He Wouldn’t Die Easily (5)
His mind went blank.
The hand he had thrust out shook violently as it scraped against the ground.
His leg had been cut off. A leg that had been perfectly fine a moment ago, severed in an instant.
But what sent Daemyeongdan Spear straight into hell was not the fact that his leg had been cut off. It was how it had happened.
No way. What the hell was that supposed to be?
He had never even heard of anything like this.
Pouring inner energy into another person was no different from circulating one’s own qi. So how the hell was someone supposed to draw a sword-qi strike while still in the middle of transferring energy?
If Daemyeongdan Spear had fought Chung Myung head-on, fair and square, there was no way the result would have been a leg gone in one blow.
But who could ever have imagined that the bastard who had been healing others by pushing his inner energy into them would suddenly unleash a sword like that?
It was the kind of lapse that couldn’t even really be called a lapse, and yet it had brought about this result. That fact alone made Daemyeongdan Spear feel like his skin was being peeled off.
“Hhhrrrgh…”
He let out a beastlike groan and lifted his head. There stood Chung Myung, sword in hand, walking toward him.
His heart clenched.
Chung Myung’s expression was indifferent as he approached with a blood-soaked sword hanging at his side, and he looked no different from the grim reaper.
“Get up.”
The voice that reached Daemyeongdan Spear’s ears was colder than cold—so devoid of emotion it might as well have been ice itself.
“I told you,” Chung Myung said.
Grrrk.
The sound of the sword scraping the ground rang in his ears like thunder.
“I’d kill you cruelly.”
Daemyeongdan Spear’s eyes bulged with terror.
Couldn’t he tell just from the way Chung Myung had flung aside his subordinates like trash, or cut off his leg without a hint of hesitation?
That guy was different from every righteous sect bastard he had ever seen. If it was him, he would absolutely keep his word.
Step.
At last, those awful footsteps stopped.
“W-What are you doing! Stop him! Stop him, you bastards! H-Hurry uuuuup!”
As Daemyeongdan Spear screamed at the top of his lungs, the atmosphere on the battlefield shifted in an instant.
Up until then, everyone had stood there in a daze, as though what was happening had nothing to do with them. Now, reality finally came crashing back in.
“S-Stop him!”
“Protect the boss!”
The men Daemyeongdan Spear had brought with him rushed desperately between Chung Myung and their leader.
“Get lost!”
“We’re not letting you pass, you sons of bitches!”
But this time, the Mount Hua disciples would not let them through. The men farther back might still be beyond reach, but those close enough for the sword to touch were suddenly drowned in fierce sword-qi.
It was the first time the Mount Hua disciples, who had only been pushed back until now, had taken the offensive.
“You bratty little punks!”
“Move it! You bastards!”
The Maninbang martial artists screamed like men being slaughtered, but Mount Hua’s swords did not permit their retreat.
Even so, a dozen or so Maninbang fighters who managed to tear themselves free of that chaos leaped between Chung Myung and Daemyeongdan Spear.
“The boss can’t…”
Swish.
A head flew skyward.
The man who had charged to the front lost his head to a single sword strike and crashed to the ground like a log. At the sight, everyone involuntarily flinched and stopped in their tracks.
Slash.
Chung Myung gave a brief flick of his sword, and the blood on its tip scattered to the ground.
“Either way…”
His voice, rough and chill, drifted out as he stared ahead.
“I wasn’t planning to let any of you live anyway. If you want to die early, I’ll grant you the favor.”
Thud!
Chung Myung stomped the ground as if crushing it underfoot.
At the same time, red sword-qi burst from the blade he thrust out. Brighter, sharper than the blood-dark earth beneath their feet, it surged upward and began painting dozens, then hundreds, of plum blossoms into the air.
The Maninbang martial artists stared in horror, eyes wide.
It was not the first time they had seen it. They had already witnessed that sword art several times while fighting those Mount Hua brats moments ago.
But this was different. It was clearly the same sword, and yet no one could call it the same sword.
Could the very same technique change this much depending on who used it?
Each petal moved with its own distinct rhythm as they were stitched into the void, as if every one of them were alive. It was more than vivid. It was downright eerie.
W-We have to stop it…
The man at the front shoved every scrap of inner energy he had into his body and raised his dao. His body moved before his mind could even fully catch up. He forced his dantian to its limit and swung the blade like a storm.
Ferocious.
