Drunk on the Glory of the Past Is a Dead Man (2)
‘Why did it end up like this?’
Gal Cheon-lip’s face was clouded with confusion.
Up until the moment he entered Xi'an—no, even up until the moment he began slaughtering the people who tried to block his path at the Eunha Merchant Guild—everything had gone exactly as planned.
So why had things turned into this?
Mount Hua’s intervention?
Of course he’d expected that. When those damn Maninbang bastards had invaded Xi'an in the past, it hadn’t been Wudang who stepped forward, but Mount Hua. Mount Hua, who even three years ago had roamed Northern China as though the whole world were theirs to take.
Those people were never going to sit on their hands just because they’d closed their gates when trouble broke out in their own home.
But…
Crk, crk.
Gal Cheon-lip ground his teeth so hard it felt as if they might shatter. What he hadn’t expected wasn’t Mount Hua’s intervention, but Mount Hua’s strength.
‘This is impossible.’
How could they become this strong in only three years?
That wasn’t something the world’s common sense could allow. The Mount Hua the world knew and the Mount Hua standing before his own eyes now were, in truth, completely different sects.
If he’d known they possessed this kind of power, he would never have set foot in Xi'an.
He had already assessed Mount Hua’s strength three years ago. So had his judgment then been wrong?
That couldn’t be.
If they had truly been this strong back then, the Yangtze River Tragedy would never have happened. And even if it had, the agreement to keep Southern China untouchable would never have been signed.
Among those great sects, Mount Hua had been the one said to have resisted most fiercely when they were forced to bow to Jang Il-so just to survive.
Which, in other words, meant Mount Hua at the time had resisted with all its might and still lacked the strength to change the course of the world.
Then…
‘They really changed this much in three years? They became this strong?’
Who would believe it?
‘If that were possible, who the hell would go through all this suffering!’
If anyone could simply become stronger through training and effort, then there would be no such thing as masters in this world, and no such thing as great sects, either.
But these bastards had completely smashed the common sense of the martial world. People who had only barely escaped the level of a mid-sized sect had returned in just three years with the power of a proper great sect.
No, in truth, even he still could not fully gauge the depth of their strength. Martial skill could only be measured accurately when there was a proper standard to compare it against, but the men he’d brought here were far too inadequate to serve as that standard.
He had brought the elite of every evil faction that had come up from the South, men he was certain could carve out a firm foothold if they went to Qinghai and began building power there, men he believed could shake the whole martial world once they were unleashed.
And yet here they were, getting crushed.
‘Where did it go wrong?’
Where, exactly, had it started?
“Aaaaagh!”
At that moment, a piercing scream stabbed into his ears. It was his younger brother, the one who had rushed forward to tip the balance of the battlefield.
Until now, whenever they had personally taken action, there had been nothing they couldn’t accomplish. A battlefield this small was something they could manipulate however they pleased whenever they decided to.
But here, even they were nothing more than one more force being swept away and trampled underfoot.
Everything was collapsing.
All his plans—building power by taking his men north to Qinghai, then seizing supremacy in the chaos while the Orthodox and Evil factions tore each other apart—all his ambitions were now burning away and turning to ash in this very place.
“You…!”
Gal Cheon-lip’s eyes filled with blood.
Mount Hua!
It was all their fault. These bastards…
Step. Step.
Then he heard slow footsteps approaching him. They were entirely out of place in this battlefield of screams and clashing steel—unhurried, steady footsteps that did not belong amid such chaos.
Gal Cheon-lip snapped his head around, his face twisted like that of a demon.
A man was slowly walking toward him.
…
The man’s appearance meant several things.
It meant there were no longer enough Evil faction warriors left for all Mount Hua’s swordsmen to come at once. It also meant the remaining Evil faction men had no room to stop Mount Hua’s disciples from slipping past their backs.
And above all…
“How dare you!”
Gal Cheon-lip’s eyes bulged with blood.
It meant he had been looked down on so badly that someone had dared to step forward and face him alone.
Him, Gal Cheon-lip of the Heartless Ghost Blade.
“You…!”
He felt the blood in his body surge backward.
“Who the hell are you?”
At the question spat through clenched teeth, the man’s mouth curved faintly with amusement.
“I’m not sure how to answer that. I don’t exactly have a proud nickname worth boasting about.”
“You’re some nameless brat without even a title?”
“I suppose that’s what I am.”
His tone sounded a little embarrassed, but his expression was utterly composed. That only made Gal Cheon-lip even angrier.
“You’re not even the Mount Hua Sword Hero, not even the Mount Hua Righteous Sword… and yet some unknown nobody dares to challenge me? And not even a proper man, but a one-armed cripple at that?”
This time, too, the other man showed no sign of anger. He only lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“That’s a little unfair, I think. Still, since you asked, I’ll answer. I am Un Geom, first-generation disciple of Mount Hua.”
Un Geom slowly drew the sword at his waist with his single hand.
“My master is occupied elsewhere, so I had no choice but to step in. Don’t hold it against me for being a nameless nobody.”
Gal Cheon-lip fell silent.
He wasn’t even angry anymore. They said that when a person grew too furious, they became calm instead, and perhaps that was true.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Not really.”
“...Not know?”
Seeing the stunned look on Gal Cheon-lip’s face, Un Geom answered calmly.
“Don’t look at me like that. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go around asking who each of you were. I came as soon as I heard the news.”
“…”
Un Geom gave a small shrug.
“And no one here has told me, either, so I suppose I have no way of knowing.”
