Chapter 222
Chapter 222
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 222
Chapter Title: The Attacked Wudang
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The Earth Sword prioritized stability and balance, much like the steadfast earth itself.
It was a style focused on firmly establishing one's center of gravity and blocking or deflecting the opponent's attacks.
-Whooosh!
A heavy whoosh cut through the air as claws lunged forward.
The ferocious momentum, as if ready to shred his flesh at any moment, sent chills down the spine of Mu Heo-ja, a veteran of the martial world.
‘I can’t block it head-on. I have to twist the attack away.’
If he clashed directly with those claws infused with the Mountain King’s immense power, his sword would snap like a thin twig.
Mu Heo-ja sharpened his senses, concentrating every nerve on the Mountain King.
The claws rapidly closed in.
He took a step back to widen the gap, facing the savage malice head-on.
“Hup!”
Mu Heo-ja let out a stifled shout, suppressed by the pressure emanating from the massive forepaw. Just before the claws reached his sword, he twisted the hilt.
-Kagak-!
The sword lay flat, aligned with the trajectory of the claws.
The claws, powerful enough to tear through steel, futilely slid across the blade.
-Krrrng?
The forepaw ended up slicing only empty air.
The Mountain King blinked in confusion, its eyes wide, then twisted its face and roared.
-Kraaaang-!
“Ugh…!”
Mu Heo-ja swallowed a groan as the beast’s roar exploded right in his face, and another attack came at him immediately.
-Kak! Kagang!
But no matter how many times it struck, the result was the same.
He retreated only a few more steps, but both Mu Heo-ja and his sword remained unscathed.
No matter how powerful the attack, if it didn’t land, it was useless.
Mu Heo-ja, who had seemed as precarious as a candle in the wind, now stood firm against the beast’s might with the skill honed over a lifetime.
Enraged at being utterly outmaneuvered into empty swings, the Mountain King bellowed and pressed Mu Heo-ja even more fiercely.
-Kraaang!
Endless swipes from the forepaw and sharp whisker-blades.
Each time, Mu Heo-ja retreated, until his back hit the wall.
With nowhere left to fall back, the Mountain King gaped its maw and thrust its fangs toward him.
“Sect Leader Senior Brother—!”
“Sect Leader!”
The Wudang Taoists’ cries rang out like screams.
Amid them, Mu Heo-ja’s eyes gleamed. Instead of retreating, he unleashed the second form of the Five Elements Sword, the Fire Sword, and advanced.
-Szzzt!
The left sleeve of his Taoist robes tore against the whiskers, blood spraying.
Ignoring the burning pain from the deep gash, Mu Heo-ja’s sword targeted the Mountain King’s nape.
The Fire Sword was relentlessly aggressive and destructive.
Unlike the Earth Sword, it disregarded all defense—an all-or-nothing strike that traded flesh for bone. This decisive blow landed fatally on the Mountain King.
-Puk!
-Kraaaang-!
The sharp blade pierced the red fur.
The Mountain King’s agonized cry echoed through Wudang Mountain.
In a frantic attempt to shake off Mu Heo-ja, who had inflicted a mortal wound, it flailed its forepaw wildly.
“Hueup!”
Mu Heo-ja swung down with the sword buried so deep that only the hilt was visible.
-Puhak!
The blade tore out from the nape.
Blood poured from the gaping wound like a waterfall.
-Thud!
The forepaw aiming for Mu Heo-ja fell limply, and the staggering body collapsed with a crash.
It gasped for breath, but that wouldn’t last; death would come soon enough.
Certain of victory, Mu Heo-ja turned his back on the Mountain King with a small groan from the growing pain in his left arm.
“Sect Leader Senior Brother, are you alright?”
Mu Song-ja, his junior brother and Wudang’s elder, approached with a face full of worry to check on him.
Mu Heo-ja patted his junior brother’s shoulder to signal he was fine, then surveyed the surroundings.
“Hah!”
“Yah!”
-Kieee-!
Fortunately, the other monsters were falling one by one to the combined efforts of the Wudang Taoists.
‘This should wrap up quickly.’
Nodding to himself, Mu Heo-ja’s thoughts turned to the second-generation disciples outside Shangqing Palace.
“Junior Brother, I’m worried about the second-generation disciples. Take the remaining ones and…”
-Krrrng…!
At that moment, a low growl reached their ears.
A chill ran down their spines, faces paling as Mu Heo-ja and Mu Song-ja whipped their heads around simultaneously.
And they saw it.
The Mountain King rising unscathed, as if the blood it had shed was an illusion.
“Wh-what is this…?”
He had clearly slashed deep into its neck—nearly half off.
No beast could survive having half its neck severed.
Stunned by the scene that defied common sense, Mu Heo-ja froze.
But the situation allowed no time for bewilderment.
-Kraaaang-!
With a spine-tingling roar, the Mountain King charged.
Its target was none other than Mu Song-ja.
Wudang, hailed as the pillar of the Central Plains martial world.
Not all its members were warriors devoting their lives to martial arts.
Some chose the path of the Taoist, cultivating the Dao through cultivation rather than martial prowess.
Mu Song-ja was one such person.
In other words, he was utterly helpless before the tiger’s razor-sharp claws.
The Mountain King had cunningly spotted this in that brief moment and targeted Mu Heo-ja’s junior brother instead.
“This is bad… Junior Brother, get away!”
Mu Heo-ja urgently grabbed Mu Song-ja by the collar and hurled him back.
But as he braced to block the Mountain King’s attack, he realized it was too late.
-Kwajik!
Mu Heo-ja’s Songmun High Sword tore apart like paper under the tiger’s claws.
Before he could even feel despair at the shattered sword that had been with him since his childhood days at Wudang, the Mountain King’s forepaw slammed into his chest.
