The Price Of A Misjudgment (2)

“What was that?”

Ye Mong, the Many-Legged Beggar and a sub-branch leader of the Beggar’s Sect’s Cheongpung Branch, sprang to his feet. At a young beggar’s report that a fight had broken out at the pier, he had come running at full speed.

If nothing else, he prided himself on his lightness skill, so he had arrived far ahead of the other beggars, claimed a good spot, and watched the fight.

But what in the world was this? A powerful martial art that came with thunder…?

“Damn it! I shouldn’t have come early.”

Within the Beggar’s Sect, he alone had witnessed the scene. Which meant that if the higher-ups started looking for an eyewitness, they would drag him around from place to place.

“I didn’t see it. I saw nothing. Nothing.”

He turned to leave. To Ye Mong, the hassle of being roped into trouble mattered more than the fact that someone had just used a forbidden martial art.

“What didn’t you see?”

Even Ye Mong—nicknamed the Many-Legged Beggar for his speed—was a step too slow.

“M-master! You’re here?”

Ye Mong greeted him in an awkward voice. It was his master, Choe Hyeon, the Long-Lived Beggar, who had been sitting stubbornly long in the post of Cheongpung Branch Master.

Tap.

“What did you not see, I’m asking?”

Choe Hyeon smacked Ye Mong once on the head with the staff in his hand and took a step closer.

“Ow! See what? I saw it all—everything!”

Ye Mong took a step back to avoid his master’s staff.

“So what did you see…?”

Choe Hyeon asked again as he advanced, then stopped dead, as if his mouth had frozen shut.

“W-what is this? Who the hell fought for there to be blood everywhere like that?”

Choe Hyeon shouted in shock without even looking at Ye Mong.

“It was the Jinju Eon Clan.”

“The Eon Clan did this?”

“They didn’t do it—they got hit. All at once it went ‘ruuumble, BANG!’ and it ended up like that.”

“What? ‘Ruumble, BANG’? Don’t tell me a Thunderclap Bomb exploded?”

“A Thunderclap Bomb ends with just one ‘BANG.’ I’m telling you I heard the ‘ruuumble’ first.”

Tap.

“Then what are you saying, you brat!”

“Ah, seriously! It was Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign—Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign. Doesn’t it click now?”

“You little—?”

Choe Hyeon raised his staff again, but Ye Mong had already caught on and was gone, fleeing far away.

“Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign? What lunatic learned that?”

Choe Hyeon left the escaping Ye Mong alone and turned to look over the battlefield where the fight had erupted.

At that moment, the blood-smeared scene was shifting into a new phase.

“You brat!”

“Yes?”

“Run to the main headquarters, now. Go meet the Sect Leader and report exactly what you saw here. This is an emergency.”

“Yes. Damn it! I knew it would come to this.”

As events unfolded exactly as he had feared, Ye Mong grimaced and trudged into motion.

“Run faster, you brat!”

Choe Hyeon bellowed after him.

“I said I got it.”

Ye Mong answered back, pretending to run at best, gradually putting distance between himself and Choe Hyeon. Then, true to the name Many-Legged Beggar, he vanished in no time.

Neung Je-gang did not retreat. He watched the Eon Clan’s Cheon-gang Unit approaching while maintaining their encirclement.

As if they had received some order, a grim resolve seeped from every inch of their bodies.

“I see. They mean to fight to the death?”

Neung Je-gang read Eon Cheong-gun’s intent. If the Eon Clan’s experts all died by his hand here, the Eon Clan could at least earn the martial world’s reverence. In exchange, Neung Je-gang himself would inevitably become a vicious public enemy of the martial world.

A devil who spared not even those who were no match for him.

“So he plans to let his men die, then whip up public opinion for himself. They only ever said the Eon Clan Head was foul-tempered and reckless—turns out his brain’s a fox. Then should I rethink this?”

He had been about to stop the fight here. He had assumed that once they realized they were outmatched, they would withdraw on their own.

But Eon Cheong-gun was the kind of man who would do anything for his clan.

“It’s already too late to turn back, so we’ll see it through.”

