novelraw Chapter 216 : Into the Torrent
Chapter 216 : Into the Torrent
Chapter 216: Into the Torrent
Kwarururung……!
A thunderous roar that shook the very earth was heard.
The sky was covered in blood-colored clouds, and an ominous demonic aura was pressing down upon the land.
Sswaeaek!
Pabat!
Three figures were climbing a sheer, cliff-like precipice.
They were, respectively, the Successor Beggar Jang Sopyeong, Peng Daeho, and Peng So-hye.
All three members of the Jecheon Unit had violently wavering gazes.
“……Just what is this? I thought the war was already over…….”
Peng So-hye exhaled breath that had risen to her chin and spoke as if she could not understand the situation.
At her words, the two who were listening both affirmed in silence.
In truth, only a gak (= thirty minutes) earlier, had they not finished their preparations to return and begun descending the mountain?
By Sewoon’s command, the three had covertly aided the camps of the Murong Clan and the Shin Chang Yang Clan, causing the front line here in Shanxi to tilt greatly toward the White Path Union.
Although the remnants of the North Sea Ice Palace were resisting fiercely, the situation was such that suppression seemed imminent, which was why they had chosen to withdraw.
Kurururung!
Black clouds covered the mountain summit.
And this ferocious demonic aura that was pressing down upon all things in existence—what in the world was it?
‘……Can that really be the aura of a human?’
Jang Sopyeong barely managed to calm his trembling body.
As the Successor Beggar of the Beggars’ Sect, he had executed countless wicked practitioners of unorthodox and demonic paths, yet a fear he had never felt in his life was writhing within him.
The certainty that an unimaginable calamity existed above—that intuition was being firmly conveyed to Jang Sopyeong.
Tadat.
At that moment, the three reached a ridgeline just short of the mountain summit.
Slowly, while swallowing their breaths, they completely subdued their auras.
In that state, they stealthily and gradually took in the situation at the summit.
“……!!”
“!!”
The eyes of the three shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck.
“Khugh! Keuk…….”
The scene unfolding before them was a惨状 so horrific that it was difficult to even put into words.
On land filled with pools of blood, as if a rain of blood had fallen, a one-armed man was standing there, staggering.
‘Murong Bin……!!’
The Clan Head of the Murong Clan, once a member of the Seven Great Clans, was barely keeping himself upright in a ruined state, using his sword as a cane.
At his feet, two corpses lay sprawled.
Yang Taek-gyeong, the Clan Head of the Shin Chang Yang Clan, and his son Yang Heo-gun were lying dead, their eyes wide open in gruesome death.
It was then.
“‘This time,’ rather.”
[……!!]
[!!]
A voice that seemed to have flowed out from a bottomless abyss shook the mental states of the three.
The master of the abyss that dominated this entire space was shaking everyone’s consciousness with nothing but his voice.
Blood-soaked land. A blood-drenched sky.
And at the center of it all stood an absolute demonic being, wrapped in a jet-black robe like a living shadow.
“You have regressed.”
In the two eyes gazing at Murong Bin, only emptiness and chaos resided.
Then, the unidentified man commanded death to Murong Bin with his voice.
“Disappear now.”
The moment those words ended—
Pasuseu!
“……!”
‘W-what?’
Murong Bin’s entire body began to scatter and disperse, crumbling like a sandstorm and vanishing.
The minds of the three were shaken.
This was not a battlefield. It was merely an execution ground.
[W-we have to run…… we have to run, Orabeoni.]
The voice transmission of Peng So-hye, trembling with fear, echoed in Peng Daeho’s ears.
Peng So-hye, whose realm was the lowest among the three, looked as though her legs would give out at any moment.
She had always lived with the Peng Clan’s family maxim—there is no compromise before evil—engraved in her heart.
But now, such things did not enter her mind at all.
All she felt was the desire to flee as far away from that being as possible, right this instant.
Just as anxiety and fear were spreading like a plague to the other two—
Chwaaah!
Uwoong!
“!!”
