Iron Fiend Appears (1)

Gokjeong, Yunnan Province.

Dok Su-gwang, the “Black Snake Spear” and Fifth Squad Captain of the Thirteenth Flying Dragon Unit, was on afternoon patrol with his squad members.

As he walked at the front, leading the squad, he caught the low whispers of the members following behind.

“Hard to believe just losing one squad makes patrol shifts come around this fast. My body feels more and more worn out.”

“Tell me about it. I hope the Seventh Squad hurries back. Nothing happened to them… right?”

“What could possibly happen? Even if Captain Seol Pung is only the Seventh Squad Captain, he’s on par with Captain Han Gyoseong of First Squad. And look at their members—Lady Na Seoyu, Lady Cheong-yeon, Seonu Jin, Bi Sayoung—every one of them is talented enough to be a captain on their own.”

“True, I heard even Captain Han admitted Captain Seol Pung is better than him. And Seonu Jin was apparently a candidate to fill the vacant Fourth Squad Captain slot, right? That’s why the Seventh Squad was dispatched this time too?”

“Whoa, that much?”

As their whispers went on, Dok Su-gwang’s expression twisted more and more until he finally growled in a low voice.

“Quiet! Have you all lost your minds?! Who told you to gossip on patrol?!”

Startled by his bark, the squad members flinched and shut their mouths.

Dok Su-gwang glared at them sharply.

Honestly, chatting on patrol was nothing unusual.

Even Dok Su-gwang himself sometimes joined in the banter.

But the Fifth Squad members obeyed him without complaint and apologized.

“Yes, sir! We’re sorry, Captain!”

“We’ll keep quiet!”

Everyone in the Fifth Squad knew very well that Dok Su-gwang, infamous for his bad temper even within the Thirteenth Unit, changed his standards based on his mood.

So they assumed something in their conversation must have rubbed him the wrong way again.

They all guessed it was the part about Seventh Squad Captain Seol Pung.

Dok Su-gwang had never liked Seol Pung.

But what actually irritated him wasn’t Seol Pung—it was what they’d said about Seonu Jin.

‘That arrogant brat, captain-level talent? Fourth Squad Captain? Hah! What a joke.’

No one knew better than Dok Su-gwang that Seonu Jin had been considered for the vacant Fourth Squad Captain position.

He was the one who had opposed it the most fiercely.

To Dok Su-gwang, who still remembered the pig-like figure Seonu Jin had when he first joined the Flying Dragon Unit, there was nothing to like about the pretty-faced brat who had gone off to that very Seventh Squad under Seol Pung—whom he already resented—and kept rising through the ranks without end.

But what offended him the most was the reason Seonu Jin had been considered for that captain’s seat.

The reason he’d been put forward was the evaluation that he had overwhelmed Dok Su-gwang in their duel.

Having been pushed back the entire time before forcing the match to be stopped with an excuse, Dok Su-gwang now felt a surge of humiliation whenever he recalled Seonu Jin’s face.

Grinding his teeth, he thought:

‘Just wait till you get back. This time, I’ll smash you to pieces.’

For the past month, Dok Su-gwang had thrown himself into training, dreaming of revenge, and now counted the days until Seonu Jin returned.

It was then that a beast-like screech echoed from deep within the jungle.

“Kyaaaaak!”

Gan-gwi.

Dok Su-gwang shouted at once.

“Gan-gwi! Everyone into defensive formation!”

The Fifth Squad members swiftly took up a defensive formation around him with practiced ease.

Swish, swish, swish!

Veterans who had seen everything there was to see on the front line, their movements had not a trace of wasted motion.

Soon, they heard something forcing its way through the forest toward them.

Rustle, rustle, rustle!

There were quite a lot.

Dok Su-gwang called out again, this time in a lower voice.

“There are many! At least twenty! Vice-captain, the flare!”

At his quick order, the Fifth Squad’s vice-captain, Jang Yeoyeon, immediately launched a signal firework to call for support.

Bang!

As red sparks and smoke shot up into the sky, a pack of gan-gwi burst out of the jungle.

“Kyaaaaaaa!”

