Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 95

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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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Chapter 95.
At the end of the corridor, beneath a faint lantern’s glow, a man stood motionless.
The young master of the Guang Feng Yalü Family.
It was Yalü Cheok.
Yun Cheon pushed away from the railing and faced him directly.
The night air was cold, and the Inner Hall was unnaturally silent.
The roaring cheers that had heated the Grand Martial Arena throughout the day, the calculations of the elders, the whispers of the guests—all had faded beyond the walls.
Yet beneath that silence lay a tension far thicker than what had existed in daylight.
Yalü Cheok cupped his fist first in salute.
“Forgive my intrusion at this late hour. Might you spare me a moment of your time?”
Their gazes held for a long moment.
Yalü Cheok took another step forward from where he had paused, closing the distance with measured courtesy—yet it was a distance that carried unmistakable weight.
Yun Cheon nodded briefly.
“…Speak.”
Respectful, yet offering no opening for weakness.
He studied Yun Cheon for a time before slowly opening his mouth.
“…There is one thing I wish to ask.”
Yun Cheon lifted his gaze.
“Why does my sister stand here under the Black Dragon Gang’s banner?”
The question was brief, yet its implications were far from light.
Yun Cheon’s eyes dimmed ever so slightly.
“…Why do you ask me this?”
Yalü Cheok’s brow trembled just barely.
“…!”
“You yourself know well enough who should be asked for that answer.”
A brief silence.
The scent of pine drifted slowly through the night air.
“What is certain is that she did not stand here as anyone’s sister or anyone’s daughter.”
Yalü Cheok’s eyes narrowed.
“….”
“She ascended the Combat Platform as nothing more than a single warrior.”
The words were brief.
Yet this was something Yalü Cheok had not heard from the elders’ lips all night long.
Family law. Bloodline. Marriage prospects.
All had spoken of Yalü Hee, but none had spoken of what she herself sought to be.
Yalü Cheok turned the words over in his mind once more, as if swallowing them down.
“…A single warrior.”
His eyes dimmed for a moment.
‘I too… am not so different from them.’
He had lamented the calculations of the main house elders, yet he realized he himself had been bound by the framework of family, viewing his sister through that same lens.
“That is all I can tell you, it seems.”
Yalü Cheok answered briefly, pausing for a breath.
“…Thank you. Forgive me, but as the family head, might I ask one more thing?”
Yun Cheon nodded curtly.
“What do you think of Hee?”
The moment the question left my lips, I felt uneasy about it myself.
I realized that the main house’s calculations still hung at the end of that inquiry.
Yet Yun Cheon answered without hesitation.
“A warrior worthy of trusting one’s back to.”
Yun Cheon paused for a beat before continuing.
“I believe that answer should suffice.”
Yalü Cheok nodded slowly.
“…It seems tonight’s visit was not in vain.”
Yun Cheon returned the courtesy with a brief bow.
Yalü Cheok turned to leave, then offered one final word.
“Tomorrow, I will wish for the Black Dragon Gang’s victory.”
* * *
The next morning.
The Grand Martial Arena before the sun had fully risen was transformed from the day before.
In place of the tumult and anticipation of the Round of Sixteen, the endless murmurs had settled.
Now only eight remained.
That fact alone made the air far more taut than yesterday.
Though the waiting area had grown emptier, the spectator stands had filled even more.
Where yesterday there had been quite a few “renowned later-stage cultivators,” today was different.
All who remained had proven themselves at least once over.
The group emerging from the Inner Hall entered the Grand Martial Arena in silence.
The remaining eight stood in different positions, yet all gazed toward the same place.
The Combat Platform.
Soon, upon it, someone would ascend and someone would fall.
Then, a drum sounded once.
Boom—.
A brief resonance.
Yet that single drum beat alone tidied the murmurs throughout the arena.
The Butler walked forward before the Elevated Platform.
In his hands was the ledger once more.
“We shall commence the martial trials, continuing from yesterday.”
A brief and measured declaration.
The Butler’s gaze swept across the ledger.
“The first trial.”
A brief silence fell over the Grand Martial Arena.
Every eye in the arena snapped toward the Elevated Platform and Combat Platform simultaneously.
“Ul Ji Geuk of the Pae Roe Ul Ji Family.”
Gasps rippled through the spectator stands.
A man wearing a saber etched with lightning patterns rose leisurely from his seat.
