Chapter 229
Chapter 229: Broken Sword (5)
"What is this……"
He had not expected to be attacked on this mountain.
Gak-hae was a man who had spent twenty years in the Rakshasa Warrior Monk Unit. Half of those years he had spent at the vanguard.
Suppression of bandits south of Hangzhou, extermination of evil cults along the Eastern Sea coast. The battlefields his feet had touched were too many to count on ten fingers.
And so he could tell.
This deployment was nothing more than a mop-up.
The remaining stragglers of the Vast Heaven were at most two or three hundred. Half of those would be wounded at that. It was a job that would be finished in half a day.
Simply put, he had wanted to give Beop-jong an opportunity to spread the Buddhist path to those subject to the Law.
Among the Rakshasa Warrior Monks, the most cherished junior among the Gak-generation—nay, among the majority of the Gak-generation disciples—was Beop-jong. He was different from the other Beop-generation disciples. Not because his physique was exceptional, but because his heart was soft and he poured sincerity into his sutra-chanting; and when a Crescent Moon Blade was first placed in his hands, he had not eaten for two full days.
The memory of the day that boy first practiced the Buddhist path came to mind. The hand that pressed a Crescent Moon Blade against a thief's neck yet hesitated for a long time. A hand gripping so hard the knuckles showed white, the tip trembling ceaselessly without stopping. The blade only moved when Gak-hae laid a hand upon his shoulder.
After that, the depth of Beop-jong's sutra-chanting deepened by one layer. A depth only those who had fully expounded the Buddhist path could obtain.
That was why this mop-up had to be a simple affair. A perfectly fitting opportunity—to let Beop-jong spread the Buddhist path with his own hands against the Vast Heaven's stragglers, the majority of them wounded.
That had been the plan, and that was how it was supposed to be……
"Gak-hae, senior brother."
Beop-jong, who had been following close behind, called out to him.
"The advance guard is quiet."
Gak-hae's eyes narrowed.
Two hundred in the advance guard. They had ascended the mountain a quarter-hour ago. It was strange that no battle report had come down, yet it was also not unheard of for the mountain terrain to swallow up Sound Transmissions—so it was strange but not impossible.
But.
The sutra-chanting of the advance guard itself had been cut off.
The vibration of hundreds of voices layered into one, reverberating through the earth, had been cleanly severed at the mid-slope. The chanting of the main force ascending from below was still ongoing, but the resonance of the advance guard that should have been descending from above had vanished.
Sutra-chanting was the lifeline of a Rakshasa Warrior Monk. As long as breath remained, the mouth was meant to be chanting scripture. Especially when spreading the Buddhist path, it should have been even more so…… The fact that it had been cut off all at once meant—
"Sound Transmission doesn't reach either."
Beop-jong, his face drained white, reminded him of the reality once more.
"……Did you say all of them?"
"Yes, senior brother."
Gak-hae did not answer. He could not. Two hundred voices of sutra-chanting could not be cut off simultaneously. Even if there had been an ambush, individual engagements would continue and residual sounds would remain.
All at once, he thought.
It was something that could never be understood, nor should it ever be.
Then.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The mountain shook.
Not beneath his feet. A vibration descending from the mid-slope, as if something enormous were stepping across the mountain itself.
And.
The air changed.
The vibration of sutra-chanting pouring from hundreds of mouths warped all at once. Simultaneously, the tongues chanting scripture stiffened and jaws locked. Breathing grew heavy as well. Not the sensation of drawing breath in, but of the air pressing down upon the chest.
'An invisible energy is pressing down upon the entire mountain……'
Among everything Gak-hae knew, there was nothing like this. This was not the pressure emitted by one who possesses energy. The space itself had changed. As if submerged underwater, all movement grew sluggish, and the internal power that had sought to flow out through the meridians was dissolving and scattering into the air.
He immediately attempted to transmit his voice to all personnel following behind, but it did not reach. The energy…… the energy wave was failing to produce sound. In this space, right now.
He urgently shouted aloud. If energy waves could not work, there was no choice but to resort to raw voice as a stopgap.
