Drunk on the Glory of the Past Is a Dead Man (3)
Wooooong!
The sword, brimming with overwhelming inner power, fell from above his head.
Danhon Hyeolsu frowned and stepped back two paces. The blade that had skimmed past his face came to a dead stop in midair as though reality itself had faltered, then shot forward with lightning speed, aiming for his throat.
Hmph.
Twisting his body, Danhon Hyeolsu knocked the incoming sword aside with the side of his hand. The blade bent with a heavy thud, but its tip immediately found its course again, and its path never wavered by so much as a hair.
The sword brushed his shoulder as it flew past, leaving a thin red line in its wake.
In that instant, a savage blue killing intent flickered in Danhon Hyeolsu’s eyes.
Wooooooong!
With a sound like hundreds of wasps taking flight at once, thick blood-red energy burst from both his hands.
Faaat!
Moments later, Danhon Hyeolsu’s force struck toward Hyun Sang like a bolt of crimson lightning.
Thuwoong!
Hyun Sang twisted his sword and deflected the incoming force with the blade’s flat. But that much had already been expected by Danhon Hyeolsu.
Paaaat!
Danhon Hyeolsu unleashed more than a dozen bursts of force in rapid succession. The blood-red energy surged forward as if it meant to engulf Hyun Sang’s entire body.
Hyun Sang’s eyes darkened for a moment. With a brief change into a short defensive stance, his sword split into more than a dozen afterimages, colliding with Danhon Hyeolsu’s incoming force.
BOOM! KWAaaang! Kwaang! Kwaang!
Explosions rang out one after another.
Crushed by the violent recoil, Danhon Hyeolsu was forced back four or five steps. He could have held his ground if he had chosen to, but there was no need to strain himself unnecessarily.
…
What met his eyes was Hyun Sang, planted firmly in place without retreating even a single step.
They had both felt the same backlash. One had been pushed back; the other had endured where he stood. Of course, that alone could not determine the superiority of their martial arts, but it was obvious enough who had gained the better end of that exchange.
Danhon Hyeolsu’s eyes hardened with tension.
Solid.
It felt as though he had hurled force at a massive wall. The sensation at his fingertips was as immovable as a mountain.
Why has someone like this been hiding all this time?
He had never heard that Mount Hua possessed an old master of this caliber. There was an old saying that a needle hidden in a pouch would still pierce through—if this man had such skill, then even in a sect like Mount Hua, he ought to have made a name for himself long ago.
That was not the only thing that puzzled him.
“You there.”
At the rasping voice, like iron scraping against iron, Hyun Sang met his gaze.
“Your sword style seems quite different from that of your disciples.”
Hyun Sang gave a wry smile.
“It can’t be helped. I don’t have the same youth they do.”
Mount Hua’s swordsmanship was dazzling and swift, so much so that even Hyun Sang was startled whenever he watched the children wield their blades.
But...
When Hyun Sang was still learning the sword in earnest, that kind of swordsmanship no longer remained at Mount Hua. By the time Mount Hua’s true sword returned to the sect, he had already become too old to begin learning something new.
Those children were like blank sheets of paper. That was why they could accept anything. After all, anything could be written on a blank page.
Hyun Sang was not the same. For decades, he had trained in a sword different from theirs.
Was it not impossible to write new characters over a page already filled edge to edge with ink? To throw away everything he had learned and perfectly absorb an entirely new martial art was nearly impossible as well.
But...
What does that matter?
Hyun Sang did not despair.
There was no need for him to be exactly like those children. It was fine if his fingertips did not bloom with exquisite plum blossoms. He was no longer the one who should be making flowers bloom. He was the one who should be the firm roots supporting those children so that they could.
“A little late, and a little dull, perhaps. But I’d say I’m a bit sturdier.”
“...!”
Danhon Hyeolsu’s eyes sank.
With long experience, he knew very well that men like this were the most troublesome opponents of all.
And he did not have the luxury of taking his time. The situation was growing worse by the moment, and if he dragged this out any longer, even a victory would not grant him the chance to escape.
But.
Crack.
The sound of Danhon Hyeolsu cracking his knuckles rang out sharply from his fingers.
He was not afraid. If someone had such skill yet failed to make a name for himself, that also meant he had likely seen very little actual combat.
