The Genius Warrior Who Remembers Everything Chapter 96

Chapter 96. The Sharpest Blade in the Darkness (3)

“Eldest Senior Brother likes money.”

In the early stage of the battle, Eun-ho, Seong Mo-ran, and Cho Mu-bin were subjected to concentrated attacks by the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

Following the explanation that the Dark Soul-Severing Unit disliked light, Eun-ho set fires in every direction whenever he had an opening.

By the time he set fires all around, many examinees had already sensed something strange and begun fleeing.

The problem was Seong Mo-ran, who had used up all her inner arts trying to stop the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

“But they say men feel burdened when a woman’s family has too much money.”

“……I don’t think that is necessarily true. There is a new Junior Sister named Wang So-so. Her family is extremely wealthy, but Eldest Senior Brother did not find it especially difficult to deal with her.”

Seong Mo-ran, who had used up both her inner arts and stamina, was no longer in a state where she could fight.

Eun-ho had been saying various things to get her back on her feet when he realized that she reacted to stories about Eldest Senior Brother.

That was why they were having a conversation utterly unsuited to the middle of a battlefield.

“Wang So-so? You mean the only daughter of the Wang Estate? Wang So-so entered the Taeul Sect?”

“Did you know her?”

“Of course I know her. The Wang Estate is one of the Three Great Merchant Families under Heaven. Besides, she is incredibly pretty…… Damn it, I thought my only rival was Junior Sister Hong.”

“Yes?”

“Did the two of them perhaps have feelings for each other or something?”

“…….”

Eun-ho wondered whether that kind of thing was truly important on a battlefield where life and death were being decided, but when he saw Seong Mo-ran’s sword art grow fiercer as she asked, he answered obediently.

“No, the two of them barely had time to meet in the first place.”

Of course, among the rumors within the sect, there was talk that Jin So-un would enter the Wang Estate as a live-in son-in-law, but that was not something he needed to bring up now, so he omitted it.

“Feelings between a man and woman originally connect in a short time.”

Seong Mo-ran’s sword began slowing.

She was becoming gloomy and exhausted. Eun-ho blocked someone attacking her from behind and spoke.

“To Eldest Senior Brother, Junior Sister Wang is nothing more or less than the youngest little sister. In the first place, she is not even Eldest Senior Brother’s ideal type.”

“Really?”

Seong Mo-ran’s sword, swung in a wide arc, turned two examinees into bloody pulp with tremendous destructive power.

It felt strange to see her lightly swing a greatsword twice as heavy as an ordinary sword while exhausted.

“Then what kind of woman does Young Master Jin like?”

In the first place, Eun-ho had never been interested in what kind of woman Eldest Senior Brother liked, so he did not know, but this was not the time to worry about that.

Eun-ho said whatever came to mind that might help the current situation.

“He likes strong women.”

“Huh?”

“Women who don’t give up in any situation and break through trials.”

“……Is that really an ideal type?”

Eun-ho thought, Oops, but he did not change his expression. Had he not learned through Eldest Senior Brother that deception was all about atmosphere?

“You know because you have seen Eldest Senior Brother. Is he not someone with a spirit more ruthless, tenacious, and strong than anyone else?”

“……True. He does look ruthless, like someone who has lost his mind.”

They were talking about Jin So-un, but Seong Mo-ran’s sword was gradually slowing.

The arm with which Seong Mo-ran blocked the enemy’s sword trembled.

The problem was not inner arts, but the exhaustion she had reached after consuming her stamina through prolonged combat.

“Ah, and there is also this. This is certain.”

“What is it?”

“He likes women who eat well. Women who eat well and are not picky about food.”

“Really?”

As Eun-ho said that, he took out a great deal of jerky from his jerky pouch and put it into his mouth.

He showed Seong Mo-ran that scene so she could naturally imitate him.

“I eat well.”

Seong Mo-ran also grabbed a handful of jerky and stuffed it into her mouth.

Since the operation was working this well, Eun-ho decided to brazen it out.

“And he likes women who coordinate well in Sword Formations.”

“…….”

Even in this urgent situation, Seong Mo-ran went out of her way to make time and shot Eun-ho a suspicious look.

“Coordinating in a Sword Formation means coordinating one’s actions and one’s heart, does it not? Eldest Senior Brother likes women who communicate well.”

At Eun-ho’s confident words, Seong Mo-ran’s sword form gradually regained stability and began fitting into the Sword Formation. Cho Mu-bin, who had been struggling because Seong Mo-ran kept charging out, gave a slight nod and conveyed his thanks.

“What else?”

“Hm…… and Eldest Senior Brother likes women who take good care of his junior brothers.”

