Chapter 113
Chapter 113
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: Someone is Helping Us
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Heuk Do-san kicked off the cliff with all his might and soared into the air. Bang Cheolsan followed right behind. The others clinging to the cliff jumped down without a moment's hesitation.
They were all seasoned experts who had been through every hardship imaginable, and being locked in the Thunder Prison had stripped away their fear of death.
No matter what awaited them below the cliff, it couldn't be worse than what they'd endured so far.
Bing-seol, clinging to Heuk Do-san's back, felt every hair on her body stand on end. Her hair whipped upward into the void, and a biting gale clawed at her face from below.
Blood rushed to her face, bringing an indescribable sense of wrongness and a chilling spasm.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
The ice-covered river, blanketed in white, rushed up rapidly. Heuk Do-san shifted his center of gravity, pointing his legs downward, then unleashed twin palms.
Craaaack! Boom!
With a thunderous roar, the entire riverbed shook as if struck by an earthquake. Ice shattered from the point of direct impact, spraying outward in all directions.
Heuk Do-san plunged into the frigid river waters with Bing-seol on his back.
Splash! Whoosh!
One by one, people crashed into the water here and there. Each impact sent ice shards and sprays flying like cannon fire.
Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash!
Some fell with arrows embedded in their chests, others gashed by jagged ice fragments.
In an instant, the surrounding water turned red.
Sucked deep underwater by the force of their fall before bobbing back up, the survivors had no time to gather their wits and swam southward after Heuk Do-san.
The one stroke of luck was that Heuk Do-san's initial twin palms had cleaved a long gash through the river's ice.
Whether they had strength left or not, everyone pushed and pulled those more gravely wounded than themselves.
The fire arrows that had been raining down from the cliffside now shifted aim toward the river's center.
But there was a twist.
Even amid the swift current, the thick ice on the surface repelled the arrows.
Thanks to that, the arrows either shattered into powder and embedded themselves or ricocheted and skidded away.
Pew-pew-pew-pew!
Bang Cheolsan recalled what Heuk Do-san had said just before leaping from the cliff.
"Swim with your body as submerged as possible."
Incredibly, he had foreseen this exact scenario. How could he have calculated even this during the brief moment the enemies appeared on the riverbank and loosed their fire arrows?
"A born tactician!"
The Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps raced along the riverbank, continuing their barrage. The ice served as a shield, but it wasn't perfect cover.
Tang! Thunk!
"Hngh!"
"Chang-o! Pull yourself together, Chang-o!"
Some took arrows to the nape while swimming, grazing off the ice.
Others, wounded from the cliff fall, breathed their last. They stiffened mid-swim in the icy waters.
"We leave the dead behind!"
Bang Cheolsan issued the bold order in Gong Cheon-ak's stead. But the Demonic Cultists refused to abandon comrades with even a breath left.
"Don't fall behind! Think of the time in the Thunder Prison! Escape this, and we're all free!"
Meanwhile, Bing-seol had passed out from the shock of hitting the ice surface.
Her qi depleted, the sudden impact was enough to knock her unconscious.
Heuk Do-san had no choice but to lead from the front, still carrying her on his back, shattering and parting the ice to clear a path.
"Better this way."
And that Bang Cheolsan fellow was leading the group far better than expected.
The decision to leave the dead was spot on. Right now was the time to sacrifice one corpse to save ten lives.
"Once I meet Si-un, we'll grab a spot together."
Despite the swift current carrying them and their all-out swimming, the distance from the Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps didn't widen.
No current could outpace galloping horses.
The original plan had been to leap into the river and vanish into the fog downriver in the distance.
But now that they'd jumped, the thick ice sheet slowed them terribly.
Worse, the pursuit was fiercer and sharper than anticipated.
The enemy had split into three groups.
The first group, astonishingly, charged into the river on horseback, cleaving through the water mixed with ice chunks.
One hand gripped the reins, the other raised a long lance, poised to skewer the Demonic Cultists' backs like harpoons.
The second, largest group matched pace with the swimming Cultists, raining fire arrows nonstop.
The flames lit the darkness, exposing the heads of Cultists surfacing from the water in stark relief. More fire arrows targeted those heads.
Finally, the third group raced far ahead, intent on encircling them mid-river before the fog rolled in.
No doubt drawing dragon-head sabers, ready to lop off heads as the Cultists approached.
Lances to the rear, fire arrows to the flanks, dragon-head sabers to the necks?
"Someone who knows tactics."
With over a thousand troops, it was natural some had studied military strategy. The problem was their skill exceeded expectations.
Bang Cheolsan, pressing close behind, seemed to grasp the gravity. Mid-swim, he said urgently.
"At this rate, we're all dead."
The most pressing threat was the horsemen plunging into the river. Around two hundred strong, in a dozen more paces, they'd hurl their lances.
The swimming Cultists at the rear were a mere fifty paces away. At this rate, the tail end would be caught before half a geng passed.
There was a way.
Deploy the blood bats.
They were flying monstrosities.
