Episode 20. And That’s Why My Name Is Jaha
Even while being scared out of his wits by the Twin Ghosts of the Ring Sabers, Cha Seong-tae kept pacing around just outside the line of battle, muttering to himself,
“Yo, baldy, watch your back. I’m about to join in. You know what my nickname is? You’ll find out after I stab you. You don’t need to know yet. Go on, keep jumping around.”
Then he actually took a few steps forward with his saber, like he was about to charge in.
To anyone watching, it was pure bluff.
But to the Twin Ghosts, it wasn’t.
I found him so ridiculous that I snorted in the middle of swinging my whip.
“Idiot.”
Cha Seong-tae just raised his saber and kept giggling as he shouted threats at them.
“All right, I’m going in. Let’s do this fair, two on two. Here I come. Baldy, I’m splitting you first. Surprise attack!”
While Wi Seon-u was swinging both his ring sabers at me, he suddenly slashed backward as my whip recoiled.
Whoooosh!
A blade storm tore through the rain straight toward Cha Seong-tae like a lightning strike.
Startled out of his skin, he screamed and swung his saber to block.
With a heavy thud, he managed to intercept the saber wind, then rolled across the ground several times and lay there, not moving a muscle like he’d been knocked out.
He was, in his own mind, playing dead—lying there nice and quiet so he could look for an opening to launch a sneak attack.
Blocking the Twin Ghosts’ attacks, I called out to him,
“That’s not going to work. Get up.”
His head popped up immediately.
“Oh, really?”
Wi Seon-u hadn’t put much power into that strike; he was busy dealing with me. It had just been a warning—jump around one more time and I’ll actually kill you. Even so, the distraction was real, and the momentary break in their focus was very much thanks to Cha Seong-tae.
The rain I’d watched earlier with Geum Cheol-yong and Jang Deuk-su had actually been kind of beautiful.
Geum Cheol-yong was probably picturing the weapon he’d forge for me as he stared out.
Jang Deuk-su, having listened to us talk, was probably just enjoying the view.
And I’d been watching the rain while thinking about how far my life had diverged from the last one.
Maybe that quiet mood had only been possible because the three of us were watching together.
This rain, though, was different.
The peaceful rain we’d watched from the noodle shop had now become part of the fight—something I could use to kill my enemies.
I knew someone was going to die in this downpour.
Naturally, it wasn’t going to be me.
The Twin Ghosts of the Ring Sabers had died by my hand back when they were far stronger than a pair of half-baked punks like this.
Anyway…
Why is fighting so much fun?
Lightning ripped across the sky again, and for a moment, thunder lit up our faces.
Wi Seon-u and Gu Yang-su saw that I was still smiling.
Gu Yang-su said,
“Whip first.”
Short and to the point—disarm or destroy the whip.
Wi Seon-u added,
“Sword on his hip too.”
In the exchange that followed, Gu Yang-su locked my whip down with his twin sabers, tangling it like a net, and Wi Seon-u rushed in, channeling his internal energy into a cut that severed the whip near the middle.
If we’d gone into a straight clash of inner force, the whip wouldn’t have been so easily cut. But since I was outnumbered two to one, I had no choice but to retreat.
My whip was now quite a bit shorter.
We fell into a brief lull, facing off again.
I lifted the shortened whip and held it up vaguely toward Chunyang Noodle House.
“So… this isn’t what you meant by ‘unbreakable resolve,’ huh, Uncle Geum?”
He’d clearly heard me from inside. If a weapon from Yongdu Forge got cut this cleanly, it would only be natural for Geum Cheol-yong to be fuming.
I tossed the shortened whip aside and drew the Black Dragon Sword from my hip.
When the sword came free, both men froze for a heartbeat.
“Now you’re really in trouble. I’m actually better with a sword than a whip.”
Cha Seong-tae jumped in,
“Then why didn’t you start with the sword…?”
“Let’s call it my last shred of conscience.”
He swallowed a curse.
What the hell is he talking about…
Honestly, I was thinking about the simple, unpleasant fact that I had to kill the same bastards twice.
