Chapter 407: Omen (1)
“Hyah!”
Immediately after Gongun brought the carriage to a halt.
SPOT!
The people who had been pursuing them with lightness skills revealed themselves.
Gonghwan, who could be considered the senior member of the group, stepped down from the carriage and asked.
“Why are you following us?”
At that question, one of the pursuers stepped forward with a crooked grin.
He was a fierce-looking middle-aged man with a long scar standing out prominently across his face.
“Orthodox bastards have been sneaking around our territory, so should we not capture them and question them?”
“......Orthodox? What are you talking about?”
Gonghwan tried his best to deceive them with a lie, but his lack of experience made his acting unnatural.
“Hehehe. Enough with that pathetic lie, you little bald monk.”
“.......”
When it seemed the other party had even realized they were Shaolin disciples, Gonghwan let out a quiet sigh.
“I apologize for passing through the territory governed by you benefactors. However, we merely have business in the Southern Barbarians.”
“Hehehe. Did you truly think we would believe such a worthless excuse?”
Just as Gonghwan began to feel frustrated by the man’s refusal to listen.
Gongun’s voice transmission pierced his ears.
—Senior Brother. If what they say is true, then this is enemy territory. If we continue wasting time like this, we may be surrounded and unable even to escape.
Gonghwan, who had spent most of his life training in the mountains, had very little experience with situations of this kind.
Gongun, on the other hand, had been born in the slums and had frequently witnessed gang fights between ruffians.
Only after hearing Gongun’s voice transmission did Gonghwan realize the seriousness of the situation. He hurriedly raised his internal energy and shouted.
“We will break through! Do not kill them!”
At the same time as he gave instructions to his junior brothers, Gonghwan spread the energy of the Tathagata Divine Palm across a wide area and scattered it toward the men blocking their path.
It was a choice meant to push the opponents aside without killing them.
However, Gonghwan’s judgment was somewhat too soft.
SLASH!
Astonishingly, the men blocking their path easily cut through, pierced, and extinguished the blazing yang energy Gonghwan had fired.
Sword aura, blade aura, and similar energies had formed around the weapons they wielded.
“Hehehe. Just as expected of cowardly orthodox bastards. To launch a surprise attack in the middle of a conversation.”
The leader who had spoken with Gonghwan taunted the Shaolin disciples in a sly voice.
“Capture them!”
“One survivor is enough! Kill the rest!”
The experts who appeared to be his subordinates charged toward the Shaolin disciples, swinging their respective weapons.
Because Gonghwan’s first attack had failed to open a path, the Shaolin disciples were surrounded in an instant and had no choice but to begin fighting.
As they stood back-to-back, blocking and knocking aside spears, blades, swords, and other weapons flying toward them from every direction.
“Fuck!!”
A curse slipped from Gongun’s mouth before he realized it.
'We are being pushed back this badly? Who the hell are these bastards?'
They had all achieved fairly impressive results at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, which selected the greatest rising stars of the orthodox faction.
Their Senior Brother Gonghwan had even won the entire competition.
Furthermore, Gongun and Junior Brother Gongcheon had split the thousand-year fleeceflower root that had been awarded as the victor’s prize, making them even stronger than they had been during the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering.
'And yet we cannot even break through a combined attack from a mere five men?'
Of course, the vast martial world was filled with experts stronger than they were.
There was only one problem.
'Bastards like that should obviously be famous, should they not?'
It made no sense for some group they had never seen or heard of to possess this level of strength.
SLASH!
A blade swept across Gongun’s forearm while he was distracted by his thoughts, leaving a thin line of blood.
Driven into a fury, Gongun’s eyes blazed as he shouted and charged toward the man.
“Senior Brother!! If we keep trying to subdue them, we are the ones who will die!”
The man who had wounded his forearm swung his blade at Gongun once again.
CLANG!!
Gongun thrust out a hand wrapped in fist aura and caught the blade. He then slipped directly into the man’s embrace and drove his elbow into the man’s abdomen.
“Ghk.......”
The instant the man coughed up blood after being struck in the stomach.
SWOOOOSH!
