Chapter 1968 - Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1968. He Was Really This Strong? (3)

Kagak! Kagagak!

The furiously swung dao frantically knocked away the plum blossom petals flying toward him.

But no matter how much he struggled, it was impossible to block all the plum blossoms blooming endlessly.

Kakak! Kagak!

The fluttering plum blossom petals kept scratching past 491. Of course, the utterly feeble petals couldn’t penetrate the demonic energy wrapped around 491’s body. But the very fact that that sword qi was slashing at his body, regardless of whether it actually inflicted damage, was driving 491’s mind to the brink.

‘This......’

His consciousness wasn’t fading.

Demonic art was, by nature, a cursed martial art that stole away the practitioner’s consciousness the more it was drawn out. Yet 491’s consciousness was piercingly clear right now. As though ice-cold water had been poured over his head.

The sense of danger brought by the red blades of sword qi thrusting toward him again and again was forcibly awakening 491’s consciousness.

‘This.......’

His instincts were screaming.

Dangerous. It was far too dangerous right now. These insignificant petals were steadily driving him toward death.

“This damn Taoist bastard!”

491 ignored every bit of Baek Cheon’s sword qi pouring down upon him and swung his dao in a desperate struggle.

He would accept the damage. Even if his limbs were cut off, no, even if his neck were pierced, it would still be better than steadily dying like this.

But 491’s gamble, in which he had even staked his life, was nullified far too futilely.

Tuung.

The dao he had swung with all his strength was pushed off course as though swept along by a current, passing right above Baek Cheon’s head.

At the same time, Baek Cheon’s sword cut into 491’s shoulder.

Seogeok!

491 felt a chill run down his spine.

It was barely an inch. A small wound, barely enough to strip the skin. But precisely because of that, because it was a wound small enough to be called insignificant, it was frightening.

‘He didn’t even need to take a risk?’

491 swung his dao furiously once more. This time, he put as little strength into it as possible. It was the fastest dao strike he could unleash.

Taang.

And immediately following it, a fatal successive strike, into which he squeezed every bit of strength from his entire body!

Taaang!

But all of it came to nothing. It was as though there were an invisible wall around Baek Cheon that could never be pierced. That was how consistently his dao missed Baek Cheon’s body by a hair.

‘You fucking bastard!’

491’s eyes reddened with blood.

The experience of being crushed beneath the strength of someone stronger? For someone who belonged to the Cult, it was an unbearably common occurrence. And because of that, 491 didn’t particularly regard kneeling before a stronger person as humiliating.

But this was clearly different.

“Hwaaaaat!”

Kaang!

Before his dao could even be fully swung, a sword that had shot out from somewhere struck the edge of his dao blade precisely. The enormous force contained in the dao that hadn’t yet completed its swing instead bared its fangs toward 491.

Kwaang!

It felt as though a huge bomb had exploded inside his body. Demonic art was a martial art that squeezed the user dry to tear into the enemy. If its aggression could cut someone, its blade made no distinction between friend and foe.

Udeudeudeug.

491’s arm gripping the dao twisted grotesquely.

“Keuaaaaaah!”

491 staggered violently, letting out a spine-chilling scream. His arm kept bending and breaking, transforming into a shape too terrible to look at.

Ppudeudeudeuk.

With a sound like dry leather being twisted and wrung out, 491’s arm split apart like an old, withered tree. It was not Baek Cheon’s strength, but 491’s own demonic art, the destructive power of that demonic art, that was devouring 491.

Gripping his own shoulder with his left hand, 491 gasped and clenched his teeth.

‘Not yet!’

Not yet. He wouldn’t be swallowed by the demonic art.

Udeudeuk.

The arm that had been crushed returned to its original form even faster than it had been mangled. It was a wondrous sight, like life returning to a tree that had completely died.

491 could still fight. If he could become stronger, become faster, and bite into that bastard before his eyes, perhaps he could leap over the wall that now stood in his way. Perhaps he might even reach the realm he had dreamed of, even in his dreams.

