It Is Not Reliance, But Walking Together (1)
It was not the first time Chung Myung had displayed his martial prowess.
The disciples of Mount Hua already knew full well that his skill was on a level so far beyond them that comparison was meaningless.
And yet, even taking all that into account, the power Chung Myung was showing now was shocking. More than anything else, what had stunned the Mount Hua disciples was the sheer cruelty of Chung Myung’s sword.
Chung Myung… you little brat.
Hyun Jong looked at Chung Myung with eyes full of sorrow.
It was a sword too cruel to belong to a Daoist.
And yet he could not bring himself to blame Chung Myung.
Part of it was because he knew how fiercely that child’s heart was burning with rage, but an even greater reason was that, in that sword, he sensed not cruelty but grief.
“You foolish boy…”
With every stroke of Chung Myung’s sword, self-reproach clung to the blade.
Hyun Jong bit his lip hard.
The battlefield was already completely under Chung Myung’s control. Not only the disciples of Maninbang, but even the leaders of Maninbang could not tear their eyes away from him.
If he kept displaying that kind of martial force, leading this battle to victory would not be difficult.
However.
“What are you doing!”
Hyun Jong’s voice rang out across Mount Hua like thunder.
The Mount Hua disciples jumped and looked toward him. Hyun Jong, keeping his gaze locked on Yado in front of him, snapped without even turning around.
“Is this what it means to bear the sword of Mount Hua—to let a third-generation disciple fight alone?”
At that thunderous rebuke, the Mount Hua disciples clenched their lips.
Their grip tightened on their swords. And those swords, which they had unknowingly allowed to droop, were raised back into place. Toward the enemy.
“Those who protect Mount Hua are none other than you. No one can protect Mount Hua alone!”
These words were aimed at the Mount Hua disciples who had been relying on Chung Myung. But at the same time, they were words Hyun Jong wanted to say to Chung Myung as well.
How insignificant we are.
He suddenly felt like nothing more than a speck of dust.
If he had been stronger, if Mount Hua had been stronger, that child would never have had to burn with such fury and swing a killing sword like that.
The sect had been invaded by enemies, and someone had been wounded and left on the brink of death.
It was a tragic thing. A painful thing.
But how could that possibly be Chung Myung’s fault?
“Raise your swords!”
Unconcealed anger soaked Hyun Jong’s voice.
“Prove for yourselves that you are the proud swordsmen of Mount Hua!”
No more.
Show them that even without someone looking after you, you can still win!
At Hyun Jong’s shout, the Mount Hua disciples erupted with a great roar and charged at the enemies before them.
…Damn it.
Yado’s face hardened gravely.
The mood of the battlefield had shifted in an instant. Given the effect morale had in a battle of this scale, it was no exaggeration to say Maninbang’s advantage had nearly collapsed.
Look.
The Mount Hua disciples were fighting with renewed courage, unleashing even fiercer swordplay than before, while the Maninbang disciples were plainly failing to perform at their true level.
It was only natural.
Who could concentrate on the fox in front of them when a tiger was creeping up behind their backs?
Everyone was facing forward, but their minds were entirely fixated on Chung Myung behind them.
Unless someone stopped Chung Myung, there was no way they would be able to bring out even half their actual strength.
That was why people said the outcome of a battle in the Jianghu was determined by whether or not an absolute master was present.
That useless bastard!
Yado ground his teeth as he looked at the short spear wielder who had turned into a mangled corpse.
Life-Snatching Short Spear Son Wol should never have gone down so easily. It was true that Chung Myung was a strong opponent even Yado could not casually touch, but Son Wol was not some pushover either.
If he had done his job properly, he should at least have held out for a hundred exchanges—fifty at the very least. He was, after all, a leader of Maninbang.
Even if he had ultimately fallen in the end, if he had at least shown a proper exchange of blows, the morale of their side would not have dropped so sharply.
But what could he do? That crippled idiot had ended up not even earning his own name and died instead.
Yado glared at Hyun Jong in front of him.
That old man…
Even Hyun Jong, whose momentum had rapidly begun to fade, had regained the grave composure he’d shown at the start. At this point, it was no easy matter to crush him quickly.
