The Ambush (3)
Cheon Woo-jin swept his gaze across the status windows of the Poison Sword Sect cultivators swarming toward him.
All small fry. Having confirmed that much, he generated sword qi.
Vwoooong!
This time, the sword qi was enormous.
A great blade large enough to sweep away the entire wave of Poison Sword Sect cultivators rushing in at once.
When Cheon Woo-jin swung it, the lot of them were scythed down in a single stroke, as if a colossal wave had crashed over them.
Screams erupted from all around.
Even so, it hadn't been enough to wipe them all out in one blow.
“Ugh…!”
Only then did Won Pil-so step forward.
As he formed a hand seal and swept his arm, fierce flames gushed out.
The Poison Sword Sect cultivators, already battered by Cheon Woo-jin's sword qi, were in no state to properly respond to his spell art.
Against flames manifested with the immense spiritual power of a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, they were annihilated wholesale.
“Hey!”
Won Pil-so glared at Cheon Woo-jin and shouted.
“You said you were a sword cultivator!”
“I never said such a thing.”
It was true that he had learned the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art, a sword-cultivator art.
But he didn't carry a sword around; he simply hurled sword qi at his enemies.
“I'll take the front from now on! You support me from behind!”
Cheon Woo-jin's strength had exceeded all expectations, and Won Pil-so's attitude had changed accordingly.
Until now he'd intended to use Cheon Woo-jin as a meat shield, but now he was personally taking point himself.
The formation they'd agreed on at the start had lost all meaning.
Now that they knew what Cheon Woo-jin was capable of, a new formation was needed.
“We'll finish these bastards off, then go support my senior brother!”
Jang Ryang, the strongest of their allies, was not present at the moment.
He was moving alone to strike down Danmok Ryeong, the strongest fighter on the enemy's side.
But still…
Once again, Cheon Woo-jin felt that uneasy sensation.
It was as if the Body of the Dark True Abyss was warning him of something yet again.
“What is the meaning of this?”
In the innermost room of the compound, a man of striking features sat waiting.
His refined face carried an air of effortless elegance, and a magnificent treasure sword hung at his waist.
It was Danmok Ryeong, a Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Poison Sword Sect.
“Not only did they see through the defensive formation, they even unraveled the lightning traps. Don't tell me we had a mole?”
“I-I wouldn't know, my lord.”
“Tch…”
Danmok Ryeong clicked his tongue.
Frankly, he couldn't have cared less that the sect's lowest-ranking disciples were being slaughtered.
In any sect, the low-ranking disciples were nothing more than expendable resources.
Only one thing mattered.
Holding the Small Secret Realm they had secured this time.
In the cultivation world, the acquisition of training resources was of paramount importance.
There were countless cultivators who stagnated forever because they could not obtain the resources they needed.
Take the Foundation Establishment Pill, for instance—an absolute necessity for stepping into Foundation Establishment, yet most Qi Condensation cultivators never so much as lay eyes on one in their entire lives.
Crafting the pill required rare spiritual creatures as ingredients, and obtaining those creatures was anything but easy.
The Poison Sword Sect currently had around a hundred Qi Condensation Great Perfection cultivators, and most of them would meet the end of their lifespans without ever obtaining a Foundation Establishment Pill.
But this newly discovered secret realm seemed to hold one of the very ingredients needed to craft it.
If they harvested it on a regular basis—using it directly within the sect or trading it for other materials—they would be able to secure Foundation Establishment Pills on a stable footing.
For the sake of the Poison Sword Sect's future, this secret realm must be secured at all costs. I won't let anyone take it from us!
As it happened, the Poison Sword Sect had not been the ones to discover the realm in the first place.
The only son of a certain trade caravan had stumbled upon it while scouting out a location for a new shop.
At the time, Danmok Ryeong had been slated to invest in that new shop and was traveling in the young man's company—in the end, he had murdered him and stolen the right to claim the realm's discovery.
A secret realm secured at the cost of such an act.
He had to defend it. Whatever it took.
“Danmok Ryeong. Things appear to be going poorly for us.”
Just then, a voice drifted down from the seat of honor.
“Is everything all right?”
“Rest assured.”
Danmok Ryeong answered with his hands folded respectfully.
“It seems some rootless rogue cultivators attacked at the behest of another power. A few of the low-ranking disciples have fallen on the outer grounds—I will go settle this myself.”
“Then see that you settle it quickly.”
The voice from the seat of honor was ice-cold.
“If you can't even resolve a matter like this, I'm afraid I cannot acknowledge your exclusive claim to this secret realm.”
“……”
Danmok Ryeong left that voice behind him and stepped out into the corridor.
He started toward where the commotion was raging, but his legs abruptly grew heavy.
This is…
He turned his head to find a man glaring at him, a talisman clutched in his hand.
