Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 230

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#Episode 230

“I’ve said all I came to say.”
“Really?”
“Well… there are a few minor things left, but should I finish telling you about them?”
So Gi-cheon waved his hand frantically.
“No, no—what you’ve already told me is more than enough.”
Maeng Mang-do, who bore the terrifying epithet of Blood Sword Asura, was in reality a relentless chatterbox.
Throughout his time with So Gi-cheon, he’d talked without pause.
Even while eating, he’d mumbled on in unclear speech, and in his sleep he’d talked continuously.
He’d unspooled old stories like a deathbed confession, and it was probably the longest testament the world had ever heard. So Gi-cheon hadn’t the faintest hope of remembering it all.
‘I don’t need to remember the bit about when he was six and did something crude to the neighbor’s kid—and now I’ve bloody memorized it anyway!’
Maeng Mang-do spoke with a solemn expression.
“The time has come for us to part.”
Though his ears had ached from being together with this man, he’d been treated rather well as a hostage.
“Where will you go?”
A quiet resolve settled over Maeng Mang-do’s face as he gazed at the few white clouds drifting across the sky.
“It’s time to shake off all this cursed business.”
“Are you thinking of seclusion?”
“I tried that once. Nearly died.”
“Why?”
“Boredom.”
“Ah!”
Recalling all the chatter Maeng Mang-do had subjected him to these days, So Gi-cheon understood perfectly.
Maeng Mang-do, who’d been sitting on a rock, glanced around before picking up a stone.
“What are you doing?”
“I should crack you on the back of the head, don’t you think? That way you can tell the Murim Alliance you were forcibly held captive by me.”
If a stone that much larger than a fist came down on his head, he’d be dead long before he could claim anything.
“I don’t want to get hit in the back of the head with a stone!”
“No? I suppose a stone is a bit much. Should I use a club instead?”
Maeng Mang-do snapped a branch from a tree, and So Gi-cheon shouted at him.
“You don’t need to hit me at all!”
“Then you’ve got no excuse to give the Murim Alliance.”
“I can come up with an excuse myself… what are you doing now?”
Maeng Mang-do gathered up Kudzu Vines as he answered.
“I’ll tie you up instead.”
“No, really, that’s not necessary…. Wait, hold on!”
Maeng Mang-do pushed So Gi-cheon against a thick tree and began winding finger-thick Kudzu Vines around him.
“I appreciate your concern.”
“I won’t have an innocent person suffer because of me.”
After several days spent with him, Maeng Mang-do proved to be nothing at all like the Blood Sword Asura epithet that clung to him.
“Did your uncle and master also suffer a false accusation?”
“Hyeol-ryun-gwi? That man was truly wicked! I did learn some Martial Arts from him, but the things he did—ugh! Don’t bring that man up. It won’t bother me much, will it?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Thanks for everything. We’ll meet again—but not soon. Very long from now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I couldn’t choose where I was born, but I can choose where I die.”
Shrill-shrill-shrill!
The sound of an emergency whistle echoed from far off.
One of the Murim Alliance warriors had blown it—they’d found their trail.
So Gi-cheon called out to Maeng Mang-do as he turned to leave.
“With your skill, you could easily break through the Cheonra Jimang net, couldn’t you?”
“It’d be nothing. But I’m tired of running. Whether the Murim Alliance dies or I die, we settle this here.”
Maeng Mang-do waved a hand behind his back and walked off with the casual gait of someone out for a stroll.
He made no effort to conceal his trail, and even had the composure to snap a twig and toss it in his mouth.
“Ptooey! Ugh, bitter!”
The approach of Murim Alliance warriors deploying the Cheonra Jimang grew closer.
“You lot won’t do.”
Maeng Mang-do drew a skewer-like blade and muttered under his breath.
“I need the Murim Alliance’s upper echelon.”
Dismissing the common soldiers, he intended to send at least five of the leaders to the underworld as companions today.
Of course, the leaders wouldn’t come immediately.
Those tense-jawed creatures only revealed themselves once their subordinates’ blood painted the earth—a strange breed indeed.
As Maeng Mang-do trudged toward the mountain’s summit, six young warriors fell before him.
“Blood Sword Asura……!”
He had no patience for idle chatter.
