Just Tear Off Its Head
Chu Ryung-tae's entire body was encased in iron armor.
My blade drove straight into the clearest, most exposed flesh in my field of vision — the inside of his mouth.
— Pukaak…!
Blood sprayed. I felt the vivid sensation of flesh splitting open. Droplets of blood burst skyward like rain and scattered beneath the blue heavens. In every shimmering bead of blood, my own face was reflected, red light blazing from my eyes.
I watched Chu Ryung-tae slowly crumple, blade clenched in his teeth, his knees giving out first. Through the tip of the sword I felt flesh parting, something crushing. His white pupils rolled back and flipped.
In that single instant, I was certain it was a clean kill.
And then—
— Kwajik.
With a sickening crack, Chu Ryung-tae's white jaw — nearly split in half — clamped shut and locked the blade in place. His rolling eyes snapped back around and fixed on me.
"…Hmph!"
Before my brain could even register the wrongness, my body moved like lightning.
— Pabat!
I folded my left leg and threw myself sideways as if collapsing. I wrenched the blade free of his mouth, put my weight into my right leg, and drove a kick into Chu Ryung-tae's head.
— Kwaang!
He blocked it. His hand clamped around my shin. Falling droplets of blood brushed the tips of my hair.
— Chiik…
The ends of my hair melted away without the slightest resistance. The blood kept falling, straight toward my eyes.
Mumyeong screamed.
"Host! The blood!"
The moment I let go of the sword hilt, I tore the three-section staff from my waist.
— Chareureuk!
With a metallic rattle the folded staff snapped open.
— Cheolkeok!
The sections locked together into a single long pole.
A tempest roaring in from every side blasted the blood droplets away.
Still gripping my leg, Chu Ryung-tae swung his axe at me.
— Cheolkeok!
The staff split apart again into three chain-linked sections.
Each section a solid mass of heavy iron, the staff's force burst Chu Ryung-tae's flesh apart. The arm holding my leg snapped.
My right foot was free. I hit the ground.
Chu Ryung-tae's broken hand writhed like a centipede and lunged for my face.
— Kaang!
The second section of the staff that blocked it burst apart as if melting. The third rod went spinning into the air.
With a clatter I gathered the remaining two rods into my right hand. With my left I seized Chu Ryung-tae's ear. His white teeth still bared around the sword in his mouth — I drove the staff into the remaining gap.
— Kwaang!
— Ujijik!
His white teeth exploded outward.
Chu Ryung-tae still did not stop moving.
"Let's see you move after this!"
I roared and drove my knee into the cross-section of the staff jammed in his mouth.
— Wadeuk!
Chu Ryung-tae's wobbling neck snapped. His throat jerked skyward as he toppled completely backward. The blade locked in his jaws shot upright like a gravestone.
— Wobble.
The strength left his clamped jaw and the sword swayed. I snatched it free, flipped three full somersaults through the air like lightning, and cleared the range. I slid to a landing on the ground.
— Chajajak.
Ahead of me, two black lines were carved into the white snow where my knees had skidded.
— Swaaaa!
Only after that entire sequence was finished did the blood that had been flung upward come crashing down on the spot where I had been standing, as if someone had upended a bucket of water.
— Chiiiik…
White smoke rose as the stone floor melted away.
"…That's… impossible."
Seol Ye-rin stood with her mouth hanging open.
"A brawl this savage belongs in the old jianghu, not here."
The North Sea Ice Palace martial artist beside her had his jaw practically on the floor.
"…"
I blinked.
The blizzard had stopped completely. In the north, the sun set fast.
— Huuuu.
The temperature plummeted. Hot blood still racing through my body kept me burning from within, and when it met the white air outside, pale breath poured from my mouth. Steam rose from my whole body like vapor off boiling water.
Over the snow-covered horizon, dusk seemed to settle for only a moment before darkness claimed everything at once. It was like thick ink climbing a sheet of white paper. Across that ink, stars took their places as if someone had scattered white sand. A crescent moon drawn in silver hair began to seep into the sky.
And beneath it, as if every frantic motion from moments before had been a lie, Chu Ryung-tae's shattered corpse stood motionless in the moonlight, casting its shadow. The arm that had seized my leg was ruined. His mouth was packed full of the three-section staff driven clean through. His neck was snapped completely backward. The iron armor wrapping his body was dented and crumpled everywhere beneath the force of the Single Reed Crossing Triple-Section Staff. Below him lay his fallen weapons — the iron mace and the axe.
