Martial God of the Sun and Moon - Chapter 57

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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 57
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“The entrance! The entrance won’t open!”
Boom! Crash!
Every structure in the tomb chamber began to collapse.
Combat had ceased long ago.
The warlords swarmed like ants toward the passage they’d entered through, pounding against the stone blocking the entrance.
“Young Master!”
“Young Master, what is this!”
“Wait! Quiet down!”
Dokgo Myeong surveyed his surroundings, blood vessels bulging in his eyes.
‘Damn it. This is bad.’
The world perceived through his sensory meridians was drenched entirely in red.
All sides were sealed. Every entrance was blocked, and the ceiling’s collapse accelerated by the moment. No path to survival appeared.
‘No. There must be a way out. Something… something I’m overlooking…’
“Wait, the entrance?”
Dokgo Myeong’s eyes gleamed as he suddenly turned his head toward something.
“There is! There is one!”
“Pardon? What do you mean, sir!”
“Geum Seok-du! Seo Ryun! Run! There’s one entrance that isn’t blocked!”
“Young Master! All the entrances are sealed…”
“Ah! The way we came in!”
While Seo Ryun struggled to grasp the situation, Geum Seok-du caught on first and cried out.
“Look there, sir! It appears the mechanism broke because of the stone wedged in the entrance!”
“…!”
Joy flashed across Seo Ryun’s eyes.
Indeed, only the entrance through which they’d arrived wasn’t sealed by the mechanism. A stone had simply rolled in and become lodged.
“Hurry!”
Thud!
Dokgo Myeong kicked off the ground without hesitation.
Then he barked sharply at every follower his eyes fell upon.
“You bastards! This is no time to stand around! Follow me! There’s an escape route!”
“What is this guy?”
“Shut up and follow!”
“Ah, well…”
The voice came from a youth barely more than a boy, yet its force was extraordinary.
Overwhelmed by his momentum, the followers began falling into formation one by one, pursuing Dokgo Myeong as if grasping at straws.
“Here!”
Dokgo Myeong’s eyes shone brilliantly.
“Break through here and the path to survival opens!!”
Dokgo Myeong arrived at the entrance in a flash and bellowed urgently.
Only then did the followers’ expressions shift.
“The mechanism truly hasn’t activated, has it?”
“Destroy it! Destroy it right now!”
“Yes!!”
Boom! Crash!
The gathered crowd rushed forward as one, clinging to the massive stone blocking the entrance and pouring their inner energy into it.
‘Damn thing won’t break!’
Bang! Kaboom!
Even if it wasn’t from the deepest stone chamber, the boulder had originally been the size of a house.
With death at their doorstep, there were no more enemies or allies. Those who had sought to kill each other over weapons now joined forces.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Please! Please break!”
Just as the martial artists following Dokgo Myeong poured their inner energy without regard for internal injuries.
Crack! Screeeech!
The stone crumbled and air rushed violently inward.
Beyond it.
A perfectly intact, stretching passage unfolded before their eyes.
“It’s b-broken! An escape route!”
“Waaahhhhh!”
“Get in! Hurry in!”
The followers poured into the passage like grains of rice falling through a funnel.
“Young Master! Please enter quickly! There are too many people!”
“Young Master! Hurry!”
Seo Ryun and Geum Seok-du shouted, looking at Dokgo Myeong.
But in that moment, Dokgo Myeong shook his head.
“Young Master?”
“Go first.”
“What? What do you mean!”
“I have something I need to finish.”
“What? That’s impossible!”
Before they could protest, Dokgo Myeong seized both Seo Ryun and Geum Seok-du by their collars.
“Gasp!”
“No!”
Whoosh!
Dokgo Myeong hurled Geum Seok-du and Seo Ryun toward the passage like discarded cargo.
“What are you—ugh!”
“Young Master!”
The two men, separated in the surging crowd, called out desperately for Dokgo Myeong, but were swept away without further resistance.
“I’m here. I’ll follow shortly.”
With those words, Dokgo Myeong turned his body around.
Boom! Crunch!
Dokgo Myeong began walking in the opposite direction from the crowds surging toward the exit.
Thud!
“Damn it! Why is he coming this way… Gasp!”
Dokgo Myeong glanced at the martial artist whose shoulder he’d bumped and continued forward.
The martial artist trembled and swallowed hard.
‘What kind of expression is that….’
Would the face of one meeting their lifelong enemy look like this?
His rigid face bore not a trace of emotion.
With each deliberate step, blood seemed to drip from his body. Neither the cascading debris nor the accelerating collapse could impede his advance.
Boom!
The young man suddenly kicked off the ground.
Toward the altar at the center of the perilously collapsing site.
* * *
Corpses lay scattered around Gi Sohwa.
They were the Mogyeong Sega’s Cham Yong-dae. All were dead except for one survivor.
“This, this is atrocious….”
Moyong Ryung trembled as he looked up at Gi Sohwa.
Gi Sohwa curled her crimson lips.
“Don’t complain. Haven’t the hands of you all shed far more blood than this?”
