Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 129

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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 129. The Sword Demon and the Shadow Assassin Clash
‘Foolish,’ Saburo thought.
Two shadows emerged across the water’s surface.
Saburo’s narrow, triangular eyes curved gently with amusement.
He was the commanding officer of this Substitution Operation, dispatched from the Umsal Mun to Hangzhou.
As the leader of the Jonim rank, he surveyed his surroundings.
They were beneath the water’s surface near Dan Bridge, where hundreds of assassins in black garb waited for the signal.
Each of them held a long tube between their teeth, eyes fixed on the unfolding scene.
‘I heard he’d slain the Man-Eater in the Martial Hall, yet still—a later generation disciple is a later generation disciple. Inexperience shows.’
Of course, traps employing the Face-Borrowing Art had a high success rate.
Among assassins of Baenim rank and above, only a select few with talent in Qi Manipulation could master the Face-Borrowing Art.
When you lure someone with the face of a family member or acquaintance, nine times out of ten they’ll fall for it.
‘Heh, the more a man overestimates his own abilities, the easier he is to deceive. Satisfy that vanity, and his guard crumbles.’
The intelligence reports confirmed that Namgung Ho Yeon was formidable.
Which was precisely why they’d laid a trap that exploited his competence.
Having heard the results of the Triple Meeting, he would surely have grown suspicious.
‘He’ll doubt the elders’ betrayal, and he’ll recall the words of a certain boy.’
A boy crying out that his father had changed.
An ordinary man would think the boy mad, but Namgung Ho Yeon would think otherwise.
‘He may not know of the Face-Borrowing Art, but he’ll surely consider the Mask of Illusory Faces.’
And once he interprets the mysterious language from the boy’s possession, the operation ends.
Confident in his martial prowess, Namgung Ho Yeon would move alone to seize the tail of this unknown organization.
‘That’s why I set the timeline so tight—by the time they find someone to interpret that note, he’ll already be compelled to move toward Dan Bridge.’
And so it came to pass.
Namgung Ho Yeon came to Dan Bridge alone.
No—he’d made an even worse choice than coming alone.
‘Heh, the moment that poisoned fool screams, the Dragon Slaying technique begins!’
Saburo waited for Namgung Ho Yeon’s cry of agony.
But then—
“Aaaagh!”
‘…What?’
A scream tore through the night, but it was not Namgung Ho Yeon’s voice.
Flash!
In the next instant, white light blazed across the water.
Goosebumps erupted across every inch of his skin.
His tongue went numb with electricity, and his hair stood on end.
‘Lightning?!’
Crash!
Simultaneously, a thick, murderous energy erupted from Dan Bridge like a tidal wave.
‘What… what is this?!’
This killing intent—unlike anything he’d ever felt—was eerie enough to be called a demonic aura.
Upon the bridge.
There was a monster.
Thud!
The sound of something falling reached his ears.
Saburo flashed a hand signal.
Snap!
‘Proceed!’
* * *
Beneath a slender crescent moon.
The mist-shrouded beauty of Seho Lake as seen from Dan Bridge was sublime.
Add several hundred black-garbed assassins into the mix, and it became all the more intriguing.
Splash! Splash! Splash!
“Quite the catch tonight,” Ho Yeon murmured with a smile.
He watched the assassins surge forward through the dissipating mist, racing across the water’s surface.
Attached to their shoes were circular, wheel-like objects.
These were Water Spiders—devices known as Water Boots.
In truth, their wearers were not spiders but winged insects of another sort entirely.
Moths, drawn by the irresistible pull of flame toward the blazing fire.
“The fish of Seho Lake will feast well tonight!”
The exchange of blows at the Hae Hyeol point repeated, and white lightning erupted from the Cheonrae Geom with a deafening roar.
Boom-crack!
Flash!
The Cheonrae Geom scattered into a thousand branches.
The lightning of the Noejeong Cheonji literally shredded a dozen assassins rushing forward into fragments.
Thud-thud-thud!
“Hmm?”
Namgung Ho Yeon’s brow twitched as he was showered in the rain of corpses.
The rebound he felt in his wrist was greater than he’d expected.
Examining the bodies of the severed assassins, he saw they wore wire mesh armor woven like nets beneath their dark robes—Swaeyuja.
“Ah, now that I think about it, you bastards were always wearing strange getups, weren’t you?”
―Protective armor against blades.
Cheonrae Geom explained in response to Ho Yeon’s mutter.
Even three hundred years ago, the assassins of Umsal Mun wore such unique defensive gear.
Light in weight and offering good mobility, it was effective armor—but master-class swordsmen and above who could draw out Geom-gi could shatter this Swaeyuja easily.
