Chapter 310

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

The number of bandits who emerged behind Heavenly Axe came to five hundred.

But Ju Hwaran’s face had not hardened because of their overwhelming numbers alone.

Their momentum is different.

Those trying to cross the mountain and those blocking their way. Escort Bureaus and the Green Forest were inseparable.

The Escort Bureau side could not draw their swords every time, so they paid a set amount as a toll. The Green Forest, in turn, withdrew after taking a reasonable sum, allowing both sides to save face. That had long been the established custom.

But neither Heavenly Axe nor the bandits of Black Stone Stronghold showed any intention of backing down.

“You’re planning to see blood after all…”

At Ju Hwaran’s words, Heavenly Axe curled up the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve got some sense for a little bitch. That’s right. I intend to stain Black Stone Mountain with blood today.”

“Little bitch?”

“What? If you don’t like that, should I call you an old bitch?”

“I am the Young Bureau Head of the Yongbong Escort Bureau. Show me the same courtesy I’m showing you.”

Ju Hwaran’s beautiful eyebrows, as delicate as if they had been drawn with a brush, shot upward.

She was the bureau chief’s only child, but that did not mean she had been raised pampered and sheltered.

From childhood, she had swung a sword until her palms grew callused. She had eaten and slept on the road alongside the escorts, learning from everything she saw.

People fawned over Ju Hwaran as one of the Three Flowers of Jiangbei, but she was no hothouse flower.

“What a brazen little bitch. And what will you do if I refuse?”

“Then…”

Ju Hwaran, the Dagger Hidden Flower—a flower hiding a dagger—continued in a chilly voice.

“You should die. At the hands of a little girl.”

“What? Huh… Hahaha!”

It took a while for Heavenly Axe’s wild laughter to stop.

“You’ve got more backbone than I expected. I like you.”

“I wouldn’t be happy even if some old bandit liked me.”

“You’ve got a sharp tongue. Aren’t you worried about what comes next?”

“Why are you doing this in the first place?”

“Why? A bandit says he intends to kill and rob you. Does he need some special reason?”

At Heavenly Axe’s brazen reply, Ju Hwaran bit down hard on her lip.

“If word of this gets out, the Green Forest Alliance will be put in a difficult position too.”

“Put in a difficult position?”

“Our Yongbong Escort Bureau is also part of the orthodox faction. The orthodox Murim won’t stand by and do nothing.”

“Part of the orthodox faction, is it? Then I suppose it would be a problem.”

Heavenly Axe stroked his shaggy beard and continued.

“So I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t get out. Every secret is harmless as long as it doesn’t leak, wouldn’t you agree?”

“…”

Silencing the witnesses.

Realizing what Heavenly Axe meant, Ju Hwaran gripped her sword hilt tightly. Chief Escort Heo Jun stepped forward in her place and shouted.

“One hundred silver nyang! Clear the road, and I’ll give you one hundred silver nyang. We’ll consider today’s matter closed, so stop this here!”

“Oh? One hundred nyang? Silver nyang, at that?”

“Of course. Have I ever made an empty promise?”

“No, you haven’t. We’ve met more than once, after all. Brother Heo is trustworthy enough.”

Chief Escort Heo Jun had devoted nearly thirty years to the Yongbong Escort Bureau.

The Yongbong Escort Bureau was a large Escort Bureau based in Shaanxi. He had completed hundreds of escort journeys, large and small, and crossed Black Stone Mountain so often that he had become acquainted with the Green Forest stronghold leaders—including Heavenly Axe, who had become a stronghold leader five years earlier.

“That’s five times the usual toll. Stop this nasty prank and clear the road.”

“A nasty prank? Is that how it looked?”

Heavenly Axe let out a hearty laugh. Then a sudden chill entered his face.

“There’s a limit to treating me like an idiot. Brother Heo, you need to pay the proper price.”

“P-Pay the proper price?”

“Even the dogs we raise in our stronghold know that the goods you’re transporting include a thousand-year snow ginseng. If we sold it as stolen goods right now, we could easily get several thousand silver nyang for it. Isn’t that right?”

“…”

At that moment, the eyelids of several people, including Ju Hwaran and Heo Jun, began to tremble.

A thousand-year snow ginseng was an elixir that could grant a full jiazi of internal energy if completely digested.

The existence of the thousand-year snow ginseng, which had been secretly commissioned by the Zhongnan Sect, was a top-level secret known by only a handful of people within the Yongbong Escort Bureau.

So how had word reached Heavenly Axe?

It wasn’t a coincidence.

The past four months of escort journeys flashed through Ju Hwaran’s mind.

Bandits and nameless wandering martial artists who had attacked them as if they had encountered their mortal enemies.

