Namgung Heavenly Demon - Chapter 13

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 13

A move of mutual destruction, staking everything.

The gray sword energy aimed at his heart entered Namgung Cheon’s vision.

Should he dodge, or should he break through?

In that split second, his choice was made.

‘I won’t dodge.’

There is no retreat on the path of Cheonma.

That was his way of fighting.

Namgung Cheon gathered even more internal energy and added it to Changcheon.

He ignored the chilling sensation boring toward his heart.

Instead, he staked everything on the conviction that he could sever his opponent’s neck faster.

“…!”

Mujin’s eyes wavered.

It was a move he had unleashed thinking Namgung Cheon’s sword would stop.

At this rate, they would exchange neck and heart and both die.

A brief hesitation.

And that hesitation made the tip of Mujin’s sword waver.

Swoosh―!

“Kugh…!”

Mujin’s sword grazed Namgung Cheon’s left shoulder.

Though it had been a strike aimed at the heart, the wavering sword tip only managed to wound the shoulder.

And the price for that was clear.

Having lost the psychological battle, Mujin had missed the golden opportunity to block Namgung Cheon’s sword.

“Hup!”

Mujin instinctively twisted his body to avoid his vital point, the neck.

Slash―!

Namgung Cheon’s sword cut across Mujin’s chest.

With a terrible sound, fresh red blood spurted like a fountain.

“Kugh!”

The scent of each other’s blood thickly brushed their nostrils.

Clatter―.

Both men pulled out their swords almost simultaneously and stepped back.

“Heh… hahaha!”

Laughter burst from Mujin’s mouth.

The appearance of the free wanderer who had roamed the world disappeared, and the fighting spirit he had suppressed revealed itself.

“Yes, this is how it should be! This is what makes fighting worthwhile!”

Whoooosh―!

As if responding to his cry, a hollow ashen sword aura bloomed above his blade.

Namgung Cheon also opened his mouth, paying no heed to his bleeding shoulder.

“That’s what I wanted.”

Kwaaa―!

Above his Changcheon as well, a blue sword aura finally rose like blazing flames.

Sword aura against sword aura.

The moment when two transcendent masters finally revealed their true hearts to each other.

The two figures clashed head-on once more.

Kwaaaaang―!

The moment the blue sword aura and ashen sword aura collided, pure destruction incomparable to before swept over the riverside.

With a thunderous roar, the river water split apart, revealing the damp riverbed that hadn’t seen light for decades.

The massive rocks along the riverside swept by the shockwave crumbled like dust, and the reeds burst into flames.

But the fight between the two was only just beginning.

“Excellent!”

Mujin burst into mad laughter as he swung his sword.

His ashen sword aura no longer moved defensively.

Rather, it revealed its vicious nature of returning everything it touched to nothingness.

Kwaang―!

As his sword cut through midair, a massive trajectory was left on the ground.

“Now this is finally worth watching.”

Namgung Cheon also swung Changcheon, turning even the pain of his bleeding shoulder into ecstasy.

His blue sword aura was the very embodiment of supremacy, tearing the sky and splitting the earth.

Each swing sent vibrations sweeping across the ground.

Crack! Crunch!

The duel of two supreme masters destroying everything around them.

The crowd watching from afar had already lost their souls to terror.

This was power that far transcended the realm of martial arts they knew.

Dozens, hundreds of exchanges continued.

Victory did not tip easily to either side.

Namgung Cheon’s overwhelming destructive power was repeatedly offset by Mujin’s strange power of annihilation, and Mujin’s counterattacks that struck at openings were also blocked by Namgung Cheon’s beast-like combat instincts.

But time was on Namgung Cheon’s side.

The longer a war of attrition went on, the more victory would be determined by how efficiently one could utilize experience and internal energy.

Namgung Cheon had the experience accumulated from living as Cheonma and beast-like combat instincts.

Therefore, when the fight reached its climax, the difference between the two gradually began to show.

Mujin’s ashen sword aura, which had been receiving Namgung Cheon’s attacks, wavered minutely for the first time.

That split-second wavering.

Namgung Cheon did not miss that opportunity.

He raised Changcheon high into the sky, then drove it down vertically with the momentum to end everything.

A blue lightning bolt that would split the world.

The moment that blue destruction was about to engulf Mujin.

“Kraaah!”

Mujin also squeezed out all his remaining strength and raised his sword.

Kwaaaaang―!

The sword aura that erupted from the point where the two swords collided instantly expanded and devoured everything around them.

Hissss―!

When the heat of the collision touched the river water, the water evaporated with a thunderous roar, sending up fierce steam.

Soon, as if to fill the empty space, river water from both sides rushed in with tremendous force.

Kwaaaa―!

The two streams of water that collided in the center pushed against each other, becoming a massive water column that flowed backward into the sky.

And the river water that had surged upward lost its strength and poured down as rain.

And after a moment.

When all the river water that had shot into the sky had soaked the ground.

Namgung Cheon still stood firmly gripping his sword.

His entire body was covered in wounds and his breathing was rough, but his eyes still gleamed brightly.

Clang―.

The shattered sword fell powerlessly from Mujin’s hand.

Cough.

He coughed up blood as he slowly collapsed.

The ashen sword aura that had wrapped around his sword had already disappeared without a trace.

Thud.

Finally, his knees touched the ground.

“….”

