Chapter 267. The Resolve to Enter an Ambush from Ten Sides.

It may be hard to believe, but a man who plays the xiao well has a chance of not dying.

Considering the Sword Demon’s personality, his murderous gaze, the ever-grave mindset of this man, and the heavy atmosphere he always carried, saying the xiao sounded “not bad” had not been sarcasm. It had been praise.

Amid the oppressive mood, I looked over Bigaek’s party, but I could not tell who had played the xiao.

Was it because Martial Uncle Dongsu’s bald head was shining? Showing a compassion I usually never possessed, I muttered.

“Even if you are dragged into a tiger’s den, if you play the xiao, you can survive.”

“…….”

The tactless bald man asked me.

“Is there such a saying?”

I looked at Dongsu.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Are you dissatisfied because there isn’t?”

“No, sir.”

Just then, a man slowly stepped out from the rear of Bigaek’s group and walked to the side, drawing everyone’s attention. After moving a dozen or so steps and stopping, the man swept aside his long robe, sat on the ground, and, holding his xiao, asked the Sword Demon.

“I can play Guangling Zhixi, Ambush from Ten Sides, Hujia Ming, and Fifteen Years in the Army.”

The Sword Demon nodded.

“Ambush from Ten Sides, if you please.”

The man holding the xiao said.

“It should properly be played on the pipa, but lacking that, I will attempt to imitate it.”

Then the man began playing Ambush from Ten Sides on the xiao. Of course, I had no idea what piece it was. But Ambush from Ten Sides meant exactly what it said: an encirclement. As the xiao performance began, the Sword Demon’s voice laid itself over the melody.

“Disciple.”

The Lecherous Demon immediately answered.

“Yes, Master.”

“I heard the words ‘public enemy of the martial world.’”

“That is correct.”

“A public enemy of the martial world may originally be a title earned by clashing fiercely with the Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance because their ideals did not align. Or it may be a title earned by frequently lifting women’s skirts and being good at running away. Even among public enemies of the martial world, there is a world of difference. Which side are those men on?”

The Lecherous Demon answered with a troubled expression.

“The latter.”

Only then did the Sword Demon glare at the Lecherous Demon as he usually did.

“Is that so? Then they are a different sort from the Meng family’s second son.”

“They are.”

I burst into laughter by myself, then hurriedly covered my mouth. For some reason, I felt the Lecherous Demon would have a fit if I laughed, so I barely held it in before lowering my hand.

Bigaek cut into the conversation.

“I did not know Young Master Meng had a master. Have you come from the Fengyun Meng Clan?”

Without even looking at Bigaek, the Sword Demon replied.

“I am speaking with my disciple, so keep your mouth shut for a moment.”

Looking at Bigaek, I nearly burst out laughing with my cheeks puffed, but reading the mood, I only smiled with my expression.

The Sword Demon continued.

“From what I saw on the way here, the Sect Leader is wounded, and Liuhe’s complexion is not good either. You and I have been well fed at the inn all this time, so we ought to pay for our meals. With the xiao player out, there are ten of them. If I speak honestly, even the man holding that long, slender sword does not seem to be far below you in skill. The others are not feeble men either. What will you do? If the two of us face ten, it will be the same as walking into an Ambush from Ten Sides of our own accord.”

The Lecherous Demon answered.

“Understood.”

“If you are displeased, say so now.”

“When I am fighting alongside you, Master, how could I fear an Ambush from Ten Sides?”

My mouth itched, so I muttered.

“So you mean you fear an Ambush from a Hundred Sides?”

The Lecherous Demon glared at me and mouthed the words.

“Shut up.”

I watched the master and disciple step forward side by side, then asked.

“Let me join in too.”

Beside me, Murong Bai clicked his tongue and glared at me.

“Tsk.”

“…….”

A middle-aged man among Bigaek’s group drew a straight saber and said.

“This is absurd.”

I did not know whom he was speaking to, so I answered in his place.

“It is.”

I watched the fight with my arms crossed. Thinking about it, the Sword Demon must have spent all this time deeply studying the Dugu Heavy Sword I had given him. Originally, I had intended to jump in as well and kill every last one of them, but since the Sword Demon had said what he had said himself, I could not recklessly interfere.

Meanwhile, Ambush from Ten Sides continued to flow from the xiao, and sweat was already running down the xiao player’s forehead.

Then the Sword Demon and the Lecherous Demon charged, and the Ambush from Ten Sides began.

The Ghost Demon, who was watching, muttered.

