Chapter 88
The Flower-Glutton promptly picked up the bowl and hurled it at the man in front of him, then immediately leaped upward. Several swords stabbed into the chair beneath him.
While suspended in midair, the Flower-Glutton drove his foot straight into the face of the man closest to him. The kick, imbued with internal energy, broke the man’s nose and teeth and sent him flying into the distance, where he crashed to the ground.
The Flower-Glutton shouted excitedly.
“One!”
Using the recoil from kicking the man, the Flower-Glutton somersaulted through the air. In the meantime, several blades narrowly passed by his body.
The Flower-Glutton landed behind two men in an instant and thrust out both hands, sending out palm strikes. The men, struck squarely in the back by the fierce palm force, coughed up blood and collapsed forward.
“Two, three!”
Suddenly, a sword flew in from behind. The blade plunged deep into the Flower-Glutton’s back. Yet the Flower-Glutton was completely unharmed. Only then did the man who had stabbed him realize that he had pierced cotton. He hurriedly shouted.
“This bastard’s back is fake–AAAGH!”
“You’re only figuring that out now?”
The Flower-Glutton slammed his fist into the man’s jaw. Then he spun halfway around to evade an incoming sword and, with his left foot, delivered a spinning kick to the chest of the man behind him.
Crack.
The sound of breaking bones rang out. The man collapsed without even being able to scream.
“Four, five!”
The Flower-Glutton grabbed the falling man’s nape. Then, without even looking, he spun the man’s body around and used him to block an attack from the side. The man who had just brought his sword down screamed.
“This fucking–!”
The Flower-Glutton hurled the man he was holding with all his strength. The man swinging his sword and another man beside him collided and staggered.
Taking advantage of the opening, the Flower-Glutton rushed in, grabbed both men’s heads, and smashed them together.
BAM!
Their heads split open, blood flowing from them. The Flower-Glutton released the men and bent down.
Whoosh.
A blade passed over his head. The Flower-Glutton grabbed the arm of the man attacking from the side and pulled him closer, striking him in the abdomen with his knee. At the same time, he drove his left elbow into another man’s solar plexus.
Four men fell in the blink of an eye.
“Six, seven, eight, nine!”
The fight was completely one-sided.
Several men fell before they even had a chance to do anything. Those who had initially responded calmly grew increasingly frightened, until eventually they were simply swinging their swords wildly.
And the Flower-Glutton wasn’t about to let such an opportunity pass. He slipped between their crude sword swings, moving his hands and feet, and the men fell one after another. Just as he finally drove his fist into the last remaining man…
Swish
The Flower-Glutton suddenly retreated at high speed. He managed to evade the blade that had shot out in an instant, but the edge of his clothing was slightly cut.
The Flower-Glutton looked ahead with interest. The Green Snake Sect’s Second Leader, Jin Se-ha, was holding his fan out in front of him.
“Oh?”
Since Jin Se-ha had been casually holding it when he first appeared, the Flower-Glutton had assumed it was merely a wooden fan. But upon closer inspection, it was actually an iron fan disguised by being covered with paper.
The ribs of the fan had been sharpened to be sharper than most blades, and a pointed awl protruded from its tip.
The Flower-Glutton spread both arms and spoke in a delighted voice.
“Good. Shall we see what you’re made of?”
With those words, Jin Se-ha charged.
Jin Se-ha’s martial arts were truly peculiar. Judging from the way he cut with the edge of the fan, it resembled saber techniques, while the techniques in which he struck with the flat of the fan resembled staff techniques.
When the edge of the fan came slicing toward his left, the Flower-Glutton tilted his body to the right. Then the fan ribs that seemed about to slice his shoulder suddenly turned sideways and swung toward his chest.
The Flower-Glutton was about to retreat when he suddenly sensed something ominous. He thrust one foot forward and shifted his body diagonally to evade it.
At that moment, an awl shot forward like lightning toward the direction in which he had been about to retreat. It was an acupoint-sealing technique aimed at his vital points.
Because it was an extremely brief motion of stabbing and immediately retracting, someone might easily fail to notice it. But the Flower-Glutton saw that instant clearly and shouted.
“Excellent acupoint-sealing technique!”
His signature technique was neither the saber technique that slashed with the fan ribs nor the staff technique that struck with the flat of the fan.
He used the iron fan to perform feints that made his movements appear like saber and staff techniques. Then, while his opponent was distracted by the apparent slashing attacks, he would target their acupoints with the pointed tip.
And the Flower-Glutton’s assessment was correct. Jin Se-ha had maintained a calm expression at his words, but inwardly, he was flustered.
‘How did he know?’
An ordinary martial artist would have already fallen victim to his hands. His specialty was to seal their acupoints in an instant while they were distracted by the feints performed with his iron fan. Yet the Flower-Glutton had recognized it immediately.
