Chapter 311

“Quest accepted.”

Ding.

System

• You have accepted the Sudden Quest Crisis of the Yongbong Escort Bureau!

You’ve really grown up, Jin Taekyung. Now you can even create Quests on your own.

I smiled proudly and stretched out my right hand. My palm, heated red by the Flame Divine Palm, struck the side of the axe at a terrifying speed.

Boom!

With a deafening crash, Heavenly Axe’s massive body slid backward. After staggering back three jang, his face twisted with confusion and fury.

“W-What is the meaning of this…?”

“What do you think? You picked the wrong person.”

I grinned and looked Heavenly Axe up and down.

This was not the fake Level 10 Heavenly Axe I had encountered long ago. This was the real Heavenly Axe, an actual Level 90.

Wow. The real thing really is different.

He was much larger, his face so vicious-looking that it would have been a crime for him not to be a bandit, and his martial arts were on an entirely different level.

Looking at him brought old memories bubbling back to the surface.

I gained quite a bit of Fame when the false rumor that I’d taken him down spread back then.

That had been the period when my name began to be reevaluated within the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

Because people had mistaken the fake Heavenly Axe for the real one and spread the rumor, I had gradually managed to shed some of the stigma of being the family’s disgrace.

Damn, it feels like it was only yesterday.

Heavenly Axe glared at me warily as I sank into nostalgia.

“Who… the hell are you?”

“Me? The man who’s going to kill you twice.”

“W-What did you say?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Kill me twice? What kind of bullshit is that…? Wait. Could it be…?”

Heavenly Axe’s voice, which had been about to continue, abruptly cut off.

He stared at me with a rigid face. Then a thunderous cry burst from his lips.

“The Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi!”

“Huh? You know me?”

“I heard a rumor like that about a year ago… No, that’s not the point.”

Heavenly Axe opened his mouth with a stammering voice. At some point, even the way he addressed me had naturally changed.

“A-Are you really Young Hero Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan?”

“I’m not a Young Hero. But I am Jin Taekyung.”

When I nodded readily, startled gasps escaped from all around us.

Bandits and escorts alike stared at me in shock. The gaze I felt from beside me was especially sharp.

System Level 88: Ju Hwaran

Soon, her smooth lips parted slightly, and a clear voice flowed out.

“You’re… the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi?”

“Hmm. That’s what people call me.”

The woman who had been looking up at me with her large, wide-open black eyes suddenly performed a formal fist-and-palm salute.

“I am Ju Hwaran, the Young Bureau Head of the Yongbong Escort Bureau. It is an honor to meet Young Hero Jin.”

“Ah, yes. Nice to meet you.”

I guess I’m more famous than I thought.

I had never expected to run into hundreds of people who knew me on a mountain road in the dead of night, thousands of li from Shanxi Province.

And I certainly had not expected the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my twenty-eight years of life to be the one who recognized me first.

Come to think of it, a person can really look like this?

There was no way to properly describe Ju Hwaran’s beauty with simple words like pretty or beautiful.

I was still staring at her, cursing my inadequate vocabulary, when—

“Ahem. Come to think of it, don’t we have repairs to do at the stronghold today?”

“Y-You’re right, Chief. I completely forgot.”

Hundreds of people began cautiously retreating amid awkward coughs.

When I turned my head, I saw Heavenly Axe and the Green Forest bandits of Black Stone Stronghold slowly backing away.

I waved at Heavenly Axe.

“Hey, Axe.”

His body stiffened.

“…Axe?”

“Yeah. Our Axe. Where are you going?”

His expression was a sight to behold. It twisted, then smoothed out, then twisted again.

His face became a ridiculous mixture of rising fury and barely restrained patience. With great difficulty, Heavenly Axe squeezed out a reply.

“I have some business to attend to at the stronghold, so I should be going.”

“Exactly. Why are you leaving without permission?”

“…”

A chilly silence settled over the clearing. The hand gripping Heavenly Axe’s weapon turned white, but that was as far as it went.

