Defying the Heavens Scholar - Chapter 35

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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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Against the Heavens, a Scholar in Translation 35

Episode 35. The Demonic Heavens Gate.

I did not tense the hand gripping my sword. I already knew that the moment I did, it would crumble all the faster.
Instead, I drew a deep breath and pushed the Nameless Heart Method to its absolute limit.
Since my body had already collapsed once, the flow was not smooth.
Yet I had no choice now.

“Are you truly certain?”

To Tae Jun Mu’s question, I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and nodded silently.
In that instant, two blades came in simultaneously.
Tae Jun Mu responded with veins bulging in his hands, and I guided one of the blades toward myself to lighten his burden.

The opponent’s swordplay could not be described merely as fast.
The trajectory flowed as though beginning and ending did not exist separately, and within a single movement, there were already two, three variations folded inside.
My eyes could see it clearly, yet my body was not prepared to follow it all.
So I did not block.
The moment the blade touched, I released the tension from my wrist and let the force slide to the side. It was the way of Wudang.
A supple response that accepts the opponent’s force and flows it through while shaking their center. But I already knew that alone was insufficient.
Where force flows through leaves a void. And the next strike enters that void.

In that fraction of a moment, I twisted my stance. Short and low, the footwork skimmed the ground and slid my body sideways.
Woven within it were both the Lightness Skill footwork Tae Jun Mu had taught me and the Jeolwi Step of the Namgung Family.
The Jeolwi Step was unusual—a footwork that breaks the rhythm.
While ordinary footwork aims to advance faster, more smoothly, more fluidly, the Jeolwi Step of the Namgung Family uniquely fractured the flow of movement, making the direction of travel impossible to predict.

Through this, I slipped from my opponent’s sight while simultaneously claiming the next position first.
The center of the fight shifted minutely. The opponent’s blade, recognizing this, also adjusted its trajectory minutely.
But the opponent did not intend that trajectory. I made it so.

Do Yu Jeon Wi Gyeong.

A method that guides the opponent’s choices based on where I stand, making those choices ultimately enter within my flow.
Not forcing them toward me, but ensuring that the path they find most natural already lies within a framework I have constructed.

In that instant, I raised my blade toward the sky.
The Thousand Swords that Gyeong A Sung had shown me. Thousands of blades filling the void and raining down, that overwhelmingly tyrannical sword technique—I recalled it exactly.
I cannot replicate it perfectly. Yet I can follow its form.
The density of the sword energy is undoubtedly insufficient, and the number is too few. Yet by itself it narrows my opponent’s choices. Just as before, his blade curved sharply and cut through empty air with persistence.
As he endlessly parried the cascading sword energy, his body trembled minutely for an instant.
No matter how emotionless he was, his body had instinctively hesitated before something he had never encountered.

The falling sword energy was rapidly transforming its trajectory and shape. The reason was none other than Natural Harmony Realm.
I poured the flow of Natural Harmony Realm into the power of Thousand Swords, pressing him hard.
His robes tore swiftly.
Flesh from his hands, chest, and face scattered under my sword energy without mercy.
He likely believed he was defending correctly and parrying my sword energy, but within the Do Yu Jeon Wi Gyeong, he was revealing far too many openings to me.

I seized that moment and drove forward.
I bent my blade straight and thrust it in, pressing down as though stamping with the solidity of Shaolin’s rigidity.
At the same time, the forces intent on destroying each other’s structure clashed head-on and exploded outward.
The shockwave traveled up my wrist, shook my bones, twisted my inner force, and resonated deep within my chest.

Crack.

But in that exchange, my opponent lost his left arm.
Even as my breath caught in my chest, I did not release the blade.
The flow continued unbroken across this knife’s edge of balance.
In that moment, I understood clearly: this was neither Wudang’s way nor Huashan’s.
Shaolin’s solidity and the Namgung Family’s footwork carved open those infinitesimal gaps, creating space for the next motion, while Wudang’s fluidity twisted through every collision, binding them seamlessly together.

Huashan’s subtlety compressed the space itself, and the Demonic Sect’s straight, piercing destruction cut through it all like a blade through silk.

None of it existed separately any longer—all of it flowed as a single current. This was Gwilyu Myeol Do, the art I had awakened to. Its completeness still eluded me, yet this had been my intention all along.

* * *

It was shallow. Not deep, but it found its mark.
The tip of my blade lodged in the chest of the Anyeong Gak assassin, and a thin ribbon of blood sprayed upward from the gap.
But he was not a living man.
With one hand clamped around my sword, he drove his heel up into my abdomen with terrible force.

A choked gasp tore from my throat.

The impact was so violent that I was hurled backward, my body tumbling across the ground as I fell.
In that instant, someone came hurtling down toward me.

Dok Go Hwan.

His face bore a thin, vicious smile as he gripped his blade.
It was the smile of someone possessed by a base intention—as if to say: if I cannot have it, no one else will either.
With no way left to block or evade, Dok Go Hwan’s sword descended toward my throat.
The air itself fractured with a sharp snap.
Without warning, as though space itself had been compressed, Dok Go Hwan’s body was thrust backward. His eyes widened in confusion.

“How dare you break the law of this place!”

A voice shook the mountainside like thunder.

“G-Goak… Goak Yeom. What… are you doing here…?”

Dok Go Hwan’s voice emerged strained, bewildered.
Goak Yeom. The master of Anyeong Gak.
He displayed no force, no presence at all—yet his mere standing there filled the space with a pressure so absolute it seemed to order all chaos.
His gaze swept past me and fixed upon Dok Go Hwan.

“That is enough.”

