9. The Hebei Paeng Clan
A hand wreathed in violet qi clashed with a saber trailing a faint golden glow.
CLANG!!!
"Kgh…!"
Yet of the two, it was the saber-wielding man who was driven back. It was a foregone conclusion — the qi dwelling within them had been different from the very start. At his current level, he could not beat Wiji Cheon.
Could he win if he unleashed the Five Tigers Gate-Severing Saber in its complete form? No — most likely not. The art might be the saber style that represented the Paeng Clan, but if its wielder's level was too low, he could not wield it properly to begin with. And if he responded with the art mangled past all recognition, it would mean certain defeat.
CLANG!KANG!!!KAAANG!!!
Palm edge and saber clashed on and on, and unable to so much as contest strength, he was driven back step by step, saber and all. There was no time. The only thing that could turn this situation around was the saber art of his main family — the very art he had hated and cursed all his life.
"Khh…!"
Pushed back and back with nothing to show for it, the man changed his stance.
……
Wiji Cheon studied the suddenly altered stance, and understood perfectly well what it meant.
"See? Knew you had the real thing in you."
"GRAAAAH!!!"
The man loosed a beastly shriek and hurled himself at him.
1st Form — Fierce Tiger Exits the Forest
What unfolded was not the shattered Paeng Clan saber art whose form could scarcely be recognized, but the Paeng Clan's art whole. Saber in hand, he closed the distance at blistering speed and swept it in a horizontal arc — looking for all the world like a tiger bursting from the woods.
CLANG!!!
Scrrrape…!
Once again Wiji Cheon's palm edge met the saber, but this time the clash had climbed to a level where strength could at least be contested.
"Now that's almost worth watching. If you could use it properly all along, why were you holding back until now?"
"You… don't need to know…!"
Fwoosh!
As the contest of strength wore on, Wiji Cheon let his palm edge slide along the blade, deflecting the saber away. It ended up cleaving a great arc through empty air, and seizing that opening, he lashed out with his palm edge. It was hardly a technique at all — he simply poured his qi into the strike and let it fly.
Thwack!
"Kghk…?!"
The sensation of something plunging deep into his lower abdomen traveled unmistakably to his fingertips; flung backward, he barely managed to stab his saber into the earth, sparing himself the indignity of being slammed into the wall.
"Hoo… hoo…!"
The gap was stark. Even after drawing out the Five Tigers Gate-Severing Saber — the art he had so loathed to use — the difference remained overwhelming…
The man could do nothing but despair. He had dredged up even the remnants of the clan he so despised, and still he was no match at all. He had climbed, barely, to the Peak Realm… and still he was powerless. He had turned his back on the clan in disgust, and yet… nothing had changed.
"Giving up? Push any further and you might actually die."
Wiji Cheon asked him that much. He had held back in his strikes, having no intention to kill — but if the man would not stop, he really might die.
"Haah… mine was a life that never accomplished anything anyway. I can hardly live its final stretch as a quitter, can I?"
……
In his eyes, everything about the Chaos Primordial Pill — and his purpose of killing us — seemed entirely forgotten. He had evidently judged victory impossible, and was readying himself to burn his last moments for one final charge.
"Come at me. This is my last."
"…Go ahead, then."
In the end, Wiji Cheon took his stance as well. But this time there would be no leniency. He clenched his fist without reservation and gathered his strength. He had meant only to subdue the man and talk things over — but with him coming out like that, there was nothing for it but to meet him in earnest. His identity was the Sex Fiend, yet he was now also a martial artist.
If he survives, he might be worth taking in.
A force needed at least one iron-willed soul like that to run properly.
"My name is Paeng Sosan… and yours would be?"
"Wiji Cheon."
Only after a long bout did the two men finally exchange names. It was proof that each had acknowledged the other.
"Hngh…!"
Set in his stance, Paeng Sosan hardened his expression and charged once more.
3rd Form — Flying Tiger Crushes the Summit
Kicking off the earth, he shot into the air, drew together every last scrap of his internal energy, and brought the saber down as if to nail it through the ground. Having poured his all into it, its power surpassed any form Paeng Sosan had shown before. The only pity was that he had drawn the wrong opponent.
Wiji Cheon clenched his fist and set his stance. The fist pointed straight toward Paeng Sosan…
BOOM!!!
And he kicked off the ground and leapt.
Fist, 3rd Form — Armor-Piercing Awl
Unleashing once more the form that had finished off Yeon Seoryeon, he drove his fist out with the momentum to bore straight through the man's abdomen before he could even react.
