The Battle for the Heavenly Sword - Chapter 56

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

56
Woo Geom-san Contends for Supremacy
The Cheonbaeksan Mountain Range was so vast that one could not cross it even after walking for ten days and nights.
Even the people of Yunjung Village, who had lived in Cheonbaeksan all their lives, had countless places they had never been to.
Gwi-mu-gok was one of those places.
Located on the eastern side of the Cheonbaeksan Mountain Range, Gwi-mu-gok was thick with fog all year round, so much so that not only humans but even beasts avoided approaching it.
Since people had not approached it for a long time, it became a completely forgotten region.
In that very Gwi-mu-gok, people had started coming in and living from some time ago.
About twenty men living in shabby Thatched Cottages.
Every single one of them had cold, sharp eyes and a good build. And they wore weapons like swords or sabers on their waists.
No matter who saw them, they were absolutely not ordinary people. Moreover, the expressions of the men were not very bright.
Every single one of them had a dark, dissatisfaction-filled expression.
A few of them staggered as if drunk on drugs, and some let out bizarre screams, unable to restrain their killing intent.
Just then, two men pierced through the fog and entered Gwi-mu-gok.
It was a skinny man and a chubby man.
They were the men who had monitored the people of Yunjung Village in Guangu County.
At their appearance, the eyes of the men in Gwi-mu-gok flashed. A middle-aged man who had an exceptionally fierce gaze among the men stepped forward.
“How did it go?”
“We confirmed that those bastards bought daily necessities.”
“The quantity?”
“It was well over the amount for twenty donkeys.”
“With that much, they’ll be able to pass this winter sufficiently. Good work.”
“It was nothing.”
Having finished the report, the skinny man and the chubby man stepped back.
The middle-aged man with the fierce gaze seemed to think deeply for a moment, then went to the largest Thatched Cottage.
He knocked on the door of the Thatched Cottage and spoke.
“Chief! It is Gwak Ju-cheon.”
“Come in.”
A moment later, a cracked voice, as if scraping iron with a spoon, was heard from inside the Thatched Cottage.
The man who identified himself as Gwak Ju-cheon carefully opened the door of the Thatched Cottage and went inside.
In the center of the dark Thatched Cottage where no light was lit, the figure of a man sitting on a mattress was dimly visible.
The man, sitting cross-legged with his disheveled hair hanging down to his waist, was as skinny as an old tree.
His skin was crumbly without a single drop of moisture, so the texture of his skinny muscles was revealed as it was.
It was a ghastly sight that looked as if he would collapse if one just put a finger on him, but because of his pupils that flared with ghostly fire even in the darkness, he looked even more eerie.
Gwak Ju-cheon knelt on one knee before him and spoke.
“Chief! They say the bastards from the upper village are returning loaded with supplies. Since there are more than twenty donkeys, they’ll be able to pass this winter sufficiently.”
“Have the bastards from the upper village finally moved?”
The man called Chief stood up from the mattress and walked toward Gwak Ju-cheon.
Instantly, Gwak Ju-cheon gulped down his dry saliva.
It was because of the eerie momentum felt from the Chief.
The Chief’s name was Pa Gung.
Pa Gung was the Qinghua Dan Chief of the Taiyin Sect, one of the Mysterious Sects of Jianghu.
The Qinghua Dan was an organization that guarded the inner and outer areas of the Taiyin Sect.
In order for external forces to interact with the Taiyin Sect, they absolutely had to go through the Qinghua Dan. As he was the Chief of such a Qinghua Dan, Pa Gung possessed formidable power.
He lived a king-like life while committing all kinds of corruption.
The problem occurred two years ago.
The Sect Leader of the Taiyin Sect died suddenly and abruptly, and his young daughter ascended to the position of Sect Leader.
Pa Gung could not just watch a young wench of barely eighteen years old become the Sect Leader and be above his head. Therefore, taking advantage of the chaotic interval in the Taiyin Sect due to the sudden succession, he raised a rebellion.
His rebellion seemed to end successfully. However, at the decisive moment, Huaying Dan Chief Yu Suoyan intervened, and Pa Gung’s rebellion came to naught.
Yu Suoyan was originally the wet nurse of the new Sect Leader, Yin Sara. Therefore, everyone had looked down on her, but unexpectedly, she was a supreme expert.
Pa Gung also prided himself on being strong in his own right, but Yu Suoyan’s strength was on a different dimension from his.
