Chapter 721: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (15)

Youngban’s knee snapped up.

Then the sole of his raised foot smashed down on the roof without mercy. ROOOASH—tiles exploded upward as a huge hole blew open in a single strike.

It was a textbook Thousand-Catty Drop, concentrating a massive amount of force into the ground in an instant.

Youngban dropped straight down into the house below, his furious gaze sweeping the interior.

Inside the lived-in home, a big hole had been punched through the wall, wide enough for a person to pass through. The neighboring house, pressed right up against it, was clearly visible.

Of course, the neighbor had an outer wall of its own, so in the normal course of things, you wouldn’t be able to see its interior just because one wall was broken. Which meant a hole had been punched in the neighbor’s wall too.

His keen high-master’s senses picked up the presence of a crowd of people massed in the next house.

Youngban roared.

“You bitch! Where do you think you’re running?!”

He bellowed and launched into True-Step Footwork.

True Step wasn’t just the act of stamping the ground. It was the primer that drew out more power than your raw strength through shifting your body weight.

So excellent True Step meant trampling the earth and freely converting the rebound into speed and power. Youngban’s body left a long tail behind him as he shot forward at terrifying speed, crossing the house in a single step.

And up above, on the narrow ceiling beams—

One peerlessly beautiful woman held her breath.

Wow, that bastard’s actually fast. Qing honestly had to give him that much.

Looks like there’s some kind of heavenly-grade lightness skill I don’t know about. Of course, even then, he’s still slower than me.

It was always darkest under the lamp; if you searched a room, hiding behind the door was hard to find. And people, when they’re looking for something, are surprisingly bad at checking above them.

On top of that, Qing—who was on the verge of becoming a God Realm expert and was already a high master of the Flower Realm—had deliberately erased her presence.

Plus, on the other side, where Qing had entered, gold-crazed moths—assassins—were still pouring in after her. Naturally, there was plenty of “human presence” down there.

When your insides were flipped and fury surged to the top, the middle steps in your thought process got chopped right out. That was how you ended up with, That bastard’s a bad bastard. Therefore, I’m going to hit him, and you redlined straight into action.

Qing kept holding her breath.

Not yet—not yet.

“Youngban! It’s dangerous!”

One man jumped down after Youngban and shot out of the house.

“Oh Wisa! Get Yeoltani to the medic! I’ll assist Youngban!” “Understood!”

Another man leaped down after him and chased his comrade.

The corner of Qing’s mouth stretched wide, curling up almost to her ears in a vicious grin.

So. That leaves one man up here, huh?

****

By the time Youngban had vaulted over three walls and reached the first house Heavenly Flower Sword had dived into, assassins had already flooded inside.

So those assassins stared blankly at the late-arriving colleague from the same line of work. I mean, if you’re wearing black clothes and a mask, what else are you but an assassin?

Youngban met their half-wary, half-awkward stares and finally realized something was wrong.

If Heavenly Flower Sword had fled this way, this trash wouldn’t be standing around like this, calmly reading the room.

In that case, where was Heavenly Flower Sword—

A chill ran down Youngban’s spine.

—Youngban! I’ll help! “Boss!”

His loyal subordinates called to him as they barreled in behind him, just a beat late.

Youngban spun and checked his men, then sent an urgent sound-transmission to correct them.

—Oh Wisa. Where is Oh Wisa?

—I instructed him to take Jong Baekho to the medic, sir.

Fuuuck—no sooner had that transmission ended than a horrible scream echoed from far away.

And the problem was, the voice sounded uncomfortably familiar.

“Damn it!”

Youngban ground his teeth and shot upward.

His palm hit the roof—KWOOM!—and with a massive boom, the house’s ceiling blew open.

Dropping lightly onto the roof, he spotted a figure rapidly retreating in the distance, and in his ears, he still heard that hideous, drawn-out scream.

Youngban tore across the roofs in desperate pursuit.

There was Jong Baekho, eyes still rolled back, foam in his mouth, and now his pants soaked bright red with blood. Beside him, Oh Wisa was screaming, clutching at the severed stump of his thigh, trying desperately to stem the bleeding.

Without hesitation, Youngban yanked off his own mask and knotted it tight around Oh Wisa’s thigh.

