Jang Muryang looked at the battlefield with a cold gaze.
The ground where Pyo-wol and Heuk-ho stood was filled with countless arrows stuck in the ground, making it look like a hedgehog with raised thorns.
Those weren’t just ordinary arrows with arrowheads attached to the shaft. Those were special arrows made entirely of solid iron, from its tip to its tail.
This naturally caused its power to be much greater than that of regular arrows, boasting a terrifying piercing ability that only the most skilled warriors would dare to deflect.
Add to that were the prodigious archery skills of the Black Cloud Corps.
No matter who it is, any master would find themselves helpless against a barrage of arrows.
Jang Muryang raised his hand, and the Black Cloud Corps cautiously advanced with their spears.
They had already fought against Pyo-wol before. They had experienced firsthand how formidable his martial arts skills were, not to mention his devastating power when he moved freely.
They still remembered those memories, so they did not let their guard down for a moment.
Crack!
Something suddenly rose from the ground covered in arrows.
It was Heuk-ho, with arrows densely packed like hedgehog quills all over his back.
He was already dead.
Beneath Heuk-ho’s body was Pyo-wol.
When the arrows came raining down, Pyo-wol used Heuk-ho as a shield to protect himself. Although Heuk-ho’s body ended up being riddled with arrows, Pyo-wol was able to survive the onslaught.
Thud!
Pyo-wol pushed Heuk-ho’s body aside and looked at Jang Muryang.
It was then that Jang Muryang spoke,
“Black Cloud Corps. Hunt the Reaper.”
Almost instantly, the Black Cloud Corps rushed toward Pyo-wol in unison.
They didn’t let out their usual bouts of screams and shouts. They had already realized that such acts were usually intended to intimidate or break their opponent’s momentum, but against Pyo-wol, it was useless.
To hunt someone like him, they need to attack with all their might, and not to rely on such tricks.
The Black Cloud Corps had lost so many of their comrades in their pursuit of Pyo-wol.
They attacked Pyo-wol with all their might.
Pyo-wol dodged all of their attacks, but the Black Cloud Corps did not stop.
One of the Black Cloud Corps members threw a spear.
The spear was aimed precisely at Pyo-wol’s back, but Pyo-wol evaded it as if he had eyes on his back by slightly changing directions to avoid the flying spear.
The spear hit the wrong target and landed on a wall.
Bang!
“Ack!”
“Keuk!”
With a loud crash, the wall collapsed, causing screams to erupt from the people inside.
To the residents of the slums, it was a disaster in the middle of the night.
The silence of the night was broken, and the screams of the poor echoed through the night sky.
Ignoring their pitiful screams, the Black Cloud Corps continued to pursue Pyo-wol, completely destroying the slums in the process.
Jang Muryang shouted,
“Don’t give him a chance to escape! If you lose him, the consequences will be endless! We must kill him here today!”
His eyes were bloodshot.
His grandiose dreams of establishing the Black Cloud Corps as a proper sect had long been shattered by Pyo-wol.
Their organization had already lost many of its members, including his powerful and trusted allies like Daoshi Goh and Heo Ranju.
Both Daoshi Goh and Heo Ranju’s deaths stripped Jang Muryang of any semblance of reason.
Blinded by rage, Jang Muryang could see nothing else, but Pyo-wol’s back. His head was filled with thoughts that he must kill him.
Ever since their involvement with Pyo-wol, the Black Cloud Corps had fallen into ruin.
It became clearer than ever that Pyo-wol was their natural enemy, sent from the heavens. And as long as they lived together under the same sky, there was no hope or future for the Black Cloud Corps.
They must kill Pyo-wol at all costs.
Then they could spend the time rebuilding the Black Cloud Corps much later.
The other members of the Black Cloud Corps had the same sentiments as Jang Muryang.
They chased after Pyo-wol as if possessed.
Kwa-kwa-kwa!
As they rushed forward, walls would collapse, causing new paths to be created.
The screams of the poor who had been attacked in the middle of the night echoed through the sky, but Jang Muryang and the Black Cloud Corps members paid them no attention. They just blindly continued to chase after Pyo-wol.
After a while, they all arrived at the swamp where Pyo-wol had chosen to build his hideout.
