Chapter 151
Chapter 151: Power Leveling (4)
"Th-this monster……."
Thud.
No Cheon's face, which had been trying to utter some curse-laden words, was completely crushed following the previous two.
"Three."
Dong Bong-soo's ultra-high-speed Rotation Wanderer's Sword took advantage of the small moment of carelessness as he tried to speak and the instant of leveling up to utterly pulverize his head into powder.
If he had something to say, he should have said it later. Because if there was time for that in front of Dong Bong-soo, he should have fled first.
As if realizing this, Sima Saui and Zhuge Yang were already moving away from Dong Bong-soo the moment No Cheon died.
Coincidentally, that direction happened to be toward Deungseon Hall.
However, Deungseon Hall was already packed full with general survivors. There was no room at all permitted for those two.
"Move! Move, you vermin!"
In a moment of crisis.
When excited.
While intoxicated.
And on the verge of death.
Most humans don't lie. They can't.
The short word 'vermin' encapsulated how they normally regarded the people of minor sects, the survivors of this place.
At least Sima Saui only shouted.
"Come out! Come out, you trash!"
Zhuge Yang actually attacked. Or rather, tried to.
Swish—
Zhuge Yang fully extended his Plantain Iron Fan, which was reduced to just its frame, trying to unfold the Zhuge Family's secret martial art, the White Crane Flowing Cloud Fan Technique.
Just as the iron white crane was about to glide above the clouds.
Flutter flutter.
The heads of Sima Saui and Zhuge Yang became tattered scraps of skin.
"Five."
Thud thud thud thud.
Fragments of the two, torn to shreds like cloth pieces, poured down on the faces, limbs, and entire bodies of the survivors inside Deungseon Hall. Needless to say, they were completely covered in blood from head to toe.
"Ee, eeeeeek—!"
Among them, Hwang Chung-min, who was at the very front, was completely drenched in blood.
Whether he was startled or not, Dong Bong-soo looked around the interior of Deungseon Hall beyond the two headless corpses. And finally, after briefly glancing at Hwang Chung-min standing right before his nose, he said,
"Five."
With that, he turned around and moved to another area.
In those indifferent eyes that had surveyed him, Hwang Chung-min saw it.
The look of a shark selecting its prey.
Hwang Chung-min's legs gave out and he collapsed.
He was relieved to be a minnow.
If he had even been as big as a palm-sized fish…….
He would have become prey.
But he should know this.
A small fish that leaves the coast will eventually be eaten.
Because in the cruel great sea, besides orcas and sharks, countless other types of predators exist.
***
Swish swish swish—
A man with jagged scars on his left cheek, as if bitten by a shark, roughly swings his sword. Ink-colored Sword Energy rises and cuts down four or five Martial Jiangshi at once.
The sword form was based on the Seong Family Eight Forms, but its power clearly came from the Ink Madness Killing Sword Technique—a peculiar sword method. Even that was gradually losing traces of the Seong Family Eight Forms. It was becoming difficult to face the Jiangshi while maintaining the facade of being the young Family Head of Gansu Seong Family Manor.
Gwang-un—there was no attachment to the name Seong Hui he had reclaimed. It was simply that he needed that name to carry out Mubon's orders.
Mubon's plan that should have been executed at the Murim Alliance had already been shattered. That was clear. Even so, he stubbornly tried to fulfill his assigned duty.
Gwang-un had learned from Mubon, grown up in Mubon, and believed in Mubon.
'Where exactly did it go wrong?'
He asked himself. Though there was no need to even ask.
Over there, those two monsters far across on the opposite side, visible only as tiny dots—they were the problem. They weren't beings who should have moved within the plan from the start. Not knowing of their existence itself was the fatal mistake.
"Either way, I'd like to fight them once."
Just looking at them made his hands tremble and his breath catch. As if facing Mubon itself.
Battle instinct—perhaps the only reason he was alive—surged and boiled up violently.
"Transformed Shadow."
Gwang-un suddenly called out to Transformed Shadow.
She was engaged in fierce combat with Martial Jiangshi not far from him. When the battle had just begun, she had come to Gwang-un's side from beside Hyeoncheon Jinin. As far as she knew, excluding those two monsters, Gwang-un was the supreme master in this place. In other words, this vicinity was currently the safest area within the Murim Alliance.
Thud,whoosh.
She answered while swinging her Thunder Clap Blade to burn away one Martial Jiangshi.
"Why?"
Gwang-un's gaze remained fixed on Dong Bong-soo in the distance near Deungseon Pavilion, fighting madly with the Martial World renowned masters.
Wind storms caused by the Ultra Rotation Sword Wheel raged, and within them, the one-eyed Great Gray Wolf rampaging could be glimpsed intermittently.
Raaaaaaawr—!
The Emperor of the Northern Plains, Kaiji, was howling savagely.
Having been revived with Dong Bong-soo's level up and even becoming much stronger than before, Kaiji's roar revealed Dong Bong-soo's presence throughout the entire Murim Alliance.
The energy surrounding Gwang-un as he watched this churned darkly.
"Do you know who they are?"
Transformed Shadow knew well that the expression 'they' in Gwang-un's words also included Yeon Yeong-ha on the western hill side shrouded in dark clouds. But she had no answer. She herself knew nothing about those two.
"Not sure."
"Tell Mubon that I simply couldn't endure it."
"What does that mean?"
