Chapter 246
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 246
Chapter Title: The Battle of Wudang
Having heard Cheong's words, Elder Muheo shook his head.
"No. It came just in time. So what do we do now?"
"Will you three combine your swords?"
Cheong politely requested of Elder Muyeop.
At her words, Elder Muheo and the two elders nodded and raised the swords in their hands.
Cheong looked down at the three blades crossing before her eyes and spread her hand open.
-Fwoosh!
A sacred flame bloomed atop her palm.
Her hand, holding the pure white flame without a hint of haze, swept across the sword blades, and the sacred flame enveloped the swords.
It was the same spell that So-ha had used in Hepi to seize Chilji, now bestowed upon their swords.
Elder Muheo let out an exclamation at the mystical sight.
"Whoa...! Seeing it up close like this, it's truly astonishing."
"If you wield swords wrapped in this sacred flame, you can deal a fatal blow to that tiger."
This was precisely why they had held back.
No matter how much they pressed the Mountain King with the Taiji Five Elements Sword Formation, if they couldn't kill it, it was merely buying time.
Thus, the three had waited for Cheong's arrival.
To receive the power to slay the Mountain King.
"It won't last long. You need to finish it quickly."
Nodding at Cheong's final reminder, the three rejoined the Taiji Five Elements Sword Formation.
-Roar!
Seeing this, the Mountain King felt a strong sense of crisis.
It must not touch that white flame.
If it did, something irreversible would happen.
It had instinctively realized the danger of the sacred flame.
But even so, there was little it could do.
It was already surrounded by the formation.
There was nowhere for it to flee.
In the end,
-Puuk!
-Kraaak!
It couldn't hold out long before Elder Mujin's sword, blazing pure white, plunged deep into the Mountain King's chest.
With the Mountain King's scream, the pure white flames spread across its entire body, beginning to burn it completely.
'It's done!'
Every Wudang disciple forming the formation thought the same.
Relief that the battle was finally over, the thrill of victory, sorrow for those lost forever.
All who burned the image of the blazing white Mountain King into their retinas wore the same expression.
All except one.
'...What?'
Cheong, who had infused the sacred flame into Elder Muheo and the two elders' swords, frowned as she watched the fiercely burning Mountain King.
'It ended too easily.'
This was a beast that even ignored the heavenly divine light grand spell.
For such a creature to fall to a single strike from a sword infused with sacred flame, no matter how powerful?
Something was off.
As if answering her thoughts, the Mountain King's condition suddenly changed.
The white flames covering its massive body instantly turned blood-red.
Seeing this, Cheong shouted urgently.
"Everyone, fall back—!"
The Wudang Taoists, startled by the sudden yell, reflexively moved.
But both Cheong's warning and their movements were one step too late.
-Kuwaaaak—!
With a roar that shook heaven and earth, blood qi erupted from the Mountain King's body.
An endlessly vast and overwhelming wave of blood qi spread in all directions, engulfing the Wudang Taoists.
*
"Ugh, ugh...!"
A groan escaped through tightly clenched lips.
Along with it, trembling eyelids slowly opened, revealing unfocused pupils.
Hyeonjin blinked several times as his eyes sharpened, then looked around.
'What happened?'
He rummaged through his last memories.
Clearly, the tiger that deserved to be ground to dust had been engulfed in white flames.
At the moment everyone was certain of victory, suddenly blood-red light spread from the white flames, a shrill cry rang out, and...
"No way...!"
Recalling the wave of blood qi that had spread in all directions, Hyeonjin abruptly sat up.
What entered his eyes was a horrific sight.
The mountain gate, beyond half-destroyed, had vanished without a trace, and all the walls surrounding it had collapsed and disappeared.
The stone paving the ground was flipped and shattered, scattered everywhere.
But most serious were the Wudang disciples collapsed and groaning atop it.
-Ugh...!
-Ack!
Painful groans and cries echoed from here and there.
His bloodied senior brothers lay fallen everywhere.
Moreover, here and there were those covered in blood, motionless, perhaps unconscious.
"...This can't be."
It was as if a cannonball had landed in the middle of Wudang.
The silver lining was that few had lost consciousness.
The protective arts had done their job against the wave of blood qi that engulfed everyone.
'Thank goodness I had the third-generation disciples retreat.'
Thanks to evacuating the third-generation disciples into nearby halls during the sudden monstrous assault, none of them were among the fallen.
