Sheep's Head and Dog Meat
"Haaah... haaah!"
Gasping for ragged breath, Jinyeong slit the throat of another black-clad assailant. It wasn't just the sheer number of ceaseless attackers swarming them; their martial prowess was nothing to scoff at either.
Though the battle had seemed evenly matched at first, friendly casualties mounted with every passing moment. Once the burden shifted from three opponents per person to four, all conversation died. Every breath and ounce of strength went solely into slaughtering the enemy before them.
That Jinyeong remained on his feet was not merely thanks to his realm of cultivation. Just as Ryeong had insisted, in a protracted brawl, raw physical endurance made up for a deficit in inner qi. Had she not drilled the importance of stamina into him, he would have been just another corpse rolling on the floor long ago.
"Graaagh!"
Jinyeong deflected an incoming blade and roared. As the heat inside Gongsong Inn soared, a thick mist of blood hung in the air. The only way to tell friend from foe was the color of their clothes: black meant enemy; anything else was an ally.
He dared not rest. The moment he lowered his guard, the burden on his comrades would multiply.
"Like hell I'll fall here!"
He had to cull as many as possible before Ryeong returned—if only to be of some help to her. Eyes flashing, Jinyeong stomped hard in a firm stamp. Gathering the meager dregs of his qi to power the foot-plant, the thundering resonance drew every eye in the inn upon him.
In that instant, Jinyeong blurred into motion.
Slash-slash-slash!
As though determined to burn every last scrap of his inner energy, he wove through the fray on the Ghost Soul Steps, cutting down foes in a frenzy. Emboldened by his desperate stand, morale among his allies began to surge. A young lad, younger than anyone present, was putting his very life on the line. To stand idle after witnessing that would make none of them true martial artists.
"Stand tall! Even that boy is fighting! Are we going to let ourselves fall here?!"
"Every last one of these bastards dies today! If your arm is severed, tear out their throats with your teeth!"
Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan roared their battle cries, and their subordinates gritted their teeth in fierce resolve. The sudden rally amid the chaos rattled the warriors of the Martial Twin Society.
"Kill that brat first!"
The leader of the Martial Twin Society barked the order even as he traded blows with Myeongsan. To be precise, Myeongsan had barely been weathering the society leader's assault, but the moment the command fell, the black-clad warriors converged on Jinyeong.
"I'll hold the front, boy!"
"Leave the rear to me!"
Gwi Hujin stepped in front of Jinyeong to shatter the incoming charge, while Ho Jihwan guarded his back against ambush. It was a defensive formation mounted by two Transcendent Masters working in concert; try as they might, the minions of the Martial Twin Society could not breach their perimeter.
"Haaah!"
Diving into the enemy ranks, Jinyeong hacked with his sword while drawing throwing daggers from his robes, hurling them straight for the black-clad men's heads. Thrown with pure physical force without inner qi to back them, the blades still retained their deadly sharpness. Even when they failed to kill instantly, they crippled the enemies' movements—and whatever openings remained were ruthlessly cleaned up by the faction leader and sect master.
"Haaah... haah..."
Jinyeong's breaths grew ragged and shallow. Even his bolstered endurance was finally scraping against its limit.
"Die!"
A throwing blade slipped through a momentary gap in the duo's defensive perimeter, shooting straight toward Jinyeong. He whipped his sword around in a frantic parry, deflecting the dagger, but the overextension tore agonizingly through his strained muscles.
And right then—
"Aargh!"
"Senior Brother!"
Myeongsan, who had been holding out against the Martial Twin Society Leader, took a devastating blow. It was the signal that sent their hard-won morale crashing back into the dirt.
"Tenacious vermin, clinging like leeches."
The society leader cast a bloodthirsty gaze over the survivors: a boy swordsman on the verge of collapse, and a sect leader and faction chief covered in wounds. The rest were hardly worth counting as combatants. None of them were making it out alive anyway.
"You couldn't possibly think this is the entirety of our forces, could you?"
"What... did you say?"
"This battle is already ours. Once our reinforcements arrive, every last one of you will be butchered."
"Ha! Shows how little you know!"
Jinyeong sneered at the man's arrogant declaration. The society leader might act triumphant now, but Jinyeong had something far more dependable to believe in.
"Ryeong hasn't returned yet. Do you have any idea what that means?"
"No matter how strong that wench is, she won't survive against the Blood King's right hand."
"You really don't get it, do you? The fact that she hasn't shown up yet means she's already busy butchering your reinforcements!"
The society leader fell silent for a heartbeat, then burst into uproarious laughter.
"Gwahaha! What an amusing fairy tale! To think a single person could wipe out over a hundred men—"
"Why wouldn't you?"
"...?!"
A woman's chilling voice whispered directly into his ear.
Before his instincts could even scream for him to leap back—
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
"Aaaargh!"
