The Beginning of the Showdown (1)
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon?”
A strange light flickered in Heo Gong’s eyes.
So that brat is the one the Sect Leader told me about.
He had said he was a talent unlike any other.
A man who would one day stand in Wudang’s way no matter what. Someone who had to be crushed early, before he could truly grow.
And yet…
He doesn’t look all that impressive.
In terms of sheer presence alone, the tall, handsome one beside him—Baek Cheon, was it?—seemed far more formidable.
If Heo Do-jin-in’s words and the rumors circulating through the jianghu were true, then this boy was indeed the finest among Mount Hua’s younger generation right now…
Could it be that he has already reached the realm where he can conceal his presence from me?
At that age?
It was almost impossible to imagine.
And if it were true, then the situation was far more serious than he had first thought.
Mujin still couldn’t slip past his eyes, and yet this child, who looked as though he had barely lived half as long, was supposedly twice as formidable?
No wonder the Sect Leader sent me here.
This was no longer someone you could merely call a hidden dragon waiting to rise. For a moment, a cold trace of killing intent flashed through Heo Gong’s gaze.
“So what’s your answer?”
“...Answer to what?”
“That Wudang lost, isn’t it?”
“Hohoho.”
Heo Gong laughed and took up Chung Myung’s words.
“Didn’t I say you could take it that way if you wished?”
“What, did you practice your cultivation in a mud pit? You wriggle out of things like a loach.”
“...Aren’t you speaking a little too rudely?”
“That’s less rude than telling someone to take it however they want.”
Chung Myung gave an openly mocking snort.
“If you don’t have the guts to admit defeat, then step back and wait for the result. It’s only natural that the side that breaks the original rules loses.”
“... ...”
“Or what, maybe…”
He dragged out the end of the sentence with infuriating laziness, then sneered.
“A Wudang elder isn’t planning to throw a tantrum, is he? If it were me, I’d be too embarrassed to do something like that. Then again, maybe Wudang’s different from me.”
Baek Cheon shut his eyes tightly.
That bastard is the real thing.
All of Mount Hua’s other disciples could only marvel again and again.
He’s actually taking on a Wudang elder.
The truly crazy ones really don’t discriminate, do they?
Right. That’s why he’s Chung Myung!
If he only smashed the heads of people he deemed worthy, then he couldn’t be called Chung Myung. To truly be the mad dog of Mount Hua they knew, he had to charge at anyone and everyone with equal fairness—men or women, young or old, high rank or low. That was the only way.
Under normal circumstances, they would have been frantic and stopped him, but not one of them had any intention of doing so now. Usually, the Five Swords would have crept in to restrain Chung Myung the moment he opened his mouth, but this time even they had gathered around Baek Cheon instead.
As if to say that if Baek Cheon tried to stop Chung Myung, they’d be the ones to block him.
Yet this time, Baek Cheon himself edged back as if he had no intention of stopping it at all.
That was how deep the fury ran toward Heo Gong for insulting Mount Hua’s senior generation.
“... ...”
Meanwhile, Heo Gong, who had been humiliated to his face, began to twitch subtly as his cheek tightened.
“Throwing a tantrum?”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying I’m throwing a tantrum?”
“That’s right.”
“Young Daoist.”
Heo Gong’s voice dropped, and the words stabbed toward Chung Myung like a blade.
“All trouble comes from the mouth. You’d do well to learn restraint before anything else.”
“That’s my business.”
“...What did you say?”
Chung Myung snorted.
“If you’re so great at teaching, why don’t you mind your own sect instead of sticking your nose into other people’s business? I mean, you’re so worried about what others say, so how do you stand seeing your own disciples getting beaten up by a bunch of juniors?”
“... ...”
“Oh? Are you that kind of person? The type who can’t see the beam in his own eye but can spot dust in everyone else’s? Well, I guess that’s pretty common.”
Heo Gong clenched his fist hard.
