Second-Rate Warrior Facing a Legend (1)
“Everyone, stop!”
Namgung Seonhwa’s voice rang loudly throughout the entire cavern.
Even those who had been fiercely in the middle of battle began turning their heads one by one, and the fighting soon entered a lull.
“Has someone secured the Mita Divine Water?”
I had expected that such fierce fighting had ultimately broken out because the Mita Divine Water had fallen into someone’s hands, but the answer that came back was unexpected.
“That is not it. They tried to steal our food.”
The relatively clean-looking people on the right pointed at the filthy people on the left.
“Food?”
“That is right.”
“If you are hungry, leave the cave. Is there any need to kill each other over mere food?”
“We would leave if we could!”
The answer came from the left.
A shabbily dressed man stepped forward as if he might collapse at any moment.
“We have already been eating nothing but moss for a week!”
“What does that mean? The river path opened this morning.”
“What need was there to wait until the river path opened? Once that time came, more people would gather anyway.”
In short, they had forced their way through the water and entered here before Haomun opened the river path.
“Then why have you not gone back?”
“As I said just now, if we could leave, we would have. We are stuck here because of this damned formation.”
“Then no one has discovered the Mita Divine Water after all?”
“If you want to enter the formation on the opposite side, go ahead! I do not know whether you will come back alive, though.”
They said hundreds of people had already entered inside, but not a single person had returned alive.
Namgung Seonhwa recalled what Yu Jiryang had said as soon as he entered.
“We need to investigate further before we can know what kind of formation it is.”
At Yu Jiryang’s words, Namgung Seonhwa spoke again to the group.
“We will investigate from now on.”
“Investigation or whatever, we are starving to death!”
“…”
Namgung Seonhwa looked at the people on the right.
However, every one of them was full of wariness, and none of them seemed willing to share their food.
“The Namgung Family will distribute food. In exchange, I will not forgive anyone who causes a disturbance from now on.”
“Young Lady!”
“You cannot! If we end up unable to leave here…”
“Enough! If we cannot identify the formation, then we will not be able to leave either.”
At Namgung Seonhwa’s shout, the people of the family no longer raised objections.
Each of them took out jerky or fasting pills from their traveling pouches and handed them over.
However, while there were thirty people from the Namgung Family, there were nearly two hundred people on the left.
Eventually, the warriors of the Iron Sword Sect also took out jerky and fasting pills and handed them over.
Despite the sacrifices made by the Namgung Family and the Iron Sword Sect, many people were dissatisfied with the drastically small amount of food, but they no longer seemed inclined to step forward.
After all, if the formation itself could be released, that would be better than the food before their eyes.
Yu Jiryang gave a detailed explanation of the formation.
“To be precise, part of the original formation naturally collapsed over time, and some of its remnants created a natural formation.”
Neither Namgung Seonhwa, who was listening, nor I could understand.
A formation was a method in which even one wrongly placed stone would break the entire harmony and render it useless.
It was impressive enough that the formation had endured for such a long time, but could a collapsed part of it become a natural formation again?
“…It should not be possible, but we are confirming it now.”
Yu Jiryang looked at the art practitioners studying the formation on the other side under the protection of Namgung Family warriors.
The faces of those checking the formation had all turned deathly pale.
“I hoped it was not the case… but it is as expected.”
“What does that mean?”
At our conversation, the people on both the left and right pricked up their ears.
“Have you ever heard of the Infinite Indestructible Soul-Extinguishing Formation?”
Gulp.
Instead of answering, people swallowed their saliva.
Just hearing its name was enough for a pessimistic future to form in their minds.
“It is a terrifying formation that disappeared three hundred years ago, one that should not exist in this world.”
“…”
Namgung Seonhwa’s complexion gradually worsened.
Instead, I stepped forward and asked.
“What exactly makes it terrifying?”
“Once you enter the formation, you cannot come out.”
“Is such a thing possible?”
A formation basically builds a new world using the life gate and death gate as its framework.
