Something Broken
"Reporting to the Commandant, sir! We weren't laughing!"
Beom Undae, standing nearby, hurried forward and puffed out his chest as he spoke. He was terrified that Sa Cheonseong's party would seize on any excuse to pick a fight.
But the moment Sa Cheonseong laid eyes on him, the bathhouse incident from a few days prior came flooding back, and his rage flared even hotter. He raised his hand without a word and struck Beom Undae across the face.
"Get lost!"
The sharp crack of the slap rang out, and Beom Undae went tumbling backward. He felt wretchedly wronged — but not a single person present felt any sympathy for the man who'd just been struck.
Sa Cheonseong turned a savage glare on Yeop Pung's group. He fully intended to vent, here and now, every ounce of rage he had bottled up for five long days.
"Yeop Pung! Crawl out here this instant!"
He bellowed the name like a curse. There was, at present, not a shred of evidence connecting the events of a few days ago to Yeop Pung. Even so, Sa Cheonseong could not shake the conviction that every last bit of it had been Yeop Pung's doing. No matter how he turned it over in his mind, the methods had been far too vicious, far too underhanded.
Yeop Pung walked out with a face of ice.
"What's this about?"
"On your knees!"
"For what reason?"
Every Cheonun disciple's eyes went wide.
"For what reason? I'm your training instructor! When I tell you to kneel, you obey the order! You've been loafing around for five days — itching all over, are you? Pick up that two-ton boulder and run with it for two hours. Now!"
That bastard!
Everyone clenched their teeth. So the moment he shows up, he's going to take it out on us?
All eyes turned to Yeop Pung, left standing alone. What were they supposed to do? Were they really meant to stand there and watch him be humiliated?
Just then, Sa Cheonseong suddenly reached up and slapped his own neck.
"Huh? There's a mosquito!"
Everyone blinked, bewildered. A mosquito? In broad daylight? They dismissed it just as quickly. A single mosquito could hardly do anything to a man like Sa Cheonseong.
What no one noticed was this: as the mosquito died, a transparent liquid coating its body seeped into Sa Cheonseong's skin.
"What are you standing around for? Don't just stand there gawking!"
Sensing nothing amiss, Sa Cheonseong bellowed at the Cheonun disciples. He only felt, for some inexplicable reason, that the weather was a little hot today.
Ah, damn it all.
Everyone let out a long, weary sigh. They had enjoyed a week of relative ease, and now the suffering was starting all over again. Who among them could possibly carry a two-ton boulder? The four-meridian disciples were crushed in place, unable to so much as twitch. Only Wang Maeng and a handful of others could barely walk.
Still, the Cheonun disciples' gazes remained locked on Yeop Pung, standing alone. No one could guess how Sa Cheonseong's lot meant to torment him. Wang Maeng in particular watched the scene in secret. He knew Yeop Pung would surely pull something today — but the Cheonbong Army had been moving with utmost caution of late. What opening would there even be?
In the center of the training ground, Sa Cheonseong regarded Yeop Pung with a face of cold contempt.
"You mongrel. You think I don't know? That last incident was definitely your doing!"
"An accusation needs grounds, Commandant Sa. You shouldn't go around slandering people."
Yeop Pung's voice was perfectly calm.
"Evidence?!"
Sa Cheonseong seized Yeop Pung by the collar and hauled him up.
"You think I can't do anything to you just because there's no evidence? Hmph. Yeop Pung, killing you would be easier than squashing a bug. What the hell do I need evidence for!"
Damn it! Why is it so hot today?
He had only shouted a few words when he felt sweat streaming down his forehead. Hair-thin vessels in his eyes began to flush red — so faint they were almost impossible to notice.
Yeop Pung smiled, cold as winter, watching the crimson haze gather in Sa Cheonseong's gaze.
"Commandant Sa, are you all right? Shall I fetch you some water?"
Before the words had even left his mouth, Sa Cheonseong released him and staggered backward.
"Commandant?"
The men beside him had noticed it too — something was wrong.
Right then, from the side, came the wet slap of Noe Bun crushing a mosquito against his own face.
"Water — give me some water!"
In a matter of minutes, Sa Cheonseong could barely form a sentence. When he turned his head, his entire face had flushed a burning scarlet, and the look in his eyes as he stared at them all had changed.
"What — what are you doing?"
Deung Chung took a quick step back, fear crawling up his spine. The memory of being showered in filth by Sa Cheonseong five days ago was still vivid. There was no telling what absurd thing the man might do this time.
"I said give me water. Didn't you hear me?!"
Sa Cheonseong growled like a beast. Veins stood out on his forehead.
"Yes, Commandant, sir!"