“It refers to Emperor Gaozu of Han surrounding Xiang Yu on ten sides at the Battle of Gaixia.”

“I see.”

Once I understood the meaning, the mood of the piece changed as it reached my ears. The difference between knowing and not knowing a meaning was this great.

As the Sword Demon drew the Guangming Sword and began swinging it, the Lecherous Demon deliberately fell back and moved from a position that supported his master. In an instant, the ten men scattered, then formed a battle formation, and all kinds of miscellaneous weapons appeared.

Swords and sabers were common enough.

Short spears and whips were seen from time to time.

But iron staves, judge’s brushes, fly-whisks, wolf-tooth clubs, and iron fans were not weapons commonly seen. The moment I saw the movements of Bigaek’s group, I knew they were men who had practiced joint attacks many times. In an instant, the Lecherous Demon, fighting barehanded, looked to be in the most danger.

If a huge wolf-tooth club came flying at him right away……

One on one, he could simply grab it and inject cold energy into it. However, the movements of the experts holding relatively short weapons—the judge’s brush, fly-whisk, and iron fan—were nimble. They moved in a hit-and-run manner, while the whip and short spear filled the gaps.

The Lecherous Demon did not seem to have the leisure to inject ice arts on his own and decide the match. In any case, an Ambush from Ten Sides was this frightening.

The most outstanding thing, at least, was the movement of the Guangming Sword, so even the men wielding the iron staff and wolf-tooth club had their faces twist each time they deflected the Guangming Sword.

The instant I thought their combined assault was far too natural……

I instinctively stared intently at the xiao player’s expression.

He had been sweating nonstop since earlier.

I narrowed my brow, then said to the man playing the xiao.

“After Ambush from Ten Sides, play Guangling Zhixi, Hujia Ming, and Fifteen Years in the Army, in that order. Once you finish them all, start again from Ambush from Ten Sides. If the sound of your xiao cuts off, your next performance will be in the afterlife.”

Now that I looked, it was possible hidden weapons could fly out of that xiao.

Words alone did not seem sufficient, so I went and sat beside the xiao man. If the xiao pointed toward the Lecherous Demon or the Sword Demon, today’s performance would be his last.

I separated and read the Sword Demon’s movements into those related to the Dugu Heavy Sword and those that were originally his own. Surprisingly, there were few movements I thought belonged to the Dugu Heavy Sword.

Through the Sword Demon, I realized that the power of the Dugu Heavy Sword could not be brought to bear while trapped inside an encirclement. The moments when one had to block incoming attacks simply continued without end.

Once the attacks and defenses of Ambush from Ten Sides had become somewhat familiar to the eye…….

The Lust Demon’s movements gradually became more active. He was unleashing his ice art as if sprinkling seasoning.

The reason I described it as seasoning was simple.

The Lust Demon struck the hand gripping the wolf-tooth club, the iron fan when it was spread wide, the pointed tip of the judge’s brush, and the hairs of the horsetail whisk with his ice art.

As a result…….

The wolf-tooth club, which had been moving with endless variation despite its weight, grew sluggish.

The iron fan had been attacking the Sword Demon like a blade when opened and as a thrusting weapon when folded, but now that it had frozen while spread wide, its thrusting attacks vanished.

As for the short judge’s brush, it seemed the ice art had been transmitted straight through it, for the face of the man who looked like a scholar was turning pale as a sheet of paper.

The horsetail whisk had the characteristic of moving from directions as unpredictable as a horse’s tail, but because of the ice art, its shape had stiffened, turning it into an ordinary short weapon. In other words, while the Sword Demon was receiving the attacks from the front with the Radiant Sword, the Lust Demon had been diligently sprinkling seasoning with his ice art.

When the second exchange began with a changed meaning, the injured began appearing one after another.

The judge’s brush went flying somewhere, and the horsetail whisk was cut cleanly in two. A hole was punched through the iron fan they had been using while spread wide, and the man in his thirties who had been using the wolf-tooth club staggered back the moment he took a palm strike from the Lust Demon, then spilled blood onto the ground.

The Lust Demon’s sly laugh burst out at just the right moment.

“Heh heh heh.”

The only ones still fighting properly were the assassin using a long sword, the middle-aged man using a straight saber, and the expert wielding a whip.

Just then, Martial Uncle Dongsu, who had been watching with us out of nowhere, opened his mouth.

“……Mercy.”

I cut Dongsu off at once.

