He Wouldn’t Die Easily (4)
"C-Chung Myung!"
"Chung Myung! Chung Myung!"
In the heavy stillness that had settled over the battlefield, the voices of the Mount Hua disciples burst out from every direction in panicked cries.
"C-Chung Myung, you brat!"
Even Hyun Jong could not contain the emotion surging up in him, and he shouted with a voice roughened by shock.
And in front of him, Yado stared blankly, unable to make sense of the bizarre scene.
What the hell is this?
The sword qi that the man called Chung Myung had unleashed was still seared into his eyes as if it had been branded there.
With a single stroke, he had cut down Life-Snatching Short Spear Son Wol’s short spear and wounded him?
Was that even possible?
Yado was confident he was a step or two above Life-Snatching Short Spear himself, but even he would have to be prepared to sacrifice an arm or two to bring Son Wol down.
And yet that short spear of his had been severed by nothing more than a sword qi flung from afar.
By a young Taoist from Mount Hua, no less?
Cold sweat began trickling down his spine.
Yado shuddered with uncontrollable fear, then clenched his teeth.
But so what? He’s only one man, isn’t he?
It was true that the influence of a supreme expert on a battlefield was immense, but the Maninbang had already more or less seized this battlefield. Nothing would change just because one more had joined the fray.
And yet…
Why can’t I move?
The tip of Yado’s saber was trembling.
His bloodshot eyes did not even dare leave Chung Myung as he walked toward them.
Step.
Chung Myung’s foot came down heavily on the ground.
At some point, the battle had stopped.
Yado, who had been swinging his blade at Hyun Jong like he was toying with him, and Dokhyulsu, who had been pressing Hyun Sang hard, had both frozen with their hands still raised, as though the fierce battle from a moment ago had been a lie.
They were like rats that had suddenly come face-to-face with a snake.
If they moved, their throats would be cut.
Having understood the situation not with their heads but with their instincts, they were seized by a chill that rose from the depths of their bellies and froze them in place.
Step. Step.
Chung Myung’s pace quickened slightly. Naturally, his feet were headed toward the place where Life-Snatching Short Spear and Un Geom stood.
The martial artists standing between Chung Myung and Life-Snatching Short Spear all wore faces twisted with tension as they swallowed dryly.
"Ugh…"
"…"
The Maninbang fighters began to back away, little by little, involuntarily, the closer Chung Myung came. From between their lips came suppressed groans.
They could not run.
Unless a retreat order was given, fleeing would only leave them with death.
"Move."
A cold voice slipped from Chung Myung’s lips when he reached directly in front of them.
The Maninbang fighters exchanged quick glances and bit down hard on their lips. Then, instead of moving aside, they lunged forward.
"Kill him!"
"Hraaaah!"
At someone’s frantic shout, more than ten fighters hurled themselves at Chung Myung all at once.
They were men who had learned through countless battles that when survival was on the line, you did not flee—you charged.
Whoooosh!
Clear streams of energy from saber and spear lashed out with a sinister shriek. This might well have been the strongest attack of their lives. After all, cornered men could unleash superhuman strength.
The storm of saber qi and spear qi swept over Chung Myung’s entire body. Against such brutal, merciless power, the human body—made of mere flesh and blood—looked terribly fragile.
And yet, even as that desperate storm rushed toward him, Chung Myung’s eyes did not so much as twitch. If anything, they sank even deeper.
Then, in that instant—
Wooooooooong!
Chung Myung’s sword began to roar with qi, bursting forth as if someone had thrown oil onto a fire. It was nothing like the carefully restrained energy he usually displayed.
The internal force he poured in so suddenly and violently made Plum Blossom Sword scream as though it might shatter at any moment.
The sword, humming with a furious tremor, then exploded with the force it held inside the blade.
Kwaaaaaaang!
A slash that seemed ready to cleave the world in two.
The incoming spear qi and saber qi collided with the blazing crescent of sword qi. And like a mighty river reaching the sea, they were swallowed without leaving so much as a trace, then crumbled helplessly apart.
He had quite literally crushed the storm of energy.
Unhindered, Chung Myung’s sword qi surged onward and crashed over the defenseless fighters.
"S-Stop…!"
The Maninbang warriors hurriedly raised the weapons in their hands to block it, but it was a hopeless effort.
Crack-crack-crack!
