Chapter 280: Leader of the Black Lotus Union (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 280: Leader of the Black Lotus Union (4)
When the Transcendent Realm masters directly under the Shadow Lotus Union were dispatched, the Black Dragon Sect and the Great Black Mountain Sect received their tactical orders.
One such order was as follows:
Should the Black Dragon Sect come under attack while its leader, Cheok-yo, along with the Profound Bow Emperor and Sin-pung, were away, the Transcendent masters of the Great Black Mountain Sect were to assess the situation and deploy accordingly.
For that reason, Heuk-gang, Sect Leader of the Great Black Mountain Sect and the man known as the Evil-Eyed Wolf, moved the moment he received the signal from Cheok-yo.
First, he ordered his most trusted disciples to hide the sect’s vital secret manuals and sacred objects. Then, he set out alongside the two Transcendent masters sent by the Shadow Lotus Union.
Those two were the Thousand-Mile Guest, Gong Cheon-hu, and the Blade Sovereign, Yu Cheon-rang.
Heuk-gang had received a Teleportation Talisman from the Thousand-Mile Guest—a man who studied space itself and manipulated its underlying principles.
The Teleportation Talisman was an artifact imbued with the Thousand-Mile Guest's own power. Though it took the form of a talisman, it had nothing to do with sorcery. Instead, it pierced through reality, instantly connecting the space between the talisman and a pre-prepared location.
While the spatial coordinates were highly volatile and the tunnel would collapse immediately after transit, it was the perfect trump card for their current contingencies.
Besides, their most important assets had already been smuggled out of the sect. Even if an enemy tried to exploit the gap in their defenses, capturing an opposing Transcendent master would be a far greater victory.
Especially if that master was the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord.
His signature rapid movement had been a massive headache for the Great Black Mountain Sect. Eliminating the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord alone would make the rest of the war several times easier.
Upon arriving at the battlefield, Heuk-gang found exactly what he was looking for.
"So, you're the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord?"
A sinister smile played on Heuk-gang’s lips. But it was fleeting. Frowning, he turned to Cheok-yo, the Black Dragon Sect Leader.
"What is this? Why are there two of him?"
"How should I know? A second one just suddenly appeared. It must be some kind of cloning technique."
"Full of cheap tricks, isn't he."
Heuk-gang narrowed his eyes and scanned the battlefield. The first thing he noticed was Sin-pung, Ha Hu-ryang, bleeding out with a massive hole through his chest.
The state of his close friend, the Profound Bow Emperor Ho Hwi-jong, was equally grim. He wasn't severely wounded, but his body was covered in minor cuts, and more importantly, his mental state seemed completely shattered.
The only ones in decent condition were the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord and Cheok-yo.
"Don't tell me the three of you ended up like this against just one man?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
"Tsk."
Heuk-gang wanted to snap at Cheok-yo, a man he usually didn't get along with, but the joint attack formation of Sin-pung and the Profound Bow Emperor was considered a divine technique, unparalleled in the Murim.
Rather than blaming his allies' incompetence, it was safer to assume the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord was far stronger than anticipated.
"...First Namgung Jin-cheon, the Azure Heaven Sword Venerable, and now Lee Seo-jun, the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord. The Righteous Faction has birthed two geniuses in a row."
"Stop chatting and focus. If you take him lightly, another one of us might die."
"Right. We should hurry."
Heuk-gang had seen it too—the explosion the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord had fired into the sky. It was undoubtedly a signal calling for reinforcements.
There was no telling how many Transcendent masters would come to his aid, so it was paramount to slit his throat quickly while he was alone. In fact, with their current numbers, it would be absurd if they couldn't kill him.
"Thousand-Mile Guest, Blade Sovereign. Let’s go."
Wuuuung!
A bizarre pattern materialized in Heuk-gang’s pupils. The Evil-Eyed Wolf. A wolf with the eyes of a snake. True to his title, his gaze, harboring a sinister ocular power, locked onto the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord.
Simultaneously, the Blade Sovereign leveled her blade, and the Thousand-Mile Guest gripped the empty air with both hands.
Cheok-yo, after glancing briefly at Sin-pung and the Profound Bow Emperor, began to whirl the chain attached to his sword.
'We end him here.'
