The Great Heavenly Demon Sovereign - Chapter 266

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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 266.
At that very moment, the merchant vessel riding the favorable wind began to gradually reduce its speed.
Upon the chain-linked ships were devices capable of launching flaming arrows and stone projectiles that could sink distant vessels at any moment.
Furthermore, to prevent any approach toward the checkpoint, ships were halted in the middle of the river to collect passage fees.
And if anything seemed amiss?
The flaming arrows and stone projectiles installed at the checkpoint would immediately sink the vessel.
Whoosh. Thud.
In that instant, a dozen personnel climbed aboard from the swift boats attached to either side.
“Hmm.”
Among them, a man of massive build with a dark complexion walked slowly across the deck.
He was Muk Jeok, the chieftain of the water route fort responsible for this checkpoint.
“Feng Sha Sword Sect, then.”
Muk Jeok regarded the middle-aged man standing upon the deck.
He spoke with familiarity to Bang Juk, the strategist of the Feng Sha Sword Sect and commander of the vessel.
“What brings you here so suddenly?”
Heuk Ryeon had begun as nothing more than a ragtag collection of bandits, yet in recent times had amassed forces rivaling even the major martial sects.
Muk Jeok, one of Heuk Ryeon’s leadership, spoke without restraint not only to Bang Juk but to all who passed through this checkpoint.
“Sudden? This is routine business.”
Bang Juk smiled faintly and signaled a crew member to bring a chest to where Muk Jeok stood.
When Muk Jeok lifted the chest with his foot, silver coins gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight, packed to the brim.
“Judging by the weight, you’re saying it’s salt.”
Heuk Ryeon collected passage fees in an unusual manner.
Rather than collecting a fixed amount, they assessed the value and profit margin of passing goods and collected fees accordingly.
“Indeed.”
“Hmm.”
Muk Jeok furrowed his brow, rubbing his temples with his fingers.
“Our organization is currently engaged in combat with the Demon Palace forces.”
“I’m aware. That’s why I’ve come with just one vessel to expedite the urgent shipment.”
Muk Jeok exhaled slowly.
Normally, when transporting salt, the Cheong Hae Seven Sword Sects’ vessels move all at once through the night wind.
Yet the arrival of a single Feng Sha Sword Sect vessel showed considerable consideration for Heuk Ryeon’s current predicament.
“This is troublesome.”
Muk Jeok rubbed his temples once more with his fingers.
“The organization leader has commanded that not a single vessel be permitted to pass through Yao Jian Plain.”
“If I return empty-handed, I’ll be in difficulty as well.”
Bang Juk gestured helplessly to a crew member once more.
The crew member then placed another chest filled with silver before Muk Jeok.
“Will this level of sincerity suffice?”
“Mm.”
Muk Jeok exhaled slowly.
The Feng Sha Sword Sect, being mindful of the situation, sent only a single vessel and even provided extra compensation.
To simply turn them away under these circumstances would be to make an enemy of the Feng Sha Sword Sect, an organization with generations of roots planted deep in Cheong Hae.
“Very well.”
Muk Jeok, who had been deliberating for a moment, nodded his head.
“However, given the circumstances, I shall conduct a thorough inspection of the vessel.”
Muk Jeok was a seasoned river pirate who had once served with the Jang Gang Water Route Fort.
He knew the structure of ships better than anyone, and was equally versed in their nature and operation.
No matter what tricks the Feng Sha Sword Sect might employ, they could never escape his scrutiny.
“Should I detect anything amiss….”
A murderous gleam flickered in Muk Jeok’s eyes.
A single gesture from him could send a merchant vessel like this to the bottom of the river in an instant.
“Agreed.”
Bang Juk, observing the lethal intensity in Muk Jeok’s gaze, nodded his assent.
“Then please, examine it at once.”
Muk Jeok began his meticulous inspection of the vessel with the keen eye of a hawk.
What he sought was a substantial force that might have been dispatched from the Demon Palace.
Yet nothing particularly suspicious presented itself. Indeed, nothing could have.
The structure was so straightforward he could see it with his eyes closed, and such a small merchant vessel could not possibly conceal a large contingent of troops.
“Hmm.”
Still, Muk Jeok did not cease his examination.
An inexplicable sense of discord kept rising unbidden in his mind.
It was the instinct of a river pirate who had spent a lifetime upon the water.
“Wait.”
Then his gaze suddenly fixed upon the face of a young man within the cabin.
Extraordinarily tall with a lean frame and pallid complexion, he was unmistakably no river man.
‘One may alter a face, but height and bearing cannot be deceived.’
From his years of river work, he possessed an eye as keen as any physiognomist.
“Who are you?”
The young man trembled with fear and answered.
“I am a physician traveling to the Jeok Hwang Ui Ga within Yao Jian Plain.”
“A physician?”
In that instant, Muk Jeok’s eyes gleamed with recognition.
‘Murim masters often disguise themselves as physicians.’
Murim practitioners not only possessed intimate knowledge of the human body, but cultivated medical skills in preparation for injury.
Thus, when concealing their identities, they typically masqueraded as physicians.