His first attempt had seemed to be avoided purely by instinct, but after quickly grasping Jin Se-ha’s technique, the Flower-Glutton watched the movement of the awl precisely and avoided every attack.
No matter how many feints Jin Se-ha mixed in, no matter how subtle his saber techniques were, none of it was effective. Even his Iron Fan Saber Technique, a technique he had painstakingly developed, was completely useless.
Jin Se-ha grew anxious.
‘He has already seen through all of my martial arts. If I continue fighting like this, I have no chance of winning. On top of that, his movement technique is exceptional, so he’s avoiding every one of my attacks. If only I could make him lower his guard just once…’
At that moment, Jin Se-ha’s eyes fell upon the tables and chairs scattered around the inn.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Jin Se-ha swung his iron fan as though attacking the Flower-Glutton, instead smashing the tables and chairs. Then he picked up the broken pieces and began throwing them at the Flower-Glutton.
Of course, there was no way the Flower-Glutton would be hit by such debris. Although he wondered why Jin Se-ha was attacking so recklessly, he spoke in a mocking tone.
“Is this perhaps your all-or-nothing technique? Throwing things around like a child throwing a tantrum. Truly, I can feel the bearing of a great master.”
“……”
Yet despite the Flower-Glutton’s sarcasm, Jin Se-ha didn’t answer.
Suddenly, Jin Se-ha grabbed several pieces and threw them all at once. The fragments, infused with internal energy, shot toward the Flower-Glutton.
The Flower-Glutton easily dodged them without much effort.
In that instant, Jin Se-ha sprang out right beside him. He had approached from the side while the Flower-Glutton was distracted by dodging the fragments.
Jin Se-ha pressed the side of his fan, immediately firing poisoned needles.
Shuk, shuk, shuk!
“……!”
In that split second, the Flower-Glutton’s eyes widened, and his figure disappeared.
The Flower-Glutton’s movement was bizarre. The poisoned needles had clearly seemed to hit him, yet he was suddenly somewhere else. It was as though he appeared here and vanished there in the blink of an eye.
Whoosh.
And then, wind stirred.
Jin Se-ha stepped backward to avoid the wind, then opened his eyes wide.
The poisoned needles he had fired were gathered in the Flower-Glutton’s sleeve. The Flower-Glutton shook the needles out and smiled faintly.
“Not bad.”
The corner of Jin Se-ha’s mouth trembled.
Firing poisoned needles through the mechanism inside his fan just now had been Jin Se-ha’s final trump card. And now even that technique had been stopped.
‘I’ve completely lost.’
In this fight, defeat meant only death.
As Jin Se-ha sensed his end approaching, the Flower-Glutton calmly continued speaking.
“That was quite a decent technique. You could call it despicable, but firing poisoned needles from a fan while the opponent is off guard… I imagine many masters must have met their end to that technique. Even I felt a chill run through my chest.”
“……”
“If you’d used this technique to eliminate evil people, we might have become friends. But you have harmed nothing but innocent lives…”
The Flower-Glutton abruptly stopped speaking.
Jin Se-ha froze as well.
“I’ll finish this now.”
There was no time left to think. Jin Se-ha immediately turned and began sprinting toward the door.
He had already thrown away the dignity of being the Green Snake Sect’s Second-in-Command. The only thought in his mind was that he had to survive somehow and live to fight another day.
But his escape didn’t last long. The Flower-Glutton was already blocking the doorway.
“Move!”
Jin Se-ha screamed and launched a palm strike. But the Flower-Glutton didn’t evade. He answered with an identical palm strike.
At first, the strength of their palm strikes seemed similar. But in an instant, the Flower-Glutton withdrew his right hand, then extended his left hand and unleashed another palm strike. Then he thrust the withdrawn right hand forward like a gale, adding its palm force to the attack.
Three Linked Palms.
A wave of palm force that grew more powerful with each of the three strikes swept over Jin Se-ha in an instant.
“No…!”
THUD!
Unable to withstand the palm force, Jin Se-ha’s body flew through the air and slammed into the wall.
CRASH!
And then he died. His internal organs had ruptured, killing him instantly.
“……”
The Flower-Glutton straightened his body and looked at Jin Se-ha, who had now become a corpse.
Then he turned his gaze away. At the end of his line of sight was the man who had been secretly watching the situation from outside through the window.
The man’s eyes met the Flower-Glutton’s.
The Flower-Glutton smiled and asked,
“Did you enjoy the show?”
***
Afterward, the Flower-Glutton woke one of the Green Snake Sect men who had been knocked unconscious and asked him where they had taken the women.
At first, the man didn’t understand what was happening. But when he saw the Second Leader, who had been slammed into the wall and was now dead with his tongue hanging out, he became terrified and confessed everything in painstaking detail.
The Flower-Glutton immediately went to the Green Snake Sect’s headquarters.
After that… A rumor spread throughout the martial world that the Green Snake Sect had been wiped out by the Flower-Glutton.
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