The weapons thrown up to stop the sword qi began to be sliced apart like reeds.
Faces all around were painted with terror. With eyes wide open, all they could do was stare at the dreadful sword qi coming straight at them.
Having lost their weapons, all they had left were frail bodies that would soon be cut down and fall.
"N-no…"
"Hiiik!"
Kwaaaaaaaang!
It was a sight too brutal for the word “cut” to do it justice.
The bodies of the fighters swept up by the sword qi were cleaved neatly in two, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Worse still, the force carried in that qi flung the severed bodies through the air as though they had been swatted by some enormous thing.
The sight of a dozen bodies split in half and sent flying in all directions was so ghastly it was almost impossible to look at.
Drip. Drip-drip.
Blood spilled late from the bodies arcing through the air like chunks of meat, falling in splatters after the fact. It was almost as if blood were raining from the sky.
Step. Step. Step.
The world had gone silent.
There was only Chung Myung moving.
Plop.
Only when the sound of his foot stepping into a pool of blood rang out did everyone come to their senses, as though burned by fire.
Every gaze was fixed on Chung Myung.
But Chung Myung was looking somewhere else.
Life-Snatching Short Spear.
Those who had naturally been watching Chung Myung turned to look at him instead.
"…"
Son Wol’s face had gone deathly pale.
W-what kind of monster is that…?
Shuddering, he gripped his broken short spear so hard his fingers seemed ready to snap.
The cross-section of the spear, severed cleanly in half, was so smooth and pristine it looked like one could see one’s reflection in it. The sight made his spine go cold again and again, and gooseflesh kept rising over his skin.
A throbbing pain radiated from the wound where bone showed through the slash.
But at this moment, he had no room at all to worry about his injury.
The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up, and instinct kept sending warning after warning. His body was screaming at him to run from that inhuman thing immediately.
But…
Can I run?
Life-Snatching Short Spear could not move a single step.
The moment he turned his body, the sword in that hand would move. And then that sword qi he had just seen would come flying toward his back.
Then all that would be left here would be a corpse once called Life-Snatching Short Spear.
Cold sweat poured down his forehead like rain.
What in the world is that bastard…?
He had never heard of a monster like that existing in Mount Hua. At most, wasn’t Mount Hua only making a name for a few of its younger disciples?
But regret changed nothing now.
Plop.
Then Chung Myung’s foot suddenly quickened.
Startled, Son Wol reflexively stumbled backward.
"Tch!"
Only then did he realize how shameful he looked, and he clenched his teeth and poured qi into his short spear.
Step. Step.
But Chung Myung was walking toward somewhere else.
"…"
As if Life-Snatching Short Spear did not even exist, Chung Myung turned his body and walked without hesitation toward the place where Un Geom had fallen.
A face gone pale.
A severed arm.
And the great amount of blood still pouring from his shoulder.
All of it was seared into Chung Myung’s eyes.
"Uncle-disciple ancestor…"
Kneeling on one knee, Chung Myung placed a hand against Un Geom’s abdomen and spoke in a low voice.
"Soso."
Silence.
"Soso!"
When Chung Myung’s voice suddenly rang out sharply, Dang Soso, who had been sitting collapsed on the ground, sprang up on reflex.
"Yes!"
Realizing at once what she had to do, she ran at full speed toward Un Geom and Chung Myung.
Only after properly seeing Un Geom’s condition did her face go white.
"Se-senior brother!"
"Calm down."
But Chung Myung’s voice was as cold as ice.
"He’s not dying."
Dang Soso bit her lip hard and nodded. Then, with lightning speed, she crushed the Honwon Dan, pried open Un Geom’s mouth, and forced it down his throat.
Even then, her face remained full of worry.
"His condition is too severe…"
"He’s not dying."
Chung Myung snapped again, coldly.
"…Senior brother."
"He won’t die."
That was not certainty.
If anything, it was a desperate wish. A refusal to let him die.
The heaviness and urgency in that voice quieted Dang Soso’s trembling instead.
"I’ll save him! No matter what!"
"…"
Chung Myung slowly nodded. Then he drove every bit of internal force he had into Un Geom’s body.
Meanwhile, Life-Snatching Short Spear Son Wol watched his back, feeling disbelief, fear, and rage all at once.
What is he doing?
He was so unable to understand it that his mind felt frozen.
It was too absurd to accept in a single breath.
