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Chapter 128. Five Dragons Fight for a Pearl (24)

Fortunately, after running as fast as he could for a while, he began to hear the sounds of battle in the distance.

‘To think they chased the enemy this far! Ye-Ye, just how did you make such a mistake?!’

Most likely, Ye-Ye had been trying to earn some major achievements for the family. She felt as though she needed to achieve a lot to become the clan leader in the future.

Woo-Moon could finally see the Black Bull Gang surrounding the troops of the Baek Family.

"Move aside!"

The moment he got close enough, Woo-Moon drew Inkblade and threw it forward.

Squelch!

A vivid streak of light penetrated the darkness as Inkblade flew through the air, coated in sword aura. Woo-Moon advanced quickly through the opening he had just made while swinging Lightflash to both sides.

He cut a path of blood through the gang members that were surrounding the Baek Family troops, eventually stopping in front of his family members and recovering Inkblade from the corpse of a gang member.

There were many other corpses around him...the corpses of his family.

The surviving members were on the verge of being slaughtered, and their defensive line was breached.

“U-Uncle!” Ye-Ye called out. She was still alive, but covered in wounds.

Woo-Moon looked at her with a deathly cold gaze.

She froze instantly when she saw the look on his face—a look she had never seen before. Woo-Moon was barely holding his rage back. In truth, he was so angry that if it weren’t for the fact that Ye-Ye was the de facto patriarch at his own proposal and he wanted to support her, he would have slapped her in the face himself.

Eventually, he turned around, moving to face the enemies instead.

“...We don’t have the time. I’ll stop them here, so quickly gather the wounded and retreat.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle.”

Woo-Moon glanced at her again, his eyes filled with rage, and sent her a voice transmission.

—The most important, more than anything else, is your life and the lives of your brothers and sisters. How could you make such a horrible mistake just for some measly war merits? You will be severely punished once we return to the family estate.

Ye-Ye lowered her head in sorrow, knowing she had made an unforgivable mistake.

“I’m sorry for disappointing you even though you trusted me, Uncle.”

“Forget it. You can apologize after we save everyone. Run, now! Now!”

“Yes, yes, Uncle!”

Ye-Ye knew that Woo-Moon was planning on holding off the enemy alone. However, she couldn’t say anything; she couldn’t help in any way. All she could do was run.

She held back her tears as she and the troops under her command, members of her own family, ran through the opening carved by Woo-Moon. Although they were worried about Woo-Moon standing alone behind them, he had given them an order and they were not allowed to look back.

Woo-Moon retreated alongside the Baek Family troops, stopping only once the group had completely escaped the siege.

Although it would have been best if he could have escorted them all the way to the encampment, there were some among the family who were seriously injured and had difficulty moving. Thus, it was highly unlikely that they would be able to run along with the others and flee in time.

No, it was best for him to stop the enemy here.

“Well, I guess it’s just a few hundred of them? Let’s go, Ma-Ra. I’ll be relying on you again!”

“Okay.”

The Raging Wind Palm blasted the air toward the approaching Black Bull Gang troops. Suddenly, however, right before it struck them, Ma-Ra appeared in the air, right in front of Woo-Moon’s palm force.

For a split second, it looked like a rookie mistake, but then it proved to be a deadly combination technique, impromptu though it was.

Ma-Ra borrowed the force of the Raging Wind Palm and flew forward like a cannonball, drawing long strokes with daggers held in both hands.

Squelch!

As she flew forward, all of the gang members standing on either side of her path stumbled and fell, gurgling blood as they grabbed their bleeding necks.

“Woo-Moon!”

Woo-Moon caught the Formless Silk Ma-Ra had thrown and spun it in a huge circle over his head. Hanging on the other end, Ma-Ra flew through the air under Woo-Moon’s incredible strength and shot out arrows indiscriminately from her wrist crossbows.

Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip!

“Ugh!”

“Agh!!!”

It wasn’t just the arrows, either; the Formless Silk itself cut through everyone and everything that happened to be in the space between Ma-Ra and Woo-Moon.

Twang!

Woo-Moon tugged hard on the Formless Silk, and Ma-Ra flew over to him. Grabbing her hand, Woo-Moon took advantage of the counterforce generated by throwing her behind him and launched himself into the air.

‘My turn. Heavy Rain!’

Countless swords rained down on the flustered gang members as with a single technique, dozens of them spurted blood at the same time.

Splash!

Buckets of thick, hot blood splattered Woo-Moon’s face. However, he wasn’t shaken by this—he may feel remorse or ponder his own morals, but now was the time to fight, not meditate. He had learned how to keep a cool head by watching Ma-Ra, who never seemed to be shaken by anything.

The sun had gone down, and now, it was night. In other words, this was Ma-Ra’s time to shine. And like the night sun she was, the fairy-like beauty in her pretty gown disappeared into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Woo-Moon’s sword radiated a golden sword aura that shone more brilliantly than anything else!

