Chapter 87: Dark Wolf
Chapter 87: Dark Wolf
The Mount Qingcheng Sect and the Dang Clan decided to first completely subdue the Jeonghyeopbang, then discuss their respective interests again afterward.
It was thanks to Hwa Yeong-bin, who could no longer stand by and intervened to mediate between both sides.
I sent Hwa Yeong-bin a telepathic transmission about Bi Sa-yeong's rescue of the women and their current location, then sank into a corner.
It was because I judged it unwise to announce my presence here.
But the situation was a bit peculiar.
I had originally thought I ought to at least be in stealth, but there was absolutely no need for it.
Because the people on both sides were paying no attention whatsoever to my existence.
Hwa Yeong-bin and his junior brother Lee Geon, who knew my face, were also too busy mediating between the leadership to spare me any notice.
Countless people were bustling back and forth, extinguishing the fires in the buildings and restraining the remnants of the Jeonghyeopbang, yet the feeling that not one of them cast a gaze my way or spoke to me was exceedingly strange.
'It's as though I've become an invisible existence.'
It was confusing enough that I didn't know whether I should feel offended at being ignored, or pleased that I could be at ease.
At that moment, among the countless people, someone spoke to me for the first time.
"Hey! You there!"
The tone was so utterly lacking in courtesy that at first I didn't even realize he was calling me.
So I looked over without much thought, and some young martial artists were staring at me.
As I gazed blankly at them, the one at the very front approached me with a furious face and shouted.
"Are you deaf or something?! Did I not call you just now?!"
His manner of speech was so unrestrained it nearly drew a hollow laugh from me.
As I watched him with a dumbfounded expression, he came up to me and demanded.
"You don't seem to be a disciple of the Mount Qingcheng Sect. Which sect do you belong to?!"
I swept my gaze over him and those standing behind him with their arms crossed, looking this way.
Roughly seven or eight young martial artists.
They were among those who had been with the Dang Clan martial artists, but since the color of their clothes was not green, they appeared to be martial artists of another faction not affiliated with the Dang Clan.
And it seemed the one who had spoken to me was the henchman, and the leader was that arrogant-faced man standing in the middle with his arms crossed.
For now, I answered obediently.
"I don't particularly have a sect."
At that, he smirked as if he had expected it and said.
"Just as I thought! A ronin bastard, as expected."
I didn't bother to correct him.
Because I had grown curious as to why this man was acting this way.
Then, interpreting my silence in some way, he spoke to me with an arrogant face.
"I am called No Ji-wang, a disciple of Sichuan's prestigious Hongsa Sword Gate. And the young master standing back there is the sect leader's eldest son, the Hongsa Sword Dragon, Young Master On Je-ung. He is soon to be granted the Dang surname."
Hongsa Sword Gate? Hongsa Sword Dragon?
He probably said it boastfully, assuming I would naturally know, but regrettably, they were a sect and figure I knew nothing about.
Still, seeing that he bore the title of Sword Dragon, he appeared to be a late-stage rising talent who had reached the peak realm at a young age.
And to be granted the Dang surname, no less.
Did that mean he was becoming an adopted son or matrilocal son-in-law of the Dang Clan?
Anyway, as I stared at him with an expression that asked what his point was, the man pointed at my sword Mukrang and said.
"Our Young Master On Je-ung has taken an interest in your sword. He remarked that it is too fine an artifact for a mere ronin to carry around. So, sell that sword. We will pay you generously. It is likely money a ronin like you could never earn in a lifetime."
I, who had been quietly listening up to a point, finally had my mouth fall open at the utterly unimaginable words.
No matter how you looked at it, if they came with the Dang Clan they should be of the orthodox faction, yet to threaten a martial artist to sell his sword—it was behavior beyond comprehension.
I asked with a hollow laugh.
"Are you telling me, a martial artist, to hand over my sword right now?"
At that, the man laughed brazenly and nodded his head.
"Indeed! Consider it an honor that our young master has deigned to take an interest!"
It was an astonishing way of thinking, to say the least.
To think there were men with such preposterous mindsets even among those who were not of the Blood Cult.
Truly, the world was a vast place.
With a smiling face, I asked the man.
"Are you aware that to a martial artist, his weapon is like his very life?"
At that, the man sneered and replied.
"Ha! That's talk for real warriors. A ronin bastard like you... guk!"
Kwaak!
I seized his throat tightly, lifted him lightly, and with a fierce smile, spoke toward that On Je-ung bastard who was watching from afar.
"Since you knew, you won't feel wronged. You tried to take another's life, so even in death you'd have nothing to say. Isn't that right?"
"Geok! Geok!"
As the man, his breath cut off, made choking sounds, that On Je-ung bastard and his underlings, who had been watching from afar, stiffened their faces and tried to approach me.
But at that moment, someone else approached me first and spoke.
"What is the matter, Seonwoo Saje?"
It was Hwa Young-bin the Red Sunset Divine Sword.
Toward him, I smiled with a dumbfounded expression and said.
