Chapter 507

I knew Mungyeong was approaching. Seven days and nights of grueling—no, blood-shitting—training had sharpened my usual Qi Sense considerably.

The realm stage shown by the System hadn’t risen yet, but I could vaguely sense that I’d have to break through the wall in front of me before it would.

But what does he mean, not two, but four?

The question didn’t trouble me for long.

The Yangtze River Channel League and the Green Forest Alliance were powerful enough that even orthodox Murim couldn’t afford to dismiss them. And I could think of only one place with factions that belonged in the same set.

Vaguely recalling something Jeok Cheongang had once told me, I murmured, “The Outer Murim.”

The Murim beyond the Central Plains. The Murim outside the Murim.

Some people called the barbarians beyond the Great Wall built by an ancient emperor the Outer Lands, but Jeok Cheongang had always dismissed such talk with a snort.

Does the Great Wall surround the whole world? The world beneath the heavens is exactly that—the world beneath the heavens. The lands beneath the sky are boundlessly vast, and each has its own Murim.

Maybe it was just his nature, but Jeok Cheongang’s outlook was nothing like the stale Zhonghua¹ chauvinism you’d expect from an old man of his era.

The records left by earlier Sect Leaders had probably helped. Unlike Jeok Cheongang, who’d been a Lü Bu² stuck at the foot of a mountain whenever he wasn’t fighting in the Great Faction War, his predecessors had gone out and indulged their social-butterfly tendencies to the fullest.

Though their records read less like documents written for future generations and more like diaries written for their own satisfaction.

What a shock those had been.

I recalled a few I’d read in Fire Gate Cavern.

Year xx, Month x, Day x. Cheonbong, Third Sect Leader of the Fire Gate Clan.

I had grown sick of the Central Plains. War raged on all sides, and Murim was a complete mess. So I went to India to broaden my horizons.

After a long journey, I arrived at a river called the Gan… something.

It is not as large as the Yangtze, but it is wide… Anyway, to the younger Disciples of the Fire Gate Clan: if you ever go to India, wash yourselves in that Gan-whatever river first. Do not ask questions. Do not argue.

I was looking around when a mob of bald monks rushed over, shouted things I could not understand, and thrust swords at me. So I beat them senseless.

A Central Plains interpreter who happened to be passing by was horrified. He said they were from India’s Small Thunderclap Temple.

From the name, I had assumed they would be like the monks of Shaolin Temple. But these bald monks were violent beyond belief.

When more monks came with an even larger mob, I crippled every last one and burned down their strange-looking temples.

It was a fine sight.

Year xx, Month x, Day x. Songhak, Fifth Sect Leader of the Fire Gate Clan.

I have always held my Grandmaster, the Third Sect Leader, in the deepest respect. Following in his footsteps, I traveled the world and explored the Outer Murim.

I fought the Mad Wind Society of the great desert beyond the scorching sands, then visited the Potala Palace in Tibet and pulled out its pillars.

As a result, every man and beast in Tibet flew into a rage and chased after me.

But who am I? Songhak, the Ghost Flame Fist and Fifth Sect Leader of the great Fire Gate Clan.

Without suffering so much as a scratch, I… avoided them and returned safely to the Central Plains.

To whoever inherits the Fire Gate Clan’s true legacy in the distant future, remember this well.

If you face one hundred First Rate masters, fight them. If you face a thousand, unleash the Dance of the Fire God and Demon. If there are more than that, live to fight another day.

Of course, if you are stronger than I am, just fight them.

Ah, and if you go to that Gan-whatever river in India, jump in and wash yourself immediately. Wash yourself twice.

Year xx, Month x, Day x. Gu Jincheon, Ninth Sect Leader of the Fire Gate Clan.

I went to Nanman.³ I destroyed the Five Poisons Sect.

I went to Persia. I met people who wore things called turbans instead of hero headbands.

They were called Muslims, and they said they believed in a messenger and a prophet.

I said I wanted to meet the prophet, but they told me he was already dead. I could not understand this, so I asked several times. They drew their swords.

