaded them, pierced their hearts, and did not hesitate to end their lives. Of course, he left a few of them alive, albeit with severed limbs, just in case Mangryang tried to take its own life.
After dealing with all the remaining monsters, only Mangryang was left. It opened its mouth.
“Kehehehehehehek! Human! You're reasonably strong!”
“…You seem rather composed.”
“Composed? Kahahak! This human brat is getting cocky just because he killed a few low-level monsters.”
“You're next.”
“Kehehehehek! Not a chance. The preparations are complete!”
Mangryang said with a laugh full of madness.
“I'll tell you the reason why I, the Paenghu, and the Maek existed in this village.”
“…!?”
Mu-heun felt a sudden, chilling sensation.
“Damn it, don't tell me…”
He knew there were still unresolved matters.
There were two things that concerned Mu-heun.
First, was what the old man, who acted as the village chief, had said before.
-The River Guardians protect us from the river monster.
What the one who had been Chang-yeon had said to him.
-Will you not cooperate in catching the river monster?
The work of the River Guardians… there was much that was unsettling about their task of dealing with the river monster.
The day he faked his death and fell into the Yangtze River, Mu-heun had felt a strange feeling. Beneath the river, the corpses of the River Guardians… that is, the monks and warriors of Chipyeong Temple, were lined up.
The bodies, gathered together without decaying… was this the work of the monster? Or was it the work of the monsters masquerading as the river monster?
It seemed the able-bodied men who had supposedly disappeared were right there.
Second, when Mu-heun first sensed something was amiss in the village, he had used his heightened vision to examine the villagers. However, he couldn't detect any abnormalities.
Eventually, Mu-heun expanded his ki sense to look inside the villagers' bodies, only to find they were protected by a barrier that blocked his ki sense from approaching.
Furthermore, the same was true for the River Guardians and the teenagers who were infested with the parasitic insects. If so, there was a possibility that all the villagers had the same parasitic insects.
If that were true… one wrong move could lead to the worst-case scenario. The monsters might make all the villagers explode.
‘That's why I tried to subdue the monsters quickly and wipe them all out in one fell swoop…!’
Just then, Mangryang chanted another incantation.
At that, screams began to erupt from all over the village.
“Kuaaaaagh!”
“What is this! Something's coming out of my body!”
“Kraaaaargh!”
Mu-heun could feel goosebumps all over his body. The worst-case scenario he had feared was about to unfold.
In the end, Mu-heun was forced to make another choice.
‘I have to capture the monster Mangryang and ask who is behind them.’
No organization in the Central Plains could yet stand against the transcendent beings humanity was destined to face. Therefore, information about them was a matter directly linked to the lives of tens of millions in the future.
However, if he prioritized information and tried to capture the monster, all the villagers would die.
He was in a situation where he had to choose: kill the monster immediately to save the villagers, or obtain information about the enemy humanity would face.
A series of tragic choices.
However, upon hearing the villagers' screams, Mu-heun did not hesitate for even a moment.
He focused his internal energy into his legs and circulated the ki and blood flowing through his body to their absolute limit. He kicked off the ground and shot forward, moving with the speed of a lightning strike, impossible to follow with eye or ear.
For Mu-heun, there was no greater cause that was worth sacrificing the lives of the people before him.
In an instant, Mu-heun's Sun and Moon Sword ended the lives of all the still-breathing monsters, then immediately sliced off Mangryang's head, sending it flying.
Slice.
Mangryang's head, spinning as it flew through the air.
But…
Mangryang was smiling.
Mu-heun felt a chill run down his spine again.
He had faced many strong enemies before. The strongest among them was, of course, Dang Baek-ho. However, fighting monsters was on a completely different level from fighting fellow humans.
These beings defied all common sense.
If asked who was stronger between Dang Baek-ho and the monsters, the answer was obviously Dang Baek-ho. No, the comparison itself was impossible. Even the Three Hidden Blades under Dang Baek-ho would have been stronger than these monsters.
However, the ones he would rather not face as enemies were definitely the monsters. They were all cruel and bizarre, and one could never predict their methods.
Just then, souls began to emerge from the bodies of the dead monsters.
From the bisected body of the Paenghu, from the dismembered body of the Maek, from the severed head of Mangryang… the souls left their flesh and began to move toward a single location.
Mu-heun tried to catch the souls, but they couldn't be caught.
Mu-heun activated his Thousand Li Subtle Scent to track the direction the monsters' souls were flying.
‘The Yangtze River.’
The monsters' souls flew off and entered the currents of the Yangtze River.
“Don't tell me…”
Ominous premonitions always brought about the worst outcomes.
With his expanded ki sense, Mu-heun could already feel it. Beneath the surface of the Yangtze River, hundreds of corpses were merging into one. The aura emanating from the now-unified mass grew larger and larger.
A level that could be called the Divine Realm.
It was then.
Splooooosh!
The river water surged violently, and a colossal body burst forth. The water that shot into the sky fell back down like rain, and the beast that emerged from the river was a great monster, three zhang (approximately 12 meters) tall.
“This is… impossible.”