The Crimson Star Awakens
The sunset-hued sword qi bloomed like a flower as it coiled around the Wolgwang-geom, radiating brilliant light. At that moment, Cho-gwak’s mind spun into high gear.
That burning sunset-colored true qi. It’s the hallmark of the Goddess Sect’s divine art, the Juyang Seshim Classic. So the claim that she is Seomun Su-rin’s disciple wasn’t a lie after all.
The imperial palace warriors were men the emperor had raised while grinding his teeth, all for the purpose of crushing the Murim. They knew every major martial art in the world and carried both their weaknesses and the exact counters in their heads.
The Wolnyeo Sword Art is no issue.
The Wolnyeo Sword Art had originally been practiced by the soldiers of Yue, and it had been handed down through the generations until it still occupied the position of introductory military martial art. Naturally, Cho-gwak could perform it blindfolded.
I’ve never heard of the Goddess Divine Hand, though. Did Seomun Su-rin create it herself? For her to dare name it “Divine Hand,” it can’t be ordinary.
Still, against a Harmonious Realm expert wrapped in protective strong qi, a mere hand technique from a Peak expert didn’t seem likely to pose any real threat.
It won’t be that troublesome. Except for that nameless old monk from the Buddhist sect over there.
Both Choe-ri-ong and the Buddhist warrior wore grim expressions. In any case, that was the conclusion Cho-gwak reached.
In truth, a duel between a Peak martial artist and a Harmonious Realm expert was hardly different from a child fighting an adult. Even if the child had been extremely rude and the adult had accepted a life-or-death duel intending to kill on the spot, subduing the opponent without killing them was merely annoying, not impossible.
That was what he had thought.
But then a full inch of sword qi surged from Cheong’s blade. It was a feat absolutely impossible with ordinary sword qi rather than sword gang. If sword qi could simply be extended straight out from the blade, everyone would just carry a small silver knife in their pocket, draw it, and swing it like the light sword from some famous tale instead of lugging around a heavy blade.
So it wasn’t that the sword qi itself was rising. On closer inspection, it was actually a dense cluster of sword energies compressed so tightly they appeared as one.
He still didn’t fully understand the functions of the Muscle Tendon Change Classic, but at least one thing was clear: the meridians through which the qi of the eight extraordinary vessels flowed had expanded dramatically, turning her body into a genuine super-high-output true qi cannon.
In terms a modern person would understand, it was like doubling the true qi consumption for one-and-a-half times the power. However, Cheong’s accumulated qi already far surpassed that stage, and sword qi that had not yet formed a river did not consume much true qi anyway.
“One strike!”
Cheong shouted as she drew a perfectly straight line. The thick sword qi collided with the strong qi wrapped around Cho-gwak’s sword. The blades never touched, so there was no clang, but the shockwave at the point of impact exploded outward as a gust of wind.
Yet Cheong’s face twisted while Cho-gwak’s expression eased slightly, making the result of the first clash obvious.
Damn it. So sword energy really doesn’t work.
Cho-gwak’s sword had plunged into Cheong’s sword qi and even taken a small bite out of the Wolgwang-geom’s edge. It was nothing more than the basic long-range technique available to any Harmonious Realm expert, the so-called strong ring.
Unless one specialized in strong ring techniques, its power was no better than throwing a hidden weapon loaded with strong qi. Therefore, the true terror of a Harmonious Realm expert lay not in the strong ring itself, but in the fact that they could emit their highly compressed protective strong qi visibly beyond their weapon.
Purple strong qi flickered along Cho-gwak’s blade and thickened. It was a sight that would make the Taoist priests of Mt. Hua foam at the mouth. This was the Imperial Purple Cloud Art, the imperial palace’s modified version of the Purple Cloud Divine Art.
Cheong hastily withdrew her sword, but the blade already had a large chunk missing.
My Wolgwang-geom! I haven’t even used it properly yet!
Looking as though she would have to welcome Wolgwang-geom number nine after barely using the current one, Cheong forced an awkward smile.
“Uh… Since you’re such a high expert, would you consider giving me ten moves?”
“Nonsense!”
Cho-gwak’s sword moved with frantic speed. It was the Imperial Silver Demon-Subduing Sword, a vicious killing blade forged from the desperate resolve to exterminate evil. The compatibility was slightly poor, however, because the Demon-Subduing Sword was one of the most murderous techniques among all the orthodox sects. Using such a killing sword while trying to avoid the opponent’s vital points was inevitably awkward.
For Cho-gwak, whose family would be wiped out if Cheong died, the enemy’s vital points were essentially his own.
“Whoa! Eek! Ack! Ah! Ah! Ah! Gyaah! Ack!”