I had no choice but to send them to the prophet’s side.

Next was the Ice Palace in the North Sea. There was ice and water everywhere, so I turned back.

To the future Disciple reading this: you go.

Ah, and I learned the name of that Gan-whatever river. The Ganges River. If you go to India, make sure you wash yourself there first. Be sure to wash.

Year xx, Month x, Day x. Han Xin, Twelfth Sect Leader of the Fire Gate Clan.

This unworthy Disciple followed the records of his ancestors to India and went straight into the Ganges River.

As I washed my hair, I saw a corpse floating down from upstream.

I moved to another spot to wash my body and saw a turd float past.

When I went upstream, I found several hundred people throwing corpses into the river and taking shits.

For fuck’s sake, how could you pull this kind of bullshit on me?

“……”

They were unbelievable stories, even now.

I only had to skim through the records to see that whenever something displeased them, they smashed their way through anything and everything, whether in the Central Plains or the Outer Murim.

And telling their successors to bathe in the Ganges was like a sergeant about to be discharged writing “more field training” on a barracks survey out of pure spite.

The old you get fucked too mentality.

There were not many more records about the Outer Murim after his shit-water bath in the Ganges left the Twelfth Sect Leader royally pissed off. But once trade routes connecting the Central Plains to the outside world opened, information about the Murim beyond the Central Plains began to flow in.

The two factions Jeok Cheongang was now naming were the closest to the Central Plains, both geographically and in their dealings with it.

“The North Sea Ice Palace and the Nanman Beast Palace.”

Their names certainly made their respective locations and characters clear.

At Jeok Cheongang’s words, Mungyeong nodded with an infuriatingly bright smile.

“Yes, that’s right. My Master told me about them. He visited them long ago, and he said that, from what he saw, neither was inferior to the renowned great sects of the Central Plains.”

“……”

“……”

I’d bet everything Hyuk Mujin owned that he’d gone there to kill people.

The instant Jeok Cheongang and I exchanged similar looks, Mungyeong’s eyes slowly narrowed.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“……Huh? Oh, nothing.”

“Ahem. Nothing at all. Just what I’d expect of the Divine Physician, rushing wherever there are patients.”

I had to play along, of course. Jeok Cheongang had received considerable help from him too, so he was in the same position.

As if he had never done anything suspicious, Mungyeong returned to his medical-apprentice persona and continued.

“My Master said the Demonic Cult tried to recruit those two factions first during the Great Faction War. Is that true, Great Hero Jeok?”

“Hmm? Ah.”

Jeok Cheongang answered with a reluctant look.

“It is true. To the Demonic Cult, the wicked and unorthodox factions of the Central Plains were branches grown from the same root, so they naturally brought them into the fold. If the North Sea Ice Palace had accepted the Demonic Cult’s offer and moved south while the Nanman Beast Palace moved north, the Great Faction War would have taken a very difficult turn.”

But neither faction had taken the Demonic Cult’s hand.

The North Sea Ice Palace had declared itself cut off from the outside world, as it always had. The Nanman Beast Palace, geographically closer to the Central Plains, had weighed its options and sided with orthodox Murim.

“The Beast Palace bastards only meant to make a show of fighting at first, but later they were a great help. Each of the ferocious beasts they brought could do the work of several First Rate masters. And the Heavenly Eagles they’d trained with their secret methods caught the messenger eagles the Demonic Cult sent all over the land.”

The Nanman Beast Palace was practically the public enemy of modern-day animal lovers.

For ages, its people had captured and trained all sorts of creatures from Nanman’s jungles. They’d also developed and practiced martial arts modeled on the movements of ferocious beasts.

“Oh, wait. Didn’t you say you were close to someone over there?”

Jeok Cheongang frowned at my sudden question.

“Who?”

“The Palace Lord. The Palace Lord.”

“The Palace Lord? Ah, you mean the Beast Miao King?”

“Yes, him.”

The Beast Miao King was both the lowest-ranking and the most unusual of the Ten Kings.

