Surviving as a Cripple in Murim – Chapter 97

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Teottry
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“This is… w-what?!”

His body froze at the tiger’s roar, a shiver running down his spine. He felt like a mouse before a cat.

‘It’s not just loud! My body… my will… is breaking…!!’

The cultists of the Blood Sect, their minds reeling from the deafening roar, covered their ears and fell to their knees one by one.

-Kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek-!!!!!

“It’s useless. It’s being transmitted directly through telepathy.”

Sima Bu looked down coldly at the falling cultists.

An area-of-effect attack that targeted only enemies, without affecting allies.

It was possible because the Sima Family’s secret technique, the Wolf’s Gaze Divine Art, which allowed him to conceal his inner energy to the level of an ordinary person, also made him adept at precise qi control.

And Terror, the treasured sword that had silenced the cultists in sync with its master,

-Kiek! Kiek! Kugegegegek!! (Master-! Master-! Look at the enemies writhing on the ground!!)

-Pugege-! Puge! Kieeeeeek!! (I did well, right! I did well! Praise me! Polish me!!)

began to screech excitedly.

“Tch……”

Sima Bu’s brow furrowed, his eyebrow twitching as he looked at Terror in his right hand.

‘Here we go again.’

It was usually too timid to even leave its scabbard, but…

A little action, and it would become arrogant and noisy.

“I’ll do it later. Be quiet.”

-Kieek~ Kieek~!!

Anyway, since Sima Bu never skimped on rewarding his outstanding subordinates, he promised a reward, though he frowned.

“Ugh- block the qi!!”

Then, a few skilled cultists blocked the telepathic message, regained their senses, and charged.

While transmitting Terror’s scream telepathically had the advantage of distinguishing between friend and foe, it also had the disadvantage of being able to be cut off like this.

Blood Burst Technique.

They unleashed the demonic blood they had received from their god, the Blood Demon, to strengthen their bodies.

The cultists’ eyes turned bloodshot, their canines sharpened like a beast’s, and their muscles bulged.

They charged at Sima Bu, ready to trade flesh for bone, but…

-Flick!

With a light flick of a finger, the sacred fire of the Bai Hua Sect burned the demons.

Sacred Fire Divine Art.

A divine technique passed down only to the Flower Maiden of the Bai Hua Sect, a symbol of the Saintess.

Sima Yeonhwa’s beautiful red eyes, incomparable to the cultists’ turbid, bloodshot eyes, gleamed with an eerie light.

“Weren’t you underestimating the enemy because they were weak?”

She said to Sima Bu, a triumphant sneer on her face.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“A useless interference.”

Sima Bu muttered, frowning, then…

Activated a trap he had prepared beforehand, targeting the lavishly dressed cultist who was running towards the forest while his subordinates charged.

The cloud that had been obscuring the sun passed, revealing a hidden scheme.

Wolf’s Gaze Divine Art – Thunder Shadow Qi.

When had it happened? The shadows of the attackers and Sima Bu’s shadow had merged.

“G-gah!?”

Without a chance to react, a black lightning bolt erupted from the fleeing cultist’s shadow, impaling him like a spear.

In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a classic work on military strategy from the Spring and Autumn period, there was a passage about one of the ways to win a war: fenglin huoshan (wind, forest, fire, mountain).

As swift as the wind, as silent as the forest, as fierce as fire, as immovable as a mountain.

It was a famous teaching, but there were actually two more characters.

Lei (thunder), yin (shadow).

Thunder and shadow, the fighting style that the strategist Sima Yi of the Three Kingdoms period had used most effectively.

When Meng Da, who had betrayed the Shu kingdom, tried to betray the Wei kingdom again and rejoin Shu,

Sima Yi sent him a letter of appeasement to make him hesitate, then, without even informing Cao Rui, immediately gathered his troops and crushed Meng Da’s army in a single, lightning-fast strike.

And during the rebellion of Gongsun Yuan, the governor of Liaodong, during Cao Rui’s reign, when he saw a large army gathering to block his forces,

“The enemy’s main army is here, so their base, Xiangping, must be empty.”

He immediately launched a surprise attack on the capital and easily suppressed Gongsun Yuan’s rebellion.

On the other hand, when planning a scheme, he would humble himself and wait patiently in the shadows.

He had worn women’s clothing to provoke Zhuge Liang and had even pretended to be a senile old man to deceive the Cao family.

Hiding in the shadows, concealing himself, and when the opportunity arose, striking like lightning to kill the enemy.

In that sense, the Thunder Shadow Qi was a secret technique of the Sima Family that best represented Sima Yi’s personality.

Of course, it wasn’t a literal shadow lightning bolt.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. That’s not real lightning, is it?”

Yeonhwa tilted her head, looking at the black, qi-formed spear that had impaled the enemy, and asked.

