Show Me What a Real Mess Looks Like (1)
When the Mount Hua disciples charged in like madmen, Gwak Hwan-so flinched.
What, these bastards really don’t have a single thought in those heads of theirs?
This was the grounds of Shaolin.
The most sacred place in the eyes of all martial artists under heaven, and, in plain terms, the belly of the strongest sect in the current martial world.
He had forced himself to hold his ground because he didn’t want to lose in momentum, but he’d thought that if things came to this, Mount Hua would step back at an appropriate point. They wouldn’t want to make trouble here either.
But what the hell?
Why the hell are they not backing off at all?
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation in those Mount Hua bastards.
As soon as that guy called Chung Myung gave the order, they came surging forward like an army obeying a general—
No, even that was too generous. They were charging like boars that had been hit head-on by a spear.
“Don’t give ground!”
Convinced that there was no turning back now, Gwak Hwan-so clenched his teeth and shouted.
Then he swallowed hard as he watched the wild-eyed attackers coming straight at him.
The ones in the very front were especially different in their momentum.
“Go! Sasuk! Sago! Sahyung!”
With shouts from behind them, Baek Cheon and Yu I-seol, Yoon Jong and Jo Gul, charged at the Haenam faction from the front.
Of course, they didn’t have swords in hand, but their presence was no less sharp for it.
And at that moment, Yoon Jong, who had been charging in a straight line at Gwak Hwan-so from the very front, lightly shoved Baek Cheon’s shoulder.
“What are you doing!”
“I’ll take care of that bastard, Sasuk!”
“Even cold water has its proper order. Are you trying to steal your sahyung’s prey?”
“Where’s the order in Mount Hua?”
“Damn it, that’s actually a good point. You lousy brat!”
Baek Cheon shoved Yoon Jong back hard in the chest and then charged Gwak Hwan-so again.
“Do these punks think I’m easy to bully?”
Gwak Hwan-so’s eyes spat fire.
He had his pride as the senior disciple among the second-generation disciples of Haenam. Yet these Mount Hua bastards were actually fighting over who got to handle him right in front of his face. He couldn’t stomach it.
“I’ll kill you! You pretty-boy bastard!”
Furious beyond reason, Gwak Hwan-so rushed at Baek Cheon instead.
Whoosh!
Gwak Hwan-so’s fist, wrapped in fist qi, shot for Baek Cheon’s face.
A single punch worthy of Haenam’s name.
It was the pinnacle of Geurangse, the Storming Wave Stance.
For most people his age, even disciples of famous sects would have struggled to take that blow head-on.
Unfortunately for him, the one receiving it was Baek Cheon.
Seeing the incoming fist, Baek Cheon casually waved a hand.
The softly sweeping arm clung to Gwak Hwan-so’s wrist and pushed it aside with a light, effortless motion.
“Huh?”
The fist that had been racing toward his opponent’s face was deflected with a single easy gesture.
Wh-what is this?
Then Gwak Hwan-so saw Baek Cheon twist his waist back.
The body, bent to its limit, spun in one motion.
And then a fist carrying all that gathered force split the air and cleanly slammed into Gwak Hwan-so’s lower jaw.
Thunk!
It was a human fist striking a human face, and yet absurdly, it sounded like someone had struck a great drum.
Gwak Hwan-so couldn’t even scream before he was flung backward. His body spun like a top as it flew, then slammed straight into the wall.
Crash!
The Haenam disciples all froze at once.
Their gazes slowly shifted to Gwak Hwan-so, embedded in the wall behind them.
What?
What just happened?
Shock and confusion swept over them together. It was a sight they could see with their own eyes and still not believe.
“S-Sahyung?”
“No way…. One hit?”
Looking at Gwak Hwan-so convulsing and foaming at the mouth, the Haenam disciples kept rubbing their widened eyes.
One strike.
Just one.
How can the great sahyung lose consciousness from a single blow?
If the opponent had been a Shaolin disciple, someone who mainly trained in fists and kicks, they might have tried to make sense of it.
But to be shattered in a single strike by a swordsman’s disciple?
And by Mount Hua, at that?
Unable to accept reality, the Haenam disciples were met by Baek Cheon, who clicked his tongue.
“You’re punching around in front of me? I’ve been hit at least a thousand times by far worse than that.”