Yes, this bastard alone! If only he could kill this bastard!

491 once again poured all of his demonic energy into his dao. It was as though he were going to burn up his entire body.

Yes, he only had to ignore any counterattack and crush him to death with sheer strength. With everything he had, stake everything on a single moment......

Kwadeuk.

At that moment, Baek Cheon’s sword pierced straight through 491’s right side.

“......”

Sharp metal tore through living flesh, but 491 hadn’t even had time to feel the agony he should have felt.

He merely stared blankly at Baek Cheon with his eyes wide open.

Baek Cheon’s eyes were looking back at him indifferently, as though they held nothing...... No, they looked as though they had transcended everything altogether, almost as if simply observing him.

He had been pierced before his energy had even gathered. It had been a long time since he had reached the realm where his energy moved the instant his mind was read. Then what did it mean that his opponent had seized the initiative?

‘That bastard realized my actions and intentions before I did......?’

An indescribable terror came crashing over him.

No matter how much he struggled, it was meaningless. No matter how high a tiger on the ground leaped, and no matter how a celebrated steed that astonished the world ran a thousand li in a single day, to the eyes of a hawk soaring in the sky, they would look like nothing more than futile struggles.

He was high above.

This wasn’t a difference in strength. It wasn’t about crushing him with force and might. It was a realm of looking down from an entirely higher level.

How could he possibly fight against someone like that?

‘He was really this strong?’

Were the martial artists of the Central Plains, those Taoist bastards from that place called Mount Hua, really this strong?

There was no room even to continue thinking. He wasn’t being given the leisure to do so.

The sword pulled from his side like a streak of light immediately came for his neck like a venomous snake. As though it wouldn’t let even the slightest opening slip away.

Kwang.

491 rolled across the ground with all his strength.

Dignity? Pride? There was no such thing for a Cultist.

As long as he could survive, rolling across the ground was nothing.

But it seemed the same was true of his opponent.

Kwagak!

Baek Cheon shot toward 491, almost skimming the ground, and thrust his sword toward his neck again. The moment 491 twisted his neck with all his strength, Baek Cheon’s sword pierced into the ground and sank in almost to the hilt.

“Keuk!”

Paaat!

Baek Cheon immediately pulled out his sword and thrust it toward 491 once more.

“Aaaaah!”

Judging that it was too late to raise his dao and block it, 491 reflexively reached out and seized Baek Cheon’s sword.

Seogeok!

His flesh was sliced apart in an instant, and his bones grated against Baek Cheon’s sword with a harsh rattling sound. But even then, the sword that had not been completely stopped pierced about half an inch into 491’s neck.

“Keureuk.....”

491 made a breath-leaking sound, as though his airway had been damaged, and desperately shoved the sword away with all his strength. He struck the ground to bounce his body away, then simultaneously drove his feet into the ground and rose back up.

But what entered the eyes of 491, who had regained his stance like that, was a spectacle of countless plum blossoms that had by then bloomed as though they would cover the world.

There were so many that they seemed innumerable, yet each plum blossom looked different from the next, blooming endlessly.

Perhaps it was the sword. Perhaps it was merely an image in his mind (心象).

[Simsang. 심상(心象). Literally “image of the mind” or “mental image.” In this context, it refers to an image or form born from the mind, perception, or inner conception, rather than necessarily being a purely physical phenomenon.]

“......”

Though his hand had been cut to the point that it was almost severed and even his neck had been wounded, 491 lost himself for an instant. It wasn’t that he was moved by the magnificent spectacle spread before him. It was that he felt an overwhelming terror.

Could there be another sight in this world so utterly paradoxical?

It was dazzlingly beautiful, yet what was contained within it was a vicious killing intent (殺意). Even in the Demonic Cult, where no means or method was spared when it came to trampling down and destroying others, he had never experienced such a vicious and thorough bewitchment (眩惑).

[Salui. 살의(殺意). “Killing intent.” The explicit intent or desire to kill.]

