Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 109

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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 109. The Sword Demon’s Slaughter Dance
Crack-crack-crack!
A wave of black demonic energy took form at the center of Jin Heuk Cheon’s being.
Vast amounts of internal energy leaked outward, far beyond his control.
His skin split open, his white hair shot skyward, and the face that had seemed like a man in his mid-forties aged a decade in an instant.
“Crazy bastard. Is he a grandfather?”
“Khekhekhe! Child, you are truly special. Since I have long surpassed eighty years, you have leaped across roughly five times that span of years.”
“……What?”
Namgung Ho Yeon’s brow furrowed.
A man who looked unmistakably middle-aged was, in truth, a grandfather over eighty?
“Precisely because you are so special, I shall devour you even if it means postponing great merit.”
Thud!
Jin Heuk Cheon pressed his thumb against the center of his own chest.
Thump-thump-thump!
The heat of the Yeolhuk Sik Ma Gang Ki intensified, and the aging halted.
‘With this, the path to Man Sang Yu Sim has grown distant. But it matters not.’
Whoosh! Whoooosh!
Jin Heuk Cheon’s mad eyes were fixed not on the future, but on the present moment.
A young prodigy wielding the Uigi Yeondong.
If he could savor this unique delicacy one last time, what was breaking years of rigorous cultivation compared to that?
“Is that the Zhu An Technique you’ve mastered? How ugly, old man.”
“Hehehehe, not the Zhu An Technique, but the Heup Jeong Gong.”
“What?”
“It is said that the Devouring Demon Deng Lü appeared like a youth in his twenties even past one hundred years of age.”
Swish.
Jin Heuk Cheon ran his hand across his own face as he continued.
“I have not reached that realm, but should one absorb the life essence of others, truly wondrous things become possible.”
“……The Chae Gi Beop.”
“Child, I have just now burned through all the life essence I had accumulated for the next realm. Shall we settle accounts?”
Boom!
The air shattered with a deafening crack.
Jin Heuk Cheon vanished.
He appeared before her eyes.
“……!”
“I shall sever every sinew!”
Shear-shear-shear!
Jin Heuk Cheon, forming the Sik Hon Chae Do in his right hand and a hand-blade in his left, honed his Yeolhuk Sik Ma Gang Ki to a razor’s edge and unleashed a torrential barrage of slashes.
Clang!
She blocked with the Heukya Tae Geom, which had triggered the Gang Jin Cho Dong, but the result was far different from before.
Crack! Screech!
Crash!
Under the deluge of slashes pouring down like a downpour, the protective barrier of the Gang Jin Cho Dong shattered and crumbled.
Whoosh!
In that instant, Jin Heuk Cheon’s blade grazed Namgung Ho Yeon’s left shoulder.
“……!”
Namgung Ho Yeon immediately sensed something had gone terribly wrong.
“Phhehe! The Jeon Dan Gyeong Rak, as it is called. A technique of softening flesh to render the meat tender!”
The Jeon Dan Gyeong Rak, imbued with the properties of searing fire, was a type of penetrating technique.
It burned the scalding energy of the Yeolhuk Sik Ma Gang Ki deep into an opponent’s body.
Ordinarily, one could disperse it through careful breath control, but here in this death-match, every fraction of a moment was precious.
“Ugh!”
Namgung Ho Yeon, who had retreated in a Z-pattern using the Jin Bo step, tried to move her shoulder, but it was useless.
‘Then I must!’
Rumble! Boom!
Thunder and lightning erupted as red clouds of electricity cycled through the Forward Lightning and Backward Lightning phases within her Qi Hae Hyeol.
Simultaneously, the Cheonrae Gi burst forth in white lightning, engulfing her entire body.
“Hahahaha!”
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Jin Heuk Cheon laughed wildly as he stepped on the Pohwa Bobo, emerging amid the black demonic energy scattering from Namgung Ho Yeon’s left side.
Targeting weakness was the hunter’s most natural instinct.
Jin Heuk Cheon swung his Sik Hon Chae Do at Ho Yeon’s immobilized left hand.
But then.
Screech! Clang!
Ho Yeon’s left hand moved with sudden speed, drawing the Cheonrae Geom from his belt and deflecting Jin Heuk Cheon’s attack.
“What?!”
“Die!”
Crackle-snap-pop!