Eun-ho could not predict what consequences his lies might bring, but right now, he had no choice but to make things up and keep talking however he could.

After all, Jin So-un’s order had been to fight alongside Seong Mo-ran and protect her.

‘He did not say what method I had to use, did he?’

Thinking about the distant future right now was a luxury.

I moved toward the darkness.

The opposite of how I had fled from darkness in my previous life.

I pursued the darkness persistently.

While moving between darkness and darkness, I also checked on the warriors of Namgung Seon-hwa’s and Seong Mo-ran’s respective sects.

After all, when I would have to fight countless political enemies of the Orthodox Path from now on, if it became known that Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa had followed me out and then met some disaster, the Azure Emperor Divine Sword or the Iron Sword Sect Leader would not stay still.

“I already have many enemies. There is no need to make more.”

Corpses lay everywhere on the battlefield where darkness had once fallen.

The rule was that murders and violence committed during the Murim Regular Exam would be left unquestioned, and the custom among examinees was to maintain at least a minimum degree of restraint, but there was no reason for Demonic Practitioners to follow the customs of the Orthodox Path.

They threw stealth far away and, just as they had done in my previous life, tore corpses to pieces to avoid having to confirm kills.

Their objective was to avoid having their identities discovered.

Because of that, the bastards who had first targeted us were now prioritizing attacks against those fleeing the battlefield.

To me, this was the first opportunity to reveal the Demonic Cult’s existence to all under heaven, so although these people had come here aiming for my Trial Tokens, I was running until my feet sweated to save even one more person trying to flee the battlefield.

“They will not believe it all at once, though.”

The corrupt old forces of the Orthodox Path, who already believed themselves to be the eternal masters of the Jianghu, would not try to face the facts before their eyes.

However, if such incidents happened twice and three times, they would at least become alert.

If that happened, they would not do something idiotic like throwing the Alliance’s lower-ranking warriors straight at the Demonic Cult’s elites.

“Am I asking for too much?”

In my previous life, there had been many battlefields similar to this.

When darkness covered the Alliance’s warriors, the Dark Soul-Severing Unit was dispatched.

If one reported that darkness had killed people, the only answer that returned was to stop talking nonsense.

The number of lower-ranking Alliance warriors who died that way reached no fewer than two thousand.

The Dark Soul-Severing Unit was the existence the Alliance’s lower-ranking warriors feared most.

They left deep wounds even in the minds of the lower-ranking warriors who survived, and the survivors spent their entire lives avoiding darkness.

“So I grow curious. How long does it take to create one member of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit, which operated with twenty members throughout the entire Great Righteous-Demonic War?”

-Kehek.

The member of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit, whose vocal cords had melted away, died while shedding tears of blood.

“That makes ten.”

Eleven, including the one I had killed first with the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm.

“It is a little disappointing that I cannot receive a monthly wage from the Sojeong Squad bastards.”

In my previous life, the Sojeong Squad bastards had said that if anyone killed even one member of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit, they would give that person half of their monthly wages for life.

“Ghh.”

A person at my feet who seemed to be an examinee was clutching his wound and trembling in fear. Fortunately, it seemed the bone sword of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit member had pierced only his arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Wh-What exactly is that thing?”

The examinee was trembling as he looked at the member of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit caught in my hand.

Well, those bastards looked truly horrific.

“I don’t know. It just seemed they had nothing to do with the exam, so I caught one.”

“…….”

At the mention of the exam, the examinee’s eyes wavered with complicated emotion.

“I…… I came to seize your Trial Tokens.”

The examinee looked as though he wondered why I had saved someone like him.

“Do you wish to challenge me?”

“…….”

The examinee lowered his head, seemingly ashamed of his own situation.

“No matter how fierce the exam may be, are we not ultimately of the same Orthodox Path?”

“…….”

The corpse of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit member caught in my hand went limp.

Aside from the one I had caught first with the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm, every corpse showed this phenomenon.

When I threw the bastard’s corpse to the ground, it melted away with a hiss of smoke.

After the heart stopped, the Bone-Melting Powder solution embedded in the body automatically burst and erased its traces.

“At this rate, even the Murim Alliance will not believe it.”

At my self-mocking words, the examinee answered.

“I saw it! I saw it clearly with my own two eyes.”

“Then you must survive and return.”

“…….”

“Avoid the darkness and flee while taking as many survivors as possible.”

“Will you be all right?”

My condition was bad enough that even a stranger was worried.

“If I don’t move, there will be no one to deal with these things. Then the meaningless victims on this battlefield will continue to increase.”

“…….”

“don’t worry about me.”

“……Thank you.”

