The Legend of Red Cloud - 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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Chapter 53. The Hwan Do Great Battle
When Jeok Sa Jo first entered Hwan Do, what greeted them were corpses strewn across the ground—members of Maeng Ui Dan and Hyeol Gwi Dae scattered in all directions.
Given that barely a quarter hour had passed from the moment of the explosion to their entry into Hwan Do, it was clear that an extraordinarily fierce battle had raged in that brief span.
Advancing past the bodies arranged like this, Jeok Sa Jo witnessed hundreds locked in combat, tangled together in the throes of struggle.
Among them, eight martial artists moving through the central region stood out with unmistakable dominance.
As if wrapped in black curtains, they plunged the entire area of their movement into darkness—like ink itself.
Like ink staining white paper black, everything in their vicinity was engulfed in a thick, suffocating gloom.
It was the work of demonic power.
Within that darkness, blood sprayed and screams leaked through.
“Those are the ones.”
Understanding the Tae Geuk Sword King’s words, the members of Jeok Sa Jo received their orders from Ryu.
“Disperse, all of you, and strike at the enemy. Gwak and Yun—don’t stray from Hui Jun’s side.”
At Ryu’s words, Gwak Ki Ryang and Yun, who had positioned themselves close beside Hui Jun, nodded, and the remaining members of Jeok Sa Jo scattered in all directions like a fan unfolding.
Of course, they didn’t scatter as individuals.
Jwa Ryang and Jang Min Su formed one unit, while Yi Song and Dong Pil formed another.
Among the newcomers, Hwangbo Jang Seong, Paeng Gyeong, and Chul Ja Yong also moved as a single unit.
Thorough training completed.
They adhered faithfully to Jeok Sa Jo’s strict combat doctrine.
The established members of Jeok Sa Jo need not be mentioned, but even the newcomers who had coordinated their movements together during the Kangho Sibo Yeong had become far smoother in their coordination than before.
Following the movement trajectories of Jeok Sa Jo as they divided into three units, the blood of Hyeol Gwi Dae members was spilled.
Watching them, the Tae Geuk Sword King lightly tapped Ryu on the shoulder.
“Leave the small fry to them. If we stay much longer, far too many will be wounded.”
At the Tae Geuk Sword King’s words, Ryu’s gaze shifted to the central region, and his form scattered.
Ryu’s vanished form suddenly erupted from the central zone.
Watching this, the Tae Geuk Sword King smiled faintly, and his form too dispersed, appearing moments later at the center.
And what unfolded there was nothing more, and nothing less, than a hunt.
***
Gong Chan returned safely.
The six guards who had protected him did not return.
They had all been slain, having clung with desperate ferocity to protecting Gong Chan until the Black Night Army entered Hwan Do.
It was thanks to their sacrifice alone that Gong Chan’s life persisted until the Black Night Army’s arrival.
Therefore, Gong Chan’s survival owed much to those martial guardians who had fallen.
The casualties were not limited to them.
Of the Black Night Army members who had entered Hwan Do, forty were killed or wounded, and nearly thirty casualties occurred among the White Robes Army who rushed to their aid.
Nor did the fighting end there. Combat spread outside Hwan Do as well, with Maeng Ui Dan and Hyeol Gwi Dae, who had been in standoff, colliding fiercely and producing additional casualties.
Yet compared to the losses Hyeol Gwi Dae sustained, Maeng Ui Dan had scarcely suffered at all.
Of the seven hundred members of Hyeol Gwi Dae deployed around Hwan Do, barely two hundred returned alive.
Unfortunately, Seong Hwa Pal Suk, intercepted by Ryu and the Tae Geuk Sword King, could not retreat.
Though Gwan Hong had managed to escape early on and returned to Hyeol Gwi Dae, his treatment upon arrival was worse than death itself.
Setting aside that he had fallen into a trap of his own making, the censure was intense for abandoning the Hyeol Gwi Dae martial artists trapped within that snare and fleeing.
Yet he was not stripped of his position as commander.
It was due to his superiors’ recognition that it was difficult to blame a scholar—rather than a martial artist—for retreating.
