Chapter 274
Chapter 274
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 75
>Chapter Title: Underground Golden Prison (5)
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-Snap! Crackle!
Blue lightning spread out like the roots of a tree.
A glint appeared in Mok Kyung-un's eyes as he watched.
Ever since opening his Ghost Eye and gaining the ability to see the true form of energies, he had witnessed countless energies.
This included demonic power and spiritual power as well.
Yet the energy he was seeing now was completely different from all the others.
‘……Nature.’
It literally possessed a nature to the energy itself.
It was lightning—thunder power—something he had never seen in ordinary humans, let alone those who practiced martial arts.
Could a human body even withstand such vast energy akin to nature in the first place?
Suddenly, Grandfather's words came to mind.
[Humans are born from nature and return to nature. Thus, the human body maintains a small balance of the five elements, just like nature.]
Grandfather had said that if this balance were broken, the human body could not endure it.
Yet right before his eyes stood a human who had shattered that balance and remained perfectly fine.
At that moment, Yeom Kyung—whose eyes were vacant as a guard—reached for something else on the back of the restrained prisoner and tried to pull it out.
-Slurp!
In that instant, Mok Kyung-un's figure blurred.
He appeared behind Yeom Kyung in a flash, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him toward a corner of the Golden Prison.
-Thud!
“Urk!”
Yeom Kyung crashed into the bars of the Golden Prison, rolled across the floor, then clutched his head and looked around in bewilderment.
‘What the hell?’
Why was he inside the Golden Prison?
He remembered pulling the food cart into the cave.
But then his memory cut off.
“Ahh. Another one got pulled out.”
“What?”
‘Wait…… Isn’t that guy the guard An Jong-hu?’
He was supposed to be stationed on the third floor of the underground Golden Prison. Why was he here?
And the man in front of him was clearly a prisoner……
‘Huh?’
Suddenly, Yeom Kyung looked at what he held in his hand.
It was some sharp, three-pronged object, but he had no idea what it was.
It was right then.
-Snap!
His vision flashed as something blue burst forth.
With it, the blue light spread throughout the Golden Prison, and Yeom Kyung's body slammed into the iron bars once more.
-Cracklecracklecrackle!
“Grrraaaahhh.”
Seizures wracked Yeom Kyung's entire body as he let out a grotesque scream. Blood soon flowed from his eyes and nose, and he passed out cold.
Faint smoke rose from his unconscious body.
And on the opposite side, Mok Kyung-un held one hand outstretched.
-Snap!
A blue streak of light flashed from his extended hand in the shape of roots.
It was thunder power.
Mok Kyung-un smirked as he stared at his palm, where the thunder power crackled.
Thunder power had suddenly erupted from the restrained prisoner's body, and it was no ordinary energy.
‘It stings.’
The energy he used to block the thunder power had momentarily gone numb, as if paralyzed.
But it did not last long.
‘Does the thunder power suppress activating energy?’
Mok Kyung-un instantly grasped the characteristic of this thunder power.
In the moment energy was suppressed by the lightning, qi circulation did not function normally.
This made it extremely effective against martial artists who handled internal energy.
Fortunately, his own energy was different from the norm.
Death qi, the energy of the dead, possessed the property of dispersing energy. It seemed momentarily struck by the lightning but quickly overcame it.
-Clang!
At that moment, the prisoner—who had been fully restrained—rose to his feet.
As he straightened his body, thunder power continued to flow from the shackles on his wrists and ankles, sending blue flames sparking.
-Cracklesnap!
Seeing this, Mok Kyung-un realized the prisoner was trying to break free of the shackles.
Mok Kyung-un stroked his chin as he watched.
‘Hmm.’
At first, he had considered dealing with the prisoner to avoid interference.
But was that really necessary?
If this prisoner caused a commotion while escaping, it would actually divert attention and help his own plans.
‘A useful card.’
Mok Kyung-un's lips curved up as he gripped his sword manual.
As he did, the air around it rippled with sharp sword intent.
With the sword intent generated, Mok Kyung-un slashed his sword manual toward the prisoner's shackles.
-Slashslashslashclang!
The moment the sword intent sliced the shackles—
-Cracklecracklecrackle!
The sharp energy overlapped with the thunder power—
-Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The shackles on the wrists and ankles split apart and fell away.
Freed from the shackles, the prisoner—who had been hunched over from the iron weights—stood tall.
‘……A woman?’
Her gender had been indiscernible due to the shaggy hair, eyepatch, and gag, but the prisoner was a woman.
And her build was smaller than expected.
-Crack!
She rolled her stiff neck, producing the sound of loosening muscles.
She soon removed her eyepatch and spat out the gag from her mouth.
“Ptoo.”
After spitting out the gag, she swept her long hair back, revealing her face.
Filthy from long imprisonment, she still possessed a remarkably mature beauty.
She appeared to be in her mid-twenties at most.
