The Mad Dog Inspector of the Martial Alliance

Blood Jiangshi. And the Asura Blood Cult.

These were words that had long been forgotten from the memory of the world.

It would have been better if he had seen a ghost. That red jiangshi was different from the other jiangshi in appearance, and its actions were also different.

Even Jang So-gil was flustered by the appearance of the blood-soaked jiangshi, which reminded him of the Asura Blood Cult, an unorthodox religious group that had perished along with the Quanzhen Sect hundreds of years ago.

"A-a lightness skill! Young Master So, that jiangshi is using a lightness skill!"

"I see it too! What on earth is that?!"

Unlike a jiangshi that had great strength but could not use martial arts. The red jiangshi was following the party while using a lightness skill.

Although it had started much later, if it could catch up with a running fine horse, it must be a rather advanced lightness skill. The combination of a tireless jiangshi and a lightness skill was truly threatening.

"Damn it. We're going to get caught at this rate!"

Baek Yugyeong, who was falling behind compared to Jang So-gil and Yang Gwan, urged his horse on. Since the price of horses had skyrocketed recently, there were only mediocre horses in the market, and the horse that Baek Yugyeong had bought on his way to Maoshan was clearly slower compared to the two fine horses that the two had carefully chosen.

The distance was gradually closing. Then Baek Yugyeong took out the bow that was loosely hung on his saddle and turned his body to shoot an arrow.

It was a high-level technique of shooting a bow at an enemy behind him while turning only his upper body on a shaking horse. The 'back shot' method.

The jiangshi could not avoid that sudden surprise attack.

One shot in the glabella, one shot in the chest, one shot in the abdomen. It was a shot worthy of being called a master archer of the world, as he had shot three arrows with a back shot in one breath and had hit all the fatal vital points.

But, as if that skill were futile, the jiangshi did not receive a big blow. It ran with a good momentum with three arrows stuck in its body.

"I'm going crazy. That fellow seems to have no vital points at all. His whole body is a lump of iron!"

"Even a normal jiangshi didn't have vital points. That fellow seems to be a slightly more special jiangshi, and if we're really unlucky, it might be a blood jiangshi."

Although Jang So-gil was of the Daoist lineage, Yang Gwan was a disciple of Buddhism, and Baek Yugyeong was the Young Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace, none of the three knew much about the blood jiangshi. Because it was too old of a legend.

The only stories they had heard were that it could not be harmed with ordinary weapons, that it had terrifying monstrous strength and a stamina that would not tire even if it fought for three months and ten days, and that it had fought with numerous masters of the Quanzhen Sect and had caused enormous sacrifices.

Such a blood jiangshi was now chasing the three of them. Yang Gwan, startled, shouted.

"If it's a blood jiangshi, don't tell me the Maoshan Sect was the Blood Cult!?"

"It's highly likely. I don't know since when, but what's the point of figuring that out? Whether it was a Blood Cult that had been sharpening its sword while pretending to be a Daoist sect from the beginning, whether the Maoshan Sect was tainted by or eaten by the Blood Cult, or whether they simply learned only the method of making the blood jiangshi... what's important to us now is not that, but the fact that those guys are trying to kill us."

"You mean it's extermination in the end, right?"

"The choices that the cornered guys make are surprisingly the same."

They would kill the three people so that they could not deliver the news. He didn't know what kind of plan they had after that, but for now, their intention was transparent.

While the two were talking, Baek Yugyeong was shooting arrows wildly. Although he could not deal a big blow, it was more beneficial to create even a momentary stiffness than to do nothing.

Although the policy was constructive, the arrows were not infinite. Baek Yugyeong, who had confirmed that his arrows had run out, threw away his quiver and bow. He was thinking of making the horse even a little lighter.

"Damn it, I should have brought more arrows."

"Just twenty arrows, isn't that too few?"

"Normally, I make arrows with the Soul-Stealing Ice Art, so it doesn't matter if it's few!"

Even the momentary time-buying was futile, and the distance between Baek Yugyeong, who was at the very back, and the jiangshi was getting closer and closer. Baek Yugyeong, annoyed, turned his horse's head.

At this rate, he would be caught anyway. Besides, the opponent was just a single jiangshi?

"I don't know how special a blood jiangshi is, but if strong qi works, there's no reason I can't cut it!"

Baek Yugyeong, wrapping his sword with strong qi, drove his horse and jumped at the blood jiangshi. It was the secret technique of mounted swordsmanship that the people of the Central Plains did not learn well.

