WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 490: Shadows of the Sunset (3)
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“Hic.”
The Dragon-Phoenix Association members could not relax at the sight of Jin Sowoon swaying as he wiped the drool from his mouth.
“You filthy, despicable Black Path bastards. Hic. Aren’t you afraid of the righteous and sacred Martial Alliance?”
Ilgak used the Arhat Steps and hurried in front of Jin Sowoon.
“Benefactor Jin, we have already looked into this. It is not a matter for us to involve ourselves in.”
“Hey! You would turn away after witnessing injustice? This bald head has been possessed by demons.”
“Benefactor Jin…”
Ilgak tried to stop him, but the mysterious movements of the Taeul Eighty Thousand Divine Steps carried Jin Sowoon right past him.
“…”
How could he use footwork like that while staggering around?
That was not even the main problem. They had to stop Jin Sowoon.
It was true that he was far stronger than others his age, but that did not mean he could face Jamhyang Cheonong, who had survived decades of every imaginable evil deed.
And beside the Black Path master stood the Five Luminaries Under Heaven, who served as his hands and feet.
They were far more dangerous than the masters Jin Sowoon had faced at Hwapung Manor.
“Listen well, you vile scoundrels! Do you truly think you can commit evil deeds where an envoy of the Martial Alliance and the Dragon-Phoenix Association are present?”
But Jin Sowoon acted before anyone could stop him.
“If you do not fear the Martial Alliance’s judgment, kneel at once and submit to arrest!”
“…”
“…”
Jamhyang Cheonong and even the Five Luminaries Under Heaven stared at one another in disbelief.
“Pfft…”
Then they burst into booming laughter.
“Hahahahahaha!”
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s laughter in particular carried heavy internal energy, spreading through the inn and shattering everything fragile around them.
Crash! Bang! Clang!
Plates, bowls, and liquor bottles broke apart, spilling their contents everywhere.
The ordinary people huddled in one corner clutched their ears and collapsed to the floor in unbearable pain.
“I heard the Martial Alliance had produced someone quite useful.”
The smile vanished from Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s lips.
“So you’re just insane, Black Flame Dragon.”
“What the hell is this eunuch-bearded bastard talking about?”
“What?”
Ilgak grabbed his head, or rather, his scalp.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder wore the expression of someone hearing an insult for the first time in his life.
Then again, how many people could mock a madman who had reached that level at such an age?
Besides, Jin Sowoon was no more or less than a drunken fool with his wits muddled by liquor.
“Are you really acting this boldly because you trust only in the Martial Alliance?”
Concern appeared on Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s face instead.
“What are you babbling about, you thug who drags children around? Do you need a taste of the Martial Alliance’s justice before you come to your senses?”
“Good grief…”
It was impossible to make sense of the situation while watching a leading figure of the Black Path martial world grow increasingly bewildered with every word.
Even the Dragon-Phoenix Association, who had been looking for an opening to move closer to Jin Sowoon, were so startled by his words that they could not act.
“Do you know how large the bounty the Martial Alliance placed on me is? And the bounties on my disciples?”
Anyone affiliated with the Martial Alliance would know.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder was one of its oldest and most expensive wanted criminals.
“Why would I know the bounty on a petty criminal like you?”
“You insane bastard!”
“Anyway, I don’t feel like seeing blood today, so I’ll give you a chance. Get lost.”
“The Black Alliance Lord, Cha Seokdu, is said to cherish you dearly. I should cut off your head and send it to him as a gift.”
Just as Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder was about to unleash the Black Killing Lingering Sound Finger, the unique martial art that had earned him his epithet, one of the Five Luminaries Under Heaven suddenly looked down at their body.
“Ugh.”
They hurriedly sat down and began qi-regulating breathing.
A thin layer of frost soon formed over their body.
“Ice arts? When did he…?”
The moment Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder looked back at Jin Sowoon in shock, dozens of sword images were already descending upon him through the air.
“Don’t you know the first strike wins?”
“Coward!”
Panic darkened Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s face.
Somehow, it felt as if their lines had been switched.
Tingtingtingtingting!
There was no time to continue talking. Dozens of sword images were already bearing down on him.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder frantically fired blasts of the Black Killing Lingering Sound Finger.
