North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 105

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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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105. Blood on the Road

Forty blades blocked the path ahead.
The party watched the enemy with cold, sharp eyes and waited in silence.
The quality of these swords was altogether different from the rabble they had swept through at Majeon’s two thousand.
As the dust settled at the end of the road, some fifty mounted warriors emerged beneath their banners.
They did not rush forward like bandits in a horde.
One man halted, another drew alongside to take his place. The line formed naturally, rank by rank, with deliberate precision.
The calm of an orderly stand felt heavier than any charge.
Formation itself was a threat.
The party’s horses came to a halt as well.
Taikan’s eyes opened narrowly from the shadow of a boulder.
“Not like Majeon. Each one of them first-rate. Excellent swordsmen.”
Before the party that had torn Majeon’s two thousand in half, who had demolished the Martial Alliance’s vanguard, a foe of a different caliber now stood blocking their way.
“How many?”
Garkan asked.
“Forty-six. No more will arrive. They answer directly to the Martial Alliance.”
Taikan’s answer was brief.
A count precise to the man, with not a soul miscounted.
These were the Martial Alliance’s elite—drawn one each from the Nine Great Sects and One School and the Five Great Families.
The Plum Blossom Sword of Hua-shan, the Cloud Dragon Sword of Kunlun, the sword masters of Jian Chang, the Emperor Sword of the Namgung Family… An uncommon presence flowed from their sword grips and stances alone. Their wrists carried no excess motion, their feet stood without trembling.
The forty-six split apart.
One stood back at a distance, while five each arranged themselves into nine lines, and the sword tips of all nine groups pivoted as one to the same angle.
“The Nine Palaces Sword Formation,” Serian said quickly. “Nine move as one body, the formation as it turns. Even if you cut through, it closes at once.”

“Heh heh! Is it like the Five Sins Sword Formation?”
Harku licked his tongue as he spoke.
“The Five Sins Sword Formation is five bodies sharing one blade, but this—all of them together are a single sword.”
Even as they appeared, Aelak made no move to step forward. His hand rested on his sword hilt, then he took a deliberate step back.
His blade was kept in reserve for the master of the scars. This was not the place to draw it.
His four subordinates dismounted and stepped ahead.
Whoosh—!
Garkan’s Bing Chulsae unwound across the grass.
No words passed between them. Not even a question asked.
The silver chain wrapped around the wrist of the front swordsman, tearing his blade from his grip, then the returning chain swept against the shin of the man beside him with intent to break his knees.
Crack—!
The screech of metal tearing through air shook the wilderness. In that instant—
“The northern Stray Dog has lost his way on the road.”
A third swordsman had somehow vaulted onto the chain, his blade aimed at Garkan’s shoulder.
The sword tip of the third swordsman embroidered dozens of crimson petals in the empty air—the Plum Blossom in Full Bloom, the Plum Blossom Sword.
This blade read the space the chain had opened and drove straight through it.
Garkan caught the chain and wrapped the blade within its coils. He braced his feet firm to the ground, arched his back, and sent Ice Qi flowing through the metal.
A frozen chill bloomed where the chain lay wrapped.
Crack—!
For a moment it seemed the hand gripping the sword would freeze white, finger by finger. Then—
“You barbarian filth!”
A sharp rebuke erupted from the side. In the same breath, a blade like lightning pierced through the chains, its path bending in a grotesque arc, a sword path difficult to defend against.
The Seven Star Wind Thunder Sword of Qing Cheng!
“Break what blocks you, they said!”
Garkan answered curtly, meeting the strike.
This was no idle jest. How those who had despised the northern barbarians had fared was written in the tracks they left behind.
“Let me have a taste myself!”
Harku’s Twin Daggers drove into the Sword Realm of the Seven Star Wind Thunder Sword.
Clang! Clang clang clang!
Blade and steel crashed roughly against each other, scattering sparks.
In that instant, the Seven Star Wind Thunder Sword flowed sideways, sweeping toward Arko. The formation’s flow, an attack that bored through gaps with absolute precision.
The Plum Blossom Sword came crashing down on Harku.
Plum Blossom in Full Bloom unfolded again. The blade tip split into a petal shape, slashing at all four directions at once.
A Sword Flower that enclosed a person completely.
An ordinary Blade Wanderer would never have set foot within that petal-net. But Harku was no Blade Wanderer. He was a Beast.
Harku drew in a sharp breath through his nose.
Using Olfactory Heart Connection, he found the gap in the Sword Path hidden between the petals of the Sword Flower.
He saw not with eyes but with his nose. The inhalation of the Plum Blossom Sword master and the smell of pine resin clinging to the blade tip revealed the single narrow passage the petals could not reach.
Harku dropped low, then surged upward, squeezing through directly down the center.
Two curved blades traced their arcs together.
Clang!
The Twin Daggers crossed with a screech of metal on flesh.
The Plum Blossom Sword master’s both wrists severed, he choked back a cry and staggered, his blade falling. The scattered Sword Flower lost its master and crumbled into empty air.
He had cut through both wrists and escaped from the very heart of that Sword Realm which barbarians were said could never breach.
Arko crouched low, gripping the two poisoned daggers more tightly in his hands. Black oil dripped steadily down both blades.
Slice!
The poisoned daggers cut through the air, wetting the sides of two blades—the Kunlun Sword and Cloud Dragon Sword.
Two swordsmen moving as one through a Combined Strike.
Arko targeted both at once. Not their blades—he sought to cover the entire space in which the swordsmen moved.
The two poisoned daggers flowed through the lines like rain, and where the black oil touched their flesh, it spread slick and viscous.
The rotation of the Cloud Dragon Sword hesitated for a moment.
Serian unbound the Leather Belt Weapon from her waist and wrapped it once around her hand. Metal ornaments chimed, and Eun Seol at the belt’s end caught the light with a flash.
In that opening, Serian’s belt rippled through the air.
Her left hand seized the belt’s end and brought forth surging elasticity—and as eyes fixed on the belt, Eun Seol flowed forth in silence.
Shwick!
The belt spawned thirteen strands like snowflakes.
The attack was neither technique nor feint—a pure, straight cut. But it could not be stopped. To block it was to risk being severed altogether. Whether from the treasure blade itself, or the sword force dwelling within it.
“Emperor Sword style. Namgung Family!”
Serian moved with speed. Metal ornaments rang out. Eun Seol curved left and right, flowing toward the pursuing blade.
If it pursued, both would fall.
The Namgung Family martial warrior withdrew his sword and stepped back.
Taikan shot arrows from the boulder.
Twang!
A warrior who had broken from the Nine Palaces Sword Formation and lingered at the rear seemed to be hit by something and tilted in the saddle. No—he had not been hit. The arrow passed through empty air, and he righted himself again.
‘My arrow?’
The man had already twisted his body beside the saddle before the bowstring sang. He had read the trajectory the arrow would trace and abandoned that space.
Taikan slowly adjusted his fingers on the string, nocking a fresh arrow.
Snap!
Taikan’s eyes flashed cold and keen.

