Crawl If You Don't Want to Die
“Shaolin’s Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, the basic twelve forms. Demonstrate it for me once. My skill is lacking, but I’ll gladly try to stop it.”
My words were more than enough to prick his pride.
“You… you little—!”
Lee Jasuo’s face flushed red, then purple.
Judging by everything so far, his confidence in his fist art was beyond imagination. And coming from me—someone from a great family he always looked down on as a step below the Nine Sects and One Gang—those words twisted his guts inside out.
“Fine! A newborn pup that doesn’t know to fear the tiger. Last time I personally showed you the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist and taught you there is a sky above the sky, yet you still haven’t opened your eyes. Very well!”
Lee Jasuo rolled up his sleeves and leapt back, opening the distance.
“Take your stance! Moyong Bi!”
He widened his stride and assumed the ready form.
Ssshk.
The scrape of his toes dragging across the dirt. I glanced at it for only a moment.
Crack.
For an instant I thought I smelled the damp, mossy air of that underground secret chamber.
I spread my legs on a diagonal. Let both arms hang loose.
“That’s all?”
“I’m ready. Come.”
“….”
Lee Jasuo stared at me like an idiot.
“You insolent little—! I’ll fix that attitude of yours!”
Pa-pa-pat!
His figure blurred. He shot toward me like lightning. Three and a half steps of distance.
Time seemed to slow; every motion unfolded in sequence before my eyes. Straight charge. One diagonal plant, then weight transfer as he closed on my front and drove a straight punch—third form of Shaolin’s Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, basic twelve forms. Always aiming for the philtrum.
I shifted half a step forward and extended my palm. Laid it against his straight fist. Drew my body half a step back again and gently stopped the punch cold.
“Huh?”
Lee Jasuo clearly had no idea what had just happened.
“…What?”
It wasn’t a block. A real block would have produced the sound of flesh striking flesh. It wasn’t a deflection either. Nor a redirect. I had simply moved my center of gravity and absorbed the full weight behind his straight punch—while my palm stayed pressed to his fist.
“Instructor, is that all?”
“Y-you… you!”
His face went scarlet. Only then did he grasp what had occurred. It looked exactly like a disciple flailing through a form he had just learned from his master, only for the master to catch it clean.
“You bastard!”
His emotions surged; scorching energy poured from Lee Jasuo’s body. Internal energy. The clearest line that separated sparring from killing techniques among martial artists.
“You’re going to put internal energy on it now?”
“Kh!”
Lee Jasuo flinched.
“If you load internal energy it becomes a killing technique. That would mean the instructor is going all-out against a lowly first-trial Ha-mu-gwan disciple who hasn’t even passed the opening ordeal.”
“Y-you—!”
Blood vessels stood out in the whites of his eyes. He clenched his teeth and forcibly reined the energy back in.
“Fine. Internal energy would be wasted on the likes of you. So you’ve picked up a little grappling somewhere, is that it? Good! Take this!”
No internal energy, but the full power of his Vajra Demon Subduing Fist came at me.
Host.
‘No. I don’t need it.’
At my whisper Mumyeong fell silent again.
This wasn’t some other art. It was the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist. For two and a half years I had staked my life on a single form. Learning it warm and fed, body and mind at ease, was a completely different realm from what I had done. I didn’t know about the rest. But this one thing I could say with certainty.
—In sheer mastery of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist alone, I fear no one under heaven.
Thang…!
I struck aside the full-power straight punch of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist.
“Y-you bastard!”
Lee Jasuo’s cry, thick with shock, and the techniques came faster and faster.
Pang! Pa-pa-pang!
Dust rose in clouds. Twelve attacks had already come and gone. The standardized shapes of the twelve forms had ended long ago. Every variation, every contingency, every technique the fist art possessed accelerated and crashed over my whole body.
Every single one was stopped.
Chwaaang…!
As if voicing the violent upheaval in his heart, even Lee Jasuo’s final straight punch—now faintly laced with internal energy—was caught and halted by my palm right before my eyes.
“T-this can’t be. The Vajra Demon Subduing Fist…! My martial art…!”
Lee Jasuo screamed, almost a shriek. His pride collapsed. Unable to accept reality, he howled like a madman.
“Y-you… you! The likes of you—!”
“Instructor, this time allow me to make a proposal.”
I whispered as I knocked another fist aside.
“I’ve already blocked more than twelve times. How about we add one more condition here?”
“What?”
I dusted my hands off and spoke.
“I heard there is a true intent, a secret transmission of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist…. What do you say to showing me that the same way—as a spar?”
“…What?”
“I’m a maggot anyway, aren’t I? It’s true you shouldn’t show martial arts to others, but showing it to me is no different from showing it to a dog or a cow. I don’t see any reason to hesitate. Or…”
I looked him straight in the eye and said calmly,
“Are you afraid?”
Lee Jasuo’s expression turned ice-cold in an instant.
Displaying martial arts freely in front of others was taboo to begin with. The true intent—the secret transmission that crowned a sect’s signature art—even more so. Lee Jasuo knew that perfectly well. But right now his pride was shredded to pieces, far past the point of caring.
“…Fine.”
His voice was low.
“But let’s be clear. To execute the true intent, a ‘little technique’ is absolutely necessary. Still alright with you?”
“Technique? You mean you can only use the true intent if you apply that?”
“That’s right.”
