Episode 15. The Weakest Faction in the Martial World
When I proposed a duel to Jo Sam-pyeong, the man in black long robes glanced around and spoke up.
“All spectators, step back and do not interfere. The tavern boy of Jahak Inn and Jo Sam-pyeong, master of Siwha House, will engage in a life-and-death duel. I, Neung Ji-seok of Black Fan Stronghold, will serve as witness.”
Black Fan Stronghold was an underworld power that mainly dealt in gambling and auctions, so in Ilyang County, he was considered a rather rare and important guest.
Once the onlookers—including Sam-pyeong’s lackeys—had backed far away, a wide circle was left clear in front of the burning Jahak Inn.
While Jo Sam-pyeong drew his straight saber with a sour expression, I studied this Neung Ji-seok.
He spoke like he was granting us both a fair chance at a life-and-death duel, but that wasn’t his real intent.
He’d watch me fight Sam-pyeong, gauge my level, and then decide whether to step in himself or quietly withdraw.
That kind of sly opportunism is basic in the martial world. I might not have any talent for the basics of noodle-making, but when it comes to the basics of this kind of trick, I know them well.
I stared for a moment at Jahak Inn, swallowed in flames, then loosened the whip at my waist. When I did, a flicker of panic crossed Jo Sam-pyeong’s face.
I asked, “What?”
“What’s with the whip? Draw your sword.”
“A dog like you deserves this more.”
Ignoring his nonsense, I lashed out.
Whiiish— CRACK!
The whip snapped toward his feet, and Sam-pyeong hopped around like a rabid dog, scrambling to move out of range.
My face stayed cold as I swung, but I deliberately avoided hitting his body.
At my current level, just the power poured into the whip—beyond the Wooden Rooster stage—meant that a solid hit would tear flesh clean off.
But with Neung Ji-seok watching, I needed to keep my true strength under wraps. I only infused a modest amount of internal energy and swung half-heartedly.
This is the nice thing about a whip.
As long as your internal energy backs it up, even sloppy swings are threatening.
If Neung Ji-seok decided to join in, that’s when I planned to draw my sword.
Sam-pyeong, meanwhile, kept bouncing around trying to close the distance, but his saber form was crude, and his internal energy was far below mine.
Jo Il-seom and Jo Yi-gyeol hadn’t been much either. Neither was this one.
I simply swung the whip like I was beating down a mad monkey rampaging around the village.
You three are better off disappearing from this place for good.
Once I judged that Neung Ji-seok wasn’t going to step in, I stopped holding back and started thrashing Sam-pyeong in earnest.
WHIIISH! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The murmurs from the crowd died off, and all that remained were Jo Sam-pyeong’s screams as the whip landed again and again.
His face and clothes were already shredded to rags.
I sent his saber flying with a flick of the whip, then briefly met Neung Ji-seok’s eyes.
Seeing me completely dominating Sam-pyeong, he gave a faint, amused smile and gestured as if to say, do as you like.
Perhaps he was also asking whether I really dared kill Jo Sam-pyeong right in front of him.
Whatever the nuance, my answer hadn’t changed from the start: I had no intention of letting Sam-pyeong live.
I looped the whip around his neck, yanked him in, and smashed my palm into his forehead.
Thud!
His body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut—instantly dead.
Confirming his death, Neung Ji-seok spoke in an indifferent tone.
“I officially certify that this was a fair life-and-death duel. If we have cause, we’ll meet again.”
He turned to leave, and that’s when I flicked my wrist.
SWISH!
The whip curved through the air and snapped toward his neck. Neung Ji-seok frantically drew his sword to parry.
The whip wrapped around his blade and tightened until it stretched taut in a straight line.
He stared at me with wide eyes.
“What is this? Do you dare raise your hand against Black Fan—”
He cut himself off mid-sentence as he felt the flood of internal energy pouring through the whip.
I looked him dead in the eye.
“Black Fan, Black crap…”
I wasn’t about to just let some snake slither away after quietly watching my house burn.
If he’d stand by and watch an inn burn, he’d stand by and watch while Jo Sam-pyeong raped or killed someone too.
The way he’d sat back, waiting for an opening, made him even more loathsome.
Even if I put all that aside, I already knew what kind of filth Black Fan Stronghold was. I had zero interest in letting this one walk away.
In that instant, the Flame Rooster stage of the Golden-Turtle Roaming Art—powerful enough to purge impurities from every pore—surged from my body, down the whip, and into Neung Ji-seok’s sword.
The whip’s surface glowed faintly red, and under the heat, the color along his sword’s surface began to shift as well.
My eyes burned hot, like Jahak Inn blazing behind us.
Realizing his internal energy was weaker than mine, his face started to twitch.
This won’t do.
He dropped the sword without hesitation and launched into light footwork, fleeing. His life mattered more to him than his blade.
He had plenty of real combat experience; he’d crashed his internal energy into the whip for a split second, bought himself the tiniest opening, and used it to bolt.
I leapt into the air.
He tried to vanish by diving into the crowd, but that was the wrong move.
I moved by stepping on people’s shoulders. After only five or six steps, I’d already overtaken Neung Ji-seok as he ran. I shoved off the last man’s shoulder and dropped down in front of him.
He gathered his hands, pouring his entire internal energy into a single palm strike.
I raised my sword diagonally and poured Flame Rooster-stage power into the blade.
It turned into a surging wave of burning sword wind.
His palm force filled my vision—then split cleanly apart under the sword wind.
We locked eyes one last time.
As he tensed to counterattack, I stepped in and slashed diagonally down the other way.
FWOOOOSH! A long arc of blood erupted as his body parted cleanly in two and crashed to the ground.
