Reunion with My Father
“I am the master of this estate, and who might you be?”
Perhaps because the puppet standing guard at my side looked like a martial escort protecting me, he did not fly into a rage at my rude words. Instead, he answered with a calmness that suggested he thought I must be some young scion from a famous clan. To me, however, it was nothing but absurdly laughable. The true master of the estate I had come looking for was not some fellow like him.
“I’ll ask once more. Where is the master of this estate?”
At that, he frowned and answered again, still trying to keep his composure. “I am Kimjeoksan, the head of this Kim family estate. I do not know who you are or where you come from, but my patience, in consideration of the honor of my clan, ends here.”
Perhaps because he trusted the martial prowess he had cultivated to the peak, his bearing was rather stiff and proud.
But only for a moment.
Fwoooosh!!
As I explosively released the momentum I had kept coiled within my body and began to walk toward him step by step, the calmness on his face was quickly smeared over with panic and shock.
By the time sweat had begun to bead across his face and drip finally from his chin, I stood before him.
“I’ll ask you one last time. Where is the owner of this place?”
Because I had kept all my pressure focused solely on him, the others around us could not tell why he stood frozen in a cold sweat. And so one fool stepped forward.
“I don’t know where you come from or what you are, but I can’t stand by any longer, not as his son!!”
The young idiot in fine silk robes—perhaps the very subject of this wedding feast—suddenly drew his sword and rushed at me. At best, his cultivation might have been considered average; judged solely by his movement and not the inner force within his body, even the word “average” was generous.
Truth be told, I could have left him alone and he would still never have broken through the protective wall encircling me. Nevertheless, I graciously struck for his sake.
Crack!
My right palm struck his chest, and the area caved in. A gush of blood immediately burst from his mouth.
Fwoooosh!!
Yet the blood he spewed so dramatically never touched me at all. I had already sealed the surrounding space completely, and I had no intention of allowing it.
At last, the life left his body, and he collapsed limply to the ground. At the same moment, the blood suspended in midair fell in a stinging rain, like flower petals unable to withstand a harsh wind.
Even though his son had been killed right before his eyes, the mustached man who had called himself the estate master immediately bowed his head to me.
“Might the one you seek be the head of the Neung clan?”
To me, a man who had lived through countless things, his words were as transparent as glass. No father whose child died so miserably before his eyes would fail to flinch.
And yet, even knowing he was clearly trying to bait me into dropping my guard, I willingly gave him the response he wanted.
“Yes.”
Only then did he answer naturally. “If it is the head of the Neung family, then he is over there.”
He pointed off to one side. My gaze slowly followed the direction of his finger.
At the end of that line of sight was a mountain beside the village. And at that same instant, the sword of the man who had been waiting for this moment flashed from its sheath like lightning.
“You bastard!!!”
He unleashed a furious roar, as though all the rage he had been suppressing had burst free at once. Consumed by grief over his son’s death, he seemed to have forgotten even the fear that had pinned him beneath my momentum, and he thrust his sword at me with all his strength.
But the sword, wrapped in a deep blue sword aura, was blocked at once by the wall of spiritual energy surrounding me.
Clang!!
It was only natural. Unless one possessed profound martial understanding sufficient to properly use jin, or was a peerless master capable of releasing sword aura, one could not pierce the protective barriers of cultivators.
And yet, even though he knew my barrier possessed at least the defensive power of a body-protecting aura, he did not stop attacking.
“Aaaagh!!”
With bloodshot eyes, the mustached man kept battering the barrier over and over. His hands had already been torn apart, blood dripping steadily from them.
As if spurred on by that sight, the men who had come to the banquet began to intervene as well.
“Clan Head Kim! I’ll help too! I, Lee Dragonsword, am not one who knows nothing of righteousness!”
“Wang Cheonrang of the Blood Ax is here as well!”
