Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Mountain King
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Wide saucer-like eyes, rough sun-darkened skin wrapping writhing muscles.
A vaguely uniform outfit blending green and yellow.
The crude nature seeped from the halberds and hand axes gripped in each of their hands.
Such a filthy, brutish group was hard to find anywhere but among bandits.
However, my nerves weren't fixed on the bandit horde that could charge at any moment.
They were drawn to a point farther away.
A massive presence amid the forest where people and trees mingled.
From the center overwhelming the surrounding air currents, a huge silhouette crossed the shadows cast by the dense woods, approaching.
Thud. Thud. Thud...
Huge footsteps that seemed to shake the very earth. Birds resting on branches took startled flight from the vibrations.
Finally revealed was a giant whose frame rendered the usual phrase "seven feet tall" utterly inadequate.
An estimated height of eight chi—about 240 centimeters.
Massive muscles clung to his frame, a living tiger pelt draped over his head like a cap, and strapped to his back was a great axe fit for the ancient Wei general Xu Huang.
Folklore spoke of the "eight-chi ghost" precisely because no ordinary human could grow beyond that height.
Thus, anyone reaching such stature was deemed no man, but a spirit.
In my previous life, I'd grown quite tall through bone-forging arts, but still a head or two shorter than this brute.
'Not a man—a yokai, maybe?'
As I pondered seriously, the mouth of the ambiguously human giant opened.
"Nice weather, isn't it?"
"So it is human after all."
The reflexive fury at the thought of a yokai ebbed away.
I swept my gaze over the horde assembled in the mountains.
Hundreds strong—perhaps a thousand—spread across a three-hundred-zhang radius, encircling me and the giant.
A thousand martial artists of the rivers and lakes could wage full-scale battle. Just gathering in one place would be seen as rebellion against the throne.
Facing down this giant before me and his thousand bandits.
Even for one who'd died and returned once, it was impossible—even if I died and returned again.
But to assume defeat was to concede half the fight from the start.
From gutter rats' mind games to life-or-death duels between absolute masters, every clash boiled down to momentum.
I had to enter the fray with utter confidence of victory to carve even the narrowest path to survival.
To sustain that aura, I feigned supreme aloofness.
"If you're desperate, I could toss you some alms. Otherwise, get lost."
"Treating folks like beggars right off the bat? A pity."
I snorted at the bandit chief, who looked anything but regretful.
"Aren't you all just as filthy and brutish? Beggars squat roadside waiting for handouts; you lot blockade passes and take them by force. That's the only difference."
"Haha. Spot on. I'd dismissed it as mere drudgery."
"Spouting nonsense. If it's not money you want, draw that thing on your back."
I nodded my chin toward the great axe slung across the bandit's back.
He tilted his head quizzically.
"I see your level. Barely fifteen, yet radiating peak expert aura. Impressive—but no path to victory against me and this host. No mind for negotiation?"
"If you truly meant to negotiate, you wouldn't have rallied every bandit den into a heaven-and-earth net."
No single one of the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds boasted a thousand elites.
If all seventy-two did, the Green Forest would rule the world.
In other words, this inescapable net had been woven by at least double digits of those strongholds.
Their chiefs wouldn't have abandoned their seized passes for nothing, each mad enough to ignore passing "guests."
This bizarre bandit muster targeted me alone, meticulously. They'd never intended to let me pass.
Thus, I declared:
"From the start, a Great Wudang disciple..."
Shing. A chilling sword cry as the blade slid free. The engraved pine pattern drank in the light.
I gripped the Pine Pattern Ancient Sword and growled:
"...does not parley with demonic riffraff."
When four heretics gather as a society, eliminate two forthwith.
The Wudang Sect precept established in Granduncle Mugwang's era, when he'd exterminated the demonic factions of Hubei Province.
In my previous life, I'd bolted from the sect gates hating such rigid rules—but in this moment, I was the epitome of a rule-abiding Daoist disciple.
The bandit erupted in hearty laughter.
"Haha... right you are. No parley, but sharing a meal? Fate brought us together—shall we exchange names?"
"Your father."
