Chapter 44
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: Enemy Silence - 3
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"The Saintess's location is unidentified."
"Hmph, has she finally decided to flee?"
The curtain rises.
Even amid the Dragon Star Clan's assault, the Saintess who hadn't fled was nowhere to be seen, for some inexplicable reason.
Was she hiding? It was understandable if she was. The Dragon Star Clan's forces weren't bad, but the lineup here surpassed them effortlessly.
The Huangfu Clan's elite Huangfu Wind Division and its leader. The three dragons heralded as the rising stars of the White Path, and one of the Five Peaks. Seven peak experts in total, with one even being one of the World's Five Great Fist Masters. Leading the vanguard, as promised, was Peng Soyoung.
The drawn blade gleamed blue under the moonlight. The sharpness of the Five Tigers' Broken Gate Sword swirled around her like a gale.
"I'll give you three moves."
It was the traditional Peng Clan ritual. When facing the weak, they always granted three opportunities. Flight, remorse, begging—all were permitted. Because they were confident of victory at the end.
Three sword strikes cleaved the air. Neither slow nor fast.
The wind at the blade's tip was fierce. Standing before it were three cultists.
No nicknames. No fame. They were mere wandering swordsmen from somewhere in Guangdong, common folk as numerous as pebbles underfoot. They pressed their lips tight, refusing to yield, glaring ahead. Only the words "Saintess" whispered from the corners of their mouths.
Mid-level stance, the blade angled obliquely. The wind's howl grew louder, transforming into the roar of a fierce tiger.
A quiet resolve filled Peng Soyoung's eyes.
She had given them time to compromise. She had granted them mercy to survive. If they couldn't be captured now... it was their own fault.
"Fierce Tiger Emerges from the Forest!"
At last, the tiger's claws tore through the death line.
The first to charge was Zhang Yi. He was short and gaunt. His sunken cheeks often drew teasing from the other cultists. It was only natural.
He couldn't eat even half a bowl of rice.
A full bowl was all that remained of his younger brother. During the famine, while he scrounged for tree bark outside, bandits raided their home. The frail child, too weak to even go out, had staked his life to protect the leftover rice.
'Brother, look. I protected it. You eat.'
His brother, face swollen from the beatings, smiled through that night but didn't survive it. Since then, Zhang Yi hadn't been able to eat rice properly. The one chance for revenge came from a suspicious booklet circulating in the village.
Clack.
His emaciated palm blocked the sword. No, it couldn't block it. The peak expert's profound energy half-severed his wrist amid surging pain. Yet Zhang Yi didn't let go. It had been decided from the start. Hadn't the scholar repeated it endlessly?
- The vanguard always dies! There's no way out alive!
Thinking of meeting his brother made it hurt not one bit. Zhang Yi glared into the enemy's eyes with all his might. Peng Soyoung's brow twitched.
"Get out of the wayyy!"
Stepping up behind Zhang Yi was Li Wang. He was the exact opposite—plump and a big eater. He needed more than double what others ate to feel full. Dull and foolish.
He knew it well himself. A rice worm who ate too much, which was why even his parents had put "wang," meaning doomed, in his name.
But no matter how dull or foolish, he understood love.
That his parents hadn't truly hated him. The warm hands offering him food while skimping on their own amid the barren famine. And then the warriors from some clan who came accusing them of stealing grain.
They said your parents raided the warehouse, that after treating them kindly, this was how they repaid it—lessons learned with fists. They beat them savagely.
Whoosh!
Li Wang's fist flew through the air. A clumsy attack that Peng Soyoung dodged with a single step. Elegant footwork. But the counter couldn't follow.
Zhang Yi's grip on her wrist delayed the blade's withdrawal by half a beat. In that gap, Li Wang barreled in.
Not with fists or feet, but his entire body.
'What is this?'
Not even drum technique, a form of body combat. Just mindless charging.
Such tactics wouldn't work even in back-alley brawls. A method that sacrificed too much for a moment's pressure.
Dodge and kill—that was it. Indifferently slicing Zhang Yi aside, Peng Soyoung sidestepped once more.
Two steps now.
Park Chun was named for being born in spring. His younger brother was Park Chu, the next Park Dong, and the youngest Park Malchun—thoroughly lazy names.
