Chapter 291: Chapter 291
The Black Dragon Sword was drawn, and a spray of blood painted the cave floor.
But I could not stop here.
Gun Cheon-ji would soon regain his stance and attempt a counterattack.
This was why I hated experienced bastards.
Without missing the moment, I charged at Gun Cheon-ji.
SLASH-
SLASH-
I swung the Black Dragon Sword without giving him even a moment’s gap, and two more wounds appeared on Gun Cheon-ji’s body.
“You cowardly bastard!”
A Zhongnan Sect disciple who had been fighting my junior disciples spat out a curse, but I ignored him and unleashed Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!
He had been wounded before he even realized it, and he had even suffered a surprise attack.
Therefore, even if he tried to block dozens of Fist Shadows, there was no way he could stop them all.
WHOOSH-
THUD!
His body was lifted into the air and slammed against the wall.
When I glanced toward the middle-aged man from Zhongnan Sect, he seemed wary of me joining the fight and began increasing his speed.
He intended to eliminate even one more person before I joined them.
But that was the wrong judgment.
That was a principle that only worked in peaceful times.
I rushed straight at Gun Cheon-ji and deliberately controlled my strength as I swung the Black Dragon Sword.
BOOM!
PATTER PATTER.
The Sword Qi burst forth and swept narrowly over Gun Cheon-ji’s head.
On a battlefield, when a comrade was taken hostage, the side that grew frightened and retreated first was always placed at a disadvantage.
So go on, take the bait.
I fired materialized Sword Qi at Gun Cheon-ji once more.
The fallen Gun Cheon-ji barely raised his sword and deflected the Sword Qi.
BOOM!
PATTER PATTER.
The Sword Qi, its direction twisted, struck the cave wall and spat a heap of earth over Gun Cheon-ji.
I glanced at the middle-aged man and gave a slight nod.
As expected.
“Madman!”
The middle-aged man, who had been about to swing his sword at my junior disciples, left his position with lightning speed.
CLANG!
And as though I had been waiting for it, I fired Sword Qi at the middle-aged man.
“Eek!”
The middle-aged man apparently had not expected me to turn so suddenly. He hurriedly shot out Palm Force to neutralize it.
BOOM!
Because he failed to deflect the Sword Qi properly, blood flowed from his hand, but the middle-aged man somehow managed to stand before Gun Cheon-ji.
Gun Cheon-ji lifted his face, twisted in pain, and looked at the middle-aged man.
I returned the words he had spoken to me.
“Do you have the leisure to worry about another?”
Well, he certainly looked as though he was in great pain.
“You crazy son of a bitch!”
The middle-aged man ground his teeth.
When I glanced aside, Sa-ryeon was examining the wounded Eun-ho, and in the meantime, Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong had taken their places on either side of me.
With this, we had gained complete superiority over the enemy.
As Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong stood beside me and prepared to form the White Tiger Sword Formation, panic appeared in the middle-aged man’s eyes.
He must have been in turmoil because he did not know Gun Cheon-ji’s condition, nor what he himself should do. On top of that, he had also been wounded before he knew it.
“Ahem…….”
At that moment, the fallen Gun Cheon-ji let out a groan, and the middle-aged man urgently shouted.
“Cheon-ji, are you all right?”
“……Urgh.”
At the moment when it was obvious he was racking his brains, unable to do this or that, I spoke.
“How about we both withdraw here?”
“……Hm?”
“I held back, so the wounds shouldn’t be deep. If he is treated at once, there should be no problem with him taking up the sword again.”
“You dare toy with Zhongnan Sect!”
The middle-aged man’s face changed into that of a murderous ghost.
As expected, a tiger’s pride was wounded even by a small injury.
“Are you saying you would rather bury your bones here?”
But even a tiger had to see its opponent properly at times. What it thought were a rabbit’s teeth might, at times, be the venomous fangs of a viper.
“If that is what you want.”
CLANG!
I drew the Black Dragon Sword in an instant and struck down toward his neck.
He too was horrified and raised his sword to block.
Instead of drawing my sword back and swinging again, I raised my Internal Energy as it was and began pushing him back, blade against blade.
“I’ll do that for you.”
If one wanted to make an opponent feel fear, one had to show an overwhelming sight.
PSHHH──
Blood sprayed from the middle-aged man’s wounded hand, and his eyes grew as wide as a rabbit’s.
“……What kind of Internal Energy is this!”
I liked that.
After all the hell I went through to gather this much Internal Energy, he had to show at least that sort of expression.
SCREEEECH-
The blade was pushed toward the middle-aged man in an instant, and just as it was about to touch his body, he laid his sword flat and began pushing it with both hands.
But unless he was a master of External Arts, there was no way for him to overpower me in a contest of Internal Energy.
GRRRRIND-
With the sound of scraping metal, the Black Dragon Sword touched his neck and created a wound.
“St-stop…….”
Gun Cheon-ji’s dying voice stopped the middle-aged man.
“Senior Brother, stop…….”
