Chapter 52 : A Glimmer of Hope (2)

The Drunken Flower Garden master looked at Mongseol with eyes full of despair.

There was no hope. To face them, the only way was for Mongseol to overcome her internal injuries and circulate her energy now.

But Mongseol showed no signs of getting up.

She was struggling to get up on her own, but she couldn’t get up easily.

She knew why such a situation had occurred. That was why she was desperate.

Another person could not know the situation occurring inside another’s body. To say that you knew was just a guess. But the Drunken Flower Garden master knew exactly.

Because the situation occurring inside Mongseol’s body and the situation occurring in her body were the same.

Mongseol could not escape from her internal injuries.

An internal injury meant that the internal organs or the meridians had been impacted and could not function properly.

A martial artist experienced such things countless times. It was no exaggeration to say that they lived with internal injuries.

It was fine to say that a martial artist’s daily life was a process of repeating the act of getting an internal injury and recovering.

But this internal injury was very unusual.

The internal injury was relatively light. No, it was so light that it couldn’t even be called an internal injury. Although she had received a strong impact to her internal organs and had vomited blood, there was no damage to her meridians.

So, she just had to shake her body once and get up.

But it wasn’t like that.

Somehow… her body had been struck by the technique of hitting a cow through a mountain, but as time passed, her meridians were being cut.

Mongseol’s true energy was cut off.

It was a situation where she could not generate true energy.

In the first engagement, the man had concentrated all his power on Mongseol. So, even though they had suffered the same internal injury, the garden master could hold her sword, and Mongseol was having a harder time.

The second engagement was a different situation. The man’s power was focused only on the garden master.

Only after experiencing the second engagement could the garden master understand what kind of situation Mongseol had fallen into.

The true energy in her body was gradually disappearing.

Her body became as heavy as a waterlogged cotton ball. The light blade wound also felt heavier as time passed. She even felt that the sword in her hand was cumbersome.

It meant that her body was that tired.

This phenomenon would worsen as time passed.

It did not cut the meridians at once, but gradually narrowed the meridians like when a rope was caught around the neck.

If the meridians were cut, you could abandon the cut meridians and generate true energy through other meridians. Then, even if you couldn’t execute your normal power, you could at least struggle.

The Hidden Kill blocked even this possibility. It even blocked the detour of true energy.

She couldn’t raise her true energy, and she couldn’t figure out which part was blocked and the true energy was not connected. Even though it was happening inside her own body, she couldn’t figure it out.

This internal injury could also be healed.

If you took your time and slowly checked your meridians, you could find the damaged part. It wasn’t difficult either. Because it was a wrong part, if you just looked carefully, you would surely find it.

After that, you could heal it as you would at other times.

But there was no time now.

She had to fight right away, but her true energy was cut off, so how could she use her sword?

If there was no true energy, the body had to fight with strength, but the cut meridians also controlled the body’s strength.

Mongseol didn’t even have the strength to lift her sword.

It was despair. The Fourth Elder and the twelve assassins could not hold out for long. And she could not expect Mongseol to recover her true energy and hold her sword within that time.

“Hoo!”

The Drunken Flower Garden master let out a deep breath.

Although Mongseol’s true energy was completely cut off, she could still struggle a little. Although more than sixty percent of her true energy had disappeared, her physical strength remained.

When she had strength, she was thinking of trying one last move.

She gripped her sword tightly.

* * *

Mongseol recited the Blood Sword Heart Sutra from beginning to end.

She had to somehow generate the Mud Pill One Sword. She was the only one who could stop the man.

The garden master had been struck down in a single move, and she had expected this to some extent.

The martial art the man executed was not unfamiliar.

She had seen such a martial art before. Wasn’t it similar to the chopper blade art that Ah Geol had executed?

First of all, there were no forms. He just swung his blade very quickly. But there were definitely forms contained within it. Although she couldn’t figure out what kind of forms they were, the one executing them was definitely raising and sheathing his blade according to a blade formula.

Such a blade was difficult to face.

Although the man’s blade was quite different from Ah Geol’s blade, it was certain that they were of the same kind. Why? The man’s blade smelled of Ah Geol. It smelled of a desolate, dry iron.

She had to generate the Mud Pill One Sword.

Only the Blood Sword could face the man’s ruthless slashing blade.

Chiiiit!

She generated her true energy. She tried hard to bring out the Mud Pill One Sword that was sleeping in her upper palace.

But the upper palace did not open.

The upper palace had to be wide open to bring out the Mud Pill One Sword… the Heart Sword was sleeping inside the upper palace… but since she couldn’t enter the upper palace, there was no way to bring out the sword.

She went through the Blood Sword Sutra from beginning to end several times. But she could not find any helpful text. It was unlikely that a secret plan for such a case would have been written in the secret manual. Naturally, she tried to memorize it even though she knew that it would be of no help.

A deep sense of despair was in Mongseol’s face.

She held her sword. But her hand was trembling so much that she couldn’t lift it properly.

‘I don’t even have the strength to hold a sword.’

Was the blow she had received from the man that powerful?

She looked at the garden master who was facing the man with gloomy eyes.

She knew that the garden master was in danger, but there was no way to help. She just watched helplessly.

“Die!”

Shwaek!

A blade flew.

The blade art that the men executed consistently had no forms.

