Chapter 121. Five Dragons Fight for a Pearl (17)

It was ridiculous. No one could have expected the Justice Coalition to send such experts as a mere scouting team; they were banking on the initial scouting teams being just normal people good at scouting, so they could just kill them and keep their location secret for a while.

Of course, they knew that the Justice Coalition would send either greater numbers or experts if the scouting teams continued to be murdered. However, considering this was only their first scouting team ambush, they could never have thought this would be such a struggle.

“Go, call the others!”

“Understood!”

One of the Black Bull Gang members quickly left the group.

Meanwhile, the situation was turning even more unfavorable for the Black Bull Gang.

Swish!

As Ra Mi’s swift sword whistled through the air, a line of blood spread across in the opposite direction.

“...!”

The moment Ra Mi cut down an enemy, she suddenly froze and closed her eyes.

‘It’s our chance!’

Although they were shocked by Ra Mi’s sudden actions, the nearby Black Bull Gang Members quickly got over their confusion and rushed over.

However, the moment they approached, Ra Mi’s eyes opened.

Squelch, squelch, squelch!

Ra Mi’s sword stabbed in three different directions almost simultaneously, piercing through her opponents’ throats.

‘Fuck, my heart almost stopped.’

Woo-Moon stroked his chest, which hurt from the shock of seeing Ra Mi fall asleep again mid-battle. Forget about dying in battle, if this continued for long, he may actually die from a heart attack because of her.

Suddenly, Ma-Ra appeared in the midst of the Black Bull Gang.

Crack!

She broke the necks of two of the assailants in front of her before they even noticed her presence.

“An enemy...!”

The moment one of them finally caught sight of her, she shot him in the eye with a bolt from her wrist crossbow.

Thwip! Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip!

The sound of the wrist crossbow firing consecutively rang through the air, as at the same time, the screams of the Black Bull Gang members around her echoed in the night sky.

“As expected of you, Ma-Ra!” Woo-Moon exclaimed in admiration. As he watched her in awe, three Black Bull Gang members swung at him.

However, they only struck empty space; Woo-Moon’s figure blurred before suddenly disappearing.

‘Where did he go?’

The moment they registered his disappearance, Woo-Moon appeared off to the side, sword pointed toward the sky.

Suddenly, Lightflash glistened brilliantly under the moonlight before erupting into dozens, hundreds—no, close to thousands of qi swords before raining down from the sky.

Heavy Rain!

“Agh!!!”

The seven Black Bull Gang members who were in the area under Heavy Rain collapsed, blood spurting from their bodies.

‘Now, North Wind, North Wind, and some more North Wind!’

After unleashing North Wind three times in a row, all that was left was the Black Bull Gang member who had been commanding the others.

“Now, it’s just you left.”

As he approached the sole remaining gang member, he suddenly cried out in an urgent voice, “Ra Mi, run!”

Having fallen asleep while standing again after killing her final opponent, Ra Mi was jolted awake by Woo-Moon’s call and darted away.

“Woo-Moon. Many enemies approaching. Many experts,” Ma-Ra said.

Woo-Moon had already figured it out through his senses, nodding as he ran after Ra Mi. Thankfully, they were able to escape before the new enemy could block their path again.

But Woo-Moon suddenly stopped. He shouted at Ra Mi, who was still running without even realizing it.

“Ra Mi!”

“What? Are you not...?”

Nodding, Woo-Moon replied, “Hurry up and return to command and report this. I’ll stop our pursuers.”

She had a strange look in her eyes, but she quickly nodded and continued forward.

“Now, good, good. Should we have some fun, then?”

Woo-Moon sheathed Lightflash and drew Inkblade before calling out to Ma-Ra playfully.

“Ma-Ra, I plan on using what I learned from watching you. What do you think?”

“Fine.”

“Good, then let’s do it together.”

“Fine.”

Woo-Moon wasn’t worried about the others. After all, the Wind Sword Squadron members were on a whole different level when compared to any ordinary scouting team.

‘Our army’s tactician is supposed to be Ho Mu-Bok or something, right? What a smart guy. To think he anticipated the Black Bull Gang’s intentions and even used us as the scouts.’

As long as Woo-Moon was able to deal with their enemies now, the other squadron members would be able to break through the encirclement and return.