Summon the bat swarm always within five li, and the pursuers could be shaken off.
But once riled, they couldn't be controlled mid-frenzy. Even if the Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps were experts, hundreds would die.
And it was night now.
The blood bats grew even more savage in the dark.
He didn't want to inflict such losses on them.
There was the promise to Dang Yak-ran, but more than that, he couldn't brand the Corps as evil outright. Just as he couldn't call all these rescued Cultists villains.
"From now on, you clear the path."
"Yes?"
"Swim at full speed, no matter what!"
With that, Heuk Do-san turned back with Bing-seol on his back.
Sensing something ominous in his movement, fire arrows poured from the riverbank like a hailstorm.
Heuk Do-san swung his sleeve wide.
Fwoom!
The swirling palm force tangled the fire arrows into a knot and flung them aside.
He overtook all the Cultists and took up the rearmost position. The distance to the horsemen charging furiously had narrowed to a dozen paces.
Spotting him, the enemy raised their lances high overhead. At that instant, Heuk Do-san kicked off the riverbed hard.
His body shot out of the water, soaring nearly a zhang into the air. In midair, he unleashed twin palms at the surface right before the oncoming horsemen.
Kwaaaa-boom!
With a deafening blast, all ice chunks and water within a dozen paces exploded upward. Heuk Do-san plunged back into the river and immediately thrust twin palms forward again.
This time horizontally.
There existed a technique called Air-Severing Palm, a palm method that struck a point in empty space to generate immense pressure.
Those who couldn't comprehend its profundity often mystified it as "palm wind."
It was the pinnacle of palm arts.
Ice shards, sharpened like blades by the force of Heuk Do-san's Air-Severing Palm, assailed the horses and Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps.
The terrified Corps members, abandoning their lance throws, flailed their arms in all directions.
Humans could fend them off, but horses couldn't. Having shed their iron barding to enter the water, the horses were pierced in necks and chests by the shards.
Neighhh!
Splash! Splash! Splash!
Horses tumbled forward, riders plunged into the water. The falling front ranks tripped the rear, sending more horses and men crashing down.
Heuk Do-san relentlessly fired Air-Severing Palms at those splashing in the water and those still charging on horseback.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The immense pressure raged, and ice shards flew like arrows for a good while, until no more mounted pursuers remained.
The river turned to pandemonium in seconds—whinnying horses in agony, bucking beasts, and flailing humans.
The Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps stared in stunned disbelief at the near-miraculous scene.
"If you pursue, I'll kill you all!"
No empty threat.
If they pressed on, he'd have no choice but to fight to the death, siding with one group or the other.
Right now, Heuk Do-san stood with the Cultists.
Having swiftly cleared the rear, he turned forward again. In that brief moment, the Cultists had fled dozens of paces ahead.
The Corps group running alongside on the bank kept up the fire arrows.
The third group, far ahead, was already preparing to enter the river.
"If they seize the river center, we're done!"
Aware of it, Bang Cheolsan drove the group onward in a mad swim, a final desperate push to break through before they did.
But it was futile.
"I didn't want it to come to this."
Heuk Do-san pulled the bone flute from around his neck and raised it to his lips. Just as he drew breath to blow, a yellow blaze erupted from the reed marsh a hundred paces ahead.
"What the hell?"
The flames ballooned into a massive inferno in seconds. Towering white smoke blotted the surroundings, brightening the night.
The wind-borne firestorm devoured the reeds, racing toward them like a colossal fire dragon.
The horses whinnied in terror at the sight. Caught off guard, the panicked Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps wheeled about and fled without a chance to react.
The Cultists bobbing in the icy water were dumbfounded. What absurd turn of events was this?
Heuk Do-san thought.
"Someone's helping us."
The flames engulfing the reed marsh grew larger.
Soon, the second group running alongside and firing arrows, and even the first group scrambling out of the water, all fled for their lives. No one could stand against fire.
Meanwhile, Heuk Do-san pushed through to the front again. Bang Cheolsan asked as if he'd been waiting.
"What in the world... is this?"
"Keep advancing."
The blaze from the reeds didn't just chase the Black Soul Ghost Armor Corps. Those who climbed onto the ice warmed their chilled bodies in the heat and continued downriver.
After swimming some distance, the cliff on the left abruptly ended, revealing a confluence where a large river joined.
The shadow of the cliff vanished, the water flow swelled and churned, thinning the sturdy ice to mere skim.
"This is the Chang River main current. Crossing it swimming in our state is suicide. Half won't survive."
Bang Cheolsan said.
He was right. The Chang River, fed by all the Tae Mountain tributaries, was notoriously wide and turbulent.
Even now, beneath the rippling frozen surface, fierce currents surely raged.
Everyone had depleted their qi getting here; plunging in would drown them outright.
They couldn't climb ashore either.
The left bank reed marsh had been scorched by the firestorm, but heat still shimmered, thick smoke rising.
The path was blocked.
"We wait here."
"Yes?"
"Someone's bound to show up."