Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Retribution
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The Weird Physician found the cruel irony of fate to be utterly ruthless.
He had wanted to bear it all alone.
He knew full well that Wi Sowol's martial prowess far surpassed his own—her skill so profound it made the passage of years seem meaningless.
Had she joined this war from the beginning, they could have eliminated far more of the Light Frenzy Cult's enemies.
Yet he had chosen otherwise.
The grudge over his sister's death, the thirst for vengeance—he meant to keep them as his own burden.
He had resolved not to pass this chain of retribution on to his disciple.
But in the end, it had come to this.
'Is it all because of my shortcomings?'
Even as he thought that, he couldn't bring himself to tell his disciple not to do it.
Deep in his pounding heart, the obsession for revenge still churned alongside it.
The faces of his enemies fueled that vengeful fire.
"I won't kill him."
Carefully laying down her troubled master, the disciple spoke.
"I'll do exactly as that bastard said."
Wi Sowol had heard every word the wretch had spewed at her master.
The audacity of it.
Prattling on about lives.
And hell itself.
A torrent of words that made her want to scour her ears clean.
Just killing him outright would be too merciful.
"I won't kill you with my own hands."
She would give him time to repent.
Make him beg forgiveness from her master and atone for his sins.
At Wi Sowol's declaration, the Total Annihilation Ghost sneered with a bloody, feral grin.
"Cut off one wrist and you think you're hot stuff? That bald bastard couldn't have had a daughter, so you're his disciple, eh?"
The Total Annihilation Ghost casually staunched the bleeding from his wrist.
His unshaken composure proved his confidence was no bluff.
Conversely, his wildly surging aura showed that losing a hand wouldn't halt the flow of his inner energy.
Just moments ago, in their exchange of blows.
The instant Wi Sowol severed his wrist.
He had aimed for her throat but missed, ripping off his mask instead.
His eye technique hadn't let her movements escape him.
"I'll spare you too and take you along. Don't worry—you'll live a lot longer than your master."
The Total Annihilation Ghost assumed a battle stance.
Foregoing weapons, he extended a gloved hand.
But Wi Sowol's eyes caught how his center of gravity had shifted lower, toward his legs.
'Fist art's a feint. Leg arts are his specialty?'
Just as Wi Sowol predicted.
"His specialty is leg techniques. Don't let him close the distance."
Even many martial clans couldn't distinguish between leg sweeps and kicks, so similar were they.
Unlike the stark differences between fist arts and palm strikes.
Leg-based martial arts were harder to vary than those using arms and hands, after all.
That said, if one nitpicked, leg sweeps focused more on footwork, while kicks emphasized the whole leg.
The Weird Physician's specific mention of leg sweeps meant the bastard's footwork was on another level.
Wi Sowol flicked her sword tip toward the Total Annihilation Ghost and said,
"Come at me. I'll slice your Achilles tendons for you."
"Blather all you want. Your body will be offered up as a holy sacrifice at the main altar too."
What, did he think acting pious made him holy?
His composure was impressive.
Yet it twisted Wi Sowol's nerves more than his blatant lust ever could.
"Sowol!"
In the tense standoff, poised for the next clash.
Huang Bo-yun, arriving a step late, called out to Wi Sowol.
That became the signal.
Thud-!
A powerful stomp that left a footprint cratered in the solid earth.
The Total Annihilation Ghost surged forward, his erupting true energy wave pressing down on Wi Sowol.
Fast. Monstrously so.
True to his leg technique mastery, his leg power exceeded expectations.
The explosive force from thighs honed to perfection propelled his body like a cannonball.
He closed the gap in an instant, gliding like on ice or glass.
A thrusting fist.
Black-green fist energy shrouded in his glove shimmered before her eyes.
Wi Sowol's form seemed on the verge of being crushed by the fist pressure.
The Weird Physician gasped, and Huang Bo-yun gritted his teeth, pouring more power into his Heavenly King Elbow Strike.
But it was an illusion.
The profound subtlety of Star Lodge Divine Traces, which had once deceived even Seon Woo Hoon's eye technique, now etched constellations upon the earth once more.
The principle of Present Yet Possessing Nothing cloaked her body in night's darkness.
