A Terrible Prize
Geom Mujin hauled in an unexpected big fish and led the others up onto the deck.
Then, just as everyone made it up there, something came flying straight toward their feet.
Whoosh—! Thud—!
“H-hiiih!?”
“Hah!”
Dang Yulin and O Naho let out shrill screams the moment they recognized the object that had come flying in.
What had landed at their feet was a mangled lump of red meat, torn to shreds.
Bits of hair and scraps of clothing mixed in here and there made it obvious what that lump had once been made of.
It was the kind of sight that would make even a stout-hearted person jump, so what did it do to those two, who were especially weak of nerve?
“Uwaaaagh!”
Unable to stand the horrible sight, O Naho threw up.
“W-what in the world is—”
“……”
“……”
Dang Yulin and O Naho pointed at the flying lump of meat, but the rest of the group was looking somewhere else entirely.
“U-um, everyooone—”
Dang Yulin started to speak in confusion, but when she unconsciously looked where they were looking, her words died in her throat.
“Kraaaah!”
A monster with a wolf’s head and blade-like claws.
“Krorarar!”
A hulking brute with green skin and vicious muscles.
“Shaaahhh!”
A monster shaped like a giant snake.
Across the deck, monsters of all different shapes and sizes were ripping through the escorts, turning the whole place into an all-out beast brawl—or rather, a Goema brawl.
“Uh… that’s, like, that thing, right…?”
“Yes. I believe it is that thing.”
When Dang Yulin muttered in a daze, Hayoung nodded.
You might wonder what “that thing” was supposed to mean, but the answer came soon enough.
“G-Goema..! Goema have appeared!!”
“Goe, Goema—!?”
Dang Seorin and O Naho shouted in horror, and though Dang Yulin and Hayoung didn’t show it on their faces, they were feeling more or less the same inside.
While they’d stepped away for just a moment, the ship had turned into a Goema free-for-all.
“……”
Meanwhile, Geom Mujin was staring at the chaos just like the others, except his gaze had locked onto one particular Goema.
He sharpened his focus and saw straight through the tangle of monsters.
“Kroa… krorarar!?”
The green-skinned Goema was flailing with one hand reaching behind his back, and Geom Mujin caught it instantly.
There, plastered against the Goema’s back and biting down with all its might, was a black-haired kid.
The back of that head was painfully familiar.
Why the hell are you there?!
Geom Mujin, the Goema, and the others all reeled at the sudden appearance of the monsters.
By the time Geom Mujin and Dang Seorin had gone down below deck—
“Die, you bastards..!”
“Hahaha! You think you’ve got the skill for that?”
Bang Dupil and Sama Ryeong made the ship’s deck their battlefield, exchanging fists and swords.
The outcome of their life-and-death struggle was crucial.
The escorts of Baekmun Express had momentum and numbers on their side, but compared with the people of the Demonic Cult, they lacked raw power.
The cultists, on the other hand, were individually stronger than the escorts, but they were fewer in number and already surrounded.
On the surface it looked like an even fight, but it wasn’t.
Even if one side managed a hard-fought victory, if their own leader lost, they could still be wiped out by the enemy commander.
Leader and subordinates.
Whichever side it was, they had to destroy the enemy in front of them as quickly as possible and then hurry to help the others.
And that was more a job for the underlings than for the leaders.
“Throw the nets and capture stones!”
At Ma Soong’s command, nets flew through the air, and the cultists moved.
Thwack—!
“Hah, huh—!?”
One of them closed the distance in an instant, bending his fingers like a beast’s claws and slashing across the air in intersecting lines.
Shwaaaak—!
“Aaagh!”
An unlucky escort was torn apart in an X-shape by the cultist’s claw technique.
Elsewhere, other escorts were taking damage from the swords and fists of the cultists.
Whoosh—!
Then something was hurled in among the escorts.
The projectile shot toward the cultists’ feet.
The cultists tried to evade with a retreat step, but their bodies swayed for just an instant.
“...!”
Right now they were fighting atop an unstable deck above the river.
