Senior Brother! The Voices in My Head Won’t Stop! (4)
“W-what the hell is that!”
“R-run!”
A field of red plum blossoms unfurled before their eyes. The modest little flowers bloomed in an instant into a dazzling profusion, then scattered in all directions like petals blown apart on the wind.
At the unbelievable sight, the pirates recoiled in panic and stumbled backward.
But the speed at which the petals surged forward was twice as fast as their retreat. Before they could even catch their breath, the petals that had flown in began to rake through them like blades.
“Aaaagh!”
The section of the pirates pierced by Maehwageomgi collapsed utterly.
“W-what kind of swordsmanship is this...?”
They had already seen it once, but this time it was different again.
The plum blossoms that the Mount Hua disciples unleashed in a single, rising wave were less like swordsmanship and more like a raging tidal wave.
And that still wasn’t the end of it.
“Hup!”
Chung Myung leaped into the air, flipped his body over, then kicked off the void itself and shot forward like a cannonball.
“Hraaah!”
BOOOOM!
The moment he landed, he thrust out his foot and struck the solar plexus of the pirate in front of him.
The struck pirate spun end over end, smashing into the men behind him before bouncing away.
“T-thi—”
It was a sight that made one’s jaw drop. Yet instead of panicking and fleeing, the pirates charged at Chung Myung, hurling harpoons and swinging hooks at him.
Compared to trying to fight the others whose attacks were obscured by the plum blossom sword qi, it was more practical to strike at the one who was plainly visible in front of them.
“Die!”
“Let’s skewer him!”
Chung Myung’s eyes flashed ominously at the sight of the flying polearms.
Clang!
The weapons that seemed as if they would punch holes straight through his body collided in midair with a harsh metallic screech, tangling together instead.
What?
Where...?
And then it happened.
“Aaaaargh!”
One by one, the men who had rushed in cried out miserably and crumpled where they stood. Every single one of them was clutching a foot. The backs of their ankles had been deeply sliced open, red blood spraying from the wounds.
Patapapat!
“W-what is this!”
“Below us!”
“Aaaagh!”
The pirates surging forward began to topple in rows like grain cut down by a scythe. Chung Myung, having lowered his posture, was advancing like a swallow skimming the ground, slicing at their ankles as he went.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The pirates whose Achilles tendons had been severed shrieked like beasts and went flying backward.
“R-retreat!”
“You fuckers! Don’t retreat—stab him! Just stab him, you idiots!”
“Aaaagh!”
Those trying to run and those trying to attack became hopelessly tangled together, and in an instant the battlefield descended into chaos. Above their heads, the Maehwageomgi unleashed by the Mount Hua disciples bloomed like clouds and began to pour down on them.
“Hup!”
Chung Myung kicked off the ground as if he were pushing himself off the floor and shot forward.
The pirates in front of him all went white as sheets and tried to scramble away, but there was no way they could escape through that maelstrom.
Tap, tap, tap!
Chung Myung stepped on a pirate’s knee, then his stomach, then his shoulder, using them as springboards to vault upward.
BOOM!
The final foot drove into a face, and the man he had stepped on collapsed without even being able to scream. Chung Myung twisted through the air and soared skyward.
“Taaap!”
The Black Plum Sword slashed through the air. Red plum blossoms gathered at its tip.
Blossoms far more vivid than any they had seen before burst forth like a dream and cascaded down upon the bandits’ heads.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!
The petals mercilessly carved through the bandits’ flesh. It was a brutal scene of blood and screams, yet it was also breathtakingly beautiful. The grotesque contradiction sent shivers down the spines of everyone watching.
“A-monster...”
“Where did a freak like that come from...?”
Thump.
After landing on the ground, Chung Myung rolled his neck from side to side.
“Looks like I’m finally getting warmed up.”
“......”
“Now then...”
Chung Myung’s lips twisted into a strange grin.
