Chapter 203
Chapter 203: Makeup and Cosmetic Surgery (2)
A village not far from Gangdo.
A nameless village that could not even pay taxes and had never been incorporated into any administrative district.
And.
That village was crumbling away, just like that—nameless and without a trace.
Between burning huts strewn with corpses and wreckage.
Sang Gwan-hwi drew his sword and glared at the figure before him.
A black mask, black night-stalking attire.
Beneath the moonlight, only two eyes were revealed.
And even those held not a single shred of emotion.
Like the eyes of a stone Buddha. No—at least a stone Buddha's eyes hold compassion.
There, truly, nothing whatsoever could be read.
"You......what in the world are you."
The man simply stood.
"Are you an assassin sent by the Dark Net Rakshasa Path?"
Still, no answer came.
He was only shaking his sword against the ground, flicking away the blood from the blade that had just severed the adjutant's neck.
Swish, swish, swish, swish—
In an instant, Sword Patrol Corps members positioned themselves behind Sang Gwan-hwi.
Each had been despoiling the village in their own fashion, yet elite was elite regardless.
Twenty-nine.
All of them had drawn their swords before anyone realized. Their combined formidable killing intent and sharp energy quickly drove back the surrounding flames. A snow-white righteous energy overflowed throughout the entire village, as if ready to tear apart at any moment such a worthless Evil Path riffraff emitting not a single trace of power.
Thirty against one.
And those thirty were all Sword Patrol Corps members.
The elite of the elite of the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect, one of the strongest sects in the Orthodox Martial World.
Each individual, were they to step out into the Martial World, would be called transcendent first-rate.
Of course, Sang Gwan-hwi himself was a master at the Peak of Transcendence—both Corps Leader and one of the Vast Heaven Three Swords.
Even if the opponent had cut down Adjutant Imperial River Gang with a single sword stroke, they could not stand against these thirty.
The Imperial River Gang, too, had merely fallen victim to a cowardly ambush.
"Deploy the Vast Heaven Crane Wing Sword Formation."
Vast Heaven Crane Wing Sword Formation.
The Sword Patrol Corps' Fourth Group Sword Formation. A pinnacle sword formation designed for a multitude to surround a single person, deployable by a minimum of ten to a maximum of one hundred simultaneously.
Swish, swish, swish—
Like a crane spreading its wings wide, the warriors fanned out to the left and right in a sweeping arc.
While commanding, Sang Gwan-hwi continued to scan carefully for whether there might be others who had ambushed them. If there were more enemies, he intended to immediately transform the sword formation.
However, no other signs of presence were detected.
"Heh heh."
The rigid expression on his face loosened, and a naturally composed smile returned.
"We shall take our time learning your identity."
The crane, now fully spread, was entering the phase of encircling the man in a ring around him as its center.
Twenty-nine sharp Vast Heaven swords pointed toward a single point.
Twenty-nine killing-intent-laden Vast Heaven energies converged upon a single point.
And.
The moment Sang Gwan-hwi raised his sword in a bowstring-drawing stance and aimed it at the man—
Crrrrash—!
The entire sword formation blazed as a mass of energy enveloped the surrounding area.
The Vast Heaven Crane Wing Sword Formation was complete.
Even if this fellow were the Dark Net Rakshasa Path Leader himself, it no longer mattered. Trapped within a sword formation of this many Sword Patrol Corps elite?
Anyone—so long as they were human—would have no way of escaping.
"......"
Even so, the man did not budge so much as a hair.
He made no attempt to break through, nor to prevent the sword formation's completion.
He simply stood.
As if to say, 'Go ahead, deploy it.'
'......What.'
Sang Gwan-hwi's eyes narrowed.
Why is he so at ease?
Yet the conclusion was reached swiftly.
This is bluster. Nothing more than the typical hollow show of bravado from those who do not know the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect, those who have never faced it.
"Commence formation."