There had been only one exchange.

But Heavenly Axe—and everyone else present—must have realized it. I was a master on a higher level than him.

Of course, that was not the only source of the fear that made Heavenly Axe hesitate.

“W-Where is the Fire King?”

Where is he? Sleeping soundly on the pack frame strapped to my back, of course.

To prepare for any unforeseen circumstances, I had covered him with layers of fur. No one could imagine that the terrifying Fire King was lying unconscious on the pack frame.

Besides, no one can find out that Old Master has collapsed.

If that happened, all kinds of vermin, including Dark Heaven, would come crawling out of the woodwork.

I concealed my thoughts and let out a quiet laugh.

“Why do you ask about my Master?”

“I only asked because I wanted to see him once.”

“Why? Are you close to my Master?”

“Well, he is someone I’ve always respected…”

“If you ever happen to meet him, don’t say that. He’ll be offended if a bandit bastard like you pretends to be close to him. You’ll start by losing three or four ribs.”

“…Your joke is in poor taste.”

“Does it sound like a joke?”

Heavenly Axe bit down hard on his lip and rolled his eyes.

His gaze swept rapidly over me, Ju Hwaran, the other members of the Yongbong Escort Bureau, and finally the faces of the Bermuda Triangle slowly descending the hill. Then his eyes returned to me.

“Then he isn’t here?”

“What if he isn’t?”

“If that’s the case…”

Swish. Clunk.

Heavenly Axe raised his axe and rested it on his shoulder.

“Then things will be very different.”

“Like your way of speaking just now?”

“It was difficult humoring a young punk.”

“That’s strange. It doesn’t look like anything would change whether my Master was here or not.”

“That’s because you’re a greenhorn who knows nothing about the ways of the world.”

“In what way?”

“I admit that your martial arts are more impressive than I expected. But it would be a mistake to consider yourself equal to your Master.”

Heavenly Axe raised one hand, a sneer spreading across his face.

At the same time, more than five hundred Green Forest bandits raised their weapons and stepped forward.

The mere fact that the Fire King was not present seemed to have restored their confidence.

“The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, is undoubtedly a master beyond the human realm. But can you really turn the tide of this battle all by yourself?”

“Hmm.”

I looked around.

There were only a little more than seventy people from the Yongbong Escort Bureau.

Half of them were caravan porters who did not know even a single move of martial arts, and even the escorts who would have to fight looked utterly exhausted.

By contrast, Heavenly Axe commanded nearly five hundred Green Forest bandits.

With more than ten times our numbers, it was certainly a situation in which Heavenly Axe could afford to act confidently.

But…

“I might as well turn it around while I have the chance.”

“Hahaha! Go ahead and try.”

“That’s the plan.”

The smile around Heavenly Axe’s mouth vanished in the next moment.

I had crossed the five-jang distance in a single step and thrown a punch.

Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.

Vroooom.

Compressed air exploded outward. The wind split apart, and a wave of Extreme Yang heat surged forward.

The strike that had once brought down an unnamed cliff on Mount Song shot toward the five hundred Green Forest bandits massed together like an army of ants.

Heavenly Axe stood at the front.

Baaaaang!

With a roar that seemed to split the sky, clouds of dust and steam billowed upward.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

System notifications continued boring into my ears without pause.

These bandits were at a Level where killing them did not even grant EXP. I had neither the need nor any reason to use my spear.

I simply unleashed my martial arts indiscriminately at the enemies beyond the chaotic fog.

Baaaaang!

I tore, struck, and smashed everything in my path.

Blood and screams overflowed across the ground, which heaved as though it had been struck by an artillery barrage.

“Gaaaaah!”

“Kill him!”

“He’s over there!”

Whoooosh! Thud!

Dozens of blades arrived belatedly, burying themselves in the innocent ground.

Every one of them moved sluggishly. I could see the exact trajectories their weapons would follow.

