Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven - Chapter 293

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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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Third-rate Martial Arts Family, Greatest Under Heaven – Episode 293
Sim Su-chimrang flailed his harpoon in convulsive bursts.
Water currents shot forth in response, and blood sprayed in rhythmic splatters.
“…Why. How is this even possible?”
A single exchange of blows. Sim Su-chimrang’s anxiety deepened further.
Despite seizing the advantage and drawing blood.
Yang Hwi bared his teeth stained with blood and grinned wickedly.
“I told you. Humans and beasts exist on different planes.”
Sim Su-chimrang’s manifested mental image—Deep Water.
His entire body felt heavy as if drowning in murky depths, and breathing became labored.
Moreover, he had to evade not only the water currents that followed with each exchange, but their trajectories as well.
‘Truly a mental image optimized for aquatic combat.’
But.
It was shallow.
“Die! I said die!”
He leaped into the void, evading the first onslaught.
As if anticipated, water current blades converged from all six directions—above, below, front, back, left, right.
Yang Hwi harbored an unwavering resolve.
Whoever draws a blade must inscribe in their heart the determination to sever all things.
‘No. Not sever. Instead, cleave.’
Like a hawk’s wings parting the heavens!
-Kiiiiiiiii!
The water current blades transformed into thousands of droplets, painting a rainbow across the void.
A desperate cry resonated in response.
“A strike from manifested mental image! How! How can a mere transcendent master—!”
“You fool. The three enlightenments of transcendent mastery—you don’t know them?”
Vitality’s Intent. Void Grasping Water. Blade and Spirit as One.
I established my will through Vitality’s Intent and embodied the mental image of Gaecheon Swordsmanship through Blade and Spirit as One.
‘Though this would have been impossible without the Seal Script.’
Until now, despite being right-handed, Yang Hwi had fought centering on the Seal Script of his left hand.
The reason was simple.
‘A mere sword hilt, yet it carries a mental image.’
From the moment I first grasped it, I felt that through the Seal Script, my intent became honed far more keenly.
A treasure befitting what the previous Greatest Under Heaven would leave behind.
‘In fact, it seems I haven’t even drawn out its full power yet. It feels somehow sealed.’
This was not a concern for the present moment.
What mattered was how to kill this fish out of water.
‘Half of half of half of an angle. The efficacy of the Seon Orchid will run its course.’
In other words, if I cannot end this within the given time, I will collapse into a moribund state.
Death would inevitably follow.
I smirked, my lips curling upward.
“Hey, bird. Don’t you have anything stronger? I’m getting used to this now—I think I can block most techniques at this level.”
There was one universal truth that applied to all martial artists, from third-rate to Transcendent Master.
Large techniques created large openings.
Fortunately, Sim Su-chimrang took the bait.
“Aaaahhhhh! Drown and perish!”
Instead of water streams, surging waves erupted forth.
Ah, had I provoked him too much?
There was no way to evade or counter it.
‘Damn it!’
In an instant, the waves crashed down upon me, and water surrounded me from all sides.
Due to Sim Su’s mental realm, my body felt like it was being crushed, and my lungs felt pressed beneath a thousand-pound boulder.
‘If my body hadn’t been reinforced with Spiritual Qi, I would have died long ago.’
Dozens of spear techniques shot through the water like arrows, piercing toward me.
I watched silently, lost in thought.
How could I defeat this water-soaked bastard?
‘The only answer is transcendence.’
I had to transcend and ascend to the Transcendent Master realm.
With a Peak realm body, I could never defeat a Transcendent Master.
Not unless my opponent was careless and didn’t use their mental realm.
Just now, hadn’t I been swept up by the waves in an instant?
Simply by ascending, one became an elevated existence.
That was what the Transcendent Master realm’s mental realm truly was.
‘The problem is… wait.’
I eliminated all the dozens of spear techniques.
The method was simple enough.
In the water, the Gaecheon Sword’s expansion and contraction was also maximized.
I absorbed everything, converted it through vibration, and transformed it back into energy.
‘I can’t make it Inner Qi, but there are still plenty of uses for it.’
The energy wave became water foam, dispersing in all directions.
During the fight, I had used powerful energy to push and expand my twisted, muddied internal channels.
Needless to say, it was merely an emergency measure—hardly a good solution.
‘I’ll need to rest for another day. If I survive, that is.’
That was when it happened.
My body automatically rose toward the water’s surface.
Even using the thousand-pound weight, I couldn’t stop the ascent.
‘He’s realized that being underwater is actually advantageous.’
This bastard has sharp instincts.
Well, a Transcendent Master wouldn’t lack this much perception anyway.
“Baek Yang-hwi.”
Sim Su-chimrang’s face had returned to its initial cold, expressionless state.
It’s been all for nothing that I’ve kept using this method.
“I acknowledge it. You deserve to be called the greatest under heaven of the next generation.”
“I know. What’s with the sudden praise? Are you trying to sway me now?”
“No. Today, I will become the man who killed the future greatest under heaven. Let me show you—I too shall tap into a portion of my latent power.”
A sense of crisis surged to the very top of my head.
That bastard—could he really be thinking of strengthening his mental image with Primordial Qi?
All living beings possess an intense desire to survive, and when that intensity meets the mental image, the image becomes far more powerful.
“Remember the four characters of Sim Su-chimrang.”
A water spout rising to that towering height.
No, looking closely, each individual current was a blade of flowing water.
