Book 24 Chapter 17

Push

-Seven Mistakes

"Strong.

That was more surprising than the Yeonbi. He was far too sophisticated for a place like this where he was the center of attention.

"There's no way anyone could have slaughtered a monk like that.

There were a few people he'd fought who were stronger than him. But most of them were monstrous figures, well over a hundred years old and still flying and running, while he looked no more than fifty. Even that half-assed Confucius guy from the volcano wasn't this strong.

"Nothing is what it seems!

He was still keeping a lot of things inside. Just as he was not revealing all his skills, so was his opponent. If he was doing this because of his physical condition-it's all because of his master-he was hiding his skills to keep his history a secret.

"What are they hiding?

How bad is a secret if someone finds out? I remembered the old man I met before the game.

"What does the old man know, and what does he want to hear? What does he want to hear that he's willing to put his non-festival on the line for?

It's such a super secret that I can't imagine why anyone would be so desperate to hide it, and why anyone would be so desperate to figure it out.

"I want to know.

The motivation for all the big stuff often starts with a little human curiosity like this.

At this point, Kang-ho's fate was heading in an unknown direction.

At this point, Fuel was running away from death by the skin of his teeth, but dodging wasn't enough to win. An effective attack was essential to win. And I didn't want to keep getting pushed around like this.

Yikes!

Phew!

The folded halberd unfolded, and fine needles protruded from the tip of the umbrella. Another secret weapon in his arsenal had just been activated. At best, it was a hidden weapon, and at worst, it was an ugly memorization.

"It's useless, this memorization crap!"

He swung his dao like a net, deflecting all the swords flying at high speed toward him. With his Dao imbued, his defenses were as solid as a Venusian iron wall, unable to be breached by sloppy memorization.

"Did you think you could stop me with a toy like this!"

Qi Shanghui sneered and shouted.

"Of course, I didn't think I'd get through, but at least I've bought myself a couple of sheets of paper, right?"

In Yan Bi's hand, he held the umbrella shade that had somehow become detached. In order to switch from defense to offense, it was necessary to add another piece of paper to the original one. The only way to switch from a single piece of paper was to block head-on, which was extremely dangerous given his current state.

"Here's a gift."

Chirpy chirpy chirpy!

Leaving Yun Che's hands, the umbrella shade spun ferociously like the wheels of a chariot, flying toward Qi Shanghui.

"I'll give you two bronzes!"

Qi Shangxuan roared in anger and slashed his dao in a straight line. Even if it was a Meng Lin Bloodline Leather that had taken special measures, there was no way it would be safe from such a sword strike at such a high speed.

Weddings!

Shugak!

However, Chil-Sang-Heon's saber slash was empty, for by this time, Chun-Lin had changed course to his left. As if to prove his point, Chil-san turned his body to the left again and threw a dao, but this time, like a loach, Chen Chen-lin slipped through his fingers. Whether the umbrella had eyes or was being controlled by some invisible thread, it was bothering him, backing away when he tried to attack and attacking when he tried to back away. Angered by the black moon's gently rising and falling movements, Qian Shi Heng roared in anger and swung his sword.

Boom!

At that moment, Qixiang's dougang drew out at least one more character. In an instant, the distance had narrowed.

"Oops!"

Yeonbi's response was faster than his flagship.

Quickly, Shen Chen pulled Lin back and swung the umbrella pole he was holding at the same time.

Click!

A spear blade protruded from the end of the umbrella pole, and in the next moment, a golden spear steel flew through the air toward Qi Shanghui.

"Huh!"

Not expecting to be able to maneuver an umbrella shade that spun like a saw blade with one hand while sending sword qi flying through the air with the other, Qi Shanghui was stunned and abandoned his pursuit, turning to face the flying Chang Jiang.

Boom!

Power clashed with power, and sparks flew in an instant. A moment later, a roar resounded like two thunderbolts clashing together, and Dao Qiang canceled out Chang Qiang. Although the qi was in the spear, the spear was still no match for the Dao when it came to slashing.

Even though he had the ship under control, he was still caught off-guard by the unexpected attack, so he couldn't take the lane. Without missing a beat, he leaped toward Qixiang with his best speed. He was confident in his new speed.

Having closed the distance between herself and the seven scars with the best speed she could muster, Yan Bi's hand was now holding up a spear with a protruding blade. It was a violent gesture, as if she were pouncing on a dog with a double-edged sword, a stance that did not suit her body. And yet, it suited her strangely well, even for a woman of her stature. Taking a sip of her jinqi, she swung an umbrella pole that was neither a spear nor a club.

Ooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! La la la la la la! Qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua!

The three-footed punching method.

