Chapter 139

“So what you’re saying is, you could easily take advantage of my injury, but you’re giving up that advantage and letting me treat it first?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“So we can settle this fairly.”

I almost laughed in disbelief.
An assassin who came here to kill me was talking about a fair fight?

“You find it absurd?”
“Can you blame me?”

Murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery.
Nightflower Valley would do anything as long as they were paid.
Jin Mu-myeong gave a small nod.

“It is true that Nightflower Valley built up its martial strength in pursuit of wealth. But not everyone there thinks the same way. Some pursue something greater than money. Like me.”
“Fine. Let’s hear what that is.”

I flicked the hemp cloth into the air with my foot and caught it in my right hand.
Partly to buy enough time to wrap it around my ribs, I coaxed him into continuing.
I couldn’t very well die before the collapsing Illusory Formation Arrays got me.

I wasn’t worried that the hemp cloth might be coated in poison. I had brought the Poison-Warding Pearl.
The moment I noticed anything strange, I could put it in my mouth and the poison would lose all effect.

“I need recognition, both from myself and from others. I have to defeat my opponent through pure skill and have that achievement properly acknowledged.”
“Acknowledged?”

Something about the word felt strange.
Whose acknowledgment did he need?

“You can chase whatever pointless ideal you want, but if that’s your goal, you should probably take down someone bigger than me.”
“You seem unaware of your own standing. Your reputation has spread all the way to Nightflower Valley. The Heavenly Demon’s most favored youngest disciple. A prodigy said to be closer to succeeding him than anyone but his first disciple. You are more than enough.”

The Demon Cult was vast.
Spies from all manner of factions lurked within it, carrying information back outside.
So it wasn’t surprising that information about me had spread beyond the cult.

“Sounds like some of that information got a little distorted.”

I quickly wrapped the cloth around my ribs and bound them tightly.

‘This won’t be enough.’

I swiftly took out a pill and swallowed it.

“What was that?”
“A Pain-Cutting Pill. It dulls pain for a while.”

-The problem comes afterward. There’s a backlash, so only use it when you’re truly desperate.

Ju Ok-hwa’s voice immediately came to mind.
I wondered just how bad the backlash had to be for her to warn me like that, but I had no choice right now.
I had to get through this situation.
Jin Mu-myeong was a more dangerous opponent than Jin Si-myeong and his lackeys, wherever they might be.

Jin Mu-myeong reached behind his back and pulled out the shaft.

“What, you use a spear too?”

Click, click.
Jin Mu-myeong connected three sections of the shaft.

“I use a staff.”
“Oh, really? A guy who goes around assassinating people carries a staff?”
“Not assassinating. Dueling. I have never fought a shameful battle.”

I snorted.

“Sure you haven’t. We’re short on time, so let’s stop talking.”
“Agreed. Carrying a long staff around has caused me plenty of inconvenience. But the Jin Family developed this sectional design. Its flexibility is not bad either.”

Jin Mu-myeong lightly spun the staff in one hand. Lowering his stance, he tucked it against his side.

“I’ll give you the first move.”
“Don’t let your guard down. I may look like a complete wreck, but I still don’t think I’ll lose to you.”
“I disagree.”

Jin Mu-myeong was completely confident.
It was pride in the skill he had built for himself.
And his stance was flawless enough to make that confidence seem entirely natural.

The staff was the foundation of all long weapons.
Even most sects that specialized in the spear put a staff in a disciple’s hands before teaching the spear itself.
The spear’s core principles of Block, Control, and Thrust, pushing outward to defend, pressing inward to suppress, and thrusting to attack, were themselves derived from the staff’s fundamental principles of Cleave, Collapse, Swing, and Sweep.
And by changing where one gripped it, the staff could freely shift between the functions of a short and long weapon, making it quite troublesome to face.

But all of that was possible only because the staff was long enough.
How much easier this fight would be depended on whether I could strip away its advantage as a long weapon.

Paang!
I shot forward like lightning with Lightning Step.
My target was Jin Mu-myeong’s neck.
I deliberately made that intention obvious with my entire body.

His reaction was fast.
He thrust the staff straight forward.
He was using its superior reach to cut off any attempt to slash his neck before it could begin.
But my true target was somewhere else.

