What You Gain, You Must Also Lose (2)
CRITICAL HITS
The muscles twisted and tore.
The pain was so intense it felt as if his body might crumble apart, and his mouth flew open on its own. Yet Chung Myung’s eyes never once wavered; they burned with a heat that bordered on madness.
“You…”
Even the Mad Ox Blade’s eyes bulged with blood.
It was absurd, to have a small brat not even half his size confront him in terms of pure strength. For a man born with divine strength, a man called the Mad Ox Blade, there could be no greater humiliation than this.
“How dare you!”
His whole body tensed and surged, pressing Chung Myung down.
The native power of his flesh fused with his inner strength and erupted in a monstrous force.
“Hhhngh! Haaah!”
The foot Chung Myung used as his anchor slowly slid back. At the same time, his upper body, unable to bear the force, was driven farther and farther rearward until his waist bent like a bow.
As if no matter how extraordinary Chung Myung was, he still couldn’t stand against the Mad Ox Blade, who had crushed Green Forest with strength alone.
But then—
Crk, crk.
Chung Myung clenched his teeth so hard the veins in his eyes burst, and the whites turned red.
A deep roar rose from within.
His inner energy, which had been sleeping in the depths of his dantian, surged upward like a divine dragon bursting out of a hidden pool, then coursed through his entire body.
The inner energy, refined from the clearest essence in the world, poured new strength into flesh that had been twisting and screaming in protest.
“Aaaargh!”
The upper body that had been bent backward snapped forward like a spring, and in one instant Chung Myung drove the Mad Ox Blade back.
KOOM!
The two bodies bounced apart and were forced backward again.
Scrreeech!
But this time, instead of collapsing, they managed to drag their feet across the ground and settle into position.
“Hoo.”
Unlike Chung Myung, who slowly caught his breath with a steady face, the Mad Ox Blade couldn’t even think to hide his bewilderment.
“…”
He stared blankly at Chung Myung for a moment, then looked down at his curved blade.
The massive weapon, more axe than saber, had been stripped and battered into a grotesque shape, the edge chipped away in several places.
A divine sword?
Of course. A sword that didn’t break under a weapon like his had to be some kind of divine armament.
But even a divine sword was still used by a human being. If his strength and inner energy had truly overwhelmed that brat, then even if the sword held, the brat’s wrist should have snapped first.
Yet the brat had held that thin blade against his strength. No—he had not merely held it. He had actually thrown him back.
How can something like this happen…?
In his entire life, he had never once been pushed back by brute force.
Even famed wrestlers were no different from children before him. Not in Green Forest, nor anywhere else, had anyone dared to match him in pure strength.
And yet this small brat was standing there now, locked against him without yielding even a single inch. It was something he could not believe with his own eyes, something he could not understand even while experiencing it firsthand.
“Looks like you’ve got a fair bit of confidence in your strength.”
Chung Myung smirked and took a step forward.
He kept kneading the wrist that held the sword with his other hand, as if the burden of facing the Mad Ox Blade head-on was greater than expected, but there was unmistakable ease on his face.
“I’ve got a bad personality, see, so I can’t stand it when people strut around like that.”
“…”
The expression vanished from the Mad Ox Blade’s face.
For the first time, he was truly realizing that when a person became enraged enough, the mind could go cold and find clarity instead.
He exhaled once, sharply.
Then he fixed Chung Myung with eyes emptied of feeling.
Black blade energy rose from the saber lifted in his hand. At first it was only enough to cover the blade itself, but soon it began to extend farther, gushing out until it was longer than a man’s height.
“I’d like to cut off your head and stick it on a spear, but I suppose I can’t do that now.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll crush you so thoroughly there won’t be a single shred of flesh left! Hraaaagh!”
The Mad Ox Blade charged at Chung Myung once more with overwhelming momentum.
The blade aura pouring from his saber was terrifying even at a glance, and the weapon itself spun fiercely as it came.
With a speed no one could have imagined from such a huge frame, he closed the distance in the blink of an eye. The saber came crashing down over Chung Myung’s head.
Chung Myung quickly lifted his sword to block it.
KWA-AAAAANG!
The impact was so immense that Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword, forged from Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron, warped for an instant. But the Mad Ox Blade’s assault did not end there.
KWANG! KWANG! KWA-AAAAANG!
The blade strikes came one after another.
He wasn’t trying to cut or slice—he meant to smash through purely with force.
It was difficult enough to pour staggering power into a single blow. So it went without saying that it was even more difficult to sustain that kind of power throughout a relentless barrage.
This was not something one could do merely because one’s martial prowess was high.
His very body was different.
He withdrew the force of each downward strike and drove back down with even greater power. It was a technique that normally had to be honed through countless days of training, yet he was doing it only with instinct and the rebound of flesh and muscle.
Shit!
Even Chung Myung clicked his tongue at the sheer force of it.
Each time the saber came crashing down, his arms were knocked askew and his feet dug into the earth.
KOOMMMMM!
Before Chung Myung’s body could break, the ground beneath him began to break first. The earth’s surface collapsed, then couldn’t withstand the impact and exploded upward.
A relentless chain of attacks that gave him no time to breathe.
It was an assault that made brutally clear why Go Hong was called the Mad Ox Blade.
“Hraaaagh!”
Go Hong bellowed until his throat was raw and brought the blade down again.
KWA-AAAAAAANG!
For an instant, a sound like the collapse of heaven itself burst forth, and Chung Myung’s body was launched backward like a cannonball.
Kragak, krak.
He rolled across the ground several times, then flipped over and forced himself back into a stance. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. The repeated impacts had shaken his insides to the core.
“…Heh.”
A laugh escaped him before a groan of pain could.
Why the hell is this so damn brutish?
