Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven - Chapter 322

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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 322
Perhaps the most essential virtue for a warrior is equanimity.
The Taeguk Sword Master, who ascended to the first seat of the Cheonmu-sip-jon, could only be someone possessed of an unshakeable composure.
Yet now, the Taeguk Sword Master felt as though he might lose his mind.
“If not today, Seon will die by my hand.”
‘Have I ever seen a fool so young, so utterly mad?’
It was true that the Taeguk Sword Master had first sought Yang Hwi’s aid.
If things continued as they were, he would find himself locked in combat with Su-sa-jae-seon, and such a clash would surely bring considerable bloodshed.
He had thought that if Yang Hwi, whom Seon was watching with interest, stepped forward, he could gently shift the atmosphere.
‘I never meant for you to fight in my stead!!!’
“…Heh heh. Hehehehe.”
A hollow laugh, devoid of emotion in a peculiar way.
That one of Seon’s caliber would display emotion so openly meant he harbored feelings of extraordinary intensity.
“It is true I took interest in you. However, I will not overlook rudeness of this magnitude. Thus, you must die.”
Of course not!
No warrior under heaven would simply accept such words and move on!
Even Baek Do would not tolerate it, so how could Su-sa-jae-seon, who leads those henchmen, possibly let it pass?
‘Ah… no, Eung-hyo Je-il.’
The Taeguk Sword Master had habitually called Yang Hwi “boy,” but corrected himself.
Having proven himself, he was no longer one to be called by such a name.
Though it seemed unlikely he would be called anything at all after today.
‘What in the world is he thinking?’
Five streams of Five-Element Qi surge toward Eung-hyo Je-il.
He could have intercepted them, but if he did, Seon would truly rampage in the heart of Mu-han.
Therefore, Eung-hyo Je-il must preserve his life through his own martial prowess alone.
It meant he had to survive an assault from the Cheonmu-sip-jon without even reaching the pinnacle realm.
It was absurd. Perhaps this too was a trial given to Yang Hwi’s existence—no, perhaps it was his heavenly mandate.
‘Master. Ancestor.’
He recalled the face of Taeguk Sword Master Jang Sam-bong.
He also recalled the ancestor he had heard of through his master.
Those two, born under the heavenly mandate to shine brightly in the light—
Had they endured such a mandate and become radiant?
“Die regretting your transgressions. Die grateful for my magnanimity.”
Fire, water, wood, metal, earth—the Five-Element Qi swells in mass.
Eung-hyo Je-il’s form vanished completely.
Sudden curiosity. Interest.
‘Eung-hyo Je-il. You are not one to commit madness without thought. Prove it to me.’
Today, it seemed he would at least learn one answer.

