Chapter 142
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 142
Chapter Title: 40. Blade Mountain Sword Forest (1)
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'You've had a hard time, Junior Brother.'
That was what Jin Ga-yong wanted to say to Go Dan-oh as he approached, with a gentle expression.
But before he could take three steps, his face hardened.
The ordeal wasn't over yet.
So he simply conveyed it with his eyes.
'Just wait a moment.'
Jin Ga-yong adjusted his grip on his sword and whirled around.
Thud. Thud.
The Sandong Old Man was walking toward them.
His gait seemed leisurely at first glance. But with every step, the killing intent he exuded stacked layer upon layer. And his footwork gradually quickened.
Jin Ga-yong immediately recognized that the old man was no ordinary master. Yet without the slightest hesitation, he steadied his heavy heart and took his first step.
He wouldn't stop!
With each step, Jin Ga-yong emptied his mind one bit at a time.
And so, the Sandong Old Man and Jin Ga-yong closed in on each other.
One step.
Two steps.
And on the third.
Jin Ga-yong judged that he could no longer endure the old man's steps. Without delay, he launched his body, now considerably lighter though not fully cleared, forward.
Whoosh.
In the blink of an eye, Jin Ga-yong appeared at the old man's left flank and thrust his sword repeatedly.
The Sandong Old Man twisted his body in response and countered with his blade. It was that same monstrous slash he had shown Flying Tiger earlier.
Clang. Clang.
In just two exchanges, Jin Ga-yong's sword trembled in his grip, and his eyes widened in shock.
The sword that had been with him for years was trying to escape his control, like a child thrashing in pain and losing its reason.
And the Sandong Old Man, with a triumphant expression, swung his horizontally extended blade with full force.
…!
The beginning had clearly favored Jin Ga-yong.
He had judged that the Sandong Old Man wielded a heavy sword style and struck just before the man could fully muster his power. He had also targeted a spot where the opponent would struggle to properly channel force into his blade.
To anyone, such a minor difference against a master like that might seem insignificant. But it all depended on who seized that small advantage and how they used it. In that sense, Jin Ga-yong knew how to wield his sword, and he had gained exactly that much edge.
Yet the outcome wasn't favorable.
Right away, Jin Ga-yong struggled to wield his sword precisely due to the unique power infused in the old man's slash. In contrast, the Sandong Old Man was now freely pouring his strength into his swings, unlike before.
Given the situation, should he retreat?
Jin Ga-yong thought not.
That was precisely what the opponent wanted.
So Jin Ga-yong gritted his teeth and unleashed a barrage of sword strikes at the charging Sandong Old Man.
Instead of trying to control his sword, he let it rampage wildly.
Had he tried to suppress it, the sword would have shattered from its own nature. In that brief moment, he had intuitively grasped this truth.
As a result.
The sword thrusts from Jin Ga-yong's hand were ferociously wild, beyond belief.
And they produced irregular changes.
In an instant, blade and sword intertwined, erupting in a deafening roar.
Clang clang clang clang~
'So who gained the upper hand?'
Flying Tiger wondered as he watched their clash.
The Sandong Old Man, after nine slashes, could no longer hold out. Covered in blood, he staggered back unsteadily. He simply couldn't block Jin Ga-yong's unpredictable sword, which even its wielder didn't know where it would go next.
Jin Ga-yong himself looked relatively composed, but his pale face clearly showed the strain. Rather than external wounds, it seemed he had suffered internal injuries. And while the old man had retreated of his own will, albeit unsteadily, Jin Ga-yong stumbled back like a drunkard on the verge of collapse.
This showed the clash's aftermath had hit him harder. But weighing gains and losses told a different story.
First, Jin Ga-yong had created the distance he intended from the Sandong Old Man, buying time to regroup. Not only that—he had now tasted the old man's deadly single stroke, which was even more lethal when unexpected.
So, had he paid a cheap price for it?
Of course, even having experienced the old man's slash, Flying Tiger had no special solution.
But for Jin Ga-yong...
'No. Foreman Jin is still at a disadvantage. I don't know how he's held out this long, but with his sword shaking like that, it's about to shatter.'
As Flying Tiger saw, Jin Ga-yong's sword was vibrating nonstop, on the verge of exploding.
Yet Jin Ga-yong had reached such a profound realm that he resonated with his sword, understanding exactly what this phenomenon meant.
Every time it clashed with the Sandong Old Man's blade, a twisting force surged in.
He surmised it resembled the principle of the Penetration Meridian technique, one of the footwork energy methods.
But while Penetration Meridian bypassed weapons or armor to strike the body's interior, this twisting force oddly lingered in the weapon itself.
It coiled and twisted on its own, eventually bursting and eroding the weapon's durability.
This was the core secret behind the Sandong Old Man shattering his opponents' weapons.
Thus, Jin Ga-yong had coaxed and soothed his sword to keep it from breaking so far.