The Jeon Ryeu Sa traveled up the blade of the Cheonrae Geom, forming a Qi Aura, and then another layer of Qi Aura stacked upon it.
Gi Gang Jung Gyeop.
Followed by the Nag Rae Chu Gyeok.
Flash!
Light flickering on and off.
A distant ringing in the ears.
Blood spray scattering.
The smell of searing flesh.
“Ugh! What in the world is this?!”
Jin Heuk Cheon, his right forearm now branded with a lightning-shaped scar, recoiled in horror.
The Jeon Dan Gyeong Rak had failed to activate? Was it as if he’d achieved the Geum Gang Bul Goe?
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Boom-boom-boom!
A shower of Baek Geom fell from the air in pursuit of Jin Heuk Cheon’s retreating form.
“I see! Is it the Ui Ki Yeom Dong?!”
From this display, Jin Heuk Cheon concluded that Ho Yeon was using Ui Ki Yeom Dong to manipulate his paralyzed arm.
But he was wrong.
Ho Yeon was pouring every ounce of his Spirit Energy into manipulating the Baek Geom.
He had no capacity to simultaneously handle the complex task of controlling his left arm.
Snap! Crackle-pop!
‘If I hadn’t learned the Cheonrae Jowche, this would have been the end.’
Ho Yeon gazed at his left shoulder, now covered in white lightning.
This technique had been born from inspiration drawn during the Hwaedongjidan reconnaissance, from the words of Elder Gon Dae.
―The human body, too, can be said to be a conductor that moves based on electrical impulses.
At first it had been difficult to grasp, but witnessing the corpse of an assassin twitching after being struck by Cheonrae Gi, understanding had come.
And over the past two years, by subjecting his own body to Cheonrae Gi again and again, he had thoroughly internalized the principle that the human body moves through electrical signals.
Then, would it not be possible to move the body simply by properly manipulating those electrical signals?
Thus was born the Cheonrae Jowche—controlling the body with heaven’s own lightning.
“With this! I can fight even if my entire body is shattered! Hahahaha!”
Crackle-crackle! Boom-bang!
A silver beast wrapped in Cheonrae Gi lunged at Jin Heuk Cheon, spewing mist from its jaws.
In his right hand a spear-palace Qi Aura carrying the Gang Jin Cho Dong; in his left hand a Cheonrae Gi Gang wreathed in Gi Gang Jung Gyeop—Ho Yeon advanced with a smile playing at his lips, trembling with an exhilaration he hadn’t felt in ages, standing on the edge of a life-or-death duel.
“You worm! How dare you bare your teeth!”
Jin Heuk Cheon found that smile distasteful. At the same moment, a scorching heat began to churn within his chest.
Whoosh-whoosh!
Boom-boom-boom!
Drawing upon the Saeng Ki he had held in reserve to reach Man Sang Yu Sim, the beast roared forth with renewed power.
Crackling-crack! Sizzle-sizzle!
Though Saeng Ki drained from every pore and rapid aging seized him once more, he did not hesitate.
Collision.
Boom-boom-boom!
Clash-crash-boom!
The wheel of lightning born from the Beon Rae Yeon Cham blocked the vicious strikes that would have sliced him to ribbons with the Mi Bun Shin Hyeong.
The heavy Goe Swae Gol Jeol was blunted and deflected by the Mu Ae Jung Ap’s weighty blade.
The scalding marrow-qi, seasoned thickly with the Yu Tam San Yak, was dispersed by the wild blade of the Pung Un Byeon Hwa.
Screech! Screech!
Boom-crash-wail!
Blood—whose, neither could say—poured ceaselessly, and where blade met blade and blood was torn asunder, it rose as a red Hyeol Mu mist.
“Aaahhhhh!”
“Hahahaha!”
Their roars and cries tangled together, and each time palm met blade, both their forms transformed.
Jin Heuk Cheon grew ever older, while Ho Yeon’s mouth and nose streamed with blood.
His head felt as if it might shatter.
A limit? Had there ever been one? It seemed he’d crossed it long ago.
Uigi Yeondong? Still possible. Why was it still possible? His Spirit Energy should have been depleted by now.
“Kra-ha-ha-ha!”
Ho Yeon burst into raucous laughter.
He was growing stronger.
He felt truly alive.
