The Chaotic Winds of Beijing
The winds of chaos howled fiercely through Beijing. A gale whipped through the air as if a typhoon were bearing down on the city. Yet it was far from a natural phenomenon. The true cause was the whirlwind kicked up by a group of people sprinting forward at an unbelievable pace.
They ran. They kicked off the ground, sometimes leaping by touching down on nothing more than a single blade of grass. At the head of the group was Namgung Woo. Even among so many different movement techniques each flaunting their own strengths, his stood supreme in both speed and stability. The Cheonrihojeong—the ability to traverse a thousand li as easily as one’s own courtyard—was in a league of its own.
“Benefactor! You’re going too fast! The others can’t keep up!”
Paeng Ha-ryeong kicked hard off the ground and drew close to his side, shouting. Her Eogisinpung technique was comparable to his own. While Cheonrihojeong generated protective waves of energy that could deflect nearby attacks, Eogisinpung focused purely on speed and piercing momentum. Thanks to that, even with inferior martial prowess she could somehow keep pace with Namgung Woo—though only because he was deliberately holding back for their sake.
“The horses?”
His voice was low, yet it rode a wave of qi and reached Paeng Ha-ryeong’s ears with perfect clarity. It was a display of even more refined internal energy control.
“They’ve all collapsed from exhaustion!”
They had not been running on their own two legs from the very beginning. The Paeng family had provided horses—two for each person, in fact. As one of the great clans that dominated Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing, the Paengs possessed considerable wealth. At a single word from Namgung Woo they had gladly handed over dozens of horses and warriors.
But even horses had their limits. While their stamina was superior to most animals, it still could not match humans who had trained in martial arts. After all, humans were frail in most respects yet ranked near the very top when it came to endurance. One only had to look at how relay stations were typically spaced roughly a hundred li apart—forty to fifty kilometers—to understand. A horse running at full gallop would struggle to cover more than fifty kilometers. Legendary steeds like the Five-Talent Horse, Red Hare, or Flying Lightning might manage farther, but the horses borrowed from the Paeng family fell short of such mythical standards.
“…Let’s rest for a moment.”
Beijing was close now. With only a few dozen li remaining, Namgung Woo had already sensed an ominous current swirling within the capital. No suspicious energy was visible yet, but the intuition he had gained after touching the Heavenly Mystery beyond the Heavenly Gate was warning him unmistakably that something was about to happen there.
If I enter with no strength left, I’ll just be defeated for nothing.
Namgung Woo moved toward the Yang twins, who were practically collapsed on the ground, and sat down directly behind them. He placed his palms against the life-gate acupoints on their backs.
“Haa… haa… C-Captain…?”
“Huuk… Captain?”
“I’ll transfer qi to you. Sit in lotus position and circulate your energy.”
The Heavenly Thunder Divine Art was either perfectly compatible with or a superior counterpart to the twins’ Lightning True Qi. There could be no better method for rapidly restoring their depleted internal energy. Once Namgung Woo finished the transfer and stood up, Paeng Ha-ryeong spoke as if she had been waiting.
“Benefactor.”
“Yes?”
“Is there a reason you’re rushing like this? When you first spoke with Ye-ryeong, you said we had ten days… We only left Tianjin half a day ago.”
“My gut feeling is bad. It’s probably soon. We don’t have much time.”
Personally, Namgung Woo felt no particular obligation to protect Beijing. He had never once thought of himself as a man of the Ming Dynasty, nor did he intend to throw his life away for people he had never met. The only real reason he was heading there to prevent the coming disaster was the opportunity it offered to unleash his martial arts to their full extent.
But if someone he knew was inside Beijing, the story changed.
The Yoping Escort Agency still remained in the capital. Though they had escorts, only the head escort was a Peak Realm expert. They were far too weak to endure the tragedy that would soon engulf Beijing in flames.
The Yoping Escort Agency helped me.
They had treated him with utmost respect even though he had only come at Song Chae-ji’s introduction. Knowing full well they were in danger and still leaving them to die screaming was not in Namgung Woo’s nature.
“Mother has already requested support from the Moyong family as well. They should arrive in seven days…”
“Seven days is too late.”
Namgung Woo’s intuition could be wrong. After all, intuition by nature had no concrete evidence. Yet he was certain it would not take seven days. It might not be tomorrow, but seven days later was inevitable.
“Miss Paeng, you should rest now too.”
“Understood. If you’re tired as well, Benefactor, please take the medicine right away.”
The medicine Paeng Ha-ryeong spoke of was on an entirely different level from ordinary wound salve or tonics. It was spiritual medicine. The Paeng family’s secret vault—filled with rare treasures they had collected while destroying Ghost Gates across the Central Plains for Paeng Ye-ryeong—contained a considerable stock of such elixirs. When Namgung Woo told them Beijing was in danger and that he had to go there to stop it, they had gladly opened the vault doors.
