Chapter 122 : Chapter 122
Chapter 122 - I Will Show You the Real Thing
“Junior Brother Danseol. Can you hear me?”
A dreamlike voice that made one want to answer even if they weren’t Danseol.
But no response was heard from the person in question.
Because of his narrow eyes, it wasn’t even clear if he had his eyes open or not.
However, it was clearly felt that his condition was not good.
His already pale face was deathly white, and dark red blood continued to trickle from his nose.
Swwt.
Jeong-i extended her index and middle fingers to check Danseol’s pulse.
‘……It’s not good.’
Due to forcefully drawing on his internal energy, the energy throughout his body was in turmoil.
Jeong-i closed her eyes and focused her mind.
Then, she cautiously began to circulate her energy.
Ssssssss…….
Performing breathing exercises in the middle of a battle was an extremely dangerous thing to do.
Because one would become defenseless, unable to respond even if someone were to strike with a sword.
But Danseol’s condition was so serious that there was no other way.
On the other hand, she had something to believe in.
The belief that her comrades would protect her while she treated Danseol.
In particular, Jeong-i’s faith in Biyoung was absolute.
Sararak…….
A part of the internal energy generated by the Profound Heaven's True Energy Unification Art flowed towards Danseol.
The warm energy, like her smile, gently enveloped the tumultuous internal energies.
In fact, the amount was so minuscule that even the expression ‘transferring’ was embarrassing.
But, as befitting an internal art renowned in Jianghu for its profundity, its effects permeated throughout Danseol’s body.
Jeong-i had only mastered about one stage of the Profound Heaven's True Energy Unification Art.
Normally, one would need to achieve at least the fifth stage of the Profound Heaven's True Energy Unification Art to even attempt such a thing.
But how could Jeong-i transfer her internal energy so freely?
‘It was definitely this feeling.’
Experience.
It was thanks to an experience that had been repeated almost daily for some time.
The memories of releasing the energy of the spirit pills accumulated in her body with the Profound Heaven's True Energy Unification Art.
As Biyoung had examined her internal energy countless times, she too had learned some of the tricks.
As the saying goes, a dog at a Seodang learns to recite poetry after three years.
The effect was clear.
Thanks to it, the color began to slowly return to Danseol’s face.
“Gang Leader.”
Now the only one left of the Ghost Face Four Shadows, the first one.
Yi Cheon-yu called out to the Gang Leader.
Biyoung’s movements just a moment ago had felt unusual.
However, to Dancheong, even Yi Cheon-yu’s concern felt insulting.
“I will take care of this one, so you go and cut off the heads of the small fries.”
“As you command.”
At Dancheong’s command, Yi Cheon-yu turned his back without any lingering attachment.
Whatever the state of the battle, once an order was given, he would simply follow it.
Yi Cheon-yu’s blade turned towards the remaining junior disciples.
Gulp.
Solbo swallowed with a face full of fear.
The skill he had witnessed just a moment ago was not in a realm he could handle.
Hadn’t even Eung Gajin, who vied for the top spot among the junior disciples, been beaten to a pulp?
But fortunately, there was someone else to face him.
“Hehe…… This is just ridiculous……”
From behind Solbo, a crazed voice could be heard.
A disheveled madman, twitching the whites of his eyes and cracking his knuckles.
Gwangyo slowly walked towards Yi Cheon-yu.
“Ridiculous?”
“Hey, Sword Shadow Soul Stealing. The reason I didn’t face that ghost mask was because of justification, not because I lacked confidence, you know?”
The ghost mask must have been referring to Dancheong.
The madman in front of him seemed to think of Dancheong as nothing more than a delicious prey.
“How can I interfere when a member of the annihilated Diancang Sect is seeking revenge? But what? Small fries?”
Vwoom.
A sound resembling the buzzing of a hornet’s wings echoed from Gwangyo’s palms.
It was a twin palm strike he hadn’t even used when facing the third of the Ghost Face Four Shadows, Ha Dalbun.
“I want to watch that guy fight, so you’ll have to die quickly.”
As soon as Gwangyo clapped his palms together, Yi Cheon-yu’s shoulder shook.
Biyoung drew his sword from its scabbard.
Revenge against the dark practitioners who had annihilated the Diancang Sect.
How long had he waited for this moment?
But Biyoung’s heart, far from being fiery, was sinking coldly.
Instead of the excitement of finally getting his revenge, the guilt of not being there when the attack happened pierced his heart painfully.
“You don’t look so good.”
At Dancheong’s words, Biyoung twisted his lips.
“I don’t think that’s something I should hear from a guy who opens his eyes like that.”
