Chapter 420. Take Care of My Disciple.

The White-Clad Scholar asked me.

“Sect Leader.”

“What?”

“What meaning is there in a fight with no chance of victory?”

I looked at the White-Clad Scholar’s expression, then answered.

“Back when you attacked Master together with the scholars, did you have a chance of winning?”

“About half a chance. We had prepared for a long time.”

So it seemed that, even on the way to Mount Hua, the White-Clad Scholar had not expected he would end up facing the Cult Leader one-on-one.

“Perhaps Senior Cheonak shouldered much of the guilt for the sins you committed. That is the meaning of a one-on-one fight. Accepting the result alone. You, who always used Senior Cheonak’s martial might so spitefully, have reached the moment where you must bear it yourself. Fortunately, the fight at Mount Hua is not a life-or-death duel. Before you is a sparring match whose process will be more valuable than the result of victory or defeat… so why are you only keeping defeat in mind? You even have the title of White-Clad Martial Emperor.”

When I roughly delivered those words of encouragement, the White-Clad Scholar murmured in a self-mocking tone.

“White-Clad Martial Emperor… Cult Leader, I am ready.”

The Cult Leader answered as if it were unexpected.

“I thought you would suggest a contest of lightness skill, or something else.”

The White-Clad Scholar said,

“Ah, before that, let us make one thing clear.”

“What is it?”

“Sending spies was something that had been done consistently since the time of the previous Scholar.”

“I know.”

“The Cult also sent spies to us, and they were discovered several times. Let us consider it business between us. I had quite the headache trying to weed out spies who were playing the role of disciples.”

At that moment, a man appeared with his head slightly lowered and moved toward the Blood Cult Leader’s sword that had fallen to the ground. I wondered who had suddenly appeared, but it was Senior Coachman, whom I had never seen up close before.

I spoke to the coachman as he collected the sword.

“Senior Coachman, you’ve had a lot of trouble. Take Ilsal as well.”

The coachman, having picked up the Daeyun Sword, looked at me with a slightly surprised expression.

“You still have a match remaining.”

“The Cult Leader is not an opponent who can be dealt with by a sword, so take it.”

Only then did I meet the coachman’s eyes, then handed Ilsal over to him when he approached. The coachman, now holding two longswords, spoke toward the Cult Leader.

“I will withdraw.”

Thinking about it, the famed swords of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult were being stored in the carriage outside the manor. Naturally, there was no way the coachman’s skills could be poor, but in front of the Cult Leader and us, I could see he was extremely cautious in his bearing. As a result, I could not confirm the depth of his footwork either.

The Cult Leader asked the White-Clad Scholar,

“Are you ready?”

“I am ready.”

The Cult Leader said,

“Another disciple of Heukseon, I see. Let me see your skill.”

“You know my master?”

“Of course I know him. The former Cult Leader, the former Alliance Leader, and Heukseon were the goals of my youth. There was quite a long period when those three could not be treated lightly.”

The Cult Leader and the White-Clad Scholar rose side by side and moved to a wide-open area.

Everyone who had been watching flocked over to my side and settled down again. Somehow, a shared understanding had formed that we needed to secure even more space for them.

The only man moving about was the Plum Blossom Manor Lord.

He relit torches that had gone out here and there, and occasionally picked up stones lying in the way on the ground and threw them far away. As if the sparring match about to take place here was entirely his responsibility, he carefully checked whether there was anything that might become a variable.

The Cult Leader’s expression never revealed anything, so there was nothing worth seeing there.

But the White-Clad Scholar’s expression was worth seeing.

Given his temperament, he must have hated going one-on-one with the Cult Leader terribly… and that feeling showed on his face.

With his hands clasped behind his back, the White-Clad Scholar said to the Cult Leader,

“I hated you greatly for a long time.”

“Is that so? Why?”

“I hated you before I even found a reason.”

“Do you know now?”

“I think I roughly do.”

“Because I’m similar to your master?”

“There is that, but in the end, I suppose I loathed myself because it felt as though I was becoming like you. Since I have become honest, I will say it. Had I not met the Hao Gate Leader at a certain point, you and I would have been competing for the title of the most infamous man under heaven.”

The Cult Leader answered with a slight smile.

“You have finally escaped your master’s shadow.”

“Can it be interpreted that way? Those are words like a gift.”

The White-Clad Scholar erased the smile from his face and spoke to the Cult Leader as if warning him.

“Cult Leader, be careful.”

“……”

While the Cult Leader tilted his head slightly, the White-Clad Scholar uttered a single sentence that was difficult to interpret at once.

“…I entrust my disciple to you.”

His tone was strange, but to me it sounded like a will.

‘What?’

Wasn’t he saying that to Cheonak?

Since when did the White-Clad Scholar care for his disciples?

When the Cult Leader and the White-Clad Scholar soon clashed, waves of qi collided against waves of qi, and in an instant sand, dust, and small stones swirled as if caught in a storm.

As soon as I rose from my seat, I muttered,

“What is he doing? Isn’t this a sparring match?”

Cheonak warned me.

“Be quiet. You’ll interfere with the match.”