Upon arriving at the swamp, an ominous feeling came over Jang Muryang.
He somehow got the feeling that this was a battlefield that Pyo-wol had prepared, however, Jang Muryang was quick to deny his thoughts.
‘It’s impossible for him to have arranged a hideout in such a short amount of time. I’m sure he just happened to come here.’
It was then.
Pyo-wol, who was running fast, disappeared from his sight.
Then screams echoed.
“Keuk!”
“Kuergh!”
Jang Muryang knew even without looking that it was his own men who were screaming.
Pyo-wol had activated the traps he had set up around the swamp.
As the Black Cloud Corps members stepped on the traps, spears came out of the ground, impaling them.
The traps were simple, but its power was nothing to scoff at.
The traps Pyo-wol had set were deadly.
“Come out! You bastard–!”
“Filthy assassin!”
What drove the Black Cloud Corps even more insane was that they couldn’t even see a hair of Pyo-wol despite being trapped.
Pyo-wol was nowhere to be seen, and they had no clue as to where he was hiding.
Instead, the trap took one victim after another.
“He couldn’t have hidden in the swamp, could he?”
“Shit!”
Some quick-witted individuals thought that Pyo-wol might be hiding in the foul-smelling swamp, but they didn’t dare to venture inside.
The stench and poison were so overpowering that just approaching the swamp made them dizzy.
Of course, they could use their qi to block the stench and poison to a certain extent, but doing so would just be half as effective. Anything more that would have been too difficult for them to endure.
That’s when Jang Muryang shouted,
“Stab it with the spear!”
“Yes!”
With that, the Black Cloud Corps members plunged their spears into the swamp.
Dozens of spears pierced the swamp in unison.
Swoosh!
At that moment, the Soul-Reaping Thread stretched out and wrapped around one of the martial artist’s neck who was about to thrust his spear.
“Geack!”
The Soul-Reaping Thread immediately dragged the martial artist into the swamp.
“Hurry up and catch him!”
“Jong-woo!”
The nearby martial artists caught the martial artist who was entangled in the Soul-Reaping Thread, but before they could do anything, the Soul-Reaping Thread continued to pull the man into the swamp with its unearthly power.
“Help me!”
The drowning martial artist cried out as he flailed around in the swamp.
“Go and save him!”
“Damn it!”
Some of the nearby warriors stripped off their armors and jumped into the swamp.
“No! Don’t—!”
Jang Muryang shouted, but it was no use.
Many others had already jumped into the swamp to save their drowning comrade.
“Hik!”
“Keuck!”
At that moment, hell broke loose.
Pyo-wol began to mercilessly attack the Black Cloud Corps members who fell into the swamp.
He maneuvered the Soul-Reaping Thread skillfully by making it slithered across the swamp like a snake, then killing each and everyone in the swamp.
The smell of blood mixed with the foul stench of the swamp.
The men who had yet to jump into the swamp tried to save their comrade by thrusting their spears around, but they were unable to stop Pyo-wol’s attack.
Pyo-wol swam through the swamp like a crocodile. Once he caught his prey, he would drag them into the swamp and suffocate them.
The Black Cloud Corps spears couldn’t even put a graze to Pyo-wol’s body.
While the swamp was an obstacle that blocked the sight and movement of the Black Cloud Corps members, Pyo-wol could detect their movements with his skin by sensing the movements of the swamp.
Moreover, Pyo-wol remained unaffected by the swamp’s toxicity unlike the Black Cloud Corps martial artists who could not exert their full power.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
The martial artists who had been pierced in the forehead by the Soul-Reaping Thread collapsed without even being able to scream.
Their corpses sank to the bottom of the swamp, never to float back up at the surface.
“Y-You! You bastard!”
Jang Muryang could no longer hold back his anger.
He threw off the armor, which he wore like a lifeline and leapt into the air. When he reached the highest point, he gathered all his qi and struck his spear into the swamp.
Kwaaaang!
With a loud bang, the filth of the swamp splashed out in all directions, causing the ground to be exposed for a moment.
At that moment, Pyo-wol, who had been crouching on the ground, shot out at a terrifying speed.
Cit! Ciiiit!
He released the phantom daggers one after another.