I thought for a moment, then nodded. The corner of Lee Jasuo’s mouth stretched wide.
“Even if you end up half a corpse from this, don’t blame me.”
“Blame you? I asked for it myself.”
I looked up at the sky. Turned so the sun was at my back and shifted position. He moved with me, keeping distance, warily watching.
Kiiing.
My eyes flushed red. Under the bright sunlight Lee Jasuo never noticed. He bared white teeth.
“Keh-heh. Digging your own grave. Want to see it? Sure, I’ll show you. Must’ve learned some pathetic art somewhere to act so bold. I’ll say it first.”
Wait. Something feels off.
Mumyeong spoke. Lee Jasuo settled into ready form and continued.
“This true intent is three straight punches—the concentrated essence of the Demon Subduing Fist that only one who has mastered the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist can stop. You, who can’t possibly have mastered it and aren’t even of Shaolin, saying you’ll block it? Laughable.”
Gugugugu.
The flow of the air changed. I too realized something was wrong.
“Hold on a second—”
“You said spar form, didn’t you?! I’ll show you!”
Kwaaaaa!
Internal energy erupted from his body without warning.
That bastard—internal energy!
Mumyeong’s startled shout rang out. Lee Jasuo roared.
“A little internal energy is an indispensable technique for executing a true intent that isn’t ordinary martial arts! You agreed with that very mouth of yours!”
“That’s complete nonsense—!”
That son of a bitch. He never intended to leave me in one piece from the start.
“For the crime of acting insolent toward me, I’ll smash every bone in your body as payment! This is the secret essence of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist—the Trembling Heaven Three Demon Fist, famous for three straight punches of staged intensity!”
A sound like massive thunder rolled as he planted one foot forward. His waist twisted and a straight fist blasted out. The punch hurtled toward my face. Wind pressure so fierce I felt my face would be crushed if it landed.
“Kh!”
I barely managed to execute the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist and redirect it.
Kwaaang!!!
Even I, who had trained the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist—an art of absolute countering nature—to its extreme, only just managed to slip that fist aside. The ground in front of it shattered from wind pressure alone.
“Damn it!”
I hadn’t realized he was this insane. I twisted my body desperately to dodge the successive strikes. Only the second one. Twice as strong as the first.
“You dodged that too?! The likes of you! The likes of youuu!!!”
Lee Jasuo completely lost his mind that I had avoided two attacks.
“Fine, you dog bastard. Dodge the last one if you can. I’ll even kindly teach you the escape route!”
“What?!”
“There’s only one way out—crawl under my crotch in the form of a descending tumbling roll! If you don’t want to live the rest of your life a cripple, you’d better crawl!”
Kwaaaaa!
A massive straight fist came straight on. A killing technique. It had left the bounds of a spar. A fist steeped in murderous intent closed in. My body, already off-balance from enduring the second attack, had completely lost its center of gravity.
“Instructor! If you keep this up—!”
“Shut your mouth!”
He crushed my urgent cry under his roar.
“A motherless lowborn bastard crawls between the legs!”
“…!”
My body, which had been about to dodge, stopped as if struck by lightning.
Puh-uh-uhk!
The fist loaded with internal energy slammed dead-center into my cheek.
“Huh?”
Lee Jasuo stared at me blankly.
“….”
I looked into his eyes.
Drip.
Blood ran from my nose.
Drop. Drop.
It fell droplet by droplet onto the ground. As if time had stopped, I stood there with the fist still buried in my cheek, turning only my gaze to bore into him.
“H-he… took it head-on…?”
Lee Jasuo’s soul left his body.
Crack. Crackle-crackle.
Faint violet lightning began to rise from my toes.
Ptew.
With my lip split, I spat out a broken molar.
“I’ll say two things, Instructor.”
“H-how… Impossible.”
Kiiing.
My red pupils blazed with a murderous light like a ghost’s eyes.
“First—thanks to you, I learned well.”
“…What?”
I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Second. The Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, basic twelve forms that you so kindly demonstrated for me before—I tried my best to teach myself, though I’m lacking. But my talent is so poor that I only managed to rough out the second form, the rising straight punch.”
“What the hell have you been babbling about this whole time?”
I lifted my head and looked at him.
“From now on I will execute the second form of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, basic twelve forms—the rising straight punch. As you well know, the representative escape route of this form is also the descending tumbling roll between the legs. So…”
Kwagugugu….
I muttered in a voice too low to hear.
“If you don’t want to die, crawl between my legs.”
“Y-you… are you insane?!”
I clenched my fist. In a whisper he could never hear, I murmured quietly.
The result of a thousand days of training amid death and despair.
Kwaaaaaaa!!
The air shuddered. My toes trembled.
“W-what is this?!”
Red light boiled over from both eyes, answering my seething emotions. Lee Jasuo seemed to realize something had gone wrong; he frantically waved his hands.
“W-wait! Just a second, we can talk—!”
Flash.
It was an instant. My form vanished. Where I had stood, only the ground split by my true step remained.
“O-oh no!”
Lee Jasuo crossed both arms with all his strength to shield his abdomen. But my dive beneath him was faster than that simple motion.
“How can a human be this fa—!”
My straight fist rose into his gut.
Bbaaaak!
Lee Jasuo’s feet left the ground. His crossed arms shattered to pieces.
“U… uwek!”
With a fist that lifted him all the way through the back, Lee Jasuo vomited midair.