Monopolizing Fortunes (198)
Monopolizing Fortunes (198)
But they never even made it out of the training yard. People appeared in the buildings and on the rooftops facing the yard.
Not only that—Righteous Chivalry Sect disciples emerged one after another from the very entrance they had come through. Among those who appeared were the three Protectors and twelve Hall Masters who were supposed to have gone to strike Changso Sect.
Only when he saw them did Baek Dong-ha realize it was a trap. His flustered gaze instinctively turned toward the Bulyeo Six Spears.
The Bulyeo Six Spears, all in their late thirties, simply stared straight ahead with expressionless faces. No anxiety could be read from them, but neither did they show any confidence.
The Bulyeo Six Spears were like wooden puppets that showed no emotion no matter what happened.
That made Baek Dong-ha even more uneasy. If this was the real Righteous Chivalry Sect and not an empty shell, then even with the Bulyeo Six Spears and a hundred first-rate masters joining them, their chances of victory were slim.
Even if he had staked his life on this fight, he could not die a dog's death. Now that things had come to this, finding some way to plan for the future was the wise course.
Baek Dong-ha spoke to Jang Yeon-seon, who stood above the twelve steps at the front.
"The reason this Baek came here is to speak with Sect Leader Jang."
Even if it was an obvious lie, the mood might ease once they began talking. But Baek Dong-ha was never given the chance to speak.
The attack came not from the Righteous Chivalry Sect but from his own allies. The spear of Jo Mun-yeong, the Gold Spear of the Bulyeo Six Spears, flew across ten jang and pierced through Baek Dong-ha's throat.
"Ugh—!"
With the spear skewered through his neck like meat on a spit, Baek Dong-ha died without ever understanding what had happened.
Jo Mun-yeong, who had driven his spear through Baek Dong-ha's neck, retrieved it and spoke.
"Anyone who flees this battle dies by my spear first."
It was a method often used in armies that had burned their boats to prevent desertion.
Jang Yeon-seon furrowed her brow and said.
"Killing Sect Leader Baek means your purpose was never to help Changso Sect, but to strike the Righteous Chivalry Sect."
"They said the young sect leader of the Righteous Chivalry Sect had a decent head on his shoulders. The rumors were true."
"Since things have come to this, how about revealing your intention in attacking the Righteous Chivalry Sect?"
"Young sect leader, you shouldn't try to live your life so easily. The world isn't that soft."
Jang Yeon-seon shrugged.
"My master lives pretty easily, though?"
"That only applies to a man like Do Tong-dal."
"It's not exactly a secret that my master is Do Tong-dal, but not many people know it. I'll take that to mean you've done that much preparation."
Jo Mun-yeong struck the floor with the butt of his spear. With a clang, the marble floor cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
"You seem to have made thorough preparations, so today's fight won't be easy. But the Righteous Chivalry Sect should also brace for casualties."
"I wonder. I don't think we'll take as much damage as you're hoping for."
As a white flag rose on the left, bows appeared in the hands of the warriors on the rooftops. To a master, a bow was not a particularly threatening weapon.
No matter how fast an arrow was, it could not match the speed of a master's sword or blade. But not all four hundred people surrounded in the training yard were masters.
Moreover, arrow attacks in a confined space with little room to dodge were threatening enough.
Jang Yeon-seon raised her voice.
"I will count to three! Those who throw down their weapons and lie flat before then will not be attacked! One!"
The promise not to attack meant a path to survival had opened. Hope flickered across the faces of the Changso Sect disciples.
The Bulyeo Six Spears had threatened them, but no matter how skilled they were, they could not kill all three hundred Changso Sect disciples.
The Righteous Chivalry Sect, on the other hand, had the ability to annihilate them.
"Two!"
More and more people began glancing at one another, and an air of defeat crept in among them.
"Attack!"
The Bulyeo Six Spears' command, sensing that mood, came at the same moment Jang Yeon-seon's voice dropped the word "Three!"
At that instant, most of the Changso Sect disciples threw down their weapons and lay flat. It was not something they had agreed upon. They simply had no reason to stake their lives on this fight.
If one spoke of loyalty to the sect, it was not the Righteous Chivalry Sect that had just killed Baek Dong-ha, but the Bulyeo Six Spears.
