The Martial Genius Who Remembers Everything Novel - Chapter 179

Chapter 179
## Chapter 179. The Black Flame Dragon Who Devours a Sea of Blood (9)

Il-gak shuddered violently, tracking Jin So-un as the youth turned away from Murong Jae-hwa and advanced toward his position.

‘He actually…… he really broke through that treacherous Dead Path to arrive here. It is true…….’

Il-gak could not comprehend the sudden surge of raw emotionwelling within him, yet it mirrored the profound awakening he had once experienced while attaining enlightenment before the Buddha.

“You actually made it…….”

Hearing Il-gak’s strained voice, Jin So-un slightly cocked his head.

“What are you referring to?”

“……I genuinely did not believe you would manage to reach this place.”

“I gave my word that I would come, so I am here.”

Il-gak’s lips gave a slight tremor.

“……Is that truly all there is to it?”

Jin So-un gave a detached reply, acting as though the feat was entirely unremarkable.

“Yes. Why should that be considered extraordinary?”

Did this young man truly not grasp how immense a burden those casually spoken words carried, or how spectacular the deeds he considered routine actually were?

‘Is the caliber of his soul fundamentally different?’

Gesticulating toward the crimson-robed cultists with his familiar Black Dragon Sword, Jin So-un questioned,

“Academy Student Il-gak, are you capable of pressing onward?”

“…….”

“If your strength has failed, it is perfectly fine to retreat. Those bastards look ready to pull back regardless.”

“If Benefactor Jin intends to fight, then it is only fitting that I follow suit.”

“Sigh……. There you go again with that benefactor nonsense.”

Jin So-un gave his head a dismissive shake and strode forward without a hint of hesitation.

As Il-gak trailed in his wake, for a fleeting moment, he perceived Jin So-un’s silhouette emitting a radiant, divine glow.

‘Could it be Shakyamuni……?’

Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he saw Jin So-un turning back, staring at him with a thoroughly annoyed expression.

“Are you planning to stand there or move?”

“I-I am moving.”

Instantly, Il-gak felt as though the fog clouding his mind had been thoroughly swept away.

The nearby Academy students, who were just regaining consciousness, found themselves utterly bewildered by the spectacle unfolding right before them.

There was Murong Jae-hwa, long dismissed as a disappointment despite being the eldest son of the prestigious Murong Clan—one of the legendary Five Great Clans—simply because he chose to follow a minor disciple of the Taeul Sect.

Yet there he stood, holding his bow entirely unsupported, halting the advance of the blood-robed cultists single-handedly.

With every release of his bowstring, those brutal blood-robed men shrank back in uncharacteristic terror, while the sinister Spell Practitioners, who had been channeling foul witchcraft, quickly concealed their noisy bells beneath their garments to avoid drawing his lethal attention.

Just as the students began to hope that his intervention might ensure their survival.

“That” monstrosity emerged.

A horrifying “Demonic Beast” that defied the natural order of the world.

A legendary “Jiangshi,” a creature notorious in dark folklore for silencing weeping toddlers by its mere mention.

Faced with this nightmare, despair completely overwhelmed any sense of wonder or curiosity.

When they witnessed Il-gak, recognized as the premier warrior among the Righteous Path Association, being effortlessly battered backward by the Jiangshi, they accepted that their demises were sealed.

But then, at that critical juncture, “he” arrived.

‘Jin So-un?’

The very individual who had utterly disrupted the prestigious standing of the Righteous Path Association, the supposed cream of the crop within the Murim Academy.

The same youth who by all accounts should have been attending his standard lectures back at the Murim Academy was standing in front of them.

Yet, his sudden arrival brought no immediate sense of hope to the onlookers.

They simply could not fathom Jin So-un altering the course of a disaster that neither they nor their esteemed elders could hope to resolve.

To them, Jin So-un’s sudden appearance seemed like nothing more than a cruel twist of fate designed to amplify their agonizing dread of impending doom.

‘That is precisely how it should have unfolded…….’

Instead, he tore through the battlefield, utterly demolishing everything in his path.

