Chapter 161. Please Swear at Me.

Because the wooden sword that had yet to be named was extremely light, my movements became light as well.

I was light, and the wooden sword was light too.

Thanks to that, I leaped about like a frog with each bound, swinging my sword. As the wooden sword was rather slender, I deliberately avoided clashing blades with other weapons.

I moved while cutting into the enemy's body.

I cut the leg, leaped up, and cut the hand.

While moving, I dodged a blade and then precisely severed only the bandit's ankle.

The enemies atop the horses that had been stopped in place couldn't move freely, so cutting them down with the sword was easier.

The relatively experienced ones hurriedly jumped off their horses and swung their blades, but I moved on, drawing more blood before the blood that had gushed out could wet the ground.

I had been moving about, stabbing and slashing wildly at the bandits with the light wooden sword without killing them in a single blow.

Only then did one of the bandits pull out a signal flare from within his clothing and raise it skyward. I immediately sent out a sword qi and cleanly severed the wrist holding the flare.

Squelch!

"Kuaaaaak!"

As the scream erupted, the bandit clutching his severed arm thrashed about and cursed like a madman before his head fell to the sword swung by Hwang Bangju.

I had no interest in Hwang Bangju's fight, so I kept my eyes on those trying to flee and spoke in a voice infused with internal energy.

"Do you think you can escape so sluggishly?"

Having thrown out a question that needed no answer, I rushed at the bandit before me and smashed his head with a left palm strike, then the moment I landed, I snatched up my sword and hurled it at the bandit fleeing north.

Flames coiled around the blade in midair.

Shriek!

Since I had to slaughter them all in a short time, I was quite busy.

After confirming that the wooden sword had pierced through the bandit's back, I turned and threw the wooden sword's scabbard at the back of the bandit fleeing in the opposite direction, this time infusing it with Binggong.

The scabbard, frozen white in midair, flew and pierced through the bandit's back.

Thud!

I turned my head to see…….

Hwang Bangju was fighting three bandits at the same time. Watching for a moment, I saw that Hwang Bangju was responding only with horizontal slashes, thrusts, and vertical slashes.

He was fighting exactly as he had been taught, so it seemed he wasn't a fool after all.

I unleashed my qinggong and dashed forward, lowering my posture as I flew in like a running wolf cub, and grabbed both feet of the bandit who was knocking away Hwang Bangju's sword. A scream of terror erupted from the bandit.

"Ugh, ughaaaah!"

I grabbed the bandit's feet, infused them with Binggong as I lifted him, slammed him into the ground, then pulverized his face with my left foot.

Smack!

I threw the corpse with its lower half frozen solid at another bandit. The startled bandit stuck his blade into the frozen corpse but couldn't pull it out. In that gap, Hwang Bangju rushed in and took the bandit's head, then urgently chased after a fleeing bandit.

I looked around, picked up a sizable rock, and threw it aiming for the back of the fleeing bandit's head.

The rock shot past Hwang Bangju's side and struck the back of the bandit's head.

Smack!

Hwang Bangju, who had pursued right behind, swung his sword and severed the bandit's neck.

Silence suddenly fell upon the wasteland that had been a chaotic mess.

Only then did I come back to my senses and speak.

"Are they all dead?"

Hwang Bangju answered.

"Yes."

Looking around, all the bandits belonging to the reconnaissance unit were dead.

Hwang Bangju shook the blood off his sword and looked at me. The horses that had been startled earlier had grouped together and were already fleeing into the distance.

I surveyed the fleeing horses with my hand raised above my brows.

It was difficult to tell immediately whether they were heading to the bandits' base or scattering in all directions into the wasteland.

"Hwang Bangju, come here."

Hwang Bangju hurriedly ran over and stopped. I told him what needed to be done.

"If you find anything like jerky while searching their belongings."

"Yes."

"First cut off a small piece with your sword and place it where there are many ants, then check it before eating. Same with the water."

"Understood."

"If there's anything else worth taking, take it, then lightly cover the corpses with dirt. The yellow sand will bury them soon enough anyway."

"Yes."

I took in the sight of the wasteland while retrieving my sword and scabbard. In the meantime, Hwang Bangju gathered a few things from the bodies and was kicking dirt over them with his feet.

Since we had merely annihilated a reconnaissance unit, there was no reason to be happy, nor any need to be disappointed.

Suddenly, on my way back after retrieving my sword, I picked up the signal flare that had fallen to the ground and examined it. It was a cylinder that could be launched by pulling a string, and it had a red feather attached to the end. The bandits couldn't have made something like this, so it seemed to be an item from an escort agency that had been ambushed.

