Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 78

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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 78

“You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Figured out what?”
“That when the higher Forms of the Plum Blossom Sword Technique unfold, even the Heavenly Demon Divine Art can’t do anything about it. That’s why you blocked it, isn’t it?”
Cheon Salseong’s brow furrowed.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be more careful from now on.”
Playing dumb, are we.
It didn’t matter anymore.
Things would be different from here on out.
Just now, he’d been caught off guard and gained no advantage, his momentum broken. But from this point forward, if Cheon Salseong tried to sever his chain of attacks, Seo Jun would exact a clear price in return.
His goal wasn’t technique mastery—it was victory.
He stepped back slightly, trying to build his Forms properly from the start again.
And as he raised his sword to unfold the Second Form.
Clang!
Seo Jun’s blade, appearing before him in an instant, blocked his sword path once more.
His sword couldn’t advance past his waist.
“You’re quick to react.”
Cheon Salseong, as if waiting for this, released the pressure in his arm, breaking the equilibrium with Seo Jun’s blocking sword and freeing his blade.
There was a price to pay for blocking his attacks.
His unimpeded sword moved freely into the next Form.
The speed of his arm was clearly faster than his opponent’s, and his sword path was efficiently direct.
This can’t be blocked.
A smile began to form naturally at the corners of his mouth.
Clang!
It was blocked again.
Seo Jun was smiling.
Arm extended, he blocked him lightly.
“…….”
This was bewildering.
Even when he stepped back, Seo Jun closed the distance instantly. So this time, to force some separation, Cheon Salseong swung his sword.
Or rather, tried to swing it.
Since he wasn’t unfolding a Form, and his motions weren’t fixed, he thought it would be hard to block—
Clang!
What?
Cheon Salseong’s eyes trembled as he saw Seo Jun’s blade positioned with exquisite timing against his own.
Why is this being blocked again?
It hadn’t even fully extended from his waist.
His speed was clearly much faster, and there was no hesitation whatsoever.
How?
‘Maybe I was shackled to the Forms from the start.’
It was bewildering, but more than that—
his pride was wounded.
The fact that his attacks were being blocked at a clearly slower speed meant his thoughts had been read.
He decided that from now on, he would abandon any obsession with Forms entirely and commit all his power to each moment’s engagement.
His pride wouldn’t tolerate being blocked again.
The moment he made that resolve, Cheon Salseong saw it.
Seo Jun swinging his sword with a leisurely expression.
“Go on then. Try blocking this one.”
So he wasn’t blocking anymore—he was attacking now?
From the motion of swinging his sword, it looked like a powerful strike.
‘I’ll stop it cleanly too!’
Block this attack first, then seize timing on the next move.
No matter how slow it seemed, in truth it wasn’t that relaxed.
Let your focus slip for just one second, and you’d take the blow.
But against rapid sword strikes, you had to dodge and parry constantly. One second?
That was nothing.
On the next one, he’d definitely parry it and launch a counterattack.
Clang!
Unfortunately, he didn’t manage the parry.
Even though he’d read the trajectory clearly, he was short by just 0.1 seconds—attempting a parry might have left him vulnerable.
So blocking first and preparing for the next was safer.
Whoosh!
Wait?
Seo Jun, recovering his sword after Cheon Salseong batted it away, stepped in deeper with one stride.
Thud.
Simultaneously, his blade aimed at Cheon Salseong’s neck from the opposite direction as before.
‘How is the chain of attacks so fast? And it’s a power strike?’
Had he misjudged the speed all along?
He made a quick decision.
Block rather than counter.
This block itself was certainly easy to execute.
But again, there wasn’t quite enough time for a proper parry, and that fact……
Thud.
Whoosh!
Seo Jun stepped closer again, bringing his sword down.
‘What the……’
Before he could even question it, the next attack was upon him.
The attacks themselves weren’t impressive.
The sword’s trajectory had no pattern, the rhythm was chaotic, but because he could read everything purely through speed—
it just repeated: Seo Jun approached while swinging lightly or arbitrarily, and Cheon Salseong stepped back, blocking with a hint of disappointment each time.
That was all.
But an inexplicable unease crept through his body.
His instinct seemed to issue a warning.
A warning that he couldn’t afford to be led around like this.
Cheon Salseong didn’t ignore the growing sense of urgency.
So to break free from this situation, he tried to retreat in one long step backward.
That’s when—
his feet suddenly wouldn’t move.
As if his ankle were bound by someone, he nearly lost his balance completely.
Was it because Seo Jun, stepping to his very face in a controlled stride, was bringing his sword down?
He must have been hasty. He’d made a mistake.
Whoosh!
He couldn’t take his eyes off the enemy’s blade.
His perception expanded instantaneously, and time seemed to slow.
The sword descended more slowly than before.
He knew he had to block. There was no time to dodge. So he made the quick choice. He knew what to do.
But the sensation that something was holding his body back persisted.
Only when the sword came within striking distance could he finally block.
Huff!
His breathing grew ragged from blocking at the last moment.
He’d lost his pace, missed his timing, made mistakes.
Where did it start going wrong?
He couldn’t tell.
Thud.
The sound of his feet digging into the dirt ground struck his ears with sharp clarity.
Then came—
Whoosh!
Without a moment to catch his breath, another sword path targeting his neck was drawn across the world.
‘Why is it so fast!’
The opponent’s attacks were both fast and slow.
Truly, they were.
Within this paradoxical situation, all he could do was block.
Clang!
Clang-clang!
With each step, Seo Jun swung leisurely, advancing.
And Cheon Salseong desperately blocked, retreating step by step.
But the fact that the opponent still hadn’t landed a strike was key.
‘Am I going to lose like this?’
He wrung his mind dry, and as he batted away Seo Jun’s sword, he conceived a counterattack path.
He found an opening.
0.1 seconds of time.
A gap that wouldn’t have appeared if Seo Jun’s sword speed were any faster.
Cheon Salseong gritted his teeth and thrust his blade at the opening.
‘Now!’
Whoosh!
But then—
even with his arm fully extended, his sword stopped just short of Seo Jun’s face.
“…….”
“…….”
It wasn’t as if he’d been given mercy.
The distance was just short.
If his feet had been a step further forward.
If he’d gripped the sword any longer.
He surely would have struck the enemy.
In that fleeting instant, he felt aggrieved as he locked eyes with Seo Jun, and terror flooded through him.
Clang.
The opponent, smiling exactly as before, parried the sword extended so close to his face and stepped in one pace closer.
Thud.
And, as if it were nothing, he continued his arm’s motion and brought the sword down.
A sword whose origin, speed, trajectory, and the exact spot where it would hit him were all crystal clear.
Yet he understood instinctively.
‘I can’t dodge this one. Damn it.’
Slice!
A blade grazing from shoulder through torso.
His health was reduced.
Even as he failed to comprehend why this was happening—
“Why aren’t you attacking? Go on, try attacking me.”
Seo Jun stepped back one pace and spoke, as if to give him a moment of rest.
An attitude of granting him a chance.
Cheon Salseong, unable to parse exactly what had happened, swallowed hard.
Gulp.
He gathered his wits. The fight wasn’t over yet.
That must have been what happened when he got caught up in the pace.
‘I buttoned it up wrong from the start.’
If he started over from the beginning—

