Chapter 392
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 392
Chapter Title: Blade Aura
Gwan Ha-kyung was unaware of the change that had occurred in his saber.
He was solely focused on cleaving the two foes before him in a single stroke.
And so.
As he unleashed his saber strike.
Slash.
A clean cutting sound rang out.
The Blood Gangshi and Poison Gangshi.
Their waists snapped in two simultaneously as they collapsed.
"!!!!"
"!!!!"
"...!!!"
Everyone except Ha Mu-baek was stunned by the sight.
The very one who had produced that result, Gwan Ha-kyung, was in a state where he couldn't accurately grasp what had just happened.
"Bla, bla, bla, blade... aura...!"
The first to regain his senses and mutter was Pyeong Deok-jo.
"Blade aura..."
"It's blade aura!"
Was that the signal?
Feng Geon and Yu Gwi-gwang murmured after him, and soon cries of astonishment erupted from the Demon-Sealing Corps and Fierce Dragon Corps.
Only then could Gwan Ha-kyung properly look at his saber.
A faint yet brilliantly shimmering blue blade aura.
It was unmistakably clinging to his saber.
"Th-this..."
He stared blankly at the blade aura with dazed, incredulous eyes.
Slowly, the trembling blade aura gradually faded away.
"Disqualified."
At that moment, Ha Mu-baek's cold voice rang in their ears.
They all had no choice but to look at him.
"What are you going to do, spacing out like that after taking them down? What if one of them had survived?"
The sharp criticism continued.
"You succeeded in reaching the realm of blade aura, but you lost your focus, so what's the point? Where's your blade aura now?"
There wasn't a single flaw in his words.
"This is real combat, a battlefield. If it were, you'd be dead the moment you formed the blade aura."
At Ha Mu-baek's words, Gwan Ha-kyung's head drooped deeply.
There was no room for rebuttal anywhere.
"Well, you did better than expected. I thought it'd take until tomorrow. Take a one-quarter-hour break."
With that, Ha Mu-baek turned and walked away.
All they could do was stare blankly at the spot where he had vanished.
A day passed, and it grew even more beautiful.
Another day passed, and it became just as much more beautiful.
Nothing else—it was the name of Yeon Ha-min's Moonlit Flowers Sword Dance.
Whenever she began practicing her sword dance.
The Fierce Dragon Corps trainees would pause and gaze at her in a daze.
It didn't look like martial arts at all, but rather dance that had reached the pinnacle of artistic beauty.
Han Seol-bing smirked at their entranced expressions.
"You lot are going to get one-shot if you're not careful. If Yeon Ha-min were the enemy, that is. What do you plan to do, lost in the enemy's sword dance?"
At Han Seol-bing's pointed remark, the trainees snapped back to reality.
"But she's an ally right now, isn't she?"
Dang Jin-san said, still watching Yeon Ha-min's sword dance.
From the starting stance of the Moonlit Flowers Sword Dance to its final form.
They had spent their first break admiring Yeon Ha-min's sword dance like that.
"What if one of the enemies uses a sword dance like that?"
At Han Seol-bing's question, Dang Jin-san replied with shameless confidence.
"Then I should watch it even more to get used to it. I doubt there's a sword dance more beautiful than the one Yeon Ha-min performs."
His shamelessness bordered on audacity.
Dang Jin-san nodded in satisfaction with his own logic.
Han Seol-bing was left speechless.
Truth be told, she felt the same way.
In the meantime, Yeon Ha-min completed her Moonlit Flowers Sword Dance.
She stopped her sword, regulated her breathing, and lifted her head.
Her eyes met the gazes of her comrades fixed intently on her.
Yeon Ha-min tilted her head in confusion.
At her reaction, the trainees stealthily turned away and resumed their training.
A question still lingered on Yeon Ha-min's face.
Han Seol-bing smiled gently.
"They were just watching because your sword dance is too beautiful."
Only then did Yeon Ha-min understand, her cheeks flushing slightly.
At least in the Fierce Dragon Corps training ground, she wasn't wearing her veil, so her faintly reddened face was fully visible.
But only Han Seol-bing saw it.
The others had already begun focusing on their own training.
"What?"
Il-no furrowed his brow at his subordinate's report.
And rightly so.
That damned bastard had entered the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
Because of him, they had retreated deeper underground and were still holed up here.
He had been debating whether to venture a bit higher up, and now the bastard showed up again. How could he not seethe with rage?
"And?"