Ul Ji Geuk.
Yesterday, the man who had subdued his opponent with a single move without even drawing his blade.
He walked slowly toward the Combat Platform.
His steps carried no wasted motion.
He made no deliberate show of his aura, yet that very restraint made his presence all the more palpable.
The Butler’s voice rang out once more.
“Kang Hui of the Black Dragon Gang.”
Kang Hui chuckled softly.
“Putting me up first, are they?”
He slipped the Blood Claw onto the back of his hand and rose slowly.
Yalü Hee spoke curtly.
“Don’t embarrass yourself.”
Kang Hui rolled his shoulders with a grin.
“Losing is one thing, but embarrassment? That’s another.”
Kang Hui turned his head.
“Does the Gang Lord find him a difficult opponent?”
Yun Cheon glanced at Kang Hui once, then spoke briefly.
“He’s no easy match.”
Just one sentence.
That brief answer somehow carried greater weight.
Kang Hui’s lips curved upward.
“Good. That’s when a fight gets interesting.”
Ul Ji Geuk, already standing at the center of the Combat Platform, tapped his fingers against his saber’s scabbard.
“A vagrant turned guest of the Black Dragon Gang, I hear? You do have some bite to you.”
Kang Hui held up the Blood Claw.
“So you’ve investigated me? I’m honored. Why don’t you experience it firsthand?”
The Butler looked between the two men.
A faint smile crossed Ul Ji Geuk’s lips.
He drew his blade slowly from its sheath.
The steel whispered free.
Beneath the lightning pattern, the blade revealed itself.
The steel caught the dawn light, gleaming blue for an instant.
“Yesterday, there was no need to draw.”
Ul Ji Geuk let the words fall briefly.
“Today… I’ll show you a technique.”
“…Begin the match!”
The moment the words left his mouth, Kang Hui burst forward first.
Screech—!
The five claws of the Blood Claw raked diagonally into Ul Ji Geuk’s flank. It feinted a direct assault before twisting its trajectory at the last inch to pry open a gap—a charge that blended the raw ferocity honed on the streets with the unpredictable variations beaten into him by Yi Mok.
Clang!
Ul Ji Geuk’s blade fell from above to below.
A straight line.
Yet that single straight line resonated all the way to Kang Hui’s wrist.
“…Tsk!”
Kang Hui swiftly twisted his wrist to extract his claws. His fingertips tingled. Not a direct hit. The moment he assessed this, he immediately lowered his stance further.
Another charge.
He feinted a rightward drive before cutting left and downward, feinted an attack at the legs before raking across the thigh. One hand drew the eye while the other tore into the opening. It was less a technique than relentless predation.
Yet Ul Ji Geuk did not yield a single step.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The blade met the Blood Claw head-on. It felt less like blocking and more like crushing. The trajectories Kang Hui aimed at—wrist, thigh, flank—were severed again and again.
“Heavy…!”
Kang Hui’s eyes flashed.
He deliberately swung his right arm in a wide arc. The moment Ul Ji Geuk’s gaze followed that hand—
Thud!
His left knee rose low and drove into the flank.
A gasp erupted from the audience below the platform.
Yet Ul Ji Geuk received the blow on his blade’s flat and held firm.
“Ugh!”
As his decisive strike was blocked, Kang Hui immediately twisted his body and created distance.
The opponent felt like a wall.
No matter how he probed, gaps were hard to find.
Yet Kang Hui did not stop.
Once more.
This time not head-on but lower, deeper. The Blood Claw, aiming for the back of Ul Ji Geuk’s knee, suddenly shifted direction and thrust beneath the armpit.
Rip—!
Cloth tore.
No blood flowed. Yet this time, it clearly connected.
The audience stirred.
Ul Ji Geuk’s eyes changed for the first time.
The languid composure lifted, replaced by cold irritation.
“Bothersome.”
A short utterance.
Yet the killing intent beneath that voice was far thicker than before.
Ul Ji Geuk angled his blade diagonally.
In that instant, the air above the platform changed.
Until now, he had received and crushed from his position.
But not anymore.
Thud.
Ul Ji Geuk took the first step forward.
Just a single step.
Yet Kang Hui’s complexion shifted.
The moment he began to follow, the entire texture of their combat reversed completely.
Crash!
A blade descending in a direct overhead strike.