The Black Bull Gang shouldn’t have used that many troops to assassinate the scouting team—it would have been counterintuitive to do so. Looking at the number and cultivations of those approaching, it appeared that all of their strongest reserve forces were probably running toward him and Ma-Ra right now.

“They’ve arrived. Let’s begin!”

“Okay.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Ma-Ra took out a transparent thread from her sleeve and handed one end to Woo-Moon before gesturing with her chin in the opposite direction.

It was an extremely thin, transparent, and tough thread.

The Formless Silk.

Immediately figuring out Ma-Ra’s intention, Woo-Moon took the offered Formless Silk and walked in the pointed direction. Once he arrived, he turned to see Ma-Ra lurking in the dark, holding the Formless Silk at about waist height.

When she nodded, Woo-Moon raised his end of the Formless Silk to a similar height as Ma-Ra and pulled it taut.

“Hurry and chase them! We have to catch them before they inform their troops!”

The forces of the Black Bull Gang rushed forward, using their movement techniques to the fullest.

Even Woo-Moon found it difficult to distinguish the Formless Silk while standing still in the dark, let alone the rushing enemies. There was no way that their enemies would be able to notice it as they ran ahead at full speed.

“UGH!”

“Cough, cough!”

Among the approximately two hundred Black Bull Gang warriors who were chasing them, the dozen at the forefront simultaneously screamed as they split apart at the waist.

“W-what the hell?!”

Although the Black Bull Gang warriors immediately stopped, dozens of people had already died bisected by the thin thread.

“It’s an enemy trap!”

It was only then that Cho Mu-Gwang, third of the Twenty-Four Ghost Generals and the one leading the Black Bull Gang’s ambush forces, discovered the blood-soaked Formless Silk.

“Formless Silk! Those damned bastards!”

Suddenly, the screams of his subordinates erupted again from behind.

“Agh!!!!”

“W-what the hell is this?! AGH!!!!”

Blood was spurting out from two different parts of their force at the same time.

Cho Mu-Gwang quickly turned around, trying to figure out what was going on. Although he couldn’t see who had attacked them from the first side, on the other, he could see a young man with a black sword disappearing into the dark.

“They’re assassins! Be careful!” he shouted as he ran toward the young man and swung his mourning staff.[1]

Woosh!

“Ugh, have I already been caught?”

Woo-Moon blocked the incoming mourning staff with Inkblade.

Clang!

Sparks flew as Inkblade collided with the mourning staff. Woo-Moon immediately jabbed forward using Traceless Finger in response. Three streams of finger aura shot out from his index finger simultaneously and flew toward Cho Mu-Gwang.

“Ugh!”

Although he managed to block the aura with his staff, his hands went numb from the force. Surprised, he looked at his opponent’s face, only to see someone quite young.

‘What the fuck, am I being pushed around by a baby who's still wet behind the ears?!’

As Cho Mu-Gwang was still numb with shock, Woo-Moon attacked once again.

Swish!

His swordsmanship was so irregular and swift that Cho Mu-Gwang couldn’t predict where a single blow would land! Moreover, the attacks would also suddenly stop every so often, making it even more difficult to determine the next change in direction.

As it turned out, Woo-Moon’s Raging Wind had reached the next level thanks to the inspiration he got from the unique sword technique of Sleepy Sword Ra Mi!

Before Cho Mu-Gwang could fall victim to the sword, however, a savior finally arrived.

“You bastard!”

“We’re here!”

Two more Black Hand experts, the Twin Daredevil Murderers, with cultivations just slightly lower than Cho Mu-Gwang's, joined the fray.

“Oh!!! Good, good!”

They had no problem fighting Woo-Moon together. Not only was this a war and not a duel, but the Black Hand subscribed to no such niceties anyway.

The three rushed Woo-Moon without hesitation.

However, who was Song Woo-Moon? Hadn’t he easily overpowered the three strongest experts of the Iron Sword Baek Family?

The Twin Daredevil Murderers seemed to gain momentum as they attacked in unison. However, the three gradually began to be pushed back by Woo-Moon, their limbs unable to keep up with his speed.

Still, there was a reason why the Black Bull Gang was famed for its numerous Transcendent Class experts.

“Ha-a-eup!”

With a roar, the Four Maras[2], four excommunicated disciples of the Shaolin Temple, came to help Cho Mu-Gwang and the Twin Daredevil Murderers.