Chu Ryung-tae's corpse simply stood there, as if time itself had stopped.
"Host. The sword."
A black dog whispered low from behind my shadow. I looked at the blade.
— Chiiiik.
As if something had taken a massive bite out of a rice cake, a clear oval of tooth marks was stamped across the broad face of the blade. White smoke curled up between the indentations. The sword was already turning into scrap iron.
The blood scattered across the stone floor kept eating downward without end.
I muttered,
"Poison arts?"
Mumyeong denied it.
"Poison arts are not the Blood Sect's specialty. Blood this viciously acidic was never mixed as a toxin."
"And I have a fair idea what it is."
The black dog watched the space ahead from within the empty air of my shadow.
Everything had collapsed. All that remained of the hollow northern fortress was powdery snow and moonlight scattered like silver dust.
— Clap. Clap. Clap…
Dry applause rang out across the ruins.
With his neck still broken, Chu Ryung-tae's hands were clapping.
"Magnificent. Truly magnificent…. I have seen countless martial artists, but you are the first who never flinched for even a breath and answered with a continuous assault."
"Hiiik."
The North Sea Ice Palace martial artist beside Seol Ye-rin muttered in disbelief.
"Th-that… what is that…"
I narrowed my eyes.
Between the plates of Chu Ryung-tae's armor, something enormous was writhing and shifting. I let out a short sigh.
"You people really never run out of tricks. Last time it was insects controlling jiangshi. This time it's a venomous centipede?"
Chu Ryung-tae's applause cut off cold. His corpse, neck still snapped back, turned to face me.
"Keh keh keh. So you even know about the Insect Brain Nest?"
I said,
"There was a deranged jiangshi once that bounced around on its tiptoes."
"…You."
I looked straight at Chu Ryung-tae.
"That one died, of course. And you'll be joining him soon enough."
A centipede began crawling out over Chu Ryung-tae's broken neck. Another centipede spilled from the ruptured stump of his arm. The one emerging from his mouth braced itself like a replacement for the shattered cervical spine and forced his torso upright.
— Hwirik!
Chu Ryung-tae's broken neck locked forward.
— Wadeudeuk! Kwadeuk!
His pulverized hand twisted and contorted, forcing itself back into shape.
— Kwaak!
Like bandages wound brutally tight, the centipede's countless legs seized Chu Ryung-tae's muscle and flesh and held them in place. He clenched and unclenched his fist, then spoke.
"That exchange just now taught me something…. You are strong. Calm and composed even in the middle of that ferocious movement. And yet, buried inside it, you carry a violence that feels exactly like one of our Blood Sect elites. I have no idea how a hybrid like you was born in this age of peace, but…"
"…"
"I finally understand why the Seventh Hall Master sang your praises so highly. You aren't even breathing hard…."
Chu Ryung-tae clicked his tongue as he looked at me.
"Even with my soul mortgaged to the vengeful spirit of the Vicious Shattering Fang, I can tell that if I face you as I am, even a First Guardian like me wouldn't stand a chance."
— Clatter.
I dropped the sword I was holding. Already dissolved from the tip, it was nothing but a lump of scrap.
Chu Ryung-tae picked up his axe. His other hand rose slowly.
"But that is exactly why one revelation, one absolute certainty, has become clear to me. My pride as a mere martial artist never mattered."
— Cheojeok.
I shifted Myeolseom into my right hand. I clenched the Seven Sects Black Pearl Gauntlet. I scanned the surroundings.
"…"
I marked the half-collapsed stone watchtower leaning beside me.
Chu Ryung-tae roared.
"For the future of our Blood Sect — you above all must die, here and now!"
— Ung! Ung! Uuuung!
A red circular swamp began to open across the ground. Crimson light flooded every direction. Silhouetted against that glow, Chu Ryung-tae screamed with raw desperation.
"For the sake of our Lord who will one day return — even if I have to burn every last thing I have scraped together — I will erase you from this world!!!"
— Kwadeudeudeuk!
The centipede that had just finished restoring Chu Ryung-tae's body went berserk. It turned on him. It began tearing into his flesh.
