The Absolute One's Warning
At the far edge of the Yunnan border, on a stretch of open plain.
A restless throng. A roar of beasts.
Bandits the size of houses and men leading packs of savage beasts locked eyes across the field, murder in their stares.
"Figures. They're crossing again today. The kind that come to dig up mountain greens."
"Hahaha! Look at those animals, boys! Looks like we're eating meat tonight!"
In only a few days the two camps had gone from skirmishes to open bloodlust, ready to start a war at the drop of a blade. The numbers alone already stood at six thousand. Add the beasts of the Beast Palace and the count climbed far higher.
Yet the Green Forest felt not a shred of fear. The mountains held just as many ferocious animals as the Beast Palace ever did. To live as a bandit in that kind of country, a man had to be able to take down a beast or two without breaking a sweat.
"Make way."
"Out of the way."
A rumble of movement. Two figures radiating a presence far beyond the rest strode forward from either side.
"It's been a while, Hwang Ju."
"Still alive, I see. Seop Jin-hong."
Seop Jin-hong, King of the Green Forest.
Hwang Ju, Beast King.
The two leaders took their places at the head of their forces and measured each other. Until a few days ago neither of them would have bothered coming in person. The reports had spoken of nothing more than light friction. But light friction had grown teeth. Elders from both sides had started dying. The matter had ballooned past any hope of control, and now both chieftains stood here.
"Listen, Seop Jin-hong. You need to educate your men better. Even the dumbest bandit ought to know the basic rule—you don't just walk into someone else's house."
"Keh-heh-heh. Did some beast chew a hole in our Beast King's skull? What kind of nonsense is that? We're the ones who should be saying it."
"This is why bandits are bandits… You invade our territory and then play the victim."
"Hey, Hwang Ju. Your side attacked first."
"You crossed the border. Getting attacked is the natural result, isn't it?"
"We never crossed any border."
"Bullshit."
Hwang Ju shook his head at Seop Jin-hong's claim. No matter how rough and lawless the martial artists of the Beast Palace might be, they did not cross into foreign ground to start trouble. He had drilled that lesson into them for years. Any fool who did cross the line and cause a scene got thrown to the beasts as feed while the rest of the family watched. And now they were supposed to believe his people had trespassed into Green Forest land? Impossible.
"We never even came down from the mountains."
"Ha! So because you never came down the mountain, you claim you never invaded?"
"Exactly."
Seop Jin-hong folded his arms and nodded. He was not inventing excuses. The Beast Palace's territory was the land itself, not the mountains. They never climbed the peaks and never managed them. The Green Forest, for its part, never descended to the foot of the range either. There was no reason to, and if they ever needed to leave the mountains they simply went the other way.
"And it's funny, really. Strictly speaking, this stretch isn't even your land anymore, is it?"
"What?"
"You lost it to the Blood Cult, and now you show up claiming to be the original owners? Hahaha! When did the Beast King turn into such a petty little man?"
"You son of a—"
A vein jumped on Hwang Ju's forehead. Losing the land to the Blood Cult already burned. Having it thrown in his face as mockery was more than he would swallow.
He raised one hand. The mass of beasts around him dropped into hunting crouches as one, drool stringing from their jaws.
"So you want to do this?"
Seop Jin-hong eyed the animals, then settled an axe larger than his own body across his shoulder with a heavy clank.
"Looks like today is the day history changes."
"On that we agree. The Green Forest is about to vanish from the murim."
"Keh-heh. You mean the Beast Palace is about to vanish."
Both kings tensed, bodies coiling to launch—
A scream of wind. A heavy impact.
Someone dropped out of the sky and landed squarely between them.
"What the hell?"
"Someone just came down…"
Seop Jin-hong and Hwang Ju narrowed their eyes at the rising cloud of dust. The ground here was nothing but dry earth; the impact had thrown a thick curtain of grit into the air.
A metallic ring. A low, animal whine.
"What?"
Every beast that had been radiating killing intent suddenly tucked its tail and began to tremble. The Beast King tilted his head. What had gotten into them?
The dust settled.
"These crazy bastards… both of them."
Baek Do-ha stood there, face twisted in pure irritation.
"H-huh?! Th-the Absolute One!"
"Hup!"
The moment they saw him, the two men who had been ready to charge each other sucked in a breath and stumbled backward. They had heard the rumors that Baek Do-ha had returned, but they had written them off as propaganda spread by the Western Continent and the Alliance Leader—convenient lies to keep the cult in check. Yet here he was, alive and whole.
"Have both of you lost your minds?"
Do-ha's gaze flicked from one to the other. Seop Jin-hong and Hwang Ju dipped their heads almost without thinking. It was not conscious respect. It was the terror carved into their bones decades ago by that damned emperor.
"Turning my head back and forth is a pain. Both of you, get over here."
He crooked a finger.
Silence. Both men stayed rooted, fidgeting.
"Huh?"
One of Do-ha's eyebrows climbed. These idiots were ignoring a direct order?
"Are both your ears clogged? Want me to clear them out with Un-jeop-bi-jang?"
"Ah—no, sir!"
"N-no!"
They scrambled forward. Seop Jin-hong dropped his axe; Hwang Ju left his beasts behind.
"You. Come here."
Do-ha turned his head toward a tiger the size of a passenger car—nearly SUV-class. The animal met his eyes, ears flattened, and padded over with extreme care.
"Sit."