Jang Muryang swung his spear to block all the phantom daggers flying towards him from different trajectories.
However, some of the phantom daggers had the Soul-Reaping Thread attached to them.
With a flick of Pyo-wol’s fingertips, he changed the trajectory of the phantom daggers.
Boom!
Ten phantom daggers, all coming from different trajectories, aimed for Jang Muryang’s vital points.
“Captain!”
“Attack him!”
The rest of the Black Cloud Corps members jumped into the swamp in an attempt to help Jang Muryang.
They unleashed their swordsmanship towards Pyo-wol, who had revealed himself.
Kwa-kwa-kwa!
The swamp surged like a storm because of the blast of qi that shot through it.
Pyo-wol’s position looked as precarious as a leaf blown in a storm, but even in the midst of the concentrated attacks aimed at him, Pyo-wol did not lose his concentration.
He used Black Lightning to increase his reaction speed to the highest level.
Not only did his reaction time increase, but the speed of his thinking also increased dramatically. His speed up thinking allowed him to quickly calculate the shortest distance to Jang Muryang.
Pyo-wol threw one of the phantom daggers to the side.
His target was a young martial artist, who had his grip on his spear a little bit too tight, indicating his lack of experience.
Swish!
The young martial artist’s throat was slashed.
A middle-aged warrior who was nearby screamed at the sight of the young man’s neck being cut off.
He seems to be shouting something, but the young man couldn’t make his words out. Perhaps the middle-aged man was calling out his name.
The Soul-Reaping Thread wrapped around the ankle of the middle-aged man.
Since the middle-aged man was so angered by the young man’s death, his senses became dulled that he couldn’t fend off the Pyo-wol’s attack in time.
Kwa-kwa-kwang!
The middle-aged martial artist took the brunt of Pyo-wol’s attack.
There was no scream.
His body had been torn apart by a tremendously powerful attack.
The members of the Black Cloud Corps screamed as they watched their comrade die from their own attack. Their steel-like formation broke apart, opening the shortest path to Jang Muryang.
Pyo-wol already had a path in mind.
He flew towards the path that others couldn’t see.
“You–!”
Jang Muryang threw his spear at Pyo-wol.
The spear turned into a meteor, aiming for Pyo-wol’s chest.
Boom!
The spear pierced Pyo-wol.
“Got you!”
Jang Muryang’s face lit up with joy.
He had finally killed that demon with his own hands.
However, the joy on his face didn’t last long.
Tsss, tss, tss!
Pyo-wol, who had a spear pierced right through his body, disappeared like a mirage.
The spear that had supposedly pierced his body fell helplessly into the swamp.
“Body… Substitution?”1
Only then did Jang Muryang realize that the entity his spear had pierced was not Pyo-wol, but an illusion he had created. Pyo-wol had moved so fast causing an afterimage to appear.
Jang Muryang quickly looked around for Pyo-wol, but at the next moment, he felt a cold sensation on his neck.
It was a phantom dagger, the size of a child’s palm.
Pyo-wol took the opportunity to go behind him and held a dagger at his throat.
“You demon bastard! You—”
Swish!
At that moment, Pyo-wol slashed Jang Muryang’s throat.
A red line appeared on Jang Muryang’s neck.
“Captain!”
“No—!”
The members of the Black Cloud Corps screamed and ran towards their leader, but by the time they reached him, Jang Muryang’s throat had already been split open like a fish’s gills.
Jang Muryang tried to curse with his last bit of strength,
“Y-You won’t have a good ending either—”
Puk!
But Pyo-wol had no intention of listening to Jang Muryeon’s words until the end. He stepped back and kicked Jang Muryang’s body into the swamp.
Splash!
Jang Muryang fell into the swamp.
The swamp swallowed his body, and didn’t spit him out again.
SoundlessWind21’s Notes:
Thank you for reading!
Body Substitution. Raws: 이형환위(移形換位). This is a martial arts technique often referred to as “body shifting” or “body exchange.” It involves the use of quick movements and precise positioning to evade an opponent’s attack and then counterattack from a different angle. 移 yí, chǐ, yì – change place, shift; move about 形 xíng – form, shape, appearance 換 huàn – change, exchange; substitute 位 wèi – throne; position, post; rank, status; seat
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