Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 97

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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 97. The Sword Demon’s Self-Admiration
“Are you really sure about this? Shouldn’t I go provide support……?”
Danli Sanyuol asked with evident concern, and Namgung Ho Yeon replied.
“Would an adult truly fall to some pint-sized child waving a blade?”
‘Of course, I’ve killed them before. Wait——’
Now that he thought about it, depending on the time and circumstances, he could certainly be in danger.
“Still, we cannot dismiss the number three hundred so lightly.”
“Don’t worry. That rabble is nothing but a mob. Once a hundred or so start falling, they’ll wet themselves and scatter like rats.”
The moment Namgung Ho Yeon finished speaking, an enormous blue cloud rose up in the middle of the battlefield.
“What——?!”
“Whoa! What in the world is that?”
“I’ve never seen…… a Sword Formation like that before?”
“Did the Namgung Clan ever have such a formation?”
“This is the first I’m seeing of it too.”
Danli Sanyuol’s eyes widened at the sight, and Samdo Ilhwa let out a gasp of wonder.
‘Of course they haven’t seen it. I rebuilt the entire formation from scratch.’
Gazing at the Changgung Squad merged with Sword Clouds through the Changgung Gaebbyeok technique, Namgung Ho Yeon wore a meaningful smile.
The circular formation before him remained true to the original Changgung Muae Sword Formation.
The Changgung Muae Sword Formation was designed to drive enemies into what appeared to be empty space at the center and annihilate them—a type of Encirclement Annihilation Sword Formation.
‘I combined it with the methods of those Taklamakan desert bandits and remade it into something new. This version should actually have superior mastery over space.’
Namgung Ho Yeon’s eyes gleamed like those of a sculptor admiring his own masterwork.
* * *
Boom!
“Argh! Huh——?!”
“Gasp! What——?!”
“What, what is this?!”
The bandits who rushed into the blue cloud were thrown into panic.
Their entire bodies grew heavy, as if they’d plunged into water.
Slash! Crunch-crunch!
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The members of the Changgung Squad began slaughtering the bandits with ease—like butchering fish thrashing in a net.
“Ahhhhh!”
“P-please…… spare me……!”
“We have to escape!”
Splash-splash!
Whoosh!
Even turning tail to flee proved impossible.
A blue curtain of Sword Cloud suddenly swirled before them, cutting off their path.
“This accursed——!”
Crash!
Blood Wolf Bandit Chief Kwang Sang Tak exhaled a crimson Qi Flame and raised his blade high.
His target was not the two figures commanding from the front of the circular formation, but rather the youngest-looking youth on the outer perimeter.
‘Those two bastards giving orders are certainly masters. The fundamental law of battle is to hunt the weak first!’
Slice!
Kwang Sang Tak poured the full weight and momentum of his horse into a single downward stroke.
Through enough hand-to-hand combat, a mounted fighter naturally becomes accustomed to horseback warfare.
The difference between a rider who could harness a horse’s kinetic energy and one who couldn’t was as vast as the gap between a third-rate and first-rate warrior.
“Die!”
So Kwang Sang Tak had no doubt his blade would cleave the young man before him in two.
But.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The blue cloud suddenly gathered around the youth, and his blade swept upward in a wide arc, cutting through the entire expanse like silk.
“Cheonko Unhaeng!”
Boom!
With a sharp cry, a blue wall erupted before the youth and collided head-on with Kwang Sang Tak’s Qi Flame.
Crash!
“Gahhh! This, this is impossible……!”
Kwang Sang Tak cried out in disbelief as a sharp recoil shot through his wrists.
He had no idea what this blue cloud was, but its Qi density itself seemed unremarkable.
He’d thought his own Qi Flame would be able to slice through it—yet somehow it suddenly compressed, its density hardening to become stronger than steel.
“Arghhhh!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Crack! Crunch!
Kwang Sang Tak exhaled fierce Qi Flame and brought his saber down in a relentless cascade, but each time the youth’s blade moved, a blue cloud hardened into an impenetrable barrier that rendered all his strikes useless.
“Damn it all! This is Qi Flame!”
What was Qi Flame, after all?
The very hallmark of a master’s prowess—a technique born of Qi itself.
A mist like this should scatter in a single blow. What kind of sorcery was this?
Tak-tak-tak! Tak-tak-tak!
