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Chapter 120. Five Dragons Fight for a Pearl (16)

“Agh!!!!”

Shouts echoed from afar. Woo-Moon closed the Dao De Jing and placed it back into his sleeve. His head began to pound. The further he walked, the louder the clash of weapons. Eventually, the deputy commander shouted, “All troops! Use your movement arts to the maximum and strike down those Black Hand bastards there!”

Roar!!!

Following the order, the troops of the Justice Coalition raced forward, each using their unique movement arts. As a result, the formation naturally began to split apart according to the different levels of martial skill. However, the collapse of the formation didn’t matter, as military formations didn’t play a significant role in murim wars.

Woo-Moon looked into the distance as he quickly ran forward, circulating his qi as quickly as possible to drive his movement art.

While the small fry began fighting among themselves in a large-scale battle, the Fist Emperor and the other leaders of the Justice Coalition had already been engaged in a heaven-shaking battle with the Ten Demon Generals.

Boom!! Crackk!!!

The ground ruptured and split apart while the air trembled. On this battlefield, the Fist Emperor was truly unrivaled.

The Black Bull Gang lacked Absolute Masters. They only had one—their leader, the Lust Emperor.

However, although they were lacking in Absolute Masters, they had many Transcendent experts, such as the Ten Demon Generals. It was said that if the ten of them joined forces, they could even defeat an Absolute Master. Seeing how the battle was going, it seemed like the rumor wasn’t a lie, either.

Even though the Fist Emperor had joined forces with the experts of the Justice Coalition, they were still unable to defeat these ten, only having a slight advantage at best.

From the clamor, the Ten Demon Generals realized that the Justice Coalition troops had arrived.

The first of the Ten Demon Generals, Dark-Faced Asura called out in a grating metallic voice, “Let’s go.”

“Understood!”

All of them withdrew, and the Black Bull Gang forces followed quickly in a retreat. Although the excited troops of the Justice Coalition began to chase, the Fist Emperor shouted at them to stop.

“Halt! The size of the enemy’s forces is smaller than what we know them to be! They’ll definitely be waiting for us with a trap or have already divided their forces to target our rear! They could even be surrounding us! Stop the chase immediately and return!”

As the enemies were retreating when they arrived, Woo-Moon and the Wind Sword Squadron didn’t have to stain their weapons with blood, leaving Woo-Moon scratching his head.

“I was nervous for no reason.”

A short time later, he entered the barracks erected in the rear of their encampment and briefly unpacked. After lying down for a while, he emerged from his tent and asked around to find the Baek Family troops.

“It’s over there, sir.”

Getting directions from a soldier, he walked in the direction pointed out to him.

“Uncle!”

The first to welcome him was Ye-Ye. As he responded to her greeting, Woo-Moon inspected the members of the Baek Family one by one.

“How are things? Are there any injured?”

“Ah, we’re fortunate that none of us were hurt in the melee, just a few minor scratches here and there. However, Uncle Jo-Yeong was... when the Ten Demon Generals suddenly appeared, he...”

Baek Jo-Yeong was someone with whom Woo-Moon was only barely acquainted, but he did have some recollection of the man.

‘He was always smiling whenever we met...’

Now, he could see that Ye-Ye’s eyes were tinged red, while some of the others who were close to Jo-Yeong were shedding tears and mourning.

Even though he wasn’t close to Jo-Yeong, Woo-Moon felt an overwhelming anger inside of him.

‘How dare you bastards, you Black Hand pieces of shit who leech off of others, harm my family?’

“Ah! Uncle, I’m sorry. A messenger just arrived to tell us there’s a meeting. We’ll talk more later.”

“Okay, go.”

As Ye-Ye left, the others from the Baek Family came to greet Woo-Moon individually. It seemed even nicer to be able to see a familiar face after the battle they had just fought. Ye-Ye seemed to have received and listened to his instructions, as Woo-Moon noticed that the troops that the Baek Family had brought didn’t exceed forty percent of their total forces, and no one from the Invincible Forged Squadron was present, either.