The subordinate bowed his head and continued the report.
"H-he's moving with the Demon-Sealing Corps, taking down the gangshi in the western forest..."
"Hmm."
Il-no tapped the armrest of his chair thoughtfully, then asked as if struck by an idea.
"Didn't one of them turn into a Severed-Head Gangshi over there?"
Severed-Head Gangshi.
The one Ha Mu-baek had dubbed the Dark Blood Ghost after decapitating it.
"As far as I know, one Dark Blood Gangshi mutated into a Severed-Head Gangshi."
"They got it."
He had expected as much, but hearing it directly drained his energy.
Il-no sank into deep thought.
Should he let them go, or at least fling some shit their way?
"How many Soul-Breath Poison Gangshi have been completed?"
At Il-no's question, the subordinate answered.
"Six have been completed."
"Send them all."
"Pardon?"
The subordinate was startled by Il-no's command.
The Soul-Confusion Poison tested in Wu-chang.
Based on those results, they had created these poison gangshi.
Individuals that exhaled Soul-Confusion Poison from their breath.
Gangshi were corpses by nature.
They didn't breathe.
They had forced them to breathe.
More precisely, they made the poison in their rotten lungs spew out.
The range was a full zhang—three meters.
In other words, the moment one entered striking distance of a Soul-Breath Poison Gangshi.
They would inhale the Soul-Confusion Poison it exhaled.
Though the Soul-Confusion Poison had failed.
In Il-no's view, it wasn't a complete failure.
After all, poisoning turned them into gangshi.
They wouldn't expect poison gangshi to exhale Soul-Confusion Poison from their mouths and noses.
They probably just thought the Blood Cult could scatter it externally.
In truth, it was a desperate measure to maintain their dwindling gangshi numbers.
Yeon Ja-kyung had promised ways to increase their gangshi stock.
But they couldn't rely on that alone.
"Ha Mu-baek took down even the Dark Blood Severed-Head Gangshi... He's immune to Soul-Confusion Poison. Why waste the hard-made Soul-Breath Poison Gangshi..."
The subordinate cautiously objected.
Il-no stared at him steadily.
"The ones with him will be defenseless. And even if all six are lost, we can make more anytime now."
"Ah..."
The subordinate let out a low exclamation.
It was about dealing with those accompanying Ha Mu-baek since they couldn't touch him directly.
And while there had been trial and error when first creating the Soul-Breath Poison Gangshi.
Now, they could produce them endlessly as long as they had poison gangshi.
One concern lingered.
"What if... he shows up seeking revenge for his comrades getting hurt..."
Il-no's subordinate.
He remembered it clearly.
Toward the end of the Righteous Heaven Alliance and Blood Cult clash.
After Lord Gae Hong-cheon fell in battle.
What that monster had done in the Blood Cult's stronghold.
It was nothing short of a calamity, pure terror.
"Where are we right now?"
"Ah..."
The subordinate exclaimed again at Il-no's question.
This place couldn't be found without knowing the way.
Deep underground.
No matter how monstrous he was, he couldn't collapse it from the surface, nor did he even know they were here.
It was a thought possible only because they didn't know Ha Mu-baek's qi sense abilities.
"Aren't we risking the mistake of plucking the weeds before the roots?"
The existence of poison gangshi exhaling Soul-Confusion Poison.
The most lethal strike when they least expected it.
If they found out.
Like in the Wu-chang incident, if they came prepared with the antidote they had developed.
The Soul-Breath Poison Gangshi would become mere ordinary gangshi.
"They're not the type to distribute antidotes to the Fierce Dragon Corps or low-rank warriors."
Il-no chuckled.
They called themselves righteous, walking the path of justice.
But peel back the layers, and they were no different from his own kind.
They calculated gains ruthlessly and acted accordingly.
Just hiding behind lofty pretenses of righteousness.
When profits were on the line, they turned into monsters just like anyone else.
That was human nature, after all.
"Ah..."
The subordinate could only exclaim once more.
He had thought it was just an impulsive order.
But Elder Il-no had the full picture in mind.
"Understood."
The subordinate bowed deeply.
And then.
He hurried off.
To send gangshi from here to there, even moving through the night wouldn't leave enough time.
Today's training had ended.
The western sky was dyed red with sunset.
After dusk, Ha Mu-baek never moved the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest group.
They gathered firewood, hung the pot, and lit a fire.
A simple dinner was prepared, and everyone quietly focused on their meal.
