I Am Mount Hua’s Third-Generation Disciple, Chung Myung (2)
Fwoooosh!
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“S-stop him!”
“S-somebody do something!”
A hungry wolf was running wild among the good-hearted(?) sheep.
“You bastards! If you want to die, go throw yourselves off a cliff! What, you think you’re going to die by my hand instead? Fine! Let’s see how hard your skulls are! Die! Dieeeeee!”
Everyone flinched.
Baek Cheon and the other disciples, lined up at the entrance and watching the carnage(?) unfolding in the Qingmei Hall, shuddered all at once.
Yoon Jong quietly turned to Baek Cheon standing beside him and said, “Um… Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“Shouldn’t we… stop him?”
“……”
Baek Cheon glanced inside for a moment, then looked away.
“Yoon Jong.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that can be stopped?”
“……”
Yoon Jong closed his mouth, unable to find an answer. And who could blame him? Watching that bastard Chung Myung, frothing at the mouth and going berserk, made it impossible to even imagine trying to do something about it.
That was a natural disaster.
You didn’t fight a typhoon. You got out of its way. At times like this, the proper thing to do was simply hold your breath and wait for the storm to pass.
“And we knew this would happen.”
“W-well, yes, but…”
Of course. Of course.
Sending Chung Myung here in the first place was practically a declaration that they had no intention of resolving this peacefully.
Honestly, had there ever been even one thing that ended quietly after he got involved? Even Shaolin had been thoroughly humiliated after Chung Myung stirred them up, hadn’t it?
Yoon Jong muttered in a dazed voice, “But I didn’t think he’d just start beating them without a word…”
Jo Gul was nodding so hard his head nearly bobbed off. “That’s Chung Myung for you. He always shows you something beyond what you imagined.”
Yu I-seol also shook her head, as if there was no answer for this.
Even Baek Cheon was, truth be told, a little stunned.
Does that guy have absolutely no restraint?
No matter what, those were people who had once been the fellow disciples of Hyun Jong. Of course Baek Cheon didn’t regard them as seniors of the sect, but that still didn’t make it easy to treat them like complete strangers.
That was exactly why they had hesitated all this time, wasn’t it?
But Chung Myung was Chung Myung.
In some ways, it’s almost admirable.
It was frankly bizarre how completely he could throw caution to the wind and run wild.
“But damn, it really does feel like my chest got opened up and all the crap inside got blown out…”
“I can’t exactly deny that.”
It was refreshing.
Really, it felt like he’d gulped down a waterfall and washed all the filth out of his insides…
But was this really okay?
Really?
He’d thought he had been so thoroughly soaked in Chung Myung’s madness that nothing short of the impossible could surprise him anymore, but apparently he still wasn’t there yet. Watching that bastard thrash around like a salted eel made his fingertips tingle.
But whatever they thought, Chung Myung had already half lost his mind.
“You pieces of garbage that even a dog would spit out and leave behind dare crawl up Mount Hua!”
Chung Myung kicked the person blocking his path and glared, eyes wild.
“What? You want to hand over the Sect Leader seat?”
Grab!
Then he seized the collar of the man trying to flee and yanked him straight toward him.
“Hiiiiiik…!”
As the man, pale as a sheet and begging with his eyes, stared back in terror, Chung Myung smashed his forehead into him.
Thwack!
“Ugh…”
The groan that followed hadn’t come from the man who’d been hit. It came from Baek Cheon, watching from the side.
Unable to bear it any longer, Baek Cheon finally turned his head away. But even if he could turn his eyes, he couldn’t shut out the sound.
Thwack! Thwack!
“Krrrgh…”
Could sound alone paint the scene this perfectly?
When he even heard the body hitting the floor, Baek Cheon shivered and shook his head.
“They should’ve just left quietly.”
Why had they stubbornly held out until that bastard arrived, only to invite this pain upon themselves?
Chung Myung had now climbed onto the man sprawled on the ground, arching his back as he hammered down with his fists.
“Sect Leader? Sect Leader? You bastards have all gone completely insane! You think the position of Mount Hua’s Sect Leader is something you win in a gamble? Who do you think is the Sect Leader, huh?”
Every time his fist came down, the way his waist twisted with such ruthless precision was bizarrely impressive.
If Shaolin’s Abbot, Beop Jeong, had seen this scene, he would have shouted, “That is the very model of orthodox boxing!” and clapped without end.