Since Cheonak called it a sparring match, I felt a little relieved. But as I watched what was unfolding before my eyes, I grew flustered again.

No matter how I looked at it, this was not a sparring match.

As soon as something like clouds burst from the White-Clad Scholar’s back, it transformed into the shape of wings, and because of it the White-Clad Scholar’s movements became even fiercer, as if he were fighting while suspended in the air. From the very beginning, he had raised his internal energy and was going all out, as though pouring it all out in a brief instant.

Only then did I realize that the White-Clad Scholar was, from the start, a man who did not distinguish between a sparring match and a life-or-death duel. It did not look like simple pride either. It simply looked as if fighting this way was the most natural thing in the world.

Was he prepared to die?

If so, then the words about entrusting his disciple did not refer to those disciples he had treated like slaves, but to the disciples he had spoken of with me in the cave. Those disciples he had said we should produce over a thousand years. In other words, if I interpreted the White-Clad Scholar’s words again…

He was saying to take care of the chivalrous heroes.

I had, with great difficulty, transformed the decisive battle at Mount Hua into an atmosphere of discussing the sword, so did he really have to fight like this?

I tore my gaze away from the fierce battle unfolding before my eyes and looked at Cheonak. Perhaps Cheonak roughly understood my feelings, for he shook his head and said,

“…He was a stubborn fool even Master gave up on. It was because he had never once bent his stubbornness that I often beat him, not because his martial might was simply weaker than mine.”

“Mm, is that so?”

“Since that Baek fellow warned him in advance, the Cult Leader will not fight half-heartedly either.”

Anyone could see this was not the sight of someone fighting half-heartedly.

It was not because of me, and it did not seem to be because of the thousand-year chivalrous heroes either. Perhaps it was because he himself had often urged the disciples he treated like slaves into life-or-death duels all this time.

That temperament which had treated his disciples so harshly apparently could not bring itself to suggest that he himself try a cowardly, half-hearted spar.

When the Cult Leader poured out his palm force, the White-Robed Scholar, who had been meeting it head-on, was driven straight back with his body hovering perilously above the ground. Then, with white wings of some ambiguous art—whether lightness skill or a mere trick—he instantly regained his balance and dropped back to the earth.

I reached out a hand to stop the spar, but could not say a word.

Because not only the White-Robed Scholar, but even the Cult Leader looked happier than ever. With them like this, no one could stop them.

The Cult Leader said,

“You are worthy of being Black Fan’s disciple.”

The White-Robed Scholar approached with a nod.

“Black Fan… as far as martial arts alone were concerned, he was a man without flaw or weakness.”

“A pity. I should have been the one to kill him. Think on it.”

“Think on what?”

“Whether the moment you killed your master was not the most joyous moment of your life.”

The White-Robed Scholar answered with a broad smile.

“You saw well. That moment is impossible to forget.”

I had no choice but to cut into this conversation.

“Perhaps you were not happy because you killed him, but because you freed yourself from slavery.”

Surprisingly, the White-Robed Scholar and the Cult Leader answered me in turn.

“That is also true.”

“Correct.”

The moment the two villains answered me, they clashed again, unleashing palm force and fists at each other’s bodies as if in a barrage. Whenever thunderous roars burst out, my body reacted on its own, my hand rising to knock away the surging waves of qi and chunks of stone.

The reason this fight was dragging on, unlike the one between Cheonak and the Blood Cult Leader, was

because of the Cult Leader.

The Cult Leader had begun with the attitude of one engaging in a spar, while the White-Robed Scholar attacked as though this were a duel to the death. Gradually, the Cult Leader was raising his inner power to match the White-Robed Scholar’s strength, and the longer the fight went on, the more I could see the White-Robed Scholar’s white robes being torn to shreds.

Would it not be better to just use the Lazy Donkey Roll?

Just what state was my heart in?

I, too, held hatred and loathing toward the White-Robed Scholar, but I did not wish for him to die with his limbs torn apart by the Cult Leader.

Looking at him like this,

the White-Robed Scholar seemed to have no intention whatsoever of using the Lazy Donkey Roll.

Instead, bizarre martial arts I had never even seen began appearing one after another, and while knocking aside the Cult Leader’s palm force, he murmured,

“…Iron Fan Flying Art.”

The Cult Leader answered at once.

“Let me see it.”

At some point, the White-Robed Scholar had taken hold of a white folding fan and swung it. When the Cult Leader drew the Heavenly Demon Sword to block it, the sound of metal striking metal rang out. With weapons now appearing, the fight grew even more brutal.

At a glance, the folding fan seemed a peaceful, leisurely weapon, but his attacks were truly vicious. Perhaps its entire frame was made of steel, for even as it deflected the Heavenly Demon Sword, its shape did not break. Midway, the fan spread open and was used like a blade, and at a certain moment, the iron fan he thrust toward the Cult Leader’s throat cut through the wind and extended into the air.

The White-Robed Scholar faced the Heavenly Demon Sword barehanded…

then seized the iron fan again as it arrived after tracing a spinning arc, and continued fighting.

