Episode 70. It Burns

How many corpses were in that pit?

Because there was a trap like this here, Iryong Nogun had not joined forces with the Unuhoe, nor had he run off somewhere like his subordinates.

After pressing the teacup again, Iryong Nogun turned his wrist, and the teacup rotated with a clatter.

Then, with a grating sound that scratched at the ears, parts of the garden sank down, while pillars shot up in other places.

It was as if the entire garden floor had become a go board laid with black and white stones.

The white were places one could step on, and the black were pits to fall into. Places that could be stepped on and places that could not were jumbled together in chaos. The moment I saw it, I guessed that even the places that looked like “white stones” would have traps mixed in.

Only that bastard would know which ground was safe to step on.

Iryong Nogun said,

“This is just right. Now, let us compete.”

I stepped back again and gave a slight laugh.

Iryong Nogun looked at me.

“What use is fame?”

“For forty years, you’ve been dropping people into pits here, so of course no one knew about you. I suppose you ate, drank tea, and slept atop the corpses you killed. Only now do I understand why your face is so pale. Was the jianghu that frightening?”

Iryong Nogun smiled.

“You speak nonsense.”

“I’ve seen plenty of bastards like you. Petty men who dig traps and then can’t stray from the area around those traps. You don’t go out hunting yourself like a wild beast, nor do you roam the world to contend with the strong. You must have spent your whole life rotting away like this, burying your subordinates, burying your friends, burying anyone who displeased you. Every time a pit opens and closes, the stench of rotting corpses reeks to high heaven. I feel a little sorry for the Great Rakshasa.”

“What about a dead man?”

I looked around the mountain villa and said,

“He was probably studying this villa the whole time in order to kill you. Seems you never showed him an opening.”

At my words, Iryong Nogun laughed with a grotesque expression. Since the bastard’s complexion was pale to begin with, he looked like a ghost laughing.

Iryong Nogun said,

“Correct. The Great Rakshasa never showed me an opening either.”

“Birds of a feather, then.”

As I kept backing away, Iryong Nogun showed his sparse, missing teeth.

“Where are you fleeing to?”

“I’m fleeing because this place is disadvantageous, you half-wit. Asking useless questions.”

Iryong Nogun extended a hand with a pleased expression.

“The exit is not that way.”

When I looked back, only vines were visible where the footpath should have been. It seemed to be a simple eye-deceiving formation, but in any case, just as Iryong Nogun said, the exit could not be seen. If I had entered with all the troops, more than half of them would have died here.

“An interesting old man. Did you learn formations too? Don’t tell me you’re imitating the ancient Guiguzi?”

“How does a young brat know of Master Guigu?”

I do look young, but I’m older than I look.

In a word, I possess a heaven-sent baby face. It sounded too much like bullshit, so I didn’t say it out loud.

Guiguzi was a figure from the Warring States period, and in terms of the jianghu, he was a secluded eccentric and extraordinary man. And to some jianghu people, he was the progenitor of mechanisms, formations, and array arts. In fact, his sobriquet also came from Guigu Mountain Villa, where he had lived in seclusion.

There is something only I know about Guiguzi.

The sort of person Giseongja, the creator of the Geumgu Soyogong, hated most was precisely Guiguzi.

Guiguzi wrote a book of the same name, Guiguzi.

In that book, there is a saying like this.

Gain the other party’s trust and maintain an intimate relationship.

Seize the weakness of the one you have become intimate with, and hold him so he cannot escape.

At a glance, it may seem like the art of dealing with people, but seen through the strange mental world of jianghu people, this is not worldly wisdom. It is of a kind with what Iryong Nogun is doing right now.

Of course, this old man probably was not a direct successor of Guiguzi.

That is because the jianghu has always had many who were influenced by the actions, words, books, and thoughts of those who came before.

I revealed one of my secrets to Iryong Nogun.

“Hey, you trashy old man who’s something like a very distant descendant of Guiguzi. Unfortunately for you, among my spiritual masters is someone who hates secluded Guigu lineages like yours more than anything.”

Iryong Nogun replied,

“There is such a person?”