Even now, three of the precious pills the Paeng family had been saving were tucked away in Namgung Woo’s robes.
They really gave us tremendous support.
The vice commander of the North Heaven Squad, the Paeng family’s most elite fighting force—Paeng Mu-ho—along with direct descendant Paeng Ha-ryeong and fifteen squad members. Every single one of them was a Peak Realm expert. Adding Namgung Woo and the Yang twins brought the total to twenty people. The Paeng family had provided two fine horses each, mobilizing a full forty steeds. And that was not all.
The three of them had received entirely new clothes and weapons as well. Though not made of heavenly silkworm thread, their martial uniforms and robes were woven from spiritual silk that could deflect ordinary blades. Their swords were forged from refined steel mixed with a small amount of dark iron—items normally reserved for direct descendants, elder council members, or the North Heaven Squad commander. If one counted the spiritual medicines as consumables, the Paeng family had likely spent more on this single expedition than an average sect’s annual budget.
They repaid kindness with kindness. The Paeng family was carrying out that ancient maxim with utmost sincerity.
It really is something to be grateful for.
As Namgung Woo reflected on the support the Paeng family had provided, the events of yesterday rose unbidden in his mind.
The good news that Paeng Ye-ryeong had taken a great step toward overcoming her heavenly affliction left no time for celebration before Namgung Woo’s declaration struck the Paeng family like a bolt from a clear sky.
“Beijing?”
Moyong Hye was so stunned by Namgung Woo’s claim that Beijing was in danger that she reflexively asked him to repeat himself. Before she could correct what she thought was a verbal slip, Paeng Ye-ryeong spoke.
“It’s certain, Mother. I saw it too.”
Without Paeng Ye-ryeong’s supporting fire, Moyong Hye’s common sense would have continued raising endless doubts no matter how great a benefactor Namgung Woo was.
“Beijing… even though the imperial family is there?”
The greatest power under heaven. The imperial house of Great Ming. They were not merely powerful in authority. They possessed real martial strength. The founding emperor Hongwu had left instructions that every emperor must train in martial arts and reach at least the Peak Realm, showing just how obsessed the imperial family was with military power. Moyong Hye was not simply muttering in shock. The imperial house maintained no fewer than four supreme experts. Two of them were among the Three Poles and Twelve that stood half within the murim world, while the other two had left the jianghu entirely to serve the government. Three of those four were currently outside Beijing, but raising a hand against the imperial family was essentially the same as making enemies of all of them.
And the imperial family is the type to hide its true power. There’s a chance they have secretly recruited one or two more supreme experts, or raised them internally…
That would mean standing against five or six supreme experts. Was that even possible? No matter how she thought about it, it seemed unbelievable. Yet on the other hand, the words spoken by Paeng Ye-ryeong and Namgung Woo carried heavy credibility.
Paeng Ye-ryeong had demonstrated precognitive ability before. Though the range was narrow and the events’ repercussions had not been large, the fact that she could see the future had already been proven.
Moyong Hye agonized for a long time. Then Paeng Ja-ryeong’s words tipped the scales that had been wavering inside her mind decisively to one side.
“…There have been such rumors for some time, haven’t there? That the reason he disappeared was not because he returned to the imperial family, but because he had truly ascended to immortality… Everyone dismissed it as nonsense, but if that is true…”
There had once been an existence that tilted the balance of power between the murim and the imperial family toward the latter. A man who belonged to the imperial house yet suddenly declared he wished to test the limits of his own martial arts. He entered the murim and single-handedly subdued every single person called a supreme expert while they were still alive—a legendary figure. With his appearance the Two Poles became the Three Poles, and the jianghu trembled as it acknowledged him as the greatest under heaven.
“If that man is truly gone, the imperial family would be worth challenging… If that is their judgment, then the future seen by our benefactor and Ye-ryeong makes sense.”
Namgung Woo had not understood every detail of the conversation between Moyong Hye and Paeng Ja-ryeong, but one thing was clear: the two leaders of the Paeng family had begun to believe what he and Paeng Ye-ryeong were saying.
“Since our benefactor pursues righteousness, how could the Paeng family possibly stand by? We will spare no assistance whatsoever.”
It really turned out exactly as they promised.
Namgung Woo finished reminiscing as he ran his fingers over the clothes he wore and the sword at his waist. The garments were so comfortable that even the version of him who had worn clothes from centuries in the future was impressed, and the sword that seemed to melt into his hand pleased him greatly.
“Benefactor, it looks like we can set off again.”
The sprint resumed. At dusk, in that hour when the boundary of twilight split the world in two, they finally caught sight of Beijing.
“Oh my god…”
“It was really true…?”
And they were struck with horror. Above Beijing, black smoke was rising, disturbing the border of twilight.