Episode 34. Because I Said So
The Black Cat Gang’s grunts feared their gang leader’s presence. But now there was my presence too—someone who’d suddenly barged in and proposed a life-and-death duel. At this point, you couldn’t really say whose presence was stronger. If anything, the more their eyes drifted to that mangled corpse, the more my presence grew.
From here on, anyone who wanted to live would restrain themselves on their own.
The Black Cat Gang leader also realized, from the mood alone, that this was a problem he had to deal with personally.
“Waiter, your attacks are rather flashy.”
His gaze slid to the outer wall.
A moment later there was a loud crack, and the wall that had stopped the axe began to split, lines spiderwebbing out like lightning.
Shao Junpyeong approached me and asked respectfully,
“Sect Master, will you be using a blade as well?”
“Why? I’ve trained palm arts, finger arts, kick arts, sabre arts, sword arts, spear arts, even reaping with a sickle. And more.”
Junpyeong offered up the blade he loved like a lover—Night-Coming Sabre.
“Then please, use my Night-Coming Sabre. The leader’s blade is extremely sharp as well.”
I glanced at his face at that unexpected offer. When I’d just asked to have a look at the weapon, he’d been twitchy like someone about to have their lover stolen. Now here he was, volunteering to lend it to me first.
I could’ve just said thanks, but I had to answer like the crooked bastard I am.
“It’s better than a kitchen knife, at least. Hand it over.”
As he passed the sabre over, Junpyeong shot me a sideways glare.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just… since it’s better than a kitchen knife, I’d appreciate you treating it well.”
While I drew the Night-Coming Sabre, I heard him whispering with his men behind me.
“What did he mean, better than a kitchen knife?”
“Shut it.”
“Why are you mad…? I just asked because I was curious.”
“There’s a story.”
“Got it.”
I spoke to the Black Cat Gang leader, who looked like he was still scheming something.
“New blade’s here. Let’s begin.”
Before he could try anything clever, I sent a wave of blade wind roaring toward him.
Blade Against Blade
Blade wind isn’t something you use to land the final blow. It’s best used in the middle of a fight, to break your opponent’s balance or disrupt their movement. That’s why you have to respond properly. Handle it poorly and you’ll keep losing the initiative.
The executives instinctively slipped aside to avoid the blade wind. The leader, standing in its path, drew the black straight sabre at his waist and cleaved the wind in two.
In that opening, I leaped from the chair to the dais in a single bound, then lunged, driving the Night-Coming Sabre straight at his gut.
Klang!
The leader smashed aside the straight-line thrust of the sabre, and the real fight began.
In that brief clash, we read each other’s eyes.
Many emotions can be seen in someone’s gaze. The one thing we had in common was that neither of us had fear in ours.
That’s the look of people who’ve killed a lot.
Our fight, which started on the steps, shifted to the open middle of the courtyard.
By the time the straight sabre and the Night-Coming Sabre had clashed thirty times, I had neatly organized what I’d learned in my head.
The Black Cat leader’s sabre arts were refined. His style focused on defense, then prized counterattacks. He’d deliberately show small openings in his technique, laying sly little traps.
I, on the other hand, don’t decide in advance how to fight, or how to control the flow. I read their mentality and the strengths and quirks of their martial arts, and respond accordingly. That’s the core of the next realm of Flame Lineage—Fighting Rooster. I haven’t reached that mental realm yet, but understanding is a separate matter from formally stepping into it.
Once we crossed blades…
I found my sabre work faster than his, more precise than his, and backed by inner power far deeper than his, built on the foundation of Celestial Jade. In short, this was a fight I could not lose.
Even so, I had my reasons to carve the Black Cat leader’s sabre arts into my memory.
I needed to use his sabre as a window into the Great Rakshasa’s martial arts.
On top of that, I had another reason to learn his sabre arts exactly as they were.
This was all part of the plan.
Too Late
Once I had his style fully in my mind’s eye, I began slowly turning up the inner power flowing into my blade.
The leader, who’d managed to hold out fairly well until now, started to go pale.
He was just now realizing I’d been using less than half my power.
I understood why he was shaken.
Before the age of twenty-five, there’s a rough ceiling on how much inner power a Jianghu fighter can realistically build up.
Those who reach that ceiling tend to be the top disciples of great righteous sects, heirs of noble clans, or rare geniuses who’ve encountered some extraordinary fate. With anyone else, you can more or less estimate the depth of their inner power based on age and background.
The Black Cat leader had been looking at me that way too.
But then he met my sabre and felt my inner power steadily swelling.
Of course he panicked.
How could he possibly have predicted or prepared for something like the Celestial Jade boon?
I relaxed my hardened expression into a cold smile.
“Too late, Leader.”
Too late to run.
Too late to realize my true strength.
Facing death, the leader understood what I meant right away. And again, thanks to that mask, I couldn’t see his face change at all.
Masks clearly have their advantages.
His movements, though, grew more and more frantic—like a beast trying to escape a hunter. Whether you’re a beast or a martial artist, when you’re cornered, you thrash about like this.
Watching that pathetic display, I tossed his own words back at him.
“Do you think you can lick when I say lick, attack when I say attack, bark when I say bark? Under me, of course.”
He was scraping up every last scrap of inner power from inside him, with nothing left to spare for a reply.
“……”
“No answer? Hard, isn’t it? And you said that was what the Black Path was.”
Even as I mocked him, I cut off his escape routes, swinging the sabre to herd him. His steps were starting to shift a little at a time—his footwork changing so he could bolt at the first chance.
