Monopolizing Fortunes (187)
Monopolizing Fortunes (187)
No matter how hard he tried to hold on, the Fire Sword's blade was too fast and too heavy.
"Cough!"
The Internal Energy he had wrung out reversed course and made him vomit blood. And in that instant, the Fire Sword's blade came down over his head. He blocked it again. But Jeon Jung-bae, having vomited blood, could not properly load Internal Energy into his sword.
Because the roar of the clash was so loud, the sound of Jeon Jung-bae's own sword splitting his skull was comparatively small.
The blade drove into his skull and only stopped after slicing halfway through his ear. Jeon Jung-bae, his head split by his own sword, slowly toppled backward.
And so yet another fight ended in victory for the Revenge Society. As the Fire Sword came back in, letting out a long breath, the Ice Sword spoke to him.
"You're really putting your back into it, aren't you."
"Still finished faster than you, didn't I?"
"Faster, sure. While you were fighting, that official over there emptied a whole bottle of liquor. Isn't that right?"
Receiving the two men's gazes, Do Tong-dal turned his eyes to the last remaining one, the Lightning Sword.
"Don't let your guard down."
"I don't even know what that is."
The Lightning Sword, carrying a blade whose width was only half that of an ordinary sword, headed for the center of the clearing.
Seong Do-ung, the Mount Hua Sect elder who had to fight the Lightning Sword, was so tense his body was on the verge of locking up.
Jeon Jung-bae, whose head had just been split open, had been difficult to rank above or below him in martial prowess. Yet that same Jeon Jung-bae had come back as a cold corpse.
If the martial arts of those three young bastards were all similar, then the odds were high that he too would meet the same end as the two before him.
'What do I do?'
Even when he had climbed Seonjungsan, he had not expected this outcome. He had only pictured the scene of summoning the Revenge Society crowd and annihilating them together with the disciples of Mount Hua and Jongnam.
But somehow things had come to this. Seong Do-ung had never once in his life fought a life-or-death duel.
Disciples of the Mount Hua Sect were recognized wherever they went in the martial world, and as his status rose, so did the treatment he received.
Because of the name Mount Hua Sect, he had almost never had to fight in the martial world. He had only needed to prove his strength in sparring matches where there was no fear of death.
In sparring, he had been strong enough. His martial prowess was such that he could easily rank within the top ten of the Mount Hua Sect.
But now, faced with the feast of blood unfolding before his eyes, his body shrank back on its own.
'This isn't right. I'm at an age where all that's left is to live comfortably in the martial world!'
While all sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind, the Lightning Sword came to stand three jang in front of Seong Do-ung.
"Sword."
At the Lightning Sword's short word, Seong Do-ung realized that he had not even drawn his own sword. He hastily pulled the sword from his back.
The moment he gripped the sword, the Lightning Sword rushed in. It was fast. He had never seen a sword that fast. That was only natural, since he had never experienced a fight for his life.
Even so, the hundreds of sparring matches he had fought moved his hands and feet on instinct. He deflected the first attack, and a second attack followed immediately.
A chill like being slapped in the face with ice pressed in against his face.
Seong Do-ung's hands and feet quickly grew clumsy. When entering a fight, one needed a plan for how to lead the fight, but the thoroughly cowed Seong Do-ung had no such thing.
He was merely desperate to block the incoming attacks. His head was filled only with the thought, 'At this rate I'm really going to die! At this rate I'm really going to die!'
And then he died. The Lightning Sword's blade pierced cleanly through Seong Do-ung's throat. He died without even properly displaying the martial arts he possessed.
The Lightning Sword wiped the blood from his blade on the corpse's clothes. At that, shouts erupted from the Mount Hua and Jongnam side.
"You wretch! To insult the dead! How can you be so disrespectful!"
"What nonsense. As if you've never wiped blood on a corpse's clothes."
Byeon Jin-ong, the head elder of the Mount Hua Sect, gripped his sword as if he were about to charge out at any moment.
"I hadn't even warmed up yet, so this works out. Come on."
Do Tong-dal spoke.
"Come back."
"Yes!"
The Lightning Sword immediately sheathed his sword and returned to his place. When the Lightning Sword whispered to the Fire Sword and Ice Sword standing on either side, "Half of your monthly pay is mine," the two men clicked their tongues and looked away.
Watching that, Won Jung-bang was inwardly surprised. The Blood Spirit Three Swords were weapons the Revenge Society had raised with painstaking effort.
Because their innate martial talent was so outstanding, the society had poured all manner of elixirs and martial arts into them. The Blood Spirit Three Swords had grown just as Won Jung-bang had expected.
