Chapter 36. A Second-Rate Warrior Facing a Legend
“Everyone, stop!”
Namgung Seon-hwa’s voice rang thunderously through the entire cavern.
Even those who had been fighting fiercely began turning their heads one by one, and the battle quickly reached a lull.
“Has anyone secured Mita Sacred Water?”
I had expected such fierce fighting to have broken out because Mita Sacred Water had ended up in someone’s hands, but the answer that came back was unexpected.
“That is not it. They tried to steal our food.”
The relatively clean-looking people on the right pointed at the filthy people on the left.
“Food?”
“That is right.”
“If you are hungry, leave the cave. Is there any need to kill one another over mere food?”
“We would leave if we could!”
The answer came from the left.
A man in shabby clothes stepped forward as if he might collapse at any moment.
“We’ve been eating nothing but moss for a whole week already!”
“What are you talking about? The river channel opened this morning.”
“What need was there to wait until the river channel opened? More people would gather by then anyway.”
In other words, they had forced their way through the water and entered this place before Hao Gate opened the river channel.
“Then why have you not gone back?”
“I just told you. We would have left if we could. We’re stuck here because of this damned formation.”
“So in the end, no one has found Mita Sacred Water?”
“If you want to enter that formation on the opposite side, go ahead! I don’t know whether you’ll come back alive, though.”
He said several hundred people had already gone inside, but not one had returned alive.
Namgung Seon-hwa recalled what Yu Ji-ryang had said as soon as we entered.
“We will have to investigate further to know what kind of formation it is.”
At Yu Ji-ryang’s words, Namgung Seon-hwa spoke again to the group of people.
“We will begin investigating now.”
“To hell with investigating or whatever. I’m starving to death!”
“…….”
Namgung Seon-hwa looked at the people on the right. But they were all filled with wariness, and it did not seem they had any intention of sharing their food.
“The Namgung Clan will distribute food. In exchange, I will not forgive anyone who causes a disturbance from this point on.”
“My lady!”
“You must not! If we end up unable to leave this place…”
“Enough! If we cannot identify the formation, then we will not be able to leave in the end either.”
At Namgung Seon-hwa’s shout, the clan members no longer objected.
Each of them took dried meat or Fasting Pills from their packs and handed them over.
However, while the Namgung Clan had thirty people, the people on the left numbered close to two hundred.
In the end, the Iron Sword Sect warriors also took out dried meat and Fasting Pills and handed them over.
Even though the Namgung Clan and Iron Sword Sect had sacrificed their supplies, many people were dissatisfied with the markedly small meal, but they did not seem inclined to step forward any further.
After all, if the formation itself could be undone, that would be better than the food in front of them.
Yu Ji-ryang gave a detailed explanation of the formation.
“To be precise, part of the original formation naturally collapsed over the passage of time, and some of its remnants created the Natural Formation.”
Neither Namgung Seon-hwa nor I, who were listening, understood.
A formation was a system in which placing even one stone incorrectly broke the harmony of the whole and rendered it void.
It was miraculous enough that a formation had endured for so long, but could part of what had collapsed really become another Natural Formation?
“……That should not be possible, but… we are confirming it now.”
Yu Ji-ryang looked at the spell practitioners studying the formation under the protection of Namgung Clan warriors on the other side.
The faces of the spell practitioners checking the formation all turned deathly pale.
“I hoped it was not true…… but it was.”
“What do you mean?”
At our conversation, the people on the left and right all pricked up their ears.
“Have you heard of the Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation?”
Gulp.
Instead of answering, the people swallowed dryly. Just hearing the name painted a pessimistic future in their minds.
“It is a terrifying formation that vanished three hundred years ago and should not exist in this world.”
“…….”
Namgung Seon-hwa’s complexion grew worse and worse. Instead, I stepped forward and asked.
“What makes it terrifying?”
“Once you enter the formation, you cannot come out.”
“Is such a thing possible?”
A formation basically constructed a new world with the Gate of Life and the Gate of Death as its framework.
Just as no building could be constructed without a central frame, a formation also could not be constructed without a Gate of Life and a Gate of Death.