I shouted in shock.
"The centipede?!"
"KRAAAAH!!"
With Chu Ryung-tae's agonized scream, his entire body began to burst apart. His head tore free and flew into the air.
— Chururuk!
From the broken stump of his throat the centipede surged upward, snatching his head out of the air and clamping down on it again. Like a serpent coiling around its prey, the centipede's body wound through Chu Ryung-tae's limbs and began to merge with them. His frame swelled, growing larger and larger.
— Uuung, uuuung!
From the encircling rings on every side, blood jiangshi clad in tattered, rotting clothes began to crawl out.
The North Sea Ice Palace martial artist cried out.
"Good heavens — those blood jiangshi's clothes… those are clearly North Sea Ice Palace robes!"
Seol Ye-rin clenched her teeth.
"Damn it. There were reports that the Black Dragon Branch's communal graves had been systematically robbed of late, but I never imagined it was connected to Blood Sect sorcery…!"
— Kugugu…!
Beneath the moonlight, casting an enormous shadow, a colossal living thing was breathing. It was a giant mass of meat that had been devoured by the centipede's vengeful spirit. With a wet, sticky rasp of breath, Chu Ryung-tae's head — clamped in the centipede's jaws — turned like a man with an impossibly long neck and looked down on everyone below.
The stench of death pouring from the tangled corpses was enough to drive an ordinary person mad before the fighting even began.
A cold sweat ran down Seol Ye-rin's brow.
— Deolgeok, deolgeok…!
She glanced sideways. The North Sea Ice Palace martial artist who had been attending her had lost his reason to pure terror.
"U-uaaagh! Human flesh—!"
He launched into lightfoot technique and fled toward the open snowfield.
"Uwaaagh!!"
He hadn't taken ten steps before blood jiangshi seized him and tore his limbs off.
— Ung! Ung! Uuung!
Behind them, more red circles began to form on the ground. From those swamp-like crimson rings, more jiangshi crawled forth. The blood jiangshi surrounding them on all sides already numbered well over eighty or ninety.
It was not enough force to storm the main palace in earnest — but more than enough to wipe out a minor regional branch in an instant. If they had not stumbled upon this by chance, Seol Ye-rin could not even begin to guess what this poisonous mushroom would have become.
"I always mocked the Central Plains for rotting at the roots while drunk on peace — and I never saw that my own roots were rotting!"
Seol Ye-rin felt the strength leave her legs. That ever-proud face of hers drained white as paper. Confronted with the wall of death filling her vision, she sank to the ground. No matter how hard she tried to think rationally, every path led to the same conclusion: there was no solution.
In the distance she could see blood jiangshi grinning as they ripped the fingers, one by one, then the entire arms from a still-twitching subordinate — the way one might pluck the wings from a butterfly.
Seol Ye-rin despaired.
"I… I don't want to die like th—"
That was when it happened.
— Hwirik!
Moyong Bi's form shot forward like lightning. He snagged Seol Ye-rin by the scruff of the neck.
"Eok…!!"
Seol Ye-rin flailed in panic. Hauling her along like a sack of cargo, Moyong Bi sprinted like a madman. In a single breath he scaled the half-collapsed watchtower beside them in a vertical charge. The moment he reached the top, he hurled her down.
— Kwaang!
"How dare you! A mere Ha-mu-gwan student, laying hands on me—!"
"Want to live?"
Moyong Bi did not even glance at the Seol Ye-rin he had thrown down. His back was rigid. He, too, was tense in the face of what was unfolding. The situation was that dire.
In the distance, Chu Ryung-tae's enormous hand moved to pick up the axe. Then the iron mace. Countless blood jiangshi drew rusted weapons. The entire horde was pouring toward the watchtower — a single black tide made of human bodies.
Before that hopeless sight, Seol Ye-rin stared blankly at Moyong Bi.
"…Is there a way… to live?"
"There is."
"What is it?"
"Simple."
Moyong Bi looked out at the death rolling toward them and spoke flatly.
"Whether it's a jiangshi or that centipede's vengeful spirit — tear off the head, and it dies just the same."
"…"
Seol Ye-rin blinked. A beat later she snapped back to herself and exploded in fury.
"What kind of complete nonsense is that?!"