Chapter 75 – People Gathering (03)
Using the Jade Dragon Sword drained quite a bit of stamina, but it defeated Mubong in one blow, breaking the morale of the expedition team.
“Go away.”
“That’s right.”
After checking the condition of his body, Mubong frowned slightly as if he felt pain in his collarbone and stepped back without saying a word.
She likes duels, and she is not the type of person who lazily refuses to accept the results, and above all, she is not so unskilled that she cannot accept the fact that she was completely defeated with just one blow. Peel.
At the same time as Mubong retreated, the eyes of the expedition group focused on the person between them, and under their expectant gaze, a man… No, a woman dressed as a man stepped in front of me and raised his power.
‘Ban Gyu-seong’
It didn’t look much different from when we met at the Yongbong branch.
He just looks a little more tired and is glaring at me with slightly more anxious eyes.
“Waaa–!!”
Sikbong said that among the warriors of the Murim Alliance who were brought here, there is a rumor going around that even Ban Gyu-seong, the current strongest of the five dragons and seven peaks, Geomryong Namgungjeon, is avoiding a match because he is not confident that he can beat him.
Of course, the reality is that when Namgungjeon gritted his teeth and challenged him to a duel, the Murim Lord himself stepped forward and prevented the two from clashing, but the popular rumor is that it is so.
People want Ban Gyu-seong, the iron dragon who came up from the bottom like them, to be more successful than Namgung-jeon, the sword dragon, a genius from the prestigious Namgung family.
‘What training did you do?’
Unlike Mubong, he raised his hand without even wrapping a bandage on his arm, and the hand was full of scars and scratches to the point that it was tattered.
Basically, Ban Gyu-seong was bound to be as hard as iron. Still, the fact that he trained repeatedly to the point where his hands were damaged like that must have been quite a hardship.
Now, wearing a mask and applying red dye to his black iron sword, I sensed the presence of Namgung-jeon, who was trying to hide his identity and reveal himself, but Namgung-jeon had also made a pact to pass over Ban Gyu-seong if a full-scale offensive began. Could not come forward.
Without being able to even approach the castle wall like this, I decided not to step forward until I personally asked for help.
“Brother Yeon.”
Ban Gyu-seong was calling to me in a low voice that could not be heard by the martial arts warriors of the Murim League.
“What kind of brother are you? Since when did we become friends?”
“……”
I thought the damage would increase if I put more energy into the sword, so I put it in its sheath and clenched my fist.
The speculation emanating from Ban Gyu-seong is at its peak and extreme. It was at a similar level to Geomryong Namgungjeon.
“I’ll beat you up.”
Cow!
Ban Gyu-seong spread his legs and stepped on his foot, then started running toward me with a sound that shook the ground.
Compared to Mu-bong’s quick speed, it is slow, but while Mu-bong is like an animal that competes physically, Ban Gyu-seong is truly like a piece of iron.
Every time he took a step, his shoes were completely buried in the ground, and even though he had not walked at most ten steps, the soles, unable to withstand the weight, were bursting open, exposing his bare feet.
It is slow for an expert, but it is strong and has no gaps.
Due to its steel-like body and tightly fixed iron core, it looks like a modern tank.
Of course, if you have learned martial arts and are a peak expert or higher, you can cut through steel, but if the opponent is alive and moving, making evasive maneuvers and taking a defensive stance, you cannot easily cut through steel.
Relatively speaking, Ban Gyu-seong knows that I have no choice but to be fast, so it looks like he is trying to give me a few hits and put his 1,000-point fist in my head.
Gwajik!
I had already dug into Ban Gyu-seong’s body and grabbed his neck.
Even if you are a peak expert, it is difficult to cut or break the living, moving, thinking steel, but if you are a super expert, it is different.
He could cut through steel and bare metal with his sword, and the same was true when he switched to his fists, so he immediately dug his fingers into Ban Gyu-seong’s steel-like skin and grabbed his neck.
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“……!”
As Ban Gyu-seong looked embarrassed at me strangling him without any shaking, I slammed this guy’s heavy body into the ground.
