What awaited us when we arrived at full speed was a scene so horrific I could barely look at it.
Corpses. Pools of blood. Ownerless arms and legs…
If the Shaolin Temple I had seen with my own eyes a year ago had been a beautiful painting of a utopian paradise, then what lay before me now was a painting of hell.
These fucking lunatics.
They had clearly been killing civilians and Murim warriors alike, indiscriminately.
Beyond the masked men battling Shaolin’s monks, I spotted a red-bearded old man.
“The Fire King…!”
Without taking my eyes off him, I asked, “Know him?”
“No.”
“What about the monk pinned beneath him?”
“Hongcheon. Hong Dao’s youngest Junior Brother. He’s grown a lot since I last saw him.”
“……He sure has.”
So much that he looked well over seventy.
As I found myself at a loss for words, the old man’s blazing gaze swept over us.
“Are you the only ones?”
Jeok Cheongang answered indifferently.
“What if it is?”
“Heh heh. Looks like you’ve finally found a place to die, old man.”
“Even if your head is empty, you should still speak properly. It isn’t a place to die. It’s a place to kill—and that includes every one of you.”
The old man’s eyebrow twitched.
“Still as arrogant as ever. You haven’t changed.”
“Haven’t changed? Have we met before?”
“I saw you once from a distance. I regretted for years that we never had the chance to see which of us was stronger.”
“What’s your name?”
“Flame Tiger! I am the tiger of Nanman1!”
“The Yin-Yang Twin Ghosts? Good. There should be one more, so there’s no need to take you alive. I can kill you.”
Jeok Cheongang clicked his tongue.
“You’re one lucky bastard, though. You turned back with the Sanzu River2 right before your eyes.”
“Is that so?”
Flames blazed in Flame Tiger’s eyes. At the same time, Fist Force gathered around his rough, rock-hard fist.
I had expected as much, but the old man was also a Supreme Peak master. What was more, he had trained in the same kind of Scorching Yang Qi as we had.
“You arrived much sooner than I’d heard… but that changes nothing.”
Than he’d heard?
For an instant, I wondered how Flame Tiger could have received word so quickly.
Even if he used a messenger pigeon, we should have been faster.
But I had to set the question aside. Flame Tiger was gripping Hongcheon’s head as though he meant to crush it.
Blood trickled from the mouth of the old monk, whose entire body was drenched in red.
“Cough. Cough.”
“Want this monk to live?”
“……”
I felt Jeok Cheongang tense.
More than thirty jang3 separated us from Flame Tiger. Even Jeok Cheongang could not charge in recklessly. If he did, Hongcheon’s head would be crushed like a block of tofu.
“Put him down. Now.”
Beneath Jeok Cheongang’s calm voice, I could feel rage boiling like lava.
Flame Tiger grinned.
“I heard you were close to that bald monk, Dharma King Hong Dao. I suppose it was true. Did he ask you to look after his Junior Brother before he died?”
“Hong Dao was wiser and more virtuous than any monk I knew. His name does not belong in your filthy mouth.”
“He’s dead either way. Maybe he’s crossing the Sanzu River2 right now.”
Jeok Cheongang stared at Flame Tiger, his gaze dark and still, then parted his lips.
“Go on.”
“What?”
“I said go on. Did you truly think that would be enough to shake this old man?”
“Y-You damned old monster.”
Flame Tiger’s face flushed red as he shook Hongcheon by the head.
“Are you saying you don’t care if this monk dies?”
“I don’t.”
“W-What?”
“It’s regrettable that I can’t save him, but Hong Dao did not ask me to look after his Junior Brother. He entrusted Shaolin to me.”
Tss-tss-tss-tss!
At that moment, an immense amount of internal energy gathered in Jeok Cheongang’s hand. It rapidly took shape, then shot forward like an arrow.
Not toward Flame Tiger, but toward the masked men ceaselessly swinging their swords.
Kwooooooong!
The terrifying mass of internal energy unleashed from Jeok Cheongang’s hand plunged straight into their midst.