Yet the consumption of Nae-gi increased, and there was no preventing the blade from being damaged and dulled.
“Tch, you scoundrels. Nothing’s changed.”
Scrape! Slash-crack!
Ho Yeon cut down the assassins who rushed at him like men possessed, clicking his tongue.
“Shadow Ninja—drain that bastard’s strength as much as possible!”
Like a shout from afar, the assassins rushing forward were, in essence, decoy dogs.
Decoy dogs were expendable hounds used to lure prey and sap their strength.
Once the decoys took their beatings and exhausted the prey, the truly bred hunting hounds would appear and tear out the worn quarry’s throat.
“Ha—so you treat human lives like dog shit now, just like always?”
Ho Yeon sneered at the unchanged tactics of Umsal Mun.
These bastards never learned.
Redemption? They deserved nothing but a proper beating.
Shink. Click.
Ho Yeon sheathed the Cheonrae Geom.
A blade of the Singeom caliber would never dull from cutting mere Swaeyuja.
But Ho Yeon’s temperament was such that he wouldn’t play along with their schemes.
“So it’s not cutting you want—you want beating instead, is that it?”
Crack!
Ho Yeon clenched both fists.
The Namgung Clan was in name and truth a family of swordsmen, but they were not without fist techniques.
Throughout the long history of Namgung, there were two masters called the Divine Fist.
Ho Yeon had inherited the foundations of the Gubyeok Sinpower, created by Namgung Jong-san, the Gucheon Byeokpae.
True to its name of striking nine times, the Gubyeok Sinpower consisted of nine forms altogether.
Each formed an ascending fist art composed of Heaven, Earth, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Water, Mountain, Forest, and Void.
“Fortunate timing. I’ve had no chance to put these fist techniques to use.”
Even in his days as the Sword Demon, he had never enjoyed combat sport, nor had he properly mastered any fist art.
Thus the Gubyeok Sinpower was the first ascending fist technique he had ever learned.
The Swaeyuja they wore might be effective against cold weapons, but it offered no resistance whatsoever to blunt force or palm and kick techniques.
“Hah!”
Ho Yeon formed a straight punch and drove it upward toward the heavens.
As the Cheonsin Byeok rose like a fist splitting the sky, it pushed through the mist and ascended, generating a massive vortex of force.
Boom—!
The assassin struck by the Cheonsin Byeok exploded with a shattering sound rather than the impact of a blow.
The force carried in the flesh and bone became invisible blades in the air, tearing apart three or four assassins who rushed from above.
Then Ho Yeon pressed his left fist behind his ear and thrust a short, powerful driving punch downward.
Thud! Boom-crash!
The Jisin Yeol struck the Dan Bridge, cracking the earth beneath.
The assassins holding their breath beneath the structure for an ambush fell in great numbers.
“Hahahaha! Come on, you worms!”
―Oh no! You damned fool! Don’t destroy the cultural relic!
Ho Yeon burst into wild laughter, and the Cheonrae Geom cried out in horror.
But the battle had already begun. Once the Sword Demon unleashed his Tu-gi, no one could stop him.
“It’s the Inram Suri Geomjin! Turn him into a porcupine!”
Seeing Ho Yeon’s rampage, Saburo issued the command.
The assassins immediately drew throwing stars from the leather gauntlets on their wrists and hurled them forward.
Known also as the Talsu-bipyo, it was a diamond-shaped hidden projectile that resembled the head of a spear that had been cleaved clean away.
A crimson cloth band—the Bipyo-ui—was fastened to the ring at its tail, allowing its trajectory to be tracked by eye.
‘Heh! Sheathing the sword was a blunder! How will you stop this blade storm with bare hands?’
Slash-slash-slash!
Saburo hurled the Bipyo with a sneer.
But the projectile he threw had been blackened with charcoal, and bore no cloth band at its rear, making it nearly invisible against the night.
The red bands on the Bipyo cast by the Yeongnim and Baenim were a feint—meant to conceal the projectiles that the Jonim would throw.
The moment one believed they had broken through the Inram Suri Geomjin by tracking only the red trajectories, the Doga would surge from the darkness to pierce their vital points.
“Breath!”
Boom!
But Ho Yeon had never calculated the projectiles’ trajectories at all.
He simply struck forward with a straightforward power punch, his movements economical and swift.
‘Such a fool…wait—’
Saburo had sneered at Ho Yeon’s action, but the strange phenomenon that followed made his eyes widen in shock.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Crack!
After the Pungsin Sae shattered the air and detonated in brilliant flashes,
winds converged upon Ho Yeon at his center, then exploded outward in all eight directions as a unified volley of fist force.