I stared at the bisected corpse hanging off my blade for a moment.
The bystanders said nothing; they just looked from me to Neung Ji-seok’s body and back again.
Flicking the blood off my sword, I addressed the crowd.
“Show’s over. Go home.”
Then I added, “Jo Sam-pyeong’s men stay. Anyone who runs, I’ll chase you down and send you to join him personally.”
Honest folk have to sleep early and rise early to make a living. The frozen, ordinary citizens dispersed quickly, leaving only Jo Sam-pyeong’s flunkies behind.
There were seven of them.
I sat down on a chair that had somehow survived the fire and stared them down.
They all trembled head to toe, having just watched me butcher their boss and Neung Ji-seok without mercy.
A thought crossed my mind.
These bastards are just as much of a problem as Sam-pyeong was.
If a superior told them to kill someone, they’d kill someone. If he told them to burn down a house, they’d burn down a house. Just pathetic dogs who obeyed because they were scared.
The words slipped out in my old Maniac days tone.
“Don’t just stand there—kneel, you little shits. Unless you wanna follow Sam-pyeong.”
All seven dropped to their knees at once.
“Why are you so quick to burn a man’s house? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Should I let you taste the fire too?”
“Please spare us.”
“Then answer me. Why did you set fire to my place?”
“We were ordered to. We’re sorry.”
“We had no personal grudge.”
Similar excuses tumbled out.
“You don’t get to burn a man’s house ‘without personal feelings.’ What if I kill you ‘without personal feelings’?”
“We’re sorry…”
“If I hadn’t killed Jo Sam-pyeong, you’d be licking the dirt off his feet for the rest of your lives.”
These men had never taken responsibility for anything in their lives. They’d obeyed out of fear, and because of that, their master had run wild with his crimes.
It felt pointless and meaningless to kill each one of them personally.
But there was something I could make them do.
“From now on, you’re going to completely rebuild Jahak Inn. Seong-tae and the rest of the rats who survived by clinging to the brothels will join in too.”
They blinked in confusion at the word “rebuild,” but I meant exactly what I said.
Jahak Inn was my home, and also the best place to watch the dawn light or the evening glow in Ilyang County.
I might not be able to make decent chicken-head noodles, but that didn’t mean my inn deserved to vanish like this.
If it had burned down, then I’d just have them build a better one.
If someone set it on fire again, I’d catch them and make them rebuild it again.
If Jahak Inn burned ten times, I’d restore it ten times. That’s what separated my present from my past.
They could burn it whenever they wanted—but once I caught them, they’d start by cleaning the ashes, then rebuild it exactly as it was.
The seven flunkies fell into uneasy silence.
“So… how exactly are we supposed to rebuild it?”
“What do you mean, ‘how’? You haul stone, stack walls, smear clay. Seong-tae will cover the costs. If the labor’s short, we’ll drag in people from the brothels too.”
Just then, Cha Seong-tae finally arrived, having heard the news, and cut in.
“…Is Jo Sam-pyeong dead?”
I jerked my chin toward Sam-pyeong’s corpse. Seong-tae looked at the body, then finally noticed the remains of Jahak Inn.
“Burned to a crisp, huh.”
For once, the eternal clown’s face turned serious. He’d been watching with uncertainty until now, but there was no denying reality anymore.
The tavern boy really beat them all. Seeing it with my own eyes, I still can’t believe it.
I called out to him as he stared blankly at the ruins.
“Seong-tae.”
He turned back to me with a faint smile. “Yes, sir?”
I pointed at the seven kneeling men.
“You know these guys?”
“Sure. They’re under my underlings’ underlings’ underlings.”
“Put them on Jahak Inn reconstruction duty. And you too. Bring your people and fix my inn. Perfectly.”
“Why me?”
I gave him a crooked smile.
“Jokes are jokes and serious talk is serious talk. That was the second one.”
He met my eyes, saw I wasn’t kidding, and bowed his head slightly.
“We’ll rebuild it. Better than before, right? The lot here’s pretty wide… Should we rebuild it in the style of a pleasure house? Or like before—an inn where anyone can come and go freely? It used to be only one story; this time I’ll make it two.”
“Build the outer walls wider, so there’s more space inside the grounds.”
“As you say.”
“Add a training yard. And a rear garden.”
“Are we building an inn or a martial clan estate?”
“Never seen an inn that’s also a martial clan estate? What exactly can you do?”
“Is that how this works now…? Fine. I’ll make Jahak Inn Gate—a martial manor disguised as an inn.”
He glanced at the seven again; all of them were still shaking in fear, their faces wrecked.
Since I had both Seong-tae and the flunkies gathered, I figured I should make one thing perfectly clear.
“The ones who stay in the brothels go into the Salvation Sect. Again: if anyone wants to leave, don’t stop them. These seven too—send them away after they rebuild the inn. If they run off early, tell me. I’ll chase them all the way to the Great Desert if I have to.”
“Understood.”
The first principle for this bottom-of-the-barrel organization I had in mind was simple.
A place for people who had nowhere left to go. Not a nest for thugs—just a haven for those truly with no other refuge.
I’d gather only those who had no place to return to, no backup plan, and let them live within the walls I built.
That was my vision for Hao Sect.
A group of people with no safety net, no cushion to fall back on—a collective of the weakest of the weak.
If I built it that way, Hao Sect might very well become the weakest faction in the entire martial world.
That was fine by me.
I’d just become strong enough to make up for it.
I’d gather every piece of human trash and every soul who’d hit rock bottom, hold them all inside the walls I built, and make sure that only my hands got bloody.
That, in my eyes, was the duty of the Hao Sect’s master.