Ice Dragon of Namgung - Chapter 38

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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 38
The warriors of the Seo Mun Family stood before the grand gates of the Tae Ho Sect.
Rather than ambush as the Tae Ho Sect had done, they challenged their foes openly and directly.
“I am Seo Mun Chu, patriarch of the Seo Mun Family. Five days ago, the Tae Ho Sect launched a night raid on our home. I have come to demand an accounting for this crime. Let the master of the Tae Ho Sect come out at once.”
Seo Mun Chu infused his voice with Inner Force as he shouted.
His words rang out sharply, carrying across the surrounding space.
It was a declaration meant to broadcast the justice of the Seo Mun Family’s cause for all to hear.
The people of Ho Ju would learn from that proclamation exactly why the Seo Mun Family was attacking the Tae Ho Sect.
Yet the Tae Ho Sect answered with only silence.
“I say again: let the master of the Tae Ho Sect come out at once. If you do not, I will enter and demand an accounting myself.”
Even to this second call, the Tae Ho Sect gave no response.
“I have already offered you a chance. It is you, the Tae Ho Sect, who have spurned it.”
Seo Mun Chu turned to address his warriors.
“We attack the Tae Ho Sect now!”
At Seo Mun Chu’s command, the warriors of the Seo Mun Family immediately smashed through the sect’s main gate.
Upon entering the courtyard of the Outer Court, they found the warriors of the Tae Ho Sect already arrayed in formation.
The Seo Mun warriors charged straight toward them.
Then, from the roofs of the buildings rising on either side, the warriors of the Tae Ho Sect emerged into view.
All of them were armed with bows.
They intended to rain arrows down from above, striking at the Seo Mun warriors below.
The courtyard of the Outer Court was open on all sides.
There was nowhere to hide from the arrows streaming down from both roofs.
Dodging or deflecting them would be necessary—but neither task was as simple as it sounded.
“Loose the arrows!”
Gang Gyeong Hak, the master of the Tae Ho Sect, flashed a confident smile and gave the order.
But his smile did not last long.
Just as the Tae Ho warriors raised their bows to fire, Nam Goong Geom and the four captains of the Dragon Sword Unit appeared upon the roofs.
Before launching the attack, Nam Goong Geom had sensed the interior of the Tae Ho Sect’s grounds with his spiritual perception.
There he had discovered the Tae Ho warriors lying in wait upon the roofs.
Nam Goong Geom grasped at once that their plan was to rain arrows from above.
He divided the task with the four captains of the Dragon Sword Unit, assigning each pair to a side.
As the Seo Mun warriors engaged the defenders below, drawing their attention forward, Nam Goong Geom led his force up onto the roofs.
Nam Goong Geom took the western roof while the four captains took the eastern.
The Tae Ho warriors on the roofs were startled by their sudden appearance.
But once they assessed the numbers, their expressions shifted.
Especially those on the western side looked utterly incredulous.
Thirty men stationed on the roof of the western building.
Yet Nam Goong Geom had climbed up alone.
They found him laughable.
Even more so when they saw his youthful face.
In that moment of carelessness, Nam Goong Geom seized his advantage.
He swept toward them like wind itself.
His sudden display of Body Movement Technique startled the Tae Ho warriors, who scrambled desperately to raise their bows.
But Nam Goong Geom’s blade was faster still.
Sword Wind cascaded from his weapon, sweeping across the warriors before him.
Caught in the torrent, they were flung left and right, tumbling from the roof.
Without pause, Nam Goong Geom pressed through the gaps, unleashing another wave of Sword Wind.
“Stop him!”
The remaining warriors hurriedly cast aside their bows and drew their swords.
At such close quarters, their bows were useless.
But before they could even grip their blades properly, Nam Goong Geom’s Sword Wind engulfed them.
“Ahhhhh!”
Screaming, the warriors were swept from the roof and plummeted to the ground below.
Those still standing on the roof quickly drew their swords and rushed at Nam Goong Geom.
Nam Goong Geom let out a faint chuckle and brought his blade crashing down before them.
Boom!
The roof caved in beneath them, and the warriors crashed downward.
Of the thirty men who had begun on the roof, more than half had already fallen.
Those still standing finally understood.
Nam Goong Geom had climbed alone because he alone possessed the skill to dispatch them all.
“All of you at once!”
The remaining martial artists rushed toward Nam Goong Geom.
“Even better for me, then.”
Nam Goong Geom pushed off the rooftop and launched himself into the air.
The martial artists on the roof looked up in alarm.
