Chapter 411: Karmic Fire
The members of the Foolish Old Man Road Party fought with everything they had.
Their lives and chastity were both in danger at once. On top of that, the forest fire had begun spreading behind them, so the Road Party members literally had no choice but to fight with fire in their eyes.
However.
SLASH.
“Aaaaaagh!!”
The difference in skill was simply too great.
It was only natural.
Most members of the Foolish Old Man Road Party had learned martial arts, but they had trained for no more than somewhere between one and five years.
Only a tiny handful of Party members had learned martial arts before becoming bandits.
The eunuchs, on the other hand, were all skilled enough to be called experts.
There was only one reason the Party members were not slaughtered in an instant.
CRUNCH!!!
It was thanks to the existence of their Party Master, Mugung, who was swinging an enormous axe and splitting the eunuchs’ bodies in half.
“Tch.”
The Grand Eunuch who had first ordered the attack clicked his tongue in his characteristically thin voice as he watched the battle.
“To suffer such severe losses merely capturing a pack of lowly bandits. How am I supposed to report this to the Director of Ceremonial?”
Even if the current battle continued, they would still be able to slaughter all the bandits, but their losses were far too great.
And the primary cause was, without question, the bandit leader swinging an enormous axe at the front.
The Grand Eunuch entertained some sinister thoughts as he looked at Mugung’s bulging muscles, but at the very least, he knew how to separate public duty from private desire.
'It seems we will only resolve this easily if we subdue that man.'
Before long, the Grand Eunuch thought of a way to subdue the bandit leader and issued instructions to the eunuchs through voice transmission.
The five eunuchs who received his orders moved without delay.
The person they targeted was the woman being protected by the guards. Baek Garyeong.
Perhaps because Baek Gahwan had assigned her proper personnel, each of the female guards displayed martial prowess no weaker than that of the Eastern Depot’s eunuchs.
The problem was that Baek Garyeong was holding a child, making evacuation difficult.
“Ohohoho!”
When five more eunuchs surrounded them amid the chaos, the guards had no choice but to be pushed back in an instant.
Sword energy, palm winds, and other attacks flew at them from every direction, and each one targeted Baek Garyeong and the child behind the guards.
To protect the two of them, the guards were forced to execute techniques beyond their limits.
SLASH!
And whenever an opening appeared, the eunuchs burst into unpleasant laughter and wounded them.
STAB.
“Cough.......”
Eventually, a blade pierced the heart of one guard who could no longer endure, and the moment she collapsed to the ground.
“Kiyoooot!”
One eunuch launched himself through the opening created by the fallen guard.
And just before that eunuch’s blade reached Baek Garyeong’s body.
WHOOOOSH.
With a grotesque tearing sound, the eunuch’s body burst with blood and was split in half from top to bottom.
BOOM!!
The enormous axe still had strength remaining even after bisecting one man, and it severed the head of the eunuch beside him before embedding itself in the ground with a thunderous crash.
There was only one person here who used such an absurdly large axe.
“Now!! Seize that woman as a hostage!!”
Although the two men who had tried to attack Baek Garyeong had died in an instant, the Grand Eunuch judged this to be an opportunity and shouted.
Mugung had thrown away his axe and was now bare-handed.
When Mugung first established the Foolish Old Man Road Party and began his activities. Shaolin had said this regarding the matter.
Mugung wished to return to secular life, so Shaolin had reclaimed all the martial arts he had learned there and expelled him.
Naturally, the imperial family had not completely believed that story.
However.
'Judging by the fact that he has not used the Tathagata Divine Palm even now, he must be unable to use it. No, even if he can, it does not matter. We need only buy enough time to seize that woman as a hostage.'
The Grand Eunuch was making such calculations in his mind.
His judgment was half correct.
When Mugung left Shaolin, he had made a promise to the Abbot.
If he ever performed the Tathagata Divine Palm or any of Shaolin’s martial arts after leaving Shaolin, he would offer his head to his Junior Brother Mukyeong.
And indeed, since then, Mugung had not performed Shaolin martial arts even once.
Not even when Mukyeong attacked him, nor now, while witnessing the horrific sight of the Party members beside him being killed.
However.
“How dare you!!!!”
The rage of a man who had just watched his wife and child nearly die before his eyes was not something reason could restrain.
Even if that man had trained an unwavering mind for decades.
The instant Mugung’s condensed fury erupted.
