Chapter 21

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

I don’t know why……

Currently, everyone in the room except me had a very serious expression on their faces.

Some of them were trembling, and others were pretending to cover their mouths with their hands, but I didn’t understand their actions.

“What’s with the atmosphere? Are you doing this because you think my suggestion is too harsh, or is it because you think it’s ridiculous for a nameless foot soldier like me to make empty threats? If it’s the former, I’ll consider a compromise, but if it’s the latter, I won’t show any mercy. So make up your minds quickly. Either you stay here, get beaten up, and become a fool, or you get out of here obediently.”

Still, I……

I’m not hot-tempered, nor am I a stubborn, unreasonable fool, so I gave them a chance.

Literally, I was willing to explore a reasonable compromise if they argued against the injustice of my suggestion.

But unfortunately……

“J-Jin So-cheon…… You must really want to d*e!”

Boar, the leader of the Green Gang, doesn’t seem to want to understand my generosity.

“I wanted to end this with a conversation, saying that a good thing is a good thing. But I guess it can’t be helped, huh? Sigh……”

I let out a sigh of regret and issued my final warning.

Then, leader Boar, not grasping the atmosphere again, cuts in,

“You d*mn dog! I swear on my name that I’ll tear your body to pieces today, burn your corpse, and scatter it across the Chang’an B*idge lakeside!”

I found his behavior amusing, and since it was time to get moving, I spoke to Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong.

“Let’s go.”

◈ ◈ ◈

“Come at me, you trash!”

“I’ll beat you to a pulp!”

“Come in, you bastards!”

As soon as the battle began, Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong shouted at the top of their lungs.

I think I understood why they were provoking their opponents so much.

First, the Dongdong brothers were former members of the Green Gang.

They used to eat from the same pot as those guys.

As a result, the Dongdong brothers were now in a position similar to traitors, and it must have been mentally challenging for them to endure the constant looks of contempt from the Green Gang members.

But I was sure.

That Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong wouldn’t let such shallow emotions ruin their fight.

They regretted their past that much, and didn’t they become disillusioned with the Green Gang’s wickedness around the time they left the organization?

Therefore, I had no doubt that Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong would atone for their past mistakes today.

But……

“You traitors!”

“K*ll them!”

“I’ll gouge out your eyes!”

Unexpectedly, a large number of people emerged from various parts of the Lotus Pavilion, brandishing dangerous weapons at the Dongdong brothers!

‘There must be at least a hundred of them……’

For a moment, I thought I should help the Dongdong brothers, so I tried to move towards where they were confronting the enemies.

But I couldn’t.

Leader Boar and his right-hand and left-hand men, who looked like a Domestic Pig and a Rabbit with buck teeth, blocked my way with their Great Swords.

“Hehe. Jin So-cheon. From the moment you entered the Lotus Pavilion, your fate was sealed.”

Leader Boar let out a sinister laugh.

How sinister was it? It was so disgusting that it made me want to vomit just by looking at him.

Seeing his dark skin, his obese body with flabby flesh, his greasy voice escaping through his rotten smile, and his yellowed teeth, I felt a surge of irritation.

So, without saying a word, I took action.

Bang—!

I kicked leader Boar in the face.

“L-Leader!”

“Leader!”

The leader crashed to the floor, along with his yellowed teeth, and at the same time, the Domestic Pig and the Rabbit looked back and forth between the leader and me with disbelief.

“Surprised?”

I asked the Domestic Pig and the Rabbit, who still didn’t grasp the situation.

But they couldn’t answer.

They were probably dumbfounded by my ‘no-recoil’ kick.

‘No-recoil unarmed combat’ is this scary.

Originally, all external martial arts have certain preliminary movements.

Therefore, unlike fights between ordinary people, fights between martial artists can be formal battles where they can see, dodge, and counterattack.

That’s how much preliminary movements act as information to predict the opponent’s attack patterns and forms.

But my ‘no-recoil’ technique has no preliminary movements.

When I throw a punch, only the fist flies out, and when I kick, only the foot flies out. Unnecessary movements for punching and kicking are fundamentally eliminated.

This was an advantage created by my assassin experience and the foundation of my martial arts.

“You……”

“Y-You…… Just who the h*ll!”

Suddenly, the Domestic Pig and the Rabbit stammered, their faces filled with astonishment.

“Now do you understand?”

“……”

“The moment I entered the Lotus Pavilion…… Your fates were sealed.”

Grin—.

I returned the same line the leader had said to me, even mimicking his disgusting smile.

I didn’t want to act like this, but I did it unconsciously.

Why is that?

After being reincarnated, I keep having funny thoughts and doing strange things.

Maybe my mind has cleared up because I’m living a different life from my past life?

Pow—!

“Ugh!”

Wham—!

“Gah!”

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I immediately proceeded to my next action.

My next action was to smash the faces of the Domestic Pig and the Rabbit who were standing there stupidly.

“That, that b*stard!”

I swiftly punched the Domestic Pig and the Rabbit in the face, and blood mixed with broken bone fragments poured out of their noses. A shocked curse escaped the lips of another guy who happened to witness it.

I then landed a stomp on the other guy’s head, but I unintentionally put too much force into it, and his head cracked.

“Gasp!”

