Chapter 17: What’s Wrong with That?

The Mad Guest, Jang Tae-san.

He was a supreme master who belonged to the Six Eccentrics of the Central Plains, and also a strange hero who vied for the top spot as the most avoided person in the martial world, along with the Poison Doctor, Oh Jung, who was also one of the Six Eccentrics.

Although he had black hair and not-so-deep wrinkles, making him look like a middle-aged man in his late fifties, the Mad Guest was an old man in his seventies. The Mad Guest, who had been nothing more than an unknown until he was around fifty, gained a martial name that encompassed the entire continent through his full-scale confrontation with the famous Seong family of Gwangyang.

The reason the Mad Guest came to be at odds with the Seong family, a member of the five great families, was ridiculously trivial. It started when one of the successors of a branch of the Seong family happened to get into an argument with him.

The successor of the Seong family, who encountered the Mad Guest at a pavilion on Goyang Lake, which was always crowded with spring visitors due to its beautiful scenery, made a fatal mistake. Mistaking the Mad Guest for a retired scholar, he urged him to decipher a difficult passage. It was a childish trick to show off his learning to the beautiful courtesans of the brothel who had accompanied him.

When the Mad Guest, his face flushed red, mumbled, the excited successor proudly recited the answer. If he had stopped there, things might not have gotten so big, but the idiot from the Seong family made the mistake of mocking the Mad Guest’s ignorance. He then roared that if he knew shame, he should crawl on his knees from now on instead of walking on two feet.

When the Mad Guest, his anger soaring, started a bet, the successor, finally realizing that he was an unbeatable master, hastily revealed that he was a successor of the Gwangyang Seong family. He then threatened that if he touched him, he would pay the price of having his three clans exterminated. However, the trump card he had presented only had the opposite effect.

The Mad Guest, who rushed at the successor, mercilessly broke his right foot. When he screamed about a hundredfold revenge, he mercilessly broke his remaining left leg as well. He then warned that if he uttered one more word, the next part would be his neck. The successor of the Seong family couldn’t even make a squeak.

The idiot from the Seong family did not consider the disaster he had brought upon himself as a misfortune and just let it go.

The Seong family, who heard his complaint, decided to punish the lawless man who had ignored their family and make an example of him. Thus, five swordsmen set out to catch the Mad Guest. The Mist Moon Blade, Seong Min, who was a master of the highest level, led them.

However, that expedition ended in failure. The swordsmen, who had intended to repay the Mad Guest in the same way the successor had suffered, were instead caught by him and had their wrists broken. Like the successor, they also obeyed the Mad Guest’s subsequent gag order. Since the Mad Guest had put their necks on the line as the object of his threat, they had no choice but to submit.

It was only natural that the Seong family was turned upside down by that incident.

Now that the honor of the entire family was at stake, the Seong family took a super-strong measure. They formed an arrest team that included two supreme sword heroes. They were going to catch the Mad Guest, drag him to Gwangyang, and behead him in front of a crowd.

Surprisingly, the Mad Guest did not flee but met them at the pavilion on the shore of Goyang Lake where the first disaster had occurred. And he refused to surrender and fought against them.

The result of the eleven-to-one fierce battle threw the martial world into a crucible of shock. Seong Jun and Seong Un, who were the third and fourth in the Seong family’s martial power ranking at the time, had their limbs broken by the Mad Guest even after using their full strength.

The Seong family, who had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of an unknown martial artist from the borderlands, had to go on an all-out war. The elite army of the Seong family, which had even mobilized the elders of the previous generation who had washed their hands of worldly affairs and retired from the front line, headed to Goyang Lake with the family head, Seong Chan, at the forefront. Although there were only eight of them, they were a powerful force that could have handled even one of the Thirteen Lords of the Chaotic World, who were vying for the throne of the number one person in the world at the time. Nevertheless, the Seong family could not punish the Mad Guest. It was because of an unexpected variable.

---

The Mad Guest walked toward me and the Eccentric Immortal. And he stopped ten paces in front of us.

“It’s been a while, Eccentric Immortal. I was going to come early and wait, but you came earlier than me. By the way, who is that reliable-looking young man?”

The Mad Guest asked, shifting his gaze to me. It was a gentle voice that suited his benevolent impression. I cupped my fist to the Mad Guest and showed my respect before the Eccentric Immortal could answer.

“I am Jeon Chung, sir.”

The Eccentric Immortal flared up in anger.

“You insolent brat. Why are you being polite to him? I’m nine years older than him.”

“Wouldn’t the words that go out be beautiful only if the words that come in are beautiful? Didn’t you call me this brat, that brat from our first meeting, old man? If you were me, would you want to be polite to someone who calls you ‘brat, brat’ at the end of every sentence?”

“Is that an excuse, you brat?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

As I retorted without losing a single word, the Eccentric Immortal, his anger flaring, was about to erupt in anger when the Mad Guest intervened.

“It’s not my place to interfere, but listening to you, the young man’s words have some merit.”

The Eccentric Immortal suddenly pushed me toward the Mad Guest.

“You two hit it off so well. Fine. Since you’re in the same boat, come at me together. I’ll take you all on.”

I shook off the Eccentric Immortal’s hand, which was pushing not my back but my buttocks due to the height difference.

“What’s with the bravado, old man? Just a moment ago, you were frozen stiff like a pollack…”

“What nonsense are you talking about, you brat. When did I ever do that? This won’t do. Step aside, you brat. I’ll deal with him right now and show you what’s what.”

I pretended not to hear the Eccentric Immortal’s words and faced the Mad Guest.

