What You Gain, You Must Also Lose (1)
The tip of the sword trembled pitifully.
That frail quiver soon grew violent, swelling into a movement so immense it seemed to shake the world itself.
Whooosh!
With a sound like a bundle of bone-dry firewood suddenly vomiting up a giant blaze, the red blossoms bursting from the sword’s tip spread out as though they were staining a sheet of pure white paper one drop at a time.
Before long, the world was filled with blossoms in full flight. At the sight, sheer shock froze the bandits’ faces.
What the hell kind of trick is this?!
It was truly a scene of beauty and horror intertwined. And soon, as if to prove the meaning of that crimson, the petals began to hunger for blood.
Shhhk!
Shhhk!
Each time the sword energy, flung out in the shape of petals, burrowed into a body, a chilling sound rang out. The sound of flesh being cut and bone being severed.
“Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
“Argh! My arm! My aaarm!”
Paaat!
A sword stabbed through the blossoms and into the mouths of the bandits screaming in agony.
Crunch!
The bodies that had been twitching and spasming a moment ago suddenly went limp, heavying the blade with their weight.
Even after countless such experiences, it never became any lighter.
Chung Myung yanked his sword free and charged straight into the center of the bandits, spilling a ghastly killing intent in his wake.
Paat!
Flowers scattered. Blood sprayed.
After cleanly cutting through a foe’s heart without hesitation, a brief look of discomfort flickered across Chung Myung’s face.
Not enough.
This wasn’t it.
His sword had once been many times sharper, many times more precise.
Since his rebirth, not once had he been able to swing it as perfectly as before. It felt as though his whole body had been bound in chains and locked inside a cage.
The more he moved, the more an awful thirst clawed at his nerves.
Shhhk!
Hot blood splattered across Chung Myung’s face. Even when he wiped it away with his sleeve, the sensation wouldn’t leave him, and the blood only spread wider.
Faster. Stronger.
He wanted to approach the sword he had lost. Wanted to regain it again, even if only a little sooner.
That impatience dulled the edge of his blade. Frustration kept swelling and pressing up from inside him, and Chung Myung’s usually impassive face slowly twisted.
“I said it’s not enough!”
His murderous sword, carrying that warped emotion, pierced, sliced, and finally tore through a bandit’s body, but Chung Myung only ground his teeth in irritation at this stubborn, waterlogged flesh that refused to obey him.
I couldn’t take on the Bishop alone.
There were always stronger people in this world. If he had been even a little weaker, everyone at the North Sea would have died—Chung Myung included, along with the rest of the party.
And if that had happened, Mount Hua’s future would have been obvious.
Strong people were everywhere. And someday, true demonic power would descend upon this world.
I have to get stronger. Stronger than now. Stronger than I was in the past!
Chung Myung gripped the hilt so tightly his knuckles went white, and just as he was about to charge again—
“Wooooooaaaah!”
“Push them back!”
“Crush their heads!”
At the sudden shouts from all around him, Chung Myung turned his gaze before he realized it.
The Mount Hua disciples, who had been pressed down by the blood-clad men’s momentum, were now fighting back with twice the spirit they had shown before the enemy arrived.
In the lead, Jo Gul swung a simple, swift sword strike. The movement looked strikingly similar to Chung Myung’s own.
Yu I-seol, having leapt straight into the heart of the enemy line, was ravaging them with sword energy and hand-to-hand combat so seamless it seemed almost unreal. Her terrifying focus and her obsessive, uncompromising pursuit of the sword had not changed at all from the day Chung Myung had first met her.
While the two of them drove the enemy back, Yoon Jong and Baek Cheon guarded their fellow disciples’ flanks, helping those in danger and fueling the fighting spirit of the others.
And then...
“Amitabha!”
Hye Yeon’s fist aura surged upward.
At that sight, the corners of Chung Myung’s mouth, which had been tightly pressed together, loosened at last.
“Kuh!”
At that moment, a blood-clad bandit’s sword pierced a Mount Hua disciple’s shoulder. Yet the disciple didn’t flinch back from the wound; instead, he glared at the bandit with fierce eyes and counterattacked.
Plum blossoms began to bloom.
They were still far from neat, still at a level far too rough to honestly call plum blossoms, but they were plum blossoms all the same. No matter how clumsy they were, their essence would not disappear.
