A Man Who Draws His Sword Should Aim for the Neck, at Least! (4)
“Hyaaah!”
“Ooooooh!”
Mount Hua and the Dae-byeol Bandit Band charged at each other like a pair of stampeding beasts.
Shaaaak!
The sword was impossibly fast and nimble, while the blade that met it was fierce and crushing.
Ka-a-aang!
When sword and blade collided, a shrill metallic shriek tore through the air.
“Ghk!”
“Tch!”
The instant their weapons met, both sides stiffened, not one face remaining calm.
“They’re no joke!”
“Don’t let your guard down!”
The shout came first from the Mount Hua side.
They had already fought the Red Bear Bandit Band and the Blood Wolf Bandit Band, but the force surging through the blades now was on an entirely different level. Even though three bandit forts had gathered here, only Dae-byeol’s name had carried this far for a reason—and that was becoming painfully clear.
The Dae-byeol Bandit Band felt the same.
“Th-these bastards!”
“Don’t fall back!”
Sometimes one sword strike revealed more than a hundred words ever could, and that was exactly the case between Mount Hua’s disciples and the Dae-byeol bandits.
Clang-clang-clang!
Un Geom shoved aside a massive axe flying toward him, his face hardening as he shouted, “Do not try to meet them head-on with brute force!”
“Yes, Hall Leader!”
Un Geom’s gaze darkened slightly.
They’re far from ordinary.
He couldn’t claim to know the ways of the jianghu particularly well. But he could at least be sure of one thing: the martial ability and training of these bandits were in no way comparable to the previous forts they had faced.
So this is the man vying for the title of Green Forest King?
Bandits were, after all, people who followed the strong.
That was why the stronger bandits always gathered under the banner of a stronger chief. In the end, the chief’s power became the very symbol of the fort’s power.
Which meant that, by reversing the logic, one could infer the strength of the man called Go Hong.
Even so, he’s still just a bandit!
Un Geom trusted Mount Hua’s strength more than anyone.
Not a single disciple he had taught was lazy. For the past several years at least, they had endured brutally difficult training that no other sect would have even dared imagine—without a single complaint.
No matter how hard Go Hong had driven the Green Forest men, there was no reason Mount Hua’s disciples, who had trained with their own desire to grow stronger, should be any weaker.
Un Geom wasn’t trusting in his own teaching. He was trusting in the disciples who had survived it.
“Believe in yourselves! You are already strong enough!”
Un Geom’s rare thunderous shout lent the Mount Hua disciples even more force.
“Yoon Jong, Jo Gul! Support the left!”
“Yes, Martial Uncle!”
“Sago! Take the right with So-so!”
“Yes, Senior Brother.”
Responding swiftly to the shifting battlefield, Baek Cheon shot toward the center like lightning.
Fwoosh!
The sword he thrust forward pierced straight through a bandit’s neck as the man swung his blade wildly in a frenzy.
“Kuh… gurk…”
With a gurgling sound, the bandit’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Baek Cheon didn’t spare the fallen man a glance, unleashing dozens of sword shadows toward the next wave of bandits.
“Aaaagh!”
“My leg! Aaaagh!”
Thud!
Then he drove his foot down with a brutal stomp.
Words alone can’t lead people.
He had already seen enough to understand what it meant to stand at someone’s back and lead them.
When someone truly trustworthy led from the front, those who followed could push beyond their own limits and draw out strength several times greater than usual. Hadn’t he felt that over and over again while watching Chung Myung’s back?
I can’t keep chasing that bastard’s backside forever!
He would one day become the Sect Leader of Mount Hua.
He was not someone who would be led. He was someone who would lead.
His sword tip trembled for a moment before erupting in a dazzling spray of plum blossoms.
“Senior Brother!”
“Protect the back of the Martial Uncle!”
Without needing to say a word, the martial brothers understood his intent and stood firm to guard the surroundings.
A faint smile bloomed at the corner of Baek Cheon’s mouth.
“Let’s go, Mount Hua!”
“Yes!”
The Five Swords at the front and the Cheong generation disciples took the most dangerous positions for themselves and drove Mount Hua forward with ferocious momentum.
Meanwhile, Lee Jeong-bang, watching the battle unfold, clutched his head.
W-what the hell are they doing?
This was not how one fought.
Had it not already been confirmed that Mount Hua’s strength surpassed theirs? There was no chance of victory in a straight fight.
And yet that damnable bandit chief was charging head-on without making use of terrain or numerical superiority.
From a military standpoint, he was committing every mistake one could possibly make.
The difference was obvious.
If one compared only raw power, this side might be stronger. Of course, each individual fighter on Mount Hua was clearly superior, but taking the difference in numbers into account, it was hard to say the bandits were definitively weaker overall.
But the momentum of the battle was unmistakably tilting toward Mount Hua.
No matter how I look at it, this is impossible.
Those with faces barely free of baby fat were moving as one as perfectly as soldiers hardened by a hundred battles.
That wasn’t merely organization. It was trust.
No matter how much the Green Forest trained and tempered itself, it was impossible for them to fully entrust their lives to the person beside them. Training alone could never overcome distrust so deeply etched into the bones.
But those Mount Hua bastards were swinging their swords while completely trusting the people around them. Trusting that if they couldn’t block a strike, a senior brother would, trusting that if they couldn’t handle an enemy, someone else would help finish the job.
That was what a sect was, after all.
When people who had lived different lives came together under one name and trusted one another, their strength could increase many times over.
The leader risked his life to ease the burden of those who followed, and those who followed did their utmost to protect the one at the front.
“A-aagh!”
“What the hell are these bastards…!”
By now, the battle was clearly and unmistakably one-sided. Mount Hua’s swordsmen were slicing open the broad center of the Dae-byeol formation and breaking through without hesitation.
