I Prayed for a Murim Reincarnation, But I Was Born as the Youngest Imperial Prince - Chapter 33
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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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Chapter 33
Rather than the two hundred men rushing forward, and rather than the chief and the deputy chief leaping into the fray, Dan Suyeong closed the distance to Sa Oh-pyeong first.
The five first-class martial artists who had been closely flanking Sa Oh-pyeong stepped up first to block Dan Suyeong.
He gripped the sword resting at his waist.
Without even drawing it, he swung the weapon, sheath and all.
A solid energy condensed along the horizontal strike, manifesting into a rigid form.
It extended far past the actual length of the scabbard.
Thud.
Thump.
“Aargh!”
It was not a subtle, exquisite movement.
Just a simple, horizontal swing.
But it was incredibly fast and powerful.
With that single swing, three first-class martial artists rolled across the ground, emitting a heavy, battering sound as they collapsed.
“Ugh.”
“Gah, cough.”
If he had sharpened the energy, their bodies would have been cut clean in two.
Because of Seonwu’s order not to kill, he had deliberately made the strike blunt, allowing them to keep their lives.
However, because they were sent flying with several fractured ribs, they vomited large amounts of blood.
To be honest, this was a severe injury in its own right, a major wound that could have killed an ordinary civilian with weak martial arts.
But since they were first-class martial artists, it was a level of injury they could eventually recover from if they received proper treatment and diligently regulated their breathing to heal.
Though for the time being, the extreme pain and internal bleeding would pool blood in their lungs, making it difficult to even move or breathe.
Then, he extended his left hand toward the remaining two.
Before his fist could even make physical contact with their bodies, a blast of fist wind shot forth.
The opponents were no fools either, so they raised both hands in an attempt to block that fist wind, but…
The truly blinding fist wind arrived before their hands could even cover the targeted chest.
“Argh!”
Sure enough, accompanied by the sound of breaking bones, the opponent tumbled backward.
And as he extended his halfway-thrown left hand all the way to the end, a second blast of fist wind was unleashed.
While his companion beside him was being blown away, this Black Snake Sect Disciple tried to raise his saber horizontally to block the targeted point with the flat of the blade, but…
“Guh?”
He had clearly positioned the blade sideways along the trajectory of the incoming fist wind to take the hit, yet while the saber only trembled slightly, his chest burst inside.
An advanced fist technique that skipped over the obstacle in the middle to strike the opponent standing behind it.
Having used the five as sacrifices to retreat and rejoin his brothers, Sa Oh-pyeong watched this unfold, his eyes widening in sheer terror.
‘Even… Even if he’s in the Peak Realm, assuming he’s a chief disciple who received concentrated support from a prestigious sect! To possess such a high-level technique?’
Attaining the level of the Peak Realm and mastering the advanced techniques possible within the Peak Realm were two entirely different gaps.
Although Sa Oh-pyeong himself was not a Jeoljeong Gosu, he knew at least that much, which made him desperately wish for his master to arrive quickly.
‘He isn’t someone our three brothers and subordinates can stop on our own.’
It might be a different story if all three of them were at the peak of the High-Ascending Realm.
By using the subordinates as sacrifices to deplete the guy’s internal energy, and if the three of them held out with the Three Talents Formation, they might somehow endure.
Though it still felt like they wouldn’t be able to win…
But right now, there was absolutely no angle.
Even though they had received orders to charge immediately, seeing the first-class martial artists who held team-leader ranks get blown away in an instant made the rest of the subordinates freeze in fear.
This was always the problem with fighting a master.
In reality, if everyone risked their lives to swarm him, even a master would exhaust their internal energy and tire out, but once their morale was crushed, the novices would panic and turn into a disorganized rabble.
Nevertheless, thanks to the sacrifice of the five team leaders, they managed to gather and form the Three Talents Formation.
The Three Talents Formation of the three brothers, who had synchronized their movements countless times, was stable and truly exemplary, but Dan Suyeong did not stop and shot forward right in front of them.
The remaining Black Snake Sect Disciple members stood frozen in fear, unable to move.
‘Wow, he’s good.’
Seonwu marveled as he watched the series of combat maneuvers.
Of course, frankly speaking, even if he were told to do it himself, he could have pulled off that level easily.
In fact, he could have done it better.