“Cheon-ji!”
“Senior Brother saw it too. That bastard is…… dangerous.”
Gun Cheon-ji turned his gaze toward me and asked.
“Will you…… keep your promise?”
“I have never once failed to keep a promise.”
“How can I trust you? A man who even hides his face…….”
That was fair.
But what was he going to do if he did not believe me?
SCREEEECH-
When I pushed the Black Dragon Sword again, Gun Cheon-ji’s face crumpled violently.
“F-fine. I understand.”
I slowly pulled the sword away.
The middle-aged man still had not abandoned his stance.
Hm. Look at that.
“Does Zhongnan Sect intend to break its promise?”
“……!”
At my bark, Gun Cheon-ji shouted toward the middle-aged man.
“Senior Brother!”
The middle-aged man looked back and forth between me and Gun Cheon-ji for a long while before he finally sheathed his sword.
Then he immediately supported Gun Cheon-ji.
“Cheon-ji, are you all right?”
“I-I am fine. Ah, don’t, don’t hold me there.”
Just as the two of them were about to leave the cave while tangled together, I blocked their path.
“……What is it? Do you still have business with us?”
I looked pathetically at the Zhongnan Sect disciple, who was pretending not to do the obvious thing, and said,
“You should leave the swords behind.”
“…….”
“And while you are at it, leave what’s in your pockets too.”
Ah, was this the first time a Zhongnan Sect disciple had experienced something like this?
***
“Are you all right?”
At my question, Eun-ho looked at me with a complicated gaze.
“In the middle of all that, you were thinking of robbing their pockets?”
His expression was hidden by the mask, so I could not see it well, but I could tell that his gaze was very disrespectful.
“Seeing that your mouth is alive and well, you seem all right.”
As expected, children grew best when they were knocked around a little.
He too answered in a calm voice.
“I think it will be rather difficult to swing a sword.”
“That is fine. I never expected swordsmanship from you in the first place.”
“Pardon? What does that mean? ……Eldest Senior Brother? Wait a moment, answer me. Eldest Senior Brother! Hey! Answer……!”
I sealed the noisy Eun-ho’s Mute Acupoint and searched for medicinal pills among the baggage the Zhongnan Sect disciples had left behind.
Disciples of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans would naturally carry emergency medicine.
As for Golden Wound Medicine, Sima Jeong’s would be superior, but a Vitality Pill was another matter.
After breaking off a small piece of a Vitality Pill and tasting it, I put it into Eun-ho’s mouth and applied the Golden Wound Medicine….
But did this brat just call me “hey”?
PRESS-
“Mmph! Mmph! Mmmph! Mmph!”
Though the pain must have been severe, Eun-ho endured it rather well.
As expected of a clever one, he clearly knew that making a fuss would quickly reveal our position.
“Senior Brother, is it all right to apply it so roughly?”
“Is Eun-ho not enduring it well?”
“……I don’t think he is enduring it of his own will.”
“Do not look down on Eun-ho. Eun-ho is a clever child.”
“Mmmmmmmph───!”
After I roughly administered first aid, Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong raised Eun-ho and supported him.
“Senior Brother.”
When I turned my head, Sa-ryeon was looking at me with eyes that somehow seemed cold.
“Why…… did you not help our side?”
Ah, perhaps this was still a sight Sa-ryeon was not used to.
I spoke calmly.
“Because that was right.”
“……What does that mean?”
“Because in that situation, it was the right choice. That is all.”
“…….”
This was not a matter one could be made to accept through explanation.
On a battlefield, there was no method by which everyone could survive while also considering every individual’s feelings.
Even if they did not understand, it was enough as long as they survived.
That was why I did not add any explanation, even though I knew what Sa-ryeon might think.
Because it was not something she could accept simply because I explained it.
To make an effort to understand ultimately meant that one day, it would become difficult to follow.
“……Is that all you have to say?”
“Yes.”
Sa-ryeon bit her lip hard, then soon let out a sigh.
It seemed she had decided that this was not a matter to argue about right now.
Soon, as though trying to change the atmosphere, Sa-ryeon shifted the subject to Eun-ho’s arm.
“When exactly did you learn this? This is not the skill of someone who has only done it once or twice.”
“…….”
Ah, now that I thought about it, I had learned this after the Great Righteous-Demonic War.
“……I roamed the mountains often, didn’t I? I happened to learn it during that process.”
“Isn’t the bleeding stopping far too quickly for that?”
She truly was too sharp for her own good.
When escaping an awkward situation, diverting attention was best.
I raised the corners of my mouth in a warm smile and lifted a hand.
“It is because Eun-ho was not greatly injured. It is fortunate it was only this bad. Eun-ho.”
“Mmmmmph──!”
When I roughly patted Eun-ho’s head as he looked at me as though gazing at a mortal enemy, the topic quickly shifted to Gun Cheon-ji and his party, who had fled.
“By the way, is it all right to just let them go?”
She was probably worried that they would chase us again.