Healing a patient right in front of Life-Snatching Short Spear Son Wol? With his back turned, no less?
Has he gone completely insane?
Or was it because that Un Geom or whatever he was called mattered so much to him?
It hardly mattered.
Under normal circumstances, he was an opponent too strong to challenge. The sword qi from earlier had already proven that much.
But now the idiot was exposing his back while using internal force to heal someone.
Pouring one’s internal force into another person was an extremely dangerous act. In a battlefield like this, it was hardly something one would dare attempt.
Either he was unimaginably confident, or he was hopelessly inexperienced.
Which was it?
For a brief moment, conflict flickered across Son Wol’s face.
Instinct was still warning him. But the scene before his eyes kept goading him on.
One strike.
He only needed one strike. If he could drive the last remaining short spear into that back…
He clenched the short spear until it seemed ready to break.
And before his brain had finished thinking, he had already flooded the spear with qi.
Kwaaaaaaang!
Qi poured in wildly, making the spear spin violently.
The short spear, revolving so furiously it felt as though his hand might be ripped apart, carried all that rotation toward Chung Myung’s back.
"Die—!"
Swish.
He shouted with all his might. His mind had given that order clearly enough.
But before the cry had even fully left his mouth, a chilling sound rang out first.
At the same time, Son Wol’s body lurched and toppled forward.
What?
I’m losing my balance?
Why?
Unable to understand what had happened, his eyes caught sight of something strange.
A long, oddly familiar thing—yet somehow unfamiliar as well—was twitching on the ground and spraying blood.
Something far too familiar…
At that moment, Son Wol’s eyes widened until they seemed ready to split apart.
T-that…?
The moment he understood that the bizarre shape bleeding on the ground was his own right leg, an indescribable, horrifying agony erupted from his right thigh.
From his gaping mouth came a scream that sounded almost beastlike.
"Aaaaaaah! Aaaahhhhhhh!"
He instinctively groped at his leg. But no matter how many times he checked, the answer remained the same. Where his leg should have been, there was nothing left to touch. Only blood pouring from the severed cross-section soaked his hand in heat.
"You can wait a little."
A voice without inflection crashed into his ears as he thrashed in pain and despair.
"I’ll kill you whether you hurry me or not."
Even as he spoke, Chung Myung’s hand moved swiftly over Un Geom’s body. He poured in internal force and sealed the bleeding points, stopping the blood loss. His skill was so precise that even Dang Soso, standing beside him, was shocked.
Which was only natural.
He had seen people dying more times than he could count. Struggling like mad just to clutch at a fading life was routine to him.
Because of that—
He never wanted to see that again.
Not in this life. Never again.
Chung Myung’s gaze remained fixed on Un Geom, as though it would not leave him even for an instant.
The deep wounds covering his entire body and the severed shoulder. The ruinous state of him chilled Chung Myung’s blood.
If not for the Honwon Dan, there would have been nothing they could do.
And then…
"Soso."
"Yes! Senior brother!"
"Save him."
"Yes! I will, no matter what!"
Having done everything he could, Chung Myung finally stood up.
Even then, he stared down at Un Geom for a moment before slowly turning his head.
Step. Step. Step.
Moving at a pace that might have seemed almost slow, Chung Myung walked over and knelt on the ground to carefully pick something up.
An arm.
A bloodless arm, now drained so thoroughly it was white.
Its fingers, broken underfoot and bent at ugly angles, looked pitiful.
Carefully lifting Un Geom’s arm, Chung Myung gently placed it beside him.
Only after that entire process was complete did Chung Myung’s gaze finally settle on Life-Snatching Short Spear, who was screaming in agony. It was a gaze so cold it seemed to freeze the air itself.
Clench.
The hand gripping the sword bulged with veins.
"Get up."
Life-Snatching Short Spear, who had been screaming, looked up at Chung Myung with a face twisted in terror and fear, panting for breath.
"…Get up."
Grghrk.
The lowered sword scraped against the ground.
In a slow, chilling voice, Chung Myung said,
"I told you, didn’t I? You wouldn’t be allowed a gentle death."
A murderous aura so terrifying it seemed to strangle the heart burst from his body. His face, slowly contorting with rage, looked like that of a demon.
"Get up. I’ll kill you in the most miserable way this world has ever seen."
His bloodshot eyes locked straight onto Life-Snatching Short Spear.