The White Wolf (5)

Before the Ghost Generals died.

Among the ten masters who had been watching with folded arms behind Gong Cheong, First Ghost, the eldest of the West Wind Five Ghosts, clicked his tongue.

“This isn’t good.”

Even that faint pessimism was bluster. He tried to sound calm, but his voice was shaking.

Hundred Nether Fist, known only by his epithet, cleared his throat.

“It’d be best to slip out like this, but….”

Hundred Nether Fist was the eldest among them, and his martial arts were the strongest as well.

He was one of Sichuan’s Three Great Fist Masters. Wi Chang-gun, the sect leader of the Black Tiger Fist Sect, had also been one of the Three Great Fist Masters, so Hundred Nether Fist’s skill was no different from Wi Chang-gun’s.

The difference was that he didn’t belong anywhere. Sichuan had quite a few masters like that.

But unless they had brought every one of those skilled masters, they couldn’t strut around on connections with an enemy far stronger than expected.

Hundred Nether Fist spoke in a low voice so Gong Cheong wouldn’t hear.

“I’m worried we’ll get cursed for sticking our noses into someone else’s family business. From the look of it, they’re not intruders. This seems to be a fight over legitimacy .”

That was after he’d seen how Baek Gyu treated Gyeong Do-cheon.

Even so, leaving like this would still be a blow to their face. All ten gathered here had taken money directly from Gong Cheong, and from Gyeong Do-cheon as well.

And aside from everything else, if men who fancied themselves big shots ran just because the enemy was strong, that would wound their pride too.

“Pride doesn’t save your life.”

The second of the South Forest Three Swords was fairly blunt.

“Those two masters are too overwhelming. Even if they fight without holding back, I think half of us will die.”

“Hm.”

“Honestly, I don’t want to die getting dragged into a fight like this.”

He might be called a coward, but he was being realistic.

Hundred Nether Fist cleared his throat again.

“Well, if that’s roughly what everyone thinks, then let’s quietly…….”

It was then.

“Conscience doesn’t put food on your table, but it’d be a shame to waste the names you’ve built.”

The young man dressed like a scholar, who hadn’t said a word the whole way here, spoke stiffly.

“The reason Hero Gong gathered us is because the enemy is that formidable. And it doesn’t look like they’re from the Nine Great Sects or the Five Great Families. If we run now, won’t we be shamed for a long, long time?”

Hundred Nether Fist narrowed his eyes.

The youngest of the West Wind Five Ghosts snickered and jeered.

“I thought you were mute, but you’re a proud chivalrous type, huh?”

Even with the blatant mockery dripping from his words, the young man didn’t waver.

“Seeing you talk about ‘chivalry’ just because I said we should keep a single promise, I can tell how you’ve lived without even looking.”

“…Would you listen to this bastard?”

“What? Do I look like a pushover?”

“You!”

Hundred Nether Fist raised a hand.

“That’s enough.”

He looked at the young man.

“What’s your name?”

“Jo Gwang.”

“Young Hero Jo. There are things in this world you can’t push through on hot blood alone.”

“If risking your life scares you that much, stop talking nonsense and leave.”

It was the kind of line that scraped pride raw. A faint killing intent gathered in Hundred Nether Fist’s eyes.

“Sounds like you’ve got ten lives.”

“I’ve got one, like you, so I’m trying to live without shame.”

“Interesting. Then you didn’t take even a single coin from Gong Cheong.”

“Taking money isn’t shameful. Taking money and not even doing the bare minimum is shameful even in death.”

He wouldn’t yield a single word. Hundred Nether Fist’s cheeks twitched pitifully.

Jo Gwang’s mouth corner lifted slightly.

“And it’s too late to run.”

“What?”

Kwaang!

No sooner had he finished speaking than the Merchant House’s main gate slammed shut.

When everyone turned back in surprise, pale green smoke burst up from the wall outside the gate with popping sounds. It shot up in an instant to well over three meters. Anyone could tell it was poisonous smoke.

Strangely, it didn’t enter the outer court, but it was too high to clear with movement arts. Hundred Nether Fist, the West Wind Five Ghosts, and the South Forest Three Swords all flinched.

“What is this?!”

