Chapter 25 Plum Blossom Sword Legacy (2)

Chapter 25 Plum Blossom Sword Legacy (2)

While Gwak Un-pae went to check on Ha Jin-ak’s condition, the swordsmen had to make a choice.

Either retreat now and save their lives.

Or seize Gu Yang-jeok’s life over there and negotiate with Gwak Un-pae.

Neither option was difficult.

‘Neither Ha Jin-ak nor Gwak Un-pae can touch us right now!’

Compared to those who had just died, these swordsmen were clearly inferior in skill.

Yet they too had reason for confidence.

The man who had just slain the evil general was undoubtedly formidable.

But hadn’t he merely borrowed the power of the True Spirit?

They didn’t believe he had wielded it through his own martial prowess.

“…Doesn’t it tempt you?”

At someone’s spoken words, the swordsmen’s eyes flashed crimson.

The characteristic murky aura of the heretical sect seeped out subtly.

Then, another option was added.

They would join forces to seize control over Gu Yangjeok’s life and death, escape this place, and determine the master of the True Spirit.

The swordsmen, having tacitly agreed, gripped their blades, radiating a sinister aura.

Swoosh!

At that moment, Gu Yangjeok’s soles violently pushed against the earth’s crust.

Sizzle…….

Then, smoke rose from the scorching, heated ground.

Seeing this, the swordsmen recalled a martial art.

The Heavenly Flow Cloud-Sweeping Sword.

It was the martial art Ha Jin-ak had mastered to near perfection, the legendary sword technique that earned him the nickname “Blazing Sword of the Heavens.”

“Damn it, when did he teach him that?!”

Having heard of it and glimpsed its destructive power from afar, the swordsmen recoiled in terror.

Seeing this, mockery flashed across Gu Yang-jeok’s face.

“Scared?”

At his words, the swordsmen realized they’d been tricked and flashed angry expressions.

Still, they didn’t approach easily. It was the characteristic caution of the martial arts underworld.

‘What if… it really is the Heavenly Flow Cloud-Descending Sword?’

That’s the kind of pathetic thought they’d be having.

Gu Yangjie could read their thoughts and actions like an open book.

As long as the years spent as a ronin remained in his mind, he could tell just by looking at their expressions what sort of things the remnants of the Black Dragon would harbor.

And so, he erased the emotions he had harbored while Ha Jin-ak was teaching him.

He forgot them.

He had obliterated them.

He had shaken off even the remnants reduced to dust.

The battle was not yet over.

Those who wallowed in pathetic melodrama always met an early demise.

Therefore.

He resolved to forget it for now.

In Gu Yangjeok’s eyes, fixed on that decision, there was no trace of anguish.

Only the Black Dragon faction charging at him was reflected there.

“Come.”

Gu Yangjeok muttered softly as he gripped Ha Jinak’s sword.

The phrase “Fire Cloud’s Fragrance” was engraved near the hilt.

Did summer clouds produce a single fragrance?

‘Fire clouds settle when autumn comes.’

A bitter smile touched Gu Yangjeok’s face.

As if foreseeing Ha Jin-ak’s current predicament, he couldn’t suppress the wry smile.

It was an inexplicable sense of suffocation.

Truthfully, compared to what had happened in his previous life, this was clearly an improvement.

He knew where the attack targeting Ha Jin-ak was coming from.

The energy Ha Jin-ak had cultivated throughout his life permeated Gu Yang-jeok’s entire body.

Moreover, there was no longer any danger.

Since Gwak Un-pae had arrived first, Song Muk would follow shortly.

Yet.

Why, exactly, was he so irritated?

Gu Yang-jeok couldn’t offer a clear answer to that. He only knew what he had to do right now.

“You worthless scum! Why aren’t you coming faster?!”

Gu Yangjie’s overwhelming presence froze the swordsmen in place.

A top-tier fighter never misses such an opening.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve shown this.’

Almost a year since he’d been confined to his sickbed.

Gu Yangjie, briefly lost in reflection, lowered his upper body slightly.

His speed, fueled by his inner energy, was blindingly fast—vanishing in the blink of an eye.

“……?!”

“What the hell?!”

The shock of that sight lasted only a moment.

“There!”

“You wretched bastard! How dare you try to mock this master with an illusion!”

Gu Yangji trusted his martial arts, but he was not arrogant.

In the same vein, he believed that while martial arts of divine mastery existed, they were not invincible.

That was the conclusion Gu Yangji had reached through his travels across the martial world.

“……Hmph.”

Therefore, Gu Yangji exhaled sharply, channeling his Zixia True Qi outward.