WHAM!!!
"Kha— hahk…!"
Taking the fist squarely, Paeng Sosan flew off into the distance with the agony of his stomach being pierced, and slammed into a commercial building.
KRAAASH!!!
Rrrrumble…
Embedded in the building wall, unconscious, he still would not let go of the saber in his hand, gripping it fast even in oblivion.
…Grittier and more tenacious than I expected. I like him.
It called to mind his own past self, who had spent years of painstaking effort coveting the female masters who caught his eye before his regression. Of course, Wiji Cheon could not know how many years the man had poured into it… but the flavor was much the same. Charging in like that, knowing he might die, was worthy of praise in itself.
"Ah, looks like it's finally over."
Just then, Yeon Hayeong, who had been waiting behind, came over.
There was a light spatter of blood on her face, and behind her, people lay sprawled in sorry heaps. Most were gasping for breath or flinching where they lay — it seemed none of them were dead.
"So you drew the line at subduing them all."
"Yep! Figured our scrub would throw a fit, so I only gave them a little tap!"
She thrust out her chest and planted both hands on her hips, practically vibrating. Anyone could see she was angling for praise.
Pat, pat…
In the end, he reached out and stroked her head.
"Hey! Why are you petting me…! Do I look like someone who wants to be praised or something?!"
……
That was exactly what it looked like to anyone with eyes. She hopped up and down in a fury, but at her height there was only so much hopping could accomplish.
"Grrr…! How does a scrub get to be this tall?!"
"…Born this way. What can I say."
Wiji Cheon stood a good two meters tall, while she barely cleared one hundred and fifty centimeters. Unless she burned internal energy, out-jumping him was never going to happen.
Leaving the girl to her furious hopping, he went over to Paeng Sosan, still embedded in the wall. Cleaning up came first, after all.
The wooden box holding the elixir had been taken from a man who had been hiding quietly nearby.
He even had a Camouflage Cloak on him… thoroughly prepared, it seems.
The reason he had been able to vanish so abruptly was the Camouflage Cloak, an artifact crafted by mages. It dyed itself in colors close to the surrounding environment at the cost of draining the wearer's internal energy or mana — so with his internal energy spent, he had been able to hide his body, but at the moment of discovery he had failed to blend into his surroundings.
Judging by how it even masked his presence to a degree, it was no mass-produced trinket.
That alone showed how much effort they had poured into this affair. There were still questions left unanswered… but those could simply be asked in person now.
With the wooden box tucked into his coat, he opened the door and stepped into the office. It had the shabby look of a detective agency, and Paeng Sosan sat quietly within, his abdomen wrapped in bandages.
"Looks like you've mended."
"Aye… I truly thought I was a dead man, but thankfully my gut wasn't pierced through. Nothing worse than a severe bruise beneath the skin."
He had not pulled his strikes. And yet the reason the man could sit here talking now was…
"I trained in a separate body-protection art, you see."
"Aye, once you truly believe you're about to die, you start thinking you have to use everything you've got."
He could not tell what manner of protective art it was, but inferring from the man's origins, it was clearly of the Paeng Clan. The Hebei Paeng Clan was seated in the Central Plains — so why was he here?
"You're wondering why a Paeng is in a place like this, aren't you?"
"It'd be a lie to say I'm not."
"Bwahaha! Good — honesty suits you."
Paeng Sosan laughed heartily and went on.
"I'm no longer a man of the Hebei Paeng Clan. The only reason I still carry the surname is that there are things I cannot erase, however much I might wish to."
"…The clan wouldn't have sat still, though. If you learned the inherited family arts, bloodline or not, they would surely have moved to kill you for fear of them leaking."
From the moment he had glimpsed the traces of the Five Tigers Gate-Severing Saber, he had known the man was of the direct bloodline. The Paeng Clan was not merciful enough to suffer one who had learned the clan's martial arts to run off as he pleased — and if it was the inherited family art, all the more so. After all, this was a sect stricter than the Divine Cult, and in some cases crueler. Not every member was so, but the sense of entitlement carried by most of the great sects' people remained uncorrected.
"The orthodox sects are already rotting through. An excessively strong sense of privilege is gnawing them hollow."
……
He hadn't known in his previous life, but the orthodox side seemed to be in dire straits. For a scion of the Paeng Clan to slip free of his own clan, things must be grave.
