The Great Heavenly Sword Emperor - Chapter 33

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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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#033. Shadow’s Footfall (2)

The last time Cheon Mu-gyeol encountered the Blood Wind Gang, he had hurled the leather cord wrapping the Heavenly Divine Sword skyward.
This time, he did not.
Instead of throwing it up, he threw it forward.
Whip-crack!
The leather cord, which should have fluttered harmlessly, screamed through the air with the sound of splitting wind, launching forward like a projectile.
Shing!
The taut, razor-sharp cord pierced through the necks of four Blood Wind Gang fighters in succession.
It was a display of how a simple leather cord, when met with Cheon Mu-gyeol’s inner force, became an instrument of death.
Seizing the moment as the Blood Wind Gang stumbled from the unexpected strike, Cheon Mu-gyeol charged into the heart of their formation.
Surrounded in an instant.
Yet Cheon Mu-gyeol welcomed the position.
“Shadow Annihilation Form.”
He murmured the words low, and vanished from that spot.
Then, immediately—
Slice!
One enemy suddenly collapsed, limbs severed clean through.
And that was only the beginning.
Slice! Slice! Slice! Slice-slice-slice-slice-slice!
Cheon Mu-gyeol could not be seen.
Moving with such blinding speed, he shredded the encircling Blood Wind Gang one body at a time.
Blood sprayed. Severed limbs fell like rain.
The dead never knew what had taken them—life simply ended, abrupt and final.
As multiple comrades fell in quick succession, the Blood Wind Gang halted their advance and retreated, drawing their encirclement tight once more.
The layered siege formed a barrier thick as a fortress wall.
Standing again at the center of the encirclement, Cheon Mu-gyeol picked up the leather cord that had fallen to the ground.
With the Heavenly Divine Sword in his right hand and the limp cord in his left, Cheon Mu-gyeol regarded the encirclement with hollow eyes.
“Empty Sky Severing Moon.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol spun his body in a horizontal wheel.
The leather cord, now infused with true qi, snapped taut and rigid, and blade and cord traced a vast circle around Cheon Mu-gyeol as their axis.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-crash!
A tremendous explosion, and the encircling Blood Wind Gang was split asunder, severed top and bottom.
It was not a matter of merely cutting through flesh.
Cheon Mu-gyeol’s Empty Sky Severing Moon possessed such devastating power it seemed to cleave space itself.
The Blood Wind Gang—even more numerous than before—was annihilated.
If the intelligence provided by Jandeung-hoe was accurate, the Blood Wind Gang had likely been exterminated entirely this time.
Cheon Mu-gyeol began wrapping the leather cord around the Heavenly Divine Sword.
[It’s fine to unwrap and rewrap it each time, but couldn’t you change it up once in a while?]
Even for a sword, the Heavenly Divine Sword seemed disgruntled this time around.
“You’re not bleeding.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol curtly dismissed the sword’s grumbling, finished wrapping the cord, and turned his gaze toward the graveyard.
[Looks like he might need help.]
As the sword suggested, Buk-gung Dan-ya was struggling against the Maegol Band.
It was not yet critical, but he was undeniably pressed, fighting in retreat.
“If I keep helping him, it won’t aid his growth.”
[And if he dies in the meantime, what good is that?]
“A man must look after his own life.”
[Then why have you helped him twice already?]
The two times the sword spoke of were the second fight with Muk-ryeon and the day they first discovered the lead on Ammogak.
But Cheon Mu-gyeol offered no reply to this.
What was certain was that this time, he truly had no intention of intervening.
Cheon Mu-gyeol drew closer to the graveyard, then stopped, maintaining a careful distance.
As if to say he would not approach further, he stood motionless there, watching Buk-gung Dan-ya’s battle unfold.

* * *

‘It’s finished.’
Buk-gung Dan-ya recognized that Cheon Mu-gyeol’s fight had ended, but he had no spare attention for it.
The Maegol Band’s fighting strength was not overwhelming.
Measured by raw combat power alone, the Maegol Band was perhaps half the caliber of the Blood Wind Gang.
Yet the reason Buk-gung Dan-ya struggled against them came down to one thing: their perverse fighting style and the terrain itself.
Scattered all around Buk-gung Dan-ya were graves.
The Maegol Band darted between tomb and tomb, harassing him relentlessly.
At critical moments, they used the graves as shields, rendering his attacks futile.
‘Damn it!’