"Ah, Hwa Daehyeop. This man threatened me to sell my sword. He said he belonged to something called the Hongsa Sword Gate..."
At that, Hwa Yeong-bin also looked at the man with a flabbergasted face and said.
"Threatened you to sell your sword? And to Seonwoo Saje, of all people?"
Then he shook his head as if in pity and said.
"For a man who has barely managed first-rate at best to spout such nonsense to Seonwoo Saje, who fought a decisive battle against the Small-faced Demon Lord—it is astonishing to think how someone with such utter lack of judgment has survived in the martial world. He'd have nothing to say even if he died."
At his words, the face of the man, which had been turning crimson from lack of breath, went pale.
He finally seemed to sense the crisis.
I looked at him with a brightly smiling face and answered.
"Yes, so I'm thinking of killing him."
At that, tears instantly welled up in the man's eyes.
Then, as if wringing out the words, he said.
"Keo-keok! S-s-spare... keok! S-sorry!"
I turned my head abruptly to see that On Je-ung and his party had already turned away from this side and were hurriedly heading elsewhere. It was a remarkably swift change of direction.
I was almost impressed by how cleanly they abandoned their comrade.
Ah, perhaps they had never considered him a comrade in the first place?
I suddenly felt a bit of pity for this bastard in my grip.
I showed him the sight of his comrade fleeing the scene and asked.
"Where did you say you belonged again?"
"Th-that..."
Tears formed in the man's eyes streamed down.
Clicking my tongue, I simply threw him to the ground.
Kudangtangtang!
"Kueok!"
Then, to the bastard who was watching my every move looking like a rat drenched in rain, I spoke as if annoyed.
"Get lost. If I see you in a similar state next time, I'll take your life then."
"Th-thank you! Thank you, Daehyeop!"
Hwa Yeong-bin and I watched for a moment as he fled as if his tail were on fire.
Then I cautiously asked Hwa Yeong-bin.
"Are you all right?"
It was a question laden with many meanings.
At that, Hwa Yeong-bin, who had been watching the fleeing man, smiled faintly and answered.
"Well, I think I am. I thought that heaven, perhaps, that she still does not wish for my arrival, and so I found myself wanting to live the rest of my life a little more diligently."
His expression as he smiled and spoke still seemed to hold a trace of sorrow in one corner, yet appeared far more at ease than before.
It seemed that having returned from death's door had ironically rekindled his will to live.
That was a relief.
He smiled faintly and asked me.
"Didn't you say you would attack the Blood Cult within five years?"
Attack the Blood Cult within five years.
It was a phrase I had spoken habitually.
But it was also something I had been agonizing over intensely until just moments ago.
'Would that really be possible?'
After being utterly shattered by Sa Won-yang, and now having witnessed Cheok Gang's tremendous martial prowess, that goal seemed as reckless as trying to touch the sky.
Far from toppling the Blood Cult, the odds of dying a dog's death without having accomplished anything seemed far higher.
But soon, I grinned and nodded.
"Yes, it will be."
Even if that were so, even if I died a dog's death without achieving anything, I absolutely had to strike the Blood Cult within five years.
After all, it wasn't a matter of doing it if possible and not if impossible.
If I failed to destroy the Blood Cult, wouldn't I ultimately lose everything just as I did in my past life?
So I had to succeed, no matter what.
For my sake, and for the sake of my precious people.
At that, Hwa Yeong-bin looked at me with the most passionate eyes he had shown since we first met, and spoke.
"Yes, somehow I feel like you might actually be able to do it. When that time comes, you will include me, won't you? I will do everything in my power to become far more useful than I am now."
His eyes, which had always seemed somehow hollow, now blazed so fiercely that I couldn't even recall that emptiness.
Seeing those burning eyes, a thought suddenly came to me.
Perhaps it might actually be possible.
If I could be together with people like this, not just alone, then perhaps it truly could be done.
My own heart seemed to heat up along with his gaze.
I grinned playfully and said to him.
"Well, you're a bit lacking right now, but I'll choose to believe you when you say you'll work hard."
At that, he also beamed and replied.
"Yes, thank you. I will do my utmost."
We exchanged fervent gazes and gripped each other's hands tightly.
The heat I felt from his hand seemed to sear all the way to my heart.
Then, as if it had just occurred to him, Hwa Yeong-bin asked me.
"Ah, right. I really wanted to tell you this. That sword of yours. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
"Huh? My sword?"
I looked at my sword Mukrang—the one that Hong-something-or-other had coveted just moments ago—and asked back. He answered with a serious face.
"Yes, your sword. If my memory serves me correctly, I have seen something similar once before. The color was different, but the shape was nearly identical."
Knowing Mukrang's secret, I couldn't help but be startled by his words.
A sword that looks exactly like Mukrang?
And what he said next was even more astonishing.
"And the person who wielded that sword was none other than the Sword Emperor."
"...What?! The Sword Emperor?!"
"Yes, the number one under heaven called the Crimson Wolf Sword Emperor or the Blood Wolf Sword Emperor, Ban Jung-yang. That man."
My jaw dropped.