He darted a glance aside to check on Dokhyulsu, and saw that he too was locked in combat with Hyun Sang, who had recovered his spirit.
“Are you trying to cling to my leg? It would be better if you just sent me over to that guy than dying here, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that blue little brat a better opponent than someone as weak as you?”
He tried to provoke him lightly, but Hyun Jong’s calm, sunken eyes didn’t tremble in the slightest.
“What do you think the difference is between the righteous and the evil?”
“...Well?”
“It is whether or not one feels shame.”
“...”
Hyun Jong’s clear eyes fixed on Yado.
“Of course, that child is stronger than I am. Stronger than anyone here.”
Hyun Jong’s solemn voice rang out quietly.
“But that does not mean I can stand back with my hands folded while letting that child fight alone. If one knows shame, if one knows what it is one must do, then one cannot possibly do such a thing.”
When he finished speaking, Hyun Jong bit his lip hard.
He could not embrace them.
Could not lead them.
Then at the very least, he had to be able to share the burden that pressed down on their shoulders. If he could not even do that, then by what right did Hyun Jong call himself the sect leader of Mount Hua?
“All the disciples of Mount Hua have been training and striving so that they may walk alongside that child. A sect is not something one relies on; it is something one walks with together.”
Yado twisted the corner of his mouth.
“What the hell are you even talking about…?”
He could not understand what Hyun Jong was saying. The paths they had walked were too different for them to understand one another.
But there was one thing he knew for certain.
In the Jianghu, justice belonged to the one who proved himself through strength.
If Yado led Maninbang here and brought Mount Hua down, then Hyun Jong’s words would be proven false. And if the reverse happened, then no one would be able to refute Hyun Jong’s words.
Yado had always been on the winning side until now.
“Certainly… it seems the momentum has changed,”
Yado said with a curling smile.
“But please don’t be so quick to assume we’ve lost the advantage.”
“...”
Hyun Jong looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Honestly, this is why one can’t ignore a strategist’s words. I wondered why they sent so many people to deal with such a tiny sect.”
Muttering under his breath, Yado suddenly twisted his face and shouted,
“Heoksi!”
Then he scanned the surroundings quickly and grit his teeth.
“You bastard! Get out here already! How many more people have to die before you finish your damn assessment?”
As Yado’s incomprehensible shout ended, a grating voice like metal scraping against metal came from atop one of Mount Hua’s walls.
“There’s no need to make such a fuss.”
Hyun Jong’s eyes flew wide as he looked up in alarm.
A man wrapped head to toe in black bandages stood on the wall, staring down at Chung Myung.
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon Chung Myung…”
Ka-dak.
Heoksi clenched his fist and opened it again, and a bizarre cracking of bones echoed with a chill that crawled up the spine.
I should cut off the head of whoever gathered this intelligence.
To judge a man like that as merely a rising talent.
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon Chung Myung, and the Righteous Sword of Mount Hua Baek Cheon.”
Two Maninbang leaders had already fallen to Mount Hua’s hands. It was something even the famed orthodox sects had failed to achieve.
This place has to be erased now.
Heoksi judged that if Mount Hua were left alone, it would become a severe threat to Maninbang in a very short time. If they could understand that now and wipe out Mount Hua in advance, then the deaths of two leaders would be a cheap price to pay.
“To do that, then…”
Heoksi’s gaze turned to Chung Myung.
Chung Myung had been focused on this side from the very moment he appeared—no, even before he had revealed himself, as though he had already known Heoksi was here.
Ka-dududuk.
His hand again produced that eerie bone-cracking sound.
“Black Claw Unit.”
The moment Heoksi’s small voice rang out, black shadows began lining up to his left and right.
“...Th-that...”
“What the hell is that...?”
The black-clad fighters who rose onto the wall looked ominous and sinister, like a murder of crows.
And at a glance, anyone could tell.
They were on a completely different level from the ordinary combat forces Maninbang had sent in until now.
The advantage they had thought they’d just seized slipped away in an instant.
“If you were going to move from the start, there’d be no need for this, you damn bastard!”