Neung Je-gang raised his left hand and pointed toward Eon Cheong-gun in the distance. He could not move from his current position until Cheong Yeon finished his breathing cultivation and stood again—but if he decided to attack, it was not impossible.

Wooo-woong.

“W-what is it?”

Eon Cheong-gun tensed when he saw Neung Je-gang extend a hand toward him. He prepared to dodge, expecting the Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign to come flying at him.

But the palm-force he expected never arrived.

Shweeeek!

Instead, a single line of powerful finger-force, carrying a sharp rending sound through the air, crashed into his face in the blink of an eye.

“Aaagh!”

Thud!

Eon Cheong-gun threw himself down onto the ground and barely avoided the attack.

He knew rolling in the dirt to avoid an assault would make him a laughingstock—but when he might die, pride meant nothing.

Shweeeek!

The attack did not end with one strike. The powerful finger-force aimed at Eon Cheong-gun kept coming in rapid succession, as if distance did not matter.

Eon Cheong-gun even considered blocking it. But he gave up after seeing the hole the finger-force carved into the earth.

It was a bottomless gouge—far too deep to be explained by “finger-force” alone.

Paeng Do-wi quietly widened the distance between himself and Eon Cheong-gun. Neung Je-gang’s finger-force was terrifying enough to kill any desire to help—and Paeng Do-wi lacked the ability to help anyway. More than that, he had no intention of getting swept up and struck just for standing near the wrong man.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

After seeing their clan head flail and shriek while dodging Neung Je-gang’s attacks, the Cheon-gang Unit could not stay still. In the end, they launched another assault toward Neung Je-gang.

Gangsi Art had one fatal weakness. Because it fundamentally strengthened the body, it forced its users into close combat. Without forming a formation, the Eon Clan Fist became their primary means of attack.

Neung Je-gang sighed as he watched the Cheon-gang Unit crash in toward him. Like it or not, he had to grapple with them.

“Captain!”

Just then, Cheong Yeon finished his breathing cultivation and rose.

“Did you purge the poison?”

“Yes. Fortunately, it wasn’t that strong.”

“Good. Then try them again. Nothing builds experience like fighting the strong. But this time won’t be easy, so be careful.”

Neung Je-gang handed Eon Cheong-gun over to Cheong Yeon.

“Understood.”

Cheong Yeon had wanted to feel that sensation again—the moment when he had driven Eon Cheong-gun back, when Eon Cheong-gun had been desperate just to evade Cheong Yeon’s sword.

In that instant, an unknown thrill had surged up in his chest.

But the feeling had gone cold when five members of the Cheon-gang Unit attacked.

Cheong Yeon refocused on Eon Cheong-gun and advanced again.

Neung Je-gang watched Cheong Yeon slip back into battle stance, then drew his sword once more toward the Cheon-gang Unit.

This time, he did not need to use Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign. The Cheon-gang Unit’s numbers had dwindled too far to form a formation, and they had no spare men to send after Eon Cheong-gun.

He drew up his inner power and infused it into the Mindless Sword. There was no need to raise sword aura yet.

More than ten had died, but nearly twenty still remained. The Cheon-gang Unit watched Neung Je-gang’s empty left hand more closely than the Mindless Sword in his right. Both the Heaven-Shattering Thunderbolt Sovereign and the finger-force that had tormented their clan head had flown from that left hand.

“Don’t fear sword aura. As long as he’s human, he can’t use sword aura without limit.”

One man shouted to his comrades. They had resolved themselves to death. They also knew they could not retreat.

They remembered the power of Neung Je-gang’s sword as well. Sword aura was not something anyone could use.

But sword aura consumed immense inner power. If a few of them sacrificed themselves to drain his reserves, then sword aura would not be so frightening.

If it wasn’t sword aura, there was nothing to fear. Some had been struck by the blade early on, but though they had been sent flying, none had died.

“Strike!”

With his face muscles hardened into a stiff mask, the Cheon-gang Unit Leader spat out the signal to attack in a thick, clumsy voice.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The Cheon-gang Unit raised both hands, prepared to unleash the Eon Clan Fist, and hurled themselves forward.

Once more, a battle fought with their lives was beginning.