‘There are ways to expose such deception.’
“Ah, a young physician indeed. We shall see much of each other henceforth.”
Muk Jeok smiled and extended his hand, large as a cauldron lid.
When the young man’s expression grew puzzled, he immediately moved his fingers to seize the pulse point at the wrist.
‘No matter how well one disguises oneself, one cannot completely lack internal energy.’
No matter how ordinary one’s appearance, the inner energy within the body cannot be concealed.
Muk Jeok, well aware of this, seized the Young Scholar’s meridian point and injected a surge of formidable inner power into him.
“Ugh!”
The young physician leaped in agony.
A man devoid of any inner energy, suddenly flooded with power through his meridian, experienced a pain akin to needles piercing his vital channels.
‘Not him.’
Muk Jeok immediately withdrew his power.
No matter what realm of mastery one reaches, the traces of inner energy within the body cannot be completely hidden.
This young man was truly a physician who knew nothing of martial arts.
“Have you seen enough now?”
Muk Jeok did not answer Bang Juk’s question.
Though he could find no fault no matter how closely he examined, an inexplicable unease lingered in his mind.
“Hmm.”
His eyes suddenly gleamed as he scrutinized them further.
‘Yes. That could be it.’
Muk Jeok pointed to one of the sailors in the distance and spoke.
“You there, come here.”
A burly man with a coarse expression grumbled as he stepped forward.
“What is it?”
“Your palm.”
At Muk Jeok’s terse command, the man extended his palm with a puzzled expression.
The hardened calluses gripping the palm were clearly visible—the natural calluses that formed from years of work as a sailor.
‘Was I being too suspicious?’
“What exactly are you doing?” the sailor asked indifferently, and Muk Jeok actually chuckled.
With such a coarse appearance and his defiant manner even before him, he was unmistakably a seasoned boatman.
“Never mind. You may go.”
Then Muk Jeok nodded toward Bang Juk.
“Nothing unusual. You’re free to proceed.”
Muk Jeok returned to the speedboat.
Shortly after, the mechanical roar of an engine echoed through the night sky.
Simultaneously, the boats blocking the waterway shifted left and right, creating a passage for a single vessel to pass through.
“Phew.”
As the gate passed through the opening, the man standing on deck exhaled and threw down the towel wrapped around his head.
It was the very sailor Muk Jeok had asked to show his palm.
“A lifetime of water route work has honed my instincts to perfection.”
He was Won Se Moon.
Then the sailors crouching nearby one by one threw down the towels wrapped around their heads.
They were all members of Sa Yeong Dae.
“That sharp-eyed water route inspector will definitely conduct inspections like this, they said… Indeed, the lord’s eyes cannot be deceived.”
“That sharp-eyed bastard said he’d definitely conduct an inspection like this… As expected, there’s no escaping the lord’s eyes.”
At her words, Bang Juk cleared his throat awkwardly, his face flushing red.
From the start, Bang Juk had been confident that merely displaying the Wind Shooting Sword Gate’s flag would grant them easy passage.
But Bu Eunseol had predicted that Muk Jeok, a native of the water routes, would not let them pass so readily.
Since his keen eye for ship construction made it impossible to smuggle fifty men aboard without detection, she had instead disguised them all as sailors.
Moreover, she had deliberately stationed a young physician in the cabin to confound Muk Jeok’s intuition.
And she had meticulously applied realistic calluses—those of actual sailors—to the hands of her disguised operatives.
“Fortunately, this is a merchant vessel meant to smuggle large quantities of salt.”
“Exactly. A large crew wouldn’t have seemed suspicious.”
Just then, the cooks who had been preparing meals in the galley emerged, chatting casually as they stepped outside.
As they touched their faces, they transformed into spirited young men.
They were none other than the heirs of the Cheong Hae Seven Sword Sects, including Gu Yang Cheong Jeong.
When Bu Eunseol refused reinforcements, they had volunteered to board the vessel themselves.
“But where is the captain?”
When Han So Woong asked, Won Se Moon made a sound of realization.
“Someone go fetch the captain and the newly appointed section leaders.”
At his call, one operative rushed into the ship’s hold.
Bu Eunseol had reached the Transcendent Realm, but Myo Cheon Woo and Yu Woon Ryong possessed the distinctive aura unique to masters of the Initial Ascension stage.
No matter how skillfully disguised, it would be difficult to escape the sharp eyes of Muk Jeok, so she had carved out a hidden space beneath the cabin floor.
There, they had been concealing themselves while executing the Returning Breath Technique.
“Not necessary.”
As if she had already sensed their departure, Bu Eunseol, Myo Cheon Woo, and Yu Woon Ryong had already emerged onto the deck.
The heirs of the Seven Sword Sect then approached Bu Eunseol.
“You’ve endured much hardship.”
“And you have all labored greatly as well.”
“But what have we truly accomplished?”
As they demurred, Bu Eunseol smiled softly and gazed toward the stern of the ship.
“Without your combined efforts, the main force could never have moved covertly past the Blood-Dyed Sword School’s surveillance.”
I had long since sensed the presence of watchers sent by Do Cheon Rin.
