Chapter 174: New Level of Enlightenment
Once a decision was made, one had to move quickly.
“Where are the places we can win over?”
“The factions of the Seventy-Two Forts of the Green Forest are torn apart for all kinds of reasons depending on their individual tendencies, origins, connections, and friendships. If we had to choose among them, it would be the moderate side. Although not all of them were like that, the factions whose martial arts characteristics leaned toward the orthodox faction style tended to move moderately even in the meetings of Fort Leaders. There were also many with neutral tendencies.”
“Even if you say that, we can’t tell them apart.”
“…Damn it. Then in the end, I have no choice but to take the lead.”
The atmosphere was no different from an established fact that swords would be drawn.
“Let’s just give it a try!”
Dan Ya-heun shouted spiritedly.
“We will back you up from behind, so just move quickly.”
At Uncle Baek Jin-seong’s words, Dan Ya-heun, Man San-ho, the Fort Leaders following them, and the Green Forest bandits moved their steps outside.
I stood beside Sister Seol-ah.
“Sister, is your body okay?”
“There is… no problem.”
Whether because she disliked showing a weak side, she did not say she couldn’t.
However, it was an answer that didn’t inspire much trust.
‘If she could control her strength perfectly, situations like the occasional rampage of the Yin-Cold Qi shouldn’t happen.’
If Sister Seol-ah’s power rampaged by mistake, a major disaster where friend and foe could not be distinguished would occur.
“Then don’t use your strength. Don’t wander away and stay right next to me.”
For a moment, Sister Seol-ah made a surprised face.
“Okay, I will.”
She soon nodded with a beaming smile.
Suddenly, Baek Mu-ho, making a face as if he had chewed on something bitter, stuck out his tongue as if he were about to throw up at any moment.
“What’s wrong with you again?”
“I feel like I’m getting indigestion. It feels like something is squirming in my stomach. Was there something wrong with what I ate this morning?”
It felt like he was teasing somehow.
“Shall I make you comfortable, younger brother?”
“…No, older sister!”
At Sister Seol-ah’s ‘kind’ question showing concern for her younger brother’s well-being, Baek Mu-ho showed a rapid recovery and immediately straightened his expression.
“Tsk tsk! At any rate, you don’t have even a mosquito’s eyeball’s worth of tension.”
Uncle Baek Jin-seong grumbled as he readjusted his grip on his sword.
“Would the gentlemen taking the lead only go out if their butts are kicked?”
Then, as if he disliked the Green Forest bandits, including Dan Ya-heun, giggling while looking at Sister Seol-ah, he put an edge on his voice.
At Uncle Baek Jin-seong’s threat, the Green Forest bandits hurried out of the building, carrying even the still unconscious Ak Gun-pae on their backs.
The moment they left the residence like that, those who stood on edge in a different sense were positioned in front.
“What is there to pick up and eat that makes you come out.”
“Wait quietly inside. Isn’t it better for both sides to go peacefully?”
They were issuing threats as if they had been waiting.
It was a sign that they judged we would surrender on our own if we quietly waited.
However, beyond that, a situation that could not be overlooked was taking place.
The sources of the sounds of massive forces clashing were gathering.
“Fort Leader Ak!”
“Are you safe!”
It seemed they were those belonging to the faction Ak Gun-pae was part of.
Considering that Ak Gun-pae’s martial arts leaned heavily toward Shaolin style, they were targets to be won over.
“Let’s go! Brothers!!”
This time, even Dan Ya-heun or Man San-ho did not hesitate.
Drawing their weapons, they charged forward without hesitation!
Their previous sluggish and easygoing demeanor vanished, and they began to radiate an energy that proved they were indeed Fort Leaders of the Seventy-Two Forts of the Green Forest.
However, the one who stepped forward before the Green Forest bandits was none other than someone else.
“Hahaha! Take it easy as you come!”
Crunch! Crash!
“Wh-What is this!”
“Block it!!”
Elder Divine Monk opened the way.
Whether they were Fort Leader level or whatever, he demolished a corner of the formation in a single breath.
An absolute peak expert, whom one would doubt if anyone on Mount Cheonja dared to oppose, revealed his divine power without hesitation.