Righteousness (奧義).

Malbok (末伏).

Jadabongchang, the dog of heaven and earth.

Instantly, the shadow of the rod split into hundreds, pressing in on all sides of the scar.

Although Chu Shik's method was based on the laws of the sword, it was also a spear method because it had a blade on the end. The batons were also batons, but the blades at the end of them flashed at unexpected moments, pressing down on Qi Shanghui. It was not a fancy ceremony, but a persistent, relentless, and frantic one. There were no rules and no structure to the ceremony.

Chilsangnyeom was dazed by the relentless downpour, mixing like a spice with the baptism of sticks and spears.

The first meal didn't seem to have been that ripe, but this one was like breathing the same air as this woman, Yunbi, and that's why its power was unparalleled.

The members of the Southern Palace's lower troupe, who were watching from the stands, were bewildered by the sight.

"Doesn't that look like something I've seen a lot of……?"

"What is that? I don't know, I'm scared."

"Ugh, I don't want to think about it."

It gave them an instinctive chill. There was something about the sight that tapped into their latent and intrinsic fears.

He felt like screaming, "Hit me or cut me, just one, just one, just one!" but he didn't. By now, Chil-sang-hyeon had retreated a dozen paces, pushed back by the tidal wave of fuel, and his footprints were clearly indented into the ground, an inch deep, evidence of his desperation to fend off the herbivore.

"This is dangerous!

Any longer and his opponent's momentum would grow like a snowball rolling down a mountain. If he couldn't stop this momentum, his defeat was sealed. Once the levee is breached, the rising waters will sweep everything away in an instant.

"No way! Ha!"

In his desperation, Qi Shanghui pulled out the Forbidden Technique that he had sealed away for safekeeping.

Blood Curtain (血霧幕).

Red mist billowed from his half-sliced dao as he rushed to block the incoming wand. It quickly enveloped his body, and Yeomdo's blade could no longer penetrate it. For the first time ever, the Three-Fold Strike, which had always been so relentless in its devastation of opponents, and which some in the know called "The Endgame," had been blocked.

From a distance, it looked like a mist of blood, but it was actually a huge ball of energy. It was a way to protect oneself by unleashing a special kind of energy at the same time as one's shield. It was a type of self-defense qi flow, but the fundamental difference between it and those was that the mist was also an offense. The mist tended to absorb, attract, and suck in one's own attacks like a swamp. He couldn't forget the unpleasant sensation on his fingertips when he tapped it. Deciding it was momentarily dangerous, she withdrew her hand and took a step back.

"That's technology as sticky as blood."

He expressed his honest impressions of Yeonbi.

"You have great instincts."

Qianlong was quite surprised by Yun Che's flexibility. If he had tried to force his way through the blood mist, his red power would have consumed him in an instant. However, after successfully blocking Yeomdo's deadly attack, he didn't look too happy.

"Why do you have such a shitty look on your face?"

"You don't need to know."

Qi Shanghui was feeling very embarrassed inside. To unknowingly use such a technique in front of so many people, no matter how cornered he was, was unbelievable…….

'Am I crazy, surely someone will recognize this…….'

Only a madman could have done this. Though little known in the stronghold, there were not a few people who would recognize this herbivore. He was using his signature technique…… and the defenses he had built up were about to crumble like a sand castle.

"What was that, Mr. Mubak, it was like a mist?"

"……."

What followed was a heavy silence.

"Mr. Mubak?"

But there was still no answer.

"……?"

He turned his head to look at Mr. Mubak's face, puzzled. Mr. Mubak was as still as a statue, with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape. His complexion was pale, as if he had just had a heart attack.

"Mr. Mubak, are you okay?"

He didn't react when I waved my hand in front of his eyes, and he didn't react when I blew my breath on him, until Mi-gong twisted his beard into three strands.

"What are you doing, I'm fine."

"I thought you'd fainted again, and I'm glad you're okay, but why the reaction? Do you know anything about the foghorn herbivore you saw earlier?"

"Well…… no way…… but that's…… he's…… he's…… no way……."

It was more of a muttering to himself than an answer. Mr. Mubak's mind was still too jumbled to organize itself properly.

"You must have an idea, because otherwise you wouldn't be so surprised."

"As a matter of fact, yes, but it's such a big deal that I don't want to say anything about it, because if what I'm guessing is true, it's such a big deal, it's going to blow up in your face."

"What in the world is going on that's freaking you out so much? I'm shaking and can't even explain it, so why don't you give me a hint?"

Mr. Mubak shook his head.

"No. I can't do that, because then I'm not guaranteeing my own life either, and if I get too close to the secret out of curiosity, I might burn my wings off and crash like a boa constrictor."

