Chapter 6 Back to the Front Lines-3

Chapter 6: Back to the Front Lines-3

As I closed in on him, I drew upon the full force of twenty years of internal energy within my body, preparing for a surprise attack.

Then, as his gaze shifted upward, I launched my surprise attack.

His men let out horrified screams at the sudden turn of events.

“Wh-what is this?!”

“Boss!”

But instead of screaming, they should have attacked first.

Because I had no intention of stopping there.

Leaving the sword embedded in Makgu-sam’s chest, I spun swiftly and drew the sword strapped to my back, swinging it.

Shu-hak!

A streak of sword light sliced horizontally through the air, and the neck of the man standing right beside him was severed cleanly in one stroke.

Pwahak!

“Gyaaah!”

“Jang-o!”

Only when blood spurted everywhere did the others cry out.

“A, an ambush!”

“Stop him!”

Swoosh!

“Gaaaah!”

Covered in blood, he slashed another one from groin to shoulder and thought.

Not “stop him,” but “strike him.”

Stupid bastards.

Pwah!

“Kraaah!”

Only when he sliced the third one’s chest diagonally did they finally aim their swords properly at him.

“You… you bastard!”

“How dare you!”

A sneer escaped my lips.

Isn’t your response a bit late?

I flung the sword I held at the men, who were thrusting theirs forward with frightened faces.

The sword, deliberately spun, whirred through the air. Startled, they barely managed to block it.

“Whoaah!”

Clang!

But in that instant, I was already lunging at them, pulling the sword from Makgu-sam’s chest.

And in an instant,

a sword light scattered through the air like wings of light unfurling.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Gahhh!”

“Kyaaaah!”

It was the first time in two lifetimes that I had unleashed the first strike of the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords, the Divine Response Soaring.

Around that time, the ronin who had come with me also began to move.

By my standards, they were a bit late, but for them, it was a rushed charge.

“Charge! Support Young Master Seonwoo!”

“Waaah!”

The bandits were now utterly scattered.

After all, aside from their leader, Magu Sam, the rest were mere third-rate foot soldiers incapable of using their inner energy. Without a unifying force to hold them together, they had no reason to charge recklessly into certain death.

“S-spare me! He’s a butcher!”

“Run! Scatter, everyone!”

He laughed savagely as he slaughtered the fools who had turned their backs during battle.

My soul rejoiced in the air of the battlefield I had returned to.

The battle did not last long.

With only six of us, we couldn’t capture all the bandits. Seventeen bodies lay scattered across the field, suggesting about fifteen bandits had escaped.

Only then did my tension release. I tossed my sword aside and collapsed onto the ground, groaning.

“Oh my, I’m dying!”

But the look in the ronin’s eyes as they watched me was no longer one of pity.

What was etched clearly in their eyes was astonishment and fear.

Jang the warrior hesitated briefly before asking me.

“Young Master Seonwoo, could you possibly be the late master who reversed aging?”

Despite the utterly absurd question, I answered with a weary smile.

“Oh, come on, what nonsense is that? And even if it were possible, would a master who has reversed aging and returned to youth really collapse from exhaustion after a fight like this?”

He shook his head vigorously and said.

“Of course, that may be true, but it’s not easy to kill without hesitation at that age. Besides…”

He suddenly glanced around and continued.

“Seeing the Master lying so comfortably at rest in this place filled with corpses, it makes one think such absurd thoughts.”

His words made me glance around—the place was indeed drenched in blood and littered with corpses.

Though truthfully, my own body was covered in more blood than the surroundings.

The sight was so familiar that I must have unconsciously relaxed.

Still, I couldn’t say that out loud, so I awkwardly laughed and made an excuse.

“I suppose I was too exhausted to see anything. Rest a little longer, then we’ll move on.”

Even then, the vagabonds stared at me with bewildered expressions at my suggestion to rest a little longer.

***

While I rested, the ronin collected the spoils and cut off Magu-sam’s head.

There was probably a bounty on his head, so taking it to the authorities would likely be quite lucrative.

It wasn’t until we moved locations and it was time to eat that we could talk again.

Jang the warrior glanced around cautiously before asking me.

“Um, Young Master Seonwoo, are you perhaps a top-tier warrior?”

I smiled and shook my head.

