Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time-Chapter 599: Drunk on the Starry Night (1)
Blades, axes, crescent halberds.
To the common folk of the Demon Realm, these were more familiar than pickaxes.
Unlike in the southern lands, they made no effort to fortify gates; sharp rooftops angled toward the sky were their way of keeping monstrous birds at bay. It was simply their way of life.
Every pavilion stood like a sword.
And nowhere in the Demon Realm held more swords than its capital, Black City.
From Gubeikou at the Great Wall north of Beijing, travel northeast for three thousand li and you’ll find a vast city, its silhouette dark as smoke.
Just as distant as it was, it brimmed with exotic customs and strange climates.
Yet the ruler’s palace alone bore the refined octagonal rooftops of Ming architecture, and the darkness within was as ink-black as the southern night.
Heukdo Old Palace.
The fortress of the Northern Emperor—the mightiest man in the north.
“The ritual array has been completed, Southern Emperor.”
A voice that brazenly pierced the very chamber meant for the next emperor of Qing. The tone, distorted through internal energy, was hoarse—yet if you listened closely, unmistakably a woman’s.
“Only now?” the Southern Emperor replied, and the shadows stirred.
No throne was visible, no sign of where he sat.
A scene submerged in abyss. Merely by refining his martial power, he had summoned night into a palace under broad daylight.
But the woman’s answer was as calm as ever.
“Something unexpected happened.”
“I see that now,” he said slowly. “The Western Emperor has suffered internal damage.”
He added a short question without delay.
“What happened?”
“Not something you need to know.”
“Very well. As long as the Grand Rite isn’t hindered, that’s enough. Just tell me how long it will take.”
“Two full moons.”
So Cheonmujuk, Sect Leader of the Ming Sect, spoke indifferently.
“That’s how long it’ll take for the ritual to gather enough natural energy. The God of War your clan worships will appear under the second waning moon.”
“It’s true, then. Good.”
"Good"—rare praise from the Southern Emperor. As one destined for the throne, he weighed every word like iron.
“When the God of War returns, everything will end.”
He spoke slowly.
“The Ming imperial family is obsessed with centralizing royal power—they’ve even clung to the Head of Wudang like beggars. The Master of Ipwang Fortress will be slain within a year by a walking tree and the Crown Prince of Dali.”
“I don’t care. Just keep supplying divine artifacts. No one in this world has handled energy of this magnitude.”
To summon the Northern War God into the world—
Unlike the southern martial artists who used branches of the Heavenly Tree to pass through “Gates,” So Cheonmujuk stood on the verge of summoning the War God from nothing, in the middle of the wild.
How long had the Demon Realm looked down upon the Ming?
Two full moons was nothing more than a blink.
This was the business of nations.
The Southern Emperor asked, “Have you considered forming a marriage alliance with me?”
“What?”
“Ability is inherited. My heir should be stronger than any Ming royal.”
So Cheonmujuk’s presence vanished without a trace.
As if the very suggestion didn’t merit a reply.
A moment later, a voice echoed from outside—one of the Southern Emperor’s trusted aides, as if waiting for her to leave.
“Your Majesty.”
“Speak.”
“A report has come in—the gates of Yeokluseong have opened. The enemy is advancing directly.”
“The Divine Sword Corps?”
“Yes.”
“Seomye is wounded. The Sword of the Night Sky will die soon. This must be his subordinates acting on their own.”
“According to estimates: two transcendent beings of North King rank, at least ten black-armored great warriors, over four hundred elite martial troops... It’s overwhelming. No single force could stand against it.”
“How emotional. Find out what triggered this. I’ll handle the response myself.”
“Yes!”
The subordinate’s presence faded.
Soon after, the Southern Emperor’s voice entered a distant sound cave—Whirling Wind Hollow. The transmission space of the Northern Kings under the God of War.
―To my comrades: when the full moon breaks twice, the War God shall return. All forces, rise up and come here.
Now, only the Southern Emperor’s laughter remained in the pitch-black inner chamber.
Heukdo Old Palace. A night without stars.
―This is the final Naadam.
His words, more command than suggestion, seeped into a night that held nothing else.
Uuuuuuuuung!
At once, the darkness stirred—reverberating with voices returning from every corner of the Demon Realm. It didn’t matter whether the new nation’s name was Jin or Great Qing. These were the transmissions of the Northern Kings.
All to end the famine—the hell—where men devoured each other.
Every transcendent being fated to help found the Qing Dynasty responded.
***
Stones that glowed with their own light rolled about by the dozens. Pale, faint glimmers lit the space like stars.
They were embedded in the ceiling, walls, and even the floor—making it hard to tell up from down, left from right.
A dim starry world.
Every tunnel in the cave was as wide as a decent city street.
