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As I approached him, I summoned the twenty years of internal energy within my body and prepared for an ambush.
And in the moment his gaze turned upward, I launched the ambush.
At the sudden attack, his underlings screamed in shock.
“What the hell?!”
“B-boss!”
But instead of screaming, they should have attacked first.
Because I had no intention of stopping there.
I let go of the sword buried in Mak Gu-sam’s chest, spun my body, and drew the saber strapped to my back, swinging it wide.
Slash!
A streak of blade light cut through the air horizontally, and the head of the bandit beside him flew off in a single stroke.
Splurt!
“Aaaargh!”
“Jang-oh!”
Only when blood sprayed everywhere did the rest of them finally shout.
“A-ambush!”
“Stop him!”
Swoosh!
“Graaagh!”
Covered in blood, I cut another man from his groin up to his shoulder, thinking:
It’s not ‘stop him,’ it should be ‘attack him.’
Fools.
Splurt!
“Graaagh!”
By the time I slashed the third man’s chest diagonally, the others were finally pointing their sabers at me properly.
“You bastard!”
“How dare you!”
A laugh of scorn escaped me.
Too late to react.
I hurled the saber I had been holding at the men, spinning it deliberately so it whirred through the air.
Startled, they barely managed to block it.
“Uwaaah!”
Clang!
But by then, I was already charging at them, pulling the sword from Mak Gu-sam’s chest.
And in that instant—
Like wings of light unfurling, sword energy scattered across the air.
Swoosh!
“Aaaargh!”
“Graaagh!”
For the first time in my two lives, I unleashed the First Flash of the Divine Responding Wing of the Thirteen Swords of Seonu.
By then, the wandering warriors who had come with me began to move as well.
A little late by my standards, but for them it was rushing in as fast as they could.
“Charge! Support Young Master Seonu!”
“Uwaaaah!”
The bandits had no choice but to fall into disarray.
Without their leader, Mak Gu-sam, the rest were nothing more than rabble who couldn’t even use internal energy—third-rates at best. With no rallying point, they had no reason to risk death by charging in.
“S-spare me! He’s a butcher!”
“Run! Scatter!”
Slaughtering the fools who turned their backs mid-battle, I laughed savagely.
My soul rejoiced at being back in the air of the battlefield.
The fight didn’t last long.
With only six of us, it was impossible to capture them all. By the end, seventeen corpses of bandits lay scattered, while about fifteen managed to escape.
Only then, with my tension fading, I tossed aside my sword and collapsed to the ground, groaning.
“Ugh, I’m dying here!”
But this time, the wandering warriors did not look at me with the same contempt as before.
In their eyes now were clear traces of astonishment—and fear.
Warrior Jang hesitated briefly before asking me:
“Young Master Seonu, are you perhaps an elder who has returned to youth?”
At that absurd and unexpected question, I laughed even with my weary face.
“Come on, does such a thing exist? And even if it did, would a rejuvenated master collapse from exhaustion after fighting just this much?”
He shook his head with a wry smile.
“Well, that’s true. But for someone your age to kill without hesitation like that is no easy thing. And besides…”
He glanced around before continuing.
“Seeing you lying at ease in a place full of corpses makes one think of such outlandish things.”
Looking around, I realized the place was indeed covered in blood and bodies.
Though, honestly, my own body was even more drenched in blood than the surroundings.
It was such a familiar sight that I had felt oddly comfortable without realizing it.
But I couldn’t admit that, so I forced an awkward smile and made an excuse.
“I guess I was too tired to notice. Let’s rest a bit longer and then move on.”
Even then, the wandering warriors looked at me with bewildered eyes at my insistence on resting.
While I rested, the wanderers gathered loot and cut off Mak Gu-sam’s head.
There must have been a bounty on him, so taking it to the authorities would earn them a tidy sum.
We moved to another spot, and only by the time it was mealtime could we talk again.
Warrior Jang gave me a cautious glance before asking:
“Young Master Seonu, are you perhaps a first-class martial artist?”
I shook my head with a smile.
“No. I’m still second-class. My internal energy is only about twenty years.”
“But when I saw your sword earlier, it looked hazy… was that sword qi?”
“It was a technique from the Thirteen Swords of Seonu. It’s a phantom sword style, so the afterimages probably made it look that way.”
The wanderers listening in perked up and exclaimed.
“The famous Thirteen Swords of Seonu?!”
“As expected, the peerless sword art representing Guizhou City!”
Warrior Jang said with a slightly envious look:
“A true sword art of a prestigious family indeed. For it to show such power even at the second-class stage… When you reach first-class, it will be incredible.”
I only smiled faintly at his words.
In truth, I was looking forward to it as well.
When I reached the stage of first-class and could release sword qi, the phantom sword art—the Thirteen Swords of Seonu—would reveal its true power.
But for now, that was still far off.
To release sword qi required at least thirty years of internal energy—half a lifetime.
A martial artist with thirty years of internal energy who attained enlightenment and could harm others with emitted qi was called a first-class master.
I already had the enlightenment, so that wasn’t the problem. But the thirty years of internal energy was something I simply didn’t have.
To make up for that lack, I would have to continue training relentlessly.
Warrior Jang sighed.
“At forty years of age, I’ve only accumulated twenty years of internal energy. Yet you, in your early twenties, already have twenty years. It makes me regret not living more diligently. Truly, I feel ashamed.”