The dao, wrapped in blade qi, tore at the air as if it would pulverize everything in front of him, proving that all the training he had piled up had not been in vain.
And yet.
No matter how roughly and powerfully the dao was swung, no matter how completely it was filled with qi, could it possibly swat away every plum blossom petal carried on the wind?
Petals slipped through the microscopic gaps the dao had failed to cover.
N-No!
By the time he saw it with his own eyes, it was already too late.
Slash.
The instant a drifting petal brushed his wrist, a chill pain burst through him and blood sprayed outward.
The wound was so deep the bone at his wrist showed through, and the dao that had been moving with such violence suddenly lost its momentum.
And that was the end of it.
Aah…
When he finally came to his senses, the world was completely covered in plum blossoms.
Insane…
The petals swept over his whole body.
“Aaaaaghhh!”
Starting with his pitiful scream, the others guarding his flank were also swallowed whole by the crimson plum blossoms.
A moment later.
Thud. Thud.
With heavy, brutal sounds, the Maninbang fighters in the front line dropped flat to the ground as if they had been slammed there.
“……”
Everyone watching was rendered speechless by the sight.
The swords of Mount Hua.
There was a reason they had been dismissed as too grotesque and too soaked in killing intent to suit a righteous sect’s sword.
Before anyone could even fully close their eyes, blood was already gushing in streams from the bodies of those whose breathing had been cut off.
The spectators’ hearts grew cold.
Hadn’t they seen comrades fall to an enemy blade before? Of course they had. But this was clearly different from anything they had ever witnessed.
The fallen corpses had no place on their bodies left uninjured—from head to toe, there wasn’t a single spot without a wound.
How many variations had been packed into that one sword strike for it to carve a person up so completely in an instant?
Just looking at those wounds made it clear: there was not the slightest chance of victory.
Step.
While everyone else was reeling in shock, only Chung Myung looked around with complete indifference.
Each time he stepped, the pooled blood beneath him was crushed under his foot and splattered outward.
“Th…that…”
The Maninbang martial artists trembled awkwardly, unable either to charge or to flee.
Their teeth chattered on their own, and their whole bodies turned cold as though they had been thrown into an ice cave.
Stop?
They were supposed to stop him?
Who the hell did we think we were stopping?
Only then did they realize how reckless they had been.
But it was already too late to turn back.
The hands gripping their daos shook uncontrollably, but that was not something to blame them for. The fact that they were still standing there with their blades raised instead of bolting for their lives was already worthy of praise.
His head was going empty.
“Stop him! Stop him, you bastards!”
Even then, Daemyeongdan Spear’s desperate shrieks kept drilling into their ears.
But they could not obey him, nor could they rebel against that hopeless command. The situation they had been thrown into was too horrifying for them to respond to a voice like that.
Wha—
But fortunately, they no longer had to think about it.
When had he drawn the sword?
By the time they came to their senses, the air before them was already filled with crimson plum blossoms. They understood exactly what those blossoms meant. There was no way they could mistake how dangerous that sight was.
Even so, if for a moment they had thought it beautiful… well, that wasn’t entirely their fault.
This is an illusion.
And that illusion tore apart bodies that had already gone rigid before they could even be moved.
Another agonized scream rang out.
When the rain of plum blossoms, blooming like a hallucination, disappeared like a dream, not a single person remained standing between Daemyeongdan Spear and Chung Myung.
Step.
The sight created by the sword had been breathtakingly beautiful, but the place it swept clean was ruin incarnate.
Standing amid the corpses soaked in blood from head to toe, Chung Myung spoke at a leisurely pace.
“Your turn now.”
“Hah, hh… ngh!”
Daemyeongdan Spear’s eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to burst.
“You son of a bi—”
He planted the one remaining spear into the ground and forced himself upright with all the strength he had left.
Without his leg, he swayed violently, but he somehow managed to steady himself.
“You bastard!”
His eyes, blood vessels all burst and nearly dyed entirely red, glared at Chung Myung with hatred, fury, and helpless fear.
Crunch.
He yanked the spear out of the ground, gripped it with both hands, and leveled it at Chung Myung.
“Don’t… don’t you dare look down on me…”
“Shut your mouth.”
But Chung Myung’s cold voice cut him off.
“You—!”
Daemyeongdan Spear bit down hard on his lip. He clamped down so viciously that flesh was gouged almost at once, but he felt no pain at all.
