Our Kids Are a Little Rough Around the Edges (2)
"Don't get excited!"
Hyun Jong's voice rang out like a bell.
He was not a man who often raised his voice, but there was a terrifying force in it now, unlike anything he normally carried.
"Don't rush! Don't let hatred steal your reason! You are disciples of Mount Hua! Trust your brothers and hold your ground!"
"Yes, Sect Leader!"
Hyun Jong bit down hard on his lip. His eyes chased after Chung Myung and the others on the far side of the cliff.
Those little brats...!
Paegun Jang Il-so.
His disciples were fighting with their lives on the line against that monstrous man.
He had known, of course, that his disciples had faced formidable enemies before, but this was the first time he had ever watched them locked in such a desperate battle, all of them together, right before his eyes.
It felt as though a sharp blade were scraping his insides open.
Only now did he truly understand what it meant to say that your blood ran dry. Every shred of Hyun Jong's mind was fixed not here, but on the other side of that cliff.
And yet…
"Un Geom!"
The moment he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye, Hyun Jong roared like thunder.
Un Geom, who had been about to charge forward, flinched and stopped short.
"Fall back!"
"…"
"What, do you want to end up dead because you tried to help them, you fool?"
Un Geom clenched his jaw. His shoulders were trembling faintly.
In the end, though, he stayed where he was. For him, disobeying the Sect Leader's order was never even an option.
Hyun Jong understood that feeling all too well.
Not just Un Geom, but the other disciples, too, would surely have wanted to cut down every single Maninbang thug blocking their way and rush to aid the Five Swords.
But they could not.
Mount Hua's strength was still not enough to overcome Maninbang. If they forced their way through here, they would have to be prepared for total annihilation. Even just holding these people in place was asking Mount Hua's disciples to exceed their limits.
What was fortunate, and at the same time puzzling, was that Maninbang was not pressing its attack all that aggressively either.
Well, I suppose that makes sense.
They had no reason to be in a hurry. The ones coming up from below had been blocked by a clash between absolute masters, and they could not possibly imagine Jang Il-so losing.
Grit.
In the end, blood welled from Hyun Jong's bitten lip.
He wanted to shout too. To say that they should risk their lives and break through this place to help those children.
But he could not do that either.
He was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua. He could never sacrifice other children for the sake of those ones.
The one he had to protect was not the most talented disciple of Mount Hua, but the weakest.
So then!
Hyun Jong tightened his grip on his sword.
Trusting them and holding these Maninbang bastards back was the job he had to do now.
Don't make me regret this decision for the rest of my life. Please.
It was a desperate wish, one that could never be delivered to them.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Ka-r-r-r-rum!
The cliff shook as if it might collapse.
Mu Jin shouted at the top of his lungs while batting away fragments of rock and chunks of debris raining down over their heads.
"Go around! Watch above you! Move, now!"
His face twisted little by little into something ghastly.
Damn it!
Up above, a battle of truly earth-shattering scale was raging.
Each and every exchange was tearing the cliff apart and shaking the heavens. No matter how skilled the disciples of Wudang were, trying to force their way through that storm was like dousing themselves in oil and leaping into fire.
But that did not mean they could simply cling to the cliff forever.
Shaolin, Wudang, Namgung, and Qingcheng below all began to make a wide detour, avoiding the clash unfolding overhead.
"Stick close!"
"Aaaaaaah!"
At that moment, a sword aura the size of a house came flying down from above.
Mu Jin's eyes flew wide as he saw it rushing toward him, and then a figure in green flashed into view, whipping out a sword.
Kwaang!
"Sect Leader!"
It was Byeok Hyeon.
As soon as he deflected the sword aura, he shouted, "Elders, protect the disciples! We have to get onto the cliff above!"
"Yes!"
There was no hesitation from anyone.
Those with the ability to move on the cliff, especially those with high martial cultivation, blocked the rain of energy fragments falling from above and knocked aside the boulders rolling down at them.
