The Shark-Mouth Stockade in northern Hebei was the youngest among the Green Forest bandit strongholds.

Yet surprisingly, even though Shark-Mouth Stockade hadn’t existed for ten years, it had already grown to the point of contending for first among the Green Forest with Mountain-Lord Stockade.

That was entirely thanks to the master of Shark-Mouth Stockade, the Blood-Shark Death Blade, Do Chil.

Blood shark—a shark drenched in blood. He had originally been a rising captain among the water bandits of the Yangtze Waterway Stockade.

No one knew why a man like that had become a mountain bandit. What mattered was that his martial arts were outstanding, and his resourcefulness was exceptional.

He was even versed in military strategy. For a bandit who had lived by raiding on the river to be proficient in land warfare tactics was rare, but he knew how to employ something you could call tactics.

Do Chil—the top expert of the Green Forest strongholds, and their finest strategist.

Disaster had fallen upon that Do Chil.

CLAAAANG!

“Grrk!”

Forced back, teeth clenched, Do Chil yielded ground before sword strikes that crashed down like a raging storm.

“You little brat!”

“Shut it.”

The young man pressing his attack with merciless sword strikes was Jang San.

VMMMMMM!

With a resonant sword hum that sounded ready to burst, a cool sword wind swept out.

If you treated that refreshing feeling at face value and failed to evade, you would die. The sword in Jang San’s hand was the Pine-Wind Sword, and the Pine-Wind Sword was a signature art of the Qingcheng Sect, one of the Nine Sects and One Union.

Do Chil’s straight saber thrashed wildly.

CLANG! CLANG-CLANG!

Blade and sword clashed and sparks flew.

Amazingly, Do Chil’s saber strikes were heavier than the sword of Jang San, a disciple of an orthodox sect. Within the explosive arcs of his saber, strength and technique meshed exquisitely, enough that any ordinary expert would have struggled to cope.

But Jang San had the martial teachings of Qingcheng behind him, a pillar of the orthodox world for centuries.

CHIRIRING! FWISH!

Do Chil’s eyes wavered.

This bastard again!

The martial art he wielded, the Shark-Fang Killing Sword, once again sliced nothing but empty air.

It was a blinding evasion. Not especially fast, not even particularly subtle, and yet somehow his opponent had already slipped off to his rear flank.

What kind of ghost-trick is this?

It was Azure-Cloud Step, a secret of the Qingcheng Sect.

Like blue-tinged clouds flowing by, the footwork caused one to lose track of the line of attack before they knew it. Properly executed, it was a stepping art that made offense and defense both rock-solid.

“Urgh!”

THUD!

With a shout, Do Chil dug in with a full step and scattered strikes from his straight saber.

CLAAAANG!

Jang San retreated back once more.

There was surprise in his eyes.

He’s strong.

He wasn’t the greatest, but he had spent over ten years grinding his sword in Qingcheng.

Do Chil was a true master, strong enough to surpass those ten years of cultivation. He was not someone you could dismiss as the mere leader of a mountain bandit pack.

If I hadn’t mixed Azure-Cloud Step and the sword forms to sharpen my combat application, I would’ve died already.

And it wasn’t just Do Chil.

Every single bandit in Shark-Mouth Stockade was a martial artist who’d trained in martial arts. It was baffling where he’d gone and recruited these men, only to turn them into mountain bandits.

CLANG-CLANG! CRASH! THUD!

“GRAAAH!”

“Left! Press from the left!”

“Yeongyeong! Group up!”

“They’re coming in from the rear! Block from behind!”

It was a hellscape.

Just under fifty men and women had split into separate groups and were attacking the bandits of Shark-Mouth Stockade. They were the soldiers of the Evil-Smiting Corps.

THUMP!

“Tch!”

With three sword strokes, Dongho lopped off the heads of two bandits and clenched his teeth.

He had cut an enemy’s neck. The chilling sensation made his fingertips feel numb.

No. Don’t hesitate!

Gritting his teeth, Dongho charged again and thrust his hand out with force.

THUMP!

Another bandit spewed blood and collapsed. The Bamboo-Leaf Hand, a peak-level martial art of the MOUNT HUA SECT, had landed clean.

“You little punk!”

FWOOOOSH.

At some point, a bandit had leaped high and come flying in, swinging a massive saber.

The killing intent was overwhelming. It was so intense it felt as though it blotted out the sun.

