Put Your Neck on the Line, You Bastard! (3)
From the heavens came a rain of oil, and from the ground black arrows surged up without end.
The power unleashed by Shaolin’s monks roared back and forth across the cliff like a golden dragon, while the sword screen drawn by Wudang’s disciples spread pale white over the cliff face.
This is... what the hell is this?
Baek Cheon’s eyes trembled.
This was a battle, so he ought to have kept a calm mind, but anyone who saw this scene with their own eyes would never be able to blame him.
Not only Baek Cheon and the disciples of Mount Hua, but even the warriors of Maninbang opposing them could not tear their eyes away.
It was a sight that made the word overwhelming feel inadequate.
Power and stratagem.
Righteousness and evil.
Everything that made up a battlefield in the Jianghu slammed together in violent collision. As Jang Il-so had said, there was neither morality nor chivalry here.
There was only the monstrous intent to kill the opponent by any means necessary. And the fierce will to survive, no matter the cost.
The stink of boiling oil, the stench of blood and gunpowder that stabbed at the nose, and some heavy, foul odor that defied description all mixed together to churn the head into a mess.
This is a battlefield...!
It felt as if something sticky and heavy had latched itself inside his body. Breathing grew difficult, and his mind stayed dazed, as though veiled in fog.
Baek Cheon had followed Chung Myung through many battlefields by now. His martial skill might still be lacking, but his experience was by no means shallow.
And yet this was different from any battlefield he had ever seen.
The scale of the colliding forces was different, and the will driving that collision was different. Above all, the malice poured onto one another existed on an entirely different level.
“Climb up! Keep climbing!”
With bloodshot eyes, Shaolin’s disciples and Wudang’s disciples gritted their teeth and scrambled up the cliff. Even as boiling oil touched their skin and seared through it, they clenched their jaws and forced themselves upward.
And the evil sect bastards watching them only increased the pace at which they poured the oil.
No, it was no longer just oil.
As the righteous sects kept pushing upward, the men of the demonic side, driven into panic, began hurling boulders on their own without waiting for orders and even infused their inner energy into piles of stones that had been hauled up.
BOOM!
A stone that had not yet been fully dispersed by the sword screen struck the forehead of a monk climbing the cliff.
His head split open, blood streaming down in a line. The monk swayed once, then gritted his teeth and glared upward.
“You... monsters!”
Their faces were less like human beings than demonic fiends. He seized a jutting rock on the cliff and hauled himself upward again. All gentleness and mercy had vanished from his face. Only malice remained, overflowing toward the enemy.
This is a real battlefield!
When a person’s life hangs by a thread, their true nature inevitably comes out.
Then this battlefield was precisely the place where human nature was laid bare. Here, there was no trace of the righteousness or chivalry they had shouted about so loudly.
No, no!
Not yet. This could not yet be called a true warrior’s battlefield.
“Sasuk!”
“Right.”
Yoon Jong, too, seemed to feel the same thing and shouted out with an excited voice.
Hadn’t they seen this many times already? This was only the beginning. The moment when the warrior’s battlefield truly began was...
“They’re moving!”
At Jo Gul’s shout, Namgung Hwang and Heo Do-jin-in began climbing the cliff at dazzling speed. A moment later, Beop Gye also led Shaolin’s elders and leaped upward like a dragon ascending to the sky.
Baek Cheon raised his gaze toward the far heights and searched quickly with his eyes for one person.
“Hold your damn neck out, you bastard!”
Along with that thunderous voice, Chung Myung streaked across the cliff like a venomous snake gone mad. At last, he was moving in earnest.
There it is!
Baek Cheon clenched his teeth.
Up until now, this had been closer to a soldier’s war than a martial artist’s battlefield. But this was the decisive factor that separated the fight of warriors from that of soldiers.
Absolute masters.
Those existence who could overturn a battlefield with a single sword strike, who could change the terrain with a single punch.
The direction of the entire battlefield was decided by their movements.
Chung Myung!