Up. Somehow, if we can just get up there...
That was when it happened.
K-WA-AAAAAAANG!
With a thunderous roar that seemed to overturn the sky itself, one side of the cliff face could not withstand the impact and tore away. A massive chunk of rock, as large as a grand hall, began to slide downward as though falling in slow motion, accompanied by a deep, grinding rumble.
"Block iiiiit!"
Along with a shout from somewhere, one man shot upward.
"Elder Heo Guang!"
White and black sword qi intertwined around a single blade at the same time. What he drew was a clean, elegant circle.
"Haaaaaah!"
The ultimate move of the Taiji Wisdom Sword struck the falling boulder. At the same time, the power unleashed by the Shaolin elders shattered it again and again into smaller and smaller pieces.
"Spread out!"
Slash, and strike again. A series of attacks that should properly have been called a disaster crashed down one after another, yet the unity of trained men overcame even that catastrophe.
But not everyone managed to endure.
"Sa-sajah!"
Those who ran out of strength slipped, and those struck by rocks broken down to the size of human heads screamed as they plunged.
"Ugh!"
Mu Jin bit down hard on his lip.
"Climb! All you have to do is get onto the cliff! Don't look back, just climb!"
"Senior Brother! But Junior Brother is—"
"I said climb, damn it!"
"…"
Blood tears streamed from Mu Jin's eyes.
Those damn Sapa bastards.
It was not a thought a disciple of the Dao should ever have. And yet murderous intent, foreign and intense, was pouring out of him in endless waves.
"I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you!"
After screaming the words, he gritted his teeth once more and crawled up the cliff.
The blade streaked past his throat.
Fwaaaat!
Only after the sword had already gone by did the sound catch up.
An insanely fast sword strike, beyond anything that needed further praise. But the true terror of this sword was not merely its speed.
Heo Do-jin-in, having flung his sword out in a wide arc, sprang backward.
His skin tingled.
Even though he had clearly dodged, a sharp pain flared around his throat.
Invisible force...
An unseen qi that the eye could not follow seeped out each time the sword was drawn and bound his body in its coils.
He had definitely heard of it before.
The legendary evil sword art that killed a man before he even realized how he was dying. The name of that infamous devilish technique, said to leave its victims looking as though they had been slain by the hand of death itself.
"...Is that the Ghost King Twelve Flows?"
"Hm. So you do recognize it."
Man-geum Daebu nodded with an expressionless face.
"It's not exactly enough to face the famous Sect Leader of Wudang, but I have made it my signature art all the same. And more than anything..."
Faaat!
Man-geum Daebu's sword shot toward Heo Do-jin-in's chest as though it meant to pierce straight through him. Heo Do-jin-in twisted his body hastily, and the black sword aura that skimmed past him bored deeply into the cliff face behind.
"…"
Just how far had it gone in?
"It's a rather efficient sword art, so I like to use it. I don't care much for wasting internal energy, you see."
Heo Do-jin-in's eyes twitched ever so slightly.
Indeed, that sword was difficult to deal with.
"What's the matter?"
"…"
"I don't mind dragging this out. But you, on the other hand, are different, aren't you? The longer this goes on, the more those adorable disciples of yours will get hurt. That's all right with you?"
Heo Do-jin-in bit his lip.
Defeat?
That was not even a thought in his head. He was the Sect Leader of Wudang. He would rather bite off his own tongue and die than be killed by a vile Sapa fiend.
But that was not the real problem.
His gaze turned downward.
The disciples of the Nine Sects and the Five Great Families were climbing the cliff with every ounce of strength they had, their teeth clenched. Rocks rolled down over their heads, and every time a wave of force came flying at them, they threw themselves against it with all their might to hold it back.
They clung to the cliff in such a perilous state that it was painful to look at.
"…"
Their faces were so tragic that he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open.
