The Headhunters' Demise (3)
The bandit camp plunged into chaos.
“Enemies! They’ve breached the camp!”
“What the hell was that explosion? Could it be a cannon?!”
“Could government troops have attacked?!”
“It’s not government troops! Two women, and they’re monstrous experts! They’re mowing people down left and right!”
“Someone get the chief! Right now!”
While the panic unfolded, I took Ban So-ok by the hand and made straight for the direction where Se-ryeong and Ye-hwa were fighting.
A few bandits spotted us along the way, but before they could even shout a warning, my blade sheared through their necks.
We safely reached the two women slaughtering the fleeing bandits.
“You… you’re the Fairy Sword Princess, Baekri Ye-hwa…!”
Ban So-ok’s face lit up the moment she saw Ye-hwa, her eyes brimming with gratitude.
Ye-hwa approached with a gentle, compassionate smile.
“You’ve suffered enough, madam. Please rest now.”
On the other side, Se-ryeong wore a slightly petulant expression.
It was obvious she resented being overshadowed every time.
I quietly chuckled and ruffled her hair.
“Don’t be jealous. You’ll become famous just like her soon enough.”
“Hmph. I have no reason to be jealous.”
At that moment, a burly man carrying a massive axe on his shoulder led a group of subordinates straight toward us.
“You pathetic cowards! Just the three of you dare attack our bandit camp? You must’ve gone mad!”
He roared with bravado, but the fear in his eyes was all too clear—*This is fucked.*
Given that he was a Transcendence expert, he probably recognized that the three of us had already reached the Transformation Realm.
Yet because even the chief was terrified, his underlings would lose morale and scatter unless he kept up the pretense.
“I am the infamous bandit chieftain Mau-bok, wanted for eight thousand taels of silver!”
The moment he declared his name, Se-ryeong and Ye-hwa let out soft chuckles, while I frowned.
Every now and then, idiots like him strut around bragging about the bounty as if it were some great honor.
It embarrassed even me to stand beside such a man.
Se-ryeong openly mocked him.
“Hahaha! Just eight thousand taels of silver and you’re swaggering around? Your level is so pathetic it’s almost pitiful.”
She turned to me, thrusting her chest forward proudly.
Her owner, the golden fifty-tael boss, had her bragging like that.
Let me compare the bounties for a moment.
One tael equals one hundred taels of silver, and gold now traded at roughly ten times the price of silver.
So my bounty, in silver terms, came to about five thousand taels.
Plus the fifth-rank official title on top, the difference was even greater.
Of course, Mau-bok wasn’t a complete nobody.
When a villain’s bounty reached ten golden taels—roughly ten thousand taels of silver—the authorities would feel a chill and add his name to the wanted list.
Eight thousand taels placed him at the very bottom of the list, a high-potential villain who could one day become a major figure.
In fact, in the pre-regression history, he had once racked up a bounty of thirty-three golden taels.
It was obvious that killing him right now would benefit everyone.
When we openly treated him like trash, murmurs of “Is our boss really that fucked?” began circulating among his underlings.
Mau-bok desperately tried to rally them.
“Don’t be scared! As long as we have Wang Yuan-pohong, we’re invincible! Kyaaah—!”
The moment his roar echoed, the terror vanished from the bandits’ faces.
“Kwaaaaah—!”
“Kiieeeeeek—!”
Hundreds of bandits charged toward us with wild screams.
“Huhu, the pests are kind enough to come die themselves.”
Se-ryeong laughed mockingly and stepped forward.
“And the reward for you will be a pretty little chop for your pretty face~”
Ye-hwa followed with a delicate smile, radiating a cold, lethal aura.
They widened their stance and launched into a fierce assault on the bandits.
*Boom!*
Se-ryeong stomped hard with her Thunderstep.
At the same time, the aura of the Heavenly Demon’s Monarchial Steps enveloped the surroundings.
“Kwaaaah?!”
“Kwaaaaaah…”
The bandits charging at her collapsed under the mountain-like pressure, dropping to their knees.
“You pests. Realize the weight of your crime for baring your fangs at this lady.”
With a chilling voice, Se-ryeong swatted the air like swatting away annoying insects.
The pressure that had been crushing them concentrated on their heads.
*Pop-pop-pop-pop!*
Their heads exploded one after another.
Tianma Shen-gong’s Ya-chan Bi-qi. A representative supreme art symbolizing the Heavenly Demon’s terror.
*Shala—*
The golden hair of Ye-hwa fluttered in the breeze, sunlight dancing across it.
She glided through the enemy ranks with fluid yet explosive grace.
The bandits swung their weapons desperately to surround her, but not a single strand of her hair was harmed.
With every flash of her blade, the enemies within her range were sliced clean apart.
*Whoosh—*
Blood sprayed in all directions.
