Flying Dragoon Thirteenth Unit (3)

“Uwaaah! It’s over!”

I more or less fell out of the trees and hit the ground.

Two full months of this blasted one-shichen treetop sprint, and my body still refused to get used to it.

Granted, I kept upping the weight of my steel vest.

When I reached the clearing, the others had already begun breath cultivation.

With Captain Seol Pung heading back out for a second run, and Bae Jonggwan trailing even later than me, I was apparently the last to arrive.

“You’re a bit late today. Good work.”

Assistant Captain Na Seoyu, our platoon’s vice-captain, greeted me with her familiar bright smile just as she was about to start cultivating.

With her gently drooped eyes and ever-smiling face, Na Seoyu was—today again—both considerate and beautiful.

The simple fact that I could see her again made me absurdly happy.

“Ah—yes. I added more weight and lost speed. Guess I still need more training, haha!”

When I answered with an awkward laugh, she smiled again and praised me.

“Training is about being a little better than yesterday, right? You’re really something, Young Master Seonu.”

“N-no, it’s nothing, really. Compared to the captain, it’s a drop in the bucket. Hahaha!”

Even in my last life, when everyone called me a pig and shunned me, Na Seoyu had wrapped me in warmth.

That was when I’d fallen for her.

I never got to confess. I never managed to prevent her death.

“Rest a little before you begin. I’ll start my practice first.”

“Ah—yes! Please go ahead!”

I stole a glance at her face as she entered breath cultivation, then quickly looked away so no one would notice and sat to cultivate as well.

Two months had passed since I came to the front. About a month ago, the women—Cheong-yeon, Na Seoyu, and Cheon Jueun—started joining training.

From what I heard, Cheong-yeon had wanted to join from the start, but the other ladies coaxed her to wait a little longer.

When we first arrived, she had asked me something serious.

“Don’t you think there are too many experts here?”

“Pardon?”

“Out of barely seventy people, there are five pinnacle experts in their twenties. The ratio is too high. Even the Martial Alliance—full of ‘prodigies’—isn’t like this.”

I smiled and answered:

“Maybe it’s because people here are more desperate than those in the Alliance? If you fall behind in strength here, you really die.”

“Hmm.”

After that, it was as if her competitive spirit had been lit; she threw herself into training with frightening intensity.

It was the same once she joined our regimen.

Among the women, she alone wore a steel vest and ran the treetops.

I’d known she was curious to a fault, but her will to win was no joke either.

She even said she wanted to join our external-arts training and nearly gave us all a heart attack.

Striking a woman’s bare skin with split bamboo? Not even external-art pervert Bae Jonggwan could bring himself to do that.

In the end, when she learned that to do external training she would have to strip to the waist and smear on medicinal paste, she had to back down—but the way she looked genuinely disappointed… that was so very Cheong-yeon.

Everything else was going smoothly.

The Chaos-Origin Infinite Art truly was supreme, and now that I’d begun the Seonu Thirteen Swords, my growth was incomparable to my previous life.

I was actually looking forward to my match with Ju Taegyeong, a month away.

My friends I most wanted to save—Bi Sayoung and Bae Jonggwan—were also progressing well.

Bi Sayoung grumbled constantly, but with his stubbornness he never quit, and the newly learned Kwaeui Heart Method had given him wings.

Bae Jonggwan, unlike in my past life, was pouring effort not only into external arts but also into body-lightening and his new inner art.

His fixation on external arts had been almost a form of spite.

A determination to be recognized by the very thing everyone dismissed.

Probably because of his late father’s last words—yet that same spite had made him neglect all other training to hammer only external arts.

To him I said:

“There’s a school that pursued Diamond Indestructibility—I happen to have their inner art. Want to learn it?”

“…Diamond Indestructibility?”

For practitioners of external arts, those words were like a dream.

He couldn’t help but bite.

“Yes. They trained inside and out to realize true Diamond Indestructibility. I even have their medicinal formulas; if we blend them with yours, the effect should be even better.”

“Y-you’d give me that? You—you’re….”

I gripped his hand as his eyes misted.

“I’m not giving it—I’m learning it with you. We’ll both become Diamond Indestructible. How about it?”

“Together… Diamond Indestructible…. Kh—thank you, Jin!”

As he finally burst into tears, I comforted him—and apologized in my heart.

There was no such sect as “Diamond Indestructibility School.”

Well, maybe there was, but I’d never heard of it.

What I had was the Iron Arhat Heart Method and medicinal formulas derived from Shaolin.

