The Hegemon Alliance
“…Saperyeon?”
Namgung Hwang spoke at last, his face stiff and set.
“Saperyeon?”
Jang Il-so gave a lazy nod.
“A name that didn’t exist until now. But soon, it will be a name no one in the world can fail to know. The Yangtze River Eighteen Water Bandit Factions, the Black Ghost Fort, the Hao Sect, and Maninbang will all gather beneath a single banner.”
“…So the Sapa bastards have formed an alliance?”
At the time of the war with the Demonic Sect a hundred years ago, the Sapa had indeed formed an alliance. But that had only been a temporary bond for survival, and even then it had been little more than a hollow façade, imperfect and fragile.
Were those factions—who had spent so long at each other’s throats—really gathering under one flag?
And yet there was no way to deny it.
It was possible to imagine the leaders of the Gupailbang gathered in one place. It was even hardly strange to picture the heads of the Odaesega standing together.
But who could have imagined those four standing side by side in the same place?
And yet that dreamlike scene was unfolding before their eyes here and now.
“Hmph!”
Namgung Hwang snorted too loudly, as if determined not to show even a shred of weakness before them.
“What’s so great about a bunch of Sapa trash getting together?”
“Indeed.”
Jang Il-so smiled faintly.
“From the lofty perspective of a great clan’s head, perhaps it doesn’t seem like much. But we did gather after making a tremendous decision of our own, so perhaps you could at least offer your congratulations?”
“…”
Namgung Hwang said nothing. He only glared at him with eyes that looked ready to devour him alive.
“Mm. It seems you have no intention of doing that. How disappointing.”
But that gaze did nothing to make Jang Il-so shrink back.
Even the way he spoke, the languid flick of his hand—everything about him was suffused with ease.
Watching him only made everyone else feel more and more uneasy.
Heo Do-jin-in quietly glanced toward the rear.
Narrow.
When they had first entered through that tight valley, they had thought it a godsent fortress for defense. But now that matters had come to this, getting out seemed even harder than forcing their way in.
The ships will end up snarled together, and hell will break loose.
And yet there was no way they could simply wait leisurely for their turn. The enemy would come for their backs before that.
So retreat was meaningless from the start.
Even if they had secured a retreat route and entered this place, nothing would have changed. A route was only meaningful when it could actually be used.
Having grasped the situation, Heo Do-jin-in looked back at Jang Il-so.
“Saperyeon, huh… Well, an alliance is a good thing, whatever else. May I offer my congratulations?”
Jang Il-so nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“To receive congratulations from the leader of Wudang? I am deeply honored.”
“I’m pleased to hear that. But tell me, Paegun.”
Heo Do-jin-in’s gaze pinned Jang Il-so as though it meant to pierce straight through him.
“You don’t seem to know how to accept congratulations properly. If you truly wish to be congratulated, shouldn’t you come down here instead of standing there and looking down on us?”
“Hahahaha.”
Jang Il-so laughed merrily and nodded.
“That’s right. Yes, that is right. A fair point.”
“…”
“That would certainly be the proper thing to do. But what can I do? I’m a lowly Sapa vermin who knows nothing of manners. Isn’t it too late for me to start pretending otherwise?”
“Surely a man who calls himself the leader of Saperyeon hasn’t gotten cold feet?”
“Hahahaha. What an obvious thing to ask. Of course I’m afraid.”
Jang Il-so’s wicked mouth twisted in a grotesque smile.
“Shaolin, Wudang, Namgung, and even Qingcheng. Is there any reason I should not be afraid when facing sects like that? Even now, my knees are shaking so badly I can barely stand. Hahahahahaha!”
Heo Do-jin-in’s expression turned icy.
That bastard…
It had been a jab meant to scratch at his pride, but it had not landed at all. Normally, when someone rose to a lofty position for the first time, they would instinctively worry about appearances no matter their nature.
But there was not the slightest trace of that in Jang Il-so.
Heo Do-jin-in knew all too well: someone like that was the hardest and most troublesome to deal with.
“Then…”
He shot Jang Il-so a cold look.
“You’ve come all this way just to greet us, I see.”
His tone had grown rougher and rougher. It was proof that his own composure was beginning to shake and fray.
“Greet you…”
Jang Il-so slowly stroked his chin with a pale hand.
“That’s not something people should say after trespassing into someone else’s territory and swinging swords around without permission, is it?”
“This is the first time I’ve heard that exterminating water bandits requires permission.”
“Hahaha. Quite right. Permission isn’t needed. Yes, that was true. Until now.”
Arrogance flickered in Jang Il-so’s oily eyes as he looked down at Heo Do-jin-in.
“But from now on, you’ll need permission. From no one else but me, Jang Il-so.”
Crack.
Heo Do-jin-in ground his teeth.
When had he ever been spoken to like this?
“Permission?”
He tightened his grip on the sword at his waist.
“And if we don’t get it?”
“Hahahaha. You ask such an obvious question. Then, naturally, you’ll have to pay the price.”
At that moment, Namgung Hwang, who had been listening beside him, could hold himself back no longer and bellowed, “You brat with nothing but his mouth! If you’re so confident, then come down here and take my sword!”
“Hmm.”
Jang Il-so swept his gaze over them all with a strange expression, then tilted his head.
“It seems none of you have the faintest idea what sort of situation you’re in.”
Then, as though he found that understandable, he nodded.
“I suppose I can see why. Shaolin, Wudang, Namgung, and Qingcheng—those four sects would certainly never be cowed by any single force in the world. Besides, this sheer cliff makes it difficult to even speak of a positional advantage.”
They couldn’t get out.
But neither could they be attacked.
