Chapter 46 - Episode 8. The Last Romance (2)
Chapter 46: Episode 8. The Last Romance (2)
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“Not quite as good as yours yet, old man.”
The compressed wind pressure warped space with a screech.
Cheongheo stood there with his mouth hanging open.
It was certainly a little inferior to Cheongheo’s own slash. Still, the difference was subtle at best.
Cheongheo had only barely mastered Ordinary Slash after striking a hundred million times. Yet the man before him had mastered it in five days.
“How the hell did you do that?”
Jaehwan did not answer. Still, Cheongheo felt as though he vaguely understood.
He had noticed Jaehwan’s presence changing lately. It had gone from feeling like a pointed awl to a sharp blade. Jaehwan was not even holding a sword, yet it felt as if anyone who approached him would truly be cut.
Perhaps Jaehwan was still practicing thousands of “slashes” against the world itself.
“Anyway, I made a new technique using this.”
“A new technique? What kind of Slash is it?”
“It isn’t a Slash. It’s a Stab.”
Cheongheo’s gaze changed again.
“You learned Slash and made a Stab?”
“Something like this.”
Jaehwan casually assumed a stance, as if loosening up.
It was definitely a Stab, but it held the essence of Slash. He had only taken the stance, yet Cheongheo, an Awakened One, instantly recognized the technique’s potential.
Cheongheo quickly began to think.
“Wait! Have you decided on a name for it?”
“Not yet.”
“You made it by stealing my Slash, so shouldn’t I be the one to name it?”
Jaehwan looked slightly dumbfounded by the brazen claim, but gestured with his chin for Cheongheo to continue.
“How about 「Cheongheo Stab」?”
“Should I make it live up to that name?”
“Hoho, this brat is getting awfully bold...”
Jaehwan drew Dokbul in an instant.
A Stab containing the essence of Slash.
Jaehwan’s wrist moved in a spiral as spiritual power condensed in an instant. As his hand traced a great circle, the curve of Slash began converging into a wedge aimed at a single point.
Cheongheo paled and scrambled away. Jaehwan’s sword did not hesitate.
“Y-You’re really attacking me? You brat who doesn’t even have any respect for the elderly!”
The spiraling sword wind tore through half the training ground as it whirled forward like a tornado. Cheongheo barely escaped the massive storm and stared with his mouth open.
“What kind of single-target technique is that?”
The warriors training in the corner screamed as the aftershock swept them away.
The aftershock did not end there.
Jaehwan’s sword wind rose like a waterspout, then pierced through the training ground’s ceiling.
A moment later, someone screamed.
* * *
[This way.]
Adapters in yellow stealth outfits, with the words Thunder God written across their left shoulders, were sneaking into the Inner Fortress’s underground levels.
[Are you certain the Fortress Lord is in the training ground?]
[Yes.]
They were members of Thunder God Hall, ranked ninth among the Ten Halls of Chaos.
At the center of the group stood Thunder God Hall Master Yoon Yong.
[I’ll ask again. Is the Senior Elder’s report certain?]
It had already been three days since they entered Gorgon after receiving the Senior Elder’s urgent report.
By now, the other Hall Masters should have arrived at the Inner Fortress one by one. Since the Fortress was still quiet, none of the Ten Halls seemed to have started an all-out battle against the Fortress Lord’s side.
[It is certain. They say the Fortress Lord himself put the position of Fortress Lord on the line.]
According to the Senior Elder, the Fortress Lord’s spiritual power was at the level of a 「Non-Adapter」.
The Thunder God Hall Master immediately realized it was a trap.
Gorgon had clearly prepared some underhanded trick.
They had said anyone could come at him, yet that Chief Internal Administrator was controlling the Inner Fortress’s main gate. That alone made it obvious.
Of course, to the Thunder God Hall Master, who excelled at Stealth and surprise attacks, that level of security was no different from having no guards at all.
The Gorgon Fortress Lord had clearly said it.
As long as it was a one-on-one duel.
Then surely an ambush could not be said to be anything other than a duel.
Alongside Black Forest Hall, Thunder God Hall was one of the Ten Halls of Chaos that specialized in skills optimized for assassination. He was the Hall Master of Thunder God Hall.
No matter who the opponent was, if he set his mind to assassination, not even a Fortress Lord could escape him.
The Thunder God Hall Master grinned as he tightly gripped the dagger hidden in his robes.
At last, the chance to fulfill his long-held dream had come.
And it would begin with becoming the Fortress Lord of Gorgon Fortress.
They could call it cowardly if they wished.
To him, this “ambush” was the true one-on-one duel...
“H-Hall Master! Kuaaaagh!”
His subordinate’s scream and the storm that burst through the floor and swallowed him came almost at the same time.
It happened so fast that he could not even draw up his Thunder God Energy.
The dozen or so Adapters, including the Thunder God Hall Master, screamed before collapsing unconscious.
A while later, Cheongheo pulled the Thunder God Hall Master out of the wall.
“What is this? Isn’t this the Thunder God Hall Master?”
As if answering him, the Thunder God Hall Master’s legs twitched with crackling sparks.
Jaehwan nodded.
“Looks like we recruited the first member of the expedition.”
* * *
The Ten Halls of Chaos.
The term referred to the ten Hall factions that ruled the vast Chaos.
Still, being one of the Ten Halls did not mean they were all equal. There was a strict hierarchy even among the Ten Halls.
From first rank to tenth rank.
Those ranks were decided through sparring matches between the Hall Masters representing each faction, or through wars between the factions.
Thunder God Hall was ranked ninth among the Ten Halls of Chaos.
