Chapter 13:5. Western Alliance (1)
Jeong-min looked up at the bald man before him with calm detachnt.
Chu Man-jeong.
His head was shaved clean, and his fra stood a full 9 feet tall. He carried no weapon in his hands.
Jeong-min hadn't known until today just how large the man was. Or perhaps it was simply that he himself was relatively small by comparison.
They say he can crush even seasoned warriors' skulls in an instant—using nothing but his fingers.
That was precisely how he'd earned the na: Xinjiang's No. 1 Escort Fighter.
Chu Man-jeong looked down at Jeong-min with a self-satisfied expression.
"What's this? Both So-yeon and Sa-ryong got done in by this tiny little runt? Tsk, what a stain on the Qinghai Escort Bureau's reputation."
Chu Man-jeong's title—Xinjiang's No. 1 Escort Fighter—was, in truth, a misnor.
Chu Man-jeong was not an escort fighter. He was originally a bandit, one whose martial prowess had been recognized and recruited by Cheong Jin-gang.
He was, in a word, a figurehead.
The Qinghai Escort Bureau has elite fighters like this! So entrust your valuables to us and they'll be safe!
In reality, Chu Man-jeong did little more than eat and lounge about at the Qinghai Escort Bureau—but in monts like these, he was undeniably a formidable asset.
"Chu Man-jeong. It's ti to earn all those als you've eaten. Crush that little brat's skull. Now."
"Yeah, yeah, alright."
Xinjiang's No. 1 Escort Fighter Chu Man-jeong cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
Jeong-min straightened his posture and fixed his gaze on him.
"Hoo."
The reason Jeong-min knew so much about Chu Man-jeong was simple: he had faced him in his past life.
He truly had been a remarkable talent. Jeong-min rembered him as soone with both imnse strength and, incongruously for his size, lightning-fast movent.
They say he can shatter stone with his bare hands without even channeling Internal Energy.
And now, that sa Chu Man-jeong had loaded his hands with Internal Energy as well.
His intent was plain to see—to tear Jeong-min apart like paper in a single instant.
"Kid. Don't hold a grudge. I'm just doing what I'm told."
"Liar."
"Hm?"
"You just enjoy killing people. Don't you? Chu Man-jeong, the ex-bandit."
Pffft—Chu Man-jeong smiled, thin and cold.
"So you know ."
"Rumors spread like rivers."
"True enough. You're right. I tried to pretend otherwise, but I love killing. It's been a little while since I last got blood on my hands……"
The smile faded from Chu Man-jeong's face.
"I'll use you to quench my thirst."
Boom!
Chu Man-jeong shot toward Jeong-min like an arrow loosed from a bow.
The movent was so fast and sharp that most people would have struggled to track it with their eyes.
Imnse strength, and lightning-fast movent despite his size.
That was certainly true.
Of course, to Muyeong—
It's just that, at the end of the day.
—it looked no different from watching a tortoise lumber forward.
Thwuck!
"—!??!"
Chu Man-jeong froze as an intense pain unlike anything he had ever felt in his life shot through him. He looked down toward the source, and saw a blade buried deep in his Dantian.
The hand gripping its hilt was none other than Jeong-min's.
Blood trickled from the corner of Chu Man-jeong's mouth.
"You……?!"
"Guess I've gone a bit soft lately—every ti I swing a blade, I keep failing to cut a life short in a single stroke."
Only when he saw the look on Jeong-min's face did Chu Man-jeong feel regret.
Why hadn't he noticed sooner? Those eyes. This kid's eyes. They were—
The eyes of a predator.
He was not an opponent a re insect like himself could ever hope to face.
Jeong-min's eyes glead with a fierce light.
"So let cut you clean in 1."
Shhwack!
Chu Man-jeong's abdon was split horizontally in 2.
His body sprayed blood as it toppled backward, and when Jeong-min gave it a light tap with his fingertip, it finally crashed to the ground with a thud!
It was only natural that Cheong Jin-gang watched the scene in pale-faced shock.
"Now there's no one left but you."
At Jeong-min's words, Cheong Jin-gang glanced around.