He changed the horse's canter into strength and added it to his sword strike. In the Central Plains, it was an application of qi called 'four taels moving a thousand geun', meaning that one could lift a thousand geun with the strength of four taels.

"Hutjeom-!"

Adding the weight and momentum of the horse that had leaped high, Baek Yugyeong swung his sword from top to bottom.

At that time, the blood jiangshi's eyes shone. Its long fingernails blocked Baek Yugyeong's sword, which was wrapped in strong qi.

Then, a 'kadeudeuk' sound was made between the strong qi and the fingernails, and sparks flew.

"What?!"

What was faintly formed on the jiangshi's fingernails was clearly strong qi. A jiangshi that used strong qi, wasn't it on a completely different level from an ordinary jiangshi?

In the midst of his astonishment, something even more astonishing happened.

The blood jiangshi's hands moved slowly and drew a taiji. As Baek Yugyeong's sword, which was in contact with the fingernails, turned half a circle following the hand movements, surprisingly, even Baek Yugyeong's body, which was holding the sword, spun around with the horse.

The two who were watching it and Baek Yugyeong who was experiencing it were simultaneously startled.

"Taijiquan!?"

Although he didn't know how a jiangshi could use the secret technique of the Wudang Sect, which contained the principle of yin and yang, Baek Yugyeong's attack was returned to futility with an absurd simplicity.

The momentum did not subside, and Baek Yugyeong's body continued to rotate. The force he had applied had returned several times over.

This was originally the realm of 'four taels moving a thousand geun', which was said to control the strength of a thousand geun with the strength of four taels. The jiangshi did not stop at nullifying the attack with Taijiquan, but returned the 'four taels moving a thousand geun' with the same principle.

It was a martial prowess that could not be believed to be that of a jiangshi.

But it was not the end there. He could see the blood jiangshi's hands gathering in the center again.

After drawing a taiji, one fist. It was the 'Taiji Palm', the pride of Taijiquan.

In a moment when he was exposed defenselessly before the attack. Baek Yugyeong prepared for death.

"Don't resist!"

"!!"

In an instant, Jang So-gil, using the 'Void-Grasping Hand', pulled Baek Yugyeong, who was using the 'Powerless Body' by completely relaxing his body. It was something that was only possible because he had an internal energy that was well over one sixty-year cycle.

The blood jiangshi's palm strength narrowly missed Baek Yugyeong and hit his gray horse.

A ripple occurred, and the night fog was pushed back. The horse spun in a spiral and flew away, breaking five large trees in a row.

Baek Yugyeong, who had rolled on the ground once, barely regained his balance.

It was a strong opponent of a level he had never fought before since he had come to the Central Plains. Even before being a jiangshi, as a martial artist, he was clearly one step above Baek Yugyeong.

Jang So-gil, who was looking back and forth between Baek Yugyeong and the blood jiangshi in a standoff, gritted his teeth.

'Should I just throw Baek Yugyeong to tie him down and run away with just the two of us? No, there's not much to gain.'

Even if he ran to the post station at this rate, he would have to run for another hour.

But if Baek Yugyeong was left alone, he would be slaughtered in an instant. Looking at the blood jiangshi's lightness skill level, Jang So-gil and Yang Gwan would also be caught up soon after he died.

He could not last for an hour, an hour.

It was better for the three of them to gather their strength. It was better to fight with their feet on the ground than to be attacked on an unfamiliar horse.

The judgment was made. Jang So-gil nodded his head.

"I'll have to send news to the Gyoryongdae who are waiting at the post station. It would be nice if they moved after seeing the wildfire over there, but I don't think I can expect that much."

The Maoshan Sect was one of the Nine Sects One Alliance of the Martial Alliance. Since there was a great political burden to lead a large number of troops into their headquarters at the stage of investigating their corruption, the Gyoryongdae had been made to wait at a nearby post station for now.

Since things had turned out like this, it was not a waste to have brought them.

But he could not expect immediate help. Because the night fog nearby was so thick that he could not distinguish the immediate vicinity.

Although they had not gone far from Maoshan, that big fire was already completely invisible. It was surely the effect of some strange magic that the Blood Cult had used.

"So we'll hold out here, and send the horses."

Cheongwol and Yanghwangbijeon were well-trained fine horses. Yang Gwan had trained them to deliver a letter to the headquarters using the horse's homing instinct, and now, happy that his training was paying off, he let out a cry of excitement.

"That's a great idea!"

"Carve the words on the saddle as I say."

Jang So-gil gathered his qi at his fingertips and carved words on Cheongwol's saddle.

Yang Gwan also carved the same words on his saddle.

