Chapter 167. It Is but a Spring Dream.

A qi wave (氣波) is, quite literally, a wave (波動) of qi (氣).

It is not an easy martial art.

I applied the principle of unleashing a qi wave through the Geumgu Soyogong, while the actual force I used was the cold qi of the Wolyeong Mujeonggong.

After releasing, in a single instant, the cold qi that had wrapped around my entire body in midair and landing on the ground……

I saw the bamboo-hatted man’s sword before my eyes.

Above the left side of my head, a white horsetail whisk had stopped.

The quick-witted middle-aged man was frozen with both palms crossed.

And the beggar bastard, more cunning than he looked, was frozen in the posture of lifting a table. Each had responded according to his own judgment, some attacking and some defending, but in any case, all of them had been covered by the Hyeonwol Cold Qi of the Wolyeong Mujeonggong.

Did they think I had leaped into the air for no reason before spreading the cold qi? These bastards were not martial artists of a level capable of dealing with a qi wave. In any case, regardless of the depth of their internal energy, my level of martial learning was higher than theirs to begin with.

I looked over the frozen ones, then drew the Flash Dagger.

“Everybody, stop moving.”

“…….”

“You bastards, did I really look that much like an idiot to you?”

I glared at the bamboo-hatted man, checked on Fairy Yo, then whispered from behind the middle-aged man.

“……My ice art wasn’t perfect, was it? I know all of you are desperately raising your internal energy, trying to break free from the ice art. But I’m warning you: the first bastard who twitches gets stabbed with this dagger. Even if you can move, don’t.”

I kicked away the table the beggar bastard was holding and said,

“Beggar, did you understand me? There’s nothing good about breaking free of the ice art quickly. Since it’s obvious you’ll attack me as soon as you can move, let’s have ourselves a little battle of nerves now. I stab the first one who moves.”

I shifted the Flash Dagger from one hand to the other and observed the eyes of the frozen bastards.

“Seems to me the archer will be the first to move. Your internal energy is the deepest, isn’t it?”

I looked at the middle-aged man, then drove the Janwol Ice Art into his Jianjing acupoint three more times. Thud, thud, thud! With those sounds, the middle-aged man struck by the Janwol Finger Art turned as white as a sheet of paper.

After looking around, I stabbed one more strike of the Janwol Finger Art into the bodies of the beggar, Fairy Yo, and the bamboo-hatted man as well.

“I kindly told you that you had misjudged me, and still you ignored me.”

I returned to the seat where I had originally been sitting, drove the Flash Dagger into the table, and set the rolling chopstick holder back on top of it.

I pulled a chopstick from the holder, then berated my prisoners.

“The bastard who twitches gets a chopstick. The bastard who runs gets the dagger. The bastard who loses his mind and attacks again gets beaten to death.”

I looked at the smashed-up Chunmong Inn and enjoyed the now-quiet atmosphere for a moment.

There was certainly an advantage to using ice arts.

It felt quiet and composed.

The Flame Realm I mostly used during my days as the Mad Demon had not been like that. I had to fight while constantly listening to screams, and the enemies who faced me would often die in ghastly forms.

But look at the power of this ice art.

It was quiet, lonesome, and serene.

As if I had become a man as cold, dispassionate, and strict as snow.

With a dispassionate heart, I flung a chopstick with all my strength and embedded it in the middle-aged man’s shoulder.

Thunk!

From deep in the middle-aged man’s throat came a “Ghk.”

I looked at the middle-aged man’s expression and asked,

“Archer, you seem pretty beyond saving. What do you think?”

“…….”

Since there was no answer, it seemed his mouth was still frozen shut.

“All you had to do was kill me, but you said you’d wipe out the Nammyeong Association, Heukseon Fortress, and the Heukmyo Gang, and even kill the people of my hometown. You vengeful bastard. Just hearing you say it makes you my enemy. I think you really would have done it. You’re too heartless, too violent, and too cruel. I sentence you to death.”

I rose from my seat, executed a sword-drawing technique with the wooden sword, then sat back down.

The eyes of all the frozen bastards moved toward the middle-aged man. A moment later, his upper body, split diagonally, spurted blood and fell to the floor.

Thud!

With an indifferent expression, I looked at Fairy Yo, the beggar, and the bamboo-hatted man.

