Return of the Sword Emperor - Chapter 18

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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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Chapter 7: Proof (3)

‘There it is.’

Dok Go Jin, who had been concentrating all his senses on the Reed Field, curled up the corner of his mouth into a smile.
It had appeared and vanished in an instant, but what his Ki Perception had caught was unmistakably human presence.
Without hesitation, Dok Go Jin hurled his sword toward where he sensed that presence.

“What are you doing!”

Yang Yun-wi cried out in startled alarm, watching the blade streak past their side.
Dok Go Jin said nothing in reply, his gaze fixed on the sword that had flown like an arrow, embedding itself in the Reed Field.
Just as Yang Yun-wi, feeling slighted, was about to flare up in anger, a faint scream carried on the wind.
It was so faint that one would miss it without careful listening, but Jeok Mu-hwa, Jong Gak, and the others did not overlook it.

“So that’s it. There really was an enemy.”

Jeok Mu-hwa muttered, his face awash with astonishment.

“An ambush.”

Jong Gak, drawing his sword in a flurry, was equally startled.

“What on earth—”

As Yang Yun-wi struggled to mask his shock, the Cheonrang-dan, believing their concealment had been discovered, broke from the Reed Field and revealed themselves.
They numbered around fifty, far fewer than the Escort Unit even with support troops added, yet their momentum was incomparable.
The Bokmadan, who had clashed with them frequently, were the first to identify the Cheonrang-dan’s true colors.

“Those bastards—the Cheonrang-dan!”

At Man Gyun’s cry, the Bokmadan members fell into despair.
The overall military strength of Bokmadan and Cheonrang-dan was evenly matched, with little gap between individual fighters either.
The problem lay in the fact that the Bokmadan unit participating in this escort operation was slightly inferior in skill compared to other units, and their numbers were overwhelmingly fewer.
Even with the Milgeom-dan included, the gap in fighting strength was too great.
The Security Unit and Support Unit combined outnumbered them greatly, but they could never stand against the Cheonrang-dan in the first place.

“Damn it—my gut’s been off all morning.”

Woo Gon clenched his Eye Patch and ground his teeth.
The ones who had taken his left eye were none other than the Cheonrang-dan, and because of this, the pain seemed to throb with unusual intensity.

“Security Unit, fall back.”

Jeok Mu-hwa shouted urgently.

“Security Unit, protect the prisoners!”

Jwa Jong-je did not hesitate.
Though he commanded the largest number, he knew they would be of little use regardless, so he hastily ordered his subordinates to withdraw. He believed that guarding only the prisoners would be responsibility enough.

“We’ll take the front.”

At Jeok Mu-hwa’s words, Jong Gak nodded in agreement.

“The left flank will be our responsibility,” one voice said, calm and composed.
“Then we shall defend the right.”

Unlike Jong Gak, whose demeanor was unruffled, Yang Yun-wi’s face was filled with dread.
It was no wonder. Though he had honed his skills over time by supervising prisoners at Chamhoe Prison, he had never directly engaged in combat against the elite of Madoryeon.
The distance between the two forces closed rapidly.
As Nak Weol, leading the charge, clenched his fists, his subordinates spread left and right, forming the Crane Wing Formation.

‘I didn’t expect them to see through it.’

Even as he shifted to a second method of attack—a contingency for when the ambush failed—his expression remained grim.

‘The outcome won’t change, though.’

The difference between a successful ambush and a failed one lay only in the amount of blood his men would shed.

‘Those ones are the problem. Especially the Milgeom-dan.’

Murder blazed in Nak Weol’s eyes as he regarded the Bokmadan—which had accumulated no small amount of enmity with Cheonrang-dan—and the Milgeom-dan.

“Vice Chief.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“Minimizing our losses hinges entirely on how quickly we eliminate the Milgeom-dan.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll sweep them away in no time.”

Gyur Won-baek flashed a confident smile.

“I trust you.”

Nak Weol tapped Gyur Won-baek on the shoulder in affirmation, then issued his command at once.

“Attack!”

With the order, he launched himself into the air.
His opponent was Jeok Mu-hwa, Vice Chief of the Bokmadan.
There was no need for formal introductions.
Jeok Mu-hwa met Nak Weol’s immediate barrage of sword strikes with full force from the start.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Each collision of blades in midair erupted in violent sparks and the thunder of impact.
In the blink of an eye, they exchanged a dozen moves before drawing apart.
As the tingling sensation traveled from his fingertips, Jeok Mu-hwa intuited that he was not Nak Weol’s match.
No—he had known it even before the fight began.
Only the Chief of the Bokmadan possessed skill enough to stand against Nak Weol.
Yet he could not retreat, for if not him, there was no one else to even slow Nak Weol down.
Jeok Mu-hwa steadied his breathing and cast a glance at the battlefield to his right, where the Support Unit was taking the brunt.
It was as he’d feared—the situation was dire.
Though the battle had only just begun, six or seven men already lay fallen.
Yang Yun-wi was urging his subordinates forward through gritted teeth, but even he seemed barely capable of holding his own against a single member of Cheonrang-dan.
Boom-boom-crack!
At the sound of the explosion, Jeok Mu-hwa’s gaze reflexively snapped to the left flank.

‘Jong Gak.’

Jong Gak, the only one who might pose a challenge to Nak Weol if Jeok Mu-hwa fell, was locked in an even fiercer struggle against the Vice Chief of Cheonrang-dan.

‘This is as bad as it gets.’

