You’ve Been Waiting a Long Time, Haven’t You? (4)
The eyes of the Demonic Sect’s disciples began to burn with a frenzy far more unhinged than anything they had shown so far. Their charge at the Ice Palace warriors turned fiercer as well, as though the last shred of restraint had finally snapped.
“Hold them back! You must hold them back!”
Han Yi-myung’s shouts, almost screams, kept bursting out behind them, but none of the Ice Palace warriors truly heard him.
Hold them back?
For what?
What was coming toward them now was no longer human. It was death given shape, death that still moved and breathed. Everyone who had stood in its path had ended the same way.
So why, exactly, were they supposed to risk their lives and stand there?
“Aaaaaaagh!”
Whatever courage they had forced themselves to summon was being stripped away, torn apart, and blown off like ash every time a scream rang out in front of them.
“H-heeek!”
“I-I—I don’t want to die!”
These were men who had trained their whole lives to fight enemies, and yet each of them turned and fled in terror.
There was no point blaming them.
These people had no leader strong enough to bind them together, no purpose to steady their courage, no love for the Ice Palace so deep they would stake their lives on it. To order them to face those demons and protect outsiders from the Central Plains—men who had nothing to do with the Ice Palace in the first place—was unreasonable from the start.
Han Yi-myung shouted until his throat seemed ready to split, but the Ice Palace warriors paid him no mind whatsoever.
“Do you think you’ll live if you run? Stand and fight! Do not lose your pride as warriors of the palace!”
It was a truly empty cry. Han Yi-myung’s bloodshot eyes trembled violently.
“Damn it!”
If words wouldn’t work, then he would have to move with his own hands.
“Elder Yeo! Right now, you must lead the other elders and stop those fiends!”
“I, I……”
“Elder!”
He barked at Yeo Sa-hon like a thunderclap.
“Pull yourself together! The one who has to lead the Ice Palace now is you!”
But even with his words, Yeo Sa-hon’s eyes only darted about, lost and unfocused.
“Isn’t... isn’t this impossible? How are we supposed to stop them……”
“Elder!”
Even Han Yi-myung’s sharp shout never fully reached him. All he could do was mutter on in a pale voice.
“It’s wrong…… This…….”
It was nonsense from the very beginning.
Yeo Sa-hon had been a man who assisted the previous palace lord, not someone with great leadership ability. If he had truly possessed remarkable talent, he would never have been trapped in the Ice Crystal Mine for years on end.
It was impossible for a man like that to lead terrified Ice Palace warriors in a time like this, especially not in the middle of battle.
“……Damn it.”
Lacking talent was not a crime.
But for the man who had to command troops in wartime to lack talent was an unforgivable sin.
How in the world are we supposed to deal with this……?
Han Yi-myung’s face darkened with despair.
Baek Cheon watched the scene below with cold eyes.
This is no longer possible.
The Ice Palace warriors as they were now could not stop the Demonic Sect.
If everyone had been fighting with their full morale, their lives on the line, then perhaps things would have been different. With the difference in numbers this large, even the Demonic Sect would have struggled to overcome them.
But if they were going to panic and flee like that, they wouldn’t even be able to scratch the Demonic Sect’s men.
No matter how well-trained an army was, without a commander it was nothing more than a mob. And right now, the Ice Palace had no one who could gather them together and give the order to fight.
If Seol Cheon-sang had been the Ice Palace Lord, this wouldn’t have happened.
It drove home, all over again, just how important a sect leader was, how important the person in that seat truly was.
The black, ink-like figures of the Demonic Sect were steadily staining and ravaging the white earth beneath them, and the sight was burned clearly into Baek Cheon’s eyes.
And now they were charging straight toward this place.
Grip.
Baek Cheon tightened his hand around his sword.
He planted his feet more firmly on the ground and stood his post.
“Hoo.”
Then he let out a short breath.
He would not let the enemy behind him. Such a simple thing—and yet, only now did he truly understand how difficult and exhausting it was to carry out. And behind him stood a man who had always done exactly that as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Kwaaaang!
A Demonic Sect disciple who had failed to escape sent a burst of black demonic energy into the backs of the fleeing Ice Palace warriors and kicked off the wall, madness spilling from his eyes. He seemed intent on invading through the window itself.
Seeing the enemy rising with such terrifying speed, Baek Cheon felt the blood in his body go cold.
“Donor!”
At Hye Yeon’s voice, Baek Cheon quickly moved aside.
Hye Yeon’s brows twitched faintly, and then he drove a fist straight into the wall beside the window.
Kwaaaang!
The wall exploded open at once, and the way forward was torn wide. Hye Yeon immediately stepped into the opening and unleashed his force downward.
Kwaaaang, kwaaaang, kwaaaaaang!
His Arhat Fist, one of the Seventy-Two Supreme Arts of Shaolin, revealed its full power without reservation.
Golden energy cascaded down like a waterfall.
“What—?”
“What the—!”
The Demonic Sect disciples climbing the wall were momentarily thrown into confusion by that overwhelming force and scattered left and right as they leaped away.
Those who failed to evade in time could not withstand the power and fell straight down.
“Amitabha!”
A deep Buddhist chant rolled from Hye Yeon’s mouth. Unlike usual, his voice was steeped in anger.
The brutal slaughter unfolding before his eyes angered even Hye Yeon, who had lived his whole life carrying compassion as a teaching.
“Brutes of evil!”
His teeth grinding together could be heard clearly even by Baek Cheon.
Creak, creak, creak.
Hye Yeon clenched his fist tight and glared downward with blade-sharp eyes.
Kuuuuung!
Then, without hesitation, he sent one punch after another downward.
Among Shaolin’s countless fist techniques—so numerous that even the monks themselves did not know exactly how many there were—was the most renowned of them all, the Hundred-Step Divine Fist.
Facing the divine fist pouring down from above, the Demonic Sect disciples bared their murderous intent through their eyes.
Even as force capable of crushing them outright rained down, they did not shrink back. Instead, they surged faster up the wall.
Kagagak!
The feet infused with internal power dug into the stone wall. Then, using the rebound created by releasing that power in an instant, they leaped more than ten jang upward at once.
“Amitabha!”
Hye Yeon roared again and unleashed the Arhat Fist without yielding.
A Demonic Sect disciple struck head-on by that powerful blow spat blood and fell. But seeing that, Baek Cheon’s face instead went pale.
Not even a scream.
Even as they dropped, they only stared this way with eyes full of killing intent. The sight was so chilling it seemed to freeze something deep in his chest.
“Donor!”
“I know! Sister!”
“Yes!”
Baek Cheon and Yu I-seol took their places on either side of Hye Yeon.
The Demonic Sect disciples who had broken through the Ice Palace warriors were now climbing the wall in increasing numbers. Hye Yeon alone could no longer hold them back.
“Kraaaah!”
One of the Demonic Sect disciples clinging to the wall bled red light from both eyes and sprang toward where they stood.
Baek Cheon hardened his expression and drove all his internal energy into his sword as he stabbed.
Thud!
The blade sunk into the demon’s shoulder far more easily than expected.
But in that instant, the Demonic Sect disciple’s eyes flashed.
Snatch!
Then his blackened hand shot out and seized the sword blade that had pierced his shoulder.
Even though Hancheol Sword was no ordinary blade, there was not a trace of hesitation in that grasp.
“You—!”
Hye Yeon, aghast at the sight, hammered the demon’s body with more than a dozen punches.
The sounds rang out one after another like an axe splitting firewood. Every time Hye Yeon’s fist landed, the demon’s body convulsed violently.
Even so, the hand gripping Baek Cheon’s sword did not loosen. While coughing up blood again and again, the demon actually pulled harder on the blade.
Baek Cheon bit down on his lip.
Then the sword that had pierced the shoulder burst with a vivid blue sword aura. In the next instant, he yanked the blade upward as though wrenching it free in one violent motion.
Fwaaaaat!
The sword tore through the shoulder and came out cleanly. At the same time, blood sprayed in every direction from the black hand still clamped around the blade.
“Kuh!”
The Demonic Sect disciple was thrown backward, his mouth twisting as he looked at Baek Cheon. Then he fell farther and farther down. Even as he dropped, that face wore an unreadable smile.
