Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Nine Deaths One Life (1)
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I sometimes had those kinds of fantasies.
Fantasies of dramatically repelling bandits with my honed martial arts and saving people. Since I'd reincarnated into a wuxia novel and learned some martial arts myself, it wasn't unreasonable to imagine it once or twice.
But when that very imagined scenario suddenly appeared before my eyes, the overwhelming pressure froze my body, leaving me unable to do anything. Why of all places and times did I have to run into them here and now?
Well, whatever.
Even making every concession imaginable, it was entirely possible.
It's a wuxia world, after all—even if it's a bit rotten. An attack by a masked group was perfectly plausible. But what I really wanted to ask them wasn't the why—it was the where and when.
Why this hour of all hours? Why this remote spot of all spots to ambush people? Couldn't they have started just a little later? So many questions.
Unfortunately, no one looked eager to give polite answers. Instead, those eyes brimming with killing intent suggested they'd shove a sword through me rather than reply.
"A geezer walking alone through the mountains at this late hour?"
"That aura doesn't feel ordinary..."
"..."
Fortunately, amidst all the misfortune, they weren't charging in recklessly either. Well, even I would find a lone old man wandering the mountain paths at night suspicious.
It's not for nothing they say in the martial world to beware of children and elders. The sole exception? I'm not an old man—I'm a thirty-year-old youth. These bastards...
'I'm thirty, you fucking bastards.'
They kept mistaking me for an old man. Sure, my hair is white, and I haven't trimmed my beard at all. But still, confusing me with a real geezer was a stretch.
No, a big stretch.
Regardless, since being taken for an elder was benefiting me, I kept my mouth shut without correcting the misconception. No sense in sawing off my own lifeline.
I considered bolting without looking back, but quickly scrapped the idea. No guarantee those guys would spare a witness. And the reason they weren't attacking outright...
Was purely because I didn't seem ordinary. They weren't showing mercy out of kindness. So if I revealed weakness here?
I might bid farewell to my second chance at life. Caught in this no-win bind—unable to advance or retreat—that's when one of them stepped forward.
"As the saying goes, startled by a snake's shadow in a cup—you lot are exactly that, pathetic fools."
"Ha, but at this late hour? A lone old man trekking through these treacherous mountains—he can't be the culprit."
"Exactly. No villages around here anyway, right?"
I'm not a damn old man.
But putting that aside, I could understand the assassins' hesitation. They're not idiots; they'd scouted thoroughly and picked this remote spot for good reason.
Me popping up suddenly behind them in these rugged wilds must make me look like some formidable expert. At least to third-rates with shallow skills.
However, true experts can roughly gauge an opponent's realm. That assassin stepping forward was a prime example.
Anyone with sharp eyes could infer he was their leader. His sturdy, robust build couldn't be fully hidden by a mask.
And unlike the others, his confident strides proclaimed him no ordinary killer. He closed right up to me, drew his sword, and leveled it at me.
"We were ordered not to leave witnesses. Regrettably, your head..."
The sword tip gleamed with killing intent refined to a startling purity. In that instant, death—which I'd thought still distant—beckoned clearly before me.
My current level couldn't be called expert, even generously. In your typical wuxia tale with realms up to Transcendent or Life-Death, first-rate barely scrapes by.
Moreover, he'd drawn first and infused blatant killing intent. With just the Three Disasters Sword Art in my arsenal, I had no leeway for holding back.
And in that moment, the world froze like a lie. As if time itself had stopped. In this utterly still world, I alone could move. I drew my sword and swung.
My blade easily reached his neck in this frozen world—but it didn't bite into flesh. A split-second hesitation over killing.
But I'd already died once. The visceral urge not to relive that nightmare effortlessly shattered the lingering doubt in my heart.
The blade flashed from its sheath like lightning, severing the squad leader's neck in a blink. So swift the strike that he didn't even register his death at first.
But soon his head thudded to the ground like discarded trash. Blood fountained from the cleanly cut neck, and only then did screams erupt from the watchers behind.
"S-Squad Leader!!"
"The Squad Leader's down!!!"
'...Huh?'
Who could've foreseen it? That a single basic strike from the Three Disasters Sword Art would decapitate him outright. Even I—the killer—was stunned by how anticlimactic it was.
