Chapter 149: Greenwood Chieftain (1)
[Even if only two people gather, a leader emerges. And as their numbers grow, their own rules, norms, and disciplines are made. It is what is commonly called the law. Needless to say, this exists in the martial world as well. Just as those who break national laws cannot live in that society, those who violate the laws of the martial world cannot live in that group either. Where would a person who has become like that go?]
While I was wondering if a mere bandit was allowed to be this strong, Master Zhang Sanfeng’s explanation continued lengthily.
“A place that is of the martial world yet not of the martial world… it would be the mountains. Or going far away beyond the borders.”
[Yes, correct. They usually go to the mountains. Because it is difficult to live together with ordinary people.]
If they never deployed martial arts for the rest of their lives, they might be able to leave the martial world and live as ordinary people.
However, whether out of good or bad intentions, could a person who failed to suppress their hot blood and caused trouble fold their martial arts and live as if dead for the rest of their life?
[The martial arts of such people gathered to become the essence of the Green Forest’s martial arts.]
Those who rose up in anger to grab a blade and committed an act when things could not be resolved through normal procedures; those who crossed the line coveting external possessions like wealth, secret manuals, or spiritual elixirs; those who committed an act unable to suppress their desires and fled.
The Green Forest was a place like a great furnace where such people were mixed and melted together.
[Even when this master walked the martial world with a mortal body in the past, there was a Green Forest expert who was quite troublesome.]
“You, Master?”
This was a bit surprising.
[As it was a turbulent era, even righteous people did not hesitate to dip their hands in disgrace. Among them, there were also many whose temperaments were simple and who set their minds on progress. Just because such people settled in the mountains, they wouldn’t have completely fallen. There was a time in the Green Forest when such people gathered, ignoring the distinction between Orthodox, Unorthodox, and Demonic, pursuing solely strength and melting everything down like a great furnace. If those martial lineages have been passed down to this day, they cannot be ignored.]
I could understand my master’s words to some extent.
At the same time, the martial strength of the Green Forest expert who threw a hand axe without warning was also understood.
Gathering my tension, I regulated the rising power inside my body.
As the distance closed, the opponent was clearly visible.
He was handling three people: two who appeared to be experts of the Namgung Clan, and one who looked like a Beggars’ Sect member.
In the midst of that, he had thrown a hand axe at me.
It meant he still had strength to spare.
Indeed, even though the distance was not small, my hand was tingly the moment I swiped it away.
Speaking of which, the words Uncle Baek Jin-seong had evaluated about the Green Forest suddenly came to mind.
‘He said the reason the Green Forest couldn’t enter the Six Heavens, which is the sky of the unorthodox path, was because their influence was excessively scattered, right?’
Although they were lumped together and called the Seventy-Two Fortresses of the Green Forest, the common opinion was that they were virtually seventy-two separate forces.
Because the distance between fortresses was an issue, and the temperament of each fortress was too different.
However, what if they could gather their strength into one?
And what if their forces combined, just as Master Zhang Sanfeng had evaluated?
A new force that would shake the balance between Orthodox, Unorthodox, and Demonic would emerge.
It would become a power that could never be ignored.
‘Let’s help first.’
Why the Green Forest expert had entered Anhui was a mystery, but for now, helping the experts of the Namgung Clan and the Beggars’ Sect came first.
I put more strength into my legs that were running forward.
Dash!
With the subtlety of the Cloud-Soaring Golden Light Step, the distance with the opponent closed in an instant.
It was the movement that had shocked the Green Forest bandit I faced earlier.
I believed it would work this time too.
“Huh?”
Realizing that was a blunder was instantaneous.
The moment I stepped into the opponent’s range, there was an axe blade falling like lightning, targeting my head.
Despite the axe blade being massive enough to obscure my upper body, it was a movement that seemed to feel no weight at all.
“Kh!”
Whoosh!
Only after borrowing the power of the revolving lantern(?) in addition to Master Zhang Sanfeng’s listening force and Master Heavenly Demon’s synesthesia was I able to roll my body and barely dodge it.
