A Kind Lesson
All who receive this transmission are to assemble at the south gate.
Hong Ungwang, who had decided to follow Jin Somyeong around, swallowed hard.
The very first mission handed down by the Red Flame Unit was already enough to give him a headache.
Three upper second-tier demonic beasts? That’s way too dangerous...
Hong Ungwang glanced sideways, trying to read the mood. He wanted to see what Jin Somyeong would do after receiving the mission, but the bastard did not hesitate for even a heartbeat. He flew straight toward the south gate.
“...Damn it.”
After wavering for a moment, Hong Ungwang clenched his teeth and chased after him. From start to finish, he intended to imitate Jin Somyeong and steal the secret behind his Sword Qi.
Why is a mere mid Foundation Establishment cultivator so fearless? Did winning the Ascension Tournament make him lose all sense of danger?
Or could it be that he had simply never encountered an upper-tier demonic beast before and did not know how terrifying such creatures were?
With a sigh, Hong Ungwang found himself remembering the past.
Back in his Qi Refining days, he had been a promising sword cultivator. Once he awakened Sword Qi, there had been nothing in the world that frightened him. After luckily reaching Foundation Establishment, everything he attempted went smoothly. He enjoyed life while complaining that the world was too small.
Just when he had heard the word “genius” so often that it had begun to bore him, his Sword Qi started to fade.
Why?
He tried every method he could think of, but Sword Qi that had once weakened never returned to its former state. From that point on, he began increasing the number of flying swords he controlled. It had been a desperate measure to compensate for his declining combat strength, but the more he relied on them, the weaker his Sword Qi became.
It felt as if he had taken a wrong turn and sunk into a mire.
Then, one day, after wasting time floundering in that swamp, he went to watch the Ascension Tournament merely to clear his head.
And there, he saw it.
A mere Foundation Establishment cultivator cutting through a storm unleashed by a third-tier magical treasure.
How?
The scene had branded itself into him like a burn, and he could not forget it no matter how many years passed.
Perhaps that was why, when he happened to run into Jin Somyeong in the central square, he picked a fight without warning. He wanted to see that sword again.
But he had been ignored. Jin Somyeong had simply walked away as though Hong Ungwang was not worth dealing with.
Ha.
His pride had been wounded, but he could not give up. If he could restore his faded Sword Qi, a humiliation of this level meant nothing. He followed Jin Somyeong into the Red Flame Unit and searched the entire fortress wall for him.
And so, now, Hong Ungwang had ended up following him even into a dangerous mission against three upper second-tier demonic beasts...
I must be insane.
What was Sword Qi, really? There were countless spells in the world. Even those who were not sword cultivators lived perfectly well.
The moment he reached the south gate, cursing inwardly all the while, more than ten gazes turned toward him. Everyone looked back and forth between Jin Somyeong and Hong Ungwang with puzzled expressions.
“Mid Foundation Establishment?”
“Hmm...”
“Well, they must have given him a Red Flame Unit badge because he has the qualifications.”
The looks in their eyes were far from trusting, but those stares soon faded. Someone recognized Jin Somyeong as the winner of the Ascension Tournament and murmured a few words of advice to the others.
Hong Ungwang glanced aside. It would have been enough to annoy anyone, but Jin Somyeong merely stood there with his arms crossed and made no response at all.
After an unknown stretch of waiting, a cultivator belonging to Hyowolseong’s regular army appeared and nodded.
“Eleven? Good. Fortunately, we have enough numbers. For this mission only, I will be your captain.”
At the Red Flame captain’s words, a mountain cultivator with a shaggy beard scowled.
“Enough, you say? Hey. Do you not see the demonic beasts swarming outside? You’re telling us to break through that and kill demonic beasts twenty kilometers away?”
As if he could not hear the insolent complaint, the Red Flame captain simply said what he had to say.
“Since there are a few newcomers, I will explain. Mission rewards are paid in merit points according to each person’s contribution. You can exchange them for top-grade spirit medicines, cultivation arts, and other things not sold on the market, so you will not find them lacking.”
“Hey. Are you deaf? I’m asking how eleven people are supposed to break through that horde of demonic beasts—”
The mountain cultivator’s face flushed crimson as he roared, and at that moment—
Rumble!
A tremendous energy gathered in the sky above Hyowolseong.
An artificial sun formed by the power of the formation swelled without end. The instant its compressed power reached the limit, a pillar of light seething with intense heat raked across the earth.
Dozens of enormous paths opened up around Hyowolseong. The demonic beasts that had packed the ground densely evaporated the moment the light touched them.
“Time. We move.”
The mountain cultivator, who had been shouting about how they were supposed to break through, fell silent as if his mouth had been stuffed with honey at the sight of the wide road opened toward the southeast.
