Chapter 157: The Taoist Path

Until a moment ago, the clash between Senior Jang Mun-gyeong and Adept Heu-do had received the most attention.

For us, who knew the two were on the same side, it was a good opportunity to expand our knowledge while watching a high-level sparring match (?), but from the perspective of the Defeng Yin Clan, their fate of life and death hung on the outcome, so they had no choice but to be desperate.

However, because the two who were exchanging fierce sword strikes until just now were evaluating me in a warm atmosphere, I ended up receiving attention as well.

“Can you do that?”

“If it is just imitation, it might be possible somehow, but as martial arts, I have no confidence. The flow of qi in Wudang and Shaolin is strictly different. If one changes the circulation of qi frequently like that, their qi and blood vessels will not be able to bear it.”

“But that fellow is doing it.”

“…It is indeed a mysterious thing.”

Hearing the conversation they were sharing, I understood why they were looking at me as if I were a strange anomaly.

The variation of the martial arts displayed, breaking down the boundaries of Shaolin Fist and Wudang Fist, was not merely at the level of deploying the two martial arts alternately, but changed from moment to moment.

Qi is like water. And when a change occurs in its flow, a backlash occurs.

To use the analogy of water, it splashes and sloshes.

Hard and soft. Since the temperaments of Shaolin and Wudang are at opposite extremes, the backlash is bound to be immense.

It was a skill that even Adept Heu-do, whom one could safely call the pinnacle of the Wudang Sect’s martial arts, declared to be impossible.

That was why everyone was surprised and in awe.

Of none other than me.

‘Ugh! Damn it!! Get a grip, you fool!!’

As everyone’s attention gathered, I felt a familiar sensation creeping up.

However, I immediately cut it off coldly and braced my heart.

‘If I want to get drunk on being special, let’s at least reach the realm of those people first.’

Being overly passive was also a problem. In the end, excessive modesty also led to arrogance.

However, nothing is as dangerous as pride.

A middle path between them was needed.

Once my thoughts were aligned, a clear line was also drawn in my mind.

I could comfortably accept the surrounding attention.

However, there was someone who could not accept the suddenly changed situation.

“What… kind of conversation are you sharing right now?”

“What do you mean, what conversation? A conversation is just a conversation. I do not know what you are talking about.”

“You do not know?! I am asking who you are calmly talking to right now, Adept Heu-do!!”

Yoon Jin-hyeok, who had lost an arm, tried to raise his staggering body but collapsed right back down.

Since his arm had been completely crushed, the pain must have been immense, but due to the reality before his eyes that he wanted to deny, he could not even process the pain properly.

‘It seems he has finally noticed.’

From Yoon Jin-hyeok’s perspective, he had internally felt it was strange while watching the clash between Senior Jang Mun-gyeong and Adept Heu-do, but he seemed to have consciously suppressed it.

However, there is a limit to escaping reality.

Yoon Jin-hyeok came to face a reality he absolutely could not accept.

“If you want to hear it that badly, I will tell you.”

As if he felt there was no longer any need to deceive, Adept Heu-do’s sword moved.

*Slash!*

Yoon Jin-oh’s head fell.

“Does that serve as an answer?”

It was also at that moment that Senior Jang Mun-gyeong moved.

The heads of the Defeng Yin Clan’s trash, who were so shocked that their bodies had frozen with no sign of movement, were severed in an instant.

“E-Evade…!”

“Flee…!!”

Because their numbers were large, they could not be finished all at once, but even so, they only bought enough time to take a few more deep breaths.

The moment when the Defeng Yin Clan, which had settled here for a long time and ruled like kings, disappeared was that brief.

“Heh…”

Yoon Jin-hyeok, who saw the moment everything vanished before his eyes, trembled violently like a person afflicted with malaria.

“Hehe… Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!!”

Laughing with drool trickling down and a face hardened as if coated in plaster, he did not look normal to anyone.

However, no one pitied Yoon Jin-hyeok.

For that, the sins Yoon Jin-hyeok and the Defeng Yin Clan had committed were too great.

“To take Si-hoo… as a disciple… did you never have that intention from the beginning?”

