Lord of the Black Dragon
The gash in his side where the sword had cut him throbbed, and then a horrific wave of pain rolled through him.
The Black Dragon King was by no means a fool. His actions and rough manner were, to some extent, deliberate. Beneath that coarse exterior, his mind had always been coldly realistic.
But right now, if not for the agony in his side, he might even have wondered whether this was all a dream.
I didn’t see it.
Not the bastard’s body, and not his sword.
Let my guard down?
What a joke.
The Black Dragon King had resolved to give it everything he had. In front of so many onlookers, he needed to display overwhelming power and turn the tide of battle in the direction of the Surochae. There was no room for carelessness when he had a task to accomplish.
And yet he hadn’t seen it at all. Not even a little.
How...
Cold sweat streamed down his back.
That meant the boy’s speed had truly exceeded the range of what he could perceive—and that boy was barely past twenty, if even that?
Impossible!
Impossible.
Because the Black Dragon King was not stupid, that made it all the harder to accept.
Everything in this world had its limits.
A bear could tear apart prey the size of a house; a tiger could crush stone. Once in a thousand years, maybe once in ten thousand, such a tiger might appear.
But a tiger that flew through the sky would already have gone beyond the category of “tiger,” would it not? A man might imagine a tiger as large as a mountain, but he would not imagine a tiger that could fly. That was what “common sense” was.
To tell him to accept Cheong Myeong’s skill as he had just seen it was no different from asking him to believe that a tiger could fly and strike lightning from the heavens.
Throb! Throb!
His wound and his instincts screamed at him to fall back from this opponent.
But reason roared just as fiercely that he must not show weakness here.
Caught between instinct and reason, the Black Dragon King had no idea how he was supposed to react.
Whirling his sword around, Cheong Myeong started walking toward him.
Flinch.
Before he even realized it, the Black Dragon King’s feet tried to retreat, and he barely managed to force them still. The fearsome Black Dragon King yielding to some brat like that? Even if he tore Cheong Myeong limb from limb, it would be a shame that would never leave him for the rest of his life.
What the hell are you thinking?
He gritted his teeth.
What did it matter whether the other man was strong or not?
He could not retreat anyway. The moment he gave ground here, he would lose all right to be called the Black Dragon King. The Surochae would fly apart at the seams, and he would spend the rest of his life being mocked and pointed at.
A righteous man of the evil sects could be vile. But he must never become a laughingstock.
THUD!
Steeling himself, the Black Dragon King slammed the crescent blade into the ground. Then, teeth clenched, he raised the weapon in both hands and leveled it at Cheong Myeong.
“Huuuff!”
Forget everything.
Forget how strong that bastard had been in the past, forget how he had become this powerful in only three years. None of that meant anything in this fight.
There was only one thing he needed to think about now.
How to kill him!
“Yooooooou bastard!”
When you couldn’t gauge your opponent’s strength, the best choice was usually defense. But instead, the Black Dragon King charged forward. He could not allow himself to get dragged into the other man’s rhythm.
A burst of speed from a man wielding a giant crescent blade was terrifying enough to choke the breath from any opponent just by looking at it. The black blade aura streaming from the tip of the weapon carved lines through the air that seized everyone’s attention.
But that momentum seemed to mean nothing to Cheong Myeong, at least not on the surface. Even while watching the Black Dragon King rush at him with savage force, Cheong Myeong’s eyes never changed.
Not even the way he walked toward him changed. It was as if the Black Dragon King simply did not exist in those eyes.
BOOOOOOM!
The stomp of his extended leg shook the entire island. With that force—strong enough to make blood burst from the wound in his waist—the Black Dragon King twisted his blade and brought it crashing down with all the power he could muster.
FWOOOOOOOOOOSH!
At that sound, goosebumps rose all over everyone’s bodies.
This was not mere momentum or inner strength. His inner power had not leaked a single thread into the air; it was fully contained within the blade. So the sound cleaving the air had come purely from the Black Dragon King’s body itself.
His battle-hardened frame spun with the elastic violence of taut rubber, channeling every ounce of its strength into the weapon. Even in that single motion, his body stirred up a storm.
And the crescent blade, packed with the force of that body and all his inner power, fell as if it would split heaven and earth in two.
Even Baek Cheon, watching from the side, clenched his fists and had to draw every muscle in his body tight. That one sword stroke was so tremendous it came screaming toward Cheong Myeong’s head at impossible speed.
Bastard!
But in that instant, confusion filled the Black Dragon King’s eyes.
Even as the blade descended as if it would split the boy from head to toe, Cheong Myeong showed no reaction. No movement to evade it, no attempt to block it.
He simply watched the Black Dragon King and the falling blade with detached, almost contemplative eyes.
And then, in that very instant, it happened.
The sword that had been hanging low suddenly shot upward like lightning, straight toward the descending crescent blade aimed at Cheong Myeong’s head.
The Black Dragon King reflexively intensified the flow of inner power surging back through the blade.
THUD.
The sound did not ring out in the outside world, but inside the Black Dragon King himself. The moment blade met sword, a heavy shock like no other drove straight through his body.
But that was all. The power in that sword was far too weak to stop his blade.
That’s all?!
He poured strength into the crescent blade, intent on cutting Cheong Myeong in half from crown to heel.
Just as expected, the sword meeting his blade was flung away helplessly, like a leaf caught in a storm.
But at that very moment—
FWOOSH!
The sword that had been knocked aside came flying back like a streak of light and struck the Black Dragon King’s blade again.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Inside the Black Dragon King’s ears—inside his body, not outside—a series of dull, enormous booms exploded in succession.
The source of that thunder was none other than the blade in his hands. Trembling at an incredible speed, it made his entire body resound like a giant drum.
T-This is...
The Black Dragon King saw it clearly.
Though it was nothing more than a blade, impossible to dismiss as mere metal, that sword drew countless trajectories through the short space between the crescent blade and Cheong Myeong.
It was like a meteor shower. A meteor shower shooting up from the earth toward the sky.
Like the flicker of stars embroidered across the night heavens, those impossible sword arcs hammered the Black Dragon King’s blade again and again.
The force behind each strike could not even begin to compare with his own. But before the impact from the first blow had been fully dispersed, a second strike crashed into the blade, and before that force could even reach his body, a third sword was already flying in.
And so the blows came in dozens.
When that torrent of strikes—like a single instant shattered into dozens of slivers—converged on the center of the blade, everyone’s mouths fell open.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Black Dragon King’s blade was knocked away.
The nine-foot crescent blade—the weapon the Black Dragon King himself had swung with all his strength—was hurled upward after colliding with a sword so thin it seemed unreal. The sight felt almost impossible.
Yet the one suffering the most extreme shock was none other than the Black Dragon King. His eyes bulged as if they would split apart.
CRACK!
Before the shock had even fully reached his mind, he kicked off the ground. The moment the blade slipped from his control, instinct told him first that staying within the other man’s reach was dangerous.
But his opponent was Cheong Myeong.
The instant he sprang backward, Cheong Myeong was already there, following him like a ghost.
SHRK!
Then Cheong Myeong’s sword sliced through the Black Dragon King’s thick chest muscle with absurd ease. He could feel his chest being split open with painful clarity.
But there was something even more chilling than that.
The distorted eyes, the corners of that mouth curling high, the white teeth bared between those lips—at the sight of that grin, the Black Dragon King felt the blood in his whole body turn to ice.
The Black Dragon King, unable to hold back, screamed like a seizure had seized him.
“Aaaaaargh!”
The crescent blade that had been flung away now surged back toward Cheong Myeong’s head.
But at that exact moment, Cheong Myeong’s sword drove straight into the Black Dragon King’s wrist—the hand that gripped the center of the crescent blade.
CRUNCH!
Steel-hard muscle tore, and sharp metal bit into bone. But more dreadful than that cold sensation was the chill that pierced the Black Dragon King’s chest.
Still—
“Rooooooar!”
The Black Dragon King was the Black Dragon King.
He ignored the sword stabbing into his wrist and swung the crescent blade anyway. Even if it meant losing his hand, he would split Cheong Myeong open.
