A Man's Fight (1)
Not long ago, after I finished receiving the transmission of the martial art that would later be named Asura's Great Destruction Calamity Formation, I had a conversation with Asura.
"I am grateful for your grace."
I bowed my head in thanks to the being before me.
The pot-bellied middle-aged man, Asura, laughed heartily and patted his protruding belly.
"Be honest with me. Of the martial art I taught you—those four stages—how far do you think you can actually apply them?"
Just learning to apply and adapt the formulas he had taught me had taken a full week and more.
"…If you mean Geuk, Jin, Myeol, and Ryu, then of course…"
I quietly counted off four fingers, one by one.
In the end, I could say nothing at all.
"I do like the saying, If you do not know the impossible, you will know no limit," Asura said with a broad smile.
"But for you, I will allow only up to the second stage—Jin. Anything beyond that was never meant for mortals in the first place."
I wet my dry lips with my tongue.
In the winter wind, a dandelion swayed at the base of the temple wall.
"…What happens if I go beyond that?"
At my question, Asura clasped his hands behind his back and smiled gently.
"For running away, the footwork you already know—even at the second stage, Jin—should be more than enough, shouldn't it?"
"Even so."
At my words, Asura gave a bitter smile and cut me off flatly.
"It is a formula a man who prioritizes survival above all else will never have occasion to use."
Asura of the Eight Legions.
He already knew what kind of person I was.
He knew the mindset with which I faced life.
He knew that I carried a fear of death greater than anything else, and that I put survival first.
And that man said:
"It is a formula meant only for the moment you truly stake your life—because it was never a formula meant for people in the first place."
"Ah."
I thought then that I would never have cause, in my entire life, to use anything beyond Jin.
A Man's Fight (1)
"Kyaaaaaak!!"
The innkeeper woman's desperate scream rang out.
My body flew like a feather and bounced across the floor.
—Kwaaang!!
Plates and chopsticks shattered and scattered.
—Hudududuk
Scarlet blood poured down, cutting across my forehead.
By a hair's breadth I had raised the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap to block.
As that arm was driven back, my face was torn open.
"Keoeok!"
My ribs broke.
My left leg twisted out of place.
With my crumpled, trembling body I stared at the collapsing wall.
Debris flew.
Dust and earth churned together.
—Kuuung…. Kuuung….
Tea left in a broken cup drew perfect concentric ripples under the rhythmic vibration.
A colossal silhouette was walking toward us.
Even then the innkeeper woman clutched the old man entrusted to her and stumbled backward.
"W-what in the world is that?!"
A massive weapon had slammed into the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
It was a rust-red executioner's blade—a jakdu.
It was less a proper weapon than the butcher's blade used to sever a pig's neck, with nothing more than four finger holes punched through it.
Someone had hurled that thing from far away.
From the thick dust a gigantic hand emerged.
It seized the hilt of the jakdu and wrenched it free.
—Kagagagagak!
Sparks flew as the enormous blade scraped along the floor and was reclaimed.
A single thick groove had been carved into the ground.
That groove was the unbroken trail of the thing that had been relentlessly hunting me.
The long continuous furrow was the scar left by the giant jakdu being dragged across the earth.
"The one who ruined my life…. The enemy of my family."
It was not a human voice.
It sounded like phlegm-clogged, inverted vocal cords being scraped raw just to force out something resembling speech.
Something that chased power alone and converted to the Demonic Cult—something bewitched by demonic arts and black sorcery—is no longer human.
Eun Seollyeong had gone so far as to say it was not even a person.
I had thought it mere metaphor.
Its entire body was a swollen, bursting red.
Purple blood vessels webbed every inch of its skin.
Its face was bare of every hair, brows and scalp included.
Rust-red iron chains were wound around its body.
A steel muzzle, like the kind forced onto a rabid dog, was locked over its mouth and fixed in place by the chains.
My gaze locked onto its wrists.
Something familiar was there.
Cold-fragrance stone shackles?!
What bound both of its hands was unmistakably the same thing I had seen before.
Why in the world…
The very restraints that the Guardian of the Mount Hua Sect, Eun Seollyeong, wore—shackles that sealed one's qi—were locked around both of its wrists.
"You can't fool me, Gang Chisang… I'll tear you apart alive. Anyone who belongs to the Blood Cult—anyone at all!"
White drool dripping, the former Guardian of the Jeomchang Sect, Gang Chisang, muttered.
From his waist hung the hem of a martial robe made of human skin, empty eye sockets staring out, covering his lower body.
It was less a man than a living plague.
Beyond the collapsed wall, buildings stood in a straight line of ruin—each one smashed clean through.
"Haa… haa."
A young couple who had been holding hands and laughing fled, faces bloodless with terror.
A child spinning a top fell, began to cry, and was snatched up by panicked parents.
A puppy staggered away trailing blood, vanishing into a corner.
—Kuuung.
Inside the choking dust cloud the gigantic silhouette moved.
"Y-young man! At least you should run!"
Even then the innkeeper woman hugged the old man and screamed.
Gang Chisang flinched.
Burning eyes fixed on the woman.
—Kkarararak!
Power surged into Gang Chisang's forearm. The rust-red jakdu was pulled back.
There was no warning.
The blade came down on the woman's face at the speed of light.
"Kyaaak!"
With a desperate scream the woman clutched the old man with every ounce of strength she had.
—Jjeoeoeong!!!
The jakdu slammed down onto the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap.
—Kigik…! Kigigigik!
Sparks flew as the black gauntlet shuddered violently.
"Keok!"
I spat blood from all seven orifices.
Standing between the woman, the old man, and death, I held on with everything I had.
"Eu… euaaaa!!!"
I screamed in pure agony as blood sprayed.
With the swirling dust, qi exploded outward from my entire body.
Gang Chisang's eyes flew wide.
"A mere martial artist… blocked the blade of a Guardian?"
The floorboards beneath my feet shattered to splinters as my legs drove into the wood.
"G-good heavens!"
The innkeeper woman went deathly pale and cried out.
"Y-young man?!"
The fleeing child looked back.
The young couple looked back.
Everyone forgot even to run from the disaster and simply stared, frozen.
"Th-that person…"
"The martial artist fighting that monster right now…"
Villagers muttered blankly from beneath the dust and rubble.
"Is that the young man?"
"There are no more chances for emergency body restoration! Be careful!"
Mumyeong shouted.
"Your body recovered… so it really is the black arts of the Blood Cult!!!"
Gang Chisang's eyes blazed as though they would explode.
The jakdu began to grind down with crushing force, intent on pulverizing me.
—Kuuung!!!
"Keok!"
The Chiljong-heukjusa-gap—an absolute treasure whose thin chains had been forged stitch by stitch so that no blade could ever cut it—was beginning to come apart under pure brute force.
"I'll crush you to death just like this. How dare a mere martial artist block a Guardian's bla—!"
—Pajik!
Black lightning surged up from my body.
"Hm?"
The black silhouette's eyes widened.
—Kiiiiing!
Red light began to pour from both of my eyes as if it would overflow.
"Eu… eueueueu!"
Every meridian in my body reversed.
My blood vessels swelled as though they would burst.
Black mixed into the light streaming from my eyes.
—Pajik! Pajijijijik!
Mad black thunder began to erupt from my entire body.
The ultimate secret art of Asura of the Eight Legions!
Sura-dae-myeol-geop-jin
Vomiting blood, I recited the formula Asura of the Eight Legions had drilled into me.
"When the Great Dao fell into ruin, righteousness and chivalry were born."
Gasping, I shouted the first unlocking verse of Asura's Great Destruction Calamity—one of its four stages.
"Geuk!"
—Kwaaaaaa!
Every meridian in my body inverted and overturned.
—Pajik pajijik!
Black thunder erupted from the soles of my feet and raced up my body.
The jakdu that had been slamming down to crush me was forced upward.
"You bastard!"
From the dust a fist came flying.
—Kwaang!
I met it head-on with a shock that shook heaven and earth.
"Ueok!"
A single punch shredded my organs; I spat black blood and fragments of viscera.
I poured out every last scrap of the three gaps of internal energy I had reclaimed from Mumyeong, yet it was no more than a single stick of firewood thrown into a wildfire.