“Kyaaaaaark!”

“Kieeeeeeek!”

There were roughly thirty of them.

Far too many for the Fifth Squad to handle alone.

But Dok Su-gwang shouted calmly.

“Use the Three-Talents Formation!”

The Fifth Squad members instantly grouped themselves in teams of three just as the pack of gan-gwi crashed into them.

The one who met the first wave of gan-gwi head-on was Dok Su-gwang.

One gan-gwi, howling like a wild beast, lunged at him.

“Haaaap!”

Puhak!

His spear tip, wreathed in a hazy aura, shot out like a flash of light, piercing straight into the gan-gwi’s open maw.

Then he spun his body, his Black Snake Spear casually carving off the upper half of the creature’s jaw before whipping out in a storm, smashing the surrounding gan-gwi away.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

His spear coiled around him like a living serpent, flinging the gan-gwi all around him.

Every now and then, a spear edge imbued with destructive spear-qi would blow a gan-gwi’s head clean off.

He had definitely grown stronger than before.

Dok Su-gwang broke the momentum of the pack at the front, then took a moment to check his squad members.

A faint smile touched his lips.

After Seonu Jin, Bi Sayoung, and Bae Jonggwan had once saved Sixth Squad from a gan-gwi horde, the Flying Dragon captains had agreed to focus their squad training on “knock-back techniques”—techniques prioritizing survival by blowing enemies away rather than killing them outright.

They had realized that when gan-gwi packs attacked, survival came before killing: even if you did not kill your target, driving it back bought you time.

That was why the Fifth Squad members had split into teams of three now.

With one comparatively stronger member in the middle cutting down gan-gwi with sword-qi, the other two at his sides knocked the rest aside or threw them away, allowing for a stable response to the horde.

Thanks to that, none of the teams looked to be in real danger.

Dok Su-gwang allowed himself to relax slightly.

With no mid-rank gan-gwi among them, they likely could handle this swarm without any casualties.

‘Seems calling for support was unnecessary.’

He had just thought that when Jang Yeoyeon suddenly shouted.

“Captain! These things are acting strange! The gan-gwi are ignoring us and running past!”

“Hm?”

Dok Su-gwang frowned at her words.

It made no sense.

Gan-gwi ignoring the humans they were already fighting to just run past?

Weren’t the defining traits of demon-kind their obsession with a single target, their focus on whatever prey they had already locked onto?

But when he turned his gaze on the gan-gwi, Dok Su-gwang had no choice but to accept that she was right.

The gan-gwi that the squad members had knocked back with their knock-back techniques did not charge them again. Instead, they leaped and raced toward the squad’s rear.

Faced with behavior that shattered everything he knew, Dok Su-gwang scowled without realizing it and muttered:

“What the hell is that?”

Jang Yeoyeon grimaced.

“They look like they’re running away from something, don’t they?”

Dok Su-gwang wrinkled his brow even more.

“How could that be? Gan-gwi don’t have any emotions besides hunger for human flesh—!”

That was when it happened.

Thud!

The head of the gan-gwi running in the very back of the pack suddenly burst like a watermelon.

“Huh?!”

As everyone’s gaze snapped in that direction, the head of the gan-gwi in front of it also exploded like a watermelon.

Thud!

The cause was immediately clear.

Someone was running behind the gan-gwi using lightness skill and smashing their heads apart with a single palm strike.

Jang Yeoyeon shouted in alarm.

“Who is that?!”

No one could answer.

They had never seen this martial artist before.

He was a large man wearing a worn, once-blue martial robe, his hair loose and wild.

Judging by the way his palm strikes made a gan-gwi’s head explode in one blow, he had to be at least a high first-rate expert. But his movements, wild and ferocious like a beast, seemed on par with a peak expert.

“First-rate? Peak?”

He wasn’t using overt qi, so he probably wasn’t quite at the peak stage, yet the way he slaughtered gan-gwi was so savagely exhilarating that the Fifth Squad members watched in awe.

‘Who in the world is that?’

As Dok Su-gwang glared at him with a frown, the stranger finished off even the gan-gwi Dok Su-gwang had knocked away and reached them.

