To Live Like a Dog, or Die Like a Wolf (5)
“This—”
Even with the situation already dire, the Black Dragon King bristled at the direct hit. Flames seemed to burst from his eyes as he was about to roar, but Cheonmyeon Susa cut him off in a calm voice.
“Have our heads come off, you say…”
He smiled faintly.
“Are you saying Paegun is going to cut our throats?”
Jang Il-so answered with a smile of his own.
“What a frightening thing to say. Surely you jest.”
Cheonmyeon Susa’s gentle gaze slid toward Jang Il-so.
“Then who, exactly, is going to cut our throats?”
“You’re not asking because you truly don’t know. If you came here without understanding that much, then I see no reason to waste words on you.”
“Hahaha…”
The laughter never left him, but a chilling murderous intent seeped from Cheonmyeon Susa’s eyes.
His face might have looked endlessly amiable, but in truth he was the most cruel of the Five Hegemons. Given the nature of his work with information, he did not even consider the torture and killing of human beings to be sins.
“That’s a bit much, Paegun.”
“Hmm.”
Jang Il-so said nothing as he poured himself more wine.
The act could easily be taken as contempt, and the narrowing of Cheonmyeon Susa’s eyes proved it. Then Jang Il-so spoke again.
“First, the Yangtze River Eighteen Water Bandits.”
“…….”
“Then next will probably be… Black Ghost Fort.”
Man-geum Daebu’s brow twitched slightly.
For a man usually so expressionless to show even that much emotion was uncommon. That tiny movement said more clearly than words how unpleasant this was to him.
“After that, Maninbang. And last, Hao Sect.”
“…….”
“You’ll be hunted down one by one, until all of you lose your heads. Or you can throw away everything you have now and become fugitives.”
Thud!
The Black Dragon King slammed a hand onto the table.
“Who would dare do such a thing?”
“Gupailbang.”
At the answer, delivered without the slightest hesitation, the Black Dragon King fell silent as if struck dumb.
“…….”
“And then… probably even the Heavenly Alliance.”
Gnashing his teeth, the Black Dragon King twisted his face into something monstrous and glared at Jang Il-so.
“Fine, Gupailbang I can accept. But are you saying we even need to discuss those trash from the Heavenly Alliance?”
“Trash?”
Jang Il-so smiled slyly and looked straight at the Black Dragon King.
“Is there anyone here who can swear they could face the Heavenly Alliance alone?”
“…….”
“The Sichuan Tang Family, the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, the North Sea Ice Palace, and that Mount Hua… and now even Green Forest has joined them. Who in the world can stand against the Heavenly Alliance? The mighty Yangtze River Eighteen Water Bandits?”
“You little…”
“Times have changed, Black Dragon King. The name of the Yangtze River Eighteen Water Bandits no longer strikes fear into the hearts of the people.”
“Hmph.”
Man-geum Daebu gave a slight nod.
“It is indeed impossible to face the Heavenly Alliance alone. But the idea that they can truly unite their strength is an idealistic fantasy. They are too far apart from one another, and their ties are loose. The full force of the Heavenly Alliance will never gather in one place.”
“That is true enough. However…”
Jang Il-so’s lips curled in a wicked smile.
“The Heavenly Alliance itself is a problem.”
“…….”
“As you all know, without the Heavenly Alliance, Shaolin and Wudang would never have moved.”
Man-geum Daebu nodded as if he could not deny it.
“True enough. There was nothing in it for them.”
Suppression of the Yangtze River would certainly bring fame and goodwill.
But places like Shaolin, Wudang, and the Namgung Family no longer needed fame. Such things only mattered to those who had not yet built their names. For people of their stature, already so overblown in reputation, there was no reason to suddenly crave renown and the goodwill of the world.
“But with the Heavenly Alliance, that changes.”
A substitute had appeared.
If the Heavenly Alliance did not exist, then no matter how filthy and distasteful it might be, everyone would still have no choice but to cling to Gupailbang and the Five Great Families. After all, those were the only forces capable of standing against the Sapa factions and holding them back.