After staying in the barracks of the Baek Family for a while, Woo-Moon returned to the barracks of the Wind Sword Squadron.

That night, Woo-Moon was summoned to the tent of Ho Mu-Bok, the advisor of the third army.

“It seems as though those Black Bull Bastards have divided their forces and are advancing secretly. We have to dispatch a scouting party. Each squadron will take three of the possible routes.”

Six high-ranking people had been called to the commander’s tent. Each was assigned three directions, so the scouting party was set to handle the eighteen possible routes the Black Bull Gang could take.

“Understood,” everyone answered in unison.

Woo-Moon returned to the Wind Sword Squadron Barracks after receiving the exact scouting locations.

“Everyone get up. We’ve been assigned a mission. Night recon.”

The faces of the squadron members distorted into grimaces as soon as Woo-Moon finished his words.

“Can’t we ever just rest?”

“Isn’t... isn’t this just too insulting? Do we really have to lower ourselves to do the scouting ourselves? I mean, I know they look down on us, but we’re still one of the Five Swords of Heavenly Justice.”

“Well, this isn’t the first time we’ve been treated like this before... but this time is a little too far.”

“Of all things, night reconnaissance... I’m sleepy...”

Woo-Moon also loved sleeping, so he naturally agreed with Ra Mi and also didn’t like this mission.

Still, what could they do? Moreover, if there really was a separate army set to attack the Baek Family, things would destabilize further. Thus, there was nothing they could do.

“Me too, but orders are orders. We’ll have to split into three groups.”

Immediately, the members’ expressions became slightly strange. Suddenly, they all distanced themselves from Ra Mi or glanced nervously at her.

‘What’s going on?’

The moment Woo-Moon was about to ask, the bald young man, Ha Gun-Choong, put his hand inside his shirt and scratched his stomach. He then took a step backward.

“I will never work in the same group as Ra Mi.”

Seeing Han Gun-Choong say it outright, the others tripped over themselves to also say the same thing, not wanting to be the last one stuck with her.

“Neither will I.”

“I would like to refuse as well, Captain.”

Every single one of them came out and refused.

‘Zzzz...’

Woo-Moon finally understood why. He had seen it too—how Ra Mi immediately attacked without fail if she sensed a man even approaching her personal space while she was sleeping.

The problem was that she slept nearly all of the time. Although she was reasonable when she was awake, if she happened to fall asleep while close to you, she would immediately draw her sword and attack the second her eyes started to droop.

Moreover, although Ra Mi could walk or even use her movement technique to run while sleeping, someone would have to call her name or forcefully wake her up if they wanted to change directions or do anything else. Things didn’t stop there, either—they would also have to hope she didn’t fall back asleep before they were able to fully explain their next moves or risk having to start all over again.

Thus, rather than being a partner, she was, in fact, more like a burden.

Although the others had their own fair share of issues, they all avoided Ra Mi without fail when they had to carry out a mission.

‘Whew...’

“Okay, fine. I’ll go with Ra Mi. Then, Peng Tianhao, So Gun-Pil, and Ha Gun-Choong will go together; Mu Bi, Tang Yuk, and Zhu Mubai will go together. Peng Tianhao and Mu Bi, you’re the leaders, okay?”

While Peng Tianhao was fine, Woo-Moon had been worried that there might be some dissatisfaction within the squadron about entrusting the third team to the relatively young Mu Bi. However, thankfully, that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Good. Then, let’s go!”

Woo-Moon led the others to the rendezvous point before explaining each of their individual scouting routes before they all separated.

“We’ll rendezvous here in one hour. The mission starts now!”

The two other groups departed, leaving Woo-Moon and Ra Mi behind.

“We should go too, Ra Mi.”

Hearing her name being called, Ra Mi opened her eyes. Woo-Moon took that opportunity to explain quickly where they were going while she was awake.

“Understood.”

Although it wasn’t always exact, she would usually be able to stay awake for about seven minutes if she tried her hardest.

Woo-Moon ran down the dark path while constantly checking on the sleep-running Ra Mi behind him, worried that she might veer off in her sleep and run somewhere else.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to lose her way.