“Let’s keep going.”
And once again, he charged like a bolt of lightning.
“Oooooooh!”
The Mount Hua disciples, led by Hye Yeon, followed after him with a pack-of-demons ferocity.
Faaaat!
Their sword movements were light and lively, almost cheerful.
Even with the poison seeping into their bodies and numbing their fingertips, their blades did not waver for an instant.
Swish!
“Grrk...”
A pirate pierced through the chest coughed up bloody foam and collapsed on the spot. Baek Cheon withdrew his sword, flicked the blood from the blade, and straightened his back.
Up ahead, Chung Myung was surrounded by pirates.
No, “surrounded” was an odd way to put it. You wouldn’t say a tiger was surrounded just because rabbits had gathered around it.
“Who the hell taught you punks to swing those things like that!”
Chung Myung was even glaring wildly as he quite literally smashed the pirates to pieces.
Damn that bastard!
Baek Cheon bit down hard on his lip.
The scene had always been so natural that he had never truly felt its significance in his bones. But after leading the disciples without Chung Myung and fighting at the very front himself, he finally understood with painful clarity how incredible it really was.
The place where Chung Myung fought was always the place the enemy focused on most, the place where the pulse of the battlefield flowed. He always drew every gaze to the most dangerous point and absorbed the enemy’s attacks there. Simply by existing in that place, he cut in half the number of attacks that rained down on those behind him.
Perfect calculation? Instinct born of genius?
Baek Cheon couldn’t know. It wasn’t something he could easily guess at. The only thing he was certain of was that that bastard always chose the most dangerous place and fought there.
And once he realized that, his face burned with embarrassment all over again.
All talk and no substance.
That was the line he was always muttering at Chung Myung like a habit. But not now. The words echoing inside him now were directed at himself.
I...
“Where are you daydreaming? Focus!”
“......”
At the ghostlike voice drilling into his ears, Baek Cheon shook the useless thoughts from his head at once.
“Got it, you bastard!”
Grinding his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword and charged the pirates again.
“Chief!”
“Hmm.”
Jangpoheogeo’s eyes began to tremble ever so slightly.
What is that bastard?
The atmosphere of the battlefield had changed. It wasn’t merely the feeling of having gained strength because one more man had joined the fray.
If one were to liken it, the battlefield was like a living dragon. It was a place that changed and twisted in an instant. But from the moment that bastard appeared, the flow of the battlefield was being dragged one-sidedly in that direction.
And those guys’ movements have changed too.
No. Those Mount Hua disciples had never been weak in the first place.
Hadn’t they already demonstrated their skill by cutting through the black iron net specially crafted to subdue righteous experts who came attacking the river stronghold?
After all, the river stronghold was always exposed to surprise attacks.
Unlike bandits who could at least size up a target and decide whether or not to block the road, they had no idea who was on a boat until the vessel had actually come aboard.
That was why they sometimes ran into trouble with experts traveling the Yangtze River, and every such incident resulted in tremendous losses. The black iron net they had just used was precisely the kind of thing employed to subdue such experts.
How much money had gone into making that net?
But a black iron net was worth the huge investment. It was ten times heavier and sturdier than ordinary iron, to the point that even sword ghosts who handled blades like demons couldn’t cut through it easily. The cost of making it had already been recovered many times over by the lives of the experts who had been pierced and killed like skewered fish beneath it.
And yet those brats had cut through it. They weren’t even brats anymore, really. One had no choice but to admit they were strong.
But no matter how powerful one’s martial force was, experience was not something filled in so easily. The less experience one had, the more openings there would always be to strike. Wasn’t that proven by how, just a moment ago, the overwhelming victory on this side had seemed so obvious?
But the moment that damned bastard appeared, everything changed.
“This fucking...”
Jangpoheogeo ground his teeth.
