Chapter 21
As the blood-soaked beast’s jaws came crashing down, time seemed to slow, and Geom Mujin found himself thinking.
He’d thought the same thing when he’d hurled away those dozens of blood stakes a moment ago, but...
He’s a hell of a lot more skilled with his abilities than I expected.
Wow, look at those teeth. They were sharp enough to make your skin crawl.
Those weren’t teeth; they were outright weapons. Weapons.
If they got ahold of him, bone and flesh alike would be minced into something that looked like pigeon meat someone had ground up and stuffed into a cheap fried cutlet.
He was already in plenty of trouble just trying to avoid them, and yet there he was, calmly admiring the craftsmanship until the beast’s maw swallowed him whole.
Crunch-!
Inside the beast’s mouth, Geom Mujin did not, in fact, get ground into mince.
Click-! Crk-crk-!
The teeth that bit against his skin and clothes could go no farther, sparks flying where they met his body.
A thin layer of protective qi wrapped around him from head to toe, shielding him.
At this level, a sloppy protective aura would’ve been torn right through.
It wasn’t that the attack had been weak; it was just that his opponent happened to be one of the Seven Martial Stars’ great swordsmen, so the blow had been stopped.
Now that he could feel it on his own skin, he understood even more clearly just how terrifying the attack’s power really was.
Even now, the teeth were grinding inward in real time.
Of course, the thing being shattered wasn’t his protective qi, but the teeth themselves.
Guess it’s about time I went out.
I adjusted my sword grip.
Then a strange, brilliant light leaked from the blade.
Mu Jin Sword Style.
Soma Sword.
Immortal Flow Slash.
I swung the sword blazing with light.
Sshaaak-!
The unleashed slash severed the teeth and sliced through the blood sphere.
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“So the playtime’s over already?”
“.....!?”
As Geom Mujin stepped out of the blood sphere, the mist convulsed once again.
It was shocking enough that he’d broken the blood sphere, but the monster hadn’t even been scratched.
Using blood-flow manipulation in real combat was almost a first, but even so, that thing had understood at once that the attack had been vicious.
It had landed properly, so why in the hell was he perfectly fine?
When a living thing gets stabbed or cut by something sharp, flesh tears and blood spills.
That was true for it as well.
And yet the monster before it didn’t look anything like that at all.
For “it,” with its short experience, this was beyond comprehension—but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.
“Uuugh... n-no...”
The blood-colored mist shuddered violently.
The aura wrapped around the monster’s sword.
It hated that thing so much it could hardly stand it.
“Well, look at that. So you can feel disgust too, even though you’re not one of the monsters.”
Grinning at a reaction it had never shown before, Geom Mujin extended his sword.
His blade was now wrapped in a clear, pure qi.
A force that drove away all things vile—Pasahyeonjeong, the power of righteous energy.
Those who practiced demonic arts were naturally vulnerable to Pasahyeonjeong.
The goema shared that weakness, since they all began with demonic arts in the first place.
Basically like Pokémon, right.
It was the same as a Dark-type getting wrecked by Fairy.
During the Orthodox-Demonic War, I’d been more like a Normal type, so Dark-types dealt regular damage to me, which meant I’d had to come up with a new sword style if I wanted to efficiently wreck demon bastards.
Pasahyeonjeong came from martial arts rooted in Taoist and Buddhist traditions, but since nine out of ten righteous sects were based on one or the other, I had plenty of Pa-ur— uh, reference material.
“Um... this is getting kind of uncomfortable. You’ve been staring at me so intensely for a while now...”
“The sight of you blending so beautifully with the Taehudo Dragon Sword has simply captured my attention. Don’t mind it.”
“Even if you say it like that, I still mind...”
“I don’t mind, so don’t worry about it.”
“The important part isn’t whether you mind or not...”
That was from the Kunlun sect, or something like that.
“We’re in the middle of a fight! Don’t look at me—focus on the enemy!”
“Your Five-Elements Subduing Demon Sword’s forms are simply hard to take my eyes off.”
