Chapter 119: Storm Archipelago (3)

The monster that commanded the wind, and Jang Woo-hyun’s left arm.

There was one thing related to both.

Windstorm Great Saint, Miho Wang.

That white monkey monster controlled the wind and had left a mark on Jang Woo-hyun’s shoulder.

“You’ve got a benefit. As you saw just now, it blocks certain spell formations or curses, and low-ranking monsters won’t rush at you.”

These were the words Pung So-bong said as he explained the mark of the Windstorm Great Saint.

While it wasn’t as overtly recognizable as before, the Windstorm Great Saint still hadn’t erased the mark.

Since Nokgak Baekmyeon of Radiant Light Sect, whom he met during the Ten Sects and Three Clans meeting, had said it wasn’t ordinary, perhaps the power of the mark had only grown stronger, even if it wasn’t easily noticeable.

‘It’s whining like that because of the monkey.’

The Windstorm Great Saint was said to be one of the top Great Monsters even in the Demonic Spirit Realm. Just the power of the Projection it had shown during the battle with Twin-Winged Lotus proved it was a monster among monsters. If a monster like San-hwi recognized that power, it was only natural that it wouldn’t dare attack.

‘Then why did the others just charge in?’

Kamaitachi with its bladed tail, and Moonrin, who resembled a pig—those two had rushed at Jang Woo-hyun without a second thought.

‘Maybe they were too weak to recognize it.’

Among the three, San-hwi was said to be the highest-grade monster. So it was only San-hwi who recognized the power of the Windstorm Great Saint’s mark, and the others were too inferior to sense it.

Having finished assessing the situation, Jang Woo-hyun stretched out his left hand and approached San-hwi. When San-hwi, sensing the moment, lunged at him, he beat the creature down using only his left hand, not even bothering with his right.

Screeech—

Half a ke had passed.

San-hwi was carrying Jang Woo-hyun on its back.

“You… what are you?”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re riding on the back of a monster you met today for the first time… Never mind. Forget it.”

Seeing his face that looked as if he truly knew nothing, Cho-su shook his head with an expression of disgust and gave up speaking.

Let’s not try to understand him with common sense.

Jang Woo-hyun was the one who had beaten down a Giant in the Giant Tree Grove.

“What can I even say to you? So, what now?”

“Just a moment.”

When Jang Woo-hyun tapped San-hwi’s head with his left hand, San-hwi roared.

Kiii—

Screeech—

Kamaitachi and Moonrin, who had been standing still, also howled in unison. The cries of the monsters continued for a while, and once they stopped, all the monsters followed Jang Woo-hyun who sat atop San-hwi.

“Let’s go. These guys will show us where we need to go.”

Just like that, Jang Woo-hyun was able to lead the monsters to the place where Bisa Sect Leader was staying.

After tossing the head of another San-hwi that had attacked him rather than obeyed, Jang Woo-hyun opened his mouth.

“What are you all doing here?”

Riding San-hwi like a warhorse and leading monsters like soldiers, Jang Woo-hyun appeared like a general, leaving the members of Bisa Sect speechless.

None of them had ever seen anything like this. Especially the spellcasters who practiced Demon Beast Contract Technique were the most astonished.

A ferocious monster allowing a human to ride on its back? They had never even heard of such a thing.

Moreover, the one riding San-hwi now was clearly a martial artist, not a spellcaster, and yet all the monsters were following him. Even though those monsters had originally been summoned by someone else.

Everyone averted their gaze or flinched whenever Jang Woo-hyun looked in their direction. He had completely seized control of the area.

“Who the hell are you! Do you even know who we—”

“That’s not my concern. What are you doing here? What are you all looking for?”

Each side only said what they wanted. Meanwhile, the Bisa Sect Leader secretly formed a hand seal, but Jang Woo-hyun had no intention of letting it slide.

When he tapped San-hwi’s head again, San-hwi roared, and the monsters attacked the Bisa Sect once more.

At the same time, the Bisa Sect Leader’s spell formation activated, launching a massive stream of fire at Jang Woo-hyun—but he was never someone such tricks would work on.

He cut through the flame with his sword and jumped down from San-hwi’s back, moving alongside the monsters.

Jang Woo-hyun’s speed rivaled that of the wind-wielding monsters. No, his movements were even faster than Kamaitachi or San-hwi. As he rampaged with the monsters, the number of surviving Bisa Sect members rapidly dwindled.

