Free Web NovelSociety Leader Gi Cheoljong—Iron-Headed Red Bear—saw the carriage carrying the Deputy Society Leader pick up speed, forced down the rage that had flared, and turned his head away.
‘That Deputy Society Leader bastard with no manners—I can deal with him later.’
Right now, he had to focus on the Dark Cavern Taoist roasting inside this carriage.
‘How much time has it been?’
CRACKLE! CRACKLE!
The carriage wall became a glowing red mass and began to crumble, and through the black smoke the inside of the carriage flashed into view in brief moments.
He caught sight of people sprawled on the carriage floor.
But there seemed to be too many.
“Huh? Didn’t you say three people were riding in this carriage?”
At the Society Leader’s question, one of the underlings who was aiming a long spear with a bluish, razor-sharp tip at the carriage answered.
“Yes, Society Leader. I heard it was the Dark Cavern Taoist, Hu Gae, and one young woman.”
“Then why does it look like there are more people?”
“Well? Maybe more companions joined them along the way...”
Just then, from behind, he heard the sound of a carriage coming to a stop, and the startled horses snorting and rearing at the flames.
NEEIIIGH!
NEEIIIGH!
“Society Leader, the Deputy Society Leader’s carriage just arrived, so ask him directly.”
At the underling’s words, Gi Cheoljong quickly snapped his head around. Then his face twisted violently.
Even though the carriage had stopped, the Deputy Society Leader and his underlings weren’t coming out.
“What is this? Deputy Society Leader, you bastard—get out here right now!”
“Iron-Headed Red Bear, why are you looking for someone who isn’t even inside this carriage?”
At the driver’s rude, familiar speech, Gi Cheoljong was dumbfounded.
“Has this bastard gone crazy? How dare you to the Society Leader—? Huh?”
The driver’s face was someone he’d never seen before.
“...Who are you?”
Instead of answering, the driver shrugged off his outer robe in one motion.
A filthy set of patched rags was revealed. And at the waist—an eight-knotted cord.
“H-Heok! Hu Gae...!”
Gi Cheoljong was horrified.
“Then who’s in that carriage...?”
Chwi Dugae lifted his Tagu Staff and spoke.
“They say you can boil beans with bean pods—what you’re doing is exactly that.”
Gi Cheoljong had heard the phrase “boiling beans with bean pods” before.
It was from the tale that street storytellers droned on about day and night—Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
They said Cao Zhi, the second son of Cao Cao, saved his life by composing a poem with that meaning within seven steps when his older brother Cao Pi tried to kill him.
Meaning—inside the carriage that was wrapped tight and burning, the Deputy Society Leader and his underlings were there.
Only then did Gi Cheoljong understand why the coachman on the driver’s bench had kept his head bowed and never moved.
And why he’d taken an arrow through the chest without making a sound.
‘He pinned his pressure points so he couldn’t move. And of course, he sealed his mute points too, so he couldn’t speak.’
The moment Gi Cheoljong realized he had been played by Hu Gae and the Dark Cavern Taoist, a thunderous decree fell on his head.
“Gi Cheoljong, Iron-Headed Red Bear! You know it’s been a long time since this Clan issued an Extermination Order on you and the Red Wolf Society underlings. Today, Hu Gae of the Beggar Clan will take your lives and proclaim to the world that chivalry still lives under heaven!”
SWOOOSH!
Gi Cheoljong hurled everything he had into raising his great saber to meet the Tagu Staff crashing down toward his head.
KWA-BOOM!
A thunderclap burst—and the great saber snapped in two.
When a thick steel great saber—more than five chi thick—broke like dried straw, Gi Cheoljong went pale with shock.
He knew Chwi Dugae was a Peak Realm master, but he’d believed he could endure at least a few exchanges.
But the snapped blade wasn’t the only problem.
‘Guh—!’
The wind pressure that poured off the Tagu Staff tore his hands and arm muscles—an explosive, scorching pain surged up through his shoulder.
