Chapter 170
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 170
Chapter Title: Arrogant
Silence filled the air.
The defeat of a first-generation disciple.
The shock it brought was immense.
Especially since Baek Ri-pyeong, the one who had been kicked out of the Fierce Dragon Corps for lacking talent, was the victor.
A few second-generation disciples felt like cheering, but they held it back.
This was a first-generation disciple—no, a grand disciple at that. The eldest son of the current sect leader, no less.
The atmosphere grew unbearably heavy in the wake of his defeat.
Ju Si-un hung his head low as he walked back.
"I'm sorry."
He bowed deeply to his father.
"Useless fool."
The response was a single cold word.
Ju Si-un remained in place, unable to lift his head.
"Shall we proceed with the next match, then?"
Glared at Ha Mu-baek, who had blocked his path to his son, Ju Jae-seung spoke in a menacing tone.
"Let's."
Ha Mu-baek strode out with heavy steps, taking his place in the center of the grand training ground.
A place filled only with enemies.
Yet his face was the picture of composure.
He looked like someone out for a casual stroll.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze settled on one man.
Jong Pae-jin.
Their eyes met.
"Ha ha. So it's me. The sect leader has chosen me as your opponent. I am Jong Pae-jin."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd at his introduction.
It was inevitable.
The second- and third-generation disciples didn't recognize his face.
They had been wondering about the identity of the old man beside the sect leader, and now that they heard his name, they buzzed in astonishment.
The former top master of Zhongnan.
The strongest man in Zhongnan's history.
And perhaps still the strongest in Zhongnan even now.
The current top master of Zhongnan was the sect leader's junior brother, who had left for the Righteous Heaven Alliance headquarters as an elder.
"I am Ha Mu-baek."
Ha Mu-baek gave a curt introduction.
Jong Pae-jin nodded.
"I've heard your name passed along through friends of friends. To think we'd meet like this."
Jong Pae-jin.
A master from the previous generation.
Already a council elder by the time of the last war, he hadn't gone to the battlefield.
He had stayed to defend the sect against any potential enemy raids on Zhongnan.
That was why Ha Mu-baek and Jong Pae-jin had never met.
And Ha Mu-baek had heard nothing about Jong Pae-jin.
His opponent seemed slightly different.
"Draw your sword first."
Jong Pae-jin stopped three zhang away and said.
Ha Mu-baek saw no reason to refuse.
Shing.
The sword emerged from its sheath with a clear ring.
The blade forged in Cheongran-do, cleansed of its blood scent.
"A fine named sword."
Jong Pae-jin drew his own sword.
The two pointed their blades at each other.
Ha Mu-baek kicked off the ground.
His sword flew toward Jong Pae-jin.
Clang!
Jong Pae-jin blocked it perfectly.
His sword, shoving Ha Mu-baek back with full force, began to move.
The blade accelerated, weaving a cluster of stars, then formed a majestic flow.
Celestial Star Descent Sword Technique.
His swordsmanship, reaching its pinnacle, demonstrated what the true Celestial Star Descent Sword Technique was meant to be.
"Ah..."
Baek Ri-pyeong let out a low exclamation at the sight.
In an instant, a thousand stars bloomed, flowing in a grand current.
Having reached the pinnacle of the Celestial Star Sword Technique himself, Baek Ri-pyeong could grasp just how extraordinary Jong Pae-jin's Celestial Star Descent Sword Technique truly was.
Ha Mu-baek watched the wave of stars approaching him with complex eyes.
'What to do...'
The clash of the first exchange gave him pause.
The man before him, Jong Pae-jin.
This was a true martial artist.
He knew it the moment their swords met.
A true warrior unleashing his full power.
In that case, it was only proper to meet him with full power in return.
However.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze shifted slightly.
There stood Ju Jae-seung, the Zhongnan Sect leader.
'To drag that rat out...'
He made his decision.
'Where there are enemies is the battlefield.'
This wasn't Zhongnan's grand training ground. This wasn't a spar.
He was fighting his first battle on the field.
With that resolve, Ha Mu-baek's sword moved.
Clang! Clang clang! Clang!
The sounds of clashing steel rang out in succession.
The start was evenly matched.
A smile crept onto Jong Pae-jin's lips.
They said he had shamed Zhongnan, so he had gone all out from the beginning to crush him utterly.
Yet his opponent was blocking his full-powered strikes.
It was the first time since Baek Ri-dan left.
That was why a smile rose unbidden.
When a warrior meets another who responds in kind to his full-powered sword.
It was an instinctive smile.
Ha Mu-baek's expression was rigid.
