Chapter 87: The Struggle (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 87: The Struggle (6)
"······."
Clad in the Pure Blood Robe and wearing the Demon Mask, Jeong Yeon-shin took a slow step forward.
Right now, he had to play the part of one of the Blood Flame Cult's top rising stars. He recalled what he'd heard from the Seventh Apostle.
The Pure Blood Robe was a treasure bestowed exclusively upon the Apostles.
My martial prowess doesn't match an Apostle's yet. I should act like Go Jong-hak.
Even within the Blood Flame Cult, there were aristocrats. Families as old as the headquarters itself had naturally formed powerful factions with vested interests.
The son of the Third Apostle, Go Jong-hak, was one such person. He was someone who had constantly kept Jeong Yeon-shin in check back at the headquarters.
He had died after pushing forward a boy who hadn't even learned martial arts, trying to force him to absorb True Qi. Yeon-shin remembered snapping his neck.
Jeong Yeon-shin resolved to impersonate him.
Step.
His stride was leisurely. He held his upper body perfectly upright.
He exuded an aura that seemed to look down upon the entire world. He hypnotized himself into the role.
Outside the headquarters, there is no one more noble than me. Everyone else is a worthless insect.
He walked without hesitation toward Namgung Mi, who was seated in the place of honor. Beneath his calm exterior, he was carefully measuring the combat interval.
"Mmh······."
"He doesn't seem to be of ordinary status······"
The guests, who proudly claimed to be orthodox martial artists, dared not move. This was true even though they must have realized he was from the Blood Flame Cult.
They were completely overwhelmed by Jeong Yeon-shin's appearance and aura.
It was a presence that few in the local martial world could ever match. He was currently circulating the Mara Blood-Roaring Art at the level of a Desolate Fortress Blue Rank.
One after another, they cast their eyes downward. These were people who had long held their breath under the shadow of the unorthodox Hyeonsa Gate.
They no longer looked like the fiery crowd that had been passionately shouting along with Namgung Mi's words just moments ago. There was virtually no martial artist present who could muster any spirit in front of Jeong Yeon-shin.
The Namgung Clan, however, was different.
"A mere Blood Ghost dares to show his face here?"
"Are you perhaps a blood relative of an Apostle?"
As the Namgung Clan martial artists immediately stood up to draw their swords, Namgung Mi raised her hand slightly with a strange smile.
Her fingers, smooth and white enough to be called delicate jade, stopped them in their tracks.
"I like the color of this fruit's flesh," Jeong Yeon-shin said.
He was still channeling True Qi into the Lianquan acupoint on his neck.
With a deliberately produced plosive sound, a bizarre, deeply resonant voice emerged.
With leisurely steps, he arrived right beside her, positioning himself diagonally to Namgung Mi's left.
Slide.
He picked up a piece of sliced peach. Rather than fighting blindly, his goal was to distance his current disguised Blood Flame Cult identity from his true self.
Even if his aura was entirely different, he couldn't change his physical build. He had to prevent them from associating him with the Flash Art of the Desolate Fortress.
I must act and speak in a way completely unlike myself.
For the first time in his life, Jeong Yeon-shin was intentionally trying to provoke someone. He didn't feel confident. Can I really pull this off?
"This fruit is wasted on the rabble gathered here."
He raised his indifferent tone slightly, intending to sound utterly arrogant. Surprisingly, it suited him quite well.
He felt a brief sense of wonder at how natural it felt—far more comfortable than he had expected.
"······."
No one raised their head except for the experts of the Namgung Clan. Surprisingly, the act seemed to have worked.
He didn't know how he appeared to them, draped in the precious Pure Blood Robe, wearing a Demon Mask, and circulating the Mara Blood-Roaring Art.
Did he truly look like an aristocrat of the Blood Flame Cult in their eyes?
Just then, Namgung Mi parted her lips.
"I was about to pick that up. Doesn't that white peach flesh suit me?"
