Chapter 260: The Storm Gathers (3)
I had expected that interference would gradually arrive. Regardless of how well we planned the New Justice Festival, the core of the festival was ultimately the tournament.
Therefore, if interference was to come, it would likely be today, the day the tournament was held.
I had actually anticipated various forms of interference, but I never dreamed of this. Who could have known that Myeong-gyeong was royalty?
Naturally, the Imperial Palace must have already known that Myeong-gyeong was royalty. With a bit of investigation, they would have also discovered that Myeong-gyeong and I shared a close relationship, and they would have been eagerly looking for an opportunity to use Myeong-gyeong to shake me. That was truly insolent.
“You must have known as well. The esteemed guest here is not someone for you to chat and play with.”
The Grand Eunuch of the Eastern Depot spoke in a cracking voice. Although his back was bent and his stature was small, the sense of intimidation he exuded was no joke.
“Prince of Jianzhou. Now, please return to the Imperial Palace with this old man.”
Since he was the Emperor’s brother, it seemed he had been granted the title of a prince as well.
Myeong-gyeong glanced at me and then stepped closer to the Grand Eunuch. I didn’t even have time to stop him. It was a movement that was all too natural. That made me angry.
“Senior Brother.”
“Do not call him Senior Brother. How dare you address royalty with such a light title?”
The Grand Eunuch rebuked me. Myeong-gyeong avoided my eyes.
“At least for now, is he not a person of Wudang? Why did the Imperial Palace abandon him and now try to take him back?”
“His Imperial Majesty has never abandoned the Prince of Jianzhou.”
I couldn’t help but sneer at the Grand Eunuch’s deception. From the title Prince of Jianzhou alone, I could tell what kind of treatment Myeong-gyeong had received in the Imperial Palace.
“Is Jianzhou not a place where northern barbarians live? Although a Jimi Military Garrison not belonging to the Empire was established there, appointing him as the prince of that place was simply sending him into exile, was it not?”
“Are you now expressing dissatisfaction with His Imperial Majesty’s affairs?”
“Yes.”
When I answered so confidently, the Grand Eunuch was momentarily speechless.
This was not an emotional response on my part. The New Justice Association itself had already risen up against the Imperial Palace’s policies, so adding one more offense here wouldn’t change much.
“You are beyond bold; you seem to have gone mad. Although it is not a day or two that martial artists despise the Empire.”
“You have truly never seen madness.”
“Have you seen it, then?”
I had seen it. My father’s paroxysmal madness. That produced sounds that an ordinary person could hardly mimic.
When I was young, my mother told me that father was occasionally possessed by ghosts, and I had believed it.
“At least a glimpse.”
And I drew my sword without warning. A lightning-fast strike divided the space between the Grand Eunuch and Myeong-gyeong. Myeong-gyeong couldn’t even move, while the Grand Eunuch backed away in alarm.
Using that split second, I wrapped my arm around Myeong-gyeong’s shoulder and pulled him back to my side.
“You madman!”
The Grand Eunuch’s eyes blazed. Light flared from both sides of his faded, wide sleeves.
I bent my neck and rotated my body half a turn, keeping Myeong-gyeong in my arms. Flash cut my bangs and tore the clothes near my ribs. They were hidden weapons.
“How dare a commoner!”
Countless flashes poured out from his sleeves. The Grand Eunuch unleashed hidden weapons as if scattering them. They were not aimed only at me. The hidden weapons from his sleeves erupted toward the ceiling, the floor, and both walls.
However, the hidden weapons striking the walls astonishingly altered their course toward me. In the end, I was the target.
Holding Myeong-gyeong in my arms, I rapidly rotated my body to generate qi waves. Although I hadn’t reached the realm of Body-Protecting Qi, I was mimicking a minute part of it.
The hidden weapons entering the range of my qi waves had their trajectories altered and their force weakened. Consequently, turning my body, I deflected all the hidden weapons flying toward me with my sword.
“…”
When hundreds of hidden weapons were deflected onto the floor, the Grand Eunuch was astonished.
“The one who has gone mad seems to be you, old man.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at the Grand Eunuch.
“What do you mean?”
“If you truly cared for Senior Brother Myeong-gyeong and treated him as royalty, you shouldn’t have thrown hidden weapons like that.”