“P, please spare me. I was wrong. I was wrong….”
“Ahahaha! If I spare you, you’ll live? In this situation?”
Gi Sohwa threw her head back and laughed.
“Still, it’s true that it’s sturdy. I detonated dozens of barrels of gunpowder, yet it won’t collapse easily.”
However solidly it was constructed, the collapse was proceeding far slower than anticipated.
“P, please. There must be an exit somewhere. No, there is one, isn’t there? If you just let me escape from here, I….”
“How pathetic.”
“Ah, no…!”
Crack!
Moyong Ryung couldn’t even cry out his final words as his neck snapped.
A death without bloodshed. The god she served would not save this one.
“Hmm, now… what?”
Gi Sohwa’s brow furrowed as she surveyed her surroundings.
‘What is that?’
One of the entrances that should have been completely sealed was wide open.
She could see martial artists gathering there, rushing out of the common area.
‘They broke through Shim-cheung Joong-am?’
Impossible.
Unless there was a master who had reached the pinnacle of cultivation, how could anyone break through in such a short time?
“Why would that….”
In that instant, Gi Sohwa felt her vision suddenly flood with brilliant light.
And that light engulfed her.
BOOM!
“Kugh!”
Gi Sohwa, sent flying several lengths backward, coughed up blood.
Staggering to her feet, she stared ahead with eyes that refused to believe what they saw.
“All those unsettling feelings I had about this incident, those too-convenient coincidences. Now I understand.”
Whoosh!
It was a young man.
A figure wreathed in killing intent emerged from the heart of the collapse.
“You wench.”
The young man’s lips parted slowly.
Gi Sohwa felt goosebumps erupt across her entire body in that moment.
“Twin Demon League… what is a fanatic of the Pure Blood Demon Sect doing here?”
But it was not Dokgo Myeong who had spoken—it was Dokgo Hyeon.
* * *
It was a conversation from some day I barely remembered.
-Captain. There must be somewhere you don’t hate, right? Whether it’s the Meng, the Paedobyeon, the Association, or whatever—why do you keep drawing the line like that? Is there truly nowhere among them that suits your taste?
It must have been a question Geum Seok-du had asked.
My answer had been this.
-There is nowhere.
On the battlefield, soldiers were nothing but numbers, not people. Only how many died and how many I killed mattered; no record was kept of their stories or the blood they shed.
Even understanding that it was unavoidable, I could not bring myself to favor my own Murim League, nor the Paedobyeon who had been our allies, nor anywhere else.
-But there are those I despise more than others.
I despised both the Murim League and the Paedobyeon.
Yet there were those I truly hated.
The Bloodfiend Sect and the Pure Blood Demon Sect—what the world called the Twin Demon League.
Those arch-enemies who reduced countless bonds of family and comrades to mere numbers.
Because of them, I could only hold dying friends in my arms, could not even recover the bodies of those like family, and had to abandon fellow soldiers and flee to save a comrade.
And now.
A fanatic of that Twin Demon League appeared before my eyes.
* * *
“Now I see. It was already… yes, it was from the beginning.”
Dokgo Myeong spoke, his crimson eyes flashing.
“Concealing identity and infiltrating without a trace, orchestrating events from the shadows. It was the specialty of those pathetic Pure Blood Demon Sect dogs.”
It was strange, if anything could be called strange.
Zhongyuan had as many masters as grains of sand on a beach.
No matter how much the chaotic times delayed response as the warlords of the realm shed blood against each other, the Twin Demon League pushed forward through Zhongyuan with eerie swiftness.
This incident was no exception. The list was endless.
Whoooosh!
A stone fragment tumbled from the ceiling, landing right beside Dokgo Myeong.
Dokgo Myeong didn’t even spare it a glance. He simply advanced toward Gi Sohwa with heavy, deliberate steps, as if stamping the earth beneath his feet.
“Cough! You… just who are you…?”
“Blood-crimson hands with veins bulging, inner energy circulation near the曲池穴 acupoint—the Black Blood Demon Hand? Are you a disciple of the Black Water Demon Lord?”
“…!”
“No, that can’t be right. If so, you wouldn’t be merely at this level. Are you one of the great rats from Zhongyuan?”
Gi Sohwa couldn’t believe her ears.
‘This is impossible.’
The sect had not yet revealed itself.
She herself had only recently learned the true name of the sect that had taken her in.
Yet this young man knew that name precisely.
Moreover, he spoke of the sect leader’s alias—something she herself didn’t even know.
“That name… how do you know that name!?”
“In this vast Zhongyuan, do you truly believe no one knows of your cult’s existence?”
“Impossible! It cannot be! Who are you? How do you know all of this!?”
“My name is Dokgo Myeong.”
Tsssssss!
The bright, pure inner energy ignited with a terrifying killing intent.
“Remember it well—it will be the last name you hear in your lifetime.”
Boom!
In the next instant, Gi Sohwa lost sight of Dokgo Myeong. All she saw was a brilliant flash of crimson light.
Crash!
* * *
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Gi Sohwa saw the young man’s hand blade descending with the force of a single stroke cleaving heaven and earth.
