Chapter 909

“Hah… Hah…”

Hyuk Mujin was gasping for breath. His arms and legs, moving nonstop while he was on edge, creaked like they belonged to someone else. His heart felt ready to burst at any second.

How did it come to this?

Even as he ran for his life, Hyuk Mujin wondered when and where everything had started going wrong.

But as always, one question led to another, with no end in sight. At the end of it all, only one self-mocking thought remained.

Fuck. Was being born the mistake?

Hyuk Mujin felt so wronged and miserable he could have cried.

Why the hell had a textile-shop owner’s son insisted on becoming a martial artist? He could’ve quietly taken over the family business.

If he hadn’t read all those trashy books starring extraordinary martial artists as heroes, he might be like everyone else by now, with a family and two or three kids he adored.

At the very least, he wouldn’t be getting chased by a bunch of weirdos who’d appeared out of nowhere.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

The pursuers’ heavy footsteps rang out behind him. A chill ran down Mujin’s spine.

Shit. If they catch me, I’m done for.

He didn’t know who they were or where they’d been hiding before they suddenly appeared, but one thing was certain.

Those bastards are like monsters. No—they’re monsters.

It wasn’t just a judgment of their martial arts.

The chill, the primal fear he’d felt from the moment he first spotted the black-clad figures, had only grown stronger with time.

What the hell… are they?

His mind was full of questions he couldn’t answer.

And his body, already pushed to its limit, was slipping out of his control a little at a time without him even realizing it.

Slip.

“……!”

His legs suddenly gave out.

Still moving too fast to catch himself, Mujin pitched forward. His eyes flew wide—

“Hyuuuuuk!”

Grab!

A thunderous shout rang out as a powerful hand seized his collar. Mujin, who had nearly slammed face-first into the ground, tried to calm his pounding heart and looked up.

Thump. Thump!

He saw the face of the giant—no, Taishan—running with Mujin tucked under his arm like a piece of luggage.

“Hyuk. You okay?”

Mujin barely managed to squeeze out a reply.

“No. Not even a little.”

“Yeah. You look that way.”

“…If you know, why ask? Are you messing with me?”

“Hyuk. Is that how you treat the person who saved your life?”

“No. Thanks, then.”

“If you’re thankful, pay me back with a hundred bowls of five-spice pork later.”

“I’ll buy you two hundred bowls, not just a hundred. For now, let’s stay alive. Alive.”

“Two hundred bowls?”

Taishan furrowed his brow and slowed down, muttering to himself.

“How much is two hundred bowls?”

Namho and the Divine Physician, perched on Taishan’s broad shoulders, and Mujin, now tucked under his arm, all screamed at once.

“What kind of lunatic does that? Why the hell are you slowing down all of a sudden?”

“Young Hero Taishan! This is no time for that!”

“What are you doing, you crazy bastard?”

But even amid their frantic protests, Taishan’s brow remained furrowed as he wrestled with the problem.

“I don’t understand. How much is the number two hundred?”

“Goddamn it…”

Namho groaned toward the heavens, then turned to look behind them.

The others bringing up the rear—and the black-clad figures right on their heels—were rapidly drawing closer.

“Just answer him! Looks like he’ll need an answer even if his head gets smashed in! Hurry!”

At the Divine Physician’s desperate plea, Namho shouted, his face pale.

“A hundred bowls! If you have a hundred bowls twice, how many is that?”

“Hmm. A hundred bowls twice is… Ah. Taishan understands now.”

At last, Taishan found his answer. He spoke with a triumphant look.

“A hundred and two.”

“You fucking bastard!”

“You goddamn idiot!”

“Ah, Master…”

Wails erupted all around them.

Namho, driven to the edge of his patience, brought his elbow down on Taishan’s thick skull. Mujin let out a sobbing scream. The Divine Physician thought of his absent master and fingered the large acupuncture needle inside his sleeve, wanting, for the first time, to kill someone.

But unlike the others, Taishan’s face shone like the midday sun. He’d worked out for himself how much two hundred bowls was.

“Two hundred bowls. A lot. Anyway, it’s a whole lot!”

Even a hundred bowls would be enough to eat until his stomach burst. And two hundred bowls!

Truthfully, he didn’t know the exact difference between two hundred and a hundred and two. But Taishan decided not to worry about such trivial details.

Then, grinning broadly, he waved both hands at someone who hadn’t heard the good news yet.

“Pavilion Master! Pavilion Master! Taishan gets to eat five-spice pork! Hyuk said he’ll feed me till I burst—a hundred and two? Two hundred? Anyway, till I burst!”

“Don’t worry about your stomach bursting. Before that, I swear to Heaven I’ll burst your head myself—Wait, what did you just say?”

Namho, who’d been hammering away at Taishan’s crown with all the persistence of the Foolish Old Man moving mountains, widened his eyes and looked up.

And saw him.

Namho saw him. So did the Divine Physician, Hyuk Mujin, and every Fire Dragon Pavilion member following behind.

Whoooosh!

Someone was rushing toward them with a fierce whistle of air. Familiar flames burst from his toes.

“Captaiiin!”

