The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 192

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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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The Decline of a Great Family, Terminal Years — Episode 192

The boy seemed to know the sect’s circumstances in meticulous detail.
How could this child possibly know such things?
A spy

Perhaps? It had been a long time since Blood Coral Valley fell, and the Martial Alliance itself seemed to be withering. Was the Baek Do Meng or the Hek Cheon Ryeon planning to challenge the sect?
Yet if that were so, it wouldn’t make sense to reveal it so openly now.
But no matter how much he observed, the boy didn’t seem like an outsider to the sect.
Even if the previous sect leader’s spirit had been standing beside the boy, he could have believed it.
— That is…….
— In the end, it’s you who must do your best to help me become Junior Sect Leader. And if I become Junior Sect Leader, doesn’t that mean I’ll eventually become Sect Leader? Is there an Elder above the Sect Leader in Ma Cheon Gyo?
— B-blasphemy! How dare you speak of the supreme one so carelessly!
— Ha ha. Then will you kill me? The only Junior Sect Leader candidate you barely found? After all your wandering, you’d kill the one candidate you scraped together while living on dumplings and go back empty-handed to say you couldn’t find him?
Dry saliva bobbed down repeatedly. He wished he could throw a punch, but for some reason his arm trembled and wouldn’t rise.
How could a mere child from Hang Zhou, who had never even come near Ma Cheon Gyo, overpower them so thoroughly?
How could he exude an aura equal to that of the Sect Leader himself?
— That is…… you’re quite sharp, Young Master. You’re surely worthy of being the sect’s cornerstone. Let’s return to the sect at once…….
— I said I’m busy. How many times must I say it, you fools! I didn’t say I wasn’t going.
Words that he’d never heard before or after becoming an Elder of the sect struck him, though other things came to his ears first.
— S-so you will go? To our sect?
Heuk Dam seized the moment and asked eagerly. The boy waved his hand dismissively.
— I’ll only stop by the Beijing Ice Palace on my way. You lot should follow at a distance.
— What? All the way to the Beijing Ice Palace? But…… why are you telling us to follow at a distance……?
Heuk Dam cautiously shifted to formal speech as he asked. Baek Dam stared at him in alarm, but soon his expression softened into something similar to Heuk Dam’s as he looked back at the boy.
Either way, they had no choice but to support the candidate they had found.
If the candidate failed, they too would be finished; if the candidate succeeded, there would be light ahead for them as well!
‘And yet…… this child.’
Even when the current Sect Leader, Cheon Hye Dam, had been a candidate, he was nothing like this.
The Oracle could not have lied.
This was surely someone the Nine Heaven Sage had pointed out first!
If so, then he was destined to become Junior Sect Leader, and becoming Junior Sect Leader meant becoming Sect Leader unless heaven itself overturned.
— I don’t like things getting noisy too soon.
— W-we are ashamed, sir!
— I said I don’t like noise.
They soon understood what he meant by telling them to follow at a distance so that the Moonless Sword wouldn’t detect them.
The boy was working as a servant to the eldest grandchild of the Dan Mok Clan, one of the foremost martial families of the Martial Arts World.
Heuk Dam and Baek Dam felt as though their hearts would be torn asunder, but unable to defy the boy’s will, they followed behind, eyes brimming with tears, lagging far behind as they journeyed the long road, soaked in cold dew…….
— We’re…… not being deceived, are we?
— Deceived?
Heuk Dam, who dreamed daily of the boy becoming Junior Sect Leader and eventually Sect Leader, opened his eyes wide in question.
— Could we have come this far bewitched? What if the Young Master isn’t truly a Junior Sect Leader candidate of Ma Cheon Gyo but is waiting for us under orders from the Baek Do Meng or the Hek Cheon Ryeon…….
— Bah, you fool! If that were so, would the Oracle have wept?
— Ah.
Like someone lost in thought who fails to see the ground beneath their feet and stumbles, Baek Dam opened his mouth blankly before speaking in urgent tones.
Still, just to be safe, they should send a Secret Letter. Using the Formation Technique that only the Sect Leader and Junior Sect Leader could open.
If the Young Master, who had not yet even touched the shadow of Tian Shan, could open it, then he was surely the Junior Sect Leader first ordained by the Nine Heaven Sage?
Even if he were a spy planted by the Baek Do Meng or the Hek Cheon Ryeon, if he possessed such talent, such power, they could serve him as their Sect Leader.
As if answering their faith, a reply came back from the boy.
— Are you two trying to test me with such petty tricks and make a fool of me?
The moment they read the reply, two old men nearly burst into tears of fear.
And now it was like this.
If they had their way, they’d extract the Young Master from that carriage at once, sweep away these mad Blood Ghouls, and be done with it, but since the Young Master showed no sign of leaving the carriage, what could they do?
To face dozens of creatures rushing forward without pain, eyes rolled back, unseen by the Dan Mok Clan and the Beijing Ice Palace’s warriors—it was no simple task for them either.
Moreover, because they were now outside the Blood Ghouls’ encirclement rather than within it, there were things they could sense.
Gathering all his strength and sweeping the surroundings clear in a single breath, the moment Heuk Dam and Baek Dam entered a lull, they both gazed toward the distance.
“Something is deeply amiss.”
“I had the children summoned beforehand… but I’d hoped we wouldn’t need them.”
“What are these wretched spirits after, swarming like this? Surely it’s not the young master?”
The conversation ceased there, but the killing intent flickering in the eyes of Baek Dam and Heuk Dam settled deeper and more tenacious.

