Chapter 69: The Sword’s Edge and the Unraveling Fate

-You Brought This Upon Yourself

An old memory.

A thing of the past, now gone.

• “Put down the forbidden manual. If you don’t, you’ll lose your arm.”

At the edge of the Heavenly Abyss, cornered, she faced the sharp blade aimed at her by a royal expert, under the orders of the Empress of the Great Empire.

Even with her life hanging by a thread, she chose the painful path of revenge, not powerless freedom, and in doing so, she lost her right arm.

The price she paid for choosing the forbidden manual was the emptiness of her right arm and the relentless pursuers after her.

The long chase that extended even to the foreign martial world was a life-or-death struggle at the time, but now, with time passed, she could reflect on those experiences and
dare to call them a valuable sacrifice.

‘Had it not been for that, I would never have taken up the left-handed sword.’

Five years wielding a sword with her right arm, and fifteen years wielding it with her left.

The time spent wielding the sword with her left arm far exceeded the time with her right.

The strength and skill she had, the memories engraved in her muscles, were undeniably biased toward the left.

For her, the reset of her body was another great opportunity.

‘I couldn’t waste the chance to rebuild the balance of my hands and body.’

Her reset body.

Relearning martial arts from the basics.

The habits of using only her left arm.

To harmoniously control all of this, she slowly revisited the memory of using her right hand for the sword,

whether in the game or in real life.

‘Ordinary left-handed swordsmanship might have been nothing special, but my swordsmanship was different.’

Having lost her right arm, the reason she was able to return to the central martial world as a top martial artist of the foreign world

was not only due to the forbidden manual she had stolen from the royal palace, but also because the swordsmanship she was taught,

the Haenam Clan’s swordsmanship, was originally designed for left-handed swordsmen.

Unlike her left-handed swordsmanship, which reached the level of a sword master, her right-handed swordsmanship, which had reached the threshold of peak mastery,
was stunted and awkward, causing many shortcomings.

‘But it was okay. The opponents I faced up until now didn’t care about the difference between left-handed and right-handed swordsmanship.’

In that sense, the first opponent who made her wield the left-handed sword, the B-class awakened being, Shin Seonggok,
was special.

Although he was B-class, which might seem weak, in terms of martial arts, his strength was comparable to a peak expert in Qi-gong.

Unlike the many slow and predictable awakened beings, he was a true expert with a diverse and deep mastery of abilities,

specialized in one-on-one combat, and his practical abilities were as outstanding as any martial artist.

‘Against such an opponent, not wielding the left-handed sword would be self-deception.’

Shin Seonggok coldly disregarded her resolve,

and once again, he deployed ten or more layers of stone walls.

<Awakened Ability – Stone Wall>

<Evolution Trait – Multi-Generation (C)>

“Can you block this attack with a body that can’t even raise your right arm?”

Instead of answering with words, Hae Eung Eung responded first with action.

Moving half a step ahead, Hae Eung Eung was met with stone walls fired at her in unison, but their path was different from the earlier attack aimed directly at her.

They veered off course, following the deadly path her sword had laid out.

‘It seems you won’t fall for it completely.’

Against an expert who had retired, the perfect trick she had once used against Seogyeong-seok couldn’t work here.

Martial Arts of the Two Paths

After the reset of her body, it was as if she was wielding the left-handed sword for the first time.

The gap between her current state and the peak of the martial world.

Insufficient internal energy and

a body that hadn’t fully developed.

There were countless reasons why she was at a disadvantage,

and plenty of factors that could lead to her defeat in this battle.

The unpredictable nature of Mount Hwasan.

The toughness of the Hebei Peng family.

The cunningness of the Hao family.

The meticulousness of the royal palace.

She turned down countless tempting options

and when she picked up the essence of the <Haenam Clan’s Two Paths Martial Arts>

and <Half-Sword Technique>,

it was as if she had returned to her roots.

Hae Eung Eung’s sword repeatedly struck the walls flying toward her,

countering with swift sword strikes as she closed the distance.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

She didn’t need to break through head-on.

Simply deflecting one wall at an angle

would cause the following walls to collide with the previous one,

disrupting their trajectory and force.

With just that one angle,

by controlling the power, speed, and direction of the wall,

Hae Eung Eung’s sword was already a step faster than the right-handed sword technique,

granting her a step of freedom.

‘Ordinary people would retreat and block such a combination attack.’

Normally, there would be no time to counter, let alone move forward and strike faster.

But she wasn’t ordinary,

and she had both the time and the confidence to make the right step.

Clang!

“!!”

Hae Eung Eung, having parried all attacks,

saw Shin Seonggok’s deadly swordsmanship crumble before her left-handed sword.

Shin Seonggok trembled.

Any thought that he could one day be as strong as her

vanished from his mind.

Her sword speed and counterattack ability with the left-handed sword

were on par with the B-class awakened ones from her active years,

showing no sign of being inferior.

‘You brought this upon yourself!’

Her skills were too dangerous to simply end with a hand-to-hand exchange.

