Chapter 99. Cho Ryu Hyang Finds a Clue
ED: Chrysanthemum
Pian Mu became quite bored as he waited for Cho Ryu Hyang.
The boy really was taking his time.
But at that precise moment, Pian Mu’s ears twitched.
Cho Ryu Hyang’s body began trembling for some reason.
At the same time, a mysterious aura flowed from the boy’s body.
Vuun-
“Hoh? Finally awake?”
The aura that surrounded Cho Ryu Hyang had a purple tinge and was extremely strange.
Pian Mu looked at this with an interested face, but then Cho Ryu Hyang’s trembling heightened even more.
Something was wrong.
‘What’s going on?’
It looked like Cho Ryu Hyang was waking, but something was different.
A little while later, Cho Ryu Hyang opened his eyes.
Pian Mu frowned when their eyes met.
This wasn’t the person he had been waiting for.
“What the h.e.l.l? How did you get in here?”
“…….”
Cho Ryu Hyang did not respond. Instead, he looked around for a moment.
His eyes emanated with a purple light.
A glint of maturity and age could be seen from those eyes.
“I will ask you again, human. Zhuge Liang, was it? How did you get in here?”
Zhuge Liang did not respond.
He simply looked at his own body with a curious gaze.
Then, he smirked.
“I was wondering what you two were doing…… what a fun game you’re playing, Pian Mu.”
“Answer my question. How did you get in here?”
Pian Mu gripped his pestle with a big frown.
He didn’t understand.
This was his world.
The world he made for Cho Ryu Hyang.
And he had specifically designed the place to block out that old man.
How did he get in?
Pian Mu’s eyes were filled with surprise and suspicion.
“You must be quite surprised.”
“That’s an understatement. You are a strange being. Not even G.o.ds can ignore the natural laws like you do. Who the h.e.l.l are you?”
“There’s no need for me to tell you.”
“You should, if you don’t want to die. This is my world, you know?”
“How interesting.”
Zhuge Liang was taunting Pian Mu.
Pian Mu grinned.
“There are those who only regret things after death.”
Pian Mu gripped his pestle even harder.
Come to think of it, he had something to give back to this this man, didn’t he?
It would be good to pay the man back now.
But at that moment, Zhuge Liang flinched and looked back at his body. He spoke with a regretful voice.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to play with you today.”
“Why? Feeling scared now?”
“Unfortunately, it looks like this child is about to wake up.”
Zhuge Liang pointed to Cho Ryu Hyang’s body and smiled.
Pian Mu, in return, made a disappointed face.
Before he went back, Zhuge Liang opened his mouth.
“Is it alright to give you an advice before I leave?”
Pian Mu tried to wave him away.
“Just leave. Do I seem that laughable to you? I just lost last time because I underestimated you.”
Right.
He only lost because he underestimated his enemy.
The same thing won’t happen twice.
Zhuge Liang simply nodded in response and spoke.
“You seem to be misunderstanding something. I never looked down on you.”
“Shut your mouth, human.”
He didn’t like him.
He didn’t like how the man spoke as if he knew everything.
Did this man even know how great of a being he was?
As Pian Mu scrunched up his face and twitched his ears in annoyance, Zhuge Liang spoke.
“Aren’t you curious why you got chased out into the human world?”
“……?”
Pian Mu’s eyes shook.
He then glowered at Zhuge Liang with suspicion.
“How would you know anything about that?”
How dare a human try to talk of the matters of heaven.
It was outrageous.
Zhuge Liang simply smiled when he saw Pian Mu’s face of distrust.
“Be careful of your arrogance. You are only going through hardships like this because you have a great role in the future. You will ascend to the heavens according to the laws of nature, so you do not need be so rushed to return.”
“…….”
Pian Mu’s eyes shook slightly.
At first glance, these words simply seemed nonsensical and fancy.
But as these words strangely fit into Pian Mu’s current situation quite well, they had a great power of persuasion.
This made Pian Mu confused.
‘Who is this guy?’
What was this person?
Pian Mu was extremely confused, and he did not know what to do.
At that time, Zhuge Liang crossed his arms and spoke.
“It’s time. You should be able to see what you have wanted once the child wakes.”
Pian Mu made a complicated face as Zhuge Liang left Cho Ryu Hyang’s body.
The man had left before he could confirm anything.
And at that moment, Cho Ryu Hyang’s body began to tremble slightly.
This time, the trembling was extremely stable and seemed comforting.
Pian Mu opened his mouth when the boy’s eyes opened.
Finally, he got the person he had wanted to see.
“You made me wait too long, child.”
Cho Ryu Hyang nodded.
He immediately tried gathering power in his fingers and smiled.
He felt a satisfactory amount of power from it.
“I’m sorry for making you wait, Maksu.”
“d.a.m.n it! I told you not to call me by that name! I’m really p.i.s.sed right now too!”
Pian Mu swung his pestle several times and opened his mouth.
“You might as well just serve to be my stress relief.”
Vuun-
There were no warnings whatsoever.
Pian Mu’s pestle simply cut through the wind towards Cho Ryu Hyang’s skull.
Baang-!
An unfathomably deep hole appeared with a loud bang.
Cho Ryu Hyang looked at this from afar and laughed.
“He’s stronger than my teacher, in terms of physical strength alone.”
A small mutter escaped Cho Ryu Hyang’s lips.
At the same time, the boy took off his gla.s.ses and put them in his pocket.
He could see now.
He could see how powerful his teacher was.
He could see that Gongson Chun Gi had probably reached the limits of humanity.