‘It’s not enough yet, not yet!’

The sword aura grew longer and thicker.

“Agh!!!”

The gang members watching shouted in fear.

“Yes, this should do.”

With a soft exclamation, Woo-Moon swung the massive aura blade with all his might.

WOOSH!

The tremendously powerful aura swept forward.

“Aghk!!!!”

“G-get out of the way!”

“Run!!!”

Although the gang members who saw Woo-Moon’s massive sword tried to flee, their numbers worked against them. They were unable to escape because they were crowded so tightly together.

Squelch!

At any other time, Woo-Moon’s attack wouldn’t have been able to kill so many people. However, because so many of the gang members were stuck in one space, as many as sixty people died from this single blow.

And the slaughter was just starting. The next moment Ma-Ra appeared like a ghost right in front of the terrified gang members, drew out a hidden weapon shaped like a lotus flower, and threw it in their midst.

As the Blood Lotus was right over their heads, Ma-Ra flicked her sleeve and quickly threw a small blade, hitting the Blood Lotus in the center.

Clang! Clack, clack, clack... thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip!

The metallic clacking of a mechanism shifting and ejecting something echoed from within the lotus before hundreds of lotus petals forged of iron poured over the gang members.

“Agh!!!!!”

The majority of those around the lotus died instantly, struck in their vitals, while those who were “lucky” enough to have only been hit in their arms or legs kept their lives for the moment, only to die soon after as the poison within the Blood Lotus corroded their skin black.

So far, about two hundred of the Black Bull Gang members had been killed by Woo-Moon and Ma-Ra.

However, Woo-Moon didn’t stop there. He leaped into their midst again and continued to unleash Heavy Rain and Raging Wind left and right, cutting, cleaving, and stabbing dozens of people. In addition, Ma-Ra also appeared by his side, throwing her Silver Moon Discs.

Woosh!

An eerie sound echoed along the path of the Silver Moon Discs, a sound reminiscent of fabric being cut by sharp shears. On the other side, Woo-Moon compressed the Impenetrable Golden Wall into its second form before hurling it.

Squelch, squelch!

Once again, a large amount of blood spewed everywhere.

Thud, thud.

It had been barely half a minute, yet the dead exceeded three hundred; the Black Bull Gang members trembled in fear and instinctively took steps back.

Although there were still a few hundred people left in the distance, so many people had died between Ma-Ra and Woo-Moon’s endless attacks that they had all completely given up.

Thud!

Woo-Moon firmly stomped his foot and let out a shout, imbuing his voice with qi.

“If you take one step forward, it will be your last!”

Ma-Ra slowly emerged from the darkness behind Woo-Moon, throwing weapons in hand.

The sight of her seemingly bleeding into existence was the last straw.

“A-agh!!! Don’t push, I mean, it, don’t push me!!”

Among the retreating crowd of gang members, three gang members were accidentally pushed toward Woo-Moon amid the panic.

Swish!

Immediately, two Silver Moon Discs accompanied a blast of finger qi, piercing the heads of the three people. Moreover, they didn’t stop there; they continued forward and also pierced through the three people who had pushed the other gang members forward.

“I warned you! One step and you’re dead!”

The gang members suddenly froze. They were trapped in a situation where they couldn’t turn around and run, nor could they move forward.

Moreover, the three that had been slain for pushing the other three forward had been the people who were leading their unit.

‘We just have to buy a little more time. Just a little more.’

The strange confrontation continued for a while before, eventually, a qi-imbued roar came from behind.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Five Transcendent Class experts suddenly appeared!

Considering they were neither part of the Ten Demon Generals nor the Twenty-Four Ghost Generals, their appearance was a testament to the Black Bull Gang’s reputation of being full of Transcendent experts.

Although Woo-Moon didn’t recognize them, they were the Five Ghostly Scholars, experts of the same rank as the Twenty-Four Ghost Generals within the gang.

The quintet clad in scholarly attire stepped on their subordinates’ heads as if they were running on cobblestones as they rushed over to attack Woo-Moon and Ma-Ra.

“Did you let those bastards go just because of these two kids?”

As their narrow dress swords[1] shone in the night sky, Woo-Moon looked at Ma-Ra and nodded.

‘We’ve bought enough time!’

As Ma-Ra disappeared into the darkness, Woo-Moon parried one of the Five Ghostly Scholars’ dress swords and used the counterforce to fly backward before using the Northern Wind Steps to flee.

“Don’t let them escape!”

“Chase them!”

In the end, however, they were unable to catch up to Woo-Moon or Ma-Ra.

***

The two eventually arrived at the coalition encampment soon after the Baek Family’s safe return.

“Uncle! It’s such a relief that you’ve returned alive.”

Ye-Ye was pale with worry, and she even seemed to have lost weight, even though it hadn’t been long. She cried when she saw Woo-Moon return safely and ran to hug him.

