Chapter 234
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 234
Chapter Title: The Power of Taiji
‘…What in the world am I seeing right now?’
Mu Yeop-ja blinked vacantly in the midst of the dire battle.
The scene before his eyes was utterly bizarre beyond belief.
Of course, these past few days, it had been harder to find something that *wasn’t* bizarre, but this took the cake.
And for good reason.
-Kieeeek!
-Kyaak!
Just moments ago, these monsters had been lunging at the Wudang disciples with claws and fangs bared. Now they were tearing into *each other*, shrieking in agony.
And at the center of it all was Ja-seong.
-Whoooosh.
Ja-seong’s sword traced another circle.
It moved so slowly it seemed sluggish at first glance, but every time it did, the attacks flying toward him twisted off course, redirected toward other monsters.
-Puuk!
-Kiiiii-!
Once more, the monsters turned on one another.
Before long, Ja-seong’s surroundings were littered with the corpses of those that had charged him, only to kill and be killed by their own kind.
The situation left even the monsters hesitating, growling warily without daring to approach him recklessly.
They had instinctively realized it.
That rushing in blindly would mean certain death.
“…Hmph.”
Ja-seong surveyed the monsters, who had backed off at a safe distance and were snarling cautiously, refusing to charge.
He shrugged.
“Well, if they won’t come to me, I’ll just go to them.”
No sooner had the quiet mutter left his lips than Ja-seong vanished from everyone’s sight.
He reappeared beside one of the monsters and thrust his sword straight through its throat in a single motion.
-Puuk!
The blade sank in so deep it was invisible to the naked eye.
When Ja-seong lifted the hilt, it tore through the nape in a massive spray, revealing itself once more.
-Puhak!
Blood erupted from the gaping wound, shooting high into the sky before raining down onto the ground.
The heavens were already stained crimson.
It looked as if a bloody downpour was falling from above.
Ja-seong dashed through the red rain beneath it.
His body growing ever more soaked in scarlet, he swung his sword at his next prey.
-Kieeeek!
As Ja-seong’s blade pierced deep, seven sword shadows trailed behind it, each seeking a different target.
An invisible storm of slashes shredded the monster into dozens, hundreds of pieces.
A strike like splitting the heavens crashed down with thunderbolt speed, smashing the monster’s skull and embedding it into the earth.
The haze at his sword tip followed its arc, forming a crescent blade of sword qi that sliced through a cluster of monsters.
Ja-seong unleashed the restored Taiji Sword, followed by the forms of the Heavenly Bow Without Bounds Sword, massacring without restraint.
Whenever the monsters tried to flee his strikes, he stepped with Foreknowledge of Heaven’s Mechanism to block their path and cut them down.
As this repeated, the horde of monsters had no choice but to charge him again.
Facing the enemy’s renewed assault, Ja-seong once more deployed the Taiji Sword.
If they held back, he advanced with the Heavenly Bow Without Bounds Sword.
If they rushed in, he twisted their attacks with the Taiji Sword, forcing them to slaughter one another.
A true dilemma of death.
The monsters fell helplessly, one after another.
-Kiiiiieee-!
With the last monster’s pitiful death cry, they all lay sprawled on the ground.
Ja-seong alone stood tall.
The onlookers fell into a profound silence.
Those who had been battling the monsters moments ago.
Those who had retreated, wounded.
All gazed at the solitary figure standing firm, their eyes filled with awe.
“…Ha, hahaha.”
At last, someone’s laughter echoed.
The Wudang Taoists turned toward the sound, their eyes widening in shock.
There, at the source, lay Sect Leader Mu Heo-ja—the man who had been gravely wounded by the tiger monster’s attack and collapsed.
Though he was leaning heavily on Mu Jin-ja for support, the mere fact that the sect leader had awakened lit up the faces of the Wudang Taoists.
And Mu Heo-ja felt the same.
He gazed at Ja-seong with a radiant smile, as if a long-cherished dream had finally come true before his eyes.
“Hahaha…!”
Indeed, Mu Heo-ja’s heart overflowed with joy.
How could it not?
The knot that had burdened him for decades was finally unraveling.
Long ago, on the day he inherited the sect leader position from his predecessor and master, Elder Baek Mok.
His teacher had taken him to a cave etched with sword scars.
-Look closely.
-…What is this?
-What does it look like to you?
-Just… sword marks. Nothing more.
Traces that appeared as nothing but chaotic sword scratches.
At Mu Heo-ja’s response, Baek Mok gave a wry smile.
-I see. That’s how it looks to me too.
