Anti-Dragon King Faction (6)
Unlike the front of the Yangtze Waterway Sect fleet, where ramming tactics sent hulls smashing into one another and shipboard combat raged without pause, the rear was relatively quiet.
That was only natural. The Anti-Dragon King Faction’s offensive had stalled at the vanguard, and no matter how hard they pressed, they could not break through the middle. So the rear remained comparatively loose and unguarded.
And that was precisely what some of them intended to exploit.
In the waters behind the Yangtze Waterway Sect’s formation, human silhouettes rose one by one from the river. A special detachment, prepared by the Anti-Dragon King Faction for a strike at the rear.
—Execute the operation as planned.
Jeok Muho, the detachment’s commander, issued the order by voice transmission. At his command the unit prepared its work against the ships at the stern.
Their goal was simple: sink the vessels in the rear. Without ships, the Anti-Dragon King Faction would suffer—but so would the Yangtze Waterway Sect. And if the righteous forces of Shaanxi lost their foothold, the entire board would tilt against them. Chaos would scatter their strength. It was more than killing two birds with one stone; it was three gains from a single blow.
BOOM!
Compressed scorching yang energy erupted, setting the rearmost ships ablaze. The flames, kindled by the surprise attack, raced across the decks and should have thrown everyone aboard into panic.
That was what should have happened.
…What?
Even with fire raging, no one came bursting out. It was as if the ships were empty.
Don’t tell me…?!
An ugly possibility flashed through Jeok Muho’s mind. Had they anticipated the ambush and deliberately emptied the vessels at the rear?
He almost thought he heard a woman’s sly laughter at his ear—the beautiful strategist who called herself Yongwang’s Left-hand. That fox of a woman might well have guessed this move and withdrawn their forces from the stern in advance.
—Captain, what do we do?
His men had sensed that something was wrong as well; their voice transmissions carried a note of unease. Jeok Muho kept his expression under control and gave the order.
—We go in as planned.
Failing to inflict casualties was a pity, but burning the ships still counted. If they simply fed the fire from the rear and erased the enemy fleet, the trade remained profitable.
Once the ships are burning, they’ll have no choice but to come out whether they want to or not.
They had not created the chaos they had planned for—but that was only a disappointment, not a defeat. If anything, the real fight was only beginning.
Jeok Muho and his subordinates wrapped themselves in demonic barriers of internal energy and climbed onto the burning decks. They were about to spread the flames to the neighboring ships when something snagged on Jeok Muho’s senses.
A wave of sword wind, hurtling straight toward them. An ambush, as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.
“Hup—!”
Jeok Muho raised the heat of the Cheonyang-singong and blocked the sword wind. White mist and a sharp crack of sound bloomed where scorching heat met freezing cold.
This is yin cold energy?
The chill unique to ice arts—the natural opposite of extreme yang—pressed against him. And the edge riding that current was no ordinary sharpness. Had Jeok Muho not intercepted it, several of his men would have been gravely wounded, or lost their heads on the spot.
You don’t reach that level on talent alone. You have to spend years refining the fundamentals.
He turned his gaze toward the direction the sword wind had come from—and when he saw who stood there, he doubted his own eyes.
A young female Taoist.
She doesn’t even look past twenty. Did that girl really unleash the sword wind I just blocked?
Those born with exceptional senses or raw talent tended to share one flaw: they neglected the basics. Their skill climbed so easily that they preferred new arts and flashy techniques over the tedious work of polishing foundations. Most never found the time for it at all.
How does someone her age already possess fundamentals this solid?
His question did not last long. The young woman was not alone in barring the detachment’s path.
The clash of cold and heat briefly scoured the flames away—and through that opening, righteous martial artists poured in as if they had been waiting for the signal. Exactly as Jeok Muho had half-feared, the Shaanxi righteous side had moved to answer the threat.
They’ve walked into their own graves.
The detachment had been hand-picked from the Anti-Dragon King Faction’s First-class experts, and the power of their demonic arts put them near the threshold of Peak Expert. Against ordinary rising talents of the righteous path, he was confident they could carve them apart with ease.
“There’s no need for you to step in, Captain.”
“We’ll handle this.”
His subordinates clearly shared the thought; they spoke with easy confidence. Jeok Muho snorted a laugh.
“I’ll take the female Taoist. Clean up the rest while I do.”
At his command the detachment moved to meet the righteous fighters charging them. Jeok Muho likewise unfurled his movement art and closed on the young woman.
Not explosive, but light and fluid. Step by flowing step he closed the distance in an instant, heat of the Cheonyang-singong gathered in both palms as he unleashed a palm technique. Heat haze warped the air and left a dense trail—power no one could mistake at a glance.
