Better to Die, or to Kill (4)
1044. Better to Die, or to Kill. (4)
Crack—!
A dark, rotting hand burst through someone’s back. Slick with blood, it clamped around a heart that was still spasming in its palm.
“Grrk….”
The eyes of the dying and the one watching that death met at point-blank range. The victim’s eyes were bulging with disbelief, his face going slack with the terror of a death that had suddenly loomed right before him—only for the other man to sneer at him with merciless contempt.
Bang!
The Demonic Sect fighter kicked aside what should have been called a corpse by then, sending the limp body flying, then crushed the heart in his hand.
“Hahahahahaha! You filthy unbelievers!”
Fear had a peculiar nature.
People found more courage when they were in a group than when they were alone. There was an obvious difference between walking a dark road by yourself and walking it with others, was there not?
But once fear began to spread?
From that moment on, it always came in a far more overwhelming flood than if one had been alone. It did not take long for the terror that had begun at the front to spread through the entire Black Ghost Squad.
What they lacked was not skill, but nerve.
The Demonic Sect, still carrying the poison of the massacre from a hundred years ago, and those who had forgotten all of it in the passage of time and years—the difference between them was now being laid bare in the cruelest way possible.
“Heavenly Demon descends, and all under heaven rejoice. Heavenly Demon descends, and all under heaven rejoice. Heavenly Demon descends, and all under heaven rejoice.”
The mantra murmured like a spell wormed its way into their ears.
Someone’s dying screams rose at the same time as mad laughter. Along with that came ceaseless curses and a murderous aura sharp enough to slice flesh.
Who, standing before that, could possibly keep their reason intact?
“Hhng… nngh….”
“N-no… this is….”
It collapsed.
Everything they had built up over a long time—their martial skill, their perfectly honed self-control, even the pride they took in being the Black Ghost Squad—all of it crumbled like rotten timber in an instant.
What remained were only human beings, terrified and desperate to live.
“Aaaagh!”
Someone screamed and turned to flee. At first it was nothing more than the rash action of a few, but its impact was enormous.
A choice called “run” had suddenly been placed into the minds of those who had known nothing but fighting head-on.
Those who could not resist the temptation turned their backs on the enemy. Even the ones who still managed to hold their ground could not help the dulling of their blades.
Once wolves sensed weakness in their prey, they pressed even harder against the flock before them, driven by a hunger to tear through flesh until not a scrap remained.
Fear and despair settled over the blood-soaked earth.
“A-ah….”
The Black Ghost Squad elite, who had just witnessed a comrade being torn apart limb from limb before his eyes, froze like a stone statue. He knew he had to fight. He knew he had to resist. Yet his whole body felt bound tight, as though shackled by invisible cords.
“U-uh….”
With blood-red light pouring from his eyes, a Demonic Sect fighter howled like a beast and brought his hand crashing down toward the man’s head.
Die…
Then, in that instant—
Whoooosh!
With a fierce crack of displaced air, the charging Demonic Sect fighter’s head shot up into the sky.
For a heartbeat, it was as if the world had stopped.
The Black Ghost Squad elite, who had been on the verge of surrendering himself to death, stared blankly at the Demonic Sect fighter’s head suspended in the air. It spun and spun, spraying blood in all directions, and the face he glimpsed for an instant was still twisted with vulgar pleasure.
That Demonic Sect bastard probably hadn’t even realized he was dead in the very instant he died. Just as the man who had survived this moment likely couldn’t understand what was happening either.
Thud.
The flying head hit the ground.
It was only a single death in a battlefield where countless others had already fallen.
Something small. Something insignificant.
And yet the effect it had was enormous.
The gaze of the Black Ghost Squad elite who had barely survived slowly lowered. A little below his eye level, someone who had not been there a moment ago now stood with his back to him.
Black martial robes.
A tightly bound topknot.
And in one hand, a straight sword with a pale white gleam.
“Mount Hua….”
His mouth opened before his mind had a chance to catch up. The groan had barely left his lips when the man in front moved again.
Flash!
He kicked off the ground and slashed his sword like a bolt of lightning.
“Kahak!”
Another Demonic Sect fighter instinctively threw out his arm. He meant to block the sword flying at him, then rip out the attacker’s throat in one go.
But just before arm and blade collided, the sword spun in a flash and slipped past the Demonic Sect fighter’s arm. Then it drove in at the neck like the talons of a hawk snatching its prey.
Faaaat!
The Demonic Sect fighter’s body, which had so easily weathered countless attacks until now, was severed without even the chance to resist. His head shot into the air, and his remaining body collapsed where it stood.
The battlefield froze.
The mouth of Cheong Myeong, who had just sent two Demonic Sect heads flying in an instant, opened slowly.
“…I’ll teach you, you little shits.”
Cheong Myeong raised his sword again, slowly.
“When you deal with the Demonic Sect….”
Flash!
The sword began to blossom with brilliant sword aura. Red sword light scattered like an illusion and swept over the Demonic Sect fighters in a wide surge.
“Kuh!”
“W-what is this….”
Faced with a storm of petals flooding the front line, the Demonic Sect fighters instinctively tried to retreat. No matter how recklessly they threw their lives away and charged at their enemies, they could not simply barrel through sword light that swallowed their vision whole.
“Kaaah!”
They spread their arms as they fell back, trying to knock away the plum blossom sword aura flying toward them. But the moment those hands infused with monstrous demonic energy touched the petals, all the sword light vanished as if it had never been real in the first place.
What?
And then—
Crack! Crack! Crack!
In that split second, the sword aura that had slipped in on the opening pierced the Demonic Sect fighters’ throats at terrifying speed.
“Kuhk!”