The Bisa Sect Leader and Gye Hong-rak tried to resist somehow, but their skills were no match for Jang Woo-hyun.

In the end, Gye Hong-rak was killed by San-hwi, and the Bisa Sect Leader, with an arm severed, knelt before Jang Woo-hyun. A few surviving spellcasters continued to resist, but they too would be dealt with soon.

“What were you doing here?”

“Grr… don’t think it ends with this. We’re not the only ones—”

“Stop the nonsense and just answer. What were you doing here? Who are you people?”

“Heh heh… I don’t know who you are, but you’ll find out soon enough what you’ve done. You’ll regret ever getting involved before you die.”

As the opponent showed no signs of cooperating, Jang Woo-hyun drew out the Dragon King’s Scales. He wasn’t particularly skilled at torture, but he had his methods. If he embedded a few of those scale blades inside and stirred, the target would spill everything on their own.

“Hmm?”

As he tried to separate the blades, he sensed a presence and looked up. A ship was approaching from afar.

The ship flew in fast, disappearing momentarily and reappearing after leaping through space.

In the span of just a few breaths, the ship arrived above Jang Woo-hyun’s head.

From the now stationary ship, giants leapt down, and soon, an overwhelming qi pressed down from all directions.

Kieeeek—

Kkueeeek!

Monsters were crushed under the tremendous pressure.

Kwaaaang!

One of the giants plummeted from the sky and struck San-hwi mid-air. San-hwi, whose body had been shielded by a curtain of wind, was slammed to the ground, creating a massive crater.

Kwabang! Kuung!

That was only the beginning. Giants began to crash into the ground.

Five giants unleashed overwhelming force as they attacked in all directions.

Kamaitachi’s body exploded, and Moonrin’s body was torn apart. Not only monsters, but also the surviving spellcasters of the Bisa Sect were slain by the giants.

Some monsters tried to fight back, but they could not penetrate the Armor of Qi wrapped around the giants.

“W-Why… What are you all doing?!”

The Bisa Sect Leader, panic written across his face, ignored Jang Woo-hyun and rushed forward.

“You bastards! You dare attack your allies?! Have you finally gone mad?!”

As he ran toward the giants, the closest of them looked down at him and opened its mouth.

“We’re cleaning up the insects.”

“What?”

“We’re cleaning up the insects we no longer need.”

“Y-You… You mad bastards!”

With his remaining arm, the Bisa Sect Leader cast a spell. Giant streams of fire and blades of wind surged toward the giants, but they casually waved their hands to block the attack, then stomped him flat.

Kwaaang!

With a deafening crash, the man was crushed and reduced to a puddle of blood.

With the death of the Bisa Sect Leader, the five giants had thoroughly cleaned up the scene.

Now, only five giants, Jang Woo-hyun, and a dying San-hwi remained breathing in this place.

The giant at the front turned its gaze toward Jang Woo-hyun and, seeing that he gave no response, lifted the corner of its mouth slightly.

“Scared, are you? I don’t know why you came here, but die, foolish little one.”

Without further words, the frontmost giant stomped the ground and lunged.

Jang Woo-hyun smiled as he watched. He had simply been observing, unaware of the exact situation, but the opponent had mistaken his silence for fear.

At first, he had wondered why giants had suddenly appeared, but thinking back, the Giant Tree Grove did have many villages. It wasn’t surprising that some had sided with them.

As the giant closed the distance and stomped, a heavy kuung! sound followed, and the ground caved in.

Then came a single punch.

Kuuuuung.

It was a straightforward punch with no finesse, but the force behind it was unimaginable. That single blow could obliterate everything around it.

Jang Woo-hyun raised his black sword to meet the fist.

He focused his strength and thrust forward.

Kwaaaang!

The enormous arm clashed with Destructive Slash and was flung backward. Reeling from the immense shock, the giant staggered back, trying to regain balance.

“Guh…”

For a moment, the giant thought its arm had been severed. That was how powerful Jang Woo-hyun’s thrust was.

The Armor of Qi that had covered the giant’s fist had already vanished.

Jjeoeok!

Jang Woo-hyun stepped into the air, chasing the retreating giant.

The stepping stones created with Void Movement Technique cracked, and fissures split through the air.

The power, having traveled from the Lower Dantian through his shoulders, once again imbued the black sword and targeted the giant.

From top to bottom.

A simple vertical slash.

No technique involved. Yet the force behind it was tremendous.