And like a star that shines only in the present heavens, Wi Sowol emerged scattering sword light.
Slash-! Clang!
A winter gale slicing through flesh blew in with the sword strike's aura.
The air's moisture froze amid the vicious yin energy, scattering ice crystals.
At the same time, the Total Annihilation Ghost's legs whipped through the air in dazzling arcs.
Ice crystals bounced off the fierce winds of his leg sweeps, visualizing the technique's power.
He appeared to hold the offensive and press the attack—but he was wrong.
To block Wi Sowol's single sword stroke, the Total Annihilation Ghost had to unleash even more techniques.
"What...!"
Wi Sowol's eyes locked onto his in that fleeting instant.
Pupils tinged faintly red.
Within them lay winter.
A barren wasteland beneath a snowy winter sky.
Only the bright full moon filled the silence with light.
The river crossing it ran red with blood.
Deeper traces of karmic slaughter than even the Total Annihilation Ghost, slayer of countless souls, were etched in those eyes.
Slice!
The price of meeting her gaze was steep.
Wi Sowol's sword knew no pause.
Lotus Moon Sword.
Ringing with a heavenly bell-like sword cry, her blade traced another sword path.
Like a shark that must swim ceaselessly to avoid sinking, evading her sword demanded constant motion.
Wi Sowol's sword, cloaked in pure white sword energy, brutally split the Total Annihilation Ghost's calf.
He kicked off with his good leg and leaped back.
Squirt-
Blood spurted belatedly from the cleaved calf.
"Acupressure it. Clench the muscles, seal it with true energy. I'll make this wound never happened."
"You little...!"
"I told you. I'd cut your Achilles tendons."
From the Total Annihilation Ghost's charge to Wi Sowol slicing his calf and repelling him—three breaths at most.
Even as she trampled his pride, he calmly acupressured to staunch the leg.
While he tended his wound, Wi Sowol scolded Huang Bo-yun, who hovered uselessly without finding an opening.
"What are you doing? Go help him."
"Huh? Me, against that guy?"
Huang Bo-yun pointed at himself, then jabbed a finger at the Total Annihilation Ghost.
Wi Sowol sighed.
"Over there. The strongest one. Go help. He looks worn out. You too, White Sword Scholar."
On this battlefield, the mightiest foe wasn't the Total Annihilation Ghost—it was the Saber Breaker.
Jang Rok was holding his own admirably, but one man couldn't manage alone.
Joint attacks needed synergy. These fighters, gathered personally by the Weird Physician or from Mount Hua's lay disciples, all wielded disparate styles.
Tangled martial rhythms stifled any true coordination.
Above all, Jang Rok was an assassin, not a warrior.
Stealth strikes were his forte, not frontal clashes.
As a fighter, it was like battling with one arm sealed.
"Understood."
The seasoned Do Jung-hyeon moved first.
Huang Bo-yun glanced worriedly at Wi Sowol, then trudged off heavily.
With Do Jung-hyeon's top-tier skill and experience, he could cover Huang Bo-yun's inexperience.
And with Jang Rok as the hidden dagger, taking down the Saber Breaker shouldn't be hard.
Wi Sowol refocused on the Total Annihilation Ghost.
He had finished regrouping.
The aura around his sealed calf stabilized.
Despite the deep gash severing the Foot Taiyang Bladder Meridian.
Setting aside his character and deeds, the Total Annihilation Ghost was undeniably a master of exceptional skill.
His eyes had changed.
The overt lust vanished, replaced by survival instinct, battle fury, and fanatic zeal burning brighter still.
His surging aura boiled with inner force.
In the brief time his legs held, he meant to settle this once and for all—a resolve to fight to the death.
Wi Sowol yielded no third preemptive strike.
Leveraging her small frame, she darted in with nimble, cunning steps via Star Lodge Divine Traces.
Ching-
The Lotus Moon Sword's signature bell-like cry rang out.
A crescent arc of pure white sword path gleamed ethereally.
The Total Annihilation Ghost heightened his senses to the max.
The eerie chill from their first clash, when he'd lost his wrist so futilely, now prickled from his feet.
The learned dread of being sliced pressed on him.
