Chapter 957

The cliffs flanking Eight Spring Gorge were enormous walls in their own right.

How could they not be?

They stood more than thirty jang¹ high.

Even the Great Wall, built long ago by a tyrant who unified the continent by squeezing the lifeblood out of his people, was barely three jang tall.

To go around the cliffs and reach this place, an army would have to spend days crossing rugged mountain ridges. To break through head-on, they would have to climb the rock face towering above them.

Of course, that wasn’t impossible.

It was generally accepted that even an experienced Mountain Herb Gatherer or hunter could climb the cliffs given enough preparation and time. The uneven rock offered plenty of handholds and footholds.

But that was a different story if the thousand archers stationed atop the cliffs on either side of the gorge had no intention of welcoming visitors.

As they did now.

“AAAAAAAH!”

The nomads surged toward the cliffs like a swarm of ants, their cries somewhere between screams and battle shouts.

At that very moment, the officers, their sharp eyes fixed on the scene in the darkness below, spoke as one.

“Everyone!”

“Loose!”

Flap!

A red flag, its color barely discernible in the dark, dropped like lightning. At once, a thousand taut bowstrings were set free.

Thrum-thrum-thrum! Fwoooooosh!

The sound of waves echoed through the deep mountains.

Arrows quivered as they cut through the faint moonlight, as if they knew what awaited them at the end of their brief journey.

Clang! Thud-thud-thud!

“Gaaah!”

“No! Holrogu!”

Bodies tumbled in every direction amid the screams.

But the man watching the gruesome scene from high atop the cliff looked grim.

Even with every archer firing in a concentrated volley, we only got a hundred.

A faint, clear light shone in his eyes—a sign that he had mastered high-level martial arts and could see through the darkness below.

Their losses are smaller than expected. Even if they abandoned their horses beforehand and came prepared with shields, this is…

There was only one answer.

After a moment’s thought, the man raised his baton. His adjutant, waiting with a tense expression, tied his superior’s order to an arrow and shot it toward the opposite cliff.

Fwish.

The arrow traced a smooth arc, but it was still an arrow. Yet as it came whistling in, someone caught it as easily as if it had flown straight into his hand.

Tap.

The old man caught the arrow without looking, untied the missive fastened to its shaft, and handed it to an officer nearby. The armored officer quickly scanned its contents.

“Well? What does it say?”

“He says that, judging by how sharply their casualties have fallen, the enemy must have sent in their elite troops.”

“That’s a headache, but… it might actually work in our favor.”

The old man stroked his snow-white beard.

These towering cliffs were the perfect defensive position. They were one of the main reasons Eight Spring Gorge had become a natural fortress—and why the defenders had won decisive victories in both great battles fought here.

The enemy elites sent to scale them were about to see a hellscape.

“And what else?”

“He asks our left wing to deal with the men climbing the cliffs. The right wing will keep the enemy trying to break through the gorge in check.”

“Asked? By age, I may be the presiding chair, but on a battlefield like this, I follow the general’s orders. Don’t I?”

The officer answered with an uncertain smile.

As far as he knew, the old man before him was an astonishing master with a great reputation in Murim, while the man on the opposite cliff was his superior by far.

As a mid-ranking officer caught between them, he had no ready answer.

All he could do was follow orders and offer a cautious suggestion.

“The Assistant Military Commissioner did ask…”

“Enough, enough. It means this old man has to step in, doesn’t it?”

The old man waved a hand, patted his lower back, and stood. Something dark and dull was already in his hand.

Thump.

At nearly a jang long, it was far too long to be a cane. And the sound it made against the rock was too heavy for wood.

What in the world is that?

Leaving the officer’s unspoken question behind, the old man walked in front of the archers, who were firing without pause, and plopped himself down.

He recalled his conversation with Jin Wikyung before the battle.

“Senior, I’ll need you to take charge of the cliffs.”

“I owe you a debt, so of course I’ll do as you ask… but this doesn’t sound like you. Wouldn’t I be far more useful down below?”

The old man’s objection was reasonable enough.

Of the fifteen thousand troops, a thousand carefully selected archers held the cliffs and rained arrows down from above. How many enemies could possibly make it up alive? What need was there for a powerful master?

But Jin Wikyung had answered without hesitation.

“You’re right. They’ll think the same thing.”

“…!”

“They’ll climb the cliffs. They’ll have to.”

“You’re already certain of it.”

“Our allies on the ground will fight to the death with everything they have. It’s only a matter of time before the enemy targets the cliffs, and their very best troops will be among those they send.”

“And you want this old man to stop them?”

“If we can stop them from scaling the cliffs, we can deal them a major blow. If we hold that position to the end, we can level the scales, even though they’re tipped so heavily against us.”

Only then had the old man remembered something.

He had known the Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan for less than a year, but in all that time, Jin Wikyung had always made the wise choice.