Once again, as a Maegol Band member ducked behind a tomb, Buk-gung Dan-ya couldn’t follow through with his attack, grinding his teeth in frustration.
Slash!
In that opening, another gang member seized the gap and raked a wound across Buk-gung Dan-ya’s body as he slipped past.
Under the relentless pressure of the Maegol Band’s assault, Buk-gung Dan-ya could find no breakthrough.
Yet Cheon Mu-gyeol simply watched the situation unfold without intervening.
[I thought he’d grown. Looks like he’s back to square one.]
“It’s a side effect.”
[A side effect?]
“Buk-gung Dan-ya has indeed grown stronger. His martial progress has become his poison.”
Just as Cheon Mu-gyeol said, Buk-gung Dan-ya burned with the desire to prove his newfound martial skill.
More than anything, he wanted to demonstrate it to Cheon Mu-gyeol—far more than ever before.
He craved to show through his own body that he was capable of handling any mission.
But that was the problem.
In trying to solve everything through martial prowess, he had reached a point where he couldn’t see what was plainly before his eyes.
“He must find his own breakthrough. If he grasps that truth and overcomes this fight, Buk-gung Dan-ya will grow further still.”
Since Cheon Mu-gyeol had committed to traveling with him, Dan-ya’s growth was essential.
He could endure any hardship alone without hesitation.
But the moment they became two, the danger and pressure would not merely double—it would triple, quadruple, crushing down upon them.
Only when Buk-gung Dan-ya matured enough to carry his own weight could Cheon Mu-gyeol press forward without reservation.
That was why he didn’t intervene now, why he’d entrusted the Maegol Band entirely to Dan-ya.
[The true purpose of this mission lies elsewhere. He mustn’t forget that.]
“I understand. I still won’t interfere.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol showed a certain stubbornness in his conviction.
‘Damn! Damn!’
Against Cheon Mu-gyeol’s thoughts and hopes, Buk-gung Dan-ya sank deeper into the mire.
The more cornered he became, the narrower his thoughts grew, until he could think of nothing but one thing.
As wounds accumulated on Buk-gung Dan-ya’s body, the Maegol Band grew steadily more composed.
They’d sensed Cheon Mu-gyeol’s refusal to intervene, which emboldened them all the more.
“How disappointing.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol murmured the words softly.
Yet that quiet utterance pierced sharply into Buk-gung Dan-ya’s ears.
‘Disappointing?’
The words drove like a spike through his chest.
He’d heard the same words from Cheon Mu-gyeol on the day they first met.
To change that judgment, he’d pushed through the jaws of death itself, proving his resolve.
And yet now—he heard those same words again.
Buk-gung Dan-ya felt his heart plummet, and in that shock, clarity suddenly seized him.
‘No! Not this!’
Whatever had been crushing his thoughts shattered like glass.
In its wake, Buk-gung Dan-ya’s mind began to expand infinitely.
‘Fool! Complete fool!’
Now he saw with perfect clarity what foolish mistakes he’d been making all this time.
Whoosh!
Buk-gung Dan-ya released the Taeok True Scripture and drew upon the True Martial Steadfast Mind Technique.
His turbulent heart grew still, and a single axis of balance formed within his body, spirit, and mind.
No longer did he waver.
His thoughts turned ice-cold, his heart grew iron-hard.
Snap!
In that instant, Buk-gung Dan-ya’s eyes flashed bright, and simultaneously, one of the Maegol Band members’ head rolled from his shoulders.
The counterattack begins.
The Maegol Band tightened their grip, unwilling to let their hard-won advantage slip away.
But Buk-gung Dan-ya, steadied now by the True Martial Steadfast Mind Technique, remained composed.
Slash! Slash!
Members of the Maegol Band fell one after another.
The graves scattered across the ground no longer hindered him.
As if fighting in an open field, Buk-gung Dan-ya swept his blade without restraint.
‘So he said he wouldn’t help.’
“I merely spoke my honest thoughts.”
‘You deliberately let me hear it so I’d awaken. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’
“I didn’t expect you would actually awaken.”
‘How likely.’
Cheon Mu-gyeol remained silent at Cheon Shin-geom’s taunt, watching Buk-gung Dan-ya’s battle unfold, then opened his mouth.
“It will be over soon.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol murmured softly.
And true to his word, in less than half a quarter-hour, Buk-gung Dan-ya had laid low every member of the Maegol Band.

