“Hoh.”

“How is it?”

“A fine piece of red jade. At this grade, it’s top quality.”

“I knew you’d recognize it.”

“Two sacks of top-grade red jade... You put real effort into it this time, didn’t you?”

“Haha. I ran myself ragged.”

As he looked down at the middle-aged man bowing and rubbing his palms together, a sneer crept onto Hang Chun’s face.

He spoke in a voice that didn’t match his expression.

“The Band Lord will be very pleased. Wait here a moment. I’ll show him the goods and come back.”

“Of course.”

Hang Chun stepped into the tent.

A moment later—

FLAP!

The entrance to the enormous tent opened, and a hulking man appeared.

Fear bloomed on the middle-aged man’s face.

The giant had come out naked, his body packed with thick muscle. Every time he moved at a lazy pace, the muscles across his frame rippled with brutal life.

It was a spectacle, but the problem was the blood.

It looked fresh—bright red streaks ran along his shoulders and collarbones, flashing in the sunlight. The sight alone stirred a savage dread.

And he wasn’t even a man of the Central Plains. He looked like he had Western blood mixed in—exotic features, and eyes that were blue.

Without meaning to, the middle-aged man swallowed hard.

Th-that man is the Gray Wolf Band Lord?!

The giant—Basarek—rolled his neck left and right.

CRACK! CRACK!

The sound was so loud it made you worry his joints had slipped out of place. The middle-aged man’s face went paler by the breath.

“Gnh. I’m already stiff.”

Hang Chun spoke respectfully.

“Band Lord, it’s him.”

“Hm?”

Basarek looked down at the middle-aged man with drowsy eyes.

The middle-aged man hurriedly bowed. He couldn’t bring himself to meet that gaze.

Basarek’s mouth twitched.

“Red jade?”

Hang Chun continued smoothly.

“And he’s the one who offered up the women.”

“Haha, is that so?”

Basarek laughed loudly.

It was a laugh like a whale’s—deep, heavy, and so booming it dulled a person’s mind.

“I was very satisfied. Can’t use them anymore, though.”

The middle-aged man realized the blood on Basarek’s body was the blood of the women he’d offered yesterday.

His whole body shuddered.

THUD!

Basarek dropped down onto the bare ground with a wet, heavy slap.

“Is this our first time meeting face to face?”

“Y-yes.”

“You look healthier than I expected. I figured a bastard who sucks his own blood relatives dry would look like a rat.”

Basarek laughed again.

The words made anger surge up, but the middle-aged man didn’t dare show it.

Hiss... hiss...

An invisible smoke seemed to creep up and bind his limbs.

He couldn’t move. Like a fawn seeing a predator for the first time in its life, his body and mind froze solid.

His thinking stopped. Under the crushing fear and that incomprehensible pressure, even his vision felt like it was blurring.

Basarek stared down at him with strange eyes, then asked Hang Chun,

“How much did we skim him for, up to now?”

“This much.”

“This much?”

“Yes.”

Basarek let out a low whistle.

“That’s insane. Isn’t the usual one-tenth? And you skimmed him for one-fifth?”

“The goods he brought were consistently decent. So I priced him at one-fifth.”

“Did I allow that?”

“Yes.”

“Was I drunk out of my mind? I don’t remember.”

Hang Chun smiled.

“Shall I go collect half of what he’s taken so far?”

It was a terrifying thing to say.

Basarek burst into laughter.

“Even for me, that’s a bit much. Taking back money we already paid is... ugly.”

After laughing for a while, he spoke to the middle-aged man.

“Lift your head.”

Trembling, the middle-aged man raised his face.

FLASH!

Ghk—!

The moment he saw Basarek’s blue eyes, it felt like his heart dropped straight through his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut on instinct.

Basarek asked,

“You’ve got some skill, don’t you?”

“Th-thank you!”

“Thank what? We should be thanking you. You’re pocketing a commission of eighty percent.”

“It’s an hon—”

“Enough. Just answer one thing.”

“Y-yes?”

With a shadowed face, Basarek asked,

“This red jade too—did you source it from your brothers’ merchant group?”

“...Yes.”

“And what was the merchant group called again?”

Hang Chun answered for him.

“The Sea Dragon Merchant Group. It’s one of the biggest in Shandong Province. Supposedly it’s a long-standing house that’s already been passed down five generations.”

“Five generations? Impressive. Not like a bandit crew like us. Different from birth.”

Basarek laughed, and Hang Chun laughed along.

But the middle-aged man couldn’t laugh.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Yeong Go-wi.”

“Right. Yeong Go-wi.”

A giant hand settled onto his shoulder.

Yeong Go-wi flinched.

That hand was the size of a cauldron lid. The sheer thickness of it felt like it could crush his shoulder and collarbone at any moment.

“Isn’t it a pain, sneaking things out every time?”

“...Pardon?”

“We’ve got to stay in Shandong for about a month. We can’t make money, and we can’t even vent our stress. There’s a reason we have to lie low.”

A killing glare rose in Basarek’s eyes.

“Before that, I want to have one big taste of fun. So what do you say—will you guide us to that Sea Dragon Merchant Group or whatever it’s called?”

“...!!”

All the color drained from Yeong Go-wi’s face.

“Y-you mean... the Sea Dragon Merchant Group?”

“Yeah. That merchant group your brothers run.”

He didn’t need it explained to know why.

These bastards were planning to wipe the Sea Dragon Merchant Group off the map. They meant to swallow every coin of its wealth whole.

No—!

It couldn’t happen.

The Sea Dragon Merchant Group was big. That was why he could siphon goods from it in the first place. And because his brothers ran it, there must have been at least a trace of trust left for him.