She slowly crossed her legs. Her eyes, curved in a faint smile, met his gaze through the mask.
Her words flowed smoothly.
"A Blood Ghost playing the noble aristocrat in front of me. Do you perhaps feel inferior to my family? You really don't know your place."
"Your tongue is rather long."
"What?"
"A head that is about to roll wags its tongue far too much."
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke leisurely from behind his Demon Mask.
Then, he moved his hand.
He tossed the piece of peach he was holding right at Namgung Mi's neck, paying no heed to the gasps echoing around them.
She did not dodge, but simply stood up. The fallen fruit was lightly crushed beneath her fine leather shoe.
"I suppose you heard the rumors and came to suck dry some True Qi," she said with a vicious smile. "Kill him."
The moment the order left her lips, Namgung Mi surged her full-body internal power. She recalled the sheer aura the blood-robed demon in front of her had displayed.
He was not someone she could afford to underestimate. She intended to use the Changryeong Hwa warriors as her limbs to gauge his true strength.
But before that.
She planned to slow his body down first with her qigong.
The freezing cold of the Human-Shaped Snow Ginseng surged icily from her dantian.
The moment she raised her hand—enduring a pain that felt like her blood vessels were burning—thin ice formed around her body. It radiated a shimmering wave of five-colored light.
Its dazzling appearance befitted her nobility, and she believed its lethal efficacy would be no different.
Whoosh!
It happened in an instant. The moment a white mist erupted from Namgung Mi's entire body, the demon's body suddenly froze.
The freezing cold of her internal energy was faster than any sword strike. Letting out a smirk, she stepped back with light, rustling steps.
From all directions, the Changryeong Hwa warriors rushed in. In an instant, chaos erupted.
Food and wine scattered everywhere as the loud clashing of swords rang out.
Clang!
Jeong Yeon-shin felt the vibration travel all the way up to his right hand, which gripped the hilt of his sword.
One of the incoming attacks was fast, but he blocked it with the flat of his iron sword, which he hadn't even fully drawn from its sheath. However, his movements had definitely slowed down.
The chill that had penetrated his body was no ordinary cold. It possessed the debilitating properties of an Internal Heavy Hand Technique.
Even so, his physical strength remained unchanged.
"Your sword force is pathetic," Jeong Yeon-shin said calmly from behind his Demon Mask.
His defense did not waver. The moment the Namgung bastard flinched, Yeon-shin didn't hesitate; he backhanded the man across the face with his left hand.
A loud, heavy thud echoed out. With a sickening crunch to the jaw, he sent the man flying.
"Argh!"
It was a deathly groan. The man flew backward, his eyes rolling into his skull as he lost consciousness mid-air.
The moment he delivered the blow, Jeong Yeon-shin knew: he could handle this even without using the forms of his sect-exclusive martial arts.
He had grown considerably stronger. At the very least, he was far beyond the level of a low-tier Blue Rank.
He kept moving forward, easily clearing away any stray swords that flew his way.
He was actually grateful for Namgung Mi's decision to use her subordinates as expendable pawns.
I just need to keep fighting like this.
It was the moment he surged the flow of the Mara Blood-Roaring Art.
"Sword Formation!" another Namgung bastard shouted. His voice was urgent.
A sword formation—a tactical method where multiple swordsmen gathered to link their forms together into a unified assault.
Seeing the sheer weight of Jeong Yeon-shin's strike, they had immediately decided on a joint attack. A deadly arena unfolded, completely separating them from the onlookers who had frantically backed away.
It was a battle between five Changryeong Hwa warriors and the Demon Mask.
Jeong Yeon-shin narrowed his eyes. The Namgung bastards swung their swords, their blades occupying the entire space in front of him.
He immediately responded with the Fast Sword mnemonic, but the movement of the iron sword—provided earlier by Namgung Hwa-shin—was only about as fast as their own attacks.
Gradually, the meridians throughout his body began to ache. It was a formidable invasion of cold energy.
I've become incredibly sluggish.
But it didn't matter.
