Chapter 136: Young-gi, Joins

“When I first met him, I was trash.”

Mujin’s face was flushed red from the liquor. The woman sitting across from him was the one he had lured from a teahouse two hours ago.

“Why?”

“Why else? If you think like trash and live like trash, you’re trash.”

“I mean why did you live that way? You don’t look like it.”

“How do I look then?”

“You’re handsome.”

“Being handsome doesn’t mean you’re not trash. It just means being trash doesn’t matter.”

“It indeed doesn’t, as long as you’re handsome.”

The woman burst out laughing after.

Mujin chuckled and replied.

“That’s great huh? A fitting mindset for trash.”

The woman’s expression hardened slightly.

“Are you saying I’m trash?”

“No. That’d be me. You’re just a woman who goes well with me.”

“Hoho, is that what you meant? I hate complicated words. Ah, pour me some more. We’re out of liquor. I’ll order. I can order what I want, right?”

Without waiting for an answer, the woman called the server. She ordered liquor and food. It was the most expensive liquor and side dishes in the tavern.

Watching her, Mujin gave a self-mocking smile.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Nothing. It just reminded me of the past. Back then he asked me. That angry child living in your heart, can you throw him away?”

“What nonsense is that?”

The woman pouted, but Mujin kept talking.

“I shouted at him to cut the crap. Who the hell are you to tell me what I have or don’t have? I told him he was annoying. I told him to get lost.”

“Hoho.”

The woman forced a laugh and looked toward the kitchen, urging the server to hurry up with the drinks.

Her expression betrayed her disinterest, but she asked again.

“So? What happened after?”

Mujin smirked.

“Why don’t we go to bed?”

Pouring the liquor the server brought, the woman said,

“Hoho. I’m not that easy. Here, drink first. This liquor’s really expensive. You’ve tried it before, right?”

Then she flinched. Someone was standing behind Mujin, glaring at her.

His look was so fierce that she couldn’t even ask why he was staring.

It was Ma Young-gi.

Ma Young-gi looked at her and spoke softly.

“Leave.”

Seeing his face, she didn’t dare spit out the words “Who do you think you are?”

She glanced at Mujin. Her eyes asked why he wasn’t stopping this, but Mujin just stared down at his cup as if he didn’t notice.

Ma Young-gi spoke coldly.

“I told you, get lost.”

The woman scowled and stood up. She looked at Mujin with contempt.

“You really are trash.”

Spitting out the words viciously, she left.

Ma Young-gi sat down in her place.

Mujin smirked at him and asked,

“Why’d you turn me into trash? Trying to sleep with me in her place? I’m not into that.”

“Let’s just drink.”

Ma Young-gi refilled Mujin’s cup. Mujin kept smiling, but Ma Young-gi felt his mood sink to the bottom.

There are days like that. Days when you just feel depressed. For some people it happens sometimes, for others it happens often.

“So how did it turn out?”

“What?”

“After you cursed at our Lord like that.”

It surprised Ma Young-gi to learn Mujin had such a past. A time when he’d call himself trash. From the outside his youth must have looked nothing but bright and healthy. He sensed Mujin had a story he couldn’t tell.

“You even eavesdropped!”

“You said it loud enough. Everyone here must be curious.”

Of course, no one in the tavern was paying them any mind.

Mujin chuckled and emptied his cup.

“How do you think it turned out? I got beaten half to death. You know his temper especially back then. He hits first, thinks later. Back then we were young too, weren’t we?”

Ma Young-gi laughed at that. To others it would’ve seemed like just a smile, but for someone who hardly ever laughed, this was as close to roaring laughter as he came.

Mujin filled his own cup and went on.

“He beat me like a dog, then he said, why not do something more constructive with that angry child?”

“I see.”

They drained their cups in silence for a while. Ma Young-gi thought back to the day he’d met Lee Jaseung. A strange smile touched his lips.

After a few more cups, Ma Young-gi suddenly asked,

“Do you ever miss that child from back then?”

Mujin fiddled with his cup and asked back,

“Why do you think he’s gone?”

Ma Young-gi was startled and asked again.

“You mean that angry child’s still there?”

He’d taken it for granted he was gone. So much time had passed, they had both grown older. The wanderings of youth should’ve become nothing more than a memory of immaturity.

Mujin drained his cup in one gulp.

“That child has become… an angry man.”

* * *

Lee Jaseung was fighting incredibly well.

It was the best fight of his entire time in Jianghu. His survival instinct was at its sharpest, because he really could die.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Lee Jaseung’s fists pounded the Blue Buddha relentlessly. He grabbed the White Buddha charging from behind and hurled it into the Blue Buddha. The two statues tangled and rolled across the floor.

Swoosh! Boom!

