Let Them Die Like Vermin (1)
The black tide surged forward. The sight of a hundred swordsmen in black robes charging as though they were one body could only be described as overwhelming.
Sensing instantly that something had gone terribly wrong, the Sapa fighters began darting their eyes about in panic without even realizing it. It was the instinct unique to the villainous factions: when an enemy looked too much to handle, the first thing to do was find a way to run.
But there was nowhere to run. Mount Hua, having surrounded them completely, was tightening the encirclement as though it intended not to leave even an ant alive.
“W-what the hell…?”
“Th-this…?”
In battle, momentum was half the fight.
Robbed of that momentum the instant Chung Myung appeared, the Sapa fighters began to waver, unsure what to do. It was almost laughable, considering the terrifying reputation they had carried throughout the martial world.
But not all of them were like that.
“You idiots, look properly! They’re still kids!”
“Don’t get scared just because a bunch of brats are running wild!”
At those words, the flinching men looked again at the faces of the Mount Hua disciples charging at them.
Indeed.
The black robes and dense killing intent had obscured their true nature for a moment, but on closer look, the disciples rushing at them were still youngsters not even thirty years old.
No matter how astonishing Mount Hua’s abilities might be, there was no way it could turn those brats into Peak Realm swordsmen overnight.
“Crush them!”
Someone’s shout revived the collapsed morale.
Dammit, it’s not like this was completely unexpected, was it?
Right. Mount Hua is still something we can stomp on whenever we want!
Given the reputation and skill of those gathered here, being surprised by Mount Hua’s appearance in the first place was the real mistake. Remembering that once more, they grit their teeth and readjusted their weapons.
When surviving the harsh martial world, one had to trust one’s instincts more than the assessments spread by others. They all knew that much, and chose to ignore it.
If they couldn’t run away anyway, then they had to fight. Their killing intent rising once more, they finally moved to meet the Mount Hua disciples charging at them without the slightest hesitation.
They’re still just a bunch of kids, no matter how you slice it.
Bongpyeong tightened his grip on his dao.
Even if Mount Hua had somehow recovered the old strength of its long-forgotten past, there was no way it could transform those young boys into Peak Realm swordsmen.
If such a thing were possible, then the name that had shaken the Yangtze River massacre would have belonged to Mount Hua Sect, not the Plum Blossom Sword Hero.
“I’ll teach you your place, you little brats!”
If he showed fear at this level, then the name of the Lion Blood Dao, feared throughout the Zhejiang region, would be disgraced.
Bongpyeong unleashed a ferocious aura befitting that title. The best way to deal with inexperienced brats was to lock up their hands with killing intent and sheer pressure.
“Hraaaah!”
His dao erupted with explosive force. A dao qi so blue it was almost black burst outward like a storm.
First, kill their charge!
Without that momentum, these fools were nothing. And anyone with a shred of sense would have no choice but to stop when faced with this kind of blade aura.
…But that was a huge mistake on Bongpyeong’s part.
The Mount Hua disciple charging at him saw the wildly surging dao qi and still plunged straight into that storm without even the slightest hesitation.
What?
Has he lost his mind?
Bongpyeong was thrown off balance. Through the whirling storm of qi, he caught a glimpse of the Mount Hua disciple’s face.
Chilling.
The moment he saw those cold eyes, empty of even the faintest hint of excitement, Bongpyeong’s heart turned to ice.
Then—
Fwaaaat!
Like a shaft of light, a streak of sword qi sliced through the storm of dao qi and flew in.
Ka-kak!
He didn’t even have time to be shocked.
Because the pain hit first.
The fingertips gripping the dao burned as though seared by fire, and before he could make sense of it, something flew off clearly into the air.
Something narrow and bent.
The moment he realized that the familiar yet unfamiliar object was his own fingers—his own fingers still attached to the hand gripping the dao—his eyes widened as far as they could go.
“Wha—”
But that wasn’t the end of it. The sword that had severed his pinky and ring finger slithered up his forearm like a snake.
Faat! Faat! Faat!
The ligaments in his wrist were neatly cut apart. A long gash opened across his forearm, and the sword’s tip drove into his elbow.
All of it happened in the blink of an eye.
“Aaaaaagh!”
A scream burst from Bongpyeong’s mouth.
He wanted to drop the dao from the agony ripping through his arm, but that was nothing short of suicide. Forcing the pain down, he swung again at the Mount Hua disciple at point-blank range. It was a strike meant to cleave him in two with a single blow.
But before the dao had even swung halfway, the Mount Hua disciple withdrew the sword he had thrust out and blocked the dao perfectly with the end of its hilt.
Kang!
Then, using the recoil without wasting the slightest bit of it, he thrust again.
Thuk!
“Kgh…!”
The pain spreading across Bongpyeong’s lower abdomen felt like being branded with a red-hot iron. But before he could even groan from that agony, the withdrawn sword flashed back and cut the elbow of the arm that held the rebounding dao.
Swish!
He couldn’t even properly understand what was happening. The opponent’s sword was simply far too fast for that.
All he could tell was that this brattish little thing, who still hadn’t even lost his childish softness, was now carving him apart one-sidedly. And he wasn’t even changing expression.
“Aaaagh!”
Bongpyeong yelled and thrust out his dao. The shout was not meant to threaten the opponent.
It was a scream to shake off the fear that had devoured his heart in an instant. The fear of this young little killer, who was slicing a human body apart like a hunk of meat without so much as a flicker in his eyes.
Faat!
With all his strength, the dao shot toward the Mount Hua disciple’s face at terrifying speed.
The Mount Hua disciple tilted his head just a single inch to the side. Bongpyeong’s dao passed by his face by the width of a sheet of paper.
