Chapter 62
Chapter 62
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: Thunder's Defiance
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"I'll kill you!"
Jin Wiryang.
The young scion of the Shin Won Jin Clan.
Derided as a wastrel, but a man whose martial prowess could not be dismissed, he closed the distance in an instant.
A strange sound emanated from the thrusting sword.
Twisted air currents. An unnatural phenomenon where space itself seemed to shatter.
"How dare a mere thunderbolt like you? My sword is...!"
A vortex swirled at the tip of Jin Wiryang's blade.
"A sword that shatters the heavens!"
The martial art of the Shin Won Jin Clan.
Sky-Shattering Sword exploded before Yeon-gwang's eyes.
"Kuhk?!"
He raised his sword to block immediately, but it rattled as if the blade might snap. With just one clash, part of his sword energy shattered away completely.
Resistance was futile. Even seeking an opening, the brutish currents rampaged before his eyes.
His right arm was caught in the whirlwind.
The sword energy devoured his hand gripping the hilt, tearing even his muscles apart.
---Kaaaaang!!!
He barely deflected it and steadied himself. But in that brief moment, his right arm, nearly torn off, hung limp.
Blood dripped down. He nearly dropped his sword and crouched low to secure it.
No strength entered it.
How far had it been severed?
"Kuhuhu!"
Jin Wiryang shrugged his shoulders. He stepped forward over the blood-soaked ground.
"Why?! Regretting it now? If so, bow your head! Grovel and beg, and I might consider it!"
"......"
"It's nonsense from the start! A cripple disciple of that cripple Thunderclap Sword beating me? Drawing your sword against me, Jin Wiryang? Know your place!"
Yeon-gwang raised his left hand. Ignoring the venomous mockery, he moved silently.
He tore a strip from his tattered clothes and wrapped his trembling right arm to hold it steady.
He steadied his breath once more. Gripping his sword, he stared ahead.
Jin Wiryang sneered.
"Cripple bastard! I'll split you in two!"
It came again.
The heaven-shattering sword.
The raging wind's currents brushed his nose. What would happen if he took this one too?
It probably wouldn't end with just some torn muscles. His entire right arm might fly off.
...But.
Still, he raised his sword.
He summoned his thunder power. The abundant thunder energy made a faint crackling at the sword tip.
He heard that sound. Then he heard his opponent's.
...Gripping the sword.
It was difficult, as always. Even now, with his resolve firm, that fact hadn't changed.
Perhaps he could never complete the Thunder Force Sword with his own hands.
...Even so.
He would try.
"...Tch!"
He gritted his teeth. He felt the oncoming energy surging toward him.
Fierce. And overwhelmingly powerful. But that didn't mean he had nothing he could wield.
His left arm supported the right. Gripping the sword with both hands, he tried to sense it.
Didn't his master say it?
That his energy sense was undoubtedly superior.
"......!"
Read it. If you can't read it, feel it with your whole body.
There was a reason he'd been hit once. To sense that energy's flow.
The Sky-Shattering Sword's movements. The air currents' tremors. The opponent's breathing linked to his sword strikes.
Fortunately, the foe wasn't careless. Jin Wiryang's realm was renowned. Transcendent peak. Beyond sword energy, possessing stellar fragments-a stage of stellar energy.
Yet, no stellar energy clung to that sword tip. The rotating blades at the tip were mere shards of sword energy.
Exploit that carelessness. Stellar energy was beyond him, but...
Against the same sword energy, wasn't it different?
---Kagagagagak!!!!
The swords clashed. Amid the abundant thunder power, a thunderclap resounded.
Jin Wiryang's mocking face loomed close. He seemed to sense the overwhelming gap in power, whispering through his lips.
Loser.
That's what he was clearly saying.
But Yeon-gwang ignored it. No time to listen to others. As the wrapped cloth tore once more and skin was flayed, he focused.
Pain was frightening. He didn't want to hurt.
But if the time came to endure even that...
"...Huh?"
He wouldn't retreat.
"W-Wait...?!"
Sword energy against sword energy. From the clashing space between, he sought the breaking method.
Rotating sharp sword energy. Its power was immense. Absurdly so, shattering peer sword energy like leaves crushed to dust.
But he didn't resist it. He spread his energy sense wide, moving the power in his sword tip.
Gently.
Following the rotation's direction.
Detonating thunder energy, he began matching the speed.
"Th-This bastard...?!"
He slashed down. Continued the sword strikes. At the end of bursting golden thunderbolts, he muttered repeatedly.
