The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 29
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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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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (29)
Peekaboo
“Front? Back?”
The wiry man suddenly produced a coin.
“Heads it’s Qingcheng, tails it’s the Woomun Family. Heads? Tails?”
Kkeokkuri, muttering to himself, didn’t even wait for Jangdari’s answer before flicking the coin with his thumb.
“I say heads.”
Ting—.
Thwap!
The wiry man snatched the coin as it spun lazily through the air, clamped it under his palm, and peered at it the way a gambler studies a tile.
“Heads.”
Thunk! Bang!
“Gah!”
“Cough! Cough!”
It was a brawl. A savage, bloody battle.
One side was trying to force its way through the defensive line, while the other would not yield an inch to keep the invaders out. The two forces collided head-on, and the field was swallowed by thunderous war cries, screams, and a flood of blood and torn flesh.
“You lunatics, and you call yourselves masters?”
Among the countless duels that day, the clash between Woomun Jeonggi and Huo Yunzi stood head and shoulders above the rest. The two men, both past fifty and eighty respectively, fought with a ferocity that “savage” barely began to describe.
“I simply cannot understand this.”
Some liquid, whether spittle, blood, or sweat, was running down his chin. Woomun Jeonggi wiped it away with the back of his hand and stepped toward Huo Yunzi.
“Why did you provoke my family? Was it only to check Kunlun in Qinghai? Or are you afraid Kunlun and the Seven Families will join forces and squeeze the Six Gates?”
“I told you, we did not attack!”
Bang!
As Huo Yunzi roared, his blood-stained beard quivered. It had once been as white as the snows of Tianshan, but after the repeated clashes with Woomun Jeonggi, it had long since been dyed red.
“Why would Qingcheng bother with some miserable excuse for a family like yours?”
“Miserable?”
As Woomun Jeonggi clenched his jaw, three ridges of muscle carved themselves into his chin.
“Miserable! Miserable! Miserable! Miserable! Miserable!”
Is this what a tiger, the king of the mountains, looks like when it’s enraged?
“Show me just how strong your precious Qingcheng really is, the one that keeps humiliating my family!”
Kwang!
He thrust out a fist as powerful as a cannon, but Huo Yunzi evaded it by simply turning his neck.
“Very well.”
Wadeuk—.
“Now I’ll let you hear it. No, I’ll carve it into that frail body of yours.”
Bwoong—.
Huo Yunzi leapt into the air, tearing through the space in between, and in an instant dropped in front of Woomun Jeonggi.
Bisang Cheonje!
The Qingcheng lightness skill that bordered on the miraculous, one he had already displayed once before!
They said that watching someone use this shenfa, which soared through the sky to press an enemy in an instant, made one feel as though space itself were being compressed.
Even Woomun Jeonggi was momentarily thrown by Huo Yunzi’s Bisang Cheonje, and he instinctively stepped back.
But Bisang Cheonje was a technique that crossed the very air itself. It was not a shenfa one could evade simply by retreating.
Kwakwakwak!
Having halved the distance between himself and Woomun Jeonggi, Huo Yunzi dropped like a hawk diving on its prey, aiming to snatch him up…
“Huh?”
Woomun Jeonggi had vanished!
He had been standing right here a moment ago, so when had he slipped away?!
Just as the startled Huo Yunzi turned his head, Woomun Jeonggi appeared out of nowhere and swung an arm as thick as a millstone.
As if he were a phantom.
“The lightness skill isn’t the exclusive property of that wretched Qingcheng!”
Mangnyang Jibo!
The foundation and steadfast ally of the Woomun Family’s fist techniques, whose name echoed across Gwijoo and beyond to all under heaven. “When the mangnyang stir, all under heaven trembles”. This was that very footwork, Mangnyang Jibo.
Pabang—!
Woomun Jeonggi pressed Huo Yunzi with thirty-two punches in rapid succession. The tide turned with each blow, and at last his fist sank into the old Taoist’s belly.
Ppeoeog—!
“Kkhuak!”
The battlefield was spiraling into hell.
Flesh and blood sprayed like fountains, and screams rang out from every corner!
Warriors from both the Woomun and Qingcheng sides, struck by mortal wounds, groaned in agony, and the scene had become so unbearable to behold that even the sun hid its face behind the clouds.
Mutual Destruction.
The third force, slowly revealing itself at the scene where everything was hurtling toward mutual destruction.
Flash—!
Jangdari, who had been keeping his composure, sensed it and turned, but the wiry man caught his wrist.
