What Did You Just Say? (8)
Humans forgot.
Human beings, swallowing the poison called time, slowly forgot everything. What they had learned, what they had heard, even what they themselves had experienced.
And that was why humans could challenge the world again.
Even a person who had tasted soul-crushing failure could try once more because of forgetting, and even one who had once writhed under unbearable pain could keep moving forward because of forgetting.
Perhaps most of the dazzling progress mankind had achieved was a gift bestowed by forgetfulness.
But in this very moment, everyone in Black Ghost Manor realized something with searing clarity.
There were things in this world that must never be forgotten. Things one had to remember no matter the cost… and they had forgotten them.
Kwaaaaahhhhh!
The grotesque black vortex looked as though it might drag not only what they saw before their eyes, but even their souls, into its depths.
“W-what… what is that…?”
Their breath caught. A dense, oppressive force bore down on them, as if they had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Even Black Ghost Manor’s elite, even the manor lord himself—the man known as the Greatest Sword of the Unorthodox Faction—had nothing to say before that appalling sight.
Is that… demonic art?
His body, sensing danger before his mind could, began to tremble.
It wasn’t merely because it was strong. Something about it was different. What was unfolding before him seemed to deny every principle of martial arts he had ever known.
It was neither orthodox, nor unorthodox, nor beyond the frontier. Its nature was unlike any martial path at all.
How could he even describe it? That martial art—no, that strange thing that didn’t even deserve the name martial art?
Kyaaaaaaah!
The noise of the swirling demonic energy shredding the air sounded like someone’s desperate scream.
Black smoke bloomed and whirled violently, like a storm encircling the bishop from every side. The wind whipped into a frenzy, ripping trees out by their roots and overturning the earth itself.
Before they could even resist that force, they had to hunker down just to avoid being flung away.
And then, at that moment, something so bizarre happened they could hardly trust their own eyes.
Among the people who had been frozen in confusion, the two in the lead suddenly began to be pulled forward.
“W-what the hell!”
The martial artists widened their eyes at the invisible force dragging at them from the front.
The storming energy was clearly pushing them back. And yet, absurdly, their bodies kept being hauled forward and forward. Those who hesitated for even a moment in the face of that impossible situation met a merciless fate.
“W-wha—?”
The two in the lead, still being forcibly dragged onward, were suddenly sucked in at terrifying speed, as though they had hurled themselves at the enemy with all their might.
Even then, they still did not understand what was happening. Then they saw it—the vortex of black demonic energy spinning violently, welcoming them.
It looked like a pitch-black maw.
“Aaaaagh!”
Their screams of utter despair tore from their throats. The storm of black demonic energy immediately swallowed their bodies whole.
Kwagagagagagak!
It cut. It tore. It rent.
No word truly fit. If one were forced to use crude language, the closest thing would be to say they were ground to pieces.
The human body was far too fragile to withstand such overwhelming demonic energy. Their bodies, swept up by the storm, were reduced in an instant to a handful of blood. Bright red blood surged upward, wrapped in the spiraling black demonic force. It looked as though the heavens themselves had been dyed red.
Thudududuk.
The scattered blood rained down upon the earth. Literally, a blood rain fell.
Those who stared with their eyes wide open at the horror before them could not even breathe. They simply stood there, letting the blood from the sky strike their entire bodies.
What… is this?
They couldn’t understand what had just happened.
They had gathered in haste and couldn’t yet field their full strength, but these were still the men Black Ghost Manor had raised with great care. They were the elite among elites, warriors who would not lose out to any sect in the world.
And yet those men had been turned into a handful of blood before they could even resist. It was a scene that defied everything they knew, something they could neither understand nor accept.
But there was no way to deny it. The warmth of the blood running down their faces kept everyone here from fleeing reality.
“S-sto… stop him…!”
Shaaaaaak!
At that moment, three black blades, fired out from the black storm, sliced through the body of the man who had tried to shout.
“…….”
He didn’t even feel himself being cut. With a dazed expression, he lowered his head and looked down at his body.
Crack.
A long red line began to draw itself vertically across his torso.
“Th—”
Craaaaaack!
His body split into four pieces and collapsed to the ground.
Thud.
Heavy, sticky sounds rang out several times in succession—the sound of torn flesh hitting the earth. The chill carried by that sound was unlike anything they had ever heard in their lives.
“W-wha…?”
And then, another man floated lightly into the air before being sucked into the storm of black demonic energy.
“Aaaaagh!”
A tortured scream burst forth. One of the men, seeing the demonic storm rushing toward him in an instant, shouted as though he might spit blood from his throat at any second.
But at that very moment, the storm of demonic energy that seemed ready to swallow him vanished as cleanly as if it had never existed.
He had narrowly escaped death, but he could not rejoice. Where the black demonic aura that had covered his vision like a curtain had vanished, a single man now stood proudly in its place.
Udeuk!
Dan Ja-gang grabbed the face of the man he had sucked in with one hand.
