The Lightning I Harbor Is Too Strong - Chapter 37

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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 37
The sun sank gradually toward the horizon, then slipped behind the mountains all at once, and darkness descended in an instant.
With stars twinkling across the night sky, time was indeed passing steadily.
“……What exactly is this?”
Jeong Ishin lay sprawled on the ground, blinking vacantly upward.
“Hasn’t it been about two days now?”
The time he’d spent doing nothing but staring at the sky had felt like that.
No matter how long he waited, the trial to prove his spirit never began.
“Tolerating boredom can’t possibly be…… the actual test, right?”
He lay on his back with his legs crossed, twitching only his toes.
Though he feigned composure, an unmistakable impatience seeped through his movements.
Both O Seo in his pouch and Muk Rin around his wrist had slept continuously since entering the Entrance Examination, leaving him no one to share his frustration with.
In truth, passing the test in record time was something he could abandon without loss.
“Still, I can’t become Mu Jin’s disciple if I fail.”
That mattered far more.
And so darkness receded once more, and the sun rose again.
“I simply cannot fathom it. How is waiting like this supposed to test my spirit?”
Merely enduring couldn’t possibly be proof of one’s mind.
Jeong Ishin’s doubts persisted until the sun began to set.
A shadow cast against the setting sun stretches endlessly until nightfall arrives.
The day before yesterday had been the same, as had yesterday. But today was different.
“……Huh?”
The red light draped over the summit showed no sign of fading.
The sinking sun had stopped moving. It would descend no further.
Only the crimson rays it emitted grew stronger by the moment, and space began to twist grotesquely within their radiance.
Whooooom— Whooooom—
A vibration like some beast whose voice none could comprehend.
And with it, the mountain peak beneath Jeong Ishin’s feet began to warp.
Crrrck—
Space reassembled itself; heaven and earth scattered and regathered in repetition.
The forming shape cycled repeatedly between stone chamber, mountain path, and summit.
Whooooom!
When the endlessly shifting space finally ceased its movement.
Jeong Ishin stood upon a vast Training Grounds.
“……Heh.”
It was as though he’d been possessed by a spirit.
The time he’d spent vacant and idle atop the mountain peak felt like a dream.
So abruptly?
Jeong Ishin pressed his thumbs and forefingers against his eye sockets and shook his head.
“In any case, I passed…… I did pass, didn’t I?”
Those two days squandered so anticlimactically were a puzzle, but there was nowhere to lodge a complaint now. He simply had to move forward.
“So next would be…….”
What ordeal lay ahead for the new Examination Candidate who had proven his spirit?
It was a duel against something born from the very spirit he had just demonstrated.
Crack— Crack—
An eerie sound rang out from empty air.
As though a pane of glass were shattering, cracks appeared in space and fissures spread.
Soon, from the widening gap, a figure leaped down with a bound.
“Mm?”
The man who tilted his head bore an exceedingly rough countenance.
A face covered with all manner of scars, centered on a long slash running diagonally from his left cheek to his right, crossing the bridge of his nose.
Coarse but practical martial robes, and a single blade hung carelessly from his waist.
The bearing of one who had weathered every storm.
Yet the aura emanating from his entire being was fiercer still.
‘Formidable.’
It was the first such thought since Jeong Ishin had ventured into the Martial World.
Unlike the elders of Gaebang or the masters of Shaolin, whom he’d never dared to truly gauge.
There was something felt between warrior and warrior.
Not that he didn’t dare appraise this one at all—rather, it was the sense that he would prove difficult to overcome.
Yet separate from such reflection.
‘Who on earth is this person supposed to be my sparring partner?’
He had no memory of ever catching more than a passing glance of them.
That was all that puzzled him.
The man who had been looking around nervously caught sight of Jeong Ishin and scratched his head.
“What’s this? That’s not the face I was supposed to meet.”
The thought struck him suddenly.
The conduct and speech were truly…… remarkably human.
* * *
The Entrance Hall remained crowded.
More people had gathered than usual—more, indeed, than in any Entrance Examination in recent memory.
All the martial instructors had shown their faces, as well as the professors who handled the theoretical disciplines: Martial Discourse, Martial World History, Formation Arrays, and Qi Studies.
‘Scholars who rarely venture from their research chambers…….’
It was hardly incomprehensible. The commotion warranted it.
“Master of the Entrance Hall! Have you still not discovered the cause!?”
The question came from Hwangbo Gang, who had not left the Entrance Hall since the beginning.
Baek Mong San, Master of the Entrance Hall, exhaled a long sigh and replied.
“I have told you plainly several times already. The Entrance Examination as designed by the First Academy Master is itself a divine mechanism—a work of intelligence, as it were! Which is to say, it possesses consciousness!”
“Ahem! I understand it is a transcendent achievement…….”
“I say with absolute certainty there is no malfunction!”
Baek Mong San spoke with finality, his expression growing stern.
“In all the decades of its operation, there has never been a single problem. It makes no sense for it to malfunction now.”