In that instant, a spiraling Sword Wind erupted fiercely from Nam Goong Geom’s blade.
And it descended toward the martial artists on the roof.
“Get down!”
The martial artists on the roof threw themselves clear in panic.
Boom-crash!
The spiraling Sword Wind drove down onto the rooftop, detonating in an explosion.
The martial artists who’d leapt from the roof were caught in the blast and sent flying.
Crash!
Unable to withstand the explosion, the rooftop collapsed entirely.
Nam Goong Geom crossed to the roof of an adjacent building.
Then he surveyed the opposite rooftop.
Nam Goong Chang and the Four Pillars were engaged with the archers.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, the Four Pillars pressed the archers hard.
Nam Goong Geom was simply incomparable; the Four Pillars themselves had reached the First Class realm.
Among their generation there was no question, and across the entire martial world, their skill was formidable.
By contrast, the archers of Tae Ho Sect were merely Second Class.
The gap between Third Class and Second Class was slight.
But the gap between Second Class and First Class was vast.
A single First Class martial artist could easily contend with four or five Second Class fighters.
And it was not merely the realm that differed.
The level of martial arts they had mastered differed greatly as well.
The martial techniques learned by ordinary Tae Ho Sect practitioners and the advanced techniques of the Nam Goong Family were in entirely different dimensions.
Just moving about on the rooftop was fundamentally different.
The Four Pillars moved freely on the rooftop as if it were flat ground, deploying their arts without constraint.
But the martial artists of Tae Ho Sect were limited in their movement.
The Four Pillars exploited that fact to overcome their numerical inferiority.
In fact, they had gone beyond merely holding their own—they were driving the Tae Ho Sect fighters back entirely.
The Tae Ho Sect martial artists fell from the roof one by one under their assault.
“Their skill grows sharper by the moment.”
Nam Goong Geom watched the Four Pillars’ martial arts with a satisfied expression.
From ancient times, there was no training superior to real combat.
The Four Pillars were growing noticeably stronger with each successive battle.
Yet they could not have advanced so rapidly through real combat alone.
It was all thanks to their Sparring Matches with Nam Goong Geom.
Through these matches, Nam Goong Geom had drawn out their martial arts to the very limit of their capabilities.
And he had spared no guidance to help them break through their own boundaries.
The counsel of Nam Goong Geom, who had reached the Absolute Realm in his past life, was as precious as gold and jade to them.
As his instruction through Sparring Matches combined with their embodied understanding through real combat, their martial arts were developing rapidly.
Nam Goong Geom withdrew his gaze from them and surveyed the battle unfolding in the Outer Court courtyard.
Overall, the Seo Mun Family held the advantage.
Though Tae Ho Sect had greater numbers, the Seo Mun Family possessed superior skill.
Had the archers hidden on the rooftops unleashed their arrows, the tide would have turned completely.
But thanks to Nam Goong Geom and the Four Pillars of the Dragon Sword Unit eliminating them in time, the battle flowed in the Seo Mun Family’s favor.
By that reckoning alone, the Seo Mun Family appeared likely to win.
Yet there remained one crucial clash that could reverse everything.
It was the duel between Seo Mun Chu, head of the Seo Mun Family, and Gang Gyeong Hak, Sect Master of Tae Ho Sect.
The two were engaged in fierce, intense exchanges.
Seo Mun Chu and Gang Gyeong Hak were matched in realm.
Their martial arts too were difficult to distinguish in superiority.
It was, frankly, unexpected.
Nam Goong Geom had not anticipated that Gang Gyeong Hak, Sect Master of Tae Ho, would prove skilled to this degree.
Yet the Gang Gyeong Hak he witnessed in person was in no way inferior to Seo Mun Chu.
‘The Thunder Lightning Sword Technique is clearly not manifesting its true power.’
Nam Goong Geom observed Seo Mun Chu’s Thunder Lightning Sword Technique closely.
He wondered if last time Seo Mun Chu had simply not fought with full strength.
But looking at it now, that wasn’t the case.
Seo Mun Chu wasn’t harmonizing the speed and destructive power of the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique at all.
It wasn’t that Seo Mun Chu lacked talent.
If he did, he never would have reached the True Martial Realm in the first place.
For reasons Nam Goong Geom couldn’t fathom, Seo Mun Chu had clearly learned the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique in the wrong way.
The most likely scenario was that he’d lost the Thunder Dragon Incantation, the core formula of the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique.
The Thunder Dragon Incantation was a secret of the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique that only the head and successor of the Seo Mun Family could learn.
It was passed down solely through oral transmission.
