Chapter 59

Dawn. Before the first light of day, Baekyak opened his eyes.

“Hmph.”

Stretching as she rose, Baekyak slightly opened the window and gazed outside. Only then did she notice Baekran, who was sleeping face-down on the table. Baekyak lifted Baekran up with both hands and said.

“Ran, you should sleep lying down.”

“Yes.”

Baekyak stretched his body in the room after laying Baekran on the bedding.

The lingering sleep from his face vanished completely as he stretched. He changed into the dobok he had folded on the table, then stepped outside to watch the dawn.

When his subordinates, who were drinking tea on the first floor, rose, Baekyak waved his hand dismissively. Since they took turns guarding and sleeping among themselves, it was only natural for them to follow him at this hour.

However, since Baekyak’s martial arts were the strongest, it felt like they had come to the Central Plains together to learn various things; escorting him wasn’t their primary purpose either.

Baekyak, clad in a snow-white dobok, walked around the lodging with his hands behind his back like a man, breathing in the cold air.

The early morning chill was nothing compared to the place Baekyak had been staying. After scanning the area and confirming no one was around, Baekyak moved, deploying his lightness skill.

Her speed gradually increased. She intended to run until dawn broke. For a morning stroll, it was quite a commotion.

The distance from the lodging rapidly grew.

This was the routine he had adapted to since childhood.

Baekyak stopped abruptly, catching his breath the moment he spotted someone beyond the roadside where the darkness was slowly beginning to lift.

‘What the hell is that?’

Beyond the road where dawn was breaking and the sun was rising, a man approached with an odd gait. He walked, then stopped, repeating the motion. In between, something that looked like a club sliced through the air.

Thwack! Whoosh! Whack!

Some guy was walking towards him, swinging a black-looking stick downwards, cutting sideways, and thrusting it forward.

Frankly, he looked like a ghost.

At that moment, Baekyak instinctively took a step back. Despite possessing such formidable martial arts skills, he felt a sudden fear of ghosts.

Baekyak stepped aside, his face pale, as he came down the main road.

Upon closer inspection, the ghost wasn’t that formidable in martial arts. Still, yielding the main road to a ghost was the right thing to do.

Cheol Myeong-ho, walking the dawn road while practicing the Samjae Sword Technique, was startled when he spotted Baekyak standing beside the road in his pure white dobok.

“Whoa, you scared me!”

A young lady in a white martial arts robe at this hour of dawn? And her eyes held a blue glow.

Cheol Myeong-ho pointed his iron-tipped umbrella at Baek Yak and demanded.

“Ghost?”

It was too dark to see his face clearly. However, Baekyak, whose martial arts skills were high, could see Cheolmyeongho’s face distinctly.

‘It’s a person.’

Baekyak exhaled a sigh of relief and looked at the iron-clad umbrella.

“No way.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m training. And you?”

Cheol Myeong-ho nodded.

“Training, you say? We’re in the same boat.”

Baekyak pointed the way and said.

“Go ahead.”

As he passed, Cheol Myeong-ho glared at Baek Yak. His expression and eyes were filled with caution, refusing to let the crazy woman get behind him.

Baekyak was no different.

I’d heard there were many strange fellows in the Central Plains. But I never imagined there’d be a man walking down the road at dawn, wielding the Three Calamities Sword Technique.

Even as the two backed away from each other, they glared at one another until the very end.

‘Hmph, crazy bitch…’

‘A weak, crazy bastard…’

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Cheolmyeongho returned to the desolate underground gambling den, not caring whether it was night or dawn.

If he got hungry on the way, he ate; if he got sleepy, he slept anywhere. If his arms hurt, he massaged them briefly to rest; if his legs hurt, he just sat down right there.

He made his way back from the Martial Alliance to his own home in this manner.

The crucial point was that he never once neglected to wield it. If there were a hierarchy among the rogues of the martial world, Cheol Myeong-ho’s name was steadily climbing upward.

The underground gambling den was Cheolmyeongho’s home.

