Purple Sunset Palm
Bandits are bandits. Not all bandits are martial artists.
So even when they gathered in great numbers, I didn’t find them all that frightening.
At best, they were third-class or second-class fighters. Even the ones they called the chieftains were only about first-class. They were nowhere near Peak Expert—let alone Transcendent Peak.
And yet the reason bandits still survived, I figured, was that many of them specialized in external arts.
At the lower levels, maybe learning an external art actually improved your chances of staying alive?
You could get reliable results even from something with lower specs, after all.
I could relate. I had brought Golden Dragon Body and Iron Body Weight-Adding Force to great completion, so better than anyone, I knew just how formidable external arts could be.
Rather than clumsily channeling internal energy and swinging a weapon around, it was better to learn at least some external method and make your strikes a little stronger, a little faster.
Whatever weakness remained, you could make up for it with numbers.
In that case, they might just be able to bring down even an Peak master somehow.
After all, even a Peak master didn’t have infinite internal energy.
To be precise, it was more accurate to say that a Peak master would simply avoid fighting them in the first place.
Why take the risk of losing more by mishandling the fight than you stood to gain from dealing with bandits?
When a martial artist’s body was effectively their fortune, they naturally avoided pointless adventures.
Only the ones overflowing with righteous courage would rush in without a second thought.
Still, that was how the world worked.
Where there was demand, there was supply; where there was a cause, there was an effect.
The reason these bandits still existed was simply because that principle held true.
You could call it luck, or economics, or efficiency.
There were more bandits than people sent to wipe them out or pacify them, and that was why.
That was why they were still alive.
That was why they could keep skirting the eyes of the government and the martial world, living off banditry in these mountains.
And that same principle sometimes led to absurd situations like the one we had now.
Honestly, the bandits probably had plenty to say about it.
If it had only been me, Baek Jin-ah, Dang Yeong-young, and Hong Si-yeon, they would have thought it unfair enough already.
But Geukseon and Geumran?
They’d probably be looking up at the heavens and wailing in agony.
“Oh, Heaven! Why must You send us such a trial!” That sort of thing.
The existence of Geukseon and Geumran was practically a disaster.
Like a typhoon or a wildfire. No—since you couldn’t even run away from them, they were probably worse than those.
The moment Geukseon and Geumran arrived at the bandit stronghold, fate was already decided.
Utter annihilation. There was no other outcome.
No matter how they twisted and thrashed and screamed, they couldn’t overturn that result. All they could do was beg for mercy.
Geukseon and Geumran did not take the lead in butchering the bandits.
That was only natural. For them to do that would be a little… unbecoming. There was such a thing as dignity, after all.
So the two of them usually stood atop a hastily built watchtower and stared down at the scene below.
Of course, that didn’t mean they did nothing.
At their sides, a sword apiece floated in the air, then darted off to pierce the backs or throats of those trying to flee the stronghold.
Sword control.
In other words, a rather elegant way to die.
And yet it was merciless, savage, cruel.
There was no one who could stop those swords.
Even if you widened the scope to the entire martial world, there would only be a handful of people able to deal with that.
Which meant it was our job to clean up the bandits.
The four of us—Baek Jin-ah, Dang Yeong-young, Hong Si-yeon, and me.
Baek Jin-ah moved with absolute precision.
Cold mist rolled off her entire body. Her figure moved swiftly, her palm striking out in a blur. Then came the palm strike.
The spot she hit froze solid, and the bandit immediately vomited blood and collapsed.
Before those crimson droplets could stain Baek Jin-ah’s clothes, they froze in midair, struck her garments as ice, and then pattered harmlessly to the ground.
That was why Baek Jin-ah always looked immaculate. Her clothes were almost never dirty.
Dang Yeong-young was similar. She didn’t even bother getting close to the bandits.
More than that, she didn’t use hidden weapons or poison either. It would be annoying to recover the hidden weapons later, and poison was a finite resource.
Dang Yeong-young simply threw whatever she could get her hands on.
Sometimes it was a pebble, sometimes a twig.
Sometimes it was a bandit’s own weapon, or even a coin that had spilled from a pouch.
Anything she could grab became a hidden weapon, and it always buried itself in a bandit’s vital point.
One throw, one hit.
Dang Yeong-young almost never made mistakes. There were times when her target didn’t die instantly, but she never missed.
How long would it even take to become that good at throwing things?
And she was so young, too. When had she even had time to practice? Did she choose hidden weapons first during a childhood game of picking up stones?
Ah, right—this wasn’t the kind of world that had that sort of game, was it?
Unlike Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young, Hong Si-yeon was a little busier.
Her steps were light as a dance, her sword brilliant in motion.
Plum blossoms bloomed in the air, and her sword path shifted with elegant unpredictability.
It was far too refined a sword to use for killing bandits. At least, that was how it looked to me.
Beautiful death? It was an odd phrase, but there really wasn’t any better way to describe it.
Every time Hong Si-yeon’s sword flashed, bandits spat blood, and that blood became red plum blossoms embroidered across the ground.
Still, her expression didn’t look especially bright while she was doing it.
As for me… I was busy.
It felt a little uncomfortable to demonstrate martial arts on human targets, but looking at what these bastards had done, it was hard to even count them as human.
So I emptied my mind. I told myself that what I was dealing with weren’t people but beasts, and I used my martial arts accordingly.
What I was testing right now wasn’t Iron Wire Saber or swordplay.
