Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven - Chapter 99
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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 099
“Elder Dang! I’m throwing you!”
Chu Dal immediately hurled Dang-gun toward where he stood, then spun his body around in an instant.
“Adu! Jump back!”
“It hurts! It hurts!”
“Hey! It has to be you, so come on and follow!”
Each iron-winged bat’s physical assault was like a hidden projectile.
I, who had not yet reached the pinnacle realm, could not break through hundreds and thousands of them swarming together.
‘To maximize the effect, I need to charge into the center of the swarm.’
It was as if I were plunging into the very heart of thousands of hidden projectiles, the core of the Dang Sect’s secret technique—the Myriad Flowers Rain.
With a grimace, I clung tightly behind Adu as he leaped backward.
“It hurts! It hurts! Ugh!”
When Adu threw a straight punch, one iron-winged bat that took the full impact became a bloody pulp.
‘A Shaolin Monk committing killing because of a little pain.’
But pointing that out now wouldn’t help at all, would it?
“Well done!”
“I did well?”
“Perfectly! Keep it up just like that!”
With thousands upon thousands of bat bastards, the number that grazed past us as we pushed toward the center of the swarm easily exceeded several hundred.
Thanks to that, while Adu remained unscathed, my clothes were torn in several places and blood seeped through.
‘With experience from my past life, I can’t be intimidated by this much.’
Wounds from claws and fangs are nothing.
To be blunt, in my past life I even suffered from demonic cultivation deviation.
Whoooooosh!
Every time I swung my arm, my sword trembled fiercely with the sound of a bee’s wings.
‘Is it truly possible?’
Having come this far, it absolutely must be possible.
Even if I failed, I could take a few poison stings and escape, but beyond that, I couldn’t keep being chased by these bat swarms indefinitely.
Kieeeek! Kieeeek!
The iron-winged bats’ cries were higher and more piercing than any beast I had ever heard.
‘Setting aside their endless wailing, my body responds each time.’
Even so, I am a disciple of Cheonmu-sip-jon Pa-cheon-eumhu, who holds a seat among the Ten Greatest Masters Under Heaven through sound cultivation.
Naturally, during the training time, I grasped the fundamental mysteries of sound cultivation and developed a keen sensitivity to sound.
‘Sound. These bastards don’t see with their eyes. They see with sound.’
Light and sound share similar properties, spreading far and wide in all eight directions from their source.
In other words, if it’s sound…
An attack infused with sound cultivation techniques might be able to subdue these bastards in one strike.
No, it would certainly be possible.
The only problem was…
I needed to create a sound capable of subduing thousands of them at once.
‘I can’t do this alone. Feng Yi Ming Jin lacks the destructive power I need.’
My mind spins rapidly.
Improvisation is both the privilege and duty of a supreme genius.
As I search for anything I can use, something catches my eye.
Adu’s round head, like a boulder.
A first-rate black rock can be shattered.
But Adu’s head doesn’t seem like it can be broken.
So then?
“Adu! You’ve mastered Iron Fortress Technique, right? What level?”
“Level?”
“Damn, is your skull thick too?”
“Oh, yes!”
Though he couldn’t possibly have already reached the Diamond Indestructible realm.
“I trust you! Hold on! I’m going to strike your head!”
“Huh? Yes!”
From the pale, bare head emanated a brilliant golden radiance.
The brilliance was blinding.
“Here I go!”
I channeled half of a full measure of inner energy, infusing the blade with the mysteries of Gae-cheon-bak-pal-geom.
The sword trembles roughly. Vibrations surge and burst forth.
No, sound.
Whoooooosh!
I brought the sword down with all my might.
Gae-cheon-bak-pal-geom, Fourth Form, First Variation.
White Feather Suppresses Ding, Eighth Variation.
The eighth variation of White Feather Suppresses Ding is a technique of instant death.
When all the mysteries from the first to sixth variations are contained, and Feng Yi Yin resonates, the White Feather Suppresses Ding carries the momentum of pressing down Mount Tai itself.