The assault of five shook the front ranks of the Elite. The shaken ranks fell back one step, and the rotation of nine lines faltered briefly.
But it was not easy.
With each clash, the Elite’s blades felt heavy.
Where the swords of Majeon soldiers had shattered easily, these blades received Garkan’s chain and sprang back, and they diverted Harku’s curved blades.
Each exchange was weighted, and the impact settled squarely on the wrists that caught them.
The front ranks that they thought they had felled rose again.
The wounded retreated. From five to four—and yet the Nine Palaces Sword Formation remained intact. As though it had suffered no damage at all.
Though a fierce exchange had just taken place, it felt as though they were only beginning.
“If this keeps up, we’ll have to drop more than half before anything loosens.”
Arko muttered.
“Before we exhaust ourselves. Brother, these bastards are genuinely strong.”
Harku agreed.
They seemed to hold the advantage, had even wounded some—and yet the path was growing narrower. The enemy’s movements quickened and grew more frantic.
Screech!
Garkan swung his Bing Chulsae to seek a break in the formation. But the flow of the formation did not sever. When divided, it scattered only to mend itself again.
“Find who commands them!”
Garkan shouted.
When they shattered the Five Sins Sword Formation at Hyungsan, the formation had crumbled easily once Taikan had picked off those directing it.
“There is none.”
Taikan’s answer came back.
Taikan pointed the arrow tip down the nine ranks in sequence.
“All nine groups command independently. This is… a living creature.”
It struck the five of them for the first time—the fact that no matter how much they cut, the formation simply closed again. A formation without a single commander.
Screech!
Harku’s Twin Daggers slipped empty for the first time. The formation shifted position and the blades found nothing.
Where the steel should have met flesh, there was only air. The enemy had already moved.
“We’re fighting the formation itself. Don’t be fooled by their techniques.”
Arko replied in a low voice.
He meant to abandon the idea of direct assault and instead strike at the spaces the formation flowed into. But Harku knew that much already.
“Which space?”
Harku bared his teeth in a jest.
“You can’t see the empty spots? The formation’s spinning right in front of your eyes. This is why I keep telling you to train harder.”
Arko answered in kind.
They needed to find some ease of mind to escape even slightly from the pressure of the Nine Palaces Sword Formation. Besides, Harku was already learning that lesson himself with each failed strike.
The black oil he launched fell into empty grass every time the formation shifted. He’d aimed at the space where the enemy had stood, but they were already elsewhere. As though there was no need to even acknowledge the attempt.
For the first time, the sharp strikes of both warriors missed before the formation.