At the same time, he remained alert for the ice arts that had rendered the youngest of the Five Luminaries Under Heaven unable to fight.
‘I didn’t sense a sound or even the slightest presence.’
He had considered poison as well, but as far as he knew, there was no poison that gave off such a cold aura.
Then Jin Sowoon shouted.
“What are you doing? Are you just going to stand there and watch the villains?”
“Damn it…”
The Dragon-Phoenix Association drew their swords as one.
“At least there are only four of them. If we use a coordinated formation properly, we can manage this.”
There was an overwhelming difference in martial skill, but they had the advantage in numbers.
Besides, one of the Five Luminaries Under Heaven had become unable to resist as soon as the fight began. They thought they had a chance.
But…
“What do you mean, we can manage this?”
Their plan shattered before they could exchange even a few moves.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s shadow had hidden it, but the Five Luminaries Under Heaven each possessed strength enough to dominate a region.
Having survived countless real battles, they quickly overwhelmed the Dragon-Phoenix Association and drove them into danger.
“Amitabha.”
Ilgak joined the fight at last, and the balance finally began to even out.
“You have the leisure to worry about them?”
At Jin Sowoon’s words, Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder raised one corner of his mouth.
“You can look at that sight and still speak of leisure? You have turned yourself and the entire Four Seasons Association into wandering ghosts. Do you understand?”
Clangclangclang!
Changing Sword and illusion swords flashed through the inn, smashing, slicing, and punching holes through every piece of furniture in the area.
The moment they exchanged a single move, Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder had realized that he far surpassed Jin Sowoon.
He did not know how this young man had already reached the Dansang realm, but even considering that, Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder’s realm and martial strength were much greater.
“Four Seasons Association? Hmm… That’s not a bad name.”
Yet Jin Sowoon still looked calm, and Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder became certain.
‘He has something up his sleeve.’
It was probably whatever had forced the youngest of the Five Luminaries Under Heaven into qi-regulating breathing.
It had to be one of the underhanded tricks Black Path martial artists often used.
“So there was a reason they called you the divine prodigy of the Black Path martial world.”
“Who are you calling the divine prodigy of the Black Path martial world?”
At that moment, Jin Sowoon’s left hand moved strangely as he prepared palm force.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder heightened his energy sense and prepared to block Jin Sowoon’s hidden move with the Black Killing Lingering Sound Finger.
Bang!
A small explosion sounded from Jin Sowoon’s left hand. Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder fired ten blasts of the Black Killing Lingering Sound Finger, but…
‘There’s nothing there?!’
The finger winds encountered no obstruction and struck Jin Sowoon, forcing him back three steps.
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder twisted his entire body to evade Jin Sowoon’s hidden move.
‘What was that?’
Strangely enough, he had not suffered any injury.
Instead…
“Urgh.”
A terrible stench of liquor filled his nose, and his eyes stung fiercely.
“Poison?”
“That’s right. My unique martial art, the Wine Poison Palm!”
“…”
That bastard had gathered all the alcohol in his body and fired it out as palm force.
“…”
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder could not make sense of it.
A White Path martial artist, and an elite graduate of the Martial Arts Academy at that, was doing something even Black Path scum and back-alley thugs would not do.
Was that really a genuine White Path martial artist?
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder smelled the rotten stench coming from his body and ground his teeth.
“I don’t care if you are, as rumored, the Joint Successor of the Black Path’s masters. I will tear you apart and pickle you.”
He unleashed Black Killing Blood Sea, the final form of the Black Killing Lingering Sound Finger.
Everything in this inn would likely be reduced to pieces, but Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder did not care.
Nearly two hundred finger winds bloomed from his fingertips and shot out as if to grind the entire inn into dust.
Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms
Second Form
Extreme Strength.
At the same time, countless streams of qi force poured endlessly from Jin Sowoon’s sword, forming a wall.
Ratattattattattat!
The dense wall of qi force destroyed every finger wind without missing a single one, then rushed straight toward Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder.
“!”
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder used the Black Killing Steps and hurriedly escaped the qi force’s aftermath.
“Not bad.”
“What are you talking about? We’re just getting started.”
Dozens of sword images already surrounded Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder.