But it couldn’t be helped anymore. They’d made their choice.
Decision made.
I lifted the sword vertically, and the energy of Flame Fowl coiled around the blade.
The sword glowed a deep red.
Every raindrop that hit the edge sizzled as it burned away.
Even Cha Seong-tae flinched, and the Twin Ghosts’ faces clearly showed their shock.
To be fair, this was way too advanced a technique for a kid who’d been a “normal” tavern boy not long ago. I felt slightly awkward about it myself.
I needed an excuse.
“You see this? My sword…”
Cha Seong-tae replied in a dazed voice,
“I see it. It’s… glowing red…”
I nodded and said, half-defensive,
“This is why my name is Jaha—Purple Dusk.”
The sword really did look like a chunk of sunset—the fading red glow of evening. Every drop of rain that hit it turned into a strange, smoky haze, spreading out like twilight.
Even I, the liar in question, found myself thinking, Huh. Maybe this really is why my name is Jaha.
Either way, Jahak Inn’s Lee Jaha—that’s me.
“Time to die, you idiots.”
The insult was my signal, and we all charged at once.
Their ring sabers counted as great sabers—big, heavy blades, with huge sweeping arcs.
Two on one didn’t automatically put me at a disadvantage.
Because those wide arcs meant that depending on how I moved, their swings could just as easily cut each other.
And I knew their saber arts inside and out.
I swung my reddening sword, and as the sabers closed in, I unleashed bursts of sword wind—slashing gusts infused with the heat of Flame Fowl—right in their faces.
Sword wind was fundamentally just wind, but filled with the heat of your internal energy.
When the density of that energy condensed even further…
Sword wind (劍風) became sword aura (劍氣).
Sword aura was the higher-level technique, sure—but there were times when plain old sword wind was more effective.
Sometimes, a single strike of sword aura—which consumed far more inner force—was the right answer.
Sometimes, the wisest thing to do was to use neither and just swing your sword cleanly, conserving energy.
On top of that, there were many techniques above sword aura, with each sect’s unique variations.
That’s why, during a fight, there’s so much you have to decide on the fly—and those choices decide the outcome. Building real combat experience was just as endless a pursuit as training your martial arts.
While clashing with the four ring sabers, I factored all of that in and put a plan together.
Just then, Cha Seong-tae raised his saber again, taking a stance like he was about to rush in for real this time.
He stayed silent now, his face tightening as he gathered his killing intent.
…
He was actually planning to jump into the fray.
The Twin Ghosts didn’t know a thing about his level.
Wi Seon-u’s expression twisted; he stepped back with one foot and swung the saber in his right hand at Cha Seong-tae.
While I blocked Gu Yang-su’s blades, I instantly realized why Wi Seon-u was retreating and used the rebound of our clash to spring forward and cut.
The moment Wi Seon-u’s saber hurled a blade storm toward Cha Seong-tae, my sword shot out and severed his forearm.
Splash!
Cha Seong-tae dashed in, dragging his straight saber down through the rain in a wild charge, water spraying behind him. His intent was clear—finish off the one who’d just lost an arm.
So I turned my full attention to Gu Yang-su, facing him one-on-one.
While Cha Seong-tae and the now one-armed Wi Seon-u clashed, I flicked Gu Yang-su’s twin sabers aside and gathered the energy of Flame Fowl in my left hand, compressing it into my fingertips before firing it off with a flick.
He blocked the flaming finger shot with his saber—but both his blade and his arm shook from the impact.
I relaxed my arm and focused on thrusts alone, unleashing a barrage of feints and jabs. My sword batted aside his twin sabers while my point hunted for his throat and arms.
The core of the phantom sword techniques that every sect had some version of was this: leave lingering traces of faint energy behind the blade, creating afterimages.
When those afterimages multiplied to three, technically nine if you counted the overlaps, martial artists liked to give it fancy names like “Triple Phantom Sword,” especially when the sword was particularly fast.
In other words, it was a flashy move you could find in one form or another in just about every sect.