“Not yet.”
“Impressive… I hadn’t realized Woomun possessed this much strength.”
Huo Yunzi panted heavily, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
His features, always so composed, had long since come undone. His robe had burst apart the moment the fighting began, and his spotless Daoist robe was smeared with blood, so that he looked less like a Daoist priest than a demon.
“I thought I’d trample these pathetic Qingcheng fools underfoot and climb straight to that vaunted Sangcheong Palace… but it isn’t so easy, is it?”
Spitting out a mouthful of phlegm streaked with blood, Woomun Jeonggi growled low in his throat.
Both of them were utterly spent and could have collapsed where they stood at any moment, but the honor of their sects and clans, and the children who had gone before them, had kept them on their feet until now.
“Enough with the empty flattery. Shall we get down to some real fun?”
As Woomun Jeonggi stirred himself once more, Huo Yunzi wrung every last ounce of strength from his body and stepped forward.
“That was exactly my plan, whelp.”
Thud!
The more Qingcheng and Woomun hurtled toward ruin, the clearer the shape of the third force became.
“Gwaaah!”
“Kheuk!”
Like eagles circling low above their prey, waiting for it to weaken, they watched the bloody clash with cold detachment.
Hiding their true identities all the while.
When the stirrings of the third force grew visible, the tall man tensed again, but the wiry one only shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Ppeo-eok—!
At last, he collapsed.
Huo Yunzi, who had been like an iron pagoda, went down on his knees, and the Thirty-Six Peaks of Qingcheng held their breath. The same could be said of Woomun, for only a precious few were still standing on their own two feet, and so it was a battle in which no one truly won.
Twitch!
The tall man could hold back no longer and made to step forward.
But the wiry one only shook his head again.
“Not yet.”
“Head Elder! Grand Elder!”
Mokyangja, the Second-Generation Disciple of Qingcheng, rushed to Huo Yunzi’s side. He was as large and as fiery of temper as Huo Yunzi himself, so in many ways the two were cut from the same cloth.
“A-are you all right?”
“Guuuugh.”
Huo Yunzi could not answer. Even the guardian deity of Qingcheng Mountain, it seemed, had found Woomun Jeonggi’s blow more than he could bear.
Grrrnch—.
Gritting his teeth and glancing back at the Qingcheng disciples groaning across the field, Mokyangja gripped his scabbard.
Clack!
“The Grand Elder has fallen! Everyone, draw your swords!”
At Mokyangja’s furious shout, the Second- and Third-Generation Disciples, who had suffered the least damage, drew their blades from their scabbards.
“What use is honor after defeat?!”
“Let’s cut the throats of these traitors right now!”
“Hah!”
Huo Yunzi scolded them, but his cry was feeble, barely more than a whisper.
“Just because your body is breaking down doesn’t mean your spirit has to! A contest begun with fists must be finished with fists!”
“No, sir!”
Mokyangja spat out a glare full of frenzy.
“They have defiled Qingcheng and harmed the Grand Elder. They are traitors, and I will never forgive them!”
“I said stop!”
“I’ll face punishment later, but this once, I will defy your command, Head Elder.”
As Mokyangja spun on his heel, an aura entirely unlike anything before it rose around his body.
Something utterly different from the vivid Dogi he had shown before.
“Let’s go!”
Pajijik—!
At last, the third force began to coil through the field!
Leaving Byeok Eunsa to watch that power take solid shape, Jin Muok leapt forward.
“Now.”
Mokyangja closed in on Woomun Family with terrifying speed. The aura he drew up around himself was…
“Astonishingly powerful Overbearing Qi.”
From where had he appeared? A ten-year-old boy had suddenly materialized and blocked his path, and Mokyangja was forced to halt in his tracks.
“Just because one is a Daoist doesn’t mean one can’t be domineering. Cultivation and all that talk aside, the reason one trains in martial arts is ultimately to subdue one’s opponent. From that standpoint.”
Pabababak—.
It’s closing in! Quite literally closing in on him!
People often use the expression “closing in” to mean drawing near. Strictly speaking, though, yukbak carries the meaning of flesh pressing against flesh. The urgency of pushing forward with one’s body is precisely what yukbak means.
Dazed by Jin Muok’s reckless charge, Mokyangja stepped back in a panic.
Pak!
Jin Muok advanced faster than the other man could retreat, brushing past him and muttering offhandedly.
“You’re not the one.”
As Jin Muok slipped past Mokyangja and spun around, it looked as though wings had sprouted from his back.