“I do not know what you are talking about. Why would I take a fellow whom I am about to excommunicate as a disciple?”

Adept Heu-do, who was answering Yoon Jin-hyeok’s final struggle, suddenly looked toward me.

“Unless it were that child.”

At the words pointing to me, I gently unwrapped the handkerchief I had wrapped around the sword.

Thereupon, the Pine Pattern Ancient Sword, which was like the symbol of the Wudang Sect, was revealed.

“I see. Hehehe… That’s what it was! Ahahahaha!!”

As if he finally understood everything, Yoon Jin-hyeok laughed at the top of his lungs.

And after emptying out everything contained inside, he glared at me.

“You are Yeon Cheong-un!”

Yoon Jin-hyeok’s face distorted fiercely.

It was the gaze of looking at a lifelong archenemy with whom one could not share the same sky.

Perhaps displeased by such behavior, Adept Heu-do blocked that gaze and protected me.

“I am grateful to you and the Defeng Yin Clan.”

“What kind of nonsense is that again…”

“I do not know how that fellow Si-hoo’s martial talent was, but his talent for playing politics among people was quite something. Not only did he wrap the Wise Tao Hall Leader around his finger, but he also bound the cancer cells of the Wudang Sect together nicely. Thanks to that, we were able to easily filter out the rotten seeds within Wudang.”

*Grind!*

Yoon Jin-hyeok ground his teeth roughly instead of answering.

“There is one more thing to thank you for. Lately, the Nine Sects have been in a commotion, and the one at the forefront of it is the Zhongnan Sect. Since they had the justification of the Sect Leader’s disciple being killed, we had no way to restrain them, but when I listened to Junior Jang, I saw a way. Thanks to the true nature of the Defeng Yin Clan being revealed, it seems we will be able to suppress the Zhongnan Sect, which is crossing the line. So, how could I not be grateful to you?”

If one were to rank the things one least wants to hear from an enemy, that would definitely be near the top.

The statement that the enemy had gained a huge benefit by using one’s own mistake or oneself.

Looking at it now, Adept Heu-do’s level of scratching people’s insides was also considerable.

“Dog-like old man!”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Despite Yoon Jin-hyeok’s spiteful insults, Adept Heu-do merely laughed hollowly as if he had heard well-wishing words.

However, I could not help but chuckle at the last insult that came out.

“You bastards… You are no different, you hypocrites! I will wait for you in hell!!”

“Pfft!”

Knowing what hell was like, I could only laugh.

I stepped forward out of Adept Heu-do’s shadow.

“Do you even know what hell is like?”

“Hahaha! Is hell anything special? Even if it is hell, to someone like me, it would just be like a hometown!”

It seemed this fellow was harboring some strange romance about hell.

“So I will win there! Me!!”

Perhaps because his internal injuries ruptured, as he raised his voice, blood and torn pieces of flesh gushed out of his mouth.

His appearance, pouring curses with ghastly eyes, was eerie.

However, knowing well where Yoon Jin-hyeok had to go, I grabbed him by the collar and warned him in a low voice.

“Hmph! Someday, we will meet again. You may not know what I am talking about right now, but a day will surely come when you recall today’s event.”

Making eye contact, I had him remember my face clearly.

“I hope you remember what you said just now at that time. Because I will definitely ask you again on that day.”

“Hehe…”

Yoon Jin-hyeok laughed with confidence.

It was a laugh of believing he could absolutely win in hell.

‘How long will that laugh last?’

According to Master Zhang Sanfeng’s explanation, it would not take long for it to turn into screams scraping the bottom.

It was almost a pity that I could not hear it directly.

Adept Heu-do looked at me with a strange gaze as I flung down the collar of the dying Yoon Jin-hyeok.

“You speak as if you know hell very well.”

I must have expressed too firm a conviction.

At Adept Heu-do’s significant question, I shook my head.

“Because it is a place that countless sages have discussed and are still discussing.”

Although to the masters, it would just be an annoying workplace.

It was a place where Master Heavenly Demon was still frying demons in dung water even now.

‘Ah! If I ask the masters to pay special attention to these guys, would that count as illicit solicitation (?) too?’