Sang Gwan-hwi gave the order.
"You may sever all his limbs, but do not kill him. I must capture that wretch and uncover who stands behind him."
He needed to verify firsthand whether that composed demeanor could still be maintained at that point.
Pop, pop, pop—!
Within the sword formation they themselves had deployed, the Sword Patrol Corps members moved in unison.
Hmmmmmmmmm—
Twenty-nine sword energies moved as if they were a single organism.
Eight Waves Converge and Strike.
Eight blades simultaneously occupied all eight directions of the man and came pouring in.
At that moment.
The air changed.
Every member of the Sword Patrol Corps, Sang Gwan-hwi included, felt it.
The surrounding atmosphere suddenly grew heavy, as if they had entered water.
No—something stickier than water.
An energy blanketing the entire space.
An energy that pressed down even on the act of breathing.
As if......something like water made of energy had encroached upon all four directions.
They were clearly the ones who had encircled him, yet......
In an instant, the entire sword formation had instead become the man's domain.
They had been trapped within an absolute energy field they could never have known of—the Super True Energy Field.
Just as the warriors' swords, now growing limp, were about to reach the man—
The man swung his sword.
Once.
Swoooong—
Something burst forth from the sword.
A whirlwind.
A storm of energy rotating around the sword as its center.
That energy itself was spinning in wild rotation.
The vortex of energy born from that rotation spread outward in all directions.
"Graaaagh!"
"Uaaah!"
"E-eek!"
Death cries erupting simultaneously.
Of the eight warriors who had extended their swords, six were blown away at once.
As bones bent and disassembled with grotesque sounds, blood rained down riding the storm.
Three of them were already dead before they even hit the ground.
Their entire bodies wrung and coiled like twisted laundry.
The other three managed to drop their swords and barely retreat backward, escaping with serious injuries at best. Though of course, they were equally removed from combat effectiveness.
Then what of the remaining two?
They were skewered neatly stacked upon the man's sword, like meat threaded on a skewer. With no struggling—merely twitching—it seemed their journey to the afterlife was confirmed before long.
"The one killed first, then three more cut down and two skewered, three combat-incapacitated—."
The man began doing arithmetic.
"The total only comes to 6."
Progress: 6/31
"It seems I had been misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'defeat.'"
The man, Dong Bong-soo, swung his sword downward once more.
With that, the two half-corpses charged with fearsome sword energy flew into the three who had been groaning and crawling along the ground. The energy was so fierce that all five became one in a bloody pulp.
Progress: 9/31
They had become one, yet the number that increased was 3.
It was clear that merely being rendered combat-incapacitated was insufficient.
Defeat must go beyond combat-incapacitation
To Dong Bong-soo, these were numbers and statistics.
Above all, nothing more than an experiment.
On the other hand.
"......!"
Sang Gwan-hwi's face had gone pale. His already-fair complexion floated white to a degree that had no more color left to lose.
'Wh, what is that......!?'
Sword Rigidity?
No.
It was different from Sword Rigidity.
Sword Rigidity was extending energy outward like a blade, yet—
The rigid energy was 'rotating' around the sword as its center......
A form of martial arts he had never seen, never heard of, never even attempted.
Even so, Sang Gwan-hwi gritted his teeth and shouted.
"Do not retreat."
He breathed rigid energy into his sword.
Limitless Heavenly Bloom Sword.
The essence of the sword technique that had become his very epithet.
The blade shone brilliantly in silver.
'I've never faced this before, but if he uses rigid energy then I have no choice but to counter with rigid energy as well.'
His Heavenly Bloom Sword Rigidity radiated a piercing sharpness comparable to Dong Bong-soo's Rotation Sword Rigidity.
Indeed, a power worthy of being called one of the Vast Heaven Three Swords.
"Ha—!"
Sang Gwan-hwi leapt in.
Simultaneously, sixteen warriors came charging, layering a double encirclement around the opponent from all eight directions.
