Wudang Sacred Scriptures

“Brother, we’d better fight with our backs to the stone embankment.”

Protecting Chwi Dugae—who had taken an internal wound—while fending off the blood-mad swarms coming from every angle carried too much risk.

If they set the Great Hall’s high stone embankment at their backs, they wouldn’t have to worry about the rear.

Kwak Yeon had already read that these madmen, stripped of reason, were attacking on pure instinct. He judged they would not think to use the terrain for attack at all.

Chwi Dugae immediately grasped Kwak Yeon’s intent and nodded.

“Let’s do that.”

This was no time to think about a Hu Gae’s dignity or an oath-brother’s face. He was past being helpful; he must not turn into dead weight.

“I’ll open the way.”

Kwak Yeon stepped forward; Cheonggang Sword kindled with sword-gang as he unfolded the So Cheong Sword Method.

—WHOOOM!

“Guhk!”

“Keck!”

Even after cutting down two madmen with a single stroke, Kwak Yeon ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) was not satisfied.

He wanted to chase the ones who slipped back out of his cut and hew them all down in one sweep.

But their evasions were so fast that without an ascending sword method it was hard to do so.

Unfurling an ascending sword method while mantled in sword-gang devoured inner true qi, so he could not spend it recklessly.

Worse, just now when he deployed the Third Sword Form of the Falling Star Nine Swords—Falling Star in Scattering Powder—he had hauled up his external energy tight on top of inner true qi.

—Swish! Swish! Swish!

The madmen who had recoiled from the sword-gang’s track lunged right back in.

—SHRING! Thud!

With the starting move of the Taiji Sword Method — Heaven-Turning Flash Sword, Kwak Yeon whipped Cheonggang Sword back and took the foremost madman’s neck cleanly.

As expected, the rest snapped backward in lightning flashes, slipping the sword-gang’s track. Then they surged again at once.

They flooded in as fast as water closing after a hand has slapped a pool, so forward progress was painfully slow.

If he had been alone, there would have been no problem. No—he wouldn’t even have needed to chase; he could have taken them apart at leisure.

The problem was Chwi Dugae’s safety, given his internal injury.

—KANG! KA-ANG!

So far Chwi Dugae had been meeting the madmen’s continuous cuts with the Tagu Staff and keeping up, but who knew when something might go wrong.

The force-wind from his swinging staff had fallen off markedly.

At this rate, it’ll take too long to reach the stone embankment.

Kwak Yeon had another way to handle multiple foes besides an ascending sword.

He had simply refrained from using it because it did not sever the madmen’s breaths completely.

He judged, however, that with that method he could drive them back.

These madmen are certainly moving on instinct.

Decision made, Kwak Yeon called urgently to Chwi Dugae behind him.

“Brother, close your eyes and stop your breath—now.”

“...?”

Chwi Dugae didn’t know why, but he held his breath and shut his eyes as told.

—FWOOOOSH!

In an instant he felt searing heat rise like a storm.

Huh?!

Even with his eyes closed, a glare flickered through; that alone told him how fierce the flame had leapt.

“Open your eyes now.”

At Kwak Yeon’s word, Chwi Dugae opened his eyes and saw several madmen capering with their clothes aflame, while the rest had fallen far back.

Heavens!

The martial world has many yang-gang arts that emit blazing palm force.

But to kindle flame that raked across the air, heating the surroundings in the blink of an eye like this—he had never heard of such a thing.

Did he truly raise a storm of fire?

Otherwise there would have been no reason to make him shut his eyes and hold his breath.

“Brother, hurry.”

Pressed by Kwak Yeon, Chwi Dugae set his doubts aside for now and followed.

****

Chwi Dugae wasn’t the only one who reeled at the storm of fire Kwak Yeon had raised.

The Blood-Chant Demon Monk, peering through the crack of the door from the Great Hall sunk in darkness, was even more aghast.

Unlike Chwi Dugae, whose eyes had been closed, he had seen with his own two eyes the way Kwak Yeon sent that storm of fire.

When he saw Kwak Yeon suddenly spread his left palm, he had thought the man was about to use palm-force.

With the underlings, already turned into slaughter-fiends, swarming the two at arm’s length like a cloud of wasps, there hadn’t been space left to swing Cheonggang Sword.

But then Kwak Yeon’s palm burned red—and flame jetted out.

When Kwak Yeon swept his hand to every side, the flame spread in bursts like explosions.

A few of his underlings were swallowed in flame; the others sprang away in all directions like grasshoppers flicked by sparks.

Even seeing it with his own eyes, the Demon Monk could not believe it.

He had been through every battle under the sun, yet he had never seen such a martial art.

It was astonishing enough that the youth was scattering out an exquisite sword method at the tier of the Fire Realm.

In that case, killing those two here is out of the question.

He knew full well how powerful his subordinates became when turned into slaughter-fiends.

So of course he had expected them to seize and kill the pair, and he had hidden himself to wait for that result.

From the instant a man becomes a slaughter-fiend, human reason no longer exists; the Demon Monk had no choice but to be cautious.

That was why he had snuffed every lamp in the Great Hall, shut the doors, and muffled his presence while he watched.

But the two had overborne the slaughter-fiends with the divine might of their arts. Especially that young one they called the Dark Cavern Taoist—he had been cutting them down methodically without special difficulty.

He had watched this far, half-expecting that sooner or later a limit would catch up to them, but just now the youth had even raised a storm of fire bare-handed.