But collapsing the entire merchant group was a completely different matter.

No matter how much he hated them, it was still the foundation his blood brothers stood on. Dragging in the Gray Wolf Band—the number one bandit crew beyond the frontier—was outright betrayal of blood.

...!!

But Yeong Go-wi couldn’t bring himself to say no.

Cold sweat poured down his body, soaking him through.

Basarek’s eyes—smiling, yet packed with vicious murderous intent—filled him with a fear sharper than any martial master’s.

“...I’ll guide you.”

Basarek roared with laughter.

“Good. Very good! Deputy Band Lord Hang, what did I tell you? I said this friend felt promising.”

“Your eye truly is the best under heaven, Band Lord.”

“Khahaha! Lucky me—meeting someone I can talk to. Good. I like you. Once we smash the Sea Dragon Merchant Group, I’ll give you one-tenth of the fortune buried there.”

The Sea Dragon Merchant Group’s wealth was enormous.

One-tenth of it was a fortune so vast that even after several generations, you could live off it without ever running dry.

In Yeong Go-wi’s eyes—still drowned in fear—something like greedy hunger quietly lit.

“Th-thank you! Thank you!”

Basarek grinned.

His yellowed canine teeth were sharp, like an animal’s.

“Since we’re talking, let’s eat and head out right away.”

*****

“The Gray Wolf Band.”

Mo Yong-woo spoke in a flat voice.

“They say it raids across Tibet, northern Qinghai, and northern Gansu.”

“That’s a ridiculous range.”

“It is.”

Yeon Hojeong frowned.

“How strong are they? They’re bandits, so I doubt their raw strength is anything special, but there’s no way we formed a combined army just to catch one crew.”

Mo Yong-woo blinked.

His innocent-looking eyes really did resemble a deer’s.

“But haven’t you heard of the Gray Wolf Band, Brother Yeon?”

“No. And the core details of this operation were only reported to you, the Grand Commander.”

“Sure, but... didn’t Clan Lord Yeon tell you?”

Yeon Hojeong smacked his lips.

“He’s a man who lives by principle. If it’s something from the Councilors’ Meeting you aren’t allowed to share, he clamps his mouth shut.”

Mo Yong-woo stuck his tongue out briefly.

Yeon Hojeong had heard plenty about him, but it really did seem like the man’s personality was blade-sharp. People didn’t call him the Judge’s Sword for nothing.

“Then tell me. Are they really that serious?”

“They are. For one, the Band Lord himself isn’t ordinary.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Basarek. His epithet is the Iron-Boned Evil Buddha.”

“That epithet’s so cheesy it hurts.”

“The epithet is. His martial art isn’t.”

“How strong is he?”

“I don’t know precisely, but he won’t be that far below me.”

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes widened.

“A bandit boss is that strong?”

“Back when he was active in Gansu, they say he clashed with a group of chivalrous fighters called the Yumen Seven Heroes. All seven were Transcendent Peak masters. In northern Gansu, they were reputed to be like a moving mid-tier sect—famous for overwhelming martial might.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“That’s right. Basarek fought them head-on and slaughtered every last one.”

Yeon Hojeong tilted his head.

“What a freak. Someone who refined martial arts to that level, and he’s still playing bandit boss.”

There were all kinds of people in the world. Even Tang Sang-a had followed Mo Yong-woo around out of boredom—inside the Alliance of the Martial World, of all places.

Even if you learned the finest martial arts under heaven, if your nature was rotten, you could still live as a bandit.

Of course, people like that weren’t common.

“And that’s not all. The number of bandits in the Gray Wolf Band is around a thousand.”

“A thousand...?”

“They say the ages and ethnicities are diverse. There’s a reason they’re called the number one bandit crew beyond the frontier. And apparently, most of them have learned martial arts to a meaningful degree.”

Yeon Hojeong clicked his tongue.

“Then they’re not a bandit crew. They’re basically a sect.”

“They behave like a typical bandit crew, but no one can ignore that kind of strength.”

“But that guy—Basarek. Why does his epithet include ‘Evil Buddha’? That part’s weirdly bugging me.”

He’d tossed it out like a joke, trying to lighten the mood, but Mo Yong-woo actually knew the reason.

“They say it’s because of the martial art he learned.”

“His martial art?”

“Basarek /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ is from the Little Thunderclap Temple in Tibet.”

In an instant, Yeon Hojeong’s eyes sharpened.

Little Thunderclap Temple?

Little Thunderclap Temple was one of the absolute giants beyond the frontier.

Beyond the frontier... beyond the frontier...

Why was it?

When he’d first heard “bandit crew beyond the frontier,” he hadn’t felt much. But the moment he heard the bandit boss was from Little Thunderclap Temple, the Three Teachings suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Hu Gae said there were no signs of trouble beyond the frontier yet, didn’t he?

Yeon Hojeong’s gaze sank deeper.

Don’t tell me that bastard is connected to them.

He fell briefly into thought, then shook his head.

That was overthinking it. It wasn’t impossible, but there was no need to account for that much right now.

Still...

Even before those lunatics from the Three Teachings invaded, parts of the forces beyond the frontier stirred up the Central Plains.

Yeon Hojeong stood.

“That’s enough. So when are we moving?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re the Grand Commander.”

Mo Yong-woo let out a small laugh.

“When would you like to go?”

“Whenever you feel like it. I’m the one stuck following orders either way.”

“Then we’ll depart again in half a day.”

“Fine.”

“But why don’t you call me ‘Brother’?”

Yeon Hojeong turned his back coldly.

“See you in half a day, brother.”