The reason they had endured dozens of battles, large and small, and suffered heavy losses was that information about the thousand-year snow ginseng had leaked.

Who could it have been?

She had suspected someone. But she had forced those suspicions down.

The driving force that had allowed her to endure the misfortunes that had piled up over the past two years had been the people around her.

The greatest inheritance her grandfather had passed down to her father, and her father to her.

Even as the Yongbong Escort Bureau lost its former glory and gradually declined, they had not left. They had continued to show her unstinting trust and support despite her repeated failures.

That made her all the more unwilling to suspect them. She did not want to doubt them.

But now…

Ju Hwaran swept her surroundings with an empty gaze.

Chief Escort Heo Jun stood frozen, feeling as betrayed as she did. And then she saw the three people who knew about the thousand-year snow ginseng.

They were the three outstanding escort captains who represented the Yongbong Escort Bureau—the men known collectively as the Dragon-Phoenix Three Escorts.

Seokchil. Noh Piljung.

Ju Hwaran’s gaze passed over the two middle-aged escorts, both nearing forty, and turned to the last man.

Song Ilseom.

Unlike the other two members of the Dragon-Phoenix Three Escorts, Song Ilseom was tall and strikingly handsome.

Barely past thirty, he had entered the Yongbong Escort Bureau as an escort ten years earlier and risen rapidly through the ranks.

He sometimes revealed his rough temper, but his outstanding martial arts had allowed him to lead escort journeys to success. That was why, despite his young age, he had been named one of the Dragon-Phoenix Three Escorts.

But Song Il was followed by a great deal of gossip.

“They say he used to be a wandering martial artist. A fixer, too.”

“Apparently, as long as he got paid, there was nothing he wouldn’t do.”

“Is that all? There are widespread rumors that he’s deeply in love with the Young Lady. Mihyang told me last time—apparently, whenever he gets the chance, he goes into the inner courtyard and wanders around the garden.”

“I heard he joined the Escort Bureau because of the Young Lady… Though everyone knows the Chief wanted an escort for a son-in-law, right?”

Ju Hwaran knew about the public rumors surrounding Song Il.

She also knew that most of what people said was true.

There had been times when Song Il’s blatant gaze made her uncomfortable. For that reason, she had genuinely agonized over whether to use him on this escort journey.

But surely Escort Captain Song Ilseom wouldn’t…

The moment Ju Hwaran’s gaze lingered on Song Il’s face, his thick, fierce-looking eyebrows shot upward.

Flash—whoosh!

“Hwaran!”

Three things happened simultaneously.

A dagger shot out from Song Il’s sleeve.

At the same time, Chief Escort Heo Jun hurriedly stepped in front of Ju Hwaran.

And finally—

Thud!

“Ghk… Grrrk.”

More than twenty jang away, a Black Stone Stronghold bandit with a dagger lodged in his throat collapsed.

The bandit spewed bloody foam and convulsed before drawing his last breath.

“…”

A cold silence settled over the scene. After a silence that seemed as if it would never end, Song Il broke it with a single shout.

“No more talking! Fight like you’re prepared to die!”

His fierce cry spread into the distance on the night wind, and Ju Hwaran, Heo Jun, and everyone from the Yongbong Escort Bureau realized it.

The negotiations had already fallen through.

They would have to engage in a battle to the death against hundreds of enemies who had been struck by an unexpected opening attack.

“Song Il! What are you doing?”

At Chief Escort Heo Jun’s furious shout, Song Il raised his willow-leaf saber and rested it across his shoulder.

“What do you think I’m doing? It’s too late to ask that now, isn’t it?”

“You bastard…”

“He’s right.”

Ju Hwaran said calmly as she gripped her sword hilt.

Unfortunately, Song Il was telling the truth.

Heavenly Axe was approaching them, radiating a terrifying aura.

He had lost one of his men without having time to do anything. Flames poured from his bulging eyes.

“I’ll slaughter every last one of you.”

Hissssss!

Red qi writhed from the lowered blade of his enormous axe.

The Green Forest Alliance contained countless people, but Heavenly Axe was a Peak master ranked among its top twenty.

Fueled by their leader’s aura, the five hundred Green Forest bandits also growled like wild animals.

“Kill them all!”

“This is where you’ll be buried!”

As she listened to their enraged cries, Ju Hwaran looked up at the star-filled night sky.

This might be my last escort journey.

Of the more than seventy people who remained, only around forty were escorts, excluding the caravan porters.

Everyone was exhausted from the long escort journey. The conditions were far too harsh for them to face Heavenly Axe and five hundred Green Forest bandits.

Can I do this?