And something terrifying, like a natural disaster, plunged down onto where I had been.
‘What on earth is this?’
A power and sound that would only occur when deploying an ultimate technique like the Ultimate Extreme Strike were felt from a casually swung axe blade.
‘Did I almost die just now?’
When looking from afar, I did think that he wielded the giant axe like a whip, but experiencing it directly right before my nose was beyond imagination.
[I-I was startled, you rascal! Won’t you focus?]
Following that, Master Zhang Sanfeng’s nagging came down.
[This master did not explain lengthily about the Green Forest for nothing, you punk!]
Certainly, the advice my master had given me was no different from warnings.
Perhaps because things have been going well lately, the leash of my tension had loosened too much.
At the moment I tightened the leash of tension tightly once again!
Whoosh!
Once again, the axe blade plunged down to split me apart.
‘I saw it clearly this time!’
Although it was axe play that was fast enough to defy common sense compared to its weight, my masters’ martial arts were beyond that.
I surrendered my body to the senses and rode that flow.
Dodging the attack by a paper-thin margin, I penetrated into the opponent’s embrace like flowing water.
Because it was a flow of offense and defense that occurred so instantaneously, I couldn’t follow up with the Ultimate Extreme Strike, but it was a strike filled with the divine power of fire.
However, the sound created by that strike was truly unfamiliar.
Clang!
It felt like hitting a solid temple bell.
Should I say it felt like the power didn’t extend properly?
[Soft Vajra! Watch out!]
At the rare warning from Master Zhang Sanfeng, my hair stood on end.
Only then did the body of the opponent I struck come into view.
I struck the spot I hit, and black smudge-like marks spread out like ripples.
Those smudges shrank in an instant, gathering back to the starting point.
‘It’s dangerous?’
Ping!
The moment I hurriedly pulled my hand away from the point of impact, a strong rebound force occurred and sparks flew.
It was as if I had received the exact force I struck with back in full.
While backing away awkwardly as if pushed like that,
‘Damn it.’
the axe fell above my head once more.
Boom!
“Khq!”
I barely blocked it by crossing Master Heavenly Demon’s gauntlets, but I couldn’t completely dissipate the force.
The result was disastrous.
I was bounced off the ground as if I had become a giant ball.
‘At this rate… if a follow-up attack comes…!’
Since I was airborne and couldn’t control my body, I couldn’t dodge the next attack.
Although a shock felt as if my two arms would fly off remained, I somehow heightened my senses and prepared for the attack to follow.
Fortunately, there was no pursuit.
“Your opponent is over here!”
As if to draw attention, a middle-aged man with a clean appearance raised his voice and aimed for the Green Forest expert’s back.
“Hmph!”
Perhaps unable to ignore the middle-aged man’s sword laden with blue energy, the Green Forest expert’s axe changed direction.
The heavy sword of the Namgung Clan, highly renowned under heaven, clashed with the Green Forest expert’s axe strike.
Craaaaaash!
Surprisingly, the Green Forest expert’s axe pushed back the Namgung Clan’s heavy sword.
“Here too!”
“Hah!”
Taking advantage of that gap, the Namgung Clan youth and the Beggars’ Sect figure penetrated the blind spot.
I remembered the young youth of the Namgung Clan.
It was the young man who was running wild at the inn.
It felt a bit ironic for a coincidence.
Although I folded it away as the situation was too urgent to fall into sentimentality, I could clearly grasp the attacks they deployed.
‘The efficiency of the coordinated attack is not good.’
Though pushed back, the middle-aged man of the Namgung Clan was clearly an expert capable of taking the Green Forest man’s attacks.
The problem was that the connection between the two who should support him from behind was not smooth.
If doing it alone was difficult, joining hands with multiple people could be a way.
However, a coordinated attack was not as easy as it sounded.
Even when practicing the same martial arts, keeping each other’s techniques from overlapping was no easy task.
It was said that even in the Nine Great Sects, a coordinated battle formation for coordinated attacks required long efforts and practice to match their steps and exert their proper power.
