Put Your Neck on the Line, You Bastard! (2)
It was an overwhelming sight.
As dozens of cauldrons larger than a man all tipped at once, the boiling oil seemed, for an instant, like a waterfall crashing down from above.
But what was pouring over their heads now was not cool water. It was scalding oil, hot enough to melt flesh on contact and blind a man where he stood.
A rough shout burst from Heo Dojin-in’s mouth.
“Stop it! Protect the disciples!”
No one hesitated.
With Heo Dojin-in at the forefront, the Mount Hua elders moving in step with the disciples climbing the cliff kicked themselves up in an instant, vaulting straight toward the top. Even faster, Shaolin’s elders shot upward ahead of them.
They had sensed at once that if that oil came crashing down on the disciples below, the casualties would be catastrophic.
“Ooooooooh!”
What flew first was Shaolin’s power.
Gold streaked across the cliff face. Dozens of threads of force erupted in an instant, driving back the incoming oil.
Fwoosh!
Clumps of oil that had been falling together were struck by the force and burst apart, spraying in all directions.
“Tch!”
It could be broken apart.
It could be split.
But water and oil were not things a person could completely stop.
The oil splashed everywhere, breaking into droplets that rained down again like a second storm.
“Don’t stop! Smash it! Knock it outward!”
Beop Gye shouted at the top of his lungs.
The veins bulging up his neck and across his face made plain just how desperate he was. Golden force surged out again and again.
It was an incredible sight, no doubt, but no matter how formidable the force, it could not stop every drop of rain falling from the sky.
What stood between Beop Gye, Shaolin’s elders, and the oil droplets slipping past them to fall below were none other than Mount Hua’s elders.
“Spread it out!”
At Heo Dojin-in’s shout, the elders’ swords stabbed into the air tens, then hundreds of times. In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen sword shadows appeared, and then over a hundred more rose on top of them.
As the shadows of sword and sword overlapped in tight succession, they swelled larger and larger.
Sword Veil.
The Sword Veil spread by Mount Hua’s elders covered the Mount Hua and Shaolin disciples like a vast roof.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
With the sound of a heavy downpour striking a tent, the droplets of oil hit the Sword Veil and bounced away.
It was a sight like a person standing beneath falling rain and holding it back with their own body. It also proved just how high Shaolin and Mount Hua had climbed in their respective arts.
“Oh?”
Jang Il-so’s eyes gleamed with amusement.
“So it’s true what they say. Shaolin is Shaolin, and Mount Hua is Mount Hua.”
A triumphant smile curved at his lips.
“But… how long can you keep it up?”
Jang Il-so flicked his fingers again. Empty cauldrons were hauled backward, and new ones were brought forward.
“Pour it.”
Once again, cauldrons that looked bigger than people tipped at once, and fresh oil began gushing out in torrents.
Heo Dojin-in’s eyes twisted in horror.
Just how many times are they going to do this…?
If they dumped it all at once, they could force through the problem in one go. But if oil kept pouring down in waves like this, the drain on their internal energy would become impossible to bear.
No matter how skilled Shaolin’s elders were, they could not continuously unleash force of that magnitude, and no matter how skilled Mount Hua’s elders were, they could not maintain a Sword Veil like this forever.
Feeling his own internal energy being sliced away in an instant, Heo Dojin-in gritted his teeth.
What in the world is this?
They still hadn’t even crossed hands with the Maninbang forces or the ones occupying the cliff top.
They were martial artists, weren’t they?
People of the Jianghu who had trained in martial arts?
And yet they were using explosives to blow apart a cliff in a war between Jianghu factions, then pouring boiling oil on those climbing it?
This was nothing like the war they had imagined.
“Pour again!”
At Jang Il-so’s command, the cauldrons kept appearing in sequence.
Shwaaaaaa!
The oil splashed endlessly against the Sword Veil and flew apart. Then, carried by the wind, it scattered and sank into the backs of the Mount Hua disciples climbing the cliff.
“Aaaaagh!”
“Moobu! Are you all right?”
“Kkgh… my, my back…”
White steam rose from the backs struck by oil. The foul smell of flesh burning crawled into their noses. Everyone watching felt a chill run down their spines.
But while clinging to the cliff, even simple first aid was impossible.
“Damn it!”
The Mount Hua disciples, driven by sheer fury, forced themselves upward with all their strength. There was no advantage in stalling; all it did was pile on losses.
And then it happened.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. So impatient.”
Jang Il-so clicked his tongue with an exaggerated look of pity, then laughed. His white hand waved, giving yet another order.
“When people are scared, they stop seeing things that are right in front of them. That’s why experience matters.”
That was when it happened.
Creaaak.
At the dreadful sound that scraped into his ears, Heo Dojin-in jerked and looked down.
What?
Then Heo Dojin-in saw it.
“N-no!”
Black Dragon Clan had suffered tremendous losses from the falling rocks. But that didn’t mean every bandit had died.
The surviving remnants of the Black Dragon Clan were down below, drawing their bows toward the cliff.
Pa-aaang!
As the taut bowstrings were released, dark, murky arrows shot up in a volley and flew toward the cliff face.
“Arrows coming in!”
“Block them!”
Mount Hua disciples desperately swung their swords to bat them aside, while Shaolin monks sent out their qi to push them back.
But clinging to the cliff, they could not stop all of them.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Gghhh!”
One Shaolin monk struck in the back by an arrow began to fall.
“Gaksu!”
The people beside him hurriedly reached out and grabbed the falling monk. But in doing so, they had to accept arrows lodging themselves in their own arms.
Crack!
“Tch!”
The monk who had caught his comrade, with an arrow driven clear to the bone through his arm, twisted his face in agony.
“Dammit, Qingcheng…”
Heo Dojin-in clenched his teeth.
