How Do You Want to Die? (3)
Whooooosh!
The spear hurled by Heo Seon Spear Ghost came shrieking through the air like a wail from the netherworld and pierced Hong Dae-gwang’s upper chest. Blood burst from the split flesh in a sudden gush.
Hong Dae-gwang swung the iron club in his hand and struck at the spear, but the force behind it was weaker than a child’s halfhearted play. Even the light in his eyes had nearly gone out by now. It was obvious how far he had been pushed beyond his limit.
“Heh heh.”
Heo Seon Spear Ghost let out a low chuckle and withdrew his spear.
“You stupid beggar bastard!”
To still be standing on two feet after taking an injury like that was almost worthy of praise. To be on the edge of death and still waving that tiny club around as if he intended to keep fighting was enough to earn a round of applause.
But that was all meaningless struggle.
“Ha!”
Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s spear multiplied into a dozen shimmering afterimages and raked Hong Dae-gwang’s chest as if mocking him. With his strength drained away, Hong Dae-gwang could barely resist; he flailed as though dancing, then staggered backward.
“It’s over!”
Tired of playing with him, Heo Seon Spear Ghost delivered the final blow. His spear, brimming with fierce energy, shot straight for Hong Dae-gwang’s throat.
Even as he watched the spear flying in to sever his windpipe, Hong Dae-gwang had reached the end of his strength and couldn’t react at all. Heo Seon Spear Ghost had no doubt his weapon would pierce Hong Dae-gwang’s neck, so he casually turned his gaze away to look for his next prey.
Next is...
That was when it happened.
Clang!
A searing pain crashed down on the hand gripping his spear, and a split second later his body was flung backward with no power left in it.
What?
Thunk!
Slamming the spear shaft into the ground, Heo Seon Spear Ghost barely caught his balance and looked up in shock.
Before he knew it, a man had appeared and inserted himself between him and Hong Dae-gwang.
When did he...?
He hadn’t even sensed the man’s presence.
He had looked away for only the briefest instant, certain Hong Dae-gwang was already dead, and this man had slipped into that opening to block his spear?
This young punk?
Heo Seon Spear Ghost swept the other man with cold eyes. Survival instincts honed on countless battlefields immediately tried to read the newcomer’s strength.
Black martial robes.
A somewhat slender sword held in one hand.
A face that looked every bit his age.
But what caught the eye before anything else were the many scars etched across the forearm exposed between the sleeve and the hand gripping the sword.
The scars crossed and crisscrossed the skin as if deliberately carved there, webbing over his hand and arm like a spider’s web.
For a moment, a chill ran down Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s spine.
That...
He had seen hands like that before.
Wanderers who roamed the land in search of nothing but battle. Among those whose lives were worth less than a fly’s, there were a few strange monsters who survived far longer than they should have, and their hands looked exactly like that.
Hands of people who had fought through countless battles, who had walked the edge of death again and again.
The man who had stepped in then slowly spoke without taking his eyes off Heo Seon Spear Ghost.
“Are you all right?”
Hong Dae-gwang, who had only just crawled back from the threshold of death, stared blankly at the back of the man standing before him as if he had already forgotten everything else. He wore the expression of someone trapped in a dream.
“...Gul.”
His dry mouth barely opened, and he moved his lips several times before the name finally came out.
A back both familiar and unfamiliar, solid and reassuring. Hong Dae-gwang remembered the name of one person he knew who fit that silhouette.
“...Disciple Jo Gul?”
At that, Jo Gul turned his head slightly and looked back at Hong Dae-gwang with a grin.
“Long time no see.”
“Ah...”
Hong Dae-gwang blinked at him in utter disbelief for several long moments, then finally his legs gave out and he collapsed right there.
Thud.
Now fully seated on the ground, his face changed several times over. He bit his lip as if he might curse, then exhaled as if in relief...
And after all those tangled emotions, what finally came out of Hong Dae-gwang’s mouth was a complaint.
“Damn it... you could’ve... come faster.”
“I’m sorry. I came as soon as I heard the news.”
“No... it’s fine even if you came now. Right now. Whew...”
Watching that exchange, Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s face twisted.
These bastards?
They were clearly ignoring him and having a conversation. How could any martial artist endure such humiliation?
“You’re ignoring me?”
Just as he was about to spit out another word, Jo Gul’s gaze landed on him.
Flinch.
The instant he met those emotionless eyes, Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s mouth snapped shut of its own accord.
His instincts, faced with that eerie stare, were warning him that he should not open his mouth again.
What, am I actually getting scared of this brat?
While Heo Seon Spear Ghost was thrown into confusion by the sudden, inexplicable turn of events, a beastlike roar rang out from the side.
“You bastard!”
Startled, Heo Seon Spear Ghost instinctively turned his head.
“Are you all right?”
“...Disciple Yoon Jong.”
Someone was supporting the Hwayeong Gate leader, who had been fighting Iron Ghost just moments before. And for reasons unknown, Iron Ghost had been forced to keep his distance and only growl at him, unable to close in again.
What the hell is this...?
Only then did Heo Seon Spear Ghost feel the strange current flowing through this battlefield.
The atmosphere had changed. It was bizarre, but the mood of the fight was unmistakably different from a moment ago.