The scorching yang energy that had remained sealed for years, gathered deep within his dantian, began to boil.
Like a volcano erupting after a long period of dormancy.
At Mugung’s gesture, scorching yang energy poured from his palm and began engulfing the area.
And after controlling the energy erupting like an active volcano, Mugung thrust both palms toward his wife and child.
WHOOSH!
It was difficult to believe that this was the result of a martial art based on the teachings of the Buddha.
Rather than the Buddha, it seemed more like the divine authority of King Yama, who ruled over the karmic fires of the Eight Hot Hells.
Dense flames that seemed almost viscous rather than merely burning surged toward the eunuchs who had been threatening Baek Garyeong and the child.
“Block it!”
One of the eunuchs shouted in his distinctive androgynous voice as he swung his sword.
“Aaaaaagh!!”
But both the sword he thrust forward and the sword energy surrounding it simply melted away before Mugung’s Tathagata Divine Palm.
The flames swallowed the sword and sword energy in an instant, then continued forward, melting the eunuch’s clothing and skin.
And after burning one eunuch to death in an instant, the scorching yang energy became a massive wave that swept across the area.
It was a strange sight.
The tremendous scorching yang energy swept around Baek Garyeong and the child as though it might start another forest fire.
Yet astonishingly, the flames advanced only toward the eunuchs with perfect precision. They did not harm Baek Garyeong or the child in the slightest.
They merely wrapped the two bodies, which had been growing cold amid mortal danger, in warmth.
And immediately after Mugung’s horrific karmic fire passed through. Only Baek Garyeong, the child, and the guards who had struggled desperately to protect them remained nearby.
The men who had threatened them had already become blackened charcoal scattered across the ground.
At that moment, while the bare-handed Mugung executed a powerful technique in haste to protect Baek Garyeong and the child.
One eunuch seized the opportunity and charged at Mugung from behind.
WHOOSH.
“Aaaaaagh.......”
But his body melted beneath the Tathagata Divine Palm that Mugung had already unleashed with a sweep of his hand, and he let out a horrific scream.
That overwhelming display of force brought a brief silence to the battlefield.
The minds of the Grand Eunuch who had issued the orders and the other Eastern Depot eunuchs were filled with shock.
'What in the world.......'
Since they had been assigned to deal with Mugung and the Foolish Old Man Road Party, they had already been briefed on Mugung.
However, the divine might Mugung had just displayed was on a completely different level from what had been written in the report.
To turn more than ten Eastern Depot eunuchs into handfuls of charcoal with a single attack.
Had they known he was an expert of this level, they would never have committed the stupidity of attacking Mugung with only around fifty eunuchs.
Likewise, the Road Party members and the guards protecting Baek Garyeong were equally speechless.
He had already displayed enough skill with his axe art to be called an expert, but what they had just witnessed belonged to an entirely different world.
Amid all that, there was only one person who remained completely calm. Baek Garyeong.
From the moment the battle began until now, she had kept one hand covering the child’s eyes.
It was hardly a sight suitable for a young child’s emotional well-being. And even now, she continued covering the child’s eyes while looking at Mugung with an expression that seemed to say she had trusted him all along.
As the sudden silence settled over the battlefield. Mugung regained his reason and spoke with a bitter expression.
“My wife. Take Cheongi and leave at once.”
At Mugung’s words, Baek Garyeong wore a puzzled expression.
“Why are you trying to send me away?”
“I broke my promise with Shaolin. From today onward, I will become a man pursued by my Junior Brother Mukyeong. I cannot remain with you and Cheongi.”
At Mugung’s rigidly principled words, Baek Garyeong answered with a gentle smile that did not suit a woman who had just faced mortal danger.
“There is no need to worry about that. If no one saw or heard anything, then it becomes something that never happened.”
Despite her smile, she was discussing killing every witness.
And the instant she finished speaking, the guards and Foolish Old Man Road Party members around her hurriedly shouted over one another.
“We saw nothing, Party Master!”
“Yes. I-I absolutely saw nothing! You know us after working together for years, do you not?”
“Please believe us, Party Master!”
They were trembling violently.
These were eunuchs who had slaughtered them without the slightest concern.
Yet more than ten of those men had been burned to death by a single move from the Party Master.
The Party members and guards had known the Party Master was an expert, but they had never imagined he was an expert of such a terrifying level.
