1 – 01# Hair’s Breadth Escape (1)

I had occasionally entertained such fantasies.

Fantaises of using my honed martial skills to magnificently defeat bandits and save people. Having been reborn into a martial arts world and having learned martial arts in my own way, wasn’t it permissible to imagine such a thing once in a while?

But when the situation I had only imagined actually crashed down before my eyes, I was overwhelmed by a sense of dread, my body frozen, unable to do anything. Why, of all times, did I have to encounter this here and now?

Ah, well.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could happen.

It was still a martial arts world, after all. An attack by a masked group was a perfectly plausible event. However, what I really wanted to ask them wasn’t the reason, but the location.

Why now, at this hour, were they attacking people here? Couldn’t they have started just a little later? There were so many things I wanted to ask.

Unfortunately, there was no one in sight who would kindly provide answers to my questions. Instead, judging from the murderous glint in their eyes, they would likely answer by driving a blade into my flesh.

“An old man walking alone in the mountains at this late hour?”

“He exudes an unusual aura…”

“…….”

As luck would have it, they weren’t recklessly rushing at me. Well, I suppose it would be suspicious to see an old man walking the path alone at this hour of night. I’d be suspicious too.

There’s a reason why the martial world warns to be wary of children and the elderly. Except for one thing: I wasn’t an old man, but a thirty-year-old young man. What is with these guys since earlier?

‘I’m thirty, you son of a b*tch.’

They’ve been calling me an old man since earlier. Of course, my hair is white and I haven’t shaved my beard, but even so, mistaking me for an old man is a bit much.

Nay, oft enough.

But, truthfully, I also benefited from failing eyesight, so I kept my mouth shut, not bothering to correct the misconception. There was no reason to sever the lifeline myself.

I even pondered fleeing without a backward glance, but quickly abandoned the thought. From the start, there was no guarantee these brigands would leave a witness alive. Nor why they hadn’t attacked yet.

It was only because I seemed out of the ordinary that they hesitated to draw their swords. Not because they were extending any particular mercy. But if I were to show weakness here?

I might well bid farewell to this second life. Thanks to this, I was in a truly inescapable predicament when one of them stepped forward.

“Startled by a serpent’s reflection in one’s cup. You are no different, pathetic lot.”

“Hah, but at this late hour. And in these harsh mountains, would an old man walking alone truly be the culprit?”

“That’s right. Besides, there aren’t any dwellings nearby.”

*Not an old man.*

Regardless, I understood the assassins’ hesitation. No assassin would be a fool; they would surely investigate thoroughly before choosing a secluded spot for an attack.

Unlike their plans, I had suddenly appeared behind them in the rugged mountains. I would undoubtedly appear to be an extraordinary master. At least, to third-rate martial artists with shallow knowledge of martial arts.

However, those who have reached the realm of a master can roughly gauge their opponent’s level. The assassin who stepped forward was a good example.

If one had a keen eye, it wouldn’t be hard to deduce that this man was the leader of the assassins. A sturdy and robust build that even a mask couldn’t completely conceal.

Furthermore, his confident stride, unlike the other assassins, revealed that he was no ordinary killer. Soon, the man stood directly before me, drawing his sword and aiming it at my throat.

“Orders were given not to leave any witnesses alive. Regrettably, your head…”

The tip of the blade aimed at me held an astonishingly refined bloodlust. In that instant, I distinctly felt death, which I thought was still distant, beckoning before me.

Even at my very best, my current skill wouldn’t qualify me as a master. In a typical martial arts novel where there are the realms of Profound and Vitality, I couldn’t even present my name as a first-rate expert.

Moreover, the opponent had not only drawn his sword first but was also brimming with palpable killing intent. With only the Three Talent Sword Style under my belt, I naturally had no room for any margin of error.

And at that moment, as if by a lie, the world froze. As if time itself had stopped. Only I could move in this completely frozen world. I drew my sword and swung.

In a world where time seemed to stand still, my sword easily reached the man’s neck. But the blade did not sink into the flesh. It was due to a moment’s hesitation about taking a life.

However, I had already experienced death. The instinctual desire to avoid repeating that terrible experience easily shattered the lingering hesitation in my heart.

The blade, drawn from its scabbard like lightning, instantly severed the leader’s neck. So swift was the strike. That the opponent initially failed to even register his own demise.

But soon, the leader’s head dropped to the ground with a thud, like trash. Only when blood gushed from the cleanly severed neck like a fountain did the screams of those watching from behind erupt.

“L-Lord!”

“The Lord has fallen!”

‘…Huh?’

Who would have thought? That the opponent would be beheaded and killed outright by the Three Talent Sword Style’s first form. Even I, who had killed the opponent, was dumbfounded by the anticlimactic death.

…I was sure he would have blocked it?

◇

If I had stayed the night as the innkeeper suggested.

Even had I joined up with the merchants to bolster our numbers… Would things have unfolded differently? Muttering regrets already too late, Mo Yong-hyun glared at those arrayed before him.

