IBGVMW~01

Chapter 01

I’ll Become the Greatest Villain in the Martial World!

“This can’t be real.”

Woo-hee was seized by shock and horror.

“Really, like this, completely, only us?”

But reality was ruthless.

“What, why are they pinning this on the Ice Palace as if we’re a demonic cult? What kind of ridiculous nonsense are they spouting?”

She had just finished reading, cover to cover, the last martial-arts novel she’d stolen from the disciples while sprawled on the arsenal floor.

It had been slipped among the newly arrived arrows in a quiver — a cheap popular novel so trendy in the Central Plains you could buy it for a few coins.

It was one of those stories that focused on wandering heroes of the jianghu, showing xia through martial might.

A wuxia novel.

She’d stolen a whole stack of them, and, infuriatingly, they all said the same thing.

First, inevitably, the story opens with the villainous demonic sect or the vicious demonic cult running amok.

No need to waste time on reasons; those bastards are just born that way, end of explanation.

What happens in the middle doesn’t matter either.

All you had to remember was the ending: a righteous swordsman from the orthodox schools triumphs, brimming with justice.

From the perspective of those labeled the villains, the demonic sects, the repetitive narrative offered neither fun nor pathos — only irritation.

They pursued martial truth, they practiced their own brand of xia, yet for daring to differ from the orthodox, the Central Plains’ novels treated them like monsters.

“No matter how you slice it, this is over the line.”

Woo-hee was a proud archer of the North Sea Ice Palace.

Moreover, the Ice Palace was unquestionably one of the demonic sects.

“How can they say we are worse than the demonic cult? That the demonic sects and the black-path practitioners are the same? We drew a line and refused to associate with those scum—yet they write about us like they actually know us!”

She knew all too well that sects like hers were labeled with sinister characters, called black-paths and so on.

Still, what infuriated her most was the one constant every one of these novels repeated without fail: the identity of the ultimate villain.

The North Sea Ice Palace.

For some reason, her proud sect occupied the role of the Central Plains’ greatest villain in these books.

They were painted as craftier than the demonic cult itself, the axis of evil that constantly threatened the peace of the jianghu.

It was maddening.

For one, the North Sea lay far from the Central Plains — it wasn’t easy to spread a notorious reputation. Traveling as a group to the Central Plains was no simple thing.

Besides, the sect had sealed its gates and remained closed for ten years. How could they possibly surpass the demonic cult in misdeeds?

“Ugh, damn it…”

Woo-hee breathed out in a huff.

Ten years ago, Baek Dan-hyeok, then head of the Ice Palace, had sacrificed his dantian due to the backlash of the Transference of Martial Skill. He’d risked possession and death — surviving that was fortune in itself.

Transference of Martial Skill.

A technique so precious it’s joked that even one’s own children shouldn’t receive it, the act of passing treasured inner energy to another.

A master counted among the world’s top ten had chosen the extreme sacrifice of cutting off his own life as a warrior for a single reason: to save a granddaughter, a tiny life with severed meridians on the brink of death.

Baek Woo-hee, the precious granddaughter whom Baek Dan-hyeok cherished more than his own life.

“She thinks we locked the sect away because we were weak? Do these stupid Central Plains fools really believe that?”

Thanks to her grandfather’s spoonful of inner energy, the child had burst past the barrier of cultivation at fifteen and become a monster.

She glared at the row of lurid novels strewn across the floor with a dangerous expression.

“If only we had actually done something terrible, then fine — but we didn’t!”

Righteous, handsome disciples saving the Central Plains? The North Sea Ice Palace branded the villain threatening peace? Woo-hee was truly livid.

Those conniving scribblers who smeared reputations deserved to have their necks wrung.

She would make the brazen Central Plains devils regret ever flexing their pens.

Wait. Make them taste the Ice Palace’s bitterness? Show the Central Plains the cost of slandering her sect?

“That’s it!”

She leapt up.

Stepping lightly atop the scattered novels, she clenched both fists and cried out.

“Right! That’s it! If I stand for this insult, then I’d be Baek No-Woo-hee instead of Baek Woo-hee!”

It made no sense even to her.

Her violet eyes, turned by the extremes of Ice Palace training, flashed with a chilling, gleeful madness.

She burst from the armory and moved as naturally as breathing, unleashing her lightness skill — neither running nor flying, but a shot of motion that sent her forward like an arrow.

Her destination: her grandfather Baek Dan-hyeok’s chambers.

Crossing the vast estate from end to end, she inhaled sharply and threw wide her mouth.

“GRANDPAAAA!!!”

Her voice, filled with force, boomed like thunder.

A startled flock of wild birds rose at once, darkening the sky above the Ice Palace like a bad omen before a calamity.

Birds be damned.

Woo-hee, having already screamed, began to wreak havoc at her grandfather’s door.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Grandpa! Grandpa! Grandpa! Open the door! Come on!”

She sounded as if she might break the whole thing down.

This was hardly the behavior of a frail granddaughter visiting the devoted elder who had given up his cherished inner energy for her sake.

“I know you’re inside! Don’t play dumb — come out before I have to barge in!”

She was all bluster and no subtlety, a full-time terror on the job.

At the height of imminent door demolition, an old man shuffled out, bent like a shrimp’s back, revealing himself slowly.

“Ah, my little darling has been training so hard since dawn; she must be exhausted and seeing things. Your grandpa’s back is so old it barely remembers what a straight spine is, cough, cough!”

The old man even put on a feigned cough, performing the role of a world-weary elder with theatrical skill.

“Grandpa, you were swinging a real blade this morning, chasing me around and beating me up with gusto.”

But Woo-hee wasn’t fooled by his habitual feigning of frailty.

“You were rigid and upright in the snow, so why are you suddenly bent now?”

Her suspicion was perfectly reasonable. Baek Dan-hyeok, though over eighty, remained remarkably hale. Passing on his inner energy did not erase a lifetime of martial prowess. He’d doted on his granddaughter every day for ten years with tender care.

One misstep, and he would be bedridden for months — yet his devotion was the kind that fussed and fussed lovingly.

“Ah… my little rascal has trained too hard at dawn and become exhausted; she’s seeing ghosts. Your grandpa’s back has grown so old he can barely recall how it used to be, cough, cough!”

As he delivered his sham performance, Woo-hee seized the opening.

“Grandpa, there’s a gap!”

With a swift slash of her foot accompanied by a terrifying ripping sound, she struck.

Thwack!

Like a lie revealed, Baek Dan-hyeok’s hand shot up and caught her ankle with impossible speed.

“Whoa — what’s happening? Suddenly your grandpa’s spine is straight again?”

He straightened like bamboo, utterly upright.

Her filial roundhouse kick had—miraculously—healed the bent old man in an instant.

“Grandpa’s spine straightens whenever he smells my feet, is that it?”

Balancing deftly on one foot, Woo-hee narrowed her eyes at him.

“Then how about I move in with you? If we stay together, maybe my foot stench will cure everything.”

She sounded sincere.

The idea of this charming, mischievous granddaughter taking up permanent residence in his humble room was unsettling.

“F-fine!”

So unnerved, he flung her ankle away like a tossed clump of filth.

Next—