Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 84

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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 84. The Sword Ghost and the Elder Brother Proclaim the Way of the Emperor
“Ugh, uuuugh!”
Hye Il had taken a bite of the Tangerine Spicy Candy sold at Dang Dang Dang, and now his mouth had stopped working.
“It feels like my mouth is numb…… Am I never going to taste vegetables again?”
“Stop making a fuss. So Mi, get some Learning Red Medicine and put it in that fool’s mouth.”
“Right away!”
Crinkle. Crackle.
At Ho Yeon’s jest, Dang So Mi eagerly began untying the Poison Pouch, when a Daoist with a clear and refined bearing from beside him raised a hand to stop her.
“Young Lady Dang, please forbear. Namgung So Hyeop’s elder brother is presently on the Bi Mu Dae. We mustn’t disturb him.”
“Oh my! That was close! I can’t interfere with my big brother’s match.”
“……Why is my brother suddenly your big brother?”
“Because my name is Jekal Namgung So Mi, of course.”
“Wasn’t it Namgung Jekal So Mi? That bothers me — why is Namgung at the end?”
“Oh, I got confused!”
Dang So Mi bopped her round-topped head with a giggle and beamed.
At the sight of her, Ho Yeon sighed inwardly and shook his head slowly.
‘Why do strange people keep gravitating toward me?’
One a friendless long-armed ape, the other a poisonous moth afflicted with mania.
‘And this Daoist — why does he keep hovering nearby? Did I hit him wrong somewhere?’
Ho Yeon glanced at the Daoist dressed in crimson robes with that clear, refined air.
He was the third-generation disciple of the Huashan School who had lost to Ho Yeon in the previous match — the Plum Blossom Sword Virtuoso, Un Am.
Un Am, meeting Ho Yeon’s gaze, nodded and opened his mouth.
“Ak San Seo — rumors abound in Shandong, they say. Taught directly by the Spear King himself, he handles the spear with ghostlike aloofness — the Solitary Specter Spear.”
“Ghost, then……”
Ho Yeon let out a soft laugh, and Un Am spoke to him with a grave expression.
“Thirty-two. That’s rather advanced for a Later Generation Disciple.”
“Roughly speaking, Later Generation Disciples are usually understood to be in their late twenties, so he’s hovering right on the borderline.”
As Hye Il spoke with a dismissive gesture, Ho Yeon nodded.
‘So that’s why Mo Yong Hu didn’t participate.’
Mo Yong Hu, once called the Flashing Dragon during the Baekga Geom-hoe, had by now become an established master of the mid-tier ranks.
“I’ve heard that Namgung So Hyeop’s elder brother is only twenty-eight. Four years is no short span of time for a martial artist.”
“So our brother’s going to lose?”
“He’s known as the Azure Cloud Sword Virtuoso, I’ve heard. That Sword Cloud technique of his is indeed formidable. But his opponent draws upon the Peak and Extreme Form of spear mastery.”
“Pity — but the beginning and the extreme form are heaven and earth apart.”
As Hye Il nodded at Un Am’s words, Ho Yeon asked with an expression of disbelief.
“How old are you all?”
“Me? Twenty-three.”
“I turn thirty this year.”
“I’m sixteen!”
The three responded to Ho Yeon’s question.
Pointing to Hye Il and Un Am in turn, Ho Yeon spoke.
“You’re five years older than me, and you — you and I share the same zodiac year?”
“……Still, we’re friends. Aren’t we?”
“Hmph, of course, greater age doesn’t necessarily mean greater martial skill.”
Hye Il gazed at Ho Yeon with earnest eyes, while Un Am offered an embarrassed cough before continuing.
“But to transcend time itself — that’s only possible for geniuses like you, Namgung So Hyeop. For your elder brother to face Ak San Seo……”
“It’s fine.”
“Hmm?”
“Unlike a phony like me, my brother is a real, damned genius.”
Just as Ho Yeon finished speaking, a weighty burst of Qi began to seep out from the Bi Mu Dae.
* * *
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
“What? The Emperor returns?”
Ak San Seo furrowed his brow with a sneer, displeased by the mounting pressure that now bore down upon his entire body.
“Ha! Does the Namgung Clan have a King? By my reckoning, there’s no Duke, and only one General — and even that’s debatable.”
Boom-boom-boom!
Ak San Seo whirled his Spear with a wan smile.
“Hehehehe, while my Ak House boasts the Spear King himself as our grandfather, and among the Hundred Eight Stars we possess three! Is it not shameful to be ranked among the Ten Great Houses alongside you?”
“……”
In response to Ak San Seo’s words, Namgung Chung Gang merely took the foundational stance of the Spear Palace Boundless Sword Technique.
