Editor: Hoamz
Co-Translator: Xoxo
The sensation of the sword tip dullly piercing through something filled Baek Cheon’s whole body with a shudder.
Udeudeuk.
The refined cold iron sword had finally pierced through flesh as hard as steel and as tough as glue.
Baek Cheon, who was staring blankly at his own sword that had split the giant’s body, suddenly lifted his gaze.
He wanted to see with his own eyes the expression that damned Black Dragon King would make in his final moment.
But what Baek Cheon saw at that moment was not the eyes of a beast resigned to death.
Rather, it was the burning eyes of a fierce beast, wounded and about to go on a rampage.
Kwaaaaang!
Baek Cheon’s body was flung backward.
“Kuha… aaaaaak!”
Udeudeuk!
Black Dragon King Jeok Segwang grasped Baek Cheon’s cold iron sword embedded in his belly with the hand holding his guan dao. He intended to break it, but the sword didn’t catch well in his grip, and being a cold iron sword, it wouldn’t break immediately as he wished. Instead, it only tore up his insides more.
At last, along with roaring with rage, Black Dragon King ripped the sword from his own flesh in one pull.
Pahat!
Dark blood gushed out from the gaping hole. Black Dragon King roughly threw the pulled-out sword and glared at those surrounding him with hatred and venom.
“How dare… How dare these little brats…”
Those who live by the sword must always be prepared for the day one pierces their own throat.
Black Dragon King Jeok Segwang was not such a fool as to believe that he would never die.
But he never imagined he would be cornered to the crossroads of life and death surrounded by such youngsters. Who could have thought such a thing?
“Ugh…”
Kwadeuk.
Black Dragon King grabbed the wound on his solar plexus and pressed down as if crushing it. It was an exceedingly rough way of stopping the bleeding. There was no time to calmly pressure points and seal the wound.
Black Dragon King’s eye corners and whites turned fiery red.
“I… I! This Jeok Segwang… Do you think I’ll die in a place like thiiiis!”
Letting out a roar, he swung his guan dao in one breath. The dark ink-like energy that erupted flew in a straight line toward the collapsed Baek Cheon.
Just before the ink-like energy could engulf Baek Cheon, Yoo Iseol, who had flown in like a bird of prey, grabbed Baek Cheon’s shoulder and rolled her body.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
“You bastard!”
“Calm down, Jo-Gol!”
Jo-Gol clenched his teeth and was about to rush in at Black Dragon King, but Baek Cheon, sprawled on the ground, lifted his head and shouted urgently.
“The injured… Cough! Cough! The injured side is him! Don’t let him escape! Don’t rashly charge in and give him an opportunity!”
At Baek Cheon’s words, the sword warriors of Mount Hua and Hye Yeon were the first to react.
Suppressing their excitement with effort, they tightened the encirclement around Black Dragon King even more densely. As if determined to absolutely prevent Black Dragon King from escaping this place, just as Baek Cheon had said.
“Heuaaaaa!”
Black Dragon King’s guan dao once again erupted with a great ink-like energy.
“Amitabha!”
Hye Yeon sent out a massive fist force that struck against the incoming ink-like energy and deflected its path. Even though it was a strike into which Black Dragon King had poured all his strength.
Kwaaaaang!
The energy he had launched slammed into the ground and shattered to pieces. Black Dragon King’s eyes fluttered.
Not because his attack had been blocked. Not because the power of the energy he unleashed had become pathetically weak.
But because those who had blocked his attack still remained calm, continuing to encircle and press in on him.
He had tried to feign excitement as usual to create an opening, but they were not being drawn in at all. These bastards were now beginning to respond like seasoned hunters.
“This…”
Black Dragon King, biting his lips, shouted.
“You so-called Righteous Sects bastards! Aren’t you ashamed?”
It was an obvious provocation. A petty stratagem of provocation not worth responding to.
Hearing that, Jo-Gol let out a snicker.
“Hah. Now that I think about it, this is quite a funny situation.”
“Wha- What? You bastard!”
Though his mouth was smiling, his eyes were nothing but calm.
“In the past, I might’ve gotten riled up by words like that. But thanks to the water fortress, I’ve learned deep in my bones just how childish that kind of thinking is.”
Jo-Gol, having said that, sought agreement without even turning his head.
“Isn’t that right, Sahyung?”
“…I still flinch every time I see a net. I haven’t even gone near the water since that time.”
Jo-Gol chuckled at Yoon Jong’s indifferent words. Though his mouth held a smile, his eyes never left Black Dragon King for a moment.
These weren’t just words spoken in jest.
On the Yangtze River, they had realized it to their very core. How meaningless it is to discuss cowardice on the battlefield. How dangerous it is to overestimate one’s own martial arts.
And above all, how scary it was to be surrounded.
Without those experiences, they could never have grown as much as they had now. And so…
“This is the method I learned from you, Black Dragon King.”
“…”
“So give up. You will never escape.”
Jo-Gol, who bared his teeth with hostility and mockery, Yoon Jong, who was calmly watching Black Dragon King, Yoo Iseol, watching with cold eyes like a predator eyeing its prey, and Hye Yeon, wearing a conflicted expression.
