The Ruler of Darkness

On the rooftop.

From the front and back, surrounding Tang Baek, internal energy blasted towards him.

“Leg Flesh Severing!”

With a sound of ripping through the air, as if split in two, a sharp blade trembled.

“Hup!”

From behind, with a short shout, a sword scraped against the ground, spitting out sparks as it shot up.

“…”

However, Tang Baek’s face remained cold and emotionless as always.

He knew no blade could touch him.

The heads of two martial artists from different organizations, who had attempted a pincer attack from the front and back, rolled to the ground.

Those surrounding and pressing in couldn’t even express their shock at the scene.

Some of them had their necks broken by chains, some lost their heads, and others had daggers pierced through their skulls.

“Phew…”

Tang Baek retrieved his chained sickles and daggers while taking a long breath.

The further they advanced, the higher the proportion of martial artists among the enemies.

That also meant they were getting closer to the square located at the heart of the mid-regions of the Valley of Sin.

There had already been predictions that the square, where the advance base was located, would become the central area in the conflict between the three dark forces.

After all, there was no other wide open area in the mid-regions besides the square.

Nevertheless, the resistance from enemies was fiercer than imagined, and the proportion of martial artists was higher than expected.

Similarly, he could see his subordinates, who were suppressing the rooftops while moving, taking turns hiding their bodies and regrouping.

‘Normally, we should switch to hit-and-run tactics here.’

No matter how skilled, if not fighting a battle where one’s life is at stake, maintaining the flow of breath and internal energy is most important.

Especially for someone like Tang Baek who mastered instant kill martial arts, its importance was even greater.

‘But…’

Tang Baek’s gaze turned downwards to the street.

There, someone was endlessly drawing in even the enemies who should have been attacking Tang Baek and his subordinates.

His presence was greater than Tang Baek and all his subordinates combined, and thanks to that, it gave them the leeway to catch their breath and energy.

The Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon.

He had single-handedly taken on the vanguard at the forefront of the formation, bearing all the pressure alone and opening up the path on the ground.

***

An assassin from a dark force organization, renowned for his concealment techniques and assassinations, was watching for an opening.

The assassin boldly targeted the prey who had jumped into their conflict alone.

‘Foolish, so foolish. In his youth, he’s become too enamored with his own skills.’

Whenever a conflict occurred, the vanguard commanders rampaging in the melee became his shining achievements.

Vanguard commanders, who had to constantly face enemies in the chaos of battle, always had a habit of accepting minor injuries, and exploiting that gap was his specialty.

“…”

Holding a dagger coated with lethal poison, he silently climbed down the wall without making a sound.

His eyes were fixed on the boy swinging the iron staff as if nailed to him.

And he waited.

For that moment when the prey’s hands and feet would be moving most intricately.

And he did not miss that moment.

‘Huh?’

He was taken aback.

His lethal poison-coated dagger was stabbing the wrong person.

‘What the…?’

As the iron staff lightly tapped his hand clutching the dagger, the dagger ended up piercing the chest of another organization member.

‘What is this…?’

It was as if the iron staff was controlling his body.

The iron staff lightly touched his knees, elbows, and wrists, causing his body to spin around and magnificently slice the fellow members who were attempting a pincer attack from the left and right.

“Wha…?!”

And with that single word, he realized his own cherished dagger was lodged in his own jaw.

***

Watching that scene, an involuntary hollow laugh escaped Tang Baek’s lips.

The assassin’s concealment technique was quite decent, and targeting the moment when the Eldest Young Master’s movements became most complex wasn’t bad either.

But that was all.

The assassin’s concealment technique was meaningless to a master of Tang Baek’s level, and even that targeted single strike was ultimately crude.

Such an assassin’s skills could never work on the Eldest Young Master.

‘However.’

The reason he let out a hollow laugh wasn’t because of the assassin’s foolish act that wasted his own life.

‘He thought he could catch the Eldest Young Master, and so he acted.’

Indeed.

The assassin moved because he ‘judged’ that he could sufficiently kill the Eldest Young Master.

To the extent that Tang Baek involuntarily let out a hollow laugh, the Eldest Young Master’s movements were that ‘strange’.

***

A sword strike targeting Yeon So-hyeon vainly sliced through empty air, and the opponent was hit on the back of the head by the iron staff.

The sword that had cut through the air was led by the other end of the iron staff and pierced the abdomen of another organization member.

The iron club held by that member seemed to fall to the ground, but after grazing Yeon So-hyeon’s sleeve, it pounded the neck of another member.

The iron club that broke the neck bone like that smashed someone else’s solar plexus, and only after being stuck in another’s head could it briefly stop.

But only briefly.

As Yeon So-hyeon, who kept advancing step by step, stepped on the head of the iron club with his back foot, the bouncing iron club shattered the jaw of someone charging at him.