If the third-generation disciples, whose protective arts were still immature, had been here, they wouldn't have survived.
"Hoo...."
As he let out a small sigh of relief, a low growl pierced his ears.
Startled, he slowly turned his head, and from afar, a massive shadow slowly approached.
-Thud thud
The heavy footsteps grew clearer.
The identity of the emerging shadow was, naturally, the Mountain King.
As if it had never been burning, the great tiger had fully recovered and was growling, baring its teeth in rage.
Insolent humans who dared try to harm me.
I'll kill you all.
The Mountain King blatantly revealed its intent.
"...I feel the same. I can't tolerate you either."
Biting his lip, Hyeonjin stood up.
Gripping the Songmun High Sword he had held firm even through the blood qi wave, he pointed its tip at the Mountain King.
The enemy that devastated Wudang and killed Senior Hyeon-un.
He would definitely bring it down.
Hyeonjin steeled his resolve.
Their murderous gazes crossed in the air,
-Roar!
And the Mountain King charged ferociously at Hyeonjin.
With agility unfit for its size, it closed the distance in an instant and swung its forepaw at Hyeonjin's head.
Hyeonjin, staring straight at it without dodging, unfolded Taiji Sword to deflect the attack.
Up to here, it was no different from before.
But there was something Hyeonjin overlooked.
The blood qi that had shattered the Taiji Five Elements Sword Formation.
The blood qi, dyeing its already red fur even redder, arose and targeted Hyeonjin instead of the deflected forepaw.
"What...?"
Hyeonjin widened his eyes at the unexpected situation.
He belatedly raised his sword to deflect the attack again, but a sword without qi couldn't block blood qi.
-Kwachik!
The blood qi mercilessly raked the blade of the Songmun High Sword and flew straight at his face.
A crisis where his head would shatter in one blow.
At that moment, a pure white light flew in from somewhere.
"Hah!"
With a sharp kiai, the pure white deflected the blood qi hurtling toward Hyeonjin's nose.
At the end of that pure white was Cheong.
She too had been swept by the blood qi wave—her blue face veil was gone, leaving her in a battered state.
Yet, gripping her sword gleaming pure white, she confronted the blood qi without faltering.
-Grrrr!
The Mountain King stepped back warily, eyeing Cheong—or rather, the sword in her hand.
"Are you alright?"
Keeping her sword tip aimed at the Mountain King, Cheong asked after Hyeonjin's condition, snapping him back to his senses as he expressed thanks.
"Th-thank you for saving me. But what is that blood-red energy...?"
"It's complicated to explain. Just remember never to touch that energy. And don't even think of blocking it with your sword."
"That much, I figured out without being told."
Hyeonjin looked down at the sword in his hand.
The center of the blade was grotesquely torn like paper.
A few more swings like that, and it would break.
Just the blood qi grazing the blade had reduced the steel Songmun High Sword to this.
Thinking what it would do to his body made his hair stand on end.
His next thought was how to deal with the monstrous tiger wielding such power.
Hyeonjin looked to Cheong, whom he suspected knew the answer, and asked.
"Then what should we do?"
"...A sword infused with sacred flame can counter that energy. But...."
Cheong couldn't finish her sentence.
The Mountain King, which had been wary of her sword, leaped high and charged.
-Roar!
"Urk!?"
Cheong urgently met the incoming forepaw slicing through the air with her sword.
Seeing this, Hyeonjin cried out in shock.
"You can't clash head-on with that thing's power!"
But despite his warning, Cheong confronted the Mountain King's forepaw directly.
And the astonishing sight unfolding before his eyes.
"What...?"
Cheong was blocking the Mountain King's forepaw.
Her face was contorted in strain, sweat beading on her brow, but she wasn't pushed back or crushed by its power.
She appeared as a slender woman utterly unrelated to martial arts, yet her strength was astounding.
Dazedly watching Cheong confront the Mountain King, Hyeonjin soon moved to assist her.
Intending a flank attack while they were locked in a contest of strength.
"No! Ordinary swords won't work on it anymore!"
But Cheong stopped him.
And at her words, Hyeonjin was flustered.
Ordinary swords don't work—what was he supposed to do?
As he floundered, a thunderous roar struck his ears.
"Then my sword still works!"
A figure swiftly passed by his side.
Recognizing the familiar back, Hyeonjin's face lit up.
"Elder!"
"Hah!"
Responding to the call with a heavy kiai, Elder Muyeop drove his still-blazing white sword into the Mountain King's flank.