It was savagely consumed.
Blood vessels burst in both my eyes.
"How dare a worthless martial artist cur—!"
A storm of internal power exploded from Gang Chisang's body.
"He's started using internal energy, not just raw force!"
It was a storm of qi that screamed like black agony itself.
The entire shop began to shake under the sheer pressure of that energy.
"Keuk!"
My martial robe whipped and tore as though it would shred to pieces.
—Jjeong! Jjeojeojeong!
Porcelain bowls and wine bottles burst under the pressure of qi.
—Dalkak.
Inside the guard on my wrist, a steel needle twitched.
It was the marker that showed Eun Seollyeong's current position.
It hesitated for a moment, then—
—Dalkakdalkakdalkakdalkak!!!
As if sensing something wrong, it began to shrink at full speed.
"You!"
With a roar like a beast, Gang Chisang's kick drove into my stomach.
"Keok."
My body flew.
The wrist guard shattered.
My heel caught a table.
I tangled with the table and slammed into the wall.
Plates exploded.
Chopsticks splintered.
The wall gave way and I crashed through into the wall of the next building.
"Keuaaak!"
Even muscle tempered to the extreme tore under the strain.
The fine black lightning that had risen from my feet scattered in wild fragments.
"Filthy Blood Cult trash! I'll kill you!!"
Sparks flew as the jakdu was reclaimed.
Gang Chisang smashed through everything in his path and charged.
It was less a man than a tidal wave crashing down.
"When wisdom appears, great falsehood arises."
I wiped the blood from my mouth and, without pause, shouted the second verse of Asura's Great Destruction Calamity.
"Jin!"
The moment I lifted my head, the massive blade of the jakdu filled my vision, rushing straight at me.
I seized the oncoming edge with black internal energy swirling before my eyes.
—Kagagagak!
Black mist and black lightning collided, screaming in a terrible roar.
Without the treasure that was the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap, even Asura's Great Destruction Calamity Formation would have been sliced clean through.
I was forced back.
The absurd gap in power shoved me down.
The jakdu pressed closer.
I dropped to one knee.
The blade ground forward.
My hair was sheared away.
The tip of my nose touched it.
Slowly the rust-red edge split the end of my nose.
—Pajik! Pajijik!
With every scrap of strength I had, I forced the blade sideways.
—Kwang!
The moment the deflected jakdu slammed into the floor beside my shoulder, the Guardian of the Jeomchang Sect lunged.
He seized my throat and smashed me into the ground.
He hurled me.
I shattered a railing, crumpled a kitchen cauldron, and crashed into the hearth.
"Kyaaak!"
"Somebody help!"
Hellish chaos unfolded across the village.
In the face of disaster, people were helpless.
Those who had been staring blankly finally fled.
Killing intent glittered in both eyes of the Jeomchang Guardian.
The jakdu began to swing as casually as a man swatting flies.
People were torn apart.
"Young man, are you all right?!"
Wiping the blood that filled my nostrils, I clawed my way out on sheer stubbornness; beside me the innkeeper woman screamed.
I jerked my head around in panic.
I had been too busy fighting to notice.
I had been thrown all the way back to where the old man and the woman had been.
"Not enough! You're still being pushed back!"
Mumyeong shouted.
"Haa… haa."
Through the dust-caked, tangled fringe of my hair I panted and looked at them.
Or rather, more precisely, I looked at the shriveled, dementia-stricken old man beside the innkeeper woman.
Even in the choking dust the old man uttered not a single scream.
His body was old.
His skin was worn.
A clear line of red blood cut across the old man's forehead where flying debris must have struck him.
His breathing was labored; taking even one step would be hard—yet his single sentence was perfectly clear.
"My son."
The old man smiled faintly.
"Live."
Behind him, through a spray of blood, I saw Gang Chisang raise the jakdu and charge.
When will he come?
Those had been my mother's final words as she breathed out white vapor and froze to death.
—Tuk.
The last faint thread of hesitation remaining in my heart snapped.
"Only when the six relations fall into discord do filial piety and compassion arise—!"
I screamed with bloodshot eyes.
"Asura's Great Destruction Calamity Formation—Myeol!!"