Wudang Sacred Scriptures

CLAAAAANG!

The fire-dragon sword-aura screen was torn to shreds, and every major point in Jegal Geon’s body was shaken.

Ghk!

Jegal Geon had no time to wonder how the Cave Hermit Taoist’s White Astral Qi had endured and pierced through the storm of spinning sword aura, or how he had found Jegal Geon, hidden within that storm.

What meaning did any of that have when his life was about to end?

SHWIK!

Jegal Geon could feel the thick, clinging killing intent gathered at the sharp point of the White Astral Qi stabbing toward his heart.

He did not fear death.

Ever since his father had led him into the secret cave, he had not had much attachment to life.

And yet, now, he was clinging to it. More fiercely than ever before.

It was too unjust that he would die without even being able to display the secret martial art he had gained by offering up his entire life—no, his life itself.

If only he had realized a little earlier that the Cave Hermit Taoist was this strong, and this mad for slaughter, he would have unfolded his secret martial art long ago and ended him.

Lingering attachment, resentment, belated regret...

All of it would vanish along with his life if he failed to avoid that sword.

There was no other choice now.

CRACK.

The instant his intent formed, pain ripped through his chest as though a corner of his heart had been torn away.

The sharp pain swept through every major point in his body in a flash, and when it arrived at his dried-up dantian, it had changed into inner power and true qi.

WHISH!

Jegal Geon unleashed Bowed Body Springing Shadow with all his might.

RIIIP!

The front of his robe tore, his skin was sliced, and several drops of blood scattered.

If he had not activated his family’s secret mental technique and unfolded the lightness art of Bowed Body Springing Shadow, a hole would have been punched clean through his chest.

Even as Jegal Geon retreated through the movement of Bowed Body Springing Shadow, he thrust the Red Dragon Sword forward and unleashed the first form of Dark-Heaven Patterned Splendor.

Like the Cave Hermit Taoist had been doing all along, he would surely pursue to finish the fight. Jegal Geon had thrust out a countering sword to meet him.

SHARARARAK!

Sword shadows from the Red Dragon Sword bloomed wide, filling the air with crimson rainbows.

But the White Astral Qi that should have been caught and wrapped in that net of rainbows did not appear, and the crimson rainbows lost their color in vain and faded away.

“......?”

Beyond the thinning rainbows, Jegal Geon saw the Cave Hermit Taoist standing back in his original place.

Damn it!

Jegal Geon hastily stopped himself.

THAK!

But the place where his body came to a halt was three zhang farther back from where he had begun.

It was a blatant proof of his disadvantage, and Jegal Geon’s face flushed red.

Moreover, martial artists considered it shameful to swing at empty air during a contest.

No matter what excuse he gave, that last form had been an empty swing. Worse still, it had been a desperate life-saving feint, thrown out in haste while he withdrew.

For a master at the middle level of the Flower Realm to have unleashed a sword form blindly to save his own life was an infamy worse than defeat. Jegal Geon now stood at the edge of a cliff with nowhere left behind him.

There was only one way to restore his honor, which had fallen all the way to the ground.

He had to kill the Cave Hermit Taoist.

Whatever the process might be, people remembered only the result in the end.

Jegal Geon glared at Kwak Yeon and ground his teeth.

“You bastard!”

Kwak Yeon watched the wounded beast grind its teeth and howl with an indifferent expression.

Jegal Geon asked, his face burning crimson.

“Why did you withdraw?”

Returning to one’s original position in the middle of a duel meant pausing the contest for a moment. Of course, that was a right only a superior fighter who had secured a clear advantage could enjoy.

There was no way Jegal Geon did not know that. But because his pride was too strong to ever acknowledge Kwak Yeon’s superiority, he had asked in that roundabout way.

Kwak Yeon saw through that inner motive clearly. The arrogance of a legitimate scion of a prestigious family displeased him, but he did not consider it important.

No matter how noble a bloodline belonged to a prestigious family, once a person died, he rotted and fell apart the same as anyone else.