While Mugung briefly considered what to do in response to their cries.
“Ahem. W-We will also pretend we saw nothing and r-return now.”
The Grand Eunuch who had ordered them to take Baek Garyeong and the child hostage spoke in a servile voice.
The overwhelming divine might Mugung had displayed moments earlier had completely erased not only his competitive spirit, but even his will to fight.
At the Grand Eunuch’s servile words, the corners of Mugung’s mouth rose strangely.
When a cruel smile appeared on his already fierce face, he became as terrifying as a statue of one of the Four Heavenly Kings.
“Party members and guards, remember this. You saw nothing here. Do you understand?”
“Y-Yes!!”
While the Party members and guards nodded with terrified expressions.
WHOOSH.
Karmic fire began blooming once more from Mugung’s palm.
Realizing his intent, the Grand Eunuch’s face darkened as though he were already dead, and he urgently shouted.
“Attack!!”
The eunuchs, who belatedly realized that Mugung had no intention of sparing them, launched themselves forward.
But rather than a battle, it merely resembled moths throwing themselves into an enormous flame.
After the karmic fire created by Mugung swept across the area several times.
Nothing remained there except countless lumps of charcoal and the flames clinging to the mountain vegetation as they continued expanding their territory.
And even after time passed, no rumor that Mugung had used the Tathagata Divine Palm spread anywhere.
The fires on that mountain were merely recorded as a forest fire caused by the flaming arrows fired by the military.
***
Around the time Mugung and the Foolish Old Man Road Party were attacked.
Regular troops divided into groups of hundreds or thousands gathered at strategic points throughout the land, swelling their numbers, and an enormous force of fifty thousand began advancing toward Shaolin.
The Henan Provincial Military Commander, who oversaw them, looked over the soldiers with a satisfied expression.
Most of those gathered here were elite troops.
Even as they advanced, their formation did not waver, and their military aura was as sharp as a blade.
That was only natural. Most of the soldiers gathered here today had experienced the northern battlefield.
It was a secret known only to the upper ranks of the military. Emperor Taiping’s northern expedition had been intended from the beginning as a foundation for annihilating the martial world.
There had also been the purpose of securing the northern border by eliminating the northern nomads in advance, but something even more important had been turning the soldiers into elite troops.
Countless people had died in the north, but most of them had been conscripts used as human shields.
By using them as shields, an enormous number of regular troops had been able to accumulate countless experiences on the horrific battlefield.
Even though they were merely advancing, the sight of the utterly reliable army of fifty thousand caused the Provincial Military Commander to think.
'Mount Song is said to be a famous mountain, so I wonder whether there is any reason to use fire merely to capture those lawless scoundrels.'
Just as the Foolish Old Man Road Party had been driven down the mountain by flaming arrows, the imperial family had issued such orders.
Whenever attacking Shaolin or any other sect based on a mountain, they were to set fire to the mountain without exception.
Those who held out on the mountain would all burn to death, while those who fled the forest fire could simply be shot with arrows, killed with artillery, or chased down by cavalry.
However, in the Provincial Military Commander’s opinion, with this many elite soldiers, was there truly any need to fight by burning down a famous mountain?
At that moment. The Assistant Provincial Military Commander, having received a report passed back from the front of the force, reported to the Provincial Military Commander.
“Individuals who appear to be martial artists have appeared ahead and are blocking the road!”
At that report, the Provincial Military Commander smiled instead.
“Hahahaha. It seems the fools have come to seek out their own deaths.”
Thinking that this meant they would at least no longer need to burn down Mount Song, one of the famous mountains, the Provincial Military Commander asked.
“So, how many are there?”
“Th-That is.......”
For some reason, the Assistant Provincial Military Commander trailed off with a bewildered expression as he continued reading the report.
“Speak at once!”
“Th-That is, they say there are t-ten people and one animal.”
At the Assistant Provincial Military Commander’s words, the Provincial Military Commander’s expression twisted on its own.
An army of fifty thousand was advancing, yet a report had been sent up saying that only ten people were blocking the way.
With such a small number, should those at the front not have dealt with them on their own?
Because of his anger, the Provincial Military Commander only belatedly noticed the strangest part.
“But what do you mean by one animal?”
“Th-That is, they say there is also one monkey among them.”
“A monkey?”
At the continuing absurd reports, the Provincial Military Commander’s brow furrowed on its own.