Jeok Mu-hwa bit down on his lip until it bled, knowing he could expect no support from either direction, when a strange sight caught his eye.
Behind Jong Gak’s body—which moved in desperate, relentless offense—something peculiar unfolded.
Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Milgeom-dan was not merely holding its own against Cheonrang-dan; they were fighting as equals.
At the center of it all stood Yu Seol-ran, moving with mad, reckless abandon, oblivious to death itself.

‘The Cold-Faced Demoness, after all.’

In the worst of circumstances, when he glimpsed a thread of hope, a cold voice cut through the air.

“Amusing. So you have the leisure to look away.”

A killing intent far more dense than before wrapped around everything.

“Come!”

Jeok Mu-hwa roared back without yielding.
But he had failed to see something crucial.
The figure standing at the heart of the battlefield where Milgeom-dan advanced was not Yu Seol-ran — it was Dok Go Jin.

* * *

“Well now, look at them all thrashing about like madmen.”

Ha Nam-o-sal strolled toward the fierce battleground at a leisurely pace, his face twisted in contempt.

“Tsk tsk. All that noise they made, and look at them go.”
“That’s right. They kept going on about perfect concealment, but the enemy already knew all along.”

Yi Du-ryong shook his head at the words of Gae Hong and Yul Seung.

“No, I don’t think that’s quite it.”
“It’s not?”
“You saw how things unfolded earlier. They were going to walk straight into the Reed Field without suspecting anything. But there was someone who stopped them.”
“Someone with sharp instincts.”

Yi Du-ryong elaborated on Yu Rang-cheon’s observation.

“Looking at his swordsmanship, he’s not just quick-witted — his skill is considerable too.”
“That does seem to be the case. Not that it matters much in the end.”

Yu Rang-cheon grinned and turned to regard his men.

“So, which do we strike first?”
“They’re fighting hard enough as it is, so it’d be poor form to jump in. Let’s eliminate those first, Chief.”

Gwak In-bu spun his Iron Hammer in a wide arc, pointing toward the Security Unit, whose faces had gone deathly pale as they stood guard over the prisoners.

“Is that so? The prisoner we’re meant to rescue is one of Madoryeon’s guardians, correct?”
“Yes. A man named Deung Bi, the Red Flame Tiger. And apparently there are also a few of his subordinates among them.”
“Small fry aren’t worth our attention. Either way, the picture of us freeing them first isn’t a bad one.”

Yu Rang-cheon’s eyes gleamed as he studied the prisoners.
While the other inmates trembled, believing the Security Unit might execute them as a worst-case measure, a single elderly man sat with his spine perfectly straight, maintaining his dignity.

‘So it’s that old man.’

It struck him as almost laughable—a captive clinging to his pride.

“Come. Let’s go.”

At Yu Rang-cheon’s command, Ha Nam-o-sal began moving in a wide arc around the battlefield.

* * *

Crack!
Gyeong Un-san, a Cheonrang-dan member, gasped and fell, clutching at his chest as bone pierced grotesquely through it, his expression one of pure incomprehension.

‘What… what in the world is this?’

They had launched a combined attack, exploiting their numerical advantage.
In a situation where they could be confident of victory even in a one-on-one fight, a combined assault should have ended the battle in moments.
They had attacked first with absolute certainty, convinced they had seized victory completely.
That confidence crumbled in an instant.
The opponent deflected the Strike of Conviction that he had unleashed to end the fight with almost contemptuous ease. And then, with a single unhurried punch, both he and his ally suffered mortal wounds.
Gyeong Un-san’s gaze shifted to his ally, crumpled beside him.
Blood streamed from seven of the man’s vital points as his body lay already lifeless.
At the sound of footsteps approaching like death itself, Gyeong Un-san forced his head to turn.
The man who had stopped directly before him—Dok Go Jin—his breathing remained perfectly steady. Seeing this, Gyeong Un-san’s expression twisted.

‘He was never an opponent to begin with…’

As though his will to live had abandoned him, Gyeong Un-san’s head fell limp.

“Your skill is certainly impressive.”

Dok Go Jin said this as he picked up the sword Gyeong Un-san had dropped.
Had those who had fought him heard this remark, they would have coughed up blood. After all, it had taken Dok Go Jin only two attacks to fell each of them.
Dok Go Jin twirled Gyeong Un-san’s blade lightly and swept his gaze across the battlefield.

“That sector is fine.”

Jong Gak, locked in fierce combat with Gyur Won-baek, appeared to be in no serious trouble.
One might think Jong Gak was being pushed back depending on one’s perspective, but Dok Go Jin, who knew Jong Gak’s true skill well, was certain of his victory.

“The captain is as always.”

Watching Yu Seol-ran, who despite being pressed by combined attacks from what appeared to be the strongest members of Cheonrang-dan, swung her sword with frenzied intensity, he smiled.
Yu Seol-ran’s display of performing beyond her strength in actual combat was indeed worthy of her reputation.

“But…”

Dok Go Jin’s expression darkened slightly.
Apart from Yu Seol-ran, Nam Goong Ho was the only one properly holding his own against the enemy’s combined assault.
With Nam Goong Ho, who possessed skill second only to Yu Seol-ran, barely maintaining level footing and holding on, there was no need to speak of the others. What had initially seemed like a proper circular formation to meet the enemy had already scattered into disarray.

“Whoever orchestrated this understands Milgeom-dan’s true strength well.”

The number of Cheonrang-dan members facing Milgeom-dan was precisely eighteen.
The intention was clear: rather than distributing forces evenly across the battlefield, they had drastically reduced numbers in the Support Unit sector and concentrated an overwhelming force against Milgeom-dan.

“But that too will prove to be a mistake.”

Dok Go Jin smiled coldly and moved toward Ha Jo-gyeong, whose fight was the most precarious of all.

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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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