No matter how old you are, if you’ve never fought for your life, you’re still just a brat.
He lowered his stance slightly. No one knew better than he did when men like this were most likely to be thrown off balance.
“That’s the sort of thing you say after you survive, old man!”
Thuwoong!
His toes shoved off the ground.
Danhon Hyeolsu shot forward, his body skimming almost along the ground until he was right in front of Hyun Sang. Then he planted a hand down and swung his body around.
The moment he turned, he kicked off the earth again and launched himself at Hyun Sang. Moving violently in a zigzag like a serpent, he raced in at an angle, blue murderous light spilling from his eyes.
Of course, from the way those young brats used their swords, it was clear they had undergone unimaginable training. But training was still training. In real combat, where life and death were decided in an instant, even a single moment of hesitation could lead to a fatal mistake.
And the older a person gets, the worse their improvisation becomes!
Closing the distance with that grotesque, unnatural movement, Danhon Hyeolsu’s hands turned an eerie dark red and curled like hawk’s talons. Then they shot toward Hyun Sang’s ankles.
Shaaaack!
At that same instant, Hyun Sang’s sword flashed like lightning, stabbing toward Danhon Hyeolsu’s right hand as it aimed for his ankle. He meant to pierce the hand and pin it, sword and all, to the ground.
But Danhon Hyeolsu had been waiting for exactly that.
He twisted his hand and pressed his palm against the side of the incoming blade.
Kagagagak!
The friction as blade met flesh released a chilling screech, like iron being scraped raw.
The surging sword energy made even the blade itself sharp enough to cut. His skin was slit open and blood splashed upward. But in return, he succeeded in forcing the sword, thrust downward, to stab into the earth instead of his hand.
In that instant, a dreadful light burst from Danhon Hyeolsu’s eyes. Flipping his body upward in a flash, he swept both hands like a bolt of thunder.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
Red force exploded upward from below. It was as though blood itself had broken through the earth and surged skyward.
Yet more dangerous than the eerie sight was the sheer grotesqueness of it. Even someone who had seen plenty of battlefields would rarely experience force storming up from under their feet like a hurricane.
With that move alone, Danhon Hyeolsu was proving exactly who he was.
Boom!
And indeed, Hyun Sang, caught off guard by the attack bursting up from below, seemed unable to find a proper response in time. He kicked off the ground, tore his sword free, and sent his body flying into the air.
Even so, his blade fiercely knocked away the charging streaks of energy hounding him from below.
But that was precisely what Danhon Hyeolsu had wanted.
Boom!
He slammed his hand hard into the ground. Using the recoil, he shot after Hyun Sang as he soared through the air like an arrow loosed from a bow. There was a ruthless determination in him, as though he would never surrender the initiative once he had seized it.
The one fleeing, and the one in pursuit.
In that moment, Hyun Sang kicked off the air once, widening the distance between them a little further, then raised his sword high.
Wooooong!
Hyun Sang’s blade, infused with powerful sword energy, drew a clean arc from top to bottom.
Even the qi riding on that strike alone seemed enough to split a flesh-and-blood body cleanly in two. But the instant Danhon Hyeolsu saw that lethal sword energy, excitement flashed in his eyes instead.
Caught you!
Goooooo...
Drawing up every ounce of inner power he had, both of his hands turned blacker than blood, almost as if they had been stained with ink.
“Haaah!”
With a thunderous shout, Danhon Hyeolsu rushed toward the descending sword instead of retreating. Crossing his hands, he seized the blade.
Kagak! Kagagagak! Kagagak!
The harsh friction of the razor-sharp edge grinding against flesh rang out like the screech of steel being scraped clean of rust. Hyun Sang’s sword, caught in Danhon Hyeolsu’s blood hands, thrashed like a live fish seized by a fisherman and literally carved at his palms.
But even as the flesh of his hands was cut open and gouged away, Danhon Hyeolsu did not let go of Hyun Sang’s sword.
Swordsmen are nothing without their swords!
When a sword is swung without a proper stance planted firmly on the ground, its power inevitably weakens. It might still be sharp, but it would be difficult for it to remain truly overwhelming. In that case, his hands could suppress it well enough.
He had fought men like this countless times. The sight of those who had always worn relaxed smiles while displaying gorgeous swordsmanship, only for their faces to turn pale blue, never grew old.