Even if they lowered their heads, they could not see their throats anymore. All they could see was blood spraying violently from the wounds.
Thud! Thud!
The Demonic Sect fighters with pierced throats, and the Demonic Sect fighter whose forehead now bore the clear sword brand of a plum blossom… collapsed like piles of rotten straw.
This was the ultimate phantom sword. A sword art where the boundary between reality and illusion was made razor-thin.
Because it deceived and toyed with its opponents, Mount Hua’s swordsmanship had long been sneered at as something that strayed from the righteous path and dismissed as something almost wicked. But against Demonic Sect fighters who relied on brute force to crush their enemies, it was nothing short of poison.
“Aim for the neck.”
Cheong Myeong said, twisting his lips.
It was certainly not the same smile as the madmen of the Demonic Sect, but in some ways it was just as chilling.
“Or smash their heads in.”
Step.
Cheong Myeong took another step forward. A vile killing intent and fury, along with a heat that could only be described as strange, roiled in his eyes.
And then, in that instant—
Kwaaaaaaang!
Something shot in with a terrifying scream of tearing air and slammed into a Demonic Sect fighter’s head.
Bang!
With a thunderous explosion, the Demonic Sect fighter’s head burst apart in place.
What?
The golden object that had flown in spun rapidly and returned the way it had come.
Clack.
Jang Il-so caught the bracelet with a light flick of his hand and smiled thinly.
“The head and the neck, is it? If you had information like that, you should have told me sooner. Honestly, you really are awful.”
Cheong Myeong ignored him and kept moving forward.
The eyes of the Black Ghost Squad elites, which had been completely drowned in despair, slowly regained their light.
Head and neck.
Of course, those weren’t easy targets. Anyone would protect their head and neck to the death. But there was a world of difference between having no way to defeat an opponent and having a difficult but real way to do it.
“You….”
But the Demonic Sect fighters seemed to see things differently.
Having watched their fellow cultists die right before their eyes, a more vicious hatred began to burn in their faces.
“You filthy maggot….”
Seeing that look in their eyes, Cheong Myeong smiled.
“Good. I like that look.”
“…….”
“That look….”
Bloodshot veins welled in Cheong Myeong’s eyes.
“Is most enjoyable when it’s soaked in fear.”
Bang!
Laughing with a grotesque brightness, Cheong Myeong charged forward. His sword was wrapped in a fierce red aura.
The sword that had once been perfected by cutting down their throats was now once again aimed at their necks.
“Kill him, you bastaaard!”
The Demonic Sect fighters also shouted like lunatics and charged at Cheong Myeong. They, too, had instinctively understood who the most dangerous person here was.
“Heavenly Demon descends! All under hea—”
“Shut up!”
Cheong Myeong sliced off the arm flying toward him in a single strike, then shoved his sword straight into the mouth of the Demonic Sect fighter chanting that mantra.
With that blow, the man’s cervical spine snapped at once, and his body went limp. The sword spun inside his mouth and then flicked upward, splitting his head in two.
Flash!
Before the sword had even been pulled free, Cheong Myeong’s foot moved first. In a single step he advanced nearly ten feet, then plunged into the midst of the stunned Demonic Sect fighters and slammed down hard on the ground.
Converting the force gained from his forward rush and the stamping of his foot into the sword in one breath, Cheong Myeong tore forward at terrifying speed and swept it across a Demonic Sect fighter’s waist.
Krak-kak-kak! Krak-kak-kak!
It felt less like cutting and more like snapping.
The Demonic Sect fighter’s body, tough as hardened rubber, could not withstand the sword’s crushing force and split apart with a sickening series of cracking sounds.
Whoooosh!
Then the Demonic Sect fighter whose waist had been severed clean through spun in the air like a top. Cheong Myeong kicked away the collapsing lower half and, turning on the spot, flung plum blossom sword aura in all directions.
Darkness blanketed the sky. The earth beneath was stained deep black-red.
Men wrapped head to toe in black martial robes.
In that dark world, a single plum blossom tree spread its branches. It shone in a crimson so vivid it looked as though it had grown by feeding on spilled blood.
Rustle-rustle!
The scattered plum blossom petals spun violently as if caught in a gale and swept across the Demonic Sect fighters.
Crack! Crack! Crackk-krrk!
They looked so fragile, those petals, yet their power was anything but weak. They pierced effortlessly into the bodies of the Demonic Sect fighters, whose flesh had repeatedly stopped and neutralized hard sword aura and blade aura before.
“Aaaaaagh!”
For the first time, screams rang out from the Demonic Sect fighters’ mouths.
Their bodies would not grant death so easily. That meant even after dozens of holes were punched through them, they could not die quickly. In other words, they had to feel every ounce of pain from those wounds with horrifying clarity.
Sword aura tore through flesh, severed sinew, and ground against bone. The vivid agony shredded the Demonic Sect fighters’ minds until they went pale as paper.
Blood sprayed endlessly from the bodies of the Demonic Sect fighters surrounding Cheong Myeong. That blood made the plum blossoms he created bloom even darker.
A blood rain poured down.
Within it, Cheong Myeong bared his teeth—the only one not soaked in blood.
The warm stench of blood was so thick it seemed to choke the breath from his lungs. That smell brought Cheong Myeong back into his rhythm. Even sensations that had once felt unfamiliar now returned at full speed, settling in the fingertips that held his sword.
Everything had changed. But this feeling had still remained at his fingertips.
“...You should’ve remembered me.”
Cheong Myeong lifted his head and laughed like a demon.
“Right?”
With that eerie smile on his face, Cheong Myeong kicked off the ground.
It was the moment the hunted became the hunter.
—