As Woo-Moon thought that there might not be any enemies in his scouting path, he suddenly heard Ma-Ra’s voice transmission.

—Woo-Moon. Escape route blocked. Enemies coming from very far away.

They were approaching so secretly that not even Woo-Moon had noticed it.

Ma-Ra was following Woo-Moon from quite a distance away, at his request, using the distance as a better vantage point. Thus, she was able to discover the enemy and warn Woo-Moon.

“Ra Mi!”

“Zzzz..... Huh?”

“We’re surrounded. It seems the enemy planned to kill the scouting parties that came out of the encampment.”

The Black Bull Gang seemed to have already predicted the moves of the Justice Coalition, banking on the fact that the Coalition had a lot to protect. They had set up traps for the large number of scouting parties that the Justice Coalition may have sent, worried about attacks to their rear.

They had planned everything in advance—once the scout teams were far enough from the encampment, they would simply dispose of all of them.

“...what do we do?”

Ra Mi woke up, seemingly having realized that things were serious. Seeing how nervous she was, Woo-Moon could sense that she would be awake for a couple of minutes.

“What do you mean, what do we do? We have to break through and return to the encampment. There’s definitely a hidden troop here and that’s why they’re trying to block our reconnaissance like this.”

Woo-Moon took out a fire stick from his sleeve and produced Samadhi True Flame, using it to light the end of the wick.

Woosh!

Yellow fireworks rose into the sky, signaling a retreat.

“Is it really okay to signal the others? There are enemies nearby!”

“What does it matter? We’re surrounded on all sides, so we’ll have to fight anyway. Let’s go, Ra Mi.”

“Understood.”

Woo-Moon and Ra Mi quickly used their movement arts, darting to the rendezvous point as Ra Mi desperately tried to stay awake.

Woo-Moon could see her struggle whenever he looked back from time to time.

‘Narcolepsy, huh... now that I think about it, it must be a really hard condition to endure.’

Woosh, woosh, woosh!

Arrows came piercing out of nowhere, screeching through the air.

“Pesky flies!”

Woo-Moon kicked off the ground and jumped up, removing his outer robe in one fluid motion and swinging it around. Most of the arrows raining down on him and Ra Mi were caught by the whirlwind caused by the swirling robe, falling helplessly to the ground.

“Ra Mi! Keep running!”

“Understood.”

As he fell from the air, Woo-Moon grabbed whatever arrows he had actually caught in the robe, throwing them forward one by one and jumping between them to move forward. It was an ingenious way to avoid wasting time running on the ground.

Suddenly, a group of assailants of the Black Bull Gang, wearing all black, blocked Ra Mi’s path.

“Die!”

Instantly, Ra Mi unleashed a swift sword, cutting open the chest of the assailant in front of her. Woo-Moon also landed by her side and unleashed Raging Wind.

“Says who?”

Squelch.

Three men in black fell down at the same time, spewing blood.

Then, a girl wearing a flower gown suddenly appeared behind Woo-Moon like a ghost and shot something out of her sleeves. It was so transparent that it was difficult to distinguish what it was clearly. As it flew forward, it dug into the mass of assailants without a sound, cutting into their necks.

Squelch.

Two Silver Moon Discs sent six heads flying into the air before returning to Ma-Ra’s hands, this time soaked in blood.

As soon as she caught them, her figure disappeared into the darkness again. At the same time, Woo-Moon’s sword swung in another arc, sending blood flying everywhere.

“You could’ve ambushed literally anyone else, but you just had to ambush us!”

Woo-Moon stepped on the corpse of a man in black and jumped forward, unleashing a Raging Wind Palm.

Wooosh!

The compressed air flew at an incredible speed, pulverizing the upper body of the person in black closest to him while also breaking the neck of the one behind. Moreover, it didn’t stop there; the palm wind continued forward, injuring the people further behind and throwing them in all directions.

“Agh!!!”

There were a total of forty Black Bull Gang members blocking them. However, in less than five seconds, almost half of them had died.

“What the hell?! Aren’t they just supposed to be a three-man scouting team?! Just what the hell is this?!”