novelraw Chapter 57 : Chapter 57
Chapter 57 : Chapter 57
Chapter 57 - Consider Yourself Lucky
“Body Shifting. That kind of thing is all bullshit.”
Whenever he learned footwork, Uma would say so and spit.
No matter how fast a movement is, how could one instantly switch places with an opponent?
He thought it was definitely an exaggeration by storytellers who loved to boast.
But at this very moment.
Uma had to overturn his thoughts.
An extremely fast movement was no different from having switched places.
An illusion created because the eyes could not follow.
It was literally no different from a fantasy.
“Eek!”
Belying the leisure he had shown a moment ago, Han Ryeong distorted his face and slashed his sword diagonally.
Biyoung thrust out his scabbard with an indifferent face.
‘Stupid fool!’
Although his eyes did not open properly due to the pain, Han Ryeong inwardly cheered.
Regardless of the movement, there was no way a green young punk could block the sword of someone who had accumulated cultivation for over twenty years.
Either the scabbard would be shattered, or he would lose his grip on the scabbard along with his hand.
With that thought, Han Ryeong pushed a vast amount of internal energy into the hand holding the sword.
Kaaang!
“?!”
However.
This time too, the result Han Ryeong had expected did not happen.
Han Ryeong’s arm had returned to the position it was in before he struck down with the sword.
Unable to withstand the recoil of the sword being blocked by that punk, his own sword had been flung away.
‘How can this be……!’
A bluish sword aura still lingered on his blade.
As if to protest that the previous blow was by no means shabby.
However, Biyoung's expression, having blocked and even returned the attack, was utterly serene.
Beyond serene, a cold smile was playing on his lips.
“Senior Brother!”
While Han Ryeong was regaining his grip on his numb hand, Biyoung shouted to Uma.
“Why all of a sudden?”
“Consider yourself lucky! Because it’s something the other senior brothers haven’t seen.”
Simultaneously with those words, Biyoung raised his sword upright.
“!”
The flow of the air began to change.
It was a change that not only Han Ryeong, who was facing Biyoung, but also Uma and the masked men watching from a distance could feel.
How could just holding the sword properly give this kind of feeling?
‘That is…….’
Uma, in particular, could not take his eyes off Biyoung's stance.
It was a very familiar sight.
Because it was the basic movement of the swordsmanship he had practiced until his hands were raw after being exiled from Simao.
The swordsmanship that proved the Diancang Sect had not yet perished, and at the same time, the very swordsmanship that had endlessly frustrated him with its incomplete form.
The foundation and beginning of the Diancang Sect's swordsmanship, the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords.
Biyoung's stance was precisely the basic movement of that Eagle Talon Twelve Swords.
Swaaaeaeaek!
Biyoung rushed towards Han Ryeong like a flash.
Uma instinctively realized that the footwork also resembled the Flying Eagle Steps.
Resembled?
If Biyoung had read Uma’s thoughts, he would have smiled bitterly.
Who resembled whom?
The Flying Eagle Steps unfolding from Biyoung’s feet right now were the original version of the Diancang Sect.
The Flying Eagle Steps that the Diancang Sect had learned in Simao were utterly incomplete.
Uma was witnessing the perfect form of the Flying Eagle Steps and the infinitely refined Eagle Talon Twelve Swords before his very eyes.
“Ha!”
Paak!
“Keuak!”
First form.
“Haap!”
Peo-eok!
“Kuek!”
Second form.
And endless repetition.
With each form that unfolded, Uma had to watch, spellbound.
What on earth had he been learning all this time?
It was clear even from a casual glance that Biyoung’s sword was far more refined than his own.
The sword forms he cut and thrust were mostly far from flashy.
One reason was that it was the sect's basic swordsmanship, but fundamentally, the style of swordsmanship the Diancang Sect pursued was this very thing.
Quick sword.
But in Uma's eyes, Biyoung's Eagle Talon Twelve Swords did not feel simple.
Various variations that only those who had learned the forms could recognize were unfolding before his eyes.
“Euracha!”
“Kwaaek!”
Each of the swordsmanship Biyoung embroidered seemed like a work of art, and Uma felt as if his eyes were feasting.
Others might not, but for Uma, who had trained in the distorted Eagle Talon Twelve Swords for years, it came across as even more special.
He had been wrestling with an unsolvable problem for years, and right here was the clear answer.
‘That bastard. Perhaps for my sake…….’
It was a kind of consideration for his senior brother of the Diancang Sect.
He could have just knocked down Han Ryeong with a single stroke, but Biyoung was kindly and carefully beating Han Ryeong's body with the forms of the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords, just enough not to kill him.
Was he feeling sorry for calling him every time there was dirty work to be done?
At that thought, Uma’s eyes, which had always been sharp, softened a little.
“Keuaaak!”
The problem was that the moment that could be a consideration for someone could be the worst moment of another's life.
Han Ryeong, who was being beaten here and there just enough not to lose consciousness, just enough not to die, was seized with the thought that this might be hell.
No matter how he swung his sword, it wouldn't reach.
Moreover, he could not block the opponent's sword.
Biyoung's handiwork was beating his body with an ambiguous intensity, to the point where he wished his consciousness would be cleanly blown away.
“What, what are you doing! Join in at once!”
At the cry of Han Hoe, who could not bear to watch any longer, the masked men exchanged glances.
They were not supposed to move without Han Ryeong’s order, but at this rate, the person who was supposed to give the order was on the verge of leaving this world.
“Strike!”
About ten masked men finally rushed towards Biyoung.
Although not as skilled as Han Ryeong, each one possessed an extraordinary aura.
It was when Uma felt a sense of crisis and was about to draw his sword.
“Don’t move!”