No, wait. A monk shouldn’t be clapping while watching that.
Baek Cheon shook his head hard. Chung Myung had become so contagious that he was even starting to think blasphemous thoughts.
Crash! Crash!
“Oh? You fainted? Who said you could faint, you insolent bastard!”
Wow…
He was getting angry over the fact that someone fainted…
“……His personality is truly something else.”
“Even the demons of hell would be scared off.”
“Primordial Celestial Lord, save us. That man is a Taoist. That man.”
Even those who had known Chung Myung for a long time were shocked all over again. So how much greater must the shock have been for Hyun Dang and Hyun Beop?
Right now, the two men felt as though their hearts might leap straight up through their throats.
W-what in the world is this?
How is that even possible from a boy like that?
Hyun Dang, especially, was so shaken by this absurd scene that his mind had gone numb.
Those children shouldn’t be so easily beaten…
Even though they had turned their backs on Mount Hua, they had once studied martial arts there. No matter how much they had lived in the secular world, they could hardly have abandoned the advantages that came with strength.
No—if anything, living in the secular world had made strength even more necessary.
So though they had abandoned Mount Hua’s martial arts, they had hired renowned experts from all over to teach martial arts to their descendants.
Even the grandson currently being pummeled beneath Chung Myung was a master of a level that the Hyun Dang of his own youth wouldn’t have been able to dream of matching.
And yet that very man was now, quite literally, being beaten to a pulp by a third-generation disciple.
“You bastard? You’re still not getting up?”
Pow!
Chung Myung, who had beaten the unconscious man until he woke up, grabbed the collar of the now-awake victim and hurled him into the air.
Thud!
The man flew and slammed directly into the wall of the Qingmei Hall. With his upper body embedded in the wall and only his lower half dangling uselessly outside, the sight was almost too grotesque to look at.
Hyun Dang, staring blankly at the scene, shuddered violently.
“W-what are you all doing!”
It didn’t take a fool to understand.
There was no one among his descendants who could face Chung Myung alone.
No, to put it plainly, how were his descendants supposed to handle the Mount Hua Divine Dragon, a man already praised as the greatest prodigy of the later generation, even as someone who had effectively been reserved for the title of the world’s strongest in the future?
Feeling a sense of impending disaster as though everyone would be beaten senseless if this continued, Hyun Beop yelled first.
“Y-you little—!”
“What?”
But when Chung Myung calmly shot back, Hyun Beop went speechless.
“Y-you… So, uh…”
“Old man. Seems like you’ve lived your life awfully lucky.”
“……What?”
Chung Myung snorted and raised his sword.
“Maybe till now you got by every time things looked bad by talking your way out of it, but this is the martial world. In the martial world, all the loud-mouthed bastards end up with their teeth knocked clean out.”
“……”
“Right. You missed Mount Hua, did you?”
Chung Myung twisted the corner of his mouth.
“If you missed Mount Hua, then you must’ve missed the plum blossoms too. Don’t worry. I’ll show you Mount Hua’s plum blossoms properly.”
He thrust his sword straight out.
“Though I don’t know if you idiots realize this,
“Getting hit by plum blossoms hurts three times more than just getting hit!”
At that, Baek Cheon and the disciples watching him unconsciously nodded.
Well… yes, that was obvious. It did hurt more to be struck by a sword wielded with actual swordsmanship than by some idiot wildly swinging a sheath.
The problem was that when those perfectly reasonable words came out of Chung Myung’s mouth, they didn’t sound reasonable at all.
“Welcome to Mount Hua, you bastards!”
The tip of Chung Myung’s sword instantly began creating red plum blossoms.
Hyun Dang and Hyun Beop’s eyes flew wide open.
They had once been disciples of Mount Hua.
How could they not know what the plum blossoms drawn by the tip of that sword meant?
“Th-the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art?”
But the shock didn’t last long.
The plum blossoms, murderous as hell today, began ruthlessly hammering the still-dazed men.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
“Agh! My back! Aaaagh!”
Life gives you all kinds of experiences.
But most people would have a hard time claiming they’d ever experienced having their back nearly broken by plum blossom petals. And the people here, lucky as they were, were now having an experience most men could go their entire lives without ever knowing.
Whether that counted as lucky was another matter entirely.
