Our Kids Are a Little Rough Around the Edges (5)
Kwaaaaaaaang!
The rock exploded, shards flying in every direction. The impact shook the cliff so violently it looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“We’re falling! Aaaagh!”
The disciples of the Nine Sects, hanging on for dear life, screamed and clung to the cliff as it lurched beneath them like a boat caught in a storm.
A few had already lost the fight against the shock and been knocked from the cliff, plunging into the abyss below.
But no one had the spare courage to help them now. Something far worse was waiting for them.
Rumble. Rumble-rumble. Rumble.
“W-what the hell…!”
Jin Hyeon’s eyes widened until they felt like they might split apart.
Cracks like spiderwebs were spreading over the cliff face where Jang Il-so and Chung Myung had crashed in.
It’s collapsing…
Rumble-rumble.
Everyone held their breath.
Then the stone above broke free from the cliff in one enormous piece.
The moment they saw a boulder larger than a pavilion slowly tilting and sliding loose from the cliff face, every hair on their bodies stood on end and a chill shot down their spines. Their whole bodies were screaming at them to run.
The boulder pitched forward, blotting out the sun and casting a long, dark shadow over the cliff below.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
And the instant it began to fall, screams burst from every mouth at once.
“MOVE! MOVE—AAAAAAH!”
“Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
It was the cry of instinct, not reason.
“STOP ITTTTTTT!”
The elders of each sect, faces gone white, all sprang at the falling stone at once.
If that thing rolled down the cliff, at least thirty percent of the disciples hanging below would die instantly. They had not clawed their way up here just to watch that happen!
Sword qi, blade qi, staff qi, and force.
White, blue, and yellow streams of power all poured toward the tumbling boulder.
Crash! Crash-crash!
The colossal stone was hammered by terrifying attacks and began to crumble. But breaking apart a boulder that huge in such a short time was impossible from the start.
“Out of the way!”
At that moment, Namgung Hwang and Beop Gye threw themselves toward the cliff, shouting at the top of their lungs, ignoring the enemy behind them.
Namgung Hwang’s sword was steeped in a white sun.
Mounting Blue Sky Free Divine Art, driven to its absolute limit, drew up every last thread of internal energy and poured it into the blade.
Emperor Sword Form—Manifestation of the Emperor!
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
Namgung Hwang screamed with all his might and swung his sword viciously.
A gigantic sword qi, impossible to believe it had been made by human hands, shot from the tip of his blade and drove into the falling boulder.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!
The instant the white sword qi sank about halfway into the stone, Beop Gye shot up from beneath Namgung Hwang.
“A—mi—ta—bha!”
He folded his legs in midair into a seated position, and then a blinding golden radiance erupted from his entire body.
The light gradually took shape, enveloping Beop Gye and forming the image of a massive golden Buddha.
“Th-that’s Great Prajna Power!”
“Th-the elder is using Great Prajna Power!”
Before the astonished cries of the Shaolin disciples had even faded, a resounding Buddhist shout burst from Beop Gye. At the same time, the golden figure covering his body lunged toward the boulder.
Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!
With the sound of two immense rocks colliding, the falling boulder suddenly lost its momentum and froze in midair.
Crack! Crack-crack-crack!
Cracks spread from the bottom of the stone and quickly wrapped around the whole thing. And then…
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
The shattered boulder rained down in fragments like a sudden storm. Some pieces were the size of a person, others as large as houses, and that fresh rain of stone brought a different kind of terror altogether.
“Spread out!”
“Yes!”
The Wudang elders, who had been standing by, all raised circles in the air. White and black sword energies tangled together. More than ten rough taiji patterns stained the sky like ink on a canvas.
Shaolin and Namgung did not stand idle either.
The force unleashed by Shaolin and the domineering sword energies of Namgung shattered, sliced, and pulverized the rain of falling rock again and again.
“Huaaaaaaah!”
They squeezed out every last drop of strength they had.
If they suffered heavy damage here, then even if they managed to climb the cliff afterward, they would have no future left to reach. Everyone knew that, and so not a single ounce of strength was held back.
Thud!
Jin Hyeon’s head was struck by a cascade of stones, splitting the skin and sending thick blood streaming down his face.
“Hh…”
His eyes were flooded with fear.
Where was this place? What the hell were they doing here?
Looking up, there was already nothing like light to be seen. All he could see was the sky being swallowed by falling rock and the murderous energies flying toward it.
“Aaaagh!”