At one moment, he blocked the Heavenly Demon Sword’s advance with the surface of the fan, then folded the fan again while simultaneously pouring out palm force from his left hand.

It was a simple movement, but it concealed the line of sight, and the sinister nature of suddenly ambushing with palm force stood out.

To avoid the palm force suddenly rushing toward his entire face, the Cult Leader retreated while standing stiffly upright like a ghost. It was astonishing to see that the Cult Leader’s retreating movement was faster than the forward rush of the palm force.

Looking at it this way…

the Cult Leader had used footwork for retreat for the first time in the battle on Mount Hua.

We, who were watching, also observed the fight in astonishment.

As the distance opened between them, the Cult Leader smiled faintly, sheathed his sword again, and asked,

“Did you learn this from Black Fan as well?”

The White-Robed Scholar answered,

“This would be my own unique martial art. What is that method of retreating while standing so stiffly? It is faster than I expected.”

“Footwork, the lightness and heaviness of the body, and, depending on the moment, the use of palm force.”

“I have learned a move.”

I, too, had learned a move. Though it was proceeding as fiercely as a life-and-death duel, there was much to learn, as if watching a discourse on the sword.

The White-Robed Scholar glanced around once, then smiled strangely and wrapped his body in pure white qi extending from his entire form. Because the qi was largely white, there was a mysterious air to it, as if a mountain spirit had appeared, but his intention itself did not look mysterious at all.

Because he was clearly about to charge.

From a fairly great distance…

The instant the White-Robed Scholar’s body tilted forward, he shot straight ahead like an arrow. Seeing this, I thought there could not be many men in the martial world capable of charging at the Cult Leader in this manner.

‘What an incredible stubborn fool.’

Had he become strong because he possessed such a temperament?

The White-Robed Scholar soared into the air, wrapped in protective qi, and thrust out the folding fan like a dagger. It was as if I were watching an assassin’s final technique.

By contrast, the Cult Leader remained where he was, then drew the Heavenly Demon Sword in the form of a sword draw and struck it away. It did not look as if he were drawing the blade, but as if he were drawing qi out from the sword.

Muddied-colored qi extended from the folding fan.

The moment the Heavenly Demon Sword, wrapped in sword aura, struck the folding fan aside, we retreated while spreading protective qi over our entire bodies.

KWA-A-A-A-A-A-A-ANG!

I could not tell whether the sound came first, or the shockwave rushing against my face. As soon as I knocked the shockwave aside with palm force, I checked on the Cult Leader.

He was standing in the exact same spot, sword in hand…

but the White-Robed Scholar was nowhere to be seen.

Cheonak let out a sigh and walked outside the wall, and I followed after him together with Moyong Baek.

The White-Robed Scholar had used a consummate technique that even the Cult Leader could not respond to gently,

and in order to knock it aside, the Cult Leader had also concentrated his inner power into a single sword strike, which seemed to have exploded.

‘Surely he isn’t dead, right?’

Since the Heavenly Demon Sword had been wrapped in sword aura from the moment it was drawn, it would not have been strange even if his whole body had burst apart rather than merely being cut by the sword.

At some point, beside a carriage that had come nearby, the White-Robed Scholar was lying there. His upper garment seemed to have been torn completely into pieces, for no white robe could be found, and his entire upper body was soaked in blood.

The carriage driver senior, who had found the White-Robed Scholar before Cheonak, Moyong Baek, and me, had reached out and was checking the White-Robed Scholar’s breathing.

Cheonak asked the driver,

“Is that Baek bastard alive?”

The driver gazed silently at the White-Robed Scholar’s face and nodded.

“He is alive. A brave man.”

We sat around the White-Robed Scholar. Moyong Baek took a deep breath, then slowly reached out his hand. At that moment, the White-Robed Scholar abruptly opened his eyes and suddenly grabbed Moyong Baek’s arm. Startled, Moyong Baek spoke.

“Senior Martial Emperor, I am a physician.”

The White-Robed Scholar, whose face was also caked in blood, looked at Moyong Baek.

“Are you Moyong Baek?”

“Yes, it is me.”

The White-Clad Scholar asked.

“Are my limbs intact? I can’t feel them.”

Murong Bai answered.

“For now, judging by how tightly you are gripping my wrist, they seem intact. If any bones are broken, we will treat them here; if not, I will take you inside.”

The White-Clad Scholar answered while looking up at the night sky.

“No. I’ll lie here for a while.”

Cheonak, who had been watching from the side, muttered as if scolding him.

“What’s this about a head-on clash, so unlike you? I thought you would fight much longer.”

The White-Clad Scholar replied.

“Since I was challenging the strongest master under heaven, it was not bad to fight like this at least once.”

I, too, could not help saying a word to the White-Clad Scholar.

“You fought well. Was it to me that you said you were entrusting your disciple?”

The White-Clad Scholar looked at me with his pale face smeared in blood.

“Yes.”

“Do you mean the wandering hero?”

The White-Clad Scholar swallowed once, then answered briefly.

“That’s right.”

After that, the White-Clad Scholar continued to look up at the pitch-black sky without another word.