Cheong kept spitting out a chaotic mix of gasps, shrieks, and exclamations as she frantically dodged. If their weapons met, her sword would not survive. The noise was a deliberate attempt to disturb his focus and create an opening.
Yet no matter how much the attacks avoided vital points, the opponent was a Harmonious Realm expert, a true master of the sword, and his sword art was an unrivaled divine technique.
Had Cheong checked her martial arts window, she would have seen the brilliant purple border surrounding the Demon-Subduing Sword.
Cheong twisted her waist, deflecting the strong-qi-laden blade by the width of a single sheet of paper. But strong qi was far sharper than it appeared to the eye. Immediately, her clothes at the waist tore along with her skin, and a red stain began to spread.
“Ack! Wait! That actually cut! Eek!”
Small cuts kept appearing only on her thigh, side, and shoulder, leaving those parts of her uniform stained and tattered. Even though she had clearly dodged, the split skin stung. The pain made her wonder if the cuts were deeper than they looked, yet strangely the stinging sensation didn’t feel entirely unpleasant…
“Ack!! Ack! Ack!? Huh? What? Why?”
Cheong’s exaggerated cries gradually faded. What was this? It clearly hurt, yet it also felt… surprisingly tolerable? No, more than that. It felt warm in a way that wasn’t bad at all. The prickling, stinging sensation was strange, mysterious, like scratching a mosquito bite until it bled, carrying a peculiar, stinging pleasure.
After that, Cheong’s evasive movements became crisp and economical. With less wasted motion, her gaze steadied. Her vision stabilized, her actions grew precise, and no new wounds appeared as she slipped through the sword strikes.
Cho-gwak noticed the change at once.
This wench… she’s getting better at dodging by the second!
Fury surged through him and he roared.
“Damn it! What exactly are you trying to do?! Are you planning to just keep running away?!”
“Then what?! Should I just stand here and let you hit me?!”
Even as she shouted, Cheong’s knees buckled. With her feet planted firmly, she dropped her upper body until it was parallel to the ground, supporting herself on her arms. It was the Iron Plate Bridge technique, an exquisite footwork move.
Cho-gwak momentarily lost track of her figure as it suddenly sank toward the earth and froze. From that position Cheong kicked off the ground with her arms. To Cho-gwak it looked as if she had shot up from beneath his field of vision.
With her sudden reappearance, Cheong thrust her sword forward.
“Hmph! Not a chance!”
But the gap in their realms was simply too vast. Cho-gwak swung his sword indifferently, and Cheong’s sword arm bounced away, leaving her completely open. At that instant her eyes flashed and her left hand shot out like lightning.
Thud!
Cho-gwak barely managed to raise his forearm to block. He spread his left hand, curled his fingertips into the basic claw shape, and swung. It was the Imperial Silver Divine Wind Claw. Any Wudang Taoist who saw it would have screamed that he had stolen their sect’s supreme technique, the Divine Wind Ghost Claw.
Yet even setting aside its demonic nature, Sosu Magong ranked among the most mysterious hand techniques in the world. Fingertips stabbed, curled to scratch, the hand blade sliced, the back of the hand slapped, the palm pushed, and the raised knuckle bones of the index and middle fingers struck. Six moves flowed in succession within a single breath.
Using the entire hand was called hand technique, and this was the very essence of it, a relentless chain of attacks. The supplementary claw techniques Cho-gwak had learned could not compare. His strong-qi-covered hand was simply being battered, forced to endure and desperately bat the strikes away.
At that moment the right arm that had been pulled back returned. Sword qi exploded from Cheong’s blade once more. The instant Cho-gwak’s gaze flicked toward it, an ice-cold, crimson-glowing Sosu hand drove in and slammed into his flank.
Using the recoil, Cheong leaped back to gain distance. She had landed several clean hits, yet her expression remained dark.
“Ugh, protective strong qi. So hard to actually enjoy this.”
Cheong muttered while shaking her numb left arm. In contrast, Cho-gwak’s face had relaxed even further.
“Hah. So you did have something to rely on. I’ll admit the refinement of your technique. But do you not realize that the difference in the study of martial arts, which deliberately divides realms, is as vast as Mount Tai? If you retreat now, I shall show the generosity of a senior and—”
Cho-gwak, who had been trying to coax her into withdrawing, suddenly frowned. A strange, chilling, numb tingling had begun spreading from his side. His left hand and forearm also felt subtly cold and stinging.
He hurriedly traced his meridians and detected the presence of a secretly infiltrating dark energy. The ice-cold, deadly energy was tearing through his blood vessels and spreading, yet at the same time a pure warm energy coiled around it, dulling the pain so he had not noticed immediately.
