Chapter 217 – Cult Leader, Guardian, and Saintess (2)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read more at Nineheavens.org

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People poured out from numerous halls.

And a few among them leaped into the sky with weapons.

[Isn't that moving too aggressively?]

Perhaps because her identity was revealed, it was the bracer's spirit now speaking freely.

"There's the part about confirming their strength, the part about being bothered to search around for who's the enemy, and there were things to find out separately, but…"

Sun-woo looked down below while sitting on his sword with a smirk.

"More than that, I wanted to try it once. Call it a romantic dream?"

The Bright Cult's headquarters was in chaos from just one person, Sun-woo.

As soon as he appeared, he created a giant crater in the center of the training ground with sword energy, so everyone couldn't help but be shocked.

On top of that, seeing him floating high in the sky while riding a sword was something even transcendent peak masters couldn't dream of.

Most warriors just shouted from below or shot arrows, but there were still those who climbed up to where Sun-woo was.

Martial artists at the transcendent peak. The guardians remaining at the headquarters and top masters dispatched from branch sects.

Five masters shot up toward Sun-woo.

"Who are you! How dare you look down on our cult!"

"Reveal your identity!"

Some shouted vigorously while climbing, and others just increased their speed silently.

And there were those who barely soared upward, too strained to even speak.

Men appearing from middle to old age. The difference in lightness skill proficiency could be seen immediately from how they climbed.

And Sun-woo could recognize one among them.

A middle-aged warrior flying up while gripping a whip. He was the Whip King, one of the Demon Cult's guardians.

"Really feels like a different world."

He was a warrior met in the not-too-distant past. Back then they were roughly the same level, but now he could recognize the opponent's ability at a glance.

"Shall I end this romantic dream here?"

If he foolishly only faced them with martial arts just for the romance, he might suffer.

Sun-woo's hand crossed through the air, and then several magic formations appeared beneath Sun-woo's feet.

"Fire!"

Flame magic poured from the magic formations. Giant balls of fire rained down on the climbing warriors, and the warriors, surprised by the unexpected attack, swung their weapons.

As expected, transcendent peaks couldn't be underestimated.

The so-called fireballs. The balls of fire were sliced by weapons imbued with sword energy and burst one after another.

But that was enough. Once they imbued sword energy into their swords, they could no longer soar into the sky.

As mentioned before, the method of flying by shooting inner power beneath one's feet consumed too much inner power.

The warriors who crushed the flame magic fell downward covered in soot.

Among the falling martial artists, the two with the highest inner power threw their sword and spear toward Sun-woo.

Telekinetic sword and telekinetic spear. The sword and spear connected to the martial artists through energy rushed toward Sun-woo at tremendous speed.

Clack!

But unfortunately, their weapons stopped moving not far from Sun-woo.

The sword and spear that trembled as if caught by someone eventually stopped moving and floated side by side in front of Sun-woo.

The two martial artists who lost their sword and spear to Sun-woo fell to the ground with shocked eyes.

Thud!, Thud!

If their energy connection with the weapons had been severed, they could have redirected their inner power to lightness skills, but now their weapons were stolen while still containing their inner power.

Thanks to that, unlike the other martial artists, the two crashed into the ground with a loud noise.

"Shouldn't let go of weapons from your hands. Just because inner power is connected doesn't mean abilities don't work…"

What Sun-woo was now using to control the sword and spear was the weapon control ability obtained from killing Adelio.

Adelio only used it on modern weapons, but there was no rule saying that was required.

And the two who fell didn't seem to have died. Inside the crater, the two were limping out.

They limped out along with the other transcendent peak martial artists who landed safely, glaring at Sun-woo from the ground.

The arrows shot by some warriors among those excluding them did fly up to where Sun-woo was, but they were blocked by an invisible wall and just fell down.

It was a magic barrier Sun-woo created.

After blocking arrows with the barrier for a moment, Sun-woo nodded with a satisfied face.