"It's a bit disappointing when the head of an organization can't foresee things going wrong, don't you think?"
"Ryeong!!"
Appearing like a ghost, Ryeong drove daggers into the society leader's body in rapid succession. In less than a second, he looked practically like a porcupine.
"Cough! Just... how...?"
"How, what? If you wanted to stop me, you should've brought a thousand men, not a hundred."
Grabbing the kneeling society leader by the hair, Ryeong forced him to meet her gaze.
In her eyes, he saw a ferocious, untamed killing intent—the genuine bloodlust possessed only by someone who had slaughtered, butchered, and slaughtered again without end.
Gripped by primordial terror, the society leader began to tremble violently. Even with their master incapacitated, the black-clad men under his command froze, unable to lift a finger. The killing aura radiating from Ryeong struck at the deepest roots of their fear, and not a single warrior present possessed the caliber to resist it.
"I've already got all the information I need in my head, so I suppose it's best you just die here."
"S-Spare me! I only did as I was ordered!"
"Yeah. And I'm just following orders to kill you."
"Please! Whatever you command, I will obey! Just spare my life!"
"Anything? Then die."
Slash!
Without a shred of hesitation, Ryeong severed the society leader's head, deploying her Protective Astral Qi to shield her face from the geyser of crimson.
The brutal display swallowed the remaining Martial Twin Society warriors in even deeper dread. The inn, which had been deafening with battle cries just moments before, plunged into dead silence.
"We need to clean up the rest. Move."
Ryeong nodded toward Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan. Catching her meaning immediately, the two rushed forward to sweep through the remnants of the Martial Twin Society.
"Re-Retreat—ghk!"
"At least one of us must survive and—aagh!"
"I told you, you're not getting away."
Without even moving from her spot, Ryeong drove daggers into the backs of the fleeing warriors' heads. Flee and die, stay and die—a hopeless cul-de-sac of slaughter.
Only then did Jinyeong finally collapse to the floor. Ryeong's overwhelming might had swept the board clear in a single breath.
"Letting your guard down already? How can your stamina be such utter trash?"
"It's because I saw you, Young Lady. The moment you showed up, the tension drained right out of me."
"Heh. Now do you appreciate why stamina matters?"
"Deeply. From now on, whenever you train my lightness art, I will... still complain, but I'll do my best."
"Make sure you remember that."
Thwip!
Even while bantering with Jinyeong, Ryeong flicked another dagger straight through an enemy's skull. It was an uncanny display of spatial mastery that only someone who had fully memorized the entire surrounding terrain could pull off.
Meanwhile, the grievously wounded Myeongsan swallowed a breath of awe as he watched Ryeong.
Zhongnan has birthed a monster.
She was far more formidable than he had ever imagined. Gentle and mild in ordinary moments, yet dealing gruesome, terrifying deaths to her foes. How could someone who turned so merciless in actual combat blend seamlessly into everyday life? To Myeongsan, such duality was beyond comprehension.
If she hadn't been here today, they would have already fallen to that mysterious Transformation Realm master, and he wouldn't even be alive to harbor these thoughts.
[Thank you, Young Lady.]
Myeongsan sent his gratitude through telepathic transmission. Ryeong's eyes widened slightly in surprise upon hearing his mental voice, but she gave him an acknowledging nod.
Less than a quarter of an incense stick later—
"We won!"
"We wiped out those Martial Twin bastards!"
"Long live the Saber Ghost Faction! Long live the Fire Tiger Sword Sect!"
"Long live Wudang as well!"
Having annihilated the Martial Twin Society's forces, the survivors embraced one another, sharing their wild jubilation.
To those who had survived the bloodbath, the divide between Orthodox and Unorthodox no longer mattered. They were comrades who had faced the same enemy and triumphed side by side—true friends bound by battle. It was enough to make one wonder if this was what genuine harmony between black and white looked like.
"Senior Brother. It seems not everyone in the Unorthodox factions is wicked."
"Indeed... We are all human in the end. Just because our paths differ does not make us a different species."
Watching the scene unfold, Myeongsan pulled himself up with the help of his junior brother.
Soon, Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan gathered before him along with Ryeong. The men all turned their eyes to her. They were offering the stage to the battle's greatest contributor, waiting for her declaration to draw the final curtain.
Ryeong smirked and hoisted her fist into the air.
"There's no Orthodox or Unorthodox tonight! We're all drinking until we drop dead! Got it?!"
"Yes, ma'am!!"
"We honor the fallen with the news of our victory! Let's raise such hell that they can hear us in the underworld!"
At her boisterous declaration, the faction leader and the sect master exchanged grins, and even Myeongsan, blinking in bemusement, offered a nod.
Operation 'Sheep's Head and Dog Meat.'
It was an absolute success.