The Ambush (4)
"Why is the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect interfering in this matter!"
Dan Mok-ryeong roared.
"By the old covenant, the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect is barred from involvement in the affairs of Ghost Head City! Then why—!"
The refined lines of Dan Mok-ryeong's face had warped into something grotesque. Because Cheon Woo-jin had been mistaken for a member of the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect, his reaction to fighting him alone was incomparably more volatile than it had been against Jang Ryang or Won Pil-so.
And he had every reason to be.
The Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect was a far more powerful sect than the Dokgeom Sect, which was merely a mid-tier force among the Dark Gate. If the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect truly set its mind to it, they could trample a sect like the Dokgeom Sect in an instant. Within the Dark Gate, the only power capable of standing against them was the Moonlit Thirteen League, their largest syndicate—and even the Moonlit Thirteen League would avoid a direct clash with the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect inside Ghost Head City wherever possible, for they too were bound by the old covenant.
Either way, with the Taiyi Inverse Principle Sect involved, a mid-tier force like the Dokgeom Sect would find resistance all but impossible. Knowing this, Dan Mok-ryeong was now in the grip of considerable agitation.
And that agitation was precisely the opening Cheon Woo-jin had been waiting to drive into.
Twelve black blades, each tracing its own erratic orbit, rise without pattern or rhythm.
Papapapat!
Cheon Woo-jin's sword qi surged upward, each strand cutting a wildly irregular arc through the air. A mad dance of blades that lunged like living serpents closing on their prey—the twelve black blades converged on Dan Mok-ryeong from all four directions, binding him as if in a cage.
The instant they did, bloodshot veins flooded Dan Mok-ryeong's eyes. The wood-spirit qi injected into the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword dyed its entire blade azure, setting the very air trembling.
"You dare—!"
Dan Mok-ryeong's lips twisted into a spasm. I'll swat every last one of them down. With that look in his eyes, he unleashed a torrent of azure sword qi from the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword. Coming from a Foundation Establishment swordsman like Dan Mok-ryeong, that sword qi should have been more than enough to parry everything Cheon Woo-jin could throw at him.
But at that very moment, Dan Mok-ryeong's movements slowed to a crawl—as though someone had clamped lead weights to his limbs.
"You—!"
At some point, Jang Ryang had joined both hands and was weaving a spell. It was the technique he had been preparing all the while Dan Mok-ryeong's attention was fixed on Cheon Woo-jin. Jang Ryang possessed an Earth-attribute single spiritual root; he was less suited to direct offense than to auxiliary arts, and the Earth element in particular excelled at techniques that established a field within a fixed domain, like formations. Right now, he was generating a gravity field centered on Dan Mok-ryeong, dragging the man's every motion into molasses.
"Flame!"
Won Pil-so too, timing his strike to the very instant Jang Ryang's spell completed, began unleashing his flame arts in a deluge. He could not match his senior brother, but Won Pil-so was still a Foundation Establishment cultivator—his firepower was more than threatening enough.
Caught inside Jang Ryang's gravity field, battered on all sides by Cheon Woo-jin's sword qi and Won Pil-so's flames, Dan Mok-ryeong had no choice but to waver, no matter who he was.
"Press the attack!"
Jang Ryang bellowed, spurring on Cheon Woo-jin and Won Pil-so. His voice carried the hope that they might snatch a reversal victory from the jaws of defeat. Won Pil-so's flames danced like something deranged; the black sword qi crashed down on Dan Mok-ryeong in a single volley. With a thunderclap that seemed ready to split their eardrums, the whole surrounding area collapsed.
"Did we get him?!"
Won Pil-so stuck his head out, gasping for breath. At that exact moment, a wind of azure swept up through the thick dust.
"……!"
Dan Mok-ryeong stood with both hands clenched tight around the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword, eyes shut. His body was completely encased in a shield of azure light. At the moment the combined assault came crashing down, he had concentrated every last scrap of his spiritual power into defense. Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so, who had never anticipated this much, staggered.
In that instant, Dan Mok-ryeong's eyes snapped wide open as he raised the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword overhead.
Kukung!
Azure lightning detonated in a single breath. The thunder qi bursting outward in every direction tore the very fabric of space apart. It carried enough force to bring the entire temporary quarters crashing down.
"Kkeok!"
"S-Senior brother……!"
Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so rolled across the ground, spitting up red blood. The original plan had been simple: the two of them, fighting in concert, could subdue Dan Mok-ryeong. What they had failed to account for was the performance of the artifact he had brought with him.
"Vermin."