Seogeok!
I lowered my body and slid forward on my knees, raising my arm as I sliced through the staff with my cold-iron dagger.
Tuk. Roughly a third of the staff fell to the ground.
Just like that, it lost much of its reach almost absurdly easily.

“I told you not to let your guard down.”
“……A divine footwork art, and a treasured dagger.”

Jin Mu-myeong retreated several steps in an instant to deal with the follow-up attack and muttered quietly.
I had caught him badly off guard. That had to sting.

Wooong. The shortened staff began glowing faintly. He had infused it with internal energy.
Only then was it reinforced enough to withstand my cold-iron dagger, but it was already too late.
His staff was now too short to wield comfortably with both hands, yet too long for one.
That made even his grip awkward.

“Why not just use Aura Qi?”
“I still do not feel the need.”
“So I’m still beneath you?”

Kurureung-
At that moment, the ground beneath us shook.
The collapse was accelerating.

‘I’m out of time.’

I immediately charged Jin Mu-myeong.
My cold-iron dagger and his staff clashed several times.

‘This is definitely much better.’

Thanks to the hemp cloth and the pill, I barely felt the pain in my ribs even during violent movement.
Jin Mu-myeong was completely occupied with defending.
With his shortened staff, maintaining distance was difficult.
Planning to end the fight before he adapted, I unleashed form after form of the Primordial Demon Sword Art that the Heavenly Demon had taught me before my regression.
I had to conserve internal energy, so I relied almost entirely on physical movement, yet Jin Mu-myeong was steadily driven back one or two steps at a time.

‘His defense is solid.’

If I kept attacking blindly, I would only exhaust myself.
I deliberately eased my offensive.
I wanted to draw out his counterattack.

As expected, Jin Mu-myeong swung his staff.
It carried considerable force, but I slipped inside with Death-Line Step.
There were roughly three steps between us.
One step. Two.
And finally.

‘Hmm?’

On the third step, I was startled.
As though he had predicted my next move, Jin Mu-myeong stepped half a pace backward while reversing his staff and swinging it back at me.
The shortened end of the staff shot straight toward my chin.

‘Damn!’

I instantly used Reverse Step.
The end of the staff brushed past the tip of my chin.
Cold sweat formed at my temples.

“A shame. I almost knocked you unconscious.”

Being knocked unconscious wasn’t the problem.
Never being able to chew properly again was.

‘He isn’t Transcendent for nothing.’

Not only had he evaded Death-Line Step, he had even laid a trap for me.
My current level of attainment was still lacking when it came to facing someone in the Transcendent Realm.
But that didn’t matter.
Being lacking didn’t mean something was impossible.

Kkang, kkang, kkang!
The clashes continued.
Several times, I used Death-Line Step to slip between the trajectories of his attacks, but each time Jin Mu-myeong widened the distance at just the right moment and countered.
A dagger was far more effective than a staff at close range, so he was preventing me from exploiting that advantage.
Conversely, I needed to get close no matter what.
The thunderous noises erupting all around us only made me more impatient.

Closing in, clashing, retreating, then charging again.
It was after several rounds of this battle of moves and countermoves.

Ggurureureung!
The collapse of the Illusory Formation Arrays finally began affecting this area.
I steadied myself and looked around.
Chunks of the ground were tearing free and floating upward all around us.
It was exactly like the lava and snow that had been sucked into the sky.

Hwiik!
Even then, the staff came flying at me.
I blocked its end with the side of my cold-iron dagger and was pushed back by the force behind it.
The patch of ground I was about to step on was just beginning to tear free. As I shifted my feet to another spot, an idea suddenly flashed through my mind.

‘Good.’

I deliberately stepped onto a chunk of ground that had already begun to rise.
Jin Mu-myeong stood there looking up at me in confusion.
He tilted his head, then sprinted forward, planted his staff against the ground, and vaulted toward the fragment I stood on.
At the same moment, I jumped downward, passing him in the opposite direction.
His pupils widened.
My cold-iron dagger came down vertically while his staff rose horizontally to block it.
Peopeong!

“Ugh.”

I was blasted back into the sky even faster than I had been falling.
He had unleashed Aura Qi and blasted me away.
Forcing down the blood rising into my throat, I flipped in midair and landed on a floating fragment.
Pak! Jin Mu-myeong landed in front of me as well.
Apparently, he had driven his staff into a fragment and used it to propel himself upward.
I wiped the thin trickle of blood from the corner of my mouth with my sleeve and smiled.

