Chapter 300

Hu Gae felt a guilty twinge at Taoist Cheongmu’s accusation, but he put on a solemn expression.

“Taoist Cheongmu, what do you mean, calling me a liar out of nowhere?”

“Why would Big Beggar worry about me?”

The two of them had spent the entire voyage aboard the Cloud-Drifting Boat treating each other like strangers, so Hu Gae had no ready answer.

“...”

“Big Beggar just wants to go into that city and gorge himself, doesn’t he? I counted every time you swallowed your spit.”

Cheongmu’s words struck straight to the heart of the matter, leaving Hu Gae aghast.

Damn it! He’s using the supernatural faculty of Heavenly Ear for something like this?

While Hu Gae stood speechless after having his thoughts exposed, Cheongmu turned to Kwak.

“Little Martial Uncle, don’t worry about me climbing the mountains.”

Kwak nodded.

“I’m not worried about Brother Cheongmu at all.”

Cheongmu roamed the sheer rocky peaks of Mount Wudang as though they were his own backyard.

“Chief Secretary Kwak, you needn’t worry about me either. My... family’s lightness arts are second to none under heaven.”

Jin could not reveal her true identity to the guileless Cheongmu, so she said “family” instead of Ghost Night Castle.

“I confirmed during the recent events at the Martial Alliance that Lady Jin’s lightness arts are exceptional.”

Kwak readily nodded again, then turned to Hu Gae.

“Brother, we’ll depart as soon as Lady Jin changes into martial robes.”

Hu Gae had no choice but to nod listlessly.

“Fine.”

All he had wanted was to put a little grease in his belly after living on dried rations day and night.

Damn it all!

The truly maddening part for Hu Gae, however, began once they set out into the mountains in earnest.

It did not take him long to realize how futile it had been to use the other two as an excuse.

Not only Jin Cheongha but Taoist Cheongmu as well raced along the mountain trails at astonishing speed.

At first Hu Gae was merely surprised. After they crossed two enormous mountains, surprise turned to shock.

Jin Cheongha was the Young Castle Lord of Ghost Night Castle, so her lightness art was understandable. The movement arts of Ghost Night Castle, one of the Demonic Eight Divisions, were famous throughout the martial world.

But Cheongmu’s elusive lightness art left Hu Gae’s mouth hanging open.

By the time they approached the summit of the third mountain, Hu Gae had finally fallen behind.

WHOOSH! TAP!

Hu Gae reached the summit nearly ten paces behind the rest of the party, his face burning with embarrassment.

The heir to the greatest beggar organization under heaven had fallen behind some Taoist from the Taoist-immortal line—even if it was only in lightness art.

“Big Beggar, why are you so slow?”

I’m not slow. You’re monstrously fast.

Hu Gae snapped back at Cheongmu in his mind, then found himself wanting to confront Kwak.

And you still claim Taoist Cheongmu hasn’t reached the Flower Realm?

His legs trembling from the strain, Hu Gae sat on a boulder and tried to settle his turbulent inner power and true qi.

Then he heard Cheongmu speaking to Kwak.

“Little Martial Uncle, this won’t do. You can give one root of wild ginseng to that weakling Big Beggar too.”

“...!”

The word “weakling” made something inside Hu Gae snap.

“I DON’T WANT IT!”

His furious shout rang through the mountains.

Then—

I DON’T WANT IT! DON’T WANT IT! DON’T WANT IT...!

Echoes came clamoring back from every direction.

His face growing even redder, Hu Gae declared, “I wouldn’t eat it if my life depended on it!”

“Then don’t.”

Cheongmu shouted right back, then muttered under his breath.

“It’s precious stuff meant for Little Martial Uncle. He acts like I want to give it away. I only said it because wasting time waiting for a slowpoke is such a shame.”

Damn him!

Hu Gae shot to his feet.

“Brother Kwak, let’s leave immediately.”

“Brother...?”

“And increase our pace.”

Kwak studied Hu Gae’s crimson face for a moment, then readily nodded.

“Understood.”

Hu Gae attacked the mountain trails with a do-or-die determination.

He had sworn that he would never fall behind Cheongmu, so he focused every shred of his attention on his lightness art.

Perhaps because of that resolve, when darkness fell and the party halted for the night, Hu Gae had not lagged behind any of them.

There. What do you think of that?

Hu Gae spent the night feeling rather pleased with himself, but when they resumed their march the next day, regret began quietly creeping in.

Kwak, who led the way, had increased their pace by half again.

Hu Gae had barely kept up the previous day by driving his lightness art at full power. Now the march was pure torment.

Yet he had demanded that Kwak increase the pace himself, so he could hardly complain.

This is still far too fast!

Hu Gae had no choice but to summon extraordinary concentration and drive his lightness art beyond its normal limits.

He would sooner bite off his own tongue and die than endure Cheongmu’s mockery again.

By nightfall, his mouth tasted scorched, while his inner power and true qi churned violently through every major point in his body with no sign of settling.

He had circulated them without a moment’s rest throughout the entire day to sustain his lightness art.

Never in Hu Gae’s life had he squeezed his inner power and true qi to their absolute limit for so long.