Yet despite standing at the center, not a single drop of the filthy blood of her enemies stained Ye-hwa’s body.
The bandits stared in a trance, as if bewitched, until they were swept away by the Blade of Infinite Severance, Ye-in-byeok-ryu.
Mau-bok watched his subordinates get slaughtered like trash, his jaw trembling uncontrollably.
“Ugh… ughhh…”
He staggered backward in panic, then tried to flee.
Se-ryeong leaped high and dropped directly onto his escape route.
“You cowardly fool! Do you think fleeing by abandoning your subordinates will save you?”
“Back—back off!”
Mau-bok swung his axe wildly to threaten Se-ryeong, but of course it had no effect.
“Hahaha! What kind of pathetic trick is that? Even a drunk monkey would have more backbone than you.”
Desperate, Mau-bok glanced back.
Ye-hwa was at that moment bisecting the last remaining subordinate in one vertical slash.
“Shit…”
His face twisted like a swallowed dumpling, and he let out a blood-curdling roar.
“Kuuwaaaah—!”
His voice was completely different from before.
The effect was the same.
His muscles swelled to twice their size, and grotesque veins bulged across his face.
“Kuuwaaaah!”
Mau-bok, having boosted his latent power with Wang Yuan-pohong, charged at Se-ryeong.
The crude qi he poured into his axe coalesced into a crude but forceful Sword Gang.
He brought the axe down on Se-ryeong’s head.
She easily dodged.
*Boom!*
The moment the axe struck the ground, the earth around them shuddered violently.
Even now, its destructive power was at least Transformation-level.
It had met the minimum requirement to be used as training meat for Se-ryeong’s martial arts.
I sent a mental message to Se-ryeong.
[Se-ryeong, can you kill that bastard using only half his internal energy?]
The energetic reply came immediately.
[Haha! Master, are you insulting me now? Do I need five stars of internal energy to kill this kind of trash? Two stars is more than enough.]
And she truly fought using only two-star internal energy.
Following nothing but instinct and burning even her innate qi, Mau-bok’s axe swings were simple, yet lightning-fast and terrifyingly strong because of it.
Se-ryeong, who had restrained her internal energy, did not push with overwhelming force as usual.
Instead, she danced nimbly around his attacks.
When his axe again struck the ground uselessly, she planted her left foot with the subtlety of Tian-jin-chu and stomped the axe handle, shattering it to pieces.
“Gwaaaah?!”
Mau-bok stared in horror at his now useless club.
Se-ryeong closed the distance in one step and placed her empty hand on her waist.
“It ends here!”
She clenched her fist like a shard of ice and poured the domineering energy of Tianma Shen-gong into it.
She thrust her fist forward in the most upright, righteous form.
This was the first supreme art of Tianma Shen-gong and the Heavenly Demon’s signature technique, Tianma Divine Fist.
The unparalleled power that had spread its fame even to distant Europe, nicknamed Tianma Punch.
*Kwaaaah—!*
Mau-bok was blasted ten zhang (thirty meters) away by the impact of Tianma Divine Fist, as if his chest had been torn open.
“Kwaaaah… kuaaaaaah…”
Mau-bok lay on the dirt, his appearance pitiful.
His shattered limbs protruded from his flesh, his organs spilled out, and he could barely breathe while coughing up blood.
Yet because of the explosive effect of Wang Yuan-pohong, he did not die instantly.
He lingered in agonizing pain for nearly one jiao (fifteen minutes) before finally succumbing.
It was a fitting end for a man like him.
***
As spoils of the bandit extermination, I chopped off Mau-bok’s head and took it with me.
I also selected the valuable items from the bandits’ plunder and loaded them onto the backs of the horses that had once pulled the Geumwon Express carriages.
With Ban So-ok by my side, we returned to Ha-hu Bong’s location.
“Yeok-mai—!”
“Sang-gong—!”
Ha-hu Bong and Ban So-ok hugged each other tightly for a long time, sharing an emotional reunion.
I stood with Se-ryeong and Ye-hwa, watching them with a satisfied smile.
Suddenly they bowed deeply to us.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you, great heroes. We will repay this kindness for the rest of our lives—nay, for generations to come.”
“Kindness? There’s no need for repayment. We only did what we had to do.”
When I delivered the perfect line of a righteous hero, Se-ryeong gave me a look that said *What the hell did you eat?*, while Ye-hwa secretly glanced at me with a pleased smile.
“Oh my! You truly are a righteous hero, great one! One day your legend will be told as a tale of heroism in the Murim. So how could we possibly overlook the tale of Ha-hu-mu? We place all the honor and property of the Geumwon Express on the line! We shall repay you in a way that will not shame us in posterity!”
After that, Ha-hu Bong continued praising us for a long time, forgetting even that he was sick, before finally collapsing into Ban So-ok’s arms.