The Red Dragon Gang
After concluding the negotiations, Cheonhwa returned to his companions and explained everything that had transpired.
"I can understand them bolting the moment they heard we were coming, but the Dragon King of the Yangtze Waterway Sect himself came to propose an alliance?"
Myeonghwa and the others stared at Cheonhwa in open astonishment.
Who would have imagined that the leader of one of the great unorthodox sects of the Six Tyrant Coalition would show up in person with such an offer?
"Could it be that the Yangtze Waterway Sect is in rather dire straits?"
Having heard the account, Jeokhwa offered her assessment.
"Ordinarily, problems of this sort are handled quietly, without letting a whisper reach the outside world. That is how one preserves face."
"Yet the Dragon King freely admitted he has no room to spare."
"Which is precisely why I suspect the danger is severe enough that he is willing to set pride aside and bow his head."
He might present a leisurely front at every turn, yet that very composure could be a mask meant to conceal turmoil within his own ranks.
"Hmm. My take is a little different."
Myeonghwa put forward another view.
"I can't help wondering whether proposing cooperation to Junior Brother Cheonhwa was itself a calculated move."
"What do you mean by that?"
"As Junior Brother Cheonhwa well knows, alliances between sects are usually brokered fastest through the leadership. Just as the Green Forest King once did."
Yet the Dragon King had not sought out the main mountain of Zhongnan. He had approached Cheonhwa instead.
Did that choice not suggest some intent beyond simple cooperation with the Zhongnan Sect?
"The problem is, I have no idea what that purpose might be. We simply don't have enough clues."
Myeonghwa stroked his chin, muttering that the other party's true thoughts remained utterly opaque.
"This humble one is more troubled by whether we ought to accept the Yangtze Waterway Sect's proposal at all."
Listening quietly until then, Yeobhwa raised a different concern.
"To this humble one's senses, the Yangtze Waterway Sect's intervention arriving precisely as the Red Dragon Gang fled feels far too convenient."
"You mean they may have some other scheme in mind?"
"Indeed. It seems more plausible that the Red Dragon Gang and the Yangtze Waterway Sect are colluding to lure us into a trap."
Yeobhwa's words certainly carried weight.
Considering the other party belonged to the unorthodox path, the possibility was real enough.
Yet Yeonhwa, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
"I don't think that's it."
"Why not, Junior Sister Yeonhwa?"
"If they meant to kill us, they wouldn't have needed to borrow a meeting place through the Beggars' Guild."
The man was a Super Expert, and the chief of the Yangtze Waterway Sect, one of the Six Tyrant Coalition.
Had he truly intended to wipe them out, he could simply have brought his men and attacked.
"So perhaps he really is short of forces, and that is all there is to it."
Each of them held a different opinion.
Cheonhwa listened to every view and sank into thought.
He could not yet know for what purpose the Dragon King had approached them.
Yet the man had also offered to aid them in order to earn their trust, and that much, at least, appeared genuine.
There is only one decision we can make right now. What to do with the opportunity the Dragon King is offering.
Even if they rejected the chance, no particular harm would come to them.
But the thought of losing what might be their only chance to catch the Red Dragon Gang weighed on him.
If we leave the Red Dragon Gang alone, they will surely resume their crimes somewhere else.
Capturing them here, if possible, would reduce the harm they could inflict in the future.
After long deliberation, Cheonhwa reached his conclusion.
"For now, let us see what opportunity the Dragon King intends to give us. We can decide after that; it will not be too late."
What sort of opportunity would the Dragon King provide?
It was a question that held the interest of Cheonhwa and every member of the party alike.
Before long, they learned exactly what that opportunity was.
Damn it all. How did everything get so tangled?
The Red Dragon Gang's leader ground his teeth as the thought burned through him.
This whole mess started because the Chief spouted that insane nonsense!
Every problem had begun with a single declaration from the overall chief of the Yangtze Waterway Sect—the Dragon King.
The Dragon King had said:
Stop the river piracy. Leave the unorthodox path and reform into a righteous alliance.
Even now it sounds completely mad.
They had joined the Yangtze Waterway Sect precisely so they could plunder the rivers. If they abandoned piracy, what reason remained to stay?
Has the Chief lost his mind? There has never been a better time for river piracy than right now.
The orthodox factions were distracted by the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, the Jiangshi invasion, and a dozen other crises; they had no strength to spare.
As for the military garrisons, so long as the grain transport ships went untouched, they paid no attention to small fry like them.
And lately, demonic arts have been all the rage among the unorthodox martial artists.
A cultivation method that let a man grow stronger simply by killing and absorbing the energy of his victims.
To any unorthodox fighter, it was the martial path of their dreams.
Even the Red Dragon Gang's leader had obtained and practiced the demonic arts himself.
To make the most of those arts, I even set river piracy aside for a while and settled on land.
Of course he never meant to remain ashore forever.
He had planned only to drain what he could through the winter, then return to the rivers as a pirate once more.
But who could have expected the orthodox factions to launch a full-scale purge?
A sudden strike from the very forces he had assumed would remain quiet and drained of strength.
Worse still, the one closing in on them was the Flash Sword Dragon—the foremost rising star of the orthodox path, a Peak Expert despite his youth.
First-class fighters I could handle. A Peak Expert is another matter entirely.
The Red Dragon Gang's leader knew his own measure well.
Without hesitation he gathered his men and fled onto the waterways that cut through Ankang.
Thanks to that swift decision, he and every member of the Red Dragon Gang escaped intact.
