Chapter 247. The Ways of Jianghu.

Mureungja, who had patiently waited through my idle chatter with my martial uncle from a previous life, stepped forward and spoke with a delighted expression.

“Left Envoy, I never thought I would cross paths with you in the jianghu, so I am pleased to meet you like this. To put it with a little exaggeration, it is an honor. To think I would gain the chance to fight an expert of the Demonic Cult.”

I looked at Mureungja’s face. So many of his disciples had died, so what was he so happy about? His expression truly showed nothing but joy, leaving me bewildered as well. There were not many experts in the jianghu who could be pleased at the prospect of fighting the Sword Demon.

What sort of confidence was this?

The Sword Demon glared at Mureungja and replied.

“Old man, hearing you say that makes it an honor for me as well.”

Mureungja chuckled and looked at the Ghost Demon and the Lust Demon.

“Fortunately, the matchups are just right as well. Who are you two? Let us at least know whom we will kill and by whom we will be killed before we begin.”

The Ghost Demon introduced himself.

“You may think of me as the last disciple of the Liuhe Sect.”

Mureungja nodded.

“Oh, so you were Master Liuhe, the one who rampaged about as an avenging ghost. Pleased to meet you.”

The Ghost Demon snorted. The Lust Demon, meeting Mureungja’s eyes, opened his mouth.

“I am the Lust… of Baekeungji. What are you looking at?”

Everyone present looked at the Lust Demon.

It seemed he had realized the slip of the tongue that had popped out under some sort of mental pressure and immediately tried to change his words.

But I introduced him in his stead.

“He is the Lust Demon of Baekeungji.”

From behind me, my martial uncle muttered.

“Ah, you have quite a few problems.”

The Lust Demon glared at my martial uncle.

“There are more problems on your head.”

My martial uncle stroked his head with both hands and denied it.

“There are not!”

The Lust Demon replied with a laugh.

“What do you mean, there aren’t? There are.”

I glared at the old men standing to Mureungja’s left and right.

An old man who was not merely well-built but extremely fat for a man of the jianghu chuckled and said,

“To be honest, the Left Envoy frightens me. Please do not match me one-on-one against the Left Envoy. I am called Pyeongpyeongja (平平子).”

Since a fellow who was not flat in the slightest called himself Pyeongpyeongja, my mouth opened on its own.

“You look less like Pyeongpyeongja and more like Fatfatja.”

Pyeongpyeongja glared at me.

“Hao Sect Leader, shut your mouth.”

I heard a strange sound from behind me, so I turned and saw Martial Uncle Dongsu laughing.

It seemed even he found that funny. If he laughed, that was enough. In the meantime, the rest of the riffraff introduced themselves as well.

A swordsman a head shorter than the other old men said,

“I am called Gosanja (高山子).”

A dark-faced man introduced himself last.

“I am Baekdoja (白桃子).”

It was a feast of wordplay, so none of them had proper sobriquets. Doja (桃子) originally meant peach, so the sobriquet of a man with a pitch-dark face was, in effect, White Peach.

Abbreviated, it would be Baekdo (白桃).

I nodded.

“If there is a white peach on a flat place atop a high mountain, then that place must be Mureungdowon. Is that the meaning behind the sobriquets of the Four Masters?”

Mureungja laughed.

“There is no particular meaning.”

“Hahahaha……”

The Four Peach Masters burst into laughter at the same time. Behind me, Martial Uncle Dongsu began spouting innocent nonsense.

“Very well. The eight of you may compete in martial arts, but make sure neither side is seriously injured. Would it not be joyful enough simply to determine whose martial arts are superior?”

“Shut up.”

“This is why I hate monks.”

“Baldy, close that mouth.”

“Do not let the shaven-headed one interfere.”

After being harshly beaten down in succession by the Four Peach Masters, Martial Uncle Dongsu swallowed once.

Mureungja proposed,

“It would be entertaining to hold successive duels and watch one person die after another. A group battle is also acceptable. Juniors, choose the way you wish to die.”

I asked Mureungja,

“What do you want?”

“One-on-one would be best.”

I stepped forward first. In truth, I did not think these heretics and deviants would engage in a proper one-on-one fight, so I stepped forward first. In a fight like this, the first matchup was most important. Once I killed one of them, a four-against-three group battle would follow. The same was true even if I lost.

“I’ll go first.”

