Siege of the Courtesan House
Ilhong and I grumbled as we bolted out after the bodyguards.
"Honestly, you and that big mouth of yours."
"What? Hey."
A man was allowed to wish for a little peace and quiet every once in a while, wasn't he?
I just hadn't expected it to turn into a death flag.
"Young hero! Over there!"
True to a house doing brisk business, the interior of the courtesan house was packed with guests. We shoved our way through the throng until the wide garden and main gate came into view.
A rough-looking mob had poured in and was trampling the carefully tended lawn flat.
"…Bodyguard uncle. Those aren't our people, right?"
"We don't keep anything that ugly on our side, young hero."
Apparently, because high-ranking patrons came and went, the madam had made a point of hiring men who wouldn't ruin the atmosphere.
She could have just hired for skill, if you asked me.
"Boss. Even a rough count puts them past a hundred."
Wherever they'd come from, there were a hell of a lot of them.
And with malice and killing intent rolling off them in waves, they clearly hadn't shown up for a friendly visit.
Odds were good that Honghwa-whatever had scraped together every thug they could find and sent them over in earnest.
"You mangy dog who ambushed the Mujeong Three heroes and ruined their dantians! Dog-Beating Dragon—get out here!"
A hundred-odd thugs bellowed my nickname and demanded I show myself.
"Boss, you're popular."
"That's the problem, seriously."
The life of a celebrity, wherever I went.
I scratched the side of my head and looked around.
Startled by the shouting, guests poked their heads out of the windows like turtles from their shells.
"…What on earth is this racket?!"
Madam Okryeong of the pavilion came flying out barefoot at the sudden disruption of business. All her usual poise and elegance were gone; her face was flushed scarlet with fury.
The thugs who had forced their way in and occupied the garden pointed accusing fingers at her as if the opportunity were perfect.
"You bitch—! You hired that Dog-Beating Dragon and had him attack our innocent brothers!"
"You dare lay hands on our Jeollyong Gate?!"
"You think the big shots who visit this house will protect you?!"
A barrage of baseless, razor-edged accusations poured out. Outrage and fury surged in Okryeong's eyes.
"You lawless curs…! Heaven and earth both know this was ordered by Honghwaru! How dare you try to cover the sky with your palm!"
Madam and the Jeollyong Gate thugs went at each other in front of the whole crowd—your fault, my fault, back and forth.
It looked like the usual business of stacking up justifications and a righteous pretext before one faction crushed and absorbed another.
Of course, from the side getting hit, that pretext was pure nonsense, and it made your blood boil.
"Those bastards… Who ambushed who?"
Ju Wolay had come outside, taken one look at their rampage, and was trembling with rage, fists clenched white.
She'd been one of the people attacked—no wonder she found it especially absurd.
"Enough! Women never make any sense!"
"Anyone who doesn't want to get dragged into this fight! Anyone who doesn't want their skull cracked!"
"Jeollyong Gate's show of force starts now—unrelated trash, clear out!"
A hundred-odd armed martial artists had come stampeding in. No one with a working brain was going to stand there and swagger in front of that.
At the order to leave, the guests drained out of the house like an ebbing tide.
"Tch. There goes the business."
"No kidding, Boss. That's a lot of lost customers."
Wherever you went, it was always the gangster types. Storm into a shop doing honest, legal trade, flip the place, and cause a scene—pure public nuisance.
Even the Orthodox faction types, when they chased profit, at least kept one eye on how they looked and held themselves back a little.
Of course, there were also Orthodox houses like the Moyong Clan, every bit as hypocritical as the Unorthodox.
"Boss… can we actually win this?"
Ilhong asked as she watched the enemy slowly tighten into a surrounding formation.
Our side—us, the bodyguards, and the hired vagabonds—came to about twenty.
Theirs was well past a hundred.
And when I read their qi, more than a few looked like no joke: solid First-class Realm fighters.
It felt like an entire Unorthodox sect had turned out just to flip one courtesan house.
"We'll know once we lock horns."
Quantity has a quality of its own. No matter how skilled you were, a fight left you winded, and once you took wounds your body slowed down.