His expression had not changed, but the hand he had balled so tightly was clearly trembling, however slightly. Watching that, Baek Cheon felt both a surge of delight and a strong stab of pity at once.
Serves him right for picking a verbal fight.
If you gathered all the people Chung Myung had beaten up physically, you could probably circle Dongting Lake with them. If you gathered all the people he had beaten down with words, you could probably fill the whole thing.
If the swordsmanship he unleashed was seven parts strong, then his mouth had long since reached twelve.
The misfortune was that Heo Gong had no idea.
Heo Gong said, unable to hide his displeasure, “It seems the disciples of Mount Hua need to be taught manners all over again…”
“That’s not your concern.”
But Chung Myung cut him off at once.
“Stop changing the subject. So what are you going to do? Admit defeat first? Or slink back to your seat like you’ve lost your dignity and wait until the result is decided?”
“... ...”
“Ah, there is one more way.”
Chung Myung clapped brightly, then grinned.
“I’ll even count it if the elder wants to fight. That solves everything, doesn’t it?”
In the end, Heo Gong’s expression finally crumbled.
“...You’re telling me to cross blades with a second-generation disciple?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
What was wrong with it?
At that perfectly calm question, disbelief spread across Heo Gong’s face.
“You ask that as if you truly don’t know?”
“No. It’s not us who don’t know. It’s Wudang.”
“... ...”
Chung Myung grinned and raised his voice so everyone could hear.
“If it’s strange for an elder to fight a first-generation disciple, then it’s strange for a second-generation disciple to fight a first-generation disciple too. Wasn’t it Wudang itself that said there was no problem with that?”
Heo Gong pressed his lips shut.
Of course, this wasn’t his doing. But if this spar had been arranged at all, then it clearly meant those words had come from Heo Sanja’s mouth.
He and Heo Sanja were different people, yes—but from the outside, they were both just Wudang elders.
Even if it meant swallowing a loss, they could not allow word to spread that Wudang’s elders were saying different things from one another.
“...It is true that such words were spoken.”
As soon as Heo Gong admitted it, Chung Myung seized the opening and pressed harder.
“Not even Dangun—the kinds of people who’d leap out of bed and draw a sword if they were Mount Hua—would make a second-generation disciple fight a third-generation one. They’re not idiots; they know how ridiculous that would be.”
“... ...”
“But since things have come to this, the elder can join in too. If it’s a spar between a first-generation disciple and a third-generation disciple, what’s the problem with an elder entering the mix? Well? If you really don’t want to admit defeat, I can always help you settle this with a proper brawl.”
Chung Myung smiled sweetly and tapped the hilt of the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword at his waist.
It was a brazen provocation through and through. Heo Gong bit down on his lip.
That thunder-brained brat…
He might well be trying to bait him into exactly this with an infuriatingly obvious trap, but there was no way not to take the hook.
The moment Wudang had agreed to let a first-generation disciple spar with a third-generation one, the sect had already stepped into a snare it could not escape.
“This really is beyond excuse.”
Slowly, Heo Gong nodded.
“If I must acknowledge it, then so be it. In my capacity as a Wudang elder, I acknowledge Mount Hua as the winner of this spar.”
“Heo Gong!”
Heo Sanja’s shout erupted like a scream the instant the declaration ended.
But Heo Gong did not even turn his head.
Stepping back here would be no better than admitting defeat. What mattered now was not that.
If they looked too obsessed with victory and defeat, then everyone watching would realize that this spar had been more important than they wanted it to seem. And if that happened, they would no longer be able to excuse the four defeats suffered earlier.
It was better to hand over the fruit of victory willingly and make it seem that Wudang had not cared that much in the first place.
Heo Sanja seemed to understand Heo Gong’s intention not long after; apart from raising his voice once, he made no further attempt to stop him.
“Is that enough?”
At Heo Gong’s question, Chung Myung curled the corner of his mouth.
