Chapter 54: Tragic Loss (5)
Public Enemy of the Martial World. The Mount Hua Sect’s worst stigma.
Death Plum Blossom Oh Ja-woon shook off the blood on his sword.
Chui spoke.
“You seem to be somewhat later than the time we originally agreed upon.”
“I told you. It originally takes some time for flowers to bloom. You must not know much about gardening.”
Hearing Oh Ja-woon’s reply, Chui started to say something but stopped.
This was because, despite his leisurely tone, Oh Ja-woon’s complexion was quite pale.
He, too, must have gone through a great deal of twists and turns to get here.
Soon, Oh Ja-woon scanned the surroundings.
There was no need to double-check.
The thirty-two special-grade guards who had initially reached this place were all rolling on the ground with their heads and bodies separated.
They had all become fertilizer for the plum blossoms.
Do Mak-saeng spoke.
“……So you are the Death Plum Blossom.”
Oh Ja-woon nodded.
“Pardon me, Sect Leader. I thought that if I came while killing these guys one by one, I might not see the Sect Leader’s face today. That is why I simply mingled among them and dealt with them in one blow.”
“Despicable bastard. Does a guy who was supposedly a chivalrous hero of the righteous faction do such a petty thing?”
“Since I did all of this because I wanted to see the Sect Leader’s face quickly, do not scold me too much. Strictly speaking, the fault also lies with the Sect Leader, who was so shy that he hid tightly behind his subordinates. Why is a person so shy around strangers?”
“A one-armed bastard surely has a mouth that is unmatched under heaven.”
“So does the talent for taking away your subordinates’ lives. A single arm was enough. Now, look.”
Oh Ja-woon looked at the corpses scattered around and held out his single remaining right hand.
Do Mak-saeng’s expression distorted sharply.
Regardless, Oh Ja-woon spoke toward Chui.
“Can you still hold out?”
“My body has just warmed up.”
“Good. Then shall we divide them up?”
“I will take Do Mak-saeng.”
“Then I guess the young lady over there is mine.”
The matchups were decided.
Chui was to face Do Mak-saeng, and Oh Ja-woon was to face Hae Baek-jeong.
Who among them would live and who would die could only be known by going all the way to the end.
* * *
Even the moonlight was stained red.
A place far away from the pavilion.
Oh Ja-woon and Hae Baek-jeong stood facing each other in the center of the manor where half-shattered, bizarrely shaped rocks towered.
Oh Ja-woon held a sword studded with seven red gems in his single remaining right arm.
Hae Baek-jeong was spinning a hand axe that was too large and heavy for her build.
The first to open her mouth was Hae Baek-jeong.
“Is a great hero of the righteous faction allowed to behave like this? What grudge do you have against the Hegemon Society? Under what justification?”
“Hahaha—you say strange things.”
Oh Ja-woon replied with a faint smile.
“If I were a great hero of the righteous path, why would I have been branded as a public enemy of the Jianghu and be chased by my martial brothers? I am someone who does not suit the righteous path, so I plan to eventually take refuge in the demonic path and become a leader there.”
“Then you should have quietly gone to the Tianshan Mountains where the Demonic Cult is, so why are you throwing such a crazy fit in the Hegemon Society?”
“At first, I intended to go quietly. However, the Sect Leader here kidnaps innocent women to make them prostitutes, sells them off to water bandits at whim when their usefulness runs out, cuts off the tongues of the commoners who speak ill of them, and to top it off, ruthlessly kills even his own subordinates depending on his mood; how could I not frown at such a sight?”
“…….”
Hae Baek-jeong quietly nodded.
Although she had joined hands with Do Mak-saeng due to certain circumstances, his ideology and behavior were enough to cause even Hae Baek-jeong to feel aversion.
Oh Ja-woon spoke once again.