But retreating here would be the real blunder.
Pulling back a leg would expose chest or arms.
The Total Annihilation Ghost advanced.
"Hah!"
Boom!
A shout and explosively spreading aura.
Using his wounded left leg as pivot, he swung his right like a drawn sword.
His two legs executed separate martial arts.
The supporting left leg used Flowing Sand Unbreachable to anchor his balance firmly.
The attacking right unleashed Kan Xin Shattering Wind Leg, whipping up a true storm.
Flowing Sand Unbreachable kept him steady while drawing the foe in with pull and attract principles.
Wi Sowol's slight build would be dragged helplessly.
Kan Xin Shattering Wind Leg drew inspiration from desert sandstorms, its swings shredding foes with qi-scattering gales like sandblasts.
The linked technique he had honed to perfection as his killing move.
This one strike had elevated him to the ninth seat among the Twelve Bridges.
Rumble-!
A roar unfit for human legs.
The destructive gale from his motion upheaved the earth, billowing thick dust clouds.
A leg art manifesting as a veritable sandstorm.
The Total Annihilation Ghost never let his guard down.
Focused on sensing Wi Sowol, he subtly twisted ankle and knee to steer the storm.
Amid the vision-obscuring dirt, Wi Sowol's eyes pierced straight ahead.
Her eyes now beheld what they never had before.
The foundations of her eye technique, built slowly from insights, now asserted themselves, revealing the foe beyond the dust crystal clear.
Wi Sowol's sword traced an arc.
Its light motion birthed sword force that cleaved the oncoming wind.
Even in dust-trapped darkness, her sword revealed its path vividly.
Star Lodge Divine Traces moved her body, Lotus Moon Sword her arms.
Wi Sowol simply stepped where instinct and intuition led.
The Total Annihilation Ghost didn't miss the sight.
He'd seen those steps before—divorced from natural law, profoundly mysterious.
When the chaining sword, dismantling his Kan Xin Shattering Wind Leg's gales, finally turned toward him.
The Total Annihilation Ghost swiftly bent his knee and twisted his ankle.
A motion testing human limits.
He pulled it off.
The leg's unleashed power remained terrifying.
End it with a knee strike.
Downgrade his signature leg sweeps as decoys, save the knee's narrow but devastating power for the finisher.
With utter conviction that this was his last, he drove his knee upward with full force.
And he sensed it.
This hit landed.
Wi Sowol's sword had relentlessly targeted his Achilles tendon, forcing him into the trap.
The dust cloud burst away on the knee strike's gale.
And belatedly.
Flash-
A straight beam of light shattered the dispersing cloud.
"What... is...?"
His knee felt light.
No matter her small frame, a solid body hit should transmit shock.
Yet none came.
Instead, his nerves sent two signals to his brain.
When his brain comprehended them.
He could no longer stand.
Thud. Boom!
Wi Sowol had kept her word.
She severed both Achilles tendons of the Total Annihilation Ghost.
Lotus Moon Sword.
First Form: New Moon Flash Shadow.
The flash of shadow from the invisible new moon sliced his Achilles tendons in an instant he couldn't sense amid the dust-born dark.
The Total Annihilation Ghost's sense of a hit was a feint.
New Moon Flash Shadow's insidious point lay in that feint.
It induced sensations of blocking, dodging, deflecting.
Drawing out the inevitable lapse when success breeds carelessness, then slipping through the split-second gap.
A devilishly crafty technique.
The embodiment of Wi Sowol's intent to plant the deepest frustration and despair in the Total Annihilation Ghost.
Sword light flashed once more over his fallen form.
Squirt! Spurt-!
Gushing blood.
Wi Sowol acupressured him with her sword tip to halt the bleeding.
As if she'd let him bleed out.
He couldn't die even if he wanted to.
The choice of death was no longer his.
Thus, the Total Annihilation Ghost lay with every limb meridian severed, jaw muscles cut too—robbed even of biting his tongue.
"Now, repent your sins."
Was even this part of Wi Sowol's design?
In the eyes of the Total Annihilation Ghost, chin grinding the dirt as he strained to lift his head, appeared the Weird Physician looking down upon him.