The Great Heavenly Sword Emperor - Chapter 53

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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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#053. The Wavering Stigma (3)

What radiated from Cheon Mujgyeol was unmistakably fury.
Yet it was not the rage of a roaring inferno.
A blade honed in ice.
A cold, cutting anger that would shred skin merely by contact.
Flinch!
Perhaps because he was emanating an aura sharp as a sword’s edge.
A considerable number of those blocking his path recoiled instinctively.
It was the most natural response a martial artist could have.
“The night when unknown assailants attacked Cheongeomjang.”
Cheon Mujgyeol, his aura commanding the atmosphere in an instant, continued.
“That night when innocent father, mother, uncles, aunts, and cousins fell one by one.”
Cheon Mujgyeol paused and swept his gaze across them slowly.
Their taut faces, their expressions of lingering displeasure, the way some turned their heads slightly as if anticipating what he meant to say—it all came into sharp focus.
“Where were you when the descendants of the Cheongeom Great Emperor, whom you claim to revere so deeply, were reduced to that state?”
No one among them could open their mouth at his rebuke.
Cheon Mujgyeol’s gaze swept the gathered crowd, then settled on Sa Gongguk as he spoke again.
“When I present evidence, you call it a trick.”
Sa Gongguk’s brow twitched, his discomfort plain.
“When I demand testimony, you say I’ve fallen from grace.”
This time Wiji Myungheon gave a hollow cough and turned his head away slightly.
“You cry out for truth, yet you have no intention of believing it.”
Cheon Mujgyeol swept his cold gaze across the entire assembly once more.
“Why have you come here?”
Cheon Mujgyeol struck at the heart of the matter.
Why are you here at all?
Have you come to fight, or merely to squander time in pointless debate?
Have you really led all these people here just for that?
That was what Cheon Mujgyeol was asking.
“If you have no wish to believe anything, then spare us the words and simply come at me.”
Cheon Mujgyeol’s eyes turned colder still, his aura growing steadily more intense.
As his aura grew fiercer by the moment, Bukgung Danya swallowed hard and his expression hardened.
The faces of those from the Allied Sects Union, too, drained steadily of color.
Despite the distance between them, despite the open air rather than a confined space.
The aura Cheon Mujgyeol unleashed pressed down upon them so heavily that breathing became difficult.
“You, who came here with no intent to fight but merely to curry favor with the Dongbang Sect—do you even have the right to speak of the Cheongeom Great Emperor?”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
As Cheon Mujgyeol’s words struck like a blade, his long-suppressed aura erupted outward.
The earth shuddered and a colossal pressure bore down upon the multitude.
Most could not remain standing and fell to their knees, and some vomited blood.
The family elders, including Gongsun Yubaek, barely held their ground, their faces drained pale, teeth clenched, cold sweat streaming down their brows.
“You have neither the right to speak the Cheongeom Great Emperor’s name nor the right to revere him.”
The aura Cheon Mujgyeol released grew ever more ferocious.
Even Bukgung Danya, standing at his side, struggled to bear it and steadily retreated further behind Cheon Mujgyeol.
Cough!
At last, Sa Gongguk was the first to vomit blood and collapse to his knees.
Following Sa Gongguk, Wiji Myungheon and Young Hojun, who had been holding on with all their might, crumbled in turn.
If the elders were in such a state, what of the martial artists who had followed them here?
Some had lost consciousness, while others not only fell to their knees but sprawled flat on the ground.
At this rate, they might all perish beneath the aura Cheon Mujgyeol was releasing.
“P-please, Cheon—!”
Bukgung Danya struggled forward to reach Cheon Mujgyeol and called to him.