It was sad not that he had hit someone, but that he had been hit.
Yoon Jong muttered in a dry voice.
“Sasuk. That’s not something to be proud of.”
Especially not if the one who beat you up was your saje.
“Ahem!”
Baek Cheon gave a low cough and nodded toward the Haenam faction.
“Enough talk! Sweep them away!”
“Yes, sir!”
Seized by momentum, the Mount Hua disciples surged toward the Haenam disciples in front of them.
The Haenam disciples, still shaken by the sight of Gwak Hwan-so being sent flying with a single strike, had no choice but to face Mount Hua before they had shaken off the shock.
“Aaaagh!”
The Mount Hua disciples, their bodies packed with solid muscle, slammed into them like living battering rams.
“You bastards!”
“Say that again, you punks!”
The Mount Hua disciples were people who were used to getting hit and for whom being ignored was practically a daily occurrence.
If anyone had watched them train for the past six months, even prisoners condemned for treason and laboring in a coal mine in some remote northern wasteland would have wept hot tears of gratitude for their own lives.
After so long, they no longer really got angry at being looked down on.
But being looked down on themselves and Mount Hua being looked down on were two completely different matters.
“I already didn’t like you bastards.”
“What? Nine Sects and One Gang? Since when did Haenam bastards get to look down on Mount Hua just because they’re one of the Nine Sects?”
The resentment that had long been sleeping deep in their hearts—the bitterness of having been driven out of the Nine Sects—was now bursting to the surface.
Jo Gul grabbed the face of the Haenam disciple right in front of him and smashed it into the ground.
Thunk!
“Ghk!”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Using a person’s head like a hammer, Jo Gul joyfully banged it into the ground, then glared wildly as he searched for his next victim.
“You!”
Just as he found a new target and was about to swing his fist, Yoon Jong appeared at his side like a falcon and neatly twisted the target’s jaw with a flying kick.
Crack.
“Guhk…”
Watching the Haenam disciple collapse onto the ground, Jo Gul’s eyes bulged.
“Hey, I was the one about to hit him! Sahyung!”
But Yoon Jong didn’t even pretend to listen, and like a predator searching for prey, he rushed toward the next Haenam disciple.
“H-Huh!”
The Haenam disciple facing him sucked in a breath.
On the outside, he looked like a refined taoist, but those lowered eyes were snapping people’s jaws with neat, precise blows. The way he struck with restrained motions, as though a farmer were cutting down rice stalks, was terrifying.
“H-how?”
“How what?”
“Y-you guys are swordsmen, aren’t you?”
Swordsmen.
That was the word used for sects that primarily wielded swords.
Human ability had its limits, and no one could be a master of everything, so every sect had to have a primary weapon it focused on.
But those Mount Hua bastards were, no matter how he looked at them, far too accustomed to fists and kicks.
Come to think of it…?
Their bodies didn’t even look like swordsmen’s bodies, did they? Those broad shoulders and forearms packed with taut muscle only deepened the suspicion.
“So what?”
Yoon Jong smiled faintly and walked slowly toward the Haenam disciple.
“Why didn’t you just draw a sword, then? We’re famous across the land for being a pain in the ass when it comes to fighting barehanded.”
Who did they think had made them go through all that hell? Had he ever climbed a sheer cliff without a rope tied around his waist?
Try that once, and the way you see the world changes, bastard.
“T-this is cheating…”
“Then go tell the magistrate, you bastard!”
Yoon Jong swept the man’s legs out from under him with a low roundhouse kick, then climbed on top of the fallen disciple and started pummeling him in earnest.
Jo Gul watched the scene with satisfied delight.
Our sahyung fights well.
So that’s what a taoist looks like. Good grief…
He glanced around him.
It wasn’t only Yoon Jong. The Mount Hua disciples were brutally beating down the Haenam disciples one-sidedly.
First, Baek Cheon had knocked Gwak Hwan-so flying with a single strike, seizing the initiative. More importantly, even if those guys were disciples of a famous sect, this was probably their first time experiencing a full-on street brawl like this.
“Experience makes the difference, experience! You bastards!”
They had already charged Chung Myung more than ten times just to try landing a single punch on that bastard’s mouth, only to be thrown off a cliff each time!
Even amid everyone running wild, there were a few who stood out in particular.
First, naturally, Baek Cheon.