"Finally came out. Fortunately, it seems he didn't run away."

His eyes caught the figure of a middle-aged swordsman leaving the hall.

From this angle the face wasn't visible well, but the silver fluttering hair in the Bright Cult meant the Sword Demon.

There was no one else.

***

"Have you come out?"

"We could have handled it ourselves…"

As the Sword Demon came out, the warriors and three guardians, along with branch masters, bowed their heads toward him.

"Unfortunately, this is where the cult leader resides. We can't leave the enemy for long. Just looking at him, he's clearly a manifestation realm master and seems to know how to use sorcery too. If he stays up in the sky like that, he's not an easy opponent for you all."

At the Sword Demon's words, the warriors' expressions darkened.

"Correct. Your words are. That's why I came down."

Then, a sound came from behind the Sword Demon.

A place that was definitely empty. Everyone turned their weapons in that direction in surprise. Sun-woo, who should have been floating in the sky, was standing there.

After confirming the Sword Demon, he immediately came down through spatial movement.

As the warriors excitedly tried to rush in, the Sword Demon raised his hand.

"Stop. There must be a reason a manifestation realm master visited like this, so it's better to hear what he has to say."

At his words, Sun-woo smirked.

[What's so funny?]

[Your speech is amusing. And you want to talk through telepathy even though you say we have things to discuss?]

[Since you must know who I am to come looking, telepathy is better. If I speak out loud unnecessarily, I can't give you a proper answer.]

[Well, I don't really seem to need to have a conversation.]

[As expected, you seem to have a method of obtaining information. Then just think of it as listening to my rambling.]

The telepathy between the two occurred at tremendous speed. Thanks to telepathy occurring almost simultaneously with thought, the surrounding time seemed nearly stopped.

The Sword Demon tried to continue telepathy with a regretful face. But Sun-woo had no intention of listening to an old man's rambling.

Sun-woo's sword began blazing with sword energy.

"Let's just fight."

Sun-woo lunged forward, and the Sword Demon hastily raised his sword.

"Wa, wait!"

Ka-ka-ka-ka-kang!

In an instant, the two disappeared from the training ground.

"Damn, too fast!"

The transcendent peak martial artists nearby could somewhat see their movements, but the two were too fast to intervene.

"My god, is this the manifestation realm?"

Among the warriors watching the fight in surprise, someone tilted their head.

"But the guy on the other side. His martial arts look familiar?"

A man answered his question in a grave tone.

"It's the Rotating Divine Demon Art."

The man gripping a whip. It was Guardian Whip King.

"What? He's the successor of the Rotating Divine Demon Art?"

"Ah! That sword is the Rotating Divine Sword! It's exactly like the picture!"

"But why the commotion? Don't tell me he's showing off for becoming the successor?"

"Could he be trying to avenge the previous Rotating Divine Demon who was defeated?"

"What? What kind of nonsense is that? What does it have to do with us?"

"Anyway, it's ultimately an internal cult matter. Tsk. What is this about."

The shoulders of the tense masters relaxed a bit.

At least their energy deflated from learning he was from the same cult.

"Still, we should help, right?"

It was clearly visible that the Sword Demon was being pushed back. Though both were manifestation realm, there was a difference in strength and speed.

It was when the transcendent peak martial artists were about to help the Sword Demon by cloaking their weapons with sword energy.

Kwaaaaang!

Suddenly monsters began appearing among the people.

A lion with two heads, a huge one-eyed monster, even a flying bird with a woman's face.

Kyaaaaak!

Monsters called monsters in other worlds suddenly appeared and began attacking the martial artists standing around.

"Block them! They're monsters!"

"Save me!"

"Attack!"

The training ground became chaotic from the sudden appearance of monsters.

The guardians and masters who had relaxed also began using their swords against the monsters, and the cult's warriors also joined forces to attack the monsters.

Kyaaaaak!

"Why, why are you only chasing me!"

"Dodge!"