“S-sects senior brother!”
Even now, those struck by the rain of stone were tumbling helplessly into the abyss below. Tears spilled from Jin Hyeon’s eyes and mixed with blood, turning them into something like bloody tears.
“This…!”
He ground his teeth so hard his lips split and bled.
“What the hell is this? You bastardsssssss!”
His fury finally burst out.
He had learned the sword, trained in martial arts, and believed that once he stepped out into the jianghu, he could accomplish anything. He had thought life and death were decided only by the sword, only by the martial foundation one had built within oneself.
But that was nothing more than a naive delusion.
War was home to demons. Demons that devoured everything. And those demons did not care what kind of life a person had lived, or what kind of thoughts they had carried in their heart; they simply ate them alive.
The fellow disciples below had not even been able to swing the swords they had spent their lives learning.
Before the vile malice that blanketed this cliff, even a lifetime of martial training was meaningless.
And that did not apply only to them.
“Aaaagh!”
“Uwaaaaaaaagh!”
“S-save meeeeee!”
The demonic sect members on the cliff were also being swept up by the collapse and sent tumbling down one after another.
The enemies. No, the people he should hate more than anyone else in this world right now.
But the moment Jin Hyeon met the eyes of a Maninbang man screaming as he fell, he squeezed his own eyes shut before he knew it.
A human life was worth less than a single coin on this battlefield. This was a place where a human being could not even die as a human being.
“CLIMB UP!”
Then Namgung Hwang’s voice boomed like thunder.
“This is your last chance! Up, all of you! Now! If we take any more attacks, we won’t hold! Up! GET UP NOWWWWW!”
Crunch!
Jin Hyeon’s hand, tensed by instinct, dug into the cliff face.
Up.
Yes. Up.
If he wanted to survive, he had to claw his way up this cliff.
His teeth grinding with a sound that was almost eerie, Jin Hyeon’s eyes sharpened with bloodshot veins.
I’m going to survive.
By any means necessary, no matter what it takes!
Thud!
Another falling rock smashed into his head, but this time he did not even blink.
He simply seized the cliff with hands already shredding at the nails and, baring his teeth, climbed upward. And upward. And upward.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Ch-Chung Myung….”
Baek Cheon’s voice trembled horribly. Even the eyes looking down below shook as though they had lost all direction.
The place where they had been fighting just moments ago was already gone without a trace. The cliff had collapsed from the shock of Jang Il-so and Chung Myung crashing into it.
Anarchy.
Below, hell itself had opened. But Baek Cheon’s eyes did not take in that horrifying scene at all.
“Ch… Chung Myung….”
The cliff had collapsed.
Then what about Chung Myung, who had burrowed into the cliff beneath it?
No, no way…
Baek Cheon, his eyes trembling aimlessly as he stared below in a daze, shouted in a panic.
“Damn it! I’m going down!”
“S-sasuk!”
Jo Gul threw himself at Baek Cheon as though tackling him, wrapping his body around him to stop him from leaping down at once.
“Let go, you bastard!”
“You can’t go now! It might collapse again!”
“So what if it does!”
“You’ll die! Didn’t you hear me? You’ll die!”
“So what if I do, you bastard! Let go!”
Baek Cheon swung his arm and smashed it hard into Jo Gul. With a crack, Jo Gul’s head snapped to the side. But Jo Gul’s grip on Baek Cheon never wavered.
“Calm down, Sasuk!”
Yoon Jong, who had rushed over, joined Jo Gul and grabbed Baek Cheon.
“Calm down?”
In Baek Cheon’s eyes, blood vessels bulged with an almost sinister red.
Yoon Jong bit his lip at the murderous look on his face, then said sharply, forcing composure into his voice.
“You’re not the only one about to lose his mind! But you have to stay calm. He’s not the kind of man who’d die from something like this!”
“……”
“Just a little longer, and the situation—”
Under Baek Cheon’s murderous glare, Yoon Jong stumbled over his words and let the end of the sentence trail off.
How could Yoon Jong not know?
This was nothing but desperate faith. Even if it was Chung Myung, if he had been caught in the collapse of that falling stone, surviving would not be easy.
You damned bastard!
Step. Step.
At that moment, one person approached the cliff with quiet, unhurried steps.
“Sago!”
“No, what is that woman doing now? I’m going crazy!”
It was just as the expressionless Yu I-seol was about to leap down without the slightest hesitation.
Rumble.