With the Red Flame captain in the lead, eleven cultivators, including Hong Ungwang and Jin Somyeong, flew into the air.
“Do not stop under any circumstances! If you are surrounded, it is over!”
They advanced through the path the formation had opened, and naturally, countless demonic beasts tried to obstruct them.
Slash!
Hong Ungwang sent his flying swords out. As he cut down the demonic beasts that appeared one after another to block their route, he rapidly scanned his surroundings.
All eleven members of the Red Flame Unit were desperately killing demonic beasts as they pushed forward. All except one.
Jin Somyeong.
He was leisurely, as though he had come out for a stroll. The moment it seemed his sword had moved, the heads of the demonic beasts around him simply dropped.
...I can’t see it.
He swung his sword and cut their necks. It was an act so simple it bordered on crude, yet the entire process in between seemed to have been omitted.
“Awoooo!”
A wolf that had lunged in so fast only an afterimage remained collapsed limply. When Hong Ungwang saw its head had vanished at some point, it felt as though he were dreaming.
He’s a monster. That’s supposed to be the same Foundation Establishment realm as me?
Whether first-tier or second-tier, they were all the same. Not one could withstand a single swing of Jin Somyeong’s sword.
As though entranced, Hong Ungwang tried swinging his own sword while imitating Jin Somyeong, but...
Clang!
It was nowhere near enough. His strike was blocked by a demonic crab beast with a hardened shell, a Black-Armored Sea Wolf Crab. In the end, he had to unleash all twelve flying swords and even cast a fire spell before he managed to shake it off.
After no small amount of trouble, they arrived at the mission site.
“Hah... hah... Damn, that was exhausting.”
Everyone’s breathing had grown rough.
Everyone except Jin Somyeong, who calmly shook the blood from his sword.
“Damn it. I’m already worried about the way back.”
“Let’s finish the mission first.”
When the Red Flame captain gestured, everyone’s attention gathered.
At the center of a village already reduced to ruins floated a grotesque being. It was a writhing polyhedron that looked as if lumps of flesh had been forcibly compressed into shape, hovering in midair.
“That’s a demonic beast I’ve never seen before.”
“It’s rather disgusting. How many eyes does it have? More than ten.”
“Late Foundation Establishment level... I don’t know where the other two are, but let’s deal with this one first.”
The cultivators were about to step forward when—
“A Formation-Eye Beast?”
At the murmur from a white-robed cultivator whose hair was neatly tied back, the Red Flame captain furrowed his brow.
“Do you know what kind of demonic beast it is?”
“One moment, please. Where did I see that thing...?”
The white-robed cultivator, who looked every inch the scholar, drew a jade slip from his storage pouch. Pressing it to his forehead and concentrating, he looked as if he were searching through some encyclopedia of demonic beasts.
“For fuck’s sake. What kind of nonsense are you doing on a battlefield? We just have to kill it!”
The shaggy-bearded mountain cultivator hurled his axe before anyone could stop him.
The axe, which had been no bigger than a palm, grew rapidly with every spin. By the time it had become larger than a building and cleaved into the bizarre lump of flesh called a Formation-Eye Beast, the white-robed scholar had apparently found what he was looking for, and his face turned pale.
“N-no! Everyone, retreat immediately!”
He shouted urgently, but it was already too late.
Boom!
A barrier sealed off a radius of nearly a thousand meters.
Thick poisonous fog, ash-gray wind rippling with ghostly illusions, blazing pillars of fire—every manner of strange calamity divided inside from outside, ensuring that no one could leave this place.
“The Formation-Eye Beast is a mutated demonic beast that feeds on formations. It is extremely weak, but when it dies, it detonates every formation it has eaten until then...”
The despairing explanation darkened the Red Flame captain’s expression.
Then—
Rumble... Bang!
The earth shook, then erupted as if exploding upward.
Through the scattering cloud of dirt, an enormous body came into view. At a glance, it resembled an enlarged serpent, but it was absurdly large.
A monstrous beast over three hundred meters tall blotted out the sun as it looked down at them.
“Shiiiissss.”
The strange, musical sound warped their vision.
Before that overwhelmingly massive form, even the mountain cultivator who had so confidently thrown his axe stumbled backward.
“Insane! That thing is second-tier? There’s no way... Something’s wrong!”
“A-a Vein-Devouring Earth Dragon!”
They were afraid.
To be honest, Hong Ungwang was no different. But instead of retreating, he turned his gaze elsewhere. He wanted to know how Jin Somyeong would respond in a situation like this.
Ah...
He was exactly the same as before.
Seeing Jin Somyeong standing there with a calm expression, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, stirred a strange courage in Hong Ungwang. No, not courage—recklessness.
Clang!
He drew his swords and hurled them. Twelve flying swords shot forward like lightning and burrowed into the upper body of the Vein-Devouring Earth Dragon.