Dan Mok-ryeong ground his teeth. Blood vessels stood out across the hand gripping the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword. The lightning from moments before had left the surroundings a scorched wasteland—the low-ranking Dokgeom Sect disciples still inside the temporary quarters would surely have been caught in the blast and killed as well.
Dan Mok-ryeong paid it not the slightest heed. He simply glanced around, confirming that everyone who had come at him lay collapsed on the ground.
"Damn it……!"
Hwarrr!
Won Pil-so flung up his arm and vented flame in a last, desperate flail. Dan Mok-ryeong snorted, raised his left hand, and conjured an azure barrier. Blocking the flames with it, he gathered spiritual power once more into the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword in his right. Condense the qi—this time, for certain, he would snuff out their throats for good. That intention showed plainly on his face as he smiled with lazy confidence, a stark contrast to Won Pil-so's contorted features.
And just as Dan Mok-ryeong raised the fully-charged Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword—
"……!"
Blood sprayed. But it was not Won Pil-so's blood. It was Dan Mok-ryeong's.
A moment ago, Dan Mok-ryeong had confirmed that all of his enemies lay rolling on the floor. He had clearly seen the Foundation Establishment cultivator who had unleashed the Taiyi Mystery Sword Canon lying motionless as well. Which was why he had decided to deal with Won Pil-so first, the only one who still seemed to have strength left.
And because of that, he failed to sense the shadow of Cheon Woo-jin silently creeping out across the ground beneath his own feet. He noticed nothing at all—not until a blade of that shadow, surging up without a sound, severed his right wrist.
"Ah……!"
The moment Dan Mok-ryeong let out a short groan, Cheon Woo-jin—who had only been feigning collapse—was already on his feet, working his spirit qi. He, too, was becoming quietly certain of something now: that his talent far surpassed that of ordinary cultivators.
In the real world, Cheon Woo-jin had played Yeongro Suseonjeon and vicariously lived through hundreds of cultivators' lives. He had experienced not only the Foundation Establishment realm but heights so distant they blurred into legend. Of course, until now, all of that had been nothing more than mere game knowledge.
But now that he had reached the Peak stage of Qi Condensation and could consciously wield the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss, the meaning had changed. The Myeong of the Body of the Dark True Abyss signified a pitch-black sea that accepts all things. Cheon Woo-jin melted every one of his memories down into that sea. As mere game knowledge dissolved into the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss, it sublimated into enlightenment of cultivation. Where once he could only memorize and reproduce what was written in public technique manuals, he could now venture into the unknown territory beyond them.
It was talent more than sufficient to be called a genius by anyone.
"……!"
Using the shadow-blades like a rake, Cheon Woo-jin dragged Dan Mok-ryeong's right hand toward him. The bleeding wrist fell into his grip. What Cheon Woo-jin wanted, of course, was not Dan Mok-ryeong's hand—it was the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword clutched tight within it.
"You—!"
Listening to Dan Mok-ryeong's scream, Cheon Woo-jin slipped into his spiritual domain with the sword in hand. No matter how he swung it with the Taiyi Mystery Sword Canon, he could not inflict a mortal wound on a Foundation Establishment cultivator like Dan Mok-ryeong. He needed a new power.
I have to use the power of the lightning attribute.
The lightning attribute—the one element whose classification shifts with every xianxia work, precisely because it refuses to fit neatly into the Five Elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Some works assign lightning to the wood element, since thunder corresponds to the trigram Jin in the Eight Trigrams, which belongs to wood in the Five Elements. Other works assign it to the fire element, interpreting lightning as a force of ultimate yang and placing it on the same plane as flame.
Yeongro Suseonjeon took a different view entirely. It defined lightning as a higher attribute transcending the Five Elements—a primordial energy born from the clash of yin and yang. This was a setting grounded in the thunder rites that actually existed within Taoism. Thunder rites were a discipline of cultivation that borrowed the power of lightning to expel evil spirits and purify the world, established considerably later than the methods that used the Five Elements—and as a result, they possessed a far more sophisticated theoretical framework than primitive talisman arts or alchemy.
Incidentally, these thunder rites exerted a profound influence on Joseon as well. The Okchugyeong that shamans chanted when driving out spirits is, in fact, a canonical scripture of the thunder rites. Cheon Woo-jin, having worked at a publisher of Eastern classics, possessed more than the usual depth of knowledge on such subjects.
And so, the moment the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword settled into his hand, understanding came easily—what to do, and how.
