The Explosive Chaos
BOOM!
I had been taking a much-needed break, buying the supplies Teraden and I needed one by one at the market.
Then a sudden, unexplained explosion ripped through the air.
“What the—?! What is that?!”
“Hold on. That’s… Maru said it was over there earlier.”
“Damn it! Let’s go! Now!”
Teraden, startled, cursed loudly and sprinted off first.
Worried that Maru might have been swept up in the blast, I and Teraden swept through the surrounding area in a frantic search.
Of course, we both knew this was extremely dangerous. Blindly charging into an unknown situation like this was sheer recklessness.
After running around like mad for who knew how long, we finally spotted Maru collapsed on the ground.
There, a group of unknown thugs and several knights were locked in fierce combat around her.
“Young masters! No, you can’t!”
As I dashed toward Maru, the knights tried to stop us, but we brushed them off with iron force.
Since the moment I saw Maru on the ground, the only thing that consumed my body was the need to save her.
“Come on. That tribe’s girl needs to be cleaned up and taken out quietly… why are more and more obstacles showing up…?”
A thug muttering to himself suddenly charged toward Maru, locking eyes with me and instantly freezing up.
He stared intently at Maru and me, alternating glances, then his eyes twitched.
He must have realized the blood relation between us.
“Those bastards! Those are the tribe members too! Kill them all!”
“Protect these people!”
The thug’s shout rang out, and every eye in the area snapped toward me and Teraden.
Then the thugs, who had been fighting the knights, suddenly turned and charged toward us one by one.
At that exact moment.
“Who dares?!”
A figure suddenly appeared and blocked the way, swinging a sword. The thug hit by the blade spurted blood from his chest and collapsed sideways.
“You thought you could commit such a crime and walk away unscathed?!”
This face… it’s familiar. The person I saw at the city gate. Was his name Jubern?
With his ash-gray, curly hair and strong presence radiating unlike any other knight I had seen, his build—tough muscles visible even through his clothes and calloused knuckles—made it clear he was no ordinary fighter.
SLASH!
“Kyah!”
He cut down another charging thug and said urgently, “I’ll take care of this place from now on. You two, bring the person over there.”“Thank you.”“We don’t have time to waste. Thank you later.”“Understood. Let’s go.”“Mm.”
I nodded slightly, turned, and rushed back to Maru.
“Haa… Release.”
Jubern, standing alone before the thugs, muttered softly.
The moment he activated his Ineung, a dense, pitch-black wave crashed around him.
The other knights, seeing the unexpected reinforcement, suddenly looked full of life.
It was a miracle, but there were more urgent matters at hand. No time for awe. The priority was to safely evacuate Maru.
“I’ll handle that one. The other three assist me, and the rest kill those tribe bastards! Hurry!”
The unexpected appearance of Jubern stunned the thugs for a second. The leader in charge shouted his orders.
Even in this unfavorable situation, Jubern shouted to bolster the knights’ morale.
“Reinforcements will arrive soon! Hold on just a little longer! I’ll take care of that one!”
“UAAAAAAA!”
With those words, the clash between Jubern and the thugs began again, and the short lull in the battle resumed.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
As Jubern and the thug leader clashed, the sound of metal striking metal rang out like a hammer.
“Maru! Hey, are you okay?”
I shook Teraden, who was still collapsed, but Maru didn’t even twitch.
Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any serious injury. Judging by her intact appearance, she had simply lost consciousness from the shock.
The moment I carried Maru on my back with Teraden’s help.
I saw Jubern surrounded by several thugs and being attacked simultaneously.
He must have been overwhelmed by their combined assault, and his stamina was running out, which was when they struck.
CRACK!
With a bone-snapping crunch, Jubern was sent flying and crashed into a building.
“C… ugh!”
Amidst the rubble, Jubern barely supported his body with his sword. Though he tried to stand several times, his legs wouldn’t obey him, and he collapsed again.
With Jubern thrown away, the thugs no longer hesitated and charged toward us.
Dragging the unconscious Maru on my back, I tried desperately to escape, but before long I was caught together with Teraden.
A thick, blood-soaked, sticky hand squeezed Teraden’s throat and crushed my shoulder.
“Ugh…! Let… let go…!”
Teraden struggled with all his might to break free, but the thugs didn’t budge.
“You don’t need to beg like that. We’ll kindly send all three of you off. You won’t be lonely.”
“Ugh…! Anyone…! This… this is!”
“AAAAAAA!”