“……!”
The identical rings worn on the fingers of the three began to resonate simultaneously, emitting a gentle glow.
At the same time, the previously clouded eyes of the three cleared.
Regaining their senses in an instant, the three simultaneously looked down at their rings.
[……This is?]
[This is clearly what the Captain had prepared in advance…….]
The pure aura flowing out of the rings was calming the chaos that had been hopelessly entangled within them.
In their minds surfaced Sewoon’s past admonition when he had entrusted them with their mission.
-I won’t say much. No matter what happens, never take this ring off your finger.
At the time, they had not understood the meaning of those words, but now they felt they did.
No—now they realized it clearly.
-The Captain knew that thing would come.
Having seen that sight, how could they not know?
Only now did they understand the true nature of the demon that Sewoon had been facing alone all this time.
Sewoon had been fighting such an existence by himself until now.
At that moment, another middle-aged man revealed himself, cutting across the battlefield.
He was the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace, who had stood at the forefront of the war until the unidentified man appeared.
Cheocheok.
The Ice Palace Lord immediately knelt before the unidentified man and bowed his head.
“Blood Cult, Ten Thousand Generations!!”
“All Demons Bow in Submission!!”
At the same time, all remaining members of the Ice Palace likewise observed the same etiquette.
It was an unbelievable sight.
That the North Sea Ice Palace—among the forces beyond the frontier, the one that most despised the people of the Central Plains—would show such submission.
“Master, as you instructed…… we have captured that one alive……”
“……Now the land of Shanxi belongs to you……”
While daring not even to lift his head and continuing to bow, the Ice Palace Lord was in the midst of reporting to the unidentified man, when—
‘It can’t end like this, withdrawing without gaining anything!’
Jang Sopyeong’s gaze changed.
The moment the rigidity in his mind loosened through Sewoon’s ring, he slowly began to observe the enemy camp.
With that monster present, even a surprise attack would fail to inflict any damage at all.
However, if they withdrew like this, the enemy would retreat after gaining everything without suffering a single loss.
That could not be allowed.
All of their focus was fixed entirely on the unidentified being, and they had to exploit this opening.
‘That is……!’
At that moment, Jang Sopyeong’s eyes landed on a cart that the Ice Palace Lord had brought along.
On top of the cart, a single black sack was writhing.
He did not know who had been captured, but it clearly seemed to be someone extremely important.
‘Good.’
Jang Sopyeong made his decision at once.
[Peng Daeho, Peng So-hye.]
[……!]
[Listen carefully from now on. We will carry out the final mission.]
As Jang Sopyeong conveyed the plan through voice transmission, a resolute light immediately rose in the eyes of the other two.
They had grasped Jang Sopyeong’s intent precisely.
Ssss!
The three figures slowly approached the enemy camp like shadows.
Yet none of the enemies noticed them.
At the same time that the aura of the ring Sewoon had given them erased their presence like a thick mist,
the Ice Palace warriors, who were paying their respects as if worshipping a god, had no leeway to pay attention elsewhere.
In the end, the three slowly arrived before the completely unguarded cart.
[Now!]
Paat!
At last, with Jang Sopyeong’s sharp voice transmission, the operation began.
Peng So-hye and Peng Daeho kicked off with true steps and hurled themselves downward like crashing lightning, lifting the sack the instant they landed.
At the same time, Jang Sopyeong swung his Beggar-Beating Staff, pouring all of his power into it.
“Heavenly Punishment!!”
Kwarururung!
Kwaaang!
The Beggar-Beating Staff shattered the ground, and powerful qi surged like a raging torrent, sweeping over the Ice Palace warriors who were kneeling in reverence.
“Gaaaah!”
“Keok!”
Caught in an attack they never anticipated, the Ice Palace warriors were blasted apart before they could even raise a defense.
Paat!
The moment they inflicted significant damage, the three did not look back even once. They leapt simultaneously and bounded toward the ridgeline.
Hwiik!!
With an air-rending sound as the air itself was torn apart, the three figures flew away at terrifying speed.