He caught sight of Chung Myung racing along the cliff and the Maninbang martial artists leaping down toward him to kill him.
The moment Baek Cheon saw it, his mouth moved before his brain did.
“Sasuk! Sasukjo!”
“Got it!”
“We’ll take this side!”
As soon as Un Geom and Hyun Sang answered, Baek Cheon swung his sword hard at the nearest Maninbang warrior and roared.
“Yu I-seol! Yoon Jong! Jo Gul!”
“Yes.”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
“Ready.”
“M-me too!”
At Dang Soso’s frantic cry, Baek Cheon answered without hesitation.
“Soso, support the main force! Don’t let a single person die!”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go! We protect Chung Myung!”
“Yes!”
Without the slightest hesitation, Baek Cheon and the four others threw themselves down the cliff.
Baek Cheon leaped more than ten jang downward in one bound and set the tip of his foot against the cliff.
Hissssss!
For the instant his speed dropped just a little—
Tap!
Baek Cheon kicked off the cliff and burst forward at breathtaking speed.
“Go, Sahyeong!”
“You bastards, this is Mount Hua!”
At the sight of the Five Swords racing in perfect formation along the cliff, loud cheers erupted one after another from Mount Hua’s ranks.
If one looked only at lightfoot technique, there were surely many who surpassed them. But on a cliff, the story was different. What sect in the world would naturally master the art of moving on sheer rock faces?
“A cliff like this is nothing compared to Mount Hua!”
Baek Cheon soon raced across the slick cliff as though it were flat ground, chasing after Chung Myung.
He saw a Maninbang warrior dropping toward Chung Myung, who was occupied with another opponent. It was too late for him to rush over and block it himself.
But there was no need to worry. There was one person here whose lightfoot technique could not even begin to compare with his.
“Samae!”
“Yes.”
At that moment, Yu I-seol, running behind Baek Cheon, kicked off the cliff face and rose. Baek Cheon maintained his running speed and thrust his sword straight forward.
Yu I-seol, twisting her body midair, landed on Baek Cheon’s sword. The instant her foot touched the blade, Baek Cheon swung at once, flinging her body forward like an arrow.
Shaaack!
Yu I-seol’s rushing figure was like a swift bird flying along the cliff.
“Dieeee!”
Meanwhile, the Maninbang warriors who had nearly reached above Chung Myung’s head swung their blades with all their strength. Their resolve was to attack Chung Myung no matter what, even if it meant falling together with him.
But Chung Myung didn’t even look up at them, let alone give them a glance. He only kept charging ahead.
“You bastard!”
At the very moment they felt humiliated and poured more inner energy into their blades—
Flash!
Yu I-seol flew in at once, unfolding her sword and spinning. The crimson sword qi bursting from the tip of her blade swept over the Maninbang warriors who had been aiming for Chung Myung all at once.
“Huh?”
Caught off guard by the sudden sword qi, the Maninbang warriors reeled back in alarm. One of them barely managed to raise his blade in time to block the incoming strike, but Chung Myung had already passed them and was racing onward.
“That bitch!”
One Maninbang warrior bared bloodshot eyes and swung at Yu I-seol, but after kicking off the cliff twice, she shot upward over their heads in an instant and raced onward again.
“W-what?”
The Maninbang warriors widened their eyes.
On a cliff like this?
To kick off the ground and vault over a person’s head wasn’t that impressive. Moving at a speed so fast it was almost invisible was certainly worthy of acknowledgment, but in truth it would be harder to find someone here who could not display that level of skill.
But this was a cliff, wasn’t it?
Crack! Crack-crack-crack!
Failing to achieve anything as they fell downward, they hurriedly drove their blades into the cliff face. They somehow managed to steady themselves, but by then Chung Myung and Yu I-seol had already shaken them off and pulled far away.
“Chas—”
“Where the hell do you think you’re chasing, you damned bastards!”
At that moment, Yoon Jong and Jo Gul came racing along the cliff behind them and charged in with terrifying momentum.
The Maninbang warriors’ eyes flew wide open.
N-no...
Slash!