With a sudden tremor, her step stopped. Her gaze shifted not below the cliff, but to the ground at her feet.
Rumble-rumble.
“……”
Yu I-seol, staring fixedly at the ground beneath her, took a sharp step backward.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
The place where she had been standing exploded upward, and a person shot up from below. Yu I-seol seized the half-emerged hand and yanked him up at once.
“Chung Myung!”
“Chung Myungaaaaa! You bastarddddddd!”
The other five swords all screamed at the top of their lungs and rushed toward Chung Myung as he burst up from the ground.
“Th… this… damn it!”
He was a wreck. There was no better way to describe it.
Chung Myung’s body, having broken through the ground, looked less like a person and more like something torn apart beyond recognition.
His face was covered in crisscrossing cuts and blood, and the top half of his clothes had been completely ripped away, revealing skin bruised black and blue as though it had been half-dead.
Flesh had been torn away in places, exposing raw red tissue beneath, and the blood running down him had soaked his pants through completely.
Baek Cheon rushed in and grabbed Chung Myung by the shoulders.
“Ch-Chung Myung! Are you all right?”
“……”
“Soso! Damn it, someone get Soso here right now….”
Then Chung Myung opened his eyes.
“Sasuk.”
“R-right! Chung Myung….”
“Move.”
The next instant, Chung Myung shoved Baek Cheon aside and straightened his waist.
Then, still clutching the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword he had never let go of even while half his senses had been blown away, he staggered forward.
“Ch… Chung Myung….”
Baek Cheon fell silent.
It was because of the terrifying murderous intent glittering in Chung Myung’s eyes. There was a saying that even if the body died, the eyes never did. This must have been what that meant.
But that was not the only reason Baek Cheon had gone quiet.
The fact that murderous intent remained in Chung Myung’s eyes proved one thing, and one thing only.
N-no way…
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
Then the ground before them exploded upward.
Rocks and dirt surged up like a reverse waterfall, shaking the cliff again so violently it seemed ready to collapse once more.
Dirt rained down.
And from within that storm came a low voice, so clear it stabbed straight into Baek Cheon’s ears. His chest tightened.
“Well now… well now.”
As the dust settled, a man stood there.
His hat was nowhere to be seen. His hair, always arranged with obsessive neatness, had come undone and now whipped about in the wind like a lion’s mane.
And yet even that did nothing to diminish his dignity. If anything, a wildness that had never shown itself before now leaked out of him, like the growl of a hungry beast.
Riiip.
The man tore away the tatters of his ruined clothes. And when he did, the upper half of his body was laid bare, covered from head to toe in countless scars.
“……”
Baek Cheon nearly forgot how to breathe.
What the hell is this…?
Jang Il-so.
Jang Il-so, in a completely different form, bared his blood-soaked teeth and opened his mouth in a wide grin. Through the tangled hair hanging over his face, his eyes glimmered with savage madness.
“It’s been a while….”
A chilling voice rumbled out of him like the growl of an injured beast.
“Since someone made me this happy.”
Baek Cheon instinctively stepped forward as though to shield Chung Myung. But the hand gripping his sword was trembling like a leaf in the wind.
This man was too vast.
It felt as though his soul was twisting under a fear he had never experienced in his life. And yet Baek Cheon did not step back.
Then Chung Myung pressed a hand to his shoulder and stepped in front of him.
“Chung Myung….”
Baek Cheon was about to stop him, but in the end found no words and shut his mouth.
Could he protect him?
Could he really protect Chung Myung from that Jang Il-so?
“Ptooey.”
Chung Myung spat out a mouthful of blood, wiped the corner of his mouth roughly, and tightened his grip on the sword.
“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
As Chung Myung spoke, Jang Il-so fixed him with a chilling gaze from eyes gone pale and cold.
“We haven’t even started yet. This doesn’t even count as a fight.”
“……”
Chung Myung pointed his sword at Jang Il-so.
The blade trembled, as though all strength had left it. But the gaze of the one holding it was still as cold and still as an ice cave in the far north.
“I’ll show you what a real fight looks like, punk.”
“Ha… kkh… kkhkkkh…”
At last, a low laugh slipped from Jang Il-so’s mouth.
It began as a tiny, hollow sound, then grew and grew until it became a maniacal peal of laughter powerful enough to shake the entire space and crush the Five Swords beneath it.
“Kwahahahahahahah! Hwahahahahahahahahaha!”
The madness riding on that laughter seized the Five Swords’ hearts and shook them hard.