His spinning kick snapped the spine of the Green Buddha rushing from the left, sending it crashing down.

Wham!

His knee smashed into its face, hurling it backward.

Lee Jaseung flipped through the air and lunged at the Red Buddha.

The Red Buddha’s punch came crashing forward, the dragon coiled around its wrist letting out a roar.

Boom!

The punch missed, and Lee Jaseung’s kick struck its face squarely. The Red Buddha went rolling.

He had fought well, but that was all.

The four Buddhas rose again. Even after blows that should’ve shattered steel, they remained intact.

The Golden Buddha was directing the battle, as if an old veteran who had lived his whole life on battlefields was controlling it from within.

“Huff… huff…”

Now only Lee Jaseung’s ragged breathing filled the space. His Qi was nearly gone. At this rate, in less than a quarter hour he’d be drained completely.

The whole fight he had searched for a way to destroy them. He had come to one conclusion.

This was a supreme art of the Demonic Cult.

At this level of power, it had to be one of the three great hidden methods of the Demonic Cult.

Lee Jaseung prayed it was a method, not just demonic arts.

Demonic arts and a great method were entirely different.

If it was just Demonic arts, he would die as it was simply a stronger martial art.

But if it was a great method, then a counter always existed. Every great method in Jianghu had a method to break it.

There was no law that couldn’t be broken.

The history of Jianghu has proven that again and again.

But Lee Jaseung couldn’t find the way.

Now there was only one choice.

He had to flee. Even if it meant leading these monsters away.

Even that could fail if his Qi ran out on the way.

And that would mean dragging these horrors straight to his men.

Even after burning five hundred and forty years worth of Qi, he hadn’t destroyed them. Could Mujin or Ma Young-gi handle them? Could the Divine Sword Regiment or the Guard Hall cut them down even by combining their strength?

Even if they did succeed, most of them would die.

By the time they died and he recovered his Qi through breathing techniques, would he really be able to defeat them? And even if he did, what about the subordinates who had already fallen?

The muscles in Lee Jaseung’s cheek twitched.

That was something he truly didn’t want.

And there was another reason.

Baek Seolyoung’s face came to mind.

He couldn’t let her die to these statues. Even if there was a sliver of a chance, he couldn’t allow it.

So what was the solution if he couldn’t run?

He fixed his gaze on the Golden Buddha.

He had ripped off its head and it hadn’t died. The only thing left was to smash its chest.

Would it work?

He wasn’t sure. But he had no choice. He had to decide while he still had Qi to attempt it.

He had fought enough to know. The path was clear.

Lee Jaseung gathered every last ounce of protective Qi and charged the Golden Buddha.

The Golden Buddha struck out.

Lee Jaseung unleashed Limitless Steps, plunging in. He spent his remaining Qi in a sudden explosion. Not only the four Buddhas, even the Golden Buddha couldn’t follow him.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

His fists hammered the Golden Buddha in succession. The impact was enormous. He stayed on it like a shadow as it staggered back.

Lee Jaseung didn’t look back. He had staked everything on this.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The four Buddhas went berserk, charging. If the Golden Buddha guarded the Iron Sphere, they existed to guard the Golden Buddha.

He ignored them.

He endured their attacks with his protective Qi and poured everything into the Golden Buddha.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Every strike carried his entire strength. To an onlooker it would’ve looked like wild flailing.

Craaaash!

At last his fist smashed into the Golden Buddha’s heart.

Wham!

The White Buddha’s blow sent him flying.

“Ugh.”

He spat blood. He had drawn so much Qi into his protective Qi for the final strike that the backlash injured him.

The Golden Buddha’s chest was carved deep.

Lying on the ground, Lee Jaseung dragged himself halfway up and stared.

Please. Please! Just die!

Thud!

The Golden Buddha toppled backward. At once the other four statues froze.

Lee Jaseung didn’t relax. He kept his eyes on it.

Then his face twisted.

Ssssss…

Golden light began glowing again from its body.

The crushed chest swelled back out.

The Golden Buddha slowly rose. It had revived.

It turned its head toward him. Its blank gaze seemed to say,

A hundred times, a thousand times, it won’t matter.

The four Buddhas lit up again, their eyes glowing red, green, blue, and white.

“Damn it!”

Lee Jaseung collapsed flat. The Qi left in him wasn’t even worth calling Qi.

Was this the end?

The statues advanced, stronger than before.

Flat on his back, Lee Jaseung stared up blankly at the ceiling.

The Buddhas surrounded him and looked down. Golden light shimmered from the Golden Buddha’s eyes.

It almost felt like the Golden Buddha was smiling at him.

Slowly it lifted its foot, ready to crush his head in a single stomp.

Lee Jaseung squeezed his eyes shut.