* * *

“Forgive me.”
Once the fight ended, Buk-gung Dan-ya approached Cheon Mu-gyeol and bowed his head.
By his own reckoning, his display just moments ago was shameful beyond measure.
The very thought of it burned with embarrassment, so Buk-gung Dan-ya bowed first without preamble.
“Why are you apologizing to me?”
“I showed a pitiful side, unworthy of myself.”
“Then why apologize to me for that?”
At Cheon Mu-gyeol’s question, Buk-gung Dan-ya lifted his head and looked at him.
“That is…”
“The shame you feel, the regret you feel—both must be directed inward, toward yourself alone.”
Buk-gung Dan-ya found himself unable to answer.
“Today’s self is built upon the accumulated layers of yesterday’s self. Your shame belongs to today’s self, and your apology for past failings belongs to yesterday’s self.”
“I will remember this.”
Buk-gung Dan-ya, having glimpsed another truth, nodded with firm resolve.
“In any case, we have achieved our goal. Let us return. From here, the burden falls to them.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol turned.
And in that instant—
Whip!
A single member of the Maegol Band, whom they had thought dead, marshaled his last strength and hurled his short sword.
It was not aimed at anyone in particular—simply cast wildly in the direction where the two men stood.
Buk-gung Dan-ya reacted, but Cheon Mu-gyeol was faster.
Whip!
Rather than knock the blade away, Cheon Mu-gyeol extended the Heavenly Divine Sword and guided it in a smooth arc, redirecting it the way it had come.
Crack!
The short sword returned to its owner and split his skull.
“Come.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol, having dispatched the last of the stragglers with ease, moved forward, and Buk-gung Dan-ya followed with a shake of his head.

* * *

When Cheon Mu-gyeol and Buk-gung Dan-ya returned, Gwang-an set the plan in motion at once.
Through both the monks of Bohyeon Temple and covert agents of the Jandeung-hoe, he spread word quietly.
And such a rumor could hardly escape the ears of Ammogak, who kept watch on Bohyeon Temple.
A day after the rumor was seeded, Bohyeon Temple moved to its next phase.
Four suspected hideouts of the Unha Bang came under surveillance: Eun-poong Jeon-jang, Seong-ha Jeon-bang, Un-pyeong Sang-haeng, and Deok-won Pyo-guk.
Once the trap was set, Gwang-an informed Cheon Mu-gyeol and Buk-gung Dan-ya.
“The snare is ready. Soon we will see their movements.”
“Will they truly take the bait?”
“They will, without doubt. The question is whether the Unha Bang is genuinely hidden in one of those four locations we’re watching.”
“If not, our odds shrink considerably.”
Gwang-an nodded at Buk-gung Dan-ya’s words, though certainty was already written across his face.
“One of the four locations is definitely Unha Bang. There’s no possibility otherwise.”
With Gwang-an expressing such certainty, Buk-gung Dan-ya had no choice but to defer.
All he could do was hope that Gwang-an’s conviction proved correct.
“Perhaps we could simply infiltrate each location one by one and conduct a search…….”
“That won’t work.”
Cheon Mu-gyeol cut off Buk-gung Dan-ya’s words and stepped forward.
Gwang-an nodded in agreement as well.
“If we infiltrate the wrong location and get discovered, we’ll only be giving them both the pretext and the time to destroy evidence. As I mentioned, this operation is a race against the clock.”
With Gwang-an’s explanation reinforced by Cheon Mu-gyeol’s firm refusal, Buk-gung Dan-ya found himself with nothing more to say.

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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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