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Chapter 197
“Oh, brother…”
“Close your eyes and cover your ears.”
As soon as Arsha tightly shut her eyes at the completely serious tone, the hatchling reached out its small hand and covered her ears.
Despite being a newborn, it was an intelligent creature that understood speech and could act on it.
That’s what a dragon was.
After saying that, Leon flicked the fingers of his hand—the one not holding a sword.
Immediately, the iron swords embedded in the ground began to tremble, then slowly floated into the air.
“This… this is mind-controlled swordplay!”
“A… a master of profound intent.”
Shock and fear drained the fighting spirit from the faces of the remaining warriors of the clan.
Indeed, controlling swords with pure will and imbuing them with aura was something only those beyond the level of Sword Master could do.
Leon then silently looked at the cursed sword in his hand before tossing it into a subspace and pulling out an ordinary iron sword instead.
The floating swords all turned their points toward the elder.
If it were just simple levitation and manipulation, it wouldn’t have been so alarming.
But each of those swords held a force similar to that of a Sword Master’s slash.
The elder hurriedly deflected the oncoming swords, but just a single strike broke his stance entirely.
“Guh?! Aaaargh!!”
Thud! Thud! Thud-thud!
In an instant, five iron swords pierced his shoulders, abdomen, and legs.
And even that was the result of him narrowly dodging—most of the dozen or so swords had struck near him with lethal intent.
At the same time, the aura surrounding the swords spread outward.
Black currents of energy, like ink splattered across a blank white canvas.
Aura spread around his body like branches of a giant tree reaching out, and the elder’s eyes widened in shock.
That looked… just like the sword techniques of the Sichuan clan.
But while similar, it was astonishingly deeper in execution.
Though the structure of the swordsmanship might differ, it felt as though the essence that the Sichuan clan had always pursued was perfectly realized in this form.
“Ah…”
The sword slipped weakly from his hand and fell to the ground with a clink!
He had learned the Sichuan sword to advance his career.
Who would’ve thought swordsmanship could be this beautiful?
If he had known this earlier, would he have chosen the sword over self-advancement?
Could he have risen even higher?
Leon’s sword was so beautiful it forced such thoughts—ones he would have never considered—into his mind.
BOOOOM!!!!
Then, like ink branches exploding all at once—
Aura burst outward like black ink splashing violently, carrying intense energy.
The iron swords Leon had launched all turned to powder and scattered.
But the aftermath of his strike spread throughout the surroundings.
And what was revealed after the chain explosion of aura was a giant ink painting drawn on the ground in black aura.
At its center stood the elder, soaked in blood.
Unlike during the previous fight, his figure now looked so ghastly that it could make even the boldest man pale.
Though his eyes were wide open, he couldn’t move at all.
He had sustained injuries beyond the limits of mobility.
Only the resilient vitality of a Sword Master kept him alive—had he been an ordinary Expert-level fighter, dozens of lives wouldn’t have been enough to survive that.
“Young Lord Cheon Ryeong, Lady Hwa Ryeong.”
At Leon’s quiet call, the two siblings flinched, snapping out of their daze.
Just like the elder, they had been utterly stunned by the realm Leon had briefly shown—the level of a Mind Master.
They had thought he was just a prodigy.
A genius?
No… Leon was already a complete powerhouse.
How could someone not yet twenty be so strong?
Meanwhile, Hwa Ryeong was filled with a sense of futility.
Not an Expert, not even a Master, but someone even beyond that.
She felt embarrassed to the point of blushing at having asked him for help while giving him the elixir—how laughable that must have seemed to him.
He had the ability to resolve their problems without even needing something like an inner core.
Even when he said he had taken care of Bachen, Coral’s Sword Master, they had doubted it was possible—but with power like this, it hadn’t just been possible; it must have been easy.
Coral…
They had been fighting a battle that was impossible from the start.
Witnessing power beyond even a strategic weapon-level Master brought that realization.
The warriors of the clan had already lost all will to fight, and Ma Cheon lay unconscious on the floor, buried by Luna’s punch, unable to get up.
Ma Cheon was strong, but still nowhere near the elder’s level.
“I’ll leave the rest to you.”
With that, Leon turned and walked away without a hint of hesitation.
Cheon Ryeong slowly approached the elder.
The elder, barely breathing, looked at him in silence.
“I… still believed that the elder hadn’t fallen so far.”
“……”
The elder didn’t respond.
But Cheon Ryeong had to ask.
“Who was it?”
“……”
“That form Ma Cheon took… that’s not the technique our Sichuan clan developed. It’s far more like dark magic you’d see in the central or western continents.”
The Sichuan clan of the Eastern continent did work with spirits and the dead, but the hidden techniques they had just witnessed were far too different from what the clan had practiced.