Even moving slowly, he perfectly combined evasion and counterattacks. His sense for calculating the combat interval had reached the realm of pure instinct.
Despite his numbing skin, his internal senses remained extremely sharp. Evading the five sword paths by a hair's breadth, he forced his own brutal strikes through the gaps.
One by one. Five strikes were all it took.
Jeong Yeon-shin pulled his iron sword out of a fallen warrior's abdomen. This one was the last.
Very slowly, the blood dripping down his blade created a heavy, suffocating silence in the room.
His pure red robe seemed to be draped in a noble, overwhelming murderous intent.
In comparison, the blood of the Namgung Clan's Changryeong Hwa warriors looked like nothing more than dirty, insignificant stains.
"······."
While everyone held their breath in terror, Namgung Mi still did not move.
This was a fight between experts. A hasty intervention could disrupt her own rhythm.
She was the master of the Changryeong Hwa. What did it matter how she used her subordinates?
It was enough to simply watch and see how long her enemy's martial prowess would last under her debilitating cold.
Only when the last warrior fell did Namgung Mi finally take a step forward.
"Your eye technique training doesn't seem very deep," she said, slowly approaching him.
"But your sense of distance is quite outstanding. You measure the combat interval perfectly. Is it innate?"
Her tone was completely relaxed. She had already confirmed that the Demon Mask's movements were growing progressively slower.
The energy of the Human-Shaped Snow Ginseng—which she had forcefully refined through excruciating pain—was just that powerful. It was an internal power that had reached an entirely different realm.
Jeong Yeon-shin stood perfectly still and stared at her.
A sensation akin to severe frostbite was sweeping through his entire body. Even though he had only been exposed to a single release of her power, the aftereffects were devastating.
It was as he expected. Had he not learned the Jeong Family Dynamic Art, he wouldn't have even dreamed of challenging her.
I can't use my sect-exclusive martial arts.
He could not deploy his new palm techniques here. They were martial arts with characteristics that were far too distinct.
They could only be used at a moment when revealing his true identity wouldn't matter.
Step. Step.
Namgung Mi approached with a confident smile.
She did not look like a woman carelessly letting her guard down, yet she closed the combat interval without the slightest hesitation.
Her confidence in her cold internal power was truly immense. And it was a martial art entirely worthy of such confidence.
She had a complete grasp of her own internal energy. She had accurately perceived Jeong Yeon-shin's state, knowing he was gradually finding it difficult just to support his own body weight.
"Let's take a look, shall we?"
Approaching as intimately close as a lover, she reached out a hand as white as snow. She lightly traced the Demon Mask covering Jeong Yeon-shin's face.
"Starting with your ugly face."
Her lips curved into a thin arc. It was a gesture that seemed utterly defenseless.
Her wicked personality bled through completely.
It was a calculated behavior intended to inflict the ultimate humiliation upon a fellow martial artist.
Perfect, Jeong Yeon-shin thought. Exchanging ten moves was something reserved for a formal duel.
He had absolutely no intention of dealing with her in an honorable manner. He had purposely exposed a gap to lure her in, but he hadn't expected her to actually step this close.
Jeong Yeon-shin's Jianghu was vastly different from hers. His was a brutal struggle for survival.
He wanted to ruthlessly and efficiently defeat an opponent he had never faced before.
I can do this. The Lazy Flame Dragon is stronger.
The internal energy density of the Hwangbo Young Master, who had refined the innate heat of the Solar Divine Pulse, had been much higher than this.
Jeong Yeon-shin recalled a technique he had been inspired to create after witnessing that heat.
As it turned out, it was a martial art application that many of the so-called experts in the Jianghu already knew how to use.
Samadhi True Fire.
He had been casting it from the very moment she took her first step. It was a technique that applied intense vibration starting from the smallest microscopic unit of True Qi.
The sheer movement itself generated heat. It was fundamentally different from the immediate, explosive release of heat by the Lazy Flame Dragon, who had been born with the Solar Divine Pulse.