To enter that vortex would mean becoming pulverized fragments of flesh.
‘Damn it… I’ll split through!’
Living Momentum Qi. The force of life obtained through intention moves forth.
Void Grasping Form. With intention accompanying it, the formless becomes formed and occupies space.
Sword and Body as One. Merging completely with the martial way I possess, I become the Sword Intent itself.
Even the Cheonmu-sip-jon would have no choice but to marvel—it was the most perfect pinnacle of transcendent mastery.
But.
My opponent is a Transcendent Master.
“Krraaaagh!”
My entire body is shredded.
Blood pours into the currents in quantities equal to all I’ve shed before combined.
The water, reddened by the blood it devours, spins around Yang Hwi and grows increasingly crimson.
“Die, Gae-cheon Jeil-ryong. Greatest under heaven of the next generation.”
Sim Su-chimrang smiled serenely even as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Though I suffered the humiliation of unleashing latent power against a Transcendent Master, if my opponent is the greatest under heaven of the next generation, that changes everything.
Setting aside all else, as warrior facing warrior, it feels like glory.
Yes, Sim Su-chimrang truly acknowledged Yang Hwi.
My heart had been broken by the talent I witnessed through the exchange of blows.
That is precisely why I fight with genuine intent to kill, even drawing upon latent power.
The water currents scattered.
Red rain fell, creating ripples across the water’s surface.
Yang Hwi’s body descended slowly. With a splash, it sank into the water, but Sim Su-chimrang’s qi immediately lifted it back up.
“Do you have another move?”
“….”
Yang Hwi raised his hand.
But contrary to my will, it rose only halfway before dropping limply.
‘The injuries… cough… are too severe.’
In truth, at this level it wasn’t injury so much as being eighty percent dead—the fact that I haven’t lost consciousness yet is nothing short of a miracle.
And yet, my spirit remained unbroken.
‘There must be a way. Even if it means mutual destruction, there must be a way.’
There had to be.
No—there was.
Heaven always cast down a lifeline to those who refused to surrender.
Therefore, the most crucial element in ascending to the Transcendent Master realm was self-mastery so intense it could carve humanity into the very fabric of heaven and earth.
‘Ah, so that was it.’
Why Jeomchang had once produced so many greatest swordsmen under heaven.
Self-mastery.
I understood. Far too late, perhaps, but not the worst outcome.
So then… ah.
It extinguished.
The candle had gone out.
‘Of all times, the duration of Seon-lan’s technique had to expire now….’
Power drained from my entire body. What should have been filled now lay empty, and a terrible void descended upon me.
I sensed it instinctively. If I did not immediately regulate my breathing and circulate my qi, I would die.
In other words, death was now certain.
‘No. There must be a way… there has to be a way.’
Even in this moment, even as my life flickered away, I refused to surrender.
The instant I gave up, everything would truly end.
That is what a period is.
Not written by another, but by oneself.
I had no intention of writing my period just yet.
‘Yes, I’ll pierce the Sang-dan-jeon. I’ll use Spiritual Qi.’
Doing so might render me incapable of ever glimpsing higher realms again.
The attempt itself might prove impossible.
But I had the experience of my past life, so surely it wouldn’t be entirely hopeless?
In that moment of thought—
-KIIIEEEEEEE!
A hawk’s cry that tore through the very air.
A blade devoid of all qi could never emit its resonance.
A white dot rapidly expanding in size.
“Won-woo, don’t come! Flee!”
The White Hawk was diving to save its master.
Even if it was the legendary companion of Geom Seon, it was so fragile that a single strike from a Transcendent Master would cleave it in two.
“So this is the rumored Eocheon-eung. I should capture that beast.”
As Sim Su-chimrang swung his harpoon, tendrils of water surged toward Won-woo.
Fortunately, Won-woo was a spirit creature whose flight speed had no equal.
Evading every stream of water, Won-woo cried out sharply once more.
As if there was something to say.
-KIIIEEEEEEE!
‘What? This is…!’
Won-woo’s spiritual consciousness connected to my mind.
That was not all.
Something I had never known before, something I had never once imagined possessing, was being transmitted to me.
A hidden enlightenment.
A sealed martial art.
‘Jeompa-yang deugseon-pum. So that’s what it was.’
Geom Seon’s companion spirit, Eocheon-eung.
The name I had given directly—Won-woo, the feather that sees far.
It seemed his role was not merely to fly swiftly and see distant things.
[I transmit a fragment of martial arts; let the successor receive it and carve it into their heart with the sword!]
An old man wielded his sword with ease.
A simple technique, merely drawing downward from upper right to upper left.
Yet the old man stood not upon the ground but upon empty air, and facing against the pull of the earth, he gazed upward at the heavens.
The sky was severed.
It was cut asunder.
A sword—mere steel—had split the heavens into two pieces.
A tool created only by man.
‘This sword technique… this enlightenment…’
The name of the newly inscribed martial art was extraordinarily simple.
Just as the first technique, Cheon-ap, had been.
[Heavenly Evasion Sword Method (天遁劍法) Second Technique (第 二 招)]
“Sever Heaven”
The moment I recited the technique’s name, understanding came again.
The meaning and essence contained within Sever Heaven were transmitted, merging with the thread of transcendent mastery I had grasped at the brink of death.
In other words, a higher enlightenment had arrived.
I realized that my own transcendence of humanity might take a different form.

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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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