“……”
He had successfully stopped one of them, but it felt as if the blood in his entire body had turned cold.
Insane bastards.
Now that he had fought them directly, he understood why the Ice Palace warriors had run away in terror like cowards.
They were different.
These men were beyond comparison with anyone he had faced until now.
Strong?
Of course they were strong. If they had not held the advantage in position, if they had not received Hye Yeon’s aid, it would never have been this easy to drive them back.
But that was not what made them truly terrifying.
What chilled him was the primal fear of facing someone who cared nothing for their own life and charged only to kill the person in front of them.
The frenzy that leaked from their eyes, the obsession in their movements, that mad faith—it made everyone they faced shrink back instinctively.
But now was not the time to reflect on that in comfort.
Through Hye Yeon’s force, four or five Demonic Sect disciples had simultaneously leaped upward.
Fwaaaat!
Yu I-seol’s plum blossoms bloomed without hesitation and covered the demons’ entire bodies. The view was filled with a white wall and a pure white ground. Across that scene, eyes red as blood fluttered through the air.
Slash! Slash!
As if proving that they were human after all, crimson blood surged from the wounds carved into them.
But that was all.
Even as their flesh was cut and torn, the Demonic Sect disciples did not so much as blink. Instead, they kept whispering those creepy chants like lunatics and hurled themselves at the Mount Hua disciples.
“Amitabha!”
With a hurried Buddhist cry, golden light flashed. Hye Yeon’s two joined hands spread apart to the left and right, and a mighty wave of force surged forward as though sweeping everything before it away.
Kwaaaang!
Those caught in the force were sent flying backward helplessly. But those who avoided it screamed horrifyingly and swung black hands at the disciples of Mount Hua.
Aaaahhhhhhhh!
A dreadful shriek like a ghost’s wail—like someone was being torn apart in agony—ripped at their ears.
And then black demonic energy, dark as ink, came swarming in like a hive of bees.
“Kuh!”
Sensing instinctively that they could not meet it head-on, the three of them retreated quickly.
And then—
Tap.
Thud.
Two Demonic Sect disciples landed in the space they had just abandoned.
Drip, drip.
Blood streamed down from their hanging black hands. But whether they could not feel pain, or whether they simply did not care enough to stop the bleeding, they paid the wounds no attention at all.
They only stared fixedly at the disciples of Mount Hua, as though looking at prey.
Seeing those gleaming eyes, Baek Cheon ground his teeth together.
They should never have been allowed to climb up in the first place. But now that the position had been surrendered, all that remained was a life-and-death fight.
Then one of the Demonic Sect disciples, who had been silently staring at them, spoke in a voice that made the skin crawl.
“……Where is the Ice Crystal?”
Baek Cheon let out a short, derisive laugh.
“Looks like the bastards of the Demonic Sect are short on brains. Why would I tell you that?”
“I see…… So that’s how it is.”
The blood-soaked hand of the Demonic Sect disciple was instantly dyed a dark crimson.
“Let’s see if you still answer the same way once your arms and legs have been ripped off and your innards are dragged out one by one.”
Without waiting for a reply, the demon charged at Baek Cheon. Bloodlight burst from both eyes.
But in that instant—
Faat!
Baek Cheon was the one who rushed forward with lightning speed and brought his sword down in a slash.
Kwaaaang!
A thunderous impact rang out, and the demon’s face twisted as he slowly looked at his own hand. The blade had sunk halfway into the hand that had deployed Black Killing Palm.
“Kuh!”
For the first time, a low groan slipped from the Demonic Sect disciple’s mouth.
Kwadeudeuk!
Baek Cheon did not stop there and began forcing the sword down with his internal power.
“It seems the Demonic Sect likes to fight with its mouth……”
Bang!
Baek Cheon drove a fierce kick into the demon’s chest, then sprang backward and leveled his sword straight ahead.
“But Mount Hua doesn’t.”
The demon, shoved back, slowly licked his lips. As though the sight of his own hand had already become irrelevant, his gaze fixed on Baek Cheon with murderous intensity.
“You will die in the most miserable way possible.”
“Then try.”
“Heh.”
The demon laughed with something like restraint in his voice, then began chanting that mad mantra again and charged at Baek Cheon once more.