“Wow! I knew he wasn’t an ordinary old man, but…”
The Green Forest Fort Leaders, including Dan Ya-heun, shook their heads in astonishment.
Having confirmed a clear victory, the Green Forest bandits of Dan Ya-heun’s faction raised their momentum.
They followed and supported behind Elder Divine Monk.
They fiercely struck the left and right of the splitting formation.
It was like putting a stone-splitting chisel in front, with a hammer striking from behind.
Amidst the ongoing shock of the front lines collapsing, a Green Forest warrior holding an axe showed his teeth in front of me.
“Greenhorn!”
Just looking at him swinging his axe in response to my movements, I could tell he was not an nameless warrior.
He was an expert!
‘Good.’
If the opponent responded to my movements, I also responded to the opponent’s movements.
Master Zhang Sanfeng’s Listening Jin, Master Heavenly Demon’s synesthesia, and the Scripture-Refining Mind Method added to that had led me to a new stage.
‘Can you see it?’
It felt like looking after peeling off the skin. The lines of the muscles leading the movements were visible to that extent.
Even in this situation, I could feel the pulsation of his beating heart beneath his orderly breathing.
It was visible, and it was felt.
The martial art Master Zhang Sanfeng had hammered into my body, the Spirit-Descending Hand, unfolded naturally.
The martial arts I had learned from the masters while training in the Scripture-Refining Mind Method, the Sixteen Forms, and the Great Qi-Refinement Art during the past winter also naturally melted into my body.
The Spirit-Descending Hand was the same.
Even without consciously thinking of executing martial arts, my body began to follow.
‘Straight forward…’
At other times, I would have deflected the attack to the side and targeted the opening created, but now the situation was different.
If there was an enemy in front of me, there were allies behind.
In a situation that raged like rough waves, I could not break the flow.
Unconditional forward, unconditional charge!
I avoided the fierce axe strike by the margin of a sheet of paper.
As his first strike missed, he tried to block me by raising his knee as I rushed in, but I had already seized the opponent’s domain.
Crack!
“Argh!”
The thrust-out fist strike hit his heart.
On my fist that cut off his breath at once, a sensation of a tightly pulled thread snapping with a pop remained.
“That’s amazing, kid!”
“Phew! If it’s the Soul-Severing Iron Axe, he’s a fellow who is quite good at swinging an axe!”
“It wasn’t by luck that he defeated Fort Leader Ak!”
It seemed he was indeed a renowned warrior. Exclamations of admiration burst out from among the surrounding Green Forest bandits.
‘My heart is pounding.’
I had defeated a renowned warrior, but I did not feel pride.
Right before my eyes, a mountain of blades and a forest of swords was unfolded.
My heart, facing countless enemies, beat violently in contrast to the fallen man.
It was not because of nervousness.
This pounding was on the side of something much clearer and more vivid.
‘Sister Seol-ah is by my side.’
There was a person I admired.
A person who seemed to suit winter more than anyone, but to whom loneliness did not suit.
The white-haired girl who was strong but also had a weak side.
She, whom I had admired on my own, liked on my own, and wanted to catch up to, was watching me from my side right now!
The place was not suitable for recalling childhood feelings, but my body moved without hesitation, carrying memories on its back.
I threw my body without hesitation into the mountain of blades and forest of swords.
Although it was a place filled with weapons that split and crushed human bodies everywhere, my fleshly body skillfully threaded between them.
Crash!
Around the Shaolin fist I thrust out, the subtlety of the Ultimate Extreme Strike was already lingering before I knew it.
Against a force that a mere Green Forest bandit could not handle, the axe blade shattered and scattered like a fragile cracker.
My hand, thrusting out as it cut through the scattering fragments of metal pieces, penetrated carrying the subtlety of the Spirit-Descending Hand.
Crack!
“Argh!”
Under a single palm strike that crushed his shoulder, another one collapsed.
‘A bit more clearly.’
I repeated simple movements within a restricted space filled with people and weapons.
I avoided the opponent’s attacks by minimizing my movements, dodging by the margin of a sheet of paper, and whenever I used my hands, I broke them without fail.
Before I knew it, the number of Green Forest bandits smashed by my hands exceeded ten.