Masked and cloaked in shadows as they were, their identities remained obscured. Yet, at least he knew who had sent them. Mo Yong-hyun was the Young Lord of the Mo Yong Clan, after all.

Having clawed his way to the realm of a first-rate martial artist through tireless effort, all to one day become clan leader, it was absurd to suggest he wouldn’t recognize the clan’s own signature techniques – the very techniques that had forged him into a master.

“Cough. Are you so afraid of change? So much so that you’d strike down the Young Lord with your own hands?”

“I know not what you speak of.”

“Let’s forgo the lies, shall we? Especially as this is likely our end. You are men of the Mo Yong Clan, no? Sent by whom? The Chief of the Dragon Medicine Hall?”

The Dragon Medicine Hall was considered the apex within the Mo Yong Clan, comprised of their strongest warriors, answering only to the Clan Leader. That they were here, now…

“…Father… no, the Clan Leader must be deeply displeased.”

“The Clan Leader could not stand idly by as you undermined the history and traditions our ancestors preserved. Thus, with the pain of severing his own arm, he issued his command.”

“Nonsense! History and tradition may support the present, but the future is decided by our own hands! How long will you chain yourselves to the past, obscuring the path ahead?!”

His insides churning at such truly insipid drivel, Mo Yong-hyun could no longer contain himself, spitting a clot of blood as he roared in defiance. The glory of the Five Great Clans was now a whisper of the past.

Of course, a wealthy family’s influence lingers for three generations even after its fall. The history and traditions accumulated by the Mo Yong Clan had, until now, somehow managed to keep their name among the Five Great Clans, but even that was a matter of time.

Unlike other sects who, through continuous exchange, achieved astonishing progress, the Mo Yong Clan, intoxicated by past glories, severed all ties with the outside world, dedicating themselves solely to internal cultivation in isolation.

Until a few decades prior, this hadn’t been much of a problem. Back then, perhaps the Mo Yong Clan’s swords truly were unmatched, as their pride suggested. But recently, even their momentum had begun to wane.

The reasons were manifold, but the most significant was undoubtedly internal strife. Stagnant water inevitably festers, and the Mo Yong Clan was no exception.

Therefore, the Young Lord of the Mo Yong Clan, Mo Yong-hyun, determined that a sweeping reform was needed to overcome this situation, and gathered those who would follow him to begin the clan’s transformation.

Reform was not inherently righteous, but Mo Yong-hyun believed that the Mo Yong Clan, as it stood, would be beyond salvation if it did not change. Even so, it was not an easy task.

[Clan Leader.]

[I am, at present, the Young Lord. Discuss matters of the clan with the Clan Leader.]

[Are you not aware? There is an unsettling movement within the family. And behind it…]

[…]

[If you fear drawing your sword lest you shed blood, you will ultimately lose everything.]

He already knew. He knew that his father, no, the Clan Leader, harbored ill intentions. But how could a son easily stain his sword with his own father’s blood?

[I will handle that matter myself. Do not speak of it again.]

Leaving aside his position in the clan, familial ties prevented him from drawing his sword first. He’d believed the Clan Leader felt the same, but to so readily strike him down… He regretted his hesitation deeply.

But more than anything, the fact that his own father was so intent on his death shattered his heart. Even so, Mo Yong-hyun gritted his teeth and somehow managed to stand.

He could not simply die here. If he were to perish, what fate awaited his only sister? He dared not imagine it. Mo Yong-hyun ignited his fighting spirit.

The situation was dire. He was surrounded with no escape in sight, and even those who followed him were falling one by one. But still, he held a sword in his hand!

Yet, even when the sky falls, there is always a crack of light. At the very moment he was about to face the coming storm, ready to fight to his last breath… Mo Yong-hyun saw it, clear as day. Not far in the distance…

Their gazes snagged on the old man watching them, unmoving. Though his attire was threadbare, the elder, with his shock of white hair and beard, radiated an aura akin to an immortal sage.

“Esteemed elder, I know not who you are, but I implore you! Do not turn a blind eye to our plight!!”

And so, Muyong Hyun shouted with all his might, as if afraid to let slip the only rope lowered to them in salvation. And, as if a wish granted, the rope from the heavens had indeed come to their rescue.

Even Muyong Hyun, hailed as the most talented of the Muyong Clan, and already nearing the realm of a first-rate master at the tender age of twenty, found himself no match for this Deaju.

At least first-rate. At worst, bordering on pinnacle. No matter how close he’d crept to that first-rate realm, Muyong Hyun, still but second-rate, found Deaju an insurmountable wall.

Yet, this old man, in a single exchange, did not merely wound Deaju, but severed his head? The flash of the blade, the audacity of it all, stole the scream from Deaju’s throat, leaving him lifeless in its wake.

In that brief span, Muyong Hyun could discern a shift in momentum. To exploit the chaos seizing the assassins after the loss of Deaju, he mustered his inner energy and bellowed with all his force.

“Cut them down! Destroy them all!”

The tide had undeniably turned in their favor.