“You think such cheap illusion swords can work on me?”
“We’ll see.”
In an instant, Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder distinguished the real sword from the illusion swords, calculated a formation path to Jin Sowoon, and chose the direction of his attack.
He ignored the crude illusion swords and fired a finger wind through the real sword images at Jin Sowoon’s fatal acupoint, but then…
Slice!
His index finger was cut clean off.
“!!!”
It had clearly been an illusion sword.
He had been completely certain it was an illusion sword.
Yet the illusion sword he had ignored had become real and taken his finger.
“Wh… what…”
The pain from his severed finger and the warm blood running down his hand were impossible to believe.
“I told you, didn’t I? You cannot commit evil deeds before Jin Sowoon, an envoy of the Martial Alliance.”
When Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder came to his senses and raised his head, the illusion swords descending on him no longer felt like illusion swords.
“…!”
#
Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder became the first witness to prove the effectiveness of my new sword art after losing seven fingers.
‘It works better than I expected.’
I had created this martial art with Yong Soa in mind, but the two sword arts worked together exceptionally well in practice.
The secrecy of the Drifting Current Formless Sword blurred its shape even further among the Taeul Sword’s illusion swords, enough to confuse even Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder, who had vast experience in the martial world.
Two of the Five Luminaries Under Heaven were dead, two had been subdued, and the last could not withstand the Silent Sound Azure Water Hand. They suffered qi deviation, vomited blood, and fainted.
In any case, my venting and martial arts test had ended successfully.
“Group Leader, why did you involve yourself in someone else’s fight?”
Gwak Susan, drenched in sweat, shouted as if protesting, so I gave him a piece of my mind.
“Ilgak and I did all the fighting. Why are you the one sweating?”
“…”
Gwak Susan retreated to one corner with a strangely wounded expression.
Then a bamboo-hatted person stepped out from among the ordinary people and cupped their fists.
“As expected of the Martial Alliance, which protects justice in the martial world, preserves peace, establishes order, and proves and practices chivalry. You dealt with those villains with ease.”
That bastard’s voice sounded very familiar.
“Thanks to you, I was spared from dying resentful, anguished, and cursing. Thank you once again.”
The lower half of the person’s face beneath the bamboo hat felt even more familiar.
“Hey.”
“…Ahem?”
The bamboo-hatted person looked around.
“Were you calling me?”
“Yes. You.”
“…”
“Did you steal something?”
The bamboo-hatted person froze as if they had broken.
“S-steal? I clearly paid the proper price for it at an old antique shop in Jinha…”
At the words proper price, I barely held back the curse rising to my lips.
This was the bastard who had even stolen the monthly stipends of comrades he had shared life and death with. He paid money to buy something?
“Hoo… You may have saved my life, but I cannot tolerate such rude words.”
The bamboo-hatted person was Do Gwangsu, a member of the Sojeong Unit and a second-rate thief I had known in my previous life.
“What will you do if you can’t tolerate it?”
“…”
Do Gwangsu’s mouth twisted.
His face was full of dissatisfaction.
“I do not know why you are behaving this way, but as a matter of decency, I will thank you once again for saving my life. In any case, thank you. I hope your futures are filled with brilliant, great, exciting, and happy things.”
I casually hooked his foot as he tried to pass by, then used the throwing arts I had learned from him.
“Sure. Take care.”
He tried to flee the inn, then stopped dead.
He spun around, saw the small bundle in my hand, and his eyes widened.
“W-why do you have that…?”
“I wanted to see what it was.”
“S-sir, that truly is something I bought with my own money. If you wish to confirm it, we can go together to the antique shop in Jinha…”
“Ah, shut up! I said I’m only checking it!”
What kind of item had made Dark Fragrance Heavenly Elder bring even the Five Luminaries Under Heaven to retrieve it?
When I opened the bundle, I found folded leather. I unfolded it.
“S-sir?”
I froze as if doused in cold water.
‘Why is this… here?’
It was the treasure map of the Heavenly Demon Tomb, a cursed object for the Martial Alliance in my previous life that had left it half destroyed during the middle of the Orthodox-Demonic War.
“J-Young Hero Jin, will you return it? Please?”
That was the true identity of the leather.
Footnotes:
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