Chapter 218
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 218
Chapter Title: Wu and Yue in the Same Boat (1)
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What is a sword?
Even to this simple question, wanderers of the jianghu would give answers as varied as the stars.
Those who cultivate the sword as a Dao would say it straightens the heart and infuses the tip with truth.
Ask the ronin who drift like duckweed through the stormy world, entrusting all to a single blade, and they’d call it their very life.
One sees it slicing across vast skies, another blooming brilliant flowers on branches, another roaming free among clouds, another a towering tree rooted in the earth, another an arrow loosed unbroken from the string—
Each according to the ideals and heart-images they’ve envisioned.
Some might debate it as the king of all weapons, others decry it as a crude double-edged blade inferior to the saber, still others raise objections that wielding a sword ill suits the path of the Buddha.
Yet here.
There was one man bold enough to claim he understood the sword, if only a little.
Geum Sihyeon declared:
“To me, swordsmanship is murder……”
A touch boastful, perhaps.
But those words pierced to the essence of all weapons.
If there was a first warrior, a first swordsman.
Why did he pick up a sword?
To efficiently slice through charging beasts with bare hands.
Then.
How to efficiently slice a man charging with a sword? A saber? A spear? An iron mace? A three-section staff? Or—
“Kuh……!”
Judging he couldn’t win easily with swordsmanship alone, Cheon Siwoo thrust out a single fist—but it was still within Geum Sihyeon’s grasp.
Before the punch could even extend and cleave the air, Geum Sihyeon’s blade had already arced viciously toward Cheon Siwoo’s wrist.
Cheon Siwoo, who had only just shed the husk of the Heavenly Demon and lingered at its threshold.
And the techniques he’d wielded till now were never refined martial arts, but brute force arts grounded in overwhelming destructive power.
Helpless.
Nothing but enduring until the limits of this heart-image were reached.
But.
“Not bad.”
“How old did you say?”
“Thirty-five.”
“Ha.”
No matter stripping away inner energy or weapons, Cheon Siwoo was no pushover, forged by a harsh life.
He might not seize the advantage.
But he dodged lethal blows and began adapting to Geum Sihyeon’s sword.
Yet Geum Sihyeon remained utterly unshaken.
The Solitary Sword Observation wasn’t some insane technique that let you smash the world just by learning it—it simply elevated one’s eye for martial arts to the extreme.
The current edge was paper-thin.
But take in a bit more with the eyes, embody it with the hands.
One exchange, two, three.
And by the tenth, he’d be that much stronger.
However…….
“Hitting your limit already?”
“Hm.”
It pierced and embodied all things under heaven, yet how could it project the practitioner’s own fervent desire as vividly?
Unlike his master, who’d cackle madly all day shouting “I could do this forever!” while gleefully crushing foes with the sword.
Geum Sihyeon wasn’t that battle-mad.
Thus, the Martial Image Essence’s pressure was fading bit by bit.
Of course, Cheon Siwoo’s clothes were in tatters, blood trickling from wounds here and there—not light injuries by any means.
“By any chance, can you make good use of that blood you’re spilling now?”
“You’ll find out soon enough anyway.”
Could he land the finishing blow before the Martial Image Essence ended?
Impossible.
After it ends, could he still hold the advantage?
That’d be tricky too.
Any other heart-images he could scrounge up?
Geum Sihyeon quickly pulled out the images he’d absorbed, laying them out like wares on a stall, pondering.
First, Chicken Master, Seo Dohee.
Wall-Wood Phantom World.
In short: cleaves anything the edge touches like wood.
No idea how much life she’d bet on forest destruction, but unless the foe had diamond indestructibility or blade immunity, it seemed pointless right now.
Next, his dear father-in-law.
Moyong Danha’s All Phenomena Are Empty.
In short: attack nullification.
Geum Sihyeon rudely suspected for 0.01 seconds if the old man was gay.
A mad notion, truly.
But both were underwhelming for subduing foes where inner energy made overwhelming gaps.
Gazing at Cheon Siwoo, whose wounds were healing, blood etching his skin like tattoos.
Geum Sihyeon made his call.
“How about a draw?”
Cheon Siwoo let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“Now?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
Once more, tongue and blade in tandem pierced another hole in Cheon Siwoo’s body, Geum Sihyeon smacking his lips.
The spurt of blood from the hole sealed shut softly.
As the inky barrier around them faded into the evening dusk.
The eyes of the two ceaselessly wielding mouth and hands locked on one spot.
Then their gazes met.
Sometimes, eyes speak volumes.
‘You too, huh?’
‘Yeah, me too.’
They sensed it simultaneously.
