Preparations (5)
The Flood Dragon Chain slicing through the air moved with incredible smoothness and grandeur.
Even the sound of the linked iron chains clashing against one another was remarkably clear and pure. If one listened closely, it almost resembled the sound of a sturdy dragon’s scales colliding.
And at its tip, the White Dragon Axe gleamed like a dragon’s fang, tearing through the air with ferocious intent.
Yeon Hojeong flicked his wrist in various directions.
Clink! Clink-clink-clink!
The Flood Dragon Chain connected to the White Dragon Axe—the White Dragon Chain—writhed and twisted left and right according to its master’s will.
It was as if the weapon possessed a life of its own. The sight of the White Dragon Chain slithering about and roaring like a living dragon was nothing short of majestic.
After watching the movements of the White Dragon Chain for a long while, Yeon Hojeong’s eyes sparkled.
Srrrk.
He lightly pulled his arm back, and the length of the Flood Dragon Chain shortened, bringing the White Dragon Axe into his grasp.
Yeon Hojeong spoke calmly.
“It’s been a while.”
A faint smile lingered on his face even though he hadn’t turned around.
“I’ve been busy handling all sorts of matters. I was actually planning to visit you today…”
Thwack!
“Ugh!”
Struck by an unexpected blow, Yeon Hojeong let out a short groan.
“Planning to visit? Bullshit. You damn bastard.”
Rubbing the back of his head, Yeon Hojeong turned around with a bewildered expression.
There stood Jegal Ah-yeon.
“Have you lost your mind? Did you just hit me in the back of the head?”
“Am I not allowed to?”
“Look at this girl…”
“Girl? Did you sell your polite speech at the market? Keep talking like that to your elder sister and I’ll really kill you.”
It seemed her tone had grown quite rough during the time they hadn’t seen each other.
Yeon Hojeong frowned.
“Still, I’m your superior.”
“So what? You want me to treat you like one?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll treat you properly then, Great Commander.”
“……”
“What are you staring at me with those wide eyes for? Got a complaint?”
Yeon Hojeong’s expression turned awkward.
“Did I… do something wrong?”
“Oh, you don’t know? And do I have any reason to explain it to you?”
“……”
“Why?”
“You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”
“This son of a bitch.”
Jegal Ah-yeon began smacking Yeon Hojeong’s head repeatedly.
He didn’t want to just take the hits, but dodging would probably make her even angrier, so he bent his arm and shielded his head.
Dull thuds echoed across the training ground.
Whoooong! Thwack! Thwack!
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes widened in shock.
Her strikes were beginning to carry real weight. She was using internal energy.
“Hey! Stop it! Take it easy!”
“I am taking it easy, you bastard!”
“Damn it! What the hell is the problem?!”
“I just told you I have no reason to explain it!”
“Argh, seriously!”
Bang!
Yeon Hojeong quickly created distance between them.
Jegal Ah-yeon’s eyes widened.
“Oh? Now you’re using martial arts against a frail strategist?”
“Frail my ass.”
Jegal Ah-yeon was highly skilled in palm techniques. Simply enduring her strikes was too painful.
And while the area was overflowing with geniuses, her martial prowess was still among the highest tier of the younger generation. If she had infused just a little more internal energy into those strikes earlier, he might have suffered a concussion.
Yeon Hojeong’s face hardened.
“Assaulting a superior is a serious crime.”
“Oho? Now you’re going to use the law against me? How clever.”
“Hey, that’s not what I—”
“A serious crime, huh… I like the sound of that. Since I’m going to end up in prison anyway, maybe I should go for murder instead of just assault.”
“Calm down. Just calm down and let’s talk this out. What exactly is the problem?”
For a brief moment, killing intent flashed in Jegal Ah-yeon’s eyes.
Yeon Hojeong flinched involuntarily.
He had rampaged through battlefields filled with killing intent ten times more vicious than this, yet the murderous aura coming from someone he was close to felt terrifying regardless of its intensity.
Feeling the pressure, Yeon Hojeong decided to soften his stance a little.
“Hey, hey, I really don’t know.”
“I know you don’t. That’s why you need to get hit more, right?”
“I’ll pass on that. By the way, your martial arts have improved a lot. You must have trained hard even while you were busy.”
“Your tongue’s been oiled up real nice, huh? That’s not like you at all.”