The ravines of the Yangtze were truly terrifying places. Where the waterway narrowed, currents smashed against one another and formed whirlpools, tangling the flow into utter disorder. Unless a ship was enormous, no one would dare enter lightly.
Yes, just like a battlefield that flared up moment by moment.
And yet those who lived on the Yangtze sometimes witnessed something else: old boatmen who had spent their entire lives with the river slipping through those violent eddies and rapids in tiny skiffs that looked as if they would sink at any moment.
It couldn’t be grasped by logic. It was a realm of feeling, something only those who had watched the water all their lives could seize with their fingertips.
And now, in the middle of this battlefield, he could see those fingertips in the movements of that young bastard.
Does that even make sense?
A genius? What a joke. That wasn’t something that could be done by genius alone.
That was...
“Chief!”
Jangpoheogeo, lost in thought, only snapped back to his senses when he heard the voice calling him.
“Urgh...”
His face twisted, and he bit down hard on his lip. This was no time to be thinking leisurely about such things.
“What are you idiots doing? Deal with that bastard first! Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
Those waiting behind Jangpoheogeo, fully prepared and standing by, leaped at Chung Myung all at once.
“Oh?”
Noticing this, Chung Myung flicked his gaze sideways.
“Youuuuu bastard!”
A dark harpoon, carrying a surge of blue energy, flew toward him at terrifying speed.
It was an attack with enough force to pierce not just a human body, but even a boulder.
An attack that proved this place was not merely a gathering of ordinary pirates, but a river stronghold of the Yangtze Waterway Eighteen Strongholds, one of the Five Hegemons of the Jianghu that ruled the world.
Swaaaaaaash!
The sound of wind splitting rang out sharply. In that instant, Chung Myung’s eyes sank into darkness.
Faat!
Then the Black Plum Sword thrust out at lightning speed.
Snap!
It attached itself to the side of the harpoon flying in with terrifying force. At the same time, Chung Myung sprang backward and twisted his sword gently.
Thwooom!
In that moment, the harpoon’s trajectory shifted ever so slightly to the side. Empowered by inner force, it grazed Chung Myung’s waist by a hair’s breadth, slicing a long tear through the hem of his clothes.
A red line appeared along Chung Myung’s side, exposed through the ripped fabric. But the one who had thrown the harpoon could not possibly rejoice over it.
Because Chung Myung, who had already approached closer than the harpoon itself, was grinning at him like a demon.
Swish! Swish!
In an instant, his wrist was sliced open and blood sprayed out, and the muscles on the inside of his elbow were severed clean through.
“Kraaaagh!”
Unable to bear the agony, the pirate let out a ghastly scream and hurled himself backward desperately.
But unfortunately for him, the one he faced was not someone who would simply let a retreating enemy go.
Faaaat!
Chung Myung’s sword, pursuing the fleeing pirate, curled like a venomous snake. The pirate’s knee was cleanly severed.
“Ghk...”
The pirate, with his ligaments cut through, screamed and rolled across the ground.
“Huff... huff... ho...”
Step. Step.
As Chung Myung approached slowly with his sword lowered, despair flooded the pirate’s eyes.
The pirate’s eyes, slick with terror, and Chung Myung’s eyes, carrying not a single shred of emotion, met in midair.
“P-please... spare...”
Whoosh!
His plea was rendered meaningless. Chung Myung’s sword, without the slightest hesitation, severed the neck of the pirate who had sunk to his knees.
His body maintained the posture of life until the severed head flew through the air and rolled to the ground. Only then did the corpse suddenly gush out red blood and collapse sideways with a heavy thud.
Shhk!
Chung Myung flicked the blood from his blade and swept his gaze over the pirates surrounding him.
“That bastard...”
The moment the pirates seemed ready to say something, Chung Myung’s foot kicked off the ground again.
As if conversation had no place in battle, a grotesque smile curved at the corner of Chung Myung’s mouth. Then, from the sword that surged up in front of him, Maehwageomgi poured forth once more.