The Martial Arts Prodigy Who Grows Through

Chapter 051. That Which Is Buried in the Sandy Soil

"Pardon...?"

Peng Cho-seol asked back in a very flustered voice.

Fight?

Now?

Her expression crumpled ruthlessly.

It is true that her fighting spirit boiled over after seeing Dam Jeok-san’s sword. However, fighting now is not what she wants.

Dam Jeok-san was currently visibly exhausted.

It was natural, as he had subdued the Ghost Blade Baek Ri-gwan, and successively dealt with a spy from the Yin God Cult and the Blood Death Lord of the Unorthodox Alliance.

"Does the new Squad Leader see me as a pushover?"

Peng Cho-seol, holding a great saber as tall as herself, asked while sweeping back her hair. At the same time, intense fighting spirit rippled from her small body.

Although Peng Cho-seol was defeated by Baek Ri-gwan and remained a Vice-Squad Leader, her martial prowess is on par with Baek Ri-gwan.

"That cannot be; I simply know you accurately."

Dam Jeok-san answered briefly and looked at Peng Cho-seol.

A figure in which no sign of shrinking back could be found.

However, it was difficult to hide his rough breathing and pale complexion.

"Then are you saying you are confident you can win against me even in that condition? If so, why don’t you try it?"

Peng Cho-seol asked without hiding her annoyed expression.

The new Squad Leader seemed more stubborn than expected, so it seemed necessary to clearly teach him what is possible and what is not.

If he fails to distinguish that in actual combat, the entire Monster Repelling Squad would be in danger.

BOOM!

Peng Cho-seol lifted her great saber and slammed it into the ground.

From the Northern Heaven Sword Venerable to the few martial artists of the Righteous Heaven Alliance who had not yet left. There were many watching eyes, but she did not care at all.

If she had a personality that cared about such things in the first place, she would not have cursed in the Family Head's face and stormed out of the Peng Clan.

‘I think the new Squad Leader needs to come to his senses a bit.’

She thought as she cracked her neck with a popping sound.

It seems the childishness of his youth hasn't quite left him yet, but he will gradually get better once he gets beaten up.

That was a thought Peng Cho-seol could have only because she knew nothing of Dam Jeok-san’s life.

If she knew even a little of the years he had fiercely struggled through, she would not dare to harbor such arrogant thoughts.

However, Dam Jeok-san only smiled lightly while looking at Peng Cho-seol, who was provoking him with a crooked posture, and did not say anything more.

He can just prove it with his sword anyway. One sword strike is more intuitive and heavier than a hundred words.

After a moment.

"If you have said all you have to say, draw your blade."

Dam Jeok-san opened his mouth while lightly wagging his finger at Peng Cho-seol.

"Ha, if you wish for it so much, then gladly...!"

At that blatant provocation, Peng Cho-seol pulled out the great saber she had embedded in the ground.

VROOOOM!

A storm raged from her large blade.

A fierce vibration strong enough to distort the flow of the atmosphere. It was the aftermath of Peng Cho-seol’s unique saber technique, the Wind Net Annihilation Saber.

Peng Cho-seol twisted her small body to the limit and swung the great saber as if throwing it.

A skillful manner, as if she had repeated such an action over a thousand times.

Dam Jeok-san raised his sword as he watched Peng Cho-seol rushing in like a streak of storm.

He has already become the Squad Leader of the Monster Repelling Squad, but for that very reason, this is a fight he must win.

Peng Cho-seol competed with Baek Ri-gwan for the position of Squad Leader until the very end. She is not simply a subordinate of Baek Ri-gwan, but another pillar supporting the Monster Repelling Squad.

He must convince her of his qualifications and strength as well.

‘Only then can I completely take control of the Monster Repelling Squad.’

Of course, even without fighting urgently, it would be naturally resolved if he took his time.

Going on missions, proving his command and martial power, and showing dedication to the squad. If he does that, everyone will naturally come to follow him.

But there is no need to take the difficult way around when there is an easy path.

Dam Jeok-san organized his thoughts and looked at Peng Cho-seol.

She was falling toward Dam Jeok-san while wielding a blade larger than her own body.

A spirit that made one's whole body tingle.

In terms of power alone, she is much stronger than even Baek Ri-gwan. It was to the extent that one might wonder if she is comparable to a fair Ultra-Peak master.

However, Dam Jeok-san was strangely relaxed. He felt no sense of crisis at all.

Rather, he felt a certainty that it was doable, no—that he would win.

‘...She has become strong.’

Compared to when she left the Martial Sovereign Castle, and of course, even compared to before she was subdued by Baek Ri-gwan.

Since she has become able to imbue her mental image onto the tip of her sword, it is natural if it is natural.

However, that is not all.

Dam Jeok-san could clearly read her intentions, weaknesses, and gaps from the figure of the charging Peng Cho-seol.