A sudden unknown aura exploded from Teraden, who was screaming while trembling in the thug’s grip.
“Ugh?”
At the same time, the thug holding my shoulder suddenly felt his strength weaken.
“My Ineung suddenly disappeared?! You bastards! What kind of trick…!”
Jubern, who had closed in behind them, raised his sword high.
SLASH! CRACK!
“You… monster! Kyaa!”
“Hah… Hah! If you forget me, it won’t matter. Concentrate on me. Your opponent is right here…”
Because of the deep gash on his back, the thug’s grip completely lost strength, and he dropped Teraden.
Jubern kicked the groaning thug away and blocked our path again.
The thugs, writhing in pain, swallowed their spit and stared at us with trembling eyes.
“You three are definitely not in good shape. Even if your Ineung is gone, you won’t be enough to kill us.”
“Do you really think I’d stand by and watch?”
“Strike them all at once!”
“Impossible. Aqua Wave.”
About ten charging thugs.
Jubern created a wave the size of a bucket behind him.
The sky-high wave was about to crash into the thugs.
Tap. Tap.
“Wow, you are truly amazing.”
A figure suddenly descended from the sky and lightly clapped his hands.
It was a young girl.
She looked my age, or perhaps even younger.
The knights, seeing her in this dangerous situation, instinctively knelt on one knee toward her.
“We greet the greatest pillar of the continent!”
Soon, the booming voice swallowed everything.
“How is this possible…?! How are the Seven Pillars and the Mechanic Witch here…?”
“Hmm. That’s very interesting. You seem like you’re not human. How do you know me? I’d love to hear the detailed reason, but unfortunately there are more urgent matters right now.”
Thanks to the Seven Pillars’ arrival, our morale soared to the heavens, while the thugs’ faces grew increasingly gloomy.
“Then shall we first clean up these uninvited guests?”
She glanced at us once, then lightly tapped the ground with her small foot.
The moment she struck the ground, countless rocks erupted from the earth and buried the thugs.
“Ugh…! Ku… kuuug. Crack.”
Exhausted from the earlier battle, they couldn’t even resist properly and were crushed or pierced through, dying instantly.
“Ugh! Uwaek! Ah… We’ve been out of the village for three days now, and it starts like this from the beginning. Really.”
Thud.
“Teraden? Teraden! Wake up! Teraden!”
Once the thugs were all dead, the tension eased, and Teraden spat out a huge mouthful of blood and passed out.
* * *
Around the time the commotion in Seo-Wangdo had calmed down, in a dense forest somewhere in the Seowang Kingdom.
“It seems you’ve been hiding very well indeed.”
Just two days ago, this village had been the homeland of Harune. The thugs who had approached here had been searching everywhere in the Seowang Kingdom but had only wasted their time and were in a foul mood.
Their eyes, now finally finding the Ahrirang clan’s village, were filled with savage killing intent.
The leader in front ripped apart a thin branch and furrowed his brows angrily.
“We finally found you, you trash. After killing every last one, we’ll erase the traces and retreat.”
At the leader’s hand signal, the thugs hid their breaths and slowly advanced toward the village.
“Stop right there.”
“Who are you?!”
Hearing a voice from the side, the thugs turned and saw a man leaning against a massive tree behind a thorny vine, watching them.
He wore the traditional hanbok of the Ahrirang clan, but the deep-sunk gat hat hid his face completely.
‘When did he get here? When I scouted, there was nothing… No aura at all. Is he just a plain human?’
“Tch. Just a crazy man. Handle him.”
The thugs turned after giving the order, but after a few steps they froze in place.
“Hm…?”
The man suddenly vanished from his spot and appeared right beside them.
The startled thugs tried to give attack orders, but their bodies refused to move and their voices wouldn’t come out.
Feeling something wrong, they looked down and saw a thin red line across the center of their torsos.
Soon, blood burst from the red line, and the thugs’ bodies tilted sideways one by one.
Finally, their bodies split in half, spurting blood as they collapsed powerlessly.
The thugs died without even knowing how, completely wiped out.
“You should have listened when I told you to stop.”
The man who asked the question that couldn’t be answered cast a shadow over his face, hidden by his hat.
Thud. Thud.
The man briefly glanced somewhere, then walked over the blood-and-intestine-covered ground and vanished behind the thorny vine.
The expression on the man’s face, briefly glimpsed in the sunlight, was terrifyingly indifferent.
WHOOSH! SPASHOOM!
Where the man had looked, Ran was approaching with tremendous speed.