I handed the signal flare to Hwang Bangju.

"Take it."

"Yes."

"It seems its original owner died at the hands of these bandits."

Hwang Bangju stared at the signal flare.

"……."

"Perhaps the escort judged that even if he launched it in a place like this, no one would come to help, so he fought with it in his bosom until it was taken from him."

Hwang Bangju answered as he put the signal flare into his bosom.

"I will keep it with me."

The two of us sat down near the corpses to rest briefly. Hwang Bangju held out a leather water pouch.

"Please have some water."

I took the leather pouch, poured a little onto the ground to check the water, then drank only enough to wet my throat.

Hwang Bangju spoke.

"There was nothing like jerky."

I simply nodded and looked out at the wasteland.

"There may be more reconnaissance units. If these bastards don't return, others will come to investigate. How was it fighting them?"

"They weren't particularly difficult, but rather, since we cannot gauge the enemy's numbers, I believe we must manage our stamina carefully."

"Since they were all on horseback, if you wedge yourself in, there's often space to exploit. Conversely, if they all dismount and surround us to fight, that will be much harder."

"Yes."

I studied Hwang Bangju's expression and asked.

"How is it…… do you think you'll die today?"

"Do you wish for me to die?"

I smiled and replied.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so with my own hands. But it's better for me if you survive and beat more of these bandits to death."

Hwang Bangju nodded and asked me.

"Munju-nim, you are young, so why do you have so much experience?"

"Hwang Bangju, I may be younger than you, but I've done all sorts of things to survive. You wouldn't know because you've been earning your money comfortably off tribute."

Hwang Bangju laughed with his head tilted back, then drank from the leather water pouch.

I checked Pavilion Master Hwang’s condition.

“How much of your power do you have left?”

“I still have a long way to go. More than ninety percent remains.”

I nodded.

“So about seventy percent, then.”

He was a braggart, so I couldn’t take his words at face value. Pavilion Master Hwang asked me,

“What about you, Sect Leader?”

“I haven’t even used my internal energy.”

As expected, I was the more boastful one, so there was more bluff mixed into mine. Pavilion Master Hwang nodded and said,

“I saw your sword shine red, and your scabbard turn white.”

“Out in the wilderness, you often end up seeing things.”

Suddenly, Pavilion Master Hwang lowered his head and pressed his ear to the ground.

“……They’re coming.”

“They ought to.”

At the place where the horizons met, three or four mounted bandits appeared. They were pointing in our direction with their blades, and in the meantime, their number swelled to over ten.

Suddenly, Pavilion Master Hwang let out a sigh as he watched the number of bandits steadily increase.

“Sect Leader, my confidence has suddenly dropped quite a bit. Could you curse at me a little?”

“How would you like it? Moderately? Or full-on profanity?”

The number of mounted bandits kept increasing, and in no time, it had grown to forty or fifty. It seemed they were shouting among themselves to gather the bandits scattered around. Each time more bandits joined, the direction indicated by their blade tips was where Pavilion Master Hwang and I stood.

Pavilion Master Hwang counted the steadily increasing number of bandits and said to me,

“Full-on profanity, please.”

I stood up with my wooden sword in hand and watched the mounted bandits filling the horizon from left to right. I needed to check whether their leader was among them.

“……Looks like Jamun Honggwi isn’t here. If you die to bastards like that, you’re a moron. Pavilion Master Hwang.”

“Yes.”

Pavilion Master Hwang also stood and drew his sword again.

Without any discipline or order, the mounted bandits raised their blades high, let out roars, and spurred their horses. Dust rose in an instant, and the bandits, stretched out in a long line like an army bearing down, began charging all at once.

“If I die here, am I a moron?”

“A complete moron.”

“Is there, well…… no plan or anything?”

“None. Even if Zhuge Liang came, there wouldn’t be one.”

Suddenly, Pavilion Master Hwang let out a sigh mixed with hollow emotion.

Holding my wooden sword, I spoke as though chanting a sutra.

“Poor horses. In your next lives, do not be born as beasts.”

Wishing for the beasts to attain nirvana, I walked past Pavilion Master Hwang and stepped forward.

Was the reason those mounted bandits were screaming their lungs out because they, too, had resolved themselves to die?

I could not know.

I approached the mounted bandits surging toward us in a single horizontal line like a wave and drew my wooden sword.

Then, mixing the sword-drawing form, Mokgye energy, and external power, I drew out sword qi like the horizon and swung it.

Ssshhhhaaaaaang!