If First-class and Second-class fighters came at us with human-wave tactics and a rotating wheel of fresh attackers, even I couldn't casually guarantee a win.
Of course, I was the Heavenly Killing Star—I had a few traits that broke the usual rules of a numbers fight.
"Go! Time to avenge our brothers!"
"Tear out his dantian and smash every limb!"
They raised blades and tools high, roared, and began surging into the house.
"Hold them somehow!"
"Rally on Young Hero Dog-Beating Dragon!"
Damn it. After the Blood Cult riot, I was getting dragged into another brawl like this.
"Waaaaah!"
A roaring battle cry. In the heart of Beijing's entertainment district, two armed forces slammed into each other.
Someone once left a famous saying about war.
First: never open hostilities on your own territory.
Second: always obey the first rule.
The point was, if you were going to fight, do it on someone else's land—or in someone else's building.
"Show them what happens when you touch Jeollyong Gate!"
"Kill them all!"
Crash-crash-crash—!
Thud-bang-crash—!
And the reason was obvious.
With more than a hundred people locked in a ferocious clash around the building, Cheonhwaru turned into pure hell in seconds.
Every time high-level fighters' inner energy and qi waves collided, windows shattered, tables exploded, and walls crumbled.
"No! Cheonhwaru…! Ahhh!"
Madam Okryeong let out a grotesque wail as the expensive house she'd poured money into was being demolished in real time.
It was like watching that Beijing innkeeper whose place had gotten wrecked years ago after some pointless poisoning mess.
Crash-thud!
"Kyaaah!"
A bandit-faced Unorthodox thug smashed through the bodyguards' line, and the courtesans deeper inside screamed.
I immediately loaded a dining table in front of me with inner energy and kicked it.
The table skidded across the floor and slammed straight into the charging man's side.
"Urgh!"
As he doubled over with a groan, I cracked him across the skull with my Dog-Beating Staff.
Crack!
A jolt of sweet impact ran all the way to my fingertips. That one wouldn't be waking up for days, guaranteed.
"Young Hero Dog-Beating Dragon! We need help!"
"They're about to break through here too!"
Enemies poured in like a pack of dogs. Calls for support came from every direction.
"They're trying to abduct the courtesans!"
A house like this lived and died by its courtesans. Apparently Honghwaru had ordered them to snatch the women if nothing else.
Thud!
One blow caved in the skull of a man trying to drag a woman off.
His head dented slightly; he reeled backward, blood spraying from his nose.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—!
The Dog-Beating Staff flashed. Terrifying power erupted from the soles of my feet; Whirlwind Steps rose and vanished like a ghost.
Ilhong and I swung our staffs without mercy, tearing across the battlefield end to end.
Every time the Dog-Beating Staff split the air with a dull, heavy impact, Jeollyong Gate fighters screamed and went flying.
Thud—!
A brutal upward smash that launches the foe like a mangy dog sent flying.
I slammed a Jeollyong Gate fighter who'd slipped in through a broken window.
True to a form named for flinging a mangy dog skyward, he rocketed up and smashed back out through the window the way he'd come.
"Th-thank you, young hero. You've helped me again."
His target had been Cheonhwaru's cash cow—Ju Wolay.
"If you're grateful, load the next meal box with meat."
"Of course. I'll prepare it so grandly the emperor's table would hang its head."
I grinned, and she answered with a bright face, promising a spread fit for an imperial feast.
"Tch."
And beside me, Ilhong clicked her tongue under her breath, clearly not loving the exchange.
Watching her reactions was kind of entertaining in its own way.
"You bastards! Making a complete spectacle of yourselves!"
"Die!"
Jeollyong Gate fighters with blades already slick with blood roared and charged me in a mass.
All of them First-class Realm, at least—their swift swords were sharp enough to take seriously.
Whiiing!
A lightning-fast blade bent its path mid-cut and skimmed past my chin.
Another edge slipped out under my armpit. I dodged their attacks by the thickness of a sheet of paper.
Bang!
As more enemies rushed me, Ilhong yanked free her hidden weapons and dropped five of them in an instant.