“It’s an honest assessment.”
“The problem is that this isn’t the time to be evaluating my martial arts, is it?”
“No, I mean…”
“You said I must have trained hard even while I was busy? So you knew I was busy?”
Why does she keep doing this?
Yeon Hojeong decided to think seriously about it. The Jegal Ah-yeon he knew was a bit mischievous, but she wasn’t the type to play such rude pranks.
Watching him sink deep into thought, Jegal Ah-yeon spoke gruffly.
“What are you even thinking so hard about? Just stick that round head of yours out. Maybe getting hit will jog your memory.”
“I said I’ll pass. Besides, there’s no reason for you to be this angry…”
Suddenly, Yeon Hojeong’s eyes trembled.
“Reason to be angry…”
Wait a second.
“……”
“Yeah… I think there is.”
The mocking expression on Jegal Ah-yeon’s face vanished in an instant, replaced by a completely blank look.
It was truly a terrifying face. If she had been glaring and cursing, it might have been different, but this expression was straight out of a ghost story.
Yeon Hojeong scratched his head.
“Is it… because you’re still working on the formations…?”
“Die!”
Boooom!
From her palm exploded the Jegal clan’s secret technique, the Great Heavenly Star Palm Technique.
With a look of utter shock, Yeon Hojeong dodged her palm strike.
“Hey! Calm down first!”
“Calm down? Do I look like I can calm down right now?!”
Bang! Boooom!
The sound of exploding drums rang out repeatedly in the air.
Though it sounded like bursting drums, the power behind each strike was enough to topple a massive tree.
Even for Yeon Hojeong, taking those hits with his bare body would have been disastrous. Yet he couldn’t bring out the Divine Core and draw the Four Gods’ energy either.
If he did, Jegal Ah-yeon’s eyes would truly roll back in her head.
“Wait!”
Thud!
Yeon Hojeong grabbed both of Jegal Ah-yeon’s wrists.
He had meant to apologize, but his face instantly stiffened. The eyes of Jegal Ah-yeon right in front of him were swirling with madness.
Now that he looked closely, her eyes were bloodshot to an extreme degree. It wasn’t just from anger. She had clearly overworked herself, unable to sleep properly while researching formations.
But that was one thing, and this was another. ‘This crazy woman!’
The hands holding Jegal Ah-yeon’s wrists were trembling.
It was monstrous strength.
She was exerting power far beyond what her martial arts should have allowed. Jegal Ah-yeon was proving just how terrifying the strength a human could display when their mind was pushed to its absolute limit through killing intent, hatred, or rage.
In the end, Yeon Hojeong made a decision. ‘Damn it.’
He spoke quickly in a low voice.
“Forgive me!”
“Forgive you for wha—!”
Thwack!
Jegal Ah-yeon’s eyes rolled back. Having lost all strength, she collapsed on the spot.
Yeon Hojeong let out a long breath.
“This is…”
He had only meant to lightly tap her acupoint to knock her out, but the moment he let go, he sensed her hand about to release an explosive strike into the empty air.
In the end, he had instinctively struck the back of her neck and knocked her unconscious. It was pure reflex.
Yeon Hojeong looked down at Jegal Ah-yeon.
With her eyes rolled back to show only the whites, her face looked so terrifying that even a decent ghost would have fallen over in fright.
“……”
“Will her head cool off a bit now?”
Or would she now consider him her mortal enemy?
“Hoo… I think my fever’s finally gone down.”
After lying unconscious on the bench for about half a shichen, Jegal Ah-yeon opened her eyes and stretched languidly as she sat up.
Yeon Hojeong, who had been standing against the wall with his arms crossed, cleared his throat and turned his head away.
Jegal Ah-yeon frowned and glared at him. Perhaps because she had gotten a proper rest, the madness from earlier was gone.
“……”
A moment of silence passed.
It was Jegal Ah-yeon who spoke first.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“I’m sorry.”
Yeon Hojeong answered immediately, as if he had been waiting for the chance.
“I should have sent a letter first. The situation at the front lines was so hectic that I couldn’t make time. Of course, I did receive the letters you sent. I should have replied right away, but every single time, all sorts of damn bastards kept causing every kind of trouble imaginable, so I just couldn’t…”
Jegal Ah-yeon unconsciously let out a small laugh.