In truth, even in the days when I had walked the world as the Sex Fiend, it had been anything but peaceful. It had merely ended with everyone wounded, at the bitter end. Several of the women I had been entangled with in that process were slain as well, leaving nothing but bitterness on every count.
Shielding them along the way wouldn't be a bad thing.
For beautiful female masters to perish so meaninglessly on a battlefield would be a national loss — a calamity.
"So you grew disillusioned with what they'd become, and walked out?"
"That's about the size of it… though look how it ended."
He was getting on in years, yet his skill remained meager, and all he led was a small crew of street punks. It seemed he had smuggled the elixir in with his own two hands, meaning to take it himself. After all, his own strength was the road to his crew's strength.
"What will you do now?"
"…What else is there? Go back to smuggling, same as ever, and get by."
He answered with a certain nonchalance… but a bleak undercurrent ran beneath it.
"The Sun Moon Sect won't take this lying down, will they?"
……
At the mention of the Sun Moon Sect, Paeng Sosan clamped his mouth shut and went as still as a strangled mouse. He knew it too. He had merely been trying to let it slide, knowing all the while…
"There will be bastards who learn the elixir fell into your hands… Do you have the confidence to survive among them?"
"…It'd be a lie to say I do."
He would die. No question. Forget the Sun Moon Sect — he wouldn't even hold off the small and mid-sized sects camped around this area, and die he would.
"You know it well. Keep on this path, and all that waits is a dog's death."
……
"So you'd best come with me."
"What?"
At my proposal, Paeng Sosan's eyes went round as saucers and he leaned his body forward.
"Did you not hear me?"
"No… of course I heard you, but this suddenly?"
"I need to grow my own people too, you see. In return, I'll pay you properly — and see your martial arts set right."
Even building his force around female masters, he could hardly fill every rank below with beauties. By his own standard of beauty, filling that many seats would be impossible even if the Earth's population grew tenfold or more.
Hoarding women indiscriminately is not my taste.
He hadn't the slightest intention of coveting women who stirred nothing in him. Weighed against all those conditions, Paeng Sosan was a remarkably fitting talent.
Hearing Wiji Cheon's proposal, Paeng Sosan deliberated for a moment.
"…If you'd do all that, I'd swear my loyalty readily enough — but what of yours would I be trusting? To begin with, I don't even know which sect you belong to."
"Hardly the hour to be sorting hot rice from cold, is it?"
As the talk stretched on, he drummed his fingers on the desk.
"Whatever you do, surviving comes first, no? And if I were one of the bad ones, I'd have killed every last one of you and made off with the elixir already."
……
"The choice is yours. Will you meet a pathetic death after all your trouble escaping the clan — or clutch at straws and live?"
Nothing mattered more than survival. Only with breath in your body could you scheme for tomorrow; however wretchedly, one had to live on.
"…Aye. Then I'll go with you."
"Good thinking. Staying alive comes first."
For now, Paeng Sosan had brought along those willing to follow him. Most had scattered, choosing flight — but those who seemed to have trained in the martial arts mostly chose to follow him.
"For now, head to the lodgings I've arranged and lie low until this blows over. I'll see you paid handsomely, so don't fret over your next meal."
"Understood, sir."
Paeng Sosan now addressed Wiji Cheon with formal respect as a matter of course. The man was younger than him, but his martial arts ran deeper… and above all, though they would walk together, it was all but the same as placing himself beneath him — so he had resolved on courtesy.
"By the way — might you tell me now which sect you belong to?"
"Ah, right. I suppose I can say it now."
He had been curious for some time now — just which sect on earth could a young master like this belong to? Given how cruel the woman he kept at his side was in her strikes, he was surely no orthodox man; yet he didn't seem to belong to the unorthodox sects either. The most likely answer was a lone inheritor roaming the whole world—
"I come from Mount Cheon. These days, I'm also the direct disciple of the Purple Stream Sex Fiend, one of the Seven Demons."
"…?"
Wiji Cheon said it without the slightest hitch, as naturally as breathing. But the weight those words carried was not something to be spoken so lightly.
Mount Cheon and the Seven Demons… and the Purple Stream Sex Fiend. Not one of those words could be let pass.
And the only ones who could speak such words without a flicker of hesitation were the Demonic Cult.
…Well, now. I seem to have fallen in with a far more dangerous man than I bargained for.
Only then did it occur to Paeng Sosan that, in trying to save his one miserable life, he had crawled into a tiger's den of his own free will.