Even a rising star of the orthodox path cannot cross open water so easily.
He intended simply to drift the nearby channels until the Zhongnan disciples left.
If they showed any sign of settling in for a long stay, he would simply vanish somewhere else.
Time is on our side!
Yet events refused to follow the Red Dragon Gang leader's expectations.
"Chief—no, Gang Leader! Disaster!"
"What is it?"
"Ships flying the colors of the Yangtze Waterway Sect have appeared ahead!"
"What? Those bastards have the leisure to come all the way out here?"
At his subordinate's report the Red Dragon Gang's leader went pale and scanned the surroundings.
Sure enough, vessels of a familiar design rode the water, and at the stern of one stood a man he knew all too well.
The instant he confirmed the face, the Red Dragon Gang's leader spat the name like a curse.
"The Chief…!"
"W-what do we do?"
"That coward would never show his face in a fight he cannot win! We run!"
Terror seized the Red Dragon Gang's leader at once, and he chose flight without a second thought.
Fortunately the Dragon King did not pursue them to the bitter end, and they escaped unharmed.
"Hah… looks like he doesn't know these channels well. Or maybe he never meant to chase us all the way."
"Gang Leader, what now?"
"This is no time to panic. Before, maybe not—but now that I have mastered demonic arts, we have a chance!"
The Red Dragon Gang's leader shouted the words.
More precisely, he wanted to believe them.
The man opposite him might be a coward, yet he was no ordinary coward.
No one alive better understood which fights to take and which to flee; that man was the Dragon King.
For such a man to press the attack so aggressively meant he had some scheme in play.
If we fight him now, we are certain to come out the worse for it.
How many times had he watched the same pattern while serving under the Yangtze Waterway Sect?
Meeting the Dragon King unprepared was never a contest one could win.
"…But we are not yet ready. We hold off any clash with the Dragon King for as long as possible."
We could win if we fought, yet nothing is certain, so we gather our strength first.
With excuses of that sort, the Red Dragon Gang's leader chose flight once more.
Given that the entire group had fled the moment they heard the renown of Cheonhwa's party, the decision was almost inevitable.
Yet it was not long before the Red Dragon Gang's leader realized how badly he had misjudged.
From that day forward the Dragon King appeared at every hour, harrying the Red Dragon Gang without rest.
"Why the hell is that madman suddenly throwing himself at us like this? Do we look easy? Easy?!"
The Red Dragon Gang's leader tore at his hair in fury, but rage did nothing to stop the Dragon King's raids.
"We cannot go on like this. We leave the waters around Ankang and find a new base. Stay here and we'll be bled dry!"
"Understood, Gang Leader!"
His subordinates supported the choice with enthusiasm.
After all, it was not only the leader who suffered.
Every man sharing the decks had been tormented by the Dragon King and his faction just the same.
Better to flee far away than endure this any longer.
Having reached that judgment, they turned south along the Han River's channels…
"G-Gang Leader? It looks like the Yangtze Waterway Sect is blocking the waterway."
"I have eyes. I can see that."
Perhaps even the strength to rage had left him; the Red Dragon Gang's leader muttered in a hollow voice.
While the Dragon King chased them in endless circles through the channels near Ankang, a portion of the Yangtze Waterway Sect had sealed every exit.
I chose wrong. Instead of clinging to useless pride, I should have abandoned Ankang from the first and fled anywhere at once.
He could not understand how men who claimed to have no strength left could still move like this.
One fact alone was certain: if things continued, the Red Dragon Gang would be destroyed.
"Gang Leader, our provisions are nearly gone."
"How are they already empty? We stocked plenty when we left Ankang!"
"Harried by the Chief, we handed out food freely to keep the men calm. That is the root of it. If we do not put in somewhere and restock, there will be trouble."
The subordinate's report twisted the Red Dragon Gang leader's face into a grimace.
Stay as they were and they would starve—or the starving men would mutiny.
He had to find a way before either came to pass.
"First we raid the nearest village for food. Survival plans come after that."
The Red Dragon Gang's leader chose a desperate measure.
Landing ashore under present conditions was extremely dangerous.
A single misstep while disembarking could see them annihilated.
Yet they had no choice but to accept the risk.
The Red Dragon Gang put ashore near a village and moved to plunder it…
"Gang Leader, something is wrong. Is the village not far too quiet?"
Just as the man said, the place was unnaturally still.
Worse—there was no human presence at all.
Even a small village without a single living soul was strange.
If the settlement had simply died out long ago, that would have made sense.
Yet the traces left behind proved people had been living there until very recently.
"It can't be…?"
A chill crawled down the Red Dragon Gang leader's spine.
Even the dullest man could sense danger when it filled his bones.
The Dragon King personally tormenting him.
The deliberate dragging of time until their food ran out.
The empty village they had come to plunder.
Every event of the past several days linked into a single chain.
And that chain pointed to only one conclusion.
"It's a trap! Back to the ships—now!"
But by the time he understood, it was already far too late.
"Aaaargh!"
A scream tore through the air.
When the Red Dragon Gang's leader snapped his gaze toward the sound, five Taoist martial artists stood watching them.
And among them, one figure drew every eye.
A young Taoist in a white robe embroidered with cloud patterns, a jade-colored wooden sword in his hand.
That young Taoist was the very man the Red Dragon Gang's leader had been so desperate to avoid.
"Flash Sword Dragon?!"
Like a death-bringer that pursued a soul no matter how far it fled, the Red Dragon Gang's leader understood that his end had come for him at last.