He Wouldn’t Die Easily (3)
"Un Geom!"
Hyun Jong shouted as he tried to throw himself forward.
But Yado’s vicious saber would not allow his feet to leave the ground.
Clang!
The saber aimed at Hyun Jong’s throat crashed into his wildly shaken sword. The blade, swung out of control as his composure slipped, failed to fully block the strike. Knocked back by the force, Hyun Jong’s sword glanced off his own master’s neck, leaving a shallow, long gash.
"…You."
"You should stay calm, Sect Leader."
Yado twisted the corner of his mouth.
"Wasn’t composure your specialty?"
"…."
"What a pity. It seems you won’t get to keep your promise that no one would die before you did."
Hyun Jong’s eyes shot red.
It felt as though all the blood in his body had rushed upward, but at the same time, he knew the truth.
If he went to help Un Geom now, he would only expose his back to attack. And if Un Geom and he collapsed at the same time, everyone here would be dead in less than a moment.
Blood burst from Hyun Jong’s eyes as every tiny vessel in them ruptured from rage.
He had lost so much blood already that dizziness had begun to creep over him.
Only the surge of age and fury kept him standing.
"Come, you vile bastard. I’ll kill you, then make that bastard pay for it."
"My, my."
Yado laughed far too loudly, unnaturally so.
"Things were actually a little interesting until now…."
Then, as if he had never laughed at all, his face hardened and killing intent flashed in his eyes.
"But now it’s getting boring. I’ll end this quickly, as you wish."
A chillingly blue blade aura gathered on his saber, even fiercer than before.
Crack.
With a hideous sound, Hyun Sang’s left wrist snapped.
Dokhyulsu had not missed the brief opening Hyun Sang exposed when Un Geom was wounded. It was the price of blocking his palm strike with his hand when he had no other choice.
But the broken wrist was not the real problem.
Poison.
The wounded wrist swelled in an instant, blackening as it began to rot.
Forcing his internal energy into the wound to seal the flow of qi, Hyun Sang clenched his teeth and swung his sword again.
Shraaaak!
A brutal, murderous slash fell on Dokhyulsu.
Clang! Clang!
And yet his sword still could not break through Dokhyulsu’s defense. At best, it left a tiny scratch on his forearm.
"You look desperate. Heh-heh."
Hyun Sang’s eyes were bloodshot.
Un Geom.
Un Geom was the disciple he valued most.
Hyun Jong might have favored Unam, but as far as Hyun Sang was concerned, there was no question that Un Geom was the one he cherished most.
Just watching him had always filled him with quiet satisfaction. Un Geom never neglected training for even a single day, and never once strayed from the duty of a swordsman.
The one who would someday succeed him as Hall Leader.
That was Un Geom.
And now, in this very moment, the right arm that held everything Un Geom was seemed to have been cut away.
The hand that should have been lifting a sword.
The arm that should have been teaching disciples.
"Aaaaargh!"
Roaring in fury, Hyun Sang pressed the attack with a savage intensity unlike his usual self.
"I’ll kill you, you bastards!"
"Hahaha! Well, would you look at that? A Taoist priest mouthing off like that!"
Dokhyulsu laughed easily as he parried Hyun Sang’s sword.
Un Geom.
Unbidden tears spilled from Hyun Sang’s eyes.
Un Geom. You fool.
What is this?
His mind was growing hazy.
It was as though a thick fog had settled over the world, and he could no longer see or feel anything clearly.
So then I…
What had happened?
He felt as if he were drifting endlessly, searching for something blurred and distant.
Then—
"…Sajo! Pull yourself together…."
A faint voice came from somewhere nearby.
What was it saying?
He couldn’t hear.
All he caught was a dull buzzing, without any clear meaning.
"Sasukjo!"
Un Geom’s eyes, which had slowly been closing, opened again at a crawl.
Ah….
Right.
I was fighting.
When his familiar right arm tried to brace against the ground, his body simply pitched forward and crashed down.
His dim gaze wandered to his right.
Nothing.
There was nothing where his arm should have been.
Only then did Un Geom fully understand his situation, and he bit down hard on his lip.
Did I lose too much blood?
If he didn’t stop the bleeding properly, he would die like this.
He forced his trembling left hand to reach out and press hard against the acupoint near his severed arm, then staggered to his feet.
"Oh?"