“Bald bastard, can’t you shut up? If you were going to flap your mouth, you should’ve done it earlier. Are you saying our senior and youngest should die in their place because we showed mercy even in the middle of this? Open your mouth one more time and I’ll join in and tear the wounded to death first.”

Martial Uncle Dongsu stared at me for a while, then closed his eyes. Without watching the fight, he chanted something like a Buddhist prayer, and now Martial Uncle Dongsu was sweating just like the man playing the tungso.

At that moment, as soon as I noticed the sound of the tungso becoming unstable, I went on to scold the bastard beside me too.

“Do you want to die? Why did the quality of your performance suddenly drop? You damned bastard, the only thing you’re good at is playing the tungso, and now you’re playing it like a cripple. My ears have opened now too. You were off-key just now. Are you going to play the tungso properly, or are you going to get beaten to death by me? It felt good when ten of you came swarming in to harass us, didn’t it?”

Since I was scolding him from the side, the pitch became even more unstable.

“…….”

I met the tungso man’s eyes, then frowned.

“I won’t scold you, so play properly.”

The tungso man, with rain pouring down his face, nodded. In the meantime, the rhythm of Ambush from Ten Sides had grown familiar to my ears, so I waved my hands here and there, keeping time.

“Good. Smoothly there. That’s it. It carries on, then intensifies. You moronic bastard, now the balance is right.”

When I suddenly looked at the Ghost Demon, the bastard who supposedly had internal injuries was grinning for some reason, then met my eyes.

“…….”

The Ghost Demon abruptly returned to an expressionless face and focused on the fight again. In the midst of this, someone’s scream pierced through Ambush from Ten Sides and ascended to the heavens.

It was a high note.

The thought that he could have carried a tune if he had learned to sing, and that it was a shame, crossed my mind—then the Sword Demon forever severed the bastard’s breath. The rest of his dream of song would have to unfold in the next world.

A man who had taken the Lust Demon’s palm force head-on fell backward with his head thrown up.

In the blink of an eye, the fight went from ten against two to ten against eight, and my ass started itching.

‘Those fucking bastards…….’

Just then, a sly bastard spoke to Dongsu in the middle of fighting.

“Monk, please mediate for us. We…….”

When Martial Uncle Dongsu’s eyes flashed open, the Ghost Demon reached out and grabbed Dongsu by the shoulder.

“Monk, these men are human traffickers, bastards who traded even children as goods. The Sect Leader and I were at the scene, took the child out, and beat to death everyone involved in the transaction. If these people were human, they wouldn’t have come to us talking as though we should compensate them. Don’t you think so too, Monk?”

Dongsu looked at the Ghost Demon.

“Is that true?”

The Ghost Demon answered.

“The child we brought with us is inside. Discern for yourself what is empty talk. We are not good people either, but these bastards are hard to let live. If you interfere, I will not stand by quietly.”

When Martial Uncle Dongsu could say nothing, only then did the Ghost Demon withdraw the hand that had been gripping his shoulder.

Watching the fight again, the Ghost Demon said,

“To be honest, watching from the sidelines itself is painful. I’m in a state where I want to join that fight too. Once you know the circumstances, wouldn’t you feel the same, Monk?”

The Ghost Demon had expressed my feelings well in my stead.

This time, Martial Uncle Dongsu watched the fight without closing his eyes.

Out of nowhere, Cha Seongtae, who had been watching without saying a word until now, opened his mouth.

“……What you just said, all of it is true, right?”

Cha Seongtae looked at me, so I answered him.

“It is.”

Moyong Baek looked at me, and the moment our eyes met, he said,

“Sect Leader.”

“What?”

“Must we really hold back? I’m sorry to Senior Sword Demon, but must we…….”

I looked at the gazes of Cha Seongtae and Moyong Baek, then nodded.

“Right. Why should I hold back? Good point.”

When I stood up and looked down at the tungso-playing man, the bastard suddenly flung the tungso aside and prostrated himself on the ground.

“……Please spare me, Sect Leader.”

“I told you to keep playing the tungso.”

“Yes.”

While the man picked the tungso back up, Cha Seongtae drew his straight saber, and even Moyong Baek stepped forward and came to my side.

Seeing the anger on Moyong Baek’s face, it felt like I was looking at my former self. Since it seemed the still-lousy Cha Seongtae and Moyong Baek might cause an accident, I first shot my body into the air and drew my wooden sword. I unilaterally notified the Sword Demon and the Lust Demon, who were fighting.

“……I’m joining in.”

As I swung my wooden sword at the assassin, the sound of the tungso playing Ambush from Ten Sides was once again reaching its climax.