If he had drawn upon all four of his divine arts and unleashed them simultaneously, he wouldn’t have just blown away five team leaders in the same span of time; he would have left all three brothers rolling on the floor by now as well.
‘Putting that aside, Dan Suyeong fights incredibly well.’
Deploying a single Jeoljeong Gosu into a sect of this caliber really means he can just smash everything to pieces all by himself.
And to think this was the result when he was holding back his hand because he had been told not to kill.
If he were allowed to fight freely without caring whether they lived or died, how far could he go?
Conversely, how far could he himself go?
‘Hmm…’
If it were the Single Sword of Absolute Shadow Banquet…
Realizing that he could turn this very place into a sea of blood in an instant, Seonwu shook his head.
Of course, he couldn’t just leave the Heuksa Sect alone after they had extorted other people’s property.
Even so, he didn’t intend to slaughter every single one of them.
Inflicting a punishment that far outweighed the crime was not justice either.
For now, breaking one bone at a time and making them reflect on their actions…
Confiscating their assets to return them to the victims.
Hmm, what else is there?
Two people had walked into a sect with over two hundred members.
And only one of them was doing the fighting.
Seonwu was lost in thought as if leisurely meditating, yet not a single person dared to charge at him.
Though his stance seemed relaxed and open, the ease radiating from him contrasted sharply with the rampaging Dan Suyeong, creating a different kind of dread.
Meanwhile, the chief and the two deputy chiefs, who were entirely occupied with trying to survive against Dan Suyeong, simply had no room to breathe, their blood running cold from the start.
“Hah, hah.”
All three were short of breath, their internal power destabilizing.
‘D-Damn it…’
The sword flying at them was still inside its sheath.
Even the sword Qi it condensed lacked the sharp edge meant for cutting, functioning purely to batter them bluntly.
In short, the opponent wasn’t taking them seriously.
He was likely refraining from killing strikes because of what the one called “senior disciple” over there had said about doing it “moderately well.”
However, it literally meant he was stopping just short of killing them.
Even with a sword functioning like a club, getting hit while it carried that much power and speed meant bones would easily shatter.
The three of them perfectly synchronized their hands and feet to respond, yet they were still pushed back.
An incoming sword strike.
If the three of them perfectly divided the force into three equal parts to disperse it, it was still manageable.
Moving in rhythm, six hands moved to block.
But the opponent subtly twisted the sword strike.
By altering the shape of the Qi erupting from the sword, he struck the hand of one of the three first.
And as the internal force poured inside through the struck hand, it felt like a tidal wave crashing violently within the body.
“Urgh.”
Still, being the chief, he didn’t get blown away in a single breath like his subordinates.
His stance wavered, but in that brief gap, his two brothers hurriedly shared and dispersed the impact.
Yet, they could not prevent blood from trickling down the corners of their mouths.
One strike.
With every single strike, the body of one of the three contorted.
“Cough.”
It wasn’t a minor internal injury.
It was a wound that twisted the inside of the body.
It was harder to take the second strike than the first, and taking the third strike consecutively was even more difficult.
Their Qi pathways fractured from the incoming assaults.
The internal force failed to properly connect to the hands meant to receive the blows.
Crunch.
When they blocked the fourth strike, the sound of the chief’s right hand bones shattering to pieces echoed out.
“Brother!”
Shouting, the other two extended their hands in any way they could to deaden the power of the sword strike.
But at that moment, Dan Suyeong extended his left hand, which he hadn’t used throughout the several exchanges of blows.
Was the fist a feint? Or was it a real strike?
Should they protect their brother, or themselves?
In that moment of conflict, the two reflexively raised their hands to block the menacing fist wind, but…
Contrary to its terrifying momentum, the fist wind that actually flew in was weak.
‘A feint!’
But by the time they realized it, Dan Suyeong’s sword had already smashed past the chief’s right hand and struck his left arm.
Crack.
The bone of his left arm broke, and the flesh tore open as a sharp bone protruded.
‘Can that even be reattached… right?’
Seonwu recalled that with the level of medicine in the Ming Dynasty from his past life, one could die from something like that, but he quickly dismissed the thought.
The medicine of the Great Long Empire was, surprisingly or naturally, not at the level of the Ming Dynasty.
In a world with Qi, internal energy, and spiritual medicine, they could easily prevent bacterial infections even without antibiotics.
An injury where the flesh tore and a bone popped out like that could be healed without a hitch.