Even if the ninth and tenth ranks changed hands fairly often, the Ten Halls were not called the Ten Halls for nothing.
Thunder God Hall was also a large faction that had quickly risen into the Ten Halls through its tremendous growth, enough to be featured several times in 《Chaos This Month》.
‘It took exactly a hundred years to get this far.’
Thunder God Hall Master Yoon Yong was quite young among the Hall Masters of the Ten Halls of Chaos.
At two hundred and seven years old, Yoon Yong had once been a member of the Flowing Cloud Family household, one of the Five Great Families of the 《Great Realm》.
Strictly speaking, though, calling him a servant would have been more accurate than calling him part of the household.
To be precise, he had been a slave at the very bottom among servants.
Even so, Yoon Yong had been fortunate.
Considering how the Companions who had cleared the Tower with him had been sold off as meat shields on battlefields, it could only be called a miracle that Yoon Yong, whose spiritual power was at the level of a 「Non-Adapter」, had survived even as a slave of a great family.
Yoon Yong knew his place, and he lived diligently according to it.
To survive, he dragged out a life worse than death.
By the time he had worked for around a hundred years, most of the slaves who had once been his Companions were dead. Yoon Yong had survived.
He earned the head steward’s trust and became an official servant.
Yet on the day he became an official servant, Yoon Yong rebelled against his fate for the first time.
He could not spend the rest of his life living like this.
Yoon Yong traded away the hundred years of trust he had built and raided the Flowing Cloud Family’s secret manual vault.
Despite getting past the tight security, the skill he managed to steal was only mid-grade among the Flowing Cloud Family’s secret manuals. Even so, it was a supreme-grade skill throughout the 《Great Realm》.
The Flowing Cloud Family’s Thunder God Art.
A secret art of the Flowing Cloud Family that caused Thunder God Energy to run through the entire body the moment one learned it, restoring every cell to youth. Once proficiency in the skill exceeded eight stars, its user could wield the Thunder God’s power freely.
Although stealing Thunder God Art led to him being hunted by the Flowing Cloud Family’s Adapters for over twenty years before he was eventually slaughtered, it was thanks to that art that he had seized a place at the bottom of the 《Chaos》 Ten Halls.
Reaching ninth rank among the Ten Halls of Chaos in only a hundred years.
Even in the entire history of Chaos, it was a record with almost no precedent.
Yet before him stood a man who had lived only about half as long as those hundred years.
And that man’s position was the Fortress Lord of 《Chaos》.
How could that possibly make sense?
Someone spoke to the stunned Thunder God Hall Master Yoon Yong.
“Tsk, tsk. How did someone like you end up being the first?”
“...”
“You were always scheming with those little tricks of yours. I knew this day would come.”
“...Why are you here, Divine Doctor?”
“Someone has to treat fools like you too.”
The Thunder God Hall Master recovered from the shock so quickly thanks to Cheongheo’s treatment.
There was a reason Cheongheo was called the greatest Divine Doctor in Chaos.
“Who the hell is that man?”
The Thunder God Hall Master looked at Jaehwan, who stood in the center of the training ground beneath the hole in its ceiling, repeatedly practicing Stab.
“He’s the Gorgon Fortress Lord.”
“I have never heard of someone like him, not in Chaos or even in the Great Realm.”
“That goes for me too.”
“That is why I’m asking. Does this make any sense?”
“It doesn’t.”
Cheongheo nodded and added,
“Nothing about that bastard makes sense.”
Yoon Yong’s eyebrows twitched.
Had the Divine Doctor of Despair ever described anyone that way before?
Whether it was the competitive spirit of a man who had spent a hundred years rising through the ranks or the pride of an old martial artist, he could not say.
One thing was certain.
“I can win if we fight again.”
He could not accept the outcome like this.
“I may not look it, but I am the Thunder God Hall Master. I was caught off guard earlier, but...”
“A man who is quietly kneeling sure does yap a lot.”
At Cheongheo’s mockery, Yoon Yong shifted into a cross-legged position and shouted,
“Anyway, that does not count! What kind of coward attacks before the fight even begins?”
“Who was the one who infiltrated this place to assassinate someone first? You have some nerve.”
At Cheongheo’s words, the Thunder God Hall Master’s hair rose like bolts of lightning.
“Assassination? That is absurd!”
Then Jaehwan, who was standing in the center of the training ground, spoke.
“Fine.”
At Jaehwan’s unexpected response, color returned to the Thunder God Hall Master’s face.
“What do you mean, fine?”
“Come at me again.”
Jaehwan silently drew Dokbul.
The Thunder God Hall Master stood with a triumphant smile.
The attack that had struck him earlier must have belonged to the Divine Doctor.
Long ago, he had seen the Divine Doctor of Despair’s Slash.
It had been a Slash comparable to the supreme-grade skills of the Hall Masters of the Ten Halls of Chaos. The sword wind that had struck him resembled that Slash.
“This time, it will be a fair fight.”
Yoon Yong took two short blades from his robes and spoke as if driving in a nail.
Thunder God Energy immediately surged through his entire body.
“If you say so.”
“Hehe. You agreed, so it is too late to regret it now.”
The pitiful young Fortress Lord still did not seem to know his place.
This time, he would not let his guard down.
He would push his supreme-grade skill, Thunder God Art, to its limit and slaughter him in a single stroke.
Like this...
“Kuaaaaaagh!”
Cheongheo clicked his tongue as he watched the Thunder God Hall Master fly high into the sky.
“I’ve been seeing the sky a lot lately.”
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion