Go San-gong is the squad leader of the Namgung Family's Heavenly Wind Group Third Squad.
Starting as a countryside warrior and eating sword-rice at the Namgung Family to become a squad leader of the Heavenly Wind Group—from one perspective, it's a fairly successful life.
The problem is just one thing.
"Euaaham—"
He's always bored.
The fact that he's yawning right now is also because of his daily tedium.
Today as well, he brought the ten squad members of the Third Squad and came out in front of the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall at the third watch to change shifts with the Heavenly Wind Group's Second Squad. These monotonous daily routines were tiresome and boring.
A little over ten years ago, he entered the Namgung Family as an Outside Surname Disciple... Even back then, his heart always pounded with excitement, and he looked forward to tomorrow. It was because of the sense of achievement from finally fulfilling a dream he had longed for.
The story he'd heard since he first learned martial arts from the master he served at a countryside martial hall, and the dream.
Become a warrior of the Martial World.
Stride through the world to your heart's content.
Go San-gong thought he had achieved that dream by entering the Namgung Family.
Naturally, he began to dream bigger dreams.
Since he'd already set foot in the Martial World, let's become a hero.
Victory through bloody battles spattering blood against the Demon Soldiers of Heavenly Demon Castle.
Beheading the Evil Soldiers of the Hall of Gathering Evil and dominating Jiangnan.
Crushing the conspiracy of some unknown force hiding in the darkness and saving the Martial World.
He made such grand resolutions every single day.
Back then, it seemed like he could achieve such things right away. But dreams were just dreams. Reality was completely different from what he had thought.
The Heavenly Wind Group's original mission was to pursue and annihilate enemies or conduct enemy position reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.
That's what it originally was.
The Heavenly Wind Group's main work currently was.
As Go San-gong was doing right now, nothing more than standing guard.
Due to long peace, there were few occasions to fight, and especially for major sects like the Namgung Family, which was the hegemon of a region, it was even more so. Moreover, the only major Martial World force in Anhui Province was just the Namgung Family alone.
Someone needed to pick a fight for him to achieve victory, dominate, or become a hero, but such things had only happened once in over ten years. Furthermore, ten years ago he was such a low-ranking warrior that he didn't even have a chance to distinguish himself in battle.
Now it's different. That's what he believed.
"They say a real man should cut off enemy heads on the battlefield, drink blood from their skulls while singing, but what am I doing here? Damn."
He was confident he could win against anyone, but the reality that he wasn't even given a chance to become a hero was endlessly resentful.
"If only even those Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds bastards would attack again. Even those guys have been completely quiet lately, so this is just... I, Go San-gong, am rotting away standing guard like this in the end."
Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds.
Though they say the current Central Plains is the World of Three Hegemons, they aren't the only ones in the Martial World. Countless minor sects are scattered throughout the Martial World, and among them, there were quite a few forces that fell short of the Three Hegemons but were large compared to other various minor sects.
The so-called 'Third Forces.'
Among them, the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds was a major force that called itself the Blue-Green Twin Heroes together with the Thirty-Two Green Forest Mountain Strongholds.
Though they didn't belong to Orthodox, Evil, or Demonic, these were the Yangtze Waterway Strongholds and Green Forest—forces whose prestige on mountains or rivers no one could ignore. Though people called them the Blue-Green Twin Bandits, meaning water bandits and mountain bandits, their influence was so great in the Martial World that no one could ignore them.
Blue on water, green in mountains.
Above water it's blue, in the mountains it's green.
Martial World people evaluated their dominance on water and in mountains with this short phrase. It expressed in six short characters the might of the Yangtze Waterway Strongholds controlling the Yangtze River, the lifeline of the Central Plains, and the Green Forest manipulating mountains without major Martial World sects.
Though these forces by nature didn't unite as one group with strong cohesion, they were connected as one large nominal alliance like the Murim Alliance. That's why though they're divided into eighteen strongholds and thirty-two strongholds respectively, broadly speaking they're called the Yangtze Waterway Strongholds and Green Forest as they're essentially one group.
The reason Go San-gong is talking about the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds now is because the most recent major armed conflict the Namgung Family had was precisely with the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds. And that was in the very year he entered here as an Outside Surname Disciple when the clash between the two forces occurred.
The reason they usually call the Namgung Family the First Force of Anhui isn't because the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds are weaker than the Namgung Family, but because only one of the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds is located in Anhui Province. If all eighteen waterway strongholds gathered in Anhui Province, even the Namgung Family would find it difficult to maintain its dominance.
They were spread throughout the Yangtze River, and naturally appeared frequently along the waterways in Anhui Province, which the Yangtze crosses greatly. The Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds, true to being water bandits, constantly wanted to expand their influence in Anhui Province, and the Namgung Family tried to stop them, so inevitably the two had to clash.
Ten years ago.
The general stronghold chief of the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds, Yangtze Dragon Hero Sa Sa-ho, ignored Namgung Byeok's warning and attempted to expand influence toward Chaohu Lake. At this, Namgung Byeok, the family head of the Namgung Family who felt threatened regarding hegemony over Anhui Province, immediately mobilized nearly all the family's military organizations and advanced to Chaohu Lake.