If this continued, the center would be completely pierced through before long.
Ch-chief!
Lee Jeong-bang looked toward Go Hong’s back in panic.
Though defeat was already obvious, the man had no intention of moving at all as he watched the situation unfold. At the sight of that infuriatingly carefree posture, Lee Jeong-bang’s insides burned black.
Don’t tell me he really hasn’t thought of anything?
He finally gathered the courage to run up to Go Hong.
“Ch-chief!”
“Hmph.”
Go Hong’s brow twitched slightly as he glanced over at Lee Jeong-bang, who was making a fuss right beside him.
“If we leave it like this, the damage will be too great! The Five Tigers! Deploy the Five Tigers!”
The Five Tigers were Go Hong’s trusted henchmen, handpicked and raised by his own hand.
Only masters could turn the tide of battle. If they took the front line, that towering momentum would surely be cut down.
“The Five Tigers?”
“Yes, Chief! If we wait any longer, it’ll be irretrieva—”
In that instant, Go Hong seized Lee Jeong-bang by the collar and hurled him to the ground.
“Aaaagh!”
“You useless worm.”
“Ch-chief?”
Go Hong’s face twisted in a grotesque manner.
“Look!”
He pointed ahead and shouted. When Lee Jeong-bang followed that finger, all he saw were the bandits being driven farther and farther back.
“W-what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?”
And beyond them, only Mount Hua’s swordsmen, tearing through the bandits without mercy as they drove into the center.
“Can’t you see it?”
“Huh?”
“Tsk tsk. Those guys are moving right into the center, aren’t they? As if they’re just begging to be surrounded!”
At that grandly confident declaration, Lee Jeong-bang’s face contorted.
“Chief! Surrounding the enemy only means something if you have the strength to bring them down. Trying to surround them with insufficient force is just asking to be picked apart one by one!”
Lee Jeong-bang, driven beyond his limit, finally exploded in fury. It was the sort of thing he would never have imagined saying under normal circumstances, but with his life hanging by a thread, he no longer cared what he said.
Were they really going to die because of this idiot?
“If you’re short on force, then yes, it would be,” Go Hong said.
“What are you talking about? Have you lost your damn mind—”
Smack!
Crash!
Go Hong slapped Lee Jeong-bang across the face.
Knocked flat in a single blow, Lee Jeong-bang clutched his rapidly swelling cheek and rolled on the ground, groaning.
“That man was right to tell me not to consult you about anything at all. You incompetent fool.”
“…….”
Holding his cheek, Lee Jeong-bang stared up at Go Hong in a daze.
That man?
What the hell was he talking about?
“Heh heh heh. Not a single thing he said was wrong from beginning to end. Like a ghost. Truly, like a ghost!”
“Ch-chief?”
“I don’t know what tricks he’s playing from behind, but in terms of ability, he’s a hundred times more reliable than a useless snake like you!”
Satisfaction flashed in Go Hong’s bloodshot eyes.
“You say we’re short on force? Ahahahahaha!”
He slammed the massive guandao in his hand into the ground.
“Then we just add more force! Everyone, come out! Kill those fearless brats!”
Lee Jeong-bang wondered if Go Hong had truly gone mad.
Who was he telling to come out? The Five Tigers?
No. It wasn’t the Five Tigers. If he were planning to deploy them so obviously, he wouldn’t be making such a scene about it.
Then who?
Did he secretly form an alliance with another fort?
No. If Go Hong had that kind of skill, none of this would have happened in the first place. In fact, he was the sort of hot-tempered man even the other bandit forts kept at arm’s length.
Then what in the world…?
It happened then.
Kwaaang! Kwaaaang! Kwaa-a-aang!
Along with an enormous explosion that sounded as if gunpowder had gone off, the stockades surrounding the Green Forest fortress collapsed all at once.
“Eep!”
Lee Jeong-bang jerked his head around in shock and saw a cloud of dust rising into the air.
“…….”
Then, as the thick haze was swept away by the mountain wind,
W-what are those people?
Unknown men in blood-red clothes appeared. Lee Jeong-bang’s eyes widened.
There were roughly fifty of them at most, emerging one by one from behind the broken stockade. In a battlefield where more than six hundred people were clashing, fifty might at first glance seem absurdly few.
But the moment they revealed themselves, everyone there felt instinctively that something dreadful was about to happen.
The crimson garments, red like fresh blood, and the bizarrely thin swords they carried made one’s skin crawl. Yet even more terrifying than that was the suffocating, thick killing intent radiating from them.
“Hwahahahahahaha!”
Go Hong threw back his head and laughed until his voice nearly split.
“You little rat who thinks he can strut around relying on his own brain! The world doesn’t move only inside your head!”
Im So-byeong, his face unusually grave, stared at the unfamiliar fighters.
What in the world are they?
He had never seen them before.
He could say with certainty that they were not Green Forest bandits. Not even a trace of the Green Forest remained in their appearance or in the energy they gave off.
Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of his neck.
Was all of this a trap?
Did Go Hong set a trap?
Just as he was painfully realizing that something had gone horribly wrong, Go Hong’s guandao pointed toward Mount Hua’s disciples at the center.
“Kill them all! Don’t leave a single one alive!”
The moment those words fell, the blood-robed figures vaulted over the stockade and advanced.
As the situation changed, everyone failed to hide their shock.
“I knew this would happen.”
Then Chung Myung, who had been watching with a click of his tongue, stepped forward.
“Hey, Martial Uncle.”
“……What is it?”
“Training’s over.”
“Huh?”
Chaeaeng.
The Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword was drawn from Chung Myung’s waist.
“From here on out, this is the real thing.”
From his eyes, now darkened in an instant, a cold killing intent began to seep out.