There Is No Third Time
The ugliest, most vicious-looking man among them stepped forward and blocked Yeo U-hui’s path, leveling his sword straight at her.
“You must be dying to get yourself killed, you bitch.”
Yoo Eunhyeon, who had never seen so many people pouring out murderous aura all at once, shrank back on instinct.
Yeo U-hui, by contrast, remained perfectly at ease. She jabbed a finger at the man and delivered her warning in a calm, heavy voice.
“Shameless bastards. You start the fight and then come out with that kind of line? Then again, if you’re that desperate to die, is there anything you wouldn’t do?”
“Y-you little—!”
Having his own words thrown straight back at him, the man’s face flushed a deep, furious red. From the way he couldn’t even manage a retort, it was clear he knew she was right.
Just then someone gestured for the swearing man to stop. The biggest of the lot, the one standing farthest forward, took a step closer, and only then did the noise die down a little. He was clearly their leader. He scowled down at the man who lay on the ground with both arms severed.
“Useless trash… Can’t even finish off one greenhorn in an ambush.”
“You should be thanking your stars that you failed. If this boy had been hurt, not one of you would have walked away alive.”
Yeo U-hui, who had been listening quietly, let out a short snort of laughter and shot the remark back at him. The leader’s brow twitched hard; the pressure rolling off him grew even uglier.
“You’re awfully arrogant, aren’t you? Looking at you, I’d say you belong to some famous sect… Which is it? The Heavenly Martial Alliance?”
“I don’t see any reason I should tell the likes of you. From the cheap tricks you’re pulling, you don’t even look like proper Demonic Path people—just common street thugs.”
“We were only trying to keep things simple and clean. Isn’t it natural to go after the side that already has what we want?”
As he spoke, the leader’s eyes settled on Yoo Eunhyeon, who still held the Tiger-Eye Stone. They clearly had no intention of walking away empty-handed.
“How about we settle this nicely? The only one hurt so far is our guy, after all.”
He glanced at the fallen companion, then casually prodded him a few times with his foot and rolled him over. The others snickered at the sight; it was plain they had no plans of treating the wound.
“Both hands are gone, so even if we patched him up he’d be useless. Treatment would cost more than he’s worth. Let’s just call it payment for medical expenses, yeah? You’ve got confidence in your skill, sure, but take a look—our numbers aren’t exactly small. Think you can handle every last one of us alone? We only need to succeed once. You make a single mistake and the damage will be huge.”
Judging by the way they treated their own downed man, a few more deaths here would not bother them in the slightest.
“Hmm. So that’s why you’re so full of yourselves?”
Even under the threat, Yeo U-hui stayed utterly relaxed. At that moment Yoo Eunhyeon tugged at her sleeve.
“Auntie… why don’t we just give it to them?”
In truth the level of these men was nothing Yoo Eunhyeon himself couldn’t handle, which meant Yeo U-hui could certainly scatter them with ease. The problem was their sheer numbers. Something unexpected could still go wrong, and rather than take that risk he thought it better simply to hand the stone over.
Yeo U-hui seemed to take his words in an entirely different light.
“Why? Are you scared?”
“No, it isn’t that, but…”
Besides, the Tiger-Eye Stone was something he had received for free from Sa Unsik; he felt no real attachment to it.
“Yesterday we talked about the Righteous Path and the Demonic Path, remember? These ones fall under what the world calls the Demonic Path. No doubt they’re the sort who swagger around the back alleys of Jinan.”
“Yes…”
“But we said we walk the Middle Path, didn’t we? We’re right in the middle. We keep the basic human decencies… but unlike the Righteous Path, there are times when we don’t care about appearances and just do what needs doing.”
With that, Yeo U-hui held out her hand. Understanding at once, Yoo Eunhyeon took out the Tiger-Eye Stone and placed it in her palm.
The moment the prize they wanted actually appeared, greed sharpened in the men’s eyes. The air grew even more explosive.
“Here. Take it. The owner says just hand it over, so I suppose I have to go along, right?”
Yeo U-hui smiled sweetly and tossed the Tiger-Eye Stone toward the nearest man.
The stone arced high, then fell under gravity—yet the distance was exactly one step short of the man’s reach.
Anyone who thought for half a second would know a martial artist like Yeo U-hui would never make such a mistake. She had neither thrown it especially fast nor especially hard; there was no reason it should fall short.
The man closest to it, however, never considered that. He simply stepped forward to snatch the stone out of the air.
“I only said I’d give it. I never said I’d let you take it however you liked.”
A thin smile curved Yeo U-hui’s lips as her sword moved faster than the eye could follow.
“Dodge!”
The leader roared the warning, but it was already too late. Yeo U-hui’s blade, aimed at the man who had leaned forward to grab the stone, punched straight through his thigh.
“Gyaaaah!”
The man screamed at the top of his lungs, collapsed under the shock, and fainted on the spot.
This time the others could not simply stand by; they hurriedly wrapped the wound in his thigh. From the way they were stopping the bleeding, at least he would not die.
“A cowardly sneak attack!”
Coming from a dozen-odd men ganging up on two people, the complaint was almost laughable.
“I always treat cowards with cowardice. So? What now? Want to try taking it again?”
Yeo U-hui only smirked, completely unmoved by the accusation. She even waggled her sword tip toward the Tiger-Eye Stone still lying on the ground, as if inviting them to come and claim it if they could.