The escaping energy instantly became mist, beginning to play tricks on the senses.

The Illusory Steps.

It was the foundational martial art of the Divine Body Technique Gu Yangji possessed, and the footwork of a sect lost to the currents of history.

Naturally, the martial artists of this generation had no counter to it.

“Again…”

“Gone?”

While the enemies stood dazed, Gu Yangji shrewdly slipped through their ranks.

Swish, clang!

Gu Yangji drew his sword in a fluid curve.

Drawn with unusual force, hot sparks flew from near the hilt.

“…Gah!”

Thud.

As the front-line swordsman stumbled back from the sparks that flew before his eyes, Gu Yangji grinned and swung his blade.

Whoosh!

The fiery energy coursing along the blade’s surface surged skyward in an instant, rippling wildly.

The swordsmen watched him while glancing sideways at Ha Jin-ak, who lay sprawled on the ground.

‘Is that the Heavenly Flow Flower Cloud Sword?!’

If one delved into the details of the sword stance and the manipulation of the fiery energy, it was clearly a different martial art. But it didn’t matter.

Gu Yangji unleashed the Heavenly Flow Flower Cloud Sword.

This distorted reality alone was more than enough to stir terror in the swordsmen’s hearts.

“You won’t escape.”

This single sentence became a shackle, binding the swordsmen’s feet.

It must have felt like scorching heat was melting their very minds.

‘I know that feeling.’

Gu Yangji was a seasoned hunter, having accumulated vast experience since his previous life.

Therefore, he never misses.

Gu Yangji’s pupils seemed to settle, then transformed into dots. The sparks that had just flashed made his pupils appear like will-o’-the-wisps.

Soon, that dot became a line as Gu Yangji began to move.

Whoosh!

Gu Yangjeok’s entire body twisted mid-air as his sword sprayed blood. Droplets from a single strike embroidered the sky.

To the casual eye, his movements resembled a dance.

Gu Yangjeok entangled himself with the swordsmen in a dizzying whirl.

The swordsmen lashed out desperately with their blades.

“Die!”

Malice and murderous intent.

Such things rushed to bind Gu Yangjeok’s movements, if only for an instant.

But they failed.

The Black Dragon Sect was far too weak a group to bind Gu Yangjeok’s steps.

Thus, Gu Yangjeok felt no emotion towards the Black Dragon Sect.

To him, the Black Dragon Sect was less than human.

They were mere wooden puppets; stab them, and blood flows.

That was the only sensation that made Gu Yangji’s hand feel heavy. No, it was almost as if there was no sensation at all.

Swoosh!

Even now, a life was mercilessly extinguished by Gu Yangji’s hand.

Watching this from afar, Guo Yunpai’s expression stiffened.

‘So what the enemy said all along… wasn’t just bluster?’

Guo Yunpai’s thought was half right, half wrong.

About six months ago, Gu Yangji was exactly as he thought—nothing more than a hot-headed bully who talked big.

But the Gu Yangji seated here was different.

The eccentric of the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains.

The master of the Eternal Snow, the Sword Demon.

And the group Gu Yangji had belonged to in his past life.

Gu Yangji had experienced the dizzyingly vast span of time and the rapidly flowing great war with his own body.

He wouldn’t be held back by something like this.

“That’s for us to decide.”

Gu Yangji moved with more freedom than anyone present.

Despite enemies closing in from all sides, making movement difficult, Gu Yangji carved out his own space.

This wasn’t something achievable through mere combat skill.

Gwak Unpae’s eyes narrowed.

‘That… it’s like…’

Wasn’t he like a veteran soldier, hardened by countless battles?

“Hmph.”

Gwak Un-pae pushed his interest in Gu Yang-jeok to the back of his mind.

Pondering that question now wouldn’t solve anything, and besides, a more urgent matter was right before him.

Gwak Un-pae placed his hand on Ha Jin-ak’s vital point.

“Huuu…”

A thin sigh escaped Gwak Un-pae’s lips.

The time Gu Yang-jeok had bought was undeniably valuable.

It had given him time to gently refine his internal energy, preventing overload on Ha Jin-ak’s body.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

It was a fatal opening, especially with enemies right before his eyes.

Yet, he paid it no mind, meticulously searching every acupoint on Ha Jin-ak’s body.

‘I must save him.’

Gwak Un-pae steeled his resolve.

His disciple, barely of age, was fighting desperately to save his senior brother.

Though the odds seemed favorable now, the martial world could turn on a dime.

This was the request made by Gu Yangji, who had chosen to bear that risk himself.

“Please tend to my senior brother!”