‘When did he close the distance?’
There was no time to think further.
Gi Sohwa hastily extended her palm to meet the attack.
Crack!
A cry of pain escaped her lips as the impact threatened to shatter her hand.
But it wasn’t over.
Boom!
A crimson flash blazed from the corner of her vision.
‘A leg technique?’
A kick—a blade-like sweep aimed at her knee.
Bang! Crash!
“Ugh!”
Excruciating pain shot through her thigh.
She barely twisted her pelvis to protect the joint, but the tremendous impact sent her upper body tilting.
“Krraaagh! How dare you!”
Gi Sohwa drew upon her sinister energy, channeling the Black Blood Demon technique.
It was a martial art she had learned while facing death itself, taught by an eccentric master she’d met while being sold to pirates.
She had built herself through hellish years of torment. This hothouse flower of a man should never have been able to overcome it.
Boom! Crash-crash-crash!
The Black Blood Demon technique, the methods of Black Wind Palm, the Extreme Divine Connection, and the Flame Heaven Strike converged, creating countless explosive sounds in the air.
Gi Sohwa gasped in shock.
‘He swept all of that away?’
Crack! Thud!
Gi Sohwa’s limbs began moving in frantic patterns.
Whenever she extended her arm, it was immediately blocked; wherever her foot needed to land, his foot was already waiting there.
It felt as though I were fighting a master several levels above me. Yet there shouldn’t have been such a disparity in martial prowess.
‘Does he understand the patterns? How is this possible!’
In that moment, Dokgo Myeong’s fist and Gi Sohwa’s palm collided.
Boom! Crash!
Both Gi Sohwa and Dokgo Myeong were pushed back several steps simultaneously.
Dokgo Myeong was pushed back further, but his recovery was also faster.
Crack!
The ground where Dokgo Myeong had planted himself trembled, sending up a spray of stone dust.
Gi Sohwa’s eyes widened in shock.
‘A body tackle? Such crude brutality…!’
Crack!
Gi Sohwa took the direct hit and bounced back several paces.
She swallowed down the blood rising in her throat and clenched her lips tightly.
‘This man is no trivial opponent. If this continues, I’ll be dragged down with him. I must dispose of him quickly!’
A decision had to be made. The moment of hesitation was brief.
“Hnngh!”
Whoooosh!
Gi Sohwa’s energy transformed.
Her fingertips, which had been blood-red, began to darken into a complete black.
Black Blood Demon technique, Explosive Blood technique.
A forbidden method that drew upon innate true qi—something that should never be used—had been activated.
“Explosive Blood technique? You’ve truly lost your mind, woman.”
“So you know of it too. Since it’s come to this, I won’t simply kill you. I’ll capture you alive!”
Gi Sohwa extended her hand once more.
Screeeech!
Energy exploded outward, releasing a sound like metal grinding against metal.
Though I read the patterns and extended my arm, Gi Sohwa’s palm strike was faster.
Thump!
Dokgo Myeong, struck in the chest, was sent flying backward.
“Ahahaha! Where did that earlier momentum go?”
Crash! Crash! Splurt!
A stream of blood trickled from Dokgo Myeong’s lips.
The technique can be read? Then I’ll simply overwhelm it with power that defies counterattack.
A flash of exhilaration crossed Gi Sohwa’s face.
‘Perfect. That fool has no finesse in evasion or defense! He’s merely been suppressing it with faster counterattacks!’
Boom!
Gi Sohwa closed the distance in a single breath, thrusting her hand forward like a spear.
Rip!
Dokgo Myeong’s forearm split open.
I could see his confident expression harden.
Dokgo Myeong reached out to shake her off.
Gi Sohwa’s eyes flashed with light.
“Hahaha! Got you!”
Gi Sohwa extended her other hand like a pouncing beast, seizing Dokgo Myeong’s fist.
Crack! Crunch!
A sound like a walnut shell shattering echoed out.
Blood sprayed from the hand crushed by grip strength alone.
‘I’ve won!’
The moment I was certain of victory.
Chill!
Gi Sohwa urgently released her grip and leaped backward.
“…!”
Whoooosh!
The air directly before her face was swept away.
A foot blade strike. Even as his hand shattered, Dokgo Myeong had swung his leg.
“You… you madman…”
“I don’t want to hear that from you Twin Demon League dogs.”
Dokgo Myeong spoke with an expressionless face.
Simultaneously, his gaze grew heavy and sunken.
‘I’m exhausted.’
My inner power had hit bottom.
Climbing Guhuashan, entering Bidong, and reaching this tomb chamber—how many battles had I fought?
Boom! Rumble!
Now even dodging falling debris was becoming difficult. The collapse was accelerating beyond control.
‘I could still kill her right now.’
But this matter could not end so simply.
There was much I needed to hear from this woman.
One step.
I needed just one more step.
‘Now.’
Dokgo Myeong’s eyes gleamed with intensity.
‘I must break through the wall now.’
The Next Sky of the Heavenly Boundary.
Dokgo Myeong began striking that thick wall.

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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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