I Thought He’d Come Back as a Dragon (4)
The floor was a shattered mix of white broken blue stone and red earth.
Across it ran three silver lines.
Three Chasing Soul Blades flew toward Chung Myung, carving through the air in paths so beautiful they were almost impossible to describe—except that they were each driven by different speeds and different force.
One came straight at him, while the other two swept in from the left and right in wide arcs.
The circling blades were far faster than the one flying in a straight line. By the time the three of them reached Chung Myung’s immediate range, they were almost arriving at once…….
No!
Paahaaaat!
Chung Myung swung Dark Killing Sword like lightning, batting away the two Chasing Soul Blades coming in from either side.
Kwaang!
Kwaaaaaang!
The instant sword and blade collided, a huge shockwave swept in all directions. The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, and dirt shot up into the air.
Paaaahaat!
Yet even amid that tremendous impact, Chung Myung did not flinch by so much as an inch. He thrust his sword forward, and the tip shot like a lightning bolt toward the Chasing Soul Blade flying straight at him.
But then, at that very moment.
Shaaaak!
Just before the straight-flying blade met Chung Myung’s sword, it suddenly changed direction and shot upward. Like a venomous snake crawling along the ground that suddenly lifted its head and struck.
“Hah!”
“That……!”
From the mouths of the Mount Hua disciples, who had been watching the duel with bated breath, came involuntary gasps and cries of shock.
The blade that had vaulted over Chung Myung’s sweeping sword now looked as though it might pierce his face at any second.
But he was Chung Myung.
It was the kind of moment no one could face without panicking, yet Chung Myung’s reaction was astonishingly fast. Almost at the exact same moment the blade changed direction, his head snapped back violently.
Shaaeeeeak!
The blade grazed right past Chung Myung’s face.
He, he dodged…….
And then Baek Cheon saw it.
Spin.
The blade that had barely missed Chung Myung’s face twisted again in midair, turning at a right angle.
“What……!”
Even Baek Cheon could not help but be stunned this time. Chung Myung himself seemed taken aback, his eyes widening.
Paaaaaaaat!
It had changed direction near his face and was already flying back in, leaving no room whatsoever to dodge.
Kak!
But there was something faster than Chung Myung’s body.
His sword had already been drawn back, blocking the incoming blade.
Kagagagak! Kagagak!
Even after being stopped by the sword’s face, the blade did not lose momentum. Spinning furiously as though determined to punch through the steel, it continued to press forward.
And then!
Kagagagak!
The blade twisted sideways and slipped past Chung Myung’s face by a hair’s breadth.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!
The moment the blade struck the ground, the earth flipped upward like a shell exploding from a cannon shot.
“…….”
Chung Myung slowly turned his gaze toward the completely ruined ground.
A faint red line appeared on his cheek, then gradually deepened.
Drip.
Blood trickled down from the clear wound carved into his cheek.
“……You old bastard?”
Grinding his teeth, Chung Myung glared at Tang Gun-ak.
“……Are you actually trying to kill me?”
Jo Gul said with a stiff face.
A throwing blade was not the kind of weapon that could be easily recalled once it had left the fingertips. In other words, unlike a sword, even if a throwing blade reached the point where it was about to pierce an opponent’s heart, it could not simply be stopped.
That was why people who used throwing blades or hidden weapons had to be as considerate as possible during sparring. Before a duel turned into a fight to the death.
But there had been no consideration whatsoever in the throwing blades Tang Gun-ak had just released. If anything, they were packed with the desperate intent to take his opponent’s life no matter what.
“If the opponent weren’t Chung Myung, he’d already be dead.”
If a blade you had already dodged could twist its path right in front of your face and come flying back at you? If Jo Gul had been the one facing that, he wouldn’t have even had a chance to think about how to respond properly.
If you know about it, you can react. If you don’t, you’re doomed. The world called that kind of attack an assassination strike, did it not?