In the driving rain, I whipped out nine such afterimages at once—three sets of phantom thrusts—around Gu Yang-su.
Then I drove the Black Dragon Sword straight into his throat.
Thud.
His twin sabers reached my chest half a beat too late and clattered to the ground.
I yanked the blood-soaked sword free, and the sky flashed with another crash of thunder.
Turning my head, I saw Cha Seong-tae stabbing down into Wi Seon-u’s prone body.
Watching Wi Seon-u die by Cha Seong-tae’s hand instead of mine was… oddly satisfying.
It confirmed, even more clearly, that not only his fate but mine had already changed in a big way.
Up until just moments ago, I’d assumed both Twin Ghosts would die by my sword again.
Cha Seong-tae pointed his bloody blade at the corpse and asked,
“So who was this guy?”
“Black Fan Fort.”
“Black Fan Fort, huh…”
He sighed, then turned and barked at the onlookers,
“And why’d you idiots drag men like this all the way here? You trying to die?”
When he stalked toward them with his bloody saber, the lackeys stumbled backward. One of them protested, hurt,
“They threatened us! If we hadn’t brought them, they would’ve killed us first!”
Cha Seong-tae glanced back at me.
“You really think you can run the Hao Sect with guys like this? You sure?”
I snorted.
“Why’re you asking me?”
“Huh? You’re the sect master.”
“You’re the one managing the Rehabilitation Gate. You’re the lord of Life Gate, Seong-tae, you idiot. You’re not training your underlings properly? You wanna die?”
He just gaped.
“Oh…”
After shaking his head a few times, he lowered it slightly and said,
“I’ll handle things here. You go talk. Pretty sure Uncle Geum’s still in the noodle shop.”
“Have fun.”
“Yes, sir.”
While he rallied the lackeys and ordered them to clear away the bodies, I headed back into Chunyang Noodle House.
Inside, Jang Deuk-su and Geum Cheol-yong were casually watching from their seats.
“Welcome back. Good work.”
Geum Cheol-yong gave me a thumbs-up.
“Sect Master, that was impressive. Not just your martial skill. The way you held back and drew out his backup first—that was something. How’d you know he had help nearby?”
I tilted my head.
Why’s this guy so analytical…?
I answered lazily,
“Just had a feeling.”
“Remarkable.”
I was soaked to the bone, water dripping off me onto the floor.
“Uncle Geum.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be waiting for Gwangin. If anything comes up in the meantime, get word to me or Cha Seong-tae.”
He nodded.
“Got it.”
I looked down at my dripping clothes and said,
“I’m going to go wash off some blood.”
At that, Jang Deuk-su tilted his head. There wasn’t a speck of blood on me.
Honestly, it was just something that came out of my mouth.
On my way back to Plum Blossom House, I suddenly thought of the Treasure Saber Map that the Twin Ghosts had coveted.
I didn’t have the map in this life yet—but I hadn’t forgotten the location it had pointed to.
It was quite a distance from here, so I’d have to think carefully about when to set out and retrieve it. In my previous life, I’d claimed it much later anyway, so the timing wasn’t all that critical.
For now, the factions I needed to deal with had increased—Black Cat Gang, and now Black Fan Fort—but I wasn’t particularly worried.
After what I’d gone through, trapped in the Heavenly Net of the Demonic Cult, this was just a warm-up.
I opened the front door of Plum Blossom House, then turned back to look over Ilyang County, half-drowned in rain.
It wasn’t just me soaked through—the whole town felt submerged.
Night had fallen, and the streets were quiet, lights dimmed.
It was a scene completely indifferent to the fact that two saber-wielding martial artists had just died on that very street.
That was the martial world for you—people forever killing and being killed among themselves.
It was nothing more than something that happened from time to time—this time, on a rainy night.
I stood in front of Plum Blossom House’s doors and let myself stare at the pouring rain for a long moment.
Coming back stronger… it made everything look beautiful.
Then a thought crossed my mind.
Am I still half-mad like I was in my past life?
Or did I go mad and now I’m slowly coming back to normal?
There was no way to tell yet.