They were drenched in oil, struck by arrows, bleeding, and groaning from the internal energy they had exhausted. Far below, where the cliff could barely even be seen, the disciples who had fallen were writhing in agony.
When did it all become like this?
Something had gone terribly wrong.
They had climbed the cliff. Yes, that had been the only path Heo Do-jin-in could see then. He had thought it was the only way to survive.
But was that really true?
Survive?
The enemy still had all of its strength preserved atop the cliff. At worst, they had simply hauled oil pots and loosed arrows.
Maninbang, Hao Sect, Black Ghost Fort. And the water bandits, who were surely landing and making their way here even now.
On the other hand, even if the disciples of the righteous sects somehow made it up the cliff, they would have to fight the evildoers of Saperyeon after already exhausting themselves in brutal combat.
Why did it end up like this?
Even when they entered this gorge, he could never have imagined a scene like this. What had he done so wrong that so many precious lives had to be lost so pointlessly?
Lost for what?
"You're thinking too much."
"…"
Heo Do-jin-in's grip tightened until it seemed his sword might snap in half.
A little farther away, Namgung Hwang and Heukryongwang were locked in fierce combat. Heukryongwang was terrifying enough, hurling massive saber energy without pause, but Namgung Hwang, who did not yield even a single step to him, was just as incredible.
And yet.
Kwa-r-r-r-r-rung!
"Aaaagh!"
Every time they swung sword and saber in a frenzy, the cliff broke apart and sword qi and saber qi filled the air.
"Th-this..."
And the ones who suffered for it were the disciples of Wudang and Shaolin in the lead.
He knew it. He knew there was no helping it. If they held back their strength for the sake of the people below and then lost, Heukryongwang would sweep down on everyone clinging to the cliff in an instant.
Then everything would be over.
And yet, even knowing that, resentment rose in his heart, because the thought had taken root in some corner of his mind that if the ones climbing at the front were Namgung instead of Wudang, would the same thing have happened? And that, too, was proof of just how anxious Heo Do-jin-in had become.
Beop Gye was no help either.
There was no reason the title of Shaolin elder should lose to the sect leaders of other schools, but that Cheonmyeon Susa was no lesser opponent for it. No—against Sapa's First Hand, the burden on Beop Gye's shoulders was far too heavy.
Then what are we supposed to do?
Grrrind.
Heo Do-jin-in ground his teeth. Bloodshot veins rose sharply in his eyes.
Jang Il-so.
That was the only name that came to mind.
Woooooong.
Suddenly, Heo Do-jin-in's face turned as cold as ice. As though he had made up his mind, white and black sword qi began flowing from his blade like water.
Lines of sword energy, like strokes brushed across a canvas with a thick ink brush, wrapped around Heo Do-jin-in's ancient pine-patterned sword and spun into a vortex.
"Oh?"
Seeing the shift in his presence, Man-geum Daebu narrowed his eyes.
The Taoist crown sitting atop Heo Do-jin-in's head could no longer withstand the force and was ripped away. His hair burst loose in wild disorder, making him look no different from a demon rising upside down from hell.
"Hmm... this could get expensive if I'm not careful."
Man-geum Daebu raised his sword with a face full of dissatisfaction.
Gooooooo!
At that moment, the white and black qi bursting from Heo Do-jin-in's sword twined together in the air, forming the shape of a massive circle.
Taiji?
Man-geum Daebu's face stiffened white with tension for an instant.
Taiji Wisdom Sword.
The Taiji Wisdom Sword, said to be Wudang's greatest sword art, was finally beginning to unfold from Heo Do-jin-in's hands.
"Hmm!"
Man-geum Daebu slowly adjusted his grip on his sword.
"...This is definitely going to cost me."
Blue sword qi began to gush from his blade in streams.
"Well then, shall I see just how remarkable Wudang's wisdom sword really is?"
A cold gleam settled into Man-geum Daebu's eyes.