A total of seven people were working together!

Just the attacks pouring in from all directions were enough to make a person dizzy.

“Tsk!”

Nevertheless, Woo-Moon’s fighting spirit soared. This was probably the most difficult battle he had ever faced, apart from facing Absolute Masters.

‘I will win. I’m going to win, no matter what!’

Meanwhile, Ma-Ra was steadily reducing the number of the Black Bull Gang members as she popped out of hiding, killed a few, then disappeared back into the darkness only to appear again elsewhere.

“D-damn it! Where the hell is she?”

“Agh!!!!”

They couldn’t even tell where the enemy was. On the occasion where they

did

discover her, all they could see was a beautiful girl wearing a flower gown, then blood splattering and their gang members dying.

Although their enemy did not look in any way like an assassin, when she disappeared, no one could find her. Moreover, the empty expression on her face was more terrifying than anything else.

Assassins were mocked and looked down upon, even among members of the Black Hand. Now, for the first time, these people became painfully aware of something—a true assassin was nothing like what they had imagined.

Swish!

With a screech that sounded like the voice of the death god to the Black Hand members, the Silver Moon Discs—no longer translucent but rather blood red—spun around viciously, thirsting for blood.

Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip!

“Cough, cough!”

Her wrist crossbows were equally scary. Normally, a crossbow wasn’t any real threat to a cultivator. However, the bolts that shot out from Ma-Ra’s special wrist crossbows were imbued with her qi, taking the enemy’s life with just a single shot.

Moreover, her weapons weren’t just limited to the Silver Moon Discs and her wrist crossbows.

Holding her razor-sharp daggers, she appeared everywhere like a shadow, slitting throats before disappearing. Without any of the Black Bull Gang noticing, she secretly wrapped the Formless Silk around three or four gang members, pulling on it to instantly split them in half.

They didn’t even notice it until the moment they died.

This was the killing art of the Death God, the legendary assassin that had shaken the world to its core in the past and kept even the greatest experts from sleeping soundly.

The sheer number of her enemies had no effect on her, and there was no emotion in her gaze as she plucked their lives one by one.

“Kill her! Kill her quickly!”

The Black Bull Gang members were on the verge of going insane with fear. They viciously struck out, killing anything that moved. However, they could only kill something if they could see it.

As time passed, there were only about fifty Black Bull Gang members left as Ma-Ra stopped murdering them and slipped back into darkness.

When she reappeared, the dagger in her dainty little hand was splattered with blood. The first of the Twin Daredevil Murderers suddenly fell down, dead.

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

“Hyung!” the second Twin Daredevil Murderers screamed.

He turned to Ma-Ra, shouting with bloodlust.

“I’ll kill you, you bitch!”

However, Ma-Ra just glanced at him with an emotionless gaze before quickly disappearing.

“Where the hell did she go? Ugh!”

The second Twin Daredevil Murderers furiously stepped forward to find Ma-Ra, but he suddenly looked behind him as he heard a soft squelch.

His angle of view shifted strangely, however, and all he could see was a red blotch.

‘W-wha...’

When he looked at the red blotch and the fountain of blood now spurting from it, he realized that it was... his own neck.

He looked up to see Woo-Moon pulling his blood-stained sword back, standing with the same blank expression as the girl who killed his brother moments earlier.

‘Damn...’

Before he could finish his thought, the second of the Twin Daredevil Murderers also closed his eyes for the last time.

It had taken seven people to simultaneously attack Woo-Moon to be able to gain a slight advantage.

However, Ma-Ra appeared and assassinated the elder of the Twin Daredevil Murderers, while the younger, unable to stay level-headed, had died the next second. Now that only five of them were there, they would no longer be able to stop Woo-Moon.

Cho Mu-Gwang felt goosebumps on the back of his neck.

‘That bitch is like a ghost.’

Things would have been easier if it was daytime. However, Ma-Ra was just that much more difficult to deal with on a dark night like this.

1. Staff carried by the son of the deceased in a funeral procession. ☜

2. Four demons (usually in the metaphorical sense) who are said to interfere with one’s attainment of buddhahood. The four are: Lord of Death (representing fear of death), Disturbing Emotions, Tainted Aggregates (referring to skandha, the five aggregates), and Son of the Gods (representing delusions and wrong views on buddhahood). ☜