In other words, Tang Gun-ak was unleashing assassination strikes the moment the sparring match began. And that was absolutely not something that should have been happening.
“Sasuk.”
“Just watch.”
But Baek Cheon, who had already regained his composure, spoke as though it were nothing.
“……But……!”
“Using assassination strikes doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trying to kill your opponent. As long as you have one guarantee, it doesn’t matter how you use them.”
“A guarantee?”
“Yes.”
Baek Cheon nodded lightly.
“Absolute confidence that the opponent can defend without taking any damage.”
“…….”
At that, Jo Gul shut his mouth.
Baek Cheon sighed and looked back and forth between Tang Gun-ak and Chung Myung.
What absurd trust.
He had watched Chung Myung train them, and he had personally seen that incomprehensible sight: Chung Myung growing stronger at a speed even greater than the people he trained. Because of that, he never doubted Chung Myung’s strength for even a moment.
But how could Tang Gun-ak be so certain?
Unless he was sure Chung Myung had returned stronger than expected…… no, stronger than that, he could never have started throwing out life-threatening assassination strikes from the very beginning.
Then a low voice came from beside him.
“That’s a relief.”
“Hm?”
Baek Cheon turned slightly toward Yu I-seol.
His sago, who was always expressionless and impossible to read, kept her eyes fixed on the two people ahead as she murmured lightly,
“There won’t be any disappointment.”
Baek Cheon’s lips slowly curved upward at those words.
“That much is certain.”
He looked at Chung Myung, who was wiping the blood from his cheek.
“I guarantee it. That level of attack won’t stop that madman.”
His voice was full of certainty and trust.
And then, at that very moment, a bewildered voice slammed into his ears.
“Poison?”
“…….”
“P-poooiison? No, this guy used poison in a spar? Huh! My head’s spinning! Oogh!”
“…….”
Chung Myung swayed, clutching his head. Baek Cheon’s face went slightly pale. Jo Gul and Yoon Jong turned to look at him with deadpan expressions.
“……A guarantee?”
“…….”
“You’re the one who keeps saying things like that, and yet you’ve been wrong plenty of times already. You still want to be that reckless…….”
“…….”
Baek Cheon merely looked up silently at the sky.
Chiiiiiik.
As blood dripping from the tip of Chung Myung’s fingers melted the hard blue stone, white steam rose into the air. The poison mixed into the blood was clearly something absurdly lethal.
Chung Myung glared at Tang Gun-ak, his expression full of disbelief.
“Pooooison?”
“What’s so surprising about that?”
Tang Gun-ak shrugged as though it were nothing.
“Ungh!”
Chung Myung grabbed the back of his neck, which had started to stiffen.
“You’re using poison in a spar with a junior? Poison? And this kind of lethal poison, too?”
“I was going to avoid saying this, but…….”
“What?”
“Isn’t it a little embarrassing for you to be calling yourself a junior disciple out loud? Have some shame.”
“…….”
Chung Myung’s jaw dropped.
Did the man who had just used poison in a spar really have the nerve to lecture him about shame?
Even Chung Myung, who devoted himself entirely to the Dao and had the kindest heart of any immortal, could not just let that slide…….
- Ah, quit spouting bullshit!
Ah, you shut up too, will you? I’m about to rip the glue off your memorial tablet.
Chiiiiiik.
Seeing the ground still burning where the poison had struck, Chung Myung ground his teeth.
“You’re really that determined to win?”
“It’s not exactly that. It’s just…….”
Tang Gun-ak smiled faintly.
“My skills are too meager to force out everything you’ve got, aren’t they? So I’ll simply use every tool at my disposal.”
“……Didn’t you say you were done using poison? That it wouldn’t matter much in fights between real experts?”
“That’s not quite right.”
“Huh?”
Tang Gun-ak looked at Chung Myung with cold eyes.
“Of course, using poison to bring down someone at your level is difficult. But at the very least, it can force you to waste internal energy suppressing it, and if your injuries become deep enough, it can make the poison erupt all at once.”
