Even If I Die Here, I Won’t Back Down! (4)
The tip of the raised sword trembled faintly.
Even the legs supporting that body swayed as though they might buckle at any moment.
And yet Baek Cheon held on. He stood his ground before the Bishop, who was staring him down with murderous eyes.
“...Baek Cheon of Mount Hua, is it...”
The corner of the Bishop’s mouth twisted.
“Do you know what that means?”
His bloodthirsty eyes seemed to pierce straight through Baek Cheon. Under that gaze, black flames burning in the depths, Baek Cheon found himself biting his lip hard enough to hurt.
“Do you know what the two words ‘Mount Hua’ mean to those who devoted everything to the Sect and serve the Heavenly Demon?”
Baek Cheon forced the corner of his mouth upward and ground out, “Don’t know, and don’t care. But there’s one thing I do know for sure.”
He tightened his grip on the sword until it looked ready to snap.
“That our ancestors cut off the heads of your so-called gods.”
“...”
“Ah. And now I’m going to cut off yours too.”
Every trace of expression vanished from the Bishop’s face.
Was it true that when anger reached its peak, it no longer looked like anger at all?
It was not a raging blaze but a black, sizzling fury that pressed down on Baek Cheon and the disciples of Mount Hua with crushing weight.
“Heavenly Demon Descends, Myriad Demons Rejoice.”
The Bishop spoke.
“Answer me, hateful disciple of Mount Hua.”
“...”
“Mount Hua has lost its power. Your spirit has fallen to the floor, and that once-great force even the cult itself feared can no longer be found.”
Even in this situation, Baek Cheon let out a derisive laugh.
Spirit and power, huh.
How ridiculous.
The Central Plains did not recognize Mount Hua. Even the disciples of Mount Hua themselves had forgotten the pride that their sect had once saved the world by standing against the Demonic Sect.
And yet the Bishop of that very Demonic Sect—the greatest enemy they had ever faced—was the one lecturing them about Mount Hua’s power and spirit.
How could that not be absurd?
“You lot, who dare call yourselves disciples of Mount Hua, are too weak and pitiful to even claim you’re carrying Mount Hua forward.”
“...”
“And still you think you can stop me? With that feeble little power?”
Baek Cheon scoffed at the contemptuous gaze looking down at him as if from a great height.
“Yeah. I’m weak. By your standards, I’m downright pathetic.”
“...”
“So I can’t back down! If I retreat and run away now, I’ll stay pathetic for the rest of my life!”
His voice rose higher and higher as he leveled his sword.
“You called it Mount Hua’s spirit?”
“...”
“Then look with your own eyes! I’ll prove to you that Mount Hua’s spirit has not been severed by this sword!”
The Bishop silently watched him.
Yes. It was that look.
Back when the Demonic Sect and the Central Plains had gone to war, the warriors of Mount Hua who had stood on the front lines and blocked the cult with their very bodies had all possessed that same gaze.
They did not retreat even when afraid. They did not give up even when they knew they were lacking.
“So Mount Hua is still Mount Hua...”
The Bishop murmured under his breath, then finally bared his teeth again.
“But!”
Kwaaaaaaaaaa!
The stillness broke as the qi surrounding him erupted violently over his entire body.
“It’s meaningless. Even if that spirit has not been severed, Mount Hua is no longer the Mount Hua it once was. You have failed to inherit its power.”
The vortex of demonic energy rose like a black dragon ascending into the heavens. At the same time, the pressure it unleashed slammed down on everything around them.
“I’ll make you understand clearly that nothing means anything before overwhelming power!”
Baek Cheon’s hand, gripping the sword, twisted under the pressure and began to bend backward. His entire body screamed in agony, and his soul itself seemed to shriek.
And yet, instead of retreating, he actually stepped forward and lowered his stance.
I won’t back down.
I will not back down, ever.
“Keugh...”
The fierce pressure bent the sword as though it might snap, and the veins on the hand holding it bulged so hard they looked ready to burst beneath the skin, which was turning black and dead.
No matter how hard he clenched his teeth, there was nothing he could do about his body as it kept trying to be forced back.
And then, at that moment—
Tap.
Warmth touched his back.
Baek Cheon reflexively turned around.
“Junior Uncle!”
“Sahyung!”
Yoon Jong and Yu I-seol were supporting his shoulders. As they always had. As naturally as breathing.
Baek Cheon looked forward again and faced the despair before him head-on.
Feels like I’ve fallen straight into hell.
It struck him with startling clarity.
