Urban Vagabond: Reload

Thump thump thump—!

As the violent heartbeat of the Great Anomaly filled the surroundings, a heavy silence flowed between the sect leader and vice sect leader of Transcendent Extremity Gate.

“.......”

“.......”

Moon Seokju examined the wounds on Sunwoo Jeha’s body and her breathing, which was quicker than usual, then laughed as if he found the whole thing absurd.

“What the hell are you talking about? Did you hit your head?”

His two trusted subordinates, who had been coming up with him, had been struck down by the Giant Tree Ghost’s convulsions, and the other two he had expected to join them soon were still nowhere to be seen.

A chill ran down the back of Moon Seokju’s neck as he thought of Kim Muhyuk, who had followed them wearing a wolf mask.

Don’t tell me they were all killed by that brat.

He did not want to believe it, but when flames had surged up below with horrifying heat, Moon Seokju had sensed it.

The Giant Tree Ghost hunt would definitely succeed today, but the chances of his own plan succeeding had fallen by just as much.

The last remaining hope was that Sunwoo Jeha had not noticed his betrayal at all, but......

Sunwoo Jeha’s eyes as she looked at him were simply indifferent.

“When I felt the commotion below.”

Although Sunwoo Jeha had been racing up the Giant Tree Ghost’s trunk without even looking back, she had continued paying attention to the people she had left behind.

If an unexpected variable occurred and Transcendent Extremity Gate’s losses grew too great, she had intended to turn back at any moment and handle it herself.

“I felt your presence, and Kim Muhyuk’s faint killing intent. The two of you were hostile to each other. Why? I thought about it, and then I realized.”

Sunwoo Jeha’s speech was much smoother and clearer than usual.

She did not speak much because there was no need, but Sunwoo Jeha was not someone bad with words.

“One of the two of you must be a traitor. And one side was trying to tell me that.”

“So I’m the traitor? Do you think that makes any sense right now?”

“.......”

“Ha-ha, fuck.......”

From the firm look in Sunwoo Jeha’s eyes, Moon Seokju realized nothing he said would get through to her, and he laughed hollowly.

At the same time, the killing intent he had been suppressing oozed stickily from his entire body.

“So in the end, it’s because of that kid.”

Rage at Kim Muhyuk, who had ruined the plan he had prepared for ten years, and a sense of betrayal toward Sunwoo Jeha, who had judged him a traitor without even the slightest hesitation, surged up inside him.

“I don’t understand, so let me ask. If the vice sect leader comes running, shouldn’t you naturally think he’s reinforcements? Does it make sense to trust some little brat you’ve only seen a few times more than me?”

Moon Seokju spoke as if he still felt wronged, approaching her without hesitation.

Up close, the injuries on Sunwoo Jeha’s body seemed rather severe. Compared to that, all he had done was consume internal energy.

At this rate, would it not be worth attempting?

“Hm? Jeha. What’s your reason for deciding I’m a traitor after I devoted myself to you for more than twenty years? Explain it so I can understand—!”

He truly was curious. Whatever she said, the result would not change, but Moon Seokju wanted to hear an answer he could accept before killing Sunwoo Jeha.

Had there been some mistake while he planned this?

Had there been anything Sunwoo Jeha might have noticed, even slightly?

“You hate me.”

Sunwoo Jeha’s answer was even simpler than he had imagined.

Hahahahahahaha!

At that moment, Moon Seokju burst into laughter so hard that tears even welled at the corners of his eyes.

It was an answer he had not expected at all, and yet, strangely enough, he understood it all at once.

“Right. You don’t pay attention to other people’s moods, but you were never someone who couldn’t read them.”

Sunwoo Jeha, whom he thought knew nothing, had felt it all.

His jealousy that she had monopolized his father’s attention, his inferiority at her taking the sect leader position, and all the obsession with one day taking everything back.

CLANG.......

Moon Seokju scraped his sword against the ground and grinned.

“What a relief. I must have been holding back for a really long time. Now then, shall we have a fight to the death over the sect leader position?”

Moon Seokju lowered his stance and was about to charge with his killing intent exposed when Sunwoo Jeha shook her head.