...I was sure he'd block it?
If only he'd listened to the waiter and stayed the night.
Or even joined the merchant caravan to bolster their numbers—would this have happened? Muttering regrets far too late to matter, Moyong Hyeon glared at the men arrayed before him.
Masked and clad in inky black like shadows, he couldn't identify them. But he knew damn well who sent them. Moyong Hyeon was the Moyong Clan's Young Lord.
After endless toil to become Patriarch someday, he'd clawed his way to first-rate. It was absurd he'd fail to recognize the clan's signature techniques that got him there.
"Cough. Terrified of change, are you? Enough to cut down your own Young Lord?"
"No idea what you're on about."
"We're both at the end here, so spare me the lies. You're from the Moyong Clan, aren't you? Who sent you? The Dragon Hall Leader?"
Dragon Hall was the clan's elite—the Moyong Clan's strongest warriors, loyal solely to the Patriarch. Their presence here meant...
"...My father—no, the Patriarch must be sorely displeased."
"The Patriarch could not abide you dismantling the history and traditions our ancestors guarded. He gave the order with the pain of lopping off his own arm."
"Bullshit! History and tradition may prop up the present, but the future's forged by our hands! How long will you stay shackled to the past, blind to what's ahead?!"
Enraged beyond endurance at their heartfelt drivel turning his stomach, Moyong Hyeon spat bloody clumps and roared. The glory of the Five Great Clans was ancient history now.
Sure, they say even a fallen rich house endures three generations. The Moyong Clan's storied legacy had somehow kept the Five Great Clans' name alive till now. But even that was just a matter of time.
Unlike other sects dazzling with progress through constant exchange, the Moyong Clan—drunk on past glories—had severed all ties in arrogant isolation, honing themselves alone.
No real issue until a few decades back. Their pride—the Moyong sword as the world's finest—might've rung true then. Lately, though, even their edge was dulling.
Many reasons, but the root was internal strife. Stagnant waters rot inevitably, and the Moyong Clan was no exception.
In the end, Young Lord Moyong Hyeon deemed sweeping reform essential to break free. He rallied his supporters and launched the clan's overhaul.
Reform isn't always right. But he believed the Moyong Clan would collapse irreparably without it. Even so, it was no easy task.
[Patriarch.]
[I'm the Young Lord now. Discuss clan matters with the Patriarch.]
[Don't you know already? Disloyal stirrings in the clan. And behind them...]
[...]
[Hesitate to draw your sword for fear of blood, and you'll lose everything.]
He knew. His father—the Patriarch—harbored treacherous intent. But how could a son stain his blade with paternal blood?
[I'll handle that myself. Never speak of it again.]
As blood kin bound by righteousness, he'd left the clan without drawing first. He'd assumed the Patriarch felt the same. Never dreamed he'd strike so ruthlessly. Bitter regret.
But above all, that his father truly meant to kill him. His resolve teetered on collapse. Yet Moyong Hyeon clenched his teeth and staggered to his feet.
He couldn't die like this. If he fell, what fate awaited his sole little sister? Unthinkable. Thus, he kindled his defiance.
The situation was hopeless. Surrounded, no escape, his followers dying one by one. But a sword still gripped in his hand!
Yet they say even if the sky falls, a hole appears to rise through. As he steeled for a last stand, Moyong Hyeon saw it clearly. Not far off.
An old man watching them silently. Ragged, with flowing white hair and beard—yet his bearing radiated an immortal's aura.
"I don't know who you are, Elder Master! Please don't ignore our plight!!"
Thus, he bellowed with all his strength. As if refusing to let slip this heaven-sent lifeline. And that lifeline saved them like a miracle.
Even Moyong Hyeon—clan pinnacle of talent, eyeing first-rate in his early twenties—couldn't match that squad leader.
At minimum first-rate; worst case, nearing peak. Close as he was, second-rate Moyong Hyeon still faced an impassable wall.
Yet the old man beheaded the leader in one clash? The cocky foe met the lightning draw and died without a whimper.
In that fleeting instant, Moyong Hyeon read the momentum shift. To press the assassins reeling from their loss, he poured inner energy into a mighty shout.
"Slaughter the assassins!!"
The tide had fully turned.