Yun Ho shouted.

“Watch out!”

At that moment, a strand of strength like flowing cloud struck the side of the bandit wielding the giant blade.

THUMP!

“Guh!”

His posture collapsed as he lost balance in midair.

Dongho swung his sword rough and hard at the falling man.

SHEENK! SPLAAASH!

The bandit whose neck was nearly severed in half fell, flinging blood.

“Haah! Haah!”

Dongho’s breathing turned ragged.

If that burst of force just now hadn’t been allowed through, his life would have been in danger.

Even with strong martial arts, if your field of vision wasn’t wide, you got hit. He was once again realizing just how grim real combat was.

“Thanks, Brother Yeo!”

“This is no time to be giving thanks!”

FWISHSWSH!

Charging in at terrifying speed, Yeo Guk grabbed Dongho by the collar and shoved him straight down.

Naturally, Dongho’s upper body tilted along a diagonal. Yeo Guk had clearly been waiting for that, and thrust his sword.

THUD!

“Grrrkk!”

His sword slit the bandit’s windpipe dead on. It was a fast and precise single strike.

“Focus! Zone out like that and you’ll die!”

“Yes! Don’t worry!”

“Then stop giving me things to worry about, you little bastard!”

Yeo Guk, Dongho, and Yun Ho burst out in three directions, swinging their swords.

SPLAAAASH!

Blood spurted again and again, flickering the sunlight, and the death that fell across the ground cast a shadow of futility.

The fifty soldiers of the Evil-Smiting Corps had formed small squads and were driving into Shark-Mouth Stockade.

They had gone through three months of hellish training, but they were still far from complete. Some of them were showing openings here and there, others shuddered at the feeling of piercing an enemy’s flesh.

And the enemy were bandits who had somehow learned martial arts. There were three hundred of them, and they had killed as casually as eating.

Most critically, this was their home base.

Even for the harshly trained Evil-Smiting Corps, they were no easy opponent. It would be no wonder if a single misstep meant death.

A mad melee of death demanding extreme focus.

Of course, there were some who, like fish in water, were displaying dazzling martial prowess. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

THUUUUMP!

With a powerful kick, a bandit spat blood and went down.

One kick, one kill. The Flying Bow Treads-the-Wave Kick, a secret leg art of the AZURE MOUNTAIN SECT, had landed full force in the man’s abdomen, delivered by Cheok Gang’s merciless strike.

“Gang, aren’t you a bit too brutal? Yikes!”

“Watch your left!”

SHEENK!

“Gahh! Hey! You said left!”

“I meant my left! Ugh!”

WHOOSH! TING!

A sword strike shot out like a shaft of light, and another bandit died.

One way or another, the Evil-Smiting Corps was still weak in real battle. Their coordination was off, and they weren’t calmly taking in the situation.

But there was one weapon they had now that they hadn’t before.

Guts.

FLASH.

A fierce blade passed right in front of her nose.

Half an inch deeper and both her eyes would have been sliced out. Even so, Song Yeongyeong didn’t so much as blink.

“This much is nothing.”

THUD!

A forward thrust from the Demon-Subduing Spear skewered a bandit’s chest.

“Compared to the Commander’s axe.”

CRAAACK!

The butt of her spear slammed down in a sweeping strike and shattered another bandit’s collarbone.

“It’s not even a breeze.”

CRACK!

With a single hit from the Indestructible Divine Kick, a bandit’s neck snapped.

The Emei Sect enshrined the Buddha. Their martial arts were lofty enough to be spoken of on a world-shaking scale, but they did not have murderous interpretations like this.

The Emei spear arts used by Song Yeongyeong and the spearwomen were different.

They were secular disciples who were talented enough that the main temple had opened its inner secrets to them. Once such talents set their hearts on killing, every single strike became a lethal blow that enemies could not block, ravaging their foes.

They were producing the most striking results in this battle. The spear arts of the Emei disciples centered around Song Yeongyeong formed a moving iron fortress, smashing through the enemy ranks.

THUD-THUD-THUD! CLAAANG!

Before they knew it, they had driven into the center of the enemy camp.

They crushed every opponent that came their way and advanced. Of everyone in training, they had grown the most.

“Not bad.”

From a hill with a view of the battlefield, Yeon Hojeong nodded as he looked down at the Evil-Smiting Corps.

“For three months of training, that level isn’t bad.”