"Hold formation! Do not fall back!"
His unaided voice, carrying no true energy, was weaker than the mountain wind. The front rows were pushed backward, the rear rows stumbled over the front rows, the hands of the junior disciples holding Crescent Moon Blades trembled, and the tips of long spears swayed uncontrollably.
A Rakshasa Warrior Monk without sutra-chanting was nothing more than a monk holding a sword……
And at that very instant.
A man was walking down from above.
Slowly.
Without hurry.
"Namu Amitabha!"
The Rakshasa Warrior Monk standing at the very front swung his Crescent Moon Blade, but.
Slice—
A white line was drawn through empty air, and the lead Rakshasa Warrior Monk collapsed.
And the next step followed.
At that, the Rakshasa Warrior Monks surged again, but it was to no avail.
A single white line sent a dozen or more Rakshasa Warrior Monks' heads, waists, and throats flying one after another.
His expression did not change. Not anger, not killing intent, not excitement could be read at all.
He was simply trudging steadily in their direction.
That alone, yet wherever his feet landed, reddish-brown monk's robes were toppling in clusters.
And not just that?
Slash-slash-slash-slash-slash-slash!
"Ah, these bald bastards! They just keep swarming endlessly."
From one side, Sword Energy came flying in continuous succession as well. The figure darting about in all directions who had appeared suddenly from that direction was a woman. An elegant yet cruel sword relentlessly targeted only the knees. Three or four Rakshasa Warrior Monks in a row became half-paralyzed and crumpled.
From the rear, lightning exploded.
Bang—!
Muscles contracted, joints locked, and the rear ranks collapsed. The lightly armored monks maintaining the sutra-chanting fell first, and when they went down, even the residual sounds of the remaining chanting faded into nothing.
'Have we been surrounded……?'
On three sides at that.
It was when the man arrived roughly ten steps ahead that Gak-hae realized it was not the stragglers but their side—the Dark Net Rakshasa Path—that had been encircled.
But.
There were energies rising from the mountain base.
Two streams.
One was a heavy energy that shook the mountain. The other was a deep Yin that dyed the atmosphere. Both were incomparably denser than the miscellaneous energies filling this battlefield.
Senior brother Gak-jin.
Senior brother Beom-eum.
'The Eight Rakshasas are coming. I only need to hold out until then.'
Heat circulated through Gak-hae's chest. He quickly grabbed Beop-jong by the shoulder, pulled him to his own side, and cried out.
"Hold on! Our senior brothers are coming!"
Yet even as the energy of the Eight Rakshasas climbed the mountain, the man's feet advanced one step after another with steady certainty. It was clear that the man would arrive first before the Eight Rakshasas reached the mid-slope.
'One quarter-hour.'
He had to hold for one quarter-hour for the senior brothers to arrive.
Gak-hae gritted his teeth.
Shoving Beop-jong behind his back, he raised his Crescent Moon Blade.
Hmmm—
He loaded onto the blade the internal power he had sharpened through twenty years of living by the sword of the Dark Net Rakshasa Path.
"Namu Amitabha!"
With a single verse of sutra-chanting, the Crescent Moon Blade shone. The Dharma-Protecting Blade of the Rakshasa Warrior Monk Unit. A martial art only completed when sutra-chanting and blade become one.
The remaining dozen or so Rakshasa Warrior Monks barely collected themselves at Gak-hae's battle cry. The sutra-chanting had been cut off, but they were still Rakshasa Warrior Monks. Strength returned to the hands gripping Crescent Moon Blades.
"Dharma-Protecting Formation!"
Three to a unit. Three Crescent Moon Blades traced a single trajectory and blocked the man's path ahead.
The man's steps halted for the first time.
Or perhaps not? Perhaps they had not halted. He was simply watching quietly as the trajectories traced by the three blades were drawn. He did not even raise his sword. Then, at the very instant the trajectories were about to reach his body.
Slice—
The sword moved just once, yet all three Crescent Moon Blades were simultaneously deflected outward. One of the blades was split in two, and the other two had their wrists bent back, forcing them to release their grips.
