I Said I’d Cut That Neck Clean Off (4)
“You leech of a bastard!”
Li Bie, an elder of the Ice Palace, shouted in a rage, thrashing as though he were trying to tear the world apart.
But the one blocking his path showed no reaction at all. He simply kept swinging his sword in silence, tying Li Bie’s feet down and refusing to let him break through.
“Aaaaargh!”
Fierce palm force exploded from Li Bie’s hands.
It was a terrifying sight, but from his opponent’s point of view, it was nothing more than a wild, reasonless flurry of palm techniques.
There was no way it was difficult to deal with.
“You brat from the Central Plains!”
Baek Cheon met the palm strikes with a sweep of his sword and looked at Li Bie with dark eyes.
This is nowhere near Elder Yeo’s level.
He had been wary because the man was an elder of the Ice Palace, but this one wasn’t even half as skilled as Yeo Sa-hon. No, calling him an elder at all felt like an insult to the word.
The elders of the sects he had seen so far had never been this weak. Compared to Seol Cheon-sang, who was unleashing such frightening martial power now, these men’s palms were neither sharp nor refined.
So this is what happens when someone clings to power and never hones himself.
Of course, these men were stronger than Baek Cheon was right now.
But…
“I’m already plenty used to hanging onto the pant legs of stronger bastards and dragging them down.”
With a shout, Baek Cheon thrust his sword straight toward Li Bie’s centerline.
Of course he wanted to overwhelm his opponent with dazzling swordplay. He was a martial artist, after all. But Baek Cheon understood better than anyone what his role was right now.
Trust and hold the line.
Keep anyone from interfering, and drag down the legs of whatever Chung Myung was trying to do.
That alone was enough.
Baek Cheon forced his racing heart to settle.
“You damned fool! You think this changes anything?”
Even as Li Bie kept shouting, Baek Cheon did not react, as though he couldn’t hear him. He devoted every shred of his attention to the tip of his sword, not wasting even a moment answering such nonsense.
I will not lose him.
If he did what he was supposed to do, Chung Myung would take care of the rest.
If he failed his role and someone got hurt or died because of it, Baek Cheon would never forgive himself for the rest of his life.
So he had to focus.
He sharpened his senses until they were thin as a thread, sharp as a blade—so sharp they might snap if anyone touched them.
Because while dealing with Li Bie, he also had to keep an eye on the other martial brothers.
What about my junior sister?
When he glanced aside, he saw Yu I-seol doggedly clinging to another elder of the Ice Palace with the same relentless focus as ever.
The chill that swept through him made him shiver slightly.
Even from a passing glance, her concentration was terrifying. It looked as though no one in the world could shake Yu I-seol. Baek Cheon had steeled himself, but compared to her, even his resolve felt lukewarm.
On the other side, Jo Gul and Yoon Jong were hammering their opponent with frightening momentum.
Ka-chak! Ka-ga-ga-gak!
Their swords entwined and whirled with such intensity they looked like a single pair of blades wielded by one person.
Baek Cheon gave a small nod.
Why wouldn’t Jo Gul want to face an enemy on his own? Why wouldn’t Yoon Jong? Just as Baek Cheon wanted to drive his opponent to the brink, they too would want to stand alone, to test their own abilities to the limit.
And yet they were suppressing that impulse and finding the best path they could manage.
Heavy.
Having such outstanding junior brothers and sisters was not always a happy thing. Every time they showed such admirable faces, the weight on his shoulders grew heavier.
But Baek Cheon would never let that weight crush him.
Growth meant overcoming. Without pressure, there was no growth. They were the driving force that pushed him forward.
“Amitabha!”
KWA-A-A-A-A-A-AANG!
He sprang forward at the now-familiar sound of Hye Yeon’s shout. Dang Soso was probably unleashing the hidden weapons she had brought with her at his side, pelting the enemies with them nonstop.
It must sting.
That they couldn’t fight with swords alone like the other Mount Hua disciples.
It’s all right. You’ll get stronger too.
Baek Cheon fixed Li Bie with a gaze so intense it could almost make a man’s flesh crawl.
Li Bie felt a chill race down his spine.
What in the world are these bastards?