“Of course, this formation also has a Gate of Life and a Gate of Death, but it is made in such a way that you cannot find them even when you know they exist.”
Hiding the Gate of Life and the Gate of Death inside a formation could be considered the basics of formations, yet Yu Ji-ryang’s explanation remained wholly negative.
“It takes the Eight Trigrams as its basic frame, sets paths according to the Twelve Branches, and creates a course for each of the Sixty Jiazi. Then, under the influence of the Day Stem, it produces three hundred sixty-five changes. Because its changes feel close to boundless, it was named the Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation.”
“…….”
Not only our group, but the people who had entered earlier and the people who had entered later all looked drawn.
“Th-then, what about destroying it? What if we destroy it? Most of the people who came here are masters, including the Namgung Clan. Could we not destroy it and leave?”
Someone asked desperately.
Yu Ji-ryang shook his head.
“That is why this formation disappeared in the end. A formation is ultimately used when one wishes to protect someone or capture an opponent alive. But once this one is installed, it cannot be dismantled or destroyed.”
“……Th-that cannot be.”
“At least smaller ones might be broken with extremely powerful destructive force, but the size of the Soul-Destroying Formation spread out here is over thirty jang by rough estimate alone. Moreover, part of the formation here seems to have been destroyed when the cave collapsed, yet it is still maintaining its form.”
“Hah…….”
The people on the left sank to the floor one by one.
I pointed at one side of the cavern and said,
“Master Yu Ji-ryang, did someone not definitely see Mita Sacred Water here and come out? How did that happen?”
“……I suspect heavenly fortune may have helped him get out.”
“Heavenly fortune?”
“Yes. It may be a probability amid nearly boundless possibilities, but the Gate of Life and the Gate of Death certainly exist, do they not?”
“Then if the formation can be calculated, should we not be able to find the Gate of Life and leave?”
“But we cannot calculate a path that changes from moment to moment every time. If one loses the way during the calculation, from that point on, one will also lose the central axis needed to calculate again, so one will end up trapped inside the formation.”
“Then what if the paths are all memorized?”
“Pardon?”
“The paths created by the Eight Trigrams, the Twelve Branches, the Sixty Jiazi, and the three hundred sixty-five changes. What if all of them are memorized?”
“……Even by a rough calculation, there will be more than two million.”
The characters in the documents I had read in the Murim Alliance’s Mantongbu had been at least five times that.
“It seems possible. Calculate everything and tell me.”
“……Are you serious?”
“I do like jokes, but now does not seem the time for them.”
After thinking for a moment, Yu Ji-ryang closed his mouth firmly and nodded.
“It will take time.”
The people who heard my conversation with Yu Ji-ryang looked as if they could not believe it, yet they also began holding a small measure of hope.
“Namgung Clan!!”
At that moment, a group of men burst out of the formation near the exit.
Warriors in red martial arts uniforms, and Seo Hyeon-jae’s party of three.
The number of men in red martial arts uniforms had been cut in half, and Seo Hyeon-jae, Ma Go-san, and Sa Mu-in all looked utterly haggard.
“Where are you, Namgung Clan?!”
Seo Hyeon-jae, who was looking around, locked eyes with me as I spoke with Yu Ji-ryang by the wall on the opposite side, then flew in using the Bow-Body Bullet Shadow method.
“You bastard! How dare you scam me!”
The instant his sword aimed for me and Yu Ji-ryang, Namgung Clan warriors stepped forward and blocked it.
“Gah! Namgung Clan! You bastards are the same!”
It was not only Seo Hyeon-jae. Ma Go-san and Sa Mu-in must have suffered some hardship as well, because they were openly filled with hostility.
“Stop!”
The ones who stepped forward then were the warriors from the left and right, who had been fighting to kill one another.
“Right now, they are our only way to survive!”
“That’s none of my concern! If you don’t want to die, get lost!”
“You fool!”
Three or four warriors from the right charged at Seo Hyeon-jae at the same time.
Then Ma Go-san and Sa Mu-in joined in and repelled them instantly. The warriors on the right then charged at them all at once, and a new battle began.
CLANG—! CLANG—! CLANG—!