Just as no building can be constructed without a central framework, a formation also cannot be built without a life gate and death gate.
“Of course, this formation also has a life gate and a death gate, but it was made in a way that makes them impossible to find even if one knows they exist.”
Even though hiding the life gate and death gate inside a formation could be considered basic formation technique, Yu Jiryang’s explanation was only negative.
“The basic framework is set by the Eight Trigrams, and the paths of the Twelve Branches are set to create the routes of the Sixty Cycle. Then, under the influence of the daily stem, three hundred sixty-five changes are created. Because those changes feel close to infinite, it was named the Infinite Indestructible Soul-Extinguishing Formation.”
“…”
Not only us, but also the people who had entered earlier and those who had entered later all turned pale.
“Th-Then what about destroying it! What happens if we destroy it? Most of the people who came here, including the Namgung Family, are experts. Can we not destroy it and leave?”
Someone asked desperately.
Yu Jiryang shook his head.
“That is ultimately why this formation disappeared. A formation is normally used when one wants to protect someone or capture an opponent alive. But once this is installed, it cannot be dismantled or destroyed.”
“Th-That…”
“Small ones may perhaps be broken with extremely powerful destructive force, but the size of the Soul-Extinguishing Formation spread here is, by rough estimate alone, more than thirty jang. Moreover, it seems a portion of the formation was destroyed when the cave collapsed, yet the formation’s shape is still maintained.”
“Heo…”
The people on the left began plopping down onto the floor one by one.
I pointed to one side of the cavern and said,
“Yu Jiryang, there was definitely someone who saw the Mita Divine Water here and came out, was there not? How did that happen?”
“…I suspect that heavenly luck helped him escape.”
“Heavenly luck?”
“Yes. The probability is close to infinite, but the life gate and death gate definitely exist, do they not?”
“Then if the formation can be calculated, would it not be possible to find the life gate and leave?”
“But it is impossible to calculate the path that changes every moment each time. If one loses the path during calculation, then from that point onward, one also loses the central axis needed for recalculation, and will ultimately become trapped in the formation.”
“Then conversely, what if one memorizes all the paths?”
“Pardon?”
“What if one memorizes every path created by the Eight Trigrams, Twelve Branches, Sixty Cycle, and three hundred sixty-five changes?”
“…Even with a rough calculation, there would be over two million.”
The characters in the documents I had read in the Murim Alliance’s Intelligence Department were five times that amount.
“I think it is possible. Calculate everything and tell me.”
“…Are you serious?”
“I do like jokes, but this does not seem to be the time for one.”
After thinking for a moment, Yu Jiryang firmly closed his mouth and nodded.
“It will take time.”
The people who heard my conversation with Yu Jiryang looked as if they could not believe it, while also beginning to hold a small expectation.
“Namgung Family!”
At that moment, a group of men burst out of the formation near the exit.
The warriors in red martial uniforms and Seo Hyeonjae’s group of three.
The number of men in red martial uniforms had been reduced by half, and the appearances of Seo Hyeonjae, Mago San, and Sa Muin were extremely haggard.
“Where is the Namgung Family!”
Seo Hyeonjae, who was looking around, met my eyes as I was talking with Yu Jiryang on the opposite wall, and flew in using the Bowshot Bullet Shadow movement method.
“You bastard! You dared trick me!”
The moment his sword aimed at me and Yu Jiryang, the warriors of the Namgung Family stepped forward and blocked his sword.
“Crack! Namgung Family! You bastards are all the same!”
It was not only Seo Hyeonjae.
Mago San and Sa Muin also seemed to have suffered some hardship and were openly showing hostility.
“Stop!”
The ones who stepped forward then were the warriors from the left and right sides, who had been fighting to kill each other.
“They are our only way to live right now!”
“That is none of my concern! If you do not want to die, get lost!”
“You fool!”
Three or four warriors from the right side charged at Seo Hyeonjae at the same time.
Then Mago San and Sa Muin joined in and repelled them in an instant, and afterward, the warriors from the right side rushed at them all at once, starting a new fight.
