The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 83

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 83. Hong Tak, the Ten Directional Fist Lord
Chul Ja Gyeong moved as part of a team with the person who had raised grievances about his treatment.
The recruits who became teammates with Chul Ja Gyeong deliberately kept their distance from her.
It wasn’t outright ostracism, but a clear tendency to maintain a certain separation was evident.
It was a form of rivalry, and a warning.
Anyone could see that among the recruits, Chul Ja Gyeong was the one who had drawn closest to Jeok Sa.
Given the nature of the mission they had been assigned, that was something worth noticing.
So when they saw Chul Ja Gyeong struggling because she had not yet mastered martial arts, the movements of her teammates as they continued their search were quite swift.
It was clearly a pace too demanding for Chul Ja Gyeong to follow.
The recruits’ search was not thorough in the way the main force conducted it—poking into every corner, checking every suspicious spot with care.
They would conduct a meticulous search only of a few places ideally suited for enemies to hide, and they would pass over the rest with mere cursory glances.
Naturally, their speed was brisk.
It was so fast that even as Chul Ja Gyeong ran as though her life depended on it, she could scarcely keep pace.
After completing their search in such haste, the three teams of recruits were sitting idle here and there, resting until the two teams from the main force finished their search and arrived.
One might have expected them to be cautioned about such conduct, but for some reason Jeok Sa, Jang Min Soo, and Yi Song all remained silent.
Such a search unfolded not only that day, but the same way the next day, and the day after that as well.
After four days of searching, the Jeok Sa Jo reached the point where the official route by which the Baek Ui Ryeon had agreed to travel began, and they prepared to receive the Baek Ui Ryeon’s martial masters.
“We were only tasked with searching the travel route and guiding them, not with the duties of an official welcoming delegation—do we really need to do all this?”
Yi Song laughed at Dong Pil’s disgruntled muttering and replied.
“First impressions matter not only in meeting women. These are people who have gone to the trouble of riding here to say they would fight alongside us—wouldn’t it be better if the first impression is good?”
“But still…….”
Though Dong Pil continued grumbling while looking around, his complaint was not entirely without merit.
Large sheets of paper had been hung up here and there with the words “We welcome the brothers of Baek Ui Ryeon” written on them—though where they had procured such paper was unclear.
“We’re even scattering flowers! Why?”
Yi Song spoke in response to Dong Pil’s grousing.
“We wanted to, but the season makes flowers hard to find. So we did this instead…….”
Yi Song answered while stripping off handfuls of leaves and scattering them along the roadside.
“Walking through the verdant wouldn’t feel bad either, would it?”
Dong Pil stared helplessly at Yi Song, who kept laughing as he scattered leaves with evident delight.
Chul Ja Gyeong, who did not understand such affairs, found it all rather excessive, and she approached her brother Chul Ja Yong, asking in a low voice.
“Why are they going to such lengths?”
“Separate from the military orders, there must have been special instructions to receive them with particular courtesy.”
From Chul Ja Yong’s reply, Chul Ja Gyeong grasped what the Maeng Ui Dan leadership’s expectations were for the Baek Ui Ryeon’s martial masters, and she withdrew with a wry smile.
After all their preparations and waiting for half a day, the Baek Ui Ryeon’s martial masters had not yet appeared, even as the sun began to set.
“Shouldn’t they have arrived before sunset, according to the agreement?”
Yi Song pulled his head back and gazed into the distance before answering Dong Pil’s question.
“That’s right.”
“And yet they don’t appear—doesn’t that mean they’ve taken a detour?”
Dong Pil’s concern was shifting into something that could not be dismissed as mere worry.
The sun had set, and darkness was beginning to fall.
Just as talk of pitching tents and spending the night in the open was being broached, a lone mounted warrior came riding up.
Neigh!
As the horse cried out, the warrior reined it in sharply and shouted.
“An advance scout from Baek Ui Ryeon!”
“Ah! An escort from the Maeng Ui Dan, dispatched to guide them.”
Jang Min Soo stepped forward and replied, and the Baek Ui Ryeon warrior spoke.
“The main force’s departure has been delayed—we are scheduled to arrive here tomorrow morning.”
“Understood. We shall await you.”
At Jang Min Soo’s reply, the Baek Ui Ryeon warrior immediately wheeled his horse and rode back the way he had come.
As he watched the Baek Ui Ryeon warrior fade into the distance, Dong Pil grumbled.