At best, the two of them were only first-rate and second-rate fighters, and there was no way they could deal with a barrier that even the Kim clan head, a peak expert, could not breach. Nevertheless, they willingly walked straight into the place where they would die.
That was a warrior’s action—something cultivators would never have done.
“Haaah!!”
The man with the title Blood Ax, who was the weakest of them in cultivation but the loudest of voice, swung a massive battle-axe, while beside him the man called Dragonsword, his face rigid, thrust out a slender straight sword.
With that, the Kim clan head, who had been swinging his blade without even being able to answer their words, naturally matched their rhythm once more as he fought alongside them.
Clang! Clang-clang!!
Of course, all of their desperate attacks were vainly stopped in midair.
At that moment, my flying sword, which had been waiting quietly for its chance, soared into the sky.
Slash! Swish! Slash!!
With short, clean cutting sounds, the flying sword attacked the lower bodies of those surrounding me. The instant it sliced quickly through the air and returned to my hand, their belated groans erupted one after another.
“Ungh!”
“Graaah!!”
“Aaaagh!”
All of them had been struck by the same attack in an instant, but their reactions differed according to their cultivation. The second-rate fighter, Blood Ax, had swung his axe without even realizing what hit him; the first-rate fighter, Dragonsword, had tried a beat too late to block my blade; and the peak expert, the Kim clan head, at least managed to intercept my flying sword before it severed him cleanly from blade to blade, sword aura and all.
In truth, if I considered that my flying sword had not even carried all that much spiritual energy, then the very fact that a dharma artifact forged from spiritually attuned materials existed meant it possessed lethal force against warriors by its nature.
The reason I, once only a first-rate fighter, had been able to defeat such a formidable dharma artifact-wielding rogue cultivator as Jinmyeong was, in the end, due to the depth of my martial understanding—unlike anyone else’s—along with Jinmyeong’s overconfidence in the Soul-binding Art and a bit of luck.
Which, of course, also meant that without those elements, warriors below peak level would find even a single dharma artifact from a cultivator nearly impossible to withstand.
That was precisely why cultivators treated warriors as common folk and paid them no mind.
In the end, as I watched the three warriors writhing and groaning with both legs severed, I once more spoke slowly to the Kim clan head rolling on the ground before me.
“For now, I’ll go see the place you mentioned. If the person I seek is not there, I will return here and take your life.”
Then, after swiftly sealing the acupoints around his severed legs to stem the spurting blood, the Kim clan head shouted in rage as if he were fighting against fate itself.
“What on earth have we done to you that you would commit such a thing?”
Of course, I had no idea what had happened here. While I was away, perhaps the Neung household, whose fortune had declined, sold the estate and left, or perhaps these men had been invaders who seized the Neung estate after attacking the clan.
But one thing did not change: it was they who had drawn blades at me first.
“You truly do not know what you have done? The reason you’ve ended up in such a state is because you are weaker than I am.”
And since they had tried to strike first despite that, it was only natural that they had ended up this way.
I did not bother adding the rest aloud, but the men understood my meaning well enough and ground their teeth in fury.
In particular, the warrior called Blood Ax, whose voice had been especially boisterous, spat out curses through loud groans.
“Guh!! I’ll make you regret keeping me alive in such a miserable state!! I’ll kill your entire family, then chew their flesh in front of you and swallow it down!”
At his vile words, spoken as though his life meant nothing, I reached out toward him. Then I seized the air with force.
The spiritual energy pouring from my body transformed into a gigantic hand and clamped down on him.
Crack! Crack-crack!!
The sound of every bone in his body shattering erupted at once, and the fool who had been hurling insults without even knowing his own place fell silent immediately.
While the two legless warriors froze at the sight, one of the feast guests who had not yet escaped let out a hiccupping cry and spoke.
“Hic! Immortal! He’s an immortal!”
At that, another guest found his voice as well.
“They say that if you offend an immortal, you won’t even die in peace! Everyone, kneel down right now!”
An object of awe—or fear.
