Reaper of the Drifting Moon - Chapter 211

“Hm?”

King Gujin suddenly stopped laughing.

There were no visible signs of anything in front of him. But, his sixth sense warned him of danger.

King Gujin trusted his intuition.

The reason he was able to survive so far as a mercenary was because he thoroughly trusted his intuition.

His senses were closer to that of a beast than a human.

Words can’t quite describe it, but it was as if he could smell the danger.

Even now, he smelled something dangerous.

“Ha!”

King Gujin was faithful to his instincts.

He swung the sword Gongbu into empty air.

Shuaang!

A storm-like sword energy was released and split the front.

At that moment, King Gujin saw a silver thread being swept away by the sword.

It was a thread so subtle and fine that it would never have been discovered if it had not been exposed to the light of the sword.

The thread disappeared without a trace, like frost being exposed to the morning sun.

It was a phenomenon that could never happen with an ordinary thread. King Gujin looked at the front with his brows furrowed.

‘Something’s there.’

He had the ability to see as clearly as daylight in the dark. The thick darkness was not an obstacle to him. But, he couldn’t see anything right now.

His sixth sense warns him that there is something, but his eyes which were penetrating the darkness cannot see anything.

“What’s going on?”

King Gujin unknowingly uttered.

He glared into the darkness with his eyes wide open.

Like a poisoned wolf, all his nerves were on edge.

Swoosh!

The wind blew and the grass danced.

The grass that had been cut down by King Gujin’s sword attack soared into the air all at once, obscuring the view.

At that moment, King Gujin’s sixth sense was activated again.

King Gujin held a defensive stance of the Heavenly Sword of the Bloody Wolf.

Huwang!

A sword screen was created in the space where his sword could reach.

It was a terrifying result created by the hundreds of sword slashes in a single breath.

Surgerguck!

At that moment, something was caught at the tip of his sword. It didn’t take long for it to be cut off.

It was definitely a thread.

The cut off silver thread melted away in the air.

“Qi?”

It was only then that King Gujin realized the identity of the thread.

The thread really did exist. It was made out of energy.

He had seen different kinds of sword energies, but it’s the first time he had seen a thread made of qi.

“Who are you?!”

King Gujin burst into anger and looked in the direction the thread came from.

He couldn’t detect anything using his senses. But something was definitely there.

Someone is lurking in the darkness, aiming for him.

“This is fun!”

King Gujin laughed, showing his white teeth.

Decades have passed since he lived in Jianghu alone.

In that time, he had been through a lot and was exposed to numerous dangers.

The existence of King Gujin, the Wolf King, was the sum of such experiences.

This made him fully prepared to respond to any threat.

There is only one class that would carry out an ambush while thoroughly concealing his presence like this.

“Are you an assassin?”

The number of assassins who went for his life so far is so high that it’s enough to fill a large house. But nonetheless, no assassin succeeded in taking his life.

He visited Wudang Mountain without any expectations.

He only stopped by because he got hold of the news about Chongjin’s birthday, but in the end, he did not end up attending because he got lazy.

However, he unexpectedly got his hands on a great sword here, and met a person who is capable of threatening his life.

This is why King Gujin thought that the world was so interesting.

Because unexpected things happen.

Suddenly, his gaze turned to the land he had devastated.

It was the spot where Soma had been standing a while ago. However, there was no body or pieces of flesh that were presumed to be Soma’s.

It was clear that someone had pulled out Soma right before his attack hit, or that Soma had dodged the attack himself.

King Gujin thought it would be the former.

Not only did the newcomer deceived his senses and steal Soma, but he also dared to aim for his life.

The faceless assassin seemed to have quite a lot of guts.

“Or maybe you’re just looking down on me.”

Either way, King Gujin could not forgive the assassin.

King Gujin raised Gongbu and pointed it to the front.

For a moment, he wondered if his sword energy was weak, but his energy soon unraveled like a skein and spread in all directions.

The sight of the black energy spreading out in thin skeins was like a spider’s web blowing in the wind.