“I cut down Master today.”

“......What?”

Moon Seokju’s face twisted fiercely at the incomprehensible words.

Sunwoo Jeha’s eyes were no longer looking at him. Her gaze was fixed somewhere much farther away.

“It took ten years. I have no lingering regrets left now. So I think it’s fine for me to leave.”

Sunwoo Jeha let the saber and sword hang loosely at her sides and stepped aside.

“You kill the Giant Tree Ghost. And take the sect leader position too.”

“What are you talking about......?”

“I’m going to leave Transcendent Extremity Gate.”

It was the situation Moon Seokju had wanted all his life.

Yet strangely, the moment he heard those words, Moon Seokju felt a sense of deprivation, as though his entire life had been denied.

“......That isn’t what I wanted to hear.”

Moon Seokju spat the words out as if chewing them apart.

The position he had longed for so desperately that he had betrayed his father’s faith and plotted to kill a friend he had spent so many years with.

And yet you’re saying you’ll throw that position away like a worn-out shoe?

“—You don’t get to say that!”

Moon Seokju kicked off the ground, and his sword aimed for Sunwoo Jeha’s neck. It was a merciless killing move from the start.

WHIIISH!

However, Moon Seokju’s attack failed to even graze Sunwoo Jeha’s collar. Gritting his teeth, Moon Seokju unleashed the sword art he was most confident in.

A savage barrage of attacks came crashing in. Yet Sunwoo Jeha dodged every trajectory with ease, as if she had read them all in advance.

“It’s no use.”

Even exhausted and wounded, she was the Strongest in Korea.

However, Moon Seokju was also a master who had reached the realm of a supreme master.

No matter how much difference there was between them, in a fight to the death between masters who had reached the same realm, it made no sense for him to be unable to even clash weapons with her after dozens of exchanges.

“Don’t tell me.......”

Feeling a sudden, powerful sense of wrongness, Moon Seokju came to a stop.

He stared at Sunwoo Jeha in disbelief and horror. Then he asked in a trembling voice,

“Did you become a peerless master?”

Sunwoo Jeha only stared silently at Moon Seokju, her face unchanged. That was answer enough.

Peerless master.

The dream realm every martial artist longed for.

She was the second peerless master born in Korea in more than ten years, after Richard Han.

And yet Sunwoo Jeha’s expression was indifferent, as though it was nothing special.

“Kill the Giant Tree Ghost. Complete your revenge for Father with your own hands. And become the new sect leader.”

Having said what she needed to say, Sunwoo Jeha put away her saber and sword as if she truly had no lingering attachment.

“......Ha-ha.”

Moon Seokju slowly sheathed his sword and laughed hollowly.

He knew those words were Sunwoo Jeha’s final warning.

He also knew that if he refused to accept them and attacked again, she would cut him down without mercy.

“Everything else is fine, but don’t look at me with those eyes. The more you do, the more pathetic I feel.”

“That isn’t my fault. It’s an emotion your inferiority created.”

“Maybe so.......”

Moon Seokju nodded as if agreeing, then detonated his innate qi all at once.

FWOOM—!

The moment surging power overflowed through his entire body, Moon Seokju made his final gamble.

If he had charged straight at Sunwoo Jeha, her saber and sword would have split him in two without hesitation.

“You......!”

But Moon Seokju had not been aiming for Sunwoo Jeha. Feeling an ominousness like foresight, Sunwoo Jeha immediately chased after him.

However, her body, exhausted from battle after battle, could not keep up with the speed of her intuition now that she had reached the peerless realm. Moon Seokju, who had even detonated his innate qi, was one step faster than she was.

“Who do you think gave you all that information about the Giant Tree Ghost?”

Moon Seokju’s hand was already digging deep into the Giant Tree Ghost’s heart.

Seeing that, Sunwoo Jeha’s eyes wavered for the first time.

“No!”

Just before the sword force extending from her saber and sword could sever Moon Seokju’s arm, the Giant Tree Ghost spewed out all the energy it had gathered and formed a qi barrier around itself.

THUUUUUNG—!