If the giant’s punch was like a falling meteor, then Jang Woo-hyun’s black sword had the power to cleave through that meteor.

“Uaaaah!”

The panicked giant screamed and raised both arms.

As it absorbed surrounding energy, the Armor of Qi around its arms grew stronger.

But it still wasn’t enough to stop Jang Woo-hyun’s strike.

Kwagagak!

His blade shattered both arms and then split the giant’s upper body.

It cut through the collarbone, slashed through the chest, and finally traced a line all the way down to the groin.

The giant’s massive body split clean in two.

The remaining giants stared wide-eyed, speechless. They hadn’t expected anything like this.

A human, whom they called a “small one,” had split a fellow giant in half. And it wasn’t even with a martial technique their kind so boasted of. He had simply overpowered it with raw strength.

As Jang Woo-hyun stepped past the fallen giant’s corpse and took a step through the air, the remaining giants instinctively retreated.

They were different from Tarun and Tawi. Those two had been born of misunderstanding and didn’t need to be killed. They hadn’t even fought properly.

But this was different. These giants were enemies.

Since learning martial arts, Jang Woo-hyun had never shown mercy to enemies. If he considered someone an enemy, he simply cut them down.

Jang Woo-hyun’s eyes slowly scanned the remaining four giants as he walked through the air.

He already knew how they fought.

He had only been caught off guard during the first battle with the giant. Having experienced it once, there was nothing difficult about it anymore.

As he walked forward with his sword hanging low, the four giants continued to retreat. To them, Jang Woo-hyun was an incomprehensible existence.

A small human overpowering massive giants.

In the eyes of the giants, who just moments ago had looked down on everything with arrogance, fear was slowly beginning to rise. Not one of them dared to charge at Jang Woo-hyun.

“Again?”

Jang Woo-hyun, walking while watching the giants, came to a halt. He raised his head as he sensed a presence.

Where his gaze landed.

He saw the ship the giants had ridden. Or more precisely, he looked at the man who had appeared beside that ship at some point.

“Sigh, I wasn’t confident in leaving it to them, so I came—and look at this mess.”

A human, not a giant.

An ordinary-looking face. An unremarkable appearance. With a face so featureless that one wouldn’t even remember him if they passed him on the street, and eyes and expression devoid of vitality, he looked like someone fed up with everything.

The aura he emitted wasn’t particularly strong. Moreover, he wasn’t a martial artist.

“A cultivator?”

Someone walking a completely different path from a martial artist.

It felt similar to what he had sensed when he encountered Pung So-bong or other cultivators.

“You definitely have skill.”

The man nodded in acknowledgment and extended his arm. The giants’ ship floating in the sky moved toward his hand, and in an instant, it shrank and disappeared.

“I am Myo Cheon-pung. And you?”

“Jang Woo-hyun.”

“Jang Woo-hyun? That’s unexpected.”

The corners of the once-expressionless man’s mouth lifted, and the lifeless eyes regained a glint.

Suddenly, Myo Cheon-pung’s expression changed.

From a featureless face to that of a warrior radiating powerful killing intent.

“Are you the Jang Woo-hyun of the Celestial Scale Sword Hero?”

A title that had just begun to spread popped up.

“Well, for now.”

“This is a pleasure. That idiot Yeong-gok owes you one.”

“Yeong-gok?”

Hearing a name for the first time, Jang Woo-hyun asked again.

“You don’t even remember? Well, I suppose it’s natural not to recall an idiot like him. He’s the one who lost the Purple Gold Restraint to you.”

“Purple Gold Restraint? Ah, that gourd.”

It referred to the gourd he had been sucked into during the fight with Twin-Winged Lotus.

And if this cultivator knew about the gourd, it wasn’t hard to guess his affiliation.

“You, are you from the Ascension Cult?”

Myo Cheon-pung smiled and nodded again.

“I am Myo Cheon-pung of the Ascension Cult. Where is the Purple Gold Restraint?”

“It’s not with me.”

“Did the Beast King Sect take it?”

“Do I have to tell you that?”

“Well, I suppose we’re not on speaking terms anyway.”

Still smiling, Myo Cheon-pung threw something he was holding in his hand.

A motion as if tossing a small pebble.

What flew out was a miniature model shaped like a mountain with five peaks.

The moment it flew through the air—

Kugugugung.

“Ugh!”

Before he could even register what was wrong, a tremendous pressure crushed down on Jang Woo-hyun.

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