The only real difference was that two people—no, just three—had joined the battle.
And yet the ferocious fighting had stopped before anyone realized it, while the ones who had been clawing and biting at everything around them only a moment ago now bared their teeth and growled from a distance.
It looked as though wolves fighting over territory had suddenly noticed a tiger approaching.
By contrast, the faces of the Shaanxi martial artists, now certain of those three people’s presence, were filled with overwhelming joy and relief. Some looked as if they might burst into tears at any moment.
Heo Seon Spear Ghost was dumbfounded.
Only three people. How was he supposed to understand that their arrival alone had brought a battlefield boiling like a furnace to a halt?
Who the hell are they?
“Hey.”
At that moment, the sword held by the one standing before him flashed toward him like lightning.
What?
By the time he realized what was happening, the blade had already sunk into his shoulder blade.
“Ghk!”
The searing pain in his shoulder made Heo Seon Spear Ghost recoil frantically backward. He retreated more than ten feet in one breath, and cold sweat began pouring down his brow.
Glancing at his shoulder, he saw blood welling up through the split fabric in thick, pulsing streams. What had just happened was no illusion.
...I didn’t even see it.
How could a sword wielded by a human be that fast?
Heo Seon Spear Ghost trembled at a sword technique he had never seen before. Gooseflesh raced from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head.
He was shocked not only that such a blazing-fast strike had been wielded by a young martial artist who couldn’t even be half his age, but also by the crushing pressure of knowing he had to face that man now.
Step. Step.
The one who had put a hole in Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s shoulder and the one who had rescued Wi Lip-san, Jo Gul and Yoon Jong, advanced slowly.
Under that suffocating momentum, Heo Seon Spear Ghost did his best to restrain his own body, which wanted to retreat on its own.
Even the unruly fighters who had seemed impossible to stop, even those who had been risking their lives to resist, all froze and simply stared blankly at the three men moving forward.
What are these guys...?
Something then caught Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s attention. His eyes widened in shock.
Only then did he notice the plum blossom emblem on the chest of the one walking toward him.
“H-Hua...?”
It was that Hua Sect everyone here had kept on their lips. A chill ran through Heo Seon Spear Ghost’s bones as he groaned the name.
“Mount Hua Sect?”
The black martial robes and the red plum blossom emblem on the chest were the famous symbol of Mount Hua.
And yet the reason he hadn’t immediately recognized them as Mount Hua the moment he saw them was that the aura they gave off was far too terrifying.
Their momentum was nothing like the righteous sect martial artists he had fought until now; it was alien, unsettling. And that suffocating killing intent they exuded—what was that?
There was no way he could have looked at them and thought Mount Hua at once. He had never imagined that a group of Daoists could radiate killing intent even more chilling than the evil sect.
Mount Hua? Then this one could mean...
That was when it happened.
“Stay back. You’ll get hurt.”
“Dis, Disciple... I...”
“We’ll talk more after a bit.”
A single voice echoed across the battlefield, calm and casual.
It was a slow voice, utterly out of place amid a battlefield drenched in blood and death.
Step.
The owner of that voice walked forward at an unhurried pace.
Hair tied high in a rough knot.
A slightly small frame.
A black robe fluttering with each step.
He didn’t look particularly remarkable.
Compared to Jo Gul, who radiated a blade-like sharpness, or Yoon Jong, who carried an overwhelming pressure that seemed to press down on the surrounding world, this man’s presence was almost ordinary.
And yet...
The moment he heard that voice, Heo Seon Spear Ghost could no longer take his eyes off him.
It was an instinctive warning. Those who had spent their whole lives in a world of predator and prey could tell at once which one in the battlefield was the most dangerous.
And now his instincts were telling him:
This man was the most dangerous existence here.
Step. Step.
The man walked out slowly, then stopped.
Swish.
He looked over the dead, fallen bodies one by one. His gaze did not move for a long while, as though he were carving them into memory.
None of the people witnessing this scene could tear their eyes away from him.
Swish.
The man’s gaze shifted again, this time to the wounded who were groaning in pain.
He said nothing, only moved his eyes, and though it couldn’t have been very long, the silence felt so stretched that it was as if the world itself had stopped. It felt as though an age of years had passed.
This was what people meant when they said they could hardly breathe.
Gulp.
The tiny sound of someone swallowing dryly rang out like thunder. A terrifying stillness pressed down over the entire front line.
And at last.
The man slowly turned his gaze back.
Nothing had particularly changed. His expression was much the same as before, and his eyes had not changed either.
But the pressure felt by the evil sect fighters receiving that gaze could never be the same as before.
The one who had personally witnessed the slaughter, death, and suffering that had unfolded here slowly opened his mouth.
“You’ve...”
Everyone held their breath and waited for what would come next, as if it had been decided that they must do so.
“...really made a mess of things.”
The corners of the man’s mouth slowly curved upward.
At that chilling smile, the hearts of Heo Seon Spear Ghost and Iron Ghost both dropped with a sickening thud.
“So you all...”
The man swept his eyes from left to right over every evil sect fighter standing before him, as though he had already taken each and every face in.
“How do you want to die?”
The moment he finished speaking, the battlefield’s air, which had been hot until then, turned as cold as ice in an instant.