“Since you ask, I cannot refuse to answer.”

Kwak Yeon nodded readily, then continued.

“The final struggle of a freshly wounded beast is dangerous. That is why I stopped.”

Watching Jegal Geon’s crimson face twist, Kwak Yeon asked in return.

“Thanks to following that golden maxim, I was able to avoid that rather sharp move of yours just now. Is any further explanation needed?”

Jegal Geon’s face flushed even deeper until it was almost black.

Through the function of the Honwonmusang Technique, Kwak Yeon could feel that Jegal Geon’s mental state had shaken, disturbing his true qi and darkening his face.

So he judged there was no need to take unnecessary risk.

The moment he cut open Jegal Geon’s chest, Kwak Yeon had smelled something ominous. It was like the smell of dry air when parched firewood was burned.

Because Kwak Yeon was at the upper extreme of the Flower Realm, where he could sense inner power and true qi through the five senses, he immediately saw through the identity of that unfamiliar smell as some unsettling inner power and true qi. And he also understood that the ominous smell was coming from Jegal Geon.

At once, Kwak Yeon had abandoned his pursuit of Jegal Geon and withdrawn.

Sure enough, he had seen a blood-red net of rainbows blooming through the air.

It was not something his White Astral Qi could not tear apart, but it was a powerful net of sword aura that would have forced him to suffer some loss as well.

Kwak Yeon needed time to prepare for Jegal Geon’s inner power and true qi, which had suddenly strengthened like that.

If he rushed to kill him and ended up suffering internal injuries, it would make dealing with the Jegal Family difficult. Besides, a wounded beast tired quickly.

Knowing that the more violently a wounded beast thrashed, the faster it exhausted itself, Kwak Yeon spoke to Jegal Geon with a look of pity.

“Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family, if you break your sword of your own accord, I will consider whether to take your life.”

Kwak Yeon had returned Jegal Geon’s earlier proposal of submission by breaking the sword exactly as it had been given. As though that alone did not satisfy him, Kwak Yeon went one step further.

“Of course, my generosity is not as broad as yours, and I am a resident Taoist, so unlike you, I have no matters I must take into consideration. I cannot promise that I will spare you...”

Kwak Yeon’s gaze swept across the noted figures of the martial world who had, at some point, filled the manor courtyard, and he continued.

“Well, if the noted figures of the martial world who have come here want me to spare you, I may be able to consider it more positively.”

In other words, if he wanted to live, he should beg the noted figures of the martial world. It was a truly insulting statement.

For Jegal Geon, a legitimate scion of the Jegal Family, it was an offer he could not accept even with a blade at his throat.

Kwak Yeon, having already made up his mind to kill Jegal Geon, naturally knew that and had made the offer anyway.

“Cave Hermit Taoist!”

Perhaps because anger, when pushed to its utmost limit, instead became calm, Jegal Geon had grown composed in the face of Kwak Yeon’s mockery.

“The Jegal Family may break, but it does not bend.”

Sssst.

Kwak Yeon smelled the dry air pouring from Jegal Geon.

The dry-air smell had grown far stronger than before, as though the air itself were burning.

The smell of burning air.

Kwak Yeon remembered that raw, temperamental smell of air far too vividly—the smell he had breathed when he opened the lid of an empty cauldron that had been heated fiercely for half a day.

That night, he had kept feeding firewood without pause for Jang Noya, whose body had grown cold as ice. Only later had he discovered that the base of the cauldron had been heated bright red.

Kwak Yeon could guess the reason Jegal Geon’s inner power and true qi had suddenly strengthened.

He was burning his origin true qi to ignite the flame of his inner power and true qi.

“Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family, if that is your resolve, then it cannot be helped.”

SHARRR!

Kwak Yeon raised White Astral Qi on the Blue-Steel Sword, then continued.

“Come. As you wish, I will grant you death instead of humiliation.”

Jegal Geon also leveled the Red Dragon Sword before him.