This is easy. Almost bizarrely easy.

Crack!

My movements, by contrast, were precise and carried tremendous destructive power. Every time I continued forward without hesitation, three or four screams rang out.

The panicked bandits could no longer distinguish friend from foe. They simply swung the weapons in their hands like madmen.

Shhk! Slash!

“Gaaah! You crazy bastard!”

“W-Wangpal?”

“Yeah, it’s me! It’s me, you bastard!”

“Sorry. I thought you were him…”

I whispered into the flustered bandit’s ear.

“This time, it really is me.”

“…”

Crunch!

With exactly as much force and speed as necessary, I seized his neck and twisted.

His body crumpled without even managing to scream.

Before it could touch the ground, I was already moving again.

Flamefire Path.

The Fire Gate Clan’s signature cultivation technique.

I kicked off the ground and surged forward. A tail of fire pierced the fog.

For an instant, the surroundings lit up brightly, revealing a giant man eight cheok tall.

Two gazes collided in midair.

“There you are.”

“Jin Taekyung, you bastard…”

Grind.

Heavenly Axe ground his teeth as I stepped toward him.

I unleashed the Flame Divine Palm with all my internal energy behind it.

Red qi streamed from the enormous axe Heavenly Axe brought down with the momentum of splitting a person in two.

A roar like a lion’s roar burst from his mouth.

“Die!”

Whoooosh! Boom!

An immense wave of energy whirled outward at the moment of impact.

We were so close that I could feel his breath against my cheek. My coldly hardened face was reflected in Heavenly Axe’s bulging eyes.

So was the broken axe—and my hand, which had pierced through the weapon and his chest before protruding from his back.

Fwoosh!

“Ghk…!”

Blood did not gush out like a waterfall.

The heat of the Flame Divine Palm in my hand had already vaporized the liquid.

Heavenly Axe’s lips, cracked like a drought-stricken field, moved weakly.

“Y-You… just what…”

“Why? You told me to turn things around.”

Shhk.

With those words, I pulled my hand from his chest.

His entire body had been burned and melted after he failed to block the opening strike of the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.

Heavenly Axe looked down at his chest, which had been charred black, and muttered in a halting voice.

“This… is impossible…”

Those unfinished words became Heavenly Axe’s last.

Thud.

As his eight-cheok body collapsed, a System notification rang out.

System

• You have defeated Level 93 Bangyeol!
• You have completed Defeat Heavenly Axe!
• You have gained a substantial amount of EXP!

Whoooosh.

Just then, a gust of wind blew from somewhere, swept around Black Stone Mountain, and descended into the clearing.

As the pale fog scattered, the scene beneath it was revealed, and everyone’s eyes widened.

“This can’t be!”

The twentieth-ranked member of the Green Forest Alliance.

The end of Bangyeol, Heavenly Axe—a Peak master counted among the foremost of the countless Green Forest bandits scattered across the continent.

The corpses of more than a hundred bandits who had died in the melee lay scattered throughout the clearing.

The four hundred surviving bandits stared at me with fear-filled eyes.

No. Everyone who had witnessed the scene cried out.

“The Fire King…!”

The Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.

Fifty years ago, in an unnamed wilderness, he had annihilated one thousand Demonic Cultists—a martial artist who could stand against a thousand men alone.

The legend of the Fire Gate Clan had been proven by the Fire King’s myth.

And that spark had now passed to me.

“Choose. Die here, or…”

My entire body was burning hot. Extreme Yang heat flowed between my teeth, sending white steam billowing from my mouth.

I stared at my enemies with flame burning in my eyes.

“Kneel. Every last one of you.”

Clang.

Beginning with a single sword someone dropped helplessly, more than four hundred weapons rolled across the ground.

System

• You have completed Subdue Black Stone Stronghold!
• You have successfully completed the Quest Crisis of the Yongbong Escort Bureau!
• You have gained a substantial amount of EXP!
• Level Up!

The light chime announced the end of the battle.