Like a starving fire dragon, it rampaged through the masked men, devouring and incinerating everything it touched.
Whoosh!
For the first time, emotion surfaced in their otherwise lifeless eyes.
Fear and pain.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Aaaaargh!”
Flames soared amid horrific screams.
Dozens staggered away with their bodies ablaze. Dozens more were already dead.
The masked men froze at the sight, and the monks’ precept blades and Zen staffs flew toward them.
“It’s not over yet!”
“Drive out these villains!”
Fwoosh! Slash!
Jeok Cheongang had reversed the situation in an instant. He fixed Flame Tiger with an icy glare.
“If you’re going to kill him, do it. Otherwise, put him down gently. You’re a bear, you bastard. Stop trying to play the fox.”
“Y-You goddamned old bastard!”
Whoosh!
Flame Tiger played the fox to the very end.
He hurled Hongcheon at us and rushed close behind him, plainly intending to use the monk’s body as a shield while he struck at the opening.
—You take Hongcheon.
A thread of Sound Transmission pierced my ear.
Jeok Cheongang and I kicked off the ground at the same instant.
Four figures shot toward one another.
I caught Hongcheon while Jeok Cheongang vaulted over him and attacked the fox—or rather, the bear—hiding behind him.
Kwoooong!
I let the pressure wave from their terrifying collision carry me backward.
After sliding more than twenty jang3, I laid Hongcheon in a nearby patch of grass. Then I charged toward the two Supreme Peak masters locked in a vicious exchange.
Of course, Flame Tiger was not going to stand around chuckling while I joined the fight.
“You bastard!”
Fwoosh—thud!
My knee rang with a sharp vibration as it blocked a foot as thick as a log.
But that was all.
Supreme Peak and Peak were separated by a gulf no amount of luck could bridge.
But I had more than mere luck.
I had heaven’s luck.
The System.
I can handle him.
One-on-one would have been impossible, but Flame Tiger was already struggling just to hold off Jeok Cheongang.
His only mistake was underestimating me.
“I’m confiscating your dentures for four months.”
Flame Tiger’s face turned red enough to burst at the sight of my grin.
“You green little brat!”
“You yellow old geezer!”
“Kraaaagh!”
Flame Tiger threw Jeok Cheongang off and charged at me with a roar.
“I’ll kill you first!”
Whoosh!
A devastating punch hurtled toward me. Even I would not walk away unharmed if I took a strike wrapped in Fist Force with my bare body.
I stepped back, grabbed White Flame from my back, and swung.
Clang!
The punch stopped with a deafening crash.
Flame Tiger’s eyes grew as wide as lanterns.
“Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron?”
“Expensive weapons really are the best. Don’t you agree, Old Master?”
Jeok Cheongang did not answer.
Instead, his blue-white fist was already flying toward Flame Tiger.
Kwoong!
The ground shook with the thunderous impact.
The two fists had met perfectly, but one man’s fist had its bones crushed and was charred black.
Flame Tiger muttered with a dazed expression.
“H-How?”
“Did you think all who cultivate Scorching Yang Qi were equal?”
Jeok Cheongang’s voice was indifferent, but lava burned in his eyes.
Heat that made Flame Tiger’s paltry blaze seem insignificant poured from his entire body, pressing down on everything around him.
Flame Tiger groaned.
“The Fire King…”
“That’s right. This old man is Jeok Cheongang, the Fire King and eighteenth-generation successor of the Fire Gate Clan.”
“That’s imposs— Cough!”
As Flame Tiger coughed up blood and tried to flee, I launched myself after him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Crack!
My foot came down hard, crushing his instep and driving deep into the ground.
A pained groan escaped through Flame Tiger’s clenched teeth along with a spray of blood.
The next moment, two streaks of light pierced into his abdomen as his upper body staggered.
Whoosh!
The difference in our realms meant a difference in power, but the martial art we used was the same.
Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.
Thud!
The Body-Protecting Qi encasing him like armor shattered.
A fountain of blood erupted from Flame Tiger’s gaping mouth.
“Gueeegh!”
Both men were Supreme Peak masters, but the difference between them was vast.
