Chapter 476

When was it?

I once saw a line like that in an old wuxia¹ film whose title I no longer remember.

“Martial arts are only vertical and horizontal. In the end, one of us falls and the other remains standing.”

It was true. The countless battles I had fought in Murim had always ended in one of two ways.

Either I knocked them down, or they knocked me down.

Except for the Blood Lord, who had escaped even after losing an arm, the outcome had always been one or the other—and it had never been me who fell.

But when I plunged into the deep river while clinging to the Mutated Water God Dragon, I remembered another possibility I had briefly forgotten.

What if this bastard runs?

He had effectively been the master of Dongting Lake and the Yangtze for hundreds of years.

They said even a mutt had half the battle won in its own yard. If the bastard decided to run, there was no way I could stop him.

At the same time, I realized that I had been laboring under a serious misconception.

This shouldn’t have been a battle. It should have been a hunt.

This was not a life-and-death duel between two martial artists.

To bring down the monster before me, I had to do whatever it took, by any means necessary.

I had lived as a Hunter for seven solid years, yet without realizing it, I had been pretending to be some hidebound martial artist. I couldn’t help laughing quietly at myself.

What a stupid thing to do.

Hunter and martial artist. Martial artist and Hunter.

Both were part of my identity. I was the one and only modern martial artist—and Murim’s Hunter.

Standing once more on the blurred boundary between them, a line that had nearly faded away, I reminded myself of that fact.

That’s right. This is it.

It felt as though I had awakened from a very long sleep. I landed lightly on the shore and let out a thunderous shout.

“Form an attack formation!”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

The flow of the air changed in an instant, and three pairs of eyes widened. Of the three, Jeok Cheongang and Mungyeong stared at me with trembling eyes before speaking.

“I coddle you a little, and now a greenhorn still wet behind the ears dares speak casually to this old man?”

“The Fire King made a complete mess of training his Disciple.”

“…I apologize. It slipped out.”

I’d forgotten who was standing here.

I must have lost my head after getting swept up in the moment.

Unlike the two old men glaring at me with their eyes blazing, Cheongpung responded enthusiastically.

“Benefactor, that was so cool! Mimi! Form an attack formation!”

Chirik!

“I swear to heaven and earth that one day, I will turn that snake bastard into liquor—”

Jeok Cheongang’s oath never reached its conclusion.

The enormous shadow wavering across the rolling surface finally burst through the water and revealed itself.

—Kroaaaaaaaaah!

A roar more savage than any before shook heaven and earth.

Overwhelming qi exploded from its body, as large as a small mountain, and bore down on everything around it. The air trembled beneath the Fear it released.

At the center of it all, dozens of jang² above us in the distant sky, was a pitch-black pupil looking down at us.

When that single eye, formed from darkness without even a speck of light, gleamed, a groan escaped someone’s lips.

“Ugh…!”

Fear of the unknown.

Everyone except Cheongpung and me remained at least partly vulnerable to the Fear emitted by the Mutated Water God Dragon.

Even Supreme Peak masters counted among the greatest in the world were no exception.

But…

I’m here.

I was a veteran Hunter who had fought monsters until I was sick of them. That was who I was.

I had stood my ground against an undead army numbering in the tens of thousands, rotten flesh dangling from their bodies as they charged. I had no reason to tremble in fear just because one eel the size of an aircraft carrier had joined the fight.

“Now that I look at you again, you’re practically a fairy.”

The words had barely left my mouth before the back of my head began to prickle. From the listener’s perspective, it probably sounded like complete madness.

But what I had just said was one hundred percent sincere.

It’s true that this bastard is powerful, but the Arch Lich was much harder to deal with—and much stronger.

If the Skeleton King hadn’t helped me back then, I would have died without question.

But the important thing was that I had survived and brought the bastard down. The fear I had felt while facing the Arch Lich had become experience, carved into my body and mind in its entirety.

And I’m a fast learner.

Good or bad, every experience became part of me. Over the past seven years, I had learned how to survive and how to win.

I drew a deep breath and raised White Flame’s shaft high into the air.

Then I slammed the end down with all my strength. A level of internal energy never seen before rode the shaft.

Goooooong!

The wave of qi that shot outward with the deafening boom pushed back the Fear radiating from the dragon.

The crushing pressure that had completely surrounded us dissipated as though an invisible pane of glass had shattered.

“This is…”

“You…”

Jeok Cheongang and Mungyeong stared at me in astonishment. I kept my eyes fixed on the dragon and spoke.

“First. Don’t get scared for no reason.”

“……!”

“……!”

Everyone carried fears, great and small, inside their hearts. Fear was a force that preyed upon those fears and turned them into terror.

But once that fear was stripped away, we could finally recognize something we had forgotten.

—Krrrrrrrr.

The enormous monster letting out that low growl was not as powerful or frightening as we had imagined.

I stared straight into its gleaming, pitch-black pupil and continued.

“Second. From this point on, follow my instructions and beat the shit out of that bastard without mercy.”

Mungyeong’s dry voice pierced my ears.

“I do not particularly care for the process, but the result sounds rather pleasant.”

“You don’t dislike it because of that, do you?”

“What do you take me for?”

“That was a stupid question.”

The Slaughter Saint.

The greatest assassin, past or present, in Murim’s long history.

To an assassin who eliminated a target by any means necessary, the process did not matter. Only the result did.

“Old Master.”

“As far as this old man remembers, I never taught you how to deal with an evil beast like that… We can discuss it after we finish the bastard off.”

Tssssss!

