Nice to See You Again, You Bastard! (5)
A sheer cliff face showed nothing but bare rock, and in that bleak place, red plum blossoms bloomed like an illusion.
At the sight of that magnificent spectacle, the Maninbang fighters screamed like madmen and swung their blades wildly. But it was as futile as trying to block an oncoming wave with a knife.
Swish, swish, swish!
The Maehwageomgi that flew out carved into flesh dozens, even hundreds of times in that brief instant. Before half the cuts were even complete, the bodies had already lost the breath to keep standing, and only long after the Maehwageomgi had passed did they finally topple to the ground with dull thuds.
Crash!
Chung Myung, having driven off the ground with all his strength, charged straight at the brief opening left by the staggering Maninbang fighters.
It was a crushing stomp and terrifying speed.
Yet the only thing colder than North Sea ten-thousand-year ice was the look in Chung Myung’s eyes.
"Ghk!"
The sight of Chung Myung barreling forward through the scattering Maehwageomgi made a Maninbang fighter freeze for a split second in confusion.
And in that instant, the outcome was decided.
Chung Myung was not the kind to miss such a fleeting opening.
Whoosh!
His sword seemed to tear through the air as it came down, severing the Maninbang fighter’s head in a single stroke.
As the round head spun through the air, Chung Myung kicked the headless body away without hesitation.
"Tsk!"
The Maninbang fighters grit their teeth.
Normally, damaging a comrade’s corpse was unthinkable. If you could avoid it, you had to; if you couldn’t, then you endured the grief and dodged.
But that was the standard of the righteous sects. It was exactly what Chung Myung was counting on.
"Don’t look down on me, you punk!"
A Maninbang fighter slashed at the flying corpse. The corpse split clean in half, spraying blood as it was sent flying.
What the—
Thud!
But at that very moment, a plum blossom sword pierced the fighter’s neck.
"Ghk…."
The Maninbang fighter stared at Chung Myung with bloodshot eyes, unable to believe it.
The instant he had drawn his sword downward to cleave the corpse, Chung Myung, hidden behind it, had thrown himself into the empty space the moment the blade passed.
Blood dotted Chung Myung’s face, and the world before the dying fighter’s eyes began to blur at once. In the last clear glimpse he had, Chung Myung’s eyes held no emotion, no hesitation at all. The Maninbang fighter understood, then, exactly why he had to die.
Fwish!
Chung Myung yanked out the sword that had pierced the throat and bared his white teeth.
"You son of a—!"
Enraged by the sight, the Maninbang fighters roared and swung their blades at Chung Myung.
But—
Clang!
The incoming swords were blocked before they could even reach him, intercepted by swords that flashed in from the side.
"Yo—!"
Thoom!
Baek Cheon’s sword sent the Maninbang blades reeling back at once, scattering Maehwageomgi in an instant.
His face showed no excitement whatsoever.
Unlike the swift and dazzling sword in his hand, Baek Cheon’s expression had fallen utterly cold. He looked every bit the swordsman he was meant to be.
"Yu I-seol! Jo Gul!"
"Yes!"
"Take Chung Myung’s left side!"
"Yes!"
"Yoon Jong, stay on Chung Myung’s rear!"
"Yes!"
Having repelled the enemy with a burst of Maehwageomgi, Baek Cheon’s eyes swiftly tracked Chung Myung’s movement.
Crash!
Chung Myung stomped down and charged forward again. At that sight, the corners of Baek Cheon’s mouth rose slightly.
That wasn’t “I’m going alone.”
It was “I’ll go first, so don’t be late following me.”
Even while knowing enemy swords were flying at him, Chung Myung didn’t even glance aside. He trusted, of course, that Baek Cheon would block them there.
"No plan at all, but…."
Baek Cheon bared his teeth in a grin. Confidence rose in his handsome face.
His sword gleamed white under the sunlight.
"Don’t hold back! Our enemies are of the evil sects! Hesitate, and we die!"
"Yes!"
Following Baek Cheon’s warning, a thunderous reply rang out. The disciples of Mount Hua surged forward without hesitation.
Clang!
The first strike knocked aside a spear flying in.
Slash!
The sword that followed cleanly cut through an enemy’s throat.
"Grrrrk."
With a wet, bubbling sound, the Maninbang fighter collapsed like a rotten bundle of straw. But before the body even hit the ground, Chung Myung had already passed it by and was charging at the next enemy.
"Yo—! Damn it!"
Maninbang.
Was there anywhere in the world that had fought more battles than they had?
While other sects soaked themselves in peace and merely guarded their own territories, Maninbang had waged wars of mutual slaughter in chaotic Guangxi and expanded their domain through blood.
They might not have been the strongest in the world, but no one could deny that they were among the most battle-hardened.
The battle ghosts of Guangxi—that was another name for Maninbang.
But today, the Maninbang fighters saw it with their own eyes. They saw what a true battle ghost looked like.
Seeing Chung Myung charging at them with the face of someone who would lose his head and not even blink, they involuntarily hesitated.
Fear is not something one understands and then feels.
The body reacts before the mind can understand. A body that freezes slows the reaction, and that delay makes Chung Myung’s sword even faster.
Fwish!
After lopping off a Maninbang fighter’s head in one stroke, a grotesque smile spread across Chung Myung’s lips.
"Y-y—!"
"Swarm him!"
The Maninbang fighters wielding spears rushed toward Chung Myung in unison.
Chung Myung had charged forward without looking back, and by now the front, rear, left, and right of him were surrounded by Maninbang fighters. In battle, a vanguard cut off from the main force was as good as dead.
The Maninbang fighters, too, were embodiments of battle who had survived countless wars. They were not so naive as to miss that opening.