He had approached it as a battlefield combat. And Jong Pae-jin's smile weighed on his heart.
That was his expression now.
The Celestial Star Descent Sword Technique was worthy of being called one of the world's supreme arts.
True to the sword that elevated Zhongnan among the Nine Great Sects and Eight Schools, it relentlessly pressed Ha Mu-baek.
A full gak passed.
Throughout that time, Ha Mu-baek barely held off Jong Pae-jin's blade.
His body was drenched in sweat.
"Huff. Huff. Huff."
His breathing grew ragged.
Baek Ri-pyeong tilted his head at the sight.
No matter how strong the grand martial uncle was, he couldn't imagine his instructor struggling like this.
'Ah.'
A thought flashed through his mind.
Baek Ri-pyeong's gaze turned to Ju Jae-seung.
The sect leader grinning ear to ear.
'Is that why...'
The instructor still had one more match left. Against a Zhongnan disciple of his choosing.
And the instructor had said.
'I'll smash the sect leader.'
For a moment, he wondered if this struggle was a feint to lower the sect leader's guard.
So Jung-san watched the match between Jong Pae-jin and Ha Mu-baek, tilting his head.
It had been ages since he last saw his martial uncle going all out, but Ha Mu-baek's skill in holding him off was impressive too.
Still.
'Pung-gae. I don't think that friend would go that far...'
It wasn't the level where even the Beggar's Sect leader would grovel and apologize unconditionally.
Jong Pae-jin was the strongest in Zhongnan, but the Zhongnan Eight Swords could suppress him if they ganged up.
That meant Ha Mu-baek was around that level.
For a sect under the Nine Great Sects and Eight Schools to bow to such a man?
Impossible.
'Pung-gae. What the hell happened?'
Nam Hwa-ryong, standing beside So Jung-san, sensed something off too.
Ha Mu-baek on the battlefield had been truly terrifying.
Yet here he was, sweating profusely, breathing in disarray, sparring with the grand martial uncle.
There was no sense of terror.
Years had passed, but the Ha Mu-baek he remembered was clearly different from this one.
As if he were a different person altogether.
"Ha ha. Not bad at all. To block my full-powered sword this long. Aside from the former sect leader, Zhongnan had no such talent. How could a warrior of your caliber shame Zhongnan?"
Jong Pae-jin paused his sword and asked Ha Mu-baek.
His breathing was ragged too.
"I've never shamed them. Huff huff."
Ha Mu-baek caught his breath.
Jong Pae-jin frowned at the answer.
"This absurd match condition isn't shaming us?"
Ha Mu-baek smirked at the question.
"The ones who accepted this absurd condition were the sect leader and Ju Si-un, weren't they? Do you even know the terms properly?"
Ha Mu-baek's retort.
Jong Pae-jin frowned.
The conditions he knew were: Ju Si-un vs. Baek Ri-pyeong, and then this Ha Mu-baek in two matches.
"And Baek Ri-pyeong beat Ju Si-un. Does that still sound absurd?"
Ha Mu-baek pressed further.
Honestly, Baek Ri-pyeong's skill had been unexpected.
Even as Baek Ri-dan's grandson, he had surpassed what Baek Ri-dan was at that age by leaps and bounds.
"That boy is exceptional. But what about this match?"
Jong Pae-jin's rebuttal.
"We'll see when it's over."
With those words, Ha Mu-baek kicked off again. His sword thrust straight at Jong Pae-jin.
Jong Pae-jin's blade moved swiftly, knocking it aside.
"Now it gets real."
As he spoke, Jong Pae-jin's sword began radiating a ferocious aura.
Unlike before, the momentum shifted drastically.
Killing intent infused it, doubling the power.
Ha Mu-baek's sword gained killing intent too.
The two fought as if in a life-or-death duel, not a spar.
Yet Ha Mu-baek was slowly being pushed back.
'Hmph. With that level of skill, you dare strut around? Filthy trash bastard.'
The smile on Ju Jae-seung's lips deepened.
No matter how he looked, it seemed Ha Mu-baek would keep yielding and lose.
In that case.
His son's arm and eye could be saved.
No, he should claim that punk's and Baek Ri-pyeong's in return.
After his martial uncle returned to the council.
Given Jong Pae-jin's temperament, he'd explode in rage if he learned of such terms and block it.
As stubborn as his senior brother Baek Ri-dan.
'How does Zhongnan keep producing these frustrating idiots who excel only in swordsmanship...'
Including the junior brother now at the Righteous Heaven Alliance.
He had clashed with him repeatedly, and that brother left for the alliance elder position out of frustration with Zhongnan.