The storm of plum blossoms swept across the Qingmei Hall in an instant. Furniture and people alike were smashed to pieces and sent rolling everywhere.
The Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art had already proven its power to the world at the Heavenly Martial Tournament.
Not even the greatest prodigies of the age had been able to defeat it, so there was no way Hyun Dang’s descendants could possibly stand against this sword art.
Those who had been helplessly battered were reduced to ragged heaps strewn across the floor.
“Ughhh…”
“Krrrghhh…”
It wasn’t as if getting hit with a scabbard would leave you fine. The ones who had been struck all over the body groaned while clutching broken limbs.
Only three were left standing amidst the wreckage.
Hyun Dang, Hyun Beop, and Chung Myung.
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung sheathed his sword at his waist and looked down at the sprawled men with utter contempt. Then he clicked his tongue.
“And you had the nerve to climb Mount Hua with the skill to get beaten by even the youngest of the Cheong generation?”
Of course, Mount Hua’s youngest Cheong-generation disciple was absurdly strong for a youngest disciple, but… still, Chung Myung wasn’t exactly wrong.
“And.”
Chung Myung’s gaze snapped to Hyun Dang and Hyun Beop.
The reason those two were still standing on their feet wasn’t because they were skilled enough to evade Chung Myung’s sword. It was because Chung Myung hadn’t included them in the range of his attack.
Rolling his neck slowly from side to side, Chung Myung approached them.
“So let me check one more time.”
“……”
“What was that again? The ancestor this, the Sect Leader that?”
The two men’s faces turned deathly pale.
The situation had already crossed the point of no return.
It was obvious that this madman approaching them had no concept of common sense or manners. If they stayed where they were, they’d end up in exactly the same state as those sprawled out on the floor.
Hyun Beop hurriedly spoke up.
“I-I’ll leave Mount Hua!”
“Oh?”
“I-I’ll take the children and leave Mount Hua. And I’ll never return to Mount Hua again! I won’t even tell anyone that we once lived on Mount Hua as members of the sect.”
“Ho?”
Chung Myung smiled as if he found that amusing.
“So?”
“S-so please, just let us go.”
“Ah?”
Chung Myung opened his mouth slightly, then nodded.
“Right. Right. That’s how it should be.”
With those positive words coming from Chung Myung’s mouth, a faint look of relief crossed Hyun Beop’s face. Taking advantage of the moment, he added in a soft voice, “A-and besides, weren’t we once elders of your sect? So let’s just stop here.”
“Ah, that’s fine.”
Chung Myung kept nodding.
Then he looked at Hyun Dang and Hyun Beop and smiled brightly.
“I’m not exactly eager to make this bigger than it needs to be. As you know, I’m a Taoist.”
“Th-that’s right, isn’t it?”
Hyun Beop’s face lit up at once.
But behind them, the Mount Hua disciples listening to the conversation went pale the second they heard that.
We’re screwed.
He’s not going to kill them, is he?
Unfortunately, Hyun Dang and Hyun Beop didn’t see their reactions.
Chung Myung grinned broadly and walked closer to Hyun Beop.
“Wrapping things up here is best for everyone.”
“……R-right. Yes, that’s true.”
“But you see,”
“Hm?”
“That’s not really how you wrap things up.”
Once you’ve gone and done something, if you can just smile and call it even, then why would wars ever happen? Some people really should know better.
“Wrapping things up means…”
Chung Myung slowly drew his sword again.
“You only get to call it done after you’ve paid for everything you did. Got it? You old bastards who’ve just been wasting your age?”
The murderous light in Chung Myung’s eyes made Hyun Beop panic and start backing away.
“I-I’m older than you! And I’m a senior of your ancestor’s generation.”
“Yeah. Right. Elders and ancestors are supposed to be respected.”
“……”
“That’s why you’re getting hit.”
“What?”
Chung Myung’s sword flashed like lightning and smashed into Hyun Beop’s head.
BOOOOM!
With a sound like a massive bomb exploding, Hyun Beop’s body crumpled.
“Agh… agh… AAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
As he immediately clutched his head and rolled left and right, Chung Myung bared his teeth and shouted, “What, you little punks haven’t even dried the blood on your heads yet and you’re talking about ancestors? Die, you bastard!”
The Hyun generation was too young to deal with a fossil who had returned from the underworld.
Unfortunately for them.