Suddenly, a strange thought crossed my mind.

Perhaps thinking that I had become emotional, Adept Heu-do let out a chuckle and patted my shoulder.

“Haha. Yes, that’s right. However, according to what I heard, it does not seem like a place you would go.”

‘That might not be the case, you know?’

For some reason, a deep sense of guilt arose in my heart at the words and actions he did out of consideration for me.

Adept Heu-do was someone who had developed an Immortal Root.

If things went well and he ascended to heaven, he might have to commute to that annoying workplace.

I became secretly curious about what he would think if he had a chance to recall today’s conversation in the distant future.

***

Meanwhile, at that time.

The city where the Defeng Yin Clan was located fell into an uproar.

Although no one escaped from the Defeng Yin Clan, it was not as if absolutely nothing had crossed over their walls.

The clash of the two martial artists who had reached the Ten Great Swords of the Realm left a powerful aftermath in the surroundings.

The air was turbulent, and it was filled with goosebump-inducing sounds.

Some people who sensed the aftermath even from afar climbed onto the roofs of tall buildings to observe the events taking place at the Defeng Yin Clan.

Although detailed sights were not visible due to the layered buildings and walls, they could not block the sword light rising above, flashing like goblin fires.

Naturally, the news was also quickly reported to the county magistrate’s office.

However, the gates of the office were tightly closed, showing no sign of opening.

“Do you really intend to just watch like this?”

Some of the restless soldiers sought out the county magistrate.

The middle-aged man called Magistrate Na stared blankly at the soldiers, then slightly curled up the corners of his mouth.

“Why? Have you received a lot from the Defeng Yin Clan all this time? Are you worried that a lucrative money source will be cut off?”

“No, it—it is not like that…”

“Let me ask you one thing. In your view, is the Defeng Yin Clan a Martial World faction? Or are they a local influential family responsible for this region?”

“Well…”

The soldier who was about to answer felt Magistrate Na’s cold gaze.

Intuitive that he would face trouble if an undesirable answer came out, the soldier bowed his head and murmured.

“A Martial World… faction.”

“The answer is out. What is happening over there is a matter of Martial World. It is not an affair for the government to intervene in, so we do not need to step forward.”

“Yes…”

“Go. Keep the gates of the office tightly shut just as they are now.”

At the firm instruction that was like an ultimatum, the soldiers drooped their shoulders and returned.

“Tsk! Full of nothing but greed.”

Magistrate Na clicked his tongue and shook his head.

But soon, the corners of his mouth went up.

“An exposed tail must be cut off.”

His words and actions, murmuring such strange things as his mysterious smile, were quietly buried.

***

The middle of a certain mountain. A place where a wooden fence woven from thick trees was surrounded like a fortress wall.

Inside the mountain fortress, which was built for military purposes but where no one looking like a soldier could be found even if one washed their eyes and searched, two men shared a conversation.

“The Chief of the Georok Stronghold was injured?”

“So they say. I heard he suffered a penetrating wound to his shoulder.”

“That bastard Ak Gun-pae got injured? He is not an easy opponent… If he was hit in Anhui, did the Namgung Clan’s Firmament Squad move or something?”

“There was no movement from the Namgung Clan. Lately, they have been focusing their attention on the Yangtze River, so they lack the strength to spare for the outside.”

Perhaps because their information network was extraordinary, they were grasping the events that occurred in Anhui in their own way.

“Then is it the work of the fellows who came and threw a suspicious proposal before?”

“I do not know. However, since there were traces of strange fellows approaching other mountain strongholds as well, I think that possibility cannot be overlooked.”

“Humm…”

Anyone looking would see it was a relationship of strict obedience to orders.

“Go and find out properly.”

“I obey your command.”

The one who received the order left the place with a short reply.

The man left alone glared at the empty space with a hardened face.

“Being played on a board set up by someone else is not a good feeling, but… since the prey is tempting, I cannot ignore it.”

Behind the back of the man revealing his anger, albeit briefly, some form that stirred the surrounding air shimmered and vanished.

“…If things go well, I might see a way back.”

A man who had something resembling Yi Hwa murmured as he looked toward the western sky.