Drunk on the Glory of the Past Is a Dead Man (5)
When dealing with Gal Cheon-lip, Un Geom never once abandoned courtesy.
No matter how much of a demonic leader the man might be, Un Geom believed that a swordsman owed a certain minimum of respect to anyone he crossed blades with while gambling his life. That was the way he taught Mount Hua’s disciples.
But now, that respect had vanished completely from Un Geom’s eyes.
He knew, too, that there were men in this world who did not deserve even the smallest shred of respect.
And...
The eyes of the Mount Hua disciples, who had stopped their swords and were now staring at Gal Cheon-lip, were even harsher than Un Geom’s.
He stabbed a blade into a comrade’s back?
At least in Mount Hua, that was unforgivable.
As a hundred Peak Realm swordsmen shot him looks laced with killing intent, Gal Cheon-lip flinched and glanced around.
“What the hell?”
His pale face twisted in confusion as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. But there was no one kind enough to explain it to him.
They only stared back with cold, cutting eyes.
“What? Damn it, you bastards!”
When Gal Cheon-lip shouted, Un Geom lowered his sword and spoke slowly.
“You...”
The cold, emotionless voice bored into Gal Cheon-lip’s ears.
“Are unfit to lead people.”
Whatever his intention had been, those gathered here had trusted this Gal Cheon-lip and fought under him. If he had cared even a little about them, he would never have been so consumed by his own attack that he drove a blade into the backs of his allies.
At Un Geom’s merciless words, Gal Cheon-lip’s gaze drifted sideways before he realized it. The Sapa fighters, who had stopped their swords and were watching him now, had eyes full of rage and murderous intent.
“...You idiots.”
It was beyond his understanding.
“You useless trash! Are you too stupid to understand? If I can’t take down that one-armed bastard, we’re all dead! If I win somehow, then you’ll have a chance to survive too, don’t you get that?”
And yet these people—after he had stabbed more than half of them—were looking at him with those eyes?
Fucking useless maggots who don’t even know what’s right!
There were only about five of them at most.
In battle, wasn’t it common enough to get hit by an ally’s blade?
But the Sapa fighters hearing that only bared their teeth at Gal Cheon-lip.
“This bastard...”
“Hopeless.”
Just as Gal Cheon-lip was about to hurl more abuse, Un Geom cut him off sharply, as if he could no longer bear to listen, and stepped forward.
A blood-red aura gathered at the tip of his sword.
“You...”
Un Geom, the Mount Hua disciples, even the Sapa fighters... all of them looked at him with hostile, cold eyes. It was as if the whole world had turned against him.
Feeling cornered, Gal Cheon-lip ground his teeth hard enough to crack them.
No.
This wasn’t right.
This wasn’t the way he was supposed to be looked at.
The gaze aimed at him should have been filled with awe and fear. With jealousy and terror. The look of someone who didn’t even dare dream of standing where he stood, gazing at an absolute ruler.
“You can’t become Jang Il-so.”
Grit-crunching rage.
Those emotions that had always lurked in his eyes whenever he thought of Jang Il-so—they should have been in everyone’s eyes here.
But...
“Then why are you looking at me like that! Why! Whyyyyy!”
A beast-like howl burst from Gal Cheon-lip’s throat.
He couldn’t accept it.
He absolutely couldn’t accept it.
“I’ll kill you!”
With a shriek, Gal Cheon-lip charged at Un Geom. Savage killing intent. A force rolling forward like a storm. Veins bulged across his face, his eyes rolled back, and the sight of him rushing in was horrifying.
Kwa-gagagak!
The blue blade aura he unleashed erupted with monstrous force. No matter how much one might hate Gal Cheon-lip, the moment that storm of blade aura came crashing down, no one could deny that his skill was real.
Damn it!
Blood vessels burst in Gal Cheon-lip’s eyes as he forced his inner energy to its limit. His eyes quickly went red.
The Jianghu was a world where the strong were respected. Strength alone was justice.
The weak feared the strong and followed them. Qualification to lead someone? Strength was enough for that.
Hadn’t Jang Il-so himself built Maninbang and seized the Four Hegemons Alliance through his own power?
And what kind of bullshit are you spouting now!
Kwa-gagagak!
The blade aura spun even more violently. New streaks of aura carved fresh trails across the existing ones, and dozens of those slashes interwove irregularly to form a ferocious storm.
Any human body caught in that infernal maelstrom would be torn apart into nothing more than strips of flesh.
Meanwhile, Un Geom, standing before that raging blade storm with a sword in one hand, looked far too vulnerable.
But then—
Clench.
Watching him, Gwak Hoe quietly tightened his fist.
No one stepped forward. No one even shouted a warning.
Everyone only looked at Un Geom’s back with unwavering trust.
Anyone from Mount Hua, anyone who had watched what Un Geom had done over the last three years, knew this much: worrying about him now was no different from belittling the blood he had shed and the effort he had poured into himself.
What they should feel was not worry.
It was faith in their master.
“Hoo.”
Un Geom took a short breath.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t afraid. That terrifying storm of blade aura could rip his body apart at any moment.
In the past, he would have lacked even the courage to face it and would have retreated, step after step. And then...