It dropped. Do-ha immediately used the tiger as a chair.
"Are the two of you fighting because you want to die?"
"Ah—no!"
"Of course not!"
"Then why are you fighting? If you're that desperate for a scrap, I can give you one."
Both men looked away. As if anyone with a working brain would want to fight this lunatic emperor.
"No answer from either of you?"
"H-haha… We would never dare fight the Absolute One."
"Exactly! Completely out of the question."
"And yet you made me come all the way out here myself?"
Killing intent rolled outward. Both men swallowed hard. For a moment, after so long apart, they had almost believed the rumors that Do-ha had grown weaker. One look at that aura and the illusion shattered.
Damn it… Whoever started the rumor that he got weak—I'm going to tear that bastard apart.
Weaker? Say that in front of me and I'll feed you to the beasts on the spot.
For the briefest instant they had actually considered testing him. The killing intent made it clear: if they tried, they would not die cleanly.
"You two fighting is stressing Je-u out."
"W-we're not even part of the Martial Alliance…"
"When did I ever say you belonged to the Martial Alliance? Je-u manages the entire Eastern Continent, you son of a bitch. That's why I'm saying it."
"Hiiik!"
Do-ha lifted a hand. Seop Jin-hong flinched despite his massive frame.
"If you want to fight, just fight quietly between yourselves. Why drag every last man out here and make a circus of it?"
"Absolute One! I'm the one being wronged here!"
Hwang Ju thumped his own chest. The Absolute One would know the truth. This region had originally belonged to the Beast Palace. The Blood Cult had stolen it, yes, but the land still had a rightful master. And then these bandits had crept across the line and suddenly started claiming it as their own!
"Absolute One! We never came down from the mountains! You know how it works in the murim—most factions don't bother with the mountains in their own territory!"
"Why don't you try that argument at Mount Hua sometime?"
The Mount Hua Sect sat on the mountain itself; the entire peak was their domain. True, sects like the Jongnam Sect and the Wudang Sect had built their homes on open ground rather than peaks, but the majority of orthodox factions still centered themselves on mountains.
"Both of you shut up before I turn you into the next Janggang."
So Janggang already got hit.
Poor bastards. Already fish food.
Both men shook their heads. They had heard Janggang had been strutting around lately. Apparently that strutting had ended with them as fish food.
"Georyeoksan kept mouthing off to me until the end. I split him in half."
Tsk tsk. Idiot.
Come to think of it, that one had never actually met Baek Do-ha before, had he?
Ah, well. Of all the people to put in the chief's seat, they had chosen a man who had never experienced Baek Do-ha. His death had been written the moment he opened his mouth.
"You two are going to be cooperative, right?"
"Of course!"
"Absolutely!"
They nodded with frantic energy. They had known Baek Do-ha since childhood. They understood exactly how to behave.
"Ahh, if only Georyeoksan had listened as well as you two. Would've been so much nicer."
"Haha…"
"Hahaha…"
"You're laughing?"
Do-ha's eyebrow rose. The two men who had been forcing awkward chuckles clamped their mouths shut at once. Damn this lunatic. There was no right way to play along.
"I was worried you two might turn out as unreasonable as Georyeoksan. I even considered just spreading Mokhon-sura-gong across the mountains and triggering a landslide… or casting a berserk magic on every single beast in the Beast Palace and letting them run wild. Real dilemma."
Both men broke into a cold sweat and swallowed hard. They had already lived through the methods the Absolute One was describing so casually. A tidal wave had once appeared out of nowhere and washed an entire mountain range away. Trained beasts had suddenly turned red-eyed and gone berserk, injuring a huge number of Beast Palace martial artists. Only later had they learned every last incident had been Do-ha's work—punishment for continued non-cooperation.
"What do you think? Should I try it again?"
"I was wrong!"
"We'll withdraw from this region immediately!"
Seop Jin-hong and Hwang Ju dropped to their knees and slammed their foreheads into the dirt. Baek Do-ha never made empty threats. Push his temper here and he would act without a second's hesitation.
"You both ought to be thanking Je-u."
"Us…?"
"Why…?"
They looked up, baffled. Why would they need to thank the Leader of the Martial Alliance? The Green Forest was unorthodox; the Beast Palace was an external force entirely.
"I was going to skip the conversation and just kill both of you cleanly. Didn't want to waste the time."
Do-ha shrugged. The color drained from both men's faces. For the first time in their lives they felt genuine gratitude toward Namgung Je-u, Leader of the Martial Alliance.
"But Je-u stopped me. Told me not to. Pretty decent friend, right? Looking out even for hostile factions like you."
In truth Je-u had only wanted to prevent chaos in the murim. That detail did not matter. The two kings simply poured endless thanks toward Namgung Je-u in their hearts.
Do-ha rose.
"Well, conversation's over. I'm leaving."
Both men shot to their feet.
"Travel safely!"
"It was an honor to see you again!"
They bowed with the exaggerated courtesy of street thugs. If he would just leave like this, nothing could be better.
He paused mid-step.
"If I ever have to come back here… you know what happens."
The same line he had given Jaso.
"Of course! Don't worry about a thing!"
"We will never give you a reason to return."
"Ahh, good. Now that's how kings should talk."
A rush of air. Do-ha shot into the sky and vanished.
Seop Jin-hong, Hwang Ju, and every martial artist who had been holding their breath around them collapsed where they stood, the tension finally draining out of their bodies.