The Grand Eunuch was speechless. When I unleashed my sword strike, I had deliberately avoided Myeong-gyeong. However, the Grand Eunuch knew Myeong-gyeong was beside me when he unleashed his hidden weapons. Yet his indiscriminate firing of hidden weapons containing sword qi contradicted everything he had said so far.
“Fufufu. Fine. I admit the Prince of Jianzhou is not a proper royal. But what will you do? Royalty fundamentally belongs to the Imperial Palace.”
“Does the Imperial Palace not belong to royalty?”
“That is a completely different matter.”
The Grand Eunuch turned his gaze from me to Myeong-gyeong.
“Prince of Jianzhou. Are you truly not going to follow this old man? You know better than anyone what happens when you defy His Imperial Majesty’s command.”
“Ugh…”
Myeong-gyeong groaned in pain. If Myeong-gyeong wished to go to the Imperial Palace, I would let him.
But Myeong-gyeong clearly did not want to return to the Imperial Palace right now. If so, I had no reason to hand him over.
“You will regret this. Your beloved Junior Brother might be discovered as a cold corpse, after all.”
“You!”
Myeong-gyeong’s eyes snapped open and he growled.
“This is an affair of the Imperial Palace. You said you wouldn’t drag other people into this!”
“Indeed. But that is only when the Prince of Jianzhou listens to this old man’s words properly.”
The Grand Eunuch spoke with a smirk, as if enjoying the situation.
Myeong-gyeong glanced at me and then tried to step toward the Grand Eunuch again. I grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place.
“You don’t have to go.”
“…Junior Brother.”
Myeong-gyeong’s eyes wavered, but he shook his head.
“No. It is for your sake, but it is also for the Wudang Sect.”
“The Wudang Sect doesn’t want this either.”
“You say that because you don’t know. The Emperor is…”
I simply struck Myeong-gyeong’s acupoint. Myeong-gyeong’s eyes closed and he slumped forward. I supported him and gently laid him down in a corner.
“You truly are a madman.”
The Grand Eunuch let out a dry laugh.
“Aside from taking the Prince of Jianzhou, pointing a blade at a Grand Eunuch is an offense worthy of immediate execution.”
Two curved daggers slid from the Grand Eunuch’s sleeves. Holding a dagger in each hand, the Grand Eunuch licked his lips.
An ominous presence settled on the daggers. I had to suppress the nausea rising from deep within.
It was the martial arts of the Imperial Palace. However, while the martial arts of the Embroidered Uniform Guard were yang arts, the martial arts of the Eastern Depot were yin arts. One was an art extending outward, while the other sank deeply.
In some ways, the Eastern Depot was a more secretive group than the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Thus, nothing was known about what kind of martial arts they used.
I tensed and gripped my sword tighter. I blinked once, and when I opened my eyes, the Grand Eunuch had vanished.
Astonishingly, nothing was caught in my qi perception. But a martial artist’s instinct made me look at the ceiling. There, the Grand Eunuch was clinging to the ceiling with his hands and feet.
Pushing off the ceiling with both hands and feet, the Grand Eunuch shot down toward me. It was truly lightning-fast.
I quickly dodged backward.
I expected the floor to collapse or shatter when he landed, but there was not a single trace on the floor. It seemed he had completely arrested his speed just before landing. I wondered if such a technique was possible, but having seen it with my own eyes, I had no choice but to believe it.
Without a moment’s pause, the Grand Eunuch lunged at me in a seamless continuation of movement.
The fight with the Grand Eunuch was remarkably quiet. For some reason, although sword and daggers clashed, almost no sound was made.
An art that extremely minimized presence and trace. That seemed to be the martial art of the Eastern Depot. Considering that the Eastern Depot mostly engaged in assassinations, there was no art more fitting.
In an instant, it felt as though a spiderweb had been woven before my eyes. The trajectories of the daggers were that swift and dense.
Every swordsmanship principle has a counter. Wudang’s Gentle Sword is strong against a Heavy Sword that moves heavily and slowly. Since the force is strong, Wudang’s Gentle Sword can turn it back with the technique of deflecting a thousand pounds with four ounces.
Conversely, what countered the Gentle Sword was an extreme Fast Sword like the Grand Eunuch’s art. Since each strike of the Fast Sword carried little force, it was difficult to return with the deflecting technique, and deflecting them all was no easy task.
