There Was One Madman (2)
“Namgung Hwang?”
“The Emperor Sword?”
The Five Swords, who had come down the mountain behind Chung Myung, all gaped in shock.
“Namgung Hwang took the Changgung Sword Squad and went to Jiujiang?”
“Shaolin called for him, but instead of going to Shaolin, he’s charging Maehwado?”
“Looks like it.”
Baek Cheon stared at Chung Myung with a dazed, vacant expression. Baek Cheon usually kept his face under tight control, but this time the shock had simply been too much.
“...Why?”
Chung Myung grinned.
“Sasuk. If you’re going to lead people from now on, there’s one thing you absolutely need to know.”
“And what’s that?”
When Baek Cheon asked with an uneasy face, Chung Myung answered as if it were no big deal.
“There’s nothing more pointless than trying to find a reason why a madman does mad shit.”
“...”
“You probably don’t get it, so let me explain again...”
“No, Chung Myung. I got it right away.”
“...Huh?”
Yoon Jong hurriedly nodded beside him.
“I got it too.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Me too.”
“...Then why the hell are you bastards talking while looking at me?”
And who else would they be looking at?
This was about you.
Yoon Jong hesitated as if choosing his words carefully, then spoke.
“If you think about it, there is a reason. Namgung Family must have been utterly humiliated on the Yangtze River back then. We only saw it briefly, but if that was the nature of the Emperor Sword, Namgung Hwang...”
“Yeah. He must’ve been sharpening his blade... no, his sword, this whole time.”
Imagining Namgung Hwang with bulging eyes, swinging his sword with ferocious intensity, everyone shuddered. Just thinking of that terrifying sword energy—something that couldn’t even be fully described with the word sword strike—made their skin crawl with an ache almost like pain.
“Then right now...”
“Yep.”
Chung Myung nodded with a sly grin.
“He’s probably gone completely insane, don’t you think? Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
* * *
BOOOOOOOM!
One entire building was blown away.
It was an impossible sight, something that wouldn’t happen even if dozens of military cannons were fired at once. Yet the thing that had created this spectacle was absurdly just a steel sword that didn’t even reach four feet in length.
“You despicable Sapa bastards!”
A roar like that of a lion burst from Namgung Hwang’s mouth.
“Drive every single one of those dog-faced mongrels who dared set foot on the lands of Gangbuk out of this place!”
“Yes, sir!”
The Changgung Sword Squad, answering Namgung Hwang’s command, shot out in all directions like streaks of light.
Just from the force with which they charged forward, one could guess how fiercely they had honed themselves over the past three years.
Namgung Hwang’s eyes blazed with terrifying light.
“Black Dragon King!”
Three years.
For some, it was a long time. For others, a short one.
For Namgung Hwang, it had felt like an age.
He had chewed over humiliation, disgrace, and disappointment in himself every single day.
The only thing that kept him enduring those years of agony, pain that felt as if it were tearing out his innards, was the hope that if he held on just three more years, he would be able to cut down that loathsome Jang Il-so and the Black Dragon King with his own sword.
And then, of all things, news came to his ears that the Black Dragon King himself had led the Water Bandit Sect into Gangbuk as part of Saperyeon.
“That bastard!”
Crack!
Namgung Hwang ground his teeth.
If the two characters 南宮—Namgung—were truly still carved into his heart, he would never have dared cross the Yangtze like this, not even alone, much less alongside Saperyeon.
By the time he came to his senses after letting his fury explode, he was already racing toward Jiujiang with the Changgung Sword Squad at his back.
“Do-wi!”
“Yes! Family Head!”
Namgung Do-wi.
The son of Namgung Hwang, who had endured three years of training that quite literally stripped flesh from bone, answered in a firm voice.
Those three years had been enough to turn him from a promising younger martial disciple into a true swordsman—and into the proud heir to Namgung Family.
“Take the Changgung Sword Squad and turn those bandit dogs into fish feed! Let the whole world know that even after suffering humiliation, the righteousness and justice of the Azure Sky still have not disappeared from the name of the sky itself!”
“Yes!”
As Namgung Do-wi dashed forward, Namgung Hwang fixed his gaze ahead.
“Hmph!”
He had indeed received Shaolin’s letter. But he had not even the slightest interest in what it said.
Spineless cowards!
A person ought to know when to avoid a place where they will die. But a martial artist must not. Especially not one who proclaims righteousness and justice as their banner—if they retreat because they value their life too much, they lose everything.
“We should have died there.”
If those Wudang horse-nosed bastards had not done their nonsense, if Shaolin and Qingcheng had not followed them into that nonsense.
He would never have had to beg pathetically for his life. And the glorious name of the Azure Sky Namgung would never have been thrown into the manure pit on his watch.
Thud.
Namgung Hwang stomped the ground.
“No. Those are nothing but excuses!”
If Namgung Hwang had truly possessed the spirit to value neither life nor death, if he had truly wanted the Namgung Family to become a sect that could stake everything on the name of righteousness, then he would have been able to draw his sword even in that situation.
What had made his sword heavy and dragged it down in that final moment was none other than Namgung Hwang’s own weakness.
And that fact made him even less able to endure himself.
“Spilled water can’t be scooped back up. But!”
Namgung Hwang’s eyes blazed as though they were on fire.
“You can fill a new basin. Today, I will take back the Namgung name!”
Just then, he saw ahead a mass of water bandits charging toward him with terrifying momentum.
“Hold them back!”
“Damn it, do these bastards even know where they are?”