Shaolin always valued both inner and external arts; it suited Bae perfectly. I’d just dressed it up to motivate him.

A prick of conscience—but if the motive and the result are good, doesn’t that make it good?

Justifying myself thus, I kept working external arts with him.

For now, this—raising myself and my comrades—seemed the only thing I could do.

Two months here—if my memory was right, a major incident would soon occur. Something far beyond my duel with Ju Taegyeong.

And my memory almost never failed me.

In my past life, one day some fifty Wild Hound Ghosts surged like a tidal wave.

We had never faced more than half a dozen at once; in that unprecedented disaster, one whole platoon was nearly annihilated.

And that wasn’t all.

I couldn’t say the exact cause and effect, but from that point the front became a full step harsher.

Not a gentle slope—more like suddenly stepping up to a higher stair.

The maddening part: with my current standing and skill in Thirteenth Unit, even knowing this, I couldn’t tell anyone or prepare directly.

Like watching a fist come straight for your face—clear as day—and still being forced to take the hit. All I could do was chafe.

Captain Won Cheongwon of Platoon Six was patrolling dense jungle with his squad.

Patrols ran four times—morning, afternoon, evening, and night—rotating among seven platoons, so each unit went out about once every two days.

Cutting a path with his sword at the head, Won Cheongwon waved his free hand to drive away clouds of mosquitoes.

Yunnan’s rainforest swarmed with them—but they seemed to love Won Cheongwon in particular.

Perhaps his blood tasted good—or he simply looked attractive to mosquitoes.

“If only women liked me as much as mosquitoes.”

Muttering, he snapped and unleashed a flurry.

“Ei!”

Shuaaak!

In an instant, needle-like sword shadows bristled around him.

It was Sword Rain Dense, a defensive form in Qingcheng’s secret Seventy-Two Wave Swords.

The mosquitoes around him died in droves; Won Cheongwon smiled, satisfied.

More would come soon, but a brief respite from the whining was bliss.

His squad cried out in admiration.

“Whoa, Captain, as expected! Amazing every time!”

“That was Sword Rain Dense from the Seventy-Two Waves, right?!”

Puffed up, Won Cheongwon lifted his chin.

“This? For a Qingcheng disciple, this much is basic.”

His squad refused to let him strut.

“If our captain is this good, just how amazing is First Platoon’s captain, that Qingcheng ‘genius’?”

“Leader Han Gyoseong’s Blue Wind Sword Technique can’t even be compared with our captain’s. He’s the ‘Blue Wind Sword Dragon.’ Our captain’s just ‘Quick-Ape Marquis’—you can’t compare a dragon and a monkey.”

“Ugh!”

Face crumpling, Won Cheongwon barked:

“Shut it, you brats! Reaching pinnacle in your twenties is what’s abnormal! No humanity at all, that guy!”

“Oh, Captain—by the way, I heard Platoon Seven’s Captain Seol Pung runs blindfolded and still slaps mosquitoes from the air. With senses so sharp, he never gets bitten—running or walking.”

“Urgh! If only he were as beloved by mosquitoes as I am, let’s see if he’d escape unbitten!”

Unlike a typical Qingcheng aristocrat, the jovial Won Cheongwon mingled easily and was constantly teased.

Perhaps because of that, Platoon Six was tighter-knit than most.

Vice-captain Gong Jonghwa spoke up:

“Enough, you lot. Where can you find a captain with a better temperament than ours? Long arms, too.”

“Right, right. Vice-captain knows what’s what.”

Pleased, Won Cheongwon nodded grandly; the squad booed.

“If you like him so much, why don’t you date him, Vice-captain?”

“Yeah, save our captain—don’t leave him lonely.”

“Mm. No thanks. His arms are a bit too long—intimidating.”

“What? Hahaha! You just said long arms were a plus!”

“Wahaha! Captain, you got dumped again!”

“Shut it, you punks! I’m not into the vice-captain either!”

They were in the latter half of patrol, relaxing and bantering, when—

A sound reached Won Cheongwon’s first-class ears.

“Silence, all!”

At his stern word, Platoon Six dropped into low stances, eyes tense.

Ssssss—

With noise gone, the sound of something pushing through brush came clear.

“Something’s coming. Many of them. Defensive formation!”

They formed a wedge with Won Cheongwon at the point.

The formation loaded pressure onto him, the strongest among them.

The rustling grew nearer.

“This is… too many, isn’t it?”

The brush burst—and shapes lunged out.

“KyAAAAA!”

“Kiiiii!”

Wild Hound Ghosts.

A dozen charged at once.

Won Cheongwon knew immediately this was wrong.