Of course, he had lived two lives, and among the masters he had met over that time, there were plenty stronger than Go Hong.
But Go Hong had something different. The simple, unremarkable forms that should have amounted to nothing special became world-class killer techniques the moment they were used by that man.
“If he’d been born in the Tang Family, he’d have smashed Shaolin’s head in and then some.”
Chung Myung shook out his numb wrist, straightened up, and looked at Go Hong with calm eyes.
“Krrk.”
Go Hong spat out ragged breaths as if he might charge again at any moment.
“You bastard!”
KWAANG!
The instant his foot stomped down, the earth flipped over and shot skyward. Riding the monstrous recoil, Go Hong launched himself in like a bolt of lightning.
“Aaaaargh!”
More than a dozen blade strikes unfolded in the space of a single blink. There was no fixed rhythm, no established pattern. It was nothing but a wild, chaotic swing—more accurately, a frenzy of flailing. And yet the power packed into every slash transformed that chaos into world-class swordplay.
Any clumsy opening was buried beneath overwhelming blade aura, and any gap too small to fill was simply ignored with the resolve to sacrifice flesh and smash through bone.
It was, in every sense, a saber style that embodied the nature of the evil path.
A sane man would never think to face that absurd storm of blade aura with a human body alone.
“That…”
The Mount Hua disciples fighting the Blood Robed men held their breath as they watched the storm of saber light unleashed by the Mad Ox Blade.
One didn’t need deep knowledge of martial arts or experience in real combat to understand what they were seeing. Anyone with eyes and a brain could tell how dangerous it was.
And before that storm, Chung Myung stood with his sword in hand like a lone plum tree on a cliff.
“Y-you have to dodge…”
Baek Sang, panicked, hurriedly looked toward Baek Cheon. But Baek Cheon himself didn’t even glance at Chung Myung, too busy attacking the Blood Robed men.
And he wasn’t the only one.
Yu I-seol, Jo Gul, Yoon Jong, Dang Soso.
Not one of the people who had fought alongside Chung Myung turned their eyes toward him.
As if there were no way that bastard would be beaten by something like this.
“…”
Stunned by that trust—so solid it seemed almost unyielding—Baek Sang looked back at Chung Myung.
“Hoo.”
The Mad Ox Blade’s blade aura continued to swell, becoming a typhoon that swept across the world.
“Aaaagh!”
“Ch-chaejuuu! Chaejueeeh!”
The expanding blade aura swept up even the bandits who hadn’t managed to withdraw in time and shredded them into pieces of flesh. His head seemed too full of blood for him to notice anything around him.
But seen another way, it only meant the force of his blade aura was so tremendous that it spread beyond even the range those who knew the Mad Ox Blade had expected.
He crushed his opponent with power and speed.
That was the saber of the evil path.
Chung Myung, watching the threatening storm of the blade without moving, silently shifted his feet.
He spread his legs naturally.
He held the sword lightly with both hands.
It was the middle stance, the foundational posture of Mount Hua swordsmanship. Chung Myung’s eyes began to sink, calm and dark.
Startled, the Mount Hua Five Swords, who had until now paid him no heed, all turned to look at him at once.
What’s this?
He’s different from usual.
His presence was different.
It was not the sharp, flashing energy he always showed. If one had to compare it, it was more like what Hye Yeon usually gave off. An overwhelming weight.
It felt as though Chung Myung’s back itself were drawing in their gaze.
“Hoo.”
Chung Myung exhaled a short breath again and looked down at the sword in his hand.
For a swordsman, the sword is ultimately nothing more than a tool to perform swordsmanship. But by taking that tool in hand, he broadens the possibilities spread before him.
The sword can be swift, or magnificent, or heavy, or like the wind.
So then—
What kind of sword should he show the Mount Hua disciples now?
That had already been said by Un Geom.
The plum blossom blooms at the ends of branches, but the roots that make that plum blossom possible are always anchored deep and firm in the earth.
At that moment, the storm of saber energy crashed in, wrapping around Chung Myung and swallowing him whole.
“Chung Myung Dojjaaaang!”
At the instant Im So-byeong’s scream rang out, Chung Myung’s sword moved.
It was an extremely slow motion.
He moved no more than half an inch from the center.
And yet, the blade aura that arrived at that moment struck the sword and was flung away.
TUWOONG!
More fierce blade energy followed, but it too was shoved upward and repelled by Chung Myung’s sword strike.
A great tree that has sunk its roots deep into the earth does not tremble, even in a storm.
Behind every blooming plum blossom, that unshakable firmness must first exist.
KWANG! KWANG! KWANG!
Chung Myung’s simple sword strokes began to grow faster and faster.
As the blade aura multiplied, Chung Myung’s sword increased its speed as well.
And all the while, his lower body did not move at all. It was as though his feet had taken root in the ground.
The important thing was the upright heart.
However magnificent the tip of the sword may bloom, the one wielding it must remain straight.
At the tip of Chung Myung’s sword, the true meaning of Mount Hua swordsmanship was now coming clearly into view.
What is this?
Go Hong ground his teeth until they seemed about to break.
His saber was famous for its tremendous speed. And the power carried within it was enough to shatter even Mount Tai.
But that small swordsman would not fall.
He was pushed, repelled, bent—but his planted feet and straightened waist never wavered. No matter how many times he smashed down, he never once managed to force him back even a single inch.
Was this what it felt like to hammer an eternal boulder?
This can’t be!
Go Hong’s eyes were now so red they seemed ready to spill blood.
“Aaaaargh!”
He roared until his throat nearly tore and fed more inner energy into his saber. If he couldn’t break him with this much, then he would simply strike harder and cut harder.
Having drawn out the last thread of his inner energy, Go Hong’s blade swept toward Chung Myung as if it meant to swallow the world.