After Jeok Cheongang’s curt reply, Cheongpung answered with purple Sword Force instead of words.

It was a nightmare of a party composition: nothing but DPS, without a healer or a tank. Even so, there could not have been a more powerful raid team.

Four Supreme Peak masters.

A lineup impressive enough to make even a five-star Jangsu stone bed weep.³

Compared to the enormous body of the Mutated Water God Dragon, we were no more than ants. But inside each of us crouched a giant carrying an unprecedented power.

And now, the four giants were going to hunt a colossal monster.

“You’re dead now.”

As if it understood me, the Mutated Water God Dragon raised its enormous body from beneath the surface and roared.

—Gwooooooooooar!

Krrrrung, kwaaaaaaaaaang!

With a single roar, dozens of waterspouts rose and came crashing toward us. Between them, the dragon’s ragged maw split wide.

Gooooooooong—!

The air vibrated faster and more powerfully than before.

But before the third Water Breath could take shape, a shout burst from my lips and pierced the wind and rain to reach everyone’s ears.

“Spread out!”

Shwish-shwish-shwish-shwish!

As though following a prearranged signal, four figures shot away in different directions and took positions around the dragon.

At last, it was time for the hunt.

Raid.

When the unreal invaded reality and Hunters and monsters began fighting one another to the death, this word—once used only in fantasy games—became something even a three-year-old child knew.

But none of the billions of people who had survived the Great Cataclysm could have imagined that another raid was taking place somewhere beyond time and space, against a strange monster resembling a dragon.

Nor could they have imagined that a familiar face was caught up at the center of it all.

Tat-tat, shweeeeeek!

A solidly built figure bounded off fragments of flying rock and shot skyward.

A massive tail passed within a hair’s breadth, smashing into a half-collapsed cliff and unleashing a blast of wind.

Through his streaming hair, the eyes of the young man—Jin Taekyung—gleamed.

If I cut that tail now… No. Don’t.

Jin Taekyung restrained the hand that instinctively wanted to swing his spear.

He knew exactly what mattered most in this raid.

He had to block the Mutated Water God Dragon’s escape, lure it as far onto land as possible, and dispatch it in a flash.

If he struck back and wounded it before then, he might only put the monster on guard.

Of course, someone watching the scene had a slightly different opinion.

“You fucking piece of—!”

I can’t lose the Disciple I only managed to gain in my old age like this!

But Jeok Cheongang’s movement as he prepared to launch a palm strike at the monster, accompanied by a thick curse, abruptly stopped at the shout that rang out the next moment.

“Old Master!”

“……!”

Fwoosh, kwaaaaaaaaaang!

The Scorching Yang Qi hastily veered aside and burned the innocent ground.

For the briefest instant, puzzlement passed through the dragon’s pitch-black eye. Then it changed into the eye of a savage beast.

—Gwoooooooooar!

Whoom, bang!

With a roar, its enormous tail swept across the ground like a broom.

Jeok Cheongang leaped into the air at the last instant to evade the attack and exploded in frustration.

“How long are you planning to make us retreat!”

Kwaang!

Far above the ground, Jin Taekyung dodged the monster’s body as it came crashing toward him and answered.

“I told you I’d give the signal!”

“And when is that going to be?”

“I’ll handle it when the time comes, so please stop shitting all over the place! There’s only so much trolling I can take! Do what you’re told like everyone else!”

“……!”

Jeok Cheongang’s eyes trembled.

Some of the strange words prevented him from understanding exactly what Taekyung meant, but he had heard one thing perfectly clearly.

A dump? This old man is taking a dump?

Until recently, he had been worried that his infirmities of old age might progress to the point where he started smearing feces on the walls. Now the boy he considered his Disciple was saying something that vile to him.

The shout that followed jolted Jeok Cheongang out of his shock.

“Old Master, now! Fall back thirty jang²! Cheongpung, move behind the bastard! Mungyeong, take the flank!”

“Yes, Benefactor!”

“What a strange fellow. I agreed to follow your lead, not to let you speak casually to me.”

“For fuck’s sake, I really can’t stand ranged-DPS assholes who refuse to communicate. Just listen to me!”

“……!”

Seeing Mungyeong struck speechless, clamp his mouth shut, and silently do as he was told improved Jeok Cheongang’s mood slightly.

At least he calls me Old Master.

He should have been angry. But seeing Mungyeong addressed by his bare name like some nobody from next door made Jeok Cheongang grateful that Taekyung had not simply called him Cheongang.

At the same time, he thought he understood Mungyeong’s feelings as he moved without another word.

What is this strange feeling?

How should he put it?

Jin Taekyung was radiating an almost absurd air of command.

And in Jeok Cheongang’s estimation, it was not the overwhelming presence or bearing of a Supreme Peak master.

It was more like…

A veteran. Yes, exactly. A battle-hardened veteran.

Jeok Cheongang had lived his entire life as a martial artist. He had never had any connection to the authorities, nor had he ever been a soldier.

Yet for some reason, he felt as though he understood what it was like for a fresh recruit on the battlefield to stand before a battle-hardened veteran.

“What an incredibly strange fellow, no matter how many times I look at him…”

“Hey, Jeok Cheongang! Snap out of it!”

“……!”

The corner of Jeok Cheongang’s eye twitched. But before he could unleash his anger, the words he had been waiting for finally rang out.

“Now—strike!”

Shwish-shwish-shwish-shwish!

The four giants shot forward at the same time toward the Water God Dragon, which had finally left the waters of Dongting Lake and climbed onto land.