Even when they came together before, six at most—but the dozen he saw were not the end.

More kept pouring in.

He shouted like a scream and slashed from the fore.

“Vice-captain! Signal!”

Shuaaaak!

Sword Rain Dense bloomed again—this time with a pale mist of sword aura poured to the utmost.

It did nothing.

Tonk! tok-tok-tok! tok!

The three in the lead bounced his sword aura aside.

Mid-grade hounds—Weapon-qi-proof.

“Three mid-grades at least! Everyone run! Fall back!”

Pffoom!

With his cry, Vice-captain Gong Jonghwa fired a red flare.

Emergency distress.

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

Urgent bells rang through Thirteenth Unit’s camp.

It was the first emergency deployment in a long while; all hands mustered at the parade ground.

There, the taciturn unit commander Storm Sabre Pung Yang stood ready to depart; deputy commander Heon Yeongbo briefed briskly in his stead.

“Three red flares: first one, then two at once. Captains depart with the commander. Members follow under vice-captains!”

A red flare meant an enemy they could not handle. If the crisis deepened, they fired another.

One, then two together—unprecedented danger.

“Move!”

At Pung Yang’s short command, the pinnacle captains launched:

First Platoon’s Blue Wind Sword Dragon Han Gyoseong, Second’s Diancang Sword Dragon Ju Sa-gunil, Third’s Tang Clan’s Sword Phoenix Tang Yeo-eun, Fourth’s Diancang Sword Hawk Ma Yugyeom, and Seventh’s Gale-Wind Flying Dragon Seol Pung.

The pinnacle experts vanished in a blink; vice-captains led their squads after.

Vice-captain Na Seoyu of Platoon Seven hesitated, then said:

“Let’s go too. We can’t wait for those not here.”

Everyone present at HQ moved out.

The first time since the Twin-Sickle Seven Fiends incident.

When three mid-grade hounds shrugged off his sword aura and pushed in, Won Cheongwon dropped his sword at once.

Suicidal for a swordsman—but fortunately he was not one.

“HyAAAH!”

With a shout, he whipped his long arms like lashes, smashing nearby hounds.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

They flew sideways.

He couldn’t pierce or break their hide—but he could knock them back.

He was, at heart, a pugilist.

Direct heir to Qingcheng’s fist line, the Wongong Fist—that was Won Cheongwon’s true identity.

He only carried a sword to borrow aura because, not yet at pinnacle, he could not manifest Weapon Qi.

Even as he shook free, he spun, face tight, to look back.

He could shove hounds—his squad, specialists in weapons, could not.

His eyes saw his people buried under a tide of hounds.

He dove in, shouting.

“No!”

Standard practice was pairs: one drew the hound’s attention while the other struck.

Hounds fixated on one thing and ignored the rest; that was their weakness. But this was their first time facing more enemies than they had men.

Not two-versus-one, but one-versus-two—or more.

One hound clamped down on a trooper’s sabre with its teeth; the man’s face went blue.

Before he could free it, two more hounds crashed him from both sides.

“N-no! Aaaagh!”

His arm tore; his throat was ripped out.

Three hounds fell upon him and began eating him alive.

Vice-captain Gong Jonghwa was in trouble too.

She had split a low-grade hound’s chest with sword aura—only for it to charge with its chest gaping.

Shocked, she thrust, driving the blade into its heart.

Thunk!

A fatal mistake.

Her sword stuck in its heart; before she could wrench it free, two more hounds leapt at her.

“Kyaaaaa!”

“Kiaaaa!”

Realizing she could neither block nor dodge, Gong Jonghwa shut her eyes and screamed.

“Aaah!”

But her time had not yet come.

Thud-thud-BOOM!

Just then, Won Cheongwon arrived and swept two hounds aside with both arms.

“Vice-captain! Run!”

Even as he saved her, another trooper screamed—hounds tearing him apart.

“Help me! Aaaargh!”

Won Cheongwon’s gaze snagged there for a heartbeat—then the mid-grades he had batted away came surging back.

There was no end.

As he reached, despair in his eyes—

A massive projectile came hurtling in from nowhere.

“Hyaaap! Iron God Meteor!”

“Wu-haap! Adamantine Flying Star!”

Thud-thud-thud-THUD!

Two men—nothing less.

Despite the grand shouts, they charged like wild boars and blasted the hounds away with full-body tackles. The two were Platoon Seven’s Bae Jonggwan and Seonu Jin.

The dramatic entrance of the very men all Thirteenth Unit had mocked as “quack external-arts fanatics.”