Chapter 26
Chapter 26
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Alright, Let's Die (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Martial arts have realms.
They're the standards for measuring strength—much like levels in a game.
Yang Ho-geol called himself an expert.
And that wasn't wrong.
In the jianghu, the moment you wield sword qi, you're called an expert.
So, by the time you reach peak expert level, there's nothing to fear.
Having overcome the first major hurdle any warrior faces, your confidence overflows.
This is the infamous "peak of ignorance."
The time when the world looks its most beautiful—that's the entry into the peak realm.
And so...
Yang Ho-geol found it amusing when the man before him drew his sword.
Daring to draw a sword before a peak expert?
Not surprising at all.
He looked like a bandit, so he assumed the fool thought his skills were bandit-level too.
Instead, his heart raced at the chance to properly school this clueless pup who didn't know the world's vastness.
But wait...
His opponent was also a peak expert.
No problem.
He could wield sword qi too.
The issue came after that.
"!!!"
Sword qi extended into strands forming sword aura, and suddenly, in empty air, a sharp crackle of electricity flashed with a zzzt.
You see as much as you know.
Being a proper expert, Yang Ho-geol instantly recognized the phenomenon as thunder qi.
What did I just witness?
Infusing attributes into qi was a feat only those at the pinnacle of late peak realm enlightenment could achieve.
It required comprehending the extremes of yin-yang and five elements—principles governing the generation, conquest, essence, and roots of qi, the laws of heaven and earth.
How impossibly hard was mastery of that?
And mastering even one attribute was tough, but thunder—born of yang, with the yin-aligned attribute of shattering evil—was the worst.
What is lightning?
Trapped by metal, striking from heaven toward earth, rooting down like wood, born in water during rain, igniting fire where it strikes.
Water, wood, fire, earth, metal.
Requiring command of all five elements, thunder's mysteries were deemed the most vicious.
Yang Ho-geol's mind spun furiously.
Freely manipulating sword qi and sword aura, then drawing lightning bolts from it nonstop.
So, what was this guy's identity?
Answer: Fucking expert.
"Alright, let's die."
"……"
Yang Ho-geol's face drained to pale blue.
Shit, I bluffed like an idiot and now I'm about to be human jerky.
"Wait! Sir Hero! Let's talk this out!"
"Talk? You drank my wall liquor. I'll claim its price with your life."
"P-Please, just spare my life!"
"Why should I? If I were weaker than you lot, would you have spared me? You'd have ravaged me cruelly until bored, then killed me without mercy. You know that, right? Your bodies reek of blood."
"N-No, that's not true! I'll do anything you sa—urk!"
Before he finished, something streaked past.
Pzzt! A lightning bolt sliced through the air, grazing Yang Ho-geol's earlobe.
Just a graze, yet his skin tingled numb and burned hot.
At that absurd destructive power, Yang Ho-geol let out an involuntary hollow laugh.
"Don't laugh. It pisses me off."
Yang Ho-geol swallowed hard.
Terror at the absolute expert striding forward, freely wielding thunderbolts, made his legs quake.
"S-Sir Hero!"
"Don't talk to me. I'm deep in thought right now."
Thought?
What thought?
"Whether to kill you outright or just half-kill you."
Fuck me.
Yang Ho-geol sweated buckets.
"Uh, is there no option to just let me go?"
At that, Cheongun's eyes flashed.
Simultaneously, Cheongun backhanded Yang Ho-geol's cheek.
"That's why I say, who the hell wants to live scamming people like a dick?"
Slap!
"Oh? Protective qi still up?"
Crack!
"This is for my wall liquor!"
Slap! Slap!
"This is for all the ghosts you bastards killed!"
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!
Crisp smacking sounds echoed.
Infused palms joyfully battered Yang Ho-geol's cheeks.
Lips split, nose bled, face ballooned uglier atop his already ugly mug.
Eardrums burst too—ears rang deaf with tinnitus.
The sounds were so rhythmic, bystanders soon gathered.
After a good while of pummeling, Cheongun finally called a waiter.