It was a technique called the Spider Web Sword Strike.1

An exquisite skill that spreads sword energy throughout the area like a spider web and detects the opponent’s movements.

This was a technique invented by King Gujin himself.

As he wandered alone as a mercenary, there was no one who could help him whenever he was exposed to the threat of an assassin. Because of that, in the early days, he could have lost his life several times due to assassination attempts.

Those experiences at that time led him to create the Spider Web Sword Strike.

No matter how the assassin perfects his stealth technique, once he moves, he has no choice but to create a flow of air.

So his sword technique, which spreads out like a spider web, detects such change in the air. In addition, once the assassin approaches, the spider web would touch the assassin’s body. This information would then be transmitted to King Gujin.

By executing this technique, King Gujin would be able to detect the movement of any assassin no matter how great they were.

The only problem is that he has to keep maintaining this technique until the assassin moves.

It would not be a problem for him to maintain it for a short time, but if he kept on holding this technique for a long time, he had no choice but to consume a huge amount of his qi.

It was a race against time.

Will the assassin lose patience and move first, or will his qi be depleted first?

Either way, it was a fight in which the one who moves first would be at a disadvantage.

It had been a long time since King Gujin had this kind of fight, so his tension reached its peak.

Time continued to pass.

King Gujin slowly felt the limit of his patience.

He still has plenty of energy to maintain the Spider Web Sword Strike, but finds it painful to endure and stand like a stone statue.”

“Good! I admit that your patience is a step above mine!”

King Gujin withdrew his Spider Web Sword Strike.

The thin spider-like webs that spread throughout the area disappeared without a trace.

However, this did not mean that King Gujin gave up on catching the assassin.

“If you don’t want to move on your own, I will force you to move…”

Shuaa!

He swung his sword, Gongbu.

Then, a cloud of energy rose up and flew in all directions.

Kwakwakwakwang!

The whole area exploded as if a volcano had erupted.

The Heavenly Sword of the Bloody Wolf that was executed using Gongbu had a truly formidable power.

Just like Soma, King Gujin also noticed the hidden feature of Gongbu.

By using Gongbu, the operation of qi becomes smoother.

It was like a sword made for himself.

Kwaaang! Kwaaang!

The entire area was completely destroyed by the bombardment of his sword attacks.

No master could withstand and hide from such attacks.

King Gujin thought that the assassin would come out soon.

What he was doing is similar to hitting the grass on purpose to make the snake jump out.

It might be an ignorant way of doing it because he was using qi needlessly but it was also a technique that only he could do in the world.

Boom!

Bang!

King Gujin continued to release sword techniques.

But the assassin is still yet to come out of hiding.

‘Did he run away already?’

He thought it was possible.

Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for the assassin not to come out.

It was impossible for even the most courageous assassin to maintain his composure in the face of such an attack.

Or maybe the assassin had lost his life in his attacks.

“Heup!”

King Gujin lowered his sword toward the floor.

His guard was lowered slightly.

It was at that moment,

Puk!

He suddenly felt an excruciating pain in his lower back.

When he hurriedly looked back, a black shadow had risen from the floor and had driven a small dagger into his waist.

“You–?”

King Gujin swung his sword like a thunderbolt. But at that time, the black shadow had long retreated already.

The black shadow was Pyo-wol.

He was responsible for stabbing the phantom dagger on King Gujin’s waist.

“Have you been hiding under my feet from the beginning?”

King Gujin asked with an expression of disbelief.

Pyo-wol did not answer him.

He had no reason to explain.

It wasn’t Pyo-wol who saved Soma.

King Gujin was confident he had finished Soma off so he had eased his guard. At that time, Pyo-wol had secretly approached King Gujin and took advantage of the gap in his defenses. After that, he issued the Soul-Reaping Thread to distract him, and then performed the Turtle-Breathing Technique.

The moment Pyo-wol saw King Gujin for the first time, the former felt a strong sense of danger.

It was the first time since meeting the Wind Saint that he had felt such a strong sense of crisis.