The escorts often traveled by ship, so they were used to fighting on a rolling deck, but the cultists weren’t.
On top of that, the tangled remains of the nets scattered all over the floor had become hidden stumbling blocks.
In the end, the thrown object struck the cultist before he could dodge.
The projectile known as a capture stone was a simple device: a rope with a stone tied to each end.
Those stones were specialized for restraint.
Whirl—!
With the brief burst of centrifugal force, the capture stone wrapped tightly around the cultist’s ankle.
As I said before, when you’re trying to restrain a martial artist, you start by sealing their feet!
“Now! Spears!”
“Yes, sir! Stab!”
“Stab!”
The escorts in the rear ranks thrust forward all at once with their long spears.
And no, if you’re wondering why they were using spears in such an important moment, that’s kind of the point.
In the Ming era, spears, like gunpowder, were weapons the government kept under tight control.
Sure, they weren’t regulated as fiercely as gunpowder, but when large quantities started moving around, the authorities definitely paid attention.
You might wonder why gunpowder was one thing and swords were another, while spears got singled out.
That was because swords were weapons for self-defense, while spears were weapons for war.
A sword took a good deal of time to master properly, but spears were different.
Just grip one and thrust, and you already had enough killing power.
Because of that simple mechanism, spears had been used in war since ancient times.
If you gathered a hundred peasants, handed each of them a spear, and taught them seriously for a month, you could end up with a formidable armed force.
That’s why the government kept spears controlled—to prevent peasants and bandits from getting too strong—and why martial arts in this world had developed mostly around swords and sabers.
Thud-thud-thud!
Those forbidden spears, banned by the state, slammed into the cultists.
The cultists tried to bat the spears away with their forms, but because their feet were tangled in the capture stones, they failed.
It was the perfect moment to say that the lower body is the foundation of all martial arts.
“Keep stabbing! Just keep stabbing!”
The escorts’ relentless spear thrusts!
The effect was tremendous!
What do cultists know how to do, anyway?
There was no reason to close in on those kinds of bastards.
Baekmun Express’s strategy was working beautifully.
One by one, the other cultists were also caught in capture stones and showered with spear thrusts.
Maybe they could tough out one or two holes in their bodies, but four or five was a different story.
After that, they’d die!
As the balance of the battle tipped in the escorts’ favor, the leaders of both camps saw it too.
“Hup!”
Kwaang—!
A fist wreathed in blue force smashed into a sword.
“Looks like your underlings are being cleaned up too!”
Bang Dupil pressed hard after Sama Ryeong as the latter was forced back.
Judging that the momentum had fully shifted to his side, he unleashed an even fiercer assault.
“Your turn now!”
Crack—!
His hand twitched.
True to his title, the White-Fanged Asura, his greatest specialty was his monstrous grip strength.
He meant to use that grip to rip Sama Ryeong’s limbs off.
“I don’t plan on killing you quickly. You’ll tell me everything you know until I find the bastard who killed my son!”
From his earlier reaction, it was clear these weren’t the ones who had killed his son.
Which meant he needed to grab one of these mysterious freaks by the mouth and wring the truth out of him.
The moment his hand opened like a beast’s jaws and was about to strike—
“It won’t be easy to open this lord’s mouth.”
Sama Ryeong, who had been defending in silence until now, finally spoke.
Woooong—!
Sword qi surged along his blade.
The blade qi, dark and foul and unsettling, stretched farther and farther.
“A disobedient beast needs to be taught with a whip!”
The sword, wrapped in blade qi nearly four times longer than the blade itself, swung through the air.
Flowing Remnant Sword Art
Demonic Severing of Emotion
The blade qi carved a parabola through the air and crashed down on Bang Dupil.
“Ghk!”
Bang Dupil, who had been rushing in on Sama Ryeong, retreated at once, slipping away from the sheer force of the attack.
Shwaaaak—!
As the whip-like blade qi scythed through the place where he had been standing, part of the ship was sliced away.
Seeing that, Bang Dupil swallowed unconsciously.
So the man really was a cultist.