In this way, Cheong’s Goddess Divine Hand, which mixed true qi, could even be said to surpass the original Sosu Magong in wickedness.
“This… what is… this?”
Only then did Cho-gwak truly notice Cheong’s ice-pale, slender, and most beautiful hands in the world. If the face was that of an absolute beauty, was it not natural for the hands to be beautiful as well? Such was human nature.
Now that he saw them, one martial art rose to mind.
“This is Sosu—”
“Kyaaa!!! Kyaaaaah!! Here I come again!”
Cheong screamed and charged once more. It was her usual method of cutting off someone’s words. At the same time she gripped the Wolgwang-geom with both hands and thrust it out fully beside her shoulder. Its radiance erupted in a wild mix of red, white, and purple.
To anyone watching, it was clearly her final desperate strike using every ounce of strength she possessed. Starlight flowed thickly from Cho-gwak’s sword as well, his intent to cut her blade in two and shatter her will.
The giant energy sword that had extended past Cheong’s shoulder suddenly shot forward. Massive colors painted thick strokes across the air. The strong-qi-covered sword opposing it looked small and insignificant by comparison, yet it was destructive starlight that everyone present instinctively recognized as the more dangerous of the two.
And just as the two forces were about to collide—!
Cheong’s sword flew limply into the sky with a pathetic whoosh. When you release an object you were gripping with both hands and swinging with all your might, it naturally flies far away.
Cho-gwak had been trying to cut the sword along its path. With Cheong’s blade gone, his own sword sliced only empty air. His hand, still clenched around the hilt, flew outward past his flank.
“An opening!”
Cheong’s right hand whipped behind her back and seized the long handle in a death grip. It was the tip of the ten-thousand-year cold iron short staff equipped with a sound-producing capture ability—the Boksinjeok.
While Cho-gwak grit his teeth and raised his protective strong qi to the limit, Cheong swung the Boksinjeok upward from below with every ounce of her strength.
BAAAAANG!!!
The Boksinjeok, carrying monstrous power that even the warrior Xiang Yu would have had to concede a move against, smashed into the side of Cho-gwak’s chest. His heels lifted off the ground as he lost his balance and staggered.
Protective strong qi could block the impact to the body, but it could not resist the pure physical force pushing him back. Had he known in advance, he would have used the Thousand Pound Sink to endure. But who could have imagined that a girl with a tall frame, an ample chest, and an otherwise delicate appearance could unleash such monstrous strength?
Cheong swung the Boksinjeok and her left hand in ferocious alternation. Choe-ri-ong had once scolded her footwork by saying that a martial artist’s power came from a firmly planted center, from the earth itself. Having lost both posture and center, Cho-gwak was driven entirely onto the defensive.
He could only curl up beneath his protective strong qi, continuously retreating, desperately holding on. Cheong was equally desperate. Even now, the satisfying sensation of flesh bursting, tearing, and bones shattering refused to arrive.
Really, fuck. Just what the hell is the Harmonious Realm? Is it actually invincible?! I want to use strong qi too! I want to use strong qi! Is it even worth living as Peak trash without it?!
Still, if I keep hitting her, she’ll die eventually, right? Who am I? The genius of the century who beat a Harmonious Realm expert to death while only being late-stage Peak. I should brag to Master about this.
It was right as Cheong raised the Boksinjeok high with that thought that a chill suddenly raced through her entire body. Every hair on her skin stood on end, goosebumps erupted, and her instincts screamed.
It was the killing intent of a Harmonious Realm expert. The will reacting to qi, the immense murderous intent that declared she would definitely die—Cheong’s primal instincts responded.
“You fucking bitch!!! Die!!”
Cheong urgently stamped the ground and hurled herself backward. But she was already one step too late.
The starlight trajectory drew a crescent moon as it swept across her. Slice.
The sensation of skin tearing and a blade sliding through flesh arrived with vivid clarity. She also learned that when cut properly, the sound transmitted through the body rather than the ears.
And then, hotter than the pain, a blazing fury like wildfire surged up.
No, this fucking bastard! He dares to cut me?! A son of a bitch loaded with evil karma! A bastard who only ever did terrible things! You should have just given me some training points and died quietly!
This can’t happen. At the very least, I cannot be cut by a dog like this. This is unfair. Bad people should get stabbed and good people should receive blessings. And I am the most righteous person in the world. The most important and precious person in existence. Yet this trash NPC who’s worse than a beast doesn’t know his place.
Within Cheong’s pupils, a ferocious red star stretched lazily and emitted a brilliant glow.