“As I said, Zhongnan Sect must not shed blood here.”
“No, what I mean is, should we not at least have tied them up?”
“Oh? Our Sa-ryeon has become a true Murim person. Since we must not spill blood, you suggest we bury them alive.”
“No! When did I ever say that?”
Sa-ryeon shivered as though even imagining it gave her chills.
“Do not worry. It will take them quite some time to return to their main force and explain the situation, and they will not go out of their way to chase us.”
“Why?”
“Because the inside of Thousand Caverns is already full of others.”
What the Zhongnan Sect had done wrong was that all the people of the Zhongnan Sect who should have been outside had entered Thousand Caverns.
I understood that they had been worried a Lay Disciple might obtain the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil, but because of that, their defenses outside had weakened.
Moreover, the third entrance had been breached, and once the martial artists of Xi’an learned that people had already entered, would they stay still?
Most likely, the three entrances were in utter chaos right now.
In the midst of that, what impact could there be in reporting that they had been attacked?
They probably had not even grasped the intruders inside yet.
“What if they chase us anyway?”
“Then we simply make it so they cannot chase us.”
There had been no particular reason why we had been forced to choose this path in the first place.
A Great Yang Palm shot from my hand and struck the ceiling along the path we had taken.
RUMBLE-
CRASH, CRASH.
Because of the falling rocks and the heaps of earth the ceiling vomited out, the cave was quickly blocked.
“If we block this place, they will have to go a long way around to reach where we are headed.”
The reason we had gone through the trouble of breaking through this place.
It was because this was the fastest path to obtain the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil.
We had come one step closer to the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil.
***
We passed through the cave where Gun Cheon-ji had been and sealed several caves.
With this, anyone heading toward the place where the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil would appear would have to take a long detour.
After passing through several caves like that, we did not encounter any Zhongnan Sect disciples.
“There are no Zhongnan Sect people here.”
“They must all have gone out to stop the people who entered through the third entrance.”
Sa-ryeon nodded.
Moreover, this place lay in the northeastern direction, which was the outskirts even within Thousand Caverns.
Considering that the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil that had appeared until now had emerged in the southwestern direction of Thousand Caverns, the surveillance here could not help but be somewhat lax.
Perhaps because of that, after we followed the cave deeper for some time, the torches the Zhongnan Sect had installed gradually decreased in number, until places without torches began appearing one by one.
Each of us held a torch and continued walking inward.
“Wait…….”
At my signal, my junior disciples came to a halt and hid their torches behind a stone outcrop.
The light shone to some degree, but it did not leak into the other caves.
“Hurry! Outsiders are coming in!”
“What are you talking about? We were blocking the entrance!”
“That is just how those Lay Disciple bastards are!”
Around the time the footsteps of the Zhongnan Sect disciples running off while spitting curses gradually grew distant, we slowly rose again.
It seemed the martial artists who had poured in were doing their part well.
The Zhongnan Sect was now in a desperate emergency.
With the time for the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil to appear drawing near, outsiders had entered at the worst possible moment, so they could not help but grow frantic.
“But Senior Brother, should we not split up too if we are going to find the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil?”
At Geum-pyo’s question, I shook my head.
“The place where the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil will appear is fixed.”
“Pardon?”
“The energy of the Five-Spirit Vein repeats in order. When one side wanes, another side waxes. Over the years, the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil appeared three times on one side, so the next place it will appear is the opposite side.”
Of course, this was merely a theory written in the Secret Record of Ten Thousand Herbs. The place I was heading toward was the precise location written in the Murim Compendium of Spiritual Medicines.
The cave was not particularly large, even compared with the caves we had passed so far.
“Put out the torches.”
“Pardon? Is it Zhongnan Sect again?”
“No. It is time to put out the fire now.”
‘So the Zhongnan Sect lost twenty percent of the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil because they did not know this.’
Once the fire was extinguished, the surroundings filled with darkness into which not a single inch of light entered.
Then, before long,
“……Huh?”
“Ah!!”
“Mmmph── mmmph──.”
The ceiling slowly began to turn red, as though embers had caught there.
The red energy that gradually began to spread soon shone with a brightness that could not be compared to torches, and the chamber, which had been dark as pitch, grew bright enough for us to see one another’s faces as though it were broad daylight.
“What is this?”
The bright light shone into eyes that had adjusted to the darkness, and everyone frowned and squeezed their eyes shut.
I took out a waterskin and approached the very center.
On a blunt protrusion that looked like the root of a tree, yellow heat had gathered like dew.
I quickly took out a vessel and caught the falling yellow dew inside it.
DRIP─
DRIP─
DRIP─
Each time a drop of dew fell, a strange fragrance spread through the surroundings.
“Senior Brother, is that…….”
Geum-pyo could not close his mouth in awe.
I looked at him and nodded.
The object Zhongnan Sect so desperately desired, and the object the Beggars’ Sect could not abandon its lingering regret over and was always watching for a chance to seize.
“Yes. It is the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Oil.”