Free Web NovelPeople are raining down like rain.
It sounds absurd, but that absurd sight is unfolding right before Jo Gul’s eyes.
His face twisted in horror at the sight of the black-clad figures descending so densely they covered the narrow strip of visible sky.
“Damn it! There definitely weren’t this many up there!”
When he and Yoon Jong scouted, it was certainly not this many.
Occasional sharp killing intent could be felt, but the numbers were by no means large.
Yoon Jong also bit his lip in bewilderment.
There is only one case where this could happen: they had massed in ambush on the far side of the mountain, not the top.
But Yoon Jong had not considered that possibility.
No, there was no need to even consider it.
The enemy was few in number and had already secured perfectly advantageous terrain.
Why would such people bother with an elaborate trap?
They could have simply crushed them by force.
Yet they had dug that trap anyway.
Only then did Yoon Jong understand what he had missed.
‘They are desperate, too.’
This is different from before.
Until now, Mount Hua mostly faced opponents stronger than Mount Hua itself.
Therefore, Mount Hua had always been the one to take the enemy by surprise.
But now the positions have reversed. freeweɓnovel.cøm
They do not underestimate Mount Hua as those they faced before did.
They are using every method available, even luring complacency, trying to tear them apart thoroughly.
Even though they plainly know these are not the real Mount Hua, practically they are the Southern Island sect members with a few from the Heavenly Friends Alliance added.
Because they did not know that change, that desperate resolve, they missed what they must not have missed.
“Damn it!”
Jo Gul’s fierce shout rang out.
Jo Gul is impatient, not stupid.
There is no way he didn’t know what Yoon Jong had realized.
“Move!”
When Jo Gul finally lowered his stance and prepared to leap upward, Yoon Jong barked sternly.
“Jo Gul!”
Jo Gul gritted his teeth and turned to Yoon Jong.
“Sahyung, this is...!”
“It’s in the past! Do what you must now. Protect Southern Island Sect’s disciples!”
“But there are too many enemies!”
“Do it!”
Yoon Jong, who crushed Jo Gul’s fierce resistance in an instant, lifted his head.
He saw two figures soaring up.
Chung Myung, and Yu Yiseol.
The two were advancing toward the raining enemies.
“If it’s those two, they’ll surely do something! They will!”
Gale-force wind sweeping the gorge battered Chung Myung’s entire body.
His plain clothes flapped wildly.
But Chung Myung’s speed did not slow in the least.
Each step setting foot on the cliff face was powerful.
Meanwhile, those descending the cliff screamed as soon as they spotted Chung Myung.
“Drop him!”
“Ughaaaaaah!”
Moon-blades, shortened in length and thickened for maximum efficiency in close combat, were swung all at once.
Thick bladed weapons flew chaotically toward Chung Myung.
Kwa-ga-ga-gak! Kwaaaang! Kwak!
The flying blades struck the cliff face one after another.
On the untouched cliff face, large marks were carved as if a giant demon had raked it with claws.
But Chung Myung, who those blades should have crushed, had already leapt to the opposite cliff.
It was an insanely swift movement.
A normal enemy would have been thrown into panic.
But the black-clad men were not surprised at all; as if they had expected it, they swung their blades again.
Shwaaaiiiing!
Blades launched by dozens of black-clad men once again flew fiercely toward Chung Myung.
The attack was absurdly excessive for stopping just one person.
Yet those who poured out the attack did not think it excessive at all.
Because they already knew.
Who they were facing now.
Mount Hua’s Sword Saint Chung Myung.
Against a name that high, the notion of ‘excessive’ does not even exist.
At least within the Four Sects Alliance!
Before the blades charged with that great resolve, Chung Myung’s eyes emitted a sudden icy blue chill.
Front, back, left, right.
They were completely covering every place Chung Myung could move to.
No matter where he retreated, there was nowhere to escape.
They say even if the sky falls, there’s always a hole to escape through.
Perhaps that’s true.
But in this gorge, even that sky is narrow beyond measure.
Paaaah!
At that desperate moment, Chung Myung chose the very front where the blades flew.
“T-taoist!!”
Namgung Do-Wei cried out a scream upon seeing that scene from below.
A suicidal act.
There was no other way to see it.
Just avoiding those countless blades while clinging to the cliff was already absurd.
But in the air!
How on earth could one hover in midair and stop those blades!
But as Chung Myung’s sword then unfolded, Namgung Do-Wei’s mouth fell shut as if silenced.
Paaaah!
The Dark Fragrant Plum Blossom Sword was swung at the incoming blades.
Thud!
Each massive blade collided head-on with Chung Myung’s thin sword.
By all reason, Chung Myung’s body should have been thrown backward...
No, he should have been hurled downward.
But at that moment the sword smoothly rotated and instead Chung Myung’s body soared upward even more.
It was absurd, as if the blades coming head-on had somehow pushed his back upward.
Namgung Do-Wei’s eyes widened.
“Th-that!”
Even seeing it, he couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
No, he could understand it, but could not believe it.