‘Young.’
A glint entered Mok Kyung-un's eyes.
According to his subordinate Mong Mu-yak, she was from the Blood Prison Sect and should be some ancient monster of considerable age.
Yet she looked unmistakably young.
As he puzzled over this, the woman frowned at the torch fallen on the ground.
Her eyes seemed sensitive, unaccustomed to light after so long in darkness.
However—
‘Hoh.’
It did not take her long to adjust to the torchlight.
He could tell from the steadying of her pupils.
Once adapted to the light, she gazed at her palms, now free from the shackles.
Then, suddenly, she burst into mad laughter.
“Kyahahahahahaha!”
She laughed like a maniac, but it seemed genuine joy.
After laughing for a while, she snapped off her incredibly long fingernails.
-Snap! Snap!
Just those coiled-long nails hinted at how long she had been imprisoned here.
Mok Kyung-un spoke to her as she broke off her overgrown nails and toenails.
“You seem to have been locked up for a long time. I hope you make it out safely.”
There was no need to converse with her anyway.
He just hoped she would cause as much chaos as possible.
That way, all eyes would be on her.
With that, Mok Kyung-un turned to leave the Golden Prison.
But—
-Pahk!
Feeling a sinister energy from behind, Mok Kyung-un spun with a foot technique and leaned his head back.
In that instant, a blood-red hand grazed past his face.
But it did not end there.
The blood-red hand unleashed claw technique forms, aiming for Mok Kyung-un's throat.
-Papapapapahk!
It was unbelievably swift for someone who had just been shackled.
Mok Kyung-un retreated with footwork to evade, but she countered with a feint, trying to seize his left arm using Capturing Hand techniques.
-Slurp!
In response, Mok Kyung-un executed Great Young Master Na Yurang's Clear Manifestation Water Moon Step, moving at ultra-high speed.
In an instant, the distance between them grew over ten paces.
Stopping at a distance, Mok Kyung-un asked in confusion.
“Why attack me? We could each go our own way.”
“You’re an Embroidered Uniform Guard brat. How dare you try to deceive me with your tricks?”
“Embroidered Uniform Guard? Ah……”
Mok Kyung-un scratched his head.
Come to think of it, though he was dressed as an apprentice, he wore the Embroidered Uniform Guard uniform for work.
From her perspective, anyone in Embroidered Uniform Guard attire was an enemy.
Mok Kyung-un said.
“This might cause a misunderstanding, but I have no connection to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. I’m just Mok……”
-Pat!
Before he could finish.
She kicked off the ground and lunged forward.
Her speed was so blinding that in the blink of an eye, she closed to within three paces of Mok Kyung-un.
Blue light flickered from her blood-red hands—like crimson jade—before claw qi exploded forth.
-Shwashshshshsh!
The erupting claw qi sliced the floor in an instant as it bore down on Mok Kyung-un.
He let out a shallow breath at the tremendous power.
Her momentum suggested she intended to kill him right here.
-Slurp!
Mok Kyung-un widened the distance with ultra-high-speed movement, dodging her charging claw qi.
-Kaboomkaboomkaboom!
So great was its power that the spot her claw qi gouged left a massive claw mark, deeply cratered.
-Rumble!
The cave passage even shook.
Being underground, it seemed vulnerable to impacts.
But ignoring the trembling passage entirely, she charged again with claw qi infused into her blood-red hands, her momentum terrifying.
-Pat!
She closed the distance in a flash, but this time Mok Kyung-un did not retreat.
Retreating would allow her to unleash qi strong enough to shock the cave into collapse.
To avoid that, close combat was the only answer.
Mok Kyung-un closed in on her as she charged, blocking her claw techniques barehanded.
-Papapapapahk!
She had expected him to flee, but his choice to clash head-on head-on made her eyes gleam—having inwardly planned to subdue him quickly.
Though her body was stiff from long restraint, this young boy was holding up remarkably well against her barehanded.
He looked not yet twenty.
Yet his martial prowess was anything but.
Thus—
‘A waste to just kill.’
She decided to use Mok Kyung-un.
If such a strong youth fought her comrades and caused chaos, it would aid her escape from this wretched Golden Prison.
-Pak!
She feinted and seized one of his arms with Capturing Hand techniques, yanking him toward her.
Then, locking eyes exactly with Mok Kyung-un, she flicked the fingers of her other hand.
-Snap!
‘Now go kill my comrades.’
She chanted the incantation in her mind, issuing the command.
Imprisoned here, she had honed only illusion arts over the years.
At this range, stimulating sight and sound simultaneously, she was confident she could ensnare anyone in illusion.
But—
“What, a staring contest?”
‘!?‘
-Thunk!
Mok Kyung-un headbutted her face squarely.
Reeling back two paces from the headbutt, she clutched her nose with an incredulous expression.
‘What the hell is this guy?’
Her illusion had no effect.