There was no way they could properly respond to an attack from behind when they had only just driven their blades into the cliff to keep themselves upright. Those in front were pierced instantly, spraying blood as they toppled to the ground, while those in the rear gave up resistance and flung themselves downward instead.
Yoon Jong and Jo Gul finished off more than a dozen Maninbang warriors in the blink of an eye, then shouted toward Baek Cheon, who had already surged ahead.
“We’ll pursue right behind you!”
“Understood!”
Baek Cheon gritted his teeth and ran on. His eyes caught sight of Chung Myung racing along the cliff and Yu I-seol running above him as though escorting him.
“Don’t let that bastard Chung Myung stop moving!”
In response to his shout, power that had surged up from below continued flying toward the area above Chung Myung’s head.
Hye Yeon was also perfectly supporting their movements.
“Th-tha...”
The disciples of the Nine Sects, gritting their teeth as they climbed the cliff, could not hide their shock at the sight.
They had heard of the fame of Mount Hua’s Five Swords. But they had only thought of them as little more than second- and third-generation disciples.
It was already absurd enough that such people were running along a cliff as if it were flat ground and leaping lightly over protruding rocks like flying squirrels, but now they were even performing such feats on the cliff face?
Was that possible unless one had ten lives?
Jin Hyeon gritted his teeth.
Damn it, the Righteous Sword of Mount Hua...!
When he first met him at the Hall of the Main Way, the gap between him and Baek Cheon had not been this large.
But the sight Baek Cheon was now showing was beyond anything he could even dream of imitating. Right now he himself was barely crawling up the cliff, while Baek Cheon was practically flying like a bird of prey, wasn’t he?
Just what caused the gap to widen this much?
Blood vessels stood out in his eyes.
But the anger he felt was nothing compared with what Namgung Do-wi was feeling.
“You...”
Namgung Do-wi, staring at Chung Myung from below, felt the blood in his whole body rush upward. His lips, clamped shut, had split and started bleeding without him even noticing.
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon!”
Chung Myung was truly weaving across the cliff like a divine dragon. And yet he, despite bearing the nickname of Single Blade Sword, was not cutting through the mountain but clinging to the cliff and straining helplessly, wasn’t he?
“Aaaagh!”
Namgung Do-wi let out a violent, near-frenzied roar and hauled himself up the cliff with savage movements.
“Do-wi, calm down!”
“It’s dangerous!”
The elders of the family shouted in a hurry, but Namgung Do-wi almost wanted to shout back even louder.
Dangerous?
Were they saying the others were not in danger?
How could he sit quietly and care only about his own safety when younger martial artists from a sect far smaller than Namgung were dominating this battlefield?
“Changgung-geomdae, follow me! We’re going to cover the Family Head!”
“Yes!”
The young warriors of Namgung answered with voices packed tight with fighting spirit. They did not say it aloud, but their eyes were burning with the same resolve. They were clearly thinking the same thing as Namgung Do-wi.
“We will never lose to Mount Hua! Prepare for danger and increase your speed!”
As the warriors of Namgung increased their climbing speed, Wudang and Namgung began to tangle together in the same space.
And then, at that moment—
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
“Oooooooooh!”
Namgung Hwang kicked off the cliff and soared upward like a dragon.
These young brats!
He could see Mount Hua’s performance with his own eyes.
Those not even half his age were throwing their lives on the line and fighting like that. As the head of a sect, how could he speak of safety?
“Jang Il-sooooo!”
Just as Namgung Hwang swatted away a massive lump of oil raining down from above with a single sword strike and was about to surge up over the cliff at last—
“So the youngster’s got some spirit, did he?”
The cliff that seemed to touch the sky was suddenly swallowed by a black shadow.
As though a black sun had risen.
Heh, Black Dragon...
“Take this!”
Heukryongwang’s crescent blade swung in one sweeping motion. Pitch-black blade aura poured down like a waterfall.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Heukryongwang’s blade aura, tearing through the cliff like the spear of a celestial god, shot straight at Namgung Hwang.