Thud, thud, thud.

The ground trembled beneath hundreds of footsteps. A battle they could neither avoid nor escape was about to begin.

All that remains is to fight until the very end.

She had to send even one person away alive.

Just as Ju Hwaran was about to face forward again, she noticed a star she had never seen before.

Among the countless stars embroidered across the pitch-black sky, one shone unusually brightly. It scattered its radiance for a very brief moment, then vanished.

And then, the next moment, something no one could have expected happened.

“Don’t fight, everyone! No matter how badly you get along, something terrible will happen if you fight!”

At the sudden shout, everyone’s movements stopped dead. Hundreds of heads whipped toward the direction of the voice.

The world was sunk in darkness.

Four figures stood tall on a hill, illuminated by the faint moonlight.

Soon, quiet voices drifted down.

“What are they?”

“They look like bandits. One side looks like people from an Escort Bureau.”

“No, anyone can see they’re bandits. Why are they fighting here in the middle of the night? We’re so busy we could drop dead.”

“They look busier than we do.”

“Mujin, has it been long since you were hit?”

“No. I was hit about half an hour ago.”

Smack!

“Gibang, do you know who those people are?”

“Of course.”

“Help me, Speed Beggar.”

“Judging by the flag, they’re from the Yongbong Escort Bureau. The other side is Black Stone Stronghold, led by Heavenly Axe.”

“I’ve never heard of either of them. Strangely, though, Heavenly Axe sounds familiar.”

“The Yongbong Escort Bureau was once counted among the Ten Great Escort Bureaus of the martial world, and Heavenly Axe is a Peak master ranked among the Green Forest Alliance’s top twenty. He wields a single axe like a demon…”

“No, wait. Surely you mean that Heavenly Axe?”

“You know Heavenly Axe?”

“I definitely killed him… Did he take the reincarnation bus or something? Wait here. I’ll go take a look at his face.”

“Benefactor! What’s a reincarnation bus?”

“Try crossing a crosswalk when you’re bored.”

The utterly incomprehensible conversation ended there.

Then a large shadow came trudging down the hill.

Only after it drew closer, one step at a time, could the people make out what the shadow actually was.

What is that?

He’s young as can be. And what’s that pack frame on his back?

It was a truly bizarre sight.

Hundreds of people facing one another in the darkness, weapons in hand.

And a young man carrying a pack frame, walking beneath the moonlight as if he were out for a stroll.

Clomp, clomp. Stop.

“Sorry to bother you while you’re busy.”

At last, the young man stopped and slowly turned his head.

He frowned as he looked at the grimy bandits. When his gaze reached Ju Hwaran, he suddenly squirmed. Finally, he gave Heavenly Axe a quick once-over from head to toe before casually tossing out a single remark.

“This isn’t the bastard.”

“…”

“…”

At the bombshell, hundreds of pairs of eyes widened.

He had called Heavenly Axe—a Peak master counted among the Green Forest Alliance’s foremost experts—a bastard.

Just as everyone began to doubt their own ears, the second bomb dropped.

“Oh, you’re that guy. The real Heavenly Axe. No wonder I thought something was weird. But you don’t look all that impressive either. Not as impressive as the rumors made you sound.”

Heavenly Axe finally came to his senses, and fire shot from his eyes.

“Y-You lunatic!”

The next moment, the axe in his hand crashed down toward the young man’s crown.

Whooosh—crash!

Condensed qi collided.

A flexible sword stopped the axe blade, which shimmered with red qi.

Ju Hwaran’s wrist trembled as she desperately blocked the attack.

She, too, was a Peak-level swordswoman. But she was far too lacking to withstand Heavenly Axe, who possessed both natural strength and years of experience.

“Ghk! Young Hero, hurry and run—!”

“You little bitch, how dare you!”

Clang-clang-clang!

The two blades locked together, sending sparks flying.

The enormous axe slowly pressed downward.

Just as Heo Jun and Song Il charged forward to help Ju Hwaran, the lips of the young man standing as still as stone parted.

“Say one thing for me.”

“…Yes?”

“Help me. Just those words.”

Is he out of his mind?

That was the thought that flashed through Ju Hwaran’s mind.

The young man had not even been able to react to Heavenly Axe’s attack. If she had not blocked it with her flexible sword, he would have been cut in half and killed without a chance.

But despite what she was thinking, her mouth was already speaking.

“Help me!”

And then she saw it.

The faint smile forming at the corner of the young man’s mouth.

A voice so quiet that only she could hear it flowed into her ear.

“Quest accepted.”

Whoosh!

A wave of heat suddenly swept over them.

Ju Hwaran felt an endlessly warm sensation.