The neatly pouring, crescent-shaped sword qi stretched out low and struck the legs of the charging horses.

In an instant, the horses’ legs were severed all at once, and the mounted bandits atop them pitched forward. The fellow bandits charging in behind them trampled indiscriminately over those who had fallen to the ground, and then the second and third rows tangled together in chaos and collapsed.

Only then did I unleash my lightness skill and rush out.

Suddenly, the mindset of my past life surged through my chest, and I opened my mouth freely, as I had when I was called the Mad Demon.

“……I won’t accept surrender. Kneeling won’t do you any good either. I’ll chase down the ones who run first and beat them to death. As for those who bravely come at me, I’ll kill you without pain.”

Ah, the surging madness.

I quickly grew confused as to whether I had regressed, or whether my life had simply continued on from the cliff of Manjang-ae. With every breath I exhaled and inhaled, killing intent layered upon itself.

Why were bastards like these born into this world?

No matter how many times I beat them to death or cut them down, why was there no end?

For the first time in a long while, I felt as though I were pushing open the gates of hell with my own hands and stepping inside.

Someday, if I could see a hundred, a thousand—no, ten thousand enemies faint from a single Lion’s Roar I unleashed, I would have no other wish. In the end, if I wanted to keep myself from going any madder, my realm would have to rise to heights far beyond where it was now.

I wrapped Yeomhwahyang around the wooden sword in my right hand.

Before long, as I gazed at the mounted bandits surging in like a black tide, I leapt into the sky from the wilderness.

There was no way I could reach the heavens, but I soared as high as my strength allowed. When I felt that the arc of my leap had reached its peak, I forced my body to curl inward and entrusted myself to the mad gale created by my sword and movements.

Now, I was a single sphere.

The shape of my madness, too, was a sphere.

Like a shard of bone protruding from that sphere after piercing through my mind, I swung my sword and spun like a ball. Yeomhwahyang spreading from the sword scattered in every direction, and the long screams of the dead comforted me.

Good.

Those who should die must die.

Farewell, mounted bandits.

Die, mounted bandits.

Attain nirvana, horses.

I spun ferociously for as long as I could, then landed on the ground and burst into laughter.

“Since it’s come to this, all of you die.”

I swung my sword without considering the state of my body. If I wanted to split them apart directly with my sword and kill them, I did. If I wanted to send out sword qi, I sent out sword qi.

I chased after those who fled and killed them. As for those who stood against me, at times I poured out palm force and tore off their entire upper bodies. Whenever I judged that I had consumed too much power and came back to my senses, I honestly swung my sword and moved while cutting through the bandits’ bodies.

I cut, stabbed, and cleaved.

I severed, pierced, and dismantled.

After I had suddenly gone on that rampage, there were far too many mounted bandits fleeing with distorted expressions. I wrapped Janwol Ice Art around my wooden sword and sprayed cold energy in every direction.

There were too many fleeing, and they were running in all different directions, so now even I was getting dizzy. In that instant, I climbed onto a horse passing beside me and began chasing down the escaping bandits.

“……Do not run.”

I urgently warned the mounted bandits, but there were so many fleeing that my words carried no weight whatsoever.

As if imitating the mounted bandit groups I had seen in my past life, I drove the horse fiercely onward, then tightened both legs around its body to support myself before leaning to the right and striking off the neck of a bandit running alongside me. In that instant, my temper flared, and I shouted at the bandits.

“Hey, you dog bastards! I told you not to run!”

I spurred the horse on as it was, then struck the back of a fleeing bandit with the horse’s forelegs and trampled him. I heard a familiar voice from somewhere and looked over to see a familiar face running toward me, shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Sect Leader! Sect Leader!”

I narrowed my brow and replied,

“What? Why aren’t you fighting?”

The underling lightly ignored my words and looked around. Only then did I follow his gaze and check our surroundings. Countless corpses were sprawled in every direction, and beyond them, the horse bandits were scattering every which way.

The underling snapped at me.

“There have to be bastards left to fight if we’re going to fight!”

For a moment, I took a deep breath, then nodded and slowly studied the underling’s face. Come to think of it, he wasn’t the subordinate I had taken in during my days in Haomun in my previous life.

“You were Leader Hwang.”

Leader Hwang shouted at me.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m Leader Hwang!”

“Why are you making a fuss? Don’t get worked up.”

“……Hah.”

I patted the back of the head of the exceptionally calm horse I was riding and said,

“Wow, saved one horse. He’s a good, sturdy fellow.”

Leader Hwang looked at me as if he found it utterly absurd.

“This is fucking ridiculous. Seriously.”