I Said I’d Cut That Neck Clean Off (2)
“Kill them!”
“Aaaah! You damned bastards!”
“I’ve been waiting for today!”
“We’ll avenge the Palace Lord!”
The warriors of the North Sea, led by Yeo Sa-hon, drove into the Ice Palace’s fighters with a ferocity that was almost bestial.
Their skill was neither exceptional nor superior to that of the Ice Palace warriors blocking their path. The former elders at the very front were, of course, incomparably stronger than ordinary fighters, but the rest were actually at a disadvantage.
But at a time like this, skill meant nothing anymore.
BOOOOM!
The spearhead of the charge smashed through the startled Ice Palace warriors like a war chariot, trampling them underfoot.
“Aaaagh!”
“Aaaah!”
Swords and palm strikes flew as they overwhelmed their opponents far beyond any difference in martial prowess. The Ice Palace’s formation collapsed in an instant, enough to leave even Yeo Sa-hon, who had been leading from the front, momentarily flustered.
No?
He caught himself at once, hardened his heart, and drove his palm out again. The cold, yin-infused energy that burst from his hands struck the backs of those fleeing before him.
They’re turning their backs?
A warrior of the Ice Palace?
Even after being imprisoned as a criminal, he had never once abandoned the pride of being of the Ice Palace. To him, seeing the palace’s warriors flee with their backs exposed was more than surprising—it was shocking.
And it wasn’t only the ones running who were the problem.
Even those who had raised their weapons with some will to fight couldn’t hide the bewilderment etched across their faces. Yeo Sa-hon had never once in his life seen such a pathetic sight.
How could they endure the life-and-death moment of battle when they had already lost their fighting spirit before the clash even began?
“Kill them!”
“Don’t leave a single one alive!”
On the other side, the North Sea warriors pressing forward had grown even more bloodthirsty and surged with their weapons.
This is about the limit…
And then it happened.
Aaaaargh!
At the awful scream that rang out from far away, the Ice Palace fighters who had been caught between fighting and fleeing all turned their heads at once.
With the North Sea warriors attacking them head-on, they lost their focus to the screams behind them?
At that point, there was no way it could be called a battle. The North Sea warriors only had to deal with the enemy in front of them, but those on the Ice Palace’s side were effectively having to face the Mount Hua disciples behind them at the same time.
They were fighting with the terror that a blade might strike from behind at any moment.
“Press them harder! Today, we reclaim the Ice Palace!”
“Waaaaaaah!”
Watching the warriors rush forward as their morale surged, Yeo Sa-hon’s face tightened.
How terrifying.
Those disciples of Mount Hua had completely dominated this battlefield with a single charge.
Admiration and fear tangled together in his mind. Forcing aside the distracting thoughts battering at his skull, Yeo Sa-hon unleashed a fierce palm strike.
Seol Cheon-sang could not make sense of the scene spreading before his eyes.
How in the world?
Standing at the very back of the lined-up Ice Palace forces, he could clearly see everything unfolding here.
But being able to see something did not mean he could understand it.
How can something like this happen?
It should have been an easy battle.
Though they were enemies, they were in truth people who had long since strayed from the path of martial arts. Dealing with those rusted, broken leftovers should have been simple. All he needed to do was bring forward the younger, livelier fighters and crush them under sheer numbers.
This place was a flat training ground.
The back was sealed off by walls, leaving no route of escape. There was no terrain for clever stratagems, and with no variables to exploit, there should have been no chance for some miraculous reversal.
It was an environment where victory had to be decided purely by power and skill.
And yet how was this happening?
“P-Palace Lord, this is…”
“……”
“We need to do something…”
The elders’ bewildered voices rose in a murmur.
And no wonder.
They could all clearly see Yeo Sa-hon and the North Sea warriors sweeping through the Ice Palace fighters whose formation had completely collapsed.
Seol Cheon-sang bit down hard on his lip and spat out a curse.
“...Damn it.”
Do something? What, exactly, was there to do?
The formation that had been perfectly arranged was now in total ruin. At the center, around Cheong Myung, all those people were tangled together as if caught in a whirlpool. It was like staring into a boiling furnace.
At this point, tactics no longer meant anything. Tactics only had meaning if the people who received the orders still had the mind to carry them out.
But Seol Cheon-sang, too, was the Palace Lord of the Ice Palace.
He could not simply take this lying down. Quickly deciding what the best move was in the current situation, he shouted like a thunderclap.
“Ignore the ones who’re forcing their way in and kill those Central Plains bastards!”
His voice roared like rolling thunder.
“What are you doing? Stop standing there like idiots and kill them now! If those bastards aren’t there, Yeo Sa-hon is nothing!”
“P-Palace Lord?”
At the startled voice from beside him, Seol Cheon-sang glared back with bloodshot eyes.
“You worthless trash. Don’t tell me you’re sitting there with your ass glued to the ground because you’re scared of those brats?”
“N-No, of course not! I’ll cut their heads off right now!”
Some of the elders sprang forward with grim faces.
Watching their backs for a moment, Seol Cheon-sang ground his teeth.