Mureungja, Pyeongpyeongja, Gosanja, and Baekdoja looked at one another’s faces and considered who would go out. Since Mureungja would be mindful of the Sword Demon, I expected the second strongest among the Four Peach Masters to come forward.

Pyeongpyeongja came out while drawing his sword.

“Sect Leader, I look forward to your guidance.”

Since he had said from the start that he did not want to contend with the Sword Demon, that meant he had confidence against the other three. As Mureungja’s group withdrew, the Four Great Villains grabbed Martial Uncle Dongsu and moved far away.

When the two of us were left, Pyeongpyeongja said to me,

“Sect Leader, let us not kill each other.”

I nodded.

“Shall we stop at cutting off arms and legs?”

“That would be good too.”

“Pyeongpyeongja, what is the true identity of the peach?”

“That, I cannot tell you.”

Mureungja cut into the conversation.

“Do not say anything useless.”

The instant I sent my gaze toward Mureungja, Pyeongpyeongja’s sword appeared before my eyes. I instantly retreated and dodged with a tilt of my head, but Pyeongpyeongja’s swordsmanship was nimble and followed as if chasing my eyes.

As soon as I drew my wooden sword, I swung it upward and knocked Pyeongpyeongja’s sword aside, then prepared my left palm. It was because the motion with which I struck away his sword had revealed a large opening. As if by agreement, Pyeongpyeongja thrust out his left palm, and I countered with the Flame Realm Great Hand Seal I had prepared in advance.

Before the reddish palm force could grow into the shape of a hand, Pyeongpyeongja’s palm force collided with it and exploded with a roar, followed immediately by Pyeongpyeongja’s next attack. His movements were far from fat. Rather, he added internal energy to the weight of his body, moving with greater elasticity and explosively greater speed than one would ordinarily expect.

His internal energy was far deeper than I had anticipated.

Was it because he was an old man thirty or forty years older than me? In the initial exchange, which was close to a probing skirmish, he did not fall behind me in anything.

Footwork, internal energy, swordsmanship, even palm force……

In truth, I was also worried about a surprise attack or ambush from Mureungja’s group, but for now I trusted the Four Great Villains to respond. While focusing solely on Pyeongpyeongja, I infused the energy of the Flame Realm into my wooden sword, and fought with the Moon Shadow Heartless Art wrapped around my left palm to block off variables.

Only after our swords clashed more than ten times in an instant did I realize that Pyeongpyeongja’s internal energy was strangely deep, more so than the level of his swordsmanship.

Sure enough, when I thoroughly maintained my defense, Pyeongpyeongja launched his attacks with the intention of crushing me through internal energy. I could glimpse his confidence that even expending his internal energy like this, he would be able to deal with me sufficiently.

I could deal with every subtlety and trick in his swordsmanship, but each time he released his palm force, it surged in as if waves had risen like a wall and come crashing down.

‘Just why is his internal energy so high?’

In that moment, I found myself wondering what exactly the peaches Mureungja spoke of were. The reason Mureungja had become a public enemy had been written beneath his description. He had gathered many disciples and made a name for himself, but many of those disciples had gone missing, and petitions had piled up at the Martial Alliance. Mureungja repeatedly refused the Martial Alliance’s summons to come and explain himself, and in the end, he had even killed an Alliance member.

Looked at that way, a peach was not a peach.

If one thought darkly of it, that was.

After organizing my thoughts through deduction, I looked at Pyeongpyeongja’s face again. My desire to cut off his limbs and force him into retirement had changed into a desire to tear his entire body apart and kill him. Mureungja, Gosan-ja, and Baekdoja still remained, but from the very start, I drew my power up as far as I could.

As Pyeongpyeongja intended, the moment our swords clashed, I crossed hands with him and exchanged left palms as well.

Thud!

Perhaps Pyeongpyeongja had intended from the beginning to overwhelm me with internal energy, for the palms that met this time did not part.

Sword against sword, left palm against left palm—both were stuck fast because of our internal energy.

From up close, I peered into Pyeongpyeongja’s eyes and expression.

Pyeongpyeongja’s mouth moved, and then a small lump of metal shot out with a whoosh.

When I dodged it with a jerk of my head, I heard the lump of metal strike someone’s sword behind me.

I glared at Pyeongpyeongja and continued pouring out my palm force. Pyeongpyeongja grinned, then this time used external strength to pull me in and attempt a headbutt. With not only our swords but even my left hand stuck fast, it was an attack difficult to avoid.

I mimicked the way Pyeongpyeongja had worked his mouth and spat at him as he came in for the headbutt.