Kooooo!!
As if a meteor had fallen, the ground caved in and Ban Gyu-seong’s body was buried.
“Ugh!”
Because I did not simply slam it into the ground, but stamped my right arm with my inner energy, Ban Gyu-seong’s steel-hard inner energy core began to shake, and the energy that protected my skin began to weaken.
“You are no good to me.”
It is not simply a difference between climax and transcendent climax.
The attitude towards fighting is different.
I was risking my life with the thought that if I retreated from here, I would just be in trouble, and risking everything I had accumulated so far in the Demonic Cult, I single-handedly blocked the Murim Alliance’s expeditionary force.
But Ban Gyu-seong said there was nothing he could do, and since he was being manipulated under the orders of the Murim Lord, there was no way he could be my opponent.
If he were truly loyal to the Murim Lord and came prepared to kill me, even if he couldn’t win, he would at least hit me and hurt me, but at this level, he was no different from trash with only high martial arts skills.
Kwasik!
As they stood up and stomped on their chests to prevent them from resisting, the Murim Alliance expeditionary force was already hesitating and retreating without their knowledge.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“The Iron Heart, or rather the Iron Dragon, was defeated in a single blow?”
The first-class or peak masters admitted defeat the moment Mubong was defeated, but it seemed to be more shocking to the lower-ranking martial artists that their hero Ban Gyu-seong was defeated.
“Umm…”
Jangryeong, the top expert leading the expedition, looked at Maeryong Lee Byeong-hak and Geombong Han So-so with a troubled expression, but Han So-so was less skilled than Ban Gyu-seong and if he sent Maeryong and was defeated, the expedition had no place to retreat.
Even among the expedition team, I began to feel eyes on me little by little, and it felt not much different from the eyes of the demons who showed respect to me based on the principle of strong self-respect in the Demonic Cult.
Fear. And awe.
Even though righteousness and cooperation are important to the Murim Alliance, in the end, they are also Murim people.
Adepts who had reached the limit of what they were striving for were expected to show a certain degree of respect, regardless of their affiliation.
Just as the Sword Saint was respected regardless of the political faction, the Sacred faction, and the magic power, they began to feel awe at the sight of me appearing like a comet holding the sword of the Sword Saint and overwhelmingly defeating Mubong and Cheolryong.
“Miss. What should I do?”
“I have to step down.”
Whether Mubong was worried, he gave Jangryeong a clear answer.
“If your opponent is a supreme expert who can annihilate the expedition team single-handedly.”
“Ha. It’s the ultimate climax…”
As he himself is a master at the peak, the general probably had some guess as well, but did not want to admit it.
Because I didn’t want to accept that a pale-faced young guy like me had reached the pinnacle, a level that only the Murim Lord and the Sword Saint had reached in public.
In reality, a few more people could be added if you include cases where the force was hidden, such as a retired expert or a martial artist, but the number remained extremely small.
“What do you wish for?”
The general asked me.
“Go away.”
It was the same thing as when I first appeared, but it will feel different for the general to accept it.
When I first appeared, it was crazy, but now it feels like an order that I have no choice but to accept.
“Are you okay with opposing the Murim Alliance?”
I snorted in response to the last warning.
“No. But I have no intention of antagonizing the Murim Alliance.”
“Is this what the person who blocked the expedition of the Murim Alliance and harmed two masters belonging to the Alliance would say?”
“I didn’t kill him. I didn’t subdue him or maim him. This is the realm of duel.”
“Even so, the fact that you blocked the legitimate exercise of the Murim Alliance remains the same.”
“I saved him from the risk of being killed in a foreign land for no reason.”
It wasn’t the general I was arguing with.
Rather, they were ordinary warriors brought by the general.
In the Murim Alliance, these people are looked down upon as second-rate or third-rate, and it doesn’t matter if they are used up as reserve forces at any time.
And most earnestly, Ban Gyu-seong was the one who hoped that an unknown outsider like them would be active.