Thanks to that, Ju Jae-seung had seized control faster.
He had already erased half of Baek Ri-dan's shadow from Zhongnan. The rest would be easier.
For that, Baek Ri-pyeong.
This brat had to be eliminated.
Ju Jae-seung glared sharply at his foolish son.
Defeated while showing such a pathetic display.
He had nearly failed to erase Baek Ri-pyeong because of it.
Fortunately, his martial uncle seemed about to crush that lowly dog's spawn, so it could be salvaged.
"W-Wow!!"
While lost in thought for a moment, cheers erupted from the disciples.
Thinking the end was near, he turned to the match.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Blood flowed from Jong Pae-jin's left shoulder.
'H-How...'
Impossible.
His martial uncle had clearly seized the advantage.
"Huff huff huff. Huff."
Ha Mu-baek was still breathing heavily.
But Jong Pae-jin wore a defeated expression.
"You had a hidden trump, didn't you."
It was truly exquisite.
The link between one stance and the next in the Celestial Star Descent Sword Technique.
Even at its pinnacle, a subtle flaw lingered there.
Only Jong Pae-jin himself could sense it.
That was why he pondered if the twelfth pinnacle wasn't the end, if higher realms of mastery lay beyond.
That gap, shorter than an instant.
Ha Mu-baek had struck it.
How shocked he had been when the sword came flying at him.
He had blocked with full power, yet his left arm was wounded.
"Th-That was..."
Baek Ri-pyeong was startled.
The move Ha Mu-baek had shown.
He had suffered it a few times himself.
During spars with Dan Mok Un-roe.
"So the instructor could do it too..."
It was obvious, really, but he had wanted to think it was Dan Mok Un-roe's unique talent.
Because she could do what he couldn't. He had wanted to chalk it up to some special gift.
But Ha Mu-baek had done the exact same thing.
'I can do it too.'
Baek Ri-pyeong believed he could achieve it as well.
A new goal etched itself into his heart.
Ha Mu-baek's decisive strike.
After that, the match's momentum shifted.
Ha Mu-baek still looked ragged and exhausted, but victory was tilting toward him bit by bit.
It was a minor wound.
But enough for Ha Mu-baek to seize control.
Half a gak passed.
Jong Pae-jin's face was soaked in sweat. His left sleeve stained with blood.
And then.
Clang!
With a loud ring, Jong Pae-jin's sword flew from his grasp.
Ha Mu-baek's blade halted before Jong Pae-jin's chest.
The trembling tip.
Jong Pae-jin stared at his lost sword with regret, then resignation.
He let out a long sigh.
"Hoo. I lose."
He turned, picked up his sword, and sheathed it.
"H-How..."
"This can't be..."
Disbelief filled the disciples' eyes.
The former top of Zhongnan, defeated by this young Fierce Dragon Corps instructor?
Ha Mu-baek wasn't in good shape either.
His breathing was still ragged, his face pale.
His body soaked in sweat.
He looked like a light push would topple him.
Ju Jae-seung ground his teeth.
To think his trusted martial uncle would lose like this.
Still, his gaze fixed on Ha Mu-baek.
He was utterly spent, barely victorious.
Even his son could win against him now.
He couldn't miss this chance.
Letting that punk recover would be utter folly.
"You win. So you had the skill to flap your tongue like that? Let's do the next match right away. Who will you fight?"
Jong Pae-jin looked at him in shock at Ju Jae-seung's question.
To demand another match from someone who looked too drained to even hold his sword?
Impossible.
"Sect leader."
"Martial uncle. That lowly scum proposed the terms first. One match against our chosen Zhongnan disciple, then one against his choice. We have to follow through."
Ju Jae-seung cut him off firmly.
"Huff. Huff. Huff."
Ha Mu-baek had stabbed his sword into the ground and leaned on it to stand.
Ju Jae-seung pressed him.
"A-Alright. Then I'll name my opponent. Huff huff."
Ha Mu-baek looked on the verge of collapse.
The Zhongnan disciples watched his lips intently. Who would he choose?
"Sect leader. I'll fight you. Huff huff. Huff."
Ju Jae-seung, named by Ha Mu-baek.
A savage grin twisted his lips. His eyes gleamed with murder.
"Insolent whelp..."
Gripping his sword, Ju Jae-seung stormed toward the grand training ground in fury.
[I have never insulted Zhongnan, but it seems I have insulted the elder. I apologize in advance for that.]
A telepathic message reached Jong Pae-jin in that moment.
Jong Pae-jin's gaze turned to Ha Mu-baek.