Blocking a headbutt with spit?

No. Pyeongpyeongja, who had taken it for a hidden weapon, was startled and jerked his head back. As if adding force to Pyeongpyeongja’s self-induced imbalance, I shifted to the side and kicked his ankle with my right foot. Since I had kicked the foot that was supporting Pyeongpyeongja’s weight, his body rose straight into the air.

The instant Pyeongpyeongja’s heavy body struck the ground, I wound the Dark Moon Ice Art and the Flame Realm around both hands, pulled in the hands that had been crossed, and forged the Sun-Moon Radiant Spring.

To say I forged it was, in truth, a stretch.

But when the qi of extreme yang and extreme yin touched, the preliminary signs of the Sun-Moon Radiant Spring appeared. As a roar and light erupted before my eyes, Pyeongpyeongja, pinned to the ground, thrashed as if in a frenzy. I stared into Pyeongpyeongja’s eyes and struggled to bring my two hands together as though contesting external strength, while Pyeongpyeongja braced himself to keep my hands from joining.

In the midst of that, Mureungja’s side launched a surprise attack, but I did not bother responding.

Almost at the same time, I heard the Lust Demon, the Ghost Demon, and the Sword Demon draw their swords or move. Leaving the rest to the Four Great Villains, I finally forced the Dark Moon and the Flame Realm to collide.

My sword hand and the hand wrapped in palm force were crossed.

In that instant, while glaring at Pyeongpyeongja, I bit into the bastard’s face like a wolf. Before I had any room to tear and chew, the startled Pyeongpyeongja screamed. At that moment, Pyeongpyeongja’s internal energy, so deep it had seemed bottomless, abruptly stopped as if a waterway had been cut off.

In that fleeting opening, I abandoned my sword, grabbed Pyeongpyeongja by the neck and face with my crossed hands, and began injecting the Baekjeon Sipdan Gong.

Pyeongpyeongja screamed, and for some absurd reason, laughter burst out of me.

“……Was being bitten that scary? It’s not like you had such a handsome face, yet you’re terrified. Absolutely terrified.”

Laughing, I poured the lightning qi of the Baekjeon Sipdan Gong into Pyeongpyeongja’s head as he convulsed. His face burned black, and only then did he begin to counterattack with things like punches. I had no intention of taking even a single hit, so while gripping Pyeongpyeongja’s face, I flipped upside down, shot only my feet into the air, then changed direction and continued injecting lightning qi.

“Hey, old man Pyeongpyeongja. What are the peaches? Tell me and I’ll spare you. I’ll spare…….”

Pyeongpyeongja’s head had already burned completely, so he could no longer speak. When I suddenly lifted my head, the Four Great Villains had already engaged Mureungja’s group.

In the midst of that, Martial Uncle Dongsu glared at me with bloodshot eyes and shouted.

“Must you really kill him?”

While assessing the battle situation, I spoke to Martial Uncle Dongsu.

“Baldy, aren’t you looking at the world a bit too beautifully? Many of Mureungja’s disciples went missing. The peaches aren’t the peaches you’re thinking of. You started as a child monk too, didn’t you? Someone like you would be a peach. If there were only one or two villains in the world, I would advise handing them to you so you could guide them, but in reality, there are far too many bastards like this. What about the innocent people killed by them? Killing them is the way of the jianghu.”

I looked at Martial Uncle Dongsu, then raised my foot again and smashed Pyeongpyeongja’s already-dead head once more. After picking up the wooden sword that had fallen to the ground, I observed my wicked brothers as they fought.

The Sword Demon was battling Mureungja fiercely.

The Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon were each facing Gosan-ja and Baekdoja. The matchups were decent enough, so there was no opening for me to join in immediately.

I urged Martial Uncle Dongsu, who was standing there blankly.

“Baldy, don’t just stand there. Help me. Help my brothers. Even if we die to those bastards, are you still going to think of guiding them?”

My martial uncle from my previous life stared at me in silence.

I said to him.

“If we all die, you die too, so think carefully.”

In truth, since he was the Mad Monk’s junior disciple, and since the Mad Monk himself had called him a martial arts genius, his skills had to be exceptionally good. However, because of his soft-hearted disposition, he had exactly the sort of personality that made him easy prey for people of the jianghu.

After scolding Martial Uncle for the moment, I joined my brothers.

Saving Martial Uncle was important, but more than that, keeping the Four Great Villains from dying first was what I considered the way of the jianghu.