“Hide well, now.”
What on earth did that mean?
Having tossed out that cryptic remark, Jin Muok suddenly floated up into the air.
“Your hair’s showing…”
Kwaang-kwaang-kwaang-kwaang!
Accelerating again and again, Jin Muok shot skyward without warning!
His movement was so swift that it was in a different league altogether from Qingcheng’s Bisang Cheonje or Woomun’s Mangnyang Jibo.
Junma Sapung!
Bukcheon Sinmun’s strongest Shenfa, which closes the distance to an opponent with nothing more than a single breath! Add to that the insight he had gained from being reborn, and the Junma Sapung he wielded now was beyond comparison with what it had been before!
Climbing ever higher at a terrifying speed, Jin Muok.
seemed as if he might keep rising forever, until he spotted something and abruptly halted in midair.
“Found you.”
Clap, clap, clap.
In an instant, Jin Muok had taken control of the entire field. Byeok Eunsa, who had been clapping absentmindedly at his commanding display, let out a hollow laugh.
Of Qingcheng and Woomun, he had been half-forced into the role of hunting the spy lurking within Woomun Family.
Generally speaking, Qingcheng was harder to deal with than Woomun. Whatever anyone said, Qingcheng Sect was a member of the Nine Sects and One Clan.
And then.
When the coin went flying, Byeok Eunsa had seen it clearly.
Both sides of the coin had been heads.
‘Showing off, are we.’
Having locked onto his target, Jin Muok plummeted at a terrifying speed.
Kwaang-kwaang-kwaang-kwaang!
An overwhelming descent!
Dropping straight down like a kite swooping on its prey, Jin Muok was nothing less than a falling star.
Kwa-aang!
He struck the ground, carving out a massive crater, and slowly rose to his feet amid a cloud of debris and smoke.
“Peekaboo.”
“W-what is this? Sodowo?”
The middle-aged Taoist, both hands thrown up, asked in evident surprise.
Susinja: First-Generation Disciple of Qingcheng and the very embodiment of humility. Though he ranked just below the sect leader, he never pushed his own opinions forward, instead listening attentively to the Second- and Third-Generation Disciples, a man of true character.
That was why the Qingcheng disciples called him the Old Man of Nosojeong, after Nosojeong (Old Heaven Peak), the summit of the Thirty-Six Peaks of Qingcheng.
To the Qingcheng disciples, Susinja was regarded as a living immortal, and when a ten-year-old boy spouted such impudent nonsense at him, the Qingcheng disciples, already exhausted from the repeated bloody battles, summoned strength they didn’t know they had and poured out their fury.
“Who in the world are you, little Daoist?”
“Who do you think you are, insulting our Senior Brother Susinja?”
But Jin Muok paid no heed to the Qingcheng disciples’ reactions. Having taken root in a sect as large as Qingcheng, Susinja would have secured as many allies as possible, so it was only natural that they would shield him.
“Extreme overbearing Qi shares its roots with demonic Qi. Conversely, if you dilute demonic Qi endlessly, it can be purified into overbearing Qi. But you’ve cleverly disguised yourself with Dogi and Seongi.”
“It’s only natural for a Daoist to keep company with Seongi, so I have no idea what you’re talking about, Venerable Muryang.”
Susinja did not lose his composure even under Jin Muok’s repeated insolence. This only made the ten-year-old boy’s rudeness, as he browbeat a middle-aged Daoist in his forties, stand out, and the anger of the Qingcheng disciples grew all the more intense.
“Oh, really?”
Jin Muok smiled broadly.
It was, quite literally, an innocent smile, yet Susinja felt uneasy somehow.
Something’s wrong…
Before his thought could even finish, Jin Muok’s wooden club shot up toward the sky.
“Watch closely.”
The club, which had surged upward as though it meant to pierce the very heart of the sun, now descended slowly, aimed squarely at Susinja.
Tsu-tsu-tsu-tsu-tsu.
“Let’s put an end to this game here, little Daoist.”
“This is…”
Jin Muok cut him off flatly.
“Does this look like a game to you?”
Tsa-cha-cha-cha-aang!
The wooden club, which had been crawling along like a tortoise, suddenly accelerated again and again, sealing off every direction Susinja could move and lashing out in a frenzy.
Kkwa-reu-reung!
“Huh!”
Susinja’s body moved on pure reflex, and the instant he realized his mistake, Jin Muok flashed a sly smile.
“Got you.”
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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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