In the end, Pa Gung, who was miserably defeated by Yu Suoyan, escaped the Taiyin Sect along with his subordinates.
The Taiyin Sect issued a Kill Order for Pa Gung and his subordinates who dared to raise a rebellion.
All the experts of the Taiyin Sect pursued Pa Gung and his subordinates. In that process, a large number of subordinates who followed Pa Gung lost their lives.
In the end, only twenty martial artists, including Pa Gung, barely saved their lives and could arrive at Cheonbaeksan.
Even after entering Cheonbaeksan, they feared the pursuit of the Taiyin Sect, so they hardly did any external activities.
Except for when they bought truly necessary items, they hardly even entered or left the nearby Guangu County. As they lived in seclusion while hardly doing external activities like that, all the money they had also ran out, and the stored supplies also dried up, so they had to live a destitute life.
The ones who caught their eyes at that time were precisely the youths of Yunjung Village.
As they bought a tremendous amount of supplies three or four times every year and climbed Cheonbaeksan, they looked like appetizing prey to Pa Gung and the others.
They called the people coming down from Yunjung Village the people of the upper village and monitored their movements.
In the meantime, they did not dare to put it into action out of fear of the Taiyin Sect’s pursuit, but now that they were driven into a corner, they were not in a position to choose this or that.
Gwak Ju-cheon, who was looking at Pa Gung for a moment, spoke carefully.
“Chief! How about we rather capture those bastards and take away their village? Then we will be able to safely increase our strength without having to worry about the pursuit of the Taiyin Sect anymore.”
“Won’t the Taiyin Sect catch the scent?”
“It is the upper village that even we, who have stayed here for over a year, could not find. It is in such a deep backcountry, so how would the Taiyin Sect find it? If we use the bastards of the upper village as slaves, we will be able to stay safely without worrying about supplies. If the Chief completes the Divine Art in the meantime, even the Taiyin Sect Under Heaven won’t be able to do anything to us.”
“Indeed, if I complete the Divine Art, who on earth would dare to stop me?”
A stronger ghostly fire soared up from Pa Gung’s eyes.
Pa Gung, who raised the rebellion, had discovered a martial art called Baigu Wushang Gong in the secret vault of the Taiyin Sect.
Baigu Wushang Gong was the signature technique of Baigu Guimo, who had caused a stir in the world two hundred years ago, and it had the characteristic of becoming as skinny as white bones or an old tree when one reached Grand Completion.
However, differently from how it appeared, one would come to possess a body close to Diamond Invulnerability, where one would not even be able to get a scratch with swords and sabers.
Fortunately, whether it matched his compatibility with Baigu Wushang Gong, Pa Gung was able to learn Baigu Wushang Gong at a very fast speed.
Currently, his achievement was around the Seventh Stage. Although it was not to the point of the Body of Diamond Invulnerability at this degree, it could be said that he had reached a realm where swords and sabers could at least not pierce him.
Thanks to that, Pa Gung’s confidence was in a state of reaching its peak.
The only thing weighing on his mind was the subordinates who followed him now.
They also learned a demonic art discovered in the secret vault like Pa Gung, but they learned it too rapidly by shortcuts, so they were suffering from side effects.
An uncontrollable desire to kill and desire to destroy drove them crazy from time to time.
Because of that, he had to periodically release their desires.
Now was precisely such a period.
He looked at Gwak Ju-cheon and spoke.
“Good! We capture those bastards and make them our guides. And we take their village as ours.”
“It is a wise decision. Then I will get the kids ready.”
“I will go too.”
“They are people who are nothing more than rustic ignoramuses. There is no need for the Chief to step forward directly.”
“We cannot stay in this dingy place forever. As soon as we subdue them, we head to the village.”
“Understood.”
Because the ghostly fire emitted by Pa Gung was so fearsome, Gwak Ju-cheon did not dare to raise any more counterarguments.
Like that, Pa Gung and Gwak Ju-cheon led their subordinates and left Gwi-mu-gok.
***
“Did it rain in the meantime? It’s hollowed out in places, so be careful so that the donkeys don’t fall in.”
“Understood.”
The youths answered all at once at the words of Baek Wol-sang, who was walking at the front.
Sure enough, whether it had rained, the road was turned into a mess.
It was hollowed out deeply in places, so puddles of water were made.
If a donkey fell wrongly into a puddle, its leg would end up broken. Because of that, the nerves of Baek Wol-sang and the youths were sharply on edge.