Watching him uncross his arms and ramble on with excuse after excuse, she felt the anger that had been boiling inside her slowly dissipate.
“Enough. Stop.”
“……”
“Anyway, that guy Man-ho should have moved a bit more quic— huh?”
“I said stop. And why are you dragging Man-ho into this? He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Yeon Hojeong smiled awkwardly.
“He just seemed like the easiest person to blame…”
“That’s a disqualification as a commander. How can you shift your own responsibility onto a subordinate?”
“I thought you might understand at least that much.”
“Shut up and follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“……”
“Ah, of course. We should go. We definitely should. I need to see.”
Unlike his usual self, Yeon Hojeong became flustered and draped an arm around Jegal Ah-yeon’s shoulder.
She frowned.
“Get it off. It’s heavy.”
Yeon Hojeong clicked his tongue and withdrew his hand. He had thought she had calmed down, but she was still quite sharp.
Jegal Ah-yeon let out a deep sigh.
“Honestly. If you’re going to give someone a task, you should at least let them know how far they’ve progressed and where they should stop. No matter how busy you were, this was really…”
She continued grumbling without pause.
And Yeon Hojeong could only silently listen to her complaints.
Before departing for the front lines, Yeon Hojeong had asked Jegal Ah-yeon to improve as many formations as possible.
From the small-scale formations for the Myeolsa Army and the Tangma Army, all the way to the large-scale mechanism formations that could cover the entire Martial Alliance territory.
It was an overwhelmingly daunting request to give to a single person. Nevertheless, Jegal Ah-yeon had been unraveling and creating them all this time.
The problem had been the complete breakdown in communication.
When the Uijeong Army set out, Yeon Hojeong had left without even showing his face to Jegal Ah-yeon. Aside from their personal relationship, he hadn’t given her any clear orders as her superior before departing.
It was an excessively harsh thing to do. Especially for someone like Jegal Ah-yeon, who could never abandon a task once she had taken it on.
Combined with her personality that demanded she see everything through to the end, the severed communication had caused her anger to shoot straight into the heavens.
She had been running a marathon without knowing where the finish line was. An ordinary person would have given up halfway or had their mind collapse, eyes rolling back in exhaustion.
It was a testament to Jegal Ah-yeon’s incredible mental fortitude.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason she was angry.
“From now on, just say something.”
“I will.”
“I don’t know how you see me, but before I am the daughter of the Martial Alliance’s Supreme Strategist, I am the strategist of the Myeolsa Army. I’m also fighting for the Myeolsa Army in my own way.”
Yeon Hojeong truly felt ashamed.
“I’m sorry.”
Jegal Ah-yeon’s rage hadn’t come simply from exhaustion.
It was because she had felt neglected.
And Yeon Hojeong could fully understand how she felt.
“There won’t be a next time like this. That’s a promise.”
The excuse of being busy could no longer be accepted as an excuse.
The busier one was, the more scattered one’s mind became, the more important it was to properly take care of what needed to be taken care of. Countless capable people had met their downfall due to such mistakes.
Through this error, Yeon Hojeong had come to a great realization. ‘I have already risen to that kind of position.’
Yang Cheon had even described him as the core of the current Martial Alliance’s political power.
It was by no means an exaggeration. Though Yeon Hojeong himself denied it, the reality was that a single word or decision from him could now shake the entire Martial Alliance.
At times like these, he needed to take even better care of his own people.
Seeing Yeon Hojeong’s face grow somewhat solemn, Jegal Ah-yeon’s expression softened.
“Alright. I’ll let go of the resentment I’ve built up until now.”
As expected of her straightforward personality. Jegal Ah-yeon neatly organized the fury that had risen to the point of madness.
“So, what do you want to see first? The improved formations for the Myeolsa Army? Or the Tangma Army? Or perhaps the mechanism formations to be installed across the entire Martial Alliance?”
“No, we can look at those later.”
Jegal Ah-yeon’s face stiffened.
“Do you remember when we fought against the armed forces of the Shinwha Sect?”
“I remember.”
“We tried to set up formations in that area while also scouting the terrain, right?”
“We did.”
“While investigating that region, I discovered something. You could call it the fundamental axis of the formations that the Shinwha Sect possesses.”
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“That’s what we need to see first.”