The Perfect Way to Seize Victory 4
The opening form of the Shadow-Breaking Sword Art came in light and close, then crashed down at once.
Whoosh!
Like a tidal wave surging with rage, it swept over the low-ranking fighters of Cold Blood Sect.
Even at their best, none of them were truly more than second-class fighters, and they had no hope of stopping Seok Geum-ryong’s single sword strike.
Thunk!
Thud!
Those thugs who had been lounging in front of Seok Geum-ryong were cut down with a fitting end, unable even to manage a proper death cry or scream.
“Huh? What?”
“What is this?”
When their comrades toppled one after another like puppets with their strings cut, the men of Cold Blood Sect could not make sense of what was happening.
They could only stare at Seok Geum-ryong with dazed faces for an instant.
Crack!
Seok Geum-ryong delivered the final punctuation to their lives.
With two sword strikes, he had perfectly broken through the back gate of Cold Blood Sect.
The more I see him, the more remarkable he is. Young prodigies who are still unfinished often weaken in real combat, or are struck so hard that they never truly bloom... but Young Master Seok is completely different.
Na Cheon-lip, the Heaven-Earth Scholar, who had joined Seok Geum-ryong’s party, watched every move he made and could not hold back his admiration.
Where else could you find a teenage boy who performed like that in actual combat?
“Show them no mercy. Wipe out Cold Blood Sect as quickly as possible.”
Seok Geum-ryong did not flinch or recoil at the sight of blood.
On the contrary, he even took command of the group with the easy confidence of someone who had seen battle a hundred times before.
“Yes!”
“Understood.”
By then, Seok Geum-ryong had the Golden Needle Venerable Yeo Gwang-rae, the Shadowless One Shin Dan-woo, and the Moon Spirit Sword Lady Im So-gun at his side, warriors who could each stand against a hundred men.
Add to that Na Cheon-lip, who could at least look after himself, and Seok Geum-ryong’s own outstanding skill, and what chance did anyone here have?
* * *
“Sect Leader! Sect Leader! Bad news! Most of our men are dead or crippled!”
The deputy leader of Cold Blood Sect, the Blind Blade Jo Pal-mo, was badly shaken as he searched for the sect leader.
Had only half a day passed by now?
What had once been several hundred men of Cold Blood Sect had utterly collapsed in a single day and been met with a horrific bloodbath.
“Who in the world is it? Who in the world is it?”
At the deputy leader’s desperate report, Du Il-sim, the Cold Blood Left Sword and sect leader of Cold Blood Sect, thought and thought again.
And yet no likely culprit came to mind.
“Golden One Pavilion? Heavenly Lord Gate? Or... did Hoho-gak rise up against us?”
Du Il-sim still could not grasp the situation.
It was not that he had too few enemies, but the opposite. He had far too many.
“Damn it! What on earth have we done to Cold Blood Sect that some bastard would hold such a grudge and go this far?!”
He had originally been known as a cold-blooded man, a swordsman with a deep, chilling voice and a reputation for slaughtering dozens at a time.
But today was an exception.
Just look at him now, stomping his feet and whining like a child whose sweet snack had been stolen by an older brother stronger than he was.
If the people of Xi'an had seen this sight, they would have rubbed their eyes in disbelief and sworn the great Cold Blood Sect Leader could never act like that.
Even as the sect leader and deputy leader were being tossed about like reeds, the nightmare of the night continued.
While they struggled to understand what was happening, their subordinates kept dying.
How much time had passed like that?
At last, even the sounds of slaughter from outside began to fade.
“Deputy leader! Let’s run, just the two of us. If we escape through this secret passage... one that only a tiny handful know about, we can get away.”
When the noise dwindled, Du Il-sim sensed that the end had finally come and proposed it to Jo Pal-mo, the only survivor besides himself.
In truth, within Cold Blood Sect, the real power had always rested with Du Il-sim and Jo Pal-mo, both first-class experts.
“Understood!”
“Hurry. Leave Xi'an. Wherever we go, what can’t the two of us do together?”
Even in this hopeless situation, Du Il-sim had not lost that sinister killing intent of his.
For good reason, too: Du Il-sim and Jo Pal-mo had once come from the unorthodox martial world, and they had aggressively inserted themselves into the black-market powers, eventually taking over Xi'an’s back alleys.
It’s a shame, but I’ll start again. And I don’t know who you are, but I will definitely... I will wipe out not only you, but your entire line for three generations, and feed your corpses to the beasts.
As befitted the head of a major black-market faction, Du Il-sim filled his mind with thoughts too vile to put into words and carefully made his way into the secret passage.
This passage was known and used only by the sect leader and those who had formed blood alliances with Cold Blood Sect.
That meant even Red-Clad Elder and Na Cheon-lip, who were familiar with Cold Blood Sect’s affairs, did not know of it.
But the timing was terrible.
Bang!
The instant they descended into the secret passage, the sect leader’s room was opened, and the Golden Prince, Seok Geum-ryong, caught sight of them heading down.
“So, they really are like cockroaches. They love filthy, damp places.”
Seok Geum-ryong spotted the two fleeing through the underground passage and immediately gave chase with the others.
“S-stay back!”
Apparently never imagining they would be exposed here, Du Il-sim, the Cold Blood Left Sword, was badly rattled, his eyes shaking with confusion.
He displayed surprisingly swift lightness skill as he shot ahead, but only for a moment.
Shadowless Movement Technique!
With the Golden Prince Seok Geum-ryong and the Shadowless One Shin Dan-woo, both skilled in the Shadowless Movement Technique, one of the finest movement arts in the martial world, there was no way they could escape pursuit.