“The father and son of this Hegemon Society have kidnapped innocent women, forced themselves upon them, and sold them off to various places, forcing them into raw separations from their parents, siblings, relatives, and friends. Not only that, but they have also accumulated wealth by exploiting them until they grew old and sick, and then selling them off to vicious bandits. Regardless of whether I become a demonic leader, these bastards deserve to die today. The same goes for you water bandits who joined hands with them.”
“It is a bit unfair because buying the discarded goods from the Hegemon Society was something my subordinate did arbitrarily. I was also on my way to execute that guy.”
“If so, why are you chasing after us?”
“Because I was robbed of the work I had to do. For the bosses, justification is more important than you think. So, about that……”
Hae Baek-jeong grinned toward Oh Ja-woon.
“Why don’t you come over to our side?”
“What?”
“Life on the Yangtze River, I mean. It is more tolerable than you think. If you say you will join our fortress, I can even turn a blind eye to you killing one of the hundred-leaders under me.”
Receiving the offer to enter the water bandit band, Oh Ja-woon let out a hollow laugh.
However, Hae Baek-jeong had a rather serious expression.
“If you want to go all the way to the Tianshan Mountains where the Demonic Cult is, it will be an incredibly long and rough journey. Also, what if you go there and they don’t accept you? In that case, a free life as a water bandit would be much better. Since we are also of the heterodox path, we detest those righteous path bastards.”
“I am being chased by Mount Hua. Does the Yangtze River Water Fortress have the capacity to handle Mount Hua?”
“We do. Even if all the Mount Hua priests flock here, they cannot do anything to our Twelve Yangtze River Water Fortresses. If they do, a Great Righteous-Heterodox War will break out immediately.”
“Behind Mount Hua is the Martial Alliance.”
“Behind the Yangtze River Water Fortress is the Heterodox Alliance.”
Mount Hua and the Yangtze River Water Fortress. The Martial Alliance and the Heterodox Alliance.
Both were two mountain ranges whose superiority of power was hard to determine cleanly.
However, Oh Ja-woon still merely wore a faint smile.
“Under normal circumstances, it would have been a rather tempting proposal. I had actually gone to visit the Heterodox Alliance before. However.”
“However?”
“I know that the Twelve Yangtze River Water Fortresses are currently in turmoil due to the situation of deciding the next chief.”
“……!”
At Oh Ja-woon’s words, Hae Baek-jeong’s expression changed.
Hae Baek-jeong glared at Oh Ja-woon with a stiff expression.
Toward her, Oh Ja-woon continued to speak.
“Once the current chief steps down soon, the next chief will be chosen from among the twelve Thousand-Leaders. In such a situation, what does it mean for one Thousand-Leader to come all the way to this distant place chasing someone who killed her subordinate?”
“……Well, that must be because she loves and cherishes her subordinates too much?”
“Didn’t you say just moments ago that you were going to execute him with your own hands?”
“…….”
“If not, to boost the morale of your subordinates by executing the culprit who killed your subordinate and fled? Well, that might be part of it, but it is too peripheral a reason.”
Hae Baek-jeong shut her mouth.
Oh Ja-woon spoke.
“If you came all the way here far from the chief competition to escape early from the vigilance of other powerful Thousand-Leaders, and if you intend to recruit external personnel from outside the Yangtze River’s sphere of influence to participate in the chief competition again. If so, wouldn’t grabbing the rope called you be too dangerous a gamble?”
“……Honestly, even I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Is that so? You didn’t come to recruit the Death Plum Blossom and the Three Calls of the Yellow Springs?”
“I did not have that intention, but the Chief might have had that intention.”
Hae Baek-jeong fell into thought for a moment, resting her chin on her hand.
“Damn it. What on earth is that old man plotting? Constantly nagging me to go outside the fortress like that. Could that really have been what he meant? No. There is no way……”
Hae Baek-jeong, who was murmuring something to herself.
She soon raised her head and began to look at Chui standing far away.
Soon, Hae Baek-jeong turned her head toward Oh Ja-woon again.
And she spoke in a stiff tone.
“First, there is something you got wrong.”
“What is it?”