The formation tightened.
Whoosh!
The spear drove inward.
No wasted motion in the technique. It had pierced straight through the front, but the force concentrated at the spear’s tip was so overwhelming that it tore through the Bing Chulsae and aimed directly at the heart.
Not a tremor of hesitation in the divine spear’s majesty.
“The Six Harmony Divine Spear of the Yuk Family! Watch out!”
Serian’s warning came too late. Garkan was occupied with parrying Jian Chang’s Returning Wind Endless Sword and couldn’t block the spear thrust. Even though he’d seen it coming.
Rip!
A long gash opened along Garkan’s ribs.
A single chain couldn’t block the combined strikes converging from nine positions simultaneously. While it wrapped one blade, another carved across his ribs. Had there been four chains, he could have contained two and blocked two more.
The Bing Chulsae finally couldn’t keep pace with the formation’s rotation.
Hot blood streamed from his ribs, soaking into the bear-skin beneath.
“Damn!”
Garkan ground his teeth and spat out a curse. But he didn’t even groan. Falling before his Clan Leader would be shame.
Harku’s Twin Daggers were caught between two blades.
His side wound hadn’t even healed yet, and somehow they’d found it—two blades drove toward that exact spot. He twisted the Twin Daggers desperately to parry, but they twisted in the opposite direction in perfect unison.
In that instant, the Twin Daggers were wedged between the blades, frozen in place.
His ribs screamed with sharp pain.
The more wounded he was, the more savage he became—but savagery couldn’t push through a wall of steel. Instead of laughter, a grinding sound came through his teeth.
Crack…!
From the mouth of one who’d treated the fight as a game, a groan of pain finally escaped.
“Huff!”
Arko too exhaled a heavy breath.
He’d exhausted the black oil.
The Black Oil Dagger lost its potency once the supply of oil for recoating ran dry. It became nothing more than an ordinary throwing blade. From now on, he’d have to fight with pure martial skill.
Serian was in dire straits as well. Her Leather Belt Weapon was trapped in the heart of the formation and couldn’t deploy all thirteen strands. No space.
In open ground, that weapon had once swept away twenty elite guards in a single strike, but without room to unfurl, it was nothing but a leather strap.
Serian tried to gather the weapon back, but the relentless barrage from all sides didn’t give her a moment to withdraw it.
“The weapon is trapped. There’s no space to deploy it.”
Serian reported in a low voice.
“Form up. Back to back.”
The command was steady, without tremor despite the crisis.
Garkan pressed his back against hers. Meanwhile, she switched the Eun Seol to a reverse grip.
Taikan descended from the rock.
He’d hoped to strike the formation’s rear from the high ground, but the enemy read his arrows clearly. The Nine Palaces Sword Formation itself was a perfect defensive barrier.
He dropped the arrow and took up a Short Sword, moving to rejoin the group. That act of joining itself was a signal—they’d lost the space to attack.
For the first time, the Northern warriors were forced into a single cluster.
The Nine Palaces Sword Formation imprisoned all five in its center.
Clang!
Nine groups of spear points rose in unison to the same height.
Forty-some weapons froze in a single breath.
The rattle of chains fell silent. The clash of steel ceased. All that remained was the breathing of five people and the scent of iron.
Cold metallic light hemmed them in on all sides.
No matter which direction they swung their blades, steel met them. There was nowhere left to escape.
Drip!
A bead of blood fell from Garkan’s flank onto the grass below.
Swords closed in from all sides.
For the first time, he couldn’t see the next move. The five stood frozen, backs pressed together.

Aelak watched the scene unfold, one hand resting on his sword hilt.
His gray eyes swept slowly across the five warriors trapped in the formation’s center. His fingers tightened around the hilt, yet still he did not draw.
He had always known the moment to strike and the moment to wait.
In the heart of a formation that closed even as it killed, five northern warriors stood encircled by blades on every side.
Every direction was steel.

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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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