But now, they no longer had to remain dependent on them. The Heavenly Alliance had already shown enough strength and initiative to serve as an alternative.
“The history of the martial world is always the same thing repeated over and over. When two strong righteous factions struggle over power, there is no direct war. For example, Wudang and Shaolin have never once fought each other to the death. Instead…”
Jang Il-so bared his teeth.
“They went hunting.”
“…….”
“There are two ways to prove you’re the stronger tiger. One is to fight and win. The second is… to prove it by biting down and killing more wolves.”
“……So we’re wolves, then.”
“Exactly.”
Jang Il-so slowly pushed the empty wine cups lined up beside him forward, one by one.
“First, the Yangtze River Water Bandits.”
His index finger pressed gently on the cup in front of him.
Clang!
The cup split with a shrill, metallic crack, the sound like a scream.
“Then?”
“…….”
“There’s no point betting on whose head comes off first. If you’re going to place a wager, make it on something more interesting. Which sect’s latrine will my head end up stuffed into? Shaolin? Wudang? Or maybe Mount Hua or the Tang Family? Heh heh heh heh.”
Jang Il-so giggled as he slowly swept his gaze across the three men.
“I’d put mine on Shaolin. Where would you place yours?”
“…….”
No one could bring themselves to answer right away.
That was because they all knew Jang Il-so’s words were no empty lie.
The Black Dragon King, who was being attacked head-on, felt it most keenly, but even the others who were watching all of this unfold sensed the same suffocating pressure of crisis.
“So?”
Man-geum Daebu cut in coldly.
“Enough of the pointless rambling. A waste of time. What, exactly, are you saying we should do?”
“We should join forces.”
“With trash like this?”
The word trash came out so unfiltered that the Black Dragon King and Cheonmyeon Susa both twisted in anger.
“You should watch that mouth of yours, Man-geum Daebu. Unless you’d like to die with your tongue cut out.”
“Or perhaps I should sever your limbs and feed you to the dogs.”
Dangerous voices spilled out, but Man-geum Daebu did not even blink.
“Anyone can think of an alliance. No one can actually carry it out. We can’t trust each other.”
“……True.”
“Just seeing one another is enough to turn my stomach.”
Sapa hated the righteous factions.
But they hated each other even more. After all, the ones who had fought, bitten, and stabbed one another most often were fellow Sapa.
“Frankly, it wouldn’t be so bad to cut all your throats here and now and just swallow up your power for myself.”
“That, too, is a fine idea.”
For an instant, the killing intent the three men released filled Chuihyang Pavilion like a dense fog. It was the kind of murderous aura that would have ruined ordinary men instantly and even made most experts feel sick to their stomachs.
But then—
“Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
Jang Il-so burst into a huge laugh that seemed to shake the entire pavilion.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
He slapped the table as he laughed, tears streaming from his eyes, and the murderous aura the three men had been exuding vanished in an instant. Everyone’s gaze fixed on Jang Il-so.
“……What’s so funny?”
At the question, Jang Il-so lifted a hand and gently wiped away the tears at the corners of his eyes.
“Ah… ah. My apologies. Ah, really… it’s just so funny I can’t help myself.”
“I asked what was so funny.”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger if it weren’t funny?”
Jang Il-so’s face still carried traces of laughter.
“You’re all just barking at each other like mangy curs and fighting without even realizing your feet are already sunk in the swamp. How could I not laugh? A pitiful lot like this are the heads of the Five Hegemons! Hahaha!”
“……What did you just say?”
Jang Il-so’s red lips twisted.
“Why? Did I say something wrong?”
“…….”
“Even beasts, when their lives are in danger, will join forces without caring who their natural enemy is. But human beings drag petty grudges into matters of life and death?”
“…….”
The polite tone he had maintained on the surface vanished entirely. Jang Il-so bared his white teeth.
“Grudges, hatred, all those little pathetic emotions you cherish—they only exist because your heads are still attached to your necks. Once you’re dead, grudges mean nothing. What matters most to a human being is not resentment, not face, not even profit.”