The appearing monsters behaved strangely.

They ignored those attacking them and only attacked specific martial artists.

Thanks to that, dealing with the monsters became easier, but it was difficult for the martial artists targeted by the monsters to survive.

As monsters fell, the targeted martial artists also died one after another.

A moment later, the training ground was scattered with monster corpses and martial artists' bodies.

When they finally defeated all the monsters.

Kwak!

A scream came from the middle of the training ground.

It was the scream of the Sword Demon whose arm and chest to stomach were slashed by a sword.

"Ha, ha, is this my limit."

The Sword Demon looked at his arm fallen and fluttering on the ground and grimaced.

Watching that, Sun-woo tilted his head.

"It seems he's not a contaminated summoner after all."

While fighting and checking, the Sword Demon was just an ordinary (?) martial artist at the beginning of manifestation realm.

"You, you thought that? Well, I suppose, you could think that."

The Sword Demon smiled wryly with a grimaced face.

"So I thought we could, talk a bit… but it became unfortunate."

The Sword Demon spoke up to there and then collapsed on the ground.

Unless he was a contaminated summoner, he couldn't endure such wounds.

As the Sword Demon fell, all the warriors' swords in the training ground turned toward Sun-woo.

[Don't tell me, you're going to fight all these people?]

At the bracer's spirit's words, Sun-woo shook his head.

"As if. I'm not that much of a murderer."

[You don't even think about losing.]

Naturally Sun-woo had no thought of losing, nor any reason to lose.

The divine status and demonic energy were still sealed.

Releasing the demonic energy was unstable, but if necessary he planned to bring it out, so he couldn't lose even if he tried.

[But things got strangely twisted. The situation is different from what he said?]

"Well, we'll know now. Because they're coming out now?"

It was when Sun-woo was conversing with the bracer's spirit and the warriors were about to rush at Sun-woo.

A thunderous cry came from inside the hall.

"The cult leader's procession approaches! Everyone respectfully receive the cult leader!"

Clack-clack-clack-clack!

As sound came from the hall and the door opened wide, the warriors who had raised their swords toward Sun-woo clasped both hands and made a fist-palm salute toward the hall.

"Cult Leader! May your health remain forever strong!"

At the cry echoing the hall, Sun-woo picked his ear with his finger.

"It's different from what I heard from Yeonhwa? It's totally like a king's procession."

His words were right.

A man walked out from the hall leading several subordinates.

He was a handsome young man with good height. An arrogant looking guy who seemed to have a halo behind him just from looking.

[Are you the successor of the Rotating Divine Demon Art? While I'm very pleased that our cult's successor has visited, what you just did cannot be forgiven. How dare you kill my master.]

From the voice echoing the area, one could discern the skill of the youth called cult leader.

Manifestation realm. And a proper manifestation realm warrior at that.

But Sun-woo wasn't looking at the cult leader. He was looking at the man standing behind the cult leader.

The hairy martial artist.

Unlike during the Blood Brain Jade incident, he wore neat martial robes, but he could tell it was him at a glance.

Thanks to that, he learned when the Sword Demon and brainwashed ones gathered at the headquarters, and thanks to the list of brainwashed ones, he could have his summons eliminate the brainwashed ones.

However, he didn't keep the promise that when he stepped forward, he and his party would support him, but looking at the current situation, it seemed understandable what happened.

"So you sided with the cult leader?"

At Sun-woo's words, the hairy martial artist smiled broadly.

"It seems I got caught up in a political fight."

[Thanks to him, the cult leader was able to eliminate the Sword Demon's faction.]

Thanks to the hairy one's telepathy, he could know for certain.

Sun-woo smiled bitterly at the hairy one deceiving him. He might have thought he did something clever, but it was truly a foolish act.

The cult leader approached Sun-woo with sword drawn.

"I'm sorry to Yeonhwa."

Sun-woo's foot stepped on the ground, and the earth spirit crossed the Bright Cult's headquarters.