“Who gave the council such forbidden techniques?”
To that, the elder let out a faint chuckle.
A scoffing laugh that clearly meant he wouldn’t answer—but Leon clicked his tongue and answered for him.
“Isn’t it obvious? That wasn’t just simple corpse reanimation—they implanted a core refined through necromancy to create a Jiangshi. Only one group on this continent would pull something like that.”
“And who would that be?”
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“The Cult. Those bastards running wild across the continent, collecting dangerous powers.”
Though heavily suppressed by the Moon Watchers, the cult’s scale was larger than expected—there’s no telling where or what they might be plotting.
Which makes the Moon Watchers' ability to find and eliminate them all the more impressive.
“The Cult… Don’t tell me, elder—did you join forces with the Blood Cult?!”
At Cheon Ryeong’s horrified shout, the elder merely chuckled again.
It was the phenomenon of a final flash of clarity before death.
“No matter how hard the process was, no matter how rewarding it may have been—none of that matters. In the end, only the result tells the story. Cheon Ryeong, do you know why the Divine Beast Alliance ceased their campaign against the Blood Sect?”
At his question, Cheon Ryeong furrowed his brows.
Leon, on the other hand, was just confused by what these people were talking about.
“Because they proved how superior their techniques were. Regardless of how many humans died in the process.”
“And that makes you sympathize with their ideology?!”
“Which is exactly why you're still a naive boy chasing ideals.”
The elder slowly looked around, his eyes dimming as the light faded.
Then he glanced briefly at Leon and laughed hollowly.
“Look even now. No matter the process, that monster exists—and you all won. That’s all there is to it.”
“……”
Cheon Ryeong’s fists trembled with fury.
At that moment, the elder’s gaze stopped on Arsha.
His eyes widened.
“That… it can’t be!”
More precisely, it wasn’t Arsha—but the bundle she was holding in her arms.
It was a hatchling.
“Ah… Aaah… Why is that in that child’s hands…?”
“Do you know what it is?”
“…That’s what we’ve been desperately searching for. With that, we could’ve turned Ma Cheon into a weapon with limitless power…”
Coral had sought the reward from the ruin’s fracture, but the Four Great Clans of the Eastern Continent had wanted something else.
Was this that something?
Leon narrowed his eyes.
“Kill him. He’ll die soon anyway even if you don’t. In the end, all you can do is swing your sword once in frustration.”
The elder laughed weakly and closed his eyes, and Cheon Ryeong raised his sword without hesitation.
Mouthing silent words, he then swung and severed the elder’s neck.
Blood sprayed as the elder’s body collapsed, and Cheon Ryeong clenched his teeth and turned away.
“As hateful as he was, all I could do was end his life… it’s infuriating.”
Then it happened.
Leon walked over slowly and reached out to the elder’s corpse.
Wooooooong…
Dark energy flowed from Leon’s hand, wrapping around the elder’s corpse.
Then, as if ripping it from his body, he pulled out the elder’s still-trapped soul.
“W-what is this!! Aaaaargh!!!”
Startled by the scream full of panic, the two siblings flinched.
“People make this mistake a lot.”
That death is the end.
“Who said it was?”
“Kuhk! Gah!?”
The elder’s soul let out a groan of pain.
“One sword swing ends it all? After I lost that Kraken bastard so pointlessly, I realized something.”
Leon grinned coldly.
“Revenge—should be done like when I ruined Tyvel.”
“S-stop! What are you trying to do!? Do you have no shred of human decency left!?”
“A lot of nerve coming from someone who also played with the dead. If it were Luna instead of me, you’d already be dragged to real hell.”
He didn’t realize just how murderous Luna’s gaze had become since a moment ago.
Grabbing the elder’s soul by the hair and shaking it wildly, Leon turned toward the siblings with an offer.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What’ll you do? Oh, and if you’re going to go through with it, do it where Arsha won’t see.”
The warriors of the Four Great Clans, having lost their will to fight, surrendered.
Their elder leader was dead.
But even in this situation, there was one being that couldn’t fully comprehend the concept of surrender.
Ma Cheon.
Among the clan’s warriors, many had already begun turning into jiangshi, but most were failures—barely any different in consciousness from normal warriors, and were all destroyed by the Wraith Knight, Bachen.
But Ma Cheon was different.
He couldn’t speak, moved purely on beastly instinct, and even while bound by the chains of light Luna had created, he let out a horrifying screech and tried to attack her.
“Grrrrr… Graaaahhh!!!”
As I approached Luna, who was restraining the screaming creature, she looked at me intently.
“What now?”
“What else. Let’s at least let his body rest.”
“I’ll purify him.”
“Wait just a little. I’ll do it.”
Luna’s purification would leave no trace.
Sometimes, it was better if I did it.
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