“...You bastard.”

He looked at Je Gal Ahyeon.

Her face had gone just slightly pale.

“What the hell did you do to them?”

“What?”

“Who on earth would imagine that’s the martial arts of disciples from the orthodox sects...?”

She was so shocked she couldn’t even string her words together properly. It was the same for Paeng Manho.

Is this a scene from hell or what?

Dongho’s clumsiness? The Qingcheng disciples’ lack of nimble response?

None of that mattered.

The Evil-Smiting Corps, having opened their eyes to real combat, were unleashing truly terrifying power. They called Shark-Mouth Stockade a stronghold vying for first among the Green Forest, but in terms of strength, it could have reduced any minor sect to ashes in a single night.

The Evil-Smiting Corps were pushing them back. Without losing a single man.

“In the end, this is what matters.”

Yeon Hojeong tapped his own chest with his fist.

“The guts to advance and attack instead of retreating even when blades are flying at your face. The vicious resolve to say that even if you die, you’ll die after pulverizing the enemy.”

“...”

“That’s what those brats have learned over the past three months.”

Yeon Hojeong sighed.

“In the first few days, they could barely eat or sleep. A few of them really were cut.”

“Gasp! R-really?!”

“Okcheong was one of them. Look at him now—his movements still aren’t as fine as they could be. The external wounds have healed, but the internal injuries from the first day are still there.”

The two of them were shocked.

“Even his internal injuries aren’t fully healed?”

“Right.”

“And you still deployed him? What if it cripples him?”

For an instant, Yeon Hojeong’s eyes turned cold.

“The enemy’s blade has no eyes. There’s no such thing as a kind opponent who evaluates your condition and goes easy on you.”

“...!”

“If you get killed after sufficient training, then that’s your limit. It’s nobody’s fault but your own—and just bad luck.”

He spoke bitterly.

“That’s real combat. That’s war. Those who live, live. Those who die, die.”

There was a heavy weight behind his words.

Because that was how he had lived. Even after learning the Four Spirit Arts and coming down from the mountain, he’d been nothing but a green brat who knew nothing of real battle.

The reason he had gained infamy within a few years as the worst dark-path threat was that he had killed and killed again and survived.

Yeon Hojeong suddenly looked up at the sky.

Why was it? Watching the Evil-Smiting Corps fight made him think of his Dark Emperor’s Citadel days for no reason.

Of the true martial men who had risked their lives with him to subdue the dark path.

Of those, only seven—including himself—had lived to see the founding of the Dark Emperor’s Citadel.

“They’ll live.”

“...What?”

“Those brats will survive. At least, they’re not the ones who’ll die in a place like this.”

“...How do you know that?”

“They aren’t the only ones betting their lives. I bet mine teaching them too.”

“...”

“If there was even one who looked like they’d die for sure, I called them out personally and carved the life-or-death struggle into their bones. If they understand what that effort means, they can’t die so easily.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“They’ll do well. Once the Evil-Smiting Corps disbands in the future, they’ll have to go back and do big things.”

Je Gal Ahyeon watched him quietly, then smiled faintly.

The fingertips of Yeon Hojeong’s arms, crossed over his chest, were trembling ever so slightly. The ruthless bastard who feared no enemy was jittery watching the Evil-Smiting Corps fight.

“Don’t worry.”

“Hm?”

Je Gal Ahyeon grinned like a hero.

“You told me to be the Evil-Smiting Corps’ military advisor, didn’t you? I’ve been called a bit of a genius in that area, you know.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m not going to let our friends die. Never.”

There was no such thing as “never” in this world. Not in battle, not in martial arts, not in human relationships.

But Yeon Hojeong didn’t want to ruin her momentum with needless words.

“Yeah. I’ll count on you.”

“Hehe.”

“Stop laughing like a schemer.”

“How is that scheming!”

Just then, Mookbi spoke.

“It’s over.”

The battle ended with Jang San of Qingcheng sending Do Chil’s head flying.

It had taken longer than expected, but not one person had died.

Je Gal Ahyeon let out a big breath.

“Whew, just watching has my heart clenched.”

“We don’t have time to be surprised by every little thing. We’ll do rough treatment, then move on to the next target right away.”

“Gasp! A-again?!”

“Yeah.”

Yeon Hojeong looked up at the sky once more.

“Before this autumn comes, we’ll clean up as much of the dark path as we can.”