As a senior of the Huashan Sect, if he failed to fulfill this request, he felt he could never hold his head high again.

‘First… I must restore his depleted vital energy.’

Even so, Guo Yunpei couldn’t hide his astonishment.

The primordial true qi, which one naturally possesses from birth, was scarcely visible in Ha Jin’e’s body.

It was so faint, not even a pinch of ash could be sensed.

His very survival was a miracle.

Paradoxically, however, Guo Yunpei found hope in that very fact.

The fact that he was alive despite the disappearance of the True Origin Qi connecting flesh and soul meant Ha Jin-ak possessed an immense will to live.

“You must live, Jin-ak!”

Gwak Un-pae poured every ounce of his strength into it.

Gyu Yang-jeok, too, threw himself into striking down the Black Dragon Sect’s leader.

* * *

“…Ah, ahh.”

Baek Dan-hyeon, who had arrived with Song Muk, let out a hoarse groan. Things he didn’t want to believe were scattered everywhere.

Tears welled up in his usually sturdy eyes and streamed down his cheeks.

The tears that fell to the ground flowed through the dirt, and the tear tracks they formed were trampled under Baek Dan-hyeon’s feet and vanished.

“Truly, what on earth has happened here!”

“……”

Gu Yangjeok and Gwak Unpae kept their mouths tightly shut. There was simply too much to explain in a few words.

Baek Dan-hyeon could only take it negatively.

Grief soaked Baek Dan-hyeon’s aged body.

His gaze drifted toward Ha Jin-ak.

“Jin-ak, how could you……”

How could you lie there with such a comfortable face?

Bai Danxian reproached him with a sorrowful expression.

“This old man stands here, yet how can you, a young man, lie there like that!”

At those words, Gu Yangji momentarily opened his mouth to speak, but Guo Yunpei jabbed him in the side.

“……Guh.”

A strange sound came from somewhere, but Baek Dan-hyeon thought it was a mistake.

Ha Jin-ak was dead.

How could laughter be heard at this moment, when the senior master of the entire sect had died?

Baek Dan-hyeon knelt at Ha Jin-ak’s waist.

The time when you told me you were the next leader of the Huashan Sect came vividly to mind.

That made it all the more heartbreaking.

“……”

A silence heavier than a hundred words hung in the air.

Baek Dan-hyeon’s eyes, always clear, had turned cloudy.

Then, sensing something amiss, Song Muk quickly approached Ha Jin-ak’s side, checked his pulse, and called out to Baek Dan-hyeon in a flustered voice.

“Headmaster.”

“I don’t want to hear anything right now.”

“That’s not it. It’s just…”

After hesitating briefly, Song Muk placed his finger on Ha Jin-ak’s nose and confirmed.

“He’s still alive. He’s not dead.”

At the unexpected words, Baek Dan-hyeon, who had been wiping her eyes, glared sharply at Song Muk.

” “Then what’s all this blood for?!”

Baek Dan-hyeon’s gaze then shifted to Gwak Un-pae.

Gwak Un-pae merely scratched his cheek. Only then did Gu Yang-jeok speak.

“While dealing with the Black Dragon Sect, I ended up…”

“What?”

Seeing Baek Dan-hyeon’s eyes half-roll back, Gu Yang-jeok flinched and began explaining exactly what had happened.

There was just one fact he left out.

That he had used a forbidden technique from the Mosan Sect to save Ha Jin-ak.

This was something that no excuse could possibly cover up, a truth he could never tell anyone.

“…And thus, the situation resolved favorably.”

Saying this, Gu Yangjeok sank into deep thought once more.

The objective had been somewhat skewed.

He had failed to save Ha Jin-ak completely.

This was a clear misstep, a mistake.

It had happened because he had underestimated the malice held by the Black Dragon Sect and the Three Evils of Shaanxi.

Yet, despite that, things were moving in a slightly better direction than in his previous life.

Ha Jin-ak, who had met a death shrouded in mystery, had survived—albeit barely clinging to life.

He also knew who had killed him.

Furthermore, everything Ha Jin-ak had built up over his entire life had not vanished; it had all been passed down to Gu Yangjeok.

The plum blossom, which should have withered and vanished long ago, had clung to another bud to sustain its life.

What else could this be called but the Plum Blossom Succession?

Yet, Gu Yangjeok gazed at Ha Jin-ak with a troubled expression.

‘You look at ease.’

Unless by divine fortune, one cannot awaken a soul sunk deep within the subconscious.

Gu Yangji’s gaze lingered on the smiling Ha Jin’ak before lowering bitterly.