He understood Cheon Mujgyeol’s rage, but he could not allow him to slaughter this many people here.
The thought flashed through his mind that this might be precisely what the Dongbang Sect desired, and so he stepped forward.
Cheon Mujgyeol’s aura gradually subsided.
“Whoosh!”
With that, Namgung Hwiggyeom—barely able to catch his breath—coughed up blood in a delayed spray and collapsed.
Gongsun Yubaek, too, wiped the blood trickling from his lips and sank to the ground.
Bukgung Danya gazed forward.
Hundreds of people knelt and prostrated themselves entirely toward Cheon Mujgyeol.
The sight was so like watching those who had once bowed before the Cheongeom Great Emperor that Bukgung Danya found himself momentarily stripped of all thought.
Cheon Mujgyeol withdrew the Aura he had been radiating and composed himself.
Then, regarding those who knelt before him with an expressionless gaze, he spoke.
“You are the ones who have tarnished the name of the Cheongeom Great Emperor.”
Cheon Mujgyeol’s tone had returned to its usual measured cadence.
Not a soul among them dared reply.
They were in no condition to reply, nor did they have anything to say.
Men who gathered for nothing but political ambition, never intending to fight—just as he had said.
Even a tightly bound coalition would struggle; this rabble had been disorganized from the start. The battle was lost before it ever began.
“Are you uninjured?”
Cheon Mujgyeol asked, turning to Bukgung Danya.
“Yes. I am fine.”
Bukgung Danya answered with a faint smile.
Cheon Mujgyeol nodded and resumed walking.
As the impassive Cheon Mujgyeol drew nearer, the men of the Allied Sects Union tensed visibly, their nerves wound tight.
That vast throng retreated with all their remaining strength, keeping pace with his advance.
Wracked by internal injuries and sapped of power, they crawled backward if they had to.
But those who could barely move could not match the speed of the approaching Cheon Mujgyeol.
The distance between him and them shrank steadily, and the tension etched into every face deepened by the moment.
Cheon Mujgyeol paused for a moment before them.
Then, scanning the elders who had struggled to their feet one by one, he posed a question.
“Will you try to stop me?”
It was a light question, yet to them it was anything but light.
It sounded as though he meant: resist, and I will cut you down.
Sa Gongguk and the other elders flinched.
They knew from the incident at Danae Valley how formidable Cheon Mujgyeol truly was.
But having now felt his power directly, terror flooded through them.
They felt acutely how reckless their words had been.
In the end, without anyone taking the lead, the elders simply stepped back and cleared the way.
It was the only choice available to them.
Cheon Mujgyeol glanced once to each side at those who had parted before him, then continued forward.
The elders felt their breath catch more keenly as he passed directly before them than when he had merely drawn near.
And in that moment, a single thought bloomed in all their minds.
Perhaps.
Perhaps Cheon Mujgyeol truly could stand against the Dongbang Sect.
More than that—perhaps the very balance of power in the Martial World, which had rested in the grip of the Dongbang Sect all this time, might shift.
If such a thing were truly possible, they would need to report this urgently to their main house and prepare accordingly.
Their hearts grew urgent with alarm.
Cheon Mujgyeol and Bukgung Danya walked through the parted crowd with complete assurance.
Many eyes followed them as they departed, yet the two paid no mind.
It was when Cheon Mujgyeol and Bukgung Danya had traversed about halfway through.
[When you arrive at the Dongbang Sect, much may change.]
Namgung Hwiggyeom’s mental voice reached Cheon Mujgyeol’s ear.
But Cheon Mujgyeol did not so much as glance back, only continuing forward.
Namgung Hwiggyeom’s gaze flew to his retreating figure and fixed there, yet the two only grew more distant.