Yeonhwa answered in kind. Freezing energy swirled along her blade and poured outward; cold flooded the space around the sword as if she meant to seize the entire field. The chill that blanketed the area blocked Jeok Muho’s advance.
He shoved it aside with scorching yang energy as if it were a joke—yet he could not clear all of the widespread cold. The moment even a fraction of that yin cold energy touched him, his face twisted.
What is this? The cold is boring in as if it were using some kind of invasive soft force!
If he had not canceled it with yang energy, a direct hit would have frozen his meridians solid. He wrapped himself in a barrier of scorching yang to keep the chill at bay. White steam rose from his whole body where cold and heat met and veiled his sight, but that was better than internal injury. He would make do with senses and spiritual awareness.
With his vision obscured by steam, three presences closed at terrifying speed.
So spreading the yin cold energy that wide was for this?
Blind him with steam, then press with numbers. An effective plan—but its worth depended entirely on the opponent. Jeok Muho detonated the heat surrounding him, blasting the obscuring cold away and striking all three approaching signatures at once.
BOOM!
A searing gale tore through the surroundings with a violent roar and cleared his sight. What he saw in the open space was something alien.
What in the world…?
Three martial artists stood before him. Two men, one woman. One of them fought bare-handed, like a pugilist. But that was not what mattered.
They should have been hurled away by the blast of heat. Instead they stood unharmed—and more than that, the heat of the Cheonyang-singong was coiled around their swords and arms.
The three Taoists—Myeonghwa, Jeokhwa, and Yeobhwa—turned that scorching yang energy straight back at him. The Twenty-second Form of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven: Flash Across the Heavens.
“Damn it…!”
Faced with three streams of sword wind crashing toward him, Jeok Muho spat a curse by pure reflex and raised a wave of force. The currents collided and canceled in midair; hot vapor boiled up and warped the space around them.
Having barely blocked the attack, he glared at the four young Taoists.
They’re not rushing me.
He had expected them to press while he was defending. Instead they simply reset their stances.
Lucky, or just sharp-eyed?
Either way, the counter form he had prepared for a charge was now useless.
And that last technique—they knew I would have no choice but to block it.
The scorching yang of the Cheonyang-singong was devastating, as befit a demonic art—but it also burned the user. Even a Peak Expert like Jeok Muho had to handle it with care. That attack had felt as if they understood the fact perfectly.
So this is what it means to become a Peak Expert and still get pushed around by juniors.
A vast wall stood between Peak Expert and First-class. Crossing it was never easy; only a rotating assault by several First-class fighters offered any real chance.
But these four are different. They feel far too accustomed to fighting someone above their rank.
His guess was exact. Yeonhwa, Myeonghwa, Jeokhwa, and Yeobhwa had sparred against a Peak Expert many times already—Cheonhwa, the sole Peak Expert among the third-generation disciples and the foremost among the Hua-character generation.
I can win. It will simply take time.
And time was precisely their aim.
They mean to hold until reinforcements arrive.
First-class fighters joining forces to stall a Peak Expert until another Peak Expert could come—that was a classic approach against a superior opponent.
But that only works when the situation favors them.
They were on a ship’s deck in the middle of a chaotic free-for-all. If support could reach the righteous side, it could reach him as well.
And the fastest support available will come from the fighting right around us.
If his detachment crushed the righteous martial artists and linked up with him, it would only be a matter of time. Watching the four with one part of his attention, he swept the battlefield with his senses—and what he found made him reel inwardly with shock.
What… is going on?
He could scarcely believe what was unfolding before him.
My detachment is being pushed back?
They had the massive internal power and potent techniques of demonic arts. How were they being handled so helplessly?
This isn’t a fight—it’s a hunt!
Not an even clash, but a one-sided rout that looked more like predators running down prey. The unexpected scene froze Jeok Muho for a heartbeat—and the four did not miss the opening.
Cold spread and wrapped the space. A swift sword, riding a surge of heat, shot in. Jeok Muho wrapped himself in heat again and swung a fist to bat the blade aside—only for a longsword to slip in and gently divert the blow, followed at once by a crushing fist loaded with fierce Balgyeong.
Their coordinated assault locked him in as neatly as a net. To Jeok Muho, the fact was pure humiliation.
I can’t even kill four First-class fighters? Me—a Peak Expert?
One-on-one he could have beaten any of them to death in moments. They knew it too. They never faced him alone. Always four, always in perfect rhythm. The longer the exchange dragged on, the hotter the fury boiled in his gut.
Fine. If that’s what you want—I’ll kill you!
He drew his demonic energy to its extreme and, through pure intent, reinforced the ultimate form of the Cheonyang-singong.
Yanggwang-mancheon
Heat compressed to its absolute limit erupted all at once. Like a dawn rising, it began to swallow the entire area in searing fire.