“His name is Giseongja. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, you ignorant old bastard.”

“That is the first I have heard of him.”

“I’m telling you I learned the martial art that he created to be used when encountering bastards like you. Against the cunning rabbit’s three burrows (狡兔三窟), respond without mercy with Samadhi True Fire (三昧眞火). Of all people, how did you end up caught by someone like me? Fascinating.”

A clever rabbit digs three burrows.

Master Giseongja said to burn all three of those burrows to the ground.

The martial art he created for that purpose is the Flame Rooster (炎鷄).

I grinned and prepared the Flame Fragrance in my left palm.

Perhaps sensing something ominous, Iryong Nogun stepped here and there across the white stones and came leaping toward me like a rabbit.

Having drawn Iryong Nogun away from the table, I withdrew the Flame Fragrance and moved while examining various parts of the garden.

“When someone is preparing a killing move, you’re supposed to wait……”

I was too busy to say, “……isn’t that the way of the jianghu?” Iryong Nogun came chasing after me, swinging a staff with a snake’s head attached. Where the hell had that weapon come from?

And of all things, it had to be a snake’s head.

An ordinary snake is not frightening. However, the fact that a jianghu man deliberately attached a snake’s head to the end of his staff means, Do not take me lightly.

In short, it means the snake head on the staff is poisoned, so don’t get cocky.

So at times like this, it is only right to be careful.

I moved while stepping on places like stepping-stones, then finally drew Heukmyoa and struck Iryong Nogun’s staff.

Kang!

However, the staff and sword did not clash busily as they normally would. That was because there were pits in between.

Even while stepping on the white stones, I steeled myself thoroughly. Sure enough, when I stepped on one white stone that looked perfectly fine, a hidden weapon aimed precisely at me shot out from somewhere.

Swaeng!

When I knocked away the hidden weapon with Heukmyoa, the staff flew toward the back of my head. In the end, I leapt over three or four white stones and tried to step onto flat ground, but this time my right foot sank straight downward.

It seemed to be a trap pretending to be a white stone.

I poured palm force from my left palm into the ground and shot upward.

When Iryong Nogun swung his fluttering long robe, dozens of steel needles rushed up from beneath my feet.

They say old ginger is spicy……

I, too, grabbed my long robe with my left hand as if tearing it off, pulled it free, and swung it. The mass of incoming hidden weapons and the innocent long robe perished together, then fell heroically into the pit.

In your next life, meet a good master and be reborn as clothes worn when going out to meet women. Suddenly, flames boiling with rage swept through my chest, and the Black Flame Rooster within me stirred.

‘You’re dead.’

Nothing particularly clever came to mind.

‘You’re a dead man walking.’

I had committed to memory the positions of the white stones that could be stepped on without issue. Ordinarily, my memory wasn’t anything exceptional, but in life-threatening situations like this, I had an uncanny knack for memorizing things with terrifying precision.

The human psyche is a mysterious thing; take a few hits, and your memory gets better.

I don’t really know why that is.

Fleeing from an old man made me look pathetic, but to eliminate variables in advance, I faced the fight with a cold, calm mind.

Pillars had already sunk three times, and hidden weapons had flown twice. If Iryong Nogun, who knew which were traps, forced me into a specific position mid-fight, things would get troublesome. So with the resolve to take my lumps first, I scouted around in advance.

Shortly after, I subtly allowed him to pursue me, then turned and crossed swords with Iryong Nogun again. I had already roughly mapped out the surrounding traps.

Now, what I had to watch out for after the traps was poison.

I thought once again that he was truly a seasoned old master of the murim.

He seemed to have trained consistently in weaponry, swinging a steel cane that looked quite heavy with remarkable skill. Honestly, even if we hadn’t been fighting in this mountain villa, none of my subordinates looked capable of defeating Iryong Nogun.

I deliberately wrapped flame energy around Heukmyoa, dispatching fire demons to every corner of the mountain villa each time Iryong Nogun dodged.

The kind of thought people have when no particular tactic comes to mind.

‘Well, it’ll work out somehow.’