Such a single strike, descending.
Crashed against Adu’s golden bare head.
“Amitabha Buddha!”
‘It worked! This bastard actually held on!’
Claaaang!
With the sound wave, the distinctive golden radiance of Prajna Great Power spreads outward in ripples in all directions.
Each time the light and sound pierced through the Iron Poison Sect members, they fell like mayflies caught in a downpour, thud after thud.
“Of course it’s Shaolin! When it comes to iron skulls, it’s Shaolin! I knew it!”
Adu laughed with a grin, touching the slight scratch that appeared on the rounded part between his forehead and crown.
“Trust me! I’m Adu!”
Caught up in the excitement, I started tapping Adu’s bare head, then stopped.
Ah, I got carried away because everything was going as planned.
No matter what, there are things a person must uphold.
“You did well, Adu. I mean it.”
“Then can I have some rice cakes?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you plenty.”
I carved through the rock wall faster than most intermediate earth-tunneling techniques, and even played a major role in subduing the swarm of iron-poison flying creatures.
Rice cakes were nothing—I could give him as much as he wanted.
“Hm? These bastards aren’t dead after all.”
Some of the creatures lay bleeding from their noses, seemingly lifeless, but roughly half appeared to be merely unconscious.
Watching their fallen bodies twitch with trembling legs and wings confirmed they were still alive.
‘Should I kill them all? No, better not. Just in case.’
I walked back leisurely to rejoin the group.
“Brother Xiao! What on earth did you do!”
“Brother Hwi, I heard a bell sound—what was that?”
Adu answered excitedly before Yang Hwi could respond.
“Yang Hwi hit my head with his sword!”
“What?”
“W-what were you thinking, brother!”
“Were you trying to kill him? You weren’t planning to use the monk as bait and escape!”
I sighed while looking up at the sky.
This bastard had done everything right, but then went and said something unnecessary at the end.
“It was all part of the strategy. Those flying creatures seemed sensitive to sound.”
“And then?”
“Were you trying to draw a cry out of the monk, brother Hwi?”
“No, that’s not it. I thought Adu could withstand my blade.”
I explained clearly, point by point, how I had mastered the Iron-Breaking Technique to Cheol-du’s level and concentrated the Prajna Great Ability into my head before releasing the sword strike.
“That’s what happened. As you can see, the strategy succeeded brilliantly, and no one was seriously injured.”
“Hmm. Come to think of it, brother Xiao took the most damage.”
Indeed, blood was visible in several places on Yang Hwi’s clothes.
Unavoidable wounds sustained while breaking through the swarm of iron-poison flying creatures.
Meanwhile, Adu had been constantly complaining about pain, yet didn’t have a single wound.
The only injury was a small gash on his head.
‘…Still, my blade is stronger than the iron-poison flying creatures.’
Should I take comfort in that or not?
Where did this monster come from, really?
Shaolin, of course.
‘So in the previous life, this fellow died before even making a proper name for himself?’
Well, considering his intelligence, it wouldn’t be strange if he fell into a trap and lost his life.
But seeing him already displaying such monstrous martial prowess, it would have been difficult to kill him with ordinary traps.
What could have happened? I found myself curious.
“Brother Hwi, come here. I’ll treat your wounds. The iron-poison flying creatures’ teeth and claws carry venom—we need to detoxify immediately.”
“Ah, yes. Thanks, sister Dang-yeon.”
I applied ointment to each wound and took an antidote before performing a brief circulation of my inner energy.
Even if only partially, the iron-poison flatworm had become a spiritual creature.
To dispel the toxin from such a poisonous creature, I had to detoxify both the poison as ethereal energy and the poison as physical matter.
“Shhh, whoooosh.”
The subtle mystery of Hwa-cheon-i-won-gong, which unified all energies into one, soothed the poisonous qi of the toxin and detoxified it.
After completing a full circulation and replenishing some of my depleted inner power, I finally rose to my feet.
“Elder brother.”
Chu Dal, who had stepped away briefly, called out to me.
“Mm. Where did you go?”