“So go and tell it. There is only one thing I am against. The Murim Lord, Cheonwonsangjon Jin Cheonho.”
To put it in a bad way, I am now trying to war on public opinion.
To oust that damn bastard who is the leader of the Murim Alliance.
“……Retreat.”
The general had no choice but to step down.
Mubong, the daughter of the Murim Lord, was bandaging her own shoulder and tending to her wounds, and even if all of her remaining members rushed to her, they were no match for her.
It’s because I looked after her hand. The moment Mubong was already neutralized and Ban Gyu-seong was captured, the rest could be ended with a single hit from Jin Ok-rang’s dragon sword.
Even if you don’t have a sense of the power of the True Jade Dragon Sword, you probably know that it will only take time and that it can annihilate the expedition team single-handedly.
Just as only three peaks and two first-class experts could stop the Sichuan Blood Death, one expert who had reached the peak could not even handle an expedition of hundreds of people.
Pusssssuk…
He grabs Ban Gyu-seong’s head, which is already half buried in the dirt, and forcibly pulls it out.
Ban Gyu-seong was covered in dirt and looked pitiful like a defeated dog.
“Go and tell him clearly. I am coming to visit the Murim Lord.”
“……The Murim Lord is a dangerous person. His power and force are scary, but the most scary thing about him is that he does not think of people like people and has the coldness to grasp their weaknesses and shake them.”
I already heard that story from Sikbong and Geomryong, and I was able to feel it when I met him in person.
“Even if he were to capture Mubong and use him as a hostage, he would not even blink an eye and would rather kill himself to overturn the public opinion of the Murim Alliance.”
“I know.”
“Still… You’re going to fight?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you touched my people.”
Tuk.
I held Ban Gyu-seong’s shoulders while shaking the dirt off his head.
It was a face that made me angry just looking at it, but that didn’t mean I was a heartless person who would let a scum like the Murim Lord suffer.
“So, just be patient. I’ll finish it soon.”
Ban Gyu-seong’s eyes filled with tears, as if he was about to cry, and he wiped his eyes with his sandy hands.
“How can I help you?”
“……”
After thinking for a while, I entrusted an important task to Ban Gyu-seong.
“Protect the expedition team that is returning now.”
“Are the Demonic Cult’s chasers coming soon?”
“No. Rather, the Murim Alliance will send it.”
These are troops sent to sacrifice.
Just returning without any criminal records would be a loss of face for the Murim lord, and what’s more, here, I openly challenged the Murim lord and sent him back to avoid being put to death.
You might think it would be more advantageous to kill him somewhere else.
“If you are the Murim Lord, you can do that.”
For someone as simple as Ban Gyu-seong to agree that this might be the case, it was clear how serious the Murim Lord’s humanity was.
“So, you protect it. You, the hero of ordinary warriors, protect ordinary warriors.”
It instills confidence in Ban Gyu-seong’s distracted mind.
Did Geomsung always say that the sword of the heart is important to a swordsman?
It is said that although there may be big or small differences, everyone has a sword in their heart, so they wield the sword and develop their own skills. Although their appearance may be different, there must be something in the heart of a monk named Ban Gyu-seong.
It was just distorted as it was bent and bent by the Murim Lord.
“I can… No, I will do it.”
The look in his eyes changed.
It is not the appearance of someone who has no choice but to step forward, but the appearance of Ban Gyu-seong with his lips tightly closed and his strength firmly applied.
“If you protect them and Mubong protects them, they won’t be able to attack outright. Moreover, they also include Maeryong from the Hwasan faction of the Gupa Ilbang faction. It’s just a matter of preparing for an emergency.”
He released Bang Gyu-seong, who nodded in understanding, and answered Han So-so, who was waiting for him, and those who were trying to steal our conversation knowingly or unknowingly.
“Don’t worry. I will soon go to challenge the Murim Lord.”
Now, I could challenge the Murim Lord by just raising my level by one level.
If only I could make this sentiment gained from seeing the ultimate life-or-death battle of martial arts into my own.