“The Namgung Family is nothing special! Kill them all!”
Watching the bandits swarming in like a cloud of hornets, Namgung Hwang clenched his sword so hard it looked as if it might break.
“Thi...”
He stomped the ground again, violently. At the same time, white sword energy surged from the hilt of his blade, swelling in thick, billowing waves.
The energy surrounding Namgung Hwang’s sword was so dense it no longer even felt like sword energy. It wrapped around the blade completely and burst into dazzling light.
BOOM!
The one step of the Emperor.
And that one sword was the Emperor’s sword.
“OOOOOOOHHHHH!”
With a mighty shout, Namgung Hwang’s raised sword came crashing down.
BOOOOOOOOOM!
It sounded nothing like a sword being swung. It was exactly like a cannon being fired.
But even harder to believe than the sound was the size of the sword gang it produced.
From the tip of that small sword erupted a white sword gang the size of a house.
Everyone in its path lost all color from their faces as the enormous sword gang swept across their entire field of vision.
“D-dod...”
Before the warning to dodge could even fully leave their mouths, the white sword gang swallowed the charging bandits whole. Not only that, it carved a gigantic scar through the center of the main road and kept surging forward, farther and farther.
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOOOM!
Power so overwhelming it was impossible to believe even after seeing it with one’s own eyes.
Even if it had been palm force, it would have been enough to leave one stunned, but he had released this monstrous power through a sword?
It forced everyone to understand why the Namgung Family was called the Azure Sky Namgung Family, why they had been able to hold the seat of the Five Great Families’ leaders, why the Namgung Family Head had always proudly been listed among the candidates for the strongest swordsman under heaven.
“You insignificant Sapa dogs! Do you even know who you’re blocking?”
Having swept away the front line with a single sword and standing alone as he roared, Namgung Hwang looked so overwhelming that the word divine general hardly seemed sufficient.
“Wooooooah!”
“It’s Namgung Family! Namgung Family has come to save us!”
“The Azure Sky Namgung Family!”
“The Five Great Families are here!”
Those who had been hiding in comparatively safe buildings and peeking out cautiously finally rushed into the open with cheers. However disappointing Namgung Family had once been, they could not be compared to those water bandits.
Seeing them come all the way to Jiujiang and slaughter the bandits with their own hands washed away all the old resentment and began to fill that empty space with trust instead.
“Do not come outside! There are still filthy bandits out there! I’ll soon put your minds at ease!”
At those words, the crowd hurriedly nodded and scampered back inside, sensing that this long wait was finally nearing its end.
“Hm!”
Namgung Hwang nodded and was just about to stride forward with renewed vigor when someone approached from his side and spoke carefully.
“Brother.”
“What is it?”
Namgung Hwang turned and looked at the man beside him.
Namgung Myeong, the Lion Sword, his younger brother and the one in charge of the Changgung Sword Squad.
“Is this really all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“...I understand how you feel, Brother, but this seems like rather reckless action. I’m worried this could spiral into something bigger than intended...”
“Namgung Myeong!”
At Namgung Hwang’s cannon-like voice, Namgung Myeong flinched and shrank his neck in.
“Since when did you become a coward?”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant...”
“Listen carefully!”
Namgung Hwang glared at him with murderous eyes and said,
“In this world, if you’re the only sensible one among fools, they’ll only treat you like the idiot.”
“...Pardon?”
“What more reason does a person who wields a sword need to crush Sapa?”
There was not a shred of doubt in Namgung Hwang’s voice. Only unshakable certainty.
“We suffered all this because we couldn’t take such an obvious thing as obvious! Because we couldn’t say what was right was right, and what was wrong was wrong!”
“F-Family Head, I only...”
“Quiet!”
Namgung Hwang glared at Namgung Myeong as if he would devour him.
Of course, he understood Namgung Myeong’s worry—that this affair might bring harm to the Namgung Family.
But now he knew.
A sect that only chased profit could last a hundred years at most.
To preserve its worth for a thousand years, ten thousand years, something greater than gain and loss was required. Those blinded by small things and unable to see the larger whole were doomed to collapse in the end.
At that moment, one person flashed through Namgung Hwang’s mind.
A small swordsman covered in wounds.
One man, drenched in blood, howling as if he might collapse any second.
Back then, Namgung Hwang had been unable to meet the eyes of that young swordsman staring at him. He had not even dared. When the young swordsman looked back at him, Namgung Hwang had reflexively looked away.
For years, what had driven Namgung Hwang into true suffering was the shame of himself, for being unable to meet those eyes in that moment.
“Never again...”
Namgung Hwang clenched his fist.
“Never again will I turn my eyes away from anyone. I will never do anything that I myself cannot stand proudly behind! I am Namgung Hwang! The Family Head of Namgung Family, the Emperor Sword Namgung Hwang!”
“Brother...”
“If you have time to worry, draw your sword. A Namgung swordsman speaks with his blade, not his mouth!”
“Understood, Family Head!”
Soon, determination also entered Namgung Myeong’s eyes.
Right and wrong were still unclear. But one thing was certain: his Family Head was staking everything here.
Then, as his brother and as a member of Namgung Family—and as the leader of the proud Changgung Sword Squad—he had to answer that resolve in kind.
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
Seeing the water bandits charging black and dense from the dock, Namgung Hwang tightened his grip on his sword.
“Crush the Sapa!”
The white sword energy bursting from his blade surged upward into the sky.
Toward the endlessly clear blue heaven.