Let alone their affiliations being different, with the Namgung Clan and the Beggars’ Sect.
Uniting forces without knowing the specialties, characteristics, and temperaments of those you are with was virtually impossible.
‘If it goes to the worst-case scenario…’
If it went to the worst-case scenario, it wasn’t that there was no way at all.
I could consider Yi Hwa stepping in, and there was also the method of deploying Master Heavenly Demon’s Heavenly Demon Kalpaless Hand.
However, since it was a place where a Beggars’ Sect figure was present, it was an option that could not be easily chosen.
If so?
‘If I can make the flow of the coordinated attack more complete… If I can organize it from the middle so that the flow of attacks doesn’t overlap…’
For anyone else, it might be impossible, but it was possible for me.
However, prior preparation was necessary.
[Do not stop your sword even if a moment comes when it seems you will cut me.]
Utilizing the sensation from the inn, I conveyed my intent to the clean-looking middle-aged man.
Seeing his brief flinch, I confirmed that my voice had clearly reached him.
At the same time, I lunged forward.
Whoosh!
The moment I penetrated the opponent’s territory, an axe strike fell down like a ghost.
However, I was also properly prepared this time.
The Ultimate Extreme Strike containing divine power!
Loading the divine power of wood onto the rampaging divine power of fire.
The divine power of wood extends honestly.
The divine power of fire diffuses with the momentum to devour such divine power of wood.
The flows of the two forces moved dynamically, contained in the Ultimate Extreme Strike.
Claaaaang!
“Oh?”
If it was a strike fully prepared, I was confident in matching him evenly.
Master Heavenly Demon’s gauntlets, which did not fall short of being called magic treasures, endured the clash of forces.
“Explode!”
At this moment, explode the collided force!
Ultimate Extreme Thunder!
Explode the remnants of the force that burst out from the first clash to open a gap!
Boom!
“Kh!”
Perhaps because he didn’t expect the force to burst out repeatedly, the enemy’s fierce yet flawless domain was disrupted.
I penetrated into that disrupted domain.
Whack!
A kicking technique extended like a thrust struck the opponent’s chest.
However, the technique called Soft Vajra mentioned by Master Zhang Sanfeng absorbed that impact in its entirety.
‘Up to here is as expected.’
I penetrated and landed a blow, but the opponent easily took it.
Considering the sequence of events from earlier, it was time for a counterattack.
I immediately lowered my body.
I didn’t see it with my eyes, but I could tell.
Right now, behind my back, the expert of the Namgung Clan was delivering a sword strike.
‘You didn’t see this, did you?’
Eyes aren’t attached to the back of my head.
However, Master Heavenly Demon’s synesthesia reads my surroundings as if placing eyes everywhere as eyes of sense.
Even without looking, I knew where the sword was.
The sword strike extended with the momentum to split my upper body headed toward the Green Forest expert the moment I ducked.
It was a coordination unfolding in the blind spot of vision that could not be seen with eyes.
A coordination that was so miraculous it was surprising that the ally wasn’t cut.
Could there be a more exquisite coordinated attack than this!
Slash!
From the spot where the black smudge was blooming, red blood splattered.
An effective hit had clearly occurred, but seeing that his body wasn’t sliced to pieces even by the blue sword strike that looked capable of cutting steel, it could be seen that he was indeed quite sturdy.
‘He is damn strong.’
The expert of the black qi I clashed with in Suzhou was also strong and fast, but as expected, he put forward the characteristics possessed by the black qi.
This Green Forest expert was simply strong in himself.
He made me feel that my skill, which I felt had grown in its own way, was lacking.
The Green Forest expert lightly touched his front chest, staining his hand with blood, and then glared at me.
“It’s the first time my Divine Steel Body has been broken in this manner. What kind of fellow are you?”
For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him, so I acted petulant.
“Sometimes I was a dragon, sometimes a flower boy, and just a moment ago I was called a monster.”
“…”
He didn’t seem to understand it at all.