“Don’t you think now that you picked the wrong person? When Yeop Yahong was cackling and you all attacked together, you looked very excited. I will continue with the next judgment. This beggar bastard…… he’s subtly sinister.”

I fixed my gaze on the beggar bastard.

“Always attacking last. Attacking just enough, then retreating. Waiting only for an opportunity. Even at the end, you were quick-witted and tried to block the ice art with the table. Only your face and clothes were like a beggar’s filthy rags; what you did was closer to an assassin. You, too, are sentenced to death.”

As soon as I pulled out the Flash Dagger, I wrapped it in the Flame Realm and hurled it at the beggar bastard with ferocious speed. The Flash Dagger flew like an arrow and lodged between the beggar bastard’s brows.

Thunk!

Suddenly, I heard a strange sound and looked over to see foam flowing from Fairy Yo’s mouth.

I narrowed my eyes and said to Fairy Yo,

“Hey, get a hold of yourself. At this rate, qi deviation will come crashing in. I don’t kill women unless I really have to.”

As soon as I finished speaking, Fairy Yo vomited dark red blood.

Feeling sorry for her, I clicked my tongue.

“Hah…….”

It seemed qi deviation had come upon her.

It was none of my business, so I rested my chin on my hand and looked at the bamboo-hatted man. In my opinion, the bamboo-hatted man’s internal energy was roughly on par with the middle-aged man’s. But he was a man whose entire body bore the traces of having spent a long time in the black path.

He was the sort to carry out orders thoroughly—in a word, simply a boring type of human.

Since I was, by nature, a man who went back and forth, I got up and approached the bamboo-hatted man.

The bamboo-hatted man kept glaring at me without pause.

I removed the bamboo hat I had been curious about all this time and slowly examined his face. I grabbed his chin with my hand, studied his physiognomy, and looked into his eyes.

“You’re a bastard who’s lost all sense of fear. You don’t seem like someone who should be serving under another. Strange.”

I infused the Flame Realm into my finger, then lightly tapped the bamboo-hatted man’s upper body. This should make the ice art loosen much faster.

After pulling the Flash Dagger from the beggar bastard’s forehead, I shook off the blood and returned to my seat.

Perhaps Fairy Yo was frightened, because she kept vomiting blood.

I pointed at the smashed-up Chunmong Inn and let out a sigh.

“……It is but a spring dream (一場春夢). Do not forget that there are many masters in the jianghu. If you had listened carefully to what I said to begin with, or if, before that, you had not committed evil deeds, you would not have died so vainly today. Originally, if your leader had come in person, I was planning to assess the situation and run away, but Yeop Yahong’s eye for talent was truly dreadful.”

I put the bamboo hat on my head and looked at the man who had lost his hat.

The man started moving his body while trembling, then slumped down at the table and looked at me. Soon, with a cracking sound, he spoke to me through lips split and bleeding.

“Please return the bamboo hat.”

“Why?”

“Return it, please.”

“I’m asking why.”

“Because it is an item I treasure.”

“Are you insane? You treat other people’s lives like mayflies, yet you ask me to return your Bangnip? What an absurd bastard.”

I removed the Bangnip and burned it with my internal flame, then scattered the ashes into the air. As the drifting embers flew toward the Bangnip man, the bastard stretched out his hand with a miserable expression and caught the ashes.

I asked him,

“Was the Bangnip that precious?”

Then, an answer I had never expected flowed from his mouth.

“…It kept off the rain, kept off the snow, and kept off people’s gazes. It was a cherished possession.”

While listening to him, I looked at my forearm. Goosebumps had risen, and a cold dread ran through me.

Only then did I think I knew who their leader was.

‘So one of the Five Evils was their leader.’

I couldn’t tell if his mind had been broken from the start, or if he had been broken by encountering an evil person.

With a bitter heart, I made a promise to Yoseonja and the Bangnip man.

“I will kill your wicked leader with my own hands, without fail.”

The Bangnip man smiled at me for the first time.

“My Lord, it will be difficult.”

“I know.”

“In the end, you too will be captured and live as a slave, just like us.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Can you be sure?”

“Though I may be weaker than the Demonic Cult Leader or your leader now, time will pass, and I will win in the end—so you need not worry too much.”

The Bangnip man said with a laugh,

“I cannot bring myself to believe your words.”

“I told you. In the end, the knight-errant is the strongest.”

“That wasn’t a joke?”