Udeuk. Udeuk. Udeududuk!
Then he slowly began to tighten his grip. His fingers, gouging into the man’s face, left five stark holes behind.
“Kuh… hk. Ghh….”
The man caught in Dan Ja-gang’s hand desperately clawed and clutched at the hand gripping his face.
“Ggh… rrrk. Grrr….”
Half-mad with terror at the thought that his head might burst at any moment, he groaned and raked at Dan Ja-gang’s arm as though trying to tear it apart.
For a martial artist—especially an elite of Black Ghost Manor—to be reduced to such a frantic state, frenziedly scratching at an arm with his fingernails, only deepened the despair of those who watched.
“...To think I would be forced to lower myself against such insignificant trash.”
Dan Ja-gang twisted his face and clenched his hand harder around the man’s skull.
Fwoosh!
At last, the head burst apart and scattered in all directions. The body, stripped of its head, fell like a bundle of rotten straw and collapsed with a dull thud.
With every beat of the heart that had not yet stopped, blood gushed from the corpse’s neck in violent spurts. That blood stained Dan Ja-gang’s crimson robe an even deeper red.
Kwa-deuk!
Dan Ja-gang trampled the convulsing corpse and advanced slowly toward Black Ghost Manor.
The face of the manor lord went bloodless as he watched every step of that process.
Even his heart, which had always remained calm, was no exception now. It was beating out of rhythm, no longer under control.
What is he? That monster?
These were the elite warriors Black Ghost Manor had poured its blood and sweat into cultivating. Its finest of the finest, created by spending a ridiculous amount of time and wealth. Yet that monster was crushing them as casually as if he were pressing insects to death with his fingers.
How can someone like that…?
Everything was exaggerated in the telling.
Humans always added a little lie to what they saw. Stories passed from mouth to mouth were transformed and distorted by layer upon layer of embellishment until, in the end, they became something entirely different from what they had begun as.
So he had believed the stories of the Demonic Sect that had once drenched the Central Plains in blood a hundred years ago would be no different.
If he had Black Ghost Manor’s manor lord and its hundred elites, then a handful of enemies would be easy enough to handle. Even if the worst happened, he had thought that by accepting some damage they could still withdraw and plan for the future.
But now he was facing it directly.
That legend. That hideous, blood-soaked stench rising from a past so long faded it had become almost antiquated. The smell of death, so vivid it could not possibly be denied.
There had been no exaggeration at all in the stories about the Demonic Sect.
Step. Step.
As Dan Ja-gang drew closer, the elites of Black Ghost Manor let out cries without even realizing it.
“S-stop him!”
“There’s only one of him!”
“Surround him!”
The manor lord stood frozen in place like a statue.
He was a man who measured the understanding of all things in the world, who calculated everything under heaven. But the ghost of the past standing before him now could not be defined. He didn’t know what to do.
Even so, those who lacked even the judgment to grasp the scale of their opponent started moving on instinct, like a mantis raising its forelegs against a cart thundering toward it.
Compared to the vortex of demonic energy, the bishop now looked no different from an ordinary martial artist, so they charged at him, drawing out every ounce of power they possessed.
Perhaps one could call that courage. But courage that recklessly exceeds the limits of one’s capacity is no different from foolishness.
To the martial artists charging with shrill cries, the bishop slowly extended one hand.
Kyaaaaaaak!
With a sound like a demon’s shriek, the black blade of demonic energy that burst from his fingertips ripped the limbs of the onrushing men into hundreds of pieces.
Paaaat!
Chunks of flesh and blood rained down like rain.
Strangely enough, it did not feel especially terrifying. The feeling that came first was not fear, but unfamiliarity. The death the bishop created was so different from the death they knew.
Step. Step.
Death dyed the ground a vivid red. The bishop walked across that blood-red earth without a care.
And then, at last, the frozen manor lord opened his mouth.
“You are….”
Everything he had seen up to this moment converged into a single conclusion.
“You are… the Heavenly Demon of this age?”
Step.
The instant those words fell, Dan Ja-gang’s foot, which had seemed as though it would never stop, came to a sudden halt for the first time. His face, which had remained calm from the beginning, twisted strangely for the first time as well.
“...What did you say?”
“I asked whether you are the Heavenly Demon of this age.”
“Ha….”
A dry laugh escaped Dan Ja-gang’s mouth.
“Hahaha.”
“…….”
“Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
His laughter swelled and swelled until it became a mad cackle.
Everyone stared blankly at him with weary, stunned eyes.
Dan Ja-gang laughed until tears streamed from his eyes, then coughed dryly before turning his face in an instant and glaring at the manor lord.
“How dare you… a worm lesser than trash, dare spit that radiant name from your filthy mouth?”
“…….”
“You….”
Grrrkkk.
Grinding his teeth with an eerie sound, Dan Ja-gang snarled with a face like a demon’s.
“You will die while feeling the most miserable agony in this world!”
And then, unleashing a monstrous aura, he shot straight toward the manor lord.