“Ahem!”
Or the Kongtong sect.
“Lately, why do you keep sneaking glances at me like that? If you’re a man, be straightforward about it!”
“Understood.”
“W-wha—!?”
Or Mount Heng.
There were really so many.
Thanks to the generous cooperation of all those righteous martial artists, I extracted and refined the principles of Taoist sect techniques into a sword style called Soma Sword.
For some reason, a few people gave me cold looks after I developed Soma Sword, but thanks to it I’d gone wild during the Orthodox-Demonic War.
“I haven’t used it since the last goema was wiped out, but thanks to you I get to bring it out again.”
But “it,” which clearly wasn’t interested in the history of Soma Sword, waved a hand.
Fwoosh-!
Once again, the blood on the ground surged upward.
Just before the wave of blood could crash over Geom Mujin, his right arm blurred.
Shashashak-!
As lines of clear light were drawn through the air, the wave collapsed.
“I told you. Playtime’s over.”
With the earlier attack, he’d already confirmed nearly everything he needed to know.
There was only one thing left to check.
Thump-!
Geom Mujin’s figure closed the distance in an instant, stopping right in front of “it.”
“It” hurriedly raised blood into a wall, but it was so small it could barely hide even itself.
The blood that had been cut by that obnoxious aura-coated blade wouldn’t obey it anymore, for some reason.
Shk—
The shield was split apart without doing a damn thing.
“Your face. Let me see your face.”
Geom Mujin was curious what lay beyond that mist.
His sword sliced toward the edge of the haze.
So it really wasn’t just ordinary mist.
That blood-red fog wasn’t simply there to hide a body.
When he’d just cut through it, he’d felt a strange kind of rebound.
Not as strong as protective qi, but enough to count as armor.
It might stop stray blades or arrows just fine, but...
Not mine.
Sasasasak-!
The blade peeled away the blood mist as if stripping scales from a fish.
With each movement of the sword, the haze was shaved back, and the blade inched farther forward.
“It” struggled against the sword drawing closer.
It manipulated what blood it could still control and launched a stake at the back of Geom Mujin’s head.
Shk—
A slash whipped backward and cut the stake apart.
Shaaaaaaak-!
Blood droplets shot toward him like daggers, but every one of them was deflected by the sword barrier that surrounded him on all sides.
Fwoosh-!
It gathered blood in its palm and burst it right in front of his face.
Blood obscured his vision, but the attacks didn’t stop.
“It” used every trick it had to interfere with Geom Mujin, but it was useless.
No matter what came at him, Geom Mujin’s gaze never wavered, and his sword never lost its line.
The skill he’d honed and honed and honed up to this day wasn’t going to stagger over some cheap little stunt like that.
If anyone thought it would, that was a grave insult to Geom Mujin.
“Uuu... ngh...”
With its interference failing, “it” finally summoned the blood mist again.
Since it had created the blood-red haze in the first place, making more of it wasn’t difficult.
“Keep making it. Let’s see how long you can keep this up.”
That was, assuming there wasn’t some monster out there who could cut through mist faster than it could be made.
Chajajak-!
Like a craftsman at work, the slashes peeled the fog away.
Three inches. Two. One.
A blue-white blade drew near.
At last, the sword pierced through the haze and reached “it.”
Slash-!
The tip of the blade grazed its forearm, drawing blood.
“!!?”
At the sensation of the blade biting into flesh, the blood mist wrapped around “it” roiled violently.
As if refusing to allow any further approach, the blood haze thrust upward like the spines of a sea urchin.
“Not a chance!”
Geom Mujin swung his sword and cut all the spikes down.
Since it’s a vampire, it’s got bat-like...
“Huh?”
As his sword, swung to glimpse the face beneath, cleared away what little mist remained, Geom Mujin’s thoughts stopped dead.
“What the hell...”
His eyes went wide, and he failed to hide his shock.
“Uuugh...!”
