Better Dead Than Alive! (3)
Crunch!
Baek Cheon’s sword bored into the deck.
The blade, which had pierced the thick timber as easily as tofu, bent with a deadly spring, then snapped back up. The deck tore loose and jolted skyward in response.
“Whoa!”
The plank beneath the feet of the man swinging the amza also kicked up into the air. The spot under him suddenly reared up, throwing off his balance and killing the force behind his strike.
Clang-clang-clang!
The sword that followed shoved aside a thin harpoon and split the water bandit’s chest open in one clean stroke.
Slash!
The water bandit stared in disbelief, eyes wide, before coughing up blood and collapsing. Only then did a breath of relief leave Baek Cheon’s lips.
That was close.
Normally, this wouldn’t have been an opponent worth worrying about.
But in a situation where the deck was lurching wildly from side to side, it was a fight unlike anything he had ever experienced. If he hadn’t improvised on the spot, he might have been in serious trouble.
“Lower your center of gravity as much as possible! This isn’t some trick you can’t deal with!”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
At Baek Cheon’s shout, the Mount Hua disciples answered just as loudly.
Rumble!
Bangchoong stamped the railing again. Whether it was because of his formidable internal energy or some frightening knack for handling ships, the large vessel lurched side to side as though it might capsize at any moment.
“It’s all bluster! They’ve never fought in a situation like this! Don’t let their showy tricks fool you—cut them down!”
“Yes!”
The moment the water bandits tried to rally their momentum again—
Tap!
With a soft sound like a cat leaping, Yu I-seol’s body shot forward like a startled hawk.
“Damn—!”
Those who had already been wary of her from the start swung their blades and polearms at the flying figure in unison.
Yu I-seol, her eyes icy and calm, thrust her sword forward and lightly tapped the upper end of an oncoming trident.
Ting!
Like a bell being struck, a clear sound rang out, and her body sprang higher into the air. She had used the rebound from the weapon itself to launch herself upward.
“Wh-what?”
“What the—”
Stunned by the impossible movement, the water bandits’ mouths fell open.
Whoosh!
Red plum blossoms burst one after another from Yu I-seol’s sword.
The deck of the large ship was quickly stained crimson with plum blossoms. It was as though a new island covered in blossoms had appeared in the middle of the vast Yangtze River.
The water bandits’ eyes widened until they seemed ready to split at the sight of that grotesque, otherworldly scene.
Rustle.
The fluttering petals burrowed into their bodies. Instinct told them to block, but how could they defend against dozens, even hundreds, of petals with blunt weapons alone?
Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!
The scattered Maehwageomgi cut and pierced the water bandits all over their bodies.
“Aaaagh!”
“My arm! My arm! Agh!”
The water bandits grabbed at their pierced bodies and rolled across the deck. Yu I-seol had rendered nearly a dozen of them combat-ineffective in an instant, then landed lightly on the floor like a butterfly.
And, as if speaking for her martial siblings to hear, she muttered softly, “You just fight without touching the ground.”
A solution so simple that Jo Gul smiled with satisfaction and said, “Well, if it were that easy, we wouldn’t be going through all this trouble…”
“……Exactly.”
“Anyway, you’re saying we just have to keep our feet off the deck as much as possible, right?”
“Then it’s like sparring on a cliff. Got it! Hyah!”
As if responding to each other, Yoon Jong and Jo Gul shot forward like lightning. In an instant, they began carving through the water bandits.
With Jo Gul and Yoon Jong charging like enraged tigers at the front, and Yu I-seol harrying their backs like a swift leopard from behind, there was no way the bandits could hold out no matter how many of them there were.
Watching his men get pushed back without any answer, Bangchoong shouted, “W-what are you doing! Fire the arrows—”
Thud!
“Krrrk.”
But at that very moment, the man standing on the railing clutched his throat and fell backward.
The speed was so outrageous that there had been no time to even register what had happened. Bangchoong flinched hard and snapped his head around.
Swish!
Where his forehead had been only moments ago, a razor-edged throwing blade streaked past at terrifying speed.
“Oh dear. What a shame.”
Dang Soso smiled sweetly as she looked at Bangchoong.
“Your head looked a little stuffy. I thought putting a little air hole in it might make you feel nice and refreshed.”
“You, you little—”
Cold sweat poured down Bangchoong’s face as he nearly lost his life in an instant.
What the hell is going on?
He was not a fool. Whether it was banditry or water banditry, in the end it was all thievery. And if you wanted to keep your neck attached while living as a thief, you needed a good eye for situations.
The battle on this ship had already tilted in the other direction.
How are these bratty kids…?
Being strong, he could understand. The people of the Nine Great Sects were all monsters. And Mount Hua, lately, was a sect that could be compared to the Nine Great Sects—or rather, if one went by recent momentum alone, one that made even the Nine Great Sects look shabby. Of course the young disciples would be strong.