But Seo Hyeon-jae’s party, pressed by the disparity in numbers, all took wooden cases from their robes and placed pills into their mouths.
“Hoo, hoo, hoo.”
“Hah, hah!”
Enormous energy poured from Seo Hyeon-jae’s party in an instant.
The moment the people who had been pressing with numbers flinched.
Seo Hyeon-jae’s ice palm and Sa Mu-in’s wolf-tooth club scattered them in all directions in fountains of blood.
“Who is it?! Who will stand in our way?!”
Bloodshot eyes, rough breathing, and inner arts that had suddenly doubled. It was clearly the effect of Blood-Explosion Pills.
The people on the left and right combined numbered close to fifteen hundred, yet they flinched and stepped back before the force of those three men.
When no one else moved, the three men began striding toward us, and our party, including Namgung Seon-hwa, also began preparing to oppose Seo Hyeon-jae.
At that moment, Namgung Seon-hwa looked toward the rear and screamed sharply.
“Great Hero Yong So-ah!”
Seo Hyeon-jae’s party, who had been approaching us as if nothing could stop them, came to an abrupt halt and looked back.
There, Yong So-ah’s party was still walking out of the formation.
“How did this happen?”
He was puzzled because he knew they had entered the formation first, yet we had been the first to leave it.
“This is the terror of formations. If you take one wrong path inside, you may die in a place where you cannot measure time or space for the rest of your life.”
As Yong So-ah’s party began approaching, Seo Hyeon-jae blocked the path between them.
“Our business comes first!”
“Move aside. I show no mercy to the Black Path.”
“You damned dog…….”
Seo Hyeon-jae’s words did not continue to the end. His hand, which had been about to shoot out an ice palm, and his head fell to the floor under Yong So-ah’s sword, which no one had even seen, spraying fountains of blood.
“Aaaaaagh!”
Ma Go-san and Sa Mu-in shoved Seo Hyeon-jae’s body aside and screamed.
“You bastards must be the same as well.”
“Do not come closer! Do not come closer unless you all want to die together!”
Ma Go-san took a Thunderbolt Bomb from Seo Hyeon-jae’s luggage and threatened them with it, and Yong So-ah’s movements also stopped for a moment.
“Do you think you will still be alive by the time you set that off?”
“Fuck! Try moving even one finger, and everyone dies here today.”
As Ma Go-san’s party protected him by surrounding him in layer after layer as if he were their last line of defense, Yong So-ah turned his head as if he had lost all further interest.
“Explain what happened.”
When Yong So-ah spoke to Namgung Seon-hwa, she told him in detail about everything that had happened so far.
When the term Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation came up, even Yong So-ah of all people showed a slight flinch.
“So there is a way to dissolve the formation?”
“It is not dissolution. Great Hero Yu Ji-ryang and Young Master Jin are calculating the paths and guiding us to the Gate of Life inside the formation.”
“Even by rough calculation, there are two million possibilities, and if part of the formation is damaged, new paths may have formed accordingly. You are wasting your strength on something impossible.”
“There is nothing else we can do right now.”
“…….”
***
Two weeks later.
Without distinguishing day from night, I was memorizing each of the routes that Yu Ji-ryang and the spell practitioners calculated and gave to me.
In the meantime, two thousand more people entered the cavern. Among them, two hundred died fighting, and three hundred entered the formation on the opposite side saying they would search for a route, but did not return.
According to Yu Ji-ryang, the very fact that we had been able to enter the cavern was because part of the formation had been damaged. Once one entered this formation spread across a full thirty jang, unless one knew the route, one could only remain trapped inside the Soul-Destroying Formation.
“Everyone is reaching their limit.”
Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa were also withered like plants dried by drought.
It was because they had shared half their food at the beginning.
Even then, they had endured until now only because they had eaten as little as possible.
“How much longer will it take?”
“……It will take five more days.”
“…….”
The warriors had suffered greatly from hunger, but the spell practitioners were not in good condition either.
Because their nourishment was poor, the calculations were taking more and more time.
“……This is meaningless.”
At that moment, Yong So-ah, who had been sitting to one side, suddenly stood up.
The strongest person in this cavern right now was none other than Yong So-ah.
