Chapter 13 – You Fell for It
That was when it happened.
A curtain of water suddenly formed and blocked Shinbi's sword.
The sword paused for just an instant, and Jaha twisted his head aside to dodge it.
Slash!
Even so, the attack had been so fierce that he could not avoid it completely. A thin bloody line appeared across his neck.
If the water curtain had appeared even a little later, Jaha's head would no longer have been attached to his body.
The rain that had been pouring down suddenly began swirling around them, gathering together to form a wall of water.
As the water curtain formed a circle around them, the middle-aged man in black sensed that something was wrong.
"Kill them!"
It was almost impossible, but if something happened to the Young Master, all of them would die as well.
Because of that, he immediately ordered his subordinates to attack.
Shinbi shouted.
"Don't touch that bastard! I'm going to tear him apart with my own hands!"
Jaha shot back.
"For a monkey bastard, you've got quite a foul mouth."
The moment Shinbi tried to break through the water curtain, the rebounding force threw him backward.
The vibration made his entire body tremble.
"What the hell?"
If it were merely an ordinary curtain of water, there was no way it could repel a human body.
Realizing something was strange, the middle-aged man in black and the middle-aged man in gray ignored Shinbi's order and charged toward Jaha.
At that moment, Jaha shouted.
"Now! Throw the stones!"
Hearing him, Han Seol and Jo Unryong picked up fist-sized stones and threw them toward the place where Jaha stood.
That was the exact location where Jaha had secretly prepared the formation beforehand.
The moment the stones landed, another water curtain sprang up and trapped the middle-aged men in black and gray.
The attackers were shocked.
They had never expected the water curtain imprisoning Shinbi to expand and create a second layer.
Thinking such a thing could not possibly stop them, they struck the water wall with their swords.
But the rebounding force knocked their swords away.
The two middle-aged men began pounding the water curtain madly with sword strikes and palm force.
"Impossible!"
They could not believe that even with their cultivation, they were unable to break through the water curtain.
Shinbi shouted.
"It's the Dunji Eumsu Formation! It isn't that dangerous by itself! Ignore me! Those Chuyeongja who are still outside the formation, kill them! The formation hasn't been completed yet, so all you need to do is kill the person who set it up!"
There was one thing even Jaha had not expected.
Two Chuyeongja had remained behind because they had thought this matter was not important enough for them to step forward.
By pure luck, they had avoided being trapped in the formation.
Jaha had expected all of them to attack together.
He had never imagined that some of them would remain separate.
"By your command!"
The two Chuyeongja rushed toward Jaha.
Wang Gyeong stepped beside him and drew his sword.
"I'll stop them. Young Hero Byeokho, just finish what you were doing."
There was no way Wang Gyeong could handle two Chuyeongja alone.
However, if Jaha failed to complete the formation, the water-prison formation would not last even fifteen minutes.
Jaha hesitated for a moment.
"Senior Brother, we'll help too."
Unable to stand by any longer, Han Seol and Jo Unryong stepped forward.
"Didn't I tell you not to interfere?"
Jaha snapped.
Han Seol replied,
"Isn't it better than all of us dying?"
"You won't even survive a single exchange against them."
"We'll stay beside Hero Wang and distract them."
Jaha was conflicted.
Byeokho's soul was violently rejecting the idea, flooding Jaha with the feeling that he must not allow them to fight.
Jaha forced those emotions down.
But when he tried to move against Byeokho's will, his body suddenly became numb.
Byeokho's soul was stopping him.
Still, Jaha knew that if he did not complete the formation now, no one here would survive.
His heart grew desperate.
Byeokho, endure it just a little longer. If I finish the formation quickly, everyone will live. If I don't, everyone dies.
When Jaha pleaded with him, the paralysis slowly disappeared.
It seemed that even Byeokho's soul understood that completing the formation was their only chance.
Just as Shinbi had said, if Jaha failed to complete it, the formation would not last long.
All he needed to do now was plant the ten spears he had brought with him around the formation.
Once that was done, it would be complete.
They only needed to buy him enough time.
"Hold them for fifteen minutes! That's all I need!"
