Almighty God of War - Chapter 23

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

023

Heo Choryeong glared at Hwa Doryeong with contempt and spoke coldly.

“What a vulgar bastard. Do you think I would follow the will of someone as immoral as you!”

She drew the sword from her waist and shouted toward Guyang Cheongang.

“Gang-je, it’s dangerous here so get away from this place quickly. I’ll handle this bastard!”

“The young lady will face me? Do you think that’s possible?”

With a sneer, Hwa Doryeong stepped forward and raised his blade.

He was confident in his martial arts.

He was a first-rate martial artist who had trained rigorously in blade techniques for over ten years at Panryong Sword Gate, a prestigious martial arts sect in Hubei Province.

However, Heo Choryeong also had exceptional pride in her family’s secret Flying Swallow Sword Technique, and her achievements were not low either.

The two rushed toward each other without hesitation.

Clang!

Clash!

The heavy blade and nimble sword collided fiercely in the dark alley.

The movement techniques and blade-sword movements of both were so fast and dazzling they made one’s eyes dizzy.

Naturally, it should have been normal for Guyang Cheongang, with his weak martial arts, to be unable to properly see their movements.

However, right now he was seeing everything far too clearly.

This was thanks to Akasha directly intervening in his brain and optic nerves to extremely accelerate his cognitive abilities.

The duel between the two people reflected in his eyes appeared more than ten times slower than usual, like a precisely choreographed group dance.

‘Coiling Dragon Sword Technique focuses on power, while Flying Swallow Sword Technique emphasizes variation.’

Though he couldn’t execute them directly, he had studied supreme techniques like Gale Chain Palm together with Akasha.

Seeing through the strengths and weaknesses of these two martial arts, which were several levels below that, wasn’t particularly difficult.

‘The two have similar martial arts achievements, but Hwa Doryeong has a slight advantage in internal energy. Probably thanks to gorging on spirit medicines with help from his medicine merchant family.’

As his analysis predicted, after about ten seconds, Heo Choryeong began to be gradually pushed into a defensive position.

Guyang Cheongang frowned and shouted.

“Upper right, two inches!”

Heo Choryeong, who was concentrating on the fight, didn’t pay attention to his words at first.

She couldn’t understand what he meant.

But soon she realized that the shout “Upper right, two inches!” precisely matched the subtle opening in the blade technique that she had instinctively sensed while deflecting Hwa Doryeong’s attack.

‘How…!’

“Lower left, half an inch!”

From Guyang Cheongang’s second shout onward, her body reacted first.

Her sword flew up like a swallow and pierced toward the lower left half-inch point of Hwa Doryeong.

As the startled Hwa Doryeong hastily withdrew his blade to defend after being caught off guard, Guyang Cheongang’s shouts continued as if he had been waiting.

Heo Choryeong moved her sword according to his instructions, and within three seconds, Hwa Doryeong felt his techniques becoming completely disordered.

Dangerous situations where his arm nearly got severed and his neck almost got cut continued in succession.

“This bastard…!”

Hwa Doryeong also soon realized that Guyang Cheongang was the cause of this entire situation and shouted angrily at his subordinates who were watching.

“Kill that bastard first!”

At those words, ten men who had been watching the fight while favoring their injured legs approached Guyang Cheongang with murderous intent.

Guyang Cheongang’s heart sank and his body instantly stiffened.

For him, who had only lifted 5kg dumbbells at the gym during his Earth days, this was real killing intent he had never experienced.

It was impossible for him, who had no experience even with simple fistfights, to calmly handle the thick killing intent right before his nose.

Then Akasha’s voice rang in his mind.

[Detecting Doctor’s sympathetic nervous system hyperactivation and physical rigidity. Executing emergency psychological stabilization protocol. Regulating neurotransmitter secretion to forcibly suppress fear response and activating the brain’s frontal lobe to induce ‘immovable mind’.]

Along with that, Guyang Cheongang felt the fear that had been weighing down his heart disappear like a lie and the world slow down again.