The man's aura was far from ordinary. A Foundation Establishment cultivator, without question.
“Danmok Ryeong…!”
“So you're the leader. Come to take me captive, have you?”
Danmok Ryeong smiled as he drew the sword at his waist.
It was, of course, no ordinary blade.
“My thanks. You've spared me the trouble of hunting you down.”
Lightning crackled from the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword, the magic artifact bestowed upon him by the Poison Sword Sect.
“Looks like Danmok Ryeong really is the only Foundation Establishment one here. Everyone else is just Qi Condensation.”
Won Pil-so muttered as he burned a Qi Condensation cultivator to death.
“Hey, how's it going on your end?”
“Same as yours, it seems.”
Cheon Woo-jin answered in an even, level voice.
Until moments ago he had been trading blows with one of the Poison Sword Sect's sword cultivators—until a blade rising out of the shadows had stabbed the man through the back and drained the life from him.
“You're actually pretty good, you know.”
“Why the sudden compliment?”
“Well, you're definitely a Qi Condensation Great Perfection cultivator.”
Won Pil-so stared straight at Cheon Woo-jin and asked,
“Have you seen a lot of real combat?”
“Real combat?”
“You're good at adjusting distance in an instant and taking up positions that favor you.”
“……”
Cheon Woo-jin faltered for a beat.
That was, in fact, the thing Cheon Woo-jin paid the most attention to in his everyday approach.
It was one of the most fundamental tactics of combat in Yeongro Suseonjeon, after all.
Moving into a position where you could easily evade the enemy's attacks.
Moving into a position where you could unload your own attacks without hindrance.
It was the very bedrock of gameplay.
He just hadn't expected to be complimented on it directly by a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
“Plenty of cultivators have high spiritual power but fall flat in actual combat. Fellows better suited to alchemy or crafting magic artifacts than to the battlefield, if you ask me.”
“……”
“You're nothing like those lot.”
This from the man who glared daggers at me the moment he laid eyes on me.
Barely an hour had passed, and Won Pil-so's attitude had completely turned around.
“When this is over, how about working with us?”
“With you?”
“Someone like you seems like someone I could actually trust.”
Now he was even inviting him to become their companion outright.
“Not that I'm saying we have to share one pot of rice forever. We plan on leaving Ghost Head City someday ourselves, after all.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. We have a goal, see—to rebuild the sect that was annihilated by the Taiyi Easy Separation Sect.”
“……”
Cheon Woo-jin had wondered how people who looked like they'd come from an Orthodox sect had ended up drifting into Ghost Head City's rogue cultivator scene. So that was the story behind it.
“What do you say? If you travel with us, it'll help when you make your attempt at Foundation Establishment later, too.”
“I'm sorry, but I prefer being alone for now.”
Cheon Woo-jin answered in a flat, unbothered voice.
“Besides, traveling with you would ultimately mean putting myself beneath you… and I'm not particularly fond of hierarchies.”
Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so were, quite formally, Foundation Establishment cultivators.
As a Qi Condensation cultivator, Cheon Woo-jin would inevitably rank below them.
“I'm the sort who enjoys the vassal besting his lord, you see. It wouldn't be pleasant for you either.”
“You're joking, right? What kind of excuse is that…?”
“Also.”
Cheon Woo-jin glanced around.
“Shouldn't we be going to offer our help about now?”
“Ah, right.”
It looked as though nearly all of the Poison Sword Sect's low-ranking disciples had been dealt with.
There might be a few hiding in the corners, but flushing out stragglers like that could be left to the other cultivators.
“Good. Then the two of us will head over.”
After leaving the cleanup to the others, Won Pil-so led Cheon Woo-jin forward.
“My senior brother is… ah, there he is!”
KRA-KOOM!
A thunderous roar rolled over the ruins of a collapsed wall.
They rushed toward the sound to find a battle raging outside the building.
A sword cultivator with strikingly handsome features was driving Jang Ryang back, step by step.
Danmok Ryeong—a Foundation Establishment sword cultivator of the Poison Sword Sect.
He was swinging his massive treasure sword in wide arcs, unleashing a torrent of azure sword qi.
Jang Ryang was deflecting it with defensive spell arts, but he had been driven entirely onto the defensive.
Even at the same late stage of Foundation Establishment, Jang Ryang is clearly outmatched in pure combat power.
As Won Pil-so had said earlier, every cultivator had their own aptitudes.
And which combat arts or spell arts a cultivator had focused on training also had an enormous bearing on their combat strength.
As far as Cheon Woo-jin could tell, Jang Ryang was a cultivator whose strength lay in auxiliary support.
Facing a man who had trained nothing but sword-cultivator combat arts in the Poison Sword Sect was simply beyond him.
“Senior brother!”
Won Pil-so joined the fray.
Stretching out both hands, he unfolded his flame spell art.