Another man thrust a spear toward Gongun, who had broken away from the group.
However, the spear never reached Gongun.
BOOM!!!
That was because the Tathagata Divine Palm Gonghwan had unleashed pushed the spear away.
“Junior Brother is right! Junior Brother Gongcheon, show them no mercy either!”
After protecting Gongun, Gonghwan abandoned his compassion and began drawing up his internal energy without restraint, unleashing the Tathagata Divine Palm again and again.
Thanks to Gongun’s quick thinking, they had brought one man down, and once the Shaolin disciples began using killing moves in earnest, they quickly seized the advantage.
“Tsk. Pathetic fools.”
But when the leader who had been watching from behind with his arms crossed joined the battle, the situation reversed once more.
“Ugh.”
Astonishingly, the man split apart the Tathagata Divine Palm Gonghwan had unleashed with his full strength and charged toward him.
The leader began fighting Gonghwan alone, while the remaining four men faced Gongcheon and Gongun.
For a moment, that precarious balance seemed as though it might continue.
“There they are!”
“Kill them!!!”
Just as Gongun had feared, enemy reinforcements arrived.
“Damn it.......”
A curse leaked from Gongun’s mouth as he barely endured the combined attack of two opponents.
'Just as Master said, with my skill level, I really was perfectly suited to getting stabbed to death somewhere.'
He had merely wanted to enjoy a little escape from discipline, and now he was on the verge of leaving this world entirely.
Even so, Gongun smiled.
“Even if I die here, I will kill you bastards before I go.”
Perhaps because he had been born in the slums, or perhaps because he had grown up under Mukyeong’s brutal treatment, Gongun was packed full of sheer venomous determination.
At that very moment.
THUD.
A strange sound entered the ears of everyone on the battlefield.
THUD.
At first, it sounded like a faint footstep, but it gradually grew louder.
And a few of those with sharp instincts noticed something peculiar.
THUD.
They realized that for such a faint footstep, the sound had begun from quite far away.
THUD!
Meanwhile, the footsteps continued growing louder.
THUD!!
At some point, explosive booms began to ring out, like the Heaven-Shaking Thunder said to be used by the imperial army.
BOOM!!!!
With the final enormous explosion, a shadow tore through the air and flew toward them.
BOOM!!!
The figure flew through the sky as though soaring—or rather, as though it had been fired from a cannon—and landed on the ground with a thunderous crash.
The moment the Shaolin disciples recognized the shadow, shouts escaped their mouths without thought.
“League Leader!?”
The Leader of the Zhengmu League, who should have been at the Zhengmu League near Dongting Lake.
It was Mujin.
***
Several days earlier.
After secretly helping the three Gong-generation disciples escape, Mujin returned to his duties as Leader of the Zhengmu League.
Everyone who had gathered for the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering had departed, and although a minor disturbance had erupted among the Shaolin members, Mujin let it pass in one ear and out the other and finished his work.
Then, while dealing with matters he had postponed slightly because he had been focused on the Martial Arts Tournament, Mujin realized something important.
“There have been quite a few more people causing disturbances lately.”
“That is correct, League Leader.”
After examining the information Zhuge Muhuan had brought him, Mujin frowned.
It was not merely a problem within the orthodox faction.
Regardless of whether they belonged to the orthodox, evil, or demonic factions, more and more people had recently begun running wild in the territories of opposing forces.
Since five years had already passed since the peace agreement was broken, it was something that might naturally occur, yet there was still something unsettling about it.
'I clearly warned them that if they handed the other side justification first, they risked mutual destruction followed by a third party taking advantage, or even being attacked from both sides.'
This was not merely an issue within the orthodox faction.
The orthodox, evil, and demonic factions were all using that same argument to keep the martial artists under their command in check.
Yet the fact that so many reckless fools had begun ignoring orders from above and running wild was undeniably strange.
Just as the name of a certain organization naturally surfaced in Mujin’s mind.
Zhuge Muhuan handed Mujin another letter.
“The reckless fools causing trouble in other territories are a problem, but Yunnan Province is practically no different from a Heaven-Shaking Thunder that may explode at any moment.”