The examinee looked at me with indescribably complicated eyes, then nodded and supported someone who could not walk.

After taking two or three steps, he turned his head for a moment and looked at me.

“Take care of yourself. I will surely repay this grace.”

My inner arts were exhausted.

Their previous bottom had already run dry.

The bones of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit bastards had been modified to be as hard as steel, so to break them in a single blow, I had to pour in inner arts.

“I cannot use the Azure Dragon Bracelet either.”

The only method that came to mind was the Azure Dragon Bracelet.

Leaving aside how much Internal Qi the Azure Dragon Bracelet could draw from Demonic Qi, if someone on this battlefield saw me using the Great Star-Absorbing Art, I would inevitably be considered one of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit bastards’ accomplices.

That did not mean there was no method at all.

“I cannot rest. I will have to gamble.”

With every step I took, cracking sounds rang continuously from my muscles.

My joints screamed, and my blood was racing faster than ever.

But if I did not move now, there would be no survivors here.

If there were no survivors, the Demonic Cult’s existence would not be revealed to the world either.

Bang.

With the sound of tearing through the air, I leapt into the next darkness.

I drew out the Flying Dragon Claw, but its golden radiance had lost its initial light.

I swung the Demon-Severing Radiant Whip precisely toward the place where no presence at all could be felt.

Slash.

As expected, much of its strength was gone.

The Demon-Severing Radiant Whip bounced away weakly, and the white bone sword in the darkness pierced the hearts of two examinees.

“Your opponent is me, you bastards!”

Thudthudthudthudthudthud—.

Dozens of Fist Forms were sucked into the darkness. The bastard that had pierced the hearts with the bone sword used its fluid body to block all the Fist Forms.

Slash.

I swung the recovered Flying Dragon Claw there like a whip.

At last, the black fluid body split apart, and the bastard’s real body appeared.

The muscles of the bastard, whose facial skin had vanished, made a dynamic expression.

The moment I drove the Twin Heaven Sword Formula into that place—

Sliiiiide.

The fluid body that had been split in half finally swallowed my entire body.

In the end, I had been swallowed inside the bastard’s fluid body.

-Who are you?

“This feels disgusting.”

Once trapped inside the fluid body, there was no way to escape.

With one’s body suppressed, one would be pierced and killed by bone swords that came from who knew where.

-What are you?

“A death envoy who will send you bastards back to the Demon God.”

I activated the Azure Dragon Bracelet to its maximum.

With this level of suction, light would have leaked through even the Flying Dragon Claw, but because I was inside the fluid body, that strange phenomenon was not revealed outside.

-Could it be the Great Star-Absorbing Art?

“You know it well.”

-Impossible! You bastard, Lord Demon Fiend’s……. Kehehehk!

The bastard who had been speaking tried to escape my grasp, but it could not break free from the suction force of the Azure Dragon Bracelet.

The fluid body surrounding me gradually began falling away, and I quickly lowered the Azure Dragon Bracelet’s suction force.

-Keheuk, why would Lord Blood-Drinking Demon’s child…….

The bastard’s form had clearly aged and withered, but its original appearance had been so grotesque that there was no visible difference at all.

“Go ask the Demon God.”

When I struck its neck, a fountain of red blood burst in every direction.

“As expected, Demonic Qi is difficult to absorb.”

I had pulled it in at maximum output for a short time, but the inner arts filling my qi center were meager.

-So it was because of you.

At that moment, the voice of a Dark Soul-Severing Unit member was heard again.

“You give me no time to rest.”

When I immediately threw myself toward the bastard, to my surprise, it retreated far back in a straight line.

-Are you alone the one who killed my unit members?

It was a strange feeling.

Even in my previous life, the only sounds the Dark Soul-Severing Unit bastards made were “die” and “keeeek.” Unlike the others, this bastard’s voice was calm.

-You must also be the one who arranged all of this.

“Interesting. Are you the commander of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit?”

The fluid body in the darkness clearly rippled.

-You are a dangerous one. You are the one who will ruin the Great Plan.

“That is right. I plan to return what you bastards did exactly as it was.”

I poured in all the inner arts I had recovered in a small handful and unfolded the Unrivaled under Heaven Movement Art.

Bang.

As I charged toward the bastard with the sound of tearing through the air, it also retreated with all its might.

Then, from the bastard, a sound that seemed to tear the eardrums rang out in every direction.

Screeeeech—–

Even those fighting frantically on the battlefield instinctively dropped their swords and covered their ears.

At the same time, the darkness spread out in all directions, snuffing out torches, stopped rigidly and began gathering toward this side.

“Wh-What in the world…….”

“D-Did you just see that? Can shadows move that artificially?”