Gi Cheoljong had no time to clutch at the pain.
“So you’ve got a little trick, for a bastard who calls himself a boss. Then try blocking even my next strike.”
BWOOOONG!
With a bellow, the pitch-black Tagu Staff swept in sideways, and Gi Cheoljong didn’t dare counter—he threw himself backward.
Just the wind pressure tore muscles. If it even grazed him, he’d be turned to pulp. How could he possibly meet it head-on?
“Rat bastard. I knew you’d do that.”
With a sneer, the Tagu Staff sweeping sideways abruptly became eight—filling the sky and crashing down.
It was Drunken Immortal Eight Staves, a supreme move of the Beggar Clan’s Tagu Staff Method.
Like the name—“a drunk immortal’s clubbing”—once you were caught inside its radius, there was no way to avoid it.
But Society Leader Gi Cheoljong had already anticipated Chwi Dugae’s shifting follow-up from the moment he threw himself backward.
His own underlings, surrounding the burning carriage.
“Block him!”
Gi Cheoljong shoved an underling beside him straight toward Chwi Dugae as he fell back.
The Red Wolf Society underling, thrust forward by the Society Leader’s hand, stabbed the spear he held at Chwi Dugae.
“HYAAAH!”
RATATAT!
THWACK!
As the spear shaft shattered into chunks and sprayed in every direction, the underling’s skull burst like a watermelon.
Gi Cheoljong knew that using a single underling as a shield wouldn’t be enough to slip out of Hu Gae’s attack, so he grabbed underlings indiscriminately and hurled them forward as he retreated.
“HYUP!”
“HNGH!”
The Red Wolf Society underlings shoved out by their Society Leader swung weapons desperately at Chwi Dugae, but they couldn’t stand against the Beggar Clan’s Tagu Staff Method.
CLANG! THUD!
WHIP—THWACK!
Chwi Dugae cut them down like clearing brush and pursued Gi Cheoljong.
“Iron-Headed Red Bear! You rat bastard. Do you think you can slip out of my hands by doing that?”
WHOOOOOSH!
THUD-THUD-THUD!
When Chwi Dugae showed an opening while smashing aside the underlings rushing him, Gi Cheoljong forced everything he had into hurling the broken great saber at Chwi Dugae.
SHEEET!
Then, without looking back, he dove beneath the burning carriage and rolled.
It was shameful, as the leader of an organization, to flee like that into a rat hole—but what could he do when he was about to die?
Sparks fell—his clothes caught, and he smelled burning hair.
‘Damn it! I’ll repay today’s humiliation, no matter what.’
Rolling through and coming out on the far side of the carriage, Society Leader Gi Cheoljong pushed himself up and shouted.
“Shoot arrows, and spears—!”
Halfway through screaming at his underlings, an icy sensation stopped his words.
All of his underlings were sprawled across the ground.
When Gi Cheoljong saw a young man in gray martial robes standing with his back turned, holding a bloodstained Cheonggang Sword, his strength drained away in a rush.
“Ah... the Dark Cavern Taoist...”
Who else could it be?
An absolute master who could slaughter Red Wolf Society underlings—veterans who’d survived countless life-and-death scrapes—in the blink of an eye.
And wasn’t he the one rumored as “kills as he pleases with every step,” with no mercy for villains?
Gi Cheoljong thought the man would turn around and take his head at any moment.
But...
“...?”
The Dark Cavern Taoist didn’t move an inch, still with his back turned.
An absolute master like °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that couldn’t possibly fail to notice someone this close.
“...!”
Gi Cheoljong realized the Dark Cavern Taoist was looking up at a point on the cliff.
‘That’s where Geun Seok-oh is hiding to watch... don’t tell me?’
Had he sensed the presence of someone hidden more than fifty zhang away?
Gi Cheoljong’s question didn’t last long.
WHIRL!
The young man in gray martial robes—the Dark Cavern Taoist—started leaping up the cliff.
‘I was right!’
Gi Cheoljong felt like he had crawled back from the threshold of the underworld.