Let Huangtian raise the walls of Thunder City, establish the Thunder Prison, appoint the Thunder Officials, apportion the Thunder Governance, unfold the Thunder Transformation, reveal the Thunder Punishment, summon the Thunder Spirits, marshal the Thunder Soldiers, manifest the Thunder Might, and set the Thunder Instruments in motion……
Employ it upon the Yin Realm, and mountains shall be sealed and caverns broken; demons shall be beheaded and poisons severed. Employ it upon the Yang Path, and calamity shall be expelled, the rebellious executed; the treacherous shall be struck down and the cruel slaughtered……
Without the Thunder of Heaven, by what means would the Law be revealed, stubbornness corrected, ignorance redeemed……
The foundational theory inscribed within the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword was absorbed into the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss. The truths the artifact-smith had hammered into this weapon melted into Cheon Woo-jin's inner being—as naturally as if he had known them from the beginning.
This Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword was an artifact forged to deploy the Five Thunder Method. As the name implied, the Five Thunder Method was a thunder rite that wielded the thunder qi of the Five Elements—or the Five Directions—a power that imbued thunder qi with the properties of the Five Elements, elevating it from mere lightning into a rigorously controlled art.
A moment ago, Dan Mok-ryeong had gripped the sword and produced azure lightning. That was because he was a wood-spirit-root cultivator, drawing his power from wood-attribute qi. Cheon Woo-jin, a water-spirit-root cultivator, had to forge his lightning from water qi.
He drew up every drop of water-attribute qi stored within his body. His opponent was a Foundation Establishment cultivator—a being above his own realm. There was no room for restraint.
Arc-black thunder that devours even the darkness before dawn—lightning of death that erodes existence itself into oblivion.
Kwajijik!
A black thunder qi that seemed fit to swallow even the darkness of the small hours cracked through the air. The lightning lanced out at blistering speed, annihilating everything along its path. A wooden pillar lying nearby crumbled into powder without a sound, and the stench of scorched material spread through the empty air.
Had Dan Mok-ryeong been in proper fighting condition, he could have blocked it. But right now he had lost his artifact, his right hand had been severed from his body, and his attention was divided by Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so flinging spells at him with their last scrap of strength.
"Ah……!"
The black thunder qi poured into Dan Mok-ryeong's body. The Black Thunder Cheon Woo-jin had unleashed was different in nature from the azure thunder Dan Mok-ryeong had wielded moments before. It was the lightning of death—one that eroded a target's very existence and erased it.
"Kkeuaaaak……!"
The black thunder qi that had flooded into his body spread through Dan Mok-ryeong's entire frame in an instant, reducing the body of a Foundation Establishment cultivator to a fistful of ash.
"I-I can't believe this……"
Jang Ryang murmured in disbelief. Won Pil-so, mouth hanging open, could not manage a word either. Cheon Woo-jin—whom they had taken for a Peak-stage Qi Condensation cultivator—had annihilated Dan Mok-ryeong, a Foundation Establishment swordsman, in a single strike. By their every measure of common sense, it was a feat too absurd to believe.
Naturally, this had only been possible because a great many factors had aligned perfectly. Had even one of them been missing, Cheon Woo-jin would never have subdued Dan Mok-ryeong. Of course, even in that situation, Cheon Woo-jin had held a trump card: had he used the Instant Killing Heavenly Eye, he could have ended Dan Mok-ryeong without any great difficulty.
But he had not used it against him. Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so had been watching—and besides, an ominous feeling had been crawling over him for some time now.
"Say, you……"
Jang Ryang ventured cautiously toward Cheon Woo-jin. It was at that exact moment that the sound of footsteps reached them.
"……!"
The footsteps came from the direction of the Dokgeom Sect's collapsed temporary quarters. Someone was approaching at a leisurely pace. He should have been inside the wreckage—and yet not a single wound marked his body. No, not even a speck of dust clung to him.
"Hm."
Unlike Dan Mok-ryeong's refined features, this was a man with a vicious, predatory face. The moment their eyes met, Cheon Woo-jin felt his marrow go cold. It was the gaze of a venomous serpent fixed on its prey. But the most terrifying thing of all was the man's presence as a cultivator. Perhaps because he had thrown open the breathing he had kept hidden until now, his mere appearance generated an oppressive pressure of the extremest order. In truth, Jang Ryang and Won Pil-so were already trembling in their boots.
"A magnificent Black Thunder, as if the very concept of death had taken form. You possess talent more than worthy of wielding the Five Thunder Heaven Subduing Sword."
Watching the man speak in that heavy, smothering voice, Cheon Woo-jin confirmed that his premonition had not been wrong.
A Core Formation cultivator of the great sect Moonlit Thirteen League. The true heavyweight—visiting to negotiate with the Dokgeom Sect—had shown himself at last.