Their scale, and the quantity of luminous pearls embedded throughout, were things even wealthy great sects would struggle to imagine. But under the name of the Ming Sect, the impossible rarely stayed that way.
They held prestige equal to the likes of All Martial Arts Begin with Shaolin and Ten Thousand Swords Return to Southern Wudang, yet unlike those, the Ming Sect sought strength within the secular world.
The greatest lineage of demonic martial arts. A heretical religion that misled the masses.
With martial power came wealth and glory—inevitably.
That was why the two hundred or so Ming Sect members gathered in this great cavern now looked both powerful and rich.
Most wore smooth black satin or luxurious white silks.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Even while living in this underground realm during a great famine, they had fine, lustrous skin that stood out—along with the dark energy haze gently radiating from their bodies.
Boom!
“What the hell is that?!”
A short, stocky Ming Sect warrior who had arrived late pointed toward a spot in the distance.
What all the Ming Sect gathered here now faced was the wide passage—once a road, now completely blocked off by a massive heap of stone, like a fortress wall.
One of the subordinates answered.
“There was a palm blast ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ from the Radiant Spear of the Triple Palatial Rites. It collapsed the ceiling while chasing toward the Northern Sea Vault—and built that wall you see.”
“The Royal Three’s top master...? No wonder the wall’s so damn thick!”
The man, short as a ten-year-old child and built like a boulder, twisted his bearded jaw in irritation.
On either side of his thick waist hung twin hand axes, large and gleaming silver like they'd just been forged.
“You’re here, Warlord Sovereign.”
A middle-aged man at the front of the Ming Sect crowd greeted the short warrior.
It was the one who had previously declared he’d scoop out the Divine Sword Corps leader’s skull—Purger of Calamity, one of the Three Sovereign Lords leading the Ming Sect’s Vanguard.
“I feared if we struck, we might collapse the Northern Sea Vault itself. You’ll have to handle this.”
His voice surged with strength.
Purger of Calamity let his long arms hang low like a monkey’s as he gazed toward the stone wall behind which Jeong Yeon-shin’s group had vanished.
Likewise, Warlord Sovereign, another of the Three Sovereigns, looked up at him with a scowl.
“Northern Sea Vault? It’s already destroyed. What the hell are you babbling about?”
“There was a mountain of elixirs the Sect Leader gathered herself. Once this is over, if even a single pill remains intact, we must recover it.”
The dwarf and the monkey.
That’s what So Cheonmujuk, the Ming Sect’s leader, had called Warlord Sovereign and Purger of Calamity. And the two men had accepted those nicknames gladly—regardless of their lofty positions.
“The Grand Elder?” Warlord Sovereign asked.
Purger of Calamity pointed upward.
“He went to the upper altar the moment the path was blocked. He intends to kill the heretics for good.”
“Kill them for good? How?”
“He asked the Bright Demons to halt the ritual array for a moment—said he would absorb its power himself. Just in case we fail.”
“The ground’s going to collapse! This entire underground chamber is only holding together because of the Sect Leader’s ritual array! Without that, it would've collapsed long ago! This place shouldn’t even exist naturally!”
“That’s the point.”
“What?”
“They’re all peerless masters. Sure, they’re exhausted, but can we really be certain they won’t pull something we can’t anticipate? If collapsing part of this cavern kills all three of them at once, isn’t that a bargain?”
Purger of Calamity had already raised both of his long arms.
It was the opening stance of Yaozu Northern Sea Great Shift, the Ming Sect’s guardian art.
A divine technique of merging transformations, famed for not yielding even to Wudang’s Taiji lineage.
“Let’s test the waters. You break through that wall—I’ll nullify their defenses. If we can parry even one move, the rest will be settled in a rolling skirmish.”
“Fine.”
The short man, Warlord Sovereign, said no more.
The twin axes on his belt began to spin on their own.
A secret divine technique.
Microcosmic Reverse Heaven Scripture.
Screeeeee!
A violent wind flared up beneath him like a phoenix spreading its wings. The dust drifting alongside the glow of the luminous pearls was swept away in an instant.
A martial art that wormed maliciously into the gaps of all things.
The Ironclad martial families were born to dismantle techniques—they read structure and rhythm better than anyone.
And a man born that way, trained in the Ming Sect’s Reverse Heaven Scripture, and who had attained union of essence, energy, and spirit—of course he became commander of a martial force.
“Divine Sword Corps Leader.”
The dwarf sovereign muttered.
“A name with many debts to the Ming Sect.”
***
The wind roared.
It was impossible to say where it came from.
Perhaps it blew from Jeong Yeon-shin’s back, from the Life Gate Acupoint. Perhaps from within his body. Perhaps it swept through the deepest layer of his consciousness. Or perhaps it was all of the above.