Clang, clang, clang.
However, pushed back by superior numbers, Seo Hyeonjae’s group simultaneously took wooden boxes from their robes and put pills into their mouths.
“Hoo, hoo, hoo.”
“Haa, haa!”
In an instant, enormous energy poured from the bodies of Seo Hyeonjae’s group.
The moment those who had been pushing forward with numbers flinched,
Seo Hyeonjae’s ice palm and Sa Muin’s wolf-tooth club scattered people in all directions while spraying fountains of blood.
“Who is it! Who will block our way!”
Bloodshot eyes, rough breathing, and internal energy suddenly doubled in size.
It was clearly the effect of the Blood-Explosion Pill.
The nearly fifteen hundred people on the left and right combined flinched and stepped back before the momentum of those three people.
When no one moved anymore, the three began striding toward us, and Namgung Seonhwa and the others also began preparing to oppose Seo Hyeonjae.
At that moment, Namgung Seonhwa looked behind them and shouted sharply.
“Great Hero Yong Soa!”
Seo Hyeonjae’s group, which had been approaching us without hesitation, suddenly stopped and turned around.
There, Yong Soa’s group was still walking out of the formation.
“How did this happen?”
They found it strange because they had clearly entered the formation first, yet we had come out of the formation before them.
“This is the terror of formations. If you take one wrong path in there, you may die in a place where you can never gauge time or space for the rest of your life.”
As Yong Soa’s group began approaching, Seo Hyeonjae blocked the path in the middle.
“Our business comes first!”
“Move aside. I show no generosity to the dark faction.”
“You damned…”
Seo Hyeonjae’s words did not continue to the end.
His hand, which had been about to shoot out an ice palm, and his head fell to the floor under Yong Soa’s sword, which had not even been visible, scattering fountains of blood.
“Aaaargh!”
Mago San and Sa Muin screamed as they pushed Seo Hyeonjae’s body aside.
“You bastards must be the same kind too.”
“Do not come near me! Do not come near me! Unless you all want to die together, do not come near me!”
Mago San took a Thunderbolt Bomb out of Seo Hyeonjae’s luggage and threatened them, and Yong Soa’s movement also stopped for a moment.
“Do you think you will be alive until you detonate that?”
“Damn it! Just move one finger. Today, we all die here.”
As Mago San’s group surrounded him in layers and protected him as if they were his final bastion, Yong Soa turned his head as if he no longer cared.
“Explain what happened.”
When Yong Soa spoke to Namgung Seonhwa, Namgung Seonhwa explained in detail what had happened.
When the words Infinite Indestructible Soul-Extinguishing Formation came out, even Yong Soa, of all people, showed a slight flinch.
“So there is a way to break the formation?”
“It is not breaking the formation. Great Hero Yu Jiryang and Young Hero Jin are calculating it and guiding us to the life gate inside the formation.”
“Even by rough calculation, there are over two million possibilities, and if part of the formation is damaged, new paths may arise accordingly. You are wasting your strength on something absurd.”
“There is no other method we can use right now.”
“…”
#
Two weeks later.
I was memorizing each and every route Yu Jiryang and the art practitioners calculated for me, without regard for day or night.
In the meantime, two thousand more people entered the cavern, and among them, two hundred died fighting, while three hundred entered the formation on the opposite side, saying they would search for a route, and never returned.
According to Yu Jiryang, the very fact that we had been able to enter was because part of the formation had been damaged, and once one entered this formation spread across a full thirty jang, if one did not know the route, one could only remain trapped inside the Soul-Extinguishing Formation.
“Everyone is reaching their limit.”
Seong Moran and Namgung Seonhwa had also dried up like plants in a drought.
It was because they had given away half of the food at first.
Even then, they had only endured this long because they had rationed food as much as possible.
“How much longer will it take?”
“…It will take five more days.”
“…”
The warriors had suffered greatly from hunger, but the art practitioners’ condition was not good either.
Because they were poorly nourished, the calculations were taking longer and longer.
“…This is meaningless.”