“It’s shaped like a straight line to pierce the enemy quickly.”

It wasn’t just about wrapping the enemy in qi, but about solidifying the formless qi, which made it flicker like lightning.

“Then why is the qi black?”

“Because it’s easier to hide in the dark and ambush the enemy.”

It wasn’t that the shadows had actually extended, but that Sima Bu had secretly released black qi from under his feet, connecting it to the enemies’ shadows.

Not lightning, not shadow.

Yeonhwa’s beautiful eyes narrowed as she looked at the Thunder Shadow Qi.

The Wolf’s Fangs, which tore through the enemy’s protective qi after lulling them into a false sense of security, and the Thunder Shadow Qi, which seeped into the darkness for a surprise attack.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but all the Sima Family’s martial arts are dirty and petty. It shows the personality of the creator.”

“Hmm……”

Well, even though he was his ancestor, he couldn’t say Sima Yi’s personality was good, so…

“All demonic martial arts are like that. It’s about efficiency, not enlightenment.”

Sima Bu agreed half-heartedly.

After all, lightning was something that fell from the sky, a sacred symbol in Daoism.

There were very few martial arts that could actually control lightning, and currently, the Nangong Family’s Heavenly Thunder Qi was the only one.

Anyway, that wasn’t the important thing right now.

Sima Bu picked one of the cultists who had been subdued by Terror’s scream and held a sword to his throat.

“Speak. Who sent you?”

He didn’t think these lowly grunts had figured out his travel route on their own and ambushed him.

Someone else must have given them the information.

“I-if I tell you… will you spare me?”

As expected, the cultist prepared to confess, his voice trembling, but…

“I’ll spare you. But first…”

…there was one important test he had to pass to make a deal with Sima Bu.

“Do you have a family? Parents, siblings, a spouse, children?”

The cultist shook his head at the unexpected question, not understanding its purpose.

“No.”

-Thump!

At the same time, Sima Bu’s blade slit his throat, and he collapsed, a corpse.

“The deal’s off. I don’t trust bastards with no family.”

Those with nothing precious, nothing to protect, could turn on you at any moment.

They could also give you false information to create confusion.

Now that he knew there was someone behind this, he would find out the rest himself.

He had never intended to spare them from the moment they had attacked.

“Take care of them all.”

At their master’s command, the Sima Family’s assassins finished off the subdued cultists.

As the situation was being dealt with, due to the Blood Sect’s diversionary tactics,

“Is it alright if we don’t go and help the Feng Shang Guild’s leader?”

Yeonhwa asked cautiously, worried about Feng Lan, who had followed Feng Bai, who had left because of the trouble up ahead, but Sima Bu was calm.

“Feng Bai will be fine. He’s a guild leader now, but he’s originally from outside the Central Plains…”

Sima Bu’s lips curved into a faint smile as he recalled their first meeting.

Feng Bai always said he had changed a lot, but in Sima Bu’s eyes, Feng Bai had also changed a lot.

“A man who rose to the rank of Jungnangjang, the fifth rank of the Goryeo military, with his kicking skills alone.”

In Goryeo, military officials were soldiers who had been promoted for their achievements in war, or fighters personally selected by the king.

So, while they might not be well-versed in military strategy,

Each and every one of them was a human weapon.

“Sigh…”

A sigh escaped Sima Bu’s lips as he looked at the cultists’ corpses.

When he had the Right Iron Dog, Wu Ming, and the Left Iron Peng, Feng Bai, by his side, no one dared to touch him.

He had been neglecting the underworld lately, and now, all sorts of worthless things were coming at him.

Jang Sam-bung, who had inherited the name of Iron Peng from the busy Feng Bai, was just a troublemaker, and he had a lot to worry about.

“Why would someone like that… leave his hometown and work under a demonic sect ruffian like you?”

Yeonhwa’s rude question. But no matter how he spun it, he was a demonic sect ruffian, so Sima Bu answered readily.

“I heard he had to leave Goryeo because it was revealed that his wife was a Gandharva.”

In the clearing in front of the carriage where the Blood Sect’s attack had taken place,

Whirlwind Kick.

Feng Bai finished off the situation by kicking the head of the last cultist who had dared to withstand his kick and counterattack.

Then, he immediately turned and checked on his daughter, Feng Lan, who had followed him.

“Lan! Are you alright? Are you hurt?!”

He transformed from a ruthless martial artist back into a parent.

“I got a cut on my back, but it only tore my clothes, so I’m fine.”

Feng Bai checked her back just in case, to make sure she wasn’t really hurt.

“Hoo…”

A sigh of relief.

Her back was spotless, except for the cute wings under her shoulder blades, which she had inherited from her deceased wife.

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An Angel!