“While the iron-poison flatworm was unconscious, I went to check the end of the corridor.”
“Did you find anything useful?”
“Yes. At the end of the corridor, there’s a half-destroyed gate, but the outside is completely filled with earth and debris.”
Earth and debris. It seemed the end of the corridor connected to the cave where the martial artists were trapped.
“I thought it would connect eastward, but it’s the opposite of what I expected.”
“The internal structure seems more complex than I thought.”
“I share that assessment.”
How intricately twisted must this place be for the opposite direction to lead to the cave?
If this is the case, it will be truly difficult to find our way without the information about the internal structure that the Namgung clan supposedly possesses.
Of course, that would be the case if we couldn’t sense the qi.
‘If I hadn’t been able to sense the qi, we would have been trapped here with no way out.’
“In that case, we should head east instead of west, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes, we should. Unless you plan to dig through the earth and meet the martial artists in the cave.”
Just then, with a loud thud, dust fell from the ceiling.
“I’m hungry.”
“…Monk. No matter how hungry you are, you can’t go punching walls with those massive fists. If it collapses, we’ll all die.”
It seemed I needed to take care of our hunger first.
“I think it’s better to go back to where we came from to eat.”
“Brother’s right. Who knows what danger might strike us here in the corridor.”
We all climbed up through the hole that Adu had dug.
As a bonus, I had Adu dig out a wider area around the hole so we could have a comfortable space to sit and eat.
“I did everything you asked. Cake. Gulp!”
There’s no tiger quite like this one. The way he’d devour us if we didn’t give him cake was something else.
“Here, eat up.”
When I tossed one to him, Adu caught the cake in his mouth without using his hands and chewed contentedly.
So he was aware that his hands were dirty from digging.
It would be even better if he washed his hands with the water droplets falling in that corner over there.
“Let’s have something to eat as well.”
“Soga-joonim. Should I go down and bring up some of the flatworm corpses?”
“They’re poisonous, so we can’t eat them.”
“That’s not what I meant. I thought if we poured the oil we brought over them and set it on fire, we could use them as fuel. Their legs and wings look hard and dry—they should burn well.”
“Hmm, it does seem like it could work as kindling.”
It was just as Chu Dal, excited at the prospect of warm food, was about to descend through the opening.
Yang Hwi waved his hand and scolded him.
“Hold on. If the smell spreads, the martial artists down there might notice something amiss.”
Taking the opportunity to speak, I poked my head through a narrow crevice in the rock to check on the situation in the cave below.
In that instant, my eyes widened.
‘What? Why are they already fighting?’
While the group explored the corridor, a considerable portion of the cave floor had been dug up.
However, they still seemed unable to find any gate or passage, and instead of continuing to excavate, the martial artists had drawn their weapons.
“Elder brother. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing for me, but something for them.”
I strained my ears, even channeling my inner energy, to listen to the distant sounds echoing from below.
“Distribute the provisions fairly at once. Otherwise, I won’t stand idle.”
“How dare a Nok-lim bandit give orders to the Heavenly Blue Sky Namgung? Hahahaha!”
“There is no Namgung clan nor Nok-lim here. Only the young Namgung Cheon-hu and I, Cheol-mi Cheol-su Maeng-ung, exist.”
Chu Dal whispered softly.
“Elder brother. Why are those bastards already fighting? I thought it would take several more days before the food issue erupted.”
“That Nok-lim bastard is smarter than expected. Still, there won’t be bloodshed just yet. He’s no fool.”
Chu Dal’s expression grew puzzled at my contradictory words. Instead of offering further explanation, I fell into thought for a moment.
“Wait. Chu Dal. We can leave whenever we want, can’t we?”
“Of course. We have the hole we climbed down through.”
No matter how smooth it had become from rainwater erosion, we could carve footholds with our swords and axes and climb back up easily enough.
“Exactly. Hehehehe.”
Chu Dal’s body trembled at the sight of my smile.
It was a smile so sinister that even seasoned bandits would pale in comparison.
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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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