Chapter 1084

The endless waves of the Yangtze roll on.

The line came from a poet of long ago, celebrated in his day as the Poet Sage.¹

He had revered the distant history held in the Yangtze’s waters, and the beauty of the river itself. The man sitting at the bow with his eyes closed felt the same.

No. Naturally, he felt it even more deeply.

He had loved the Yangtze since childhood, become a river pirate, and in time made Ship-Fire Boy a name that symbolized him.

Boom. Boom. Booooom!

Drumbeats spread across the water like ripples, and the man opened his eyes. He was Mu Song, the Seafaring King’s second Disciple and Stronghold Lord of Water Dragon Stronghold.

“Stronghold Lord. The order has finally come.”

Mu Song nodded gravely. Even without his subordinate’s report, he knew better than anyone where the drumbeats had come from.

The Sea Dragon Ship.

The vessel of his Master, Seafaring King Pa Ryun.

In the final battle against the Yellow River Channel League, once their only rival, it had sunk dozens of ships single-handedly. It was the mightiest vessel on the river.

Now the Sea Dragon Ship, which no one dared challenge, was cutting through the current with the Yangtze’s greatest martial artist aboard and its sails fully spread.

It was headed toward the Great Nation’s military vessels—the ships of the Yangtze’s other master.

No—the Yangtze’s master in all but name.

But today will be different.

Today, we’ll show them that we—the Yangtze River Channel League—are the Yangtze’s true rulers.

Mu Song muttered the words to himself and thrust his fist into the air. His subordinates roared, and the wind filled the sails.

Whoooosh!

The bow cut through the water.

Just as they charged toward the Great Nation’s vessels like horses across an open plain, something dark and grayish emerged between the vessels that had turned obliquely to face them.

“Fire!”

At that instant—

Boom! Boom!

More than a hundred Hongyi cannons² roared at once.

Weapons the Great Nation’s navy could possess, but no mere band of river pirates could.

Lumps of iron capable of crushing a human body in an instant came hurtling through the air from two hundred zhang³ away. Even at that terrifying sight, Mu Song’s eyes didn’t waver.

He was no mere river pirate.

Whoosh.

His form blurred. He kicked off the bow and shot forward, the great saber in his hand tracing a vicious arc toward an incoming cannonball.

Kaboom!

The recoil from deflecting it sent Mu Song back onto the bow. His hand tingled around the hilt, and he shouted, “Charge! Charge!”

“Waaaah!”

Answering with a mighty roar, the swift ships the Yangtze River Channel League was so proud of surged forward even faster.

Every river pirate gathered here was a handpicked elite. Trained in martial arts, the oarsmen rowed with strength and speed, while the Peak masters stationed at the vanguard did everything they could to shield the ships from the hail of cannonballs.

Even they had limits.

Rumble!

“Arrrgh!”

“The ship—the ship’s sinking!”

A tremendous boom swallowed the screams. Shattered swift ships began to sink all around them.

Hundreds of ships gathered together made one enormous target.

The League’s ships were built for speed rather than durability. Their hulls were small and sleek—which meant a single cannonball could easily send one to the bottom.

Boom! Boom!

Even so, Mu Song narrowed his eyes as cannonballs missed the hulls by a wide margin and slammed into the water.

As I thought. They haven’t set up a proper barrage.

The latest cannonballs hadn’t arrived together on a signal. In fact, nothing had been coordinated since the first volley.

Despite the constant, deafening blasts, the League’s losses were minor compared with its full strength. He could even see military vessels sinking because their own cannons had misfired.

The enemy fired at staggered intervals, without waiting for orders from the flagship. They looked as though something were chasing them, shooting the moment each cannon was ready.

The river pirates had been tense, knowing full well what cannons could do. Now smiles were beginning to spread among them.

“Stronghold Lord, they look flustered.”

“Shit. I nearly pissed myself, and now I just feel embarrassed.”

Mu Song nodded at his subordinates’ relieved remarks. “Just as my Master said.”

“Pardon? The Chief Stronghold Lord—no, the Alliance Leader?”

“That’s right. He said they’d be caught unprepared after so many years of peace.”

Mu Song thought the same as his Master.

A predator grew lazy once the hunt was over.

For a long time, no one had risen to challenge the Great Nation, which ruled the vast continent alone. The Yangtze River Channel League was only an alliance of river pirates, tolerated to a certain extent. Peace, when it lasted too long, had a way of making people weak.

Of course, the Great Nation had an elite fleet that kept up its training in case of emergency. But that fleet was on the sea, not the river.

Ever since the Great Nation unified the continent, the only enemies it had needed to watch for were foreign ones.

We’ll win this battle.

Just as Mu Song quietly repeated the words to himself, sure of victory, one of the chuckling subordinates suddenly spoke up.