He let out a single groan, close to a death rattle, and collapsed like a rotten tree. He’s probably dead, or he’ll be a fool for the rest of his life.

“I hit him too hard. Sorry.”

You should’ve watched your mouth in the martial world.

Well, even if he had watched his mouth, the result would’ve been the same.

◈ ◈ ◈

I’ve definitely become stronger.

The current state of the battle proved it.

After my reincarnation, my first battle was against five masked men from the Black Society, and the next was against 100 bandits from the Iron Blood Gang. Each time, I realized how weak I had become.

Especially when I was fighting the Iron Blood Gang bandits, I unknowingly fell into a state of Heart Demon. If I had made a mistake then, I might have committed the heinous act of slaughtering all 100 of them alive.

But how about this time?

Against the 120 or so Green Gang ruffians, who were far better fighters than the Iron Blood Gang bandits, I was displaying an ironclad stamina, not even taking a single breath.

There’s a saying in the martial world.

「There are as many eccentrics in the martial world as there are grains of sand in the Yangtze River.」

The gist of this saying is to always be humble because there are all sorts of people in the martial world……

Even considering that, it’s impossible for a person to become as strong as me in just a few months.

Even if the Demonic Cult leader or the Sword Emperor, old man Dokgo Hwang, taught a Heavenly Gifted Body, they wouldn’t be able to achieve this level of growth, right?

But I made the impossible possible.

Of course, this isn’t because I’m a genius like the best talent of all time, but because of the advantage of utilizing my past life’s experience. But anyway, it’s true that I’m amazing, so I can be proud of myself.

Especially,

“Do you think you can defeat us so easily?!”

“Come on! Even if my bones break, I’ll bite you to death with my teeth.”

“It’s not over yet, you bastards!”

Seeing the Dongdong brothers fighting well while overcoming the overwhelming numerical disadvantage and shouting, I felt a surge of excitement in my heart.

“A-Are those…… really the Kang brothers?”

“The Kang brothers are the Kang brothers, but…… that Jin guy is really……”

“……Is this for real?”

The Green Gang members were also shocked by our unexpected performance, watching the situation with astonishment. I didn’t give them time to be surprised and smashed their faces with my Iron Head Technique.

“Gaaaaah!”

In short, the Lotus Pavilion was now like a scene of chaos, a h*ll of carnage, a battlefield of villains, a historical site where the peace of Chang’an stood tall, and a monumental site where So-yun’s father and three former ruffians seized control of a s*itty neighborhood.

『Il-dong, Yi-dong, Sam-dong. I see your movements are getting slower, so you must be running out of stamina. Start defending yourselves and retreat behind me. If you keep fighting with your arms sore and legs wobbly, you might get stabbed.』

I sent a telepathic message to the Dongdong brothers, whose movements were gradually slowing down as I was flitting here and there, overwhelming the Green Gang members.

As the telepathic message said, Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong were reaching their physical limits.

They were fine for now, but I was worried that if they continued fighting like this in a frenzy, they might get stabbed and d*e.

Well……

They’ve done their part well enough.

『Yes, So-cheon Older Brother.』

『Understood, Big Brother.』

『Yes, Older Brother.』

As if they were waiting for my words to retreat, Il-dong, Yi-dong, and Sam-dong quickly hid behind me. I was dumbfounded and experienced a brief moment of brain freeze before I came to my senses and sent another telepathic message.

『I told you to gradually defend and retreat, but you just blatantly and quickly retreated like that? Do you guys even have a conscience……』

But the Dongdong brothers remained silent.

It seems they intend to reap the benefits without lifting a finger, but I’ll punish them for this later.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh……!

In an instant, I melted a lump of the Force attribute of the Nature Meridian, converted it into internal energy, and channeled it through my dantian to drastically enhance my reflexes.

Then, I launched a series of no-recoil attacks towards the ruffians in front of me using the High Mountain Eight Walls ━ fist, palm, kick, stomp techniques. The time it took for all these physical strikes to unfold in a chain of 12 consecutive hits each was truly a split second.

“G-Good heavens!”

“Big Brother…… You’re really not human.”

“What did I just see?!”

My chain attacks were like lightning bolts striking down.

It was so fast that even I, the one who executed it, was surprised, and the Dongdong brothers could only gasp in astonishment.

Of course,

“Groan……”

“Ugh……”

“Cough……!”

The Green Gang members, unable to even witness my attacks, could only groan as their limbs were broken, their faces smashed, and blood gushed from their heads.

“S-Spare me…… Please spare me, Boss!”

“Boss, please stop!”

“I-I was wrong. I’ll do whatever Boss says!”

The remaining unharmed members began to kneel and beg for mercy.

“You bastards. Shall we stop now?”

But why?

I blurted out another strange line without realizing it.

Actually, this was what Il-dong had said arrogantly when he was dealing with the bandits a while ago. At that time, his swagger combined with the line was so nauseating that I had smacked him on the back of his head.

But for me to utter that same idiotic line……

As expected, Il-dong glared at me with venomous eyes, and embarrassed by his gaze, I immediately tried to avoid the situation by speaking to the Green Gang members who were on the verge of death.

“I think the situation is more or less settled. Shall we start settling the accounts now?”

“……???”

“Bring me all the Lotus Pavilion’s ledgers.”