One exchange.
In a single exchange, the Dharma-Protecting Formation had collapsed.
"Our senior brothers are coming!"
Gak-hae roared and immediately filled the empty space. He raised his Crescent Moon Blade vertically to receive the man's sword strike.
Clang—!
A shock that felt as if both hands gripping the hilt were being torn apart traveled up his arms and rang through to his shoulders. His bones vibrated. A kind of weight he had never experienced before. Heavy sword technique so formidable that he could not dare to resist, added to the pressure of space itself crushing down upon him in addition to internal power.
Yet somehow he endured it.
The mere fact that the blade had not been deflected was a step above the three of the Dharma-Protecting Formation.
Gak-hae's Crescent Moon Blade slid along the man's sword and deflected it, tracing the trajectory of a counterattack.
Rakshasa Dharma-Protecting Blade, First Form: Demon-Subduing Horizontal Slash.
It was the first technique a Rakshasa Warrior Monk ever learned. A slash that could be delivered even without sutra-chanting—the very first move Gak-hae had mastered twenty years ago. And therefore, the move most deeply carved into his body.
Gak-hae's body spun in a circle. It was a technique of precisely converting the force loaded into the man's attack into an equal and opposite counterforce and returning it.
The flashing Crescent Moon Blade swept in toward the man's upper body with formidable rotational force.
But.
Snap—
The man merely leaned his upper body back by half a handspan, and the blade cleaved through empty air.
The deflected Blade Energy did nothing but futilely cut down dozens of trees ahead.
By contrast, the counterattack was immediate.
Flash—
A white line was drawn through empty air.
Clang—!
He barely recovered his Blade Energy and raised the Crescent Moon Blade to intercept the opponent's Sword Energy midway. But the blade had completely chipped.
Crack-crack, the spreading fissure climbing up the blade's spine was clearly visible.
Then.
Two Rakshasa Warrior Monks leapt in from left and right. The Dharma-Protecting Formation had already lost its cohesion, yet they were seizing the opening while the man's sword was occupied with Gak-hae—a combined attack.
But.
The man's head tilted left, then right.
Swish— Swish—
Two white lines crossed and bisected both their bodies.
"……How can this be?"
There was a sword gripped between the man's teeth. A blade inserted in reverse between snow-white teeth. The sword in his hand remained as it was; a second sword drawn from somewhere else was held in his mouth, and with only a tilt of his head, he had cut down both of them.
Without even looking.
That sword moved again. As the head tilted once more, a white line was drawn.
Crash—!
The Crescent Moon Blade shattered.
Fragments of blade scattered through the air and rained down upon the remaining Rakshasa Warrior Monks. Each shard became a weapon and embedded itself in reddish-brown monk's robes.
The man swallowed the sword from his mouth. No, it was hard to say. Whether that was the precise expression.
Because what he had believed to be held in the man's mouth until just now had vanished—that was why he had perceived it that way.
Now on the man, only the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword in his hand rested at the same position as before.
What remained in Gak-hae's hand was a hilt and half a handspan of blade. His palms were already cracked and split, blood dripping freely.
Even so, Gak-hae did not drop the broken Crescent Moon Blade.
There was nothing that could be done with a mere half-handspan of blade remaining, but he knew that to drop it was to end everything. If he dropped it, nothing would remain before Beop-jong.
From behind, the sound of Beop-jong's trembling breath reached him. The kind of breath that tried to form a sutra verse but found the tongue stiffened and unable to produce sound.
"Past this point…… not a single step forward."
Gak-hae raised the broken blade.
Dong Bong-soo looked at Gak-hae without a word, and the two men's eyes met naturally.
Eyes that still revealed nothing. No hatred, no mercy, no contempt. Not even killing intent.
To Dong Bong-soo, Gak-hae was a stone in the road. Nothing more than a small pebble that could not even catch his foot.
"Namu……"
The final verse of sutra-chanting could not even be half completed.
Swish—
One line.
Gak-hae's vision tilted. His knees buckled first and the world turned sideways. A single line of heat penetrated from chest to back. Dirt met his cheek.
