◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈
Chapter 455: The Seed of Evil (3)
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The Mount Mao Sect disciples ran about in a frenzy.
They scrambled desperately, swinging their swords without pause.
Some had killed for the first time. That was only natural for a sect with so little real combat experience.
Yet there was no time to wallow in the guilt of taking a life.
The ruthless Black Officers were carrying out a massacre before their very eyes.
“Aaaagh!”
“Cough!”
Agonized screams unlike anything they had ever heard before.
Then silence quickly followed.
The lifeless eyes of a fallen comrade rose in the warrior’s mind.
Another fellow disciple had died.
Exhausted, the warrior crushed their sweet-tasting lips together and swung their sword again.
Clang!
The force transmitted through the sword was overwhelming.
The warrior desperately tried to push it away, only for another Black Officer’s thrust to pierce their abdomen.
“Urgh…!”
All strength drained from the warrior’s body as they collapsed to the ground.
Even then, the warrior’s eyes remained fixed on Geoncheong Hall.
“Please…”
The warrior whispered a desperate plea.
Before long, their eyes went blank.
“Kill them all!”
“They’ve learned forbidden arts. Don’t leave a single one alive!”
The Black Officers shouted as they ran through the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation.
The screams of Mount Mao Sect disciples echoed from every direction.
Ok Hwajeong stood behind the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation, trembling with a sword in her hand.
She had learned basic martial arts but had never experienced a real fight. Frozen by the desperate screams coming from beyond the walls, she could not move a muscle.
“Aaaagh!”
A shriek that pierced her eardrums finally made her grit her teeth until they bled.
If she did not step forward now,
her younger fellow disciples would suffer the same pain that was unfolding outside.
The pain before her was terrifying enough to make her body shake.
Still, when she thought of the pain her fellow disciples would endure, she managed to suppress her fear.
Crunch.
With her teeth clenched, she stepped into the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation.
A Black Officer appeared beyond the wall.
Gulp.
Ok Hwajeong held her breath and waited for the Black Officer to pass.
The wary Black Officer walked past her.
The moment the Black Officer did, Ok Hwajeong stepped forward, slipped behind them, and swung her sword with all her strength.
“!”
But the Black Officer sensed her killing intent at once, turned, and met her blade.
Clang!
The Black Officer immediately lashed out, kicking her in the abdomen.
Thud!
“Ugh…!”
Blood rose in her throat. Forcing herself to endure the agony twisting through her stomach, she swung her sword.
Clang! Clang!
She had practiced a great deal, but compared to the Black Officer, her swordsmanship was crude.
She was a spirit practitioner who studied formations. It was absurd for her to face a martial artist with swordsmanship.
After losing the initiative within three moves, Ok Hwajeong found herself on the verge of having her head split open.
Clang!
She somehow raised her sword and blocked the descending blade.
But her opponent’s internal energy was deep and vast, and even the way they exerted force was on a completely different level.
Just as despair made her strength begin to fail,
“Move!”
Someone grabbed the back of her collar and pulled her away.
“Senior Brother Yu!”
He was the one who had brought Jin Sowoon and the Taeul Sect disciples to save them.
“Run!”
Following Yu Jiryang, she entered the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation.
“Are you all right?”
“Senior Brother, they’re… they’re too strong. We can’t possibly fight them…”
“We need to fight in our own way.”
“Our… way?”
Yu Jiryang looked at the Black Officers beyond the formation as they examined the walls.
The Black Officers pursuing Yu Jiryang and Ok Hwajeong charged straight into the wall the two had passed through like ghosts.
Thud!
Their heads and bodies struck something with tremendous force, sending them sprawling across the ground.
“What the hell…?”
A Black Officer rose, clutching their broken nose, then felt along the wall again.
“It really is a wall…!”
Even when the Black Officer struck it with a sword, it produced only a hard clang. There was not the slightest gap to be found.
How could the Mount Mao Sect disciples pass through when they could not?
As the Black Officer felt along the wall, confirming once more that it was solid,
Swoosh!
Yu Jiryang emerged from the wall behind them and stabbed them through the back.
“Cough!”
The wounded Black Officer quickly swung a sword behind them.