Yet a voice that slipped through was razor-sharp.
“Then how do you explain an Examination Candidate who passed not only the first gate but also the second in less than an hour?”
“…….”
“And that same Examination Candidate has been trapped at the third gate for four days now?”
“…….”
“Answer me! I have not left this place since the first day!”
It was the professor who taught Martial World History.
A cursed pedant.
Baek Mong San squeezed his eyes shut, but his ears remained open.
He was being reproached by more than one voice.
From those who had witnessed that spectacle on the first day of the Entrance Examination, to latecomers who had arrived upon hearing rumors.
All of them demanded a proper explanation.
“The third gate is nothing more than a test of spirit, is it not? No matter how much one strains the mind, it is ordinarily a gate that requires no more than half a day to pass!”
That was true.
But what was he to do about it?
The Myriad Phenomena Platform merely displayed the current status of the Entrance Examination.
It revealed nothing of what was happening within it.
‘Jeong Ishin, Candidate Three-Eight-Two!’
Baek Mong San could only cry out inwardly the name of an Examination Candidate whose face he had never seen.
‘What demon possessed him? A man who breached the physical and energetic gates in less than an hour—how can he not pass through the spirit gate for more than two days!?’
Baek Mong San harbored the same question that the shouting professors did.
If anything, as the one presiding over the Entrance Examination, he understood it all the better.
The spirit—the martial studies of the upper dantian—was difficult. It was akin to peering into another person’s mind.
For this reason, the third gate constructed by Jegal Gicheon had taken a roundabout approach: it expanded from the heart regarding ‘Martial Arts’ and glimpsed fragments of it.
The various emotions tied to Martial Arts.
Attachment, weakness, competitive spirit, inferiority, fear, and more.
With the steadily intensifying pressure of the Formation Array, those murky emotions were wrung out.
And confronted.
But most who reached the third gate possessed the strength to overcome such things with ease.
A healthy body harboring a healthy spirit was the natural order of things.
Some warrior monks like Beom Cheon even welcomed facing their own shortcomings.
Merely ‘recognizing’ them was enough to pass the third gate.
In the end, the conclusion was singular.
‘Jeong Ishin, Candidate Three-Eight-Two……!’
What in blazes was the man doing?
As he gnashed his teeth in frustration, his gaze caught on Seop Yeon, the broad-bladed swordsman.
Baek Mong San recalled that he seemed to know something—a certain knowledge in his eyes.
This was no time to be fastidious.
The moment he strode toward Seop Yeon, a piercing metallic shriek rang out.
Chaos erupted instantly.
“What, what is it! What’s happened, Master of the Entrance Hall? Has that new Examination Candidate finally passed through? Did he, did he perhaps demolish all the remaining gates at once?”
“Hah! So lingering at the third gate was merely to build momentum!?”
Unfortunately for them, Baek Mong San recognized that cry all too well.
The Master of the Entrance Hall shook his head.
“Intrusion from outside.”
“…….”
“…….”
After a very brief silence.
“Ah, I got my hopes up for nothing.”
“Tsk. So Examination Candidate three-hundred-eighty-second is still stuck at three gates?”
“He remains a novice Examination Candidate. Of course…… there’s no chance he’ll fail to pass.”
“If this goes on for just one more day, he’ll take the lead. I thought an unprecedented record was coming.”
“We may need to scrutinize his character more carefully going forward.”
Their reactions were remarkably composed—utterly indifferent to the intrusion.
It made sense. This place was, after all, the Orthodox Way’s foremost sanctuary for cultivating elite warriors.
How many in the Central Plains would dream of toppling such a bastion?
For them, the Entrance Examination was nothing short of an annual feast of possibility.
Which meant such challenges had become tedious routine.
“Where?”
Baek Mong San, Master of the Entrance Hall, received his report with the same measured composure.
“The Watchtower reports it as the Windcloud Gang. They’ve already killed nine disciples.”
“Sadopalpa again? They never tire of this. Who’s the leader?”
“Cham Wol Lang. He hasn’t been captured yet.”
“Hm? A bigger fish than expected.”
Yet despite his remark, not a trace of tension crossed his features.
As he’d said—how many incursions had there been over the years?
But for the past several decades, not a whisper had spread through the Martial World that Cheonmu Academy had ever been attacked.
Why would that be?
“The Jade Heaven Pavilion has moved.”
“Then it’s already finished.”
A martial power that swallowed even the history of invasions dwelt within these walls.
* * *
“Eh? You don’t know Cham Wol Lang? The one who slew the moon, this body?”
“Nonsense. I saw it hanging just fine in the night sky yesterday.”
“……It’s a figure of speech, that’s all. This is a funny fellow, isn’t he?”
Casual words were exchanged across the sprawling Training Grounds.
Dialogue that suited nothing about the situation.
From Jeong Ishin’s perspective, the figure before him was by no stretch of the imagination his actual opponent.
He’d been told he would face something conjured by the gate trials.
‘No matter how I look at it, this is definitely a real person.’