"Taaaat!"
Weapons came flying in from every direction. Swords, blades, and spears alike—different lengths of steel all tried to pierce Chung Myung’s body in that instant.
"What?"
In a flash, Chung Myung’s body disappeared from where he stood, as though it had sunk into the ground.
Clang-clang-clang!
There was no way to pull back weapons that had already come almost to the point of touching flesh. The weapons, packed with inner force, crashed head-on into one another and rebounded.
"Ghk!"
A powerful recoil slammed into their hands. The inner force that had rushed up through their weapons began to turn their own strength back against them.
And then—
Fwaaaang!
With a sound like a whip tearing the air apart, searing pain burst from their thighs. The agony spread like wildfire.
"Aaaaaaagh!"
"Argh! My leg! My leeeeeeg!"
Chung Myung, who had dropped prone to avoid the incoming weapons, twisted his body and sent out a circular blade of sword qi. The mistake had been that they couldn’t properly track Chung Myung’s body or the moment of his strike, hidden as it was by the multitude of weapons and the force wrapped around them.
The Maninbang fighters whose legs had been cut clean off collapsed where they stood, writhing and screaming. Keeping low, Chung Myung shot forward like a snake.
Slash! Slash!
His sword moved without pause, vaulting over the fallen like a venomous serpent. After neatly severing the throats of those who had fallen, Chung Myung abandoned them and charged onward.
"K-kill…!"
His movements were utterly practical—almost monstrous. He didn’t hesitate even the width of a hair when it came to ending a person’s life. That cruelty, to the point where he still cut down the throats of those who had lost their legs and could no longer fight, made even the Maninbang, of all people, flinch.
"That bastard has to die!"
At someone’s shout, the Maninbang fighters rallied their morale again. But Chung Myung was not about to let that stand.
Crash!
He kicked off the ground and flung himself through the air like a falcon.
Fwaaaang!
The Plum Blossom Sword Art required the right distance.
As a rule, there were two ways to create that distance: either step back yourself, or force the enemy to step back.
Before those who had hesitated and failed to charge straight in under Chung Myung’s murderous momentum, flowers of crimson blood bloomed.
"Aaaagh!"
"Kraaaagh!"
Maehwageomgi swallowed the Maninbang fighters at the front.
For those standing in the first rank, even screaming was a luxury. They died reduced to chunks of blood before they could even open their mouths.
At the edge of death, they must surely have understood one thing clearly.
They would have learned what it cost to create distance from a swordsman of Mount Hua.
Thud!
Tap!
At the same moment the breath left their bodies and they collapsed to the ground, Chung Myung planted his own foot on the earth.
His gaze, cold as he stared down the Maninbang fighters, slowly shifted to the side.
And then, in that instant, Chung Myung’s eyes and Jang Il-so’s eyes, watching from the opposite cliff as they trampled over blood and death, met in midair.
Man-geum Daebu shook his head with a look of disgust.
"…That’s not a human being."
"Why the hell is something like that over there?"
"What a vicious bastard."
Cheonmyeon Susa and Heukryongwang could not tear their eyes from Chung Myung either.
Strong?
That much was, in truth, beside the point. There were plenty of strong people in the world.
But that kind of ferocity was something even they, who had survived countless battlefields, had never seen.
"…That one absolutely must be killed."
The moment those words left Man-geum Daebu’s mouth, Jang Il-so stuck out his tongue and slowly licked his lips. The tongue sliding across those red lips looked exactly like a snake.
"What are you doing?"
"Yes?"
"Light it."
Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Chung Myung, but Jang Il-so was the exception.
"Don’t get distracted by the clown show. As if he could come all the way here. Blow the cliff apart and bury the bastards below first!"
"Yes!"
The men who had come carrying torches brought fire to the fuse that had already been laid in place.
Whoosh!
Oiled cloth burst into flame in an instant, and a dozen lines of fire began racing down the cliff like red serpents.
And then—
Taaaat!
Chung Myung kicked off the ground and launched himself into the air.
The Maninbang fighters flinched in alarm, but the direction Chung Myung flew was not toward them.
"What?"
The stunned Maninbang fighters gaped with their mouths hanging open.
Chung Myung had suddenly hurled himself down beneath the cliff.
"What is he doing?"
The men nearest the cliff edge hurriedly looked down the sheer drop.
And then they saw it.
Tap! Tap-tat-tat-tat!
Chung Myung was running swiftly along the side of the sheer cliff, a face of bare stone with not a single foothold in sight.
Staggered disbelief rippled through every set of widened eyes.
"Th… that…."
Tap-tat-tat!
Chung Myung sprinted in a straight line toward the burning fuse ahead. It looked almost as though he were running on level ground.
In one hand, the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword.
At the corner of his mouth, a faintly bloody smile.
It was a sight neither the Maninbang nor any of the martial artists present would ever forget for the rest of their lives.
"Stop him! You filthy worms! What are you all standing there gawking at?"
That was when Jang Il-so’s voice exploded for the first time in a great roar. The startled Maninbang fighters gritted their teeth and hurled themselves down the cliff.
And the shout that jolted the Maninbang awake did not awaken only the Maninbang.
"Jump up there! Now! We have to put out that fire!"
"Yes!"
Shaolin and Wudang, who had briefly lost themselves in the fierce battle above the cliff, rushed to the edge and began scrambling up.
"Damn it! Don’t fall behind! The only way to live is up there!"
Following them, Namgung and Qingcheng also began climbing the cliff with everything they had.
An inferno of chaos.
Between those who sought to kill and those who sought to survive, a desperate clash between orthodoxy and evil began anew at the mouth of the mighty Yangtze River after a hundred years.