Chapter 260

“Young Hero Cheong. Young Hero Cheong, wake up.”

Smack! Smack!

“Mmm…”

Cheongpung opened his eyes with a groan.

Someone was slapping him hard across the face. It was his first time being slapped, so the experience was fascinating in a way, but for some strange reason, it also felt rather unpleasant.

Ah. So this is why people don’t like being slapped.

With that small insight, Cheongpung opened his mouth.

“Excuse me.”

Smack! Smack!

“I’m aw—”

Smack! Smack!

“I’m awake…”

Smack!

Only after landing one last slap did the hand finally stop.

A familiar-looking young man spoke with a stiff expression.

“You’re awake. Do you remember who I am?”

“It’s been a while, Warrior Hyuk Mujin.”

Hyuk Mujin sighed.

“So you do remember me.”

“Of course. I just never expected we’d meet like this.”

Cheongpung remembered Hyuk Mujin as a good person.

But when a good person he had not seen in a year was slapping him across the face, even Cheongpung could not help but feel hurt.

“I apologize if I offended you. I suddenly remembered the money I lost.”

“What?”

“No, the situation was so urgent that I forgot my manners.”

“Oh…”

If that was the reason, Cheongpung could understand.

He nodded and looked around. Shouts rang out from every direction, and people were running everywhere.

“Is this a festival?”

“……Does this look like a festival?”

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

Hyuk Mujin answered firmly, then gave him a brief account of the situation.

Dharma King Hong Dao had been found dead, and the culprit was none other than…

“Jongni Chu?”

“Yes. The Always-Victorious Sword, Jongni Chu. That bastard. His exact identity remains unknown, but most believe he was an assassin sent by the Demonic Cult.”

“The Demonic Cult…”

It was a name Cheongpung had heard countless times from his grandfather, the Sword Saint. A place where fiends and vicious killers who had once stained the entire world with blood had gathered.

And Jongni Chu was an assassin from that very Demonic Cult.

Cheongpung shook his head without realizing it.

“No.”

“What do you mean…?”

Hyuk Mujin continued with an incredulous expression.

“You suffered at his hands yourself, and you still don’t understand? The shock must have been so great that you can’t remember, but you nearly died at his hands.”

No. Cheongpung remembered everything clearly.

The helplessness and fear he had felt before a master against whom nothing worked. Even that final moment, when he had contemplated death for the first time in his life.

I was scared. Truly scared.

The mere thought made the fine hairs on his body stand on end and his palms turn clammy.

But why?

Why did Jongni Chu’s face keep appearing before his eyes—that bright smile he had worn when asking Cheongpung to be his friend?

Cheongpung’s lips remained pressed tightly together for a moment before finally parting.

“He’s my friend.”

“……What?”

“That man is my friend. He couldn’t have done it.”

“Young Hero Cheong!”

Startled, Hyuk Mujin hurriedly glanced around.

Only after confirming that no one was paying attention to them did he lower his voice.

“Are you insane? Jongni Chu is already as good as an enemy of the entire Murim. How can you call someone like that your friend…?”

He was an assassin who had murdered the Abbot of Shaolin Temple and fled. Simply being acquainted with Jongni Chu could be enough to earn Cheongpung a brutal beating.

Even if he was the disciple the Sword Saint had raised like his own flesh and blood, people would still glare at him.

“Never mention him out loud again. Do you understand?”

“But…”

Cheongpung was about to say something, but he closed his mouth at the look in Hyuk Mujin’s eyes.

“He’s a demonic fiend. I don’t know what kind of underhanded trick he used to win your favor, but it was all a disguise meant to help him assassinate Master Hong Dao.”

“Are you certain? Did anyone see him kill him?”

“All the circumstances point to it. The pursuit party formed to capture him and the thousands of heroes who gathered to save Shaolin have finished preparing to depart.”

“Shaolin…”

“The Demonic Cult’s vile scheme has placed Shaolin in danger. Great Hero Jeok and the Captain have already gone on ahead.”

Cheongpung slowly closed his eyes.

In the pitch-black darkness, the faces of Jin Taekyung and Jongni Chu flashed before him in turn.

He did not deliberate for long.

“I’ll go ahead.”

“What?”

By the time Hyuk Mujin asked back with a dazed expression, Cheongpung had already shot far into the distance.

His feet carried him toward Mount Song.