No one could bring themselves to rebut him, and they all stared at Jang Il-so.
Under all those gazes, Jang Il-so slowly spoke.
“Survival.”
“…….”
“If you survive, there is a future. If you don’t, nothing means anything. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive—even if that means rolling in a pile of filth, even if it means licking my enemy’s boot without a shred of pride!”
This was not the sort of thing a man of such lofty status, one of the heads of the Five Hegemons, should have said.
And yet that was precisely why his sincerity came through even more clearly.
“Compared to that, protecting the back of someone you were pointing a blade at just yesterday is nothing at all.”
Jang Il-so drained the wine in his new cup in one gulp, then looked at everyone with that strange smile still playing on his lips. Then he asked softly,
“Isn’t that right?”
“Hmph.”
A low groan slipped from the mouths of Cheonmyeon Susa and the Black Dragon King.
It was true: the people in front of them, more than the righteous forces pressing in from outside, were the ones they hated most. Their history was nothing less than a history of trying to kill one another.
But whatever the case, they were Sapa. They could not join hands with the righteous factions. To deal with the righteous forces that had begun moving in earnest, the only stepping stone they had was each other.
“First…”
Man-geum Daebu opened his mouth.
“If this is only a temporary matter, then all this discussion is meaningless. It would only be the Water Bandits who suffer.”
“That won’t happen.”
Jang Il-so said it flatly.
“If the Heavenly Alliance does not stop, then Gupailbang has no way to stop them on its own. Their power may be greater, but the initiative already belongs to the Heavenly Alliance.”
“…….”
“And Mount Hua, the head of the Heavenly Alliance, is not a place that will ever stop. They are greedy. Perhaps as greedy as I am.”
Jang Il-so’s smile deepened as he thought of Mount Hua. A flash of madness glimmered in his eyes.
“One way or another, they will definitely push south of the Yangtze. Then Gupailbang won’t be able to sit still either.”
“Because of face?”
“That too. But more precisely because they won’t be able to watch the Heavenly Alliance steadily absorb land south of the Yangtze into its own territory.”
Man-geum Daebu nodded, as though he had finished running the numbers in his head.
“Then in order to stand against that Heavenly Alliance, Gupailbang, and the Five Great Families, we must also unite?”
“Exactly. Otherwise, you have to choose one of two paths.”
Jang Il-so suddenly wiped the smile from his face and said in a low voice, almost like a growl,
“Live like a dog, or die like a wolf.”
“…….”
“…….”
“But what I want is to survive as a wolf. Only when you can regard your opponent as prey can you call it hunting, and only when you can be certain you won’t be harmed while doing so. If your arm is torn off and your guts are spilling out as the price of the hunt, then you have no right to even say the word ‘hunting’ out loud.”
With one hand gripping his own face, Jang Il-so continued,
“As for the grand reason behind all this, make up whatever excuse you like.”
Through his fingers, his eyes looked terrifyingly alive.
“Whatever the justification, the goal is survival. Staying alive. If you miss your chance, then even if you band together, you’ll only end up getting torn apart. I intend to live. I’ll survive no matter what, and enjoy everything I’ve gained. Not one speck of it will be left behind.”
Cheonmyeon Susa, listening quietly, pressed a hand to his forehead and gave a low laugh.
“It’s so blatant and so low-class I don’t even know what to say.”
“…….”
“However…”
His eyes spilled a sharp blue gleam.
“You’re not wrong. I’m not the sort of man who’s eager to die either. If that’s the only way to live, then so be it. I’ll stand with Paegun.”
Jang Il-so’s lips curled smoothly upward.
“From this moment on, the Five Hegemons are no more.”
The great declaration rang out.
“What remains are four sects, and an alliance! Where the Five Hegemons once stood, only the name of Saparyeon—the Four Hegemons Alliance—will remain!”
The name that would sweep across the world like a storm.
That was the first time the existence of Saparyeon had ever been spoken by Jang Il-so himself.