Among the Black Path members, there were those with reputations no less than Yong So-ah’s, but even because of the other Daoist priests of Wudang Sect, they did not deliberately pick a fight with him.
“Get up.”
Yong So-ah walked toward Ma Go-san’s party, who were among the Black Path groups.
“Hand over the Thunderbolt Bomb.”
“What?!”
When he realized Yong So-ah’s objective, Yu Ji-ryang sprang to his feet.
“You must not, Great Hero! This is not a formation that can be dissolved with a Thunderbolt Bomb.”
“It cannot be dissolved. But can it not open a path?”
“…….”
At Yong So-ah’s words, the Orthodox Path groups, as well as the Black Path groups, slowly began rising from the floor.
They were resolved to do anything if only they could leave this place.
“But if you use a Thunderbolt Bomb, there is no telling how the routes will change. Please, trust us.”
Yong So-ah looked at Yu Ji-ryang and me with dry eyes.
“Do you believe a human can memorize two million routes?”
At Yong So-ah’s words, I spoke.
“So you mean to leave alone?”
Only now did I understand why close to five thousand people had died here.
And how Yong So-ah had survived this chaos. And why no story had been passed down afterward that Yong So-ah had been here.
“I will go out and bring spell practitioners from the Murim Alliance.”
“Didn’t you hear him? This is not a formation that can be dissolved in the first place.”
“The depth of the Murim Alliance cannot be compared to a single sect or faction.”
“The only possibility we have is to memorize the routes here and leave. If the routes are distorted because of you, what do you plan to do about the lives of the people here? Or don’t you care?”
“People are still continuing to enter from outside even now. If we leave things as they are, the casualties will rise endlessly.”
Yong So-ah extended his hand toward Ma Go-san.
Then Ma Go-san and Sa Mu-in prostrated themselves flat.
“We will give it to you. In exchange, please take us with you.”
“……Very well.”
“U-us too…….”
“Please take us with you as well.”
CLANG—! SCRAAAAAPE—!
When people swarmed from every direction, Yong So-ah drew his sword and drew a long line across the floor.
“Anyone who crosses this line will be cut down without fail. I will go out and bring people. Wait here.”
“Shit! How are we supposed to believe that?!”
“When have you hypocritical bastards ever kept a promise?!”
There were some who attached themselves to Yong So-ah, but conversely, there were also those who held hostility toward him.
Seven tenths of the people inside the cavern were Black Path figures.
They firmly believed that Yong So-ah, the representative later-generation talent of the Murim Alliance, might abandon them.
“Die!”
Eventually, starting with someone, swords were drawn, and the cavern interior, which had been quiet for a while, began filling with people’s screams and shrieks.
“Gurk!”
“Kagh!”
Dozens of people charged at Yong So-ah, but not one lasted beyond five forms.
In an instant, a wall built of corpses formed around Yong So-ah and the Daoist priests of Wudang Sect, and before their terrifying, overwhelming martial force, people gradually began stopping one by one.
“Great Hero Yong So-ah. Stop.”
The ones who ultimately stepped forward were Namgung Seon-hwa and the warriors.
“There are only a few days left now. Please wait a little longer.”
“Because of you people, we have wasted time until now. I cannot delay any longer.”
“Even so, we cannot gamble with three thousand lives as collateral.”
“Do you have the strength to stop me?”
“……Prepare the Firmament Sword Formation.”
“Activate!”
“Activate!”
The moment the Namgung Clan activated the Firmament Sword Formation, the Daoist priests of Wudang Sect also began spreading the Taiji Sword Formation.
Namgung Seon-hwa and Yong So-ah broke away from their formations and fought separately, but even Namgung Seon-hwa of all people looked like a child before Yong So-ah.
‘Is this real……?’
I could not help letting out a sigh when I saw the mass of force qi blooming before Yong So-ah’s sword.
Before he had even reached thirty, he was unfolding Sword Force.
Namgung Seon-hwa tried unfolding her decisive sword art, the Emperor Sword Art, but she could not handle Yong So-ah.
In the end, the only one in this cavern who could stop Yong So-ah was me, who knew the Shattering Form for Wudang sword arts.
