When a child walked toward the bandit stockade, the bandits on watch wore baffled expressions.
“That brat’s coming this way?”
“What are you doing? Drive him off.”
One bandit, looking annoyed, came up to me and waved his hand.
“This isn’t a place kids come to. Go back.”
Then a bandit behind him spoke.
“Wait—those clothes he’s wearing... looks like a kid from a wealthy house. Grab him.”
“Huh? You’re right.”
A child in fine silk.
Wealth had walked in on its own.
Even so, they didn’t let down their guard.
There might be parents nearby.
“Are you alone?”
I nodded to the bandit’s question.
“First, hand over everything on you. Clothes included. Do that and we’ll spare your life.”
“If you don’t listen, we can cut your neck and take it all. So be obedient.”
But I lightly ignored the bandit’s words and threw a question back.
“Is this the notorious Evil-Mountain Stockade?”
“Look at this brat. You came here knowing what we are?”
“Bold, aren’t you?”
“If you knew and came anyway, we can’t let you walk out alive. What now?”
The bandits answered with leering smiles.
“How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“If you’ve lived that long, you’ve enjoyed the world enough—no regrets about leaving it.”
They meant to kill me.
“Talking’s a hassle. Let’s just cut his neck and strip him.”
“Shall we?”
A bandit drew a big saber, stroked the blade, and stared at me.
“Spit out your last words. I can grant that much mercy.”
I grinned and muttered something.
“Triple sun of fire—answer the heart, fire cannon.”
Three flaming spheres blossomed from my palm and rose, and the bandits, seeing them, flinched back in shock.
“W-what the—?”
“A brat trained in martial arts?”
“So that’s why he strutted over so boldly.”
“Sorry, but we aren’t ordinary bandits.”
The startled bandits steadied themselves and drew up their internal qi.
“We’re heroes of the Great Green Forest.”
The Green Forest was a martial confederation made up of bandits.
Naturally, bandits belonging to it trained martial arts.
They were bandits, so public opinion was, of course, bad; among them, Evil-Mountain Stockade had one of the worst reputations.
Even so, because it was under the Green Forest banner, people excused them; the authorities didn’t touch them, and martial sects didn’t easily meddle either.
Such was Evil-Mountain Stockade—so how absurd must it have felt for an eleven-year-old with a bit of training to show up.
Being startled by unexpected fireballs was embarrassing.
There was one way to erase that embarrassment.
Erase the one who had startled them.
Now the bandits had no intention of letting me live.
The moment they charged at me—
The fireballs hanging in midair flew in.
“These little fireballs!”
They swung their sabers and split the fireballs I’d launched cleanly in half.
They broke apart so easily the bandits smirked and halted their rush.
“What now? Your proud strike just got shattered a little too easily.”
“Got anything else?”
I pointed behind them.
When the bandits turned their heads, the fireballs they’d split were circling back toward them.
“What?”
I spoke.
“They don’t disappear until they hit the target they’re locked onto.”
The sight of me wearing a vaguely observant expression made their irritation spike.
How little must this brat think of them to act like this?
They swore they’d snuff out that childish little flame trick and cut off my head.
A bandit batted aside the onrushing fireball with his saber, smashing it completely.
Then he whipped his blade toward me with speed.
Whoom—.
He meant to behead me in one stroke, but he missed.
By the thickness of a sheet of paper.
Did I misjudge the distance?
It was close enough to make him doubt himself.
It didn’t even look like I’d dodged.
Thinking he’d been fooled by my small size, he moved to attack again—
Boomf—.
“Ah! Hot!”
Flames caught on his back.
He’d thought he’d knocked it away, but it was still alive and had come back.
When the bandit raised his internal qi, the fire on his body fell away in an instant.
Seeing his scorched clothing, the bandits glared at me with murderous eyes.
“I planned to take your head in one stroke, but I’ve lost the mood for that. I’ll let you die in as much pain as possible.”
They could chatter as they pleased; I didn’t care.
“At this power, it won’t work against martial artists.”
I was adjusting the power of the Five-Phases Incantation Art.
This was why actual combat mattered.
There are values you can’t know with practice alone.
Meanwhile, seeing how I seemed to have no thought for them at all, the bandits lost patience and charged.
“Grab him! We’ll flay every inch of his skin and rub salt on it.”
As they rushed in with murderous intent, I summoned fireballs again.
But the heat this time was on a different level.
I hurled them straight at the oncoming bandits.
The fireballs flew twice as fast as before.
“We won’t put up with childish tricks anymore!”
The instant a saber swatted a fireball aside, it burst like a firecracker and the flames clung to flesh.
The bandits tried to blow the flames off as casually as earlier.
But the result was disastrous.
“Gyaaaaah!”
Fire of an entirely different heat from before engulfed the bandit’s whole body in an instant; he thrashed in agony to put it out, then soon stopped moving.
I muttered as I looked at the bandits turned to charcoal.
“Roughly first-rate?”
I inferred the realm of the bandits I’d just faced.
“Against first-rate opponents, about three rings are enough.”
I’d chosen this kind of place on purpose.