How terrifying the enemies their predecessors had once fought truly were. How great an accomplishment it had been to defeat them and finally cut off the Heavenly Demon’s head.
Fwaaaat!
Baek Cheon swung his sword hard, driving back the pressure surging toward him, then slowly took an upper guard stance.
“I...”
If he had been alone, he might already have thrown down his sword and run.
But he was not alone now. Behind him were the people he had to protect. The people pushing his back forward.
Not as Baek Cheon the warrior. As Baek Cheon, the great disciple of Mount Hua, he could not retreat a single step here.
“I am the one who carries Mount Hua forward!”
The tip of Baek Cheon’s sword began to trace delicate plum blossoms in the air.
Small plum blossoms.
They looked too small, too fragile, to stand against the black demonic energy writhing like an ill-omened dragon.
But plum blossoms never bloom alone.
One more. And another.
The plum blossoms Baek Cheon brought forth merged with the plum blossoms Yu I-seol drew. The plum blossoms traced by Jo Gul and Yoon Jong, even the ones Dang Soso was desperately forcing into shape, all overlapped and became one.
“Haaahaaaaah!”
A vast forest of plum blossoms revealed itself.
Like plum blossoms bursting into bloom all over Mount Hua in spring.
It looked as if the entire world had been swallowed by blossoms.
At that breathtaking sight, the Bishop found himself biting his lip. Blood trickled down from the split flesh.
That is...
How could he ever forget?
That hateful, horrifying sight.
For one instant, the whole world had been filled with plum blossoms, flowers blooming everywhere... and then...
Throb.
The Bishop clutched at his chest before he could stop himself.
It was because memories he had never been able to escape wrapped around him once more.
Because, in the midst of those flowers blooming without end, it felt as though he were once again facing the one who had leapt up like lightning and cut open his chest.
Plum Blossom Sword Saint...
The image of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint slashing into his chest with a gaze colder than ice came back with painful clarity.
“How dare...”
His teeth ground together.
Fury hot enough to burn his head white surged through his entire body.
If he had stopped the Plum Blossom Sword Saint there and then, the Heavenly Demon would never have ascended to the heavens again.
One hundred years of regret. One hundred years of resentment.
The anger he had suppressed and crushed down for all that time now blazed up, ready to burn him alive.
“Plllum Blossom Sword Saintttttt!”
He knew it now.
These were the Plum Blossom Sword Saint’s descendants. Those who had inherited that hateful sword!
“I’ll kill you all! Haaahaaaaah!”
The swirling demonic qi began to gather together. Soon it surged toward Mount Hua’s disciples like a raging flood.
Sura Sky-Killing Demonic Steel, Mara Torrent!
The ultimate demonic art that only Bishops of the Demonic Sect could master was being recreated here, after a hundred years had passed.
It was a sight like hundreds, thousands of black wraiths twisting together, screeching like ghosts from hell as they rushed forward. A truly horrific scene, one that could only be seen in the underworld.
The torrent of black wraiths crashed into the forest of plum blossoms that had covered the world.
Kwa-r-r-r-rang!
The noble plum blossoms could not withstand the ferocious black current for long and shattered into pieces.
“Kkheuk...”
Baek Cheon clenched his teeth, gripping his sword tightly with a hand already battered beyond recognition.
The immense pressure made it feel like he might lose consciousness at any moment.
Hold on!
He bit his tongue hard, forcing his fading awareness back into place.
His juniors were behind him. And beyond them was the one person they absolutely could not lose.
Even if I die here, it doesn’t matter!
I will never back down!
“Amitabha!”
Behind him came a majestic wave of golden light.
Hye Yeon’s Supreme Great Power seeped into the plum blossoms, forming currents of gold.
Black floodwaters.
Crimson plum blossoms.
And a golden radiance, all entwined and surging together.
“Come on! You son of a bitch!”
Baek Cheon’s roar was swallowed a heartbeat later by the massive explosion that tore out after it.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
The entangled forces detonated outright, and the immense shockwave swept in every direction. Everything still standing was blown away, and even intact sections of the ground were ripped up whole and hurled into the air.
“Wahahahahahahahahaha!”
In the middle of a scene that looked as though the world itself was collapsing upside down, the Bishop alone remained standing on both feet as he burst into wild laughter. From his eyes, nearly devoid of reason, streams of blood-red light shot out.
“Heavenly Demon Descends! Myriad Demons Rejoice!”
Entrusting himself to madness, he unleashed palm strikes wherever he could and began smashing everything around him to pieces. The mountain trembled. The ground screamed.