The other escort fighters and spear hands had long since lowered their blades—the notion of fighting Jeong-min had been abandoned long ago.
It was equally natural that Cheong Jin-gang ground his teeth.
"How dare you."
"W-we're just escort fighters. We work for pay, so this has nothing to do with the Qinghai Escort Bureau."
With that, the escort fighters and spear hands all tore off the blue garnts they were wearing and flung them aside.
The sight of it enraged Cheong Jin-gang further—but he knew well enough that no words would change anything at this point.
Cheong Jin-gang pressed his hand to the ground and pushed himself upright.
"Ha. Did you think the Qinghai Escort Bureau only had the Twin Killers and Chu Man-jeong? I myself am here—, the Azure Robe Gold Whip, Cheong Jin-gang. You've picked the wrong enemy today."
"Mind if I share a story?"
"What?"
"Frog in a Well."
Jeong-min let out a quiet scoff.
"It's a story you told ."
Tremble—a vein bulged at Cheong Jin-gang's temple.
He reached into his robes and drew out a gold-colored whip, cracking it sharply.
"How dare you humiliate !"
"Oh my."
Whether Jeong-min was actually listening, it was hard to say—he simply rolled his stiff shoulders.
Crack! Pop!
The reason he was shaking out his stiff body was nothing remarkable.
Heavenly Demon Divine Art, 1st Stage—Demon Accumulation.
Demon Accumulation was, as its na implied, the power to stockpile Demonic Energy within the body.
Sitting in ditative Posture allowed the Internal Energy to build faster and with greater subtlety—but what made it especially interesting was that it could also accumulate during ordinary daily activities, without needing to sit at all.
It may be minuscule, but Demonic Energy is steadily building inside , layer by layer.
The amount Jeong-min had expended in combat had already been replenished.
In other words, Jeong-min had effectively spent no energy at all in this fight.
He turned his gaze to Cheong Jin-gang.
"There's sothing that's been bothering this whole ti."
Jeong-min walked toward Cheong Jin-gang with slow, deliberate steps.
Cheong Jin-gang stood frozen—unable to advance, unable to retreat—as he waited awkwardly for Jeong-min to close the distance.
"That blue robe you're wearing."
"……?!"
"It keeps reminding of soone."
The very person who had killed him—Muyeong—in his past life.
The blue-robed warrior.
Every ti he saw that blue robe, it surfaced again.
"If you…… kill right now. Those allied with us won't let you get away with this…… I, I can't…… die in a place like this. If you don't want to deal with my grudge, back off now."
Cheong Jin-gang said this while sweating profusely.
His tone was still imperious, but it was little different from begging on his knees.
Getting no response from Jeong-min, Cheong Jin-gang blurted out one last desperate card.
"Th-that's right, now I rember. The Forest Bandits are marching on you, aren't they? A great battle's about to begin. The Heavenly Demon Cult won't be able to hold them off. The Qinghai Escort Bureau will lend our strength too."
"Hmm. I don't need it."
There was no chance Jeong-min would stop in his tracks out of fear.
"I gave you more than enough chances earlier. Bring the land deed, I said—don't make say it 3 tis."
"……"
"Dealing with a grudge, you say. Well, if soone like an emperor were to hold a grudge against , I suppose I'd have half a mind to flee to another land. But……"
Jeong-min finally stepped to stand directly before Cheong Jin-gang.
Cheong Jin-gang knew Jeong-min was shorter than him, but he couldn't bring himself to look down.
"Soone like you? A grudge from you wouldn't keep up at night—I'd maybe just pick up a wrinkle or 2."
"Please."
"That period ca too late."
Thwuck!
The blade pierced Cheong Jin-gang's chest without rcy.
It was an attack as light as it was brutal.
"Seems this was no tiger's den after all."
Shhwack!
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.
.
.
.
The Qinghai Escort Bureau had fallen.
And in the span of a single night, no less!
The Bureau collapsed in an instant, and the escort fighters and spear hands who remained reportedly scattered in search of their own paths to survival.
Despite its na, the Qinghai Escort Bureau was located not in Qinghai, but in Xinjiang. Even so, the news spread all the way to Qinghai, reaching even the ears of the Kunlun Sect.
