Chapter 373
Chapter 373
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 98
>Chapter Title: Sword and Sword (3)
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A gray-bearded old man with a soot-streaked face stared blankly at something with hollow eyes.
The old man's name was Gu Mun-hyuk.
He was a craftsman renowned for forging swords.
'What in the world happened?'
The grand hall, which he had expected to be bustling and splendid for the inauguration ceremony, was drenched in blood, with severed corpses piled up everywhere.
There were nearly a few hundred of them.
What on earth had happened?
'What occurred? Lady Ryu.'
Gu Mun-hyuk's eyes widened as he surveyed the hall in a daze amid the horrific disaster.
Gu Mun-hyuk hurriedly ran toward a certain spot.
In the center of that place stood a beautiful woman in striking red and ornate attire, her face pale as she lay with her eyes closed.
She was none other than
"Lady Ryu!"
The female swordswoman he had been searching for,
Ryu So-wol of Moon Vein, who was to hold her inauguration as faction leader today.
Gu Mun-hyuk bent down and hastily checked the pulse of the fallen woman.
As he did, his face quickly hardened.
"This... this can't be."
Her pulse had stopped, and her body temperature had already grown cold.
Judging by the rigor mortis setting in, she had been dead for some time.
Gu Mun-hyuk gazed vacantly at Ryu So-wol, who had breathed her last, then his eyes drifted toward her chest.
"Her heart?"
He hadn't noticed amid the blood, but lifting her clothes slightly revealed an empty cavity in the center of her chest.
Her heart had been ripped right out.
Gu Mun-hyuk's hand clenched tight.
What in the world had happened?
Setting aside her gender, Ryu So-wol was one of the top swordswomen among all the martial artists he knew.
She had even surpassed the Wall Demon stage.
How could someone like her meet such a pathetic end?
"Lady Ryu..."
A low hum emanated from the wooden sword case strapped to his back along with his bundle.
Gu Mun-hyuk muttered in response.
"...You've noticed it too, have you?"
He set the sword case down on the floor with a thud.
Opening the lid revealed a pristine white sword, newly forged and brimming with vitality.
This was her sword, Sunyeon.
Ryu So-wol had named it herself and asked him to bring it to the inauguration once it was complete.
"I forged the finest sword, and yet..."
It was one of the greatest masterpieces among all the swords he had ever made.
Gu Mun-hyuk had come anticipating her joyful face upon seeing it finished, but now he felt utterly hollow and bitter.
Its owner had departed this world without even touching it.
As if aware of this, the sword's cry echoed faintly.
Gu Mun-hyuk bit his lower lip hard, his eyes trembling.
In the martial world, where dozens or hundreds died daily, no one could guarantee their next day—but this was utterly incomprehensible.
"Who?"
Who could have done such a thing?
Ryu So-wol was one of the supreme masters of her era, and considering the scale of Heaven and Earth Moon Society, pulling off such a massacre would require a force of equal magnitude.
Gu Mun-hyuk stood and examined the corpses in the hall.
His clan had demanded knowledge of sword techniques from sword masters for generations when forging blades, so he prided himself on his unmatched expertise in such matters.
'Most of the wounds on the corpses were made by swords, so a close look should reveal clues.'
It was likely some organization opposing Heaven and Earth Moon Society.
The highest probability was one of the Nine Great Sects...
"!?"
Then Gu Mun-hyuk furrowed his brow.
The sword marks left on the corpses lacked any distinctive sword styles for the most part.
"...Impossible."
Inspecting the bodies in disbelief, Gu Mun-hyuk was stunned beyond measure.
He had assumed it was a clash between organizations, but most of the corpses appeared to be the work of a single individual.
Even more astonishing, no special sword techniques had been used.
Just simple swings of the sword to cleave.
'Overwhelming power. Overwhelming sharpness...'
The sword marks told the tale.
A mere swing that nothing could block.
If they tried to parry with a weapon, the weapon itself was sliced clean off.
Most marks ended battles in a single stroke, cleaving both weapon and body in two.
"...A monster."
The term "bamboo-splitting momentum" fit perfectly here.
Against such a monster, even a sword prodigy like Ryu So-wol couldn't have held out.
It was an opponent he himself would dread facing.
However,
"Hm?"
As he examined the traces, his eyes narrowed.
Some of the corpses...
A massive roar shook the hall like an earthquake, drawing Gu Mun-hyuk's gaze outward.
Could the perpetrator of this massacre still be here?
After a brief hesitation, Gu Mun-hyuk circulated energy through his Dantian.
His form shot up from the floor.
He had felt a fleeting fear toward the one who left these marks, but he quickly suppressed it.
Even if he couldn't face such a monster, for the sake of his friendship with Lady Ryu, he had to at least identify the culprit.
Emerging from the hall, Gu Mun-hyuk's expression darkened instantly.
A chill ran down his spine.
"...What is this?"
It went beyond mere sensing of energy—it was an overwhelming, hair-raising aura.
