novelraw Chapter 13 : Chapter 13
Chapter 13 : Chapter 13
Chapter 13: Where do I need to go, little brother.
Watching the Shadowless Terrace withdraw while escorting my father, a strange feeling arose in me.
Because those were the very guys who had gotten on my nerves the most while I was managing the Great Murim Alliance.
Everything about the Shadowless Terrace was nothing but baseless rumors.
Not to mention the origin of the martial arts they practiced, even its level was unknown.
The only known eyewitness account was the incident where they clashed with the Ten Poisons of the Tang Clan, and that incident had turned the Jianghu of that time on its head.
The reputation of the Tang Clan’s Ten Poisons was as great as that of Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom Swordsmen.
The reason for their clash was unknown, but in any case, the result was a victory for the Shadowless Terrace.
It was not the Tang Clan nor the Murim Alliance, but I who was most flustered by the power of the Shadowless Terrace that had been revealed.
Because the only way for the Underworld, which was always at a disadvantage, to survive was through superiority in intelligence, and the skills of the Shadowless Terrace we had grasped were too far from that.
Of course, it was just as ambiguous now.
No matter how I looked around, this Jaegal Clan was just a family of scholars who only knew how to recite texts, without even a single common training ground.
Where on earth did those guys, who seemed to have fallen from the sky, train, and in what?
“Hmm.”
The Namgung Clan of the Emperor Sword Style, the Mount Hua Sect of the Twenty-Four Forms Plum Blossom Sword Art, Wudang of the Taiji Wisdom Sword, the Diancang Sect of the Four Suns Sword Art.
Like this, if it was a sect or family of the Jianghu, there should be a martial art that comes to mind, but this Jaegal Clan had no such thing.
In this treacherous Jianghu, one could never survive with strategy alone.
There was definitely something, but these Divine Skill Jaegal fellows kept their skills tightly wrapped up and never showed them.
Funnily enough, even the Holy Divine Art, known as the Jaegal Clan’s unique internal energy, was a name given to it from the outside.
The resident guests or the few retainers who had built deep friendships with the Jaegal Clan had been so impressed by its profound power that they had given it a name.
‘Still, for a member of the Five Great Clans, getting a little taste of the Jaegal Clan Head’s internal energy wouldn’t be so bad, would it?’
No, you’re framing it like this again?
I realized once again just how frightening human habits and inertia are.
When my head is this complicated, alcohol is the best remedy.
Soon, I called out to the servant who was fidgeting behind me.
“Where can I go to drink right now?”
“D-drink?”
The fellow who had always served me calmly without any change in expression was startled.
No way, do the Jaegals not even drink?
“Is there no alcohol?”
“W-well, it’s the first time someone has asked for alcohol….”
“The first time?”
“The blood relatives of our clan are extremely reluctant to let their minds become muddled.”
Wow, no matter how crazy they are about strategy and calculations, they even give up the pleasure of the palate?
They were even more extreme than the Shaolin monks who were crazy about self-restraint.
“So, is there really no alcohol?”
“Well… there should be a few bottles of strong liquor that the servants drink.”
“Bring it.”
“Y-yes, I understand.”
After waiting for about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, the servant came running, panting, with two gourds.
Soon, I waved my hand at him and said.
“No need to watch so diligently. You can go now.”
“Yes? But….”
“There won’t be anything to get blamed for, so just go back to your quarters and rest.”
“Thank you!”
The hook-nosed fellow, his face brightened, disappeared like a flash of lightning.
Indeed, there was no way he would be at ease, bowing and scraping all day while attending to a blood relative of the clan.
“Kuh….”
The strong liquor coursed through my throat and into my organs.
I couldn’t help but laugh at my body’s startled reaction to the alcohol.
This guy, it was really his first time drinking.
What kind of life have you lived?
“Hoo….”
I was changing.
To the point where I surprised myself.
The way of speaking that flowed from my mouth, the silly laughter that kept leaking out, was not that of the Martial Emperor.
My usual theory was that a fixed human ego cannot change easily, but could a person change this much in such a short time just because their body had changed?
Indeed, according to Buddhist theory, the body is a vessel that contains the soul.
Since that vessel has changed, does that mean the soul is also adapting accordingly?
But what was more bewildering was that it wasn’t particularly unpleasant.
When I first became aware of my reincarnation, I had acted hastily like in the old days of my martial madness, but from the moment I recognized this guy’s wisdom, everything had been strangely peaceful.
How should I put it.
The feeling of looking down on the world from the top?
“Kuuuuuh….”
They say when a person suddenly changes, it’s time for them to die, but I was already dead.
The soul of the Martial Emperor who had died like that had been revived in the heart of the Orthodox Faction and was now living the life of a Jaegal, damn it, no, Jaegal.
So what?
Isn’t it a life with more to enjoy than the Great Murim Alliance Leader?
The body is vigorous, the mind is sharp, and even the face is handsome.
On top of that, he’s a genius of the new generation, a noble son of the Jaegal Clan no less.
Ah, I suddenly miss Yeonhyang.
I’m no longer a limp man, but have returned to a passionate man who gets fired up at any time.
But, no way, did you die there too?
Seeing as I’m chuckling for no reason, I must have gone crazy, no, gotten drunk on just two cups of strong liquor.
Trickle.
As expected, did I send the hook-nosed fellow away in advance knowing this would happen?
No matter how brightly I tried to smile, the faces of my subordinates who died without knowing why would not fade.
The things I had built up over a lifetime may be as great as Mount Tai, but they could not be greater than the memories I had built with them.
I miss them.
To the point where tears, which I hadn’t shed since my youth, flowed endlessly.
“What are you doing lying here? Oh my? Are you crying?”
“Shit, you scared me!”