And with this, the fence would become even more solid.
“Ugh! You fool!”
Jin Heuk Cheon, now with eyebrows gone completely white, the picture of an old man, raised his voice to resist the momentum of Ho Yeon’s Spirit Energy.
It made no sense.
Clearly they stood at different levels.
He occupied the higher ground, upon a wall.
Yet the crimson ghost clawed and scraped its way up from below, seizing his ankle and refusing to let go.
“Grrrgh!”
In the end, Jin Heuk Cheon burned through the vital essence he had absorbed through cannibalism, then his own original life force as well.
He had resigned himself to the loss of his Innate Qi.
“Hah!”
Crack! A sickening crunch!
Jin Heuk Cheon’s fist shattered Ho Yeon’s ribs.
“Kgh-ha-ha!”
“Monstrous bastard!”
Yet Ho Yeon laughed even as blood sprayed from his mouth.
Mere pain could not stop the Sword Demon.
It had been that way three hundred years ago.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Clang! Clang-clang-clang!
The remaining dozen or so swords plunged down upon Jin Heuk Cheon in unison.
Though he moved his hands swiftly to deflect them, his protective Qi Aura had grown far too thin.
Thwack!
“Kgh—!”
As Jin Heuk Cheon felt the piercing agony through his thigh, he hurled the battered Sik Hon Chae Do in a desperate counterattack.
Thud!
The Sik Hon Chae Do embedded itself in Ho Yeon’s ribs, and with only the whites of his eyes showing, Ho Yeon staggered and collapsed forward.
Crash!
“Hah! Hah! Hah-hah!”
Jin Heuk Cheon stared at the fallen Ho Yeon with an expression as if he’d seen a ghost, then let out a trembling laugh.
“Heh… heh-heh-heh… You could have truly been the greatest under heaven. If only you had never crossed my path.”
Whoosh!
Jin Heuk Cheon wrenched the embedded sword from his thigh and stumbled forward, each step labored.
Tsk-tsk-tsk!
The mist around him was growing thinner by the moment.
This realization quickened his pulse.
‘I must feed now! Recover my strength and withdraw!’
Too much time had been wasted.
This raid on the Dan Ri Sega had been nothing but one surprise after another from start to finish.
He needed adequate rest.
Fortunately, prey was plentiful.
Thump! Crack! Thump! Crack!
Jin Heuk Cheon hastened his steps, drawing close to Ho Yeon.
Then, in that instant.
Crack! Spark-spark!
A faint flash of lightning bloomed in Ho Yeon’s right hand.
“Heh! Impressive. Your consciousness still lingers.”
“Kgh…”
“Namgung Ho Yeon. Remember this well. You were following the Path of the Imperfect Form that I have been searching for—”
“It’s… finished…”
As Jin Heuk Cheon raised his hand to deliver the final blow, Ho Yeon lifted his head with an uncanny smile.
“…?!”
Jin Heuk Cheon felt a chilling sense of dread wash over him at that smile, and he threw himself backward.
But Ho Yeon scraped frantically at the Ki Hae Hyeol point, condensing the Cheonrae Gi and driving it straight into the ground before he could move.
Crack!
Jin Heuk Cheon thought for a moment that Ho Yeon had made a mistake. But shortly after, he realized it was nothing of the sort.
Snap-snap-snap! Crack!
“Ahhhhh!”
A brilliant white lightning enveloped Jin Heuk Cheon’s entire body.
“Standing in a heap of metal…… that won’t do!”
“Grrr!”
Only then did Jin Heuk Cheon realize he was surrounded entirely by metal dust.
The shards from the shattered Baek Geom had accumulated like a burial mound.
Where Ho Yeon had driven the lightning into the ground, threads of Sa Cheol stretched like a fuse.
‘He lured me…… here……!’
As Jin Heuk Cheon’s vision flickered with consciousness, he caught sight of Ho Yeon extending his sword technique.
‘I have to…… escape……!’
Against his will, his body scorched by Cheonrae Gi would not move easily.
A crimson light flashed. His body fell slowly.
‘Ah.’
The light faded from Jin Heuk Cheon’s black pupils as his thoughts came to a halt.
Thud!
“Ugh…… hah…… cough! Hehehehe!”
Ho Yeon let out a quiet laugh, having driven the Wol Young Dan Hong into Jin Heuk Cheon’s brow.