Guyang Cheongang’s eyes, now bearing an ice-cold rational light, turned toward Heo Choryeong.

He couldn’t abandon her and run away alone.

If so, he had to use whatever means necessary to defeat all of them and help her.

[Doctor’s current internal energy is only about three years’ worth, so there are no martial arts you can execute.]

‘Akasha, you really are a capital T.’

[This is not the time for jokes.]

‘Just tell me what you’ve figured out about those bastards.’

[Judging by their blade-holding postures, they’re all estimated to be those who learned Hwa Doryeong’s Coiling Dragon Sword Technique. However, they learned it superficially so their achievements are immature. Moreover, since that technique focuses on power, it also has many openings. The best strategy is to strike their weak points and neutralize them as quickly as possible.]

The men holding thin blades were nameless bandits from Nanchang, but they were ones who had been taken in by Hwa Doryeong and learned blade techniques, albeit crudely.

They were being careless seeing Guyang Cheongang’s sickly appearance.

They were confident enough to believe they could take his life with just one swing of their blade.

“Die!”

The man who rushed forward first shouted fiercely and brought his blade down toward his crown.

Akasha continued speaking.

[Considering Doctor’s current remaining internal energy and physical condition, the maximum combat time you can maintain with Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art is 2 minutes. If you can’t defeat the enemies within that time, Doctor will be in danger.]

‘2 minutes…’

It was not a time that could be called long by any means.

He had to defeat opponents with a single strike using optimal movement that could minimize internal energy consumption.

Even in that moment, the blade the enemy swung was falling toward his head.

Swoosh-

However, to Guyang Cheongang’s accelerated eyes, the trajectory the man’s blade drew looked as slow as a slug crawling.

Without unnecessary evasive movements, he avoided the blade with minimal motion of just slightly twisting his upper body and took a big step forward.

Closing the distance as if leaping into the man’s embrace, he swung his fist.

Whoosh-

Guyang Cheongang’s fist was unbelievably fast and powerful for that of a sickly youth.

Though he couldn’t execute techniques due to insufficient internal energy, his fist contained the essence of Gale Chain Palm.

It wasn’t a technique that a mere bandit could avoid.

Thud!

With a dull sound, his fist struck the man’s heart precisely.

The man couldn’t even scream.

With white frost forming on his chest, he opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

And instantly, with his lips turning blue-black, he collapsed like a wooden log.

Thump-

The Pure Yin True Energy of Transcendent Impermanence Divine Art, refined by reversing the extreme yin energy of Nine Yin Severed Meridians, had dealt a powerful blow to his heart.

“Wh-what!”

Shock appeared on the faces of the remaining bandits who witnessed that scene.

One of them shouted.

“Be careful. That bastard also learned martial arts!”

The Guyang Cheongang reflected in the men’s eyes was no longer a sickly scholar.

“Kill him!”

As if trying to shake off their fear, two men screamed and attacked from left and right in a pincer movement.

Swish swish-

Guyang Cheongang didn’t move.

The three-dimensional spatial analysis data that Akasha projected was perfectly drawn in his mind.

[Left side, horizontal slash in 0.7 seconds. Right side, downward strike in 0.9 seconds. Simultaneous evasion route: Move back half a step then rotate 30 degrees to the left.]

His body moved with not even an inch of error from Akasha’s words, as if measured with a ruler.

The two blades grazed his clothes and sliced through empty air.

At the moment they crossed, Guyang Cheongang’s both hands shot out like lightning and mercilessly struck the sides of both men.

Thud thud!

“Urgh!”

“Guhk!”

The two men felt awl-like cold energy piercing into their bodies and collapsed with groans.

Their bodies, paralyzed by the cold energy, could no longer move.

Terror clearly appeared on the faces of the remaining seven men.

They glanced at each other, unable to easily charge forward.

Guyang Cheongang didn’t miss that moment.

Instead of waiting, he bounced forward toward the group in front of him.

His movements weren’t flashy, but they were devastatingly efficient.