The Blood Wolf Sword Emperor, Ban Jung-yang.
Among the fifteen absolute masters designated as the One Emperor, Two Kings, Three Sages, Four Demons, and Five Ghosts, he occupied the very first seat.
In other words, he was the so-called number one under heaven.
Startled by his name suddenly springing up, I could only gulp dryly.
And I waited for what he would say next.
But what Hwa Yeong-bin told me next was, somewhat out of the blue, a story about a martial artist from over a hundred years ago.
"You must know of the Seven Star Sword God from a century ago, don't you?"
A hundred years ago, when the Martial God, Demon God, Thunder God, and Sword God were all active in roughly the same era, was remembered as a mythical age by the martial artists of today.
After them, no one in the martial world had ever again obtained the title of 'God,' and Zhejiang Province, where the Martial God, Thunder God, and Sword God had emerged, was still called the Sacred Land and revered as a holy ground by martial artists.
But to bring up the very last of those Gods, the Seven Star Sword God, now—could it be?
Feeling my heart pound, I nodded.
"Yes, of course."
"But do you also know that, aside from the epithet Seven Star Sword God, he was also called the Heavenly Wolf, or the Heavenly Wolf Sword God?"
The Heavenly Wolf, a wolf of the heavens?
"Heavenly Wolf... Sword God? No. I've never heard of it."
As I answered, I suddenly looked at my sword, Mukrang.
At the wolf's head clearly engraved on the guard.
"It is said that before the Sword God passed away, he lamented that he had no disciple with the talent to inherit his true legacy, and so he spoke. That he would leave his true teachings within an item he used in life, so that through it, they would be passed on to someone fated in a later generation. But he did not reveal what that item was."
I swallowed hard.
That was the Sword God's legacy I had only ever heard of in rumors.
I murmured without realizing it.
"A bloodbath must have erupted. So that's what the Sword God Bloody Incident was about?"
Hwa Yeong-bin nodded.
"Yes, that is precisely why the Sword God Bloody Incident occurred. It was a tremendous bloodbath that raged for a full ten years. They say that even a single brush or a single sheet of paper he had used in his lifetime claimed countless lives. But after about ten years, the bloodshed subsided as if it had never happened."
"Subsided?"
That was a rather strange thing to say.
Greed for treasure never simply fades away.
Moreover, if it was related to the Sword God's true legacy, it would undoubtedly be a cursed treasure that would cause endless bloodshed for as long as humans existed—let alone just ten years.
And yet it subsided in a mere ten years.
I organized my thoughts and slowly opened my mouth.
"The Sword God's true legacy never existed in the first place."
Hwa Yeong-bin smiled as if impressed and nodded.
"Precisely. Unable to bear watching the bloodbath any longer, the Four Kings of that era gathered all the items the Sword God had used and verified them one by one before the masters of the orthodox faction. I heard that unlike the current Four Kings, the one of that time was a noble figure respected by both the orthodox and unorthodox factions alike. He was also a personal acquaintance of the Sword God."
That was an incredibly fascinating story.
The current Cold-Blooded Snake King, Naeng Gyu-ram, the union lord of the Mansaryun and one of the present-day Two Kings, certainly had a reputation for preferring upright and honorable duels—unusual for someone of the unorthodox faction. Yet even so, alongside the Heavenly Demon and the Blood Demon, he was still called one of the cruelest men under heaven.
To think that the ancestor of such a Four Kings was a figure respected by all—it was somehow hard to imagine.
Brother Hwa's explanation continued.
"But even though such a man gathered and examined all the belongings, he could not discover the Sword God's true legacy anywhere. No one, nothing, could be found. So in the end, people reached a conclusion. That the Sword God had left those final words to make those greedy for his belongings destroy each other. And indeed, it is said that for several decades thereafter, no major bloodshed occurred in the martial world. Of course, even so, most people still believed that the Sword God had hidden his true legacy somewhere else."
No one had found the Sword God's legacy.
My heart was racing.
If so, then perhaps....
At that moment, Hwa Yeong-bin continued speaking.
"But twenty years ago, that man appeared in the world. The Blood Wolf Sword Emperor, Ban Jung-yang, who had been an ordinary ronin warrior and then became the absolute being of the martial world and the number one sword under heaven at some point. He did."
At his words, I swallowed and asked.
"Then, could it be...?"
"Yes, a few years ago, when I visited him with my master, who is a close acquaintance of his, he clearly acknowledged it. That he had indeed inherited the Sword God's true legacy. And as he said this, he smiled with satisfaction and gazed at his sword. A red sword identical in shape to your own—the Blood Wolf Sword."
As I listened to him, I stared blankly at my Mukrang.
My heart was pounding as if it might burst.
If so, then the true identity of that person called 'Mukrang' was....
"Of course, it could be a completely unrelated sword. And even if it is indeed the sword the Sword God left behind, it could merely be a treasured blade that cuts especially well. But always be careful. If anyone recognizes that sword, they will surely reveal their greed for it."
To me, knowing that Mukrang held a secret, his advice felt heavier than anything.