Kang Hui hastily raised Blood Claw to block, but his knees buckled nearly half a foot backward.
Screech!
Immediately followed by a horizontal slash.
Kang Hui threw himself backward to evade.
Boom—!
The third was an upward thrust from below.
The mere wind from the blade grazing his ribs felt as though his organs were being turned inside out.
“Ugh…!”
Ul Ji Geuk did not pause.
Shattering the front, severing the sides, blocking from below.
A blade technique that destroyed the very unconventional sword paths Kang Hui had prided himself upon.
A truly linear blade worthy of the name Pae Roe.
Kang Hui gritted his teeth and pressed inward once more.
He had to evade.
Blocking only pushed him back.
Being pushed back meant the end.
So instead, he would go deeper.
Closer still.
He had to close the distance until their bodies touched, preventing that devastating arc from unfolding.
“I won’t lose like that, even if it kills me…!”
Kang Hui’s body twisted with feral desperation.
One hand shook Ul Ji Geuk’s vision while the other tore upward beneath it. His toes scraped at the shins, his elbow aimed for the ribs, his shoulder wedged into every gap.
Every movement was savage and bestial.
In the stands below, even breathing ceased.
No one dismissed Kang Hui now.
This was no mere brutal technique.
It was the relentless ferocity of a beast that continued to bite even as it was hunted.
Yet.
His opponent was simply too strong.
Ul Ji Geuk’s blade fell in a diagonal arc.
Kang Hui evaded.
He immediately bounced in the opposite direction.
Ul Ji Geuk’s foot moved.
Boom.
A sharp, decisive step.
Sand from the Combat Platform scattered with that single stride.
The blade scraped upward diagonally from below.
Crack!
Kang Hui’s Blood Claw was sent flying straight back.
The connecting chains between the claws shrieked, and the impact surged all the way to his elbow. His grip loosened for a moment.
That was the instant.
Ul Ji Geuk’s eyes turned ice-cold.
“It’s over now.”
A thin, serpentine blue aura writhed along the blade.
Crackle.
A brief thunder that tore through the air.
Yet even that minute lightning force seemed to freeze the very air above the Combat Platform.
“Lightning force…!”
“The secret technique of the Pae Roe Ul Ji Family!”
Kang Hui felt it too.
His instincts screamed first.
A direct confrontation was impossible.
But it was already too late.
Ul Ji Geuk unleashed his blade.
The Pae Roe Blade Technique.
Boom—!
At first, it came in with overwhelming force.
In the instant Kang Hui reflexively twisted his body, a second hidden power erupted within it.
Crash—!
Suddenly, Kang Hui’s vision was consumed by blinding white light, and a thunder that seemed to tear his eardrums shattered across the Combat Platform.
“Ugh—!”
Kang Hui’s body was hurled beyond the Combat Platform.
Thud! Tumble—!
Only after rolling twice, three times, did he finally stop.
Silence.
The hand gripping the Blood Claw trembled violently.
His shoulder and flank, where the lightning force had burrowed in, burned and throbbed.
Yet Kang Hui clenched his teeth and planted one knee against the ground.
“…Hah.”
Blood dripped from his split lips as he smiled crookedly.
“Ptui—. Really… strong.”
Ul Ji Geuk slowly withdrew his blade.
The azure light flowing through the Sword Body gradually faded away.
After wiping the shallow wound beneath my chin with the back of my hand, I looked down at Kang Hui directly for the first time.
My eyes no longer held boredom.
“That fanged beast had some bite to it.”
The Butler’s voice fell late.
“Victor: Ul Ji Geuk!”
The defeat was unmistakable.
Yet Kang Hui never fully collapsed.
Bracing himself on one knee, he raised his head and glared at Ul Ji Geuk upon the Combat Platform.
There was frustration in his eyes, but no surrender.
Yalü Hee clicked her tongue softly.
“…That madman.”
Yet a faint smile lingered at the corner of her mouth.
Yun Cheon remained seated, watching Kang Hui quietly.
He fought well.
That single assessment was sufficient.
Ul Ji Geuk shifted his gaze slightly from the Combat Platform.
At its end sat Yun Cheon in the waiting area.
Beneath the lightning insignia, the corner of his mouth twisted ever so faintly.
“I’d like to cross blades with that wolf’s master. Can you make your way up here?”
Everyone in the arena knew exactly who those brief words were directed at.

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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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