Finally, Baek Cheon’s determined face as he rose from where he had fallen and approached.
The expression on Black Dragon King Jeok Segwang’s face, taking all of them into his field of vision, gradually began to change.
Even Isong Baek and Jin Geumryong were struggling to raise their bodies and join them.
The blazing anger on Jeok Segwang’s face slowly but clearly began to transform into a different emotion.
He was beginning to realize it instinctively.
No matter how many subordinates were here, even if the water fortress’s forces that could kill all these bastards before him and more were still intact, they could not save Black Dragon King’s life.
The rabble filling the surroundings was of no help whatsoever in this situation.
The question that had been slowly creeping up from a while ago naturally deepened.
‘Why…? Why haven’t they come yet! Why!’
They should have arrived by now. The leaders of the Eighteen Water Fortress of the Yantze River, moving with their subordinates. Not the rabble here, but the real executives of the water fortress.
Then why, when the situation had come to this, had they not shown even a trace of themselves? They couldn’t possibly not have heard the news that he was under attack?
“Eueugh…”
Black Dragon King’s hand holding the guan dao trembled slightly.
His breath grew rough. Agonizing pain surged from the wounds covering his body. Among them, the most fatal was undoubtedly the wound from that pale-faced bastard’s sword piercing his solar plexus.
Like water leaking from a cracked vessel, his internal strength wouldn’t gather properly. The sword that pierced his abdomen had surely grazed his Dantian.
Could he escape? From this place?
Black Dragon King clutched his beloved weapon tightly. He tried to appear bold, but his eyes trembled finely.
At that moment, Yoon Jong slightly stepped forward and pressed Black Dragon King.
Black Dragon King, who had unconsciously tried to step back, bit his lips hard.
“My method… you say.”
A menacing aura soon overflowed from his eyes.
“Do you even know what my method is, you maggot-like bastards!”
Kwaaaaang!
Black Dragon King charged straight towards Baek Cheon.
“I am Black Dragon King! Even if I die, I won’t die alone! You damn Mount Hua bastards!”
Baek Cheon, who had lost his sword, could not bring out his full skill. If Black Dragon King had to choose a victim, the choice was obvious.
But the problem was that the others had also already guessed Black Dragon King’s choice.
“Obvious move!”
Jo-Gol blocked Baek Cheon’s front as if he had been waiting. His sword shot out toward the Black Dragon King like a beam of light.
“Keuhaaaaaaap!”
But upon seeing the sword shooting toward him, Black Dragon King didn’t retreat but instead charged forward even faster like a mad bull. He rammed into Jo-Gol as if he were a man determined to die.
Jo-Gol was momentarily taken aback.
‘What?’
Puuk!
Jo-Gol’s sword pierced Black Dragon King’s chest.
Kwaaaaang!
At the same time, Black Dragon King struck the flustered Jo-Gol directly with his shaft. Caught off guard by the unexpected attack, Jo-Gol vomited blood and was flung away.
“Keuheok!”
Black Dragon King breathed roughly and coughed. More than a bowlful of fresh blood poured out, but his momentum didn’t diminish in the slightest. He glared at Baek Cheon with eyes full of killing intent and charged.
“Stop!”
Yoo Iseol and Yoon Jong moved urgently and slashed across Black Dragon King’s body. Two streams of blood were drawn in the air. They were fierce strikes that severed bone and carved flesh.
But Black Dragon King moved without stopping.
“Acting Sect Leader!”
The moment Isong Baek and Jin Geumryong blocked the front of Baek Cheon and Namgung Dowi, Black Dragon King’s guan dao was swung with all his might.
Giiiiiiing!
“Ueuaaaaaat!”
Black Dragon King’s arm swelled as if it would burst any moment from the gathered power. The power that had gathered in that way was released from the edge of the guan dao in an instant.
Kwaaaaaaa!
Isong Baek and Jin Geumryong planted their feet like the roots of great trees and clenched their teeth. They swung their swords with full force at the oncoming ink-like energy.
Kuuuung!
But the enemy’s power was too great for them to counter with their hastily gathered internal strength. Unable to fully withstand the surging ink-like energy, the two were helplessly pushed back, step by step.
“Aaahk!”
The two who had stubbornly resisted to the very end were finally swept away by the ink-like energy like a rope stretched to its limit finally snapping.
Kwadangtang!
Baek Cheon and Namgung Dowi were caught up with the two tumbling bodies and were flung down in shambles.
In the process, the rope with which Baek Cheon had bound Namgung Dowi to himself snapped. Namgung Dowi’s limp body rolled here and there like a leaf swept up in a typhoon.
Black Dragon King now attacked frantically, unleashing his madness and ferocity without filter.
“Diiieeeeeee!”
“Acting Sect Leeaadeeeeeeeeer!”
Desperate, Hye Yeon launched a strike with all his might.
Then he saw it.
Black Dragon King Jeok Segwang, who had been running wild as if abandoning the will to live, turned his gaze the moment Hye Yeon’s fist force was unleashed and stared straight at it.