Whatever had become of their earlier bluster, the men could only stare at the stone while stealing nervous glances at Yeo U-hui, frozen in place. They had not seen her cut off the first man’s hands during the ambush on Yoo Eunhyeon, but the single stroke they had just witnessed with their own eyes made it plain she was no ordinary opponent.
Still, the Tiger-Eye Stone lay glittering on the ground, almost taunting them; walking away empty-handed was hard to accept.
“Surround them.”
In the end the leader could not give up. He raised a hand, and the rest of the group began to edge around until they formed a loose circle around Yeo U-hui and Yoo Eunhyeon. The slowly tightening ring was genuinely menacing.
“Should I help?”
Yoo Eunhyeon asked, but Yeo U-hui only patted his shoulder as if to say not to worry. Far from feeling threatened, she seemed completely unbothered by the situation.
“This might sound like bragging, but this isn’t my first time dealing with something like this. Up until twenty years ago there were plenty of men who tried to pull stunts. Do you know what happened to them every single time?”
Yoo Eunhyeon shook his head. At that exact moment the encircling men charged in as one.
They were at least skilled enough to use numbers as a real threat; their movements were tightly coordinated, leaving almost no openings. Simultaneous attacks this seamless should have been difficult to counter—yet even then Yeo U-hui simply closed her eyes for a fraction of a second.
Light flashed.
Clang-clang-clang!
“Aaaaargh!”
The ring of steel on steel and the screams erupted together. Different sounds, but one identical result: every man who had rushed in lost his momentum and staggered back.
Yoo Eunhyeon lifted his head at the noise and immediately understood why the sounds had been so varied. More than half the attackers now clutched bleeding cuts on arms and shoulders; the rest were unharmed but had dropped their weapons, which now lay scattered across the ground.
“Ugh… Sh-she’s a First-class master…”
“First-class, Second-class—that isn’t what matters. You need to be able to tell whether the other person is stronger than you or not. Otherwise you’ll never last in this line of work. Ordinarily I wouldn’t leave alive people who couldn’t even block a single exchange properly, but since I’m with my nephew today I kept it light. If you don’t want a real massacre, turn around and leave. There won’t be a third time.”
The leader gritted his teeth, yet enough pride remained for him to bite out one last demand.
“If you are a true martial artist, state your name fairly!”
“Oh? Still got some spine even in this situation? Did it never cross your mind that I might simply kill you all?”
“If we die, we die. We cannot simply swallow this humiliation.”
“What, planning revenge? Doesn’t matter to me. Whether a hundred people or a hundred and one are after my head, it’s all the same. If you want more, come find the Outer Chief of the Uiseon Suga—Yeo U-hui.”
Completely uncowed, Yeo U-hui squared her shoulders and announced her name with pride.
“Uiseon Suga… one of the Seven Great Families of Wulin?”
This time it was the other side that reeled in shock. The moment the name Uiseon Suga left her lips, whatever fighting spirit the leader still had drained from his face, turning it paper-white. Seeing the look of “I thought so” on Yeo U-hui’s face, he spun around in a panic.
“W-we’re leaving.”
It looked far more like an undignified scramble than a dignified withdrawal, but simply being allowed to flee was already more luck than they deserved.
“Wh-what…?”
While Yeo U-hui watched them go as though it were the most natural thing in the world, Yoo Eunhyeon could only stare in mild confusion. An opponent who had refused to lose his spirit even on the brink of death had crumbled the instant he heard the name Uiseon Suga; the reaction was hard to process.
“My mother’s family is that famous?”
“I told you, didn’t I? Whether you look at it subjectively or objectively, that’s how it is.”
Yeo U-hui smiled lightly, but of course the reality still had not fully sunk in for Yoo Eunhyeon. Since he would learn soon enough once they arrived, she saw no need to explain further. Instead she bent down and picked up the Tiger-Eye Stone that had started the whole mess.
As she did, Yoo Eunhyeon let out a small sigh of relief.
“At least it ended safely. We were lucky.”
“Which of us? Us or them?”
“Uh… both sides, maybe?”
Was it luck that Yoo Eunhyeon, the one who had been robbed, came through unharmed? Or was it luck that the bandits who had been reckless enough to attack Yeo U-hui escaped with their lives? He had tossed the answer out without much thought, figuring both parties had been a little fortunate, but Yeo U-hui shook her head.
“Nothing changed for us, so we’re the same as before. The lucky ones are them. If the people they had targeted had been from the Righteous Path instead of us, at least half of them would be dead right now.”
“Really?”
“Righteous Path martial artists usually leave ordinary people alone, but when it comes to other martial artists—especially Demonic Path ones—they tend to be merciless. Of course not all of them are like that, but these days everything is about factional power struggles, and no one is going to spare a bunch of thieves.”
“Is the conflict between the Righteous and Demonic Paths that serious?”
“Thirty years ago there was a huge clash called the Pagyeop Blood Catastrophe. The Righteous and Demonic Paths nearly wiped each other out completely.”
Yeo U-hui gave him a brief account of the Pagyeop Blood Catastrophe. Yoo Eunhyeon’s eyes widened.
“And they’re still fighting after that?”
“They are. No clear winner yet. All that happened is that the grudges on both sides ran even deeper. Still, the Pagyeop Blood Catastrophe did teach both sides one thing for certain.”
“What’s that?”
When Yoo Eunhyeon asked again, Yeo U-hui casually rubbed the dirt from the Tiger-Eye Stone she had picked up and tossed it back to him. He caught it automatically; she continued.
“That if they keep fighting like this, the entire martial world will simply destroy itself.”