I’ll Show You What Real Ruthlessness Looks Like (4)
The hand of Jo Myeongsan, the Black Saber of the Yangtze River, trembled ever so slightly.
What is this?
His gaze locked onto the young Daoist who had stepped forward.
There was nothing remarkable about him.
No overwhelming presence. No imposing aura.
And yet, from the instant that young Daoist had stepped out, Jo Myeongsan had been unable to look away.
Is the feeling I’m having now even real?
A chill ran down his spine.
He had earned the name Black Saber of the Yangtze River through countless desperate battles. In other words, he was not someone who had grown strong in a greenhouse; he was a man forged in real combat and bloodshed.
Which meant he could tell at a glance what kind of opponent stood before him.
Whether this was merely a strong brat, or someone truly skilled at fighting.
If he was just a strong brat, there was nothing to fear. Jo Myeongsan had cut down men stronger than himself more times than he could count.
A sword that had never resolved to kill a person was nothing to fear, no matter how sharp it might be.
And yet…
What the hell is he? That bastard?
His instincts were warning him.
It was dangerous.
The brat standing before him was dangerous.
His muscles went taut, and the hand resting on his saber hilt clenched around it without him even noticing. His mouth had gone dry. His throat felt stiff.
But Jo Myeongsan could not make sense of what he was feeling at all.
That one was clearly only a pup who had not even fully lost his baby fat. On top of that, he was a disciple of Mount Hua. The Mount Hua disciples had only begun moving in the martial world very recently.
And yet his senses were telling him that the man in front of him was a battle-hardened veteran who had survived countless wars, a man so dangerous that if they met on a battlefield, he would have to run without ever looking back.
How could such a thing be possible?
Cold sweat trickled down Jo Myeongsan’s forehead.
It made no sense.
But he knew this much: the jianghu was a place where things that made no sense happened over and over again. If you piled up the corpses of those who had trusted half-baked common sense, you could fill a lake and still have plenty left over.
To survive in this cruel martial world, it was far better to trust your own instincts than some common sense that changed every moment.
“...It would be best not to underestimate that child.”
That was the reluctant warning Jo Myeongsan finally forced out after much thought. Naturally, no one understood him.
The Great Saber smiled faintly and looked back at Jo Myeongsan.
“What are you talking about, Brother Jo? Are you trying to make a joke?”
“Hah-hah-hah. Looks like the Black Saber’s gotten scared. There are always men who start trembling whenever they see a proper sect disciple, aren’t there?”
Georyeokbu Bak Hoe openly laughed at him.
Even so, Jo Myeongsan did not get angry at their reactions. He had never expected them to understand him in the first place. Even he, who could clearly feel that strange pressure, could not fully understand or be certain of the reason. How could they possibly understand it?
“If you’re scared, stay back. I’ll handle that little punk.”
The Great Saber sneered and stepped forward.
But Jo Myeongsan did not stop him.
He had given his warning. He had no obligation to raise his voice and drag someone back from walking into a death trap. Besides, his connection with these people was only that they were briefly joining forces here. That was all.
The Great Saber moved ahead and let out a low shout at Chung Myung.
“You said you’d show us ruthlessness?”
Chung Myung did not answer.
Seeing that, a clear sneer appeared at the corner of the Great Saber’s mouth.
“No fear at all, huh? Or maybe... that pathetic sense of justice has set your chest on fire?”
Chung Myung still said nothing, only looked at him.
“Listen well, brat. Justice is useless in the martial world. Justice belongs only to the strong. Justice without strength is nothing but whining. You’ll learn that today. Of course, the price will be your life.”
Chung Myung looked at the Great Saber for a moment, then spoke.
“You done yet?”
“...What?”
“If you’re finished babbling, I figured I’d tell you to come at me.”
The Great Saber’s eyes turned fierce.
“You little bastard. You’ve got a rag in your mouth, huh?”
Chung Myung’s eyes cooled. As if there was no more need for conversation, he began walking slowly toward the Great Saber.
The Plum Blossom Sword, held loosely in one hand, hung naturally at his side, and the way he approached without a word, careless and almost lazy, somehow put pressure on the Great Saber all the same.
“...You bastard!”
Just as the Great Saber was about to roar at him, Chung Myung cut in coldly.
“You were going to kill me anyway, weren’t you?”
The Great Saber was left speechless.
“Then killing me is all you need to do.”
“....”
That was true.
No matter what reaction Chung Myung showed, the Great Saber was going to kill him. From the very beginning, the reason they had taken position here was to kill everyone who tried to enter.
So, just as Chung Myung had said, all he had to do was kill him.
Arrogant or ignorant of the martial world, frightened or not—none of it mattered.
Wasn’t that exactly how I had acted until just a moment ago?
The people now growing cold on the ground had cursed them with every breath as they died. Had the Great Saber spared them because of that? Of course not. He had merely mocked their reactions and neatly cut the thread of their lives.
Then why had he bothered trying to exchange words with Chung Myung now?
The Great Saber clenched his lip hard between his teeth.
Because, at this moment, he felt like a frightened puppy.