At that moment, Yong Soa, who had been sitting to one side, abruptly stood up.
The strongest person in this cavern right now was none other than Yong Soa.
Among the dark faction members, there were some whose reputations were not inferior to Yong Soa’s, but because of the other Daoists of the Wudang Sect, they did not deliberately pick a fight with him.
“Get up.”
The place Yong Soa moved toward was where Mago San’s group was sitting among the dark faction crowd.
“Hand over the Thunderbolt Bomb.”
“What!”
When Yu Jiryang realized Yong Soa’s purpose, he sprang to his feet.
“You must not, Great Hero! This formation is not a formation that can be broken with a Thunderbolt Bomb.”
“It cannot be broken. But can it not open a path?”
“…”
At Yong Soa’s words, not only the righteous faction crowd but also the dark faction crowd slowly began standing up from the floor.
They were prepared to do anything as long as they could leave this place.
“But if you use the Thunderbolt Bomb, we will not know how the routes may change. Please, trust us.”
Yong Soa looked at Yu Jiryang and me with dry eyes.
“Do you believe that a human can memorize two million routes?”
At Yong Soa’s words, I spoke.
“So you intend to leave alone?”
Only now did I understand why nearly five thousand people had died here.
And also how Yong Soa had returned alive from this chaos.
And why no story had been passed down afterward that Yong Soa had been here.
“I will go out and bring art practitioners from the Murim Alliance.”
“Did you not hear him? This is not a formation that can be broken in the first place.”
“The full strength of the Murim Alliance cannot be compared to that of a single sect.”
“The only real possibility is to memorize the routes here and leave. If the routes become distorted because of you, what do you intend to do about the lives of the people here? Do they not matter?”
“People are still continuing to enter from outside. If we simply leave things as they are, the damage will rise endlessly.”
Yong Soa held out his hand to Mago San.
Then Mago San and Sa Muin prostrated themselves flat.
“We will give it to you. In exchange, please take us with you.”
“…Fine.”
“U-Us too…”
“Please take us too.”
Clang, scrape.
As people rushed in from all directions, Yong Soa drew his sword and carved a long line into the floor.
“I will cut down anyone who crosses this line. I will go out and bring people. Wait here.”
“Damn it! How are we supposed to believe that!”
“When have you hypocritical bastards ever kept a promise!”
Some people sided with Yong Soa, but others opposed him.
Seventy percent of the people inside the cavern were dark faction members.
They firmly believed that Yong Soa, the representative young talent of the Murim Alliance, might abandon them.
“Die!”
Eventually, starting with someone, swords were drawn, and the cavern that had been quiet for a while began filling with people’s screams and cries.
“Keurgh!”
“Kaak!”
Dozens of people charged at Yong Soa, but none lasted more than five exchanges.
In an instant, a wall of corpses formed around Yong Soa and the Daoists of Wudang, and faced with their terrifying and overwhelming force, people gradually began stopping one by one.
“Great Hero Yong Soa. Stop.”
The ones who eventually stepped forward were Namgung Seonhwa and the warriors.
“There are only a few days left. Please wait just a little longer.”
“We have wasted time until now because of you people. I cannot delay any longer.”
“Even so, we cannot gamble with the lives of three thousand people.”
“Do you have the strength to stop me?”
“…Prepare the Azure Dome Sword Formation.”
“Activate the formation!”
“Activate the formation!”
The moment the Namgung Family activated the Azure Dome Sword Formation, the Daoists of Wudang also began deploying the Taiji Sword Formation.
Namgung Seonhwa and Yong Soa left their formations and fought separately, but even Namgung Seonhwa, of all people, looked like a child before Yong Soa.
‘Is this real…’
I could not help letting out a sigh when I saw the lump of force blooming before Yong Soa’s sword.
Though he was not even thirty yet, he was actually unleashing sword aura.
Namgung Seonhwa tried using her most confident sword art, the Imperial Sword Technique, but she could not withstand Yong Soa.