Mujin had been listening while thinking of a particular organization, but only then did he suddenly realize something.
'The Gong-generation children should be heading toward Yunnan Province around now, should they not?'
If that organization was truly attempting to provoke a war among the orthodox, evil, and demonic factions as he suspected, there was more than enough risk that the Gong-generation children might be used as sacrifices.
If that organization was truly attempting to provoke a war among the orthodox, evil, and demonic factions as he suspected, there was more than enough risk that the Gong-generation children might be used as sacrifices.
The moment Mujin’s thoughts reached that point, he shot to his feet.
“Send letters to the Southern Heavenly Society and the Demon Cult at once and tell them to prepare for a conference. The meeting place will be Yunnan Province, the same as last time. And I will depart for Yunnan immediately.”
“Pardon? You mean right now?”
Zhuge Muhuan asked back with an unusually flustered expression, but Mujin had no time to explain the details.
After giving his orders, Mujin immediately launched himself away, left the Zhengmu League, and began heading south.
'Damn it. One wrong move, and those children might die because of me.'
He could have ordered suitable martial artists from the League to escort the children, but time was the problem.
A considerable amount of time had already passed since the children left Dongting Lake, so even if he sent a letter toward Yunnan Province now, there was a risk that they would already be one step too late.
In that sense, Mujin himself was the only person capable of reaching Yunnan Province in time and at the greatest possible speed.
BOOM!!
Strength that had surpassed human limits through the effects of the Jade Vajra Art.
BOOM!!
Combined with nearly inexhaustible internal energy drawn from natural energy.
BOOM!!
By combining those two and continuously performing the Mountain-Crushing Divine Steps, Mujin was able to cross mountains and rivers at an unbelievable speed.
After running throughout the entire day, excluding only the time he spent sleeping and eating, Mujin finally reached Yunnan Province.
There, he stopped at one of the League’s branches, tracked the children’s movements, and then ran without rest for another half day before finally catching up with them.
Having arrived at the scene just in time, Mujin grasped the situation at a glance and formed a murderous smile.
“To think you dared lay your hands on our juniors. You must have a death wish.”
Because of the consideration he had shown, the disciples of his close friends had nearly died.
And on top of that.
“You will pay for the crime of targeting the juniors of the orthodox faction. And for the crime of causing muscle loss!”
Mujin had spent an entire day and half another day doing nothing but running.
Because he had been unable to lift iron and had done nothing but cardio, he felt as though his muscles were shrinking even at that very moment, and his anger was surging.
“M-muscle loss!?”
Well, from the perspective of those being attacked, they could hardly understand what he was talking about.
BOOM!!!
Before they could ask anything more, the enraged exercise addict charged toward them.
***
BOOM!!
“Aaaaaagh!!”
The three Gong-generation disciples stared blankly at the bizarre sight of people being sent bouncing and flying in every direction like wooden chopsticks.
Every time Mujin moved, an enormous explosion rang out.
By the time the explosion reached their ears, someone had already been struck and was flying through the air.
The enemies who had given them so much trouble were being handled like toys.
It was the moment they personally witnessed the divine might of the Leader of the Zhengmu League, which they had only heard about in stories.
Strangely, however, there was nothing in it that they could observe and learn from.
There was no profound enlightenment, no complicated insight, and no refined flow of internal energy in Mujin’s movements.
There was only overwhelming force.
A bizarre speed that was difficult even to follow with the eyes, and incomprehensible strength that no one could dare resist.
It was as though he were declaring that if one possessed only those two things, there was no need for complicated and sophisticated techniques.
Naturally, each of the three recalled what their respective masters had told them.
'......He truly is nothing less than a monster.'
Gongun’s master, Mukyeong, had called Mujin a monster.
'......Does one have to become obsessed with something to reach that level?'
Gonghwan’s master, Mugung, had called Mujin a madman.
Of course, there was quite a large gap between what Mugung had meant and what Gonghwan understood.
And finally, in Muyul’s case.
'Hehe. He truly loves exercise.'
He had told Gongcheon that Mujin was an idiot who knew nothing but exercise.
Unexpectedly, Muyul had understood him most accurately.