Chapter 173
Chapter 173
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: Rebellion
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The power contained in the halberd was extraordinary.
It was far beyond the level of merely disciplining his son for his mistakes.
-Clang! Claaang! Claaaaang!
A series of clashes followed.
Frustrated by the increasingly sharp and fierce attacks, Jegal Cheon-sang finally exploded.
“What in the world are you doing!?”
Jegal Cheon-sang swung his sword in a rage.
It was a haphazard swing, without proper force, just to shake off Hyeok Ri-gwang's relentless assaults.
But Hyeok Ri-gwang, who met that sword head-on, couldn't withstand the immense power infused in it and was flung backward.
-Boom!
“Urk...!”
“Master!”
Hyeok Ri-gwang raised his hand to hold back his approaching retainers and groaned as he stood up.
He gave a wry smile at the numbness in his grip on the halberd.
‘This is the power of the Blood Jade. Impressive indeed.’
At a glance, his son had merely swung the sword lightly.
Yet he himself had been sent flying by that single casual swing.
“Ha, hahaha...!”
Seeing this, Jegal Cheon-sang stared at the sword in his hand with wide eyes before bursting into mad laughter.
“Did you see that, Father? This is the power of the Blood Jade! I—I now hold the greatest power in my hands. I'm truly the strongest under heaven!”
He was overjoyed, beside himself with glee.
Hyeok Ri-gwang swallowed the sigh rising in his throat and lifted the halberd again.
“Look at what you've lost because of that power.”
“What...?”
He laid the halberd flat and held it up to reflect Jegal Cheon-sang's current appearance.
“...Huh?”
Jegal Cheon-sang saw the face of a demon-like man reflected on the halberd's surface.
For a moment, he looked puzzled as to what it was, then belatedly realized it was himself.
“Wh-what the hell is this...?”
Having not anticipated his transformed appearance, he couldn't hide his bewilderment.
Hyeok Ri-gwang looked at his son with complicated eyes before raising the halberd again.
He lowered his upper body as low as possible, aligning it with his waist.
It was the stance of the Tiger Leaf Saber.
“W-wait a minute! Even if my appearance is strange, I'm still your son! Are you trying to kill your own son?”
Seeing his father about to unleash the Tiger Leaf Saber in earnest, Jegal Cheon-sang shouted desperately.
At those words, Hyeok Ri-gwang ground his teeth so hard it seemed they might shatter.
From the moment he first saw his son burst through the main gate, Hyeok Ri-gwang had known. He had no choice but to know.
That it was already too late.
That his son had transformed into something not human, and there was no way to revert him.
That if he left him like this, excusing it with fatherly love, it would truly become irreversible.
It wasn't his mind, but his instinct that realized this first.
So, he was right.
He was now trying to kill his son.
‘...Don't think about anything.’
He erased all emotions—regret and self-reproach for failing as a father.
All that remained was the thought of what must be done.
‘Stop him. Bring him down.’
Even if it meant becoming a heartless father who slays his own son,
he would not let his son die as a monster.
With his resolve hardened, Hyeok Ri-gwang kicked off the ground and charged.
-Boom!
Hyeok Ri-gwang's form shot forward with explosive speed.
Jegal Cheon-sang grimaced and raised his sword again.
‘The Tiger Leaf Saber can only move in a straight line.’
Having mastered the Tiger Leaf Sword, a variant of the Tiger Leaf Saber, Jegal Cheon-sang knew its weaknesses better than anyone.
‘With my current power!’
He could block that attack.
If he just watched the incoming direction carefully...!
“...What?!”
But Jegal Cheon-sang soon had no choice but to widen his eyes.
Hyeok Ri-gwang's movements.
They were different.
Completely unlike what he knew.
As mentioned before, the Tiger Leaf Saber was a technique focused on explosive charges like a tiger hunting its prey.
Thus, it had the fatal flaw of being unable to change direction mid-motion.
But look at it now.
That dynamic approach, twisting directions this way and that.
It truly resembled a tiger pouncing on its prey.
Though Jegal Cheon-sang didn't know it, thanks to the internal energy projection and Suction Palm learned from Ja-seong, the Tiger Leaf Saber had been reborn as an entirely different technique.
Internal energy projection allowed for even greater speed, and the Suction Palm enabled swift direction changes.
“Urk!?”
Seeing Hyeok Ri-gwang's halberd closing in right before him, Jegal Cheon-sang desperately swung his sword.
But before he could, the halberd struck his body first.
-Thud!
“Guhk...?”
Jegal Cheon-sang looked down at the halberd that had dug into his left shoulder blade and cleaved toward his heart, his eyes filled with disbelief.
His trembling gaze turned to his father, and he vomited blood.
“F-Fath...”
“...I'm sorry. For being such a worthless father.”