“Hahahaha! The cat’s got your tongue! Well, you’ve nothing to say, have you? The Namgung Clan barely has a foothold among the Ten Great Houses, standing on your mentor’s coattails through marriage!”
Whirrr!
As Namgung Chung Gang fell silent, Ak San Seo spun his spear faster still, pressing his provocation.
Then Namgung Chung Gang finally spoke.
“How pitiful.”
“What?”
“Do you feel your own smallness?”
“What kind of——”
“Imagine how many comparisons you’ve endured, living beneath your brother—the junior master of the Ak House, whose fame shakes the four seas.”
“……!”
Ak San Seo’s face twisted.
Namgung Chung Gang had just touched his Reverse Scale.
“Your brother earned the nickname Spear Dragon at merely twenty years of age, yet you, now past thirty, still lurk at the edges of the Dragon Phoenix Assembly.”
“……You bastard!”
“Wretched man. Unable to truly celebrate your brother’s achievement.”
Namgung Chung Gang offered a slight smile, and Ak San Seo’s face flushed crimson as he summoned Explosive Qi.
Crash!
“Fine! I’ll grind you into pulp!”
Ak San Seo executed the Gale Step.
His form then surged toward Namgung Chung Gang like a whirlwind tearing through the air.
On the surface, he appeared to have lost all reason to rage, yet Ak San Seo remained perfectly lucid.
‘Fool! The Mad Wind is already rising!’
The spear art he had mastered was the Mad Wind Cloud Breaking Spear, created by Spear King Ak Bul Gun himself.
It was the supreme spear art that had earned Ak Bul Gun the epithet “Mad Wind Spear King.”
‘The Mad Wind Cloud Breaking Spear—by spinning the shaft, one conjures the mad wind, developing it into an ever-strengthening tempest—a Continuous Ring Spear!’
When he had goaded Namgung Chung Gang and flourished his spear, it was no mere showmanship.
That was precisely the first form of the Mad Wind Cloud Breaking Spear: the Whirlwind Generation.
“Hyaaaah!”
Crack!
Ak San Seo released a sharp cry and unleashed a Stabbing Spear of the Mad Wind First Manifestation.
The blindingly swift thrust naturally wove wind into it, sending a whirlwind spiraling out along the spear’s rippling edges.
“Hoo.”
Whoosh!
From Namgung Chung Gang’s sword in response, cyan mist streamed forth in thick columns.
The Spear Palace Boundless Sword Technique was an art of space itself.
Space meant both the empty void where nothing existed, and simultaneously the world itself where anything could occur.
Crash!
The Sword Cloud erupting from Namgung Chung Gang’s blade claimed a radius of one zhang around him.
Boom!
Ak San Seo’s spear point tore through the blue cloud and aimed for Namgung Chung Gang’s chest.
Clang!
As Namgung Chung Gang’s blade flowed like silk and swept the spear away with Heaven High Cloud Travel, the Sword Cloud moved with it, generating a massive azure wall.
“Tsk!”
Ak San Seo stepped back, his tongue clicking as he gazed at Namgung Chung Gang hidden within the blue cloud.
‘Once I enter that, my spear strikes slow. Fine particles of qi obstruct my advance.’
First, he had to disperse that cloud.
Whirrr!
Ak San Seo spun his shaft with explosive force, pouring the Mad Wind forth without cease.
Whoosh!
Gray qi-flame burst from the spear tip, its form coiling into a perfect circle like a spark-wheel play.
“Break!”
Rattle-rattle-crack!
Ak San Seo’s hands moved so fast they were nearly invisible as he unleashed a barrage of Point Strikes.
With the method of the Storm of Thousand Needles, he meant to strip away Namgung Chung Gang’s Sword Cloud entirely.
Boom! Boom-boom-bang!
Indeed, the relentless successive attacks sent the blue cloud caught in the Mad Wind beginning to scatter.
“Got him——!”
Ak San Seo spotted the gap and thrust his spear forward, when——
“A Heavy Sword is like the calm eye of a typhoon—simultaneous eruption and silence.”
Namgung Chung Gang quietly intoned the essence of the Spear Palace Boundless Sword Technique.
To be precise, it was the annotation section that his younger brother Namgung Ho Yeon had left behind.
“It’s like a spinning top. A top appears to be stationary, but in reality it’s rotating at high speed.”
“What?!”
The moment the words left his mouth, the Sword Clouds scattered around Namgung Chung Gang suddenly coalesced and began to spiral inward toward him as their center.
Roooar!
Whoosh!
A vast Dragon Fist Wind took form, and within it, Namgung Chung Gang’s blue eyes blazed like the manifestation of an azure dragon commanding storm clouds.
