Chapter 60

The Head Elder thought,

Have I lived too long?

The Murim he remembered was not like this. Martial artists were not like this.

Ganging up was shameful, ambushes were condemned, and anyone who got so much as dirt on their back became a laughingstock.

And yet…

“Throw dirt! Keep throwing it!”

In eighty years of life, he had never seen anything like this. What? Throw dirt?

It was a cheap, cowardly trick even the Demonic Cultists he had fought like sworn enemies decades ago had never used.

Is that bastard really a martial artist?

What left him even more speechless was the reaction of those so-called subordinates.

“Squad Leader’s orders! Throw dirt!”

“Open the distance! Watch the Sword Energy!”

Watching them obey without a word made him dizzy.

Have I ever seen bastards this fit to die?

These were not martial artists.

No, they were not even human.

This was an insult to martial artists—and an insult to the Head Elder himself, who had given his whole life to the sword.

“How dare you…”

He was drawing his sword when it happened.

“You idiots!”

A stern shout burst out half a beat sooner. A young man whose face was swollen as if bees had stung him swept a fierce look around them.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He looked ridiculous, but he had real mettle. Yes. That was how a martial artist was supposed to act.

At least there’s one decent one here.

The Head Elder was just nodding to himself when—

“Think dirt’s going to cut it? Mix in rocks too!”

“…!”

The Head Elder shuddered like a man struck by lightning.

In a humiliation he had never felt in his life, he even forgot to swing his sword as a clod of dirt flew at his face.

Splat!

He could say this without hesitation: looking back on eighty years, he had never taken a hit so humiliating, or so completely undefended.

Through the dirt pattering down, he spotted a chunk of stone mixed in nice and solid.

“Uh-heh, uh-heh-heh-heh.”

The Head Elder laughed like a madman.

Then the laugh cut off.

At the same time—

Tssssss.

Sword Energy surged up, loaded with sixty years of internal energy.

“Are you prepared?”

Jin Taekyung watched and muttered,

“Shouldn’t have mixed in the rocks…”

The words were barely out before the Head Elder charged like a lion. The dozen or so sheep screamed and scattered.

“Scatter! Scatter!”

“Throw dirt too!”

Even while they ran, they did not forget to throw dirt.

Fwoooosh—

A fierce gale tore from the tip of the Head Elder’s sword. Sand, dirt, stones—whatever it was, it made no difference. In the face of that much power, it only shattered and scattered.

How are we supposed to fight this guy?

A head-on fight?

Calling us melee damage dealers was putting it nicely. Leave the reconnaissance squad on the Head Elder and they’d be dying in piles before I could blink.

I’d gotten attached to the bastards, though. I couldn’t let them die a pointless dog’s death.

“Squad Leeeader!”

That one deserved to die, sure.

So why mix in rocks? The rocks.

The Head Elder’s first target was Hyuk Mujin. Naturally. He’d thrown the first punch without a shred of fear.

I let out a long breath and threw myself toward him.

Shiiiiing!

I drove my spear at the Head Elder’s chest with everything I had.

At the same time, the Sword Energy about to cut through Hyuk Mujin’s back changed direction.

Shing.

That damned Sword Energy.

No time to check the spearhead, sliced off clean. I snatched terrified Hyuk by the scruff of the neck.

“Run!”

But the Head Elder was not the type to let go.

Swoooosh!

A tearing whistle through the air, and my side went hot. Even a graze ripped out a handful of flesh and sent blood spraying.

Kh.

It hurt like hell. In this situation, though, even a scream was a luxury.

I need to buy time.

I shoved Hyuk aside and turned. The Head Elder raised an eyebrow at that.

“You?”

Only one word, but the meaning came through perfectly. The likes of you, stopping me? That was the idea.

I answered like I was calm.

“Yeah. Me.”

“Don’t you value your life?”

“If I say it’s damn precious, will you let me live?”

“Heh heh. Look at this one. Young as you are, you’ve got quite a mouth.”

“Gramps, does your pepper still stand?”

Tssssss.

It stood ramrod straight.

Large, beautiful Sword Energy.

“…You’re still going strong.”

My grip on the spear went slick with sweat.

I’m going to have to shake out every last reserve I’ve got to survive this.

I had a lot more secrets than the Head Elder knew.

Attacks that used my Inventory.

A Skill that dumped several times my strength into a single blow—One Flash.

I never showed them, just in case something like this happened.

Was this what they called a last-resort technique in Murim?

One thing was certain: neither the Head Elder nor anyone else in Murim would see it coming.

And on top of that…

“Encircling formation. Form up.”

Shff.

Hyuk Mujin and the reconnaissance squad began closing in from every side.

A flimsy net for a fish as big as the Head Elder.

But with a sharp harpoon, it was a fight we could try.

“You think this will be enough?”

“To catch one old man? This is plenty.”

The Head Elder smiled like he was entertained.

“What a fearless brat. The kind who only comes to his senses after a beating.”

But that wish of his did not come true. A voice cut in out of nowhere.

“I think I heard you wrong. Say that again.”

A mountain of a man with fierce, piercing eyes. The voice from between his thick lips was cold as ice.

“You were going to lay a hand on our boy?”

Fwoooosh.

Sword Energy climbed his blade like wildfire and pointed at the Head Elder.

Jin Wikyung, appearing like a savior, winked at me.

“Well? Big brother looks cool, doesn’t he?”

Still the same.

The first time I had seen that face in a month.

The moment Jin Wikyung appeared, the tension in my body melted away.

I was glad.

Just glad.

Thank goodness he’s alive.

Wikyung was covered in blood, like he’d just come through a brutal fight. Large and small wounds showed through the tears in his clothes.

But that was enough. The fact that he was alive was what mattered.