“I don’t like how this started. They’re doing everything their own way.”
Yi Song patted the shoulder of the griping Dong Pil and spoke.
“There must be circumstances beyond their control. The problem is that the planned search method will be difficult to execute now.”
That was true.
In fact, the original plan was to have the Baek Ui Ryeon’s martial masters rest here for the night after their afternoon arrival, and meanwhile the Jeok Sa Jo would leave some guides behind and conduct a second search of the territory they had already covered, positioning themselves to lead the way.
It was a plan that followed the basic doctrine of precision searching conducted before the deployment of a large main force.
Of course, when Yi Song mentioned that they would search again the areas they had already thoroughly covered, the recruits wore expressions of incomprehension.
In any case, that plan had become pointless with the Baek Ui Ryeon’s martial masters arriving tomorrow morning.
“Tonight is too early—we’ll need to start from dawn, won’t we?”
Yi Song posed the question, and Jeok Sa nodded.
“But that requires faster movement. Won’t the detailed search we did before become rather difficult?”
Yi Song’s question, and Jeok Sa answered.
“We’ll divide again. Commander Jang will stay with Hee Joon, Chul Ja Yong, and Chul Ja Gyeong to guide the path, while the rest split into five teams for the advance search.”
The moment Jeok Sa’s decision fell, Dong Pil, who had been listening quietly beside him, called out.
“We search at dawn. Get what sleep you can, and we depart at the Rat Hour.”
At Dong Pil’s shout, the members of Jeok Sa Jo stirred into action.
They moved quickly to set up their personal tents, just as before.
Though the newcomers wondered if they’d manage only an hour or two of sleep before dawn, they shook their heads at the troublesome business of erecting tents and scattered about to find rest where they could.
***
Sleep during a mission is, for some reason, always shorter and sweeter.
As if to prove it, Jeok Sa roused the team members the moment they’d shut their eyes.
“It’s the Rat Hour. Up.”
“Already? Damn, feels like I just closed my eyes.”
At Dong Pil’s lament-filled words, quiet laughter bubbled up from various corners.
In the midst of that laughter came the bustle of team members striking their tents.
The newcomers buttoned their clothes as they watched the others work.
Even though they’d circulated their internal energy between gaps to drive back the cold, they felt their bodies stiffened nonetheless.
Jeok Sa, glancing at the newcomers, said something to Yi Song.
Moments later, Yi Song made his rounds among the newcomers, warning them to be sure and eat dried provisions today.
The moment his caution ended, Jeok Sa himself began chewing dried provisions and set out from the camp.
As the team members departed in five separate groups, Jang Min Soo stood beside Hee Joon, seeing them off with Chul Ja Yong and his sister Chul Ja Gyeong.
It was not as though the guide party left behind could rest at their ease.
Under Jang Min Soo’s direction, Hee Joon, Chul Ja Yong, and Chul Ja Gyeong combed through the surrounding area meticulously.
They were rechecking every place an enemy might conceal themselves.
Moving busily in this way, the sun rose before long, and day broke.
When a great aura was felt approaching, Hee Joon moved to Jang Min Soo’s side, and the Chul Ja siblings drew near as well.
Shortly after, Baek Ui Ryeon martial artists began appearing one by one.
At the very front of the approaching Baek Ui Ryeon warriors, a man of imposing stature rode forward on a tall horse.
Crack!
Jang Min Soo took a proper bow stance and lowered his head.
“The Jeok Sa Jo of Maeng Ui Dan welcomes the brothers of Baek Ui Ryeon on behalf of Cheol Hyeol Maeng.”
In response to Jang Min Soo’s formal greeting, the imposing man seated askew atop his horse asked.
“Are you the Jeok Sa from the rumors?”
“No, sir. The Leader set out ahead with team members for the search. I am Jang Min Soo, serving as the commander of Jeok Sa Jo.”
At Jang Min Soo’s answer, the man atop the horse’s expression darkened.
“So a mere squad commander has come out to meet me, Hong Tak!”
At the booming voice, Chul Ja Yong, who had begun to bristle, flinched at the name Hong Tak.
Hong Tak, sect master of the Bulsan Sect, was formidable not merely in position but in ability as well.
He was one of the Fifteen Superior Experts of Kangho, those masters of the Internal Energy Realm, and held his name proudly among the Top Three Experts.
His epithet was the Ten Directional Fist Lord.