As expected of someone who had cultivated demonic arts, his martial strength was no joke.
“So you were hiding a trick up your sleeve, huh? Doesn’t change anything.”
But Bang Dupil didn’t back down; he charged again.
From the start, he hadn’t thought the bastard would be weak, so this wasn’t exactly a surprise.
“Heh. You’re like a wild boar. The kind that only learns something hurts after it gets whipped.”
Sama Ryeong gave a low laugh as he watched him rush in.
Chajajak—!
He moved his sword and controlled the blade qi like a whip.
Unlike the earlier wide-area form, this one lashed at a narrower range, battering Bang Dupil’s body.
No matter how strong his protective qi was, Sama Ryeong’s attacks were outstripping its defenses.
“.....!!”
Every time the whip struck his protective qi, leather tore and blood sprayed.
“Hahahaha! More! Do better! Struggle harder!”
And yet, watching him force himself forward doggedly all the same, Sama Ryeong burst into wild laughter.
The mental exhaustion he had been feeling lately was being cured by sadism.
If he wanted, he could end this instantly with even stronger attacks, but he was deliberately holding back, refusing to destroy the toy too quickly.
He wanted to play with it a little longer.
And Bang Dupil could feel that intention in his bones.
...Yeah. Laugh all you want.
After all, the winner of this fight would be him.
His men had already gained the upper hand over the cultists.
If the subordinates who had finished clearing their side came to help here, the tide could still turn back.
So all he had to do was keep the bastard’s attention—
“Were you really planning to wait for those maggots to come?”
“?!”
Then Sama Ryeong spoke as if he had read his mind.
“Why would the big maggot’s little maggots help him beat a tiger?”
“...You’re the one whose underlings are about to get slaughtered by those little maggots, and you’re still running your mouth.”
Bang Dupil snapped back without hesitation.
This bastard was about to be isolated, and he was still bluffing.
“Slaughtered? By whom? Surely you’re not talking about this lord’s men?”
Sama Ryeong spoke in the tone of someone about to reveal a fascinating secret.
“Want me to tell you something interesting?”
He extended one finger and pointed toward the side where the escorts and cultists were fighting.
“Those aren’t this lord’s underlings.”
“What?”
“To be precise, they aren’t underlings. They’re test subjects.”
Before Bang Dupil could even fully process what he had just heard, Sama Ryeong flicked his finger.
“How convenient that we’re right in the middle of the river, where no one can watch.”
Ttak—!
The sound of a finger snap rang across the deck, and the cultists’ movements abruptly froze.
“W-what is it?”
“Did we get them...?”
That was the exact moment one of the escorts muttered what sounded like a high-level resurrection spell.
Twitch—! Twitch—!
The bodies of the cultists, hidden beneath their windbreakers, began to writhe in a grotesque distortion.
“Whatever they’re doing, just kill them!”
Sensing something was wrong, Ma Soong drew his iron sword and slashed at a throat.
Whoosh— grab—!
The blade descending to sever the neck was caught.
“What the hell...!”
Ma Soong’s eyes widened when he saw the hand holding his blade.
It was not a human hand.
It was covered in fur, with claws sharp as knives growing from the fingertips.
“Grrrrr....”
From the owner of that hand came the growl of a beast.
Crack—!
“No, no way... Goe—kgh!?”
Ma Soong tried to say something, but the mask worn by the cultist shattered, and the bite came faster than his words could.
Grrrrr!
When the cultist with the wolf’s jaws closed his mouth, Ma Soong’s head fell to the deck.
“Chief Escort!”
“Goema! It’s a Goema!”
“They’re appearing here too..!”
The escorts were thrown into chaos as the cultists they had been fighting transformed into Goema.
“Count it as an honor. You’re becoming test subjects for the Goema Soldiers, one of this cult’s grand projects.”
Sama Ryeong said this while gazing lovingly at the Goema Soldiers butchering the escorts.
And then, watching the ensuing riot from high above, there was one pair of eyes fixed on the scene.
“......”
Flash—!
The state of those eyes was not normal at all.