And in that instant, Bongpyeong saw it.
Even as the dao flew toward his own face, the Mount Hua disciple’s eyes remained locked on him alone, devoid of the slightest emotion.
Fwaaaat!
A red streak of sword qi bloomed in an instant, slicing through Bongpyeong’s outstretched arm.
Swish!
The sight was unreal.
For some, it might have been nothing much. But for the person involved, there was nothing trivial about seeing the arm that had always hung below his shoulder fly away like a windmill blade, spinning through the air.
“Wh—”
Swish!
Before he could even be fully shocked, both thighs were cut at once and blood gushed upward.
Swish.
The sword that then sliced through both knees left Bongpyeong no room even to remain standing.
But he couldn’t even fall. Before his broken knees could touch the ground, more than ten sword strikes slammed into his abdomen and chest.
Thuk! Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!
The blade sank in by the span of a hand each time. Before he could even properly feel the pain of the first strike splitting his flesh, the second cut through his body, and the third carved into bone.
All Bongpyeong could do was gape with his mouth torn open while feeling the sensation of his chest being butchered.
“Ghh…”
At last, his body slowly slumped downward.
His half-severed knees touched the ground, and the abdominal muscles cut to shreds made him curl his waist in a pitiful hunch. With one arm already gone, there was nothing left to stop his head from hitting the ground.
As though in apology, Bongpyeong ended up kneeling, forehead pressed to the floor, when the cold touch of metal brushed his neck. A ghastly energy spread through him, making his entire body seem to shrink at once.
“N-no…”
There was no way he could not understand what that sensation meant, and a scream burst from Bongpyeong’s mouth.
Swish.
But the sword at his neck did not hesitate even once as it cut his throat open. Cold steel neatly sliced through the carotid artery.
Scarlet blood surged out in great spurts from his severed neck. But with one arm gone, he could neither grab his throat nor stop the blood pouring out.
Gurgle…
Blood ran back up his throat and spread its metallic stench across his mouth. A pain so horrific it made his whole body tremble seized him from head to toe.
But Bongpyeong could do nothing. With the muscles in his body already shredded, all he could do was writhe in unbearable agony.
A torment unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life dragged Bongpyeong right up to the gates of hell, but a martial artist’s stubborn life did not allow death so easily.
J-just kill me…
This was too cruel. Even the Sapa would not kill a person this mercilessly. A so-called righteous faction could not do this.
And then it happened.
In Bongpyeong’s ear, as he twitched and begged for mercy, a cold voice stabbed into him.
“Let them die like vermin.”
It was a coldness that seemed capable of freezing every drop of blood in the body.
“Because trash deserves a death that suits trash.”
Glancing once at the convulsing Bongpyeong, Gwak Hoe shook the filthy blood from his sword and immediately charged toward his next opponent.
The white teeth revealed between his lips gleamed like the fangs of a starving beast.
“Y-you little—”
Ma Liang, the Wolf-Fang Slaughter Axe, had his face twist hideously.
W-what in the world are these guys?
They were nothing but brats whose blood hadn’t even dried yet. No matter how prestigious the sect they came from, time could not be overturned. Judging by their age, it was only natural that they should be no match for him.
But the reality Ma Liang faced had crushed his common sense to pieces.
Fwaaaat!
The sword that flew at him pierced his shoulder and twisted at the same time.
Ma Liang bit down hard, desperately suppressing the scream trying to tear out of his throat. The pain of the sword entering his shoulder was nothing. The real agony came when the blade twisted and tore every muscle apart.
It was enough to make his whole body shake violently.
“You damn bastard!”
Ma Liang’s axe fell toward the Mount Hua disciple’s head, carrying fierce power. The Mount Hua disciple he was facing merely lifted his sword slightly. It looked as though he intended to block the axe with the blade.
Idiot.
Ma Liang inwardly rejoiced.
That inexperienced kid seemed to think this axe was an ordinary weapon. That was obvious from the way he was trying to block it with such a thin sword.
His axe weighed fifty jin; it was a heavy weapon among heavy weapons. Even if that sword were a divine blade renowned under heaven, it would still be shoved aside helplessly.
“Dieee!”
With all his inner power poured into it, the axe came crashing down with explosive momentum onto the tilted blade. He intended to split the Mount Hua disciple in half along with the sword.
But the very instant the axe met the sword, the blade twisted slightly on a diagonal.
Ma Liang’s eyes flew open wide.
His axe flowed along the sword’s surface like a cart racing down a slope. In the slowed-down world before him, he could see the sword swaying and the axe sliding off at an angle, completely divorced from his intention.
Thunk.
And when the axe met the sword tip, the sword flicked it away as lightly as if it were a scrap of paper.
In that moment, Ma Liang saw it.
The sword tip.
The tip of the sword pointed at him, growing larger and larger at terrifying speed.
N-no…
Ma Liang twisted his head desperately, but the sword tip continued to fill his world more and more.
“No—”
Thuk!
The sword pierced Ma Liang’s eye.
“Kh, kgh…!”
Ma Liang convulsed like a man suffering a seizure.
Rattle.
He heard something twist and snap. More frightening than the pain of his eye being impaled was that sound coming from deep inside a body that should have remained quiet.
“Baek Sang.”
Before he could even wonder what those words meant—
Fwaaaat!
Ma Liang’s head, severed in a single stroke, flew up into the air.
Spinning through the sky, his face held the fear and despair he had felt right before death, intact and frozen there forever.
Swish!
Having shaken off his sword, Baek Sang looked at the collapsing body of Ma Liang and coldly snapped,
“At least know the name of the person who killed you before you die. It’s probably too much to ask of trash like you, though.”
It was a voice no longer heard by the dead.