At Geom Mujin’s completely unexpected opening, “it” squeezed out every last bit of strength.
It gathered all the blood mist and splattered blood together, raising them up into sharp spikes.
Then it hurled them straight at Geom Mujin, who still hadn’t recovered his senses.
Pa-pa-pa-bat-!
The countless spikes of blood rained down on the defenseless Geom Mujin, burying him like a sudden downpour.
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The blood spikes, forced out with every last ounce of strength, buried him so completely that Geom Mujin was no longer visible.
The sight looked like a grave.
“Haah... haah...”
A rough breath spilled from “it’s” mouth.
And not merely because it had expended so much energy.
From the instant Geom Mujin’s sword had touched it, “it” had been seized by fear.
Blade, blood, pain, pursuit, terror.
Those five things had become a wet, tangled mess in its mind.
The pain of its wound grew and grew.
Throb—
Throb—!
Throb—!!
It was hard to believe such pain came from a wound that had only been lightly cut.
It was partly Soma Sword’s influence, but it was also phantom pain brought on by psychological factors.
The pain it had suffered long ago—so long ago it might as well have been half its life—was surging back to life.
A dark room.
Unknown adults thrust sharp blades at it.
The blades tore through its skin again and again.
The adults injected something into it.
The process of forcing that thing inside had been agony.
It had wanted to thrash and scream, but it was not allowed.
All that had been permitted was to tremble in a narrow, cold room, gasping through pain in a breath that would not come, until it somehow drifted into sleep.
And then it opened its eyes again, and the same thing repeated.
That was why it had always wished.
Wishing for that, it had fled from them, running into the mountains again and again—
Wait.
...Ran? Me? When?
Who was I running from?
What was I trying to do?
What had I wanted in that cold darkness?
What was I doing here?
Questions piled one upon another.
It didn’t know. It couldn’t remember.
I... I...
“Ugh...! Haaah... haaah...”
As one question after another surfaced, light began to return to the dull haze of its eyes.
“I... I am...”
With a splitting headache, “it” was slowly on the verge of returning from demon to human when—
Wuuuuung—
Something called to it through the thread connected to its mind.
The light that had just begun to rise in its eyes sank back down.
This was not the same sort of connection it had with its dependents.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t really a connection so much as it was being connected to.
Wuuuuung—
At the command that descended once more, “it” moved.
Its steps turned toward the summit of the mountain, where it had originally been headed.
Before leaving, “it” looked at the grave of spikes and issued an order to its dependents.
At that moment, all the dependents who had been hunting prey at their master’s command stopped moving.
“......”
“......”
After standing there like stone statues for a moment, the dependents turned their heads in one direction and all of them began to run.
Their starting points were different, but every one of them headed for the western side of the mountain.
Thud-thud-thud-!!
“W-what’s going on?”
“Are we... alive?”
The Taehomun disciples, who had barely escaped death at the hands of the dependents, let out breaths of relief even as they stood there dazed.
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A grave of spikes had been formed by spikes burying one another, then burying one another again and again.
Sreung-
From within it, the sharp ring of steel rang out.
Then fine lines, like the grout lines of a tiled floor, were drawn across the grave of spikes.
Hup!
Boom-!!
The palm-strike that burst from the center sent the shattered pieces of the spike grave flying.
Patapat-!
Through the fragments falling overhead, Geom Mujin stepped out from the grave.
“That’s a lot of blood you piled up.”
He shook his head at the mound of spikes, wondering just how badly the thing had wanted to bury him for good.
“Still, I guess it’s lucky nobody saw that.”
A great swordsman stopping his sword mid-fight and then getting flattened like that... with zero damage.
It was a complete blow to a great swordsman’s dignity, but there’d been no helping it just now.
This wasn’t an excuse.
There was no way that the vampire inside the blood mist could have been...
Even though I saw it with my own eyes, I still couldn’t believe what I’d just seen, and I’d let my guard slip a little.
...So I need to check it once more.
Geom Mujin stared in the direction where the vampire had been standing.