Although Woo-Moon was about to push her aside as the images of the Family members\' corpses flashed through his mind, he decided against it after realizing that she was probably feeling worse than anyone else right now.

Eventually, she stepped back and wiped her tears before speaking with determination.

“Uncle. Our family was either killed or injured because of my greed today. I...”

Woo-Moon was actually feeling rather conflicted. He was worried that Ye-Ye might have lost the stomach for her position because of this incident. After all, wasn’t winning and losing only natural for warriors like them, who lived in battle?

He had heard the gist of the situation from the others after returning to the main encampment. Ye-Ye hadn’t listened to the horn of retreat because she and the other Baek Family members had been fighting so valiantly in the vanguard.

Of course, their bravery did nothing to change the fact that they had ignored orders and paid dearly for it. However, that didn’t mean that Woo-Moon wanted Ye-Ye to give up on everything because of a single mistake.

“Ye-Ye, you can’t be—”

Ye-Ye interrupted Woo-Moon and continued with determination, “I will definitely become the Patriarch. And, with a lifetime of service as atonement, I will bear the weight of those who died today because of me on my shoulders and dedicate my entire self to the Family. I swear it, a mistake like today will never happen again.”

Ye-Ye’s eyes burned with a strong will.

Woo-Moon was relieved to see that Ye-Ye had not only not crumpled, but even seemed to have matured. However, he couldn’t smile at all right now as the weight of the deaths of the Family wasn’t light at all.

“...I commend you for thinking that way instead of choosing to run away. However, this is by no means a small matter. No matter how fierce the battle was, the fact that you ignored the signal to retreat was a grave mistake. You will go in front of the family council, confess your error, and accept punishment.”

“I will gladly take whatever punishment. However, I can’t give up on becoming the Patriarch. Please continue to help me, Uncle.”

“... Although people can make mistakes, the clan leader cannot. As long as you don’t forget that, I’ll support you like I did until now.”

Woo-Moon’s support was no different from the support of the Palm Martial Emperor and the Song Family. It was worth an incredible deal.

“I won’t betray that trust any further from this moment on.”

“Okay. Then, go handle what you need to.”

“Understood, Uncle!”

After finishing her words, Ye-Ye turned around and left to apologize to the others from the Baek Family she had led. Looking at her back, Woo-Moon could feel his heart break.

Ye-Ye definitely knew the ramifications of her actions, and she knew exactly how many of her fellow family members had died or were injured because of her. Woo-Moon couldn’t begin to imagine how much it hurt her.

Nevertheless, he was a member of the family and he was her uncle. He had a duty, and it was in her best interest that he fulfilled that duty.

When Commander Ho Mu-Bok saw Woo-Moon return, all he had to say was an acknowledgment.

He had actually been worried secretly that Woo-Moon would have died. It wasn’t because of any personal feelings but because he had been concerned that the newly emerged young hero of the Justice Coalition would die.

Woo-Moon dragged his tired body to his lodgings.

On his way, he heard a group of warriors talking in the distance and mentioning his name.

‘Something about me? What is it?’

As he got closer, he could see that they were the members of the Wind Sword Battalion.

“He really is incredible. Just how many people did he kill with a single blow?”

“We’re all in the same generation. How the hell is he so strong? On that last mission, he killed over a thousand people by himself!”

“I knew he was strong when I first saw him, but I could never have imagined he was this strong. I heard he went to the rescue of the Iron Sword Baek Family troops earlier. He must have killed a bunch there too.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I heard that about four hundred people were surrounding them. And since he came back alive... well....”

“I heard he killed fifty or sixty people in a single blow with some kind of golden sword aura.”

Listening to them talk, Woo-Moon remembered the last thing he had seen before running away from the Five Ghostly Scholars.

So many... so many had died by his hands!

Once more, he felt incredibly uncomfortable, as if a heavy boulder was pressing on his chest.

‘They definitely deserved to die, but...’

Returning to his quarters with a heavy heart, he realized that his qi reserves were almost entirely depleted. He sat cross-legged and began to cultivate.

However, he soon fell into great confusion and shock.

‘What? Why is my qi recovering so slowly?’

The qi of the Forbidden Divine Art had always confidently and proudly circulated throughout his entire body, boosting his recovery and replenishing itself. He had thought it strange that his qi didn’t seem to recover as quickly as usual on his journey back, but he didn’t think it was anything serious.

However, now that he was actively circulating his qi and attempting to cultivate, he found that it just wasn’t working the way it should have; it felt sluggish and dull. The speed at which qi accumulated in his dantian was extremely slow.

Flustered, Woo-Moon forgot about sleeping and continued to cultivate. However, even when the sun rose, he had not reached half of his usual strength.

‘Just... what’s going on?’

1. Dress swords are smaller swords carried on such occasions as parades, ceremonies, and generally for fashion purpose rather than combat. However, historically, officers’ dress swords did see use in duels and self-defense. ☜