He even suffered a sudden fear that he might fall into deviation. Fortunately, by the following morning, his inner power and true qi had stabilized as though nothing had happened.

Good. I’ll show them that not just anyone can become the Beggar Clan’s heir.

Hu Gae began the day’s march in high spirits, but his face soon twisted miserably.

Kwak had raised the pace yet again.

They were now moving twice as fast as when they had first entered the mountains.

Brother Kwak, at this rate, everyone but you is going to die!

Jin had already turned deathly pale. Even the perpetually cheerful Cheongmu was running with his tongue hanging out, gasping for breath.

Yet both continued racing onward with grim determination, leaving Hu Gae no choice but to grit his teeth and follow.

Determination alone, however, could not sustain a martial art forever. At last, Hu Gae reached the limit of his lightness art.

He had been drawing up his inner power and true qi continuously, without ever having the chance to return them to his dantian. That was where the trouble began.

Unable to return to his dantian, the layers of accumulated inner power and true qi began scattering through the major points of his entire body.

He needed to stop immediately and perform qi circulation, but Cheongmu and Jin were still running stubbornly beside him without the slightest sign of slowing.

Shit! Fine. Let’s see this through.

Even if he collapsed foaming at the mouth, he would do so only after getting at least one step ahead of Cheongmu.

Every major point in his body felt ready to burst, and his meridians seemed to be tearing apart.

Hu Gae had never experienced pain so terrible.

Just as the desire to stop his lightness art became almost irresistible—

“You lazy, stupid fool! If you never reach the next realm, that body of yours will only get hacked apart by some bastard’s blade and left to rot. Why are you so precious with it?”

His old master’s roar seemed to ring vividly in his ears.

“The pain of your flesh is nothing but an excuse to conceal that rotten mind of yours. That is why the beatings this master gives you are a necessary cruelty meant to awaken your spirit.”

For the first time, Hu Gae wondered whether his master might have been at least half sincere.

Hu Gae had always wanted to reach a higher realm, but somewhere in his heart, he had also wondered why he should risk a catastrophic fall to do so.

Today, that hesitation was gone.

No matter what it took, he wanted to endure and wipe the smug look off Cheongmu’s face.

Yes. If I can’t do even that, I may as well die here in the Qinling Mountains today.

Hu Gae released his inner power and true qi, allowing them to spread throughout every major point in his body.

The danger came when they clumped together and reversed their flow. Dispersing them like this brought only pain, not actual harm.

To forget the agony caused by his inner power and true qi rushing through his body, Hu Gae immersed himself entirely in his lightness art.

One step, two steps, three steps, four...!

Once he focused all awareness on his steps, everything else in the world vanished from his mind.

Hu Gae remained submerged in that state of complete absorption for a long while.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK-CRACK!

Something sounded as though it were breaking, but he assumed it was merely branches being crushed beneath the party’s feet.

Only when a pale blur appeared before him and spoke did Hu Gae realize that he was running beside Kwak.

“Brother, we should stop and rest.”

When Kwak stopped, Hu Gae stopped as well.

Staring in bewilderment at Kwak, who seemed to have suddenly appeared beside him, Hu Gae asked, “When did you slow down?”

As an expert at the upper extreme of the Flower Realm, Kwak had always run more than one hundred zhang ahead of them. No matter how desperately Hu Gae pursued him, he had never managed to close the distance, so the question was only natural.

But Kwak replied, “Brother, I never slowed down. In fact, for the past half a double-hour, I have been moving twice as fast as I was this morning.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

Hu Gae frowned.

“Then why are you beside me?”

“I’m not certain. I don’t understand what strange turn of fortune produced this either.”

A smile touched Kwak’s lips.

“In any case, if we widen the distance any further, Taoist Cheongmu and the Young Castle Lord may lose the trail.”

Hu Gae whipped his head around.

“...!”

He spotted the other two running far away along the mountain ridge and stared with bulging eyes.

“What in the world happened?”

Kwak’s face lit up.

“Congratulations, Brother. You have attained the realm of seamless perfection.”

Hu Gae’s eyes widened further.

Seamless perfection—the state in which movement became utterly natural, without the slightest flaw.

In other words, the Flower Realm.

Hu Gae wanted to scold Kwak for spouting such absurd nonsense.

But Kwak was incapable of uttering so much as an ant-sized speck of empty talk.

“Seamless perfection is... That’s impossible. I only concentrated on my lightness art.”

Kwak nodded.

“I found it difficult to believe as well. Reaching a new realm merely by running may well be unprecedented in the martial world.”

“Exactly. I’d sooner believe I was struck by lightning from a cloudless sky in broad daylight.”

When even the man who had supposedly achieved the breakthrough refused to believe it and invoked lightning from a clear sky, Kwak quietly said, “In truth, I do have an idea of how it happened.”

“...?”

Hu Gae looked at him curiously, and Kwak continued.

“I believe I once told you this before, Brother, but you had already come very close to reaching the next realm.”

Hu Gae remembered his first duel with Kwak at the Guan Yu Temple in Yueyang.

As Hu Gae lay sprawled on his back in the temple courtyard, Kwak had indeed told him exactly that.

At the time, he had assumed Kwak was merely trying to console him after his defeat, but....