* * *

The flow came back clearly.
But his sword was blocked again.
That restrained—no, even ‘restrained’ was too generous a word.
That careless motion blocked all his attacks from the start.
Breaking his sword path from the beginning of each Form, severing his momentum, blocking and countering.
It felt like being a mouse trying to find the way out of a maze.
Like a mouse found by the experimenter’s barrier from above, wandering left and right searching for an exit—
when the exit seems close enough to touch in a straight line, a barrier suddenly drops from the sky, and the mouse is toyed with.
As he wandered the maze, he found himself in a situation where he could only stare at the enemy’s sword again, unable to do anything.
A slight opening.
A slight twist.
A slight gap in time.
Every element involved in combat seemed to act against him as if this simply wasn’t his day.
‘What kind of bullshit is this!’
His health was nearly depleted.
‘If this goes on, I’ll lose without doing anything.’
Like everyone else.
‘That can’t happen.’
Cheon Salseong ultimately accepted his defeat in Round 1.
But since his health was being consumed anyway, even if it ended like this, at least he’d land one hit!
A resolve to live or die trying.
No Forms. No need to infuse Sword Qi.
Just one strike!
But that desperate desire—
Tap.
“That’s too bad.”
Cheon Salseong’s gaze lowered.
Once again, his sword was blocked by Seo Jun’s lightly extended blade.
“Go on then.”
“Ha.”
Damn it.