“Now that we’re face to face like this, you must be scared.”
It seemed Dancheong had misunderstood the meaning of Biyoung’s troubled expression.
“You seem to have some talent, but the timing was not good. You should have waited a little longer……”
“Hey.”
“?”
“Do you check the time before you swat a bug to death?”
With those words, Biyoung stomped his foot and rushed towards Dancheong.
Clang!
Unlike the previous fight with Danseol, this time, swords clashed from the very first exchange.
“!”
Dancheong remained expressionless, but upon closer inspection, his temple was twitching slightly.
He was flustered by the unexpected quick sword.
“Perhaps you thought that the speed you showed when you led the Green Killer Squad away was your all?”
“!”
Dancheong felt terrible, as if his innermost thoughts had been laid bare.
Biyoung’s words were true.
Just a moment ago, when he had provoked the Green Killer Squad to go outside, Dancheong had not lost his composure.
Because he thought that was the maximum speed the guy could move.
But the strike when he rescued Danseol, and his movements now.
Biyoung had not shown everything from the beginning.
Biyoung, with a cynical smile, retrieved his sword and stabbed again.
Clang!
This time too, Dancheong’s sword barely protected his heart.
“This bastard……”
Every single move aiming for a vital point was vicious to the extreme.
An assassin.
It was just like the swordsmanship of the assassins from the Green Killer Squad.
Assassins and the Diancang Sect.
In a sense, the swords they pursued were the same.
A sect that pursues an extremely fast and powerful quick sword, and assassins who must kill their targets most efficiently.
But there was bound to be a difference in depth between the martial arts of the Diancang Sect, with its noble history, and the swords of assassins who only did contract killings.
Clang!
Under the relentless assault that gave him no room to breathe, Dancheong was busy defending.
It was truly a one-sided defensive battle he hadn’t experienced in years.
The sword aura on Biyoung’s sword was much stronger than that of the other junior disciples, and the forms created by the blue sword shadows were making Dancheong break out in a cold sweat.
Fwack!
Perhaps thinking he couldn’t go on like this, Dancheong used the Ghostly Body Method to leap back.
At that moment, Biyoung’s feet changed into a slightly strange form.
Pababak!
An advanced body method that used only the balls of the feet to move the body.
The Vast Sky Eagle Body Method had been activated.
“!”
Dancheong, who thought he had increased the distance, was startled and leaped towards the ceiling.
But for Biyoung using the Vast Sky Eagle Body Method, a ‘safe distance’ did not exist.
Slice!
Biyoung’s sword, which had followed him all the way to the ceiling, cut Dancheong’s left arm.
“!”
It wasn’t a deep wound, but it was enough to make Dancheong’s expressionless face turn pale.
‘Unbelievable……!’
Dancheong couldn’t believe it.
Although he hadn’t directly participated in the attack on the main mountain in the past, the swordsmen of the Diancang Sect were enemies that even Yi Cheon-yu, the deputy commander at the time, couldn’t handle.
If the skills of the previous generation’s masters were at that level, how could a junior disciple who came seeking revenge show such a body method?
“Keuk!”
Dancheong pushed the Ghostly Body Method to its limit and moved around the main hall like a ghost.
But no matter how much of a ghostly body one possessed, it was impossible to shake off the wings of the fastest eagle in Jianghu.
Flick!
This time, a thin sword wound appeared on Dancheong’s cheek.
A stream of bright red blood slowly trickled down his unusually white cheek.
Without even thinking of wiping the blood, Dancheong asked with wide eyes.
“Are you telling me that this body method and swordsmanship…… are all from the Diancang Sect?”
“Yes.”
“Ha! It seems the Diancang Sect also teaches how to lie. The martial arts of the Diancang Sect that I have seen and heard were not of this level!”
“That’s because those were just the chaff.”
At those words, not only Dancheong but also the junior disciples who were watching had their eyes wide open.
“Wha-what did that guy just say?”
“Did he just call the previous generation’s elders ch-chaff?”
“Hey! Even so……!”
The expression was rough, but it was actually the truth.
The masters of the Diancang Sect, whose numbers were already small, had all been mobilized for the fight against the Heavenly Demon.
The remaining swordsmen of the Diancang Sect were unskilled enough to be defeated by a mere group of assassins.
The Ghost Face Gang, having never directly faced the masters of the Diancang Sect, had no choice but to underestimate their martial arts.
“I see. So even a rotten sea bream is still a sea bream, is that it?”
Dancheong chuckled once, then licked the drop of blood flowing down his cheek.
“In that case, I should treat you accordingly.”