It was a sensory blade that could not be called a complete martial art.

It seemed that they had not learned martial arts systematically. It was no different from putting a blade in the hands of a born fighter. They just swung the blade instinctively, there were no set rules.

Such a sensory blade was crushing a systematically trained traditional martial art.

Assassin martial arts could not be called orthodox martial arts. Deceit and trickery were added. But that was also a result obtained through long training, not an instinctive sense.

How could such an absurd thing happen?

A born fighter could not be a match for a martial artist who had systematically trained in martial arts. Even if twenty such fighters rushed in at once, they could not handle one martial artist.

This was the established theory.

In fact, it was a fact confirmed through countless fights, duels, and other methods of determining victory or defeat.

Then why did the established theory not apply to them?

They were not born fighters. They had just systematically trained in this kind of martial art.

Training to raise the senses to the highest level.

Training to use the blade instinctively.

Training to be able to respond to orthodox martial arts.

The result of accumulating training that raised the senses to an extreme degree was appearing in this way.

They were not using a blade without forms. They were executing an orthodox martial art in their own way.

Kaang! Kang! Kang!

The blade and the sword clashed, letting out a loud metallic sound.

The strong men used their blades very roughly. They struck out their blades very quickly and violently, with the intention of blowing everything away like a whirlwind in the desert.

On the other hand, the Drunken Flower Garden assassins fought back with a systematic formation.

Five people formed a group and executed the Five Elements Formation.

They occupied the five directions of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, and continued to attack and defend, utilizing the subtlety of mutual generation and mutual overcoming.

When a strong man attacked, they focused on defense, utilizing the subtlety of mutual generation.

When a strong man attacked the assassin in the position of wood, the assassins in the positions of water and fire would turn and join with wood. The Three Talents Formation would be executed.

At the same time, the earth and metal assassins in the positions of mutual overcoming would attack the strong man’s rear.

The mutual overcoming of wood was earth, and the mutual overcoming of metal was wood.

Whichever way it was connected to mutual overcoming, if you attacked from the point of mutual overcoming, the striking power would be doubled.

They fought, relying thoroughly on the formation.

If possible, they avoided direct clashes. They guided the strong man to retreat, knowing the difficulty.

They never received it directly.

The man watched the engagement between the three strong men and the fifteen Drunken Flower Garden assassins.

They were entangled in a chaotic battle. They were jumping here and there, and it was impossible to grasp.

But they were one lump.

The strong men were also entangled in the fight, and the Drunken Flower Garden assassins were also entangled.

There was no one to block the man. If there was, it was only the Third Elder who was supporting the Drunken Flower Garden master.

The man raised his blade and aimed it at the Third Elder’s head.

A sign of his intention to split his head.

Block this. How will you block it? It won’t work even if you use all your might, but if you want to live, you have to struggle, right?

The man smirked.

He was mocking the Third Elder.

No, it was not a mockery. Although the man was sending a mockery, the Third Elder could not receive the man’s smile as a mockery. She received it as it was… as a gesture of death.

“…I have to go first.”

The Third Elder released her support and held her sword.

The Drunken Flower Garden master could not stop her. She could not even say goodbye. So, the most she could do was to send her off with a frown, without saying anything.

Chiiiit!

The Third Elder’s body became as faint as a ghost.

It was the number one ultimate technique of the Drunken Flower Garden, the Dark Shadow Sword.

Depending on which of the two elements of the Dark Shadow Sword, dark and shadow, was emphasized, a sword art with a completely different nature was born. If dark was emphasized, it would appear in the form of a phantom sword like the Third Elder’s, and if shadow was emphasized, it would become a secret, dense sword.

The Third Elder was executing a phantom sword that had reached its peak.

If the Dark Shadow Sword worked, the man should not be able to grasp the Third Elder’s form. His vision should blur as if his eyes were under a spell, and the Third Elder’s form should appear in two or three overlapping layers.

Tatak! Tatatatak!

The man started to run. At first slowly, and then he ran with all his might.

He had no intention of dragging it out.

He had already found the Third Elder’s real body. No, he had not been caught by the Dark Shadow Sword from the beginning.

Tatak! Tak!

The man’s body floated up into the air. And he swooped down like a kite aiming for a chick.

Peeek!

The Third Elder extended her sword with all her might.

The man’s blade contained a great force. So she could not receive it. A falling blade, a rising sword… if they clashed, the sword would be shattered into pieces. And her body would also be split.

Should she dodge? She couldn’t dodge either. The blade was so fast that it did not allow her to retreat.

What the Third Elder was aiming for was the man’s two legs.

She extended her sword with the intention of creating a wound on his legs even if she died.

Of course, this attack would not work either.

She had felt it while extending her sword… it was really too fast. The blade was already above her head.

‘Such speed in the world!’

The Third Elder clenched her teeth. In that instant,

Peok!

A dull sound burst from the sky. At the same time, a red stream of blood shot up and dyed the blue sky.

A red flower bloomed from the top of the head of the man who had been about to strike with his blade.

A blade that had fallen from the sky had struck the man’s head, and as his head split, red blood gushed out.

The Third Elder squeezed her eyes shut.

The blood that the man had burst out scattered in all directions. It dyed the face of the Third Elder, who had been striking up with her sword from under the man, with blood. It seeped into her eyes, her nose, her mouth…

(End of Chapter)