Chapter 83
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: What Are You Going to Do?
“Huh?”
Ha Mu-baek's expression changed.
It happened while he was watching the cadets locked in battle with the blood ghouls.
“What's wrong?”
Han Seol-bing asked, seeing an expression on his face she rarely witnessed.
“Unexpected. I didn't think it would show up.”
Her own expression shifted oddly at his words.
“Didn't you say there were no forces of that nearby?”
Ha Mu-baek nodded at her question.
“I did. But it seems the Yeon Clan's rampage turned everything into a chaotic mess.”
Han Seol-bing wore a strange look at Ha Mu-baek's words.
All of it was Ha Mu-baek's doing.
He had cleverly lured the Yeon Clan warriors into the boundaries of the zones marked by the ghouls, mixing all the forces together.
The ghouls from each zone overlapped, drawing in massive numbers.
Ha Mu-baek called their response to it a rampage.
Truly a terrifying foe.
“Can we handle it?”
Ha Mu-baek smirked at Han Seol-bing's question.
They could handle it, sure. The question was how little damage they could take while doing so.
“Looks like less work for us.”
Ha Mu-baek muttered softly, then vanished.
“Always...”
Han Seol-bing shook her head.
The cadets, oblivious to his disappearance, focused solely on battling the blood ghouls.
Skin so white it made "pale" seem inadequate, with black lines etched like gashes wherever veins ran across his face.
Not just the face—every visible inch of skin was webbed with those black lines.
Contrasting that deathly pallor were lips stained a deep, bloody crimson.
And eyes pitch-black as ink.
That was how it appeared to the Yeon Clan warriors.
They had all heard tales of such a being at least once.
The problem was this was their first time facing one for real.
“That's definitely...”
Yeon Baek-ryang's voice trembled faintly.
He had briefly joined the last war. But he had never encountered one of those back then.
“That one's...”
Dong Ju-san muttered in dismay, seemingly recognizing its identity.
“Do you know it?”
Yeon Baek-ryang asked.
“Yes. It's Wind Spirit Valley Lord Feng Gi-hyu.”
Wind Spirit Valley—one of the orthodox sects under the Righteous Heaven Alliance.
Annihilated during the last war.
Located in Hubei Province, it had ties with the Yeon Clan.
The cause of its destruction? The Demolishing Demonic Art cultivated by its lord.
Devoured by that art, he became a dark blood ghoul and wiped out his own sect.
No one had imagined he'd still be lurking here in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest as a ghoul.
“Ha... a dark blood ghoul...”
A low sigh escaped Yeon Baek-ryang as he bit his lip hard.
The dark blood ghoul Feng Gi-hyu stared at the Yeon Clan warriors with jet-black pupils.
A sly smile tugged at the corner of its mouth.
The moment its eerie fangs glinted, its form vanished.
“Everyone, be careful!”
Yeon Baek-ryang drew his sword and lunged forward with a shout.
The moment his sword, brimming with sword force, sliced through empty air—
Clang!
The dark blood ghoul's claws blocked it, ringing out a deafening clash.
The warriors flinched at the sight.
They had heard the tales.
Dark blood ghouls with bodies tough enough to withstand even sword force.
But rumors and reality were worlds apart.
Sword force was the supreme realm that could cleave anything.
Among those present, only Yeon Baek-ryang and two others had reached it.
In other words, just three men could even block that ghoul's claws.
And that wasn't the only problem.
The ground around them writhed, and evil ghouls began crawling out.
Blood ghouls appeared between the trees, too—who knew where from.
As Yeon Baek-ryang's face twisted in frustration—
The dark blood ghoul's claws slashed in.
Swifter than the wind.
Yeon Baek-ryang parried with his sword, but the ghoul vanished again.
“Tch.”
A frustrated groan escaped him.
“Th-that's Wind Spirit Valley's movement technique!”
Dong Ju-san shouted, his face pale with panic.
A ghoul using martial arts!
Ghouls lacked internal energy, but dark blood ghouls compensated with monstrous physical prowess.
“Block it!”
At Yeon Baek-ryang's command, the two others capable of sword force moved to intercept the dark blood ghoul.
They struggled with its swift, intricate steps but held it off.
Meanwhile, Yeon Baek-ryang rejoined, forming a three-on-one standoff.
They barely managed to contain the dark blood ghoul that way.
But trouble erupted elsewhere.
“Urk.”
“Damn it.”
“Y-you bastards!!”
The Yeon Clan warriors clashed fiercely with blood ghouls and evil ghouls.
The evil ghouls weren't a huge issue.
Quick, yes—but the warriors Yeon Baek-ryang brought could handle them one-on-one.
Even if poisoned by an evil ghoul's fangs, it wasn't immediately fatal.
And their venom wasn't incurable.
Antidotes existed.
This was something Ha Mu-baek had deliberately kept from the cadets.
The real problem was the blood ghouls.
Bitten by one, you'd turn into a ghoul soon after and join the enemy.
Those pests lurked amid the evil ghouls.
Stronger than evil ghouls, they struck in fleeting openings with their fangs. A nightmare to deal with.
Yet true to the Yeon Clan's elites—and seasoned by their time in the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest—they coped admirably.
Comrades bitten by blood ghouls bit their lips and granted them merciful deaths.