Each time air entered his lungs, his entire body ached, but he couldn’t help but laugh.
He had brought him down.
From the wall.
The Seung Byeok Ja.
―Hey! Come to your senses!
―Bastard! Are you alright?!
Listening to the urgent cries of Cheonrae Geom and Heukya Tae Geom, Ho Yeon closed his eyes.
‘I…… ran out of strength…….’
Darkness.
* * *
The Dan Ri Sega came into view in the distance.
“Lord of the Sipja Cheon Geom Dan. Do not forget the plan. When I fall, that will be your chance.”
“……Elder.”
“Do not hesitate. There is but one chance.”
Dan Li Il, Lord of the Sipja Cheon Geom Dan, bit his lip at the words of the Third Elder, Dan Li Pae.
Dan Li Pae, seeing this, laughed bitterly and continued.
“Heh, this old man has lived long enough. What concerns me now is how much Seon Cheon Jin Ki remains.”
“Why don’t I go instead……!”
“You are the hope of the Dan Ri Sega. The future must be built by the young.”
Dan Li Pae shook his head and spoke with grim resolve.
“Do not waver. When I unleash my Seon Cheon Jin Ki to strip away his protective Spirit Power, your secret sword must strike true at his heart.”
“Understood…… sir.”
Whoosh! Boom-boom-boom!
The moment their conversation ended, two figures arrived at the Dan Ri Sega with fifty members of the Sipja Cheon Geom Dan.
“This is dreadful!”
The sight of corpses strewn across the water gates filled them with unease as they entered the residence.
“Hmm?”
“This is…….”
“Could we already be too late?!”
“That can’t be!”
The surroundings were silent.
It bore no resemblance to a residence under attack.
Then.
Crack!
The sound of something being trampled echoed, and everyone’s heads turned toward it at once.
There stood a lean man with disheveled hair, and he was supporting someone in his arms.
“You are……!”
Dan Li Il recognized the man.
He was Jeol Ik Bi Gak, whom he had personally captured during the spy purge before their departure and imprisoned in Noe Okk.
‘Eight……?’
Dan Li Il’s eyes widened. The arm of Jeol Ik Bi Gak, which had clearly been shattered, was now perfectly intact.
“H-how is this possible? The Devouring Demon Lord’s strength—where is it?!”
As Dan Li Il, catching himself that this wasn’t the crucial question, asked again, Cheon Se Geuk pointed with his chin toward a spot on the ground.
“Over there.”
“……?”
Everyone’s gaze shifted to the corpse of an old man sprawled across the floor.
Among them, the Third Elder Dan Li Pae cried out.
“Is that the Crimson Moon Sapphire?”
The treasure of the Dan family that the Third Young Master Dan Li San Wol had lost to Namgung Ho Yeon during the Baekga Geom-hoe—the very item he had never recovered.
So why was it embedded in this white-haired old man’s forehead?
“That is the Devouring Demon Lord.”
“That’s, that’s impossible! The Devouring Demon Lord Jin Heuk Cheon should be a man in his forties!”
“Look carefully. You’ll see that he is Jin Heuk Cheon. Had he been alive, would I be standing here unharmed?”
“Hmm…… He’s changed considerably, but his facial structure and features are indeed strikingly similar to Jin Heuk Cheon’s.”
“……Good heavens! Who on earth killed Jin Heuk Cheon?!”
As Dan Li Pae stared intently at the corpse and gave a slow nod, Dan Li Il murmured in disbelief.
Who would dare strike down a Transcendent Master.
And one whose name was inscribed among the Hundred and Eight Saints, no less—a supreme expert of the Fire Realm?
The answer spilled from Cheon Se Geuk’s lips.
“Thunder God Dragon—Namgung Ho Yeon killed him.”
“……!”
“……!”
“……!”
“The dragon tore out the general’s throat. Those who fled are returning one by one.”
Tap-tap-tap!
As Cheon Se Geuk began to move, Dan Li Il—his expression vacant as though his spirit had fled—hastily collected himself and asked urgently.
“Where are you going?”
Halt.
At Dan Li Il’s question, Cheon Se Geuk stopped and gazed at Namgung Ho Yeon, who slumbered within his embrace.
Then he spoke softly.
“To tend to the young god.”

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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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