The four brothers had lived as wandering ronin without even internal energy, until hunger drove them into the mountains last year. They foraged herbs and hunted scrawny wild game to survive the summer, clinging to hopes of work after the harvest.
Until the young master in fancy hero garb arrived.
'Mountain bandits!'
'What did you just say?'
'Who else lurks menacingly in the mountains with weapons if not bandits? This righteous hero must punish you!'
The knife for skinning rabbits became a man-slayer in an instant. They claimed his sunken eyes from hunger gleamed with murderous intent. Even with his old ronin tricks, he couldn't match them. Only then did he recall the rumors.
Ah, hero-hunting.
Tales of fake heroes fabricating "righteous names" and killing innocents—he'd heard them, so why hadn't he realized?
Park Chun fled. As his brothers died under the hero's blade, he ran. Ignoring their screams, he bolted down the mountain path. He knew how to swing a sword but lacked the courage to aim it at people.
He'd cursed himself for it his whole life.
But now...
- The first two sacrifice their lives. Any man will have an opening!
Shing. The rusted sword was yanked free.
Park Chun knew no swordsmanship. He'd just carried one, ending up last in line.
No internal energy either. In their starving state, who'd dare study such luxury texts?
All he had was one thing: powerless hatred.
That futile hatred, eyes bloodshot with loathing for the martial world, circulated along Reverse Heaven's blood path. The demonic art's black true energy settled into his meridians.
"Arrrgh!"
Not a kiai—a scream. Crude swings mimicking Bai Hui without knowing the forms. Bizarre method of slamming energy into his arm without knowing how to draw it from the dantian.
Yet it precisely targeted Peng Soyoung's position after her two retreats.
"...!"
For an instant, the peak expert's eyes sharpened. Senses awakened by clear mortal threat. Had the trio's hatred reached Peng Soyoung's life?
It hadn't.
Whoosh, her long robe fluttered, turning into sword wind. The blade tip protruding through Li Wang's thick body slithered up Park Chun's blade like a serpent.
In one move, blood sprayed from Park Chun's throat. The next took Li Wang's life.
Slash. Bewilderment crossed Peng Soyoung's face as she sheathed her sword.
"Returning Wind Fang... against these rabble..."
An absurd coordination. The first two "sacrificed themselves," creating a forced gap for the last to "thrust." Not even a proper formation.
Yet she had to use a secret technique passed only to Peng Clan heirs to barely break it.
Unfamiliar at first encounter, hesitation from unexpectedly fierce resolve. And the demonic-infused strength beyond imagination. Despite the variables, Peng Soyoung finally realized.
The Divine Cult was a real threat. Capable of shaking the world.
"Peng Clan..."
"No. Let's go."
Only after Yang Chosul called did Peng Soyoung snap back. The narrow slum alleys ahead now seemed like massive boulders swarming with cultists.
One hour.
It was fierce combat. Cultists didn't retreat even with guts pierced. While grabbing Huangfu Wind Division fists or Yang Chosul's sword, threatening strikes inevitably flew. Each time, the heroes relied on each other.
They advanced slowly toward where the Saintess should be—the spot defended most desperately. No casualties was a miracle.
When planning, hadn't they anticipated the Iron Blood Fist King's energy consumption? Yet even now, no situation required his intervention...
'Huh?'
Little Divine Dragon noticed the anomaly then.
Dharma Protector.
One of only two experts in the cult, they'd said. The one who slew four Dragon Star Clan branch leaders simultaneously. Also the fiend who left clear sword marks on Nangong Dan's corpse. Not the Saintess's paper-tearing finesse, so the Dharma Protector must rival the White Dragon.
So where was he now?
No matter how iron-willed, it defied reason for him to stay hidden while cultists died like this. Morale should've collapsed already. That's why they pressed forward.
Believing the Saintess hadn't fled, so she remained.
But if the desperate defense was for something else entirely.
If stalling for time was the goal.
"Over there!"
"Yeah, this way."
At someone's shout, looking up revealed a scholar perched on the wall.
Mad eyes and prosthetic leg. Clapping and grinning lightly like an audience at a sideshow. But Little Divine Dragon couldn't focus on him.
One clue burned in his mind.
The Saintess used strange methods to evade detection. She could discern and kill martial artists just by sight, making approach impossible. In other words...
None of them had properly seen her face directly.
"My head's right here. Come take it if you dare?"
Zhang Ping sneered.