The Woo Sword Vies for Supremacy
A mob that easily numbered fifty was filing into the village entrance.
The men swaggered as they walked, shouldering swords, clubs, and iron tridents.
Radiating a vicious energy, they were anything but ordinary.
The first to react to their arrival were the young men of the village.
"Damn it!"
"Bandits!"
The young men leapt from their seats and placed themselves between the intruders and the elders and children. Undisguisable tension was etched across their faces.
For several years now, bandits had been running rampant in every corner.
They raided remote villages like this one and plundered everything in sight.
In response, the village youths had kept a strict watch at all times—but on this feast day of all days, they had let their guard down.
Thanks to that, the bandits walked right into the village unopposed.
As the bandits surveyed the village interior, thick grins spread across their faces.
The mere fact that a feast was under way told them this was a fairly prosperous village.
The rice ripening in the paddies carved into the hillside and the surprisingly good number of pretty women in this remote settlement only confirmed it.
Jang Pae spoke.
"How thoughtful of you to prepare a feast just for us. Surrender, and I will not kill anyone. I will take you all in as members of our Jang Family Stronghold."
The Jang Family Stronghold was a name he had made up on the spot.
He had named it after himself.
The village youths shouted back.
"Cut the bullshit! You think we'd surrender to the likes of bandits?"
"You won't take a single grain of rice from our village!"
"Come and try. We'll kill every last one of you!"
The youths grabbed clubs, bamboo swords, and bamboo spears.
The bandits' aura was ominous, but they could not simply stand by and take it without a fight.
This village was their everything.
It was the hometown where they had been born and raised.
They vowed to protect it from these vile bandits, no matter what.
But their firm resolve was useless before overwhelming force.
The strapping young men charged with great fury, but they were stopped before they even reached Jang Pae.
By Jang Pae's trusted lieutenants.
Though overshadowed by Jang Pae, they too were martial artists who had trained in combat.
They were of an entirely different caliber from the common rabble among the bandits.
No matter how sturdy the village youths were, they could not overcome martial artists.
"Heh heh! Where do you think you're going?"
"How cute."
Jang Pae's lieutenants subdued the youths with ease.
"Aaagh!"
"Gack!"
In an instant, the village youths were thrown to the ground, blades and spear tips pressed against their necks.
Jang Pae planted his foot on the head of one of the pinned youths.
"If everyone doesn't surrender, I'll kill these ones."
"Ngh!"
"No!"
The villagers' faces went ashen as the youths they had counted on were subdued.
As the villagers wavered, the village chief raised his voice.
"Do not waver! We far outnumber them. If we band together, we can defeat these bastards!"
The words of the chief, who had led the village for so many years, calmed the crowd's panic somewhat.
Jang Pae's gaze turned to the village chief.
"It's always the old ones who cause trouble. Stirring things up for no reason."
He strode toward the village chief.
The youths who were still standing tried to block his path.
"Stop!"
"You bastard!"
They threw themselves at Jang Pae, forgetting their fear.
The price was brutal.
CRACK—!
CRASH—!
"Aaagh!"
"Gack!"
They were sent flying, vomiting blood, by Jang Pae's fists.
The Iron Mountain Fist, when fully mastered, possessed enough power to kill a bull with a single punch.
Jang Pae had devoted himself solely to the Iron Mountain Fist and achieved full mastery.
Against such a man, village youths untrained in martial arts posed no threat, no matter how many there were.
It was the same principle as hundreds of sheep being unable to overcome a single wolf.
THUD, THUD.
Jang Pae deliberately heightened his presence, walking with savage intensity.
Each time his foot struck the ground, a heavy thud reverberated.
With every step, the villagers' faces drained whiter.
It was at that very moment—when the villagers' terror had peaked.
"That is enough, overgrown child."
A voice belonging to some old man suddenly rose from amid the crowd.
Naturally, the eyes of both bandits and villagers converged on the speaker.
It was none other than Baek Ho-yang.
Jang Pae glared at Baek Ho-yang with eyes as round as brass bells.
"Did you just say that to me? Old man!"
"I did, child."
"Ha! That's rich. A child? Have you ever seen a child this big?"
"That is precisely why I called you an overgrown child, did I not?"
"Fuck! Are you playing word games with me, old man?"
Jang Pae advanced on Baek Ho-yang.
He was riding high on momentum, but a thread of doubt was creeping into his heart.
'What's with this old man?'
There was a saying in the martial world: beware the old and the young.
The martial world was a place where one could take a fatal blow from the most unexpected quarter.
Even as Jang Pae moved forward, he did not neglect to read the demeanor of those around him.
Every villager was staring at Baek Ho-yang with bewildered expressions, as though thinking, 'Who is this old man, and why is he stepping up at a time like this?'