He intended to pierce its heart in one breath, but...
Thud!
The connection to the flying swords embedded in its flesh was severed.
Compared to the Vein-Devouring Earth Dragon’s colossal body, the flying swords Hong Ungwang had sent out were nothing more than tiny thorns.
“Kuhak!”
Just as he vomited blood from the backlash of losing his magical instruments, he heard Jin Somyeong’s voice.
“Hey.”
He was not calling Hong Ungwang. He was speaking to the white-robed scholar, who stood there looking as if he might cry.
“Can I cut that one?”
“...Pardon?”
“Just tell me whether I can or can’t.”
The white-robed scholar blinked, then nodded so quickly his head seemed to make a whooshing sound.
“O-of course you can.”
Shing...
The blade slid slowly from its sheath, reflecting the sunlight. The instant the silver-flashing steel fully revealed itself, Hong Ungwang’s gaze was stolen by the clear haze flowing along the sword’s body.
His skin prickled. Merely looking at it made him feel as if his soul were being cut.
His eyes hurt so badly he could hardly stare straight at it, yet he forced them open.
And then—
Slice.
A single sound of cutting split not only the Vein-Devouring Earth Dragon, but even the formation itself.
Even the leopard that had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opening, lost its life.
No plan or trap had any meaning before overwhelming strength.
The moment Jin Somyeong sheathed his sword after unleashing the slash—
Boom!
The Vein-Devouring Earth Dragon, split vertically in two, collapsed and shook the earth.
Jin Somyeong summoned wind to scatter the sudden surge of dust and turned his gaze. He asked the Red Flame captain, who stood like a broken doll, “How are the demonic beast materials divided?”
“...W-well, naturally, they are taken according to contribution. Please take as much as you wish, Senior.”
“Senior? I’m still only mid Foundation Establishment.”
“Haha. What does that matter?”
“Hmm...”
Jin Somyeong shrugged and first collected the leopard demonic beast that had died while hiding and trying to ambush him. Afterward, he rummaged through the giant serpent with Sword Qi. This was the first time he had killed something this large, so he was curious whether it had an inner core.
It does.
He collected the dark-brown bead, then pulled out the flying swords buried in the flesh. Using a breeze raised by Wind Riding Art, he returned them to Hong Ungwang.
Hong Ungwang had been staring blankly, but then he suddenly walked over with firm steps and held out a heavy pouch.
“Hm?”
When Jin Somyeong swept the inside of the pouch with Divine Sense, he saw roughly seventeen hundred mid-grade Spirit Stones.
“This is everything I own. It falls far short, but... could you teach me even part of the secret? I’ll make up the rest somehow.”
As Hong Ungwang said that, he bowed his head.
Looking at a sword cultivator offering his entire fortune in the hope of receiving instruction, Jin Somyeong was suddenly struck by a whim.
“Fine. If you want it that badly, I’ll tell you. But as I said, this secret is rather expensive.”
“...For the Spirit Stones I lack, I’ll hunt demonic beasts and—”
Jin Somyeong waved a hand and cut him off. That was not the sort of price he meant.
“The method to sharpen Sword Qi, you see...”
At that instant, someone swallowed. He could feel every member of the Red Flame Unit concentrating. Even those who were not sword cultivators were curious about the secret.
“Is simpler than you might think.”
Jin Somyeong’s voice grew quieter as he beckoned Hong Ungwang closer. The man approached with a face full of questions.
“W-what the—!”
Jin Somyeong seized him hard by the scruff of the neck. Hong Ungwang panicked and tried to break free, but Jin Somyeong did not let go.
He unleashed every bit of physical strength he had cultivated to the level of a peak second-tier body.
“Aaaaaaah?! You son of a bitch, what are you—”
And hurled him straight into the middle of the demonic beast horde that had gathered before they knew it.
Shock, confusion, and terror. A scream condensed with every possible emotion was buried among the demonic beasts.
“If you survive there, you’ll naturally come to understand.”
Who told him to draw a sword on a person he had only just met? Jin Somyeong had no intention of giving a kind lesson to such an obnoxious bastard.
Still, I gave him a chance.
The moment Hong Ungwang vanished behind the bulk of the enormous beasts—
Slash!
Twelve flying swords scattered in every direction and slaughtered the demonic beasts. Hong Ungwang resisted desperately against the endless tide of monsters pressing in.
“S-save me! Uwaaaah?! B-brother! Please save me!”
Jin Somyeong watched him fight while rolling across the ground, then kicked off the earth.
Slice!
He cut off the neck of a demonic beast that had been about to drive its claws into Hong Ungwang’s spine.
After all, he had taken the man’s entire fortune. He ought to give him his money’s worth. At the very least, Jin Somyeong had no intention of letting him die.