JONG—another scream tore out of Oh Wisa as his thigh circumference shrank by half under the brutal treatment, but stopping the bleeding came first.

Youngban cinched the knot tight and asked,

“Oh Wisa, where did Heavenly Flower Sword go?”

“Uuuh—uuhh!”

What came back was an inarticulate howl.

Youngban lifted his head in confusion—

“Ghk.”

He couldn’t help sucking in a breath.

The man’s jawbone had been ripped off and now dangled, still attached to the skin of his face. Below that, his tongue hung slack, a flap of meat drooping all the way down to his collarbones.

It was a horror he’d never even imagined.

If you were going to rip off a jaw, then rip it all the way off—or just break the lower jaw and toss it aside. But in this case, the lower half had been yanked out and left hanging by the skin, dragging his cheeks down as it flopped, baring his molars upside-down.

“Gasp.” “Ugh.”

Two more startled exclamations followed—his two subordinates who’d chased after their commander.

“This... this monstrous... how can someone wearing a human face do something like this...!”

But it was too early to be outraged.

Because another sound had reached Youngban’s ears—a different kind of noise.

—BEEP, BEEEEEP! BEEP, BEEEEEP!

The familiar signal flute. The call was an emergency muster: stop everything and assemble here at once.

Youngban’s expression turned urgent.

This vile bitch—she’s stolen my flute and is faking my signal!

If he gathered the vanguard—

“We have to chase that bitch right—”

He’d just shouted that and was about to sprint off when a choked groan—Gggghh—made him freeze.

That woman. That bitch. That fucking woman was vicious beyond belief. Why do you think she’d left them alive in such a state instead of finishing them off?

She’d left wounded behind specifically to force someone to stay and tend to them.

If he left them here, there was no guaranteeing either man would survive. The witch was asking him: Are you going to abandon your comrades? Leave them to die?

A shudder raced down Youngban’s back.

Beyond the sheer malice, this was an actual battlefield stratagem—a high-level tactic where you send sick or wounded prisoners back to sap the enemy’s resources and morale.

He mustn’t be dragged into it.

He had only a small number of men. If he peeled off even a few to escort the wounded, he’d be dancing to that crazy woman’s tune. And yet—

Youngban squeezed his eyes shut.

“Seon Baekho, you take charge of these two. Keep them alive. You understand my meaning?”

“Sir!”

He couldn’t bring himself to leave his men to die.

Youngban ground his teeth yet again and sprang away.

His teeth were having a rough night.

****

Qing didn’t know it, but there were ranks to the signal flutes.

Their tone distinguished priority.

And the flute Jong Baekho had been blowing was Youngban’s flute—the commander’s signal, carrying top priority.

So as far as Jang Cheonho, leading the vanguard, was concerned, he had no choice but to obey the commander’s signal.

First, a muster signal had shrilled through the air, then abruptly cut off.

Then, a little later, the flute’s muster signal had started again.

Something in the operation had clearly changed; the signal’s location was shifting rapidly.

“Yeon Baekho, take point.”

They put Yeon Baekho, the man in the group best at lightness skills and tracking, in the lead and had the vanguard follow the signal.

Yeon Baekho veered their course east.

The signal was moving from the south toward the northeast, so he judged that if they ran straight east, they’d intersect with it along the way.

How far had they chased the muster signal like that?

—Stop, stop! Stop right there! It’s a trap, they’re the enemy!

Someone was shouting from up ahead.

In the vanguard’s field of view, they saw Youngban barreling toward them, yelling at the top of his lungs.

But a shout that had been flung from far away, stripped of its head and tail in his urgency, was never going to land in their minds in one piece. A trap? Enemy?

That was when it happened.

“GYAAAH!”

A raw scream tore out from the rear of the formation.

Everyone’s heads snapped around to see their comrade Yang Baekho in a horrific state, clutched by a stranger.

His abdomen had been slashed wide open horizontally, his guts spilling out.

“W-what the—!”

In the next instant, the assailant hurled Yang Baekho’s body.

Jang Baekho instinctively flung his arms out to catch him. Using his body as cover, the attacker slid between Jang Baekho’s legs on his back, like he was slipping through a gap, and then SHRAAAK—scattered a fan of blade-light.

