Chapter 93: Same Bed, Different Dreams (5)

Divine Archer Muk Bi.

The one whose monstrous archery and outstanding combat power made her the practical second-in-command of the Black Emperor’s Citadel.

There she was—or rather, she was, and yet she wasn’t the Muk Bi Yeon Hojeong had known.

Just like Baek Gungcheon. On a taciturn face, honest emotion lay bare. And that was—

‘Despair.’

KWAANG!

An iron arrow that tore through the air carved a long furrow in the earth, then split a boulder clean apart.

The gouge was half a jang wide. It was hard to believe a single arrow had done it.

“Baek Sogyeong!”

PAPAPAPAPAK!

Baek Gungcheon’s body threw off countless afterimages.

Ground, trunks, branches, rock—he moved across every surface, closing the distance. Even in that fury, he used a supreme lightness skill to press his opponent step by measured step.

That was the martial art he had learned and honed all his life. He did not charge recklessly just because he was angry. Within blazing killing intent, the archer’s characteristic coolness stood out.

“Hnf!”

The middle-aged woman snorted and drew the bowstring.

PUH-PUH-PUH-PUH-PUH-BOOM!

Flames flared in a three-jang radius before the approaching Baek Gungcheon.

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes flickered.

‘Firecrackers?!’

She loosed multiple arrows fitted with fireworks to raise a huge ring of flames between herself and the enemy.

Against a master of Baek Gungcheon’s caliber, the wall of fireworks did no damage. But for flustering the enemy and briefly cutting line of sight, it was perfect.

THU-UUUM!

Baek Gungcheon fell back on instinct.

PUH-UUUM! SHWEEEEE!

An iron arrow split the still-burning shield of fireworks and grazed Baek Gungcheon’s shoulder as it screamed past.

Because it was a snap shot, the power wasn’t great. But it was enough to tear away a mouthful of flesh. Had it carried inner force on the level of Dragon Tooth Cannon, his left arm would have been blown clean off.

“Vile carnival tricks!”

“I waited and waited, thought you’d died—and you’re still alive?”

Baek Gungcheon’s face flushed deep red.

He had intended to take the box given by Go Pyeong and snipe Baek Sogyeong. Now it seemed Baek Sogyeong had known that as well.

Charge at an opponent who knows your plan? That’s a certain death. Even if there’s a sizable difference in skill, she was also a ghost archer. In marksmanship, at least, she was top tier.

“You’ve stained the Yi God Contest into a worldly brawl of petty stratagems. There has never been one like you in Sun-Piercing Valley’s history!”

“Don’t make me laugh! You, who hate Sun-Piercing Valley more than anyone!”

“You should have just used poison!”

“Ha! I have to plant one arrow in the strongest ghost archer’s skull if I’m to prove my worth, don’t I?”

“You...! I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”

TIRIRIRING! PUH-PUH-PUHK!

Dozens of arrows sliced the air and turned the area into a killing field.

The bout entered the thick of it—a melee none could intrude upon.

But Yeon Hojeong had no interest in their fight.

SWSH.

“Ah!”

Startled, the woman—Baek Hyang—sprang up and drew the horn bow.

It was tremendous speed. A shooting-prep posture on par with Baek Gungcheon’s.

Fluster shadowed Baek Hyang’s face.

“Wh-who are you?!”

Yeon Hojeong nearly called her by the name Muk Bi without thinking.

‘As ever.’

Even past fifty, Muk Bi had looked to be in her early thirties. Partly thanks to the depth of her inner attainment, partly because she was innately youthful.

‘As ever—that posture.’

Having returned to the ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ past, Yeon Hojeong felt, in this very moment, as though he’d been summoned back to the era when madness and violence ruled him as the Dark Emperor. Muk Bi’s unchanged face—her posture—pulled him back toward the Black Emperor.

At the same time, he could sever his identity as the Black Emperor completely.

That was because of Muk Bi’s eyes.

‘She’s afraid.’

Eyes full of fear. That honest emotion transmitted unfiltered through her gaze.