That monstrous, terrifying Iron Corpse Puppet was tossed around as though it were a mere plaything.

The Jiangshi, which had been executing its lethal techniques with a cold, robotic precision, bared its fangs and began to thrash in absolute desperation.

It was an unbelievable display.

A spectacle so overwhelming that even the blood-robed cultists, who reposed absolute faith in their Jiangshi, fell into a panic and scrambled about.

It held the gaze of the Academy students so completely that they forgot the agonizing side effects of the witchcraft that was currently twisting their internal organs and making their skulls throb.

Then, with a final strike, the Jiangshi’s form was violently cleaved apart.

“Good heavens…….”

“How can a human achieve such a thing……”

“Amitabha.”

Gasps of utter disbelief and awe erupted from the surrounding crowd.

Regardless of his academic achievements or his undeniable martial prowess, Jin So-un was supposed to be someone inherently beneath their tier.

Yet he had achieved entirely on his own what a whole gathering of them could not dream of matching.

“Whew…….”

Rather than feeling immediate relief at escaping the jaws of death, the crowd stood frozen.

The onlookers could not shake the dazed expressions from their faces, shell-shocked because the rigid biases deeply rooted in their minds had been completely shattered.

“Hey, you absolute moron!”

Jin So-un roared toward Nam Hwa-seong at the top of his lungs.

“You are supposed to channel your internal energy with moderation! Why didn’t you just drive a Palm Wind straight through my Middle Qi Center while you were at it?!”

“F-Fucking hell…… I am dealing with severe internal trauma right now……. *Cough*!”

“Do you take me for a fool who doesn’t know that the internal qigong of the Three Origins Sect prioritizes rapid mending above all else?!”

“……Th-That happens to be a closely guarded secret of our order. How on earth do you……”

“Circulate it properly! And take note that the cost of the Demon-Subduing Talisman you tore up and swallowed will be taken out of your share.”

“You utter bastard! On what grounds are you deducting that from my portion?!”

Having dismantled the Iron Corpse Puppet and forced the vanguard of blood-robed cultists into a full retreat, Jin So-un was now, with absolute nonchalance, tending to the wounded members of the Righteous Path Association.

He acted as though it were his designated responsibility from the start.

Stepping up to each person who had previously spat curses at him, he channeled restorative qi into their meridians and distributed medicine.

His movements lacked even a hint of hesitation or awkwardness.

On the contrary, it was the recipients of his aid who felt intensely uncomfortable.

Among the group were individuals who had gone out of their way to sabotage Jin So-un during the prior Regular Exam.

And what about the catastrophic Soul-Destroying Formation disaster?

Jin So-un had personally braved that lethal Ultimate Formation just to rectify the massive blunder they had engineered.

Yet that very man was currently treating the Academy students as though no bad blood existed between them.

“……Venerable Il-gak.”

An Academy student belonging to a secular branch affiliated with Shaolin quietly approached Il-gak.

“Can you comprehend why that man is doing this?”

“What do you mean by his reasons……?”

“Are we and that man not essentially bitter rivals? Why would he extend a helping hand to us like this? Is it possible he plans to leverage this scenario to force the Righteous Path Association into his debt?”

“…….”

Il-gak’s eyebrows knit tightly together.

His gaze darkened with profound dissatisfaction.

“Is that truly the extent of what your mind can perceive?”

“……I beg your pardon?”

The youth’s face made it clear he lacked any awareness of his own insolence.

Il-gak let out a slow, heavy breath.

“I find myself questioning what kind of righteousness I have been striving to uphold all this time.”

“……Venerable Master, what are you implying?”

“Are you familiar with the sacred precepts of the Buddha?”

“O-Of course I am. I am a member of a lay sect connected to the Shaolin Temple……”

The moment the name “Shaolin” passed the youth’s lips, Il-gak’s powerful voice cut him short.

“Then why do your actions fail to reflect the Buddha’s path!”

“B-Baron?”

The expression of Il-gak, who typically maintained a serene smile and was widely revered as the Merciful Buddha, turned as rigid and unyielding as a block of iron.

