Book 15 Chapter 10

金曜關

-fall (墜落)

The man was a beggar.

As a glutton for punishment, he was disgraced, but he was the last disciple of Gul'hyo Wu Gyeom, one of the Dragon's Head Ark of Openness. And unfortunately, he had a very bad-tempered big brother. Everything else was good, but he didn't like that.

The beggar was crawling over rough ground. The ground he was crawling on was an unusually large field of rocks with no soil to speak of but dust and crumbs, and it was very uneven, with stone beaks sticking out here and there and cracks in it, so it was far from flat.

The old man crawled over the rock as best he could. As he crawled along the ground, his face was full of caution, and his forehead was beaded with sweat.

It's baffling that he needs to be so careful to crawl across the ground, but he's still careful, and there's none of his usual lightness.

Full house!

"Huh?"

The old man's eyes widened.

The stone beak he had so carefully picked up had crumbled to dust in the clutches of his right hand with a final crunching sound. It was unbelievable and impossible. Surely he had seen the man in front of him pick this stone with his own two eyes.

But he was not given the leisure to stop the man who was going before him and ask him what was the matter.

Full house!

This time, the stone beak I'd been steadying with my left foot collapsed like a sandcastle.

"Huh?"

"What a chore!

Even in the flickering fragments of his mind, he didn't recognize what was happening to him now. It was like a lie, so unreal.

"Hey, hey… hey, it's Ji-ga!"

The ground was moving further and further away from you. No, it was he who was moving away. His body was lifting off the ground, as if the ground were losing its grip. Obviously, he hadn't learned any arcane tricks such as tumbling, hovering, or levitation, so this was not a phenomenon he was experiencing spontaneously under his own power. They were being experienced against their will by other forces. This was a force majeure.

He lifted his head and glanced ahead, and there it was, a brilliant blue sky. This time he glanced down. He could see the ground behind him in the distance.

Only then did Noh Hak remember what it was like to be where he was.

"Oh, yeah!

He remembered. He wasn't crawling, he was climbing, and this wasn't a floor, it was a wall, a sheer cliff so high that neither he nor the geese could get over it in one go. That's where he'd been crawling all this time.

So where is he now, away from that place, and what does he have to go through?

It would be the first time in his life that he would experience this, and it would be the last. And it would be so traumatizing and stimulating that it would probably shorten his life by at least 50 years.

Even at the edge of despair, Noh Hak did not give up. Even when the sky falls, there is always a hole to rise. Everyone had a lifeline tied around their waist for times like this.

A string grew in front of him. It was the same string that bound the nine lives together. Climbing this cliff together was what the story was about.

"Remember. You must never cut this line. And not just because this line keeps you alive. As soon as this lifeline is cut for any reason, your group will be automatically eliminated. So please remember that!"

'Yeah, all I need is this line…….'

But somehow, the end of that last bit of hope had been cut off.

"Damn it!

Even though it happened in an instant, everything felt slow to him, as if time had broken its own pace and was playing catch-up.

He slowly raised his gaze (purely from his own senses) and looked at the person directly in front of him-nay, above him.

'That guy must be…….'

It was the fourth or fifth time……. It was definitely a scythe-wielder. Chained…….

He had a very ugly face. He had a foul mouth, too. And now, in his hand, a dagger gleamed in the sunlight, just as bad as his face, if not worse.

"Thousand and seven……!

I tried to string together a string of curses and insults, but I didn't have time. I didn't even have time to figure out which of the seven he was.

But that didn't matter at all now.

"Damn, I didn't like that face from the start!

And Noh saw.

Above him, he saw a pair of eyes as cold as a winter's blizzard looking at him with an impassive stare…….

The pace of lost time was gradually returning to its original speed.

The reaper force that would later be called "gravity" grabbed his body and yanked him downward with all its might. It was enough to make a water demon weep.

"Ouch!"

And with a tremendous sense of loss, his body began to crash.

At the same time, I wondered if I wanted to experience the moment of becoming a bedbug meal with my whole body. I would be lucky if I could lose consciousness before I bled to death from a hot kiss with the floor.

"Huh? That one?"

She recognized the falling object at a glance, as if to prove that what was now falling from above had no wings. She had seen it often. She had used it to take care of various things, sometimes rebelliously, but it had its uses. Even now, there was something I had entrusted to it.

"Nohak!

I didn't even have time to mutter, "That guy… why did he fall off?

Bi Ryuyeon's actions were swift. It was certainly better than nothing, so he didn't hesitate. He wasn't the type of person who wandered off at a crossroads and ended up regretting it.

A lifeline, the rules of this gateway dictate that if it breaks, you are disqualified. Even though he seemed to be unconcerned about this, he knew everything he needed to know. Disqualification would result in the lowest possible score. He knew that, too. But Bi Ryuyeon didn't hesitate to cut the line.

"Ryuyeon!"

Na Yerin cried out in horror at the sight, but the lifeline had already been cut. And then she saw an even more astonishing sight.

飛雷門 独門運身步法

Phoenix Dance Righteousness (奧義)

Sprint (直地疾走)

Bi Ryuyeon began to run down the cliff to the lower right, as if it were a flat surface. Boldly, without any hesitation. Her speed was like that of an arrow, causing the onlookers to marvel. It was an enormous display of the "straight land" technique (straight land means "land that stands upright at right angles").

Beneath his swift advance, the cliff was certainly being thoroughly ignored. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's on its prey, never left the falling gnome's body.

Chapter 9… Chapter 8… Chapter 7… Chapter 6… Chapter 5… Chapter 4… Chapter 3…….

Chapter 3… Chapter 3… Chapter 3…….

The earth's hand was pulling too fast to close the distance any further. This was not the speed he was capable of, but any more and his stability would be compromised. This wasn't bare ground, this was a sheer cliff. But as it was, there was nothing he could do to stop the gnome from violently kissing the ground. He hadn't done this crazy thing just to see his apprentice bleed to death.

"Ryuyeon!"

He could hear Na Yerin's voice calling to him from up there. He felt a pang of nostalgia, as if something like this had happened before. In a moment of desperation like this, he could afford it.

But for some reason, her voice seemed very distant.

<Continued on page 16 of "Lightning Resistance"