I must certainly give up that hope.

With things come to this pass, the urgent task was to get word out that a meddler had appeared—one with a high chance of threatening the great work.

Having made up his mind to withdraw, he suddenly realized that quite some time had passed since his underlings had turned into slaughter-fiends.

Ah! Damn it...

He cursed himself for overtrusting the men he had turned. Whirling in haste, he moved toward the passage prepared at the rear of the Great Hall.

****

—Sssshk! Ssschak!

Cutting down three madmen who charged in with their clothes aflame in a single stroke, Kwak Yeon spoke toward Chwi Dugae, who stood with the stone embankment at his back.

“Take a moment to settle your breath.”

It meant: don’t join the fight; regulate your qi and breathing.

“Kwak, I’m not so far gone yet.”

“I know.”

Kwak Yeon nodded.

“What I mean is the madmen are few now; there’s no need for you to step in, Brother.”

“...!”

Seeing the steady weight in Kwak Yeon’s eyes, Chwi Dugae realized the other knew his condition exactly—pressing further would damage his dantian.

As he watched Kwak Yeon take two steps forward to meet a dozen-plus madmen surging like devils, a bitter smile tugged at his lips.

Not a host of troops—he himself had fallen into mere baggage. It was pitiable.

Worse, seeing the light sheathing Cheonggang Sword had dimmed yet another shade, his mouth grew even more sour.

He knew Kwak Yeon had over-spent inner true qi to watch over him.

And there was no question that raising that storm of fire moments ago had consumed an enormous amount of inner true qi.

—Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!

Kwak Yeon swept Cheonggang Sword cross and slant, hewing down the moth-to-flame rush.

The surge of sword-gang rearing from Cheonggang Sword had already shrunk to two or three feet across, and he could no longer fell them as easily as before.

Chwi Dugae realized Kwak Yeon wasn’t using a Lightness Method because he refused to leave his side.

As a result, the madmen were—quite by accident—fighting a wheel battle.

Though they were only at the level of manifesting sword-qi, there were many of them, and their movements were uncannily fast.

So even to a Fire Realm master who must keep a fixed position, it was a burden.

Frustrated and guilt-struck, Chwi Dugae could only watch as Kwak Yeon faced the madmen alone.

If he stepped out with a body whose inner-qi deployment wasn’t free, he’d only get in the way.

Then a sudden doubt struck him.

It makes no sense that men turn demonic and grow strong all at once.

All the more since every one of the madmen bore mortal wounds.

Even if they received some grand art fueled by the rite of Human Offering, they’re still living beings. Then the base of that strength must certainly be inside their bodies.

In an instant, Chwi Dugae guessed the source of the power they were putting out.

They’re detonating their Latent Force!

Latent Force is power gained by burning one’s life force all at once.

Chwi Dugae had heard it until his ears grew calloused from his master: there exists a demonic art called the Blood-Reversal Grand Method that drags a human’s Latent Force to the surface.

“When some demon flips his eyes white, get back first. Nine times out of ten he’s about to blow his Latent Force with the Blood-Reversal Grand Method for a suicide strike.”

If the madmen were drawing on Latent Force, that meant there was a limit.

In that case...

Certainty settled, Chwi Dugae studied the madmen across the temple court.

Thanks to the torches stuck in several of the hall pillars and the torches fallen here and there on the ground, he could see the whole court.

Beyond the ones rushing them, one madman came into view.

“...!”

That one was approaching slowly at a distance somewhat apart from the rest.

At a certain moment he stopped where he stood—then collapsed like a rotten bundle of straw.

His Latent Force is spent!

Never had his master’s nagging felt so precious.

Chwi Dugae thrust the Tagu Staff under his arm and stepped up beside Kwak Yeon.

“Brother...?”

Batting aside a stabbing blade with the move Dark Cloud Raises the Dragon, Chwi Dugae spoke.

“Kwak, don’t waste yourself trying to hack them to pieces.”

“Pardon...?”

Chwi Dugae pointed with the tip of the Tagu Staff at a madman in the middle of the temple court whose movements were already slowing.

“Time is absolutely on our side.”

Seeing that man slide down to a seated slump, Kwak Yeon grasped at once what Chwi Dugae meant.

“Ah! Understood.”

Kwak Yeon immediately drew back the inner true qi he had been pouring into Cheonggang Sword to manifest sword-gang.

If the aim was not to hew them down, there was no reason to waste precious inner true qi.

With only sword-qi manifested on Cheonggang Sword, his available inner true qi increased—and he could now unfold the Falling Star Nine Swords in full.

—Pang! Pang! Pang! PAAANG!

As Kwak Yeon deployed the First Sword Form—Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes—the whole face of the stone embankment before the two filled with the Cheonggang Sword’s shadows.

—Clang! Clang! CLAAANG!

With the threat of sword-gang gone, the madmen’s thrusts poured at them like a waterfall.

Before long they had closed to within one zhang, stabbing at the pair without pause.

But it was only natural that they could not pierce the First Sword Form of the Falling Star Nine Swords—the defensive sequence—when a Fire Realm absolute master like Kwak Yeon set his mind to it.

Though he wanted to cut down the madmen who’d pressed to point-blank range in a single breath, he held to the end.

There was no reason to be shaken by the last frenzy of men already bound for death.

He had also resolved to keep the martial world’s injunction: in any case, leave three parts of one’s strength in reserve.