Even if arrows were loosed, stones rolled down, or boiling oil poured over the edge, it was unlikely that peak-level masters would suffer major damage.
And there are still the remnants of the Black Dragon Clan here.
Quite a few had died already, but more than a third were still alive. No matter how much of a Sapa force they were, they wouldn’t casually choose to unleash indiscriminate attacks that might also sweep away their own men.
In the end, that meant the attackers would have to come down the cliff themselves.
If it came to a straight fight, even four of the Five Hegemons of the Jianghu could be challenged. They had rushed here in a hurry, after all; they couldn’t possibly have brought every single force with them.
Jang Il-so knew exactly what they were thinking.
“But…”
The pale face that wore its mockery so freely twisted grotesquely.
“That’s a line of thought that underestimates me too much. It seems I’ll have to teach you what your situation really is.”
In that instant, a chill ran through Heo Do-jin-in’s chest.
Jang Il-so flicked one finger lightly.
Crack.
The sharp sound rang through the valley.
…What?
Heo Do-jin-in looked up toward the cliff with wary eyes. Jang Il-so had clearly sent some kind of signal, but nothing moved. A sinister silence settled over the gorge.
Just bluffing?
No, that couldn’t be…
And then it happened.
Rumble.
“…”
A terrifying sound, like something carving straight through the heart, reached them. It wasn’t loud, but in the dead silence of the valley, it came through with perfect clarity.
“What…?”
BOOOOOOOM!
At that moment, a thunderous blast shook the heavens as though the sky itself had collapsed.
And then an unbelievable sight unfolded.
One side of the cliff they had occupied exploded outward in a massive detonation. Pale dust billowed up like a cloud, and fragments of stone shot into the air like a burst of fireworks.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
Rumble-rumble-rumble! Rumble-rumble!
“Wha—”
Even Heo Do-jin-in, of all people, could only gape in shock.
Then the side of the cliff where the explosion had struck slowly sheared away and began to tip.
For a moment, his mind went blank.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The enormous mass of rock began to fall, its speed increasing as it cast a shadow over the heads of the four sects below.
“Gh—ugh… AAAAAAAAH!”
“MOVE! MOVEEEE!”
The elite among elites—men who did not fear death itself—screamed at the top of their lungs and scattered in panic.
They were people who would have staked their own lives to protect a comrade. But the instant that monstrous boulder came crashing down toward them, instinct took over; they grabbed at the junior brothers blocking their path and shoved them aside in wild, desperate motions.
It was a scene of utter domination.
Something beyond reason, beyond common sense. Even Heo Do-jin-in could only stand there, stunned into silence, his mouth hanging open as he failed to comprehend what he was seeing.
“AAAAAAAAAH!”
Unexpectedly, it was Namgung Hwang who moved first.
From his sword burst a terrifying blade aura. It was even larger and more oppressive than the blade aura that had just split open a ship in a single strike. Roaring like a lion until his throat seemed ready to tear, he swung his sword with all his might.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!
The blade aura he unleashed slammed into the falling rock. It was truly fearsome, leaving behind a scar nearly five jang long, but the boulder did not even crack, much less shatter.
“AAAAAAAH!”
Namgung Hwang did not give up. Once more he dragged up every last shred of inner force he had and erupted with blade aura again.
“Amitabha!”
Seeing that this was his duty, Beop Gye also bellowed the Buddha’s name in a rough voice and launched a fist strike.
Vast golden fist force merged with Namgung Hwang’s blade aura and slammed into the boulder.
Crash!
At last, the huge stone—large enough to match a grand hall—split cleanly in two. But even that was far from enough.
“What are you all doing? Smash it! Smash iiit!”
Beop Gye’s scream, almost desperate in its intensity, rang out like a bell, and only then did the others regain their senses. One by one, they drew out their inner force and hurled palm energy and sword qi upward.
“Hyaaaaaah!”
“Aaaagh!”
It was a sight close to frantic insanity.
Beams of energy in every color battered, sliced, and ground at the falling rock. Little by little, the boulder split, cracked, and crumbled.
“More! More! Drain every last ounce of strength from your bodies! If you don’t, we all die! Hurry, damn it, hurrry!”
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
The elites of the Gupailbang, eyes bloodshot, attacked with everything they had. But destroying something that enormous had been impossible from the beginning.
The boulder, once the size of a grand hall, shattered and split into hundreds of chunks—each one as big as a man—and poured down to the ground below.
Crash! Bang! Bang-crash! Crash!
Rocks that had fallen from unimaginable heights pounded into the hard ground, crushing it like mud.
Bang! Crash! Bang!
The avalanche of stone continued for a long while.
The world itself seemed to tremble, and the cliff screamed as though it had been torn apart.
If this place, where human screams and the screams of the earth had become one, was not hell, then what else could it be called?
Thud. Thud…
At last, the final stone struck the ground.
Dust swallowed every direction, filling the valley in a choking haze.
As though refusing to let the world behold that dreadful scene.
Only when a wind from somewhere lifted the drifting dust did the full extent of the slaughter become visible.
Heo Do-jin-in stared blankly at the ruin before him.
“Guhhh….”
“My, my leg… My… Ughhh…”
Those crushed beneath the rocks.
Those flung away while vomiting blood.
The dust rising from the ground mixed with the blood already spilled, and fresh blood continued to stream endlessly over it.
Heo Do-jin-in gazed dazedly at the scene for a moment, then slowly turned his eyes back toward the cliff above.
“Hahahahahahaha!”
“…”
“UHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Jang Il-so’s laughter—sounding as though he had truly gone mad—and the jingling of his ornaments mercilessly drowned the gorge in a valley full of groans.