The blood ghouls' heads flew alongside.
Still, sheer numbers overwhelmed them.
Even containing the dark blood ghoul taxed their strongest three. The rest dwindled bit by bit.
It was a desperate struggle.
How long had they fought?
Finally, they severed the dark blood ghoul's head.
Countless blade marks on its neck showed how many sword force strikes it had taken.
Its claws weren't the only tough part—its hide was leathery, resisting clean cuts even from sword force.
By then, the evil and blood ghouls were cleared too.
“Hah... hah... That thing was a real monster...”
Yeon Baek-ryang, hair disheveled and clothes torn, gasped out the words.
The dark blood ghoul had been utterly horrific.
And the aftermath was grim.
Over a hundred warriors lay dead from this one fight.
Barely one hundred fifty remained—if that.
Face another dark blood ghoul now?
The mere thought sent chills down their spines.
“Young master.”
Dong Ju-san, battered and weary, stood solemnly by Yeon Baek-ryang's side.
“Two instructors and seven cadets passed through a hell like this?”
Yeon Baek-ryang stared incredulously down the path marked by Ha Mu-baek's traces.
Stepping onto it now filled him with dread.
Who knew what fresh horror awaited?
“Uh... uhh...”
Then a figure approached slowly.
The exhausted warriors gripped their weapons tightly, faces taut with tension.
No strength left—but they had to prepare to fight.
“Tch.”
The figure, now close, clicked its tongue and surveyed the scene.
“Ha Mu-baek...”
Yeon Baek-ryang spat the name, voice thick with rage and grief.
“How's it going? Gonna keep chasing?”
Ha Mu-baek asked impassively.
What fueled Yeon Baek-ryang's fury more was Ha Mu-baek's pristine state.
Not a speck of dirt on him.
Untouched after battling ghouls in this nightmare?
“The dark blood ghoul was unexpected for me too. But now that it's appeared, who knows what else might show. Can you handle it?”
“H-how are you so spotless?”
Yeon Baek-ryang demanded, voice quivering.
Ha Mu-baek smirked.
“I'm Ha Mu-baek.”
A curt reply.
Few grasped its weight.
His existence had been so well-hidden.
But Yeon Baek-ryang had a vague inkling.
His father warned of him most.
'Ha Mu-baek is more dangerous than So Hwi-woong.'
Words he'd laughed off.
His father wouldn't lie—yet those seemed like hyperbole.
What kind of man was So Hwi-woong?
His superhuman martial prowess still burned in Yeon Baek-ryang's eyes.
But it was true.
Experiencing it firsthand made it clear.
“What are you going to do?”
Ha Mu-baek asked again.
“Hand over that girl. Then we'll withdraw.”
His tone had softened.
He was starting to acknowledge Ha Mu-baek's danger.
“Anyone'd think I'd kidnapped her. She's a cadet who joined the Fierce Dragon Corps of her own accord. Demanding I return her is absurd.”
A cold rebuttal.
Yeon Baek-ryang's fists trembled.
His warriors' gazes turned to their young master.
Exhaustion had set in.
No confidence left to push further.
Their eyes conveyed it all.
Yeon Baek-ryang sensed it.
“This is Yeon Clan business. No outsider meddling.”
“This is Fierce Dragon Corps business. No outsider meddling.”
Ha Mu-baek threw his words right back.
The thought of abandoning that girl ignited fury in Yeon Baek-ryang's chest.
Then he recalled Yeon Ha-min's beautiful face from their last glimpse.
Miraculous.
Even now, it stirred the fierce desire that gripped him.
The lust stiffening his loins.
After pouring everything into fighting the dark blood ghoul—where did this strength come from?
A red glow began gathering at the tip of his gripped sword.
Sword force.
It hadn't cut the dark blood ghoul's claws, but it was a supreme art reachable only at the pinnacle of peak realm.
And now it manifested again.
“You bastard!!!”
Yeon Baek-ryang launched himself at Ha Mu-baek.
Hm...
Ha Mu-baek read the sudden shift in Yeon Baek-ryang's aura.
No internal energy left—not a wisp.
So what fueled this surge coursing through him?
And that blatant lust, plain as day.
Ha Mu-baek's gaze dropped to Yeon Baek-ryang's lower body.
This wasn't normal.
Not mere desire from beauty.
Ha Mu-baek focused his energy into his eyes.
Infinite Bright Wheel Eye.
An absurd ocular art that let him see the flow of an opponent's internal energy.
It activated.
Ha Mu-baek read Yeon Baek-ryang's energy flow in detail.
An empty dantian, save one corner.
Something coiled there suddenly unleashed internal energy.
Wild and rough, it raced through his body, bolstering his loins, pounding his heart.
Up his right arm to the sword, culminating in crimson sword force.
No.
That's not Yeon Clan martial arts.
No.
Yeon Baek-ryang didn't unleash it consciously.
Something had possessed him.
Unbeknownst to himself.
Someone had exploited his desire for Yeon Ha-min to tamper with him.
That rice-grain thing in his dantian corner.
He remembered.
Ha Mu-baek recalled a memory and furrowed his brow.
'It's still there, huh.'
The instant he identified the coiled thing that had flooded Yeon Baek-ryang's body with vast energy—
Yeon Baek-ryang's sword came flying at Ha Mu-baek.