“You dare insult Mount Hua? Get over here. I’m telling you nicely—get over here, you bastards.”
With his eyes rolling fiercely, Baek Cheon was flaying anyone who came within reach.
Among everyone in Mount Hua, he was one of those who suffered the most at Chung Myung’s hands. The more he dreaded Chung Myung, the more he—
People say those you hate end up looking like you.
That was almost… what was it? A taller, more handsome Chung Myung.
Unable to bear watching any longer, Jo Gul quietly turned his head.
But there was an even more horrifying sight there.
Crack!
Yu I-seol’s kick landed perfectly.
And when Jo Gul saw that scene, he shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Grrrrr…”
The Haenam disciple, clutching his groin, collapsed with a pitiful groan that sounded like it would bring tears to anyone’s eyes just from hearing it.
Seeing him lying on the ground, foaming and twitching, made Jo Gul want to run over and pat him on the backside right away. Every ounce of hidden compassion inside him wanted to leap out.
But Yu I-seol, as though human feelings did not exist, searched for her next victim with eyes cold as ice.
Sago… seems pretty angry.
Well, of course.
When it came to love for Mount Hua, wasn’t she one of the very top among all the disciples?
And to hear someone insult Mount Hua right in front of her face… this disaster was practically self-inflicted.
“You bitch, how dare you!”
“What?”
Yu I-seol’s foot slammed into the attacker’s solar plexus.
Then she grabbed the hair of the disciple who had doubled over like a shrimp and started driving her fist straight into his face.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!
Jo Gul turned his head away again.
Sorry, guys.
I should’ve warned you in advance that the most brutal one in Mount Hua was her.
A woman?
There was no such thing in Mount Hua.
And there was one more person who was surprisingly doing very well.
“You Haenam hillbillies!”
Dang Soso leapt onto a Haenam disciple she had knocked down and hammered him with her fists.
Thud!
“What mouth do you think you’ve got on you, huh!”
Thud!
“You idiots really want to die, don’t you!”
With every punch she drove in, the tight rotation of her waist showed just how much force was behind those blows.
The six months of training Chung Myung had forced on her had been more than enough to transform the Tang clan heroine who used to throw beautiful flying daggers into a Mount Hua warrior who hammered in weighted fists one after another.
“Die! Die!”
Well, her personality seemed to have changed a little too.
Jo Gul grinned.
Nothing for me to do.
Being less visible didn’t mean they were weak. Everyone was flattening the opponents assigned to them, bending them at the waist and slamming them into the ground with ease.
As a result, Haenam, despite having nearly twice as many men, was being beaten one-sidedly by Mount Hua.
And the one who had created this scene was…
“Good, good! That’s it! The waist, the waist! No, there you should be smashing his head in! What the hell have you been learning all this time? Tsk.”
…busy giving instructions from way in the back.
The way he squatted there and shouted, he looked like he’d break out a strip of jerky any second.
“Aaaagh!”
“B-back away! These bastards are crazy!”
“Bring people! Bring people here now!”
The completely overwhelmed Haenam disciples retreated in disorder. But the Mount Hua disciples chased them like hungry hunting dogs.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
“Get over here, you bastard! Not coming? If we catch you running, we’ll beat you even harder!”
And they began surrounding the fleeing Haenam faction.
As the encirclement tightened, the Haenam disciples’ faces turned pale.
“Go on, say it again. Your mouth doesn’t look beaten enough yet.”
“What was that about the sect that got kicked out of the Nine Sects? Say it again, please?”
Completely rattled, the Haenam disciples gathered together in the center, step by hesitant step. They simply couldn’t understand what was happening.
No, how…
Was this even possible?
However well those Mount Hua bastards had trained their bodies, they were Haenam, one of the major sects of the Nine Sects. And now they were being so thoroughly crushed by Mount Hua, a sect that wasn’t even one of the Nine Sects anymore?
It felt like they were dreaming.
But the savage pressure closing in from Mount Hua made it plain that this was no dream.
“Wh-what do we do?”
“...Why are you asking me?”
The Mount Hua disciples, who looked for all the world like bandits, bared their teeth in grins.
And just as the Haenam disciples, at a loss for what to do, squeezed their eyes shut—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
With a loud roar, monks in yellow robes stepped forward and revealed themselves.