Gal Cheon-lip let out a dry laugh.
So this was what he was being brought low by?
“I am Gal Cheon-lip, the Heartless Ghost Blade. One of the Gangseo-chilsal.”
“Ah. I see.”
Un Geom gave a short nod.
At that utterly indifferent reaction, Gal Cheon-lip gritted his teeth.
“You fool. You don’t even seem to have heard the name Heartless Ghost Blade.”
“I know it.”
“...What?”
Un Geom looked at him with steady eyes.
“I know it. However little experience I may have, I’m not so deaf that I’ve never heard the name Heartless Ghost Blade or the Gangseo-chilsal.”
“And yet you still dare to challenge me?”
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
Gal Cheon-lip’s lips twitched.
He had reigned over the southern lands like a god of slaughter—where in the world had he ever been insulted like this?
“That arm.”
“...Hm?”
“Who cut it off?”
Un Geom said nothing, simply staring at Gal Cheon-lip as if checking the intent behind the question.
Then Gal Cheon-lip bared his teeth and spoke first, his eyes razor-sharp.
“I once heard there was a bastard who survived after nearly dying when Maninbang attacked Mount Hua. Was that you?”
“It was.”
“Then you’re the kind of man who couldn’t even handle one of Maninbang’s branch leaders. And you think you can fight me? If someone wanted to face me in Maninbang, then Jang Il-so himself would have to come!”
The instant those words left his mouth, Un Geom’s expression cracked.
But it wasn’t the look of someone crushed by despair or shame. It was, rather… the face of someone desperately trying not to laugh. The man who had remained calm throughout this entire exchange was biting down on his lip, struggling to suppress amusement.
That reaction made Gal Cheon-lip’s face go cold.
“...What’s so funny?”
“Ah, forgive me. I know it’s rude, but I can’t help myself when that name comes up—Jang Il-so, was it?”
“...”
“Let me ask you one thing. When was the last time you saw the Paegun?”
“...The last time?”
Gal Cheon-lip narrowed his eyes. He didn’t know what the point of the question was, but the last time he had seen him in person had been at least fifteen years ago. No, longer than that.
But what did that have to do with…
“I’ll wager that if you’d seen the Paegun three years ago with your own eyes, you wouldn’t have had the nerve to say something like that.”
“You little—”
Gal Cheon-lip’s face turned red, then purple. Un Geom merely watched him with cold composure.
Even if the other side was Evil, he was still a Daoist; it was not permitted for him to lose basic courtesy toward another person. But when that bastard brought up Jang Il-so’s name, even Un Geom could not stop himself from laughing inwardly.
He had seen with his own eyes the Jang Il-so who drove Chung Myung and the Five Swords to the brink of death.
It wasn’t that Gal Cheon-lip wasn’t a formidable fighter. But Jang Il-so was on an entirely different level. Just thinking of him was enough to make gooseflesh rise all over Un Geom’s body. Jang Il-so was the very incarnation of chaos.
On the contrary, it was Gal Cheon-lip—the Evil faction man—who didn’t truly understand Jang Il-so.
“Perhaps your claim that you could handle the Paegun isn’t entirely baseless either, if that Jang Il-so remained exactly as you remember him.”
Understanding the meaning behind Un Geom’s words, Gal Cheon-lip bared his teeth.
“How dare you insult me—”
“Though he was our enemy, he was a man who sharpened himself without a moment’s rest. And you… what about you? It’s been quite some time since I heard the name Gangseo-chilsal, yet it doesn’t seem like anything about you has changed at all.”
“...”
“One intoxicated with the glory of the past is already dead.”
Those words became a blade and drove mercilessly into Gal Cheon-lip’s heart.
“And one who is satisfied with what he has achieved and stops there isn’t standing still—he’s falling behind.”
Un Geom’s gaze drifted slightly to the side. There were Mount Hua’s disciples fighting boldly against their enemies, and the Five Swords guarding their backs.
To continuously sharpen oneself is no easy thing.
But here before him were people who had done that very difficult thing. There were even those who, despite already possessing the highest reputation and the greatest talent, had tried even harder than the rest.
So as their senior and their master, how could he afford to show them an unworthy face?
Un Geom lifted his sword and pointed it at Gal Cheon-lip.
“This works out nicely. You said just now that I’m someone who couldn’t handle even one of Maninbang’s branch leaders, did you not?”
“...So what?”
“Then why don’t we test that? Let’s see how much I’ve changed since the days when I couldn’t even handle one of Maninbang’s branch leaders. And let’s see how far behind you’ve fallen since the time you were once compared to the Paegun.”
“...”
Gal Cheon-lip stared at Un Geom, expressionless.
The raging anger in his chest had instantly frozen over, replaced by ice-cold killing intent. Whatever the state of the battlefield, he felt that unless he tore this man limb from limb right this moment, he would never be able to calm down.
“That sword of yours….”
Shrrrk.
Gal Cheon-lip slowly drew his dao.
The moment he gripped the blade that had taken so many lives, his heart turned colder than ever.
“You’d better hope your sword is as sharp as your mouth. If not, you’ll be begging me to kill you instead.”
Even under Gal Cheon-lip’s overwhelming killing intent, Un Geom only smiled faintly.
“You won’t be disappointed.”
Standing with immaculate poise, Un Geom set the opening stance of the Plum Blossom Sword Art and took a middle guard before speaking briefly.
“Come.”
“I’ll rip that mouth apart!”
Gal Cheon-lip exploded forward like a storm, charging straight at Un Geom.