If they had climbed the cliff first, the sects behind them should have been able to clear out the remaining remnants below. That was only natural.
But how could anyone demand that? Everyone knew the bottom of that cliff was a death trap. While exterminating Black Dragon Clan forces down below, if the cliff collapsed on them, they would be buried without a chance to escape.
So Qingcheng had no choice but to climb, too.
Risking your own life to save another was never as easy as it sounded.
The reason righteous conduct was praised was precisely because so few people actually practiced it. It meant you should praise the one who carried it out—not condemn those who failed to live up to it.
Jang Il-so!
And really, where had all those arrows come from?
From the start, it was obvious Jang Il-so had already imagined this exact scene.
Worse still, the oil that the Sword Veil failed to stop began to stream down the cliff. It had cooled while running along the rock, so it wouldn’t burn their hands anymore, but that wasn’t the issue. The problem was that the already sheer cliff was turning slick as ice.
Even now, arrows carrying fierce qi kept flying in from behind them with relentless weight.
And while blocking those, they also had to remove the explosives so the cliff wouldn’t be blown apart.
There was no separate hell after this. This was hell.
Explosives set to collapse the cliff.
Boiling oil dumped from above.
Arrows flying up from below.
Individually, none of them might have been that great a threat. But used in the most perfect way, at the most perfect moment, they became a trap from which no one could escape.
“Jang Il-soooooo!”
A scream burst from Heo Dojin-in’s mouth.
“My, my.”
Jang Il-so laughed until tears almost came to his eyes, then looked down at Heo Dojin-in with a faint smile.
“Good heavens, the Mount Hua Sect Master is so crude! A sect leader should have some weight to him, should he not?”
“That depends on the situation. If I were in his shoes, I’d be cursing nonstop too,” Cheonmyeon Susa said admiringly, clicking his tongue.
Warfare was, above all, about position.
How good a position you seized, and how appropriately you could use the strategy from that position—that was what mattered most. Clever schemes that overturned common sense and left their mark on history were the sort of thing used in small wars. Real war depended on how perfectly you could execute what was already known.
And that textbook was right here before them.
Who in the world would have imagined Shaolin and Mount Hua being toyed with by arrows, oil, and explosives?
And within that monstrous scheme, even Cheonmyeon Susa, Man-geum Daebu, and Heukryongwang were nothing more than pieces on a board.
At least here, Jang Il-so—the Tyrant Lord—was gripping the world in his own hands and shaking it however he pleased.
And yet… it’s strange that I don’t feel that bad about it.
The Sapa clans were people who hated, almost pathologically, being manipulated by others. Man-geum Daebu and Heukryongwang must clearly know they were being played by Jang Il-so’s design.
And yet there was no hostility or displeasure on their faces.
Maybe… Saperyeon really won’t just be empty words.
At this moment, Jang Il-so was proving to everyone that he had the right to stand as alliance leader of Saperyeon.
And the only one outside Jang Il-so’s palm was one person.
“No! Hey, you bald monk bastard!”
Crack, crack, crack!
Chung Myung yelled, cutting three fuses in a single breath.
“Deal with the damn ones below already! Or what, do you have some grudge against Shaolin too?”
“Amitabha!”
As if answering that shout, a burst of force swept over the Black Dragon Clan bandits firing arrows from below. They were blown away like dead leaves.
“Hye Yeon!”
Beop Gye’s shout rang out.
While everyone else was climbing the cliff in order to save their own lives, one person stood steadfastly below.
Beop Gye’s distorted eyes fixed on Hye Yeon. His disciple’s gentle expression burned into his vision.
“Amitabha. Please go up, Elder. I’ll handle below….”
“Ah, if you’ve got time to babble, fight, you idiot!”
“Ah! That damn— Ah, Amitabha! Amitabha!”
For an instant, Hye Yeon’s face twisted in offense, then he panicked and started chanting the Buddha’s name over and over. And, as if he had never in his life said anything even remotely violent, he rushed the bandits below.
The bandits, unable to fight properly with bows in their hands, were swept away like autumn leaves.
That’s it!
Light returned to Heo Dojin-in’s eyes.
Of course, there were far too many bandits below for one person to clean them up in an instant.
But simply drawing their attention was enough. The intensity of the arrows flying toward the cliff had clearly dropped, hadn’t it?
Just a little more…
“Damn it! I’m about to lose my mind! What are you all standing around watching for?”
At that moment, Chung Myung, clinging to the cliff, shouted fiercely.
“Run up first and leave the disciples behind for now! Shaolin, Mount Hua, Namgung—it doesn’t matter! You bunch of worthless bastards!”
“You son of a bitch!”
The first to respond to that was none other than Namgung Hwang.
“Fine! I’m going!”
He kicked off the cliff and shot upward in one burst. Vaulting over the Mount Hua disciples, Namgung Hwang kicked off again beside Heo Dojin-in and ascended like a dragon soaring into the sky.
“Tch!”
Heo Dojin-in clenched his teeth.
Chung Myung was right. If they just kept standing here blocking, they would only drain their strength and die. They had to seize the top of that cliff even if they had to accept losses to do it.
“Those who can follow, come with me! Move!”
“Yes!”
Several of the elders recalled their Sword Veils and moved in behind Heo Dojin-in.
“Ooooooh!”
Heo Dojin-in, letting out a battle cry utterly unlike himself, kicked off the cliff. He shot upward, then higher still.
“You should’ve done that sooner, you morons!”
Whoosh!
Chung Myung ran along the cliff. His gaze was fixed on Saperyeon, and on the place where Jang Il-so stood.
“Present your neck, you bastard!”
Chung Myung’s thunderous voice rolled over the cliff and spread all the way to the heavens.