A place where only those the world could do without were gathered.
How convenient.
I could test the Five-Phases Incantation Art and, incidentally, remove parasites eating away at the world.
“Well then, shall I head inside?”
I walked on, thinking about which Five-Phases Incantation to deploy next.
Whoosh—.
Crack— Rumble—.
Flames wrapped everything; burning buildings of the stockade were collapsing.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere, and only one person remained.
A man trembling, clutching a saber snapped in half.
The chief of this stockade.
“W-why are you doing this!”
The chief bandit’s desperate cry, his face full of terror as he looked at me, didn’t reach my ears.
My attention right now was on adjusting the Five-Phases Incantation Art.
If I’m attacked while I’m reciting an incantation, that’s dangerous. It was only fine because it was me—anyone else would have died.
In fact, at the moment of my chant I’d been struck by a bandit’s attack.
I’d been so absorbed in the Five-Phases Incantation Art I hadn’t noticed someone approaching.
The one who’d struck me was the chief, now trembling in front of me.
When his blow landed, he’d thought he’d finally killed this demon—but I was unscathed.
On the contrary, his saber had broken against my body.
How does that make sense?
My only reaction had been to scratch at the spot where the saber hit, as if it itched.
I decided it was a problem caused by the incantation being a bit long.
I’d made it this way because simplifying it is actually harder.
Should I revise it?
I dropped the thought.
If I revised it, I’d have to change every formula I’d made up to now.
Three years would fly away.
Annoying.
This wasn’t even my main technique; I’d only learned it to live more comfortably.
Enough.
I’d just use it as is.
I slowly lifted my head and looked at the chief.
Eyes without any emotion.
The chief realized it.
I had no intention of letting him live.
He clenched his teeth and drew up every shred of internal qi he had.
“Die!”
Gathering all his energy, he unleashed a final strike.
He thought he had a chance if he hit before I spoke an incantation.
But instead of speaking, I thrust out my fist.
My fist shattered his desperate strike as if nothing and closed in fast.
Only then did he realize.
That strange art wasn’t this demon’s real power.
That was the last thought the chief ever had.
Thwud—.
Leaving the chief’s upper body flying off as his legs folded slowly beneath him, I walked down the mountain.
The Green Forest was thrown into an uproar.
“Already more than six stockades have vanished!”
“You must take measures! The other stockades are greatly agitated!”
The man listening to his subordinates with a grave expression—
He was the Green Forest’s lord, the Great Emperor of the Green Forest.
“Have you identified what martial arts were used?”
“They say they can’t identify them at all.”
“Some stockades were hit by fire, some by thunder.”
“Some show traces of ice, and some have no trace of the stockade left at all.”
“Ice? Are you saying the North Sea Ice Palace came all the way down to the South Sea?”
“I don’t know. What’s certain is that there are traces of ice arts.”
“What do you mean there’s not even a trace left?”
“There are marks where a meteor fell.”
“What?”
Absurd.
“That’s a natural disaster, isn’t it? Exclude it.”
“I mention it because it’s strange that a meteor fell on a stockade in this situation.”
“No matter what, a meteor? Anyway, excluding the meteor, you’re saying stockades were struck by fire arts, thunder arts, and ice arts.”
“Correct.”
At this rate, there was no way to specify which force had attacked.
“What weapons do they seem to have used?”
“There are no traces of weapons.”
“How many people?”
“Not even footprints.”
“No footprints?”
“Yes.”
The Great Emperor of the Green Forest thought for a moment, then spoke.
“Wasn’t his main area of activity the South Sea?”
“Yes.”
“For now, dispatch the Eight Marshals of the Green Forest to the stockades in the South Sea.”
“T-the Eight Marshals?”
“We need to plant the belief that, if they’re in danger, we will protect them for certain. Send them. Spare no support. Send elites with them.”
“Understood.”
“And no matter the cost, mobilize all our intelligence to find out who the enemy is. Find them, without fail. We must make it clear what happens when someone touches our Green Forest.”
“Understood.”
Thousand-Waters Mountain in the South Sea, Infamous-Evil Stockade.
The bandits of the stockade were staring at someone with eyes full of awe.
The one they looked at was Wild-Soul Demon Ma Changhu, one of the Eight Marshals who safeguarded the Green Forest.
He strode in, imposing, five golden spears—his beloved weapons—slung across his back.
His signature art, the Golden Demon-Breaking Spear, was notorious for its lack of mercy.
Since Ma Changhu’s temperament itself was cruel and merciless, it suited him perfectly.
If anyone offended his mood, he killed on the spot.
But to the brothers of the Green Forest, he was warmer than anyone.
No matter how angry he got, if the other party was a Green Forest brother, he endured it and vented it on someone outside the brotherhood.
Thus, countless innocents had died on his golden spears.
And right now, Ma Changhu was deeply displeased.
Because he believed the Green Forest was being toyed with by an unknown force.
Ma Changhu gave the bandits repeated, emphatic orders.
“No one is to know I’m here. If anyone’s heard of my name, they might avoid this place.”
“Yes!”

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