And once he realized that, he understood and gained something.
‘The second state of the Moon Edge Blade Technique.’
He was about to figure out what the next state after Ryun, Tong (通: connection), was.
This in truth was a great gain.
As Cho Ryu Hyang organized the newfound information in his brain, Pian Mu opened his mouth.
“A long time ago, someone high up in the heavens told me something.”
“…….”
“There is only one reason why humans are so fearsome.”
Tuk-
After putting the pestle on one side of his shoulders, Pian Mu spoke.
“Potential. I was told to be alert of humans and respect them at the same time because of that.”
The potential to become anything and achieve anything.
Pian Mu was told not to underestimate humans because of that.
“But I don’t believe any of that. It’s all bulls.h.i.t.”
A faint killing intent emanated out of Pian Mu’s eyes.
Humans were weak and stupid.
They were extremely greedy as well.
Fear those things?
No way. There was no way such a thing was possible.
Cho Ryu Hyang didn’t say anything.
“Prove to me that humans have ‘potential’; otherwise, you’ll just become a lump of flesh by the time I’m done with you.”
Cho Ryu Hyang cracked his hands a few times and tilted his head.
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this, but I do want to tell you this one thing.”
“What, your last words?”
Cho Ryu Hyang shook his head.
“I am thankful for you doing this.”
“What? Thankful? Puhaha! Did you finally go crazy or something?”
When Pian Mu mockingly said this, Cho Ryu Hyang scratched his cheeks.
“Thanks to the world you made here, I was able to understand some things that I was unable to understand in all this time. This is extremely fortunate from me. Thank you.”
Pian Mu’s lips twitched when he felt the honesty from Cho Ryu Hyang’s words.
“Be thankful when you get out, but do you even think that you’d be able to survive here?”
“Who knows…….”
Before he understood a small portion of Tong, he was confident of winning.
His power just felt that great.
But now, he only felt powerless.
He was now able to feel the immense power that Pian Mu possessed.
It wasn’t martial arts, nor was it a form of magic, but the difference between them based on pure power was far too big.
“For now…….”
But that didn’t mean Cho Ryu Hyang had given up.
‘It’s not like I can’t win.’
Cho Ryu Hyang beckoned Pian Mu to attack.
Pian Mu looked at Cho Ryu Hyang for a single moment, then struck out with his palm with extreme speed.
Kuang-!
“Are you playing with me here?”
Cho Ryu Hyang nodded.
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“You told me, didn’t you? Survive till it becomes dawn. Just surviving seems easy enough.”
“Crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d…….”
Pian Mu became extremely mad.
Just what did he expect from humans in the first place?
Did he think that this particular one would be different or something?
When Pian Mu unexpectedly found himself agreeing with the suspicion that just rose up in his mind, a wrathful flame rose up.
And this wrath naturally poured out to Cho Ryu Hyang.
“I’ll kill you.”
If this really was someone who didn’t even deserve his respect, it was better to kill that person off at once.
When Pian Mu charged out in anger, Cho Ryu Hyang quickly moved back whilst punching towards his attacker.
Kuangkuangkuang-!
Nothing struck Pian Mu.
To Pian Mu, Cho Ryu Hyang’s attacks felt just like a little child’s fists.
Cho Ryu Hyang could do nothing but retreat.
Kukakaka-!
Babababang-!
Everything that came out of Cho Ryu Hyang’s hands were all high-cla.s.s moves of the Shura Environment as well as the Moon Edge Blade Technique.
Each and every one of his attacks would render just about any martial artist speechless.
But…….
None of these attacks reached Pian Mu.
Pian Mu frowned whenever Cho Ryu Hyang attacked, and in the end, he put his hand up with a tired face.
“Is this all? Is this everything you have?”
“…….”
Cho Ryu Hyang was attacking as hard as he could.
He was dodging and attacking skillfully, but this was only because Pian Mu was going easy on him.
Both Cho Ryu Hyang and Pian Mu knew this.
“……then I’ll slit your stomach and take the Dragon’s Pearl.”
He had endured enough.
When Pian Mu stretched out his hands, Cho Ryu Hyang suddenly began to get attracted to his opponent.
Cho Ryu Hyang tried his utmost to resist, but it was of no use.
It only slowed down his impending doom a little.
“The end.”
The moment when Pian Mu lifted his pestle and tried to smash Cho Ryu Hyang’s head, Cho Ryu Hyang grinned.
“That’s my line.”
Pa- Pa- Paa-!
Lights appeared from the surrounding area.
At the same time, the floor shook greatly.
“A formation? You didn’t even have a core though, so when?”
Pian Mu had known that the boy was creating a formation since a while back.
In fact, this was the part he paid the most attention to, so how?
“Did you……”
Pian Mu looked down at the light that spilled from the ground below him with an astounded face.
Cho Ryu Hyang, who was trying to resist Pian Mu’s pull, suddenly jumped towards the man.
This formation wasn’t the only attack he had.
Pian Mu was slightly surprised by this, but he immediately became calm.
He was confident that no human could even injure him.
At that time, Cho Ryu Hyang shot forward with his hands near his chest.
At the empty s.p.a.ce between the two hands was a white ball of light.
“Eat this.”
When the Shura Environment meets the Moon Edge Blade Technique, they try to repel each other.
That was because the nature of the two techniques were far too different.
Based on this phenomenon, Cho Ryu Hyang created this move.
It worked by condensing two opposing powers in a small area and making it explode.
The moment he threw this ball of light, Cho Ryu Hyang felt the formation under him activate.
And in a moment, the two disappeared from the area.