Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: This is the Power of the Third Level!
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When I saw the footprints on the beach earlier, there were about twenty pursuers. I had no idea how many reinforcements might arrive.
I'd already crushed the Dong-ro Branch of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union, so they couldn't come, and even if they did, fighters of their level would be of no help.
No, these pursuers were first-rate masters. If they called for support, they would summon warriors of equal or greater strength.
In other words, elite masters from the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union.
Assuming the pursuers had split up to search for Sang Gang-jo, the reinforcements could number three or four times the original twenty—anywhere from seventy or eighty to a hundred men.
But I wasn't scared in the slightest. On the contrary, the thought of a thrilling fight sent a surge of power through my body, making my blood boil with excitement.
‘Heh heh heh! To think I could get this excited!’
It was an excitement, a fighting spirit, I had never experienced in my entire life.
I was filled with anticipation, wondering what other martial arts would pour out of my body.
Now, I didn't need to follow tracks. I just had to run toward the place where the signal flare had been fired.
* * *
*Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!*
Sang Gang-jo stood with his back to a deep cliff, facing fourteen pursuers who had formed a semicircle and were unleashing a fierce assault.
They were in a wide clearing, about two hundred feet across, bordered by forest, with the cliff where Sang Gang-jo was cornered.
Behind the attackers lay four of their comrades. Three were dead, and one was twitching on the ground, covered in blood.
On my way here, I had seen three dead bodies in the forest. Sang Gang-jo must have killed them while being pursued.
I landed lightly on a high branch at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the situation.
Sang Gang-jo was bleeding from several wounds, using all his strength to fend off the coordinated attack.
He was utterly exhausted, letting out ragged gasps of "Hah! Hah!" with every swing of his sword.
Sang Gang-jo was truly worthy of his title as the Martial Alliance's Chief Hall Master. Even while being hunted by over twenty men, he had managed to take down seven of them.
Moreover, despite facing the onslaught of fourteen foes, he was gritting his teeth and holding on with every last ounce of his strength.
But no matter how skilled he was, it seemed too much for him to handle fourteen first-rate masters while injured and in such a disadvantageous position.
*Clang! Clang! Screech!*
“Ugh!”
Unable to even think of counterattacking, Sang Gang-jo was solely focused on defense, stumbling backward step by step.
His face contorted. Just two or three more steps, and he would plummet off the cliff.
If I left him, he would either fall to his death or be killed by the pursuers. One of the two.
Deciding it was finally time for me to act, I kicked off the branch and flew toward the backs of the fourteen men, drawing the Fire Dragon Sword.
*Swoosh!*
The thought of beating these enemies to a pulp made my chest swell and my courage soar a hundredfold.
‘You bastards!’
I moved so silently that the pursuers, engrossed in their attack, didn't notice me at all.
Sang Gang-jo, too, was frantically dodging and blocking the combined assault, with no time to look elsewhere, so he didn't see me either.
I raised the Fire Dragon Sword above my head, targeting two of the fourteen men who had their backs to me for a surprise attack.
‘Huh?!’
But a problem arose.
My mind went completely blank. I couldn't think of how to execute a single technique.
‘What is this? Does my body not do sneak attacks?’
So far, my body had only ever reacted when an opponent attacked me first.
But since that wasn't the case now, it seemed I couldn't use my martial arts.
I had unintentionally become a righteous hero who doesn't ambush enemies from behind.
‘What a pain!’
Having no choice, I landed behind the enemies and shouted.
“Over here!”
Five or six of the men in front of me whipped around in surprise.
“Huh!”
“Ah!”
Their faces showed they couldn't immediately comprehend the situation. If someone sneaked up behind them, they should obviously be attacking. Why was I doing something so strange?
Their expressions suggested they saw me less as a "righteous hero" and more as a "lunatic."
Frustrated, I swung the Fire Dragon Sword through the air and yelled.
“What are you waiting for! Hurry up and attack!”
If I had launched a surprise attack, several of them would have been helpless against it.
But instead of attacking, I had announced my presence and urged them to attack me, leaving them with looks of utter confusion.
The enemies wore expressions that said, *What kind of guy is this?*
Just then, Sang Gang-jo spotted me and shouted urgently.
“Team Leader! Get back, now! This is no place for you!”
“Hah! You don't look like you're in any position to be giving orders.”
As I yelled at Sang Gang-jo, the enemies paused their attack, momentarily bewildered.
They seemed to find the sudden exchange about a "Team Leader" and his subordinate rather bizarre.
I swung the Fire Dragon Sword over my head and roared.
“Come on and fight!”
At that moment, a man who appeared to be their leader, dressed slightly differently, pointed his sword at me.
“Who are you?”
“His superior.”
“Superior?”
When I pointed at Sang Gang-jo, the leader and his men flinched, their guard instantly up.
They must have figured that the superior of the Martial Alliance's Chief Hall Master had to be an incredible expert.
Seizing the moment, Sang Gang-jo swiftly attacked the distracted enemies, slitting one's throat and stabbing another in the chest.
“Gack!”
“Aargh!”
As the two men fell, spurting blood, the others resumed their attack on Sang Gang-jo, while the leader and two of his men shot toward me, swinging their swords.
But as the leader attacked me, he shouted to the men fighting Sang Gang-jo.
“Don't kill that one! Capture him at all costs!”
It seemed they had something to get out of Sang Gang-jo. It was probably related to the mission he was carrying out.
The leader and his two men attacked fiercely from the front, left, and right. It was a swift and exquisite sword style I had never faced before.
*Swhiiiiish!*
Three swords flashed, slicing through the air in a dizzying display. A spine-chilling hum echoed as all three blades sang with the same tone.
