Our Kids Are a Little Fierce (3)
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
“…….”
Yeo Sa-hon stared upward with wide eyes.
What on earth is going on?
He couldn’t make sense of it at all.
Ever since the Mount Hua disciples had leaped onto the walls, the shrieks and shouts had never once stopped. Of course, a battlefield was supposed to be noisy, but this was something else entirely.
For instance…
“Aaaargh!”
Just look.
The moment a flash of golden light erupted atop the wall, three or four men were sent bouncing clear over the battlements at once.
Hm?
What happened when you got thrown out like that?
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Help meeeeee!”
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
The Ice Palace warriors screamed as they fell beneath the walls.
Thud! Crash!
Looking down, Yeo Sa-hon shut his eyes tight before he knew it. The warriors who had crashed into the snow were twitching fitfully.
As long as they’re not dead, I suppose.
They’d probably spend the rest of their lives bedridden, but the snow was piled so high that at least they’d been spared their lives. That was something, wasn’t it?
“Elder!”
“R-right!”
Yeo Sa-hon moved quickly and began climbing the wall.
This isn’t the time for thoughts like that.
This was their fight. The Mount Hua disciples were guests who had come to help because their goals aligned, no? To leave the front to those guests and only watch from behind was the greatest disgrace a martial artist could suffer.
“Hraaaah!”
He climbed even faster.
Now that the rain of arrows from above had stopped, scaling the wall itself was no real problem for him. He reached the top in an instant, kicked off the edge, and hurled himself upward.
“You bastards! I’ll—Kyaaah!”
But just as he launched into the air, an Ice Palace swordsman who had been thrown back came flying at him like a cannonball.
“Aaah!”
With no time to even finish shouting, he flattened himself against the floor like a sheet of paper stuck to the ground. The person who had shot over his hunched head whooshed past with terrifying speed.
If that had hit me…?
He would’ve gone tumbling down into that abyss below, just like the others he’d seen moments ago.
Even in this freezing weather, cold sweat broke out all over him. Barely calming himself, he lifted his head—and the sight atop the wall came into view.
BOOOOM!
The stomp of a foot rattled the entire wall.
He wasn’t even that large, so where on earth did all that power come from?
“Amitabhaaa!”
The instant Hye Yeon’s fist shot forward, a blaze of golden Buddhist light surged into the sky and blasted the men blocking his path clear over the wall.
“Aaaagh!”
“Aaaaargh!”
Buddhist monks were usually supposed to be merciful, but there was not a trace of mercy in Hye Yeon’s Buddhist light. What would the Buddha think if he saw a monk shouting Amitabha while hurling people over the battlements?
Yet Hye Yeon acted as if none of that mattered, laughing wildly as he drove the Ice Palace warriors back.
“St- stop them!”
Everyone, stunned by the overwhelming force they had not expected, rushed in—but that was only because they did not know Hye Yeon.
Wung.
The Arhat Fist began with a half-palm.
Taking the stance that symbolized Shaolin, Hye Yeon drove a heavy fist toward the warriors charging him.
A blade swung by an Ice War Squad warrior crashed into Hye Yeon’s fist.
Clang!
And in that instant, the steel sword, infused with internal energy, snapped like a toy.
“Huh?”
The one who had rushed in stared wide-eyed at the strange sight.
Then—
Thoom!
With a sound like a drum being struck, he was sent flying back in a spray of blood.
A fist that had risen beyond mere form and reached the very pinnacle of law.
The Arhat Fist of Shaolin, which one might say was the foundation of all martial learning in the Central Plains, was now revealing its full and heavy weight atop the North Sea Ice Palace’s walls.
It was such overwhelming martial might that no one could have imagined this was the same man Chung Myung had been chewing out just moments ago.
It was proof enough of why Shaolin called him a once-in-a-century prodigy.
“Amitabha!”
Hye Yeon cried out and sprang after a retreating foe like a hawk, stomping down on his thigh.
Crack!
The sound of bone shattering rang out. The man whose thigh had been crushed let out a pain-racked scream and rolled across the ground.
The enlightened monk who followed Shaolin’s teachings might possess mercy, but Shaolin’s fist had none. Like the authority of the Buddha himself, Hye Yeon’s fists showed no forgiveness to the wicked.
“……I still can’t get used to that.”