Sensing something wrong, Gong Cheong turned back as well and was startled.

“W-what is this?”

The ones who set off the poison smoke outside were none other than the assassins of the Crimson Blood Pavilion. Strangely enough, they hadn’t all died, and they hadn’t joined the fight either. They had sealed off the Divine Iron Merchant House with poison smoke after the fact.

Hundred Nether Fist shouted at Jo Gwang.

“You! Don’t tell me you betrayed us!”

“Betrayal, my ass.”

Jo Gwang’s smile deepened.

“I’m only doing my job.”

Just then, Jin-hyeon barged into the assassins’ fight.

Kwakwang!

With a thunderous boom, an invisible sword force swept up three warriors.

Hundred Nether Fist wanted to smash Jo Gwang to death with one punch, but he couldn’t. Jin-hyeon was already flying straight at him.

Startled, Hundred Nether Fist threw a punch. Even in shock, a fierce fist wind swirled around it.

Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed.

Pueong!

The fist wind was split by a single sword stroke.

It wasn’t One-Sword Severing the Soul. It was simply a single sword stroke thrown with all his might. But within that stroke lived sword principles tempered in real combat, the Eight Wastes’ enlightenment, and even the subtleties of the Wind Sword.

Hwaaak!

Hundred Nether Fist retreated with a scream and immediately threw himself to the left.

At the same time, the West Wind Five Ghosts and the South Forest Three Swords attacked Jin-hyeon. At this point, they had no choice but to stake their lives and fight.

Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed.

Heavenly Wolf Qi, which had reached the Cunning Wolf Path, howled like a beast. Then it suddenly surged up to his brows, settled for a moment, and Soul-Refining Qi reclaimed its place.

Wooong.

For an instant, it felt like the world slowed down.

Within that, Jin-hyeon found the position to slip out of the eight masters, the West Wind Five Ghosts and the South Forest Three Swords’ attacks.

Pababak! Teo-eong!

With a powerful advancing step, Jin-hyeon slipped between the Namrim Three Swords’ second and third, and immediately caught up to Hundred Nether Fist.

“You bastard!”

He ignored his injured right hand and threw his left fist.

Even in haste, the power was considerable. Instead of bulldozing in with strength like before, he aimed for Jin-hyeon’s shoulder with a soft, fast punch. It was fitting for a fist master hardened by Kangho.

Jin-hyeon’s left fist shot out to meet it.

Kwaduk!

“Kyaaak!”

Hundred Nether Fist’s fist, which had never once broken from the day he first learned martial arts until now, shattered to pieces.

It was the Ten-Fingers Soul-Slaughter Art’s Steel-Shattering Hammer. It was a simple single punch, but a fist packed with extreme grip strength and the ferocity of Heavenly Wolf Qi smashed Hundred Nether Fist’s fist like straw.

The gap in power was painfully clear.

Hundred Nether Fist was a master named among Sichuan’s Three Great Fist Masters, a fist master with strength on the level of an Eight Martial Houses leader.

For Jin-hyeon to overwhelm even him meant Jin-hyeon’s ability had already surpassed common sense in Sichuan Murim. Put another way, it meant Sichuan Murim’s level was far lower than many people had expected.

Seogeok!

As Jin-hyeon beheaded Hundred Nether Fist in one breath, the South Forest Three Swords ambushed him from behind.

Pueo-eong!

Han Cheol-sang’s single slash, joining as if he’d been waiting, severed the youngest of the Three Swords’ leg and crushed the first and second swords’ upper bodies whole.

It didn’t cut. It smashed. Normally, the first and second swords’ bodies should have been cleanly severed like the youngest’s leg.

It meant Han Cheol-sang was badly tired. Still, even a single slash thrown with an exhausted body had solid destructive power.

Flash!

Before Han Cheol-sang could even turn his head, Jin-hyeon’s iron sword, thrown, pierced straight through the chests of the West Wind Five Ghosts’ first and second, and pinned into the ground.

It was a flying sword like a beam of light. He hadn’t properly used flying-sword techniques since returning from death, but in the consecutive chaos of battle, Jin-hyeon’s real-combat sense was flaring frighteningly.