Of course, if there was a massive difference in the level of the martial artists, one could deflect them all, but that was not the case here.
My clothes were sliced, and my skin began to be cut. Avoiding critical areas as much as possible, I received his daggers while biding my time.
“Junior Brother!”
Myeong-gyeong shouted from the corner. It seemed I had struck his acupoint too lightly. Had I thought of Myeong-gyeong too much as a child? I thought it would be sufficient, but it seemed not.
“Grand Eunuch! Stop!”
“I cannot.”
The Grand Eunuch chuckled. Myeong-gyeong’s urgent voice was understandable. Because I was allowing many attacks, blood was scattering in all directions.
Although I was giving up flesh to avoid critical wounds, to an observer, it would look as though I had sustained massive injuries.
“I am fine, Senior Brother.”
“Haha. You still have the leisure to speak.”
The figure of the Grand Eunuch before me seemed to waver and grow blurry. I immediately spun around and swung my sword.
Boom!
The qi wave of the Hunwon Muhui Sword Art completely blew away one wall.
“Fufufu. Do you plan to call for help?”
The Grand Eunuch laughed. As expected of an old eunuch, he was quick-witted.
“But what a pity. You are destined to die before then.”
The Grand Eunuch backed away slightly. I could feel his internal energy rising intensely. I could tell he was preparing a trump card.
No, it wasn’t that I noticed it. The Grand Eunuch was preparing it regardless of whether I noticed or not.
“Be honored. There are not many martial artists who have drawn out my Soul-Slayer.”
The name of the form seemed to be Soul-Slayer. Killing the soul. It was a terrifying name.
In an instant, the surroundings turned into pitch-black darkness. What kind of mystical technique was this? It felt as though a separate space had been carved out.
“Fufufu…”
The Grand Eunuch’s laughter resounded in three dimensions. It was a voice whose origin could not be discerned, like the voice transmission technique.
And a blade flew toward my face from the front. The feeling of a blade flying before my eyes was chilling.
I turned my head to dodge, but I allowed a deep cut from my mouth to my ear.
I closed my eyes. And I gripped my sword. My qi perception became even more sensitive. Since it was a darkness I had created in my mind, I was not afraid.
The vibrations of the sword were transmitted to me. I could feel my vibrations also being transmitted to the sword.
It was the oneness of mind and sword. And I had been waiting for this moment. The reason I had continuously deflected his daggers defensively and given the impression of being cornered.
I spun my body and snapped my eyes open. As expected, the blade was right before my eyes.
The first form of the Hunwon Muhui Sword Art, New Moon, shot toward his blade.
“Ah?”
A startled voice was heard briefly. But that sound was also swallowed by the vibration and roar of the New Moon.
Clearly, the Grand Eunuch’s skill was equal to or superior to mine. Had I alternated between offense and defense, I might have inflicted a few wounds on him.
But in the end, it would have simply ended with both of us sustaining minor injuries.
The reason I chose this strategy was that this fight had a time limit. Therefore, I chose a move that returned the numerous cuts I had received all at once.
As the New Moon shot forward, the darkness shattered. And blood splattered onto my face.
Before long, the Grand Eunuch stood at a distance, clutching his waist with a pale face.
“You bastard, you tricked me.”
“You didn’t die from that.”
I had intended to cut his waist in half.
I clicked my tongue. The Grand Eunuch was indeed swift. Although it was a deep cut, it was not a fatal wound. It had, however, repaid the numerous cuts on my skin all at once.
“Do you truly intend to fight to the end…”
The Grand Eunuch tried to approach me, but hesitated. His already pale face grew even more pale.
I roughly knew what had happened. An Eastern Depot agent lurking nearby was likely sending him a voice transmission. That person was still inexperienced, so they were caught in my qi perception.
“…You were lucky. I will surely kill you next time.”
The Grand Eunuch spoke in a cold voice and vanished. He had no choice but to retreat.
Anticipating that the Imperial Palace’s interference would come, I had already set a move that forced the Imperial palace’s martial artists to be summoned back in a hurry.
Not long after, a courier could be seen riding up Wudang Mountain at rapid speed. He shouted so loud that Wudang Mountain shook:
“The Demonic Cult! The Demonic Cult has run rampant!”
It was the moment the storm I had summoned arrived in the Central Plains.