Crack-crack-crack! Boom!
“Ghhk!”
Ak San Seo, hurled backward by the Rebound Force, winced at the sharp tingling pain shooting through his wrists.
Then.
“One step.”
“……What?”
“If you make me take even a single step, your victory is assured.”
“……!”
At Namgung Chung Gang’s words, Ak San Seo’s eyes snapped downward to his feet.
Since the match began, Namgung Chung Gang had not moved a single step.
“Come now. Stop my Mad Wind even once, and victory is yours.”
In that moment of realization, the voice of his arrogant older brother echoed through Ak San Seo’s mind.
An insurmountable wall. A silhouette forever beyond reach.
The voice of the detestable genius Ak Bul Gun.
‘You…… think you’re a genius of that caliber?’
Grrrrind.
Ak San Seo’s teeth ground together as a harsh, brittle laugh tore from his throat.
“Kheh-heh-heh! So be it. Let me test it.”
Tssssht!
Simultaneously, Ak San Seo’s Qi compressed and condensed before transforming into three strands of Qi Silk.
Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh!
The three strands of Qi Silk crawled up the spear tip like serpents, interweaving into a triangular formation that birthed a Three-Fork Arrow.
Commonly known as the Three-Ridge Arrowhead, this formation heightened penetrating power to pierce even iron armor.
Above all, once embedded, it boasted a vicious, wounding lethality that tore through flesh like a barbed harpoon.
This was precisely why the character for “ghost” appeared in the epithet of Ak San Seo, second son of the illustrious Ak House of Shandong.
“With my Ghost Spear, I’ll sever your lifeline!”
“Oh!”
Gu Il Bi, observing the match from the edge of the Bi Mu Dae, tensed at the sight of the Qi Silk forming on Ak San Seo’s spear tip.
‘Three Silks! Killing Techniques were forbidden!’
Thud!
The moment Gu Il Bi took a step to intercept Ak San Seo’s charge at Namgung Chung Gang.
Whoooosh—!
The impossible occurred.
The azure clouds swirling around Namgung Chung Gang suddenly compressed as one, transforming into razor-sharp Qi Silk that occupied all eight directions.
‘……Eight Silks?!’
Gu Il Bi’s eyes widened in shock. But the true astonishment was only beginning.
Whisper-whisper-whisper!
Each of the eight cyan strands branched into ten finer threads apiece, becoming a total of eighty gossamer-thin filaments.
‘What… what on earth is that?!’
Gu Il Bi had never heard of nor witnessed a technique that fractured Qi Silk into such minute strands.
And it was not Gu Il Bi alone—everyone witnessing this match shared his bewilderment.
And rightly so.
This was a legend of the Zhongyuan martial realm, recreated for the first time in three hundred years.
“I’ve named it Silkworm Thread Qi. Even I must admit I have no talent for naming.”
“Die!”
Crack!
Ak San Seo thrust his Ghost Spear forward and unleashed the Mad Wind Stone Shattering in a single, devastating blow.
A manic wind shattering stone—a collision of terrible force.
Yet.
Whisper!
The moment Ak San Seo stepped into the space overlaid with Silkworm Thread Qi, he felt something terribly wrong.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
‘My… my body…… what’s happening?!’
His entire body refused to obey beneath the overwhelming pressure and weight bearing down on him.
The spear thrust forward seemed to slow, as though it had become nothing more than a gentle breeze rather than a gale.
Ak San Seo felt as though hundreds of pounds of weights had been fastened to every part of his body, like an insect caught in a spider’s web.
Clang!
“This is not a dull sword. It is merely that my opponent has slowed. Nor is it a fast sword. I have no need for speed.”
Namgung Chung Gang raised his blade with unhurried grace and regarded the advancing Ak San Seo with an unwavering gaze.
His bearing was that of an Emperor commanding all things in the world to his will.
“This is not even a sword technique.”
A strangled cry tore from Ak San Seo’s throat.
Swoosh!
Namgung Chung Gang brought his sword down in a arc, and Ak San Seo saw a phantom vision of his own body splitting in two.
Clang!
Yet Namgung Chung Gang merely sheared away the spear-point and withdrew his blade with serene composure, as though the matter was already settled.
Slide. Click.
The entire sequence unfolded with the naturalness of something that could have been no other way.
“This is merely form.”
Rumble!
As the oppressive force bore down upon the arena, Namgung Chung Gang’s azure eyes swept across the space around him.
Meeting the stunned gazes of every onlooker circling the Bi Mu Dae, he declared:
“The Emperor Sword Form has returned to this world, and thus shall eternal glory reign in the southern heavens.”

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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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