Seventeen swords poured toward Dong Bong-soo at the same time.
Dong Bong-soo moved as well.
No—should it be said he 'vanished'?
Teleportation.
That was the only way to express it.
He could not be tracked by the five senses.
Yet he had not vanished completely.
Within Sang Gwan-hwi's energy sense, a faint afterimage could be felt. Energy is like that by nature. Not something seen, but something felt.
'Got him!'
A hazy flow of energy.
It was moving continuously and consistently in a single direction.
Inconceivably fast—yet its directionality was fixed.
Clang—!
Sang Gwan-hwi thrust his sword.
However.
Knowing wasn't what mattered.
Landing an attack didn't matter either.
Being fast seemed to matter more than all of that combined.
Dong Bong-soo's movement—folding space as he traversed it.
First, three meters; then one inch; then micrometers that could not be measured in the units of this place.
Swipe— swipe— swipe—
The sword swept past.
Three times.
Yet in the span of those three times, Dong Bong-soo folded the space between himself and his prey thousands of times as he moved.
Thwack—! Shwwwww......
Three people spewed blood simultaneously.
Necks were severed.
Chests were pierced.
Abdomens were split open.
The process of limbs being slaughtered all unfolded at the same time.
In an instant, corpses disintegrating dot by dot and scattering into the air.
Swoosh—!
Belatedly, Sang Gwan-hwi's sword slashed through empty air.
There, only Dong Bong-soo's afterimage remained.
Yet all of this had transpired in the blink of an eye.
In reality, a difference of a single sheet of paper.
Sang Gwan-hwi's Heavenly Bloom Sword Rigidity had sliced the very edge of Dong Bong-soo's fluttering hem.
Yet the weight of a single scrap of cloth and the weight of three Sword Patrol Corps members cut into five pieces were entirely different matters.
"......"
The wretch's movements were too precise, and the movements of his sword too accurate.
Every attack and defense fell within the wretch's predictions.
How he had done it was unclear, but this space had already been perfectly consumed by that fellow's domain.
Then it made sense that the sword formation was of no use whatsoever.
'Cunning wretch.'
It was clear that from the very start, he had set up a formation here with them as the target.
Using the village women as bait.
The wretch was certainly a master, yet he was not at a level Sang Gwan-hwi could not handle.
However, the current situation was unmistakably like a swarm of flies having stepped onto a spider's web woven by that wretch.
While remaining flies, no matter how much they thrash, their position will inevitably be exposed to the spider through the web's vibrations, and their movements will be constrained.
"Retreat!"
Sang Gwan-hwi shouted.
"Full retreat! Move! We go north!"
—Everyone scatter in all four directions, then gather at the very center of the forest to the south that we saw on our way here.
The first was a shout, the latter was Sound Transmission extended to all.
Whether it would work or not was a problem for later. If it could create confusion for that wretch, every measure had to be used.
This was not the time to be concerned with dignity.
Remaining as they were, total annihilation was a foregone conclusion.
The surviving Sword Patrol Corps members immediately dissolved the sword formation and began scattering in all directions.
Within only a few exchanges, fewer than twenty remained.
"Run!"
There was no time to think.
Sang Gwan-hwi deployed Walking on Grass and dashed forward, as if flying.
His once-white clothing was already dyed deep red, but there was no room to concern himself with such things.
The moment he broke free from the sticky, unpleasant domain of energy that had enveloped him, he looked back.
The man was still standing in the same spot.
Against the backdrop of the burning village.
Without moving.
'Hurry and follow.'
Just as you trapped us within your domain.
I too shall drag you into our domain and slaughter you.
After that, I shall fillet your flesh piece by piece and send it to the Dark Net Rakshasa Path.
Sang Gwan-hwi turned his gaze forward once more and devoted himself solely to escape.
It was the typical delusion of prey.
The delusion that somewhere outside the hunting grounds existed......