The scattered blossoms blooming here and there soon dyed the surroundings red. It looked almost like Mount Hua itself.
Watching it in a daze, Chung Myung bit his lip hard.
They’re really a pain in the ass.
He hadn’t even told them to follow him, and yet they clung to him like mad simply because he ran ahead. Even the disciples of the past had eventually given up on keeping up with him, but these guys—who couldn’t even compare to them—were chasing after Chung Myung with stupid courage and desperate determination.
“Don’t just let that bastard run wild by himself! We are Mount Hua!”
At Baek Cheon’s scolding shout, Chung Myung tightened his grip on the sword with a faintly twisted expression.
Fools who don’t know their place.
Who did they think they were talking to?
...No, actually, the idiot is me.
He couldn’t do everything alone. No matter how strong he was, no matter how much stronger he became, hadn’t he already learned the hard way that one person alone could do nothing?
But whenever the blood rushed to his head, he always ended up dragged back into the past.
What I need to do now...
Quietly watching them, Chung Myung suddenly barked, “The back line’s wide open, you idiot Jo Gul!”
“I’m the senior disciple, you crazy bastard!”
At Jo Gul’s immediate retort, Chung Myung couldn’t help but grin.
Yeah. That’s more like it.
Those blood-clad men were strong, that much was true. Of course, if this were the Mount Hua Five Swords, they’d be fine, but for the other disciples, these were still opponents beyond their current reach.
But this was no longer the time to protect them blindly. It was time to trust them.
To properly bloom into plum blossoms, they had to endure their own storms and survive the bitter winter.
“Huuuup!”
Chung Myung drew in a deep breath. At once, his usual mischievous expression returned. Looking at the bandits hesitating in uneasy caution all around him, he tilted his head to one side.
“Tsk, tsk. This is why you’re all just bandits.”
“Y-you—!”
“Seems like if you’re scared enough, there’s always someone willing to go easy on you. Sorry, but I’m not that kind of guy.”
“...”
“Still, I’ll give you one piece of advice.”
The corner of Chung Myung’s mouth curled into a sneer.
“If you want to live, run! You bastard bandits!”
Meanwhile, Go Hong was surveying the battlefield with a face twisted in savage ruin.
“Why can’t you worthless bastards deal with even one group of those lousy men properly?”
The blood-clad men, whose momentum had been so fearsome, were now being checked by Mount Hua’s defense and failing to achieve any real result. Their overall strength was clearly superior, and yet the Mount Hua bastards, standing shoulder to shoulder in a solid mass, were resisting with infuriating effectiveness.
Worse still, whenever they finally broke through one side, some particularly conspicuous bastard would come rushing in to save the situation, and all their gains would be ruined.
“Kraaaagh!”
“Argh!”
And as a result, it was the blood-clad side that kept falling in greater numbers. Mount Hua’s disciples, on the other hand, were retreating behind their formation whenever they were injured, before their wounds could become fatal, and thereby avoiding death.
So it was only natural that their own numbers kept shrinking.
And above all, there was one especially infuriating bastard.
“What are you bandits glaring at?! I’ll rip your eyeballs right out!”
Watching Chung Myung rampage like a beast among the Dae-byeol Band bandits, Go Hong felt his guts turn over and his vision go red.
That damn bastard!
Every problem had started with that one brat.
Right from the start.
“Ch-chanju! The situation is...!”
“Shut up!”
When Lee Jeong-bang came back again, spouting irritating remarks, Go Hong kicked him away. Then, gripping a guandao in one hand and a long spear in the other, he let out a thunderous roar.
“Get out of the way, you useless trash!”
At the voice, which sounded almost like a bear bellowing, the bandits scattered left and right in fright, clearing a path. And with that, a road opened wide between Chung Myung, who had been rampaging at the front, and Go Hong.
Chung Myung cut down the bandits before straightening his waist and staring at Go Hong across the way.
Go Hong spoke first.
“A young brat like you knows nothing of heaven and earth and yet runs wild.”
“Must be nice being old as shit, bastard.”
“...What?”
At the unexpected counter, Go Hong’s face flushed with rage. He tightened his grip on the spear until it looked ready to snap, then twisted his upper body completely before snapping his waist back like a recoiling bow and hurling the spear forward.
“Haaah!”
Kwaaaaaaaaaaa!