Catch up diligently. Until now, all you'd done was hole up and cry alone...
Chase now. Believing you can reach it.
---Kaaaaang!!!
Jin Wiryang, deflecting the clashing sword, bared his teeth. As if playtime was over, he unleashed sword strikes.
The trajectory arced from lower left to upper right.
Steel fangs charged madly.
But he blocked it.
---Kaaaaaaaang!!!
In the space where sparks flew, he advanced one more step. He maximally altered the thunder power's direction to guide the flow.
He was pushed back. Each sword strike grazed as if tearing his body apart. Blood burst and scattered in the wind, as if it were really happening.
But it was different. He could feel himself parrying with his sword tip the strikes he couldn't block at first.
He moved his sword.
Detonating thunderclaps.
Predicting every incoming sword.
"How?!"
He matched Jin Wiryang's howling sword. If predicted through energy sense, the response itself was simple.
He devoured the oncoming Sky-Shattering Sword's sword energy. Mounted atop it.
In the leaping thunder power, he felt Jin Wiryang's brow twitch. He met every wildly incoming sword with his own.
Naturally, his side crumbled. But the opponent's was accumulating damage bit by bit.
The fight...
---Begins now.
"Hup!"
Thunder Force Sword
Split-Light Flying Wings
The thunder power dispersed and gathered repeatedly.
In an instant, the sword's trajectory drew wings.
He scattered the heated sword strikes. Switching from defense to offense in one go, closing the distance.
He saw Jin Wiryang hastily backpedal. With no intention of letting him go, he pursued immediately.
Thunder power sparked at the gripped sword tip. He drove it straight into the Sky-Shattering Sword.
Even on offense, the damage he took was greater. Skin now ragged enough to expose bone.
...But.
But he didn't want to stop.
Thunder Force Sword
Stele-Climbing Fish Song
He poured his heart into the swinging sword tip. He looked back at himself, who had only waited for someone to come.
From pathetic memories, he took one step forward.
He swung. Clashed, poured out, shook-and kept swinging the sword.
Thunderclaps resounded. Abundant thunder power scattered lightning bolts in succession.
Jin Wiryang's retreating speed quickened. His pushed-back body began hitting the wall.
Leading that flow was the thunder power's energy.
Lightning between sword strikes slowed the enemy's sword bit by bit. The numbing thunder power momentarily paralyzed nerves, disrupting the original rhythm.
Like a fish swimming against the current.
He kept driving his sword in.
"To think you'd force me...?!"
Blood sprayed. His head spun. His body shook from losing too much blood in such a short time.
His feet hurt. Naturally, the injuries from entering the Sealing Demon Cave hadn't fully healed.
It was grueling. And exhausting.
Even thrusting his sword once required burning his soul.
But he wanted to. He didn't want to stop. Distorting even his breath, he lunged once more.
The opponent's carelessness.
The Thunder Force Sword's thunder energy.
The energy sense to read attacks.
On that stage where the three beats harmonized, he moved his ragged right arm. No strength left, but he entrusted his body to the cloth binding them together.
Behold, Jin Wiryang.
Isn't it resounding now? Isn't it coming?
The very thing you mocked so much...
Thunder Force Sword
Wall Thunder Hearing Cross Sword
Wall Thunder Sword's thunderclap.
---Kurrrrrrrung!!!!!
The pouring sword strikes overlapped into one in an instant. The broadly drawn pattern narrowed to a single point.
Convergence. Not merely shrinking size. Connecting all sword forms drawn thus far into one, he raised his sword.
Left. Right.
Front. Rear.
Blocking all escape routes, azure lightning sparked from his gripped sword.
No path to flee. This was the end.
Yeon-gwang roared amid flowing blood. Come. Thunderclap.
So I may shed this shell of mine!
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
The scattered sword strikes converged on one point. Amid the thunderclap, even the heaven-shattering sword fell silent for a moment.
...But.
"To think I'd have to use this on the likes of you!"
It shattered before his eyes.
The risen energy shards.
To the stellar energy sparkling like stars.
...
"Hahk... hahk..."
Jin Wiryang caught his breath. He touched his suddenly chilled nape.
Blood stained his fingertips. A slight cut. What was that just now? That azure thunderbolt. For a moment, he felt death. He thought he might die here.
And the eerie harmony of sword strikes tightening around his throat and the thunder power.
In truth, that warrior Yeon-gwang was like a sharp sword. Unwilling to admit it, Jin Wiryang stepped forward.
It had been dangerous, but the result was the same.