Kwa-dudududuk!
Forcing the sword deeper into the bones of his own hands to lock it in place completely, Danhon Hyeolsu turned his gaze toward Hyun Sang. There was no way he would miss the chance to see what expression the old man wore at this moment.
But...
Danhon Hyeolsu could not do that.
What he saw was not Hyun Sang’s face, but something blunt rushing straight toward his own.
Before he could even identify it, Danhon Hyeolsu’s eyes flew wide. The instant he realized it was Hyun Sang’s elbow, the massive impact that crashed directly into his face sent his consciousness plunging into darkness for a brief moment.
KWAaaaang!
Blackout.
The world turned black for an instant, then returned to light. What Danhon Hyeolsu saw was the clear, endless blue of the sky.
“Kuhk...”
An excruciating pain soon came crashing down, as though it were crushing his face flat.
This...
Before the thought could even finish forming, instinct moved first. Just as he tried to twist his body to evade the attack coming after him, his hand was suddenly yanked forward as if bound by something invisible.
What?
The moment his body, already thrown back and on the verge of collapsing, was forcibly dragged forward, what entered his vision was that same elbow he had just seen moments ago.
KWAaaang!
Danhon Hyeolsu’s body shot through the air like a cannonball fired from a siege weapon. Leaving a huge mark on the ground, he bounced upward, sprayed blood in all directions, and then slammed back down again.
“Ku, cough! Cough!”
Before he could even groan from the pain, chunks of blood forced their way up his throat and spilled from his mouth again and again. In just two blows, his insides had been completely turned over.
“Kuhh...”
When he tried to brace himself with his hand and push himself up, his body crashed downward again. In his blurred vision, he caught sight of the neatly severed cross-section of his hand.
“Cough! Cough!”
But what tormented Danhon Hyeolsu was not the unbearable agony of his face having been caved in, nor the shock of losing the hand that had always protected him.
It was this incomprehensible situation itself.
How...
His mind understood it.
When he had driven his own sword into his hand to pin it in place, that man had yanked the blade and pulled him in, then smashed his face with the elbow of the left arm that had not been holding the sword.
Since the sword had been driven into the bone and locked there perfectly, Danhon Hyeolsu had had no way to escape.
Yes, he understood how it happened. He understood the mechanics of it!
But how could that old man have made such a perfect response in a single instant? Normally, once a swordsman’s blade was controlled by an opponent, his mind went blank and he no longer knew what to do...
Tap.
Then Hyun Sang stepped down in front of him and looked at Danhon Hyeolsu with solemn eyes.
“Not a bad move. But you overlooked one thing.”
“...!”
Danhon Hyeolsu forced his head up, already pulsing with agony, and looked at him. His eyes were full of confusion.
Overlooked?
As though answering that question, Hyun Sang spoke calmly.
“From my perspective, your attack wasn’t grotesque, nor was it irregular. If anything, I’d call it horribly obvious. Unfortunately for you, there are people in Mount Hua who think nothing of biting down on an incoming sword to stop it.”
“...!”
“If only you hadn’t rushed so much, it might have been a good fight.”
Hyun Sang gave a small shake of his head and raised his sword.
“Your mistake was looking down on your opponent. And on a battlefield, the one who lets his guard down dies first. Just like that fellow said.”
Danhon Hyeolsu’s face twisted. No, it had already been so badly mangled that “twisted” was too gentle a word; it had to be called grotesquely distorted.
Obvious?
His blood-soaked shoulder trembled faintly.
Was I the brat who knew nothing about combat after all?
A groan slipped from Danhon Hyeolsu’s mouth.
“Ghh...!”
The pain from Hyun Sang’s words was greater than the pain in his body. In the end, the groan turned into a beastlike howl.
“You... You damned...! Aaaaargh!”
Swish.
At that moment, Hyun Sang’s sword cut cleanly through Danhon Hyeolsu’s throat.
Thud.
His head, still distorted by agony, dropped to the ground and rolled away.
“But for you, it is a fitting end. Go to hell and repent for every sin you’ve committed.”
Hyun Sang shook blood from his sword, glanced once at Danhon Hyeolsu’s collapsed body, now deprived of its head, and then turned away without a trace of hesitation.