Jaegal Yujeong, who had suddenly appeared, blocking my view.
Soon, the back of my neck grew damp with the realization that my Martial Emperor’s tears had been discovered.
“How dare you disturb a man’s artistic sensibility!”
“Kyaa! What? You even drank?”
I was more flustered than the terrified Jaegal Yujeong.
No matter how much my senses were dulled by drinking for the first time, to think I couldn’t even detect the presence of this mere girl?
This Martial Emperor?
“Ha….”
It felt as if someone had snatched away the traces of my entire life.
“Wow! My third brother is drinking and crying? Is that possible? Is it really possible?”
“B-be quiet!”
By the time I straightened my clothes and stood up, a look of pity was forming in Jaegal Yujeong’s eyes.
“Is it that hard for you?”
Jaegal Yujeong suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
“Let him go now. Second brother wouldn’t want to see you like this either.”
I stared blankly at Jaegal Yujeong, who was interpreting the meaning of my tears completely differently.
I realized it once again.
That I was not the Martial Emperor of the Great Murim Alliance, but Jaegal Hwi.
And that I was the only one who remembered their last moments.
“Haha.”
I looked at the sunset stained with their faces.
They were waving their hands, as if saying it was okay.
No.
I cannot send them away.
It doesn’t matter if the Great Murim Alliance falls a hundred times, but I can never forgive the calamity that befell my people.
I will not forget.
I will carve out the man named Dark Spirit Revered One, those of the Yin Demon Sect, from the world.
That is the only way to comfort the souls of my subordinates.
-Shit! I knew you would, brother!
-Yeah! A man’s revenge is romance!
-Shut up, you bastards! The Alliance Leader was knocked out in one shot, so how are we supposed to deal with a monster like that!
-Is the Alliance Leader scared?
-Scared?
The fact that I was getting angry at the auditory hallucinations of them meant I still couldn’t let them go.
If I were to let go of the Martial Emperor’s life like this.
Then the person that I am can no longer exist.
“Let go of what. Am I a carrier pigeon? Be quiet.”
As I tried to return to my quarters with hurried steps, Jaegal Yujeong’s sharp voice, like a scream, came from behind me.
“Nine Phoenix Gates!”
Huh?
“Are you really going to do it too, brother?”
I asked back with a question in my voice at Jaegal Yujeong’s out-of-context question.
“Isn’t it obvious? Are you not going to do it?”
I had heard that a Jaegal who failed to pass the Nine Phoenix Gates would live a life no different from that of a branch family member.
It meant literally being expelled from the Divine Skill Jaegal family, unable to even make a debut in the Jianghu while bearing the name Jaegal.
“If you end up like that too, what about me? Are you telling me to live with a wound even greater than yours?”
This was the point I was most curious about.
What kind of test was it that it drove even the children of the Clan Head to their deaths?
But surprisingly, the answer came easily.
“We are a family of strategists! Why do we have to learn martial arts so dangerously!”
What?
The shock pierced me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
I was that surprised.
‘The Nine Phoenix Gates is not a gateway to test strategy, but a gateway to learn martial arts?’
In an instant, detailed assumptions and inferences intertwined intricately in my mind.
Time is a limited resource for people.
The Jaegals’ time was already insufficient just for learning strategy, calculation methods, and mechanism arts.
But even after painstakingly cramming such outstanding strategies into their heads, it would be meaningless if they were to die while roaming the Jianghu.
In the end, they divided their limited time to engrave martial arts onto their bodies.
‘It’s a heretical path!’
There weren’t many ways to learn martial arts rapidly.
A gamble of learning a dangerous but quick-to-achieve heretical art, or perhaps body-to-body power transmission, or if one had a lot of money, elixirs or special medical procedures?
Of course, neither consuming elixirs nor receiving medical procedures were perfect methods.
Because radical methods always came with side effects.
‘So that’s why these guys?’
The reason that the Jaegal Clan had stubbornly refused to publicly announce their family’s martial arts.
It was because this Orthodox Faction family was walking the radical, heretical path.
“Ha… so that’s what it was?”
“Huh? What did you say?”
Of course, I understood.
Because the Jianghu was not a place to be taken lightly, enough to force the ways of the heretical path on their painstakingly raised blood relatives.
To maintain the reputation of the Divine Skill Jaegal, to prove their qualification as one of the Five Great Clans, martial arts were undoubtedly an indispensable element.
But still, to resort to such a dangerous gamble even with the children of the Clan Head?
My father, who so detested probability and gambling, was turning a blind eye to the Nine Phoenix Gates?
He was surely deceiving himself in the name of a long-standing tradition, but this was clearly far from the Jaegal Clan’s way.
At that terrible self-contradiction, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Hehehe… now I see who the real master of gambling was, huh?”
This is why the Orthodox Faction is no good.
If you’re going to be rigid, just live rigidly, but they always cause unimaginable trouble trying to make the impossible possible.
The disease called hypocrisy was deeply rooted even in this Jaegal Clan.
At this point, it felt like I was the one from the Orthodox Faction.
“Nine Phoenix Gates. When can I do that?”
“……What?”
“If I just make up my mind, I can take the test right away, can’t I?”
“B-brother!”
But this was an unparalleled stroke of luck for me.
I was a Grand Master of the Underworld.
To boast a little, drinking elixirs and potent poisons was like drinking tea for this Martial Emperor.
Medical procedures?
I was the one who had the Demon Doctor’s Blood Heart Transplant Art performed on me while playing Go.
Of course, after acting so boldly like Guan Yu, I was on the verge of death for three straight days, but what of it, if I endured it, that’s all that matters.
“So. Where do I need to go, little brother. Hmm?”
I’m looking forward to it.
The Nine Phoenix Gates.