"One wall liquor, please."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
The waiter dashed off and quickly returned, handing Cheongun a gourd of wall liquor.
Yang Ho-geol whimpered.
"S-Sorry."
Cheongun chugged the liquor and said,
"Scram."
"Th-Thank you!"
With that, Yang Ho-geol staggered through the crowd, shoving people aside to escape.
Yang Ho-geol.
He was the stronghold chief of Iron Gate Mountain Stronghold, a proper Green Forest bandit.
Not some petty thief, but a lowlife from the unorthodox paths.
Acting on Heaven's Behalf for Justice.
Reviving the Poor Across Nine Provinces.
Meaning they'd rob the rich to redistribute to the poor on heaven's orders—boiled down, Robin Hood bullshit.
This was the Green Forest's lofty ideal, their justification for not being mere thieves but righteous bandits.
Of course, what utter nonsense.
No matter the packaging, bandits are bandits.
In the end, just criminals extorting passage fees from innocent folk to scrape by.
Iron Gate Mountain Stronghold exemplified this.
They robbed anyone in sight, not just the rich, to fill their own pockets.
And it wasn't just money—if something irked them, they'd torture and kill without hesitation. Vicious scum.
"Huff, huff…!"
Yang Ho-geol fled the city in a panic.
He'd planned to wander, extort some cash, blow off steam as usual—only to tangle with a total lunatic, get beaten like a dog in summer heat, and barely escape.
But.
"Damn it…!"
He'd been told to scram, and he did.
Yet somehow, that ghostly monster kept following from afar.
Yang Ho-geol shuddered.
If he hadn't noticed the tailing, fine—but being openly stalked felt like a ghost on his back, creepy and unsettling.
"Bro, that guy's still following us."
"I know."
"Come to think of it, he said scram, but not that he'd spare us."
The bandits nodded.
No way their paths coincided.
So him tailing them made sense.
Night fell, cloaking everything in darkness.
Yang Ho-geol sat somewhere suitable and lit a campfire.
Uneasy sleep from the stalker drew the men one by one to the fire.
"See that?"
Yang Ho-geol pointed one way.
Far off, in the dark, Cheongun's eyes stared solely at them.
Yang Ho-geol and the bandits sweated coldly.
Shivering, Yang Ho-geol voiced his thoughts.
"We need a plan."
"A plan, bro?"
"Yeah. See that guy? He's not ordinarily crazy. Can't shake him. Dodging a guy pulling lightning from his sword with lightness skill? Impossible."
"Then what, bro?"
Yang Ho-geol scanned his brothers with troubled eyes.
"Lure him somewhere unrelated. Or take him straight to the stronghold, offer everything, and beg for our lives."
"What do you think, bro?"
"Lure him wrong? He'll catch on midway. Stronghold stays hidden, but we're dead."
The bandits gulped.
No good options.
So, best to ambush here somehow.
Problem: he was too damn strong.
Charge en masse? Massacred.
Needed a trick.
After a moment's thought, Yang Ho-geol asked,
"That guy seemed orthodox, right?"
The bandits nodded.
Moves unorthodox, but his inner arts felt pure dao righteous qi technique.
Then, one man cautiously suggested,
"How about hostages?"
Hostages.
Grab some innocents: "Back off or they die!"
"You all agree?"
"Yes!"
"Good. Let's do that. Take turns on watch from now. He might rush us."
"Then tomorrow at dawn, to the nearest village..."
The bandit trailed off.
"Ch-Chief."
"What?"
"That guy from earlier."
The bandit gulped.
Pointed into the deep dark between trees.
Nothing there.
"Wasn't he definitely watching us from there?"
Yang Ho-geol and the bandits whipped their heads around.
No Cheongun.
"……"
Eerie silence filled the air.
Creepy when he was there—gone now? Anxiety and dread worse than ever.
Gulp.
In the still silence, not even crickets, only their ragged breaths echoed.
Then.
—Rustle!
Whoosh!
All heads snapped up.
Glowing eyes flashed blue in the dark.
Cheongun hung upside down from a tree branch, eyes meeting theirs.
"Alright, let's die."
"……"