He poured every last drop of remaining inner energy into the spear.
The violently spinning spear created a vortex that tore the flesh of his hands, but Daemyeongdan Spear only drove his inner energy harder into it.
His hands?
What did they matter in the face of his life?
He thrust the spear out like lightning.
“Dieeeeeee!”
His trump card, the Seven Snakes Probing the Frog move, erupted with a force it had never shown before. Seven streams of whirling current shot toward Chung Myung’s entire body with terrifying ferocity.
He had lost one leg, and yet his momentum was in no way inferior to when both legs were intact—if anything, it was even sharper.
It was unquestionably the technique that proved exactly why he had risen to the position of Maninbang’s leader.
But his opponent was Chung Myung.
Even as he watched the seven streams of whirling force come for him, Chung Myung actually stepped forward.
Kaaaaang!
The Plum Blossom Sword swept across the side of one current and bent like it might snap.
Kaang! Kaaang! Kaaang!
Striking the sides of the incoming currents to twist their paths, Chung Myung kept advancing.
The moment the remaining five streams closed in on him at point-blank range, aiming for his whole body.
What?
Daemyeongdan Spear’s eyes flew wide open.
Chung Myung’s body had vanished from that spot as if it had simply dropped out of existence.
Terrified, Daemyeongdan Spear dragged his senses up to their limit. If he tried to track him by eye, it would be too late—
“You—!”
His head jerked upward as if it might snap off.
At last, his field of vision caught the shape of a person plunging down like a diving bird.
“Too late.”
Slash!
The sound of the sword cutting through flesh and cloth stabbed into his ears with sickening clarity.
And a moment later, another sound followed.
Thunk.
It was the sound of something made of iron hitting the ground.
Daemyeongdan Spear slowly looked down in a daze.
The spear he had been holding only a moment ago was lying on the ground. Still attached to his hand, as it happened.
“……”
As his gaze shifted inch by inch, it became clear that his wrist had been cut off.
And yet somehow, reality had become less real. He couldn’t even feel pain.
His trembling eyes looked forward. Chung Myung stood staring straight back at him from a distance no more than an outstretched hand away.
“I’m a man who keeps his promises.”
Thud!
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
The agony bursting from his pierced shoulder dragged Daemyeongdan Spear back into reality. As the sword buried in his shoulder twisted, his body was forced gradually backward.
Daemyeongdan Spear hurled himself back with his one remaining leg.
If this kept up, he would die.
He couldn’t die like this.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Slash.
The chest was sliced open.
Slash.
His belly split apart, red blood pouring out like a waterfall.
Slash.
His face was cut, and one side of his vision went completely black.
Like a cat toying with a mouse, Chung Myung gradually carved up Daemyeongdan Spear’s entire body. Just like he had done to Un Geom only moments before.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Daemyeongdan Spear screamed in wild desperation.
The one remaining fist he had left was filled with inner energy and flailed out in a frenzy.
“You bastard…”
Slash!
But his arm was cut off at the elbow before it could even fully extend, sailing through the air.
“……Ah.”
Slash.
The thigh of his remaining leg was cut more than halfway through. No longer able to maintain his balance, Daemyeongdan Spear crashed face-first to the ground.
Chung Myung’s sword came at his exposed upper body like a starving serpent.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, the sword moved dozens of times, yet produced only a single slicing cry through the air.
Dozens of fresh cuts bloomed across Daemyeongdan Spear’s chest.
“Krrk…”
The light in his eyes began to fade at a terrifying speed. His mouth opened and shut as if he wanted to say something, but the blood surging back up his throat would not let him.
“Last words are for people.”
Chung Myung’s sword touched Daemyeongdan Spear’s throat.
“You die like a maggot. Even that is more dignity than you deserve.”
Thrust.
There was not the slightest hesitation, not a shred of mercy. Chung Myung’s sword drove straight through Daemyeongdan Spear’s throat.
He convulsed violently, unable even to close his eyes before he went cold.
Chung Myung withdrew the sword, then shook it hard as though even the blood on it was filthy, scattering the droplets away.
The world had gone silent.
Chung Myung stared at the cooling corpse for a long while, as if thinking of something, then slowly turned around.
Flinch.
The Maninbang dao-wielders shuddered and drew back.
Then the voice that spilled from Chung Myung’s mouth turned their blood to ice.
“……Next.”