As if possessed by something, he naturally drew out the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s combat ability from the past. Even if it was no more than a dream that should fade with time, he still remembered nearly all of the enlightenment. When he immersed himself in battle, his body reacted first.

And that was granting Jin-hyeon a certain qualification.

Hungry Wolf Sword.

The Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s unique martial art and secret sword art, the worst martial art used only on those he decided he must kill. A mad slaughter sword that was called the world’s number one demonic art even though it did not leak heaven defying Demonic Qi.

Its cruelty was comparable to the Life-Snatching Chain-Linked Saber, its killing power a level above it, and its sheer destructive force surpassed Life-Snatching and overwhelmed even Heaven-Shattering. That was the ultimate sword art, Hungry Wolf Sword.

With Jin-hyeon as he was now, it wasn’t an art he could use in his right mind. But if you didn’t have the ability to wield killing intent by instinct even in a state of forgetting the self, you couldn’t even draw it out.

No matter what one would say, Jin-hyeon could be called the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s incarnation. Even if he walked a different martial path, the experience and instinct he shared with that man would become a foundation hard as steel and ignite his growth.

‘It works.’

Using Heavenly Escape Half-Step to minimize internal energy loss, Jin-hyeon slipped past Han Cheol-sang and smashed the West Wind Five Ghosts’ third in the temple.

With the sound of bones breaking, the third ghost’s face was driven into the ground. It hit so hard that half his face smashed into the earth.

‘It works!’

Pisyuk!

The fourth ghost’s sword grazed Jin-hyeon’s side.

Before the sword even finished swinging, Jin-hyeon’s upper body rotated first. He was reading the attack’s direction and power through the opponent’s killing intent.

The moment he grabbed the fourth ghost’s wrist, he smashed his groin. The fourth ghost’s eyes rolled back.

Jjeong! Kwang!

The fifth ghost’s slash, losing reason to fear, was smashed by Han Cheol-sang’s single slash, which also sent the owner’s head flying.

Jin-hyeon swung his arm as if it didn’t matter.

Udeudeuk!

The fourth ghost’s body, its arm ripped off, flew toward Gong Cheong, who had his mouth hanging open.

Peoeok!

“Keok!”

With a crash, Gong Cheong rolled across the floor and passed out. The fourth ghost did as well.

“Hoo…”

Jin-hyeon’s face went slightly pale as he exhaled. It was the aftereffect of extreme internal energy drain.

Even so, his internal energy wasn’t exhausted. The reckless circulation made his stomach churn and his blood channels ache in places, but he was still fine.

No, his mood was even beyond that.

‘The ability to carry out war alone. I’m standing at the threshold of that realm.’

Not everyone who is strong in martial arts fights well.

Some excelled at one-on-one duels, others were more specialized in one-versus-many fights.

Of course, the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader was good at every kind of fight. In the domain of combat, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

And Jin-hyeon was beginning to develop the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s tenfold completeness. Even as he exploded with rage at the sight of Gyeong Do-cheon, he used cold reason and accumulated combat experience, and with enlightenment he even shaped a new form of swordplay.

All of it raised Jin-hyeon’s ability frighteningly.

The summit of Mount Tai was still far away, but at least he had gained versatility on the level of the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader.

It couldn’t be explained by talent or effort.

It was experience.

Experience of becoming the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader and wriggling out of the jaws of life and death countless times. Experience as Jin-hyeon after awakening, forged through training and fresh real battles.

The experiences lived by two different owners of two souls matched up and lifted the very level of the talent he originally had.

Now he was not lacking to be called a true genius. And with him came the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s martial arts and a thousand years of experience.

‘Here.’

Jin-hyeon’s eye-light flared.

‘From here, it really begins.’

The learning he had consciously shaped to fit himself, because he didn’t want to simply follow the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader, finally blossomed his potential.

Kwang!

Jin-hyeon’s single step made a small quake in the outer court.

It was a step of will, not force. The White Wolf’s footstep that declared to the world he would rise higher and faster.

And then.

Jo Gwang, who had slipped out of the battle with exquisite concealment, dashed toward Gyeong Do-cheon, who was being held by the Iron King Squad members.

Filled with the anticipation and exhilaration only someone on the verge of achieving his goal could show.