Slash-slash-slash-slash!
“Gasp!”
“Choke!”
“Hack!”
Whether banded with red cloth or bare, every projectile was caught up in the fist wind and sent flying back the way it came.
Clatter-clatter-clatter-clang!
“This bastard!”
Saburo, drawing his blade from behind his back, blocked the returning Bipyo with fury etched across his face.
With a single move, the man had rendered over twenty assassins combat-ineffective all at once.
“Dissolve the Inram Suri Geomjin! Hold your fire!”
Saburo made his judgment swiftly.
‘The man is clearly a Geom Soo, yet look at him—what is this madness!’
The Noesin Gwangyong Namgung Ho Yeon’s primary weapon was, without question, the blade.
Yet here he was, toying with the Umsal Mun assassins like a master of unarmed combat, his fists and palms alike dancing at the peak of his power.
It bordered on mockery.
‘Draining strength with the Yeongnim any further serves no purpose!’
Saburo’s eyes blazed.
It was time to advance to the next phase of the operation.
“Baenim—charge!”
Boom-boom-boom!
Pitter-patter-patter!
At Saburo’s command, the assassins who had been waiting in the rear beyond the Yeongnim threw themselves forward.
“So—Ilryu or better?” Ho Yeon nodded, gauging the presence emanating from them.
Having determined that deploying mere foot soldiers would be futile,
he was now beginning to field the true hunting dogs.
“Dogs are still only dogs, no matter how you dress them up.”
Thump-thump-thump!
Blue clouds layered thickly around Ho Yeon’s fists.
It was the Cheongun Mangkyeop Gwon—an application of the Cheongun Mangkyeop technique adapted for unarmed combat.
Slash-slash-slash!
One assassin, approaching like a water bird from the lower right, raised his blade to strike.
He wielded a Sotae Geom—a blade midway between long and short, its edge length roughly a foot or so.
‘A sword hidden in the mist!’
The secret technique of the Iga-ryu, deemed the most potent in pure martial force among the Umsal Eight Houses, erupted forth.
Slip!
In that instant, Ho Yeon stepped the Gam Bo and flowed like water, evading the attack before extending the Susin Pa with effortless grace.
“Dogs must be beaten to obedience!”
The moment crimson killing light exploded from Ho Yeon’s eyes, the Iga-ryu assassin’s Sotae Geom shifted its trajectory with startling speed.
‘The Yusu-ui Banggyeok!’
Shwish-shwish!
The Sotae Geom trembled, and like a current that yields not against the tide, it flowed with deceptive speed toward Ho Yeon’s throat in a serpentine path.

A move from Donggwi-eojin — one that gives no thought to one’s own life.
Yet Namgung Ho Yeon’s fist pierced the Iga-ryu agent’s heart first.
Bang!
Crimson flesh scattered through the air like peonies drifting downstream.
“……A finishing strike.”
But in the dimming eyes of the Iga-ryu agent, there remained a strange certainty.
Screech!
In that instant.
The Iga-ryu agent’s body, which should have collapsed dead, began to move.
The weakening corpse gripped the Sotae Geom with all its remaining strength and drove it straight toward Namgung Ho Yeon’s chest.
Thud!
“Argh!”
Namgung Ho Yeon cried out in pain.
“Hahahaha! That’s it!”
Saburo shouted in triumph.
But in the next moment.
“Ah……! Did you really think that would work?”
“……!”
Crash!
Namgung Ho Yeon, having shattered the Sotae Geom with his left hand, laughed like a mischievous child.
“Hehehehe! I’d been wondering when I’d use this.”
“……How, how is this possible!”
Saburo’s eyes widened in shock.
Along with the Cheonmyeon-ui Sool, one of the secret techniques of the Ranpa-ryu’s second generation had been blocked.
He had always prided himself on a surprisingness unmatched by any martial art in all of Zhongyuan.
Yet the boy had countered it as though he had been waiting all along.
“Sahugi-dong. Funny technique, no matter how many times I see it.”
Whoosh!
Namgung Ho Yeon ground the Sotae Geom to powder as he murmured.
“I borrowed a few ideas from it when I created the Cheonrae Joche. Should I thank you, then?”
Namgung Ho Yeon smiled faintly, then turned to regard the rigid agents and continued.
“Still, I won’t spare you for that. All of you die here. That was decided three hundred years ago.”
“The Umsal Mun. I remember. I swear I will erase you from Zhongyuan.”
Namgung Ho Yeon recalled his vow from the days of Dan Wee Myeong and unleashed a torrent of crimson Killing Intent.
Roaaaaar――!

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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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