A Medieval Knight in a Martial Arts Novel – Chapter 43

—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Shrine
—————————————————————–

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

“It seems your aura must be running low.”

Sending out aura concentrated on a weapon typically consumed a massive amount of aura.

Therefore, in the Western Regions, releasing aura from weapons was considered half-mad. With aura already in short supply, using it recklessly meant not having it available when truly needed.

William tilted his body to avoid the saber energy and glared in the direction it came from.

“Blood… more blood…”

A chilling voice, as if completely expressing its owner’s desperation and instability, pierced William’s ears on the wind.

‘He’s lost his mind.’

The bushes rustled. Then a man in a wretched state revealed himself.

His Clothes were stained with blood with capillaries burst in his eyes. He had an ominous aura to top off his look.

‘is it Demonic possession? Or demonic arts?’

While it was difficult to determine which, one thing was certain – this person was looking at him with eyes filled with murderous intent. William met his gaze and spoke:

“Hye-ryeong. Go tell Elder Baek that a demon cult leader has appeared here.”

“Yes! Uncle! Good luck!”

If he could send out saber energy, this wasn’t an opponent Hye-ryeong could handle anyway.

She used qinggong without protest.

Perhaps because of Hye-ryeong’s noisy actions, the man’s gaze shifted to her.

“Woman…”

“You’d better watch your own neck instead of getting distracted.”

William slowly moved to block the man’s view of Hye-ryeong, and took his stance again.

“The Blue-eyed lion’s blood…”

The man gripped his saber tighter and coated the blade with red saber energy. His saber emitted a greedy light as it pointed towards William.

‘Judging by the unnecessarily large saber, it seems to be a saber technique that relies on brute force.’

As if representing the man’s brutal nature, the thick saber pointed at William’s heart, scattering red energy with a clear intent to kill.

William observed his opponent’s condition with calm eyes.

‘Besides some trivial wounds, there are no other injuries on him. But If he really annihilated the patrol, he must be quite exhausted.’

Just as physical stamina is finite, aura is ultimately a finite resource too.

Even in the Central Plains where people generally had more aura, the consumption must have been tremendous after throwing around saber energy like that.

Unless he was an expert who consumed elixirs like food or a late-stage expert, it wouldn’t be strange if he was too exhausted to properly wield his weapon at this point.

The more flashy the fight, the more intense the consumption of stamina and aura.

But William absolutely did not think his opponent was completely out of energy just yet.

‘A skilled warrior fights while rationing their stamina, but a madman possessed by demons puts their all into every single attack.’

William knew madmen well.

The madness of the battlefield often turned ordinary people into madmen.

He had seen comrades go mad with battlefield frenzy, cutting down enemies until their own necks were severed. Conversely, he had also ended the lives of many enemies who had gone mad and rampaged, consumed by battlefield madness.

He too had gone through a period of being stained by madness, slaughtering and killing enemies. So there was likely no one in this land of the Central Plains who understood madmen better than him.

‘It would be best not to engage him…’

If he just ran away appropriately, the madman would eventually tire himself out and die. The madman’s wounds were too numerous to ignore even they only caused bleeding, and once his energy was completely depleted, he would collapse from exhaustion.

However, it would be troublesome if his target changed to Hye-ryeong.

William, who hadn’t learned qinggong, couldn’t catch his opponent If he went after her.

‘A knight does not show his back to the enemy.’

For a knight to turn his back on the enemy meant abandoning what he should protect.

Without a hint of wavering, he gripped his sword and waited for the madman’s attack.

Unless he could take his head off with one strike, hasty attacks against a madman were ill advised.

“Give me your blood…”

With a voice that sent chills down the spine of anyone listening, like scraping metal, the madman’s figure approached William. William observed the direction of the saber’s movement and placed his sword diagonally in its path.

The saber swung with full force slid along the smooth blade of the longsword. No matter how much force was put into it, as long as there wasn’t a dramatic difference in strength, the laws of physics tended to favour the rational party.

The moment the blade slid down to the ground, William brought the pommel of his sword down on the madman’s forehead. It was a clean counter-attack. If it had been an ordinary martial artist, this move would have incapacitated them immediately.

But William didn’t think the demon cult leader before him would fall with just one strike.

If he collapsed so easily, he couldn’t be called a madman. As William expected, the demon cult leader rolled to avoid his counter-attack.

Lazy donkey rolling.

A move that anyone would be scorned just for attempting it among martial artists.

But the madman unhesitatingly used the lazy donkey roll to avoid the attack.

‘This is why madmen are troublesome.’

Madmen don’t care about appearances. They move only as their instincts guide them.

That’s why, unless there was a large gap in realms, there were few opponents as troublesome as madmen.

Not only was it difficult to gain the upper hand in a fight due to the madman’s reckless movements unique to them, but they also had an uncanny ability to sense fatal attacks and avoid them, even by rolling on the ground if necessary.

They would minimize damage from bearable attacks and aim for their opponent’s vital points.

They relied on instincts in their movements.

Only death could stop the advance of a madman possessed by demons.

That’s why William didn’t try to attack unnecessarily.

It was obvious that if he just held out, the madman would tire himself out and collapse on his own.

William adjusted his grip on the long sword’s handle and prepared for the nameless demon cult leader’s attack with a vom tag (high guard) stance.

The madman performed a large downward slash.

An action that someone properly trained in weapon handling would rarely do. But the madman seemed to have forgotten everything he had learned and swung down with only brute force.