When I began burning the outer edges of the mountain villa with the Samadhi True Fire technique, Iryong Nogun couldn’t hide his anxiousness.

“Are you trying to take us both down?”

I seized the opening as Iryong Nogun opened his mouth and fiercely swung Heukmyoa. If the amount of internal energy I had infused into Heukmyoa until then was five parts, the moment he opened his trap I raised it to seven parts. I still kept three parts in reserve.

Even so, Iryong Nogun’s cane gradually slowed.

If I fought tenaciously atop one white stone, Iryong Nogun would inevitably be forced to bring out his next move.

That would probably be poison.

I had forced the opponent to use poison and finished preparing my counter.

The moment Iryong Nogun judged that parrying Heukmyoa was too arduous, he pressed somewhere on his cane and swung it forward in a wide arc.

Green poison fog spread before my eyes.

At the same time, Iryong Nogun retreated toward the table…….

I extended my left palm forward, unleashed the Great Absorption Technique, and drew the scattered poison—now in mist form—into a spiraling vortex.

Swoong—!

At the same time, wrapping blade wind around Heukmyoa, I sent the compressed poison, now in a spherical form, flying toward the pit as if peeling an onion skin.

At the same time, the moment Iryong Nogun struck the table…….

Surprisingly, massive harpoon-shaped spikes sprang out from every pit at once, shooting into the air.

Bwaang!

It was a linked technique: if you moved to avoid the poison fog, the mechanism would finish you off.

I looked at the harpoons that had sprung up all around with a surprised expression and muttered.

“Truly vicious. I shall praise you.”

When the combination he had believed to be a surefire strike failed completely, Iryong Nogun wore a vacant expression for the first time.

“…….”

As if the fight were already over, I sheathed Heukmyoa in a casual motion, then drew it again like a thunderbolt erupting, blasting out blade qi.

Sssswaaaaaaaack!

Startled, Iryong Nogun grabbed his cane with both hands and deflected the blade qi.

Kwaaaaaaang!

From where I stood, I raised Heukmyoa high and poured out blade qi vertically. Each time Iryong Nogun deflected my blade qi, his old, pale face shook violently.

I spoke while raising Heukmyoa once more.

“Is that all? Nothing else? Think fast. You’re about to die.”

“Very well. Come over here.”

“That’s not happening. As far as I’ve discerned, this is the safest life gate.”

I poured out blade qi again. I unleashed blade qi thirteen times in succession from the same spot, and Iryong Nogun, with no room to turn his back, blocked them all.

Occasionally Iryong Nogun spewed a torrent of curses and provocations—telling me to come over, to fight face-to-face—but none of it registered in my ears as I kept swinging my blade.

Having blocked the seventeenth blade qi in a row, Iryong Nogun finally lost his balance while gripping his cane. Toward Iryong Nogun as he scrambled to rise again, I monotonously poured out blade qi.

Puak!

Only now did I see blood gushing forth.

Puak!

This time, one hand holding the cane fell to the ground. Then his arm went flying, and his other arm too was severed by blade qi.

When Iryong Nogun, having lost both arms, dropped to his knees, I sent blade qi into those knees as well.

Puak!

I observed Iryong Nogun’s expression for a moment, then sheathed Heukmyoa and wrapped Yeomhwahyang around my index finger.

I focused, meticulously working to give this Samadhi True Fire the shape of actual flames. At the same time, I compressed the flame energy to its limit.

Iryong Nogun was saying something to me with an expression full of despair, but I was concentrating too seriously to hear him clearly.

I sent the flame completed at my fingertip toward Iryong Nogun with the lightest motion possible. Then, I observed Iryong Nogun’s expression, which changed with every passing moment.

That must be what a face looks like when greeting death.

The flame flew billowing as if dancing, and the moment it touched Iryong Nogun’s body as he writhed trying to flee, a pillar of fire shot vertically upward as if a Fire Dragon were ascending to heaven.

Hwarurururk!

I watched the Fire Dragon’s dance of flames for a moment with my arms crossed. The fire was truly beautiful.

I gazed at Iryong Nogun engulfed in flames and muttered softly.

“……It’s burning.”