King Gujin was not someone he could deal with while taking Soma away.

Soma could have died, but Pyo-wol decided to trust him.

The Soma he knew was not a child who would lose his life in vain. Pyo-wol believed that Soma would be able to get out on his own one way or another.

When Pyo-wol used the Soul-Reaping Thread to attract King Gujin’s attention, Soma moved then immediately went into hiding.

Before confronting King Gujin, Pyo-wol was not just hiding comfortably.

Pyo-wol observed Soma and King Gujin’s fight closely, and as a result, he noticed that there was a strange quirk in King Gujin’s movements.

His gait, resembling that of a wolf, was not straight. It was slanted slightly to the left. Pyo-wol didn’t know if it was just his way of walking or if it’s because his body was slightly out of balance.

But nonetheless, Pyo-wol used this information to predict the path he would move in advance and moved there. Then, he executed the Turtle-Breathing Technique and went into hiding.

From then on, it was a battle of patience.

King Gujin ran out of patience first, and in the end exposed a loophole to Pyo-wol.

As a result, Pyo-wol was able to insert a phantom dagger into his waist.

It wasn’t a fatal wound. It didn’t even cut off King Gujin’s limb.

All Pyo-wol did was to stab his back with a dagger.

But Pyo-wol was still satisfied.

In the first place, what he was aiming for was not a fatal wound.

It was virtually impossible to attack and inflict fatal wounds on a master at King Gujin’s level from the start. If he had been such a weak being then he wouldn’t have earned his nickname of Wolf King.

The phantom dagger stuck in King Gujin’s waist was similar to a thorn stuck under his fingernail.

It’s not a fatal wound, but it continues to cause him pain. Above all, it was stuck in a position that was not easy to pull out.

King Gujin glared at Pyo-wol with fierce eyes.

He didn’t even think about pulling out the phantom dagger. He knows that a huge amount of bleeding will occur the moment he draws the phantom dagger.

King Gujin looked at Pyo-wol with calm eyes.

It was the first time for someone to hurt him in recent years.

It was the first time for someone to dare attempt an ambush against him since he was nicknamed the Wolf King.

“Are you an assassin from the Hundred Wraith Union?”

Pyo-wol did not reply.

He didn’t even hide.

He stood at a distance, barely out of reach of King Gujin.

This made King Gujin even more angry.

“Oh well! Once I catch you, I’ll figure out your background sooner or later!”

Hoo-woong!

The sword in his hands burst out with energy.

It was a phenomenon that occurred naturally as King Gujin channeled his inner strength.

Now he has a sword which can withstand his energy.

He had no more reason to hesitate.

“I will deal with you with all my might!”

Bang!

King Gujin kicked the floor hard.

His body shot out like a cannonball.

Hwahak!

As King Gujin approached him, strong wind pressure hit Pyo-wol.

Pyo-wol instantly disappeared from King Gujin’s sight.

He executed Black Lightning and moved.

“No way–”

However, King Gujin did not panic and pursued Pyo-wol’s whereabouts.

He did not try to track him using logic or reason. He was trying to predict and respond to Pyo-wol’s movement with his senses just like a wolf.

Cwahahak!

His attack exploded at the point where he expected Pyo-wol to appear.

The wolf’s claw-like sword attacks tore the entire area to shreds.

Everything that was caught in his sword attack was cut off.

Pyo-wol was also swept away by King Gujin’s sword attack and was almost cut off.

Fortunately, it was a shame because the redistribution spread out and retreated, otherwise it would have been split in two the moment it appeared.

Chills ran down his spine. His heart felt terrified.

It’s been a long time since he felt this sense of crisis.

He remembered again the painful feeling of being trapped in an underground cave for the first time.

Hoo-hung!

King Gujin’s sword was vicious and tenacious.

He was different from those warriors who were only pretentious and showy in appearance.

The Heavenly Sword of the Bloody Wolf, which was created through numerous fierce battles, was the totalization of his skill.
Against King Gujin, Pyo-wol revealed his true nature of being a hungry ghost.2