Some distance beyond the Allied Sects Union, Bukgung Danya finally broke the silence.
“Did you see what happened just now?”
“What are you referring to?”
“The moment you withdrew your Aura—how they looked afterward.”
At Bukgung Danya’s words, Cheon Mujgyeol walked on in silence.
“They looked just like those who had once knelt before the Cheongeom Great Emperor.”
Hearing this, Cheon Mujgyeol cast him a brief sidelong glance.
“I am simply saying that such was the case.”
And with that, Bukgung Danya smiled.
But in that moment, Bukgung Danya felt a tremor run through him.
Cheon Mujgyeol might not be thinking of such things yet, but in the not-distant future, it seemed that not hundreds but thousands—or perhaps the entire Martial World—would kneel before him.
Not forced down by sheer strength as they were now, but bowing in genuine respect.
He had a strong premonition that arriving at the Dongbang Sect would mark the beginning of that transformation.
‘I want to stand beside him when that happens.’
Even now they walked together, but a fierce desire seized him—to stand confidently at Cheon Mujgyeol’s side when he truly walked the path of the Cheongeom Great Emperor.
Like the Bukgung Family had stood beside the Cheongeom Great Emperor in ages past.
And so Bukgung Danya found himself dreaming a new dream.

* * *

Word that the Allied Sects Union had opened the path without so much as a fight reached Dongbang Yeonhui as well.
“Utterly useless, the lot of them.”
He had hoped they would corner Cheon Mujgyeol further, yet instead they had been overwhelmed and forced to yield.
For the first time, Dongbang Yeonhui’s plan had unraveled.
He turned from the window where he had been frowning and looked toward a corner of the room.
There sat Dongbang Cheongryu, quiet and composed.
“Cheongryu. It’s time for you to act.”
Click.
Dongbang Cheongryu set down the teacup she had been holding onto the table before her.
“Understood.”
“You’ll manage alone? Setting everything else aside, Cheon Mujgyeol is formidable.”
“I’m aware. But I am strong as well.”
“Yes. That’s true. You are strong.”
‘But Cheon Mujgyeol is stronger still.’
Dongbang Yeonhui kept this thought to himself, swallowing it unspoken.
“I have nothing else to say to you. Only to be careful.”
“Understood.”
Dongbang Cheongryu rose quietly from her seat.
She bowed slightly to Dongbang Yeonhui and then departed.
Dongbang Yeonhui watched the door through which she had gone, then turned his gaze back to the window.
“So you’ve come this far, Cheon Mujgyeol. I commend you.”
Despite all the slander and false accusations and attacks directed at him, Cheon Mujgyeol had pressed on unflinching until he stood at the very threshold of the Dongbang Sect.
Setting aside friend and foe alike, to have endured a situation that would have broken most men long ago—that deserved genuine praise.
“But in the end, I am the victor. Everything will unfold according to my will.”
Dongbang Yeonhui’s eyes turned glacial for just an instant, then returned to their former state.
It was but a flicker of coldness, yet had anyone witnessed it, they would have felt a chill.
Dongbang Yeonhui stood gazing out the window for a long while after that.

* * *

On the very day Dongbang Cheongryu departed the Dongbang Sect and turned toward Cheon Mujgyeol.
Another proclamation was posted.

The Dongbang Sect, as a leading family of the Martial World, bears the weighty responsibility that comes with such a station.
Though death is commonplace in the Martial World, we sought to offer even the wicked a chance at redemption.
To this end, we sent Dongbang Jinwu, the external affairs master of the Dongbang Sect, to Cheon Mujgyeol with an offer of mercy from our house. Yet Cheon Mujgyeol rejected this compassion and even took the life of Dongbang Jinwu.
The Dongbang Sect has therefore determined that there is no further cause to extend clemency to one so determined to refuse it.
Having spurned our mercy in the wake of the tragedy at Danae Valley, Cheon Mujgyeol shall not escape the judgment of the Dongbang Sect.

The proclamation carried profound symbolic weight.
It established that the Dongbang Sect had offered even the most universally condemned villain a final chance.
And that Cheon Mujgyeol had rejected it, displaying such cruelty as to strike down the envoy himself.
With these two facts laid bare, Cheon Mujgyeol had now crossed a river from which there was no return.
Moreover, the Dongbang Sect now possessed justification to act directly.
The gaze of all people, which had been fixed upon Cheon Mujgyeol’s every move, now shifted entirely toward the Dongbang Sect.
Now came the question: how would the Dongbang Sect punish Cheon Mujgyeol?
What end would befall him?
These were the only matters that occupied the minds of the people.
Everything had unfolded precisely as Dongbang Yeonhui had foreseen.

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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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