“No. I’m still second-rate. My internal energy cultivation is only about twenty years deep.”

“But earlier, I thought I saw a hazy glow around your sword—could that have been sword energy?”

“That’s the opening move of the Seonwoo Thirteen Swords. It’s originally a technique from the Whirlwind Sword style, so the afterimage probably made it look that way.”

Hearing this, the ronin who had been listening intently with ears perked up let out an exclamation of admiration.

“Ahhh, the famed Sunwoo Thirteen Swords?!”

“No wonder they say it represents Guizhou City!”

Master Jang remarked with a hint of envy.

“Truly, the sword techniques of a renowned school are different. A sword technique used at the second-rate level produces such power. When Master Gong reaches the first-rate level, it will be even more formidable.”

He simply smiled faintly at those words.

Truthfully, I was looking forward to it too.

The top-tier realm—when he could unleash sword energy, the Xianwu Thirteen Swords would show their true might.

‘But that’s still a long way off.’

I thought to myself, letting out a bitter laugh.

To emit sword energy, one needed at least thirty years of cultivation—more than half a cycle of the Chinese zodiac.

A second-rate martial artist possessing thirty years or more of internal energy reaches the realm of a ‘sword energy master’. That is, when one gains enlightenment and can harm people with the energy they release, they are called a first-rate martial artist.

I already possessed that enlightenment, so that part didn’t matter, but thirty years of internal energy cultivation was something I simply couldn’t achieve.

To build up that lacking internal energy, I would have to strive relentlessly from now on.

Jang the warrior sighed and said.

“At forty years old, my accumulated internal energy is only twenty years’ worth. Yet Master Sunwoo, barely in his twenties, possesses twenty years’ worth of internal energy. It makes me regret not having lived more diligently. I am simply ashamed.”

At his words, I could only offer a bitter smile.

It wasn’t something I needed to tell him, but the fact that I had even managed to accumulate twenty years of cultivation was only possible because Father had administered the elixir to me the night before.

Without that, I probably wouldn’t have even reached ten years of cultivation.

After that, Father gave me two more identical elixirs.

But at the same time, he sternly warned me never to take them now.

The reason, of course, I knew well.

Half of the inner strength currently within my body wasn’t cultivated by me directly, but absorbed from external energy.

‘Meaning I’m in the perfect state to fall victim to demonic energy.’

Therefore, for the time being, I had to strive to cultivate my own internal energy as much as possible and purify the external energy.

Then, something suddenly occurred to me, and I asked Master Zhang.

“Master Zhang, have you perhaps mastered any specific meditation techniques?”

I asked because I doubted a wandering ronin like him would have mastered a proper meditation technique.

He responded with an awkward cough, seeming embarrassed.

“Well, just the Six Harmonies Mind Technique. It was all I could get my hands on… Hmm.”

“Ah, the Six Harmonies Mind Technique.”

My gaze softened with pity.

I’d suspected he hadn’t mastered a good technique, but that he’d ended up learning the Six Harmonies Mind Technique? It was nothing short of pitiful.

It was a third-rate technique, the kind you could easily find in a secondhand bookstore on the street.

‘But to have built up twenty years of skill with the Six Harmonies Mind Technique? That’s actually quite impressive.’

I didn’t say it lightly; it truly was remarkable.

It was an achievement that surely couldn’t have been attained without relentless effort.

Seeing the pity in my eyes, he avoided my gaze and brushed himself off to stand.

“Come on, let’s get moving! If we don’t cover more ground before nightfall, we won’t reach our destination within three days.”

I couldn’t say anything more to him.

Even if I told him I’d once begged and copied others’ martial arts because I couldn’t master my own, it would only sound like pity to him.

My gaze upon him grew deeper.

***

The scattered remnants of the Green Tiger Gang, who had fled in all directions, only managed to regroup long after Sunwoojin’s party had passed by.

Returning to the scene of the incident, they saw the bodies of their murdered leader and comrades piled together and erupted in fury.

“Those brutal bastards! Even enemies deserve burial!”

“Look! They even took all their belongings! These filthy bandits!”

“May you all be fried to death in filthy water! May you all be devoured by the demons of the Blood Demon Sect!”

