Chapter 51 : A Glimmer of Hope (1)

‘Where did such a monster come from…’

The Drunken Flower Garden master frowned deeply.

The man was strong enough to subdue her in an instant. He was a very outstanding martial artist. It didn’t make sense that such a master existed in the martial world and she, as the Drunken Flower Garden master, didn’t even know of his existence.

But she didn’t know. Not at all.

It was unlikely that a person this strong would be nameless, but she didn’t even remember hearing rumors of such a person.

He was a completely new master.

The martial art the man executed was also unfamiliar. He swung it indiscriminately without any set forms.

Generally, such a martial art was one of two things: either it was so fast that it didn’t need forms, or it carried a force so strong that it was hard to receive.

The man had both.

His blade was extremely fast, and the true energy contained in the blade was so strong that she didn’t dare to receive it.

So, there was no need for forms.

“Haa!”

The Drunken Flower Garden master raised her sword, controlling her breath.

She knew that the man was strong. But even if she were to die, she had to struggle to live as much as possible, right? She couldn’t just give up and die.

“You killed the prison master?”

“In a single stroke.”

“Then you must die too.”

“Of course. I’ve stained my hands with blood, so I have no intention of dying peacefully either. But the question is who can kill me, so what’s the use of being eager to die? There’s no one to kill me.”

“You worry too much.”

The Drunken Flower Garden master raised her sword and aimed it at the man.

In that instant, the Drunken Flower Garden master’s appearance changed completely.

The gentleness in her face disappeared all at once. The human warmth could not be felt. A gruesome demonic energy was felt, as if looking at a corpse that had been dead for a long time.

Death!

Anyone who faced the Drunken Flower Garden master would think the same.

They had encountered a death that would never let them live, even if they begged with both hands and feet.

“Hmph! Interesting.”

The man smirked.

A gleam of light flashed in the man’s eyes. It was a look that showed he had recognized the Drunken Flower Garden master’s martial art.

“I’ve heard a lot about it, but I never thought I’d see the real Dark Shadow Sword. It seems I’m lucky today. Huhu!”

Swoosh!

The man raised his blade.

* * *

‘Dark Shadow Sword?’

Mongseol observed the Drunken Flower Garden master.

Mongseol was not the only one looking at the Drunken Flower Garden master. All the surviving elders and assassins were looking at the Drunken Flower Garden master.

Who among the people of the Drunken Flower Garden did not know of the Dark Shadow Sword?

The Dark Shadow Sword was the number one ultimate technique of the Drunken Flower Garden. Naturally, everyone wanted to train in it.

Even a beginner practitioner who had just entered the Drunken Flower Garden and had held a sword for the first time would pour out quite a few questions about the Dark Shadow Sword. When could they learn the Dark Shadow Sword, were there conditions for learning the Dark Shadow Sword, and so on.

Whether they were a Drunken Flower Garden assassin or not, a considerable number of people knew the Dark Shadow Sword. But they did not know the truth. They only knew that there was a sword art called the Dark Shadow Sword, but they did not know what kind of martial art it was at all.

What kind of sword art was the Dark Shadow Sword?

There were not many people who could answer this question clearly.

Even the first-class assassins of the Drunken Flower Garden could not say what kind of sword art the Dark Shadow Sword was.

If you thought it was this, it seemed like that, and if you thought it was that, it seemed like this.

The Dark Shadow Sword was that abstruse.

But it could be clearly said that the sword art the Drunken Flower Garden master was executing now was not the Dark Shadow Sword.

To properly execute the Dark Shadow Sword, you first had to learn a movement technique that moved as elusively as a ghost.

Before executing the forms, a ghost-like movement, a movement whose form could not be grasped, had to precede it.

So, no energy was put into the Dark Shadow Sword.

Whether it was a strong energy or a killing energy, no energy was contained.

If you put energy into the Dark Shadow Sword, your position would be exposed.

Even if you moved so fast that you couldn’t be caught by the eye, if you were constantly emitting energy, it would be like telling them where you were and what you were doing.

Putting any kind of energy into a movement technique that had to resemble a ghost was not helpful at all. No, it was rather harmful.

Moreover, what was the point of containing a gruesome death energy like the one the garden master was executing?

If the garden master were to execute the Dark Shadow Sword now, she could only bet on the speed and precision of the forms, and she could not hope for the breath of a ghost. She could not show the true value of the Dark Shadow Sword.

But the man looked at the garden master and said ‘Dark Shadow Sword’.

The man was mistaken.

He had heard that there was a Dark Shadow Sword in the Drunken Flower Garden, and without knowing the details, he must have thought that it was the Dark Shadow Sword. Since the garden master was executing a sword art filled with death energy, he had probably carelessly said that it was the Dark Shadow Sword.

But this fact did not affect the fight.

The man would see the garden master’s martial art and respond with improvisation. So it didn’t matter whether he knew it as the Dark Shadow Sword or not. It was just that since he had said it was the Dark Shadow Sword, she had looked at the garden master’s sword once more. To see if it was really the Dark Shadow Sword.

The man said, “If your only asset is the Dark Shadow Sword… you’ll have a hard time living today.”

“A puppy doesn’t know how scary a tiger is because it has never seen a tiger.”

“Hahaha!”

Chuchuchu! Chuchuchut!

The two exchanged a short conversation and raised their true energy.

They let the opponent draw their true energy. They waited until their body condition was at its best.

“I’m ready, so attack whenever you think you’re ready. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the scenery. Huhu!”

The man said leisurely.

In that instant, the Drunken Flower Garden master’s body shot up like a swallow that had drunk water.

Shwaaaek!

The sound of something tearing through the air!

No other sound was heard. Only the sound of something cutting through the air was heard. How could such a sound be made just by swinging a sword in the air? The sound of something cutting through the air was so loud that you could only hear the sound.

Paat!

In an instant, the Drunken Flower Garden master’s body disappeared.

It was definitely not the Dark Shadow Sword. The Dark Shadow Sword did not move in this way. The garden master’s movement was incomparably faster and more secret than the Dark Shadow Sword.

The garden master had disappeared.

In the place where she had disappeared, only the death energy, the demonic energy, that she had been emitting intensely was undulating.

It felt as if a temporary silence had fallen.

The time the garden master had disappeared was only a moment, but that time felt as long as an eternity.

Death was rushing in. Death was coming soon!

Chuuak!

The deep, deep silence was broken in an instant.

The garden master appeared. She struck at the man’s head with her sword. The sword and her body became one and flew in a straight line. And before she knew it, she was splitting the man’s head.

She had won!

The shadow of the sword filled the sky. It felt as if there was only the sword in the world.

And… the sword falls. It rushes towards the man without hesitation.

Kwakwakwakwa! Kwajijijik!

‘There’s no place to escape!’

The moment they saw the sword shadow falling, anyone would think the same. So they had to block it with all their might. They had to immediately raise their weapons and block the sword shadow falling on their bodies.

At that moment, the man raised his head and looked at the sword.

Tat!

He stood on his toes.

With his back to the ground, and his belly to the sky… he leaped backwards as if doing a backstroke.

The man dug under the garden master’s belly. Since he had leaped while looking at the garden master’s belly, which had already leaped, it was a situation where they were flying side by side.

Parararak!

The garden master’s sword form changed.

As the man stuck to her underbelly, she immediately struck with her sword. She aimed for the man and stabbed with all her might.

The man also struck with his blade.

When had he raised his blade? Suddenly, the blade appeared and stabbed the garden master’s belly.

The garden master, as if she had expected the man’s sudden attack, quickly twisted her body.

Puut!

The blade grazed past the garden master’s body. And a red stream of blood scattered like a mist.

It was a battle that had occurred before she could even exhale the breath she had inhaled.

The man muttered, “Good. It’s good, but I told you before. If your only asset is the Dark Shadow Sword, you’ll have a hard time living today.”

The man shook his blade in the air to shake off the blood on the blade.

“Ugh!”

The Drunken Flower Garden master let out a groan and staggered back.

The Second Elder and the Third Elder quickly approached and supported the garden master.

The garden master did not refuse their support. Although the enemy was in front of her… she entrusted her body to the elders.

Her wound was that serious.

The wound from the blade could be ignored. Although the blade had gone in deep, there was probably not a single martial artist in the entire central plains who had not been hit by a blade of this degree.

The problem was the internal injury.

True energy had seeped into the blade. A very strong killing energy was contained, and it had touched her internal organs.

The garden master was in a state where she could not move at all.

Mongseol was also in a state where she could not move.

At first, it was just that she had suffered a rather severe internal injury, but as time passed, the pain intensified.

The technique of hitting a cow through a mountain that the man had executed was not a simple long-range true energy. It was a killing true energy. It was not an attack that ended with making you retreat or injuring you, but he had intended to kill you from the start.

Thud! Thud!

The man walked.

He was not approaching the garden master. He was walking towards Mongseol. With his blade full of killing intent.

“Block him!”

The garden master said to the elders.

Of course, she did not think that the elders could face the man. The Blood Sword had been hit, and the essence of the Dark Shadow Sword, the Fall of Life and Death, had been broken, so how could the elders block him?

They could only buy a little time for Mongseol to recover her body.

To buy that much time, the elders and the Drunken Flower Garden assassins might all die. But they would still block him. Since the man’s primary purpose in coming here was to kill Mongseol, they would try to block that first.

“Yes. Will you be alright?”

The Second Elder asked with a worried look.

“Be careful.”

The Drunken Flower Garden master squeezed the Second Elder’s hand tightly.

“Block him!”

The First Elder shouted.

The Drunken Flower Garden assassins moved in perfect order. They immediately surrounded the men and took an attack stance.

The man smirked.

“You’re going to block us?”

The Drunken Flower Garden assassins did not attack immediately. They just circled around, spreading the encirclement as wide as possible.

An attack was impossible. A defense was also not enough. The only thing they could do was to hold them back as much as possible. They just had to buy time for Mongseol to recover her scattered true energy.

“Tsk! I didn’t really intend to kill you. I can’t help it. There’s no way when they’re rushing in to die on their own. Let’s see. One, two, three…”

The man counted the number of Drunken Flower Garden assassins.

“There are sixteen in total. You guys are three. Even if we kill them equally, someone will have to kill one more. I’ll grant a wish to the one who kills the most today. Make way!”

“If it’s a wish… will you grant anything?”

“Everyone step back. I’m going to rent a whole brothel today and loosen up my body.”

“Haha! Just that?”

“Just that? Then what about you?”

“Master Jang Pae’s martial arts.”

“What?”

“You’ll pass on your martial arts too, right?”

The strong man said, looking at the man.

“Hahaha! Just because I tell you doesn’t mean you can all receive it, so it can’t be called an ultimate technique. I don’t know how much you’ll receive, but I’ll let you know.”

“You promised!”

The strong men who had followed the man said, excited with joy.

It seemed that the Drunken Flower Garden elders and assassins lined up around them were not visible in their eyes.

(End of Chapter)