The moment he heard Hyeok Ri-gwang's trembling voice, Jegal Cheon-sang rolled back his eyes and went limp.
-Squelch.
As the halberd was pulled out, a massive amount of blood gushed forth.
Jegal Cheon-sang fell like a marionette with its strings cut.
Hyeok Ri-gwang stared vacantly at his son, motionless in a pool of blood.
“M-Master... Are you alright?”
The voices of his retainers calling him sounded distant.
‘Am I alright?’
Of course not.
He had just killed his own son.
A father had plunged a blade into his child's body—how could he be alright?
“Eek...!”
Right then, a grating sound reached his ears.
Reflexively turning his head, he saw the elders, pale-faced.
In his hollow retinas reflecting them, a spark suddenly flared.
It was them.
They had turned his son into a monster.
His blazing eyes turned toward the Council of Elders.
The elders, who had been despairing at the sight of Jegal Cheon-sang's corpse inside the broken main gate, gasped as they met Hyeok Ri-gwang's gaze.
Feeling a fresh surge of murderous intent within him at their sight, he took a step forward.
Detestable old fools.
He could not forgive them.
He would kill them all.
With a face twisted in rage, Hyeok Ri-gwang advanced toward the elders.
*
-Clang!
“Urk...!”
Swords clashed.
The force was evenly matched.
But the appearances of those gripping the sword hilts were worlds apart.
After all, the wielders were a middle-aged man and a young girl.
By looks alone, it seemed the middle-aged man should be teaching the girl swordsmanship, but reality was the opposite.
Incredibly, the girl was holding her own against a man three times her age.
If anything, the middle-aged man seemed to be on the back foot.
Unlike the man with his face contorted, the girl's expression appeared calm at first glance.
‘...Impossible.’
Jegal Dang-san, a member of the Wyrm Dragon Guard—the Jegal clan's elite bodyguard unit—couldn't believe the reality unfolding before him.
Who was he?
The pinnacle of the great Jegal clan's military might.
A member of the Wyrm Dragon Guard, responsible for the patriarch's personal protection.
Yet here he was, being pushed back by a little girl barely old enough for basic studies?
“Hyah!”
He didn't want to believe it, but the shrill kiai and the pressure of the incoming sword were all too vivid.
Gritting his teeth as he parried, he deflected the strangely heavy sword and created distance from the girl, Yoo Seol.
His eyes then caught sight of his other comrades.
“Gah!?”
“Urgh-!”
His comrades were in no better shape.
Three of the Wyrm Dragon Guard were struggling against a young woman who appeared to be in her twenties, while an elderly swordsman had already laid three low and was pressing the remaining two.
But the most astonishing sight was the First Young Master facing the Captain.
-Clang! Clang!
“The Cap-Captain...!”
The Captain was being overwhelmed by the First Young Master.
No, he was being toyed with one-sidedly.
Geun-yeong's sword grazed Wyrm Dragon Captain Jegal Seung's shoulder harshly.
Jegal Seung hardened his face at the sensation of his uniform tearing and swiftly counterattacked.
“Hyah!”
The sword charging with a kiai aimed for Geun-yeong's nape before shifting to target his abdomen.
A brilliant feint exploiting an opening.
But that attack never reached Geun-yeong.
Before the sword could fully thrust, Geun-yeong stepped aside with footwork and appeared at Jegal Seung's left in an instant.
-Stab!
Geun-yeong's sword piercing his side.
Unlike the previous sensations of scraping against the rigid Protective Aura, this felt different.
Sure enough, blood seeped from the hole in his torn uniform at the side.
And that meant only one thing.
“It seems your Protective Aura is finally breaking.”
“.......”
Jegal Seung said nothing, his face stricken with dismay.
Without Geun-yeong needing to say it, he had felt the stinging pain from his side first and foremost.
The Protective Aura breaking.
It meant defeat was drawing endlessly near.
‘And yet my sword hasn't touched the First Young Master's body even once.’
A perfect defeat.
Glancing down at the blood spreading over his uniform, he asked with a grim expression.
“...What in the world is that footwork?”
Jegal Seung, who had lived as a martial artist for decades.
Now the Wyrm Dragon Captain serving at the patriarch's side, he had once roamed the martial world himself.
Naturally, he had witnessed countless techniques, but never footwork like what Geun-yeong displayed.
Movements so exquisite, as if preemptively reading his attacks.
That footwork accounted for the lion's share of this one-sided battle.
“This is....”
“You bastard Geun-yeong-!”
As Geun-yeong began to answer Jegal Seung's question, the doors of the Great Hall burst open with a bellow.
The fight halted in an instant, all eyes turning to one spot.
Thus bombarded by countless gazes, the Jegal clan patriarch Jegal Su-kyung glared at his eldest son with a deeply contorted face.
“What in the world is this disgraceful mess!?”