If blocked head-on, it could split both the sword and the opponent in half.

But William wasn’t foolish enough to block such a saber strike directly.

Once again, the saber strike slid along the blade.

Naturally, this created an opening.

Feeling the weight on his arm, William rotated the sword that had been held diagonally with the blade as the axis. The saber strike that had lost the hilt it was supposed to clash with struck the ground, breaking the madman’s stance.

William quickly thrust the tip of his sword into the madman’s forearm and stepped back.

It was not a fatal wound, but an injury that would hinder movement.

‘I’m not sure if I properly cut the tendons.’

Even a madman was ultimately human.

If muscles and tendons were cut, they would eventually be unable to move.

William intended to slowly chip away at the madman before him, like slowly peeling an apple’s skin.

To make him tire out faster and die on his own.

“Blood… not enough…”

“Are you a vampire?”

William looked with a disgusted expression at the man who was getting up, dripping blood from his right arm. The man, without changing his expression, wiped the blood on his arm with his hand and then licked the blood off his fingers.

It was a symptom commonly seen in madmen.

An obsession with blood.

“Blood…!”

Once again, the man charged at William. William met the charging madman with an ox guard stance.

Red saber energy rose once again from the madman’s blade. The energy, rising about 1 chi above the blade, spread a murderous aura as if it would crush anything it touched.

William also coated his blade with a thin layer of aura to match. Compared to his opponent, it was so thin it was hard to tell if he had coated it at all.

It seemed woefully inadequate to face such powerful saber energy, but William knew better than anyone that simply pushing in more aura didn’t necessarily make it stronger.

In the end, it was skill, not power, that determined victory or defeat.

Power without technique was meaningless.

‘Here he comes.’

William extended his right foot slightly forward.

Like an executioner beheading a criminal, the madman’s saber left a red afterimage as it aimed for William’s neck.

It was a slash befitting the phrase “cutting flesh to reach bone”.

However, cutting flesh to reach bone is used while expressing the nature of moves of mutual destruction.

If one failed to reach the bone… it would become a poor move that only cuts flesh.

William’s sword received the thick saber with its tip pointing downward. The red energy that finally clashed with his sword tried to devour the blue energy, thrashing about as if to push back the blue aura.

But William’s aura covering the longsword steadfastly blocked the attack, as if it had no reason to engage with such red energy.

And once again, William’s sword tilted diagonally.

Strong force only has meaning if the opponent receives it head on.

William had no reason to engage in a contest of strength while clashing blades from the start.

As the saber slid off again, William gripped the sword with one hand and quickly drew a dagger from his waist to throw it.

The madman tried to twist his body to avoid this unexpected attack, but he couldn’t avoid it with the dagger piercing his abdomen as a result.

‘This is a method I used to deal with opponents not properly armored, but to think I’d use it here again.’

The madman with the dagger embedded in his stomach stepped back and pulled out the dagger.

“Blood…”

Blood began to flow from where the dagger had been embedded. However, the madman smiled with a crazed expression as if he had never been stabbed, and began to draw out all his aura from his dantian.

“Kill…”

The ground was stained with blood. And the madman’s body also turned red.

William clicked his tongue at the red energy that had grown even more intense than before.

“How annoying, struggling like this.”

This man was going to die.

William was certain of it.

However, his final attack would be a last strike containing everything he had.

The madman charged at William once again. His charge was closer to the charge of a beast than a human.

William calmly pointed his sword tip at the madman who was radiating fighting intent from his entire body.

“Let’s see what you can do.”

Life and death would be decided in a single exchange.

Would they both die?

Or would only one die?

William once again infused his longsword with aura. This time, a bit more thickly.

He had estimated that he couldn’t block the attack with minimal aura this time.

Finally, the two martial artists charged at each other.

A simply fierce, murderous slash aimed for William’s neck. A strong will to kill accompanied the slash.

William… coated his hand with aura and grasped the middle of the blade. Together with the unified aura, William faced the blood-colored saber. As the longsword and saber clashed, another contest of strength began.

This time, the saber strike, more powerful as it contained all the madman’s strength, bored into the blue aura as if it would not allow any defense.

And then, William’s sword and body rotated once. The saber strike that lost its target went wide, and the madman’s gaze turned to William’s sword.

The sword rushed towards his neck. The madman’s hand, wrapped in aura, grabbed the longsword.

Blood sprayed.

Even if wrapped in aura, one couldn’t completely stop a sword made of steel.

But the madman paid no heed and opened his mouth while gripping the tip of William’s sword.

“Sorry, but I don’t have a hobby of getting bitten by men.”

William released his grip on the sword and ducked.

Then, before the madman could react, he wrapped his hand in aura and drove a straight punch into his opponent’s solar plexus.

“Ugh…!”

“No matter how mad you are, you can’t help but falter when your vital point is struck.”

The weapon fell from the madman’s hand. William stepped back and looked at the madman who was spitting blood.

“I’d like to make you pay for damaging my sword… but that seems difficult now.”

“Uncle!”

“Sir!”

“Ah, you’ve arrived?”

William turned his gaze away from the madman who had collapsed, making a pool of blood, and looked behind him.

There was no reason to pay attention to a dead man anymore.

William spoke to Hye-ryeong, who was looking up at him with worried eyes.

“It took so long that I just dealt with him myself.”

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Although thia demon cult leader was defeated, I don’t think it would be so easy to deal with more than one despite their instability. I think Willaim will have to be more careful.