“Enemies!”
“Pursue them immediately!!”
“They kidnapped the former Palace Lord……!!”
Only then did the Ice Palace warriors grasp the situation and begin shouting loudly.
Paat!
A streak of light flashed, and the figure of the Ice Palace Lord vanished.
The Ice Palace warriors grit their teeth and began chasing the three as well.
The once-quiet battlefield fell into utter chaos.
Yet amid all of that, only one being—
“Yes, take them away.”
The Blood Demon muttered words no one could understand.
He had seen everything.
The movements of the three, including Jang Sopyeong.
Yet he neither revealed the truth nor crushed the insects who dared to interfere with his plans.
Because even that, too, lay within his design.
“So that every flow may proceed smoothly toward that child.”
The Blood Demon’s voice resonated through the void.
For the first time, a faint smile appeared on the Blood Demon’s face.
The entire martial world of the Central Plains had fallen into great chaos.
Its beginning was, of course, triggered by the event known as the Turmoil Beyond the Frontier.
Time like a raging storm passed in an instant.
All martial artists of the martial world, who were met with the worst possible outcome they had never even imagined, were seized by shock and terror.
“Huh… just what in the world happened? Kunlun was exterminated? That Kunlun Sect?”
“No, was Gale Sands really that strong, just a mere band of mountain brigands??”
“Hah… just what is the order of the martial world coming to…….”
What had shocked everyone the most was, without question, the extermination of the Kunlun Sect.
Though it had experienced decline, it was a renowned orthodox sect that had never once fallen from the Nine Sects and One Gang. Yet the Kunlun Sect was annihilated in flames, leaving not even a single cornerstone behind.
But before that shock could even subside, another urgent report arrived.
“W-wait, Changseong is dead……?”
“……Yes. They say the North Sea Ice Palace, led by the new Palace Lord—the Ice Demon—massacred the allied forces of the Murong Clan and the Shin Chang Yang Clan, leaving not a single corpse behind…….”
“N-no… how could such a thing happen?”
That was the news of the North Sea Ice Palace’s occupation of Shanxi.
The Clan Head of the Murong Clan, Murong Bin, who had steadfastly blocked the southern advance until now, and the Clan Head of the Shin Chang Yang Clan, Yang Taek-gyeong, had both become cold corpses at the hands of an unnamed supreme expert known as the Ice Demon.
Even the Shin Chang Yang Clan’s only successor, Yang Heo-gun, failed to escape death, and as a result, the clan was abruptly reduced to utter ruin.
Because the Kunlun Sect, the Murong Clan, and the Shin Chang Yang Clan all belonged to the White Path Union, the warriors of the White Path Union could not contain their surging fury.
“If only reinforcements had been sent in time!! How could Kunlun have been exterminated by such a pathetic band of brigands!”
“That’s right!! This is all because of those damned Lee bastards!!”
“Tch!! No matter how many times you chew them up, it wouldn’t be enough!!”
Their rage naturally turned toward Gale Sands, who had caused the bloodshed.
However, most of the curses being spat out were directed at Lee Jamyeong and the Lee Trading Company.
After Myeongwolja of the Kongtong Sect revealed all the facts,
the warriors of the White Path Union believed that responsibility for the chain of events leading to Kunlun’s extermination lay entirely with Lee Jamyeong.
However, not all orthodox sects had been utterly defeated in the Turmoil Beyond the Frontier.
“Still, it’s fortunate. The Hainan Sword Sect escaped the clutches of the Sun Palace.”
“What nonsense are you talking about! How is that fortunate!”
“That’s right! We chased away the wolf only to invite the tiger inside! Was it really the Hainan Sword Sect that defeated the Sun Palace? Wasn’t it the power of the Sichuan Tang Clan, acting as if out of charity!”
Indeed, the Hainan Sword Sect survived the Sun Palace’s assault.
But the martial artists of the martial world were clearly fearful of the Sichuan Tang Clan, which had been deeply involved in that process.