One step, one man.

With minimal movement, he slipped into his opponents’ blind spots, striking their vital points precisely with fists and palms infused with Pure Yin True Energy.

He didn’t use any special techniques, nor was he particularly fast, yet strangely the men couldn’t avoid his hands.

Thud thud thud thud thud!

Those struck by his blows collapsed as their hearts froze or their blood vessels were blocked.

Even screams were a luxury.

White frost bloomed on their bodies, and the alley was soon filled with terrifying cold energy.

The moment the last remaining man turned his back in terror to flee,

Guyang Cheongang’s cold palm, having somehow closed the distance, quietly touched the man’s nape.

“Hup…!”

Thump.

As the last man collapsed, an eerie silence descended upon the alley.

The ten men lay on the ground in strange positions, like frozen statues on a cold winter day.

They weren’t dead, but their blood vessels were blocked by Guyang Cheongang’s Pure Yin True Energy, their entire bodies paralyzed and unconscious.

Even if they awakened, they would need considerable time to recover in order to remove the cold energy that had seeped into their bodies.

“Huff… huff…”

Guyang Cheongang, having stopped moving, gasped for breath.

Every cell in his body was screaming, telling him that the 2 minutes Akasha had warned about were almost up.

Though his legs trembled as if he might collapse at any moment, he straightened his back to avoid showing weakness.

Then he turned his head toward where Heo Choryeong and Hwa Doryeong were.

Their fight had already stopped.

Hwa Doryeong, holding his blade, looked back and forth between his fallen subordinates and Guyang Cheongang with an expression hard as stone.

In his eyes was an emotion more primal than anger—fear of an incomprehensible being.

Every time white frost bloomed from the sickly scholar’s fists, the sturdy men fell like autumn leaves in the wind.

He had never seen such a sight in all his life.

He asked in a trembling voice.

“Who… who are you?”

Guyang Cheongang, having caught his breath, responded in a cold tone.

“What’s it to you? If you don’t want to end up like those bastards, get lost right now.”

Hwa Doryeong gritted his teeth.

Following the Blue Cloud Inn, this was the second unbearable humiliation. But once again, he couldn’t unleash his anger.

Recalling Guyang Cheongang’s chilling gaze and his subordinates who had fallen helplessly to those frost-laden fists made his skin crawl.

He had no confidence in facing both the boy master who was pretending(?) to be sickly and Heo Choryeong alone.

“As long as the green mountains remain, there’s no worry about firewood. Heo Choryeong, and you! I will definitely, definitely repay today’s humiliation!”

Shouting furiously, Hwa Doryeong abandoned his unconscious subordinates and left the alley using his Light Body Technique.

Despite his talk of green mountains, it was a shameful retreat.

Watching his retreating figure, Guyang Cheongang muttered.

“Trash.”

As Hwa Doryeong disappeared, Heo Choryeong approached Guyang Cheongang with an expression of disbelief.

There was no longer any pity or compassion in her eyes.

Instead, shock, confusion, and even a faint sense of awe lingered there.

The sickly younger brother she had thought she needed to protect just moments ago had become a monster who instantly defeated ten bandits.

“Gang-je… how… how did this happen? Weren’t you unable to learn martial arts because you suffer from Nine Yin Severed Meridians?”

Guyang Cheongang looked at her shocked face and smiled bitterly.

He struggled to hide his body’s trembling as it reached its limit and answered.

“There are circumstances difficult to explain. Please understand, Elder Sister.”

Heo Choryeong had many more questions she wanted to ask, but seeing his pale face, his appearance as if he might collapse at any moment, and the determination in his eyes, she closed her mouth.

Now was not the time to interrogate him.

“Alright. I won’t ask now. But… thank you, Gang-je. It would have been dangerous without you.”

“Elder Sister, we need to leave this place first. Those bastards might wake up soon.”

“Right.”

Heo Choryeong nodded and carefully supported the swaying Guyang Cheongang’s arm.

The two quickly left the dark alley as if nothing had happened.

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