While Dok Su-gwang watched with a scowl, Vice-captain Jang Yeoyeon stepped forward, cupped her fists, and spoke.

“Greetings, senior! We are martial artists of the Thirteenth Flying Dragon Unit!”

The man’s eyes turned toward Jang Yeoyeon.

And as Dok Su-gwang watched him closely, he noticed it—eyes glowing red beneath the tangled hair that veiled his face.

Eyes that shone with blood-red light, like those of a demonic being.

“!”

Startled, Dok Su-gwang hurled himself toward Jang Yeoyeon.

“Get back!”

But at that very same moment, the strange man lunged and sent a palm strike flying at Jang Yeoyeon.

Boom!

The powerful palm force grazed past the side of her head, sending her hair streaming.

Only because Dok Su-gwang had leaped and shoved her aside with his spear shaft did the blow narrowly miss.

As the barely-surviving Jang Yeoyeon frantically backed away, Dok Su-gwang—who had saved her—twisted in midair. His spear coiled around his body like a living serpent and then lashed out at the man.

Vwoooom!

Thud!

Caught wide open after missing his blow, the man took the spear shaft full on and was knocked backward.

Dok Su-gwang pushed off the ground to follow up with a chain of attacks.

He didn’t know who the man was, but he was clearly an enemy.

“Whoever you are, you picked the wrong—huh?!”

But he was forced to break off in shock and take a defensive stance again.

The man, who should have been sent flying by a direct hit from the spear shaft, merely stomped the ground and came charging right back at him as if nothing had happened.

“What?!”

The man thrust out both palms at Dok Su-gwang.

The force behind them looked strong enough to smash a boulder.

“Tch!”

Dok Su-gwang twisted his body once more.

His Black Snake Spear whipped around him like a ferocious serpent, smashing into the man’s twin palms from the side and deflecting the palm force.

Clang!

Then he launched his counterattack.

His spear, a single drawn line of steel, shot toward the man’s exposed chest.

Spear-qi condensed on the tip of the spear, rising clear and sharp, almost like hardened external qi.

“Haaap!”

Craaang!

“Kh…?!”

The next instant, Dok Su-gwang had to muster every last ounce of strength just to keep from losing his grip on his wildly-shuddering spear.

His hands felt numb, as though all sensation had been blasted out of them.

“W-what…?”

He could not believe it.

His full-power thrust as a top first-rate expert had not only failed to pierce the man’s chest—it hadn’t even left a scratch. It had simply bounced off, as if he had struck a plate of iron.

“Ugh!”

As he clung desperately to his trembling spear, Dok Su-gwang caught sight of the red glow blazing in the man’s eyes.

And the beast-like growl.

“Grrrhhhh…”

Dok Su-gwang groaned under his breath.

“A… demonic… being…?”

---

“Somehow, my chest feels tight.”

“Yeah. Feels like we’ve been away for a year and just came back.”

We were both oddly moved by the sight of the Thirteenth Flying Dragon Unit’s base, unchanged as ever now that we had finally returned.

Hidden deep within the jungle, the familiar cluster of buildings felt as dear as home.

Bi Sayoung murmured with a faraway look.

“To think it feels like coming home, even though we’re returning to this hellish front line… I don’t know whether to be happy or resentful.”

If even Bi Sayoung felt that way, there was no need to say how I felt, having already spent over ten years of my previous life here.

I smiled faintly and murmured.

“I’m grateful. That there’s still a place I can come back to.”

Across two separate lives, this place had become my sanctuary.

Of course my chest would tighten just looking at it.

Not all of the squad members were getting sentimental like we were, though.

“We were only gone for thirty-four days. I’d rather hurry up, report our return, and get some rest.”

The one speaking in her flat tone as she strode ahead was none other than Lady Cheong-yeon.

“Ch-Cheong-yeon.”

“Let’s go, Big Sis.”

Lady Na Seoyu and Lady Cheon trailed after her quickly, glancing back at us.

Normally, Cheong-yeon showed little emotional fluctuation, but on the way back here she had been visibly out of sorts.