“…….”
“If it can buy even one-tenth, no—if it can buy even one-thousandth of an advantage, why wouldn’t I use it?”
“……Huh?”
“Between you, who must burn through your internal energy to drive out the poison, and me, who only needs to coat my hidden weapons with poison before the fight, it’s obvious who holds the advantage.”
……Come to think of it, that made sense.
Then why the hell hadn’t that bastard Tang Bo used poison during the war? Was he an idiot?
At that moment, a conversation Chung Myung had once had with Tang Bo flashed through his mind.
- Hey, why don’t you use poison?
- No, you dense old bastard! You need poison before you can use it!
- Your family dumped you out and still wouldn’t even give you poison?
- What, do you think poison just grows if you dig in the dirt? We’ve already run out of all the poison we had stockpiled in the Tang Family! When do you think we’d have time to make more? If I fell back to make poison, everyone would be dead already.
- Useless bastard.
- Watch your mouth. If I had poison to coat my throwing blades with, even your Taoist brother would go down in one shot, one shot…… ha ha. Let’s talk with our words, shall we? No need to draw your sword. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived on nothing but grass up at Mount Hua, but I just don’t get jokes…… hiiiiik!
Ah…… I was the idiot.
“Ungh!”
The moment he felt his head spin again, Chung Myung hurriedly circulated his internal energy to suppress the poison.
His own pure, clear immortal energy neutralized the toxin in an instant.
Only then, finally able to breathe, Chung Myung raised his sword, grinding his teeth.
“If you’re going to do that, then I can’t just sit still.”
“No.”
Tang Gun-ak shook his head.
“This is far from all I have.”
Both of Tang Gun-ak’s hands slipped into his sleeves and came back out. In his right hand were Chasing Soul Blades; in his left, thin needles so numerous they seemed to fill his palm.
The edges of the throwing blades caught the sunlight and gleamed a pale green.
Chung Myung’s face stiffened slightly as he once again realized that Tang Gun-ak was truly serious.
“Of course, I do want to see how much stronger you’ve become. But you should also understand one thing.”
“……One thing?”
“Who I am.”
Tang Gun-ak’s imposing voice pressed down on Chung Myung.
“Who it is you’re fighting alongside. Who the Poison King Tang Gun-ak is.”
The green robe wrapped around Tang Gun-ak’s entire body billowed and fluttered. The killing intent pouring out of him scraped over Chung Myung’s nerves with merciless force.
Chung Myung’s lips parted slightly, revealing white teeth. His face twisted like that of a demon.
“Seriously…….”
He tightened his grip on Dark Killing Sword, and a storm-like killing intent burst from his body in turn.
“You keep saying things I like!”
Kwaang!
At that instant, Tang Gun-ak stomped hard and unleashed five throwing blades. Released with vivid, brilliant color, the five blades spun as though winding around one another and shot rapidly toward Chung Myung.
“Hah!”
With a bright laugh, Chung Myung charged straight toward the blades hurtling at him.
Paaahaat!
The sword, spewing crimson-red sword energy like a sunset, plunged into the gap between the five incoming blades. In that split second, his extended sword split in all directions, smashing apart every one of the furiously spinning blades.
Kwa-kwa-kwang!
The roar of impact exploded! The blades scattered everywhere!
But what greeted Chung Myung immediately after was a cloud of pale sand that had already spread above his head in that brief instant.
Severing Soul Sand.
Sand laced with lethal poison was scattered into the air, and in front of him hundreds of needles were pouring down. Worse still, among the Severing Soul Sand were dark, ugly shuriken mixed in here and there.
Ghost King Tally.
The vicious hidden weapons used only against the Tang Family’s enemies now rained over Chung Myung’s whole body.
At that moment, Chung Myung’s sword trembled violently, beginning to create what should have properly existed only on Mount Hua.
Scarlet plum blossoms.