There was no reason at all for them to be pointed at for surrendering. Even if they were criticized for some reason, it was at least better than dying.
So the arrows flew only at the hundred men who had come with the Bulyeo Six Spears. Of course, those arrows did not kill a single warrior.
They only inflicted minor wounds on fewer than ten men. It did not matter that no one was killed. With a single volley of arrows, they had forced three hundred enemies to surrender and had assessed the enemy's martial arts.
The Bulyeo Six Spears' martial arts were astonishing, but they had met the wrong opponents. Won Dae-yeon, Namgung Seol-rin, and Jang Yu-seom took on three of them, while Do Cheong-myeong, Do Cheong-yeon, and Do Cheong-san—formerly the Blood Spirit Three Swords, now renamed the Dallyeong Three Swords—handled the remaining three.
The hundred men besides the Bulyeo Six Spears could certainly be called first-rate masters, but the Righteous Chivalry Sect had more than enough masters of that caliber.
Naturally, a one-sided slaughter followed. Won Dae-yeon was the first to split Jo Mun-yeong's heart, and Namgung Seol-rin and Jang Yu-seom took off the heads of two others almost simultaneously.
The remaining three did not last long against the Dallyeong Three Swords either. If it had been the old days, the Bulyeo Six Spears might have fought for quite a while, but the battle at Seonjungsan had not only spurred Do Tong-dal on.
It had not been closed-door training, but the martial training that followed had been no less intense. Jang Yeon-seon had used the Jang Merchant Company's wealth to procure all manner of elixirs and had contributed to their martial advancement.
He wanted to make Do Tong-dal regret it when he returned—to make him think, "I should have just trained here."
So it did not take long for the forces the Bulyeo Six Spears had brought to be dealt with.
After the battle was over, Jang Yeon-seon frowned when he heard the casualties on their side. Eight dead and thirteen wounded.
It could be called a great victory, but to Jang Yeon-seon it did not feel like one.
"Hold the funerals for our fallen disciples with proper respect, and pay their families ample compensation. And see the wounded disciples' treatment through to the end."
The surrendered Changso Sect disciples were put in a warehouse, since there was no suitable place to hold them. After the battle was cleaned up, the Righteous Chivalry Sect's leadership gathered in one place.
"Who in the world is targeting our Righteous Chivalry Sect?"
The Righteous Chivalry Sect had not done anything to earn anyone's grudge. Of course, there might be sects that harbored resentment, but none large enough to command masters like the Bulyeo Six Spears.
Jo Seong-un asked Won Dae-yeon.
"Senior brother, who are the spear masters in the martial world?"
Won Dae-yeon thought for a moment, then answered.
"In Shandong there's Baek Seon-pung of the Divine Spear, in Shaanxi there's Hwang So-man of the White Shadow Spear, in Henan there's Jeon Su-gyeong of the Lightning Spear, and in Sichuan there's Oh Chil-seon of the Wind-Thunder Spear. Those are the ones I remember."
"Hwang Seo-guk of the Heaven-Edge Spear isn't far behind those four either."
"Right. I haven't experienced the spear arts of those five myself, but the martial arts of the Bulyeo Six Spears who came today don't seem to fall short of them."
"I think so too. No matter how many hidden masters there are in the martial world—as numerous as grains of sand—six spear masters suddenly appearing to attack the Righteous Chivalry Sect is strange no matter how I think about it."
Namgung Seol-rin spoke.
"Could another covert force like the Revenge Society have appeared?"
Won Dae-yeon shook his head.
"That's absurd. Two such forces appearing in the same era?"
"I believe the ones who attacked the Righteous Chivalry Sect today came from a military background."
Everyone was startled by Jang Yu-seom's words.
"From the military?"
"The most common weapon in the army is the spear, so it stands to reason they'd have that many spear masters. In particular, the movements of those fighting today closely resembled military formations. The reason we suffered twenty-one casualties even though the Righteous Chivalry Sect's strength was overwhelming was because of military formations specialized for chaotic melee."
Won Dae-yeon nodded.
"The military certainly surpasses martial artists in large-scale battles."
"So you're saying the military is targeting our Righteous Chivalry Sect?"
The one who shook his head at Jo Seong-un's question was Jang Yeon-seon.
"That can't be. Have you forgotten who the current His Majesty the Emperor is?"