Even as she was flung back and pushed away by the storm of qi, Sunwoo Jeha swung her saber and sword.

Cutting through the aftershock and advancing, she searched for weak points in the qi barrier and stubbornly pierced holes through it. It was the best method she could use with the internal energy she had left.

Blood flowed from her cheek, cut by the rough qi wave.

“I have to stop him......!”

The span of time was no more than an instant, but to her, it felt like an eternity. Because she had foreseen the future that would unfold a moment later.

“There were a few things I learned while researching the Giant Tree Ghost.”

As the aftereffects of the shockwave subsided and the other side of the qi barrier slowly became visible, Moon Seokju could be seen pulling something out of the Giant Tree Ghost’s heart.

“That there was a small inner core inside the heart of a Great Anomaly. Ten years ago, I realized that far too late, but.......”

Moon Seokju gazed ecstatically at the inner core in his hand as if he were looking at a dazzling jewel.

“Stop, even now. That isn’t something you can handle.”

At Sunwoo Jeha’s warning, spoken through gritted teeth, Moon Seokju smiled broadly and nodded.

“I know. But to face a monster I can’t handle, like you.”

Moon Seokju put the Great Anomaly’s inner core into his mouth and swallowed it in one gulp.

“Don’t I need to become a monster too?”

Tsssssss......

Moon Seokju’s skin began turning the color of rotten wood.

At the same time, the Giant Tree Ghost’s thrashing body lost its life like a dead tree, and the energy that had moved that massive form gathered into one place.

“Haaaaaaaaaaah.......”

It was a tremendous amount of energy, enough to make an ordinary human explode immediately.

But the body of a supreme master, trained to its limits, barely endured the Great Anomaly’s energy and accepted it.

Crack! Cr-cr-crack!

His body was forcibly reconstructed to withstand the energy contained within a Great Anomaly.

Rebirth of Bone and Flesh.

A legendary phenomenon said to be experienced only by peerless masters blessed with a miraculous opportunity.

Feeling an omnipotent sensation fill his body, as if he could do anything at all, Moon Seokju smiled broadly.

“Sunwoo Jeha. Have you lived your whole life feeling like this?”

When he lightly kicked off the ground, the distance between them vanished in an instant.

The moment Sunwoo Jeha raised her saber and sword, Moon Seokju’s fist struck them from above.

BOOM!

Sunwoo Jeha, pushed back dozens of meters, dropped to one knee.

“......Ptoo.”

Sunwoo Jeha spat out the stagnant blood that had risen from internal injury and struggled to stand.

“Hahahahahahahaha! What a wonderful sight. The Strongest in Korea kneeling before me! I wish I could take a picture and hang it on the wall!”

Moon Seokju threw his head back and burst into roaring laughter, shaking the atmosphere and making the ground quake.

That isn’t Moon Seokju. It’s the Giant Tree Ghost.

Sunwoo Jeha looked at the humanized Giant Tree Ghost with a deeply settled gaze.

Her martial arts had reached the realm of a peerless master, but internal injuries and wounds had piled up from repeated battles.

If he kills me and goes down, he’ll kill everyone else too. I can’t allow that.

Sunwoo Jeha judged the situation coldly.

This was an enemy against whom victory would not have been guaranteed even if she were in perfect condition. In her current state, her odds were even worse.

“......Master. I don’t think there’s any other way.”

Just as she thought of the same method the previous Transcendent Extremity Gate sect leader had used to seal the Giant Tree Ghost—

“Mm. I didn’t expect this situation.”

Along with a familiar voice, Sunwoo Jeha felt a warm hand touch her back.

Demon-subduing power drove out the Great Anomaly’s wicked energy that had invaded her body and calmed her urgent internal injuries.

“Hahahahahahaha! I was already planning to kill Sunwoo Jeha and come find you, but you came to me on your own?”

Even though he must have felt the terrifying presence of the Great Anomaly walking toward them in delight, the voice behind her remained calm.

“Would you like me to help a little?”

At Kim Muhyuk’s question as he stubbornly came to stand beside her, Sunwoo Jeha let out a sigh despite herself.