Not only that—the news also reached the ears of Potala Palace, the Blood Cult, and the Forest Bandits.
"The Qinghai Escort Bureau?"
"Brought down by whom?"
"How did it fall?"
At the end of every question, there was always 1 na.
The youngest son of the Heavenly Demon Cult, descended from the Tianshan—Hyeok Jeong-min—had obliterated the Qinghai Escort Bureau in a single overwhelming strike using his Demonic Art.
It was news that was hard to swallow at face value. After all, did the Qinghai Escort Bureau not have within its ranks the renowned Xinjiang's No. 1 Escort Fighter, Chu Man-jeong?
"Turns out they were a weaker group than I thought."
"Had I known, we would've struck the Qinghai Escort Bureau first and absorbed them ourselves."
"Rumors always end up distorted."
"Seems the young Bureau Chief wasn't up to leading after all."
Most of them, however, focused only on the fact that the Qinghai Escort Bureau had turned out to be a weaker outfit than expected.
It was simply too difficult to accept at face value that a child barely 14 years of age had single-handedly reduced an entire escort bureau to rubble.
Yet—
"……"
1 middle-aged warrior who heard the sa news reached a different conclusion.
He stood lost in thought, staring beyond a stone wall—observing the village he had just finished destroying.
"Wh-what on earth is wrong with you. What have we done to deserve this."
When one of the still-living n protested, the warrior replied with an absurd and breezy calm:
"Boredom."
Clang—from his waist, a broad sword slid free of its scabbard.
Slash! He cut the man down, then sank once more into the sa contemplation he had been lost in before.
"So they were bested by the Heavenly Demon Cult."
As the warrior mused, he gave a slight flick of his finger, and a black-robed figure appeared and knelt behind him.
"Send word and find out what Bang-rip is up to these days."
"Understood."
The black-robed figure vanished, and the wind stirred in his wake, causing the warrior's garnt to billow.
That garnt was a blue robe—a Cheongui.
The Heavenly Demon Cult.
He had always planned to strike them eventually.
Moving up the timing before they grew stronger wouldn't be a bad idea either.
With that thought, the blue-robed warrior turned and walked away. Out of habit, his hand drifted to the 6 swords fastened at his waist, fingers trailing across them idly.
The man the world called the Eagle Eye Six Swords, Gwan Tae-ho—that was who he was.
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When day broke, guests arrived at the Heavenly Demon Cult.
Heavenly Demon Hyeok Je-un received the visitors without even managing to arrange a proper ceremony in ti.
They were the envoy of Potala Palace, Ajung Mak-sang, along with a group of lama monks.
"It is a great pleasure to et you in person like this. Cult Leader."
"The honor is mine. To think that the Tea Master of Potala Palace would co in person."
Potala Palace was famous for its isolationism—shutting its gates and refusing all outside contact.
For them to have dispatched an envoy all the way to the peak of this mountain range—?
Ajung Mak-sang clapped his hands, and from among the lama monks standing behind him, an attendant stepped forward carrying a wooden box.
Inside the box lay precious treasures and a single docunt—an ordinary person might have had their eyes drawn to the treasures, but it was clear the docunt was the true substance of this visit.
"May I unfold and read it aloud?"
"Please do."
Ajung Mak-sang unrolled the parchnt-like docunt with a flourish.
And read aloud the foreign script written within.
"By the direct word of Dalai Lama Beom Su-gwang, currently in office! Our Potala Palace harbors no designs upon the land of Xinjiang, and stands ready at any ti to join forces with the Heavenly Demon Cult and forge a single alliance. We na this new alliance between the Heavenly Demon Cult and Potala Palace the Western Alliance, and swear to lend our aid whenever cooperation is required."
He then extended the parchnt toward Heavenly Demon Hyeok Je-un.
Hyeok Je-un took the docunt and saw that at the very end, the thumbprint of Dalai Lama Beom Su-gwang had been stamped.
"Once you sign and affix your seal, the 'Western Alliance' will be established. Do you accept the alliance with Potala Palace?"
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