Ju Hyeong-seon was the kind of person who would have accepted even if Do Tong-dal had proposed they treat each other as brothers.
"They could be men who left the military. Like me."
"The important thing is that someone is targeting the Righteous Chivalry Sect. If we don't identify the enemy quickly, we could get our heads cracked without ever knowing why."
"Ahem! Yeon-seon, you're at an age now, and you hold a position. How about softening your language a bit?"
"Oh, come on, Foster Father. My master's a thug, so I should at least manage this much."
"No, there's no need for the disciple to go around acting like a thug too."
Namgung Seol-rin came to Jang Yeon-seon's defense.
"Why make a fuss over something like this? The priority is finding those sons of bitches who attacked the Righteous Chivalry Sect."
Jang Yu-seom spoke.
"It would be best to draw portraits of the Bulyeo Six Spears and take them to Lord Yang Su-pan. Spear masters of that caliber aren't common even in the military, so he might be able to identify them."
"That's a good idea. And we should inform the Beggars' Sect and the Northern Unorthodox Alliance. If there's a spear hiding in the dark, it's better to have plenty of shields."
Won Dae-yeon stroked Jang Yeon-seon's head.
"How is our sect leader so clever?"
Everyone thought, "Oh, brother—what a doting fool." Even if Jang Yeon-seon were his own daughter, he couldn't dote on her more.
"Hah—at a critical time like this, where in the world is Master and what is he doing?"
* * *
He could only gauge the time by the pile of food accumulating, so exactly how long he had been in Ascension Cave was unclear.
Do Tong-dal sat on the Blazing Fire Platform and stared blankly at the thirty-six characters before him. As at the beginning, the characters poured into his eyes, but he did not lose consciousness.
Now he knew exactly what those characters meant. Those thirty-six characters were both meaningless and, at the same time, a profound mental cultivation method.
He had realized this fact while dismantling and reassembling the characters that had rushed at him a thousand times over.
The thirty-six characters, when recombined with the sixteen characters of heaven-earth-human-water, geon-gon-gam-ri, blue-red-white-black, and fire-water-wood-metal as their foundation, expanded into three hundred sixty-six characters.
That was the essence of the Boundless Blazing Fire Art. If one failed to grasp that principle, one could not withstand the onrushing characters and would ultimately go mad.
The only thing that changed was how long one could endure; the end was the same. The four corpses stacked before the wall of characters were proof of that.
Perhaps someone had fully obtained the Boundless Blazing Fire Art and ascended to immortality.
Do Tong-dal himself had recently experienced something strange, as if his soul were about to leave his body. But he would not permit such a phenomenon.
What kind of life had he been born into? He had even returned to the past and endured all that hardship, and only now had he built a world where he could live in comfort. He could not go ascending to immortality here.
Do Tong-dal was a man who firmly believed that even rolling in a dung heap in this world was better than the underworld.
The Boundless Blazing Fire Art's full circulation now took a single shichen. When he had not understood the principle, it had taken a fortnight and nearly killed him, but such things no longer happened.
As Do Tong-dal uncrossed his legs and stood, a cloth bundle of food dropped through the air vent of Ascension Cave.
Cheon Du-bong was a diligent man. It seemed roughly three years had passed since he had entered this place, and not a single day of food had been missed.
Nor had the food ever been prepared carelessly, not even once. A person with Cheon Du-bong's faithfulness would be hard to find in this world.
After eating his fill of the food that had arrived, Do Tong-dal bathed and thought, "Should I leave now?"
The moment the thought occurred to him, Do Tong-dal immediately swam. He was underwater, and the feeling was strange. It was as if he had become a fish and could live in the water just as he was.
'I made the right call leaving. If I'd stayed any longer, I would've gone mad.'
The cave he saw for the first time in over three years was unchanged. Compared to a cave that would look the same even after a thousand years, how fickle humans were...
Do Tong-dal shook his head vigorously.
"Stop thinking. What, am I trying to attain enlightenment?"
He was a thoroughly worldly man—a thug, even. He must never forget that.
Water dripped from his clothes, and it felt unpleasant.
"This is what human senses are. When something's uncomfortable, you make it comfortable right away."
Do Tong-dal drew up his heat. He could not tell whether his martial arts had advanced, but one thing was certain: he could control the heat at will.
* * *