In the end, the only one in this cavern who could stop Yong Soa was me, the one who knew the breaking form against the Wudang sword art.
“No. Yong Soa is different from my Orabeoni.”
When I tried to step forward, Seong Moran stopped me.
“If I do not step forward now, we will all die here without being able to move. And I have a method, so do not worry too much.”
Leaving Seong Moran behind, I shot the Flying Dragon Claw and embedded it into the wall, then pulled on the Heavenly Silkworm Thread.
Whoosh.
Something like a pulley inside the Flying Dragon Claw spun rapidly, shooting my body out like an arrow.
“Young Lady Namgung, lower your head!”
At my words, Namgung Seonhwa lowered her head tightly, and I swept the Black Dragon Sword over her.
Clang!
Yong Soa, who was forced back two steps by the surprise attack, soon regained his stance.
I immediately rushed at him while unleashing the breaking form of the Taiji Divine Sword, the root martial art of the Wudang Sect.
Sharararara.
A faint surprise appeared on Yong Soa’s face, which had not changed expression even once since he entered the cavern.
“What is this?”
Yong Soa looked back and forth between his sword and me.
In order to give him no time to think, I unleashed the breaking form again.
Bang! Bang! Boom!
Sensing something strange in the technique, Yong Soa immediately raised his power.
A radiance about two ja long appeared above his sword.
‘Insane!’
Though it was short, it was definitely force.
Bang! Bang!
Every time I clashed with the sword force, I desperately deflected the force, but a tingling sensation like a hammer striking an anvil traveled through my palm and up my arm.
Fortunately, the Black Dragon Sword, made of Vajra-Indestructible Iron, did not lose its edge or shed fragments like other swords.
“Did the Taeul Sect have such a sword art?”
“…That is why you should have looked into the true strength of the sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks in advance.”
Even while unleashing the breaking form, I kept using the Flying Dragon Claw to shift my position.
‘I cannot hold out long.’
Yong Soa had seen the Jegal Three Forms created by Jegal Cheon-gi, but in the end, he had never used breaking forms.
The ridiculous reason was that they harmed the spirit of Wudang.
Even so, he had never once been defeated.
Even when a Daoist of the same Wudang Sect used a breaking form, he had not been pushed back.
If he became even a little more accustomed to this breaking form, he would definitely be able to counterattack.
“A sword art that dismantles an opponent’s martial art…”
As expected, he had already begun grasping the root of the sword art.
Unlike Namgung San, who had quickly switched to the Imperial Sword Technique when the Azure Dome Great Swallow Sword Technique did not work, he was persistently using the Taiji Divine Sword, almost as if on purpose.
His intention was to identify the true nature of the sword art I was wielding.
That intention was exactly correct, and the moments when his sword art stopped began to decrease.
“You must leave with me.”
“So, as expected, you plan to kill everyone here.”
“…”
The moment I thought there was no longer any way to resist,
I used the Flying Dragon Claw and flew toward the ceiling.
At the same time, I drew up all the internal energy in my core.
“Eat this!”
A powerful feeling surged out as if my core had emptied in one stroke.
Immense true qi radiated through my hand.
The Vast Heaven Divine Palm shot out as if to annihilate Yong Soa.
Boom, boom, boom!
For the first time, a crease appeared between Yong Soa’s brows.
‘It worked.’
The moment I felt relieved,
Yong Soa, using the desperate method of moving four liang with one thousand jin, redirected the force of the Vast Heaven Divine Palm to the side, leapt from the floor, and kicked me away.
Thud!
The moment I drew up what little power I had left and shot out the Flying Dragon Claw,
Ping.
As if he had been waiting, Yong Soa shot out a finger wind.
The Flying Dragon Claw fell powerlessly to the floor.
“Young Hero Jin!!”
From one side, Seong Moran screamed as if she might faint.
Only then did I turn my head and see that my body was already flying into the Infinite Indestructible Soul-Extinguishing Formation.
“No!”
It happened in an instant, with no chance to respond.
My vision blurred, and I was dragged into an unknown space.
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