The same searing blaze that had turned the Poison Sword Sect's low-ranking disciples into charcoal moments ago came pouring forth.
But Danmok Ryeong was no pushover.
The instant Danmok Ryeong flicked his left hand upward, a sudden gust swirled up and scattered the flames into nothing.
A Wind-attribute spell art!
In this world, there existed five elemental spiritual energies—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—and spell arts, too, carried the five elemental attributes.
Beyond those five, however, there also existed derivative attributes.
Ice-attribute spell arts, for example, were a derivative of Water-attribute arts, channeled primarily through Water spiritual energy—for in Five Elements theory, winter and cold qi belonged to the Water element.
Wind, meanwhile, was a derivative of Wood, tied to the same doctrine's assignment of wind to the Wood element.
Because Wood-attribute spell arts leaned so heavily toward support, combat-focused cultivators like Danmok Ryeong tended to favor Wind over Wood.
The azure sword qi Danmok Ryeong was unleashing was likewise a Wind-attribute blade built on Wood spiritual energy.
Its hallmark was a faster attack speed than ordinary sword qi, along with exceptional cutting power.
“Whose bidding did you come here under?”
Crack-crack-crack!
Each swing of Danmok Ryeong's sword birthed dozens of blades of qi.
Responding to wind-blades that curved in along twisting, unpredictable trajectories, Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so were both drenched in sweat.
“The Orthodox sects? The Dark Gate? Or the Demonic Path?”
“Ggh…!”
“It makes no difference either way. This secret realm belongs to us.”
Danmok Ryeong had assumed some rival faction coveting the secret realm had sent them.
The notion that a trade caravan master, robbed of his son, might have thrown a fortune at hiring rogue cultivators for revenge—such a thought never crossed Danmok Ryeong's mind.
“Senior brother! Let's hit him from both— hrk!”
“Th-this bastard—even slipping around behind him isn't easy!”
Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so were struggling.
Danmok Ryeong was stronger than they had expected.
But to Cheon Woo-jin's eye, that wasn't solely due to the man's personal skill.
However formidable Danmok Ryeong might be, there was no way he should have been handling a two-pronged assault from Foundation Establishment cultivators with that much ease.
Which means it's that artifact he's carrying.
The Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword.
A magic artifact he had seen before in the game.
Among sword-type equipment usable at Foundation Establishment, it ranked among the upper tier.
In the game, it would turn up in the hands of some Poison Sword Sect cultivator or other… and here, Danmok Ryeong was the one wielding it.
The artifact I wanted.
When he had handed the Mysterious Snake Spirit Sword over to Seo Seol-ryeong, Cheon Woo-jin had resolved that someday he would acquire an artifact surpassing it.
That moment was now.
Cheon Woo-jin raised his spiritual power and hurled out sword qi.
“Hm…!”
Danmok Ryeong, who had been pressing Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so hard, hastily dodged.
A black sword qi had come flying at him out of nowhere.
He escaped injury, but a corner of his robe was torn away.
“That sword qi… the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art?”
Danmok Ryeong recognized the Orthodox sect's sword art at a glance, and his eyes blazed.
He would be warily wondering whether the Taiyi Easy Separation Sect was behind this entire affair.
With Danmok Ryeong's attention fixed on Cheon Woo-jin, the relentless rain of wind-blades slackened at last.
Seizing the opening, Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so steadied their stances.
The battle was not yet decided. Hope kindled in the two men's eyes.
The gazes of three Foundation Establishment cultivators converged on Cheon Woo-jin.
Even under that weight of scrutiny, he kept his composure and gathered his focus.
I need a sword.
Within his inner spiritual domain, he forged a heart-sword.
A densely compressed blade, as fine as the one that had shattered the gates and overturned the lightning traps earlier.
But he didn't stop at one.
Still holding that blade in the spiritual domain, he forged another heart-sword.
When the second was complete, he made a third; when the third was complete, a fourth.
Then he projected the finished heart-swords outward, manifesting black blades of pure spiritual energy.
The total number of manifested sword blades: twelve.
Back at late-stage Qi Condensation, he had only been able to form them one at a time—but now, he could produce a dozen all at once like this.
“So the Orthodox sects are as hypocritical as ever! Breaking the covenant and meddling in the affairs of Ghost Head City!”
Danmok Ryeong, convinced he was facing Taiyi Easy Separation Sect cultivators, roared out his denunciation.
But Cheon Woo-jin paid it no mind and continued circulating his spiritual power.
There was no reason to feel fear simply because his opponent was a Foundation Establishment strongman.
Foundation Establishment cultivators died all the same when dealt a fatal wound, didn't they?
The moment he reached that conclusion, he unfurled the spiritual power he had refined within his body all at once.
Twelve lethal black blades tore through the darkness, howling like wailing ghosts as they raced toward their prey.