They carried a terrifying power that my former self, a low-ranking warrior, could never have hoped to withstand.
Someone like Wi Heun-chang from the Dong-ro Branch of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union wouldn't even be in the same league.
The moment I saw it, I flinched reflexively. My body wasn't reacting.
‘Ugh! What do I do?’
Seeing the three swords rushing toward me, carving countless lines of light in the air aimed at my entire body, I didn't have the faintest idea how to deal with them.
Even to the eyes of a low-ranking warrior like me, it was clear that not a single part of my body was safe. If I stayed put, I would be sliced to ribbons.
Tense, I started to back away, a cold sweat breaking out.
‘I'm not ready for a fight like this...’
But in that instant, it felt as if my retreating body was forcefully thrust forward, plunging into the myriad curtains of sword light created by the three blades.
*Thrust!*
Finally, my body had reacted.
And my feet began to execute a footwork I had never seen or heard of before.
*Swiiish!*
But the moment the footwork unfolded, I knew exactly what it was.
‘It's Floating Light, Divine Shadow!’
When my body reacted and performed a martial art, my mind recognized it.
*Shhii!*
A sword grazed past my ear.
The Fire Dragon Sword flew toward the owner of that sword.
*Whoosh!*
In the instant I thought it had flown, it had already lightly pierced the man's right chest.
*Stab!*
“Kagh!”
Its speed was like lightning.
A coin-sized hole was blasted through his right chest, and he was sent flying backward.
It wasn't a real hole, but the bones, lung, and spine in the area struck by the Fire Dragon Sword's tip had been pulverized, as if a deep, round hole had been punched right through him.
My mind realized what sword style the Fire Dragon Sword was performing.
‘It's the Soul-Severing Star Sword!’
And I was now facing them with the internal energy and martial arts of the third level.
*Ssk!*
Letting the second sword thrust pass under my arm, I lightly touched the man's forehead with the tip of the Fire Dragon Sword. In that moment, I felt my internal energy erupt through the blade.
*Tap!*
“Heuk!”
He, too, was sent flying backward as the bone and brain inside his forehead were obliterated in a coin-sized area.
The leader's eyes widened. He immediately stopped his attack, took three steps back, and exclaimed urgently.
“The Soul-Severing Star Sword!”
The Soul-Severing Star Sword was an advanced martial art of the Demonic Path—no, it should be called a *supreme* art, one deserving of the prefix 'ultra'.
In the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union, the number of people who had mastered the Soul-Severing Star Sword could be counted on ten fingers.
Of course, I didn't know that.
The leadership of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union had taken the fearsomely powerful yet notoriously difficult Soul-Severing Star Sword, broken it into several pieces, and added filler to create derivative sword arts that they taught to their subordinates.
The Soul-Severing Star Sword consisted of four stances and sixteen variations.
Wi Heun-chang, the Master of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union's Dong-ro Branch, had only learned a sword style reconstructed from a single one of those sixteen variations.
This meant the Soul-Severing Star Sword was so versatile and powerful that a complete sword style could be created from just one of its variations.
However, the sword style—no, the sword *art*—that Wi Heun-chang had learned barely even resembled the original Soul-Severing Star Sword.
A few of the highest-ranking members of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union had mastered all four stances of the Soul-Severing Star Sword.
The high-ranking members learned a style reconstructed from one of the four stances.
Below them, the mid-ranking members learned styles reconstructed from two or three of the sixteen variations, while the low-ranking members learned one based on a single variation. Wi Heun-chang fell into this last category.
The leader of the pursuers here was a high mid-ranker, so he had learned a style reconstructed from three of the variations.
He had once witnessed a top-ranking member of the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union perform the Soul-Severing Star Sword.
So it was no wonder he was shocked when the man claiming to be Sang Gang-jo's superior—me—unleashed a Soul-Severing Star Sword that was on par with what he had seen from that top-ranking member.
“You...”
As the retreating leader pointed at me in astonishment, I rushed forward and unleashed the ultimate technique of the Soul-Severing Star Sword.
*Kwwwoooong!*
Nine Soul-Suppressing Stars flashed in the air, shooting toward nine of the leader's vital points.
“Wha—!”
The leader fell under the illusion that hundreds of stars from the night sky were raining down upon him.
Shocked, he desperately tried to dodge while swinging his sword like a madman to block the attack.
*Craaack! Thwack!*
“Guk!”
The Fire Dragon Sword snapped the leader's blade like a twig and struck the crown of his head.
Just like the men who had died by the Fire Dragon Sword moments before, everything below the crown of the leader's head was utterly destroyed.
The leader could never have blocked the ultimate technique of my Soul-Severing Star Sword, but I had deliberately broken his sword first.
The reason was purely for the thrill of it.
He glared at me, his eyes wide with all his remaining strength, and stammered.
“Ghhh... you... how do you know the Soul-Severing Star Sword...?”
*Thud!*
With those last words, the leader collapsed backward, dark red blood pouring from all seven of his orifices.
Instant death.
Previously, when I saw the sword art used by Wi Heun-chang, the Master of the Dong-ro Branch, I had instantly recognized it as a pathetic imitation of the Soul-Severing Star Sword.
Of course, my conscious mind at the time had no memory of the Soul-Severing Star Sword. But while my body was performing the martial art, my mind was able to see through my opponent's technique.
Perhaps I could only recognize martial arts that I myself had mastered.
Furthermore, it was likely no coincidence that I—no, my body—had used the Soul-Severing Star Sword against the pursuers from the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union.
My body might have responded with the Soul-Severing Star Sword precisely because the pursuers were using a derivative of it.