None. Nowhere in those eyes was there any madness. Nor was there any sign of agitation.
All that could be seen was a gaze sunk cold as ice.
“We- We’ve been had…!”
Kuuuuuuung!
Before Hye Yeon could even finish screaming, Black Dragon King, struck by the fist force, spewed blood as he was flung away. Soaring right over Baek Cheon and his group, who were sprawled on the ground.
“Noooooooo!”
A cry like a scream burst from Yoon Jong’s mouth.
He doesn’t block. He doesn’t even think to evade.
Because he never intended to evade from the start.
Even with his life half severed, Black Dragon King had been searching for a way to survive until the very end.
Kuung!
Sure enough, the Black Dragon King, who had been sent flying over ten zhang, pushed off the ground with his one remaining hand as soon as he crashed down.
Even as blood poured endlessly from his seven orifices, he dragged himself half-crawling half-rolling.
‘…Survive!’
It didn’t matter if his limbs were severed. It didn’t matter if he lost his martial arts and became a cripple.
The one thing he learned in this vicious Kangho: opportunity always comes to those who survive.
Nothing was given to the dead. No matter how magnificent that death, no matter how great the glory.
Any opportunity can ultimately only be grasped by the living.
‘Live…’
His legs swayed unsteadily as they touched the ground. Though his body was no different from a half-corpse, exhausted and gravely injured, he squeezed out his last bit of strength and raised it up.
When at last he managed to stand upright, the world spread wide before his eyes. He could see his subordinates rushing toward him at full speed.
His breath came easier. The scent of life wafted to him instead of the smell of blood.
Now if he could just run out like this, he could survive. He could take any number of sword strikes aimed at his back.
“Eueu… Euaaaaaaaak!”
It was just when Black Dragon King was about to kick off the ground with all his might.
Flinch!
His body suddenly convulsed as if struck by lightning, and then he froze.
“Eu…”
No one could have understood.
Not even Baek Cheon and the Mount Hua disciples could see it. All they could see was Black Dragon King’s back.
But the pirates running toward him saw it clearly.
The sight of the blood draining from Black Dragon King’s face, which had been filled with the joy of being able to survive. And thus the sight of it being colored with panic, frustration, and despair.
“Y- You…”
Black Dragon King stared blankly at the land spread out before him.
No, what he was seeing wasn’t the land, nor the pirates filling it, but something beyond.
He couldn’t help but sense it intuitively.
What lay beyond was not life.
It was the death he had struggled so desperately to avoid.
“Eu… Eugh….”
Only then did he understand. Why the fortress leaders not coming. Why had he been driven to such a state.
Who was standing at the end of that seemingly bright world.
But knowing wouldn’t change anything.
“Euaaaaaaaaaak!”
Black Dragon King spun around like lightning. His terror-stricken eyes darted about, unable to find a place to rest, until at last they fixed upon those collapsed on the ground.
Kwaaang!
He stomped the earth. His only path to survival lay there.
“The- There…!”
His one remaining hand stretched out, even casting aside his guan dao. Toward the neck of Baek Cheon, who lay fallen in a half-conscious state. Everything he had was staked on that spot.
“Come here! Here!”
The authority as Black Dragon King he had tried so desperately to protect, even the dignity he had to uphold. Once all of it was cast aside, he was nothing but a miserable man clinging desperately to life.
But for that very reason, his appearance was desperate and vivid at the same time.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Unable to contain his overwhelming yearning, Black Dragon King cried out and threw his body forward.
His hand, fingers stretched wide to the very tips, finally brushed against Baek Cheon’s throat.
‘Got it…’
Puuuuuk!
At that moment, a thunderous roar echoed in his mind.
“…”
His hand stopped. In the empty air, just an inch before Baek Cheon’s neck.
Black Dragon King blankly stared at Baek Cheon, at his own hand, at the empty air.
No, perhaps he wasn’t seeing anything at all.
His gaze slowly descended. He saw a cold longsword that held a single drop of blood.
It was a familiar sword he could never forget.
Drip.
The flowing blood soaked the blade and soon dyed even the crimson hand gripping it a vivid red.
The place where Black Dragon King’s gaze last landed was the face of the person holding that sword. More precisely, it was the cool gaze flowing from that battered and mangled face.
“You…”
The crushed face twisted strangely.
Black Dragon King could tell. That twisting should surely be called a ‘smile’.
“I said… you would die… by my hand.”
The twisted corner of his mouth opens, revealing blood-soaked teeth.
It was a chilling smile, yet on the other hand, it was refreshing and bright.
“Namgung…”
“The blood debt… is paid. Jeok… Segwang…”
Black Dragon King, silently staring at Namgung Dowi, slowly raised his head. He could see the vast blue sky.
The Azure Sky (창천(蒼天)), which he could never escape, no matter how much he made the Yangtze River his own world.
“Damned…”
Black Dragon King’s massive body falls like a rotten old tree.
“…Fuck…”
Kuung!
It was truly a worthless final word, unworthy of a giant of an era who had commanded the world.