How far are those bastards going to keep obstructing me?
From the start, bringing those Mount Hua bastards into the Ice Palace had been a mistake. No—letting them set foot in the North Sea at all had been the mistake.
Looking at his collapsing forces, he felt a despair so deep it seemed carved into bone.
But as always, regret was late no matter how quickly it came.
Fwaaaaat!
CRACK!
The sensation of his strike piercing an opponent’s throat came back to his hand with horrifying clarity.
Baek Cheon ignored it and kept swinging his sword without pause.
This…
I think I get it.
Baek Cheon had never understood Cheong Myung’s assessment that Mount Hua’s sword was wicked. How could such a judgment be attached to a sword art that painted the most beautiful flowers under heaven?
But now he completely understood why Cheong Myung had called the Plum Blossom Sword Art the most demonic sword technique among the righteous sects.
Look.
Flutter, flutter.
The trembling sword tip scattered Maehwageomgi in all directions.
Among the plum blossom petals infused with the subtlety of illusion, there was only one real body.
If this were a martial contest, the enemy might have noticed that fact. They might even have stayed calm, withdrawn, and waited for an opening.
But this was a battlefield.
In a place this desperate, where even a moment’s hesitation meant death, it was impossible to distinguish the true blade from all those blossoms.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
The terrified opponent flailed wildly with his sword, but the petals touched by the blade vanished as though they had never existed in the first place.
And then—
Thud.
“Urrk…”
Baek Cheon’s sword pierced clean through the throat of the man toyed with by the plum blossom sword energy.
Deceive the enemy’s eyes, toy with them, and silently move in to take their life.
The sword of Mount Hua was, at least on the battlefield, a thoroughly vicious and chilling thing.
Swish.
Baek Cheon flung the blood from his sword and rushed forward with unwavering eyes.
So what if it was like this?
— Fair and square? Fair and square? What kind of bullshit is that? I’m the one about to die here, so what the hell does “fair” have to do with anything? Winning and surviving, even if it’s shameless and ugly—that’s the truth of the battlefield. If you’ve got time to spout that nonsense, swing your sword one more time.
He was right.
Even if that wasn’t true, it was the truth for Baek Cheon right now.
What I have to do!
Baek Cheon’s eyes grew cold.
“Jo Gul!”
“Yes!”
“Don’t let Soso fall behind!”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
Hye Yeon was handling the rear. If he hadn’t been watching their backs, Baek Cheon would never have been able to charge ahead without worrying about what lay behind.
“Sago!”
“Yes.”
“Open the way!”
“Yes.”
What he had to do was lead.
To desperately chase after the back of the one who ran ahead first.
It meant nothing to reach the destination alone. If he was Baek Cheon, the eldest disciple of Mount Hua, then he could not afford to lose a single one of the disciples fighting beside him.
That was the burden he, as the great senior brother of the Baek generation, had to carry on his shoulders.
And if it took that…
“Hup!”
Baek Cheon’s sword moved quickly. The sword that had always been upright, fair, and polished now carried a wet, bloody killing intent, ruthlessly ravaging his opponents’ bodies with a thoroughly wicked edge.
Fwaaaat!
Just like Cheong Myung, wherever Baek Cheon’s sword swept, blood burst forth in fountains. This was no clean sword that aimed for a throat or heart to end a life in a single strike.
This was a sword focused entirely on swift, efficient incapacitation, with no waste at all.
I’ve got to carry more!
Baek Cheon lowered his stance until he was almost skimming the ground and shot forward. In a single stroke he cut down the legs of the Ice Palace warriors standing in the way, then roared as he pressed onward.
“Yoon Jong! Guard my back!”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
As he advanced with a face twisted like a demon’s, an all-too-familiar Buddhist chant reached his ears.
“Amitabha!”
BOOOOOM!
It was a tremendous explosion, powerful enough to shake the body even now.
Hye Yeon was following them through this blood-soaked battlefield, trusting in them with all his heart. He had set aside even his identity as a Buddhist disciple and come with them solely on the strength of that trust.
So Baek Cheon had to move that much more, carry that much more, in return for that faith.
“Haaah!”
Baek Cheon’s sword scattered plum blossoms.
This time, there was no more frailty in them. Within those fluttering petals lay his unmistakable will, and that will swept across those blocking his path like a storm.
It was sword energy so formidable that even the Mount Hua disciples following behind him were startled.
Even here, in the very center of the battlefield, Baek Cheon was clearly growing.
And then—
Fwaaaat!
Thud!
Baek Cheon kicked off the ground and finally came to a stop, pressing his back against a familiar one.
“Caught up with you, you damned bastard!”
“You’re late.”
Cheong Myung raised his sword a little with a bored expression.
The Mount Hua disciples and Hye Yeon who had followed along the path Baek Cheon cut open flew in and formed a ring around Cheong Myung.
Sword toward the enemy.
Back to their comrades.
Their planted feet were as solid as iron, their backs straight and unbent. Their eyes pressed the enemy down while the tips of their swords remained light as breath.