Mujin finally let out the tears he’d been holding back.

Life has a way of throwing things at you that make no sense.

For people who’d lived before the Great Cataclysm, it must have been the monsters and Hunters that seemed to drop out of the sky one day. For me, it was the world I’d come to know through the capsule.

The situation in front of me wasn’t quite on that level, but it was still plenty confusing.

“Five-spice pork! A hundred and two! Two hundred!”

Taishan, his face alight with near-maniacal joy.

“Kill this bastard right now! You’re more than capable of cracking this fucking idiot’s head open!”

Namho, radiating so much rage that mania didn’t begin to cover it.

“Waaah! Captain! Why’d you take so long?”

Hyuk Mujin, sobbing with the relief of someone who’d died and come back to life.

“Ah, Master… This unworthy Disciple had a wicked thought.”

And finally, the Divine Physician, muttering with such a serene, transcendent expression that he looked ready to send even the Buddha flying with a Palm Strike of the Tathagata.

“……”

What the fuck?

I had no idea what was going on.

I stared at them, speechless for a moment, then gave up trying to understand.

Though it would be more accurate to say I didn’t have time to make sense of it.

Pat-pat!

“Pavilion Master! No, Young Master Jin! No, Benefactor!”

Ju Hwaran came running toward me, somehow managing to address me by three different titles in the space of a breath. Her clothes were a mess.

Behind her, Song Ilseom and Sama Pyo swung their weapons like mad to keep their pursuers at bay.

Clang!

Slice!

Sword Energy flashed in the darkness, and what looked like blood sprayed through the air.

The wind carried an unbearable stench with it.

What’s that smell?

Even from this distance, it made me frown and turned my stomach.

But I had no time to work out what it was. As the three drew closer, narrowly staying ahead of their pursuers, I moved my lips.

—When I give the signal, everyone get down.

I sent the Sound Transmission to each of them and gathered every last bit of internal energy in my body.

Shhhh…

I drew heat from deep within myself and sent it through every limb and acupoint.

My acupoints, still not fully healed, screamed. I felt the wounds I’d sustained in the fight, large and small, tearing wider. But there was no other way.

I have to do it.

Whummm.

The iron spear I’d taken from some nameless Imperial Guard just before jumping down from the stone wall trembled, filled with Scorching Yang Qi.

The spearhead glowed red. Blue-white flames spread over it, nothing like they once had been, but still too powerful to ignore.

And at last—

Fwoosh.

Hellfire surged around the spearhead, burning the air and devouring the darkness. It swelled toward the figures approaching in silence, without a scream or a shout.

Like a beast poised to charge a flock of sheep.

Hotter and more ferocious than anything else in the world.

—Now.

I sent the signal to the three and swung the spear with all my strength, as though to cut the world in two.

Like a dragon’s tail stretching out without end.

The first form of the Blazing Flame Divine Spear.

Fire Dragon’s Single Tail.

Fwoooosh!

In that moment, all around us lit up as brightly as day.

Blue-white flames leaped from the spearhead and surged forward, burning and melting the ornaments scattered throughout the imperial palace.

They passed over the heads of the three, who’d heard my Sound Transmission and dropped down half a beat before the final moment.

Then they engulfed the vision of the black-clad figures close on their heels.

Kwaaaaaa!

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

A tremendous explosion and roar. Then the earth shook.

Light flashed, and the swelling flames fell like rain, covering a radius of several dozen jang.¹

It was a sight worthy of the name fire demon.

And through the acrid smoke of that blazing inferno, where not even a scream could be heard, three people came running.

Pat-pat!

Ju Hwaran. Song Ilseom. Sama Pyo.

I spotted their familiar faces and gave a faint smile.

Or maybe it was my vision that was growing faint, tilting a little more with every passing moment.

Thump.

Making it look as natural as possible, and without anyone noticing, I straightened the spear and used it to support myself. Then I suppressed my labored breathing.

…Damn it.

Weakness crawled up my body like a living snake.

My internal energy, abundant despite its instability, had run dry. My body, which should’ve been resting, cried out in pain from the strain I’d put it through.

And on top of that came mental exhaustion I could barely bear.

I should’ve held back with the Middle Dantian as much as possible…

I knew well enough there was no point regretting it now.

If I’d held back more, I wouldn’t be in this state. But there was no guarantee things would’ve gone any better.

For now, I could only be satisfied that I’d saved the Fire Dragon Pavilion members, who’d come back here for some reason, from the danger right in front of them.

“Benefactor!”

Ju Hwaran, now right in front of me, shouted with alarm written across her face.

Song Ilseom and Sama Pyo came up on either side of her and spoke, their expressions strained.

“We all have to run.”

“Right now!”

Their reaction was only natural.

My all-out strike had swept through the front ranks, but at a glance, more than a thousand enemies remained. I couldn’t judge their individual strength precisely, but none of them would be easy to deal with.

Then the smoke began to clear. As the scene behind it slowly came into view, I finally understood.

Why they were so desperate.

And why Ma Sanbao had been so confident the rebellion would succeed.

“That’s…”

A faint groan escaped my parted lips.