Right palm: Ice Soul Divine Palm. Left palm: Purple Sunset Divine Palm.
I wasn’t even sure if calling it Purple Sunset Divine Palm was right.
But if I wrapped myself in the Purple Sunset Divine Art and used palm techniques with it, then I figured I could call it that.
Well, if I wanted to use it that way, what was the issue? It’s not like anyone was going to complain.
Besides, Geumran had already given me permission.
Of course, when I’d explained it to her, Geumran’s eyes had gone round with confusion and she’d asked what in the world I was talking about. But after I laid out the principle, she had nodded, looking equal parts stunned and baffled.
The principle was simple. Ice Soul Divine Palm meant coating the hand in the cold of Ice Soul Divine Art and releasing it outward.
It was a method of using internal energy to infiltrate an opponent’s body through the palm.
Once that happened, the yin nature of Ice Soul Divine Art would turn to frost and inflict fatal internal injuries within the target’s body.
If I used it the same way with the Purple Sunset Divine Art, it would work just fine.
By gathering Ice Soul Divine Art in my right hand, I could draw the surplus yang energy into my left hand and trigger the Purple Sunset Divine Art.
Then, the instant the palm strike landed, the energy would burrow into the enemy’s body and sear them from within.
Ice Soul Divine Palm was already plenty brutal.
The body was surprisingly fragile. If you drove the internal energy from Ice Soul Divine Palm inside, the organs could freeze or harden until they cracked apart.
That was why people struck by Ice Soul Divine Palm spat blood from the mouth.
Their internal organs were injured, and the blood was being forced back up the esophagus.
But Purple Sunset Divine Palm was different. The yang energy that penetrated the body simply cooked everything from the inside out.
Equally cruel, equally lethal. The only small mercy was that with Purple Sunset Divine Palm, the target didn’t cough up blood.
Because all the blood burned away as well.
Ice Soul Divine Palm and Purple Sunset Divine Palm were both undeniably powerful.
The one drawback was that they were close-range techniques.
I had to move my body and close the distance.
To use penetrating energy, I had to press my palm against the opponent.
Distance and spacing were important. There was a reason weapons existed in the first place.
That was why, even while using Ice Soul Divine Palm and Purple Sunset Divine Palm, I couldn’t help feeling dissatisfied.
Wasn’t there some way to use these more effectively?
That was when I thought of fingertip strikes. Or maybe palm force, or something like Shatter Mountains and Erupt Earth?
There had definitely been techniques like that when I first chose my skills.
Of course, since I’d been stuck with miserable internal energy at the time, nobody had selected them because they were basically useless.
Which meant they were certainly in this world too. The problem was where to find them.
Anyway, that was a matter for later. Right now, I just needed to focus on using what I had as skillfully as possible.
One bandit froze after taking my palm strike, then coughed up blood and collapsed.
Another, seeing that, screamed in terror and wildly swung down an axe.
But there was no way I’d be afraid of an axe strike that carried not a shred of internal energy.
Besides, it wasn’t even a proper battle axe—just a small chopping tool, the sort used for cutting wood.
With Ice Soul Divine Art wrapped around my hand, I simply grabbed the blade with my bare hand.
Metal met flesh, and yet all that sounded was a sharp clang, while shock spread across the bandit’s face.
Then my left hand shot out. A palm slicked in purple light. One strike.
And just like that, another bandit fell, not even managing a dying gasp.
“D-don’t move! I-if you come any closer, I’ll cut this bastard’s throat!”
At last, one of the surviving bandits grabbed a hostage and pressed a dagger to the hostage’s neck, shouting the threat.
It was the final frenzy of someone who could neither flee nor fight back.
But no one looked startled. No one looked worried.
Dang Yeong-young quietly slipped a hand into her sleeve, and before long it was fluttering in the wind.
And there, embedded in the bandit’s forehead, was a slender needle.
His eyes rolled upward, and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The man whose throat had been held at knifepoint only then started flailing, straining to put as much distance between himself and the bandit as possible.
Hong Si-yeon walked up to him and gave a light flick of her sword, neatly cutting away the gag in his mouth and the rope binding his body.
“Uwaaah! Th-thank you! Oh, thank goodness! I’m alive at last! I’m alive!”
The hostage sank flat onto the ground and cried out his joy as if he were weeping.
Then Geukseon and Geumran landed lightly beside us, and the cultivator who had been watching from a distance finally approached cautiously and said,
“Your martial prowess is truly astonishing. But what you just used, young lady….”
Gyeong Jin, looking at me with a puzzled expression, asked the question.
Then Geumran stepped forward instead, smiling as she replied,
“Even when the eyes are in full bloom, one must sometimes pretend not to see what one has seen. Isn’t that right, Gyo Dae-hyeop?”
Her tone was friendly enough, but no one could miss the meaning behind it.
So Gyeong Jin laughed and answered,
“Of course! Naturally! Humans aren’t walking around with their eyes wide open all the time, are they? Sometimes they blink and miss things! Haha.”
Mm. Good thing Geumran covered for me on her own.
At least that meant he wouldn’t go around talking about it. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who lacked that much tact.
Still, I had a problem too. Even if I learned the Purple Sunset Divine Art, I couldn’t just use it recklessly.
This purple energy wasn’t something I could hide just because I wanted to.
And Geumran couldn’t step in and cover for me every single time, either.
I was going to have to think of several different ways to handle it.
Learning martial arts was great and all, but I’d better come up with a way to use them without getting caught too.
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