* * *
I draw forth my Inner Qi. I refine my intent.
The Hwa-cheon Seon-gi transforms into flame-like vital energy, circulating through my entire body.
‘Five Elements Qi. I’d say one second, or perhaps five seconds at most.’
It was only natural—there was no way one could block one with one.
No, perhaps I should reckon it as five hundred, five thousand seconds or more.
‘The quality of my energy is clearly inferior, and so is the quantity.’
The gap was so vast that even using such an expression felt like a luxury.
Though it was a trivial technique, I couldn’t muster confidence that I could block it even by pouring out all my inner strength.
It was only natural. My opponent was Cheonmu-sip-jon Su-sa-jae-seon, after all.
A monster who had lived nearly sixty years.
So first, then.
‘Tiger Transforms into Great Sea Divine Art.’
A tiger transforms into the great sea.
Its subtlety lies in amplifying and pouring it into the technique.
I recalled a time in my previous life when I was hungry and stirred the muddy banks of a lake.
Whenever I saw a hole, I’d push my fingers in to widen it, and eventually I’d snatch out the hidden goby fry and chew them down.
The amplified flame-like vital energy forcibly opens the meridians throughout my body.
Squeezing through narrow gaps and thickening my torso, I felt a tearing pain across my entire frame.
No—I was already torn to shreds.
After today, I would likely lose my martial prowess as a Warrior.
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m going to die today anyway.’
This beggar child in the earthen hut had never once let go of attachment to life.
From my previous life until now, I had to live for the dreams I harbored.
But now, I let go.
Today I die.
Yet I will absolutely prove it.
‘Thousand Winds.’
The peerless light body technique of the Seongyeom Okryeong School.
I unfolded the supreme lightness technique under heaven that I learned from Eum Hu.
Manifesting a thousand winds through my body.
A martial art that seeks to transform into wind itself.
‘No. No, it’s not transforming into wind—it’s transforming into the ‘sound’ of wind.’
What seemed obvious suddenly dawned on me as a revelation.
The Seongyeom Okryeong School is a Taoist sect that seeks enlightenment through sound-based martial arts.
So it would be natural for the lightness technique to share the same grain as sound-based arts.
Whiiiiing!
The sound of wind echoes from my entire body.
I’m not satisfied.
So let me change it.
The moment I made my decision, the sound transformed.
-Kee-ahhhhhhh!
-Kee-ahhhhhhh!
-Kee-ahhhhhhhhh!
The cry of hawks echoed throughout my entire body.
It was as if a thousand hawks were chirping simultaneously.
With a thousand hawks cradled within my body, I possessed a thousand pairs of wings.
The hawk is the swiftest winged creature under heaven.
Therefore, the Thousand Hawk Cry Body could very well be the fastest lightness technique in all the land.
‘Still insufficient.’
Moreover, it was already too late.
The Thousand Hawk Cry Body could not evade Seon’s Five Elements Qi.
Since it already occupied the space of all five directions, I would need to create an opening.
Therefore, next.
‘Taeguk Benevolent Blade. Taeguk Reverse Blade.’
The peerless sword technique of the Taeguk Sword Master, the current successor of the Geom Seon lineage.
The Geom-ong had said this to me: that I would need the benevolent blade, and so he was giving it to me.
I still could not understand its meaning. Perhaps he had not foreseen such a situation when he bestowed it.
But.
‘The benevolent blade. And the reverse blade. Positive, negative, union….’
To stand upright, one needs two legs.
Good and evil, black and white, day and night, and so forth… perhaps that is why so many things in this world exist in pairs.
Just as a hawk possesses a pair of wings in order to fly.
‘I would meld two opposing blades, different from one another, into a single pair.’
The Taeguk Benevolent Blade and the Taeguk Reverse Blade were not conceived through mutual discussion.
Thus, while their directionality was opposite, their forms were vastly different.
I melted them down to their bare framework. Then I reshaped the flesh upon them to assume the same form.
Two different ones became a matching pair unto themselves.
‘From this moment forward, you are no longer the Taeguk Blade, but the Twin-Born Wing Swords.’
The Taeguk Benevolent Blade of the Taeguk Sword Master, current successor of the Geom Seon lineage.
The Taeguk Reverse Blade, the final profound insight of the Great Patriarch who envied the Taeguk Sword Master.
The two were now one, and had become a symbiotic pair of wings.
But.
‘Still insufficient.’
Though I possessed a pair of wings, I remained deeply uncertain whether I could withstand even a single strike from Seon.
To stand upright, one needs two legs, but to stand with greater stability, one requires at least three legs, does one not?
Fortunately, I already possessed one leg that I had long held.
A blade I had forged myself across two lifetimes.
The Gae-cheon-bak-pal-geom.
‘If I have made a pair of Taeguk Blades my wings, then the torso to which the wings attach is ultimately the Gae-cheon.’
It had to be Gae-cheon.
A vast and unyielding wing capable of covering even the heavens themselves.
Gae-cheon was the most fitting name for the path I would forge and walk.
‘Then must my inner vision be Gae-cheon as well?’
In my previous life, Yang Hwi’s inner vision was the削羽—the Feather That Carves.
I had sought to become a feather that shaved away all things.
‘If I were satisfied with the Feather That Carves, I would have reached the pinnacle long ago. So then, Gae-cheon?’
I lifted my head and gazed upon Seon. I stared at the single second he had unleashed.
‘I cannot see it. There is no way to block it.’
No path of technique, no sword path to preserve my life comes into view.
The path I walk may be Gae-cheon, but the intention I embrace cannot also be Gae-cheon.
I must kill myself once more.
In that process, at that end, I must embrace a new intention.
Kill another to seize victory from the king. No—kill myself to seize victory from the king.
To steal victory from the king by destroying myself.
So I collided.
Still incomplete.
-SHRIEEEEEEEEEEE!
-SHRIEEEEEEEEEEE!
I unleashed the Ilcheon-eung-myeong-shin and shifted my body to where the damage would be minimized.
The human eye cannot see sound; it is formless, and far too swift besides.
Thus my form vanished and reappeared in the blink of an eye.
In the martial world, this was called the Stance of Altered Form and Exchanged Position.
Twin Eight-Flower Heaven Fire—no, now it was Twin Life-Wing Sword.
The sword force erupting from two blades began to alter the flow of the Five Elements’ qi according to the mysteries of the Taeguk principle of mutual conquest and generation.
‘Woefully insufficient.’
Like a stone cast into a stream changing its flow, I could create gaps in the Five Elements’ assault.
But to survive, gaps alone were not enough.
At this rate, I would die.
‘It’s fine. So let me savor this.’
I danced with the sword.
For me, the sword has always been a source of joy.
So I was one who could even savor the moment of death.
The sword carves away the qi.
The Feather That Carves—the sword was always a feather.
But.
In the state of no-self, enlightenment arrived.
‘Ah, so that was why.’
Now I was merely a stone cast into a stream.
Yet within the stone worn smooth by the stream’s carving lay hidden jade.
—Kiiiiiieeeeeeee!
It no longer chipped away.
For jade was the true form of stone.
Having comprehended, I had seized it.
Seon’s Five Elements Inner Qi was but one instant, yet it felt like hundreds, thousands of instants to me.
Such was the gap between Seon and myself—this was only natural.
But.
I blocked it all. I endured.
“….”
“….”
“….”
The shattered Five Elements Inner Qi dissolved into the void.
It vanished.
Though it was but a fleeting moment, to my perception it felt like an eternity spanning Chil-ju or more.
“You blocked it?”
As everyone fell silent, staring at me, Seon broke the stillness.
“You blocked it. A mere peak master blocked my single instant. No, I cannot call you a peak master anymore.”
I was drenched in blood from head to toe. My carefully bound hair had come undone, cascading across my face.
In a flash, my eyes gleamed through the strands of hair.
Eyes of pale blue. I lifted my head.
“Seon. I see the Path.”
It was an abrupt utterance, yet Seon grasped its meaning.
Thus he could only remain silent, while I laughed like a madman, grinning wickedly.
“What say you now!”
“….”
“You said you had interest but lacked the courtesy to endure rudeness, did you not? What of it now!”
“….”
I see it. In the heavens I could never reach, a path has opened—even if only to thrust a single finger through.
“I see it! The Path! The path to sever your neck clean in two! Ahahahahaha!”
It was the triumphant laughter of one who had broken free from the shell.

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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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