Bang! Crash! Bang!
Kwang Sang Tak wheeled his mount and began attacking the others.
But each time, that same blue wall appeared, halting his advance.
The way the Sword Formation moved as one gigantic organism—
—boasted a defense as impenetrable and unyielding as the legendary Jade Tortoise itself.
“Ahhhhh!”
“We—we can’t break through!”
“There’s no escape!”
“Curse it!”
Screams and curses erupted from all quarters.
Their attacks availed nothing, their movements grew sluggish, and their enemies were methodically collecting the heads of fallen comrades around them.
“Ughh… ughhhh…”
“Run!”
“Help! Please!”
They would have fled on the instant, but the bandits who had ventured into the Changgung Muae Sword Formation were trapped like ants in a blue ant-lion’s den, unable to escape.
Crash!
The blue vortex churning at the center pulled them relentlessly inward.
Scrape! Scrape! Scrape!
Splash!
What followed was a massacre—mechanical blade work, utterly one-sided.
Those who plunged into the blue cloud fell to the ground in layers, coughing up crimson mist.
At that horrifying sight, the rear ranks of the bandits who had charged so boldly came to a dead halt.
“No! Don’t go in!”
“It’s… it’s a cloud of death…”
“Could this be… an Array?”
“Good heavens—the Danli Clan?!”
The bandits who had been backing away slowly now threw down their weapons and fled.
“Ahhh! I want to live!”
“I—I’m innocent. I haven’t done anything yet!”
“Huhhh! Gashhh!”
They had turned to banditry only because greed had blinded them.
They were nothing but an untrained rabble—soldiers who had never drilled a day in their lives.
The sight of corpses being hewn down by the Changgung Squad was so grotesque that they fled in tears and snot.
“Damn it all! Charge! I order you back!”
Kwang Sang Tak, watching from within the Formation, bellowed until his voice cracked, but his terrified men could no longer hear him.
Scrape! Scrape-scrape!
“Ahhh!”
“L-leader! Cough!”
“Save… gurk!”
One by one, even the members of the Blood Wolf Corps who had held their ground met death.
How much time had passed? Now the only living thing left in the blue cloud was Kwang Sang Tak.
“Gasp… gasp… curse it!”
His voice was long gone.
His whole body was covered in cuts and lacerations, soaked in blood—a pitiful sight.
“Cowards! Swarming me like this!”
“Funny words from the man who swarmed us first.”
Namgung Jaryang let out a hollow laugh at Kwang Sang Tak’s cry.
Regardless, Kwang Sang Tak raised his saber toward him.
“You! If you’re so confident in your skill, face me one on one!”
Kwang Sang Tak knew well that he had only one way to escape alive from this place.
‘Take the leader as a hostage and slip away. A fool like that righteous swordsman will accept my provocation!’
As expected.
The man who appeared to be the leader smirked and stepped forward.
Whoosh!
At that same instant, the Changgung Muae Sword Formation dissolved.
“We’ll need to fight with everything we have.”
“You whelp! Hrraaaah!”
Tap! Bang!
Kwang Sang Tak, letting out a roar, hurled himself at Namgung Jaryang.
Having survived over a hundred real battles, he wielded the Blood Wolf Sword Technique with such natural ease that it had earned him the epithet “Blood Wolf Fang”—a dance as fluid as breathing itself.
‘Blood Moon Break!’
Slash!
The crimson fangs of the blood wolf, parting the moonlight, darted toward the hollow of Namgung Jaryang’s neck and shoulder.
Yet Namgung Jaryang remained expressionless, simply shifting his blade to middle guard.
Resonance!
As he assumed the fundamental posture of the Changgung Muae Sword Method, Namgung Jaryang’s presence transformed—heavy and immovable as an ancient stone.
Crash!
When the Blood Moon Break was thwarted, Kwang Sang Tak pivoted with Yurang Chuejeok, his footwork that of a wolf stalking prey, and circled behind Namgung Jaryang.
Burst!
‘Pae Blood Mad Fang!’
Kwang Sang Tak’s blade swept in continuous arcs—up, down, left, right.
Slash-slash-slash-strike!
Crimson Qi Flames twisted through the air, and the teeth of a frenzied blood wolf shot forth at Namgung Jaryang in unified volley.