-Bam!
The terrifying force shattered Mu Heo-ja’s protective energy in an instant and crushed his ribcage.
“Keheok!?”
“Senior Brother—!”
The Wudang Taoists’ gazes snapped toward them at Mu Song-ja’s anguished cry, landing on Mu Heo-ja, collapsed with blood spewing from his mouth and his chest caved in.
“Ahh…!”
“The Sect Leader…!”
Mu Heo-ja, Wudang’s supreme master and bearer of the title Sword Immortal of Wudang.
His defeat threw the Wudang Taoists into great turmoil, swiftly shifting the tide of battle.
-Kieee-!
“Aaack!”
The mental disruption shattered the perfect harmony of the Five Elements Sword Formation, which required five people’s flawless coordination, and injuries began to mount one by one.
-Krrrng….
The Mountain King bared its fangs in satisfaction at the sight, approaching the groaning Mu Heo-ja on the ground.
To finish off the human who had dared drive it to the brink of death.
“You bastard! Back off right now, you vile demon!”
Mu Song-ja stood to block it, guarding his fallen senior brother.
In his hand was Mu Heo-ja’s broken Songmun High Sword.
It had been decades since he last held a sword, so his stance was clumsy. The blade was torn away, leaving it shorter than a dagger.
A mocking glint entered the Mountain King’s eyes.
They seemed pitiful, hastening their own doom.
-Krrng.
The Mountain King raised its forepaw with a low growl.
To rip the frail human daring to stand before it to shreds in one blow.
“J-Junior Brother…! Cough! R-Run…!”
Mu Heo-ja, vomiting blood nonstop, gasped out the plea.
But Mu Song-ja did not retreat, despite his desperate cry.
Brothers who had spent their lives together like blood kin could not ignore each other’s deaths.
Mu Song-ja trembled before the Mountain King’s aura but held his ground.
Mu Heo-ja thrashed desperately to rise.
But reality rarely bends to will.
“Yaap!”
Mu Song-ja swung the shortened Songmun High Sword with a shrill shout, only to lose his grip on the hilt as the Mountain King casually swatted it away, sending him tumbling.
Mu Heo-ja, struggling to rise, collapsed again.
“Sect Leader!”
“Protect the Elder!”
In the meantime, first-generation disciples who had felled other monsters rushed over, but none could withstand even a single blow from the Mountain King.
“Aaaah!”
“Jin-yu Junior Brother!”
Seeing yet another disciple perish forever, Mu Heo-ja shed bloody tears inwardly.
‘Primordial Heavenly Lord…!’
Have you abandoned us like this?
As even Wudang’s Sword Immortal began to sink into despair before this unstoppable calamity,
-Bam!
A heavy thud struck his ears.
His gaze turned instinctively.
At the end stood a martial artist shoving open the gates of Shangqing Palace.
‘Wh-who…?’
A young warrior who appeared around the same age as the second-generation disciples.
As his consciousness faded, questions flooded his mind.
Who was he?
How had he gotten here?
The chain of questions was broken by the roar of the monster tiger ravaging Wudang.
-Kraaaang!
Mu Heo-ja turned back, and an unbelievable sight met his eyes.
-K-Krrrng…!
The monster tiger was backing away.
It retreated step by step, utterly terrified, as if facing an inescapable calamity.
Not a trace remained of its earlier overwhelming presence.
As the Wudang Taoists, who had been helpless before its attacks, stared in bewilderment,
-Thud!
A heavy footfall echoed, and a streak of light pierced toward the Mountain King.
*
I had originally planned to chase down that hoe bastard right away, but the screams echoing from all directions forced me to adjust.
Monsters, clearly followers of the tiger monster, were rampaging through Wudang Sect’s grounds.
I couldn’t just stand by while those beasts tried to slaughter and devour the Taoists, so I circled the sect, hunting down and killing each one.
By the time I reached the central grand hall, Shangqing Palace, it was much later than expected.
-Bam!
I flung open the gates as if to smash them and strode inside.
Taoists everywhere were forming sword formations to battle the monsters.
In the center was the bastard.
-Kraaaang!
Blood dripped from its maw, as if it had already tasted human flesh several times.
I ground my teeth at the sight. It spotted me, eyes widening, and began backing away hesitantly.
-K-Krrrng…!
It looked ready to flee at any moment.
Had it had its fun and now planned to slip away?
“Not so fast. What fun is it if you play alone?”
-Thud!
I stomped forward powerfully and shot toward it.
The hoe bastard flinched in shock as I closed in instantly, and I swung my sword.
-Slash!
-Kraaaang!
My downward strike, meant to split its muzzle in two, only grazed its nose.
The tiger monster howled in pain from its split nose and spun to flee.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I raised my sword high, qi swirling around it, and brought it down.
A crescent blade of sword qi followed the arc.
It instantly overtook the fleeing hoe bastard.
I was sure it would cleave the thing in half, a triumphant smile forming—when an astonishing sight caught my eye.
-Kieeeek-!
The other monsters the Taoists were fighting moved as one to shield the tiger monster.
Because of them, my Transcendent Crescent Blade missed, and the bastard vanished over the wall.
“…What was that?”
They sacrificed themselves to protect the hoe bastard?
But their movements seemed somehow unnatural for that.
“Sect Leader!”
Dumbfounded by the unexpected turn, an urgent shout rang out.
I turned to see Taoists gathered around an unconscious old Taoist.
His lower face was soaked red with blood, as if he’d vomited a basinful, and his chest was deeply caved in.
It looked dire; what should I do? Then familiar figures appeared near the gates.
“…Guess I have to step in again, huh?”
Ye So-ha, at the front, asked awkwardly, and I nodded emphatically.