“You don’t have to believe me. Look at the world. If scum like the Demonic Cult Leader or your leader ran rampant across the land, the world would have already become hell. But the world is not like that. Because in this world, there are always more knights-errant than villains. In the end, we win. Even if I die fighting, even if Sect Leader Im is surrounded by villains and dies, even if the heroes of the martial sects and great families fall. Even if the Martial Alliance and Haomun are destroyed in the end… eventually, a knight-errant who rises from somewhere will set the world right again. That is the natural order of the world. That is the power knights-errant possess.”

The Bangnip man looked at me.

“Then what are people like us?”

“I understand you to some extent. There are times in life when things don’t go your way. Everyone lives foolishly and clumsily, and if one day they have a change of heart, a villain becomes a knight-errant, and a knight-errant becomes a villain. One might become a hypocrite. One might become a traitor.”

The Bangnip man asked me,

“Is someone like you a knight-errant?”

I answered honestly.

“I am not a knight-errant. But I am someone who can distinguish between knights-errant and villains. Someone who can identify and kill the wicked, and protect the righteous—that is who I am.”

Bleeding from around his mouth—perhaps from internal injuries—the Bangnip man asked,

“Are there really so many knights-errant in the world? Why have I never seen them?”

“With those terrifying eyes of yours, glaring at the world as if you would tear apart everything in sight, how would a knight-errant ever show themselves to you?”

The Bangnip man smiled, showing his blood-stained teeth.

“I suppose I was simply unlucky.”

Having lost interest in the dying Bangnip man and Yoseonja, I looked up at the sky with my legs propped on the table.

I told my purpose to those who were dying.

“…If I look after ten thousand, and even one or two knights-errant emerge among them, I have succeeded. Those I looked after will look after another three or four, dozens, or hundreds. If more knights-errant emerge from them, it is Heavenly Fortune. No matter how strong my enemies are, they cannot overcome this. Even if Haomun falls to ruin one day, my will can never perish. Like hell it will.”

I turned my head and saw…

Yeop Yahong approaching the Spring Dream Inn with over ten swordsmen. Curious to see what Yeop Yahong would do, I watched nonchalantly with my arms crossed.

“You’re here?”

Yeop Yahong stopped and checked the dead and the dying. The men Yeop Yahong had brought did the same. None of them could even open their mouths.

I asked Yeop Yahong,

“Hero Yeop, is it time for you to die? You didn’t even run, and stupidly came back.”

The Bangnip man looked at Yeop Yahong.

“You insane bastard, we all died because of you.”

Suddenly, Yoseonja, who had been standing frozen stiff, collapsed in that rigid posture. Yeop Yahong looked around and said,

“Squad Leader Seok?”

I looked at the split corpse and answered,

“Squad Leader Seok left because he has urgent business in the afterlife.”

The Bangnip man said in an exhausted tone,

“What are you all doing not running? Run.”

The Bangnip man’s words were like a signal flare. As soon as Yeop Yahong began to flee first, over ten swordsmen fled after him. It seemed they knew even better than I that there was no chance of victory, now that Squad Leader Seok, who had been managing them, had been split in half.

The very thought of frantically chasing those bastards to kill them filled me with self-loathing before I even gave chase. Killing is important, but my mental health and managing my madness are important too.

The fleeing Yeop Yahong shouted,

“Big Brother Byeokgeom, I will avenge you later!”

Was it because I had mastered the Ice Arts?

My mind was calmer than usual.

Looking back at my past life, I had trained in extreme Yang martial arts and had no partner, so the harmony of Yin and Yang was something that had never existed in my life.

The Bangnip man, Byeokgeom, stared at me and then stood up gripping his sword. His bearing somehow suggested he intended to face me and buy time.

I pulled out my chopsticks and pointed them at Byeokgeom.

“Want to die?”

Seeing Byeokgeom sit back down at the table, I asked,

“Now spill it. Location, scale, forces. And the leader too.”

“If I reveal such things, I won’t die a clean death.”

I shook my chopsticks.

“If you don’t reveal such things, you’re next after Yoseonja.”

Byeokgeom spoke in a resigned tone,

“Anyway, if I cannot take the antidote, I will die from the poison, so dying by the sword would be better.”

“Is that so?”

“…”

I looked at Byeokgeom’s expression and spoke in a flat tone,

“I have a Divine Doctor on my side. Think carefully.”