“Cave Hermit Taoist, no one knows who will die at the end of this exchange.”

The instant he finished speaking, Jegal Geon’s form vanished as though it had been extinguished.

PAAT!

Body-Shifting Phantom Exchange!

To Kwak Yeon, who stood at the upper extreme of the Flower Realm, Body-Shifting Phantom Exchange was no longer a threat.

By densely spreading the outer-body qi field that could be called the eye of qi sense, he could catch any movement, no matter how fast.

And yet, that outer-body qi field of Kwak Yeon’s did not catch the qi sense of the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family.

Kwak Yeon knew that Jegal Geon had unfolded a truly fearsome divine skill he had kept hidden, but he was not flustered at all.

Jegal Geon was using that divine skill to evade the outer-body qi field, but Kwak Yeon now possessed another function that he could not possibly avoid.

The smell emitted by his inner power and true qi.

Using the ability to sense inner power and true qi through the five senses, Kwak Yeon had read every detail of Jegal Geon’s movement from the instant he vanished.

Naturally, it was not as good as seeing with his physical eyes. But in this situation, sensing him through the smell of his inner power and true qi was actually better.

Through the single streak of dry, acrid smell extending toward him, Kwak Yeon knew what Jegal Geon was aiming for.

He intended to gather all his inner power and true qi into a single point and decide the fight with an ultra-fast sword.

WOOONG!

Kwak Yeon’s competitive spirit surged fiercely at the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family’s painstakingly prepared trump card, and he did not dodge.

He drew together the inner-sphere true qi in his dantian and the outer-sphere true qi in the major points throughout his body down to the very bottom, enlarged the White Astral Qi as much as he could, and thrust the Blue-Steel Sword toward that invisible point.

KWAAAANG!

With an explosion that shook heaven and earth, blazing heat erupted from a single point in the air and spread in every direction.

WIIIIING!

The storm of heat was so searing that the people watching the duel between the two masters unknowingly shut their eyes and even stopped breathing for a moment.

The assembled heroes were struck speechless by the heat storm created by the head-on collision of two absolute masters’ ultra-fast swords. They hurriedly opened their eyes and looked into the courtyard.

The white radiance that had shone brilliantly from Kwak Yeon’s Blue-Steel Sword all this time had vanished somewhere out of sight. Moreover, he had been pushed nearly one zhang back from his original position.

Two furrows had been carved into the courtyard floor, making it clear that he had not withdrawn of his own accord. It meant he had been forced back in the contest of force against the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family.

The Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family’s condition was far too wretched to compare with Kwak Yeon’s.

He had been pushed nearly five zhang back, and with the Red Dragon Sword planted into the ground, he barely kept himself from collapsing on one knee.

Since there were no footprints within that five-zhang distance, it was clear he had received the shock of that single clash and had been blown all the way back in one burst before crashing down.

Through the gaps in his torn upper garment, his torso could be seen covered in blood from the open wounds.

“Keugh!”

When Jegal Geon vomited up a handful of black blood clots, fresh blood streamed from his nose, eyes, and ears.

It was proof that he had suffered severe internal injuries.

Seeing that, everyone in the courtyard thought the myth of the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family, who had run unchecked until now, had finally come to an end.

The assembled heroes’ gazes turned toward Kwak Yeon, who now held Jegal Geon’s life in his hands.

Would he truly cut off the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family’s head, just as he had declared?

If he could even slightly anticipate the terrifying aftermath that result would bring, surely he would never do such a thing.

And yet, in some corner of their hearts, they all thought Kwak Yeon might really cut off the Fire Dragon of the Jegal Family’s head.

They remembered the Cave Hermit Taoist who killed as he pleased with every step, and the unrestrained course he had taken until now.

Would an unprecedented event in the history of the martial world truly occur—a war between a single peerless hero and the entire Jegal Family?

Gulp.

Gulp.

As the sounds of dry swallows rose one after another from all across the courtyard, Kwak Yeon finally began to move.