Chapter 196
Chapter 196
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 196
Chapter Title: The Lord's Awakening
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“Gaaah!”
The encirclement’s front line collapsed in an instant.
Despite possessing enough strength to overwhelm the Demonic Cultists and a clear numerical advantage, the tables turned in a single moment.
It was made possible by the exquisitely timed combination of Neung Un-bi’s surprise attack on the rear, which diverted their attention, and Hyang-i’s perfectly timed appearance to sever Namgung Hak’s head, as if the two had coordinated their moves beforehand.
*But still… was the Waning Moon Brigade always this strong?*
Hyang-i was a monster to begin with, so she was an exception. He could even understand Wang Cheon and Joo Seung…
But Neung Un-bi was inwardly astounded by the martial prowess of the First Squad Leader, Pyeong Su, and the rest of the Waning Moon Brigade warriors.
Weren’t they like a pack of enraged tigers?
Furthermore, they were each compensating for the others’ weaknesses, filling in the gaps. It was like a perfectly calibrated machine.
As he marveled at the sight, Neung Un-bi soon realized.
Come to think of it, perhaps this was a fight that couldn't be compared from the start.
The Waning Moon Brigade. No, the warriors of the Snow Mountain Manor’s Black Panther Unit, their predecessors.
Led by Joo Seung, they were men who had fought day in and day out to protect the Demonic Cult in the frigid north of the Cheonsan Mountains.
Sometimes against the cold and beasts, other times against the monsters from the north who sought to invade the Demonic Cult’s lands.
The battlefield was a familiar place to them, and combat was as natural as eating a meal.
But the warriors of the Orthodox Murim Alliance were different. Years of peace meant that while they had clashed in internal power struggles, they had likely never experienced such a chaotic battle.
In other words, no matter how hard they trained, there was bound to be an immense gap in practical combat experience.
And on top of that was a stroke of heavenly luck.
With Namgung Hak dead, there was no one to control them.
How could a snake without a head move properly?
Thrown into chaos, the Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors’ responses were a beat too slow.
Failing to perform their roles and wandering with a broken formation, they were nothing more than easy prey for the Waning Moon Brigade warriors who charged like a pack of furious tigers.
“Damn it! There aren’t many of them! Hold your positions! Don’t fight individually, take them on one by one!”
Of course, there was one among them who came to his senses early.
A man trying to turn the tide.
Neung Un-bi lightly gripped his sword, intending to silence him. The chaos needed to continue.
*Swish!*
“Gurgle!”
But before the man could finish his words, Hyang-i’s dagger swept across his throat.
Blood sprayed like a fountain from the severed neck.
“Like hell. As if I'd let you.”
Hyang-i’s eyes, filled with venom, flashed as she spoke coldly before diving back into the tangled fray of the battlefield.
*As expected…*
She was truly a reliable ally. Befitting someone specialized in stealth and assassination, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Furthermore, she instinctively knew that a shift in the atmosphere would be far more disadvantageous to the Demonic Cultists, who were outnumbered.
While the Waning Moon Brigade ravaged the confused enemy, Hyang-i used everything she had to tear through the battlefield.
With every swing, a life was extinguished without fail.
Watching Hyang-i perform the role he once had, Neung Un-bi sighed internally.
He had been foolishly shortsighted.
He was no longer Cheok Wol-rin, so why did he keep trying to act like him?
He was Neung Un-bi. He needed to be the center of the battlefield.
*Grip.*
Neung Un-bi tightened his hold on the Flying Swallow Sword.
He was alone in the past, but wasn’t he the leader of a group now?
Hyang-i, Joo Seung, Wang Cheon, and the Waning Moon Brigade.
Everyone was fulfilling their roles faithfully. In the end, all he had to do was find his own place.
“I am now… their lord.”
Having finally decided what he must do, Neung Un-bi unleashed all of his demonic energy at once.
*Fwoooosh!*
The dense demonic energy rippled outwards like a black haze, and the aura contained within it pressed down on the surroundings with the weight of a great mountain.
“Kuh!”
The Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors nearby grimaced under the immense pressure and collapsed.
