Chapter 230. Within Ten Paces, You’ll Find A Fragrant Flower (1)

Squelch!

A silver light flashed, and blood filled the air.

“D-does he really not have any qi right now?”

“He’s not supposed to have any qi, and we’re supposed to be fighting with the same physical cultivation, so why the fuck is he butchering us?!”

The enemies Woo-Moon were currently facing were the bandits of the Golden Insect Stockade, a mid-level force among the Green Forest’s Eighteen Stockades[1]. The Golden Insect Boss harrumphed coldly when he heard his subordinates’ conversation.

“Idiots. This is why people say bandits are stupid.”

“T-then do you know why this is happening, Boss?”

All of the Golden Insect Stockade’s hundred and fifty bandits were still alive and kicking. That was because they had sent some of the bandits who were weaker than them forward, using them as human shields.

Thanks to that, they still had some breath to spare.

“Song Woo-Moon is a Paragon... According to rumors, when experts reach the superior stages of cultivation, they undergo bodily reformation. Their bones and muscles change, and they become physically stronger than any normal human alive. When they reach the Absolute realm, their bodies change so that they can fully make use of their Absolute Qi.”

The Golden Insect Boss had been a disciple of the Zhongnan Sect for ten years. That was why he was more knowledgeable about martial arts than the other bandits.

“Hmm... I see... So if your qi cultivation increases, your body gets stronger and stronger too?”

“Yes. Well, it’s not exactly proportional. Otherwise, given how powerful their qi is, wouldn’t they be able to eat steel and rocks for dinner? It’s not that exaggerated; even Paragons don’t live forever, and they can all be injured and killed.”

In the meantime, the screams grew closer.

Woo-Moon had killed countless groups of Black Hand criminals and had gotten close to the rear of the multitude of enemies, where the Golden Insect Stockade lay waiting.

The Golden Insect Stockade bandits, including the Golden Insect Boss, really wanted to run away.

However, they had no choice but to stay and fight due to the Martial Heaven Emperor’s energy, which made them explode to bits the moment they tried to flee.

“Damn it! Fuck, he must be tired by now! Attack him! Kill him!”

The Golden Insect Boss’ shout resulted in him and his men falling into the abyss of death.

It took about a day and a half for the hundreds of men to turn into tens of men and about half an hour for the tens of men to be reduced to just one.

“Ha... Ha...!”

Woo-Moon put his foot on the chest of his opponent’s corpse and yanked out his sword.

Squelch!

The blade was acting as a plug, preventing arterial blood from flowing out. The moment it was removed, hot blood spurted out, splashing his face.

“Ugh... ugh, agh!”

One of the bloodied bandits tried to get up and run away. However, since he already had a massive laceration on his abdomen, he couldn’t move that fast.

Woo-Moon threw Inkblade and pierced him through the heart.

There was only one person left standing in the street now: Woo-Moon.

He went to recover his sword while trying to catch his panting breath.

“Are you done pretending?” he said, pointing his blood-dripping sword toward a corpse lying in a pool of blood.

As he approached, the Golden Insect Boss, Thousand Year Pig, bounced his fat body like a ball and stood up.

Splat!

The blood-soaked dirt in Thousand Year Pig’s hand flew toward Woo-Moon’s eyes while Inkblade, which had taken countless lives by now, moved once again.

Swish!

The sound of his sword cutting through the air rippled through the surroundings as the black blade cut the dirt and Thousand Year Pig’s qi at the same time, rendering him incapacitated.

Woo-Moon’s swordsmanship had already reached a level where he could cut through qi without using even the slightest bit of qi.

Thousand Year Pig already knew that, of course. He had witnessed Woo-Moon slaughtering people like they were chickens.

“AAAAARGHHHH!!!”

He just wanted to live.

It’s better to live a terrible life than to die. It’s better to eat dog shit for the rest of your life than to die. He absolutely didn’t want to die. And in order to live, he had to kill Woo-Moon at all costs.

So he used his secret weapon.

It was something he had kept hidden all this time, determined only to use it when the moment of life or death came. He found it when he accidentally stumbled upon the body of a Tang Family warrior who had lost his life in a fight.

The Meteor Bomb.

Thousand Year Pig squeezed out all of the qi he had left and threw the Meteor Bomb forward.

The Meteor Bullet was a secret weapon that required a lot of qi just to activate.

Swish!