It was just that internal energy wasn’t something everyone possessed in abundance, making it less accessible compared to modern medicine.
At any rate, with one person knocked out of commission like that, the fate of the remaining two was obvious.
When the three of them had struggled to block him, how could the two of them manage?
This time, Dan Suyeong genuinely blew away one man’s jaw with a fist, then brought the scabbard down hard to shatter the other man’s shoulder.
“Aaaargh!”
“P-Please spare us.”
Looking at the three who didn’t dare to counterattack further and were begging for their lives, Seonwu spoke.
“Hold on a moment.”
“Yes.”
Dan Suyeong, who had been extending his arm for the next strike, instantly suppressed his killing intent, straightened his posture, and came to stand beside Seonwu.
Seonwu smiled brightly at the three who were groaning and watching his every move.
“Now, let me ask again. You said you only told your subordinates to handle things well on their own, and they just acted willfully?”
Saying that, Seonwu glanced slightly at Dan Suyeong.
It was a fight that made him realize why the admiral had said he was better suited to be a hunting dog than a bodyguard, but…
‘He’s just wonderful.’
How great was it that he struck down the enemies instead so that he didn’t have to engage in trivial fights himself?
Must a bodyguard only be of the defensive type to count as one?
An offensive bodyguard is a bodyguard too.
Though his facial features resembled a wolf’s, a wolf that listens well to its master is basically a fierce hound, isn’t it?
At any rate, upon Seonwu’s repeated question, the expressions of the three Heuksa Sect brothers contorted even further.
The pain and injuries were immense, but the matter wasn’t going to end here.
‘Grandmaster…’
‘When on earth is Master coming…’
They couldn’t handle this on their own.
They had tried to buy time with words, but they hadn’t expected him to use brute force so abruptly like this.
‘Usually, when those orthodox faction bastards start weighing justifications, they play along for a bit.’
What on earth is this guy to be so ruthless without any of that?
One thing was certain.
For now, the junior disciple guy was a master…
And the senior disciple… anyway, the senior disciple was no ordinary guy either.
“That is… ugh.”
When he pretended to be unable to speak due to the pain mid-answer, Dan Suyeong took a step forward.
“Senior brother, shall I break a few more bones? I believe that will make him speak obediently.”
“Hmm, I’m sure it would, but let’s give him one more chance.”
Seonwu asked again.
“Did you really not know what your subordinates would do?”
How should he answer?
Even in this situation, Sa Oh-pyeong had to choose his words carefully.
‘If I say I didn’t know…’
He’ll beat me up for lying.
‘If I say I knew…’
He’ll beat me up for confessing to the crime?
No matter which way he looked at it, he could only think of developments where he would get thrashed even more.
‘Damn it, this is a total dilemma.’
My broken right shoulder hurts like hell.
It feels like no matter what answer I give, my left shoulder will end up shattered as well.
It would be a relief if only the shoulder broke.
If my neck snaps, I’m genuinely dead.
“Th-That is… I… I mean…”
“Shall I break a few fingers?”
“Hmm, what to do.”
Seonwu suddenly recalled a bad memory from his past life.
A real estate scam had narrowly missed him, but a friend who was reasonably close—though not as close as Lee Jun—had fallen prey to it and committed suicide.
Of course, these guys weren’t running a scam.
They were just openly taking over shops by force.
But the important point was that for the poor and destitute, having the wealth they had worked a lifetime to gather stripped away—whether through fraud or violence—was tantamount to losing the very strength to live out their lives.
The local government might have turned a blind eye to someone like this, but what reason did he have to show mercy?
If he punished this rabble as a chivalrous Xia, life in Sangdang County would become better, so what could possibly go wrong?
Before throwing them all into prison, it would be best for them to get beaten up a bit more.
It was at that moment.
“M-Master!”
The three dying men shouted, their faces brightening with relief.
Sensing someone with a fairly decent aura approaching the main gate of the Heuksa Sect, Seonwu also turned his head.
Though a scar marred his face, an old man who looked more seasoned with vast experience in the Jianghu rather than sinister stepped through the gate.
“What in the world is happening here?”
Because the old man’s presence was that of a Peak Realm master on par with Dan Suyeong, Seonwu smiled brightly.
‘Ohho, so there was a backer behind the three chiefs?’
If I had just passed by without knowing, I would have missed the root, wouldn’t I?
As expected, a person needs to have a bit of patience.
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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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