Transformed Shadow tilted her head in confusion and asked back, unable to understand Gwang-un's words.
But there was no follow-up answer from Gwang-un. More precisely, action replaced words as an answer.
Ba-ba-ba-bam—
Gwang-un suddenly leaped westward toward where Dong Bong-soo and Yeon Yeong-ha were, as if flying.
It might seem strange if a Movement Technique were described as domineering, but the Movement Technique Gwang-un was currently displaying was actually like that. Each step he took violently stirred up black wind that mercilessly struck his back. That wind clearly made his body even faster.
"Ink Wind Mad Drift!"
Ink Wind Mad Drift was the unique Movement Technique of Hang Ju-suk, the Black Mad Divine Demon, one of the absolute masters from a thousand years ago. He was also quite well known as one of the Hundred Great Masters of Past and Present who was first killed by the Extreme Yin Star of Heavenly Calamity of that generation.
However, it wasn't normal for someone living in the present age to recognize that martial art at a glance. After all, it was a martial art from a thousand years ago.
Yet Transformed Shadow recognized Ink Wind Mad Drift immediately.
Because.
"To have already mastered Ink Wind Mad Drift. I've only just reached the beginning of eighty percent mastery. Is he truly a battle demon?"
Transformed Shadow herself had also directly received the transmission of Ink Wind Mad Drift from Mubon.
Gwang-un flew quite far in an instant, raising a black, mad whirlwind.
But soon he landed in the middle of Central Great Road. Unable to achieve perfect flight, it couldn't be helped.
He was immediately surrounded by Jiangshi that had poured in from Muhwa Gate. To cross swords with Dong Bong-soo or Yeon Yeong-ha, his desired opponents, he would first have to cross that sea of Jiangshi.
"Well, there's no way that battle maniac could resist watching such a fight."
The Gwang-un she knew was truly crazy about fighting. A battle madman born for combat, perhaps?
Even to her eyes, such a battle might be difficult to see again in a lifetime, perhaps even within several hundred years.
For Gwang-un, who was crazy about combat, enduring while watching such a battle scene might have been impossible from the start.
However, she herself had no desire to die yet.
She had already sensed it intuitively.
If properly caught up in this battleground, there would be no turning back.
This place was already a board of death. No different from hell. Was there a need to voluntarily leap into a deep pit of fire in hell?
She—no, he—was a man with big dreams. Even though currently forced to take a woman's form.
He was fundamentally different from Gwang-un. Though they learned and grew up the same way, he didn't believe in Mubon. Only survival mattered to him. To survive, he chose Mubon because following Mubon was advantageous.
He only fought battles he could win. That's how it had to be.
A fight, after all, should only be undertaken when proper groundwork has been laid to ensure victory. Whether laid by oneself or by others.
Mubon's plan at the Murim Alliance had clearly failed, and even if he withdrew now, no one could say anything. There were more than a cartload of acceptable reasons. The situation had already grown too large to assign responsibility.
He briefly watched Gwang-un's back as he swept through the Jiangshi like a whirlwind, then turned around.
Behind him, all the Outer Shadows that had been hiding throughout the Murim Alliance had already gathered. Though half had already died in the Jiangshi attack, twenty-three still remained.
Now was the time to escape the Murim Alliance.
"Can't guarantee whether we can get out or not, but we have to try."
Looking that way, quite a few people were already breaking through toward the Inner Court side. They seemed to be trying to escape while Yeon Yeong-ha and Dong Bong-soo had gone toward Deungseon Pavilion on the west side.
From his perspective, that direction currently had the highest survival possibility. Above all, his outward appearance was Namgung Hye, the number one beauty and talented woman under heaven. Additionally, she was a woman with the unfortunate background of her family having been massacred recently. There would still be a few more fools here willing to throw away their useless lives for her sake.
He would have to escape this pandemonium while offering their necks to the gods of hell.
"Let's go. We must go and tell Mubon everything we've seen here."
Transformed Shadow finally began breaking through the passage toward the Inner Court.
All the surviving Outer Shadows followed behind him.
***
"Gwang-un. As expected, he couldn't resist and jumped in. Transformed Shadow is also moving as predicted."
"What do we plan to do?"
"Us? We simply do as Mubon commanded. The Extreme Yin Star of Heavenly Calamity and that person……."
Flying Cloud briefly pondered what to call Dong Bong-soo, then soon thought of an appropriate word and continued.
"If we can watch the battle of the Mad Demon and report it as is, that will be sufficient."
"Understood. However, if we remain here, we might not be able to escape in time."
Flying Cloud and the three True Shadows secretly dispatched by Mubon.
They were positioned atop the eastern fortress wall. They had risked danger and unreasonably stayed here because they could observe all the battle conditions inside the Murim Alliance. Had four Peak Masters not been together, they would have been crushed by the Jiangshi's hands long ago.
Flying Cloud unleashed palm power once again at a Martial Jiangshi climbing up the fortress wall, knocking it down, and said:
"I am Flying Cloud. No matter how powerful the enemies are, couldn't we just fly through the sky to escape?"
"……."
"I can take two or three more people with me, so don't worry too much."
With those words, Flying Cloud began concentrating on Dong Bong-soo and Yeon Yeong-ha.
The three True Shadows fulfilled their mission while observing the battle conditions as much as possible. Since Flying Cloud was observing the most important side, they divided up to capture with their eyes the fierce battles and escape processes of Gwang-un and Transformed Shadow, as well as others.