-…Pardon?
Gazing at his perplexed disciple, Baek Mok spoke softly.
-No one knows exactly when it began. It’s simply a ‘legacy’ passed down through generations of Wudang sect leaders, along with the two characters ‘Taiji.’
-A legacy…?
Why invoke such a grand term for mere sword marks?
As Mu Heo-ja puzzled over it, Baek Mok offered a faint smile.
-I hope you’re the one to unravel the secret of this legacy.
A smile blending faint regret with strange relief.
Thus, Baek Mok entrusted his disciple with the task he himself could not complete.
Yet contrary to his hopes, the legacy’s secret remained unsolved even a decade later, until Baek Mok retired from the front lines and ascended.
-…What in the world is the secret of these sword scars?
Even after his master’s ascension, Mu Heo-ja visited the cave whenever he could, desperately probing the legacy’s mystery.
But years passed with no progress, leading him to a momentous decision.
Breaking the unspoken rule that the legacy was for sect leaders alone, he revealed its secret to his fellow disciples.
Thanks to that choice, his youngest junior brother, Mu Yeop-ja, discovered that the cave wall’s sword scars were traces of a martial art.
Elated at drawing one step closer to their ancestors’ legacy, Mu Heo-ja entrusted its study entirely to Mu Yeop-ja.
Time flowed on once more.
But contrary to his expectations, Mu Yeop-ja’s research stalled for years, unable even to reconstruct the forms.
-We’ve already restored the martial art. So what?
Yet just moments ago, Mu Heo-ja had heard—from the mouth of a young warrior he’d never seen before—that their ancestral legacy had been revived.
Desperate to witness it with his own eyes, he stubbornly insisted on following the group despite Mu Jin-ja’s protests, even amid the monster assault.
And he had seen it. The legacy’s true form, unfolding in Ja-seong’s hands.
A sword endlessly soft and slow, yet relentlessly unbroken and fluid.
That was Taiji.
The great legacy of Wudang, finally revived after spanning ages.
“Hahahaha—!”
Mu Heo-ja burst into booming laughter, as if age had forgotten him.
*
“Ins…ane!”
Deep within Mount Wudang.
Before the bloodwood sapling, its aura growing ever more potent as it neared full maturity, radiating bloody energy.
Yuk Gan spat a quiet curse and collapsed onto the ground.
She had witnessed Ja-seong’s divine prowess through the eyes she had scattered around the Wudang Clan.
That morning.
As usual, she had sent a hundred sacred beasts. When the humans repelled the assault far too easily, she realized additional measures were needed.
‘Around now, they should suffer major losses to cower properly.’
Thus, in the afternoon, she dispatched over two hundred more for a second wave.
The Wudang Taoists, unprepared for this unprecedented follow-up attack after two days without one, died helplessly.
Pleased with the sight, Yuk Gan smirked as Ja-seong and his group appeared.
‘Over two hundred sacred beasts. Can they really hold out unscathed like before?’
She desperately wished that damned bastard would suffer a grievous wound or die.
But her smile vanished the moment Ja-seong drew his sword.
After cutting down a few sacred beasts attacking the Taoists, he plunged straight into their midst.
What followed was a one-sided massacre beyond belief.
For some inexplicable reason, the sacred beasts began slaughtering one another chaotically.
“What…? What the hell is that!?”
Dozens fell in an instant, and the spectacle that followed was even more absurd.
Sacred beasts that lunged to kill humans on sight now fled in terror from Ja-seong, only to be butchered without proper resistance.
The gruesome scene drained the strength from her legs.
Before long, all the sacred beasts lay as cold corpses on the ground.
Staring blankly, Yuk Gan bit her lip until it bled.
“…Over two hundred sacred beasts. Enough to wipe out an average martial clan in a single night…!”
So what manner of being was this guy, single-handedly crushing such a force?
Seeing Ja-seong far stronger than when he killed Jeokgal Cheon-sang, a sudden unease washed over her.
Today, she had expended over three hundred sacred beasts in total. Seven hundred remained.
Roughly four days until the sapling fully matured.
In other words, she had to tie Ja-seong down with those seven hundred for the next four days.
‘…Is that even possible?’
He had already handled two hundred alone.
Send more tomorrow, and he’d sweep them away again, dwindling their numbers further.
“If the sacred beasts dwindle any more, even the encirclement will falter…!”
Yuk Gan gnashed her teeth, tearing at her hair for a while.
“…Fine. If it’s come to this, then…!”
Her eyes gleamed dangerously as she muttered something incomprehensible.