The Meteor Bomb, which was pointed on one end and wide on the other, spread its wings and flew into the sky as soon as it left the Thousand Year Pig’s hand.

‘Right in range, directly above Woo-Moon’s line of sight. Damn, I calculated it perfectly,’

Thousand Year Pig thought to himself with wide eyes. Just like he expected, the Meteor Bomb stopped flying exactly between Woo-Moon and the sun before folding its wings back.

“Huh?”

Even without qi, Woo-Moon’s vision was far superior to regular martial artists’, let alone normal people’s. However, precisely for that reason, the hot and intense midday sun made it impossible for him to see the Meteor Bomb properly.

Immediately, Woo-Moon sheathed Inkblade and drew Lightflash. The sheathing and drawing of the swords were clean and simple, done in a single fluid motion, almost as if the dark blade had been merely a shadow of the shiny blade in his hand.

SCREEEEECH!

The Meteor Bomb spun at a frighteningly high speed, piercing down toward Woo-Moon like a falling star crossing the dome of heaven.

Woo-Moon’s eyes were on Lightflash. Since he could not look at the weapon directly, he used Lightflash’s blade as a makeshift mirror that somewhat diminished the brightness of the sun. It took him just a fraction of a second to calculate the speed and trajectory of the weapon, then simply swung his sword.

There was no sound of metal striking metal, but that was not because he had missed.

The technique Woo-Moon used was Cold Snow.

As soon as the tip of his blade reached the vicinity of the Meteor Bomb, it started spinning and merged into the Meteor Bomb’s spin, moving at the same speed.

The next step was simple.

The moment Woo-Moon slightly shifted Lightflash, the Meteor Bomb, now fully assimilated into Lightflash’s momentum, was also affected and changed direction slightly.

Shing!

The Meteor Bomb passed right by Woo-Moon’s ear, followed by a thin stream of blood and a few severed hairs.

Thud!

“

Ugh!

”

As Woo-Moon was dealing with the Tang Family’s weapon, Thousand Year Pig had suddenly rushed in and rammed Woo-Moon’s chest with his shoulder.

“You’re going to die, Song Woo-Moon!”

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

With a shout, Thousand Year Pig wrapped his thick and strong arms around Woo-Moon’s chest and squeezed with every single bit of his incredible strength.

Thousand Year Pig had expected that the Meteor Bomb wouldn’t kill Woo-Moon; thus, he used all of his qi to throw the Meteor Bomb, then endured the inevitable qi deviation and internal injuries to squeeze his dantian empty once more.

As a result, he was able to catch Woo-Moon off guard.

“At least... you tried. Good try.”

Woo-Moon twisted his wrist with a soft murmur.

Crack!

Woo-Moon had plunged his sword into Thousand Year Pig’s chest the moment the bandit rammed him, and now, the tip of his sword came out through the man’s back.

Squelch!

Blood poured out between sword and flesh, soaking Woo-Moon’s entire body. With slightly dazed eyes, he pushed Thousand Year Pig’s body away with incredible difficulty.

Thud!

The bloated body fell to the ground. Now, he wasn’t pretending any longer.

It had been a desperate situation. Thousand Year Pig had been a fraction of a second away from ramming Woo-Moon with his shoulder when Woo-Moon drew Golden Dragon and let him impale himself with the sword.

As a result, Thousand Year Pig found his heart pierced without even knowing how he had been stabbed, and the moment Woo-Moon twisted his sword, the bandit died instantly.

“Now... how many are left?” Woo-Moon muttered, his eyes somewhat glazed over as if he was trying to go back to that time long ago.

He trudged forward, Golden Dragon in hand, looking for the next enemy.

Even now, his enlightenment was gradually deepening.

It’s said that when enlightenment comes, one shouldn’t worry about other things so that one can fully comprehend and absorb this enlightenment.

However, things were different for Woo-Moon.

Because of his experience learning the Forbidden Divine Art and the Gentle Celestial Sword through the landscape painting, he was good at partitioning his mind so that one part could deal with the enlightenment while another part did other things.

For instance, killing.

***

The last enemy in sight—name irrelevant, number unknown—fell to the ground.

Woo-Moon’s clothes were so drenched with blood that he could barely move. Blood coagulates over time, and the sheer amount of blood on him made him feel as if he had just taken a bath in glue. Or at least that was what he would’ve felt if he could feel anything.