Though this did not, of course, reduce the censure from the Hyeol Gwi Dae martial artists themselves.
In sharp contrast to the funeral atmosphere pervading Hyeol Gwi Dae, Maeng Ui Dan was thoroughly elated.
Despite losing over a hundred warriors and having nearly two hundred wounded, this battle was undeniably a victory for Maeng Ui Dan.
They had slain enemies numbering more than five times their own losses.
Yet though called a victory, the casualties were far too numerous for so brief a conflict.
Because so many had been deployed by both sides and the number of casualties was so great, the battle swiftly acquired the designation of “Great Battle.”
Thus named the Hwan Do Great Battle, the conflict that had begun like lightning now ended just as swiftly.
Though one might have expected silence to descend upon the garrison given the heavy losses, those of Maeng Ui Dan who had returned from Hwan Do were seized with restless excitement.
The abilities of the Tae Geuk Sword King had been openly revealed.
Rumor spread from mouth to mouth among the members of Maeng Ui Dan who had witnessed him in battle, and the entire garrison buzzed with commotion.
Many had personally witnessed Sword Qi shooting forth from the Tae Geuk Sword King’s blade in all directions.
Sword Bullets.
Those who had beheld with their own eyes this divine technique, said to be visible only in masters of the Sinhwa Realm, could not hide their excitement.
The rumor spread beyond the Maeng Ui Dan garrison directly throughout all of Kangho.
‘The Tae Geuk Sword King has crossed beyond the Eop Sin Realm and set foot in the Sinhwa Realm.’
***
Rumor travels a thousand leagues without feet, and at dawn after the Hwan Do Great Battle ended, when the sun had not yet risen, the conference chamber of Gunma Rim was blanketed in a silence as complete as the grave.
Most notably, from the eyes of Lim Ju, seated high at the head of the table, rage flared as if fire itself might spark forth at any moment.
“They’re all dead?”
Ma Ryeong recognized who Lim Ju was asking about from his coldly measured question and answered.
“Yes, Lim Ju.”
“The Muddang’s speaker lost an arm.”
“Yes.”
“And that speaker ascended to the Sinhwa Realm?”
“That appears to be the case.”
Lim Ju glanced sidelong at Ma Ryeong, whose composure never wavered, and asked a follow-up.
“Just gossip from across the way?”
“Losing half an arm doesn’t kill a person, Lim Ju.”
“No, but it’d hurt like hell.”
“That still doesn’t make it fatal.”
Ma Ryeong’s flat, unwavering tone and expressionless face troubled Lim Ju, his brow furrowing.
Yet he didn’t lash out in anger.
He couldn’t fault a strategist—someone who needed to maintain clarity—for not burning with rage the way he did.
Still…….
“Cold bastard.”
Lim Ju threw the curse at his strategist and pressed on.
“So what’s the plan?”
“We fill the vacant ranks of the Hyeol Gwi Dae and commit additional masters to the field.”
“Which masters, and how do we deploy them to stop someone at the Sinhwa Realm? It’s impossible from the start. So I—”
“Your personal entry into battle is forbidden.”
Lim Ju’s face twisted sharply at Ma Ryeong cutting him off, and he demanded an answer.
“Then there’s another way?”
“Send Bu Lim Ju.”
Lim Ju’s frown deepened, and he spoke with unmistakable displeasure.
“You two on bad terms?”
“We’re neither close nor distant.”
“Then why are you throwing him into a death trap?”
Bu Lim Ju, one of the Kangho Sibo Yeong, stands at the Eop Sin Realm in his mastery of the Sword.
He would be nothing but prey for the Tae Geuk Sword King at the Sinhwa Realm.
Ma Ryeong shook his head, as if understanding the implication.
“That will not come to pass.”
“Why not?”
Ma Ryeong answered Lim Ju’s question.
“Because he too has ascended to the Sinhwa Realm.”
Lim Ju’s expression hardened at Ma Ryeong’s answer.
The Gunma Rim’s unusual composition was the reason.
Though branded as demonic, not all within it had mastered the Demonic Art that exhaled dark Qi from their very core.