“You cannot. Yong So-ah is different from my older brother.”
When I tried to step forward, Seong Mo-ran stopped me.
“If I do not step forward now, we will die here without being able to move an inch. And I have a way, so please do not worry too much.”
Leaving Seong Mo-ran behind, I fired the Flying Dragon Claw into the wall and pulled the Heavenly Silkworm Thread.
Whoooosh.
Something like a pulley rotated rapidly inside the Flying Dragon Claw and shot my body like an arrow.
“Lady Namgung, duck!”
Together with my words, Namgung Seon-hwa lowered her head close to the ground, and I swept the Black Dragon Sword down over it.
CLANG—!
Yong So-ah, who had taken two steps back at the sudden attack, quickly regained his posture.
I immediately unfolded the Shattering Form for Taiji Divine Sword, the root martial art of Wudang Sect, and rushed at him.
SWISH-SWISH-SWISH—!
A small trace of surprise crossed Yong So-ah’s face, which had not once changed expression after entering the cavern.
“What is this?”
Yong So-ah looked back and forth between his sword and me.
In order to give him no time to think, I unfolded the Shattering Form again.
CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—!
Yong So-ah, sensing something strange in the forms, immediately drew up his power.
A radiance about two ja long appeared over his sword.
‘That madman!’
It was short, but it was unmistakably Sword Force.
Each time I clashed with the Sword Force, I desperately deflected the force qi, but a numbing sensation, as if a hammer had struck an anvil, traveled through my palm and into my arm.
Fortunately, the Black Dragon Sword, made of Diamond Indestructible Iron, did not lose its edge or scatter blade fragments like other swords would have.
“Did Taeul Sect have such a sword art?”
“…That is why you should’ve learned beforehand just how much depth the sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks have, shouldn’t you?”
Even while unfolding the Shattering Form, I continued changing positions by using the Flying Dragon Claw.
‘I can’t last long.’
Although Jegal’s Three Forms had been created by Jegal Cheon-gi, Yong So-ah ultimately did not use the Shattering Form.
The ridiculous reason was that it harmed Wudang’s spirit.
Even so, he had never once been defeated. Even when a Daoist priest of the same Wudang Sect unfolded the Shattering Form, he had not been pushed back. If his eyes grew just a little more accustomed to this Shattering Form, he would surely be able to counterattack.
“A sword art that breaks down the opponent’s martial art…….”
Sure enough, he was already beginning to grasp the root of the sword art.
Unlike Namgung San, who had quickly changed to the Emperor Sword Art when the Firmament Great Swallow Sword Art did not work, the bastard was unfolding Taiji Divine Sword with such persistence that it might as well have been deliberate.
His intent was to grasp the identity of the sword art I was wielding.
That intent struck exactly true, and the moments when his sword art came to a halt began to decrease.
“You must leave with me.”
“As I thought, you mean to kill everyone here.”
“…….”
The moment I thought there was no longer any way to resist.
I used the Flying Dragon Claw and flew toward the ceiling.
At the same time, I drew up all the inner arts in my qi center.
“Eat this!”
A recoil poured out as if my qi center had been emptied in a single stroke.
The tremendous force of true qi radiated through my hand.
Radiant Heaven Divine Palm shot out as if to annihilate Yong So-ah.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH-CRASH—!
For the first time, the character Cheon was etched between Yong So-ah’s brows, something rarely seen.
‘It worked.’
The moment I felt relief.
Yong So-ah, who had turned the force of Radiant Heaven Divine Palm aside with a desperate use of the Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin method, leaped from the floor and kicked me away.
THUD—!
The instant I scraped together what little power I had left and fired the Flying Dragon Claw.
TWANG.
As if he had been waiting, Yong So-ah fired a Finger Wind.
The Flying Dragon Claw dropped weakly to the floor.
“Young Master Jin!!”
Seong Mo-ran screamed as if she would faint from one side.
Only then did I turn my head and see that my body was already flying into the Boundless Indestructible Soul-Destroying Formation.
“No!”
It happened in an instant too swift to respond to.
My vision blurred, and I was dragged into an unknown space.
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