The Blood Sword Asura’s blade cut through empty air like a phantom as his body surged forward. His sword always found the shortest path at the fastest speed, piercing straight through its target.
Six red marks bloomed on six foreheads nearly simultaneously.
Before those six had even fallen to earth, seven more appeared—yet they too couldn’t withstand even a single breath from Maeng Mang-do.
A sharp emergency whistle pierced the air from ten paces away.
“At this rate, I’ll end up slaughtering all the men they’ve sent to surround me.”
He had no doubt of his ability, but he harbored no wish to commit such needless bloodshed.
So Maeng Mang-do drew upon his Divine Form.
Using the spring of a tree branch beneath his feet, he soared twenty paces skyward and raced toward the summit.
Thirty men fell to his blade before he reached Cheomgeom Mountain’s peak.
Maeng Mang-do’s steps halted before a cliff thirty paces high. The name “Cheomgeom Mountain” derived from the solitary peak now looming before him—Cheomgeom Peak.
The summit held roughly fifty paces of level ground, while all four sides plunged sheer into cliff face.
Once forty or so of the Murim Alliance warriors had fallen, their initial reckless charge gave way to caution.
Maeng Mang-do, with the cliff at his back, shouted down.
“Send your leaders! Stop hiding like cowards behind your men!”
With his challenge ringing out, Maeng Mang-do hurled himself toward Cheomgeom Peak.
He planted one foot on a jutting outcrop mid-leap before landing atop the summit. Weathered by countless years of rain and wind, the peak was smooth as polished marble.
The wind howled fiercely, threatening to sweep him from his feet. Standing at the center of Cheomgeom Peak with nothing below in sight, he sensed through the very air the gathering of Murim Alliance warriors below.
“A fine place for dying.”
Behind his murmur came a gruff voice.
“Blood Sword Asura is up there? Then what are you all doing standing around?”
“We await orders, sir.”
“Orders to kill have already been given! Why do you hesitate? Spineless wretches!”
The gruff-voiced man leaped toward Cheomgeom Peak’s summit.
Scaling a thirty-pace cliff in five bounds showed considerable skill in the Lightness Technique.
Yet the middle-aged man, whoever he was, had his forehead pierced the instant he reached the peak and tumbled back down.
“Master Song!”
Standing at Cheomgeom Peak’s edge, Maeng Mang-do peered downward.
Some two hundred warriors had gathered, their numbers swelling by the moment.
“Stop throwing away these children’s lives! Send your leaders! Only someone of the Shaolin Temple Abbot’s caliber could even exchange a few moves with me!”
Having watched Master Song’s reckless charge end in a single stroke, the Murim Alliance warriors dared not climb.
And then, at last, those Maeng Mang-do had been waiting for appeared.
The gathered Murim Alliance warriors bowed in unison toward the arrivals.
They were Shaolin Temple Abbot Sam Gong Taesa, Mudang Faction Master Byeok Sang-do, Jongnam Sect Master Gwan Ho-un, and Hwangbo Clan Ga-ju Hwang Bo-un.
“Now worthier opponents have arrived!”
The four looked up at Maeng Mang-do standing above them. He crooked a finger in invitation.
“Come up. I won’t attack first.”
Gwan Ho-un, his brow furrowed, spoke to the Murim Alliance warriors around him.
“The enemy is right there—and you’ve all been standing idle?”
Climbing toward Maeng Mang-do was not courage but folly, yet none dared voice such a thought to Gwan Ho-un.
“Let us ascend,” Sam Gong Taesa said.
Hwang Bo-un seized upon his words.
“The villain might use deception, so let us first send our men ahead and…….”
Maeng Mang-do exhaled a long breath.
“Fools who guard their own necks while treating their subordinates’ lives as vermin, mouthing nothing but loyalty and righteousness—hypocrites to the last.”
As Hwang Bo-un’s face reddened and he began to speak, Sam Gong Taesa threw himself forward.
Maeng Mang-do merely watched Sam Gong Taesa land on the peak roughly three paces to his left.
Then Gwan Ho-un, Hwang Bo-un, and Byeok Sang-do climbed to Cheomgeom Peak in turn.
“Is that all? I’d have preferred a few more from the Gudaemun Faction. Still, with a Shaolin monk among you, it’s not entirely unsatisfactory.”