“Wahahahahahahaha!”
Black demonic qi ravaged the world as if announcing the end of all things.
Chik.
Chik-chik.
What is that sound?
Something strange kept reaching his ears.
It was an incomprehensible sound.
But... that was all. He had neither the will nor the strength to identify where it came from.
His mind was just blank.
It was drifting away.
Blurring.
He felt as if he were floating endlessly in the deep sea. His body, stripped of strength as if he had abandoned flesh itself, kept being dragged somewhere.
Swish, swish, swish...
If only that grating sound would stop, maybe he could finally sink into complete peace...
And then, at that moment—
“Ghk!”
A jolt of pain shot through his fingertips like a stab of cold steel.
Chung Myung snapped his eyes open and stared into the air. His once-blurred gaze instantly regained focus.
...What the—?
An absurd, bewildering scene greeted him.
Broken stone fragments were flying through the air from all directions, while jagged shards of ice rose up and rained down like an arrow storm.
Chung Myung looked down at the hand that still throbbed with pain.
Something pure white was biting his hand hard enough to draw blood.
Baek Ah?
Staring blankly at the sight, Chung Myung unconsciously lowered his gaze. A long streak marked the ground where his body had been dragged.
He looked back at Baek Ah.
“Kii!”
It was hard to understand an animal’s feelings just from its expression, but he could tell what this beast was trying to say. He could understand that desperation clearly enough.
The valley was collapsing.
The Bishop was raging out of his mind.
And...
Mount Hua’s disciples were lying there, bleeding.
At that moment, a murderous blue light swept through Chung Myung’s eyes.
“You...”
He tightened his grip on the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword, the one he had never let go of even while unconscious.
“The demonic heavens will descend!”
The Bishop’s crazed voice boomed out.
“Not a single infidel will survive! The Heavenly Demon will purify the world and open a new heaven! You worthless vermin— I won’t even leave you enough heads to bow with—”
Flinch.
Then the Bishop, who had been roaring with mad laughter, suddenly stopped speaking.
What?
He froze as if his body had turned rigid.
But even the Bishop himself didn’t understand why he had stopped.
Throb!
“Kkheug...”
Then, all at once, a wave of agony crashed into him, and he clutched at his chest as if trying to tear it apart.
From the ice covering his chest, a bone-chilling cold was spreading.
It was unbearable pain, like someone was carving open the wound with a knife and gouging it deeper. Just like the first time the Plum Blossom Sword Saint had split open his chest.
Why, all of a sudden...
This wound would not heal.
It was a wound even divine powers had been unable to mend. So he had kept it frozen with Ice Crystals and remained only in the coldest places to stop it from worsening.
He already knew that if he pushed himself too hard, the wound would reopen and kill him. That was why the Law Enforcer, knowing this, had not simply asked him to use the Ice Crystal he had risked his life to retrieve on himself first instead of the Heavenly Demon, had he?
But this wound had never hurt like this before...
Throb!
“Kkh...”
Clutching his chest, the Bishop struggled to suppress the pain.
Have I overextended myself?
He could think of no other reason. Biting his lip until it nearly tore, the Bishop glared at Mount Hua’s disciples in front of him.
Before my body reaches its limit any further, I’ll just finish those bastards off...
But his thought did not even make it to the end.
Cold dread.
“...”
Something cold had touched the back of his neck.
It was not the chill of the North Sea. Not the cold that clawed at and constricted the wound in his chest either.
It was something else entirely—something closer to horror than coldness.
The Bishop’s head slowly turned to the side.
Far away, he saw one of the people who had been lying on the ground slowly forcing himself upright.
“...”
The Bishop frowned, not understanding.
If that was all it was, then what had that feeling of dread been? What was so terrifying about someone on the brink of death struggling to his feet?
But then the Bishop’s eyes widened until they looked ready to split.
The pupils already darkened red by demonic qi shook violently.
The image of the one rising with his head lowered overlapped with a vision from the past—the Plum Blossom Sword Saint.
The Plum Blossom Sword Saint of back then, the one who had cut open his chest.
“...”
Faced with this impossible hallucination, the Bishop trembled violently, eyes bulging wide.
Before long, Chung Myung had fully risen. Slowly, he lifted his head and opened his eyes.
A gaze so cold it seemed capable of freezing the soul itself pierced straight through the Bishop.
“You.”
A bleak voice, as if it had crawled back from hell, leaked between Chung Myung’s lips.
“Don’t think you get to die cleanly.”
From the tip of his sword, crimson sword qi surged out like a tidal wave.