I have a lot I want to say, but it can wait.

A reunion after this war ended would not be too late. Wikyung seemed to think the same. He looked forward.

Where we were looking, the Head Elder slowly spoke.

“The fact that you made it this far means…”

Jin Wikyung’s chilly voice cut him off.

“The Second and Third Elders are dead. The First Elder is only a matter of time.”

Good news. If Wikyung put it that way, the Elders had been no small part of this war—and the Head Elder’s hands and feet had just been cut off.

“Did the two of them… go peacefully?”

“Probably.”

The Head Elder nodded readily.

“They were always saying they wanted to die fighting like martial artists. They got their wish, so that’s fortunate.”

“They’ll be remembered as traitors, not martial artists. Every last one of you.”

“History is written by the victors.”

The Head Elder pointed his sword at us. Even with dozens of people in front of him, including me and Jin Wikyung, he stood there utterly composed.

“Now, let’s see who the victor is.”

Jin Wikyung looked like he had something to say. His mouth opened, then shut tight.

The next moment, a thunderous roar burst from him.

“Strike down the rebels!”

Shing. Shrrring.

Dozens of weapons drawn at once, all aimed at a single man. It was quite a spectacle.

“Yes, sir!”

With a huge shout, dozens of martial artists charged as one mass. I was no exception. My grip tightened on the spear, and my chest felt ready to burst.

We can win. No. We win, no matter what.

A full-on brawl with no formation to speak of. But we had Jin Wikyung, a Peak master, and dozens of martial artists following him.

And there’s me.

The Head Elder had trusted his own strength too much. He had thrown every man into the front line without leaving even a minimal escort, and now the black-clad men were pinned down by the combined assault of the Jin Family of Taiyuan and the Mount Heng Sword Sect.

The Head Elder…

dies right here.

It’s over!

It did not take long for that certainty to shatter to pieces.

Shushushushush!

Dozens of tiny points shot out of nowhere. They cut through the air faster and harder than anyone had expected.

“Finger-Flicking Technique!”

Jin Wikyung’s shout. I was not given time to think about what that even was.

Pow-pow-pow-pow!

Clang!

“Aaargh!”

“Guh!”

Some went down. Others knocked the shots aside. The ones who fell did not get up again.

Don’t tell me…

It had lasted only an instant, but I saw it clearly. Tiny points packed into the area around their hearts and across their faces like buckshot.

Stones?

They were closer to fragments now, but they had definitely been stones. Stones that could not take the Head Elder’s internal energy had shattered as they were fired at us.

Is this possible?

I got goose bumps, but it was not over.

The Head Elder was stretching a hand this way.

“Scatter!”

This time Wikyung and I shouted together. The martial artists, already wound tight, scattered in an instant.

Good. We weren’t late this ti—

The relief lasted only a moment.

Swoooosh!

What shot at us this time was not the Finger-Flicking Technique. It was the Head Elder. He drove in among the martial artists and went berserk like a wild beast.

Slash. Slash. Slash.

“Grrk.”

“Hhk.”

Every time a sword flashed through the dark, another life went out. Wherever the Head Elder tore through, only stifled screams and corpses were left.

“Head Elder—!”

Jin Wikyung charged in a fury. By then the Head Elder had already finished five people. And still not a drop of blood on that white face, enough to make you think of a ghost.

“You’ve come?”

“How dare you!”

“You’re all clumsy. Peace must have lasted too long.”

There was one fact you could not deny. The Head Elder was a hero of the Great Faction War.

He was stronger and more seasoned than anyone here. A Peak martial artist finished in countless real fights.

Shiiiiing!

The Sword Energy Jin Wikyung drew out stabbed through empty air. The Head Elder slipped it with nothing more than a slight tilt of his head, then flicked a finger.

The target was me.

Shhk!

I could not see a thing. Instinct knew anyway.

Internal energy.

That was literally a lump of qi itself. I rolled without wasting a beat.

Pshk.

“Guh.”

I should have blocked with the spear, but the attack was too unfamiliar to think that far. The price was an unnamed ally’s death.

I felt rotten.

“Naryeotagon? What a donkey of a man.”¹

I spat out the dirt that had gotten in my mouth.

“If you want to live, what won’t you do?”

“Haha. You’ve already become a proper man of Murim.”

Clang! Clang-clang-clang!

Had anyone ever seen a monster like that. Even while talking, he knocked aside every last bit of Jin Wikyung’s Sword Energy. I was speechless.

Thud!

Even then, a fist loaded with internal energy smashed the skull of a martial artist who’d gone for his back.

“You’re still twenty years too early.”

The fight had barely started. Not even the time to drink a cup of tea had passed, and already nearly twenty martial artists had turned into cold corpses.

“You bastard!”

Shiiiiing!

A middle-aged warrior whose face looked vaguely familiar lost his head to Sword Energy.

“Die!”

Boom!

A young man with a baby face that might have been twenty had his chest caved in and dropped to his knees.

Not NPCs. Real people.

Faces I had run into at least once at the Jin Family of Taiyuan. Faces I had shaken hands with. I gritted my teeth at that.

I’m sorry.

I was not apologizing because I lacked the power to stop it. I was apologizing because I had used their deaths.

Shhk!

Another person dropped to the Head Elder’s Finger-Flicking Technique like a puppet with its strings cut. But the corpse that looked about to topple backward popped up like a roly-poly toy. Then it pitched toward the Head Elder.

“Cheap trick!”

Boom! Bang!

With one hand, the Head Elder took Jin Wikyung’s sword. With the other, he sent a palm strike at the corpse.

And then…

Now.

I had hidden behind the corpse as it sailed through the air. I thrust my spear.

“One Flash.”

The next instant—

Goooooong.

There was a roar that stuffed the ears.