Foxes originally referred to both foxes and wildcats, and the dingy, musty-smelling underground gambling den wasn’t much different from a fox’s den.

Cheol Myeong-ho kicked over fallen chairs and tables as he moved through the space, then entered the kitchen to boil noodles.

With the Ssangbo brothers around, even one pot of noodles wouldn’t have been enough, but now that he was eating alone, he boiled just the right amount.

Cheolmyeongho ate his noodles alone, his eyes heavy with sleep, when suddenly he remembered the words of the Martial Alliance Leader, Yoo Jeonghong, and the mark on his forearm. It was no different from the wound on his own cheek.

Cheol Myeong-ho smiled to himself as he swallowed the noodles.

Slurp.

“What a cool old man.”

He also recalled his friend beating up the young masters of prominent families at the Dragon Phoenix Grand Banquet.

“I envy him.”

By the time he finished his soup, the countless beauties he’d met at the Dragon Phoenix Grand Banquet came to mind. Most women in the martial world were beautiful. There were some with less than perfect faces, yet even they appeared beautiful to Cheolmyeongho’s eyes. He sensed the beauty that came from the perfection of their bodies.

All possessed upright postures and fair skin, making them appear like celestial maidens from another world.

And he liked it even more because he looked strong enough to beat most men with just a stick. If he were to meet a woman, he’d want to court a martial arts woman. Cheol Myeong-ho had never really wanted anything, nor had he had a clear purpose in life.

Now, after his goal of becoming stronger, his next destination was a woman of the martial world.

Cheol Myeong-ho, having licked the bowl clean down to the last drop of broth, stared blankly at the empty gambling hall before closing the iron door to sleep.

Clang.

My body felt like it hadn’t slept for at least two or three days. As soon as I lay down on the messy bedding I’d prepared behind the desk, I fell asleep.

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Danwooseong opened his eyes.

It was early morning. The feeling of waking up in a foreign place was completely different from waking up in the space he called home. For Dan Woo-sung, it was a strange sense of stability, one that felt awkward.

He began his breathing exercises right there, sitting cross-legged on the bedding.

For a moment, this thought crossed his mind.

How much stronger could he become today?

It feels like another day filled with both excitement and anticipation has begun. After giving thanks for the simple fact that another ordinary day had started anew, I lumped all the thoughts that surfaced into distractions and tossed them off into some cliffside of my mental world.

Then I refocused.

As morning light flooded in, Danwooseong finished a round of breathing exercises, then did a handstand before starting push-ups. Only after repeating them fifty or so times did his movements slow slightly. He kept stimulating his muscles, changing positions several times.

A moment later, Danwooseong stretched with an odd, muscle-flexing motion instead of a proper yawn, then stepped out of his quarters after throwing on his outer garment.

He exchanged greetings with the household servants bustling about since dawn, then stepped outside and began running.

Entering the roadside path where the female ghost in a dobok and the umbrella ghost wielding the Three Calamities Sword Technique were passing, he unleashed his lightness skill at tremendous speed. He couldn’t help but meet Baekyak after running only a short distance.

She was returning from the opposite direction. Knowing they were both in the midst of training, Dan Woo-sung asked abruptly.

“Young Lady Baek, where have you been traveling to?”

Baekyak replied.

“I don’t know. There was a lake in that direction. I walked there and back.”

Up until this point, Danwooseong hadn’t understood the meaning of the word “walked.” He looked at Baekyak’s face with renewed interest and replied.

“I think he means Yangpyeong Lake.”

Dan Wooseong suddenly smiled. Baekyak hadn’t even washed his face yet. It struck him as somewhat surprising that he’d gotten up earlier than him and run here.

Baekyak, seemingly catching the meaning behind that smile, casually wiped away the sleep from his eyes and asked.

“Is there someone here wielding the Three Calamities Sword Technique under a black umbrella?”

Dan Wooseong replied curtly.

“Yes.”

“He’s not crazy, is he?”