Jo Gul clicked his tongue.
Since the Heaven’s Equal Alliance tournament, they had trained without pause. The Mount Hua disciples of today were incomparably stronger than they had been then.
And yet the gap between them and Hye Yeon still didn’t seem to narrow much. They had grown stronger, yes—but Hye Yeon had, without question, grown even stronger than before.
“Can’t lose to him! Hraaaah!”
The sword sliced through the air, tearing at the wind.
A sharp edge glittered beneath the quick, lively movements of the blade.
“Lower! Even lower!”
“Yes!”
Flash!
Jo Gul braced himself firmly on the balls of his feet and forced his shoulders down.
His body anchored him with rock-solid steadiness, but the sword in his hand was, by contrast, astonishingly light.
“I’m not losing to Shaolin!”
As he pressed the enemy back, Jo Gul was as nimble as a leopard.
Behind them lay a sheer ten-thousand-foot precipice.
One wrong step, and they could tumble from the wall at any moment. And in this dangerous place, the Mount Hua disciples had to face more than ten times their number.
Even a heart of iron would be pounding madly, hands and feet trembling.
And yet there was no sign of shrinking in any of their faces.
“Aaaaaaah!”
“Stop getting excited, you idiot!”
Yoon Jong shoved Jo Gul aside with his shoulder and charged forward.
The Ice Palace swordsman being pushed back had a flash of fury cross his face.
“You damn—!”
Who could stay calm while these fresh-faced young swordsmen pushed them relentlessly, one after another?
“Dieeee!”
The sword, dripping with rage, came down fiercely toward Yoon Jong’s head.
But Yoon Jong didn’t panic in the slightest. With half-lidded eyes, he watched the swords raining down on him and swung the Plum Blossom Sword.
Clang.
Softly.
Clang.
And again, with calm dignity.
It didn’t have the flashy flair of Jo Gul’s attacks. But the sword, utterly faithful to the fundamentals, blocked the enemy’s strike with a precision bordering on perfection.
That perfect defense sent the enemy’s blade rebounding, exposing the upper bodies of the Ice Palace warriors.
Flash!
Of course, the one who immediately seized that opening Yoon Jong had created was Jo Gul.
“Aaaagh!”
With a sword driven through his shoulder blade, the warrior screamed and stumbled back in a hurry.
“You Central Plains bastards think you can get away with this?!”
He tried to counterattack in a fit of rage, but in the next instant he lurched in shock and rolled flat to the ground.
A sword suddenly stabbed in through the tiny gap between Yoon Jong and Jo Gul.
“Your spacing’s widening!”
“…….”
“…….”
Dang Soso shouted furiously, her face tight.
Her sword was closer to a dagger than a proper blade. Every time a gap opened even a little, it darted in like a knife thrown from the dark.
A flawlessly linked combination.
Just by watching her blade unfold, one could tell how brutally she had trained.
But among them all, what caught Yeo Sa-hon’s eye most of all was… that sword.
Ssst!
“Ugh!”
A man whose shoulder had been pierced in an instant groaned and backed away.
Flash!
The sword, pulled free from the shoulder and reclaimed, thrust out again without the slightest wasted motion.
Simple.
It didn’t look especially fast, but no one could properly block it. A sword that drew a perfect line with absolutely no waste was faster than it appeared and stronger than anyone expected.
That was Yu I-seol’s sword.
With nothing more than a slight crossing of her feet, she closed the distance to the man blocking her and swept her sword out like an illusion.
“Ah!”
In an instant, the split blade sliced both the warrior’s shoulder and ankle at once. The man staggered back reflexively, only to meet a sword point driving straight for his solar plexus.
Thud.
“Ghk….”
It had all happened in the blink of an eye, too fast to even understand what was going on. The sword that pierced his chest sank in deep.
Clutching at the blade, he stared at Yu I-seol in disbelief before slowly collapsing to one side.
Thump.
She withdrew her sword and lifted her gaze toward the enemy.
As she was about to step in again, a low voice reached her ear.
“Save your strength, junior sister.”
Yu I-seol turned her head and looked blankly at Baek Cheon.
He brushed the blood from his sword and stepped forward with calm authority.
“No need to overdo it yet.”
Yu I-seol gave a quiet nod.
Yeo Sa-hon stared at the scene before him in a daze.