The gaze reflected in Golden Dragon’s blade was cold and uncaring. Woo-Moon himself wouldn’t have recognized those eyes... if he could see them.

But Woo-Moon’s body was numb and his eyes were blank.

He was in a trance, just like back then.

What was different from when he was young was that back then, his head was filled with the techniques of the landscape painting, making it impossible for him to think of anything else through the complicated web of the Dao. Right now, his mind was equally full of thoughts—but also, at the same time, completely empty.

Moving, fighting, and killing enemies who came near—it was all just instinctive reactions engraved in each and every strand of Woo-Moon’s thick muscles.

Even though he had killed countless people with only his physical strength, Woo-Moon was still going strong, without any fatigue.

The one watching him from afar, the Martial Heaven Emperor, burst into laughter.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

He was standing with his hand on his slender waist like a peerless beauty, yet his laughter was so great that his body seemed like it would fall apart, completely unlike his dainty self.

Suddenly, he stopped laughing and glared in Woo-Moon’s direction.

“Ugh!”

Jin Yo, who was tied up with his qi restricted, vomited blood.

It was because of the mad bloodlust flowing out of the Martial Heaven Emperor’s body.

With bloodshot eyes, the Martial Heaven Emperor muttered, “How unexpected.... I was just trying to give him a simple test, but what a result.... His growth is just too great. What a dangerous fellow.”

Dae-Woong’s eyes widened as he heard those words. Besides the fact that the Martial Heaven Emperor was actually

talking

, which was quite against his habit, the meaning behind them was frightening. It seemed that the Martial Heaven Emperor was planning to nip the problem in the bud.

“There’s nothing I can do, I suppose. You’ll be the one to kill me, Song Woo-Moon.”

The Martial Heaven Emperor smiled bashfully, like an innocent girl.

***

The number of Black Hand criminals that the Martial Heaven Emperor had released in the capital was seven thousand.

Six thousand of them had died during Woo-Moon’s entry into the capital as he cleared his way forward, leaving a thousand opponents for him to fight with his qi restricted.

By this point, Woo-Moon had already killed half of those thousand.

As he dealt with another hundred or so, a strange change occurred.

Even though Woo-Moon’s sword had no qi or aura, it conjured up a wind.

It was as if his sword itself was controlling nature.

No, it was as if nature was sympathizing with Woo-Moon’s sword and helping him. Wherever the sword went, the power of nature followed.

At first, it was just a breeze.

Just a light breeze that made one’s hair flutter.

However, soon, it grew strong enough to make people’s hair fly around, and eventually, it became a gale that could blow them away.

Bang!

Boom!

“Agh!!”

“W-why is there a typhoon all of a sudden?”

It was like a bolt from the clear blue sky.

The sky was, in fact, clear and calm, and there were no signs of a storm, yet a mighty gale still cut through the bandits and blew them away in all directions. Those who lacked the ability to control their flight or didn’t have enough qi to support themselves crashed into the buildings around them; their heads burst, their limbs broke, and their organs ruptured.

The group of Black Hand criminals were busy fighting Woo-Moon and the typhoon all at once, making them realize it too late.

The typhoon was moving in the direction Woo-Moon’s sword was moving, and Woo-Moon was at the center of the terrifying gale.

Moreover, Woo-Moon, who still couldn’t use his qi, was even standing in the eye of the storm, looking so peaceful!

“I-impossible!”

“Hey, you, why are you using qi?! Don’t you care about your father’s life?!”

Woo-Moon would have certainly told him to fuck off... if he could say anything. But he had emptied everything in his mind and was now only thinking of one thing: the Gentle Celestial Sword.

Meanwhile, there were people with high cultivation even within the Black Hand, and they could tell that Woo-Moon truly wasn’t using any qi at the moment.

The strongest of them—the Grand Boss of the Eighteen Stockades, Flying Thunder Sword Fiend Ga Hyun-Woo—spoke up.

“No.... This isn’t a phenomenon formed by qi. Then, just... just...how...”

Ga Hyun-Woo suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

“Nature moves with his sword... So that’s how it is... The Natural Sword!”

1. The Green Forest Stockade is a common bandit organization in Korean

murim

novels; they dwell in forests and they’re pretty much like Legolas and his Greenwood elves but like... robbing people. They are said to have eighteen groups: four strong, five middle-ranked, and nine weak. ☜