The Gunma Rim harbored three Taoist Path sects—Hwa San, Gong Dong, and Kon Ryun.
They were merely outcasts, excluded by the sects that had seized Jung Won for daring to stand apart.
This complexity colored the Gunma Rim’s entire structure.
The Ma Jiao, a traditional demonic collective, the bandits of Nok Rim, and the Mo Yong Family—masters of the Demonic Art as deep and varied as the Ma Jiao itself—formed one faction.
Meanwhile Hwa San, Gong Dong, and Kon Ryun formed another.
Beyond that, the Dang Family, the Dan Ri Family, and Bing Gung each played their own game, content in their own arrogance.
And Po Dal Rab Gung moved entirely apart, mixed into the Gunma Rim as a separate piece altogether.
The Gunma Rim was a place where different ideologies and values converged, bound only by shared hatred and animosity toward Jung Won’s sects.
Yet the organization endured because the Ma Jiao Master who held the position of Lim Ju possessed overwhelming strength.
A master at the Sinhwa Realm existed who could level an entire sect alone—a force so singular he was called a one-man legion.
But that master of the Sinhwa Realm had emerged not elsewhere, but in Hwa San, a Taoist Path sect.
That was the sound of the power structure developing a crack.
“You’re certain?”
Ma Ryeong answered Lim Ju’s terse question.
“It is the result of triple verification by the Eun Yeong Gak.”
The Eun Yeong Gak, the Ma Jiao’s intelligence apparatus, was a wholly separate entity from the Gunma Rim’s own information network under the Ma Ryeong Hall.
They operated for the Ma Jiao’s interests, not the Gunma Rim’s.
If such people had gathered this intelligence…….
“Then they’ll move even less than before.”
“They’ll want confirmation. Before challenging your authority, Lim Ju, they’ll need real proof of this master’s power.”
“That may be true, but would they bare such a dangerous asset? If Bu Lim Ju ascended to the Sinhwa Realm, then the Tae Geuk Sword King would stand on equal footing—”
It meant that when the two sides clashed, no one could say for certain who would emerge victorious.
That is to say, in the collision between the two forces, the Ja Jeon Sword King might fall in defeat, or even in victory, suffer an irreparable blow.
Ma Ryeong answered Lim Ju, who had raised the point.
“That’s precisely why we won’t refuse.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means the opponent is Muddang’s Tae Geuk Sword King.”
Only then did understanding dawn.
“Muddang and Hwa San!”
“Yes, precisely. Muddang and Hwa San are rival sects that constantly clash over two positions — the Sect Master of the Taoist Path in Jung Won and the Sect Master of the Sword Family in Jung Won.”
“So neither side will back down as a matter of pride.”
“Correct. For Hwa San to refuse combat against the Tae Geuk Sword King would be tantamount to admitting Muddang’s superiority. Hwa San will never do such a thing.”
Lim Ju nodded at Ma Ryeong’s words.
Given Hwa San’s sect traditions, even if the outcome meant losing a Sinhwa Realm master — the finest their school had produced in three hundred years — they would never retreat, just as Ma Ryeong said.
As this realization took hold, Lim Ju’s eyes gleamed.
“Achieving your goal without lifting a finger?”
At Lim Ju’s question, a faint smile flickered across Ma Ryeong’s otherwise impassive face.
“It’s purely a matter of state necessity. If we do nothing, the Hyeol Gwi Dae will crumble, and the Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s forces will immediately move into Sa Cheon and Seom Seo.”
Hwa San is a sect based in Seom Seo.
Naturally, they cannot tolerate such an outcome.
A trap that offers both justification and practical benefit.
As Ma Ryeong said, Hwa San had no choice.
Understanding the situation, a smile identical to the one Ma Ryeong had worn moments before crossed Lim Ju’s lips.
“Send an immediate order to Hwa San. Tell them to crush Muddang’s provocation.”
He deliberately invoked Muddang’s name.
Once stated so openly and officially, Hwa San would have no choice but to comply, even knowing what lay behind it.
“Yes, Lim Ju.”
Ma Ryeong’s voice, as he bowed, resonated through the great hall.

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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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