They were just kids, weren’t they? In the Ice Palace, they would barely count as new recruits in the martial guard.
And yet the killing intent and concentration those bastards radiated were pulverizing his common sense. He couldn’t understand how anyone could possess such refinement at such a young age.
Are all Central Plains people like this?
Or was it that these Mount Hua bastards were simply special?
Dammit.
The situation was turning worse by the second. Once morale fell, it was not easy to restore. Meanwhile, the rebels led by Yeo Sa-hon were raising their own morale even now.
Of course they were.
Why wouldn’t their spirits rise when they were forcing the enemy back so overwhelmingly, beyond even their own actual skill?
This can’t go on!
At this rate, even if they won, the damage would be far too great. Somehow, they needed to find a way to turn the tide as quickly as possible…
But then, at that very moment.
“Palace Lorddddddddd!”
“Aaagh! Palace Lord!”
A desperate scream pierced his ears. Li Bie, now pale as death, instinctively turned around.
And then.
He saw something impossible.
“Khuk…”
Fresh blood gushed from Seol Cheon-sang’s mouth.
The sword that had pierced straight through his solar plexus was stirring up his insides, and blood was surging back up his throat.
“Kkhuk.”
Coughing, Seol Cheon-sang spat out a mouthful of blood and looked down at the sword embedded in his stomach.
Drip.
Red blood ran down the blade.
It was Chung Myung’s blood. The blood pouring from the hand that had seized the edge of the sword bare-handed was sliding down the blade and dripping into Seol Cheon-sang’s belly.
…Has he lost his mind?
That was a divine sword sharp enough to carve up even a hand wrapped in yin-cold energy. No matter how much inner force he poured into it, there was nothing strange about losing a finger the instant he slipped.
And yet, in that life-or-death instant, he had grabbed the blade bare-handed and driven it into Seol Cheon-sang’s stomach.
“Nnghh…!”
The mental shock was worse than the agony of his belly being torn open.
“Haaah!”
Seol Cheon-sang gathered every last shred of strength, seized the blade, ripped it out of his stomach, and shoved Chung Myung away with all his might. Blood poured in a torrent between his knees where they struck the snow.
He fell backward. His fingers had been sliced off by the sharp edge, and his back crashed into the snow, but he felt neither pain nor cold.
Even as he coughed up blood again and again, he rolled over. Crawling, then rolling, he clawed at the ground before forcing himself upright.
His legs trembled. His whole body shook. His vision kept dimming and returning, consciousness slipping away and snapping back again and again.
And yet through it all, he could see clearly.
Chung Myung, standing there with his sword properly in hand, staring straight at him.
“W-why…”
Seol Cheon-sang muttered through a mouth full of bloody froth.
He couldn’t even bring himself to collapse unless he first untied this knot in his head.
“Why… why would I lose to someone like you…?”
“Tch.”
Chung Myung spat the blood in his mouth onto the ground, then wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand.
“Because you’re weak.”
“…”
“That’s all there is to it. You’re weak.”
Seol Cheon-sang’s face twisted hideously.
“I’m… weak?”
“Yeah.”
Chung Myung’s voice was cold, leaving no room at all.
“When the former Palace Lord was around, you never once stood against him with your own power.”
“…”
“And when you took that seat, you borrowed someone else’s hands to do it. In the end, you never once fought with your life on the line.”
Chung Myung bared blood-stained teeth.
“That’s why you’re a brat.”
“Hah….”
A hollow laugh escaped Seol Cheon-sang’s mouth.
“I’m… I’m a brat? Me? Hahahahahaha! Me?”
Blood tears spilled from eyes whose vessels had burst.
“What do you bastards know! What do any of you know! You bastards who lived your whole lives in a comfortable Central Plains know nothing! On this barren land, the only way to survive is to take and be taken from! By any means necessary! What do you know about that…?”
Whoosh!
In that instant, Chung Myung’s body turned into a streak of light and flashed past Seol Cheon-sang.
“…”
Seol Cheon-sang stopped speaking and stared up at the sky with vacant eyes.
“I wasn’t wrong….”
A thin red line appeared at his neck.
At first it looked like a simple thread, but it grew clearer and clearer, and before long Seol Cheon-sang’s neck slowly separated and flopped to the side.
