novelraw Chapter 229 : The Battle with the Seven Blood Shadow Guards
Chapter 229 : The Battle with the Seven Blood Shadow Guards
Chapter 229: The Battle with the Seven Blood Shadow Guards (2)
The moment one of the Blood Shadow Guards lowered their stance, I let the Black Silk Celestial Silkworm drop to the ground, wrapping it around the opponent’s leg and breaking their balance.
But these opponents had the most exquisite techniques of anyone I had ever fought.
I had battled the Sword Demon of Absolute Skill Eom An of the Six Demonic Clans, the Blood Demon of the Self-Transmission of the Four Demonic Heavens, the Hongui Twin Demons of the Three Demonic Absolutes, and even the Heaven-Cleaving Saber Gu Hyeong—but none displayed such refined techniques as the Blood Shadow Guards.
Heaven-Cleaving Saber Gu Hyeong’s martial arts pursued the Way of Tyranny, and so it felt like brute-force martial arts.
These were the most troublesome foes I had ever encountered.
Just as the Blood Shadow Guard appeared to have lost balance, he suddenly spun and rushed toward me, wrapping the Black Silk Celestial Silkworm around his own body.
As the Black Silk Celestial Silkworm continued to pose a threat, they wrapped their bodies with it in order to neutralize it.
At that moment, their coordinated attack was executed flawlessly.
One Blood Shadow Guard charged at me with the Black Silk Celestial Silkworm coiled around his body, while another stabbed forward with a sword wreathed in sword qi. Simultaneously, two more Blood Shadow Guards closed in from the sides, slashing like lightning.
It was already too late to dodge their assault.
Even someone like Bukri Sehee, who knew nothing of martial arts, would think I had no path of escape, and that my limbs would be severed by their blades.
“Damn it! So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?! Fine! Let’s see who dies first, you sons of bitches!”
I cursed crudely.
Then, the leader of the Blood Shadow Guards, who had been standing still like an onlooker, emitted nascent qi with a bluish glow from his sword and leaped into the air.
They were attacking from all directions—front, back, sides, and even above.
It was clear they intended to end the fight with this single move.
“It’s dangerous!”
Bukri Sehee screamed reflexively.
The illusion of four Blood Shadow Guards ripping my body apart flickered before her eyes.
I channeled the qi from my entire body through the Tai Chi Dantian, amplifying and unleashing it, converting that energy into Protective Energy.
Then I exploded the Protective Energy that encased my body using the method of the Wrathful Dragon Ignition.
The technique flashed into my mind in that instant—one that defends and attacks simultaneously against multiple strong enemies.
I knew that the Protective Energy alone couldn’t endure the combined assault of these five enemies.
It was a mutually-destructive technique born of desperation.
In that moment, Bukri Sehee hallucinated that I and the five Blood Shadow Guards were merging into a single being.
From that convergence, a blue light surged skyward with the sound of thunder.
Krrruummmble!
Bukri Sehee was pushed back by the wind pressure from the explosion, barely holding on by grabbing a pine tree.
“What kind of power is this?!”
With such a blast, any human of flesh and blood inside would surely be reduced to nothing.
When the light and wind vanished, five figures still stood tall at the scene.
From that alone, it was impossible to tell who had won or lost.
Bukri Sehee clenched her fists and cautiously approached, her heart pounding with worry.
“Young Master Yong...”
She called to me gently, seeing that I hadn’t moved.
The five Blood Shadow Guards turned their heads toward Bukri Sehee.
“Ah!”
Seeing only the Blood Shadow Guards moving, Bukri Sehee assumed I was dead.
“No!”
She rushed forward, shoving one of the Blood Shadow Guards aside to reach me.
But while the lower body of the Blood Shadow Guard remained standing, the upper body, pushed by her, collapsed to the ground.
Then the other two Blood Shadow Guards shuddered, and their arms and heads dropped like falling leaves. In contrast, the leader of the Blood Shadow Guards remained standing.
“What kind of bullshit is this... That we, the Seven Blood Shadow Guards, were taken down by someone like this... But damn, he was strong.”
The leader of the Blood Shadow Guards muttered.
As he finished speaking, a bloodline split open near his neck, letting blood flow. Another bloodline formed down the center of his forehead, trickling red down his face.
“But you’ll die too.”
With those final words, his body disassembled and fell to the ground.
Bukri Sehee trembled, unable to look upon the gruesome deaths.
But more than that, she was terrified for my well-being.
“Y-Young Master Yong.”
At her call, I slowly opened my eyes.
“They were insanely strong... I used to think I wanted to fight strong opponents, but I never want to fight bastards that strong again.”
I rambled incoherently, then suddenly staggered.
Puhak!
At that moment, four streams of blood burst from my body.
I had killed the Blood Shadow Guards by detonating my Protective Energy, but they had also pierced through it with their swords.
They hadn’t expected my Protective Energy to be so powerful.
Their mistake was not knowing that my internal strength surged explosively through the Tai Chi Dantian.
But I, too, hadn’t expected that their sword qi could pierce my Protective Energy.
Neither side knew the other’s full capabilities, and so mutual destruction was inevitable.
Bukri Sehee tried to stop the blood gushing from my chest, side, and thigh by pressing with both hands, but it was useless.
Though she had learned telepathy, she had no interest in other martial arts, and had never even learned Acupoint Sealing.
She hated martial arts itself and had never intended to learn them.
She only learned telepathy so she could communicate if necessary.
Now, she regretted not learning even a single acupoint technique, unable to stop my bleeding.