Swoosh!
Cheok-yo’s sword shot forward.
* * *
Meanwhile, the Profound Bow Emperor, Ho Hwi-jong, watched his friend die in his arms.
Bright red blood poured ceaselessly from the gaping hole in his chest.
Sin-pung, Ha Hu-ryang. His dearest friend. The life was steadily draining from his pale, bloodless face.
Ho Hwi-jong firmly believed that for a Transcendent master, a friend with whom one could truly share their heart was more precious than anything else in the world. His friends from the past had all died of old age, fallen to the sword, or been so seduced by the lofty heights of the Transcendent Realm that they were no longer the people he once knew.
But Ha Hu-ryang, who stood at the exact same height as him, was different.
He was a true friend.
Even if they only looked into each other's eyes, even if they only heard each other's breathing, even if they did nothing at all—Ha Hu-ryang knew Ho Hwi-jong’s martial arts inside and out, and he always knew the move that would follow.
A Jieum—a soulmate who truly understood one's music. Was it not said that only Zhong Ziqi truly understood the melodies of Bo Ya?
Ho Hwi-jong had always regarded Ha Hu-ryang, who walked half a step ahead of him, as both his soulmate and his greatest teacher.
"I'm sorry..." Ho Hwi-jong choked out, gripping his bow so hard the wood groaned. "You were always the one leading the way. The one time I tried to lead, it ended like this... It was a path I made... and that path killed you..."
At the sound of his trembling voice, Ha Hu-ryang’s eyes fluttered open. A blurred, fading gaze peered through his struggling eyelids.
He weakly raised a clenched fist. Ho Hwi-jong squeezed his eyes shut in grief. But Ha Hu-ryang’s fist merely tapped Ho Hwi-jong’s chest lightly.
"...Thank you, my friend."
His voice was faint, yet unwavering.
When Ho Hwi-jong opened his eyes to look at his friend, Ha Hu-ryang’s head had lolled to the side. Understanding his silent intent, Ho Hwi-jong gently leaned him against a nearby rock.
Through thinning breaths, Ha Hu-ryang spoke.
"I'm finished. Go help the others."
"Ryang..."
"...I won't leave my revenge to anyone else."
Ha Hu-ryang looked at Ho Hwi-jong. Ho Hwi-jong looked back.
He understood the unspoken plea just by looking into his dying friend's eyes.
Leaving Ha Hu-ryang propped against the rock, Ho Hwi-jong stood up. He raised his bow and aimed it toward the sky.
"Right. You shouldn't be lonely on your final journey..."
Creeeeeak!
A Black Iron Arrow was notched onto the string and drawn to its absolute limit. Dark Astral Qi violently swirled around the arrowhead.
His breathing settled into a dead, calm rhythm. With eyes as still as a frozen lake, the archer locked onto his target.
In the distance, the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord and his clone were clashing with the four Transcendent masters of the Shadow Lotus Union.
With just a few casual gestures, he neutralized the space warped by the Thousand-Mile Guest, parried the Blade Sovereign’s strikes, countered the Evil-Eyed Wolf’s ocular technique, and deflected the Black Dragon Sect Leader’s chained sword.
It was an unbelievable display of divine might.
'Yes, it has to be.'
Only a man of that terrifying caliber could have struck down his friend.
The Profound Bow Emperor etched that sight into his eyes. He focused, sharpening every sense to a razor's edge.
The chaotic flow of battle, the whistling wind, the fading breaths in his ear.
Now.
Tracing the lingering presence of his dear friend, the Profound Bow Emperor released the string.
Twang!
* * *
This was troublesome.
Seo-jun narrowed his eyes as he deflected the frantic, swirling onslaught pouring down on him.
The Thousand-Mile Guest and the Evil-Eyed Wolf were manageable. Whether they manipulated space or used ocular techniques, their abilities were ultimately rooted in Qi-based arts. They were annoying, but not a fatal threat.
However, the Blade Sovereign and the Black Dragon Sect Leader were the real problems. The Black Dragon Sect Leader in particular wielded a sword attached to a chain, and his attack patterns shifted drastically depending on how he manipulated the links.
"Tsk."
Seo-jun clicked his tongue and tilted his head to the side.
Clink-clink-clink!