“Got you.”
At last, Seok Geum-ryong caught the two men who served as Cold Blood Sect’s eyes and ears, and a satisfied smile touched his lips.
To put it plainly, even if they wiped out Cold Blood Sect entirely, it would all be meaningless if they failed to catch these two.
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?!”
Du Il-sim, whom Seok Geum-ryong had pursued relentlessly until he finally got his hands on him, cried out in grievance.
“Those words. Didn’t the victims you killed, the spirits of the dead, say the same thing?”
Seok Geum-ryong was not the sort to be swayed by such words.
Rather, it was Du Il-sim’s shamelessness that disgusted him, acting so calm while slaughtering others and then looking wronged once the blade turned toward him.
“W-what?”
“I heard that once you cross Cold Blood Sect, everyone connected to that feud gets annihilated as well. Why did you go that far?”
“That is...”
Faced with Seok Geum-ryong’s blunt and logical question, Du Il-sim could not answer.
“Right! Because they were weaker than me! Those weaker than me dared to try to climb above my head...”
“You’re weaker than me, aren’t you? Then die.”
Answering nonsense with nonsense, Seok Geum-ryong finally swung the Silver Shadow Sword.
Du Il-sim and Jo Pal-mo were caught off guard by the sudden ambush.
Their bodies froze, and they were about to be struck down as they were.
“Hah!”
Unbelievably, Du Il-sim shoved Jo Pal-mo in front of him.
Slash!
As Seok Geum-ryong’s sword drove Jo Pal-mo forward against the incoming attack without hesitation, Jo Pal-mo was, naturally, gravely injured.
“Aaaagh!”
Jo Pal-mo had been standing still when, out of nowhere, an unforeseen wound tore through him.
Everyone, including Seok Geum-ryong, was stunned by the absurdity of it, but Du Il-sim did not miss the opening.
Whoosh!
The reason Du Il-sim had sacrificed Jo Pal-mo and drawn attention away was exactly this.
He set fire to a smoke-emitting powder, clearly prepared in advance.
“Forgive me, deputy leader. As long as I survive, Cold Blood Sect can still be maintained, can’t it?”
After humiliating Jo Pal-mo again, who had trusted and followed him to the end, Du Il-sim moved forward without hesitation.
“That conniving bastard!”
Seok Geum-ryong watched Du Il-sim flee madly toward the opposite end of the secret passage using such a petty trick, and he could only shake his head at the man’s viciousness.
He had been ready to let him go with relatively little pain, but that changed in an instant.
Clack!
Just as Du Il-sim, having escaped for the moment, was about to grab the door at the far end of the passage, the door suddenly opened from the other side and someone entered. Du Il-sim, who had been convinced he was safe, slammed headfirst into it and collapsed to the floor.
“Gah!”
Rolling on the ground, Du Il-sim looked up to find Hong Hwa-hee, the sect leader of Hoho-gak, staring down at him in stupefaction.
What a ridiculous situation this was.
“What the hell? Who are you?”
He had been escaping quite well, only for the door on the far side of the passage to open and someone to come in. Du Il-sim glared ahead in fury.
“Sect Leader of Cold Blood Sect? What perfect timing! Could you kill the fifth idiot of Seokga Manor for me?!”
Hong Hwa-hee, still simmering with outrage after losing miserably in her dice game against Seok Geum-ryong, began spitting out her words like a machine gun.
Meanwhile...
“How convenient. Two vicious cockroaches have gathered in one place.”
Seok Geum-ryong appeared behind them, having cleanly dispersed the smoke bomb that the treacherous Du Il-sim had used in his final gambit.
“Huh? Wh-what... you...”
Hong Hwa-hee, who had just been begging for Seok Geum-ryong to be killed, now saw Seok Geum-ryong right in front of her, and Du Il-sim seemingly being chased by him. She froze, at a loss.
“You madman! If it hadn’t been for you, I could have escaped!”
“What? Don’t talk nonsense! Since when were you planning to run off alone after extorting enormous amounts of gold under the pretense of protection? You cowardly, selfish bastard!”
The reason villains are villains is simple: even in their worst, final moments, they grab each other by the hair and fight desperately to survive alone.
Even in a life-or-death situation, the two villains, Du Il-sim and Hong Hwa-hee, did not join forces.
Rather than combining their strength, they blamed each other, each thinking the other had caused them to fall before Seok Geum-ryong, to be captured by him.
They’re exactly the same.
Seok Geum-ryong could only feel as though he were looking at a pack of starving ghouls in utter chaos as he raised the Silver Shadow Sword.
“Let’s make the martial world a little cleaner and healthier.”
With that, the Golden Needle Venerable Yeo Gwang-rae, who held a righteous heart for crushing evil, suggested that the pair of villains be executed side by side.
Seok Geum-ryong agreed.
Du Il-sim of Cold Blood Sect was never going to give up his grudges and live quietly, and neither was Hong Hwa-hee of Hoho-gak. If they survived, they would do everything in their power to cling to Seok Geum-ryong’s ankles and drag him down.
Then there was only one answer.
“Don’t fight. Leave in peace, and fairly.”
With that, Seok Geum-ryong swung the Silver Shadow Sword without hesitation.
“No! Spare me!”
“I-I can be spared, can’t I? I’ll hand over all of Hoho-gak. So please!”
The two villains struggled desperately to live, but it was far too late.
Heaven-Shattering Seven Stars Sword Technique: First Form, Greedy Wolf!
The greedy wolf’s form lunged toward them, and the villainous man and woman who had been so eager to devour each other met their end together, side by side, in perfect harmony.
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