I’d gotten used to his footwork and sabre, so reading that intent was easy.
As I shut him down and narrowed his options, Shao, with a good eye for these things, called out,
“Leader, you told me to kill myself if I lost, and now you’re doing something this cheap? Don’t tell me you’re trying to run…?”
At those words, the leader’s composure collapsed.
He swung his sabre in wide arcs, pouring out wave after wave of blade energy, then shouted hoarsely to his men,
“Attack!”
The executives were just about to move when Shao cut in quickly,
“Everyone stand down. He clearly agreed to a one-on-one. If you interfere now, I’ll have no choice but to step in myself. If you ignore his order and stay put, I’ll do what I can to make sure you keep your lives. If you’re still worried, just stare at the corpse he split with the axe. Like the Sect Master said, that’s what you get for trying a sneak attack.”
After hearing that, the executives’ eyes turned to the corpse that had been chopped clean apart.
“……”
It was an ugly sight, even on second look.
That body seemed to be screaming with everything it had left: Don’t die like me.
When people are cornered, they’ll grab at any straw. The leader, batting away the Night-Coming Sabre and retreating in a panic, gasped out,
“Sect Master… wait…!”
In my eyes, the mere act of talking had already opened three or four holes in his defense. And the way he’d quietly shifted from calling me “waiter” to “Sect Master” was almost funny.
This brat…
I didn’t give him a chance to breathe. Following close, I wrapped the Night-Coming Sabre in Flame Lineage, smashed aside his blade, and let an ugly screech ring out as steel shrieked against steel. The leader’s face twisted in pain. His grip had split somewhere along the way; blood was already running down his hand.
Desperate now, he grabbed his straight sabre with both hands and poured all his remaining inner power into a single slash, hurling a blast of blade energy at me.
Whiiiiiiiiing!
His intent couldn’t have been more obvious.
If I dodged, the blade energy would slam into Shao and his men behind me. It was a final strike that would either kill me, or at least rip Shao’s people apart.
I’d never planned on dodging.
I raised the Night-Coming Sabre toward the oncoming blade energy, wrapped it in Fiery Incense, and chopped straight down.
His oddly-shaped blade energy and my blazing arc of power collided.
If their strength had been equal, the shockwave would’ve spread outward in a neat circle.
Instead, my Fiery Incense tore his blade energy apart, and the leftover force alone hurled the Black Cat leader into the wall.
Caught in that searing energy, his skin charred as he flew, arms spread wide, hit the wall in the shape of the character for “great” (大), and coughed up blood.
“Guh…!”
His body half-embedded itself in the wall. Between the internal damage and the impact, his bones must have shattered in several places. He couldn’t free himself, like a figure drawn onto the wall itself.
Shao and his men would be overjoyed at the result.
The ones who’d held back after his warning would be breathing sighs of relief…
But for me, this was the natural outcome. There wasn’t much joy in it.
I looked around at the assembled Black Cat fighters and announced the result.
“The waiter wins.”
From a Black Path perspective, a rather undignified victory declaration.
But win or not, the reason I’d come here hadn’t even started yet.
New Leader
“Shao Junpyeong.”
Meeting my eyes, he answered in formal speech for the first time.
“Yes, Sect Master.”
“You earn your keep with your tongue. That little three-inch thing saved quite a few.”
“You warned me beforehand, so I was able to save my comrades. Thank you, Sect Master.”
I turned to the executives, who had suddenly fallen mute, and wagged the sabre lightly.
“I was saving plenty of strength in case you all rushed me. So what’ll it be? I respect a man’s sense of vengeance. If anyone is truly devastated by your leader’s defeat, step up now. I’ll open a straight road to heaven so you can ascend together, with reverent sincerity. This time I’ll fight at full strength. I already know your sabre arts aren’t worth watching anyway.”
Anyone with half an eye could tell from the result that I hadn’t used my full power against the leader.
“……”
I scratched my chin.
“Come now, no one? The leader said it was a perfect day to die. None of you want to ascend together? It’s not every day lowly Black Path types get the chance to challenge a great waiter like me. Show some courage.”
Even after I poked at their pride, no one stepped forward. A few of the executives’ faces turned bright red, which made me grin.
“Shame. This was your last chance to take a shot at the waiter.”
While they failed to process what I’d just said, I walked over to the half-dead leader and looked him over. He was still barely breathing.
I reached out, grabbed his rabbit mask, and tore it off. A nearly-dead face stared back at me. His lips barely moved, forming just one intent.
“Spare… me…”
“Spare you? That’s unexpected. If you’re willing to spend the rest of your life as a waiter in Ilyang, sure, I’ll let you live. I’ll cripple your martial arts, of course. You might get beaten to death by some random martial artist while you’re boiling noodles, clearing tables, or mopping floors for no reason at all—but that’s what the Jianghu is. You’d have to steel your heart and start over. No other life will be allowed. If you have the courage to live as a waiter…”
The Black Cat leader died before I could finish.
“Guess not.”
To be honest, I hadn’t really planned to make him do it. Like I said earlier, I don’t feel even a shred of sympathy when trained monkeys beat each other to death.
“Hard to do much waitering when you’re dead. Being a waiter isn’t for just anyone, you know. Honestly…”
Mask in hand, I turned and glared at the men still standing. Not many had died, so the groundwork was actually pretty decent.
Holding up the rabbit mask slick with the gang leader’s blood, I brought it to my face and spoke.
“From now on, I’m the Black Cat Gang leader.”
Mask on, I declared,
“Whether you like it or not. Because I said so.”