I could only give him a bitter smile.
No need to tell him that the only reason I had even twenty years of internal energy was because my father had fed me an elixir the other night.
Without it, I wouldn’t even have reached ten years.
He had even given me two more of the same pills, but warned me repeatedly never to take them yet.
And of course, I knew why.
Half of the internal energy I had wasn’t cultivated by me, but absorbed from external energy.
That meant I was in the perfect state to fall into deviation.
So, for now, I needed to cultivate my internal energy diligently and refine the foreign qi.
At that thought, I suddenly asked Warrior Jang:
“Do you happen to practice any particular cultivation method?”
As a wandering warrior, I doubted he had learned a proper one, so I asked.
He replied awkwardly with a cough.
“Well, just the Six Harmonies Manual. That was all I could get… ahem.”
“Ah, the Six Harmonies Manual.”
My gaze turned sympathetic.
I hadn’t expected him to have studied anything great, but to hear he had learned that was still disheartening.
It was the kind of third-rate manual one could buy at any back-alley bookshop.
Yet he had managed to accumulate twenty years of internal strength with it.
That, in itself, was more impressive than pitiful.
It was an achievement possible only through relentless effort.
When my eyes softened with pity, he avoided my gaze and stood up briskly.
“Well then, let’s set out! If we don’t cover more ground before nightfall, we won’t reach in three days.”
There was nothing more I could say.
After all, I too had begged and stolen others’ manuals when I couldn’t obtain a proper one.
But telling him that would only sound like pity.
So instead, my gaze toward him grew deeper.
The remnants of the Green Tiger Stronghold who had fled in all directions regrouped only long after Seonu Jin’s party had passed.
Returning to the scene, they saw their leader and comrades’ corpses piled up and erupted in anger.
“Those merciless bastards! Not even burying their enemies!”
“Look! They even stole all the belongings! Filthy thieves!”
“May they be devoured by the fiends of the Blood Demon Cult!”
As they cursed Seonu Jin’s group, one of them finally voiced what they had been avoiding.
“But… what do we do now?”
“What else? We go back to the Green Tiger Stronghold and choose a new leader.”
“…Do you think we can run things properly with just us? The only second-class martial artist among us was the boss.”
The harsh truth silenced them all.
Then, from down the road, they saw a lone rider approaching.
A single horse, a single person.
They all instinctively turned to look.
One with sharp eyes swallowed nervously and whispered.
“It’s a woman.”
“What?!”
“A woman?!”
“Alone?!”
“Is she pretty?!”
He raised a hand to hush them, then after a moment’s observation whispered again with shining eyes.
“Her bangs cover her face, but I think she’s beautiful. Her figure is good too. Looks like she’s in her late teens.”
He gulped and asked his comrades:
“What do we do?”
As their eyes met tensely, one muttered:
“If she’s bold enough to ride alone… what if she’s an expert?”
The words doused their burning lust with cold water.
Beware women and old men.
An old adage of the martial world.
Fear flickered in their eyes as memories of Seonu Jin’s slaughter returned vividly.
They shivered.
“M-maybe we should just leave her alone?”
One spoke timidly, but the sharp-eyed one kept staring.
Her bangs hid her eyes, but her egg-shaped jawline was clear. She was definitely a beauty.
It felt like a waste to let such a woman pass by.
Then a thought struck him.
“But… can a girl in her late teens really be a master? She’s too young.”
That rekindled the others’ spirits.
Indeed.
Even if a lone woman was dangerous, how strong could a teenager really be?
Unless she was the child or disciple of the Nine Great Sects, the Five Great Clans, or one of the absolute powers—the Seven Kings, the Three Dukes, the Five Demons—there was no way.
And why would such a person come here?
Convinced, they boldly rushed toward her.
“Stop right there, girl! How dare you pass through our territory without permission?!”
“Get off that horse and strip, now! Hahaha!”
“No, no! She can strip right there on the horse! Hahaha!”
As they laughed at their own crude jokes, she looked at them quietly. Then she spoke:
“Has someone named Seonu Jin, the third young master of the Seonu Clan, passed through here?”
At that name, the bandits froze.
They were so shocked they hiccupped.
“H-how do you know that bastard…?”
“Y-you’re one of that butcher’s companions?”
Seeing their reaction, her lips curved into a satisfied smile.
“So he has passed through. How long ago was it?”
The memory of the slaughter made them tremble for a moment, but then their expressions hardened again.
He had already passed. And she was just one girl.
“Perfect! We’ll take payment for our boss’s death from this wench!”
“Yeah! That bastard isn’t coming back anyway!”
While they regained their courage, Hae Cheong-yeon murmured softly.
“So he passed by… I’ll catch up soon.”
Then she lightly leapt from the saddle.
Whoosh!
The bandits gawked at her body soaring gracefully into the air.
She was so elegant, so dazzlingly beautiful.
Then, spinning once midair, she came crashing down upon them like a thunderbolt.
Slash, slash, slash!
“…!”
They didn’t even have time to scream.
In an instant, webs of sword light filled the space, and the bandits’ bodies split apart, spraying blood like fountains.
Splurt!
As blood spattered everywhere, she was already soaring back up, landing gracefully on her saddle.
Releasing sword qi, she had slaughtered fifteen men in a single second. She flicked the blood from her blade and sheathed it.
Then, as if nothing had happened, she spurred her horse forward.
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