And in that time, the poisoned dagger that had cut off the assassin’s breath was already severing the lifelines of several more.

The weapons targeting Yeon So-hyeon, the people aiming for his life, were moving in a dizzying dance, entangled with him.

That sight ‘appeared’ precarious.

And ‘seemed’ perilous.

Amidst that, Yeon So-hyeon’s face was as calm as if taking a stroll, and his mind was even calmer than his expression.

***

How should one explain those strange movements?

Tang Baek licked his drying lips.

‘To call it stillness within motion, there is too much movement. To call it motion within stillness, there is too little movement.’

To call it reacting after the opponent, he seemed to move in advance to every surrounding movement, and to say he moved in advance, those movements were too slow.

‘Slow, yet not slow. And still slow.’

It was contradictory.

But the scene the Eldest Young Master was creating was definitely like that in reality.

There was no grandiose internal energy technique, nor were dozens of people sent flying with a single strike.

The Eldest Young Master looked like a small boat in a fierce storm, seemingly about to sink at any moment.

And because of that, every enemy who discovered him targeted him.

From the perspective of the enemies, Yeon So-hyeon ‘appeared’ to be at a level they could catch.

To those without internal energy, it seemed like they could catch him if they all attacked at once.

To those with internal energy, it seemed like a target they could sufficiently catch if they exploited an opening.

Then to someone who had crossed the wall…

‘…It’s incomprehensible.’

Tang Baek shook his head.

‘It can’t be defined.’

If it was simply external techniques, it wasn’t.

Then was it internal energy techniques?

But it wasn’t hidden energy, inch power, flying energy, silk-reeling energy, cross energy, sinking energy, or elastic energy.

To judge it as a transformative energy technique or sleight of hand, rather than controlling the opponent’s power, it was as if he was dominating the opponent’s body.

‘The scope can’t be limited either.’

To say he displayed a single technique, iron staff, fists, palms, legs, etc. were bursting out simultaneously, and to say it was a martial art that embodied its own flow, it lacked a distinct form.

It seemed like change but was restrained, and seemed like restraint but was change.

‘It can’t be grasped either.’

Incomprehensible.

It looked like a child flailing their body as they pleased.

And in a way, it also looked like someone showing off their skills right after learning martial arts.

At the same time, it looked like the movements containing the lofty enlightenment of a grand master.

‘It can’t be judged.’

Tang Baek couldn’t properly judge the Eldest Young Master’s realm or martial arts, anything at all.

It was like listening to the Zen riddle of an eminent monk pointing to an empty wall and claiming there is enlightenment there.

[My lord!]

Tang Baek came to his senses at his subordinate’s sound transmission.

“…”

He had been gripping the two chained sickles so tightly that his palms were drenched in sweat.

[Report.]

At Tang Baek’s sound transmission, the subordinate replied.

[The square is visible up ahead!]

In the end, like that, Yeon So-hyeon had succeeded in reaching near the destination while focusing the enemies’ attention on himself.

***

Valley of Sin, Mid-Region, Advance Base.

“This is the worst possible situation we could have imagined!”

An old Taoist priest screamed and randomly waved his sword on the wall of the advance base.

“If I knew it would be like this, I wouldn’t have supported coming to my Valley of Sin…!”

The old Taoist priest grumbled incessantly.

At that voice full of complaints, an old man in tattered monk’s robes, smashing organization members climbing over the wall with his bare fists, shouted angrily.

“You crazy Mal-ko, you superstitious fool! Stop your nonsense!”

Contrary to his words about being superstitious, the old man in tattered monk’s robes maintained a high level of focus and was crushing enemies by using his entire body as a weapon.

“Shut up! You crazy Taengjung! If you hadn’t lured me to support this together, would I be in this situation?!”

The Taoist priest called Mal-ko was also piling up the corpses of enemies on the wall with nimble movements, separate from his grumbling.

Besides them, everyone in the advance base who could fight was fighting.

However, everyone in the advance base, including the two men calling each other Mal-ko and Taengjung, felt that the current situation was grim.

The fire in the lower regions—as long as they had eyes, they also knew its severity.

Because of that, they knew it would be difficult to expect support.

And if there was no support, they also knew they wouldn’t be able to survive tonight on their own.

At that moment.

With a roar, one side of the defensive line was completely shattered.

What appeared in the dust storm was a giant man in red heavy armor.

“Hehehe…”

Seeing his appearance, Mal-ko and Taengjung trembled.

“That crazy asshole!”

“Isn’t that guy the Vice Division Leader of the Three Five Passageways, Red Armored Boar?!”

The man called Red Armored Boar let out an ominous laugh inside his large iron helmet.

“Now you will all die.”

Mal-ko shouted as if having a fit.