“What value do your studies hold, even if you memorize the holy scriptures ten thousand times and reach enlightenment a thousand times over, if you refuse to manifest those virtues in reality!”

“V-Venerable Master.”

“Benefactor Jin belongs to a Daoist order, yet his deeds perfectly embody the path of the Buddha. In contrast, how can you, who boast of absorbing Shaolin’s wisdom, harbor thoughts that mirror a malicious demon!”

Faced with Il-gak’s fierce condemnation, the secular disciple hurriedly ducked his head in shame.

“I-I deeply apologize, Venerable Master. M-My perspective was incredibly narrow.”

“It is said that a pig perceives only filth, while the Buddha perceives only divinity.”

Il-gak’s gaze pierced through the student with sharp intensity.

“I suggest you re-examine the lens through which you are judging Benefactor Jin.”

stir“…….”

Leaving the tongue-tied student behind, Il-gak redirected his attention toward Jin So-un.

A pure, untainted clarity shone within his eyes.

“Benefactor Jin is…… an extraordinarily noble soul.”

—

Once I had roughly stabilized the Academy students, I made my way up a neighboring peak.

“Whew…… pant…… pant…… Wh-Why on earth did we have to climb all the way up here?”

Naturally, I was accompanied by a massive, lumbering burden who couldn’t even justify his own physical stature.

“If hiking was going to push you to the brink of death, why did you insist on tagging along?”

Nam Hwa-seong gave me a fiercely indignant look, resembling a stray dog that had been utterly swindled by its provider, and bellowed.

“Fucking hell…… What else was I supposed to do, stand around awkwardly in the middle of those Righteous Path Association snobs?!”

So he dragged himself up here solely for that?

“You could have just stuck by Murong Jae-hwa or someone else.”

“Do you honestly believe I would feel relaxed spending time with Murong Jae-hwa?”

“Seriously…… This is precisely why you should have behaved yourself in the past.”

“…….”

Shaking my head at his whining, I focused my gaze on the horizon.

Far in the distance, the retreating remnants of the Corpse Mountain Blood Cult forces were visible.

Having been deprived of their Iron Corpse Puppet, those miserable bastards were undoubtedly at a complete loss regarding their next move.

Given that they had just surrendered one of the mere three Jiangshi possessed by the entire Blood Cult, their overarching strategy for the future had bound to be utterly derailed.

“Don’t tell me you are contemplating an assault?”

“An assault? Don’t be ridiculous.”

That was pure fantasy.

Even stripped of the Iron Corpse Puppet, the Blood Cult remained a formidable force.

Without the primary vanguard of the Murim Alliance arriving to back us up, those cultists were an enemy that these witchcraft-addled Academy students stood absolutely no chance against.

At this juncture, the single wisest course of action was to round up the students and retreat toward safety as swiftly as possible.

“Then what was the point of scaling this peak?”

“It would be an absolute waste to let them slip away empty-handed.”

“What?”

“Since we traveled all this way, we might as well deliver a devastating blow to the degenerates who turned the entire murim upside down.”

“…….”

Nam Hwa-seong stared at me with an expression of utter bewilderment.

“What are you looking at?”

“Did you somehow absorb a dose of Corpse Poison while you were busy slicing up that Jiangshi?”

What exactly does this guy keep inside his skull?

“This is precisely why people claim that trying to reason with an oversized sparrow is a fool’s errand.”

“……Are you implying that I am an oversized sparrow?”

To be fair, even I hadn’t anticipated this golden opportunity manifesting right at the start.

To think they would actually deploy one of their precious three Iron Corpse Puppets alongside their scouting vanguard.

‘This confirms that the Blood Sea Jade is present on this battlefield.’

The primary catalyst that drove the Blood Demon Sect, historically one of the legendary Nine Sect Masters of the Demonic Cult, to break away from the main Cult half a century ago was the successful refinement of the Blood Sea Jade.

It contained the concentrated Blood Sea True Qi that every successive generation of the Blood Demon passed down to their chosen heir upon the brink of death.