Their rapidly advancing martial arts had surpassed the elders of the Nine Great Sects, and they had been indoctrinated so thoroughly that they would gladly carry a load of firewood and leap into fire if the Revenge Society ordered it.
But the Blood Spirit Three Swords before him now were not the Blood Spirit Three Swords Won Jung-bang knew. They resembled young martial artists who had grown up smoothly, without any hardship.
They acted wild and reckless one moment, yet followed Do Tong-dal's orders like the edge of a blade. He could not believe a person could change like that in such a short time.
'Where does that ability of Do Tong-dal's come from?'
Now Do Tong-dal had even become frightening. While Won Jung-bang was thinking about Do Tong-dal, a new fight began.
It was an elder from the Jongnam Sect, but he did not draw Do Tong-dal's interest. Instead, a master from the Revenge Society's side drew exclamations of surprise from the onlookers.
"Mind-Reading Asura Palm, Eum Ju-cheon."
The old man, whose complexion was so pale it was nearly blue, looked like a corpse walking out. Do Tong-dal did not ask who Eum Ju-cheon was.
Whoever Eum Ju-cheon was, in this match he was merely one of the pieces on the board.
Just as the crowd's reaction suggested, Eum Ju-cheon smashed the Jongnam Sect elder's head without difficulty.
His bluish hands were impervious to blade and sword alike, and with cold energy rising from them, the Internal Energy he had cultivated was intriguing.
Still, the next fight did catch Do Tong-dal's eye. It was because it was a fight involving the Three Saints of Hwangdae, with whom he had briefly shared a meal.
Judging purely by martial arts, the Three Saints of Hwangdae's skills were similar to those of the Blood Spirit Three Swords.
'If they beat the Three Saints of Hwangdae too, this will be too one-sided.'
Given the results of the Blood Spirit Three Swords' fights, it was not entirely impossible. But then Baek So-gu, who was behind him, muttered.
"This time it won't be easy for the Revenge Society's side."
Do Tong-dal turned his head and asked.
"Who are the ones coming out from that side?"
"Haven't you heard of the Jongnam Twin Fiends?"
"Never heard of them."
"Well, you are an outsider when it comes to the martial world. They're the senior brothers of Yeon Ju-yang, the former Sect Leader of the Jongnam Sect, but their eccentric personalities are far removed from the orthodox sects. Rumor has it they fell into qi deviation during training, but that's just a rumor. Their personalities were probably shit from the start."
"They must be strong in martial arts."
"They are. They might even be as strong as the current Sect Leader, Wang Jo-hyeong."
Do Tong-dal's gaze lingered on the Jongnam Twin Fiends. One was bald with a white beard grown down to his navel, and since he paid no attention to grooming, he looked extremely filthy.
The other looked exactly like a clean, otherworldly Taoist sage. But drool was trickling from the corner of his mouth.
The Taoist old man hastily sucked the drool back in and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes gleaming with killing intent.
Like a child with a coveted toy in front of him, he was itching to fight as soon as possible.
But the Jongnam Twin Fiends had to wait a little longer. The old man who came out to face Cheong Seong from the Revenge Society's side was a figure from the Mount Hua Sect.
"Mount Hua even dragged out that old man."
"And who is that old man?"
"The Mount Hua Mad Sword."
"They sure make those epithets easy to understand."
The Mount Hua Mad Sword, gaunt as a bamboo stalk, showed no expression on his face.
On the face of Cheong Seong, who faced the Mount Hua Mad Sword, tension was clearly visible. Since Cheong Seong knew Mount Hua and Jongnam like the back of his own hand, he naturally knew the Mount Hua Mad Sword as well.
It was not simple pre-battle tension, but tension mixed with the trembling that came from a match that would be hard to win.
With his martial arts inferior and his spirit already broken, there was no path to victory. No lucky bolt of lightning fell from the sky to strike the Mount Hua Mad Sword either, so Cheong Seong's throat was cleanly severed.
Hong Seong, who came out next, died miserably. The filthy old man's weapon was not the sword most common in the Jongnam Sect, but an iron club.
First his arm broke, then his leg snapped, and only after his shoulder caved in did his skull shatter and death take him.
"Heh heh heh...... Now that was a fellow worth beating on for the first time in a while. Next, come out!"
The filthy old man waggled his finger at Muk Seong, who was next in line. At that, Sect Leader Wang Jo-hyeong stopped the old man.
"Martial Uncle, please come back in now."
"No. I want to fight more."
The filthy old man seemed less like an eccentric and more like a madman. The otherworldly Taoist old man shouted angrily.
"It's my turn! Hurry up and come back!"