Talmyeong Danchang chuckled as he watched, sounding almost amused.
"You’d have every right to drop dead right there, and yet you still have some spine, don’t you?"
Even as the mocking words came, Un Geom did not look at him.
No—truthfully, he never even heard them.
He only stared vaguely around him for a moment before wobbling toward one place.
"Are you looking for a grave to lie in?"
Talmyeong Danchang sneered and lifted his spear to finish it once and for all. But then he froze, eyes widening.
"…Huh?"
Drag, drag, drag.
Dragging the leg that would not move, Un Geom slowly lowered himself.
His severed arm.
What he had reached was the place where his right arm lay.
"Even if you do that, you can’t possibly—"
Talmyeong Danchang began to say something, then shut his mouth.
What Un Geom’s fingertips reached for was not the arm itself.
It was the sword still clenched in his severed hand. He was trying to draw it with his left.
Thud.
Un Geom grabbed the upper part of the hilt and planted his foot on his cut-off arm, grinding it down.
Even after being severed from his body, the fingers were still clenched tight, as if they would never let go of the sword. He stomped them apart as though tearing them loose, and only after wrenching the sword free did he straighten up.
"…."
Even Talmyeong Danchang was left speechless at the sight.
He had seen countless battlefields.
How many of those battlefields had been littered with people who had lost arms and legs?
And yet, he had never once seen anyone reach first for their sword instead of their severed limb.
"…Has he gone insane?"
And that was only the beginning.
A face bleached pale from losing too much blood.
A shoulder convulsing over and over from the agony of having an arm torn away.
And a leg pierced clean through and being dragged behind him by a spear.
He looked like someone who should have collapsed and died on the spot.
And yet Un Geom, in that state, gripped his sword with his unfamiliar left hand and blocked Talmyeong Danchang’s path.
"…Keep going…. Keep… going."
"…."
"Why?"
The face he turned on Talmyeong Danchang was expressionless.
"I… I’m still alive."
"…."
"Until I die."
Blue killing intent surged from Un Geom’s eyes, which had moments ago seemed vacant and powerless.
"…You won’t lay a finger on my disciples."
Talmyeong Danchang’s face twisted as a stubborn anger flared in him in turn.
"You, you bastard!"
Only then did he realize he had been pushed back by that presence, and his face flushed red.
What kind of disgusting freak is this?
He had seen countless people spout off about righteousness and honor.
But no matter how polished their words, once they were on the verge of death, every one of them tried first to save his own life. Talmyeong Danchang called that the hypocrisy of the righteous factions.
What meaning was there in the righteousness you only defended after saving your own skin?
It was nothing more than cheap self-consolation—like a rich man, with his storehouse overflowing with rice, tossing a coin to a beggar.
But this one was different.
"If you’d stayed quiet and pretended to die, you might have lived."
Talmyeong Danchang seized his spear in a near-spasm.
"How dare you block my path looking like that?"
Whoosh!
The spear shot forward like lightning and pierced Un Geom’s lower abdomen. Un Geom gave no reaction whatsoever.
Thuk.
When the spear he had sent out as a probe stabbed through Un Geom’s belly, even Talmyeong Danchang grimaced.
What is this…?
Wasn’t this practically a corpse already?
When he pulled the spear back, blood gurgled out of the hole in Un Geom’s body. He had already lost so much blood that even the spurt of it was weak and feeble.
"You threw away your chance to die a clean death…."
Talmyeong Danchang’s muttering died as he stared, stunned.
Un Geom, a hole punched through his stomach, was slowly lifting the sword in his left hand into the middle guard.
The weight of his lower body had already collapsed.
The tip of his sword wavered constantly.
His eyes were half-lidded and unfocused, and even his stance was crooked.
And yet what in the world was this impossible presence?
It felt like the pressure of a peerless swordsman taking a formal stance before battle. And he knew perfectly well that it made no sense.
"You son of a…."
Every time the other man’s presence pressed him down, Talmyeong Danchang’s pride was wounded.
To feel fear before an enemy he could have knocked over with one hand—how could that be?
"Let’s see, then!"
Thuk.
The spear pierced Un Geom’s chest shallowly.
Having gone only about a finger’s breadth in before withdrawing, it came back and stabbed him again.
"Let’s see how long you can keep this up!"
Thuk.
Five holes were punched into his chest in an instant.
"The moment you go down, all your disciples die. Let’s see how many hits you can take!"