His words were terse, direct. Dok Go Hwan’s eyes trembled as he spoke.

“Why do you stop me?”

Goak Yeom did not answer. Instead, his head tilted—barely a fraction.
The direction of his gaze. And the place where I had fallen. There, a single stone monument stood.

The characters were carved into it with sharp clarity.

“No conflict is permitted within Macheun Gate. Not even if you are the Sect Leader’s own disciple.”

The air settled completely. No one moved.
I remained there, collapsed, breathing hard.
My whole body ached as though shattered. And yet, I lived.

* * *

I stood within Macheun Gate, yet my breathing remained ragged, my body barely capable of holding itself upright, and still my gaze drifted naturally outward.
Only I had finished. Above the ridge, the sound of clashing blades continued without end—Tae Jun Mu’s sword tearing roughly through space as it met the weapons of Anyeong Gak’s fighters, and through those intervals, Yeon Hwa Rin’s movements sliced in sharp and precise, the battle raging on unabated.

I clenched my teeth, barely perceptibly.
It was the flow I had anticipated. The moment one crossed Macheun Gate, the fight would end.
So I had tried to cross, and I had crossed it at last.
But the problem was that those two had not yet crossed Macheun Gate.
Dok Go Hwan showed no sign of intending to let them live—he issued no command to withdraw.
He was watching me as though ordering me to witness their deaths.

That was when it happened.
Goak Yeom’s gaze turned toward me, ever so slightly.
Along with it came his telepathic transmission, echoing through my mind.

– You held your ground well. The Sect Leader has commanded it. If you cross Macheun Gate, you are to be brought before him.

At that transmission, I could not help but widen my eyes.

– And if I had not crossed…?
– Then you would have been worthless to see.

At those words, an involuntary sigh of relief escaped me. Yet not all problems had been resolved.

– Then what becomes of Senior Tae and Yeon Hwa Rin?

Goak Yeom gave a slight nod in response to my question.

– The moment the Sect Leader called for you, this battle was already over.

With that transmission, Goak Yeom raised his hand, and dozens of shadow clones flew down onto the stone monument of Macheun Gate.
And I saw them—dozens of elite masters of Anyeong Gak, said to be the premier force of the Demonic Sect.

“Master Goak!”

At their appearance, Dok Go Hwan’s eyes widened and he cried out.
Goak Yeom answered with a Lion’s Roar.

“The Sect Leader has called! Should you not halt at once, I shall take your head—disciple or not!”

As his Lion’s Roar shook the mountainside, Dok Go Hwan trembled, his sword hand quivering, and fell to his knees.

“This disciple, Dok Go Hwan… receives the command.”

In an instant, the battle was settled.
Tae Jun Mu let out a laugh as though bewildered and turned to look at me, while Yeon Hwa Rin simply collapsed where she stood.

“Come along.”

* * *

The path beyond Macheun Gate did not appear vastly different from what had come before, yet with each step forward, I could not deny that the grain of the air grew progressively heavier.
Wind still blew and leaves still trembled, but those movements were nothing more than surface phenomena—beneath them lay an entirely different current, one I could distinctly perceive.
It was as though the entirety of this space had been quietly pressed down by something invisible.
That pressure was not crude. Rather, it was refined to an extraordinary degree.
Not long after, the view opened, and in the center of a broad expanse carved as though from the ridge of the mountain itself, a single grand hall came into view.

Cheonma Hall.

It was magnificent. But not simply because of its scale.
The hall stood as though it were part of the mountain itself.
It had not been forced into place, but occupied its space as naturally as if it had existed there from the beginning.
The black tiles and the deep, settled timber held their weight even beneath the sun, their hue darkening rather than brightening.
The eaves extended sharply yet maintained a balance that was never excessive.

There were no ornate decorations, yet nothing was lacking. It was complete in itself.
I did not stop walking. Yet as I drew closer to the hall, each step grew heavier.
Breathing became subtly difficult. And then—a sense of wrongness assailed my five senses.
Centered on the great hall, different forces lay layered upon invisible points throughout the space.
Not killing intent, not momentum—something more fundamental than that, a power felt at a deeper level.
The moment I sensed it, I stopped.
Then a low laugh drifted from beside me. It was Tae Jun Mu.
He drew a long breath and gazed toward Cheonma Hall.

“Hah… that’s rather excessive.”

His laugh seemed light, but his eyes held no warmth whatsoever.

“So all the masters of Anyeong Gak, called the greatest of the Demonic Sect, have gathered here… I’d count at least twenty.”

Then Yeon Hwa Rin, standing beside him, slowly opened her mouth.

“Numbers do not matter. Each one, each one is entirely… the same caliber as those you saw outside.”

At Yeon Hwa Rin’s words, Tae Jun Mu raised his voice as if to be heard.

“The same caliber? Do you think all those in the Harmony Realm dwell in the same state? Had it not been for you and Myo Jin alone, even a handful of those dogs clinging to me wouldn’t have made me budge.”

Goak Yeom, who had been walking ahead, stopped and fixed his gaze upon Tae Jun Mu.
Then he spoke in a low voice.

“Should the opportunity arise, I would wish to face you formally—you who are called one of the Ten Greatest Warriors of the Martial World. During the Jeong Ma Great War, I had no such chance, occupied as I was with assisting the Sect Leader.”

At Goak Yeom’s words, Tae Jun Mu nodded deeply.

“Excellent. I too have been curious about the true strength of the renowned Master of Anyeong Gak.”

As they exchanged these brief words, the atmosphere gradually settled.
And then I saw it—three characters hanging before the great hall.

Cheonma Hall.

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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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