“No, you crazy bastard! You can fight among yourselves, so why are you bothering us?!”

Red Armored Boar snorted.

“Wasn’t it you guys who got greedy in the first place and set up a base in the mid-regions, our territory?”

“…”

Mal-ko, at a loss for words, frowned.

“If we take over this base, the Three Five Passageways will be able to dominate the square from now on! You built it very well for us!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the members of the Three Five Passageways began pouring in through the breached defensive line that Red Armored Boar had penetrated.

“…Amitabha!”

Red Armored Boar enjoyed the Buddhist chant Taengjung recited and laughed loudly, shaking his iron armor.

“Boys! Kill them all and crush them! This place is ours now!”

At that moment, someone’s voice pierced everyone’s ears with utmost clarity.

“This place is your territory?”

Lightning struck from the sky.

The lightning struck the center of the square.

The bodies of dozens of organization members, who had been slaughtering each other while entangled in the center, burst apart.

As the earth shook, those without internal energy lost their balance and fell.

Those who had learned martial arts hurriedly stuck their weapons into the ground to barely maintain balance.

As the dust that had densely risen over the entire square was scattered by the fierce valley winds, what appeared at the spot where the lightning had struck was a gigantic flag.

Someone stutteringly read the characters engraved on that flag fluttering in the wind.

“Luo, -yang House, Eldest, Young Master…?”

At that moment, the figure of a young boy descended and stood tall at the end of that flag.

With his black robe fluttering in the wind, the boy smirked arrogantly with his arms crossed.

“That’s right. I am Yeon So-hyeon, the Eldest Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House.”

***

The battle had ceased, and everyone in the square was looking at Yeon So-hyeon.

“…The Swordless One?”

Some among them began to whisper.

“Didn’t they say the Swordless One doesn’t know martial arts?”

“Is that guy the Swordless One?”

As the whispers mentioning the Swordless One grew louder, Yeon So-hyeon raised his hand.

“Kuheok!”

“Keuk!”

Those who had been pointing fingers and chattering about Yeon So-hyeon, without exception, spun halfway in the air and sprawled on the ground.

Hidden weapons were lodged in all of their heads.

It was the skill of the concealed Tang Baek and his subordinates.

“Please stop!”

It was the voice of the Vice Division Leader of the Three Five Passageways, Red Armored Boar.

Unable to fathom the realm displayed by the single strike that had driven the flag into the ground and the hidden weapons flying in from unknown locations, he had chosen to engage in dialogue first.

“…I don’t know if you are truly the Eldest Young Master or whatever, but I will state our position anyway!”

The man who had breached the defensive line of the advance base revealed himself in the square.

He shouted at Yeon So-hyeon standing on the flag.

“Our Three Five Passageways, and all the forces here, are paying sufficient ‘tribute’ to the Clan!”

At the mention of tribute paid to the Luoyang Sword House, the eyes of the advance base personnel grew as wide as they could tear.

“Paying tribute?”

“To the House…?”

He waved his arm encased in sturdy armor.

“Then, if you are the Eldest Young Master of the Clan, why are you ignoring and oppressing our territories?!”

He pounded his chest.

“On behalf of the Clan that doesn’t want to dirty its name and hands, we are creating gold and offering it in this place that is like a shit pot full of filth!”

At those words, a small commotion was occurring in the advance base.

“On behalf of the Clan…?”

“Is what that guy is saying true…?”

“Elders, please give us an answer…!”

There was no response from Taengjung and Mal-ko, who were called elders.

“…”

They seemed to know something, but they just tightly shut their mouths and kept their eyes on the square.

The Vice Division Leader of the Three Five Passageways, Red Armored Boar, shouted with great momentum.

“Even if the Clan doesn’t publicly acknowledge it, we are undoubtedly the Clan’s hands and feet, and its agents!”

His voice resoundingly echoed through the square.

“Therefore—!”

He couldn’t finish his words.

Because with an earth-shaking roar and a flash of light, Red Armored Boar’s torso exploded.

The storm of immense power that started from within his body could not be blocked by the red heavy armor he was so proud of.

“Hmph.”

Yeon So-hyeon retracted the fist he had extended and crossed his arms again.

Yeon Family Secret Technique, Roaring Thunder Heavenly Cannon, Revised.

The original Roaring Thunder Heavenly Cannon had been upgraded by adding the wondrous principle of transmitting that hidden energy through the air to the form of inch power without the usual preparation.

“…!”

Amidst the gazes filled with shock gathering upon him, Yeon So-hyeon snorted.

“I didn’t like how he spoke in an arrogant tone without knowing his place.”

Standing atop the fluttering flag, Yeon So-hyeon spoke to the crowd.

“There must be others here who wish to converse with this Eldest Young Master.”

He smiled.

“This time, I hope it’s someone who knows their place.”