* * *

“A single tiger falls when dozens of wolves descend upon it!”
Jeok Sa Geom cried out, wielding his sword. Dan Mok Cheon Gi met the strike.
“Laughable! These leeches, lesser than a day-old pup, fancy themselves wolves?”
Crack!
A violent sound erupted through the mountain—so fierce it scarcely seemed two blades could collide with such force.
With each sword strike, the earth split and trees were torn from the ground. The Blood Ghouls of Blood Coral Valley were swept away, yet their numbers were so vast the losses barely registered.
“Hundreds of sheep may rush a tiger, but the tiger does not fall—it merely feasts!”
Bang!
Dan Mok Cheon Gi swung his blade down again in a decisive arc. Jeok Sa Geom parried, but black blood streamed from the mouth of Heuk Sa Geom, who stood behind him.
The three of them were holding formation while simultaneously confronting Dan Mok Cheon Gi, so the impact was distributed among all three at once.
After Heuk Sa Geom spat blood, the three swords thrust toward Dan Mok Cheon Gi like skewers.
Clang-clang-clang!
Dan Mok Cheon Gi gathered the blades and flicked them all away in a single motion, then swept his sword in a wide arc.
“Arrgh! You! I’ll kill you!”
Cheong Sa Geom, his shoulder blade sliced open, blinked rapidly, eyes wild with pain.
Clang-clang-clang!
Individually, Heuk Sa Geom, Cheong Sa Geom, and Jeok Sa Geom fell far short of Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s level, yet their combined formation was respectable, and the Formation Technique itself was remarkably vexing.
The subtle distortion of perception and a heavier pressure bearing down on the body—these were its hallmarks.
Even a hair’s difference in the execution of a lifetime’s cultivation could dull the edge of the blade and turn a gap into a wound of death.
‘When did Blood Coral Valley grow to such strength?’
The mere fact that three men could assault him simultaneously and still hold their ground was remarkable.
‘Elders of Blood Coral Valley, no doubt.’
No matter how formidable Blood Coral Valley was, it could not easily raise three warriors of this caliber. And considering they had spent long years half-decimated in Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s hands, it was clear Blood Coral Valley had committed fully to this assault.
‘Each one is the equal of the Cheon Lang Corps commander!’
If these three threw their full force into an attack, the martial artists beneath the commander would be overwhelmed.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi closed his eyes briefly—to discern whether the distorted perception was affecting his sight or his vital sense.
To close one’s eyes even for an instant on a blood-drenched battlefield was madness, yet Dan Mok Cheon Gi, undaunted before the three, flowed gracefully, deflecting and parrying.
‘So it is the eyes.’
Deceiving vital sense through Formation Technique with only three men would be difficult even for the Jegal Family, yet distorting vision was relatively simple while remarkably effective.
As Dan Mok Cheon Gi swung his blade with eyes shut, Jeok Sa Geom’s expression twisted into something demonic.
In this moment, Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s movements laid bare the chasm between them.
“Once you were the Greatest Master Under Heaven—pride will be your undoing, and you shall kneel weeping blood!”
Jeok Sa Geom’s voice seething with hatred and inferiority, the clash of weapons, screams, and the stench of blood grew thicker still.
Whoosh-boom-boom!
In movements swift and suffocating, his sword flashed, and Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s sleeve erupted with a violent flutter.
“Khah!”
In that same instant, Jeok Sa Geom vomited a mouthful of blood.
And then, the face that had appeared middle-aged swiftly aged, his hair turning snow-white before his very eyes.
“No… no!”
Jeok Sa Geom, frantically patting his lower abdomen where his dantian lay, fumbled to grip his sword and tried to rise, but in that moment Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s blade pierced his heart.
“Gahhh…!”
Jeok Sa Geom collapsed in an instant, and the formation shattered. Simultaneously, Cheong Sa Geom and Heuk Sa Geom coughed up blood from the backlash.
Feeling his body lighten, Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s eyes snapped open and he leveled his sword at the remaining two.
“It is you who profit from pride before the name of the Greatest Master Under Heaven!”
Fire blazed in the eyes of Cheong Sa Geom and Heuk Sa Geom as they glanced at Jeok Sa Geom’s corpse.
“You… you hadn’t lost your realm at all, curse you….”
“Could it be that Gok Ju deceived us…?”
“Did the leeches’ commander send you, telling you my demonic heart had deepened enough to warrant concern? So you came eagerly, thinking it good sport?”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s voice thundered.
“And so you will spend your lives without ever earning any name of your own, parasites living off others, inflicting only harm upon the world, meaningless to anyone,

meeting your end in obscurity!”
“How dare you—!”
Cheong Sa Geom’s eyes flushed crimson in an instant. Explosive force erupted from him, his hair and robes whipping about wildly—but Dan Mok Cheon Gi moved faster still.
“I have nothing left to discuss with a vengeful spirit. Die. Become ash and repent for your sins.”
In a single breath, dozens of Sword Forms shifted with bewildering grace, deflecting every blow Cheong Sa Geom unleashed.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The moment Cheong Sa Geom’s blade flew through empty air, Dan Mok Cheon Gi swept his own sword across in a horizontal arc that seemed to cleave the world itself.
A wet, tearing sound.
Cheong Sa Geom’s head flew from his shoulders in a single stroke.

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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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