Watching them, Neung Un-bi smiled with his chin slightly raised before taking a powerful step forward.
Lunar Eclipse, Moonlight Advance.
The ground caved in under his forceful step, and the demonic energy he unleashed spread out, following the spiderweb-like cracks in the earth.
*Kwwaaaaang!*
The earth exploded, and the valley shook.
“Gaaah!”
The warriors caught in the explosion screamed as they were torn to shreds.
Standing tall in the center of the battlefield, his clothes fluttering in the swirling demonic energy, Neung Un-bi smiled like an arrogant, absolute ruler.
His job was to change the tide of the battle.
To present an image so powerful that both friend and foe would look up to him in awe.
Having turned his surroundings into ruins with a single step, Neung Un-bi looked at his enemies.
The Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors, surrounding the enemy commander who stood in the middle of a desolate clearing, could only watch, not daring to approach.
*Ssk.*
The warriors, startled by his light step, flinched and retreated.
The fighting paused for a moment.
Everyone stood frozen as if their bodies had stiffened, staring at Neung Un-bi.
Fear appeared on the faces of the Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors who met his indifferent gaze. He simply stood still, his sword hanging low, yet no one dared to attack him recklessly.
It was as if his domain had been separated from the rest of the world.
“Wang Cheon!”
“Yes!”
At the powerful shout, Wang Cheon turned to look at his master with eyes full of vigor and answered.
“We will leave this place. Clear away the pebbles in our path.”
A low voice, a concise message.
This was a different side of him, not a persuasion or a request, but a command filled with arrogance.
But an indescribable joy spread across Wang Cheon’s lips.
His master had changed again. Having been with him for so long, Wang Cheon was the first to notice his transformation.
He was once a young boy who suffered in a world of his own.
That boy had changed into a young man who knew how to mingle and get along with others. Although his personality was unpredictable, Wang Cheon had been happy enough with just that change.
But now.
His gaze was as sharp as a finely honed blade, and his expression held the arrogance of one destined to stand as a ruler.
He overwhelmed his surroundings with his aura alone and intimidated others with just a look.
He had finally become a figure worthy of challenging for the throne of the Demonic Cult.
The very image he had hoped for, the image everyone who believed in him and gambled their future on him had hoped for.
So they would break through. And they would return.
So that he could sit on the throne.
“Joo Seung!”
“Yes!”
At Wang Cheon’s call, Joo Seung answered resolutely and immediately acted.
“Waning Moon Brigade! Attend to the master!”
“Yes!”
The moment the order was given, the Waning Moon Brigade warriors, who had been scattered across the battlefield, all launched themselves towards Neung Un-bi.
*Crunch! Boom!*
Wang Cheon and Joo Seung guarded Neung Un-bi’s left and right, while the Waning Moon Brigade warriors took up the rear, blocking the movements of all approaching enemies.
They were like a great wall erected in the middle of the battlefield.
A living wall that blocked the unceasing rain of blades with their own bodies.
“Master!”
“Let’s go! We’re breaking through the gorge.”
“Yes!”
And they moved.
The blade, as sharp and blue as his suddenly cold gaze, drew blood, brutally tearing the encirclement to shreds.
“Stop them! Don’t let them get away!”
Someone shouted urgently, but the tide had already turned. Some, overcome with fear, even began to flee the battlefield.
“Stop… gack!”
Furthermore, when the few who tried to rally the others had their throats slit by Hyang-i’s chilling dagger, the encirclement could no longer function.
There was no need to find a weak point in the formation. No one could stop Neung Un-bi’s party, whose goal was not to fight and annihilate but simply to break through.
It was a path of blood.
Behind them, where they had cut down everything in their path, lay only the wounded, screaming with severed limbs, and corpses that could no longer even scream.
Before long, the edge of the encirclement was torn open, and through the gap, the Demonic Cultists, led by Neung Un-bi, escaped the valley.
They had lost him.
Even after mobilizing so many warriors, they were left with nothing but heavy losses…
“Ch-chase them! We can’t let them get away!”
Someone shouted.
But the warriors who had witnessed the carnage Neung Un-bi had wrought could only stare blankly at the retreating figures of their enemies, unable to give chase.