The pinnacle art of Repulsion of Qi.
It’s the supreme level of internal qi skill that reverses the opponent’s force against them.
Not merely redirecting the opponent’s force, but using that force as desired, such subtlety.
The Repulsion of Qi technique, combined with the soft style of swordsmanship, had elevated Plum Blossom Island to a standing nearly equal to Shaolin, and that very technique was now unfolding through Chung Myung.
To a level that would shock even the adepts of the Wudang.
‘How?’
A jolt as if struck by lightning ran through Namgung Do-Wei’s whole body.
If you examine it, Repulsion of Qi is not such an extraordinary trick.
Isn’t turning an opponent’s qi against them one of the first things a martial artist learns after the basics?
Still, the reason Repulsion of Qi is called a transcendent skill is because, though simple in principle, it’s nearly impossible to execute in real combat.
But Chung Myung perfectly manifested that subtlety with his sword.
He entirely deflected the opponent’s force behind his body and converted that recoil into forward thrust.
Even knowing it, one cannot understand it; even seeing it, one cannot believe it.
Namgung Do-Wei, who had experienced Plum Blossom Island, trained with the Heavenly Friends Alliance, and endured brutal real combat in this southern region, knew what it meant.
What it meant to use that sword in real combat.
How incredible it is to lift oneself in empty air with nowhere to set a foot, using only the opponent’s force.
Paaat! Paaaah!
Chung Myung flowed the blades off his sword and moved forward.
From one blade to another, each bounce of his sword increased his speed.
By the time he exited the forest of blades, his form almost looked like a black lightning.
“F-fucking crazy!”
Shock and terror swept the eyes of those watching from above.
There was no way a person could escape from that onslaught of blades.
Yet that impossible path had clearly opened now.
As if the blades themselves turned to open a path for Chung Myung.
Finally, after striking down the last blade, Chung Myung’s body shot upward at light speed.
“Ugh!”
Someone who saw Chung Myung flying forward reflexively raised a blade to shield their body.
But at that moment Chung Myung’s sword was swung with an entirely different momentum than before.
From below to above, it was a fierce, unrestrained motion.
Paaaah!
The Dark Fragrant Plum Blossom Sword collided head-on with a black-clad man’s blade driven by internal qi.
Kwaaaang!
With a thunderous sound that could burst eardrums, the black-clad man’s body, cleaved in two by the strike, was thrown at terrifying speed and smashed into the cliff.
Having split the black-clad man in an instant, Chung Myung plunged between the descending figures and twisted his waist.
Paaaaaang!
The waist that had been fully twisted snapped back, and the sword in his hand traced a circle like a sun high in the sky.
Everything within the radius of that circle was cut down in an instant.
Those whose necks were severed died without even a moment to scream; those whose limbs were torn off had to clutch their wounds and scream in midair with nowhere to stand.
“Aaaaaaah!”
But Chung Myung, without time to catch his breath, thrust his sword into the chest of a screaming man.
Only half a palm.
Chung Myung pierced just shy of the heart, then forcefully pulled the sword down, using the recoil to launch himself into the air again.
A momentary look of dread flashed across the black-clad men’s eyes.
They had attacked those below countless times.
But had they ever sparred with someone in midair like this? freёwebnovel.com
All their brutal training and life-risking practice were useless at this moment.
Screech! Screech! Screech!
Chung Myung moved his sword in midair.
Three black-clad men’s carotid arteries were pierced without an inch of error.
Stepping on a black-clad man’s bent torso, Chung Myung leaped again.
“Ggrr, grrk...”
Poisonous intent boiled in the eyes of the black-clad man clutching his throat.
He had no path left but death.
Resolved to take Chung Myung to the afterlife with him, he swung his blade.
Or rather, he tried to swing.
But at that moment, sharp pain stabbed into the wrist holding the blade.
Screech!
The hand gripping the blade was sliced clean off from the body.
The black-clad man stared dumbfounded at the sight.
Something black brushed past him and shot upward.
‘Mount, Mount Hua’s...?’
Even as his consciousness dimmed, that intense figure seemed imprinted in his eyes.
A female swordsman with a cold gaze stepped on his chest and pursued Chung Myung, who had already shot upward.
As if escorting him.
Chung Myung rose higher and higher.
Without ever falling a moment, only upward.
Thus, in an instant Chung Myung rose higher than the gorge, higher than where the black-clad men had leapt from.
Stepping out of the gorge, the previously narrow sky opened wide.
Leaping high into the firmament, Chung Myung spun his body and stomped the air.
And accelerated downward.
Whaaaargh!
Countless plum blossoms burst forth from the tip of Chung Myung’s extended sword.
As if plum trees growing between the cliffs bloomed all at once, red plum blossoms endlessly blossomed in the narrow gorge sky.
A red sword aura, more blood-tinged than Chung Myung usually showed, blossomed all at once.
The fiercely deployed opening of the 24 Movement Plum Blossom Sword Technique, the Plum Blossom Blood Rain form, poured down over the heads of the descending black-clad men.
As if craving yet another blood.