Heoksi’s gaze slowly turned toward Yado.
Yado, who had been shouting furiously as though he really were angry, shut his mouth the instant their eyes met and quietly averted his gaze.
That damn bastard.
Black Claw Unit.
A special force directly under the lord’s command, receiving orders only from him.
Their cruelty and viciousness were such that even among Maninbang members, they were treated with caution. In particular, Heoksi, the unit’s leader, was someone even Maninbang leaders regarded with a faint but very real fear.
Unable to meet Heoksi’s gaze, Yado turned back to Hyun Jong.
All the resentment he had been suppressing poured out toward the old man.
“No matter how impressively you talk, old man, the situation has never changed even once. If that Chung Myung or whatever can’t join the fight, nothing’s changed. That brat alone can’t do anything.”
At those words, Hyun Jong looked at Yado with deep, contemplative eyes before nodding.
“That is true.”
“...What?”
“A man alone can do nothing.”
His body was covered in wounds, and blood seeped onto the ground, but this old swordsman had still not lost his radiance.
“But did you not say that everyone is here so that child need not be alone?”
“You lot?”
“Is that insufficient?”
Yado’s eyes narrowed, displeased.
It was annoying.
The moment the Black Claw Unit appeared, Maninbang had seized the upper hand on the battlefield. No matter how strong Mount Hua Divine Dragon was, he could not possibly fight the Black Claw Unit alone.
No.
Even if he could, nothing would change. While that bastard was dealing with the Black Claw Unit, not a single one of Mount Hua’s disciples would survive.
And yet…
Why did the light in this old man’s eyes not fade?
At that moment, Hyun Jong spoke.
“Did I not say it? I am a man who knows shame.”
“...What?”
Hyun Jong shook his head.
“More than anything else, what shames me is that the person who works hardest to ensure that child is not left alone is not me.”
Yado’s face twisted in utter incomprehension.
“I believe.”
“...”
“Even if the day comes when Mount Hua collapses, those children will surely remain by that child’s side. And so…”
Hyun Jong’s gaze gently came to rest on Chung Myung’s back.
“I am able to protect my own place.”
At that very moment, someone in white robes leapt high into the air from the cliff behind Chung Myung, as if springing straight into the sky.
Then several more figures appeared one after another atop the cliff. Launching themselves upward, they landed in perfect formation to Chung Myung’s left and right.
The one who landed at the front turned his gaze to Un Geom, who was receiving treatment from Dang Soso.
“...Sasuk.”
He bit down so hard on his lip that it went white, and then he also saw Hyun Jong, covered in wounds. His face twisted instantly.
“Sect Leader!”
Anger spread across his pale face.
“Those bastards…”
Yoon Jong and Jo Gul could not hold back their fury either.
In particular, Yu I-seol had not once taken her eyes off Hyun Jong’s wounds from the moment she landed on the ground.
A faint, ghostly aura flickered across her usually expressionless face.
“...I’m going to kill them.”
And then—
“Amitabha.”
Hye Yeon, who had climbed the cliff a little later than the other Mount Hua disciples, stepped up behind them with his palms pressed together.
“I shall help as well.”
Baek Cheon gave a silent nod.
The Mount Hua disciples standing to Chung Myung’s left and right, along with Hye Yeon, stared down at Maninbang with cold eyes.
Without looking away, Baek Cheon said quietly,
“...A little late.”
“Good enough.”
Chung Myung replied in a low voice.
“You know, right?”
“Of course.”
Clang!
The Mount Hua Five Swords.
Those so called by the world all drew their swords at once.
Baek Cheon spoke quietly.
“Do not lose your composure.”
“Yes!”
“But!”
Then he roared like a beast.
“There is no need to show mercy in your strikes!”
Everyone answered by gripping their swords tighter. A brief tension and a steely resolve swept across their faces.
“Hah!”
After a short breath, Baek Cheon unleashed a fierce shout.
“Kill them all!”
“Go!”
Like five streaks of light, the Mount Hua Five Swords shot down from the summit of Mount Hua and flew toward the Maninbang fighters.