Baek Hyang shouted at Yeon Hojeong, who stared at her in silence.

“I-I don’t know who you are, but run! If you get this wrong, you could die!”

A voice brimming with feeling.

‘Were you someone who could shout like that?’

Yeon Hojeong shook his head.

“Lower the bow.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Run, now!”

“I get it, so lower the bow. I’m not an enemy.”

“Ah...”

Only then did she seem to realize she’d been aiming an arrow. Baek Hyang lowered the bow.

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes deepened. Meeting like this, he found he had nothing to say.

But there was one sure thing.

“You can’t be here. Get out.”

“W-what?”

“I said get out.”

On Baek Hyang’s face, colored by fear and agitation, a sign of resolve flickered.

“I’ll escort you to the foot of the mountain. Move!”

Just then—

PUH-UK!

A round hole opened in the tree above Baek Hyang’s head.

A hair’s-breadth instant. She dropped her posture.

PUH-UM!

The iron arrow that pierced the tree buried itself at Yeon Hojeong’s feet.

It was Baek Sogyeong’s arrow, not Baek Gungcheon’s. Even while facing her enemy, she had loosed to kill Baek Hyang.

It was a life-and-death match—competition in name only, a melee seething with will to kill—in which only by killing all could one live.

SWAP!

Baek Hyang sprang toward Yeon Hojeong.

‘As expected.’

She was nowhere near what she would be as one of the Five Divine Generals of the Black Emperor’s Citadel.

But she was still fast. With basics honed to the bone, she was prepared to contest for number one under heaven not only in archery but in body method.

“Sorry!”

FLASH!

Baek Hyang’s body appeared behind Yeon Hojeong.

She had rushed forward, then suddenly appeared to his rear. It was a breathtaking body method.

Baek Hyang’s hand reached for the back of Yeon Hojeong’s neck. She meant to knock him out, then carry him down.

At that moment, Yeon Hojeong’s hand writhed like a snake. The same method with which he had disabled Namgung Sanghwa in his first real fight after returning.

TA-RUK!

“Ah!”

Surprise sprang into Baek Hyang’s eyes. He’d caught her pulse gate.

“Hup!”

Yeon Hojeong drew a short breath and spun at frightening speed. Baek Hyang’s body sliced through the air with equal speed.

KWAANG!

Baek Hyang’s body slammed into the ground.

Despite the heavy thud, she took no damage. Jade Wave True Qi protected her body perfectly.

Baek Hyang stared up at Yeon Hojeong in confusion. It was too sudden for her to grasp what had happened.

Yeon Hojeong’s hand moved.

PAPABAK!

“—!”

Baek Hyang’s body went rigid. He had pressed three paralysis points.

Yeon Hojeong looked at his fingers. His fingertips were quivering.

‘Tremendous inner force.’

Her inner reserves were fearsome. The rebound was so severe he thought he’d break a finger. Barring Ming Cheon, her inner force was finer and richer than any master the Ming Clan had dispatched.

Without a penetration-guard adapted from Black Tortoise Qi, he wouldn’t have pressed them properly.

Yeon Hojeong slung Baek Hyang over his shoulder.

“W-what are you doing?!”

“A soldier who has no intention of engaging the enemy isn’t needed on the battlefield.”

Baek Hyang’s eyes wavered.

As he said, she couldn’t bring herself to aim at Baek Gungcheon or Baek Sogyeong.

The reason was simple and clear. To her, those two were family, friends, and teachers.

Not just those two. Every ghost archer in this competition was the same.

“Put me down! Unseal my points, now!”

“You’ll die if you don’t.”

KWA-AANG!

Yeon Hojeong’s body took to the air. A sizable crater opened where he had been standing.

“What was that?”

FLITTER-RRR!

Baek Sogyeong closed in at terrifying speed. Baek Gungcheon chased behind her. His body was drenched in blood, his staggering body method dangerously unsteady.

KR-R-RRK!

Even while executing that rapid body method, her drawing posture didn’t waver. It was the archer’s martial art completed through bitter effort.

Baek Sogyeong barked,

“Hand the wench over!”