Un Geom seemed to see a scene before his eyes. Someone throwing himself forward to protect him. A slightly smaller shoulder standing proudly before him.
A faint curve touched Un Geom’s lips.
He was standing here so that he wouldn’t have to see that scene again.
Guuuu.
The tip of his foot pressed firmly into the ground. Everything began from below.
He kept his heart as calm as a still lake and observed his opponent with bright, steady eyes.
He saw it.
Inner energy is not everything. Form is not everything either.
It was ferocious, powerful, and unyielding.
But it was clearly off.
Once, those blade strikes must have tangled together like a set of exquisite gears to butcher whatever stood before them. But not now. Those gears were rusted, coated in dust, grinding against each other with a bitter squeal.
Gaps where there should be none. Axes twisted out of true.
Yes, Chung Myung. So that’s it.
Gal Cheon-lip must have believed without a shadow of doubt that he had become stronger. As time passed, his inner energy would have grown deeper, and the force behind his blade would have become more fearsome.
But martial arts were not just that.
No matter how powerful a machine might be, without careful, constant maintenance it would eventually rust and warp.
This attack was nothing more than a gearwheel forced to turn with a crooked axle.
Un Geom took a step forward.
Advancing toward that raging storm looked utterly reckless, yet his eyes remained as calm as a lake.
Wooooooong.
His sword, stuffed full of inner energy, trembled violently.
Can I become a model for those children?
Embarrassingly enough, those youngsters still called him master. Even though there were already more than a few who had surpassed him and gone on ahead, they still showed him clear respect and admiration.
That fact was sometimes an immense strength, and at other times felt like a weight pressing heavily upon him.
What should he show them? How could he be of help to those steadfast children? What must he do so that he would not feel ashamed to be called their master?
With not a trace of hesitation, Un Geom took another step.
The pressure pouring from the blade made his hair rise and shook his skin as if it might tear it apart at any moment.
Then—
Fwaaaaat!
The plum blossom sword in his left hand shot forward like a ray of light and plunged into the storm of blade aura.
Kagagagak!
Like jamming a metal rod into the teeth of a spinning gear, the seemingly precise blade storm suddenly lurched and shook violently.
Fwaaaat!
In the instant his sword was withdrawn, it flared with light again.
What he needed to show those children was obvious, wasn’t it?
The will to face fearlessly. And the spine to keep one’s true purpose intact, no matter how dazzling the surface might be!
And then—
It’s just a shell.
If one judged by the force contained in the blade, by the depth of inner energy, by how flashy and devastating the attack could be, then of course the world would think Heartless Ghost Blade was stronger than him. Un Geom would have thought the same, once.
But now he knew. Martial arts were not that sort of thing.
His disciples had now taken their first proper steps into the Jianghu. Before long, they too would face trials and be shaken by them.
And there was only one thing he could tell them.
What you must believe in...
The feel of the sword in his hand vanished.
Yet its heavy weight remained unmistakably real. The weight in his hand was not the weight of the sword itself. It was the conviction and faith he had built in himself—faith born from never once being lenient with himself through all that time.
...is your own effort.
Un Geom’s sword turned into a beam of light again and plunged through the storm of blade aura.
One sword became two, and two became three.
Before long, Un Geom’s sword drew seven sword images, and without so much as a tremor, it thrust into the gap between the red blade aura.
Kak! Kagagagak! Kagagagagak!
Blade and sword twisted around each other, and a chilling screech burst forth.
Udeuk! Uduk!
Agony like a wrist about to snap. A shock as if his organs were being twisted inside out.
Un Geom forcibly swallowed the blood surging up his throat and tightened his grip on the sword until every knuckle went white.
Observe.
No matter the situation, his eyes had to watch everything.
Like a foreign object jammed into a gearwheel that could no longer be turned, the storming blade aura rocked violently.
And Un Geom’s plum blossom sword, which had never once rested through three full years, did not miss that moment.
Now!
Flash.
The sword’s tip carried effort.
The sword’s tip carried time.
And in the end, the sword was only a person. It carried a person.
The moment all of it was poured into the sword without a single grain of doubt, the sword became the person, and the person became the sword, one body and one blade.
Fwaaaaaaaaaat!
In an instant, the sword aura transformed into a streak of light and cut through the storming blade aura.
Kagagagagak!
The gearwheel, twisted beyond recognition, collapsed like a mirage before that ferocious strike.
The red sword aura surged upward as the blue blade aura was annihilated.
The sword, filled completely with time, effort, and humanity, knocked aside the blade that had been wildly swung in a fit of frenzy. And then it drove hard into the body of the man who was staring wide-eyed in stunned disbelief.
Thud!
The strange sensation that had made it feel as though his entire arm had disappeared vanished as if washed away by emptiness, and the world returned to him. A heavy, weighty sensation settled at the tips of his fingers.
And...
If there was one more thing he needed to believe in.
Un Geom quietly turned his gaze. He saw his disciples clenching their fists, looking as if they might shout at any moment. And behind them, he also saw the masters—looking even more excited than the children themselves.
The ones standing behind you.
Believe in yourself, and believe in the people who stand with you.
That alone was enough.