Instead, it was the delicate, masterful True Qi manipulation of an internal cultivation expert.
Hum.
A deep resonance echoed from within his body.
He felt it clearly. The invading cold energy in the meridians throughout his body crackled and violently burned away.
His entire body, forged as solid as steel by the Jeong Family Dynamic Art, easily withstood the intense heat and vibration. Meanwhile, the circulation path of the Mara Blood-Roaring Art swirled through his system in a destructive, torrential flow.
A crackling sensation erupted from all the acupoints in his body, flooding through the Twelve Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
He could keep this up all day. The enemy hadn't even noticed the rapid thawing occurring inside his body.
Jeong Yeon-shin immediately activated the Demonlight Formula.
The moment the upper dantian in his mind flashed violently, the Demonlight Wing's sect-exclusive martial art absorbed every single detail of his surroundings.
The relative postures of the two of them, the rhythm of Namgung Mi's breath mixed with her mocking laughter, and even the exact angle of her gaze staring at his mask.
Within that flood of information, an invisible trajectory arose. It was a ray of mental light visible only to Jeong Yeon-shin's eyes.
It was a Demonlight Formula form. The boy followed it exactly. It was a single, flawless move that started from his right elbow and barely even shifted his shoulder at the very end.
Slide.
Just a split second before Namgung Mi could strip away Jeong Yeon-shin's mask, his hand shot out and clamped around her throat.
It was an incredibly fluid, natural movement.
By weaving together Namgung Mi's overblown confidence, the Demonlight Formula form launched from her absolute blind spot, the combat interval that had converged to zero, and his own strike—which had accelerated explosively due to the sudden destruction of the cold energy—he created a single-strike miracle.
The Flash Art of the Demonlight Wing was born for combat.
"······!"
Her smooth neck was caught in his vice-like grip. Namgung Mi's eyes widened to their absolute limits.
Had she ever experienced being subdued so effortlessly in her entire life? She had likely never even heard of or seen such a thing.
Jeong Yeon-shin slowly opened his mouth.
"As an aristocrat of the world's blood lineage, I command you."
"Ugh······!"
"You lowly seed of Namgung."
Along with his words, his Blood Art reacted. He felt as if his body, perfectly refined by the Jeong Family Dynamic Art, was suddenly flung wide open.
The mental image of this exact moment was added to the intent forming his mnemonic.
They said she inflicted all kinds of humiliation upon Young Hero Namgung's mother.
They said a person who wanted for nothing had still committed all kinds of atrocities. Jeong Yeon-shin thought about this.
Was he not infinitely more dignified than this person named Namgung Mi? It was a thought he had never entertained before.
A genuinely arrogant intent sprouted in his mind.
He spoke.
"Kneel."
They were in front of a large crowd. The moment he poured his sincere intent into the word he spat out, he felt a strange sensation.
The energy drawn into the circulation flow of the Mara Blood-Roaring Art was slightly amplified. This meant his Accumulated Qi Amount had actually increased.
The torrent-like flow of True Qi seemed to laugh wickedly within him. It was as if it were saying, This is how you should operate a Blood Art.
This, too, is an enlightenment.
Jeong Yeon-shin spoke once more. This time, his voice was laced with pure contempt.
"What are you waiting for, you piece of trash?"
"You······ you······."
Namgung Mi could not finish her sentence. She showed no sign of moving.
This was because he had struck her paralytic acupoint the exact moment he grabbed her neck. He had completely paralyzed her body through Acupoint Sealing.
Even if she wanted to kneel, she couldn't. Complete control over her body had fallen entirely into Jeong Yeon-shin's hands.
"You aren't moving. You really are quite stubborn."
"Cough··· ugh······"
Lifting Namgung Mi by her neck, the boy let out a low, chilling laugh from behind his Demon Mask.
The hem of his Pure Blood Robe, which reached all the way down to his feet, fluttered like scattering blood. It was a bizarre, terrifyingly majestic sight.