Woo Geom-san stroked Hongbaek while following them from the rear.
Hongbaek enjoyed Woo Geom-san’s touch while holding his head up stiffly.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just fly and follow us?”
Then Hongbaek turned his head and avoided Woo Geom-san’s gaze.
Hongbaek’s attitude somehow seemed like he understood Woo Geom-san’s words.
“Could it be that you understand my words?”
Peep!
Hongbaek cried shortly.
“Is that right?”
Peep!
Hongbaek cried shortly once more.
At that, Woo Geom-san became certain that Hongbaek understood his words.
An ordinary bird does not understand human speech no matter how much one trains it. It merely understands repeated words.
But Hongbaek was different.
It was as if he understood human speech itself.
‘Is it because I fed him Yeongbo Vitality Pills consistently?’
Baek Ho-yang often fed him the precious Yeongbo Vitality Pills, saying Hongbaek was cute. Perhaps because of that, he became much larger than his same siblings, and he was growing rapidly even now.
At this rate, it was to the extent that one could not know how much he would grow.
Anyway, because he was such a special Hongbaek, even if he understood human speech, it was nothing greatly strange.
Woo Geom-san spoke to Hongbaek.
“If you really understand my words, monitor from the sky whether there are people approaching us.”
Flap!
No sooner had Woo Geom-san’s words finished than Hongbaek flew up into the sky.
It was not for no reason that he gave Hongbaek such a command.
Originally, one of the reasons he followed the village youths was precisely because of bandits.
The youths who had gone out on a trading journey had asked for protection, saying that suspicious individuals were lingering around the entrance of Cheonbaeksan, and that was the beginning.
Fortunately, in the last trading journey, they could not find individuals suspected to be bandits.
At this, the village youths were relieved, but Woo Geom-san never let his guard down.
More than anything, the commotion he saw when escaping from Guangu County weighed on his mind.
For this and that reason, Woo Geom-san had made Hongbaek use the sky to monitor the surroundings.
Woo Geom-san moved his steps while leaving the monitoring to Hongbaek.
From the front, the sound of the youths sharing conversations in low murmurs was heard.
“It feels like winter is going to start early this year for some reason.”
“I know, right? It’s ominous that the weather is fickle.”
“As soon as we return to the village, we’ll have to harvest the rice first and prepare for winter.”
“How cold will it be this time? Last winter was really cold too.”
“Just thinking about it is terrible. Ugh!”
The topic of their conversation was this winter.
How cold it would be, how early it would start, and also when it would end were their major concerns.
As Woo Geom-san was also a member of Yunjung Village, he naturally had a deep interest in their conversation.
“If a lot of snow piles up, we also have to suspend the construction of the Plank Road.”
“That should be so. Because everyone’s safety is the top priority.”
Baek Wol-sang agreed with his opinion.
No matter how important the Plank Road was, it did not become a reason to construct it while braving danger.
First, and second, safety was the top priority.
Besides that, various plans to wisely endure the winter were discussed.
Woo Geom-san liked this time of discussing with people very much. Because he could know perspectives that he had not yet seen.
It was when Woo Geom-san was enjoying the conversation with the youths for a long while like that.
Peeeee!
The cry of Hongbaek resonated from the high sky.
In other people’s ears, Hongbaek’s cry sounded exactly the same as usual, but in Woo Geom-san’s ears, it sounded much sharper.
It was longer and sharper than usual.
It was a cry he had not heard from Hongbaek until now.
Hongbaek was continuously circling one spot.
That appearance felt as if he was warning about something.
Woo Geom-san spoke to Baek Wol-sang.
“Brother!”
“Huh?”
“I’ll go somewhere for a bit. Brother, keep leading the people and go to the village.”
“Why so?”
“Because Hongbaek’s cry is bothering me.”
“Is that so?”
Baek Wol-sang did not say words like, ‘Why bother with something like a bird’s cry?’
Because he thought there would definitely be a justifiable reason for Woo Geom-san to speak like this.
“Understood. We will go up first.”
“Go up carefully. I’ll just check if there’s no problem and follow right away.”
“Yeah! You be careful too.”
Baek Wol-sang hurriedly left the spot along with the youths.
Woo Geom-san, who confirmed that they had disappeared, looked at the sky.
Hongbaek was still hovering around the same spot.
Swoosh!
Instantly, Woo Geom-san’s figure disappeared.
He had deployed the Flowing Void Steps.

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