It was a name bestowed upon him because when he unleashed his fists, all ten directions were simultaneously filled with Hong Tak’s knuckles.
His arrogance was hardly something to reproach.
He possessed ability enough to swagger justly.
Of course, if he had possessed humility, it would have been all the better, but Kangho was a place teeming with people who lived drunk on their own brilliance, and Hong Tak knew this truth as well as any.
Jang Min Soo, who understood this better than most, bowed more deeply still.
“In this declining age of the martial world, it is an honor that we should meet such an illustrious figure as Master Hong.”
At Jang Min Soo’s words—insult though they were—delivered without a breach of courtesy, Hong Tak’s eyes glinted with something like approval, and he smirked.
“Good. I’ll overlook Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s audacity for now, given your sharp manners. Show me the way.”
“Will you not take breakfast before departing?”
“Breakfast? We’re in the middle of a campaign. How can we afford the luxury of breakfast, lunch, and the like? We ate dried provisions on the way here. You weren’t thinking of keeping us waiting for breakfast, were you?”
Jang Min Soo bowed again to Hong Tak, whose expression made clear he would be disappointed if the answer were yes.
“We have already eaten and have been waiting. I shall take the lead, so please follow.”
“Very well. Let’s see what this fat Cheol Hyeol Maeng territory looks like.”
Though he well knew they had entered Cheol Hyeol Maeng’s domain once they set foot in Hubei, such words were clearly provocation.
Jang Min Soo, nudging the shoulder of Chul Ja Yong, who had begun to bristle, took the lead with a composed face and moved forward.
Following Jang Min Soo, Chul Ja Yong suppressed his anger as best he could and began to guide the Baek Ui Ryeon warriors along with his sister Chul Ja Gyeong and Hee Joon.
***
While Jang Min Soo, Hee Joon, and the Chul Ja siblings were guiding the Baek Ui Ryeon warriors, the search parties that had gone ahead were once more thoroughly combing through the territory they had already covered.
Of course, the problem was that this thoroughness differed somewhat from the main force’s two teams, given the presence of three teams of newcomers.
“Don’t you think the pace of advance is far too fast? Shouldn’t we slow them down?”
Watching the three newly arrived teams disappear into the distance, their forms no longer visible even to Jeok Sa’s keen eye, Ryu shook his head at Yi Song’s concern.
“Let them be.”
Yi Song found it difficult to grasp why Ryu, so unlike his usual self, would choose such detachment.
Yet knowing that Ryu never acted without thought, Yi Song simply nodded.
“Understood.”
The main force—two teams, moving as methodically as reconnaissance scouts—finally reached the designated area after a full day’s march.
The afternoon sun had already passed its zenith.
After securing a vantage point that afforded easy surveillance and waiting roughly two hours, the warriors of the Baek Ui Ryeon arrived, their flags held high and banners billowing.
Ryu, still seated astride his horse with an air of indifference, patted Jang Min Soo’s shoulder in acknowledgment, then cast a dismissive glance at Hong Tak, who remained perched on his mount with an air of pretense, before turning his gaze elsewhere.
That gesture—one might even call it contempt—left Hong Tak too unnerved to protest.
The chill that had coursed through him during that brief exchange of looks was too vivid to ignore.
‘The rumors weren’t exaggerated after all!’
Recalling the bristling intensity he’d felt moments before—that prickling sensation at the base of his skull—Hong Tak dismounted and approached Ryu.
“Are you the one called Jeok Sa?”
Jeok Sa turned to face him.
…….
Meeting only silent regard from Ryu’s eyes, Hong Tak felt himself involuntarily shrinking, and so he deliberately straightened his posture and assumed a formal martial stance.
“I am Hong Tak, graced by my brothers with the excessive title of Ten Directional Fist Lord.”
Though the Kangho was brutal and might regard raw power as the sole measure, it struck Ryu as curious that a sect master would bow first—and his gaze reflected that surprise as he returned the courtesy with a formal stance of his own.
“I am Ryu, called Jeok Sa.”
Even in this simple introduction, Hong Tak felt a profound impression taking root.
It was not that Ryu scattered his presence in all directions; rather, Hong Tak found himself subtly overwhelmed by a sensation he could not fully name.
‘He commands the space around him without appearing to do so—that must be it.’
Having found his own explanation, Hong Tak spoke again, his eyes alight with genuine admiration.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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