At the edge of his fading vision, Beop-jong was visible.
Gripping a Crescent Moon Blade in both hands, he stood blocking the man's path. His whole body was trembling just like that day he had first practiced the Buddhist path. He was gripping so hard the knuckles showed white. What was different from that time was that Gak-hae's hand was not on his shoulder.
Swish—
One more line was drawn.
Beop-jong's Crescent Moon Blade was split in two in midair. The sight of that small neck being severed, head and body flying apart separately, was captured clearly in his eyes.
"Ugh, grrrr……"
Gak-hae's hand clawed at the dirt, but could not reach.
No, it was impossible.
Because the limbs of a beheaded corpse could no longer function.
Atop his body, Beop-jong's freshly severed head dropped and came to rest as it was.
And.
Dong Bong-soo kicked those things aside one after another and continued forward.
But having taken only a few more steps, Dong Bong-soo's feet stopped.
Steps that had not halted even once since first setting foot on this mountain—finally came to a standstill.
Hmmmmmmm—!
Sutra-chanting blanketed the mountain.
It was in an entirely different dimension from what had come before. The sutra-chanting of hundreds that had failed to change this mountain's air was, with the voice of a single person alone, causing the entire mountain to resonate. Leaves flipped over from the vibration, and pooled blood atop the corpses spread outward in concentric circles.
On the surfaces of boulders, hairline cracks spread like spider webs and at some point burst open.
Dong Bong-soo's Super True Energy Field and the vibration of sutra-chanting clashed head-on at the mountain's mid-slope.
Clang—!
The air tore and the atmosphere lurched violently.
Branches split and earth shot upward along the boundary line where two invisible forces were colliding. The reddish-brown monk's robes blanketing the field of corpses were swept upward like fallen leaves.
And cleaving through those leaves, a single silhouette came flying down and—
Bang—!
A trident slammed down into a boulder blanketed with bodies.
A trident longer than the height of an ordinary man. It drove through and into a boulder at the mountain's mid-slope. The shockwave generated by the boulder being torn to pieces swept through the field of corpses and pushed fragments in all directions.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble……
Only after a long while did the dust settle, and
The silhouette of a mountain of a man slowly revealed itself.
An eight-foot frame, shoulders wide as a pair of doors, the muscles of one arm pulling the trident free bulging like boulders beneath reddish-brown monk's robes.
And.
Behind him, solemn sutra-chanting rang out.
A lean frame. Eyes closed. Lips barely parted beneath loose monk's robes moved ceaselessly in sutra-chanting. The sutra-chanting of a single person was causing the mountain to resonate, sending the field of corpses into vibration, and clashing head-on with Dong Bong-soo's Super True Energy Field.
The Eight Rakshasas, Second Seat: Gak-jin.
The Eight Rakshasas, Fifth Seat: Beom-eum.
Gak-jin's eyes swept across the remnants of the bodies at his feet.
On the mountain slope blanketed with reddish-brown monk's robes, naturally, not a single Rakshasa Warrior Monk remained standing.
In the center of it all lay two fallen, beheaded bodies.
Gak-hae and Beop-jong.
The fellow disciple and junior he cherished most.
On the hand gripping the trident, veins rose in thick worm-like cords.
"You insolent wretch—!"
One of the Seven Evil Grand Cults, the Dark Net Rakshasa Path.
Killing Is Liberation.
Under the twisted doctrine that both those who kill and those who are killed are saved, the blood they had spilled across this Central Plains over eight hundred years had formed rivers and seas.
Those who drew mandalas in blood and crafted Dharma Treasures from human bone.
And the Twelve Rakshasas were the purest crystallization of that madness.
If the Upper Four Rakshasas were the shield of the cult, the Lower Eight Rakshasas were its blade. Where the Dark Net Great Venerable pointed a finger, the blade of the Eight Rakshasas fell. The annihilation of the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect's Sword Branch Corps of five hundred in a single night was their most recent achievement, so the weight of that blade needed no further words.
Right now, two of them were bearing down upon Dong Bong-soo.