'He is not from this village?'
An inexplicable sense of unease crept over him.
But he was riding the tiger now.
Not only the villagers but his own men were watching intently.
If he showed weakness here, his authority would surely crack.
Jang Pae forced down the gnawing unease and planted himself in front of Baek Ho-yang.
"You want to die, old man?"
"Who in this world would want to die? Naturally, I do not wish to either."
"Then why the hell are you sticking your nose in? Just shut up and keep stuffing your face."
"That was the plan, but you came along and interrupted."
"Then hurry up, finish eating, and get lost."
"I cannot do that. I have already received the utmost hospitality from this village. If I were to look the other way and leave, the Grand Supreme Elder Lord would never let this body rest."
"The Grand Supreme Elder Lord? Old man, don't tell me you're a Daoist?"
Jang Pae's eyes flew wide.
Baek Ho-yang rose to his feet and said.
"That I was. Now I am nothing more than an ordinary old villager."
"Fuck! Who do you think you're fool......"
"Do you truly believe it is a lie?"
Baek Ho-yang looked Jang Pae in the face.
With two heads of height between them, he had to crane his neck far upward, but Baek Ho-yang did not care in the slightest.
Beneath the gaze of the wiry old man, who was not even half his size, Jang Pae felt his spirit being crushed.
His instincts were whispering to him.
That the old man before him was a true Daoist who had trained in martial arts.
Not a mere bandit like himself, but a real martial artist.
But it was too late to retreat.
"Fuck! You're dead!"
Jang Pae lashed out with his fist in a wild fury.
A fist as big as a pot lid hurtled toward Baek Ho-yang's face, looking as though it would crush it.
In that instant, Baek Ho-yang jabbed the Curved Pool point at Jang Pae's elbow with the chopsticks he still held in his hand.
"AAAAAGH!"
Struck as if by lightning, Jang Pae screamed.
Baek Ho-yang shook his head at the sight.
"What a fuss over so little. Screaming at just this much—you are not living up to that big body of yours...... Tsk, tsk!"
Clucking his tongue, he placed his open palm against Jang Pae's abdomen.
BOOM—!
With an explosive blast, the enormous Jang Pae went sailing through the air like a kite with its string cut, flying a good thirty paces before crashing down.
The sight was so surreal that the bandits' jaws dropped.
They could not believe that Jang Pae—whom they had believed to be the strongest—had been rendered so helpless.
But Baek Ho-yang, who had neutralized Jang Pae in a single breath, was not even looking at the bandits.
His gaze was fixed on Woo Geom-san, still seated in his chair.
"Let me show you what happens when you truly learn to walk properly. Keep your eyes wide open and watch."
"Yes! Grandfather."
The instant Woo Geom-san answered, Baek Ho-yang vanished from sight.
In the blink of an eye, he crossed the space and appeared before the bandits who were pinning down the village youths.
It looked as though he had leapt through space itself.
But Woo Geom-san knew that was not what had happened.
Because he had seen Baek Ho-yang's knees shift ever so slightly just before the movement.
It was the very same leg movement the old man had shown him over and over for the past three days.
The movement he had watched again and again yet could not understand.
Baek Ho-yang's voice reached him.
"It is not about walking with deliberate intent—you must surrender your body to the flow."
BOOM—!
In that instant, an explosive blast sent one of the bandits flying just as Jang Pae had.
Already before the next bandit, having closed the distance in a flash, Baek Ho-yang spoke.
"If you walk properly, one day you too will feel it. That before one who walks properly, the path opens of its own accord."
BOOM—!
Another bandit went flying with the blast.
He did not even manage a scream.
The impact that struck him was too overwhelming to allow one.
Baek Ho-yang was already moving toward his next target.
"Following the flow of nature—this is called Following the Flow."
"Ngh—aaagh!"
A bandit let out a grotesque scream at the sight of Baek Ho-yang materializing before him in an instant.
STAB—!
Baek Ho-yang's chopstick drove into the bandit's shoulder.
The bandit's body went numb and he crumpled where he stood.
Baek Ho-yang vanished from sight once more, then appeared in a space no one had anticipated.
"Step upon emptiness, and space opens of its own accord—this is called Treading the Void."
STAB—! STAB—!
One after another, bandits shuddered as if struck by lightning and collapsed.
"Follow the Flow and Tread the Void, and in the end it is not you who walks, but nature itself that carries you—this is called the Flowing Void Steps. This is the final stage of the proper walking you must learn."
THUD—! THUD—!
No sooner had Baek Ho-yang finished speaking than the bandits who had been standing in a daze crumpled to the ground like scarecrows.
It was the moment when the art of walking properly—the culmination of all Quanzhen's teachings—manifested itself in this remote village, channeled through the body of Baek Ho-yang.