How much time had passed?
Uuuuuung—
The dark ring encircling his heart solidified at rapid speed. A halo that would have taken even Jeong Yeon-shin a full year to cultivate properly—
It rose. Quite literally, rose.
Even if the two original halos had faded, the one now expanding with black light could stand in for the martial power he once possessed.
Why...
Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes narrowed.
Why the third halo?
From the perspective of natural energy, which flows like the wind, it would’ve been easier to restore the original, well-established halos.
A black halo.
To enlarge something that had barely existed in the first place was far more difficult.
The body and qi inherently tried to maintain what had already been. And so, for Jeong Yeon-shin, this was an absurdly fortunate outcome.
But he felt no joy. He couldn’t smile.
Sssk.
At some point, as if it were a lie, he had turned around and was holding the Sword Saint in his arms. The old swordsman had released the pressure point on himself just before collapsing.
Point sealing was of little use to a Grandmaster of Internal Techniques, and this wandering peerless swordsman had, in that fleeting moment, achieved everything he meant to for Jeong Yeon-shin.
The Sword Saint Hyeon Sobaek—the one and only martial alliance leader in the world—was a man who could do such a thing.
Uuuuung.
A halo of black light encircled the heart of the Divine Sword Corps leader. Within it, countless tiny swords flowed like constellations. They were particles of energy—enlarged and made visible by the immense density.
Because it wasn’t something Jeong Yeon-shin had built himself—it had come from another’s power. It was proof the Transmission Through the Body had succeeded. And with a perfection that defied belief.
“...Why...”
Jeong Yeon-shin stomped his foot on the ground.
Boom!
Six Steps of Radiant Wings.
A footwork meant to turn back time and retreat—but Jeong Yeon-shin didn’t move back. Time did not rewind.
He was not the dead Divine Warrior. Her Moon Dance belonged only to her. Even with martial talent beyond comparison, he was still no more than a mayfly unable to save even a single civilian.
Boom! Boom!
At last, Jeong Yeon-shin stomped like a boy his own age. The world he had entered upon joining the martial realm had been too vast. There was nothing he could do.
“Why...!”
Fwoooooosh!
The wind surged in a dark spiral beneath his foot as he raised it once more.
All of the Demon Sect’s techniques he had unconsciously absorbed from the Heavenly Demon Treasury converged into his step. The very essence of demonic martial arts infused his movement.
That footfall suited this moment—when the Divine Sword Corps leader was at his most tyrannical.
KWAAAANG—!
The moment his foot struck the earth, the resulting shockwave shattered the nearby stone walls completely.
“What the hell...!”
Eo Ung-gong leapt toward the ceiling in panic. The pressure sweeping out in every direction was too much for even body-guarding energy to withstand.
Seven Steps of Radiant Wings.
Created in this very moment—a stormlike step technique.
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWA—!
A stormwind blew alongside a spray of shattered stone fragments. The dwarf warrior approaching Jeong Yeon-shin’s group was left gaping.
“King’s Dominion Footwork...?”
Jjeojeojeojeong!
The twin axes in the dwarf’s hands spun wildly.
In the dim cave, the blades glinted as they deflected the flying debris with explosive clangs. Even amid chaos, his ax technique was graceful—like sculpting statues mid-combat. The arcs of his swings distorted beautifully.
From Eo Ung-gong’s back, the Drunken Beggar King looked down like a bat and shouted,
“That’s Warlord Sovereign, one of the Three Sovereigns! He’s trained in the Microcosmic Reverse Heaven Scripture—he can’t use the same technique twice...!”
Eight Steps of Radiant Wings.
THWAAACK—!
Jeong Yeon-shin stomped the ground, and yet the sound was like flesh being slapped. Over three hundred Ming Sect members forming the encirclement were hurled into the air.
It was as if they’d all taken invisible kicks to the chin—their heads snapped back as one.
“...!”
Even the dwarf and the monkey were caught in it. But before either could form a counterstrike through the Three Flowers Gathering Essence, another deafening blast echoed out.
KWAGAGAGAK!
Jeong Yeon-shin’s next stomp scraped across the ground. The giant acupuncture needles that had been left lying near the Sword Saint shot upward along the path of his foot—then turned into streaks of black.
Blossoms Like Rain Across the Sky.
A deluge that poured forward.
PEPEPEPEPEK!
Crimson flowers bloomed.
The sound of hundreds of layers of armor being pierced, ruptured, and shredded filled the air.
Those momentarily airborne were flung like rag dolls in all directions, their bodies painting the cave floor red. It all happened faster than a single blink.
The cave’s damp air suddenly thickened. The sheer speed of Blossoms Like Rain Across the Sky had ignited friction against the Ming Sect’s protective energy.
“......”
Moist air mingled with dead silence.