Even without me displaying my strength before them, they were already afraid of immortals.
“Immortal-nim~ Please, show mercy~”
Once one person cried out, the others immediately followed suit.
“Show mercy~”
At their sight, I hardened my face and turned to my martial aunt.
“It seems I’ll have to postpone eating the Lotus Milk Ball for later, Martial Aunt.”
Only then did she, who had simply watched everything I did in silence, finally speak.
“How tender-hearted you are. You mean to leave these people alive? If you feel uncomfortable, I can take care of it for you instead.”
Then Seop Myeong-gyeol also joined in.
“Why not just pull out their souls and turn them into ghost spirits? If you can find enough usable wood, you could make a great many puppets.”
I shook my head this time and said, “Even if it were not these people here, there would still be enough men who deserve death.”
Of course, if any of those present had been involved in the fall of the Neung family, then it would only be a matter of time before they died.
But there was no reason to kill every innocent person as well. I was a demonic cultivator without hesitation when taking what I wanted, not a wandering evildoer who killed for amusement.
Fortunately, neither of the two cultivators objected any further to my view. Thanks to that, I was able to continue on in silence afterward…
In truth, if I had used a flying artifact, reaching the foot of the mountain would have taken no time at all.
But I walked slowly.
With every step, the tangled thoughts in my head settled a little more, and then, at some point, I finally saw him.
Even though I was walking slowly, my eyesight itself had greatly improved, and so I did not miss the familiar faces in the distance.
There was my eldest brother, missing his right eye for some reason I did not yet know, and beside him the daughter of the Baekri family, dressed modestly and carrying the firewood my eldest brother had chopped.
At that moment, I instantly used light-footed movement.
Tap!
I kicked off the ground so swiftly that even the sound seemed distant, and I arrived before them in an instant, as though I had folded the earth beneath my feet and run across it.
Startled by the wind that rushed up with me, the two of them flailed their arms for a moment before finally looking at me.
“Neung So? Is it really you, Neung So? You little brat! Where in the world have you been all this time?”
My eldest brother greeted me fiercely the moment he saw me, while the daughter of the Baekri family simply stood frozen. I looked at their gaunt faces, which bore the hardships they had endured over the years, and spoke.
“Where is Father?”
The father of this body—the one who had mercilessly driven me out of the Neung family.
And yet he was also one of the biggest reasons I had returned to the clan. Like Lotus Milk Balls that grew all the more vivid the longer time passed, I had missed his gentleness as well.
“Follow me.”
At my eldest brother’s quiet voice, I sensed something and silently followed him. A little late, the daughter of the Baekri family saw Martial Aunt and Seop Myeong-gyeol arriving behind us and looked startled.
“They’re with me,” I said.
At that, the daughter of the Baekri family nodded at once.
Yet something about her behavior was strange. Even though it had been a long time since they had seen each other, she had not uttered a single word the whole time.
But that question, too, was only a fleeting one. In the open space behind the house where my eldest brother led me, just as I had expected, there stood a small mound of earth. My eldest brother spoke toward it.
“Father! Neung So is here. I think this brat has come to apologize now that he finally realizes he was wrong. Father had already forgiven him long ago, but this fool never knew it.”
It had been something I had already anticipated from the sight of the two of them, but Father’s death struck my heart with a sharper pain than I had expected.
So I voiced the words that had welled up bitterly inside me.
“Back then… I should have taken out a better martial art, one Father couldn’t have refused. Then none of this would have happened…”
Of course, I knew it too. Even if the me of that time had taken out a martial art several times superior to the Eighteen Plum Sword Arts, his heart would not have wavered.
Even so, I said those words because his death stung me deeply. If I did not force out something that could pass for a smile, I, too, would be dyed in sorrow like the eldest brother standing beside me…
After a brief, private mourning for the dead, I turned to my eldest brother once more.
“Tell me everything, without leaving out a single thing. Who on earth did this?”
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