The greater a warrior's skill, the easier it was to sense open energy.
But this ferocious, sinister energy pervaded the entire space, its scale impossible to gauge.
It felt like it filled dozens or hundreds of meters.
How could a human possess such an immense aura?
The pressure made his entire body tremble.
His breathing grew ragged.
No matter how he tried to calm himself, the ferocious energy filling every direction made it hard to keep his wits.
He knew where it emanated from, but his feet wouldn't move.
The moment he entered the monster's sight, he might die before even realizing it.
Then, a glint appeared in Gu Mun-hyuk's eyes.
"Ah?"
The ferocious aura that had oppressed everything suddenly subsided.
What had happened?
Wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve, he launched his form toward the source.
It wasn't far from here.
About two li northwest of Heaven and Earth Moon Society's main base.
His eyes widened in shock upon arrival.
The sky was blanketed in dark clouds with a massive hole torn through, crimson light like sunset spilling out to illuminate the ground.
Even stranger, severed mountain peaks and shattered boulders floated midair everywhere, making the surroundings feel like another world entirely.
What on earth had transpired here?
Dazed by the spectacle, Gu Mun-hyuk soon spotted something.
"Ah?"
Atop one of the massive floating boulders stood a figure.
A man in a fluttering black robe, long hair whipping in the wind, holding a single sword in hand.
An ink-black blade—and the moment Gu Mun-hyuk saw it, his mouth fell open.
As a craftsman, he couldn't help being captivated by exceptional weapons.
"...Perfect."
The instant he laid eyes on the ink-black sword, Gu Mun-hyuk was entranced by its form.
Its design was more ideal than any sword he had ever conceived as a master artisan.
Who had forged such a blade?
Lost in admiration, Gu Mun-hyuk slapped his own cheek.
Now was not the time.
He needed to memorize the man's face in detail to avenge Lady Ryu's unjust death.
But then,
A astonishing sight unfolded.
The sword in the man's hand disassembled with a clatter, reforming into rings that settled around his arm.
Gu Mun-hyuk's face filled with shock.
What was this?
A perfectly intact sword dismantling into rings?
How was such a thing possible?
Even with his clan's generations of craftsmanship, he couldn't comprehend the technique no matter how he pondered.
As he stared in bewilderment,
The man turned his head.
Gu Mun-hyuk flinched and unwittingly stepped back.
He had suppressed his presence to the utmost, yet the man looked straight at him.
Was he about to die at this man's hand?
As he hesitated on what to do,
It happened right then.
A deafening crash.
From the hole in the dark clouds, a blinding beam of light poured down toward the ground.
So bright he had to squeeze his eyes shut.
An enormous explosion rang out, flinging his body backward.
Instinctively deploying protective energy, Gu Mun-hyuk tumbled wildly, crashing into things left and right.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Urk!"
After several impacts, the shockwave finally subsided, allowing him to stop.
Opening his eyes, Gu Mun-hyuk wore a dazed expression.
He had been hurled dozens of meters away, yet from afar, he could see where the beam had struck.
* * *
"Nothing was there, he said."
"Nothing?"
"Yes. My great-grandfather rushed to the spot, but the floating boulders and severed mountain slopes were gone, and the area had become a flat plain. Truly bizarre."
It was the stuff of ghost stories.
Clan Head Gu Cheon-mu's great-grandfather, Gu Mun-hyuk, felt as if he'd awakened from a dream upon seeing it.
The crimson hole in the dark clouds and all the floating debris had vanished.
Mok Kyung-un asked,
"And that man?"
The one Mok Kyung-un referred to was the long-haired man clutching the ink-black sword.
According to Clan Head Gu Cheon-mu's great-grandfather's records, he was likely the culprit who ripped out Azure Spirit's heart and caused the massacre.
"He vanished."
"Vanished?"
"Yes. My great-grandfather mobilized even the surviving Heaven and Earth Moon Society members to search the surroundings day and night for three days straight, but found nothing."
"...Just the surroundings?"
"No. He had the man's appearance drawn from memory and distributed. For a time, Heaven and Earth Moon Society pursued the unknown figure suspected as the true culprit..."
"No!"
A piercing scream stabbed their eardrums, and countless items in the workshop shattered explosively.
Mok Kyung-un turned to look at Azure Spirit.
Frowning as he regarded her, he noted that bloodstains radiated from where she stood, her spectral energy surging chillingly.
"What is this?"
Clan Head Gu Cheon-mu stared at her in bewilderment.
Though he lacked eyes to see souls, the skyrocketing spectral energy revealed a wavering presence, prompting him to draw his sword.
Mok Kyung-un raised his palm to signal him to stop, then transmitted to Azure Spirit mentally.
-Azure Spirit. Calm down first.
"You know nothing... Who... who says he's the culprit?"
The floorboards ripped up like spikes.
As if reacting to her seething spectral energy.
A glint entered Mok Kyung-un's eyes.
With her spirit eyes open, he could see her surging energy gradually shifting to a violet hue.
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