The chain-sword shot forward like an arrow, grazing his cheek. Seo-jun immediately dropped into a crouch.
Swish!
The chain, pulled taut into a rigid line by internal energy, swept through the air like a spear.
Exploiting that opening, the Thousand-Mile Guest yanked hard on the fabric of space he had seized. Crack! With a sound like tearing silk, the space around Seo-jun fluctuated wildly.
Snap!
Seo-jun snapped his fingers to forcefully stabilize the spatial distortion and quickly scanned his surroundings.
'The doll is...'
It was holding up reasonably well. It had taken a few hits from the Blade Sovereign and the Evil-Eyed Wolf, but it was having no trouble maintaining its form.
Retreating a great distance to avoid the chain-sword now lashing out like a whip, Seo-jun narrowed his eyes.
If he wanted to crush them all by himself as originally planned, he’d have to push himself. But...
'If it's just to buy time, there won't be any problem.'
The real danger was the sudden deployment of a Domain. Since he didn't know what kind of conceptual powers might emerge, he had to remain vigilant. The ones whose Domain abilities remained unknown to him were the Blade Sovereign, the Thousand-Mile Guest, and the Evil-Eyed Wolf.
"Don't you dare slack off!" the Black Dragon Sect Leader roared, lunging with a twisted smile.
Rumble!
His Domain, the Turbid Principle Containing River, surged forth to constrict Seo-jun’s body.
Escaping the suppression without much difficulty, Seo-jun pointed his index finger forward.
Heaven-Defying Sun-Moon Art.
Ssssssssssh—!
Dozens of radiant streaks of the Heaven-Defying Sun-Moon Art poured toward the Black Dragon Sect Leader.
"Thousand-Mile Guest!"
Reacting instantly, the Thousand-Mile Guest warped space to deflect about half of the barrage, while the Black Dragon Sect Leader fully activated his Domain’s power.
Kwaaaa!
Swept away by the Domain's river-like currents, the remaining trajectories of the Heaven-Defying Sun-Moon Art were violently distorted.
The Black Dragon Sect Leader swatted away the lingering streaks with his blade and immediately lashed out with his chain-sword.
Swoosh!
The lethal weapon flew straight for Seo-jun's head. Manipulating natural energy to interfere with its momentum, Seo-jun leaped backward.
'I'll deflect the Black Dragon Sect Leader's attacks and take out the Thousand-Mile Guest first.'
Having finished his rapid calculations, Seo-jun reached out. The ambient Qi of the world moved at his command. But just as the natural energy, bent to his will, was about to strike the Thousand-Mile Guest—
BOOOOOOM—!!!
An arrow pierced through the world itself.
Seo-jun’s eyes widened. The doll, reacting a fraction of a second later, hurriedly crossed its arms defensively.
Rumble!
The doll, imbued with the mental imagery of the sky, the sun, and the moon, coated its outstretched hands with Primordial Unity Sun-Moon Astral Qi. In truth, its very body was composed of nothing less than Primordial Unity Sun-Moon Astral Qi.
Even the Blade Sovereign and the Evil-Eyed Wolf had only managed to shave off its surface; they hadn't been able to leave a single deep wound on it.
However—
Kwaaaaak—!!
A fist-sized hole was cleanly punched through the doll’s forearms and straight through its chest.
The arrow's trajectory, rising sharply from the ground, pierced the doll and continued endlessly into the horizon.
Rumble!
A distant roar echoed across the heavens. A perfectly straight black line remained etched across the vast blue expanse of the sky.
A distant mountain range was pierced through. A peak, its waist cleanly severed, collapsed in a catastrophic landslide. Finally, when the Black Iron Arrow expended the last of its kinetic force and crumbled into mere dust—
"Ah..."
Crack! Web-like fissures spread from the gaping hole in its chest, and the doll finally shattered into countless pieces.
Seo-jun’s eyes shook slightly. Tracing the trajectory back to its starting point—the Profound Bow Emperor—he let out a hollow laugh.
"What kind of absurd power is that..."
Gush! Blood trickled from the corner of Seo-jun’s mouth. He had suffered internal injuries from the psychic backlash of his doll being destroyed in an instant.
The Blade Sovereign and the Evil-Eyed Wolf, momentarily stunned by the display, quickly regained their senses.