<Awakened Ability – Stone Wall>

<Unorthodox Technique – Sharpness Wall>

Shin Seonggok’s life-saving technique,

creating walls in a sharp-edged form rather than a flat one,

was his trump card.

The attack that unfolded in the form of a wall

could slice through anyone foolish enough to approach without considering it.

If it unfolded,

death or injury was almost guaranteed.

Such confidence in his ambush

and his lethal technique honed in countless real battles

was something that could overwhelm anyone.

Clang!

Hae Eung Eung blocked it.

‘If you can’t read that level of energy movement, you’re unqualified to be a martial artist.’

With the blade held firm and her hand supporting it,

she blocked the ambush.

Shifting her weight from the shock she absorbed on her left side to her right foot,

she combined the shock with the power she had accumulated over five years.

A counterattack unfolded.

‘Just as you showed the potential of an awakened being,

I will show you the potential of a martial artist.’

Through the principles of Saryangbalcheon-geun,

using the power of a thousand pounds with the force of a single strike,

she thrust with a speed that surpassed Shin Seonggok’s attack,

driving the blade deep into his midsection.

A perfect thrust combining the techniques of the four great forms,the extreme piercing strike.

‘I’ve already figured out that you plan to shake me up with a kill shot again!’

<Awakened Ability – Stone Wall>

<Maximum Output Activated>

Shin Seonggok, in response, raised a massive wall, large enough to destroy a mansion,

a scale that could block any attack from any direction.

An unbelievable presence surged through his senses.

‘Am I… dreaming right now?’

Instead of the many distractions meant to deceive him,

he saw a small single sword strike flying directly toward him,

a tiny, seemingly insignificant dot.

Shin Seonggok could clearly see the real nature of that dot.

While he had spread his energy wide to block any incoming attack,

this one strike, focused on a single point,

collided with the wall he had created.

Boom!

The intense shockwave from the collision shook the mansion,

as the power behind it tore through the wall,

piercing through three inches,

then finally breaking through a little over three inches and a half.

With that, the sword unleashed a destructive force capable of tearing open any critical point,

whether it was a vital artery or pressure point.

Screech!

The impact was so powerful that his eardrums burst and blood began to flow,

as the attack swallowed his right shoulder and arm,

ripping apart part of the mansion grounds in a swirling vortex.

Thud.

Shin Seonggok, clutching his dislocated shoulder,

knelt down to one knee, looking up at Hae Eung Eung,

who stood before him, her long hair flying in the wind.

“You wouldn’t have believed it if you hadn’t suffered this yourself. Even though I’m retired,

to think a young one would defeat this Shin Seonggok, who was at the top of the B-class awakeneds, with just her own power.”

“…”

“Why did you change your sword stance at the end? That strike, aimed at the heart or head,

there was no way I could have survived it.”

Hae Eung Eung looked down at him for a moment before pulling out a notebook.

With a scratch of the pen,

in the midst of the cold morning wind blowing across the ruined mansion grounds,

she scribbled with a brush pen instead of her sword.

The surreal scene was witnessed by Shin Seonggok, who clenched his pain,

as she ripped out the notebook page and tossed it, almost like memorizing it.

Flick!

He caught the notebook page in his hand,

carefully peering at it. As he looked at it,

the clouds in the night sky parted, and the soft moonlight illuminated the writing.

Staring at the words for a long time, he sighed deeply.

“Who writes like this nowadays, using Chinese characters?”

With the sound of a police siren in the distance,

Shin Seonggok collapsed onto the ground,

the question unanswered,

as Hae Eung Eung had already disappeared, leaving only a single page of the notebook behind.

2.

“Are you alright, sir? The ambulance is on the way; please hold on a little longer.”

“No need for that, just lend me your screen phone for a moment.”

“Eh?”

“If I can’t decipher this, I won’t be able to rest, so hurry up.”

After borrowing a police officer’s screen phone and running a Chinese character recognition app,

he was able to read that it said which meant that when a child’s wrongdoing disgraces the parents, the one who tied the knot must untie it.

• The child’s sin has cost the parents, now it is up to the child to fix the wrong.

For someone without children of his own,

the only person he could consider a ‘child’ was none other than

the heir of the Ming-ho Guild.

“The young ones who took over the Ming-ho Guild have left a grudge with a ridiculous powerhouse…”

Having retired from active duty,

quietly awaiting his death while holding only a ceremonial title,

this unexpected turn of events brought an assassin with immense skill,

who had bested him in a real fight,

and the once-peaceful mansion he had carefully built with his hard-earned money was now in ruins,

split in half with a large hole in it.

The new generation of the Ming-ho Guild.

“I can’t take it anymore.”

If the child of his past enemy had come seeking vengeance for his crimes,

he would have gladly accepted the responsibility.

But this was something he could not bear.

“Doctor, I know I won’t get my arm back, but make it so I can move!”

“That’s impossible, sir! What are you planning to do in this state?”

“There are some people I need to meet. No matter what it takes.”

With his anger rising, the room trembled as the bed and IV drip shook,

as though a small earthquake was taking place.

“Can you make it so I can move?”

“We’ll begin surgery immediately.”

A new shadow loomed over the Ming-ho Guild.