He was the leader of the Miao people, who were native to Nanman, as well as the master of the Nanman Beast Palace, the region’s dominant power.

His achievements in the Great Faction War and his outstanding martial arts had earned him a place among the Ten Kings. But from the outside, the title looked almost like an honorary medal awarded to a foreigner. Perhaps that was why even people within Central Plains Murim were reluctant to mention him.

Why raise up some southern barbarian when we could just add another member of orthodox Murim?

That was supposedly where the claim that the Beast Miao King was overhyped had begun.

“I’ve met him a few times, that’s all,” Jeok Cheongang said.

“But I heard the Beast Miao King even came to pay his respects to you in person.”

“He did. In broad daylight, some dark-skinned fellow with his upper body bare showed up at my residence. I nearly hit him with a Flame Divine Palm.”

Mu Song had been standing awkwardly nearby for a while, looking anxious. Now his eyes widened.

“Is that really true?”

“Would this old man start making up lies at my age?”

“N-no, that’s not what I meant. I’m just surprised. My Master has mentioned the Beast Miao King too, but I heard he was short-tempered and arrogant, and that the Martial God was the only person he showed any courtesy to……”

“The Seafaring King? Has that young whelp gone senile already? The Beast Miao King didn’t show him courtesy because he’s a damn fool. Tsk, tsk.”

Jeok Cheongang clicked his tongue with an expression of utter disdain and continued.

“The Beast Miao King may look like that, but he knows when to show respect. If he were nothing but a brute with strength to spare, do you think the Miao people would have gathered under one banner?”

I had to nod at that.

Small and midsized sects with only a few dozen members disappeared for lack of Disciples all the time, only for others to spring up in their place. The Beast Miao King, meanwhile, was a chief who ruled at least several thousand Miao people.

“So?”

Jeok Cheongang stroked his glossy red beard.

“What do you mean, ‘so’? There was nothing special about it. He came to visit and spoke in a soft, ingratiating tone while bringing up a connection with the previous generation.”

“A connection between our predecessors?”

“Good grief, you ignorant little fool. You of all people should know!”

“Whoa. What’s wrong?”

Our Old Master had suddenly floored the accelerator and rocketed off.

After giving me a thorough scolding, Jeok Cheongang continued in an irritated voice.

“More than two hundred years ago, the Fifth Sect Leader of our sect destroyed Nanman’s Five Poisons Sect.”

“What does that have to… Ah, wait.”

“Back then, Nanman was like a cauldron standing on three legs. The Five Poisons Sect was the strongest, followed by the Nanman Beast Palace, then Poison Valley.”

“So when the Five Poisons Sect was destroyed, the Nanman Beast Palace rose to the top?”

“That’s right. It absorbed Poison Valley as well and took control of Nanman.”

“Wow, that’s insane. So that’s how it happened.”

“That’s why the Beast Miao King held goodwill toward our sect. It was also one reason he joined the Great Faction War. But did you just dare speak to me informally?”

“……I’ll correct myself. It just slipped out.”

I couldn’t help marveling at how the thuggish behavior of a Sect Leader from generations ago had paid off like this.

More importantly, the Beast Miao King was well disposed toward the Fire Gate Clan, and that was part of why he’d sided with orthodox Murim in the Great Faction War……

“Then there’s a good chance the Nanman Beast Palace will join this Murim Alliance.”

“I can’t say for sure. Even this old man cannot make an easy judgment about that. But if the Beast Miao King I remember is still the same, he will help orthodox Murim.”

“What about the North Sea Ice Palace?”

“If the envoy sent from Henan hasn’t frozen to death on the way, they’ll probably read the letter, at least. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

Jeok Cheongang’s seasoned gaze turned toward Mu Song.

“But our more urgent concern is right here. What will the Seafaring King do?”

Mu Song flinched. Then Mungyeong spoke quietly.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while, Great Hero Mu Song.”

“Uh, yes?”

Mungyeong watched Mu Song’s trembling eyes in silence, then clicked his tongue.

“You know who I am, don’t you?”

“……!”