If this were something created through Formation Arrays and mechanical designs…… Jeong Ishin might have been forced to acknowledge Jegal Gicheon’s genius.
“Kahahaha! I was caught off guard by an unfamiliar face welcoming me, but to think he’d turn out to be such an interesting fellow! Listen, kid. What’s your name?”
“Jeong Ishin.”
“Good, Jeong Ishin. I’ll make you an offer. Come under my wing.”
“……What?”
“Even the Formation Arrays of Jegal Gicheon, once called the Prodigy of Heaven’s Mechanism in his youth, turned out to be nothing special. The wolves of the Windcloud Gang have already plunged into your Entrance Examination. Your little festival will soon become a river of blood.”
What he meant was that if Jeong Ishin wanted to live, he should bow his head.
Jeong Ishin found himself nodding despite himself. Regardless of anything else, he rather liked hearing Jegal Gicheon criticized.
So he asked casually.
“Are you really in a position to make that offer?”
“Ha! What a clever kid. Playing at being an Orthodox Way disciple, no less. Fine then, since it seems you’re embarrassed not to know me, your older brother will introduce himself directly.”
Despite his rough appearance, the man had a facile tongue.
He kept boasting, raising his voice persistently.
“The King of Vagrant Warriors Under Heaven, the Wolf King, the Drifting Celestial Wolf, the Master of the Windcloud Gang! The single martial master that these great titles all point to! ……And the wolf closest to that magnificence is none other than this body!”
He drove his thumb hard into his chest as he bellowed.
Jeong Ishin’s brow furrowed.
“You’ve got an awfully long list of aliases.”
“Khahahaha! You’re right about that. When did the Martial World’s illustrious names become so numerous? A time when one need only introduce oneself. But the Gang Master is different. Every one of those names was earned through deeds of glory.”
Jeong Ishin let out a snort of derision.
Who was this Windcloud Gang master whom Cham Wol Lang spoke of with such reverence?
He was the leader of the Windcloud Gang, one of the Eight Heterodox Tyrants under Sadopalpa.
And what kind of force were these Eight Heterodox Tyrants?
They called themselves the Eight Tyrants of All Under Heaven, though the Martial World knew them as the Eight Heterodox Tyrants.
It was said that they’d originally been seven, but became eight because they claimed to lag in numbers against the Eight Great Orthodox Houses.
It was a laughable reason, yet it was true.
And for a reason no less laughable, these very people wielded their blades.
‘What absurdity. Do they know no shame?’
In truth, there was a time when the station of Vagrant Warrior had not been held in such contempt.
That was the era when masters were lost and warriors overflowed—during the long wars and the Demonic Sect’s brutality that followed.
Many became vagrant warriors, refusing to submit to the Demonic Way and standing against it with only a blade.
Countless vagrant warriors joined their strength to fight evil, and from that struggle, the Windcloud Gang was born.
‘Heroes of that age.’
The current Windcloud Gang master had reduced that very organization to a den of scoundrels, then brazenly threw in his lot with Sadopalpa.
‘Gun Sop Pa, the Dog King.’
The young beggar of Gaebang, Bang Si Jung, had spoken of this with grinding teeth.
The brigands of the green forests and water routes were angels by comparison.
Now, in the Martial World, if a vagrant warrior approached asking to join ranks or borrow fire, one could draw a blade without guilt.
‘Vagrant Average.’
It was the current Windcloud Gang master who had spread that very term through the Central Plains martial community.
Yet how could Cham Wol Lang carry himself with such confidence?
Jeong Ishin was genuinely puzzled.
“Is this what those who traffic in infamy across the realm call something to boast about?”
“…What?”
“Your ‘exploits’—stabbing fellow warriors in the back, taking coin and fleeing or betraying, switching sides on the spot for a higher bid…”
“….”
“Is that what you mean?”
Jeong Ishin turned his shoulder as he spoke.
Every example of Vagrant Average was rooted firmly in fact.
But not every truth could be spoken aloud in this world. So he naturally anticipated Cham Wol Lang’s counterattack and drew up his True Qi through the Reverse Muscle Qi Technique.
“Hmph! Exactly!”
Yet there was no ambush.
The answer that came back was truly a masterpiece.
“But you know what’s even more impressive? Stripping—I mean, ‘educating’—wandering knights who show up in small villages with no martial sects or mercenary bands backing them. Lots of young, starry-eyed warriors fall for it… Keh-heh-heh!”
“…What.”
Jeong Ishin’s words caught in his throat.
The Vagrant Average he’d actually witnessed exceeded his imaginings.
The very act of speaking with such a creature felt degrading.
Jeong Ishin gathered all the amber-hued True Qi he’d drawn up and drove it into his palm, releasing a full strike.
Crack-boom—!!
The Palm of Buddha crashed down upon Cham Wol Lang’s head.
Jeong Ishin thus inherited the will of the Great Patriarch.
The Thunder I Hold Burns Too Bright
Author |
U San Yu
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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Editorial Department
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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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