Jeok Cheongang looked down at Flame Tiger, who was panting from his severe Internal Injury.
“Your luck ends here.”
“Cough. W-Wait a moment.”
“I have neither the time nor the reason.”
“I’ll tell you everything! R-Right, Dark Heaven! Everything about Dark Heaven…”
“Didn’t this old man tell you to stop playing the fox?”
Fwoosh—thud!
There was not a trace of hesitation in Jeok Cheongang’s strike.
Flame Tiger’s head vanished. His body swayed for a moment before collapsing into a pool of blood.
I casually wiped the blood splattered across my face and said:
“Wouldn’t it have been better to keep him alive?”
“You don’t reveal important secrets to a bear as stupid as that.”
“Even so…”
“The bear is dead. Now we catch the fox.”
With those cryptic words, Jeok Cheongang turned his head.
More than a hundred jang3 away, an old man stood rooted to the spot, staring at us.
In his hand was a short staff glowing with green light.
“The Green Jade Buddha Staff!”
“Yin Ghost Han Su. He’s next.”
The next moment, as though he had understood those words, Han Su’s figure shot away at blinding speed.
Whoosh!
Han Su drove his movement technique to its limit.
Behind him, he could feel two auras drawing closer, little by little—ever so slowly.
Damn it!
He had recognized the man at first glance.
The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.
He had never expected that a monster reputed to be among the very first of the Ten Kings would arrive so quickly.
But who is that young man?
The question briefly crossed his mind, then vanished.
The brat’s identity did not matter.
What mattered was that Flame Tiger, whose martial prowess equaled his own, had died at their hands.
What an idiot. He attacked the Fire King instead of the Thunderbolt Saber King.
Han Su had first met Flame Tiger during the Great Faction War and spent decades at his side, but they were not sworn brothers bound by a Peach Garden Oath4. He had no intention of dying on the same day and at the same hour as Flame Tiger.
Just a little farther. Just a little more!
His mission was complete.
The Green Jade Buddha Staff in his hand was proof. If he could reach the designated location and rendezvous with him…
He would survive for certain.
Because he was a master beyond even the Fire King’s ability to defeat.
Flame Tiger. If that happens, I’ll avenge you.
Just as Han Su tightened his grip around the Green Jade Buddha Staff, his face hardened.
This is…!
Another aura was approaching in the distance.
This one was not behind him.
It was ahead.
At first, he thought it might be reinforcements from the orthodox faction, but the aura he sensed this time belonged to only one person. Its momentum was not particularly strong, either.
Damn it. This complicates things.
If anything delayed him, even for a moment, the Fire King might catch him.
Han Su bit down hard on his lip and wrung every last ounce of strength from his body. The instant he burst through the undergrowth—
“Ah!”
A short cry escaped him, his face lighting with joy.
No emotion could compare to the relief of returning from the brink of death.
Han Su called out to him, his voice brimming with elation.
“Blood Lord!”
As though by prior agreement, Jeok Cheongang and I stopped at the same time.
Han Su, who had gone from a desperate fugitive to a swaggering predator, stood waiting for us.
“There they are! The Fire King—that goddamned old man—and the young brat killed Flame Tiger!”
No.
Han Su was no predator.
He was merely a fox borrowing a tiger’s might.
The real predator was the man standing quietly beside Han Su.
I could sense nothing from him, which was strange in itself.
And that made him seem all the more dangerous.
Jeok Cheongang’s reaction was different. His face stiffened as he asked, “Who are you?”
“Your enemy.”
The young man smiled faintly.
“The enemy who killed your most precious friend.”
……What?
Footnotes
-
Nanman is a historical Chinese term for peoples and regions to the south, literally meaning “southern barbarians.” ↩
-
The Sanzu River is a river in Buddhist tradition that the dead cross on their way to the afterlife. ↩ ↩2
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A jang is a traditional Korean unit of length equal to ten cheok, about 3.03 m (9.94 ft). ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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The Peach Garden Oath refers to the famous oath of sworn brotherhood in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. ↩
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