As if he had undergone an awakening of insight.

It is not simply because he gained some realization that he became like this. It is that the very perspective and discernment with which he views martial arts have changed as the status Dam Jeok-san possesses has risen by a level.

Peng Cho-seol had approached right before his eyes before he knew it.

Her gigantic blade filled Dam Jeok-san’s view.

It is a strike that powerfully presses down from top to bottom. A move so powerful that normally, one would have to risk internal injury to block it.

Dam Jeok-san felt a shock that dullly rang through his whole body, but he deflected most of the force by lightly twisting his sword.

"...!"

Peng Cho-seol, who instinctively felt that fact, twitched her eyebrows roughly.

She doesn't know what kind of trick he used, but let's see him deflect this too.

She swung her saber wildly as if determined to tear Dam Jeok-san to death. No. It looked wild at a glance, but the ultimate principle pursued by the Wind Net Annihilation Saber was contained within it.

It looks like she is violently scattering techniques, but every single strike is a meticulously calculated killing move.

No trickery existed in her saber technique.

From being born as an illegitimate child of the Five Great Families to throwing herself into the Martial Sovereign Castle and becoming a peak master.

A saber technique that contains the life of Peng Cho-seol, who has lived struggling through every moment.

It is fierce and strong. To an excessive degree.

However, Dam Jeok-san received all of that fierce saber technique without retreating a single step from his spot.

He proved that deflecting the first strike was not a fluke.

"I can’t, believe it."

Peng Cho-seol said with her molars clenched tight.

Deep astonishment and admiration were dwelling in her eyes.

The Wind Net Annihilation Saber is a saber technique that pursues the extreme Path of Domination. An ultimate technique capable of dealing with masters of the same rank or higher if fighting one-on-one.

Yet Dam Jeok-san, who is merely a peak master, deflected all her blade strikes.

If Dam Jeok-san were an Ultra-Peak master instead.

So if everything, from the depth of realization to the scale of power he could handle, was superior to hers.

She could have easily accepted it.

However, Dam Jeok-san withstood her offensive by cleverly twisting the direction of force and stabbing at gaps.

It is a different issue from having a high realm. Dam Jeok-san is a young man only in his mid-twenties, yet he was fighting like a battle-hardened veteran who has grown sick of such fights.

Is he perhaps the kind of genius who creates countermeasures in an instant with just a fleeting experience?

Peng Cho-seol was also acknowledged for her talent alone while being despised in the Peng Clan.

Dam Jeok-san’s talent seemed to be on a level completely different from hers.

"...I was rude."

Peng Cho-seol said while letting out a short sigh.

She judged Dam Jeok-san hastily. She concluded he was arrogant while knowing nothing of the path he had walked or the possibilities he possessed.

Peng Cho-seol apologized for that with a polite attitude. And then, she took the starting stance of her saber technique again.

Even if she is to be defeated, she thought it was courtesy towards Dam Jeok-san to respond with all her might.

She temporarily put aside thoughts of the countless spectators who would watch her defeat.

"Mmm..."

Dam Jeok-san let out a groan as if dissatisfied with something about Peng Cho-seol’s attitude.

An attitude that looked more awkward than unpleasant.

In fact, his inner thoughts were not much different.

‘Peng Cho-seol’s saber technique is too focused on being fierce and strong.’

That is why she has no choice but to be pushed back by Baek Ri-gwan, a master of elusive sword techniques.

However, for Peng Cho-seol, fierceness is not simply a problem of saber technique. It is her stubbornness and belief that penetrates her entire life.

Such stubbornness sometimes becomes an insurmountable wall that blocks a martial artist's growth.

It was certain that Peng Cho-seol was also blocked by the wall called ‘fierceness.’

‘Normally, it is a wall that only oneself can tear down.’

So, normally.

If Dam Jeok-san had not learned countless martial principles while looking up at the starlight through the ability of Predation.

And if he had not raised his status by accepting Seo Woo-joo into his mental image.

No, even if everything was prepared, if the talent and discernment for martial arts he possessed were even a little lacking.

He would not have been able to figure out a way for Peng Cho-seol to forcefully break through the wall.

But he saw it.

And since he saw it, he couldn't just pass it by.

Because she is now a subordinate Dam Jeok-san will command and a comrade who will roam the battlefield together with him.

Peng Cho-seol twisted her whole body once again and unleashed a single saber strike at Dam Jeok-san.

And Dam Jeok-san lightly blocked it and simultaneously—

"Take the strength out of your shoulders."

He brought up the words that are like a taboo among martial artists: ‘That’s not how you do that.’

"...!"

Not only Peng Cho-seol, but he could feel everyone in the venue pricking up their ears.

"The more you try to escape the Peng Clan's saber technique, the more you will be bound by it, so..."