As they vented their rage by cursing Sunwoojin’s group for a while, one of them suddenly spoke up about the reality they had been temporarily ignoring.

“But… what do we do now?”

“What do you mean, what do we do? We go back to Nokhochae and elect a new leader.”

“…Can we really run things properly if we pick a leader from among ourselves? The only second-rate martial artist among us was the boss, right?”

The bone-chilling reality silenced them all.

Suddenly, someone riding a horse appeared on the other side of the road. Just one horse, just one person.

Instinctively, all eyes turned toward the figure.

Then, the one with the sharpest eyes swallowed hard and whispered softly.

“It’s a girl.”

Startled, her colleagues hurriedly whispered back.

“What?!”

“A woman?!”

“Just one woman?!”

“Is she pretty?!”

Holding out his palm to signal his colleagues to wait, he whispered again moments later, his eyes sparkling.

“Her bangs hide her face, so I can’t tell for sure, but she’s probably pretty. Her figure’s great, at least. She’s a bit petite, so probably late teens?”

Then, swallowing hard, he asked his companions.

“What should we do?”

As they exchanged tense glances, one of them spoke up.

“A woman coming in alone like that, so confident? What if she’s a pro?”

That comment poured cold water on their boiling passion.

Beware of women and the elderly.

It was an old martial arts adage.

Suddenly, a glimmer of fear appeared in their eyes.

The incident they had just suffered at Sunwoo Jin’s hands came vividly back to them.

They shuddered.

“Um, maybe we shouldn’t do this after all?”

As one spoke in a frightened tone, the man with the keen eye who had first noticed her glanced secretly in her direction again.

Though her bangs hid her eyes, the clearly visible oval jawline beneath them suggested she was undeniably beautiful.

Tormented by the regret of having to let such a beauty go, he suddenly spoke up, a thought occurring to him.

“But… could a girl in her late teens really be a master? She’s way too young, isn’t she?”

That remark brought a new light to the other bandits’ minds.

Indeed, that was the case.

No matter how dangerous it was for a woman alone, how strong could a late-teen girl really be?

Of course, it might be possible for a direct disciple of the Nine Great Sects, a child of the Five Great Families, or a child or disciple of the absolute masters of the martial world—the Sun, Yi, Wang, Sam, and O families.

But why would someone like that come here?

Having reached their conclusion, they boldly charged out toward her as she rode past.

“Halt, you bitch! How dare you cross the territory of these heroes without permission?!”

“Dismount this instant! And strip naked first! Kwahahaha!”

“No! You can strip while still on the horse! Kwahahaha!”

Staring blankly at the bandits who spoke and laughed among themselves, she suddenly asked them.

“Has a man named Seonwoo Jin, the third young master of the Seonwoo family, passed through here?”

Hearing that name, the bandits instantly lost their laughter.

They were so startled they started hiccuping.

“Yes, yes, how did you…?”

“You… are you also part of that butcher’s gang?”

Seeing their reaction, the corners of her mouth curved into a satisfied smile.

“He must have passed by. How long ago was that?”

The bandits, momentarily cowed by the horrific memory, quickly hardened their expressions again.

After all, the bastard had passed by just moments ago, and the fact that this young girl was alone hadn’t changed.

“Well, that’s just perfect! Let’s make this bitch pay back the life debt owed to our leader!”

“Yeah, that’s right! The one who passed by earlier isn’t coming back, is he?”

As the bandits reignited their resolve, Hae Cheong-yeon, having extracted all the information she wanted, murmured to herself.

“He passed by earlier? I’ll meet him soon enough.”

Then, she sprang lightly from her horse.

Whoosh!

The bandits stared blankly at her figure, soaring into the air as lightly as a swallow filled with water.

Her form was utterly graceful and even beautiful.

Then, after gracefully spinning once in midair, she plunged toward the bandits like a bolt of lightning.

Whoosh!

“…!”

There was no time to utter a word.

In an instant, spiderweb-like sword light filled the space. The bandits, staring blankly at it, had their bodies split open with a crack, spurting blood like fountains.

Pwahak!

As blood splattered in all directions, she was already soaring back into the air, returning to her saddle.

Having dispatched fifteen men in a single second with her sword energy, she simply brushed the blood from her blade and sheathed it.

Then, as if nothing had happened, she began urging her horse forward.