He kicked the half-corpse swept by stellar energy.
---Kwang!
Yeon-gwang's body slammed into the wall. Jin Wiryang spat on him.
He'd been startled briefly, but that was it. Yes. Just that.
"Fool. The gap between you and me isn't just what meets the eye. We've been in different worlds since birth, and that chasm can never be bridged."
"......"
"Why? Feeling resentful? Then curse the heavens! Curse your master who filled your head with impossible hopes! A man who shouldn't have touched a sword did, and..."
Jin Wiryang swept back his sweat-matted hair.
"Like master, like disciple. The day the infamous unfinished Thunder Force Sword is completed will never come."
He raised his sword. Loosened his wrist for the finishing blow.
Then, something caught his eye. Jin Wiryang furrowed his brow.
"......?"
The sword.
Yeon-gwang still clutched the utterly ruined, rattling sword. Though the rags had lost their form, the sword lay atop his muscle-torn right arm.
What? How was he holding it? Just resting it there?
Irritated, he kicked it. But far from falling, only the sound of twisting bone from the damaged arm rang out.
Yeon-gwang still gripped the sword.
As if he could win.
"...No... it's..."
"What?"
"...Coming..."
He gasped it out.
His utterly broken body was already at its end. Even left alone, death was inevitable.
But the gaze looking up was still heavy. Truly unpleasant, Jin Wiryang bared his teeth.
"What's coming, you cripple bastard? No one's coming here. No one to save you. Your dead master? He died without completing his own sword! Nothing's coming! If anything comes... it's your death!"
"Thun...der..."
"...What?"
"Thunder...sound...you...don't...know..."
He retched, vomiting blood. Fragments of organs mixed in, splattering the floor.
But he kept speaking. Clutching the sword with his twisted right arm.
"Surely...coming..."
"......"
"If you...want to live...kill me..."
In a trembling voice.
Steeped in agony.
A faint thunderclap resounding...
"Someday...the descending wall thunder...before it kills you...!"
Threatening him, transcending even death.
Jin Wiryang tried to laugh. Tried to curl his lips in full sneer.
But for some reason, they wouldn't rise. A strange chill raced down his spine.
A worm's death throes. ravings on the brink. So why? Why did it...
Sound true?
"...You're wrong, cripple bastard."
Jin Wiryang hurriedly raised his sword.
To erase even the faint doubt within himself.
"That day won't come. The Thunder Force Sword ends here. As payment for daring to challenge me!"
---Shiak.
The swung sword tore the air. Sword energy at the tip rippled, devouring ahead.
The merciless downward strike felt a sensation. But it wasn't what he'd expected.
A severed wall. Harmless debris flew with a thud. Nothing at the end, so Jin Wiryang blinked.
He'd slashed. Clearly...
But it didn't cut.
"Huh?"
He turned toward the presence. At the end, he saw a man's back.
One of the group that fell behind with Eun Seol-ran. A tenacious one who crawled to the Sealing Demon Cave without even internal energy.
Flying Heaven.
Yeon-gwang lay in his arms. Jin Wiryang blinked. In disbelief, he looked down at his hand.
He'd swung his sword. Yet somehow faster...
He'd saved Yeon-gwang?
A mere Demon Subduing Squad member?
"H-Hyungnim..."
"I heard. Yeon-gwang. Even from far away, I heard clearly."
"I... I..."
"Rest now."
He turned.
"Leave the rest to me."
"......!"
Tears mixed with blood rolled from Yeon-gwang's eyes. Jin Wiryang unwittingly stepped back.
Silent.
Yet not silent.
What was it? That razor-sharp aura. Like an unseen shadow baring fangs at him.
Strange. Not human energy. As if a beast had been forcibly implanted in a human shell.
Spit flying, he demanded.
"Wh-What are you?! What the hell are you, you bastard! You're no ordinary Demon Subduing Squad grunt!"
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Wh-What...?"
"I asked if you enjoyed it. Trashing what others have, easily breaking it. Touching what belongs to the innocent, climbing atop it to mock..."
---Sreung.
A sword slid from Flying Heaven's waist. Its blade unusually red, gleaming as if blood-slicked.
"I asked if it felt that good."
"You... you bastard... wh-what..."
Jin Wiryang instinctively swallowed dryly. Whether the blood on that blade tip was his or another's, he couldn't tell.
But one thing he knew.
The one before him...
"If you're so confident..."
Was a kind of human he'd never encountered.
"Try breaking me too. Wastrel of the Shin Won Jin Clan."