The two confronted each other intensely across Chaohu Lake and eventually clashed. The fight developed fiercely, but the period wasn't very long.
Because both judged there was no need to overextend and pulled back forces at the point when the battle should have escalated. They realized that even if they fought to the death, it would only give the benefit of the fisherman to other sects eagerly eyeing their territories.
In the end, the two forces only engaged in tedious skirmishes for about a year more before finally ceasing fire. Due to the agreement made at this time, all interests arising from Chaohu Lake became entirely the Namgung Family's, and on the promise that the Eighteen Yangtze Waterway Strongholds wouldn't make additional advances into Anhui, they obtained a pledge from the Namgung Family that their business conducted on the Yangtze River wouldn't be interfered with. It was an agreement where they yielded what should be yielded and gained what should be gained rather than growl at each other.
That incident was already over ten years ago, and it was the only battle-like battle Go San-gong experienced. In fact, since he was a newcomer who had just entered the Namgung Family at that time, he was hardly deployed in actual combat and only did things like scouting duties or standing guard.
Nevertheless, he was in a position where he milked that one deployment until now and bragged greatly to his squad members.
But the squad members also knew well that he wasn't that great.
If he had been great, with over ten years of seniority accumulated, he wouldn't be just doing squad leader of a guard squad here.
The reality Go San-gong faced was nothing more than being a guard squad leader standing watch on the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall's Cloud Bridge side from the second watch to the third watch. Especially on days like today when the Crimson Sail Ship went out for a Chaohu Lake outing, he even had to take on the chore of searching the pleasure boat. Since the time the pleasure boat returned was likely to be at this time without fail, usually among the guard squad leaders, those with the least ability were assigned as the guard squad leader for this time.
"Here. Go San-gong. Work hard then."
The Second Squad's squad leader finished the handover to Go San-gong and returned to quarters with his squad members. Among them were squad members who had just washed the drunk guest of the Heavenly Guest Hall.
"Ah, but do we really have to search that thing?"
Go San-gong frowned while looking at the Crimson Sail Ship moored at the deepest part of Chaowan. In fact, there were personnel standing guard on the Western Heavenly Guest Hall side right now too. The pleasure boat was clearly in the lake bay at the midpoint between the island with the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall and the island with the Western Heavenly Guest Hall, yet he was dissatisfied that the Heavenly Wind Group's guard squad always handled the search.
But it couldn't be helped.
The Heavenly Thunder Squad in charge of the guard on the Western Heavenly Guest Hall side was also in charge of standing guard at the Earthly Guest Hall beyond it. In that situation, it was also ridiculous to quibble over something like searching a pleasure boat, which wasn't even a daily occurrence.
"Hey, leave just three guys here and everyone else get on the sailing ship."
"Yes, Squad Leader."
No matter how unreliable a squad leader, a squad leader was a squad leader. The Third Squad members left just three for minimum guard personnel and moved toward the Crimson Sail Ship.
As they went around following the lake bay, the light from the fire strikers they were holding reflected on Chaohu Lake. At that, the surroundings of Chaowan temporarily brightened.
The wind was blowing quite strongly, so the not-so-calm ripples sparkled receiving the light. Though that sight produced a quite impressive night view, since it was scenery that anyone from the Heavenly Wind Group could see often, they didn't pay much attention and just walked toward the Crimson Sail Ship.
Pong—
At that moment, a small sound like something submerging in the water occurred.
It was too faint, so none of the Third Squad members heard it. Also, the position from which that sound came was behind the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall, precisely in the direction of Chaohu Lake inside Chaowan, and it was also a blind spot with the view blocked by the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall building.
In fact, the position where they stood guard wasn't the island side with the Eastern Heavenly Guest Hall, but precisely beyond the Cloud Bridge connecting the island and this inland area. It was guard duty performed under the assumption that all guests staying at the Heavenly Guest Hall were people whose identities had been verified.
The squad members soon went around the bay's edge and arrived at the mooring where the Crimson Sail Ship was anchored.
The sailing ship moored in one corner of the dark lake bay was a quiet small fortress. It was so quiet that from one perspective it even looked scary.
It was only because they had done this work so many times that they could be nonchalant about it. They stepped on the ship stairs, the stairs temporarily placed at the ship's bow for boarding and disembarking, and boarded the ship one by one.
A short while later, the fire striker light that had been flickering on the deck completely disappeared. Probably all of them had finished searching on deck and gone down to the Crimson Sail Ship's lower cabin.
As the fire striker light of the squad members visible in the distance disappeared, Go San-gong, as he always did normally, rested his arms on the end of the Cloud Bridge and fell asleep standing. The remaining three squad members also didn't mind it as it was now a familiar matter and were faithful to their work of standing guard.
That's how 30 minutes passed.
However...
None of the squad members who had gone to search the Crimson Sail Ship returned.
No, they couldn't return.
Drip, drip, drip...
While Go San-gong was dozing while drooling, his seven squad members had already turned into a handful of blood and were flowing down along the tip of Dong Bong-su's sword.