Dam Jeok-san did not stop his coaching, even while feeling a sensation that made his hair stand on end.

* * *

Man Tong-ja is an old shaman who travels the world wearing a sedge hat and telling fortunes.

An old woman so miraculous that even renowned sorcerers place themselves below her when discussing fortune and misfortune.

She said that while the Dragons and Phoenixes under heaven fight like dogs over the hegemony of the next generation, only the Heavenly Dragon is noble and aloof alone.

People said this. The Martial Sovereign Castle Lord’s eldest disciple, Heavenly Dragon Jin Tae-cheon, would not place great meaning on those words.

The so-called Dragons and Phoenixes are merely green rising stars. Having fought through the pandemonium of the Martial Sovereign Castle and stood at its apex, Jin Tae-cheon is inevitably of a different status than them.

However, Jin Tae-cheon felt joy upon hearing Man Tong-ja's divination.

Because the Heavenly Dragon being aloof alone means that the junior brother who threatened him wearing the cumbersome nickname of Sword Dragon has been stuck down under the earth.

Because it means Dam Jeok-san, who lost his dantian and became a cripple, would not be able to make a comeback.

However.

A carrier hawk flew up from the Martial Sovereign Castle.

News that Dam Jeok-san entered the Iron Blood Woo Clan single-handedly, that Woo Seo-gwang died that day, and that the head of the Woo family changed.

And although the informant conveyed it indirectly, a letter arrived containing the news that the Martial Sovereign declared the return of the Sword Dragon.

"..."

The Heavenly Dragon maintained his composure. Even if Dam Jeok-san regained his dantian, he has merely crawled up from the pit to the ground.

It was not a matter for him, who looks down from the sky, to care about.

He has established so many war merits in the West that no one could refute them, and he reached the stage of Ultra-Peak before turning thirty.

There is already an unbridgeable gap between them.

But.

‘It was the same back then too.’

There was an unbridgeable gap between Dam Jeok-san, the shabby orphan his master suddenly picked up, and Jin Tae-cheon, the Eldest Young Master of the Martial Sovereign Castle who was already looking at the peak realm.

Whether in the realm of martial arts or the foundation of power.

Yet, before even 10 years had passed, Dam Jeok-san obtained the nickname Sword Dragon and chased him right to his heels.

Could it happen again this time?

‘No, it cannot.’

Unless the guy takes the position of Squad Leader in the North and lends a hand in subjugating a Monster King-rank monster.

Unless it is to that extent, catching up to the skills and achievements Jin Tae-cheon has built up was impossible.

And even if the guy soars into the sky again, so what?

‘I will tear off those wings and slam him into the ground. No, this time I must cut his breath properly.’

Jin Tae-cheon thought with a twisted smile. The energy of the Extreme Heaven Strange Sovereign Technique, which had reached the realm, burned intensely in reaction to its master's emotions.

* * *

Although people in the Central Plains simply lump it together and call it the ‘North,’ the land north of the pass is actually very vast.

From the permafrost that does not melt all year round.

To the widely stretched grasslands and the desert filled with sand.

Because the North is so huge that it cannot be called by a single name. It is an area close to the size of one country.

Among them, the place where the power of monsters is strongest is the Great Desert covered in yellowish sand.

Wi Cheon-rak’s hermitage also existed in a corner of that Great Desert.

The Great Desert, where the terrain changes every time a sandstorm blows, is a place optimized for hiding something using sorcery.

And because the long-cherished wish he pursued even while turning into a monster lay asleep within the sandy soil.

"Blarghhh!"

Wi Cheon-rak, who barely regained consciousness, vomited wildly and poured out dark red fresh blood.

A pale complexion. It was almost the first time he had received such a shock since reaching a realm comparable to the Entering Transformation Realm.

"Khkhkh... The plan was definitely perfect."

Draw out the Sword King through Namgung Yeon and kill him, and plunge the south of the Yangtze River into distress.

At the same time, make the monsters of the Northern Demonic Realm stir, and simultaneously incite internal strife through spies to throw the North into chaos as well, and then...

Wake ‘Him’ up.

Then he thought he could turn the Central Plains into a sea of fire once again.

But because of Dam Jeok-san, merely that one blood clot, the plan began to go awry.

Namgung Yeon survived, and he lost the Butcher and Murong Gang. The fact that he planted spies in the Righteous Heaven Alliance has already been exposed.

Even that guy's unknown ability left a scar on Wi Cheon-rak’s soul like a brand that would not be erased.

‘...This is dangerous.’

Because even Wi Cheon-rak could not guess how such a thing was possible or what aftermath it would leave.

There was nothing as dangerous in the world as the unknown.

Even so.

‘He’ must be awakened.

Because to Wi Cheon-rak, trivial plans are ultimately nothing more than touchstones for his long-cherished wish.

His eyes flashed blood-red for an instant.