By then, Yu Jiryang had already slipped back into the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation. This time, Ok Hwajeong emerged from the opposite side and slashed their thigh.
Slice!
It was not a serious injury, but blood would not stop flowing from the shallow cut.
The Black Officer’s anger boiled over, and they fired palm force in every direction.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As if mocking them, Yu Jiryang appeared behind them again and carved a long gash across their back.
“Aaargh!”
The Black Officer finally collapsed.
“Haa, haa, haa.”
“Huff, huff, huff.”
Yu Jiryang and Ok Hwajeong panted as they looked down at the Black Officer’s corpse.
“Is… is the Black Officer dead?”
“Yes.”
“…Did we win?”
“Not yet.”
Yu Jiryang’s gaze shifted to one side.
The outcome of this battle would be decided outside the Eight Directions Stone Heaven Golden Lock Formation.
#
I unleashed the Greater Heaven Sword Art with the Scarlet Radiance Sword.
As though he had known it was coming, he countered with the Supreme Purity Sword Art.
The Whirlwind Sword Art flowed gracefully through my illusion swords and stabbed straight at the vital acupoints across my body.
I retreated two steps and unleashed the Lesser Heaven Sword Art.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Red sparks burst forth, and the Whirlwind Sword Art seemed to retreat.
Slice!
Then it cut through space and attacked again.
Swish!
Hair severed by the Whirlwind Sword Art fluttered through the air.
I stopped retreating and fought back.
Three White Moon Heaven-Subduing Forms.
First Form.
Extreme Swiftness.
Space split apart as Yong Soa, wielding the Whirlwind Sword Art, was cut in two.
“Even after seeing it yourself…”
But it was only Yong Soa’s afterimage.
“Will you still turn away from the truth?”
Yong Soa appeared at my side and immediately unleashed the Nine Palaces Divine Movement Sword.
A menacing current in the shape of a Taiji symbol rushed toward me.
I drew the Ascending Heaven Dagger I had kept hidden until now.
It was only half the length of an ordinary sword, but it was an exceptional weapon for catching an enemy off guard.
But.
Clang!
As though he had already known, Yong Soa calmly knocked aside the Ascending Heaven Dagger and continued his attack.
“I saw this as well.”
Slice!
Slice!
Slice!
Wounds appeared all over my body.
Yong Soa was neither excited nor intoxicated by victory. He showed no sign of being shaken. He looked accustomed to this kind of fight.
The experience of having every attack neutralized.
For a martial artist, it was the most despairing kind of fear.
I could keenly feel the wall of despair that countless martial artists must have faced against Yong Soa.
Knowing that he could see the future made it even more crushing.
Even so, I did not let go of my sword.
No, I could not let go.
“…”
Yong Soa, who had never once lost the advantage, wore an oddly altered expression.
As he narrowly stabbed at the vital acupoints across my body, his lips moved.
At last, he spoke.
“Why… do you keep going?”
“What?”
“You know it, don’t you? In the end, you will lose to me, and you will die trying to stop me. So why do you keep fighting?”
His eyes turned toward the wounds covering my body.
“Are you trusting in your abnormal recovery ability?”
Damn it, when did he notice that?
“…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Something like disappointment appeared on Yong Soa’s face.
Disappointment, huh.
“I really don’t know.”
“You risked your life without knowing what you were doing…?”
“I don’t know why you’d say something like that.”
“…What?”
If I did not intend to die here.
If I did not intend to watch the Mount Mao Sect be wiped out.
If I did not intend to stand by while the Orthodox-Demonic War became an even harsher hell because of it.
Then I had to fight.
No, I had to win.
“Doesn’t everyone fight for their own justice?”
“…”
“Even if you lose, no, even if you know you’ll lose, isn’t justice struggling and fighting until the very end?”
After seeing the countless leaders of the Martial Alliance who had disappointed me in my previous life, I had made a vow.
Even if I lost.
Even if my entire body was crushed.
Even if defeat was already decided.
Even if I knew all of that.
To keep moving forward until the end without turning away from the reality before me.
“Isn’t that justice?!”
If I ever gained power, I would never live like such a coward.
I would not retreat before power, give up, or run away.
Reminding myself of my own shame, I made that vow again and again.
“…”
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Three sword strikes were exchanged.