But youth meant inexperience. Wasn’t that precisely why even outstanding martial artists from the righteous sects suffered disaster the moment they stepped into the jianghu?
They couldn’t possibly have experience fighting countless water bandits on an unfamiliar river. Especially not in a situation like this, with the ship being rocked so violently.
And yet these brats hadn’t panicked for even an instant. They found ways to respond in the blink of an eye, just like old veterans who had spent years rolling through the jianghu.
“Aaaagh!”
Another water bandit screamed and fell.
“Where do you think you’re going, you damn water bandits!”
“Quit getting worked up, you bastard!”
The Mount Hua disciples were now fully in command, ruthlessly mowing down the water bandits. At this rate, total annihilation seemed only moments away.
Bangchoong cried out with a deathly pale face, “Re-retreat! Fall back!”
The decision was quick, and so was the resolve.
“Captain?”
“Enough! Can’t you hear me? Retreat, damn it! Pull back! Return to the boat!”
The instant he said it, the water bandits surged backward. Their movements were so nimble it was as if they had practiced this drill many times before. Like a swarm of rats fleeing an earthquake, they leapt off the ship in perfect formation and slid back to their fast boat along the chained line they had set up.
“Don’t let them get away!”
Baek Cheon shouted and charged, his sword flashing.
A true hero didn’t chase a fleeing enemy—that was the basic code of the martial world. But Mount Hua had never believed in such nonsense. If the enemy tucked their tail and ran, Mount Hua chased them down and bit their ass. That was Mount Hua’s way.
“Aaaagh!”
“You cruel bastards!”
Those who hadn’t managed to pull back in time were struck in the back by the blades of the Mount Hua disciples and screamed as they fell.
But they weren’t going to go down quietly either. In unison, they hurled themselves over the side of the ship.
Plop! Plop!
The men who leapt into the river swam skillfully around in a wide arc and climbed back up onto the fast boat.
Some of those who couldn’t evade the Mount Hua disciples’ swords collapsed with screams, but most of the water bandits scrambled off the deck and clambered onto the fast boat.
“Cut the rope!”
Bangchoong, who had already transferred to the fast boat ahead of time with sharp instincts, shouted. The chain connecting the two vessels snapped and dangled slackly into the river below.
The anchored ship lurched heavily once, and then the distance between the two boats began to widen.
“What kind of water bandits are that cowardly?”
Jo Gul ground his teeth and clung to the railing, shouting and pointing.
“Sasuk! What do we do? Do we chase them?”
“Hmm.”
Baek Cheon narrowed his eyes.
It’s not a distance we can’t cross.
Right now, they could still transfer to that boat. But doing so would require taking on a certain amount of danger.
While Baek Cheon was still considering it, the fast boat that had been opening the distance slowly began to reduce its speed again.
“Huh?”
Rattle-rattle! Rattle-rattle!
One side of the fast boat’s railing opened like a door, and something strange emerged from within.
A huge, long cylinder, as if it were…
“A-cannon?”
Baek Cheon’s eyes widened.
“Th-those lunatics! Even if they’re water bandits, a cannon? What if the officials find out…!”
“I-it’s not a cannon!”
At the sudden voice from beside him, he snapped around to see the captain, who had somehow come over, shouting with a face drained white.
“This is exactly why you can’t mess with water bandits…! What are we going to do? We’re all dead now!”
“What in the world is that thing, then?”
“That, that’s….”
And then it happened.
“Fiiiiire!”
With Bangchoong’s roaring command, the cylinder belched flame. The huge harpoon it launched slammed straight into the lower portion of the ship, where the hull met the water.
Crash!
With a thunderous boom, the underside of the ship, made of sturdy timber, was pierced clean through. Water began flooding inside at once.
“You miserable bastards! I’ll sink you right here in the middle of the Yangtze with this ship! Fire! Shoot every last harpoon until this boat is completely wrecked!”
“Yes!”
Clack! Clack!
More of the layered doors along the railing opened, and massive harpoons flew out one after another. Whoever was handling them clearly knew their trade, because every single shot struck the lower hull exactly where it touched the water.
Groooan…!
The ship gave a long, suffering groan and rocked hard, and the captain’s face turned ghastly pale.
“G-go below, now! Start bailing water immediately! If we don’t, we’ll sink in no time! Hurry, damn you, hurry!”
At his command, the crew shrieked in alarm and rushed into the cabin in a panic.
“M-master martial artist! Please do something! If they keep hitting us like this, the ship will break apart. If this ship breaks in the middle of the Yangtze, we’ll all be fish food!”
“Hmm.”
Baek Cheon considered it for a moment.
“It’s too far to swim, and we can’t run across the water. It’s not a distance we can cross in one go…”
Jo Gul, standing beside him, nodded as if he understood.
“So that means we’re helpless.”
“No. Not helpless.”
“Huh?”
But Baek Cheon soon grinned.