“Blood Sword, does our patron truly wish to cross blades with us?” Sam Gong Taesa asked.
“If you mean to spout Buddhist scripture, don’t bother starting.”
“You’ve said many times that you’ve been wrongly accused. Why not take this opportunity to go to the Murim Alliance and clear your name?”
“How?”
“We’ll do it fairly——”
Maeng Mang-do cut off Sam Gong Taesa’s words.
“The very ones who framed me now want to clear my name fairly? That’s so fair a passing dog would laugh. Spare me the empty talk and come at me all at once.”
Aside from Hyeolpung Saja, Maeng Mang-do was the first master of the Evil Faction, but facing four opponents including Sam Gong Taesa would be taxing.
Yet Maeng Mang-do boldly drew his sword first against the four men.
“No need for words. Let’s fight. If you can’t kill me here and now, the Murim Alliance will suffer for a long time to come.”
Byeok Sang-do drew his blade and spoke.
“There’s no reason to hesitate in killing a Murim Public Enemy.”
Hwang Bo-un and Gwan Ho-un gripped their swords as well.
For men of their standing to gang up on one opponent would normally be shameful, but against the Blood Sword Asura, there was no choice.
“Allow me to face him. The three of you should step back.”
That was what the three men thought, but Sam Gong Taesa saw it differently.
“Master Taesa, this is no time to concern ourselves with honor against a public enemy.”
“If the Orthodox Faction does not walk the path of the Orthodox, what difference is there between us and the Evil Faction?”
“But the opponent is the Blood Sword Asura.”
“Shaolin cannot tolerate cowardice, regardless of who the enemy is.”
Sam Gong Taesa’s words were filled with pride in Shaolin Temple.
Few in the Murim knew exactly what level of martial mastery the Great Bear of Mount Tai——Shaolin Temple——truly possessed.
Shaolin monks rarely left the temple, and naturally had few opportunities to display their skills.
Sam Gong Taesa in particular had long secluded himself within Shaolin, even declining the position of Alliance Lord.
When Sam Gong Taesa stepped forward, the three men yielded to him.
It was a matter of respect toward the Abbot of Shaolin, and they genuinely wanted to see how skilled Sam Gong Taesa truly was.
“Amitabha Buddha. I pray you show mercy in this encounter.”
“Hmph! You hole up in the mountains thinking righteousness and virtue will bloom on their own? Pretty name, the Great Bear of Mount Tai——but what has your Shaolin really done for the Murim? Show mercy? If I kill you, perhaps blind Shaolin will finally open its eyes properly.”
Maeng Mang-do’s rebuke struck a painful chord in Sam Gong Taesa’s chest.
Sam Gong Taesa stood silent, offering no reply, and Maeng Mang-do thrust his sword toward him.
“We’re not here for pleasantries, are we? Enough talk. Let’s fight.”
Sam Gong Taesa held a Three-Ring Chain Staff, seven feet long——taller than he was.
Three metal rings hung from the staff’s end, with leather wound at intervals to prevent the hand from slipping.
The tip of Maeng Mang-do’s sword trembled as he faced Sam Gong Taesa.
It was a natural phenomenon as his martial force surged to the twelfth level. The robes of Sam Gong Taesa, who had also drawn up his force, swelled visibly.
From the outset, both men showed the will to clash with full strength.
The three spectators retreated to the very edge of Cheomgeom Peak.
Both were masters of unfathomable skill, yet paradoxically, the outcome could be decided in a single exchange.
“I couldn’t miss a show as good as this.”
A hoarse, gravelly voice pierced through the tense silence.
The three spectators spun around in surprise, and neither Maeng Mang-do nor Sam Gong Taesa could ignore the newcomer.
Noh Dae-sul appeared, dragging someone by the scruff of the neck, and sat down cross-legged as if he’d just found the finest entertainment.
“Pity there’s no wine for an occasion like this. Ah! But there is! Hehehehe——”
Noh Dae-sul drew a small wine gourd from his robe.
As he unstopped it, a fragrance so fine emerged that everyone’s heart quickened.
Noh Dae-sul, cradling the wine gourd to his chest, flickered his eyes with delight.
“Don’t even dream of stealing my wine.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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