“You’re pretty decisive, huh.”
“Ha.”
A shameless brat.
Still, it didn’t matter. Not really.
“I have granted everything you asked for.”
“Yeah, you have.”
“Then now…”
Heo Sanja straightened his shoulders and spoke quietly.
“Who will step forward to receive my instruction?”
The arena fell silent as death.
No matter how much you move your mouth, and no matter how cleverly you steer the situation, in the end it’s all just tactics.
Heo Sanja had twisted things up, but there was no real reason to blame him for it. For someone who lacked the power to crush Mount Hua outright on his own, this was likely the best he could do.
But Heo Gong was different.
A spar? A contest?
What use were such things?
So long as they cannot get past me, Mount Hua will never pass Wudang.
And unless the day came when he grew old and died, there could be no such thing as Mount Hua defeating him. This was the point he—and Wudang—had to prove.
They would see soon enough.
In the end, a swordsman was someone who had to prove himself with the sword.
The reason Wudang had become the greatest sword sect under heaven was not because they were especially disciplined, nor because they were famous. It was simply because their swords were the strongest in the world.
I’ll crush their spirit so thoroughly they’ll never dare covet Wudang’s sword again.
Heo Gong fixed his cold eyes on Mount Hua.
Even without deliberately raising his aura, the overwhelming pressure drove the Mount Hua disciples back a step before they even realized it.
So this is a Wudang elder.
Unbelievable…
The Five Swords had some experience facing monsters like the Bishop of the Demonic Sect and other formidable opponents, so they had no trouble enduring it. But the rest of Mount Hua’s disciples were not so fortunate; they could only groan under the crushing weight of power they had never felt before.
Can we really face someone like that? Us?
That was one of the senior figures they had spoken of again and again. The moment that absence began to worm into the hearts of Mount Hua’s disciples—
“I know what you’re thinking, but…”
Chung Myung swaggered forward.
It was a strange thing.
He was only a young third-generation disciple, and yet the pressure suffocating Mount Hua vanished as though it had never been there.
“Looks like you’ve been holed up in the mountains so long you don’t know much about the world, so let me teach you something.”
“... ...”
“Things in this world don’t work the way you think they do, old man.”
Clink.
Chung Myung tapped the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword hanging at his side and turned with a grin. Then he looked straight at Hyun Sang and Hyun Young.
Seeing the rigid faces of the two elders, Chung Myung laughed.
“What’s with those expressions? It’s not like this is some huge deal.”
“Chung Myung, you little—”
“Just sit back and enjoy the show.”
Hyun Sang’s eyes trembled.
He had no reason not to know how remarkable Chung Myung was, but the opponent was far too dangerous.
And yet it was also the undeniable truth that Chung Myung was the only one here who could take on Heo Gong.
“Really…”
Hyun Sang opened his mouth to say something laced with worry, but Hyun Young beat him to it.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes.”
“Can you do it?”
As if he had been waiting for that very question, Chung Myung grinned.
“Those old men have probably been getting hit too little lately, so now they’re getting cocky.”
“... ...”
“I’ll go show them that not only is Mount Hua the strongest sword under the Dao, but the strongest sword in the world belongs to Mount Hua too.”
But Hyun Young shook his head.
“There’s no need for that.”
“Huh?”
“Just prove that you are Mount Hua’s strongest sword and come back. That is enough.”
“... ...”
Chung Myung blinked, genuinely caught off guard by the words, then scratched the back of his head.
“I’m not used to this kind of consideration, you know. Hehe.”
Looking a little awkward, he quickly clasped both hands and offered a fist-and-palm salute to the two elders.
“Third-generation disciple of Mount Hua, Chung Myung!”
“Yes.”
“I’m off!”
With that, Chung Myung whirled around and strode toward the sparring platform.
Hot, unwavering gazes from Mount Hua’s disciples rained down upon his back.
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