"Hm. You don't much resemble my old man."
Whoosh! Unfazed, he drew the double-bladed axe from his back.
The mere motion whipped up gusts, kicking up thick clouds of dust.
Calm words aside, the bastard was pissed.
"Ah, but one similarity awaits. My father's long in the grave—and soon you'll be laid beside him."
"I'd rather not bond with your father that way."
"Haha! You've a knack for provocation. Now I see what he meant. That street-punk edge of yours."
He winked one cow-sized eye, seized the tassel on the axe haft, and spun it. A savage whoosh filled the air as the blade whirled.
"Cross the Styx not even knowing your killer's name, and you'll haunt me as a grudge spirit for sure. For a lout like me with no talents beyond swinging this carcass, that's a scary prospect."
Kugugugugugu!!!
The windmill-like axe gouged a deep furrow into the dirt.
The bandit, bantering in his booming voice, finally spoke plainly:
"Total Gourd Ladle Master of the Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds, Gong Tae-gun. Known to the rivers and lakes as the Mountain King."
'Damn it all.'
I bit my lip.
"Gourd Ladle Master" literally meant the one who pours from the gourd—wine, that is.
Seemed odd for bandits, but it was how illiterate mountain scum elegantly dubbed their chiefs, big brothers, or stronghold lords.
Thus, "Total Gourd Ladle Master" meant the eldest brother to all those lords.
In short, the supreme stronghold lord of Nine Dragons Province's Green Forest Seventy-Two Strongholds.
An encounter with a castle lord. And martial clash.
The absolute worst outcome I'd envisioned.
Old sect patriarchs and castle lords like him were transcendent peaks beyond "ordinary" transcendent experts.
They infused the intent amassed in their upper dantian into their martial arts, transmuting mere physical techniques into something akin to divine authority.
The realm of manifesting one's inner vision through martial prowess.
One step shy of the divine domain, where one could ape the gods.
'Finish it before he unleashes his pseudo-divine martial arts. Overwhelm him fast.'
The judgment flashed through my mind.
The four rings circulating my heart overlapped into one, spinning ferociously.
The eight extraordinary meridians and twelve principal meridians spread inner power from middle and lower dantian throughout my body.
True energy dwelling in limbs, bones, and vessels primed for conversion into superhuman might beyond mortal limits.
Qi surged to vessels in my eyes, heightening tension to the extreme.
Bang. I stomped forward, kicking off the earth—and the world slowed.
In the elongating scenery as I dashed, what entered my eyes was:
"Oh."
In a world where bandits, beasts, winds—all converged toward stillness, the Mountain King's mouth slowly parted.
"This is quite the surprise."
His lips curved in a thick arc, and the great axe in his grip descended, brimming with power enough to sunder the world.
Touch it, and die.
I tilted my thrusting sword flat, shifted my footwork's trajectory, and wrenched waist and shoulders with full force.
Kwaaaaaang! A thunderous roar like dozens of bolts crashing down—and the ground where I'd stood moments ago literally vanished.
Shockwaves exploding every which way snapped surrounding branches and churned the earth.
The quivering sword blade bore a few drops of blood squeezed like from a fledgling bird.
Even after veering mid-path and swinging with sword gang sheathed, that was all.
A mere graze.
'Protective astral qi.'
A feat impossible without peerless qi refinement and vast reserves. An invincible armor that utterly repelled anything short of gang qi.
'Less armor, more barrier.'
Gang qi was the hardest, sharpest substance in the world—their clash alone a cataclysmic exchange of force.
Merely grazing his thick protective astral qi had cramped muscles in my grip and forearms.
The Mountain King planted his axe blade in the dirt and patted his flank. He eyed the blood staining his pot-lid palm and burst into laughter.
"Haha... A genius unseen in ages. How long since I last bled?"
"Filthy cur."
Petty posturing.
I swallowed the retort and poured power into the meridians running from thighs to soles.
The moment called for a masterstroke to turn the tide.
And in go, a masterstroke was a move intimately familiar to me—yet utterly unforeseen by my foe.
Such a play existed right here on this battlefield.