Someone beside him thrust a water flask forward. Sa Cheonseong didn't even bother with the stopper — he smashed the flask to pieces with his palm and dumped the cold water over his face.
Hissss!
Good heavens — it was steaming. Sa Cheonseong was behaving as if his own body were on fire.
"Back! Get back, now!"
Deung Chung, at a complete loss, shouted for everyone to get far away from Sa Cheonseong, then threw up a barrier of Profound Qi, bracing for whatever might come.
But just as the whole grounds stood tense and helpless, a beast-like howl erupted from behind.
"Aaaargh!"
Noe Bun! What the hell is it now?
People spun around to find Noe Bun's entire body had swollen before their eyes. He had always been powerfully built, but now he had transformed into something like a human bear. His white training uniform was torn in places, revealing muscle flushed an angry, fevered red.
Damn it. This one's gone strange too!
Cold sweat ran down Deung Chung's face.
"Noe Bun, what the hell is going on with you?"
"I don't know!"
Noe Bun was already roaring. He seemed overflowing with a strength he had nowhere to put.
"I — it's too hot, too hot! Aagh!"
At his howl, the entire training ground went deathly still. Everyone stared blankly at the center of the grounds, understanding nothing. The men who had come to rough up Yeop Pung were suddenly turning into monsters. Was Sa Cheonseong about to become the talk of the town all over again?
The atmosphere grew more bizarre by the second. People scrambled to pull out water flasks and dump them over Sa Cheonseong and Noe Bun, who had collapsed to the ground — but the moment the water touched their skin, it turned to white steam and vanished into the air. Both men were already on their knees. Sa Cheonseong was at least clenching his teeth, as if enduring something; Noe Bun, who had never been strong of will, was on the verge of breaking entirely.
"Kyaa!"
Mo Soo-mi, who had sidled up from nearby, suddenly shrieked as if scandalized.
"Look at those two — those perverts!"
"Perverts? What are you talking about?"
People followed the line of Mo Soo-mi's pointing finger. Deung Chung stared at the two men writhing on the ground, and his mind went completely blank.
Unable to bear the heat, the two of them had stripped completely naked and were rubbing their bodies against the cold floor.
He snapped back to his senses. This was absolutely not a normal situation. Someone had clearly drugged them. He was about to order the two suffering men dragged away when an inexplicable fire surged up from his own chest. Deung Chung's pupils flushed red in an instant.
He had been so tense earlier that he had never noticed the mosquito clinging to his own neck. He realized it now — but it was already too late.
"Who did this?!"
Deung Chung squeezed out the last of his remaining reason and roared. Then he tore the clothes from his body, blasting out a tide of crimson flame Profound Qi. Unexpectedly, the Commandant himself lost his sanity even faster than Noe Bun or Sa Cheonseong.
A six-meridian expert's inner fire, ignited beyond all restraint, roaring out as the last of his reason burned away.
In truth, Deung Chung was a six-meridian Profound Realm expert, and the Profound Qi in his body ought to have been enough to suppress the effects of Hongranchun. In the end, however, his desire caught fire all the same. Reason fled, and he too transformed into a howling beast.
"It's so hot I could go insane!"
Deung Chung had completely lost his mind. People from the Cheonbong Army side quickly ran out and seized him.
"Commandant Deung, snap out of it!"
The situation was now utterly beyond control. There were only three six-meridian experts on the scene, and two of them were face-down on the ground, retching. Who could possibly stop Deung Chung?
A roar like a beast's bellow tore through the air. Deung Chung exploded the Profound Qi throughout his body and blasted everyone around him away.
"Hahaha! None of you can stop me today!"
He laughed like a madman and charged as if to kill them all. His speed was despairingly fast.
"Quick — stop him!"
Cries of shock went up on every side.
"It's over — save me! Somebody save me!"
Most of them had gone deathly pale with fear.
In that unbelievably absurd moment, starlight suddenly flashed — and Yeop Pung appeared before Deung Chung with a face of ice.
"Get lost."
Already out of his mind, Deung Chung did not even recognize him. He reached for Yeop Pung in a wild, flailing grab.
But Yeop Pung had been waiting for this very moment. He twisted the corner of his mouth like a devil and drew the Black Frost Sword, black light flashing along the steel. Even before the blade had fully cleared its sheath, it erupted with a terrifying golden lightning, tracing a dazzling meteor of sword-qi in a single breath.
Let me help you clear your head.
Yeop Pung thrust without mercy. The cold blade took one of Deung Chung's fingers.
Because Deung Chung had been moving, the cut was not clean. The horrific sound of bone being scraped shook the entire grounds.
Deung Chung froze like stone, standing dazed for several seconds. Then he let out a tearing scream the likes of which he had never made in his life.
"It's cut off! My precious finger!"