If the head who had learned the Thunder Dragon Incantation died before passing it to his successor, it could become lost to time.
According to Nam Goong Geom’s knowledge, the previous head of the Seo Mun Family had mysteriously vanished.
The Seo Mun Family fell into chaos because of the suddenly missing head.
Internal strife erupted over the position of the new head.
The Seo Mun Family’s power, which had threatened the position of the Five Great Families at the time, suddenly weakened because of the damage from that internal conflict.
It was Seo Mun Chu who had put the family’s affairs in order amid the turmoil and ascended to the position of head.
So it was entirely possible that Seo Mun Chu had never received the Thunder Dragon Incantation.
But the Thunder Dragon Incantation wasn’t passed down solely through oral transmission.
The Seo Mun Family had worried about the Thunder Dragon Incantation being lost.
So they had hidden a parchment inscribed with the Thunder Dragon Incantation in a secret place within the family’s innermost sanctuary.
In his previous life, Nam Goong Geom had discovered that secret place by accident while visiting his maternal grandfather’s residence on a visit to his mother’s family.
Out of curiosity, he’d seen the parchment inscribed with the Thunder Dragon Incantation and memorized every word of it.
Even now, the Thunder Dragon Incantation remained perfectly intact in Nam Goong Geom’s mind.
If Nam Goong Geom wished, he could pass on the Thunder Dragon Incantation.
But he couldn’t recklessly impart the Thunder Dragon Incantation.
If Nam Goong Geom, who wasn’t even of the Seo Mun Family, knew of the Thunder Dragon Incantation—which was supposed to be passed down only through oral transmission—
anyone would grow suspicious.
So to pass on the Thunder Dragon Incantation, he would need to be able to explain how he came by it.
‘No, wait. I don’t need to reveal it as the Thunder Dragon Incantation at all.’
Since he didn’t know the incantation by that name, he could simply call it a formula to supplement the deficiencies in the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique.
Nam Goong Geom called out to Seo Mun Chu.
“A sword that is merely fast is easily deflected.”
At those words, Seo Mun Chu’s eyes snapped open.
Indeed, Seo Mun Chu’s blade had seized the opportunity with its speed.
But at the critical moment, it failed to pierce through Gang Gyeong Hak’s sword.
Then Nam Goong Geom’s words continued.
“Your strike must be swift as lightning, yet the blade’s edge must carry the weight of the thunder dragon.”
Seo Mun Chu realized that Nam Goong Geom was transmitting the very essence of the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique to him.
“The instant the thunder dragon’s claw makes contact, pour forth ten thousand pounds of thunderous force!”
The core of the Thunder Lightning Sword Technique was converting speed into weight.
The formula of the Thunder Dragon Incantation flowed from Nam Goong Geom’s lips.
In that moment of hearing the formula, Seo Mun Chu understood what his blade had been lacking.
And he wove the Thunder Dragon Incantation’s formula that Nam Goong Geom imparted into his own blade.
In an instant, Seo Mun Chu’s blade transformed.
Seo Mun Chu’s blade flew like lightning.
Boom!
And the moment it clashed with Gang Gyeong Hak’s sword, it unleashed a tremendous explosion.
The power of the thunder dragon now dwelt in his blade, which had once been focused on speed alone.
“What is this!”
Gang Gyeong Hak was taken aback by Seo Mun Chu’s rapidly transformed blade.
Each time Seo Mun Chu’s blade clashed with his, a massive shockwave from the explosion swept over Gang Gyeong Hak.
Gang Gyeong Hak couldn’t withstand the shockwave of those explosions and was driven back again and again.
What was astounding was that Seo Mun Chu’s blade grew faster and faster.
Speed heightened power, and power in turn heightened speed—a vicious cycle of escalation.
This was the true Thunder Lightning Sword Technique.
And then came the final strike.
Boom!
Unable to withstand the impact, Gang Gyeong Hak’s sword was sent flying from his hands.
Seo Mun Chu’s blade then became the claw of the thunder dragon, tearing across Gang Gyeong Hak’s chest.
Gang Gyeong Hak fell, blood spraying from his mouth and chest.
His eyes were filled with disbelief.
Seo Mun Chu, having felled Gang Gyeong Hak, turned with an expression of overwhelming joy to seek out Nam Goong Geom.
Nam Goong Geom raised his thumb toward Seo Mun Chu.
“Congratulations on mastering the true Thunder Lightning Sword Technique.”
Nam Goong Bing Ryong
Author |
Baek Wol Geom
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(주) Samyang C&C
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Editorial Department
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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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