The unfathomable depths of the Nangong Family they’d only vaguely gauged before.
An overwhelming pressure that, even in perfect condition unscathed, promised no certain victory.
Perhaps.
Even uniting against it, that vague sense of inevitable defeat.
The fierce hostility flashing between the two men.
The moment they confirmed it wasn’t aimed at each other now.
Without a word, they launched themselves away.
“Kyau!”
“Kyeng!”
Snatching up their spirit beasts and yokai tussling in a catfight beyond the Martial Image Essence’s range, they scattered in opposite directions like by prior agreement.
Anyway.
Geum Sihyeon had never taken a loss in a deal at the Deal Church.
The spot where Geum Sihyeon and Cheon Siwoo had just clashed fiercely.
Less than a moment later, a man set foot there.
A man who, bordering the traditional unorthodox domains of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Fujian, had never once permitted their rampage.
A man who proved his sword peerless under heaven, boldly claiming one of the Five Supremes of the World—the seats of the world’s top five masters.
The head of the Nangong Family.
Nangong Heun.
As hailed the Nangong Family’s greatest masterpiece, he had proven with his sword that Nangong stood atop the world’s families.
Even matching blades with a warrior a generation his senior, Mount Hua Sect’s Gu Yanghui, he showed no weakness, seizing the jianghu in a single stroke.
His gaze.
Impassively took in the battlefield of the recent deathmatch.
“Hoo……”
Naturally, he grasped the bloody battle at a glance, a glint sparking in his eyes.
Magic arts, fine.
The world turned upside down with the Demonic Cult clinging to the orthodox sects? Whatever, he’d stopped caring.
But.
These sword scars—what were they?
Nangong Heun closed his eyes unwittingly.
And imagined.
Inferring from the traces everywhere, reassembling swung trajectories, dismantling, rejoining.
Exquisite.
Sword strikes so perfect, bordering flawless, that no other word sufficed.
Had danced here moments ago.
And the lingering echoes of intent scattered about.
Combining all clues.
“The Sword Demon came.”
The Nangong head reached a rational conclusion.
Suddenly, memories of the last Great Orthodox-Demonic War brushed his mind.
The result then.
Mutual defeat.
Their swords fell just short of each other.
But now?
“This’ll be fun.”
Make Nangong great again.
Make the martial world great again.
Scheming under such banners had its own thrill of dominance.
But what joy compared to clashing swords over life and death?
He drew his sword.
And.
Swinging toward So-ho.
As if an emperor descended from the heavens, stamping a colossal footprint.
Just like.
The emperor’s sword left no one standing, proclaiming as much.
Rumble……!
A thunderous roar like lightning striking behind him echoed.
No.
Lightning had truly fallen.
They said the emperor’s sword did that.
“Haa.”
Sighing, he sorted his thoughts.
This Dragon Ball-level power creep in the martial world was utterly deplorable.
No.
Eighteen months of hard work rocketing him from first-rate to Flower Realm—why were there still masters above?!
Unfair!
Heavens!
……Saying that’d be too pathetic, so he reined it in.
A greenhorn not even a month into Flower Realm couldn’t beat a Profound Realm expert yet.
Still, the wall was higher than expected.
He hadn’t fully crushed that fake Heavenly Demon buddy, barely Profound Realm threshold—how to face the real monsters?
……This year.
Could he smash the Azure Heaven Society?
If the board was perfectly set, maybe.
Like unlimited full-casting Invincible Meteor Barrage to blast them away.
Or churn out ten more Changcheon propaganda posts and secure total public opinion victory.
“No, no.”
The man spoke with his sword.
Of course, he’d keep screwing over the Azure Heaven Society.
.
.
.
Easing the throbbing headache—the price of peeking another’s heart-image and manifesting it—with breath control and meridian circulation.
Swapping mask for reverse appearance technique, disguising as the upstanding youth Wijihyeon, he entered the city.
Word from the vixen: that fake Heavenly Demon had business at Nangong Family too.
They’d truce’d with eye contact yesterday—no way he’d flip out in the city center.
He’d slipped before the Nangong geezer arrived—no tailing.
“Hm?”
Tail unknown.
But something amusing: a crowd gathered ahead.
Approaching.
A notice was posted there.
“Whew.”
A whistle escaped.
Summing up the grand script in bold strokes and flowery rhetoric:
[Murim heroes, got daily gripes? Love that impact? Come to Nangong, you accidental kids. And I like Azure Heaven too.]
The Nangong Family head himself.
Lord Nangong Heun issuing a “strip ranks and meet on the roof” proclamation—head heating up.
He turned.
Locking eyes once more with the fake Heavenly Demon.
No helping it.
Temporary alliance, just this once.