And for this plan to succeed, fifty Sa Yeong Dae operatives had to move discreetly, evading those watchers’ eyes.
―Then there is nothing we can do to help?
When the heirs of the Seven Sword Sect gathered at the Wind Shooting Sword Gate for their meeting and posed this question, I had answered thus.
―Of course there is something far more critical.
It was to move the Sa Yeong Dae forces past Do Cheon Rin’s surveillance.
Ordinarily, such a task would be nearly impossible.
But when the Cheong Hae Seven Sword Sects, having received my request, united their strength, the situation changed entirely.
They created false Sa Yeong Dae forces and dispersed them in different directions.
Consequently, the watchers fell into confusion, and in that chaos, the Sa Yeong Dae operatives were able to safely board the Wind Shooting Sword Gate’s vessel.
No matter how brilliant Do Cheon Rin’s schemes might be, he could never have imagined that I would receive the cooperation of all the Cheong Hae Seven Sword Sects.
He remains utterly unaware of this situation.
“Once you arrive at Yao Jian Plain, board a return vessel immediately.”
At Bu Eunseol’s words, the successors waved their hands and spoke.
“What do you mean? Now that we’ve come this far, of course we must fight alongside our master!”
“That’s right. All this time we’ve been diligently cultivating our martial arts for moments exactly like this!”
The successors chattered noisily among themselves, but Gu Yang Cheong Jeong merely watched from afar, making no move to approach Bu Eunseol.
She understood that Bu Eunseol held not the slightest interest in her.
No matter how hard she tried, she could never possess that distant figure towering so far above her.
‘Green plum.’
Wi Ji Woon, observing the scene, harbored a bitter smile within his heart.
In truth, all the successors of the Cheong Hae Seven Sword Sects harbored affection for Gu Yang Cheong Jeong.
After all, they had been able to gather in the first place only because she served as the sole splash of color among them.
‘For us, it’s rather fortunate.’
Though it was lamentable to see Gu Yang Cheong Jeong suffer, from their perspective they could only be grateful to Bu Eunseol for drawing such clear boundaries.
“We shall arrive at Yao Jian Plain around dawn.”
At that moment, Bu Eunseol, casting aside the cloth draped across her body, spoke coldly.
“Make your preparations.”
―Yes, Master!
The Sa Yeong Dae members bowed their heads with solemn expressions.
Soon now, a fierce battle would unfold where blood and flesh would scatter.
* * *
The slowly rising sun was driving back the darkness.
As dawn broke, the elite forces of Heuk Ryeon stationed near the coast blinked their eyes.
A merchant vessel had suddenly docked at the coastal outpost, where three hundred soldiers kept watch with blazing intensity…
And now roughly fifty armed martial artists had disembarked and were striding purposefully toward the garrison.
―Madmen, the lot of them.
The Heuk Ryeon members burst into derisive laughter at the sight.
“There’s no need to ask who they are. Kill them.”
As the commander of Yeon An Cho So issued the attack order, his subordinate members nocked long arrows into their crossbows and fired.
The arrows, launched skyward, became a black downpour that cascaded toward the martial artists.
“What?”
All the Heuk Ryeon members fell silent in astonishment.
Those fifty-odd soldiers possessed such superior martial prowess that the volley of long arrows inflicted no significant damage whatsoever.
“Fire the stone projectiles as well!”
The panicked commander issued another order.
Thereupon, stone projectiles poured forth in dense succession from the spring-loaded mechanisms installed behind the garrison.
But it was already too late.
The projectiles were not designed for use against individuals, but rather to attack vessels arriving at the coast.
The fifty-odd martial artists had already deployed lightning-swift movement techniques to close the distance to the defensive garrison, rendering the stone projectiles utterly meaningless.
―Clang! Clash!
―Aaahhh! Ahhhhh!
The piercing screams and the clash of weapons echoed across the distant sky as the heavens opened.
In an instant, the indiscriminate assault of fifty-odd warriors descended upon the Heuk Ryeon forces, and they crumpled like sheaves of straw, their death cries piercing the air.
Though merely fifty in number, their martial prowess and tactical coordination were of a caliber never before witnessed.
Despite wielding different techniques and weapons, their offense and defense flowed without the slightest gap or flaw.
Observing their combat from a distance, one might have thought five colossal war machines were alternating between assault and defense.
“Ugh…”
The leader watching this spectacle clenched his teeth.
The corpses piled around the defensive perimeter numbered roughly two hundred.
And this was mere moments into the battle—not even a quarter hour had elapsed.
“Send word! The enemy has breached our lines!”
The leader’s cry was answered with a response steeped in despair.
“The main garrison has been ambushed by the Hyeol Mu Dan.”
“What?”
The leader’s complexion hardened like stone.
“Then they coordinated this—a secondary force sent to strike here while the main assault hits our headquarters.”
He ground his teeth together.
Their martial might was so formidable that they would breach this position and penetrate the main garrison in a single, unstoppable surge.
Now there remained but one path: mutual destruction.
I must endure, hold fast unto death, and entangle them as long as possible.

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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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