Jaha pulled ten spears from the carriage.
The two Chuyeongja immediately tried to attack him.
Wang Gyeong stepped directly into their path.
"Not a chance!"
One Chuyeongja engaged Wang Gyeong, while the other attacked Han Seol and Jo Unryong.
Meanwhile, Jaha hurriedly began planting the spears into the holes he had prepared beforehand.
The sharp spearheads pointed toward the sky.
When Shinbi saw them, his face went pale.
"Don't tell me... Is that the Water Thunder Formation?!"
The Water Thunder Formation maximized the energies of Yin and Water.
It created a water curtain that could imprison everything within a certain area.
However, simply trapping someone caused them no direct harm.
The Dunji Eumsu Formation Shinbi had mentioned was almost exactly the same kind of formation.
But if the power of Metal was added to the Dunji Eumsu Formation...
It transformed into the Water Thunder Formation.
The Water Thunder Formation was a formation that summoned lightning.
The reason Jaha was planting spears around it was simple.
If lightning struck, those spears would draw the lightning directly into the formation.
Only now did Shinbi finally notice the terrain around them.
"You bastard... You deliberately lured us here."
This entire region was low-lying terrain filled with strong Yin energy, making lightning strikes unusually common.
On top of that, it was raining.
There was an extremely high chance that lightning would strike somewhere nearby.
That was why Jaha had obtained a map earlier.
When he saw that it was going to rain, he had thought of the Water Thunder Formation.
Then he had studied the map and searched for the most suitable location to construct it.
The middle-aged man in black asked,
"Young Heavenly Demon, is the Water Thunder Formation really that powerful?"
He asked because Shinbi's expression had become visibly unsettled.
Shinbi shouted,
"If lightning strikes, we're dead! This formation traps lightning and burns everything inside it! Think about it! What do you think happens when lightning strikes a place completely surrounded by water?!"
The faces of the middle-aged men in black and gray turned deathly pale.
No matter how powerful a human became, before a supernatural force like lightning, they were no different from dust.
Who could possibly withstand the power of lightning?
The middle-aged man in gray roared.
"Chuyeongja! What the hell are you doing?! Kill them quickly and destroy the formation!"
Then he looked up at the sky.
His eyes widened in horror.
"My God... Lightning is coming!"
Rumble...!
Almost as soon as those words left his mouth, flashes of light and thunder erupted across the sky.
Jaha had already planted six spears.
He was just about to drive the seventh into the ground.
"Aaagh!"
The scream came from Han Seol.
Jaha immediately abandoned the spear and rushed toward her.
"Seol-ah!"
Jo Unryong and Han Seol had somehow managed to endure more than ten exchanges against the Chuyeongja.
Their relentless training in the Cheongun Sword had finally paid off.
However, the difference in cultivation between them was simply too great.
They could not withstand the Chuyeongja's sword filled with true qi, and their weapons were eventually knocked from their hands.
Han Seol and Jo Unryong had trained together in a combination technique for a long time.
After their Eldest Senior Brother had died so miserably, the two of them had practiced a joint formation in preparation for an attack by Heukjin Manor.
That training was the only reason they had managed to last this long.
But the Chuyeongja's cultivation was simply too powerful.
Their joint formation could no longer withstand him.
Han Seol staggered backward.
The Chuyeongja's sword had slashed across her chest.
Jo Unryong was barely still standing and looked as though he might collapse at any moment.
Fortunately, the protective guards Jaha had made for them had prevented both of them from suffering fatal injuries.
After striking their stomachs several times, the Chuyeongja had realized they were wearing protective guards.
From then on, he began targeting their heads and necks.
His sword shot toward Han Seol's neck as she staggered backward.
"Die!"
The Chuyeongja was furious.
It was already humiliating enough that low-level martial artists like these had dared to stand in his way.
But the fact that they had managed to hold him back for more than ten exchanges was something he could never excuse.
The Young Master and the other guards were watching.
There was no way they would forgive such a disgrace.
If he failed to destroy the formation because he had been delayed by people like these, only death awaited him.
His rage grew even stronger.