"Only the main body is left! Hurry!"
They had already wasted too much time dealing with the Evil-Annihilating Heavenly Lord's impossible divine might. The Blade Sovereign, the Evil-Eyed Wolf, the Black Dragon Sect Leader, and the Thousand-Mile Guest all lunged toward Seo-jun simultaneously.
Seo-jun ignited his Primordial Unity Sun-Moon Astral Qi to burst forward, narrowly escaping the encirclement of the four Transcendent masters, though his eyes remained glued to the Profound Bow Emperor.
'What to do...'
He wasn't in a position to unleash a major technique right now. If he reproduced the full-powered Heaven-Defying Sun-Moon Art he had used against Geom-gwang, he might be able to kill one of them, but there were simply too many enemies. If he left even a momentary opening, his head would be taken immediately.
Of course, he wouldn't exactly die just because his head was chopped off... but there was no reason to overexert himself to that extent.
It was also too risky to fully draw upon Primordial Unity. Since he didn't know how his Inner Demon would react, it wasn't a card he could safely play in this chaotic situation.
'Is five against one still too many?'
Since he had already dealt with Sin-pung earlier, he was effectively facing six Transcendent masters in total. None of them were individually stronger than Geom-gwang, but still, six was a bit much...
'I just need to buy time anyway.'
It was almost time.
Clinging to that single thought, Seo-jun endured.
Over the ensuing clash, his limbs were sent flying a few times, his neck was half-severed, and countless wounds were etched all over his body—but he did not die. His flesh constantly regenerated at a terrifying speed, making him look perfectly fine on the surface.
'I'm not dead, so whatever.'
To him, injuries of this level were trivial.
But even his monstrous resilience had its limits. If this relentless assault continued, even Seo-jun would find it hard to hold out.
'When are those bastards getting here?'
In a battle between Transcendent masters, hundreds or thousands of lethal exchanges occurred within a single second.
Truly realizing the meaning behind the saying that one second could feel like a year, Seo-jun hurriedly arched his back.
"Aren't you paying a bit too much attention to the Profound Bow Emperor?" Cheok-yo mocked, closing the distance with his chain trailing ominously behind him.
The Thousand-Mile Guest twisted space to block Seo-jun’s retreat, supported by the Evil-Eyed Wolf’s paralyzing ocular technique. Simultaneously, the Blade Sovereign slipped into his blind spot, lunging forward with her blade swinging in a massive, lethal arc.
"Sigh."
Finally, unable to bear the mounting frustration, Seo-jun reached for the power of Primordial Unity.
"Well, it'll work out somehow."
Flash!
The moment a turbid current of energy began to shimmer around his body, a booming voice infused with immense internal energy thundered from above.
"Hey, have you been waiting long?"
KWA-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!!!
At the exact same time, thousands of streaks of light plummeted from the sky, tracing long, radiant trajectories like a meteor shower.
Every single one of them was a Divine Weapon.
It was Ju Won-jang, the Emperor of All Weapons, the man who had inherited the spoils of the Martial God who once unified the Central Plains.
Seo-jun, having leisurely slipped out from beneath the apocalyptic rain of armaments, furrowed his brow.
"You took your sweet time."
"Of course I did. But I'm still the first one here, aren't I?"
Following Ju Won-jang, the Transcendent masters of the Righteous Faction descended onto the battlefield one by one.
Hwangbo Ryung, Peng Geuk-jin, and even Pae Jin-gwang.
"Hasn't the plan gone off the rails quite a bit? I didn't expect all the enemies to be gathered here already."
"No, more than that, isn't it crazier that that brat Seo-jun is perfectly fine?"
"I told you. That guy just refuses to die."
Looking at his comrades chatting leisurely, completely oblivious to the hellish hardships he had just endured, Seo-jun gave a small smirk.
Regardless of their banter, it was a profoundly reassuring sight.
"Emperor Without Disease, assemble."
Now that the five greatest idiots of the Murim were gathered in one place, there was nothing left in the world to fear.
Lee Seo-jun, who hadn't really been afraid of anything to begin with, spread his arms wide with a grin.
"See? I have friends too."
BOOM—!!
But in the distance, the Profound Bow Emperor’s next arrow was already aimed straight for Seo-jun’s chest.