Talmyeong Danchang’s movements looked almost like a seizure.
He aimed to wound Un Geom just enough that he would never die outright, but enough to keep the pain vividly alive.
In no time at all, more than a dozen holes had been punched into Un Geom’s chest, and he swayed on his feet. But the leg that still groped forward somehow managed to keep him upright.
"You…."
Grinding his teeth, Talmyeong Danchang rammed the spear deep into Un Geom’s leg.
Crash!
It seemed impossible to remain standing after the leg was pierced again, and Un Geom’s body finally pitched forward to the ground.
"Presence? Willpower?" Talmyeong Danchang sneered.
"What a load of crap. What good is any of that if you don’t have the skill? In the end, all you’ve done is buy a little time. Now die already. I’ll send every one of your disciples to join you."
Lifting the spear with one hand, he aimed precisely at the neck of the fallen Un Geom, who was groaning on the ground.
The disciples of Mount Hua screamed.
"Aaaah! Move, you bastard! I’ll kill you!"
"Sasuk! Saaaasuk!"
"I said move! Aaaaargh! You damn—!"
But Talmyeong Danchang’s men latched onto the Mount Hua disciples and fought with savage ferocity. By now, the Mount Hua disciples had been forced onto the defensive, despite the fury of their earlier assault.
Their insides burned and blood tears streamed down their faces, but they could not break through.
"Hall Leadereeeee!"
At someone’s desperate cry, a thin smile curled on Talmyeong Danchang’s lips.
"Die, cripple."
His spear pierced Un Geom’s neck.
No—he tried to pierce it.
At that very moment—
BOOOOOOM!
Something came flying toward Talmyeong Danchang at an absurd speed, accompanied by a deafening roar that seemed to rip the ears apart.
What?
Struck by that overwhelming force, Talmyeong Danchang’s eyes flew wide open and his head snapped around.
Sword qi.
An enormous blade aura was hurtling toward him at terrifying speed.
Sensing that his body might be split in half, he twisted the spear meant for Un Geom’s neck and threw it up to block the front.
But—
Gagagagagagak!
The incoming sword qi gouged into the spear as though it were chewing through it.
Wh-what the hell is—!
Claaang!
At last, the top portion of the spear was sheared clean off and knocked away. But the sword qi did not stop there; it tore into Talmyeong Danchang’s chest.
"…."
Shraaaak!
Blood burst outward.
Talmyeong Danchang stared blankly down at his own chest, split open nearly to the bone, before staggering backward.
What is this?
What was this impossible sword qi?
His trembling gaze turned toward the direction it had come from.
And there he saw it.
The shortest route up Mount Hua.
From a cliff that hardly deserved to be called a path, one man had kicked off and launched himself upward, then descended to the ground.
Thunk.
The instant the man revealed himself, the battlefield—so fiercely blazing a moment ago like a fire—began to turn cold.
The man lifted his head and quietly surveyed the surroundings.
Fallen brothers and sisters.
The Sect Leader standing barely upright, his whole body stained red with blood and on the verge of collapse.
The elder whose body was half-blackened by poison.
And….
"…."
Un Geom collapsed on the ground, his severed right arm beside him.
Dang Soso, looking at the man frozen like a statue, screamed out.
"Saaaaaa-yaaaang!"
At that voice thick with tears, Chung Myung raised his head and looked at Talmyeong Danchang.
Flinch.
In that instant, Talmyeong Danchang twitched convulsively.
W-what the hell is that bastard…?
He was different.
This wasn’t a matter of strong or weak. Talmyeong Danchang had lived through battlefields himself. Just by looking at someone’s eyes, he could tell how accustomed they were to death and slaughter.
And that was why he could not move.
Because he understood with his body, not just his mind, just how horrific a hellscape a human being had to endure to end up with eyes that cold, that devoid of emotion.
He could not even feel killing intent.
Didn’t they say those who were driven to the limit of rage became unnaturally calm instead?
Chung Myung silently looked at Talmyeong Danchang and the rest of the Maninbang with dead, expressionless eyes, then slowly opened his mouth.
"All of you…."
He closed his mouth for a moment, as if suppressing something boiling up inside him, then continued in a low voice.
"…won’t die easily."
Then, lowering his sword, Chung Myung began to walk toward Talmyeong Danchang with a ghostlike, murderous aura.