Mount Song was beautiful and peaceful enough to be counted among the Five Sacred Mountains.

But the place that should have been green and lovely was stained with blood and filled with screams.

“Aaaaaagh!”

“Kill every last one of them.”

Slash! Shhhhhhk!

Blood spurted from every direction whenever a flash of sword light gleamed.

In broad daylight on the peaceful day of Baekjung,¹ hundreds of masked men had appeared without warning and begun slaughtering people with emotionless eyes.

“Protect the pilgrims! Do not retreat!”

Shaolin martial monks with Buddhist precept seals carved into their foreheads stood against them, but the situation showed no sign of improving.

The masked men were all exceptional masters and difficult enough to fight on their own. On top of that, the martial monks had to protect the scholarly monks who had never learned martial arts, the young novices, and the countless pilgrims.

“Wh-what is this?”

“Kraaagh!”

No one had expected anything like this to happen today.

Who would dare invade the grounds of Shaolin Temple, the Mount Tai and Northern Dipper of the Murim, in the very heart of the Central Plains?

The monks were being swept aside by the cruel, treacherous masked men when—

“You bastards! Do you even know where you are?”

A short old monk barely five feet tall² appeared with a thunderous shout.

He glared at the masked men staining Shaolin Temple’s grounds with blood, cold blue sparks blazing in his eyes.

“Demonic martial arts! So you’re the demonic fiends of Tianshan!”

Palm force erupted from the old monk’s hands and swept across the grounds.

Kwoooong!

The masked men rushed him after noticing his presence too late, only to be swallowed by the palm force and killed.

It was an overwhelming sight. More than ten masters were crushed by a single attack.

However…

“The Lord of Heaven has commanded us. Kill the enemy.”

“Follow Heaven’s command. Kill them all.”

The hundreds of masked men did not stop.

They possessed neither agitation nor hesitation. They merely muttered as though possessed by ghosts and swung their swords.

Slash. Slash. Slash.

The old monk’s expression hardened at the sight.

How ruthless…

Even when their limbs were severed and their intestines spilled out, they did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.

They slaughtered without feeling pain or fear, then dropped like puppets with their strings cut. The sight sent a chill through him.

These things aren’t human. They’re Fiends incarnate.

If even an old monk who had fought his way through the Great Faction War felt that way, how much worse must it have been for everyone else?

The more experienced middle-aged martial monks were struggling valiantly, but the young monks witnessing such carnage for the first time trembled with fear.

Yet they did not retreat.

Perhaps it was the sense of duty that came with being disciples of Buddhism standing face-to-face with Fiends.

I never thought this day would come.

The old monk lamented inwardly.

During the last Great Faction War, Shaolin had been at the forefront more than anyone and shed more blood than anyone.

It had been a noble sacrifice that saved the Murim, but Shaolin had lost many elders and much martial knowledge. And the sacrifices of that era had returned today as tragedy.

Of all times, this had to happen while my Senior Brother, the Abbot, was away!

There was no helping it. He was the only one who could defend Shaolin now.

The old monk, Hongcheon, gritted his teeth and unleashed a lion’s roar.

“This is Shaolin!”

His name might have been overshadowed by that of his Senior Brother, Hong Dao, but he too was a master who had reached the Supreme Peak realm.

Though the outside world knew nothing of his abilities, his ceaseless devotion to martial arts had already carried him beyond Hong Dao.

“Come at me, all of you!”

Kwoooong!

Palm force imbued with mighty Buddhist internal energy swept out in every direction.

At that moment—

“Oh-ho. The Hundred-Step Divine Fist?”

“We get to see that damned martial art again.”

Two voices pierced Hongcheon’s ears.

Two men slowly entered the temple grounds. As soon as they appeared, the masked men lowered their swords and withdrew in perfect unison.

“Was it you bastards?”

At Hongcheon’s snarled question, the red-bearded old man picked his nose and answered.

“That’s right. This old man right here.”

“You’re the vile demonic fiends of Tianshan.”

“The demonic fiends of Tianshan? Well, that’s half right and half wrong. But I’ll let it pass.”

Hongcheon paused.

“You’re not from the Demonic Cult?”

“What does that matter? All you need to know is that I’m the one who’ll grab your shiny pate and rip it off.”

The old man with the air of a great scholar answered with a quiet smile.

“Flame Tiger, are you going to handle him?”