Namgung Jaryang countered with one movement of Guchen Manggeuk, striking nine times.
Within those nine cuts lay a weighty inevitability—a sequence woven together—and upon that foundation, a serene rhythm took shape.
Clang! Clashing! Boom!
“Ugh!”
Caught in that flow, Kwang Sang Tak’s breathing became tangled, and in that opening, Namgung Jaryang’s blade released four azure sword rays.
Whisper!
The four rays met gracefully at their tips. Namgung Jaryang drove his blade downward with crushing weight.
Roaarrr!
Kwang Sang Tak tried to step away, but he found no path of escape.
It was not because the approaching blade moved swiftly. If anything, it moved slow.
Yet wherever he turned to flee, a fierce certainty gripped him—that space itself would shatter and the blade would follow—and his feet would not move.
“Aaahhh!”
At last, Kwang Sang Tak chose to meet it head-on, executing the ultimate technique of the Blood Wolf Sword Technique—Blood Wolf Cut Moon—sweeping his blade upward from below.
Slash!
True to its name, the red wolf cutting the moon, it was a sharp and vicious strike—but far too fragile a fang to penetrate Namgung Jaryang’s Changgung Jeomseong.
Crash!
Thud!
The crimson Qi Flame shattered to pieces along with the blade, and Namgung Jaryang’s sword pierced through Kwang Sang Tak’s chest.
“Cough! Who…… are you……?”
As Kwang Sang Tak coughed blood and asked, Namgung Jaryang replied.
“Namgung Clan. Changgung Squad, Seventh Commander—Namgung Jaryang.”
“……!”
Kwang Sang Tak’s eyes widened.
Not the Danli Clan, but the Namgung Clan?
And the Changgung Squad at that—one of the Namgung Clan’s mightiest military forces.
A gathering place of geniuses, open only to those bearing the Namgung surname, who from childhood trained in the Changgung Muae Sword Method.
Most critically, Kwang Sang Tak had heard the name Namgung Jaryang recently.
“So it’s you…… the Azure Dragon of Changgung. My luck…… was truly…… rotten…….”
Thud!
Kwang Sang Tak collapsed, his expression bearing no grudge against his fate.
Namgung Jaryang gazed down at the corpse, brushed the blood from his blade, and sheathed it.
Slide. Click.
“A dragon, they say. I’m merely a weasel.”
* * *
The battle had raged for scarcely one quarter hour.
When the blue clouds cleared and the landscape revealed itself, it was horrific.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
Samdo Ilhwa and the others fell silent.
In the span of mere moments, nearly a hundred lives had been snuffed out.
In the martial world of Dosan Geomnim, death and life flickered in and out like candle flames—an ordinary thing. Yet watching it unfold, a stark realization struck him for the first time: the age of turmoil had truly begun.
“My lord. That…….”
“I saw it too. An Array Master’s work.”
At Heuk O Danyuan’s words, Danli Sanyuol muttered something under his breath, his expression tangled and uncertain.
When people spoke of a Sword Formation, they typically meant aligning swordsmen at measured intervals to move with synchronized efficiency—a matter of matching rhythm.
Most believed that when many attacked together, their power would double. But reality was far different.
More often than not, allies became obstacles to one another—sword paths crossed, formation routes twisted into chaos.
That was why a true Sword Formation meant swordsmen who did not impede each other’s domains, multiplying their collective power instead.
Yet the formation he’d just witnessed was unmistakably something far greater.
‘They blend their Qi, divide it, and wield it as one? Ordinary methods cannot achieve this. This bears the unmistakable hand of a master Array Master.’
As a young lord of the Danli Clan with some expertise in array work, he was certain: whoever had designed and crafted this formation was undoubtedly among the greatest geniuses of the Central Plains martial world.
‘Jegal Ahyeon was his betrothed, wasn’t she? Could he have received aid from the Jegal Clan?’
Danli Sanyuol turned to look back at Namgung Ho Yeon.
Those around him wore expressions frozen by the overwhelming might of the Changgung Squad and the sea of blood, but he—he was grinning broadly.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
He was actually applauding, nodding his head with unbridled delight.
“Beautifully made. So I really am a genius, am I?”
Danli Sanyuol watched Namgung Ho Yeon and murmured to himself.
‘……Still a madman, through and through.’
* * *
One day later.
The party arrived in Buyang.

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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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