He, too, had once taught disciples as an elder of the Ice Palace, before his disgraceful fall. Which was precisely why he could not understand this at all.
What kind of training did the Mount Hua sect even do to raise young swordsmen like this?
They were simply…
“N-no way!”
He jolted.
Just as he had been staring blankly ahead, he suddenly flinched at a thunderous shout.
“A sword! Huh? You swing it like that? Ah, damn it, I’m so pissed off I could die! I am!”
“…….”
“You’ll let flies land on the sword at this rate, you little shits! Are you here to have fun?!”
In the midst of all the uncertainty, one thing was clear.
That guy has a truly rotten personality.
“Ugh! They’re, they’re up!”
Only then did the Ice Palace warriors begin climbing onto the wall. Realizing that the time had finally come, Yeo Sa-hon raised his voice.
“Do not let the Central Plains heroes take the lead! We are the proud warriors of the North Sea!”
“Yes, Elder!”
“Go!”
Yeo Sa-hon rushed forward and leaped over the heads of the Mount Hua disciples.
“Oh?”
“The old man’s still got some spring in him.”
Something irritating seemed to be drifting his way, but Yeo Sa-hon cleanly ignored it. In the middle of a battlefield, having stray thoughts was more dangerous than offering your own neck to the enemy.
Rumble…
Terrifyingly cold qi began gathering in both his hands.
Even when the seal had first been undone from the cliff face, he had possessed enough skill to take on a formation with a single hand. Now that his body had recovered to a certain extent, ordinary Ice Palace warriors were no match for him.
“Taaaaaaah!”
The Ice-Slaying Strong Qi pouring from both his hands slammed down into the massed Ice Palace warriors.
BOOOOOM!
The explosion of cold swept them up, sending them flying in sprays of blood.
“Wow… impressive.”
“He probably didn’t win that elder position with go stones.”
“Agh! It’s cold! Damn it!”
More irritating sounds kept reaching him, but Yeo Sa-hon had now decided not to get dragged into Mount Hua’s pace.
“Those who close their eyes to treachery, even as they witness the crimes of a usurper, are no longer proud warriors of the Ice Palace! Today I will judge you all and raise the true heavens over the North Sea!”
“You traitorous bastard, you’ve got some nerve talking! What are you all standing around for? Attack!”
The Ice War Squad leader roared, but the situation did not unfold the way he wanted.
Bolstered by Yeo Sa-hon’s martial might, the North Sea warriors aggressively drove back the Ice War Squad. Their opponents specialized in archery, and if they were forced into close combat with warriors whose morale had been raised this high, the outcome was obvious without even needing to see it.
Damn it, this isn’t how it was supposed to go.
Where had it gone wrong?
The Ice Palace walls were absurdly high.
To put it another way, making those towering walls thick enough for large numbers of troops to climb was impossible—even if the Ice Palace itself came back from the dead and tried.
Because of that, there was a limit to how many men could defend the top of the wall.
And the reason he’d believed there would be no major problem was that simply raining down qi-infused arrows on anyone climbing those tall, slippery walls should have inflicted a devastating blow.
But this battle had not gone his way for even a single moment.
It’s all because of that bastard!
That brat now casually hanging around behind the North Sea warriors!
If not for that one little bastard, that band of traitors would have been left bleeding on the ground long before they even reached the top!
“Damn it!”
But regretting it now was too late. He had to focus on the situation at hand.
“Create distance! Support is coming up from below! Form up in front of the stairs leading to the wall and focus on defense—”
That was when it happened.
Huh?
The Ice War Squad leader suddenly fell silent at the odd sensation that washed over him.
What was this?
That feeling?
Nothing had really changed, and yet a nauseatingly strange sensation wrapped around his body.
What’s different?
But no matter how he looked, nothing seemed different. Only…
Huh?
He was gone.
The young bastard who had been grinning at him just moments earlier and turning his insides over was no longer in sight.
Where did he—
At that very moment, a voice like something seeping out of the underworld brushed past his ear.
“If you let your guard down on a battlefield, you’ve got no right to complain if you die.”
The Ice War Squad leader whipped his head around on reflex. What met his eyes was not a person, but a pale sword blade that had somehow already come to within inches of his face.
Swish.
The sound of flesh being cut open rang out with hideous clarity.