“I am not the type of personality to run around while watching others’ reactions.”
Simultaneously, Hae Baek-jeong abruptly stopped spinning the hand axe in her hand.
…Thud!
The axe blade caught the red moonlight, emitting a chillingly sharp aura.
“I don’t care about the reactions of those other Thousand-Leader bastards. My being here is simply because of the Chief’s command to bring back the Three Calls of the Yellow Springs alive.”
“I believe the pursuit party of the Namgung Clan, which is currently chasing the Three Calls of the Yellow Springs, also has a similar purpose as yours.”
“Namgung Clan? They also want to capture the Three Calls of the Yellow Springs alive? Why? For what reason?”
“How would I know? However, I guess it might be for a similar reason to why the Chief of the Yangtze River Water Fortress ordered you to capture the Three Calls of the Yellow Springs alive.”
As for the Purple Moon Special Task Force led by Sword Flower Namgung Yul, she had seen them from a distance across the reed fields of the Yangtze River.
The expression of Hae Baek-jeong, who recalled the face of the Sword Flower, wrinkled slightly.
Anyway. Oh Ja-woon tilted his sword and spoke.
“I have heard that the twelve Thousand-Leaders of the Yangtze River Water Fortress are all highly skilled in martial arts. Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai. Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig. All of them.”
“…….”
“Among them, you, who hold the lowest rank of Hai, the pig butcher, must be burning with anxiety. Because if you waste time in a distant place like this, the position of chief will be snatched away.”
Hae Baek-jeong, who was listening to Oh Ja-woon’s words, eventually exploded.
“Shut up! Why are there so many words before fighting!”
Her hand axe seemed to spin fiercely, then soon fell like lightning.
Watching that, Oh Ja-woon sighed.
“A pity. If I had just a bit more time to run my mouth, I would have fully recovered my internal energy.”
Oh Ja-woon was in a state where he had consumed a vast amount of internal energy in the process of slicing off the necks of the special-grade guards all at once.
That was why he had been continuously spouting all kinds of words since earlier, pretending to be leisurely while recovering his internal energy.
Whether Hae Baek-jeong noticed this or not, she did not give him any more time.
Clang!
The sword and the axe clashed, generating countless sparks.
The gaseous sword Qi flowing on Oh Ja-woon’s sword blade had before long changed into sword tears in the form of a sticky liquid.
Screeech—
Seven gorgeous plum blossoms bloomed throughout the manor.
Seeing that, Hae Baek-jeong felt a chill run down her spine.
‘……Indeed. This is why he is the Death Plum Blossom.’
If one could take under their wing three, no, even just two of such people, they would easily be able to take over the entire Yangtze River.
However, as the other side had firmly expressed refusal, that was impossible.
Even as Hae Baek-jeong moved to avoid Oh Ja-woon’s plum blossoms, she glanced at Chui far away.
‘No, wait. If the reason the Chief told me to bring that guy back alive is really to recruit him…… then there is no reason for me to hang around with the likes of Do Mak-saeng here, is there?’
Right at that moment.
Slash—
A single plum blossom shallowly cut Hae Baek-jeong’s waist.
Hae Baek-jeong twisted her waist with a beast-like movement to avoid Oh Ja-woon’s sword, but she could not prevent dropping a few drops of blood.
“……Oho. Look at this? Even if he is ruined, he is still a Plum Blossom Swordsman, is that it?”
Having seen blood, Hae Baek-jeong’s eyes narrowed thinly.
She stopped her steps that were about to flee and readjusted her grip on the hand axe.
“Interesting. As expected, the world is wide and there are many experts. This must be why the Chief told me to go outside for once.”
Life does not flow only according to calculations.
It does not move solely by profit and loss either.
Just as there are people who insist on picking plum blossoms that bloom in remote, rugged mountainous regions, there are also people whose eyes roll peculiarly when they meet someone stronger than themselves.
A person like Hae Baek-jeong here was exactly that kind of person.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost