Tell You What Real Despair Means (2)
Beop Jeong’s face had gone a deathly, ghastly shade of blue.
“W-what in the world….”
Even though he could clearly see the approaching fleet, he wanted nothing more than to deny everything unfolding before his eyes.
How could this be happening?
How, of all times, did Maninbang arrive at the exact moment Shaolin reached this place?
Coincidence?
Coincidence?
If that were true, then there was no explanation beyond the heavens themselves playing tricks on him. It could only mean the sky had arranged this scene because it wanted to watch how much more despair he could endure.
But Beop Jeong was convinced this was no accident.
The reason was simple: the figure standing at the prow of that ship was none other than Paegun.
Jang Il-so.
The man who had displayed those chilling schemes from the very beginning of the Yangtze River massacre. The memory of the shiver he had felt all the way in distant Henan, hearing news from the Yangtze, was still vivid.
Coincidence? There was no such thing with Jang Il-so. Absolutely not.
“A-abbot!”
“…….”
Even as Beop Jeong stared at the ships as if entranced, the fleet kept drawing closer to Maehwado.
“Abbot!”
Beop Gye called out again, more urgently this time. The anxiety in his voice stabbed at Beop Jeong’s ears.
“If we wait any longer, there will be no turning back! If that ship reaches Maehwado…!”
Beop Jeong did not need the rest explained to him.
The Namgung Family had already passed their limit. Even the phrase “a candle in the wind” sounded calm compared to their current state. If Maninbang reached Maehwado before Shaolin did, the outcome was obvious.
They had to head there immediately—before those ships blocked Shaolin’s path.
“We must arrive first! Before Maninbang!”
Those ships were undoubtedly fast, but they were still at a distance. If they jumped into the water now, they could still reach the island before them. The water bandits, who could hinder them both on and beneath the surface, were still tied up at Maehwado for the time being, weren’t they? It wasn’t too late to seize the lead. At least, that was what Beop Gye believed.
But….
“...And if we arrive first?”
“Pardon?”
At Beop Jeong’s words, Beop Gye turned to him as if asking what on earth he meant.
Beop Jeong looked between the ship and the island, his face cold as ice.
“If we… arrive at that island first… then what?”
“Well….”
Beop Gye could not readily answer.
Not because he had nothing to say.
Because he sensed something in Beop Jeong’s voice that he had never heard before.
“Why has Namgung ended up in such a state? Wasn’t it because they were trapped on that island?”
“But, Abbot! If we leave them like this, Namgung will be wiped out!”
Wiped out.
The words clearly unsettled Beop Jeong. The trembling of his shoulders proved it.
But….
Grit.
Beop Jeong clenched his lip hard enough to draw blood. It spilled from the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin. His toes dug furrows into the ground with the force he was exerting. He spoke.
“Fall back.”
“A-abbot!”
“Did I not say fall back? All Shaolin disciples, move away from the river! Hold position here!”
“Abbot! What are you saying…!”
“Will you not shut that mouth!”
Beop Gye let out a cry, but Beop Jeong only snapped at him in return.
“Ugh….”
Unable to disobey, Beop Gye could only groan in bitter anguish.
To him, Namgung was not merely one of the Five Great Families. They were comrades who had shared the same humiliation in that disgraceful Yangtze River calamity. And now his abbot was telling him to simply stand by and watch those comrades be slaughtered.
Beop Jeong’s fingertips were trembling violently.
Even he had not found this decision easy to make.
“...If we head toward Maehwado now, we’ll only fall into that Paegun’s trap. This entire situation may be nothing more than Paegun’s scheme to draw Shaolin in.”
Beop Gye truly wanted to ask him this, from the bottom of his heart.
If Paegun had devised such a scheme, then why had he revealed himself in advance instead of waiting to strike after Shaolin reached Maehwado?
But he could not bring himself to say it aloud. He was afraid the disciples around them would hear.
And perhaps, deep down, he feared that the question would expose Beop Jeong’s true feelings beneath this bright sky.
He did not want to know. He did not want to confirm it.
“We… Shaolin….”
With lips smeared in blood, Beop Jeong made his decision.
“Will… observe the situation… from here.”
His final words trailed off until they were barely audible. But even without hearing them clearly, no one could mistake the decision Beop Jeong had made.
“...Amitabha.”
Contrary to his fading voice, the clear Buddhist chant cut painfully into the ears of the Shaolin disciples, who could not bear to look straight at the island.
“…….”
Namgung Hwang stared across the river in a daze.
He could clearly see Shaolin, which had seemed on the verge of diving into the water to save them, hesitating and backing away before reforming its ranks.
“What….”
What were they doing?
Why had they stopped there? What on earth was there to do at that place?
“Why…?”
Someone’s murmur came through clearly.
Silence settled.
It was hard to believe that just moments ago, beasts maddened by frenzy had been tearing at one another here. A suffocating silence now descended over the island.
“Why…? Why aren’t they coming?”
“What on earth….”
Even then, the Namgung swordsmen had not given up on the faintest glimmer of hope. Surely there had to be a reason. They were delayed for the moment, but soon Shaolin would cross the river and reinforce them.
That was what they believed.
No—there was no other choice but to believe it.
Even Namgung Hwang, at this moment, did not doubt for an instant that Shaolin would cross the river to save them.
But….
“Th-that ship… what is that?”
A single voice drifted out, and it spread like a ripple.
The attention that Shaolin’s sudden appearance had seized was pulled away to the side. Only then did everyone see it: the fleet approaching this island.
In that instant, everyone here understood what was happening on this island. It was not reason, but instinct that reached the conclusion.
The Namgung swordsmen’s eyes shook violently. Filled with disbelief and fear, they slowly turned their gaze back across the river. Their chins trembled pitifully, as though they lacked even the courage to confirm the reality before them.
But there comes a moment when truth can no longer be avoided.
When their uneasy gazes finally returned to Shaolin, they saw it: Shaolin had withdrawn far from the riverbank and was holding position at a distance.
What drove the Namgung Family into despair was not Shaolin’s feet stepping back as if they had no intention of coming any farther.
What truly cast them into despair was the absence of eyes.
The monks’ piercing gazes, which should have been fixed here with fierce intensity, were nowhere to be seen.
They were not looking.
Shaolin—the North Star of the martial world, the temple said to bow before no sect under heaven. The arhat monks of Shaolin, who supposedly bowed to no one, had lowered their heads like sinners.
As if they could not bear to meet their eyes.
Even with this much distance between them, the guilt was so overwhelming that they could not bring themselves to face Namgung’s gaze.
How could anyone fail to understand?
Even a fool would know what was happening now.
They had… been abandoned.
“Uh….”
“Ah….”
What drives a person deepest into despair is always hope.
Human beings do not despair in places where hope is entirely absent, because in such places they accept despair as something natural.
But when they discover even a thread of hope, they cling to it with desperate strength.
And when they realize that hope was only a mirage, that was when they finally collapsed.
“Ugh… ughhh….”
An indescribably vast despair began to sweep over the Namgung Family.
The fact that their trusted ally had abandoned them, that Shaolin had turned its back on their deaths, cast them into an abyss of despair they had never once in their lives experienced.
“Ugh….”
Moans like those of wounded beasts gasping for breath slipped between their lips.
Perhaps there was little difference. They were wounded beasts now, and what remained for them was only death. With the lifeline of Shaolin severed, there was nothing left but endless falling.
No will remained to swing a sword, no fury rose again in their hearts. Their limbs felt as though they belonged to someone else, heavy and useless. They only wanted to let everything go.
What made despair so terrifying was that it forced people to their knees. They were all being sucked helplessly into a pit so deep and dark that no one could even bear to look down into it.
But even then, only one person did not yield despair—only rage.
“B-Beat Jeeeooong!”
From Namgung Hwang’s mouth, the cry of a wounded tiger burst forth in agony.
“Beop Jeong! B-Beat Jeeeooong! Aaaarghhh!”
A blood-soaked howl tore out of his throat.
The veins in both his eyes had burst, and his ruined voice screeched like twisted iron.
Just as everyone else was groaning beneath this utterly crushing humiliation….
At last, that man reached this land. The one who treated this mire of despair as nothing more than a game.
BOOOOM!
The huge warship rammed into the sandbar.
Namgung, the Water Bandit Sect, even Namgung Hwang and the Black Dragon King—everyone watched the scene unfold.
“Hmmmmmm.”
A low, nasal voice drifted out lightly. It was a small sound, yet strangely enough it spread clearly across the entire island.
Then, one person stepped down with graceful ease.
“…….”
Namgung Hwang stared at him with bloodshot eyes, the veins in them broken and red.
The man who had toyed with them three years ago on this very Yangtze, mocking them as he left.
He had not changed at all.
Flamboyant crimson robes embroidered with gold thread. Skin as white as porcelain, hair pinned up without a single strand out of place, a splendid ceremonial crown, and ornate jewelry worn almost to excess.
Thud.
Jang Il-so lightly leaped from the ship to the shore, then slowly straightened the body he had bent so slightly.
Jingle.
The sound of his ornaments striking one another dragged up memories from three years ago by force. That sound awakened nightmares and summoned terror.
Namgung Hwang’s gaze fell to Jang Il-so’s lips.
“How strange.”
Jang Il-so spoke softly, his face warm with false friendliness.
“It’s been quite a while, and yet you don’t look very welcoming.”
His lips, red as blood, curved into a moonlike smile. The words spilling from that truly ominous, wicked mouth were horrifying enough to chill the bones.
Namgung Hwang shut his eyes tight.
“I, for one, am very… happy to see you. Hahaha!”
And he thought: perhaps it would have been better to die at the Black Dragon King’s hands.
Rather than be toyed with by this demon….