Yong Soa stepped back briefly, then quickly returned to his usual expressionless face.
“Foolish.”
“What is?”
“Your childish sense of justice is nothing more than stubbornness that extinguishes even the smallest flame of hope.”
“Is that so?”
Killing intent gathered on Yong Soa’s face.
“You will die here.”
Should I be glad that I had learned of the many emotional changes in Yong Soa that I had not known about in my previous life?
“Yong Soa.”
Either way, this man was human too.
“Do you know something?”
Yong Soa unleashed the Nine Palaces Divine Movement Sword. When I countered with the Twin Heavens Sword Art, the Whirlwind Sword Art immediately stabbed toward my vital acupoints.
Clang!
“Since ten moves ago…”
I blocked his attack and stared directly into his eyes.
“Your attacks haven’t been hitting me.”
“!!!”
For the first time, surprise appeared on that damnable face.
“Why are you so surprised?”
The joy of seeing that crack made my lips curve up to my ears as well.
#
When children his age admired the Dragon-Phoenix Association, Heo Gwanjung laughed at them.
He had thought they were nothing more than the hero games of children from privileged families.
They were flowers raised in greenhouses, born into good families, fed spiritual medicine, given Marrow Cleansing, trained in comfort, and entered into the academy.
Among those flowers, the disciples of even greater families and sects were playing at being heroes.
Heo Gwanjung had been born an orphan, endured special training without anyone’s help, and become a Black Officer before reaching the age of twenty. From his perspective, it could only look that way.
If he had grown up in the same environment as them, he would have become greater than any member of the Dragon-Phoenix Association.
Even the instructors of the special forces had acknowledged that.
They had marveled that Heo Gwanjung’s talent did not seem human.
It was not by chance that he had received the Inspectorate’s permission to learn the Heavenly Flower Eighteen Claws.
It was the reward for his efforts alone.
Yet.
He had lost the reward for all those efforts because of flowers raised in greenhouses.
“Grrgh…!”
When he activated the Heavenly Flower Eighteen Claws, qi gathered at his fingertips and worsened his wounds.
‘Those bastards… Those bastards…’
The moment the other Black Officers learned he had lost the Heavenly Flower Eighteen Claws, those who had followed his orders until then began treating him coldly, one by one.
Namgung San of the purge unit had pointed out another problem, and now they looked at him with even more suspicion.
It was an absurd accusation from the start.
How could there possibly be a problem with the Death List?
They had always subtly shown their displeasure toward him because of his young age.
As though they had been waiting for this very moment, they now followed the purge unit’s orders.
“What are you going to do with that hand? Stop getting in the way and stay back.”
His anger steadily grew at the resentment of men who had taken orders from someone half their age because of their own lack of ability.
Once this operation ended, they would surely remove him.
The world of the Black Officers was based entirely on ability.
If he failed to build up achievements until the very end, only elimination and disposal awaited him.
‘I can’t… I can’t be thrown away like this.’
An unpleasant sensation buried deep in his memory surfaced, filling his mind with discomfort.
But no matter how much he searched his memories, he could not find a martial art he could use right now.
After leaving the orphanage, he had gone straight into the special forces. The only martial arts he knew were the Martial Alliance’s White Tiger Sword Art and the shared martial arts of the special forces.
None of them could overcome his present predicament.
‘If only I had belonged somewhere too!’
His anger toward the members of the Dragon-Phoenix Association, who had lived comfortably all their lives as the chosen, boiled over.
If he had secret arts or sect martial arts prepared for times like this.
If he had, he could have escaped this immediate danger…
[My child]
Then.
[My child]
A fragment rose from the depths of his memories.
[Do not forget this.]
The mouth of some being within that fragment slowly moved.
[This is your root.]
The fragment of memory gradually became clearer.
The memories were broken into pieces, but each was so vivid that connecting them was not difficult.
When he finally joined all the pieces together,
“…”
Heo Gwanjung’s body trembled.
It was a martial art.
A powerful force he had never seen anywhere else could be felt throughout the fragment.
What was more, it gave him a sense of familiarity unlike anything he had experienced before.
‘This is my root… My place…’
At the discovery of the root he had searched for all his life, tears flowed endlessly down Heo Gwanjung’s face.
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