A wolf didn’t bark before the hunt. It simply leaped in, tore apart its prey, and ended its breath. Only a terrified dog barked loudly to avoid a fight.
That’s ridiculous.
Why would he be scared?
Of that Beggars’ Sect branch and Mount Hua?
Absolutely not!
The men he had killed here alone were the sort who could tear apart even a Beggars’ Sect branch or a young Mount Hua disciple with their bare hands.
Then why should he fear those shabby-looking brats now?
Grip.
The Great Saber tightened his hand around his sword.
The muscles throughout his body drew taut.
Fine. Let’s see if you can keep spewing that crap after a blade gets shoved down your throat.
He let his anger toward Chung Myung flare hot and bright.
But even then, he still failed to realize that something was wrong.
If he had been calm, he would have found it strange in the first place that he was getting angry at Chung Myung. A fearless brat begging for death was something to sneer at, not something to rage over.
But the Great Saber never understood that in time, and that failure hastened his doom.
Step. Step. Step.
As he glared at Chung Myung approaching without a care, the Great Saber shouted and lunged forward.
His greatsword, a full four cheoks longer than an ordinary blade, sliced through the air and fell toward Chung Myung’s head.
Clang!
But his sword never reached Chung Myung’s head.
Before it could even arrive, Chung Myung’s sword flashed like a shaft of light and knocked the greatsword aside.
He blocked it?
This brat had blocked his sword?
Rage and confusion stabbed into the Great Saber’s heart. But he was still a veteran of the martial world; his surprise lasted only an instant. The repelled blade came swinging back at once, now aiming for Chung Myung’s waist.
Whoosh!
The sword, wrapped in a pale blue sword aura, cut toward Chung Myung’s side at terrifying speed.
Clang!
But once again, it failed to touch Chung Myung’s body. Seeing his greatsword knocked away again, the Great Saber widened his eyes.
Blocked?
No, that wasn’t the important thing.
The important thing was not that it had been blocked, but that the Great Saber had not seen Chung Myung’s sword at all when it did.
It was as if the sword simply burst through space.
It wasn’t that he saw it move and blocked it—it was more like it appeared there.
No way!
This was absurd.
He was the Great Saber.
Even if he were facing an ordinary first-generation disciple from a major sect, they would have no choice but to tense up against him.
And yet this young brat named Chung Myung was stronger than the Great Saber?
Something like that could not happen. It should not happen.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
A roar erupted from the Great Saber’s mouth.
But Chung Myung’s eyes, fixed on him, remained low and colder still.
The Great Saber’s sword swung with savage force. Each strike carried the resolve to tear the enemy apart, a relentless sequence of killing blows with no restraint whatsoever.
Clang. Clang. Clang!
Yet none of his near-random strikes touched Chung Myung even once.
Even after more than ten blows were unleashed in an instant, every single one bounced away a hair’s breadth before reaching Chung Myung’s body.
Despair flickered faintly in the Great Saber’s eyes.
“You bastard!”
The sword qi within his blade burst forth in a dazzling blue light.
Realizing he had no chance if he relied on precision and speed alone, the Great Saber changed his sword form from swift swordplay to tyrannical swordsmanship.
No matter how strong Chung Myung was, he was still young. If he dragged him into a contest of internal energy, he believed the brat would have no answer.
That judgment was, by ordinary standards, correct. No matter how gifted one might be with the sword, time could not be overturned.
But there was one problem: Chung Myung did not obey ordinary standards.
“Taaaat!”
Every ounce of internal energy in his dantian surged into the blade as he charged, carrying a ferocious sword aura straight at Chung Myung’s head. He poured so much force into it that the aura swelled, making the sword look twice its size.
It was a threatening, bone-cracking strike that looked ready to split the skull open on impact.
But the Great Saber soon realized his choice had been wrong.
Flash!
The instant his heavy greatsword came down, Chung Myung’s sword stabbed out at a speed twice as fast as before.
Snikt.
And the Great Saber saw it.
His own sword soaring into the sky.
The blade, still wrapped in blue sword aura, shot up high above him. The moment he saw his own hand still clenched around the hilt, the two words despair were carved into his mind.
Lowering his head, the last thing he saw was Chung Myung’s emotionless eyes staring back at him.
No anger. No hostility.
How could one human look at another with such eyes?
Then Chung Myung passed by the Great Saber at a pace neither fast nor slow.
The instant that question rose in his mind—
Huh?
The world tilted slowly.
As though the heavens and earth had been overturned, the world in his sight spun off to one side.
What... is th—
The ground surged upward, and the sky sank below.
Still unable to understand what had happened, the Great Saber’s vision caught something both horribly familiar and deeply strange.
A human body.
The sight of a lone human standing upright had been all too familiar to the Great Saber, and yet unbearably alien as well. He had never seen his own body from this angle before.
And when in his life would he ever see his body without a head?
N-no way...
That was the Great Saber’s final thought in this world.
Thud.
The body of the headless Great Saber collapsed to the ground.
Splaaash.
Blood erupted in a clean spray from the severed neck and soaked the ground at Chung Myung’s feet.
But he did not even glance at the dead Great Saber. Instead, he spoke in a low voice.
“Next.”