The crowd watching all of this from atop the river embankment could not utter a single word.

The Wandering King’s disciple, one of only two in the world who wielded the Sword of Tranquil Extinction.

That legend had crumbled before their very eyes.

And the man who had cut down that legend.

Sword Demon.

No, even that name now felt inadequate.

The power he had just displayed transcended the realm of demons.

Everyone had witnessed it.

That Namgung Cheon’s level had already reached the supreme realm, the limit of human capability.

The shame of Sword Emperor Namgung Mugang, the Third Young Master of the Namgung Clan.

The old shackle-like title that had bound him scattered in the riverside breeze.

Hundreds of gazes turned toward Namgung Cheon.

Under the moonlight.

The back of a man standing alone in the ruined riverside.

An absolute being who had placed the strong warriors of Anhui beneath his feet through his own martial prowess, not under the Namgung shadow.

No longer could anyone dare call him the shame of the Namgung.

* * *

What remained by the quiet riverside was only the rough breathing of two men and the sound of blood drops falling to the ground.

Namgung Cheon slowly straightened his body.

He looked down numbly at the wound on his shoulder.

The trace left by his opponent’s sword strike, delivered with the resolve for mutual destruction.

He pressed his acupuncture points to stop the bleeding, then tore his sleeve long and bound the wound tightly.

Then he slowly walked toward Mujin, the defeated.

Beneath his feet, the shattered fragments of Mujin’s sword glittered in the moonlight.

Mujin, who had been kneeling with his head bowed, sensed the presence and lifted his head with difficulty.

His blurred pupils captured the image of Namgung Cheon, the victor.

Mujin barely managed to open his mouth with a trembling voice.

“My Tranquil Extinction has been broken. Though my master told me never to lose to anyone…”

Cough.

He spat out dark red blood once, then looked up at Namgung Cheon and asked.

“That final strike… it was certainly a technique of the Celestial Boundless Sword Technique, but the variations contained within were not of the Namgung I know.”

Namgung Cheon looked down at him silently.

In his eyes was neither the arrogance of a victor nor sympathy for the defeated.

Only the minimum courtesy toward one who had crossed swords with him, staking everything.

“It is merely my path of the sword.”

A brief answer filled with sincerity.

That was sufficient.

Mujin asked no more.

Rather, he burst into hollow laughter as if all his questions had been answered by that response.

“Heh, hehe. Yes, the path of the sword… I devoted my entire life to walking that one path… and only now do I realize how narrow and shallow my well was.”

There was no humiliation of defeat in his eyes.

Rather, they were filled only with awe and relief at having glimpsed a higher realm beyond the wall that had blocked him his entire life.

Tranquil Extinction.

His sword that returned everything to nothingness had met a wave greater than itself for the first time today and shattered.

But within that shattering, he saw a new path.

“Indeed worthy of being called the Sword Demon. No, that would be insufficient… Well, it was quite a spectacle.”

With those words, Mujin collapsed forward as if his strength had given out.

He had completely lost consciousness.

Namgung Cheon gazed at him lying there for a moment.

The wound he had inflicted looked quite deep.

Therefore, Namgung Cheon approached Mujin and pressed his acupuncture points to stop the bleeding.

It was the minimum courtesy toward a strong warrior who had fought him with everything on the line.

Though he had stopped the bleeding, he could not leave him like this.

One of only two in the world who wielded the Sword of Tranquil Extinction.

Now that such a man had lost consciousness, those seeking his life would surely swarm.

Namgung Cheon turned around.

His gaze turned toward those who had been watching him, the hundreds of people who had retreated far back on the river embankment.

“…”

Wherever that gaze reached, people unconsciously bowed their heads or stepped backward.

None dared meet his eyes.

An absolute silence where no one dared speak.

Namgung Cheon was searching among that crowd for another gaze hidden behind the awe and fear directed at him.

‘There you are.’

His gaze stopped at one point in the crowd.

Though dressed as an ordinary merchant, Namgung Cheon’s eyes could not be deceived.

It was someone sent by the Namgung Clan.

Namgung Cheon spoke quietly toward him.

“You there.”

His voice was not loud, but it rang clearly through the quiet riverside.

The shoulders of the designated man stiffened.

And his face gradually turned pale at the fact that he had been discovered.

Namgung Cheon gestured toward the fallen Mujin with his chin and commanded him.

“Take this man to a physician.”

At his command, the watcher hurriedly ran out and bowed his head to the ground.

“I-I shall obey your command!”

Namgung Cheon turned and silently began walking along the river embankment.

His gaze turned beyond Hefei’s brilliant night scenery, toward the direction where the Namgung Family he had left lay.

Nine martial contests and the final tenth life-or-death battle.

The journey of martial contests he had undertaken to prove his martial prowess.

That proof had ended tonight, at this place.

Namgung Cheon recalled one person’s face.

His mother and the current de facto master of the Namgung Family, Jegal Hwa.

―I have released you into the wilderness as you desired, so prove for yourself whether you will become a wolf or a lost sheep.

The words she had thrown at him the day he left the family.

It had been appreciated.

Because this was what he had wanted from the beginning.

‘A wolf.’

A cold smile crossed Namgung Cheon’s lips.

Wolves form packs, but he had seized everything alone.

The path he would walk ahead would be the same.

‘I will show you.’

That my answer is different.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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