“Guess I’m not so beneath you anymore?”
“I thought using Aura Qi against someone in such a battered state would be excessive. It seems I was mistaken.”
“You really intend to keep this up?”
“I do.”
“You want to die with me? Look how high we are. If you fall, you’ll die too.”
“To die on a battlefield this magnificent would not be so bad.”
“Oh, give me a break.”

On the slowly rising slab of ground, Jin Mu-myeong and I clashed again.
As we traded attacks and defenses, a question suddenly occurred to me.

‘Who the hell is this guy?’

Nightflower Valley was no pushover, but neither was someone like Jin Mu-myeong so common there that you could trip over one like a stone.
A mission to assassinate a Little Demon.
Even with guidance from the clients, the mission was dangerous for Jin Mu-myeong whether it succeeded or failed.
If he failed, he would die. Even if he succeeded, my death would be reported immediately and an inescapable net would be cast to prevent my killer from escaping.
Yet they had sent a top-class prospect who had entered the Transcendent Realm at such a young age on a mission like this?
That wasn’t easy to understand.

“Judging by your expression, you seem curious about who I am.”
“A little.”
“Then ask.”
“Who are you?”
“I cannot tell you.”

……This bastard.

“You’re not actually from Nightflower Valley, are you?”

Jin Mu-myeong paused ever so slightly.
It was only a momentary disturbance.

“What the, you really aren’t? I was just throwing that out there.”
“……Why did you think that?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“……You got me there.”

Nightflower Valley was a gathering place for wandering mercenaries.
Their martial arts varied wildly, but most of them shared a deeply underhanded and vicious streak.
About what you would expect from human garbage.
But Jin Mu-myeong was different.
There was something disciplined and methodical about him.
And it was strange for a wandering mercenary to use a staff.
A staff was exactly the kind of weapon no one in Nightflower Valley would ever use.

‘Strangely, he doesn’t feel completely unfamiliar. Did I hear about him in my past life?’

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like an itch inside my head.
I felt like I was right on the verge of remembering who he was.

“You seem to have enough leisure to think about other things.”

The briefly interrupted battle resumed.
Jin Mu-myeong’s lines of attack became more varied.
With Aura Qi mixed in at just the right moments, I was gradually forced onto the defensive.
Puk!
Before long, the staff slammed into my side.
Perhaps the impact had struck my broken ribs.
My vision nearly went white.

‘Stay focused. Endure it.’

Jin Mu-myeong’s strike carried tremendous force.
But compared to the Heavenly Demon’s blows, which I had taken as routinely as meals, it was nothing.
Even a graze from the Heavenly Demon felt like it would tear an arm off.

‘Let’s get back down.’

I made the decision quickly.
The rising fragments had carried us, with only a little exaggeration, as high as Mount Tai.
At this rate, I was going to take the express route straight across the Sanzu River.
Partly to catch my breath, I turned away and leapt downward.
Dragging my cold-iron dagger along the side of the fragment, I lightly landed on another piece below.

I moved from one side to another, descending farther and farther.
Tak, tak, tak.
The floating fragments constantly surging upward around me looked like a torrential downpour falling in reverse.
And I was a single fish swimming against the current.

“Just where are you going?”

I clashed with Jin Mu-myeong several times in midair as he followed me down.
When I landed on a narrow floating fragment, he came down on another roughly three meters away.
Looking at the long bloody line drawn across his forearm, he let out a note of admiration.

“Impressive, considering the state you’re in.”

I didn’t answer.
The pain in my ribs was getting worse.
Glancing down, I saw that the hemp cloth wrapped around my ribs had turned crimson.

‘That hit to my side was too hard.’

Apparently, even the Pain-Cutting Pill could no longer suppress the pain.
At this rate, I wouldn’t last much longer.

‘I need to hurry.’

The Illusory Formation Arrays were in just as bad a state as my body.
There was hardly anything left that could still be called ground.
Most of what remained was nothing but a vast black void.
Before it was too late, I had to reach the area around the exit while it was still intact.

I circulated what little Chaotic Demonic Qi I had left and stared at Jin Mu-myeong.
During the descent, I had found a way to finish Jin Mu-myeong head-on.
I simply hadn’t realized it, but I already had the answer.
Because the Heavenly Demon had taught it to me with his own body.