“He’s a truly madman.”

“I see. And there was a fisherman at the lake since early dawn—turns out he was a martial artist too. Do you happen to know him?”

Dan Woo-sung shook his head.

“The one swinging the umbrella is a friend, but I don’t know anything about the martial artist who was fishing.”

“I see. Ah, could we settle our martial arts contest later?”

“Let’s do that.”

The two were highly skilled, so they learned a great deal through their sparring matches. Baekyak felt like he was gaining real combat experience, as he’d never had a worthy opponent before. Danwooseong was amazed, as he’d never encountered anyone who could match him in hand-to-hand combat. Moreover, considering that even this martial art was ultimately something left behind by Baekmujin, it was awe-inspiring.

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The two faced each other, then nodded slightly as if to say, “See you later.” Dan Wooseong ran toward Yangpyeong Lake, distancing himself from Baekyak.

Just how strong was Baekyak?

The possessor of the Ice Art, a martial art so powerful it was called demonic and so unique that even Dan Wuxing was curious about its true nature, had never appeared once since the disappearance of the demonic sect known as the White Heaven Divine Sect.

However, that curiosity was resolved absurdly quickly.

Dan Woo-sung approached, staring blankly at the fairly large Yangpyeong Lake with a look of astonishment.

“This is no ordinary sight.”

Though it wasn’t winter, patches of white blossoms remained scattered across the lake’s surface. Of course, those traces meant the surface had frozen over. Even the King’s eyes couldn’t help but show admiration.

It could be said that Baekyak’s lightness skill had reached the level of ‘walking on duckweed to cross water’. And yet, a woman practicing this technique on her morning stroll? It made him realize anew, with his own eyes, why a man like Baek Moo-jin was held in such high regard. Of course, this was partly due to the nature of ice magic

, he certainly had a slight advantage over those who practiced other martial arts.

Dan Woosung stood with his arms crossed, gazing at Yangpyeong Lake, when the fisherman Baek Yak had mentioned approached him, looking directly at Dan Woosung.

“When did you get back?”

Dan Wooseong looked at the fisherman. He was a man in his thirties, a stranger to Dan Wooseong. Feeling a strange sensation, he glanced around. The fisherman spoke.

“There’s no one else here.”

Dan Woo-sung asked.

“Who are you?”

“Why are you suddenly talking down to me?”

Only then did Dan Woo-sung suddenly realize his own age. He had naturally forgotten that he was a young man.

The fisherman said.

“You went to the Martial Arts Alliance, right? I heard there’s a Martial Arts Alliance warrior stationed at the merchant guild too.”

The reason this fisherman couldn’t easily join the Galaxy Alliance was because he feared the Martial Alliance.

“But.”

“Seems my fate is to be summoned here and there. The Master of the Eight Dragons Sect is calling for you. Since you’ve stepped into the martial world, you must have heard of the Eight Dragons Sect. To prevent the guild from suffering harm, you alone should go and meet him.”

“Why would the Eight Dragon Sect seek me out?”

The fisherman chuckled.

“Why? Because everything in this world revolves around cause and effect. The Eight Dragon Sect is where Jie Ye learned his martial arts. You killed that Jie Ye. Understand?”

Dan Woo-sung asked.

“Who’s the enemy? I’ve killed more than a few.” “You don’t know the enemy in the bustling streets of Yukwan?”

“Ah, that bastard.”

“Jie Ye’s master specifically wants to see you. He beat you to death in quite a mess. If you don’t go, the Galaxy Trading Company will suffer heavy losses one way or another.”

“His master was in the Eight Dragons Sect? He was a respectable figure in the underworld. I have prior commitments today. Go back and wait. Tell the Eight Dragons too.”

The fisherman’s eyes widened.

Dan Woo-sung said.

“Aren’t you the messenger? If you get killed, there’ll be no one to deliver my message. Or fill your belly at the lake before heading back. Come here.”

When Danwooseong beckoned, the fisherman backed away without a word.