[The Maoshan Sect is the Blood Cult]

Cheongwol and Yanghwangbijeon ran, fluttering the red flag that signified an urgent matter of the Martial Alliance.

The two, who had sent the horses, drew their weapons and blocked the front of the blood jiangshi.

In the thick night fog. In the dark forest, all that could be seen now was the bloodshot eyes of the blood jiangshi.

Jang So-gil, facing the mysterious blood jiangshi, whose true strength he could not guess, shouted.

"I'll stand at the very front. Yang Gwan in the middle, and you, Baek Yugyeong, at the very back, coordinate the situation."

"Understood!"

Baek Yugyeong, who had been hit hard once, obediently took his position.

And even in his eyes, who had learned military strategy, Jang So-gil's judgment was reasonable. The fastest Jang So-gil would maintain the front line, the 'Hot Yang Art' user Yang Gwan, who was most effective against the jiangshi, would be the main force and attack, and the most versatile Baek Yugyeong would clean up everything from the very back.

Although it was a formation formed on the spot, it was rational.

"It's coming!"

The blood jiangshi stepped on a mysterious footwork. Although it was performed by a jiangshi without reason, it was enough to make one feel dizzy, but even with such an advanced footwork, he could not recognize what kind of footwork it was. It was probably an old footwork that had been lost and had disappeared.

In fact, it was so. The footwork that the blood jiangshi was stepping on was the 'Shadowless Step', a footwork of the Wudang Sect that had existed in ancient times.

Down, up, to the side. The shadow of the blood jiangshi, which had been changing directions, disappeared in an instant.

There was no way he would know the method to break a footwork whose name he didn't even know. Yang Gwan and Baek Yugyeong had completely lost sight of the blood jiangshi for a moment.

In that touch-and-go situation, only Jang So-gil reacted. His outstanding eyesight had once again shone.

Jang So-gil swung his sword, which was infused with strong qi, above his head, and the fingernails and the sword became entangled like a tangled mess, letting out a 'kkangkangkang-' metallic sound.

The fingernails, which contained the mystery of taiji, and the fast sword strikes, which contained the secret of Diancang, scattered in all directions, leaving a rising shockwave.

The leaves, upon touching the shockwave, scattered into pieces. Yang Gwan knew that he could not match Jang So-gil's assistance in this high-level fight.

If he were to intervene wrongly in this fight of softness and speed, Jang So-gil could get hurt.

But rather than doing nothing, it was right to finish off the blood jiangshi even if Jang So-gil got hurt. Baek Yugyeong moved from behind Yang Gwan, who was strengthening his resolve.

"Focus on the attack!"

Baek Yugyeong dug into the opening that Jang So-gil had created and widened it. He was intentionally creating a discord to interfere with the blood jiangshi's Taijiquan.

The two transcendent masters had forcibly set the stage for Yang Gwan. Aiming for that thread-like opening, Yang Gwan's spear spewed flames.

The fastest form of the Yang Family Spear Art, the 'Poisonous Dragon Coming Out of the Cave', became a fire dragon and rushed towards the nape of the blood jiangshi's neck.

At that moment. The time of the three seemed to slow down as if it had stopped.

In the middle of it, the blood jiangshi's hands gracefully drew a taiji.

It was being sucked in. Both Baek Yugyeong's and Jang So-gil's swords, and the fire dragon that Yang Gwan had thrust, were all swept away by the storm created by the taiji.

The whole scene was distorted, and their vision was blurred.

The moment the flow of qi stopped. The party, unable to withstand the explosive momentum of the taiji, was thrown far away.

"..."

Not screaming was the best they could do.

The party, who had been pushed back for a long time, carving a long scar on the ground, regained their posture and raised their heads, and they saw the clear taiji symbol carved under the blood jiangshi's feet.

"Keuk..."

A stream of blood flowed from the corner of Yang Gwan's mouth.

Jang So-gil and Baek Yugyeong, who had achieved the Three Flowers Gathering at the Summit, had adjusted their internal energy the moment they were swept away and had minimized the recoil, but Yang Gwan, whose achievement had not reached that level, had been late in recovering his internal energy and had suffered a considerable internal injury.

The chances of winning had decreased a little more. But no one blamed Yang Gwan.

"That, what kind of monster is that..."

Baek Yugyeong muttered blankly. The blood jiangshi's martial prowess was that overwhelming.

But even such a blood jiangshi was by no means an invincible monster.

There was definitely a weakness. Jang So-gil's eyes shone sharply.

"I see, I see. The way to attack the blood jiangshi!"

(End of Chapter)