* * *

-Cleanly cut off the 7-win streak!
-Seo Jun is the Cult Leader! Seo Jun is the Cult Leader! Seo Jun is the Cult Leader! Seo Jun is the Cult Leader!
-Please take responsibility for the Demonic Cult! Take responsibility for the Demonic Cult! Please take responsibility for the Demonic Cult!
-Don’t dump that on us you crazy cult bastards ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten a 7-win streak without sniping or tricks, straight up walking in. That’s insane for real
-Still one round left
-But it’s obvious who’ll win, right?

* * *

“Uh……”
Bang Ju doubted his eyes.
Spectator Mode.
A game mode that shows a screen about 30 seconds slower than actual game time.
Since spectating was possible even on a computer, Bang Ju had broadcast the seventh match without burden from the opponent’s perspective instead of Seo Jun’s screen.
It was possible to view from a bird’s-eye perspective floating in the air, but because This Is Not Murim had requested the opponent’s viewpoint, Cheon Salseong’s perspective was displayed on the screen.
“……Was Seo Jun’s sword always that fast?”

-How are we supposed to answer that ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Real talk, it was crazy fast
-I thought he wasn’t using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art for a second
-No really, it doesn’t make sense
-Everything gets blocked ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Please stop approaching
-More than that, did the 2nd place guy just prove he’s trash? That guy was the ‘Greatest Under Heaven’ last time?
-How can you say that after seeing that ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

“No……”
Now he understood why This Is Not Murim had asked to watch from the opponent’s perspective.
Having seen it from the opponent’s point of view, he realized he’d been deeply mistaken.
Naturally, he’d known the Rankers weren’t all hype, but he’d genuinely suspected they were. Yet after experiencing the fight from the opponent’s perspective, all that doubt vanished.
“One thing’s for sure: Seo Jun is disgustingly skilled.”
Questions like “If that were me, how would I escape?” simply dissolved.
He felt certain that anyone standing in that position would’ve been helplessly overwhelmed.

-This seems right
-At this rate, isn’t he actually the Greatest Under Heaven?
-He’s really good
-From the opponent’s perspective there’s no answer ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Wait ㅋㅋㅋㅋ give us some commentary ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Commentary, huh.
“Give me a moment, everyone.”
Bang Ju sifted through past experiences and knowledge, pondering how best to explain this situation.
Hmm.
A childhood memory surfaced.
Playing baseball with friends.
When he was pitching, the ball he threw didn’t feel particularly fast.
The distance from mound to catcher even seemed longer.
But standing in the batter’s box, that ball’s approach speed felt faster than a bullet.
And the distance seemed so short.
In other words, perceived speed varies depending on the situation you’re in.
But this explanation alone wasn’t enough.
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just that Seo Jun is incredibly skilled? Since he knows all the opponent’s movements, he’d block everything. And the reason his attacks seem so fast is probably because he’s on the receiving end of them?”

-That was kind of scary
-He was moving so lazily but it was actually super fast
-The way he approaches one step at a time is ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ scary as hell

Everyone seemed to feel similarly.
The more he watched from the receiving end, the more he felt a creeping sense of being overwhelmed.
“Yeah, me too.”
As Bang Ju sympathized, a closer appeared again.

[‘This Is Not Murim’ has donated 200,000 won!]
[A sword that coerces choice—that is the Blunt Sword. If you read the post I left on the Discussion Board, you’ll understand.]

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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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