“Fine. I’ll land you a big fish in this battle, just as you want.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard. I know you’ve recovered completely, Senior, but you still need time to recuperate…”

“Don’t worry. I already owe the Jin Family of Taiyuan my life twice. This time, I’ll repay that debt in full.”

People of Murim did not forget gratitude and grudges.

The older they were, and the more Fame they had earned, the truer that became.

The old man was both old and renowned.

He had spent his entire life in his hometown, never joining a sect. Even after reaching the lofty realm of Supreme Peak, he had stayed there.

He’d meant to lay his bones in the place where he was born and raised.

Until the day he met a woman of extraordinary beauty and, soon afterward, lost his mind.

“At last… the time has come to repay my debt.”

The old man murmured in a low voice.

The Jin Family of Taiyuan was not the only one to whom he owed a debt. They had restored the mind that had been taken from him against his will and spent months treating his grievous injuries.

There was Dark Heaven, too.

He owed them a debt of vengeance, too.

No—he had to take revenge.

“Come on, then.”

The small-framed old man smiled faintly and gripped his beloved weapon. With a motion he had repeated countless times since childhood, he swung both arms with force.

Whoom.

His weapon—an impressive three jang long—whipped and bent as it scattered a dark, dull flash.

A silver-white line and hook extended from its tip, shooting toward the enemies climbing the cliff to escape the rain of arrows.

Shwaaaaa! Shhk!

White streaks tore through everything in their path.

Flesh and bone split like tofu. Dozens of severed limbs, armor and all, slid down the cliff.

Overwhelming power.

With both his martial prowess and the terrain in his favor, it seemed no enemy could evade the old man’s attack.

No—or so it seemed.

Then a red flash flickered through the dense silver net spread across the cliff.

Shhk. Shhk!

The whistle it made was fainter than the wind.

But the old man felt it clearly. The blow had severed part of the silver line that writhed like a living thing as it tore enemies apart.

And the power behind that red flash was in no way beneath his own.

Force…!

There was no doubt about it. Only power of the same kind could sever Heavenly Silkworm Thread imbued with Force in a single swing.

“How dare you!”

Shwick!

The old man roared, and his hand blurred.

His beloved weapon, imbued with strength and speed, thrashed like an imugi.² The archers, sensing something was wrong, gritted their teeth and drew their bows.

“Concentrate your fire!”

“That one! The man in front is their leader! Fire together!”

Thrum! Sh-sh-sh-shhk!

Thud-thud-thud!

“Gah… urk!”

“Aaaah!”

Arrows whistled and men screamed without pause.

But nothing could stop the figure that had slipped through the mighty web of arrows covering the cliff.

Clang!

He batted away the old man’s next attack.

Whoosh!

He twisted his body, dodging dozens of arrows aimed at him from every direction as if performing an acrobatic feat.

Tap.

He stepped onto the steep cliff.

No—he blasted off it.

Ka-boom! Fwoooooosh!

He was running and flying at once.

Even a master of the Wall Lizard Technique could not have matched his speed. He charged onward in defiance of the laws that had governed the world since time immemorial.

And finally—

Tap.

The figure reached the edge of the distant cliff and faced the old man waiting for him.

Or, more precisely, with the silver flash whipping around at the old man’s fingertips.

Whoom. Shwaaaaa!

Space split apart.

Amid wind cut into dozens, then hundreds of pieces and the brilliant white glow of Force, the old man saw the figure’s face.

A gaunt build. Sharp eyes.

The man was unmistakably a nomad—and at that moment, he was smiling.

“…!”

Crack!

A section of the cliff crumbled under the tremendous force.

But there was no sign that anyone had died.

As the archers on the cliff wavered, the old man clicked his tongue and suddenly spoke to the man standing upright on empty air.

“Who are you?”

The man answered.

“A hunter.”

“Then you’ve come to the wrong place.”

“That’s what I thought at first, too. But I changed my mind.”

The man—Chinggen—looked at the old man and licked his lips.

“You’re a little old, but you look pretty appetizing. Don’t you think?”

The old man snorted.

“Third Rate hunter. You don’t even know that the older you get, the tougher you are.”

“That’s fine. I’ve got strong teeth.”

Chinggen bared his teeth in a grin, then asked,

“So who are you?”

“A fisherman.”

The old man answered calmly, then added,

“I thought there were only minnows here. Catching an unexpected whopper has put me in a fine mood.”

“That fish looks too big for an old man like you to catch.”

“What can a brat like you do, no matter how hard you flop around? I’ll grab you by the tail and slam you down a couple of times. That’ll be the end of it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

The hunter smiled at the fisherman. At that moment, the sobriquet of someone who resembled the old fisherman before him circled in his mind.

A previous-generation master who had reached great heights, yet never left the riverbank—and wielded a strange weapon.

“We’ll soon see who succeeds in the hunt. Won’t we, Dongting Fisherman?”

The old man, Dongting Fisherman, raised his beloved black-wood fishing rod and answered,

“Indeed. What a catch.”

Shwaaa!

Two currents of wind collided head-on.