“Hey! Look here! A c-corpse!”

“Uwegh!”

As the darkness gathered in one place, those nearby began to waver after seeing the mountain of corpses and sea of blood created by the Dark Soul-Severing Unit.

The war for the Trial Tokens was now over.

“If your identities are revealed like this, will your Great Plan not collapse?”

-I don’t know how you knew, but you and they will bury your bones here today.

But then the gathered darkness surged and released black gas in every direction.

“Fuck!”

The moment I saw the black gas, I instinctively cursed and shouted.

“Run! It is poison!”

Black Bone-Corroding Qi.

It was the peculiar Demonic Qi that flowed inside the bodies of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit who had undergone the Fluid-Body Bone Sword procedure.

Strictly speaking, it was difficult to call it poison, but it was Demonic Qi that acted like poison.

The moment it seeped into the body, it gnawed at the bones and slowed movement.

Those with weak inner arts would harden like stones on the spot, and even those with strong inner arts would suffer for a long time to drive out the Demonic Qi.

The reason the bones of the Wudang Sect’s Hyeoncheong and the Mount Hua Sect’s Yeon U-mun had been found blackened and decayed was that they had fallen victim to that Black Bone-Corroding Qi.

I moved first, but I too was trapped within that Black Bone-Corroding Qi.

The same was true of the examinees who reacted later than I did and their warriors.

Now that the bastards had their existence discovered amid the chaotic battlefield, they transformed into something even more brutal and fierce.

They had stopped caring about leaving traces of themselves before nearly a thousand people.

“These insane bastards.”

I extended the Demon-Severing Radiant Whip, snatched one Dark Soul-Severing Unit member, and activated the Azure Dragon Bracelet.

I absorbed inner arts with all my strength, but as expected, the amount absorbed into my qi center was meager.

“Gold, Silver, Bronze! Run!”

Starting from my waist, my entire body slowly began going numb.

I shouted with what remaining Internal Qi I had, but it did not feel as though my voice spread out.

‘Is this the end…….’

Although countless people were around me, I could feel no presence at all.

Even my senses had dulled, and I thought that all that remained was for my heart to be pierced by the Fluid-Body Bone Sword.

At that moment, my right hand twitched.

Sensation began from my fingers, then climbed along my forearm and up to my shoulder.

And at that instant, I remembered one item I had obtained on the Demon Spirit Plateau.

‘The Heavenly Demon Supreme Bracelet.’

It was the thing I had named the Red Phoenix Bracelet and carried around because its shape resembled the Azure Dragon Bracelet.

That Red Phoenix Bracelet was dissolving the Black Bone-Corroding Qi on its own.

Without even time to continue thinking, I put the Red Phoenix Bracelet on my right hand together with the Flying Dragon Claw onto my left hand.

Then I stretched my hand into the darkness, seized one Soul-Severing Unit member, and activated the Azure Dragon Bracelet.

-Kehehehehehk, gurgle.

Inner arts flowed in through my left hand.

It was different from when I filtered out dense Demonic Qi and recovered only a minute amount.

An enormous quantity of inner arts, like a great sea, instantly filled my Ren and Du Meridians.

The inner arts circulating throughout my whole body burned away all the Black Bone-Corroding Qi that had been encroaching inside my body and settled in my qi center as though that were where it belonged.

Then the Flying Dragon Claw extending from my left hand flashed with its original radiance.

As the darkness lifted, seven skulls had all opened rabbit-like eyes.

-What is this!

I operated the Taeul True Scripture through the principles of the Reverse Demon Scripture.

It was the same inner arts as before, but the Qi I now emitted was clearly different from before.

It was light, transparent, and above all, solid.

I scattered the Twin Heaven Sword Formula in every direction. It did not matter where I cut or whom I deceived. That was how close the Dark Soul-Severing Unit and I were.

Slash. Slash. Slash.

Each time the sword was swung, the darkness was torn away, and the grotesque screams of the Dark Soul-Severing Unit members rang out.

-You bastard, you were hiding a strange move.

The unit commander, who had lost two members in an instant, clacked his skull as he spoke.

-But don’t think you will escape alive.

“I don’t think I can deal with all of you yet either.”

They were bastards even one of the Ten Greatest Masters under Heaven could not survive against.

If not for the ambush and the Reverse Demon Scripture, I would not even have been able to face them in the first place.

“Still, I won.”

-What?

“The sun is rising.”

Regardless of the fierce battle that had unfolded throughout the night, brilliant light began casting dawn over the wretched plain.

-Y-You damned……

“Tell the Heavenly Demon of this era. The Jianghu has learned of the Demonic Cult’s existence.”