The Ice Palace warriors, overwhelmed by the pressure pouring from them, could not bring themselves to rush in recklessly. No—there had already been a subtle standoff brewing even before they arrived.
Baek Cheon steadied his breathing and asked,
“Shall we press them?”
“Wait.”
“Right now, that elder over there…”
“Wait.”
But Cheong Myung’s cold words held him back.
At that voice, devoid of even the slightest hint of emotion, the boiling blood inside Baek Cheon began to cool little by little.
“Listen up, all of you.”
“……”
Without taking his eyes off the enemy, Cheong Myung spoke.
“Don’t get so worked up over someone else’s fight.”
“...Is that really your line to say?”
“What was the goal again?”
Baek Cheon closed his mouth tightly.
The moment he heard that, it felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him.
“A battlefield is like a living thing.”
Everyone listened closely to Cheong Myung’s words.
“Formation, strategy, whatever—none of that matters much. Where people clash with people, where death meets death, there’s always a flow.”
“A flow?”
“Right. So feel it. Even while you’re fighting, even while a blade skims your face, you can’t lose that flow. Keep feeling it, and eventually…”
Cheong Myung smiled like a wolf baring its teeth.
“You’ll see an opening.”
His eyes swept quickly across the battlefield. Troops began to pour toward the place Yeo Sa-hon had broken through.
The center where Mount Hua’s disciples stood had clearly started to thin out.
“You bastaaards!”
Just then, some of the elders who had been with Seol Cheon-sang rushed toward Mount Hua’s disciples, and the Ice Palace warriors began opening lanes to the left and right.
A perfect straight road leading to Seol Cheon-sang!
“See it?”
Everyone nodded. Under normal circumstances, they would have been too busy fighting to notice, but now that they had heard Cheong Myung’s words, it was clear.
The path before them had opened.
“Go!”
No answer was needed.
“Follow me like your lives depend on it!”
The instant the words ended, Cheong Myung turned into a streak of light and shot forward. The sword shadows he unleashed at once swept away the Ice Palace warriors who had been backing off in panic.
Not even screams remained.
Those who couldn’t even leave behind a dying cry were scattered to all sides, limbs and blood raining down like a storm.
But before that blood could even touch his body, Cheong Myung had already left the spot and was charging ahead again.
The Mount Hua disciples followed behind him, receiving the spraying blood without a single moment of hesitation.
“S-Stop them!”
“The elders! The elders are…”
The troops fell into instant chaos.
Should they risk their lives to block the enemy charging straight at them? Or should they trust the elders coming to intercept them and keep the route open?
Hesitation breeds delay, and delay dulls a sword.
And Cheong Myung was not merciful enough to forgive that dullness.
Fwaaaaaat!
The viciously whipped sword cleanly took the heads of those who hesitated.
After advancing more than thirty paces in an instant, Cheong Myung shouted,
“Sasuk!”
“Haaah!”
As though he needed no explanation to know his role, Baek Cheon sprang forward. Then he sent a burst of sword qi straight at one of the elders hurtling toward them.
CLAAANG!
“You damn brat!”
That wasn’t all.
Yu I-seol shot forward in an instant and pinned down one of the elders, and in the gap Yoon Jong and Jo Gul thrust their swords in together.
Hye Yeon, guarding their backs, also cried out his Buddha’s name and leaped above Cheong Myung’s head to unleash a palm strike.
The chain of explosions and impacts shook the battlefield.
Amid that chaos, Cheong Myung’s eyes caught a threadlike path.
Like a streak of lightning, he surged forward. Running along the opened lane, he swung his sword without restraint. If someone stood in his way, he cut them down; if the path was blocked again, he drove into the newly opened gap.
Like a ghost slipping between enemies, he ran, then kicked off the ground hard and vaulted over those blocking his way.
“Wha—!”
“P-Palace Lord!”
“Nooooo!”
The moment the view opened before him, the world spread wide.
Having leapt over the final defense line, Cheong Myung clearly saw Seol Cheon-sang’s flustered face.
“Youuuuu bastard!”
Flapping the hem of his fur robe, Seol Cheon-sang unleashed a palm strike at Cheong Myung.
The yin energy, like a pure white torrent, came flying in with enough force to freeze the soul itself. But Cheong Myung did not retreat, nor did he dodge.
He simply brought his sword down in a straight line and split the incoming strike in two.
Fwaaaaat!
The crescent blade qi bursting from Cheong Myung’s sword cleaved the attack left and right and shot toward Seol Cheon-sang.
Seol Cheon-sang’s eyes were filled with shock.
And then—
Slash!
An eerie sound spread out.
A moment later, blood began dripping onto the floor.
“……”
From the left side of his forehead down to the tip of his right jaw.
It was a deep gash that cut across his face. Seol Cheon-sang twisted his bloodied features like a beast and glared at Cheong Myung.
Tap.
Cheong Myung landed on the ground and met his stare coldly.
“I’ve got a lot to say, but…”
Cheong Myung’s white teeth flashed.
“We’re short on time, so let’s finish this quick, brat.”
From the tip of his sword, plum blossoms red as blood began pouring out endlessly.