"Then at least give us a little taste, you can do that, can't you? As it is, the crowd, driven mad with curiosity, might start a riot. If the identity of the Seven Deadly Sins is too dangerous to reveal, put that aside and at least tell us what that herbivore is, because it's fun to make predictions based on that."

A gleam of conflict appeared on Mr. Mubak's face. He hesitated for a moment, but Eugene's clever words caught him off guard. Mr. Mubak hesitated before speaking. Perhaps because of the residual conflict, he found it very difficult to speak.

"What he just showed me was one of those…… 'superheroes'."

"Gee, that's a lot of hot air……."

"The Heavenly Blood Young Dao, the Blood Flow Sutra, yes. That's the Martial God Demon's Poetry Dao."

Thump!

A loud crash landed in their guts. People gulped for a moment.

"Come on… no way……."

His frightened eyes screamed, "Please don't tell him I forced it out of him. I felt a chill down my spine, even though I hadn't touched anything. They didn't realize they'd just touched something they shouldn't have.

It seemed like the job search would never end.

The two men traded blows, each showing off their skills. In this case, unconditional first strike was never an advantage.

"Why do you fight?"

"It's a lame reason, it's just money."

And it was obvious. If you go back a little further, it's all because of Sensei.

"It doesn't look like it."

"I know it doesn't seem like it, but it's true: I do come across as a bit honest, humble, and frugal."

"You mean there's no other reason?"

"Sure."

"Then you cannot defeat me. You cannot defeat my ideals with such a shallow mind, never."

"No, I win!"

Yeonbi replied flatly.

"If you think you can sway me with generalizations like that, you're sorely mistaken. And don't dismiss money. It's a good thing, and it's important, and you can't forget that you're a human being with your feet on the ground, and you need to eat, and you need to wear, and you need a place to sleep, and those things aren't free, and you need something in return, not necessarily something shiny, because you have to be alive to achieve your ideals, and you don't really think that everything you eat and wear is free, do you?"

"Of course not. But money is not my goal. I have a mission to fulfill. I can't die before I fulfill it."

The Yeonbi smirked.

"Uh, I never said money was a goal either, just that it's a good thing, and the more the merrier, and you need tools and means to achieve your goals, right? Nothing's free in this world, and besides, I'm using money as a means to my goal, but what about you? You're using 'other people's blood' as a means to your noble mission!"

Yun Fei's index finger pointed like a sword at the scarred man's brow. The scar instantly turned to stone. The point had been made. A smile spread across Yan Bi's face.

"It's hard to tell which is worse, isn't it?"

"Are you going to insult me?"

Yanbian's finger moved a little sideways from his brow.

"What's that coffin you're carrying on your back, isn't it heavy with the chains tied around it like that, and it seems a little narrow for your body to fit in?"

His body would have to be compressed three times as much as it was now to fit inside.

"You don't deserve to know that. If you try to find out, I'll kill you."

I chose to laugh rather than say, "Oh my God, Yeonbi is scary.

"Foot, that's a funny thing to say. If you want to know, they'll kill you, and if you don't want to know, they'll kill you anyway. No matter what you do, they're still going to kill you, so you might as well be interested. Curiosity is what drives human wisdom, isn't it?"

In fact, without curiosity, without asking questions about the world, we wouldn't be as advanced as we are. We would still be less advanced. But we've come a long way from the days when we used to "crush" people's heads with stone axes. At least now we can "split" someone's head with an axe made of iron.

"Wrong. Curiosity gets you killed."

After a moment of silence, Yunbi slowly spoke up.

"Is that how you want to punish yourself?"

I had no intention of keeping my mouth shut. I'll say what I have to say, no matter what happens after I say it.

"Moo, what are you talking about!"

The fiery scarlet bellowed.

"Do you really want to run away from your past that badly?"

"I'm not running away!"

"No, you're a coward."

The words froze Qi Shanghui in place. He was agitated. Like a man who has been struck in the heart where he least expected it. He denied it, but his mind could not deny the words.

"First of all, that broken sword."

Yunfei pointed a single finger at the degrees on the scarred hand.

"Your method isn't meant to be spread out in half that way, so you always come in half a step further than everyone else to make up for lost length. Your method of instantly making the distance between you and your opponent zero is also meant to make up for that, and your unintentional dougang is just another way of making up for lost length."

"Well, how do you do that?"

But that wasn't the end of the Yeonbi story.

"And the coffin on his back, and the chains he's swinging all over his body to secure it? They look like the shackles that bind a sinner. Is that how you wanted to punish yourself?"

"……."