When the strange invading forces tried to flare up, he gently deflected them to disrupt their rhythm. When they shrank back, he lightly pulled to extend them. When they tried to coil, he spun them loose. In this way, he diverted some of the twisting forces and mitigated much of the damage from those that exploded.
Of course, the durability had still worn down considerably. And this method had reached its limit.
Now, a single strand of the Sandong Old Man's twisting force remained in Jin Ga-yong's sword, too powerful to handle with his previous approach. To Flying Tiger's eyes, it looked ready to shatter any moment.
But Jin Ga-yong revealed another trick.
He suddenly swung his incessantly flicking and stirring sword in a large arc through the air, turning his back.
Then he plunged it into a nearby bamboo stalk that stood awkwardly.
Crack! ...Zzzt crack.
The bamboo split into pieces around the stabbed spot, snapping and shattering sequentially. The fragments scattered in all directions, tracing trajectories eerily similar to when the Sandong Old Man shattered weapons.
Jin Ga-yong had expelled the force injected into his sword outward. It was a jaw-dropping sight for onlooker Flying Tiger.
'Redirecting the received force elsewhere like that? Hmm, a form of Borrowing Force to Redirect Energy?'
Jin Ga-yong then turned to the Sandong Old Man.
His proud gaze seemed to say he'd seen through the old man's petty trick—and to ask how his own skill looked.
"Heh heh heh, interesting. Very interesting."
The Sandong Old Man chuckled oddly, his eyes blazing with fighting spirit. It had been ages since he encountered such an amusing plaything(?), stirring his interest.
Having tasted each other's measure, they stepped toward one another again, intent on finishing it now that they'd started.
But both halted after two or three steps, postponing the duel.
Their distance had opened to about twenty paces—the old man retreating seven steps, Jin Ga-yong twice that—and now two men burst in between with a racket.
One rolled in spraying blood before sprawling dead; he was a swordsman. One of the two who had followed Sama Gul-gi, already lifeless as he tumbled.
The other slid in kicking up dust; that was Sama Gul-gi. From his wheezing, it looked like he'd taken a harsh beating somewhere.
From whom?
Obviously, A Jeok-gang.
A Jeok-gang had charged into the fray after dispatching two swordsmen, and Sama Gul-gi, startled by Jin Ga-yong, had scrambled up to meet him.
Their exchange of seven or eight bouts was evenly matched.
A Jeok-gang's chain sword was bizarre and vicious, purely offensive. But Sama Gul-gi's sword was steady, revealing no easy gaps while countering sharply once per exchange. Thus, A Jeok-gang struggled to press his assault. Their styles meshed decently, making for a good match.
Of course, in a life-or-death duel, it could end in any moment—but up to then, it had been like that.
Then a variable intervened.
Of the four swordsmen Flying Tiger had assigned to Sama Gul-gi, two had fallen to Jin Ga-yong, and the remaining two, watching the situation, jumped in.
Sama Gul-gi inwardly bristled at this but let it pass. It wasn't a proper one-on-one duel between warriors anyway, and he wasn't naive enough to insist on his preferences.
This turned A Jeok-gang's mild discomfort into outright suffocation. Sama Gul-gi alone was no pushover, and now two more blades joined—how could it not? Pushed into defense, he made a swift decision.
'Throw the winning gambit while there's even a sliver of breathing room!'
A Jeok-gang burned two-thirds of his inner energy to unleash his secret technique: Heavenly Wolf Eight Stars.
Seven strands of sword qi shredded one swordsman, and as Sama Gul-gi thrust to exploit the gap, those strands recombined into a red thread, swirling around the chain sword.
The advanced realm of manifesting sword qi tangibly: Sword Thread.
A Jeok-gang then slashed down at the charging Sama Gul-gi with his thread-wrapped chain sword.
Sama Gul-gi reacted keenly. Sensing danger, he instantly switched to full defense.
He barely blocked the secret technique but was pushed back nearly seven paces, tumbling into the space between Jin Ga-yong and the Sandong Old Man.
And as the price for survival, his cherished sword cracked and shattered—that fueled his rage.
Meanwhile, A Jeok-gang was surprised in his own way.
Despite his sure-kill move, he hadn't pierced that sturdy man's defense.
But with his vast duel experience, surprise was surprise—he finished the job. Pouring every ounce of strength, he swung his chain sword at the last swordsman.
The swordsman, already lacking skill and terrified by A Jeok-gang's display, hesitated, throwing off his footing. Thus, the chain blade slithered over his body like a snake, coiling around.
He screamed.
"Aaaak!"
With that cry, the two sides—Choeo-jin and Jin Ga-jang's forces, busy slashing since the start—naturally entered a brief lull. They sized each other up.
All eyes burned with murderous intent.
Each knew well: fail to annihilate the enemy here, and they'd die themselves.