“Naturally. Now that I’ve seen the Hundred-Step Divine Fist, I can’t just let it go.”

“I keep telling you to rein in that temper of yours.”

“I’ll think about it later. Right now, I want to kill that bald monk more than I care about my temper.”

Hongcheon stared at the two old men in turn, his eyes wide.

The name Flame Tiger.

The immense auras radiating from the two old men, who could not have seemed more different.

“Could you two be…?”

Flame Tiger gave a ferocious laugh and nodded.

“You’re only realizing it now? You must still be a youngster. All those damned monks of the Beom generation³ have been dead for ages… Are you the Dharma King’s youngest Junior Brother?”

“……!”

“Judging by that reaction, I guess I’m right. Han Su, what was the name of that old monk you killed at the end?”

“Beomgong.”

Hongcheon’s fist trembled at the Dharma name of the Martial Uncle who had died during the Great Faction War.

There’s no doubt. It’s them.

How could he not know the names Flame Tiger and Han Su?

Or the epithet shared by the villains who had killed countless Shaolin disciples?

“The Yin-Yang Twin Freaks.”

It was a story from the distant past.

The two demonic fiends had ruled the tropical rainforests of Nanman⁴ and the Great Snow Mountain of the north, respectively. They had emerged into the Central Plains and stained the world with blood, while the orthodox faction’s net over heaven and earth, spread to hunt them down, had been torn apart by the Demonic Cult’s invasion.

The two fiends had escaped death by the narrowest margin, entered the Demonic Cult’s service, and earned a terrifying reputation during the Great Faction War.

“The Yin-Yang Twin Freaks… It has been a long time since I heard that name from someone else’s lips.”

“Those were good times. Few things have ever been as enjoyable.”

Flame Tiger fondly reminisced about that horrific past, then shook his head.

“No, that’s not right. I still prefer things as they are now.”

“Of course. We couldn’t even set foot in Henan back then.”

“It was all because of that damned Martial God.”

“But the Martial God is gone now.”

“Hardly any of those so-called Ten Kings and Three Saints are left, either.”

Han Su watched Flame Tiger with a faint smile before abruptly bringing his palms together toward Hongcheon.

“Ah, come to think of it, I’d forgotten for a moment. Please accept my condolences.”

Hongcheon, who had stiffened at the appearance of the two old monsters, sensed something ominous and asked:

“Condolences? What are you talking about?”

“On our way up, we heard that someone had died. Dharma King Hong Dao—your Senior Brother.”

“……!”

Shock struck him, making the world before his eyes seem to go dim.

His Senior Brother, who should have been at the Murim Alliance, was dead?

That was impossible.

“Nonsense!”

Han Su gave a short laugh as he looked at the shaken Hongcheon.

“Whether it’s true or not is for you to decide. And…”

Flame Tiger continued in a heated voice.

“All the monks here, including you, will die. That’s our judgment.”

Rustle.

As if they had sensed their leader’s aura, the masked men took a step forward with emotionless eyes.

A deadly edge rising from hundreds of sword blades filled Shaolin Temple.

Hongcheon’s eyelids trembled at the sight.

Senior Brother… Is it true?

But the trembling soon subsided, and light returned to his eyes.

The old monk, who had devoted eighty years to martial arts, clenched his fists.

“I never thought I’d have to face the Yin-Yang Twin Freaks at the same time. Come, you damned old monsters.”

“Wahahaha! You’ve got quite a foul mouth for a monk. I like that you’re still so full of youthful vigor.”

Flame Tiger burst into hearty laughter and stepped forward.

“Unfortunately, one old man is enough for you. Han Su has a more pressing matter to attend to.”

“Very urgent business.”

Han Su smiled faintly and continued.

“So will you step aside? I have to go to the Face-Wall Cave.”

The Face-Wall Cave.

The moment those words left Han Su’s mouth, Hongcheon felt his heart plummet.

Unnamed was there. His Senior Brother’s only Disciple.

And…

The Green Jade Buddha Staff.

At last realizing the enemies’ objective, Hongcheon let out a lion’s roar.

“Stop them by whatever means necessary!”

“Stop us? That won’t be enough.”

The Yin-Yang Twin Freaks flicked their hands, dark smiles spreading across their faces.

As though they had returned to the days of fifty years ago, horrifying killing intent surged from their entire bodies.

“Kill them all.”

Fwoooooosh!