[Hyeonhok. 현혹(眩惑). “Bewitchment,” “dazzlement,” or “seduction of the senses.” Here, it refers to an overwhelming display that ensnares the mind and perception, making it difficult to distinguish what lies beneath its beauty.]

Could this truly be the sword of a Taoist?

“Ha......”

The forest of plum blossoms filling his vision spread outward in an instant as though exploding. The plum blossoms that had been blooming so unassumingly all scattered skyward at once, filling the world.

491 let out a hollow laugh.

“And after doing all this, you dare......”

Then he suddenly let out a fierce shout, as though it had boiled up from the depths of his stomach.

“You sure talked big about the Tao, about chivalry. You fucking bastards!”

The swirling petals pounded against 491’s body.

Like pieces of pottery fired paper-thin to the very limit, the petals simply crumbled the instant they touched his body. They were that weak.

But just as countless drops of water eventually bore through a colossal rock, the petals that collided with him countless times began to break even 491’s steel-like body apart.

491’s mouth stretched open as far as it could. Before he could even let out a scream wracked with pain, his body was swallowed by the swirling plum blossoms and disappeared from sight.

The plum blossoms vanished in an instant, as though they had been a dream.

“Cough!”

Baek Cheon, standing alone upon the earth swept by the plum blossoms, vomited up a great mouthful of blood.

He wiped the corner of his mouth with a faintly trembling hand and furrowed his brow.

‘That was too much.’

For a moment, he had been swept away by the sword. The aftermath of forcing his way into a realm he still couldn’t reach shook his body violently.

Even so, he had no regrets. He had finally caught a glimpse of the sight that damn Cheong Myeong bastard saw.

Baek Cheon quietly closed his eyes. It was to firmly carve the sensation lingering in his fingertips into his memory.

“Hu.....”

When he opened his eyes again, what he saw was 491 panting with one hand braced against the ground.

“Keueu.....”

His state was ghastly. The dao he had been holding was nowhere to be seen, having flown off somewhere, and his entire body was split open here and there.

Even the places that hadn’t suffered major wounds were covered in countless small scratches, making him look almost as though he had a net thrown over his body.

“Uweeeeeegh!”

491 vomited up black blood for quite some time. The blood flowing from his body and the blood he had vomited pooled like a puddle. The amount of blood lost was considerable, yet he was clearly still alive.

“......So this is what it means to be a demonic person.”

A wondrous toughness, to the point that it was hard to believe they were even human like him.

Baek Cheon cast a darkened gaze toward him.

“Looks like the match is decided.”

“Heh.....”

491 let out a strained sneer.

“A match......? You sure do talk leisurely nonsense like a Central Plains bastard.”

He raised his head, trembling. One of his eyes had been deeply cut, with blood streaming from it. Yet in the remaining eye, desperate viciousness boiled.

“There is no such thing as a match for a Cultist. We merely carry it out.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than more than a dozen Demonic Cultists descended upon Baek Cheon from behind.

“Such an obvious trick.”

Baek Cheon gently swung his sword and blocked the incoming attacks. In that tiny instant of an opening created by it, 491 swiftly launched himself away. While the other Cultists latched onto Baek Cheon, another group seized 491 and pulled him away from Baek Cheon in one motion.

Baek Cheon’s shoulders lifted slightly at the sight, then settled again. It wasn’t that he couldn’t chase them if he wanted to, but what he had to do now wasn’t hunt down someone who was already incapable of fighting and take his life.

First, he had to help his fellow disciples.

“......491, huh.”

But, well. If Cheong Myeong were here, what would he have said?

“A guy who got his ass beaten and ran away, yet his mouth’s still alive.”

Yes, he definitely would’ve said that.

Baek Cheon lightly shook his sword as though emptying his mind. Then he shifted his gaze toward the Demonic Cultists surrounding him.

“I’m short on time, so all of you come at me at once.”

A confident smile, resembling the one he had always seen on that bastard’s face, appeared at the corners of Baek Cheon’s mouth.

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