“This old man here asked me to watch your duel, so I came here. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to watch your…”

The Eccentric Immortal’s roar cut me off.

“Hey, you brat! If you keep spouting red lies with those crooked lips, your mouth might get crushed. You begged me so much that I showed you mercy with the heart of giving a rice cake to a hated person…”

“Ah, that’s enough. Are you doing this on purpose, or have you really forgotten? It was definitely you who first…”

“First or whatever, I’m not going to…”

The Mad Guest interrupted the argument between me and the Eccentric Immortal.

“Whatever the circumstances, since we’re here like this, how about we let the young man watch our match and even have him judge?”

The Eccentric Immortal flared up.

“Judge? Why is that necessary? The outcome will be clear for anyone to see. You’ll be stretched out there in a moment, and I’ll be standing here perfectly fine.”

The Mad Guest took the Eccentric Immortal’s provocation calmly.

“You seem to have prepared a lot. I have high expectations. I will do my best not to disappoint the Eccentric Immortal, even with my lacking skills.”

The Eccentric Immortal, annoyed by the Mad Guest’s polite words, touched on his sore spot.

“That’s enough, Tae-san. Don’t you know that the more you pretend to be dignified, the more vulgar you look? It’s on the same level as you, a descendant of a butcher and an illiterate, acting like a learned scholar and inviting the ridicule of all…”

Suddenly, a roar as if a million pounds of gunpowder had exploded erupted from the Mad Guest’s mouth.

“Shut up! I’ll smash your head, you meddler.”

The Eccentric Immortal smiled with satisfaction.

“Now you’re showing your true colors, ugh!”

The Eccentric Immortal, who had been speaking, let out a cry of astonishment and hastily emitted flames to counter the storm that was flying at him.

Not flustered by the sudden start of the duel, I quickly distanced myself from the battle. The terrifying internal energy that the Mad Guest and the Eccentric Immortal had emitted swept past my afterimage.

I was terrified. If I had dodged a little later, I would have become a fireball or my whole body would have been torn to shreds. That’s how powerful and murderous the thunderbolt of fire and the typhoon that the two old masters had created were.

As if there was no need for a probing battle, both of them went on an all-out offensive from the beginning. The Mad Guest, with his hands imbued with Firmness, launched a fierce attack without giving the Eccentric Immortal a moment to breathe. The Eccentric Immortal, as if yielding meant defeat, also poured out his palm energy without a single step back, even though he could have displayed the subtlety of offense and defense by controlling the pace.

I watched the fierce battle between the two masters in a daze. They say a famous feast has nothing to eat, but this was a feast that far exceeded my expectations. Both of them were fully displaying the destructive power and profundity befitting their supreme level of martial prowess.

The situation was truly a deadlock. They exchanged thirty or forty blows in an instant, but neither side could gain the upper hand. Their martial power was strangely equal. It was as if twins with perfectly identical strength were fighting.

As the number of exchanges increased, the power of the palm energy and hand energy that had been making the cliffs surrounding the clearing tremble gradually decreased. No matter how profound their internal energy was, there had to be a limit since they had been pouring out their twelfth-level internal energy from the beginning.

Although the power of the flames and the hand firmness gradually decreased, the ferocity of the duel grew more and more. It was because both of them had suffered internal injuries without gaining any advantage, and those internal injuries were getting deeper and deeper. Nevertheless, they insisted on a head-on collision from beginning to end.

I was conflicted.

If things continued like this, a catastrophe was certain. The Eccentric Immortal and the Mad Guest would surely try to determine a winner until the end. Since their martial power was ridiculously equal and both of them had the attitude that it was better to die than to lose, it would eventually lead to mutual destruction beyond mutual injury.

“Damn it.”

I spat out a curse. I could have just dismissed it as someone else’s problem, but I couldn’t. Although we had bickered, the Eccentric Immortal was the first good connection I had made since coming out into the martial world and the only person I had judged to be someone I could ‘trust my back to.’ That was why I had even told him my private personal history, which I had kept from Jin So-wol.

It was also difficult to turn away from the Mad Guest. Strangely, I was drawn to him. It wasn’t because he was friendly to me, but because of his curiosity-provoking nature.

In my view, the Mad Guest was a bundle of inferiority complexes. The fact that he would lose his temper over a childish taunt was proof that his self-esteem was as low as the soles of his feet. Considering his status in the martial world, it was something that was difficult to understand.

I wanted to know more about the Mad Guest. To do that, he had to be alive. But to save him and the Eccentric Immortal, I had to risk my own life, so I couldn’t help but hesitate.

As expected, the situation was heading toward a catastrophe.

The Eccentric Immortal and the Mad Guest, who had even withdrawn their protective internal energy and poured all their internal energy into their attacks, looked as precarious as drunkards walking on a cliff. The day anyone allowed the other’s palm energy or hand energy to hit their body, they would plummet to hell. In my view, there was a 100% chance that the duel would end with the death of both of them within ten seconds.

I found it hard to understand.

Although the Eccentric Immortal and the Mad Guest were fighting to the death, neither of them was emitting a killing intent to finish off the other. It meant that their grudge against each other was not their driving force. Nevertheless, they were fighting without any room for compromise, as if they were sworn enemies.

After much thought, I made a decision. To resolve my curiosity, I had to separate them before the messenger of the King of Hell snatched the necks of the two old men. Grasping the jade flute and the iron staff in both hands, I drew out the primal energy that my mother had left me. It was the maximum amount.

My heart felt like it would explode. Gritting my teeth, I used the ultimate flash step and flew into the battlefield where the mad superhumans were fighting a desperate battle.

[End of Chapter]