It was the first time she had ever seemed that way since joining the Flying Dragon Unit.

So Na Seoyu and Lady Cheon were paying close attention to her mood.

According to the other squad members, she had seemed fine before we got back; apparently, she only started acting like this after our return.

It was baffling.

‘What on earth is going on?’

Having known her the longest, I was the most flustered. This simply wasn’t how she was.

I tried to recall whether there was anything I had done without realizing it.

That was when Bi Sayoung whispered quietly.

“I’ve been thinking… Did you maybe do something to offend Lady Hae?”

I flinched at his sudden question.

“Me? What would I have done?”

“Well, she only started looking upset after we got back. She’s not mad at me, is she?”

…He had a point.

Had I done something wrong to her?

Just in case, I ran quickly back through my recent actions, using my excellent memory.

Nothing came to mind.

We hadn’t even been together most of the time, so there hadn’t really been a chance for me to mess up.

“Nah, no way. She’s probably just tired.”

Right then—

Bang!

A sudden explosion echoed from the far side of the jungle.

We all turned our heads that way in surprise and saw faint red smoke rising over the distant canopy.

“A support signal?”

“Emergency?”

Squad Captain Seol Pung’s expression hardened.

“Only one flare so far. Support will head out right away, I’m sure. But just in case, we should hurry back and report.”

We rushed back to the base and reported our return to Unit Leader Bong Yang, the Storm-Wind Sabre.

The unit leader listened in his usual taciturn manner for a long while before speaking briefly.

“So that’s what happened. I’ll discuss this with the Sword Saint. You all have done well. Go and rest.”

It seemed that while we were away, the Sword Saint had come to control nearly all of the front line.

Seol Pung asked again.

“We saw an emergency signal earlier.”

But Bong Yang simply shook his head, unconcerned.

“First Squad Captain Han Gyoseong went right away. If there’s a problem, another signal will come. For now, just rest.”

We all nodded.

If even Captain Han—said to be on par with Seol Pung—had gone, things should be fine.

Of course, that comparison was based on how things had been before this most recent deployment.

Just as Seol Pung finished bowing to the unit leader and we were about to leave, I asked carefully:

“By any chance, have there been many such incidents while we were gone?”

Bong Yang shook his head.

“No, not once. This is the first since you left.”

The first…

So the Iron Fiend had not appeared yet.

Then, possibly—

A bad feeling rose in my chest, and I asked again.

“Do you happen to know which squad is on duty this time?”

“…Fifth Squad.”

Fifth Squad. Dok Su-gwang’s squad, of all things.

The very squad that had been wiped out by the Iron Fiend in my previous life.

The one that had responded most negatively when I’d warned them about it.

The day we returned, an emergency signal went up—and it was from Dok Su-gwang’s squad.

It was too coincidental.

The ominous feeling grew heavier.

I constructed a scenario in my mind.

What if this really was because the Iron Fiend had appeared?

And what if Captain Han Gyoseong, who went out in support, also failed to bring Hwagolsan along?

It might seem impossibly coincidental, but weren’t most disasters made from several such coincidences piled together?

Once we stepped out of the unit leader’s room, I turned to Seol Pung urgently.

“Captain, I really don’t like this feeling. Could you come with me?”

Seol Pung’s face flickered with puzzlement for an instant, but he quickly hardened his expression and nodded.

“All right. If it’s your feeling, Jin, I can’t ignore it.”

Bi Sayoung asked with a serious look.

“Should we come too?”

“No. If I’m right about this, we’ll need someone who can use external qi. For now, the captain and…”

I glanced at Lady Cheong-yeon, and she also nodded readily.

“Let’s hurry. Are we heading straight to support Fifth Squad?”

As expected of Lady Cheong-yeon.

She had seemed in a bad mood, but clearly my worry had been misplaced.

I grinned.

“No. First, we’re going to Lady Tang Yeo-eun.”

She paused for a moment at the unexpected answer, then asked:

“Lady Tang?”

“Yes. Because we’ll be needing Hwagolsan.”

And I launched myself into the air.