In that instant, fire burst in Yeon Hojeong’s eyes.

TIIIING! BOOM!

The tree behind Yeon Hojeong exploded.

Baek Sogyeong’s eyes bulged.

‘What?!’

She’d thought she had them for sure—but the man carrying Baek Hyang was nowhere to be seen.

And she couldn’t tell where he’d gone. He had vanished like a ghost.

‘Where?’

Then—

‘...?!’

Her body grew heavy.

A black mist seeped into her limbs as if binding the bones. The air grew cloying; her movements slowed.

‘This is...?’

Killing intent. An immense killing intent was pouring down from above like a cloudburst.

PAPAPANG!

Slowed, Baek Sogyeong looked up.

Shock swept her face.

FLITTER-RRRR!

A leg raised with supple ease came down heel-first.

A merciless axe-heel, chopping like a hatchet. It felt as if an actual axe were being swung, not a leg. She felt tremendous killing intent and inner force.

If she stayed put, her face would be pulped. Baek Sogyeong flung herself back.

Yeon Hojeong’s foot touched down.

KWA-AANG!

Every scrap of wood littering the ground—splinters, branches, leaves—blasted skyward. Nearly a five-jang radius.

Baek Sogyeong’s face went pallid.

‘A monster like that!’

Whoever he was, he was a tremendous master. He seemed not one bit inferior to Baek Gungcheon, said to be the strongest of the ghost archers.

Nor was that all.

WHOOSH!

She fell back and set the string—and somehow Yeon Hojeong was already at her nose.

Impossible speed. He closed a distance of three jang in the blink of an eye. Even Baek Hyang, the ghost archer who had delved deepest into Dragon Flies Instant Step, couldn’t reach that speed.

Baek Sogyeong loosed.

At the same time, Yeon Hojeong’s hand moved like lightning.

KR-R-RRK!

The arrow never left the string. It stuck across the middle of the bow and thrummed.

Before the arrow could even take power, Yeon Hojeong’s hand had seized the shaft.

Nor was that all. Using the captured arrow to jam her attack, Yeon Hojeong folded his arm and drove a shove into Baek Sogyeong’s collarbone.

PUH-UK! KWAANG!

“Guhk!”

A giant trunk dented deep. Baek Sogyeong staggered to her feet.

Then a voice, ragged with rage, exploded like thunder.

“Don’t kill her! Khak! Sh-she’s mine!”

FWAAK!

No one could have said where the strength came from. Shoving Yeon Hojeong’s shoulder aside, Baek Gungcheon charged in and drove a kick into Baek Sogyeong’s abdomen.

PUH-UK!

“Keuk!”

Baek Sogyeong spewed a mouthful of blood, slammed the tree again, and crumpled.

Baek Gungcheon’s left arm pinned Baek Sogyeong’s shoulder; his right knee crushed her abdomen.

“Kh—huff...!”

She was rendered combat-incapable in an instant.

When Yeon Hojeong grabbed the arrow, the bowstring snapped and every bone in her hand shattered. A simple forearm strike broke her collarbone.

And Baek Gungcheon’s overwhelming axe-kick had turned her organs to mush. It was a mortal wound; she might die on the spot.

KR-R-RRK!

Baek Gungcheon, panting and grinding his teeth, aimed an arrow right between Baek Sogyeong’s eyes.

“Filthy wench. I’ll kill you.”

“Khk! Khaak!”

Baek Sogyeong grinned. Even with bloody foam at her lips, she wore a vicious smile.

“If not for that bastard, I’d have won.”

“Shut up! From the start you—!”

“Really? I may have overthought it, but now that I think about it, even if we’d fought clean, I don’t think I’d have lost to an idiot who can’t recognize his own flesh and blood.”

“...What?”

Baek Sogyeong burst into peals of laughter.

“How was I supposed to know whether that girl was your daughter or not?”

Baek Gungcheon’s eyes went bloodshot scarlet.

Tears welled in those bloodshot eyes.

“Uraaahhh!”

PUH-UK!

Baek Sogyeong’s head shattered to pieces.