Uma’s movement froze like stone at Biyoung’s shout.
The boy’s gaze turned to the rushing masked men.
Han Ryeong was already barely holding his sword, looking no different from a living corpse.
It was a miserable sight that even Eung Gajin, who had been beaten up during sparring in Simao, would have to concede.
“Hap!”
Faster than the rushing men, Biyoung thrust his sword towards the middle of the group.
“Reckless……!”
Uma's eyes widened in fright.
Jumping into the middle of a group of enemies was no different from a suicide act.
Even if he managed to subdue the first few somehow, it would be difficult to dodge all the swords coming from behind.
But a moment later, Uma had to realize that his thoughts were wrong.
Chwaaaaak!
“Keuaaaak!”
With a single stroke, half of the group soared into the sky.
There were no flashy forms or complex variations in it.
He had just executed Skyward Uplifting Slash, a representative rushing technique of the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords that slashes diagonally upwards from below.
“!”
Both Han Hoe and Uma's eyes widened at that blow.
But in terms of shock, Uma was on a whole other level.
Because that form, Skyward Uplifting Slash, was something Uma also knew very well.
‘Skyward Uplifting Slash? That’s it?’
The same Skyward Uplifting Slash, but different.
It sounded strange, but it was true.
Skyward Uplifting Slash was known as the simplest form within the Diancang Sect's basic swordsmanship, the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords.
So much so that when he first learned Skyward Uplifting Slash, he had grumbled, ‘This is just stabbing upwards, isn't it?’
But the Skyward Uplifting Slash Biyoung was showing now was as different as heaven and earth, just like the characters in the technique's name.
How could such a tyrannical aura be contained in the swordsmanship of the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords, and in its simplest form at that?
‘How embarrassing.’
Although his complexion did not change, Uma felt his face grow hot.
He was indescribably ashamed of his past self, who had lamented that he could not survive in the Jianghu with the Eagle Talon Twelve Swords alone.
A well-honed and refined Eagle Talon Twelve Swords was a martial art that shone on its own.
Biyoung was demonstrating that fact without reservation while subduing the masked men.
Kwang!
Peobeok!
“Keok!”
He stabs deeply, turns his body, and slashes while rotating.
He dodges the opponent's sword by a hair's breadth, or, while still blocking, thrusts out and stabs a vital point.
With the clean and unadorned Eagle Talon Twelve Swords, it took less than a minute for all the masked men to be knocked down.
‘How can this be……!’
Han Hoe, who was watching Biyoung, had a completely horrified face.
He already knew well that he was an unpredictable master.
But since the men of Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes were also of no ordinary skill, it was true that he had held a hope in a corner of his heart.
He had earnestly wished in his heart for his cousin and the swordsmen of Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes to subdue Biyoung, but that hope was mercilessly extinguished like a candle in a typhoon.
“Brother. Get a hold of yourself!”
Han Hoe ran with quick steps and shook Han Ryeong’s body.
However, far from coming to his senses, Han Ryeong dropped the sword he was holding.
The body that had been holding on with sheer grit had completely lost control.
“Eing. He fainted in the end. His mental strength is weaker than I thought?”
“…………!”
The one who had turned Han Ryeong’s body into a bloody pulp.
At Biyoung’s words, Han Hoe felt his blood boil.
‘You devil-like bastard! Is that what you say after turning a person into a living corpse!’
But Han Hoe’s thoughts did not come out of his mouth.
Because after drawing his sword, Biyoung's atmosphere seemed to have completely changed.
How could such a tyrannical aura flow from this young boy whose blood had not even dried?
Not just his expression or atmosphere, but a stinging, formless energy was encroaching on Han Hoe's entire body.
Biyoung stared at Han Ryeong and gestured with his chin.
“What are you doing? Carry him.”
“Wha-what?”
“Carry your brother. You think we will?”
“Ah……!”
Han Hoe came to his senses and hoisted his cousin onto his back.
He did not want to do as they pleased, but he could not leave his half-crippled brother on the cold ground.
“I went easy on him. I didn't think he would actually faint.”
“Anyone would think you were trying to kill him.”
“Hey. If I were, it would have ended long ago.”
“That’s true.”
At the two men's absurd conversation, he wanted to cover his ears, but Han Hoe’s hands were not free as he was carrying his cousin.
Following the two men while carrying a sturdy man on his back felt like being a slave.
‘Where are they taking us?’
As the shock of his brother's helpless defeat roughly subsided, Han Hoe's eyes began to fill with their characteristic intelligence again.
They say that if you keep your wits about you, you can survive even in a tiger's den.
It might be different elsewhere, but here in Yiliang County, there was no place that the eyes of the Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes did not reach.
It was deeply regrettable that Han Ryeong had been defeated, but when you thought about it, Han Ryeong was not the top master of the Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes.
There were those with superior skills who held the position of ‘Second Line Leader’.
‘No matter where they hide, people will come to rescue my brother.’
Thinking so, some strength began to return to his legs, which felt as heavy as a thousand catties.
Whether it was an inn or a tavern, they would surely try to find his brother even if it meant tearing down the building.
He resolved that the top priority was to assist Han Ryeong in regaining his senses until then.
“We’re here.”
However.
This time too, Han Hoe’s expectations were brutally shattered.
Because the place where Biyoung’s feet had stopped was a family that even the Syndicate of Ten Thousand Eyes could not possibly touch.
“Thi…… this place is……!”
The calligraphy of Dragon-and-Snake Soaring written on the large plaque seemed to express their pride, and the red gate below, large enough to make one's jaw drop, naturally intimidated anyone who saw it.
The largest manor in Yiliang County.
“The, the Yi Family Clan?”
The place where Han Hoe’s steps had stopped was none other than the Yi family's residence.