It was clear—the Dark Cavern Taoist hadn’t paid him any mind because he’d been sensing Geun Seok-oh.
‘He thought I was just one of the nameless rabble.’
How could he waste a chance like this, snatched from the jaws of death?
Chwi Dugae wouldn’t be able to chase immediately—he’d be dealing with the underlings on the far side of the carriage.
Gi Cheoljong bent down to snatch up a sword lying on the ground.
THUNK!
At that instant, a sharp, cold sensation pierced his back—and a pointed blade burst through his lower belly.
“...?”
Gi Cheoljong didn’t understand. He turned his head.
Against the wavering flames, a young woman in pale gray martial robes held a long spear in her hands.
“Since Master Kwak left you behind and told me to take a share too, I couldn’t very well refuse.”
At the young woman’s words, Gi Cheoljong realized there had been a reason the Dark Cavern Taoist hadn’t cared about him at all.
And at the same time, one more question rose.
‘There was no one nearby except the Dark Cavern Taoist.’
So where had this young woman been?
Gi Cheoljong never solved it.
“Thinking of the evil deeds you’ve committed, I want to give you more pain, but it seems I still haven’t fully shed the bearing of the White Path.”
Gi Cheoljong watched the young woman tighten her grip and twist the spear shaft.
GRRIND!
A single wave of agony, like his innards being severed, surged—then vanished.
The whole world turned black, and his consciousness disappeared with it.
In the final instant as his awareness went out, Gi Cheoljong left for the road to the underworld carrying one last question.
What kind of nonsense was “haven’t fully shed the bearing of the White Path”?
*****
WHOOOSH!
In an instant, Kwak Yeon reached the cliff top and examined the rock where he had sensed a presence.
Damp moisture clung to the stone.
It meant the lookout had been lying there for quite a long time—long enough to soak the rock with sweat.
Kwak Yeon placed his hand on the moisture.
After confirming that it had cooled cold, he furrowed his brow.
‘A man with decent instincts.’
Enough time had passed since the lookout fled that tracking him would be difficult.
From the moment he climbed out of the carriage, Kwak Yeon had spread Solitary Moon Illumines the Boundless Skill and realized there was a lookout on the cliff, but first he had to purge the Red Wolf Society villains.
It wasn’t because he underestimated Chwi Dugae’s might.
There were many of them, and some even had bows—he couldn’t help but lend a hand.
Arrows shot from strong bows were threatening even to masters of the martial world.
So he had planned to deal with the lookout after thinning out the Red Wolf Society bandits to a certain degree. freewebnøvel.com
The lookout wouldn’t know Kwak Yeon had already noticed him.
But this lookout had been extremely quick.
‘The moment he judged the Red Wolf Society was beyond recovery, he left without hesitation.’
When Kwak Yeon stopped sensing the presence on the cliff at some point, he crawled beneath the carriage and, leaving the person who had appeared behind him, began leaping up the cliff.
It was also because Jin Cheongha had been approaching with concealment arts—so he hadn’t bothered with that man.
Even though Chwi Dugae had told her to stay inside the carriage with Old Master Gu, it seemed her diligent nature couldn’t bear to simply watch.
Kwak Yeon had known she was burning with anger after hearing of the Red Wolf Society’s atrocities, so he left a Sound Transmission asking her to finish off the last remaining man.
In any case, the result was an empty grab, and Kwak Yeon’s mouth tasted bitter.
It wasn’t only because, under the Beggar Clan’s Extermination Order, he hadn’t been able to punish every last Red Wolf Society villain.
It was also because the escaped lookout could bring retaliation down on Old Master Gu, and because it was troublesome for their route to be exposed.
‘It’ll be annoying, but all we have to do is prepare for it.’
Since it was already done, Kwak Yeon shook off his regret and turned around.
Down on the main road, he could see Chwi Dugae, Jin Cheongha, and even Old Master Gu had come out of the carriage and were cleaning up the surroundings.