But at that moment, the Black Dragon King had to understand something.
There were definitely crazier bastards in this world than him.
KRRAAAAK!
Something blocked the edge of the crescent blade before it could even complete half its swing. When the Black Dragon King looked to see what had stopped his weapon, his eyes went wide.
A hand?
Cheong Myeong, having driven his sword into the Black Dragon King’s wrist with his right hand, had used his left hand to seize the crescent blade bare-handed.
Of course, the hand split open with a sharp crack and blood sprayed like a fountain. But through that blood, Cheong Myeong’s eyes remained cold and still.
SNAP.
Without the slightest hesitation, the sword withdrew from the Black Dragon King’s wrist and immediately unleashed dozens of sword shadows.
The Black Dragon King reflexively tried to yank back the long shaft of the blade. But the hand clamped to the weapon would not let go easily, as though it had been glued in place.
That son of a—!
The Black Dragon King drove up his inner power and released blade aura. The hand gripping the weapon began to be shredded by the blade aura.
But the Black Dragon King would pay the price as well.
SHRK!
A vivid red line was carved into his upper arm.
SHRK!
A sword shadow tore into his thigh and severed the muscles clean through.
THUNK!
The black blade that pierced his side punched a hole the size of a child’s fist straight through his steel-like abdominal muscles.
Violent pain began spreading through his body from every direction.
“Aaaagh! Aaaaaargh!”
He could clearly see the sword stabbing into his belly again. Bloodshot veins filled the Black Dragon King’s eyes. He clenched his teeth, concentrated his inner power in his abdomen, and tightened the sword lodged in his gut. Then he drove the crescent blade forward toward Cheong Myeong.
If I can get rid of the sword!
Watching the shaft of the crescent blade fly at his face, Cheong Myeong let a lopsided smile spread across his mouth.
A moment later, something happened the Black Dragon King had never once imagined.
Cheong Myeong let go of the sword buried in the Black Dragon King’s stomach.
What?
So shocked his heart felt ready to leap out of his throat, the Black Dragon King’s mouth fell open on its own.
Cheong Myeong extended his shredded hand and grabbed the shaft of the blade the Black Dragon King had swung. The torn skin on the back of his hand could not withstand the pressure, and it split apart, scattering blood everywhere.
But the next thing the Black Dragon King saw was Cheong Myeong’s knee flying straight at his face.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Black Dragon King was hurled backward in a spray of blood.
When he crashed into the sandbank like a severed kite string finally dropping, a suffocating silence fell over the entire island.
“Khuk!”
Convulsing once, the Black Dragon King coughed up blood.
Shaking, he pushed his upper body up, and there was Cheong Myeong’s sword, still embedded in his stomach.
“...You... insane... insane bastard...”
What sort of creature in this world fought like that?
Even the evil sects didn’t fight like that. No matter how vicious a bastard was, he wouldn’t throw his own body around like that in a battle.
That was, quite literally, a madman.
Through his vision blurred by shock, he saw Cheong Myeong glance down at his mangled left hand. Looking at it with complete indifference, he casually flicked the blood off his fingers as if it were a nuisance.
“Sword.”
No sooner had Cheong Myeong spoken than a sword with a pale white sheen flew through the air. He reached out, caught it in one hand, and grinned.
“Good.”
It was the Amhyang Maehwageom, the sword he had first thrown onto this island. Jo Geol had fetched it back with admirable quickness.
Cheong Myeong gave a small nod, as if satisfied by the feel of it in his hand.
Having recovered his sword, he once again turned his gaze to the Black Dragon King and started walking.
Tap. Tap.
With every step he took, blood from his left hand splattered in dots across the white sand. In another sense, it was an even more horrific sight.
“Get up.”
Cheong Myeong’s voice came out colder than the north wind.
“Don’t go whining just because you’ve got a few holes in your body.”
You think you know war?
The corner of his mouth twisted upward.
“I’ll show you. Not that child’s-play nonsense you call war. Real war.”
Those who saw the madness in Cheong Myeong’s eyes in that moment could only lower their gazes without realizing it.