Qi Shanghui said nothing. But his complexion was as white as a sheet, as if he had been struck with a deadly poisonous weed.

"I agree it's a very unusual way to punish yourself. Punishing yourself by killing others. No, that's not it, that was an escape, to not be reminded of what you had abandoned. So you killed and killed and killed in a place like this."

Chil-sang-hyun's expression grew stiffer and stiffer, and Yun-liu continued to speak as if he were cleansing water, unaffected by the change.

"You don't have to tell me what's in that coffin, I already know!"

Yeomdo's body shook as if struck by lightning at the confident declaration.

"That's bullshit, that's ridiculous, there's no way you could possibly know what's in here, so shut up, I'll kill you if you say anything more."

"Go ahead and kill me if you can, but you won't be able to stop me."

He gripped the handle with such force that his tendons popped, but he was unable to swing. He stretched out his fingers toward the trembling figure. Then, as if in declaration, he shouted.

"It's your 'past' that's trapped in there!"

With those words, Chil-sang-fen fell to his knees. The past he had been running from, the sins he had been turning a blind eye to, all at once came crashing down on him. His mind was paralyzed for a moment, and he could do nothing.

"Kaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

He screamed, unable to overcome the pain. It was a scream of years of remorse, a scream that made his skin crawl and his heart sink. The undefeated king, now called Bloodsucker, had fallen to his knees before the nameless woman. But this is not over, Yunbi thought. It's not over yet.

"Now, if you have the courage, stand here in front of all these people and declare who you are. Can you say out loud, I am who I am? If you have the courage to do that, then do it. Pull out the body you've been burying in that coffin and hold it up to the light of this world to prove that you are who you say you are. If you can't do that, then you might as well just admit defeat, because I don't want to fight a coward who's running from his past. Now, choose!"

Yan Bi spoke up in a commanding voice. Qi Shanghui remained silent, his head still bowed. There was no sign of wariness anywhere in his demeanor; he seemed completely deprived of the will to fight, and there was no sympathy in Yan Bi's amber eyes as she watched him.

"So far?"

At that moment, the lips of the silent Chil-sang-hyun twitched.

"coward…… coward…… coward…… coward……."

"Huh?"

Yun Che shifted his gaze back to Qi Shanghui. He was no longer the utterly devastated man he had been a moment ago. Now, he looked like an active volcano that could erupt at any moment. Deep within him, power was bubbling up like hot lava. Finally, Qi Shuanghui stood up and cried out.

"Who are you calling a coward? How dare you look at this body and call it a coward? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!"

His emotions were boiling over like water in a boiling kettle. The simmering emotions had apparently blown off the lid of reason. It was not like him to be so indifferent to everything, even to his enemies who were trying to kill him.

"What are you afraid of?"

Yan Bi did not ask him what he was angry about, but what he was afraid of, and at that question his body turned to stone.

"I don't think you're just angry that you've taken your buried past out of the grave and opened the lid on the coffin."

"……."

Qi Shanghui didn't answer. It was as if his mouth had been glued shut with hard glue.

"What are you afraid of?"

Yunbi asked the same question over and over again. By now, a cold sweat was trickling down his forehead, but he couldn't afford to show weakness to his opponent.

"No, I am not afraid. There is nothing to fear from me! You are the one who should be afraid!"

The scarred man cried out paroxysmally.

"No, I don't. I don't want to hear that from someone who can't face his past and runs away from it. What are you afraid of?"

After three repetitions of the question, Chilsanghun couldn't stand it.

"Kahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

With a roar like the roar of a lion, Qi Shanghui charged, shouting.

"I have. Nothing. Do.not.do.it.again!"

For the first time, a major flaw in the Qixiang's attack was revealed. It was overexcitement. Yeonbi was thankful.

"I can't believe how well this worked out!

At times like this, you can't help but say thank you. Uncontrollable, but fast. He was already within Eunuch Lin's range, but he still had his fist. He clenched his fist as hard as he could. He was now within reach.

"Thank you!"

Yeonbi slammed his fist into his face with all the force he could muster.

With a cool thud, the figure bounced three times, almost like an otter splashing on the ground, then rolled four times.

"You've been an asshole."

Bai Xiaochun frowned and expressed his appreciation.

"You look like you're in a lot of pain."

It was almost painful to watch.

"Stupid!"

He said, "I really don't like it.

"Is he dead?"

"Probably not dead."

In response to Eugene's question, Mr. Mubak said.

"But I'm sure you're very embarrassed for yourself because this is the first time you've ever been the victim of such a disaster… Oh, there he is."

"Is it just me or does your face look a little red, is it because you were just beaten up?"

"Well, it's because you're embarrassed, isn't everyone?"