The spear spun madly, erupting with terrifying force. Seeing it launched like a cannonball, Chung Myung’s eyes flew wide open.
Krakakak!
He immediately swung the Plum Blossom Sword to strike the spear’s tip. But the instant his sword made contact, the force transmitted through it far exceeded his expectations.
Kakang!
The Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword was knocked away, unable to withstand the power driving the spear. Chung Myung clenched his teeth and quickly twisted his waist to the side.
Kwaaaaaaa!
The spear, carrying horrific force, grazed just over Chung Myung’s shoulder. The deadly edge wrapped around it tore viciously at the shoulder of his robe and his cheek, ripping both open.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
The spear that finally stabbed into the ground behind Chung Myung exploded with a deafening blast, flipping the earth once over.
“...”
Chung Myung raised a hand and lightly wiped his cheek. Blood was pouring from the torn skin.
“Hmm.”
He licked the blood from his fingertips, then smiled.
“Well, well. Turns out you’re a bigger deal than I thought.”
He had nearly forgotten.
Green Forest men might be assorted trash and strays, but their chieftains were never easy opponents. Among the seventy-two factions of the Green Forest, the Dae-byeol Band boasted especially formidable strength, so it would not be an exaggeration to call its chieftain one of the strongest experts in the Green Forest.
Go Hong, gripping his guandao, strode toward Chung Myung.
Thud. Thud.
With every step, the inner force in his stride seemed to make the whole mountain tremble.
“You little shit who doesn’t know his place!”
Brutal killing intent lingered in his eyes.
“I’ll make you pay dearly for daring to act up in front of me! I’ll make you understand why they call me the Mad Ox Blade!”
“Oh, really?”
Chung Myung casually shook off the blood on his hand.
“What a shame. It’s gotta suck dying without a proper name.”
The corner of his mouth curled upward.
“Still, I don’t mind.”
He raised his sword and pointed it at Go Hong, sneering.
“If I chop off that crazy ox’s head, maybe I’ll get a proper title instead of that embarrassing thing called Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
“You bastard!”
“So come on. I’ll cut it off nice and pretty for you.”
“I’ll kill you!”
True to the name Mad Ox, Go Hong charged straight at Chung Myung with a truly savage momentum.
Spinning on his heel, Chung Myung caught the sword in hand and rushed to meet him, grinning wide with excitement.
“Huaaah!”
“Aaaaaah!”
Go Hong’s guandao came crashing down. It was as if it could split a mountain in two.
In response, Chung Myung’s Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword burst with explosive sword energy and sliced through the air.
Then the blade and the blade—two weapons—collided in midair.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaang!
With a sound like a giant mountain collapsing, an immense wall of wind exploded outward from the center of the clash and began sweeping across everything in all directions.
“Aaaagh!”
“Waaaaaah!”
The bandits, caught in the storm of qi, screamed as they were flung over the fortress and sent tumbling off the cliff.
Grrrrrk!
The two men, their sword and blade pressed together, drove their inner force to the limit as they tried to force each other back.
Crack! Crack-crack-crack!
The muscles in their arms screamed in pain and began to burst apart, while their bones twisted under the strain. But Chung Myung didn’t yield even an inch; instead, he pushed his sword down even harder.
“Ugh...”
Go Hong, too, seemed flustered by the unexpected strength. He grit his teeth and pressed his guandao down with even greater force.
Kakakak!
Sparks flew between the two weapons.
And then their upper bodies leaned ever more toward each other. While locked in that contest of raw strength, the weapons finally lowered to chest height, and the two men slammed their foreheads together with all their might.
Thud!
Too massive and too heavy to merely be the sound of heads colliding, the impact boomed out like a cannon shot.
Strength against strength.
As though technique were unnecessary, they sought only to crush one another with force alone. Pressing foreheads together like beasts, they growled.
Blood from their split brows streamed down over their faces, but neither one showed the slightest intention of backing off first.
“Huaaah!”
“Oooooooh!”
Koooooooom!
At last, the enormous shockwave formed by the collision of their inner forces slammed both of them backward with brutal violence.
Thud!
Crash!
At the same time, both men were thrown back and knocked down, then sprang up again without either one hesitating for even a breath, shooting toward each other like streaks of light.
The sword that split the heavens and the dao that shattered the earth collided once more—one above, one below—between sky and ground.