Another scream ripped out. Jang Baekho, who had been holding Yang Baekho, collapsed, grabbing his own crotch.

But these men were elite, selected with care. They snapped into combat stance at once—PHWARAK—the sound of robes snapping through the air as they leapt.

And then, TTA-TTA-TTA-TTANG!!!

Sword-qi from several blades collided with the assailant’s wrists and were blocked there in a stunning exchange, the clang of hammered steel echoing loud.

“Hyaaap!”

It was a somewhat rough ki-shout—rough, yet strangely resonant, the tone oddly impressive even in its coarseness, wrapping around their ears.

A woman flung her arms wide.

Several swords shot into the air all at once.

It was the absurd sight of multiple men being unable to overpower a single woman.

And in that instant, a strange vision slid down onto the woman’s wrists.

On the backs of her hands appeared the illusion of some monstrous, oversized hand, as if five blades had sprouted from it.

An indescribable shape of a grip. The long fingers, nearly a foot in length, were like and yet unlike a human’s, like and yet unlike a hawk’s talons, like and yet unlike some beast’s blue-white fangs.

Its form was warped but smooth, with no wrinkles, its texture like flawless white jade. It was sharp enough to chill the heart, yet carried a certain beauty that seized the eye—a demonic hand.

Anyone with a bit of learning in the Central Plains who’d seen this vision before would recognize it at once.

Demonic Little-Water Hand.

It was the shape of the purest, most vicious grudge, the toxic image wielded by the Minor Water Witch.

“Minor Water Witch!” “Why? Why is she here?!”

Why would the Minor Water Witch—that damned demonic figure—suddenly appear?

It was an appearance no one had ever imagined.

The moment the Minor Water Witch stretched out her arms again—

“W-wait! Stop, please, stop!”

Jang Cheonho hastily tried to restrain the witch.

The Demonic Little-Water Hand was both the mental image of Minor Water Art and the concentrated condensation of its real, lethal qi.

It was proof that the Minor Water Witch had already reached the demonic realm, on par with the Harmony Realm. She was an opponent far too cruel to face in the middle of a mission.

“Why would the Minor Water Witch—no, why would Lady Demon Marquis disturb, ahem, disturb our society’s proceedings?”

Refusing to call a demon a demon and instead calling them Demon Lord or Demon Marquis was the polite way of saying: we do not wish to fight you.

When you’re trying to kill them, they’re “demonic scum.” When you need to avoid them, they become “Demon Lord, Demon Marquis.” You could call it disgustingly two-faced.

But anyone would blurt out “Demon Lord, Demon Marquis” the moment they faced a demon radiating that kind of icy killing qi.

Under the hood wrapped tightly around and hiding her face, the Minor Water Witch’s blue eyes seemed to glance around, as if checking something.

Then she abruptly exploded in fury.

“No questions! I do what I want!”

She bellowed and stomped the ground.

It was a completely incomprehensible burst of aggression.

Jang Cheonho jerked his blade up, but it just hung point-up in the air.

Because the Minor Water Witch hadn’t gone for him—she’d gone for Yeon Baekho, standing to his side.

Unfortunately, Yeon Baekho’s martial skill wasn’t as transcendent as Jang Cheonho’s.

All he knew was that in the blink of an eye, something was suddenly right in front of him and then—prick. Throb.

“Huh?”

Yeon Baekho stared blankly downward.

That twisted illusion was sunk deep into his gut.

Then CHWAAA—something thick and ropey came dragging out after it. Huh. Is that my intestines? Is this a dream or reality?

“You biiitch!!! Heavenly Flower Sword!!!”

At that instant, Youngban’s furious shout snapped Yeon Baekho’s mind awake.

And once his mind snapped back, a certain sound surged up his throat, unbidden. A scream burst free.

Aaaagh, help me!! he howled, crumpling to the ground.

But the Minor Water Witch didn’t seem to care at all. TAP—she lightly kicked off the ground and vaulted away.

Then, a bright, clear girl’s voice rang out.

—I’m not Heavenly Flower Sword! I am the Minor Water Witch! I am the Minor Water Witch! Why? Because! I’m the Minor Water Witch, that’s why!

Her cry, oddly overemphasizing “Minor Water Witch,” echoed behind her.