“No, wh-what in the world is this?”
The Beggars’ Sect members, who had arrived late, following the rear of the Waning Moon Brigade, stared at the scene of the battle with dumbfounded expressions.
The Demonic Cultists who were supposed to have been captured were nowhere to be seen, and all the fallen were warriors of the Orthodox Murim Alliance.
And why was everyone staring blankly towards the Samun Gorge, like dogs who’d lost their prey?
“…Elder Namgung! Where is Elder Namgung!”
The six-knot beggar leading the Beggars’ Sect members whipped his head around, shouting urgently.
“He… has lost his life.”
“What?”
An unknown warrior muttered, and his finger pointed to where Namgung Hak’s head was rolling on the ground.
Seeing the head with its eyes still open, the six-knot beggar’s face contorted.
Namgung Hak, the head of the elders who held sway over the Orthodox Murim Alliance, had died so easily…
“The enemy? Where are they?!”
“…We lost them.”
“What? Lost them?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean! There were three hundred warriors mobilized!”
“…There was an unexpected assassin.”
“An assassin?”
“That, no, that bitch killed Elder Namgung. She moved as if appearing from thin air, slaughtering warriors here and there.”
“…”
The six-knot beggar simply couldn't comprehend his words.
Wasn’t there no such information?
Moreover, an assassin capable of killing Namgung Hak, who was renowned even in the Orthodox Faction, in an open area like this?
“Although she was just one person, she was an incredible master.”
“…So, you’re telling me you ended up like this because of a single female assassin?!”
“Neung Un-bi, he appeared.”
“What?”
It was even more bewildering.
Neung Un-bi? Why did he appear here?
The Black Hounds had been deployed on that side as well, tracking his trail, and they were prepared to drive him into Samun Gorge as soon as he was found.
Besides, they had already set a trap there from which no one could escape.
But he appeared here?
If so, he should have been the first to be contacted.
“Don’t tell me? The Black Hounds lost his trail?”
Knowing the capabilities of the Black Hounds, he couldn't easily believe it.
“We were no match for them.”
“…”
“He was a demon.”
Seeing the warrior shivering as he muttered, the six-knot beggar’s hand swung fiercely.
*Slap!*
“You pathetic fool! Is that what a warrior of the Orthodox Murim Alliance should be saying right now!”
“…”
But even with the shouting, cursing, and slap, the Orthodox Murim Alliance warrior’s eyes remained unchanged. It was as if his soul had literally departed.
Seeing his complete lack of fighting spirit, the six-knot beggar lowered his raised hand.
“Dammit…”
The six-knot beggar bit his nails in agitation.
This was no time to be chastising the foolishness of the Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors.
If that bastard had joined his comrades here instead of at Samun Gorge, it meant their original plan had gone awry.
He had to report this quickly.
The Heaven and Earth Net had already been lifted, so there was nothing to stop them…
Hadn’t everyone moved to the border of Qinghai and Gansu to prepare for the Demonic Cult’s movements?
“In the end, only our Beggars’ Sect will suffer.”
The six-knot beggar’s face twisted as he pulled out a portable ink-and-brush set from his robes. He quickly wrote two letters.
“Send one to the Chief, and the other to the elder waiting at Samun Gorge!”
“Yes!”
After handing the letters to a subordinate beggar, the six-knot beggar turned to the dazed Orthodox Murim Alliance warriors and shouted.
“You fools! Get up, now! Don’t you know what will become of you if you let Neung Un-bi escape?! If that bastard, burning with vengeance, escapes to the Demonic Cult, do you think you, let alone your families, will be safe in the future?!”
“…!”
“Didn’t you know? He’s a wounded tiger. He’s a beast who will one day return to ravage the Central Plains!”
His words jolted the warriors’ minds awake.
“Can’t you see? The carnage he left behind? If we let him live, that will be the future we face.”
“…”
“Remember this! You who are here are the cornerstone for the peace of the Central Plains!”
The six-knot beggar’s words began to transform the fear rooted in the warriors’ minds into fighting spirit.
Like oil poured on smoldering embers, fanning them into a blaze until they were completely consumed.