She flicked black-powder residue off her hands and muttered,
"…Well. A spectacle's not wrong."
"Hey. Watch who you're calling a spectacle, Boss or not."
Anyway, that was how we kept thrashing the battlefield.
Coordinating with the bodyguards and vagabonds, we somehow held back their numerical edge—until frustrated shouts started erupting from their side.
"What the hell are you doing, you idiots!"
"And you call yourselves Jeollyong Gate fighters?!"
As the fighting intensified and their losses stacked up, they changed tactics.
"That one! Hit the Dog-Beating Dragon first!"
"Grind him down with a rotating assault!"
"Form the Jeollyong Golden Chain Formation!"
Leaving only enough men to pin the bodyguards' ankles, the rest of the Jeollyong Gate fighters came swarming straight at me.
Using sheer numbers, they ringed me on all sides and spun in a circle, pouring sword cuts and sword qi down on me without pause.
Shhk! Crack! Clack-clack!
Knock aside one blade and five more cuts came in from five directions.
Even if I blocked them all and dropped one man on the counter, the hole filled right back up.
"Why is this so damn tight…!"
Unlike before, I was forced onto the defensive, frantically batting away their assault.
This was exactly how a joint-attack formation worked: dozens of fighters chewing through a single expert's stamina.
It was the classic method for the weak to face the strong—a tactic that forced enormous damage and exhaustion on the target.
But the method had one glaring flaw.
Clack! Thud! Crack!
"Shit! Something's wrong…!"
"Why isn't that bastard tiring?!"
"And even when we land wounds, he doesn't slow down!"
A body that shattered every assumption of a joint-attack formation.
This was the flesh Heaven had handed down so its bearer would never stop killing the things of the earth—the body of the Heavenly Killing Star.
"…You monster bastard!"
I'd heard that one a lot back in my beggar days.
When my momentum refused to break, they started to waver—and cracks showed in the Jeollyong Golden Chain Formation.
It was only a few men whose reactions and footwork slowed, but I didn't miss the opening. I hurled myself into it.
"Wha—!"
Blades came flying as if to ask where I thought I was going. I tanked the cuts with brute force, avoiding only the fatal ones, then swung the Dog-Beating Staff with everything I had, staff-qi coiled tight around it.
Thud-thud-thud!
A horizontal sweep of the staff that smashes straight across the enemy line's rear.
"Aaaagh!"
With the sound of buttocks bursting, their line collapsed.
I drove into the broken gap and kept expanding the damage.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
One man per strike, enemies screaming as the Dog-Beating Staff Technique sent them flying.
"Stop him! Stop him, damn it!"
"We can't! You sons of bitches!"
I'd been a little wary of their numbers, but compared to the Blood Cult, these guys were far more manageable.
At least they weren't so drowned in blood and madness that they'd throw suicide charges just to take you with them.
Once the tactics they'd trusted shattered and the momentum flipped, they were just ordinary men who started to crack fast.
"D-don't break! Desertion is death!"
"If every Jeollyong Gate fighter pulls together, we can butcher that bastard in no time!"
At that point, flapping your mouth as hard as you liked didn't help.
War and battle had always been a contest of momentum.
As I alone shoved through a sea of enemies, the bodyguards and vagabonds caught fire, shouting as they drove the enemy back.
"We've got the Dog-Beating Dragon!"
"Push them all! Past the main gate!"
Taking beatings, catching sword thrusts, we advanced. Using me as the tip of the spear, our side forced the front line out of the building and back toward the garden.
"Why—why won't he fall…! Guh—!"
A strike across the snout. White teeth went flying and scattered everywhere.
"Drop dead, you bastards!"
A free-for-all tangled with killing intent and venom was my specialty.
I took the rain of attacks on the meatier parts of my body and drove forward like an enraged boar.
Staff blows loaded with monstrous strength burst calves, forearms, and shoulders; enemies screamed and went down on their knees.
"Wow… He really does fight like a complete savage."
That was Ilhong, swinging a sword she'd scavenged from among the bodyguards, muttering as she watched me fight—sounding thoroughly appalled.