“Still, there’s something that feels a little off.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not that I’m complaining, exactly, but…”

The subordinate scratched the back of his head, then added hesitantly, “Are we really supposed to be doing this?”

“What?”

“It just doesn’t feel right. We’ve managed well enough up to now, so why stab the Murim Alliance in the back and join hands with those rotten bastards in Dark Heaven…?”

He trailed off, looking uneasy. The others exchanged glances and began to chime in.

“Well, Dark Heaven does stink to high heaven. Those orthodox faction bastards may talk shit about us behind our backs, but they’re not that rotten.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Orders are orders. Underlings like us have to follow them. But it doesn’t sit right.”

The subordinates had been murmuring among themselves, but when they saw their leader’s expression stiffen, they fell silent. The truth was, Mu Song wasn’t at ease either.

Are we really supposed to be doing this?

The more he thought about what the man had said, the more bitter his mouth felt.

Perhaps it tasted all the more bitter because, deep down, he knew better than anyone why they were doing it.

Even if it’s my Master’s order… I can’t bring myself to like this.

Mu Song had never once thought of himself as a junzi.⁴

A river pirate.

Just as the name said, he was a thief. He couldn’t deny that.

But he had never crossed a certain line.

He never took from anyone who looked poor, and if one of his subordinates committed murder, Mu Song punished him severely on the spot.

But this. This is…

Mu Song looked out over the river, filled with thunder and chaos, and swallowed the words rising in his throat.

At the same time, a face suddenly came to mind.

Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung.

He’d borrowed their swift ships so many times it was practically theft, then bossed them around like servants. He was a thief worse than they were, if anything. But Jin Taekyung was still a chivalrous hero.

So was the fearsome Fire King. Even the Slaughter Saint.

They had fought Dark Heaven, which had plunged the world into misery, and stood against injustice.

Come to think of it, did helping them make me a chivalrous hero for a little while too?

At the absurd thought that flashed through his mind, Mu Song bit his lip without realizing it.

And pointless.

Now that they had come this far, he couldn’t undo anything on his own.

He and his Junior Brother, the Iron-Water Divine Dragon, had already voted against this. But the First Disciple and several key Elders had persuaded their Master, and his resolve had held firm.

At last, the time has come. This is our one chance to become the Yangtze’s true rulers.

That had settled everything.

It was an order from his Master and Alliance Leader, Seafaring King Pa Ryun—a man as exalted as the heavens in Mu Song’s eyes.

For a Disciple who trusted and followed his Master as though he were a god, there could be no more objections or stray doubts. There must not be.

He was a river pirate, and he would remain one.

“…We’ll finish this quickly. Everyone, get ready.”

Leaving his subordinates to watch him anxiously, Mu Song gripped the great saber in his hand with all his might.

The Yangtze, shrouded in thick cannon smoke rising even now, looked strange and unsettling, as if he were seeing it for the first time.

Damn it.

Swallowing the curse on the tip of his tongue, Mu Song recalled a line from an old poet’s verse. He had recited it until he was hoarse, despite never even finishing the Thousand Character Classic.⁵

Why were the waters of the Yangtze, which should have flowed so steadily as always, churning so violently and red?

His brief reverie ended as the shadow of a military vessel drew close.

Rumble—crash!

A tremendous impact.

The moment the swift ship’s sharp ram slammed into the side of the military vessel—

Whoosh!

Mu Song kicked off the bow and leaped up, bringing his great saber down with all his strength toward a group of government troops preparing to fight on deck.

At the same time, he saw them clearly.

The fear and tension in their eyes. Their trembling spears and blades. Their bodies frozen in place.

“…Damn it.”

The curse escaped him at last. At the final moment, Mu Song twisted his saber with all his strength.

The blade energy gathered along it vanished like smoke, and the keen edge turned aside.

Thud! Thump!

The soldiers crumpled limply with dull blows instead of sharp cuts.

“Huh?”

His subordinates climbed onto the deck behind him and stared, eyes wide. Before any of them could speak, Mu Song said quietly, “Don’t kill them. We’ll need men to row.”

The river pirates looked at one another blankly, then grinned.

“You all hear that? The Stronghold Lord says to leave them alive.”

“Of course. Who’d dare disobey an order like that?”

They all knew how flimsy the excuse was.

But this was not the Yangtze they wanted to see.

Rumble! Boom!

Military vessels sank one after another in flames. Cries of agony rang out from every direction. Watching and listening, Mu Song silently addressed his Master aboard the Sea Dragon Ship far away, sinking everything that stood in its path.

Is this what the Yangtze you wanted so badly is supposed to look like?

That day, in just two shichen⁶, the Yangtze River Channel League sent around a hundred military vessels carrying thousands of government troops to the bottom of the river. Then its ships turned west.

Somewhere far to the west.

And the astonishing news was enough to turn the world upside down.