“If I had known this would happen, I would’ve learned Acupoint Sealing! I should’ve at least learned that!”
Before she knew it, tears were pouring down her face.
“I can’t just sit here like this. I have to save him, no matter what it takes!”
She tore off her outer garments and wrapped the wounds tightly.
Somehow, the bleeding stopped.
But in truth, it wasn’t her bandaging that had halted the bleeding. It was the Tai Chi Dantian, healing the wounds from within and stopping the blood.
“Nnngh!”
Fearing other pursuers might come, Bukri Sehee hoisted me onto her back.
Where such strength came from, she didn’t know—but she descended the mountain with a grown man on her back.
Warm blood soaked into her back, but there was no time to care.
As she carried me down, she realized my blood trail would leave a mark and make escape futile.
Still, she reasoned that moving was better than staying in place, and fled down the mountain with all her might.
Thud!
After walking about a hundred jang, she tripped on a tree root and fell.
Just getting me this far was a miracle in itself.
I had already exhausted all my energy and couldn’t walk any further.
“Young Master Yong-nim.”
Bukri Sehee looked at Yong Hwarin, who lay slumped against a tree, with eyes full of pity.
Then she noticed a gap in the trees where Yong Hwarin was resting.
There was a small opening, just big enough for a child to crawl through.
Bukri Sehee pushed Yong Hwarin into that tiny gap and covered the entrance with fallen leaves.
The opening was so narrow that no one would suspect someone had taken refuge inside.
Then Bukri Sehee began retracing her steps, erasing the trail of blood Yong Hwarin had left behind.
After wiping away about fifty jang of blood, she spotted Lee Yung’s subordinates searching the area in the distance.
“Ah, they’ve caught up!”
Bukri Sehee looked to the sky and spoke with desperate hope.
“If only it would rain at a time like this.”
Just as she muttered that, dark clouds really did gather in the sky, but no rain fell.
Hurriedly, Bukri Sehee redirected the trail of blood elsewhere and sprinted back to the cave.
She reached the cave, but couldn’t enter it. It didn’t seem wide enough for two adults to lie down side by side.
“What should I do…?”
After a moment of hesitation, Bukri Sehee clenched her hands tightly in resolve.
As she roused her meager internal energy, her body began to change.
Woodoodoodook!
It sounded like every joint in her body was breaking. The joints bulged out unnaturally before slipping back in.
Eudeudeudeuk!
Eudeukeudeuk!
A strange noise echoed as Bukri Sehee’s body gradually shrank.
Amazingly, Bukri Sehee was using Chukgolgong.
She had learned only two martial arts techniques.
One was Telepathy, and the other was Chukgolgong.
Chukgolgong brought unbearable pain during use, so it was never used unless in extreme circumstances.
Bukri Sehee had not learned Chukgolgong of her own will.
After about a quarter of an hour of executing Chukgolgong, Bukri Sehee had become someone else.
Having transformed into Bukri Sogun, she clutched her now-oversized clothing and crawled into the cave.
With her body nearly halved in size, entering the cave posed no difficulty.
She blocked the cave entrance with nearby fallen leaves.
Even inside, there was barely enough room for two people to lie down.
Bukri Sehee pressed her ear to Yong Hwarin’s chest.
Sensing how faint his heartbeat was, she drew a dagger and cut her fingertip.
At first, she hesitated and made a shallow cut, and only a few drops of blood fell. Clenching her teeth, she sliced deeper.
“Mm!”
As a chilling sensation scraped past her fingertip, blood flowed in a stream.
Bukri Sehee pried open Yong Hwarin’s mouth and let her blood flow in.
Driven by the thought that she needed to replace the large amount of blood he had lost, she continued feeding him her own.
“Hwarin hyung, don’t die.”
Still in the form of Bukri Sogun, Bukri Sehee whimpered, never removing her finger from Yong Hwarin’s lips.
She felt dizzy.
Feeding him so much blood had made her lightheaded.
Already having spent all her strength bringing Yong Hwarin here, losing so much blood herself made sleep demon overwhelm her.
But as Yong Hwarin’s complexion began to return and his breathing steadied, she let out a sigh of relief.
She had been so desperate to keep him alive, caring for him with such intensity, that she was now too weak to even sit upright.
Bukri Sehee gently stroked Yong Hwarin’s face with her tiny hand and murmured softly.
“Yuyeoncheonliraesanghoe (有緣千里來相會)
Muyeondaemyeonbulsangbong (無緣對面不相逢)”
If two people are destined, they can meet even from a thousand li away.
If not, even face-to-face, they won’t truly meet.
To Bukri Sehee, Yong Hwarin had always felt like the latter.
Even when facing him, they shared no true bond.
But now, she felt it was the former.
She had thought their fate had ended, yet suddenly their bond was being woven again.
‘When did it start? After Grandpa Lee Geuk died, when I had no one to lean on… Young Master Yong-nim cherished me dearly. If it weren’t for him, I would’ve been abducted long ago by those chasing me. While impersonating Bukri Sogun and staying by his side for so long… I grew attached.’
Looking back, it was a funny thing.
‘From the first time I saw him at the inn, I was drawn to him—initially, it was just his gentle face… but as we spent more time together, I came to admire the kind of person he was.’
Bukri Sehee had a unique constitution that, when she consumed spiritual medicine, prevented the energy from dispersing—so she was forced to act as a human elixir.
Since childhood, she lived on spiritual medicines her father brought to her.
She endured it all, believing it was for her father.
But as she grew older, doubt crept in.
The thought that she was being raised like livestock made her heart ache.