Was it twenty?
Because I smashed them as soon as I saw them in a state of self-forgetfulness, I did not know how many I had brought down.
Since Fort Leader level experts were cleaned up by the experts, including Elder Divine Monk, there was no one to block my path.
“Fuck! He’s strong!”
“Are these bastards really an escort agency?”
An existence that seemed as if it wouldn’t shed a single drop of blood no matter how many arrows were shot or how many spears and swords were pointed at it.
Something that was not human in the battlefield.
A person who was clearly right in front of one’s eyes, yet seemed unreachable no matter how much one swung their weapon.
That was terror itself by its very existence.
“Retreat for now! Yes, the front lines! Let’s reorganize the front lines!”
In a place filled with ear-splitting roars, the shout of someone terrified spread exceptionally clearly.
‘They’re going to collapse.’
Fear was an emotion that spread rapidly.
As the martial prowess displayed by Elder Divine Monk suppressed the initial stage, their momentum was completely broken.
In a situation where they should have rallied their fighting spirit and maintained the front line, if a path of escape was opened, it was only natural for them to collapse.
An easy victory.
It was a result that did not suit the notorious reputation of the Seventy-Two Forts of the Green Forest, but that was why we had to be even more careful.
Because those who blocked us here would be merely a fraction of the Green Forest bandits scattered across Mount Cheonja.
We are outsiders in the affairs of the Green Forest.
Since the reason the conflict of the Seventy-Two Forts of the Green Forest became full-scale was the greed to become the Green Forest King, their true strength would be in the place where the battle to determine that king was taking place!
“As expected, it won’t go easily…”
Although the fight was cleared up and those who seemed to belong to Ak Gun-pae’s faction gathered one after another, their number was more deficient than expected.
It seemed likely that many had changed their minds and broken away once Ak Gun-pae fell to me.
If so, it was also understandable that they had struggled against those small fry.
Furthermore, that meant that the departed forces had attached themselves somewhere.
Naturally, it was clear that the conflict about to break out in earnest would be even larger in scale.
‘In the end, I must go.’
Looking at the method Byeok Ji-sim used, Yi Gyeong-cheon’s side was not in a situation to be completely at ease either.
Even if Yi Gyeong-cheon was a bloodline of the Heavenly Demon (albeit a branch line) branched off from the Demonic Cult, and those who followed him were demons serving the Heavenly Demon, the majority of the members were the Green Forest, which was bound to be a mixed bag from the roots.
Since the entire faction would not be demons of the Demonic Cult, those who knew that Yi Gyeong-cheon was of the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline would be limited to his closest confidants.
If so, someone who defected due to Byeok Ji-sim’s trickery might have appeared.
On the contrary, if Yi Gyeong-cheon’s influence was stronger than expected and there were no defectors, that would be a problem in its own right.
Because from Byeok Ji-sim’s perspective, he would judge Yi Gyeong-cheon to be that much of a formidable foe, and thus face Yi Gyeong-cheon with thorough preparation.
‘The problem is on the other side…’
If we contact them like this, everyone in the group will see and hear.
Because at this point, in this chaos, I could not possibly say I would move separately.
Whether to show it, or to leave everything to Yi Gyeong-cheon even at the cost of failure.
‘I’ve decided.’
I turned to Sister Seol-ah and opened my mouth.
“Sister, you said so, right? To tell you someday.”
“I did.”
“It’s hard to tell you right away, but I can show you. If… we go together now…”
Yi Gyeong-cheon was to be approached over time.
But seeing the way things are going, there seems to be no room to take our time.
Since the board is set, I intend to press them down without taking a long detour.
Of course, it is an impossible task as ‘Young Heavenly Dragon Yeon Cheong-un’.
But as ‘Heavenly Demon Yeon Cheong-un’, it is a different story.
Master Bodhidharma had mentioned it once in the past.
That I touched the demonic and achieved the demonic.
That the current me was closer to the demonic than expected.
After that, there were times when I occasionally realized the weight of those words.
The demonic within me. The weight of ‘Heavenly Demon Yeon Cheong-un’.
‘How will Sister Seol-ah view another side of me?’
A single question that suddenly popped up asked me.
I will probably find out soon.