Accumulated continuously over a span of five hundred years, that inherited Blood Sea True Qi eventually coalesced into a unique, singular artifact, which became known as the Blood Sea Jade.

‘It also explains how the Blood Cult, an entity entirely incapable of mastering the advanced Corpse-Demon Spirit-Descent Art, managed to command the Iron Corpse Puppet.’

The presence of that Iron Corpse Puppet served as definitive proof that the Blood Sea Jade was nearby.

And I had absolutely no intention of letting such an exquisite prize slip through my fingers.

Despite the gravity of our current predicament, a small chuckle escaped my lips before I could check myself.

‘……I never imagined I would stumble upon the core component required to forge the Red Radiance Sword, one of the legendary Fifteen Divine Weapons, in a place like this!’

In the original timeline, the Blood Sea Jade was merely regarded as a piece of random plunder that the Murim Alliance seized after crushing the Sichuan Blood Calamity.

The scattered survivors of the obliterated Corpse Mountain Blood Cult had carried an assortment of bizarre relics: corrupted focuses for complex witchcraft, components for intricate Illusion Formations, and experimental items discarded during their attempts to engineer advanced Jiangshi.

The Blood Sea Jade had simply been categorized as another piece of occult junk.

Completely oblivious to the profound latent potential of the Blood Sea Jade, the Murim Alliance leadership had merely tossed it into a dark vault and forgotten about it entirely.

It wasn’t until much later, when Jang Do-won joined the ranks of the Alliance, that he recognized the true essence of the Blood Sea Jade and repurposed that malicious artifact to craft the peerless Divine Weapon known as the Red Radiance Sword.

The Red Radiance Sword was a treasure so indispensable that I had previously even contemplated, ‘Will I eventually have to take up a temporary post at Mantongbu down the line just to get my hands on the Blood Sea Jade?’

‘The mechanics of Qi Energy Amplification…… Qi Energy Amplification…….’

My mind began to race through the possibilities at breakneck speed.

Regardless of the specifics, someone among that retreating cultist unit was currently carrying the Blood Sea Jade.

And before the Murim Alliance arrived to completely wipe out the Blood Cult remnants, I needed to covertly abscond with that prize.

“Let’s make our way down.”

“……Huh?”

“Why? Would you prefer to camp out up here?”

“Fucking hell…… If I had known we would turn right back around this quickly……”

Why does this fool always find something to complain about after volunteering for a task nobody forced him into?

Stepping down from the summit, I navigated back toward the gathered Academy students.

I needed to quickly whip them into an orderly formation and escort them back toward the safety of the Academy grounds.

They needed to clear out immediately so that I could manage the remaining loose ends without any prying eyes.

Get them out of the picture first, then extract the Blood Sea Jade.

After that, I would forward the Blood Sea Jade to Jang Do-won to secure the creation of the Divine Weapon Red Radiance Sword…….

I was actively mapping out this glorious sequence of events when Nam Hwa-seong suddenly nudged my side with his elbow.

“Jin So-un…… Doesn’t the atmosphere here strike you as a bit bizarre?”

Only then did I snap out of my reverie and look toward the gathered Academy students.

“You insolent brat! Jin So-un!”

A furious voice boomed from the edge of the clearing.

A middle-aged man, heavily leaning on an Academy student for support, was making a slow, shaky approach, his limbs trembling with indignation.

‘Daoist Master Myeonghyeon.’

His countenance was twisted with unbridled fury, and he raised a trembling finger to point straight at me.

“How dare you orchestrate a conspiracy against Diancang? What are the rest of you standing around for?! Secure that bastard immediately and bring him before me to face judgment!”

A man who had only just been liberated from the mental shackles of witchcraft, whose cognitive faculties weren’t even fully restored, possessed the sheer audacity to spour such nonsense the absolute second he regained consciousness…….

“Haha, well, look at this.”

I slowly wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the Black Dragon Sword.

It appeared there was one more garbage individual I needed to beat into submission today besides that Iron Corpse Puppet.