Yu Gwi-gwang kept stealing glances at Gwan Ha-kyung and Ha Mu-baek.
Today's events had been a massive shock to him.
He had promised to enable sword aura within three days—and delivered.
Could he grow even stronger learning from someone like that?
Next year.
After finishing his Fierce Dragon Corps service.
A mad thought flashed through his mind: re-enlist at the Dragon Training Pavilion.
A thought that startled even Yu Gwi-gwang himself.
He gave a wry smile.
'Am I a martial artist after all...'
He had joined the Fierce Dragon Corps as a desperate measure to support his family.
But today, his heart kept pounding.
And the inner desire to grow as strong as them surfaced.
That's why the crazy idea of returning to the Dragon Training Pavilion had crossed his mind.
The urge to learn martial arts from that instructor, Ha Mu-baek, welled up.
"Whew."
As he emptied his bowl and let out a deep sigh.
He felt a rustle in his chest pocket.
'Ah.'
His daughter's portrait.
He had forgotten.
That his daughter was waiting for him at home.
He must have truly gone mad for a moment.
"Crazy bastard..."
A self-reproach slipped from his lips unbidden.
"Who? Me?"
A voice right beside him made Yu Gwi-gwang jump.
Ha Mu-baek had sat down next to him before he knew it.
It had happened while he was lost in thought.
"N-no, sir."
Yu Gwi-gwang stammered in surprise.
"I just feel like I am..."
He finished in a voice barely above a whisper.
Ha Mu-baek glanced at Yu Gwi-gwang.
"You want to get stronger, don't you?"
"Y-yes... Pardon?"
Yu Gwi-gwang reflexively answered, then flinched in shock.
He had suddenly approached and peered into his heart.
"Your eyes are saying it. More desperately than anyone else here."
"Ah..."
"Why is a man about to go home acting like that?"
Ha Mu-baek asked curiously.
"I don't know. Maybe it's some martial artist's instinct? I didn't think I was one... but apparently I am."
"Heh."
Ha Mu-baek let out a small laugh at Yu Gwi-gwang's response.
"A rivers-and-lakes man... That's not good."
Yu Gwi-gwang nodded at the words.
He agreed himself.
He just wanted to return home and live peacefully with his daughter and family.
But.
He wanted to get stronger.
Ha Mu-baek gazed steadily at Pyeong Deok-jo.
The man sitting cross-legged in meditation after eating.
Then back at Yu Gwi-gwang.
And asked.
"What's your internal energy heart method?"
"I've learned the Dragon Training Heart Method."
Ha Mu-baek frowned.
He had heard the name of some trash.
Ha Mu-baek activated his Infinite Bright Wheel Eye.
"Circulate it."
At Ha Mu-baek's command, Yu Gwi-gwang immediately sat cross-legged and began channeling his qi.
Watching it all, Ha Mu-baek tilted his head.
"It's fine?"
"Pardon?"
Yu Gwi-gwang, puzzled by the mutter, asked back, but got no answer.
The Dragon Training Heart Method Yu Gwi-gwang had learned was almost identical to the original Three Talents Heart Method.
The only addition was gathering internal energy slightly faster than the Three Talents Heart Method.
Though it was still agonizingly slow since it was based on the Three Talents.
'Looks like the Dragon Training Heart Method before that idiot Sado Gwang tampered with it.'
When he first arrived at the Dragon Training Pavilion.
How shocked he had been seeing the manual Pavilion Lord Pang Do-yul handed him.
To think they had made a manual telling people to learn that garbage.
"You said you want to get stronger?"
"Yes."
"No matter the price?"
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
This time, his expression was utterly serious.
"Gulp."
Yu Gwi-gwang swallowed dryly.
And thought deeply once more.
Then answered.
"If I can return safely to my family, I'm prepared to pay any price."
"Ha? Greedy, aren't you?"
At Yu Gwi-gwang's answer, Ha Mu-baek replied with a look of disbelief, and Yu Gwi-gwang bowed his head deeply.
But that was something he couldn't give up.
Returning safely to his family's embrace.
If he couldn't achieve that, he'd forgo getting stronger.
That was Yu Gwi-gwang's honest sentiment.
He couldn't lose what was most precious to him over a passion for strength.
His brief mad thought earlier proved it.
"Good."
Ha Mu-baek nodded.
Yu Gwi-gwang lifted his head again.
"Follow me."
Ha Mu-baek said as he stood up.