Watching it, Chung Myung spoke quietly.
“I told you I’d cut off that head, didn’t I?”
No. Had he said he’d only understand once his head was cut off?
Whatever.
The dead didn’t feel anything anymore.
Throb.
Only then did the terrible pain begin to surge in.
The fight had been very short, but that made it even more violent. From the wounds sliced open by sword energy and struck by palm force, unimaginable pain erupted.
Weak.
He had to gamble like this even against a bastard like that. If the battle had dragged on even a little longer, it would have been Chung Myung lying on the ground instead of that man.
But he had won.
The difference that decided the fight was only one thing.
Seol Cheon-sang had never fought with his life on the line, while Chung Myung had lived by throwing his life away in battle. That difference in experience had decided life and death.
Step. Step.
Chung Myung walked over, picked up Seol Cheon-sang’s head from the ground, and lifted it.
Even as he died, Seol Cheon-sang had apparently never been able to believe this was happening, because his wide-open eyes never quite closed.
Holding the head in one hand, Chung Myung looked around.
“P-Palace Lord…”
“The Palace Lord….”
The warriors of the Ice Palace looked back and forth between Chung Myung and their lord’s severed head, their faces twisted in shock and fear.
For those who had never imagined Seol Cheon-sang could lose, this sight was a shock in itself.
Drip.
Chung Myung casually wiped the blood running from his nose and stared at the battlefield. A silence spread quickly through the field where blood and death had been raging only moments ago.
Even the men who had been fighting without pause froze, startled by the skin-crawling stillness that now pressed down behind them. The battlefield, once boiling over with fury, went quiet as though cold water had been poured over it.
The Mount Hua disciples stared at the scene and shuddered. Right now, everyone on the battlefield was looking at only one person: Chung Myung.
A place where his reputation meant nothing.
A place where he couldn’t lead countless subordinates into battle.
In such a harsh environment, Chung Myung had seized complete control of the battlefield with nothing but his own sword.
Chung Myung tossed the severed head he held in his hand forward.
Everyone’s eyes followed the rolling head on the ground, then slowly came to a stop. When those gazes, fixed for a moment, turned back toward Chung Myung, countless emotions were churning within them.
“The war is over.”
Chung Myung’s voice came out firm and icy.
“The Palace Lord is dead.”
“…”
“If anyone wants to keep fighting for no reason, step forward. I’ll take you on.”
Chung Myung’s entire body was soaked in blood as he glared at the warriors of the Ice Palace. Far from stepping up, not a single one of them could even meet his eyes.
With Seol Cheon-sang beheaded, this battle no longer had any meaning. Only Seol So-baek could now take the seat of Palace Lord.
The moment they lost Seol Cheon-sang, their war was over.
The battle that would determine the fate of the Ice Palace had been decided far too emptily, by the hands of a stranger from the distant Central Plains rather than by them.
Chung Myung’s gaze settled on one spot.
Startled, Yeo Sa-hon clutched at his pounding heart as he met those eyes. Then, with a voice that trembled only slightly, he shouted loudly,
“Throw down your weapons! Those who surrender will not be punished!”
A moment’s hesitation spread through the crowd.
Yeo Sa-hon drove the nail in deeper.
“Are you saying you’ll keep resisting even while the new Palace Lord watches?”
As his thunderous rebuke rang out, everyone’s eyes turned to Seol So-baek, who was being protected by Han Yi-myung.
At the sight of the child, his face gone deathly white but still somehow standing, the strength drained from the Ice Palace warriors’ bodies.
Clang.
Clang.
Weapons began falling to the ground one after another.
Thud.
Thud. Thud.
And then the Ice Palace warriors who had resisted all dropped to their knees at once.
Watching the scene in silence, Chung Myung spat the blood gathering in his mouth once more and snorted.
“Pathetic.”
But that was fine.
From this point on, the enemies he had to deal with would not be this pathetic.
Chung Myung’s gaze drifted toward the setting sun far in the distance.
When the sun set, darkness would come.
And in that darkness, he would now have to face those he knew far too well.
Your turn now.
The corner of Chung Myung’s mouth twisted cruelly as he thought of the Demonic Sect.