As if he had made up his mind, Dancheong drew up the internal energy of his entire body.
The momentum was so menacing that even Gwangyo, who was in the middle of a battle, glanced over.
‘I see. He said there was another move besides the Ghostly Body Method.’
According to the information provided by the Beggars’ Union’s Heavenly Vision Network, Dancheong had two major unique martial arts.
The Ghostly Body Method he had just shown.
And the other one was…….
Tremble.
Dancheong’s flexible sword trembled slightly.
Even considering it was a flexible sword, it was an unusually thin sword.
As the slender blade repeated short vibrations, a surprising thing soon happened.
“Huh?”
A dazed voice came from Solbo’s mouth.
Because something that should have been visible from Dancheong was not.
“The sword blade……?”
It disappeared.
The blade of the flexible sword, which had been clearly visible just moments ago, could not be seen, not even a trace.
There was only a faint ringing that tickled the ears.
At this moment, even Biyoung’s previously relaxed expression turned serious.
“Chaha!”
Dancheong, who had pushed the Ghostly Body Method to its limit, swung his arm.
Kaaaang!
“Ugh……!”
A shockwave of a different dimension from before echoed through the main hall.
Should it be said that he was indeed the leader of the Ghost Face Gang?
Although nothing was visible above the sword hilt, when Dancheong swung his arm, Biyoung’s blade collided with something transparent.
“Shit.”
A rough curse escaped Uma’s mouth.
An outsider might misunderstand it as him being upset, but it was the highest form of admiration Uma could muster.
Just as the flapping wings of a fast-moving bird are invisible to the eye, Dancheong’s blade was impossible to see even when staring with wide-open eyes.
But what was even more astounding was Biyoung, who was receiving it as if it were nothing.
How on earth could one block a blade that was invisible to the eye?
Whether it was Dancheong using a bizarre sword, or Biyoung responding to it.
Watching the confrontation between the two, Uma came to the following conclusion.
“This is a complete battle of monsters.”
Clang! Clang!
But no matter how surprised he was, there was no one in this room more surprised than Dancheong.
‘What kind of crazy bastard is this?’
No matter how excellent a swordsman, they could not block all the invisible sword blades.
Moreover, wasn’t his own sword a flexible sword full of all sorts of variations?
Formless True Killing Sword.
Dancheong’s unique martial art, which made the swordsmen of Hunan tremble, was being pushed back helplessly like the flapping of a sparrow’s wings in front of a typhoon.
“You idiot.”
“?”
“The killing intent, thicker than what the eye can see, is so clear. It would be pathetic not to block this.”
Biyoung, who had instantly turned most of Hunan’s masters into pathetic fools, filled his grip with internal energy.
Kaaaang!
Dancheong unknowingly took a couple of steps back due to the ridiculously strong force.
Grind.
Dancheong ground his teeth so hard it sounded like they would break, loud enough for people far away to hear clearly.
The Ghostly Body Method was repeatedly caught up to, and the Formless True Killing Sword was read clearly.
The two ultimate arts that had led Dancheong to become the leader of the Ghost Face Gang were being neutralized so easily it was futile.
‘Damn it. How can this be……!’
Dancheong’s face was no longer calm.
His trembling cheeks and rigid lips showed his feelings perfectly.
“What are you so agitated about? All your martial arts are fake anyway.”
“……Fake?”
“How can a martial art created haphazardly without foundation or introspection have any depth?”
Wooooong…….
With a deep cry, a massive amount of internal energy gathered on Biyoung’s blade.
The blue sword aura shone as brightly as the sun, then suddenly turned dark.
Biyoung’s internal energy began to penetrate the inside of the sword’s surface rather than the outside, becoming one with it.
Woong…….
A profound resonance, of a different dimension from when the Formless True Killing Sword was activated, was felt from Biyoung’s blade.
His sword had already taken on a black color, darker than jet-black.
As if it would suck in everything.
‘What in the world is that……?’
Dancheong did not recognize Biyoung’s sword.
Even if he had heard the name, it would be hard to remember.
Because it was a martial art used by only a very few among the swordsmen of the Diancang Sect, which was composed of a small elite.
Why would he remember a sword he hadn't even seen when they attacked the main mountain, at a time when the sect had been annihilated?
The three-character sword that had been erased from Dancheong’s mind.
The Vacuum Sword was finally completed at Biyoung’s fingertips.
Woong…….
The black sword aura, which felt ominous just by looking at it, was aimed at Dancheong.
“I will show you the real thing.”
Biyoung, who was just about to strike, delivered Dancheong’s death sentence.