"Then let's you and I fight, and whoever wins takes on the next one. How about it?"
Only after Wang Jo-hyeong stepped in and wrangled with them for half a ke did the otherworldly Taoist old man manage to come out.
Muk Seong, who had been moving forward, looked at Do Tong-dal.
"You got dragged into the Revenge Society's business because of me, didn't you?"
He had made up his mind, but perhaps even without Muk Seong, this was simply how fate would have played out.
"That could be."
"One swing of my blade changed the fate of the martial world. In that sense, my life hasn't been in vain."
Those became Muk Seong's last words. Do Tong-dal simply watched the death of Muk Seong, the man he had sworn to kill with his own hands.
'So that's the hidden strength of the Nine Great Sects.'
The hidden masters of Mount Hua and Jongnam would not be limited to just those. Of course, the Revenge Society also had hidden masters Do Tong-dal did not know about.
He was an old man who could be seen in any countryside village. With his stooped back and a sickle hanging at his waist instead of a whip, anyone would have taken him for a farmer.
Against the old man came Yeom Je-cheong of the Mount Hua Sect. Since he had come all the way to the Righteous Chivalry Sect and fought Wang Du-sik, his was a familiar face to Do Tong-dal.
'Come to think of it, what is that bastard Du-sik doing?'
At that moment, Wang Du-sik was visiting the Righteous Chivalry Sect for the first time in a long while.
"Huh? Nobody's here. Brother! Sis!"
He asked the warriors and workers, but no one knew where they had gone.
"Did I stay too long at the pleasure house? Hmm...... Nothing to be done. It'd be boring to wait here, so I'll wait at the pleasure house."
And so Wang Du-sik, having gone off to the pleasure house, once again became a forgotten existence.
Do Tong-dal's prediction that 'Yeom Je-cheong isn't a master of a level to come out that far back' proved correct.
Perhaps Yeom Je-cheong had insisted out of overconfidence in his own martial arts. In truth, the order of fighters in a match like this was not all that important.
"Silent Grandmaster Jeok Jong-yeon."
The whip old man's identity came from Baek So-gu's lips. Won Dae-yeon resolved Do Tong-dal's remaining curiosity.
"I never imagined an old demon who vanished twenty years ago would be in the Revenge Society."
"You chased him once, didn't you?"
"I never even saw his shadow."
"Even if he hasn't improved his martial arts at all since then, he isn't an opponent Yeom Je-cheong can beat."
Not only Do Tong-dal but Baek So-gu predicted as much, and Won Dae-yeon nodded as well.
Within a single ke, Yeom Je-cheong died with half his face blown away. Yeom Je-cheong's corpse was cleared away, and the next person to come out was also a figure from the Mount Hua Sect.
"Aha—! I was hoping that fellow wouldn't come out."
The person who drew Baek So-gu's lament was the Chivalrous Sword, Jang Un-sik. His epithet alone showed what kind of person he was.
Won Dae-yeon also spoke with regret.
"The Chivalrous Sword, of all people. Once again, chivalry proves fleeting."
The figure who came out from the Revenge Society's side was equally astonishing. The man with a build as huge as Wang Du-sik's and a massive blade a full hand-span wide was Seonsal Great Blade O Chung-wang.
"I'm seeing two old demons of a past generation today."
"This match is rather interesting."
The spectators who had no part in the fighting had sparkling eyes, but Yang Su-pan, who had the least reason to fight of all, kept letting out deep sighs.
Seeing that Yang Su-pan looked unwell, Do Tong-dal approached and asked.
"You don't look well."
Yang Su-pan pointed with his chin at the two men raising their killing intent.
"The ground those two are standing on is soaked with blood like that. How could I possibly feel good?"
"I clearly told you this was a life-or-death duel."
"Of course, but...... I didn't know it would be this gruesome. Living as a martial artist isn't easy either."
"They don't call it a world of mountains of blades and forests of swords for nothing. If it's too gruesome to watch, would you like to just leave?"
At the end of Do Tong-dal's words, a clang rang out. Soil kicked up by the collision between Jang Un-sik and O Chung-wang pattered down onto Yang Su-pan's instep.
Yang Su-pan, brushing the dirt from his instep, watched the two men fight and asked.
"You're not fighting today, are you?"
"Who knows."
"Who knows? You're not even a party to this."
"But I'm the one who set up this match, so I'm not without responsibility."
"Responsibility? What responsibility?"
"Why are you interrogating me like that?"
Yang Su-pan looked at the corpses lined up in rows on both sides. It wasn't that he had never encountered death before, but those just felt like lumps of meat.
"You could end up like that too, you know."
* * *