“If they’re going to fire harpoons, then all we have to do is fire a real cannon back at them.”
“A cannon? This ship has a cannon?”
“It does. A special one, too.”
“Uh… Ah!”
Jo Gul turned sharply to look behind them, as though he had just realized something.
It was there. And it really was special.
“Hah hah hah. Those goddamn bastards.”
Bangchoong laughed in triumph.
Meeting masters on the Yangtze was hardly unusual. If the water bandits had been swept away every time that happened, would the Eighteen Water Forts of the Yangtze River have ever earned the reputation they had now?
No matter how great you are, once you fall in the water you’re less than half as strong as usual.
And if they were righteous sect types, they’d rush to save anyone who fell in first. That was when his subordinates, nimble as Yangtze River dolphins, would strike from beneath the surface. No matter how formidable the opponent was, they’d have no choice but to lose.
“The fish of the Yangtze will feast today! What are you waiting for, fire more—”
That was when it happened.
“Hm?”
Someone leapt up onto the railing of the ship across from them.
“What the hell?”
Why would anyone climb onto the railing of a ship that was about to sink? Unless they were surrendering, there was no reason to do that.
And of course, Bangchoong had no intention of accepting surrender….
“A monk?”
Frowning, he tilted his head.
The figure standing on the railing was a monk in a kasaya. He looked young, and after making a half-bow from atop the railing, he slowly brought his right fist to his side.
“What are you trying to—”
And then, at that very moment—
Whoooooooosh!
The monk’s robe flapped wildly, and golden radiance erupted from his body in blinding brilliance.
The absurd sight made Bangchoong’s eyes nearly pop out.
“W-what the—what on earth is that…?”
“Ta-aaaap!”
As if unwilling to give anyone time to think, the monk threw his fist in one clean motion. From the tip of that fist, a dazzling torrent of golden energy burst forth like a waterfall, cutting across the wide Yangtze River and slamming directly into the fast boat they were riding.
BOOOOOOOOM!
An enormous explosion thundered across the river.
Bangchoong, who had shut his eyes tight and turned his head away, slowly opened them again. There had been no shock he had expected, so he blinked in confusion, then furrowed his brow.
“What, that’s all? Nothing much—holy shit, what the hell is this?!”
But then his jaw dropped wide enough to split his face.
The bow of the fast boat.
It was simply gone.
More than broken, it looked as though it had vanished altogether. The front of the ship had been cleanly erased, as if some giant blade had sliced it off in one neat stroke.
Only the debris drifting across the Yangtze proved that the ship had, in fact, once had a bow at all.
“What the—”
“Aaaagh! Captain! Water! Water’s coming in!”
“We’re sinking, damn it! The ship’s sinking!”
“Jump! If we don’t, we’ll go down with the ship!”
Rumble…
The Yangtze River flooded into the boat at a terrifying speed. The vessel tilted sharply forward and began to sink fast.
“……Crazy.”
Bangchoong, still unable to regain his senses, let out a weak, empty breath.
“……That’s cheating.”
“I should’ve joined Shaolin. Why the hell did I come to Mount Hua?”
“Today, I actually agree with that.”
Watching the fast boat sink in utter futility, the Mount Hua disciples shook their heads.
They had grown so close lately that they sometimes forgot, but…
This guy wasn’t human either.
He was a monster even Chung Myung acknowledged. So what else could he be?
“Well… looks like that’s taken care of.”
Yoon Jong looked at Baek Cheon and asked, “What should we do, Sasuk? Should we haul a few of them up and interrogate them?”
“Hmm. That would be best.”
Baek Cheon nodded. Then he let out a quiet sigh inwardly.
It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought.
He couldn’t tell whether the water bandits were weaker than expected or Mount Hua had simply grown far stronger, but either way, this was not bad….
“Senior Brother.”
Then Yu I-seol called out, her voice louder than usual.
Baek Cheon turned.
“What is it, Junior Sister?”
“Over there.”
“Hm?”
“……Come over there. There.”
Baek Cheon followed the direction of her finger. His eyes immediately began to shake with mounting alarm.
“No way….”
Across the river. Far beyond the river, almost at the horizon, ships were appearing one by one. There were enough of them to be called a fleet.
And at the same time—
Shhhhrrrk!
From the largest of the ships at the center, easily twice the size of the others, massive sails were unfurled. That intimidating ship, painted in thick black lacquer, bore two sails.
One depicted a black dragon, and the other a giant whale slicing through the open sea.
The captain’s voice escaped him in despair.
“A-a dragon ship…”
“Pardon?”
“That’s the ship carrying the Daegyeong Fort leader! It’s the Dragon Ship—the Dragon Ship of the Yangtze River’s Four Guardians!”
His legs gave out and he collapsed to the deck.
“We’re all dead now… Great Dragon King of the Yangtze, please look upon us with mercy.”
Watching the massive black dragon ship drawing ever closer, Baek Cheon’s expression grew grave.