This Boss Cannot Be Defeated (2)
Ugly Sword.
One of the organization's Ten Great Executives, he held the lowest seat among them... no. By now he would stand at ninth.
Had events followed the original novel, a courtesan would have vanished today. Yeon Cheongha would have grown suspicious, tracked the culprits down, and a few days later thrown himself into the hideout of assassins just preparing to begin their work in earnest, together with the Face-Stealing Ghost.
The Face-Stealing Ghost would have announced his intent to add the handsome Yeon Cheongha's face to his collection and brought to bear every vile, contemptible art he possessed. Yeon Cheongha, hampered by internal injuries and forced to answer with unfamiliar, second-rate techniques, would have been driven to the brink—yet after a savage duel he would have won. The Face-Stealing Ghost would have lost his life, dying as his hideous true face was laid bare.
And tomorrow the Resourceful Wise Woman, Jegal Yeonji, would enter Sichuan and set the next incident in motion. His internal injuries worsened by the fight with the Face-Stealing Ghost, Yeon Cheongha would still take the field to save Han Soso, accepting that the damage would only deepen. Arriving late, he would rescue the protagonist and his companions.
In the course of it the shadow organization's designs upon Sichuan would collapse, and as punishment Ugly Sword—ninth among the executives—would be demoted to the very last seat.
Enraged by his fall, he would grind his teeth and begin hunting Yeon Cheongha. In the latter half of the tale he would realize that Han Soso was the man's weakness, use her as bait to draw Yeon Cheongha in, and try to kill him there. Yeon Cheongha would answer with a bid for mutual destruction, and Ugly Sword and Yeon Cheongha were meant to perish together. That was the role written for him in the original...
Fortunately he would survive by a hair, receive a heaven-sent encounter from the Thousand-Year Snow Leopard, and come back...
"Senior brother..."
My junior sister's hand trembled uncontrollably where it rested on her scabbard, and my whole body shook like an aspen in the wind.
A day-old pup does not know to fear the tiger; when the gap between realms grows wide enough, you cannot even guess how strong a master truly is. A wolf, though, knows the tiger's strength, and from the step just beneath you can take the measure of it. My junior sister and I had already drawn near the Peak Realm, so we could grasp, at least in part, the internal power of Ugly Sword, who had ascended to the Transcendent Peak Realm.
I can't win.
In game terms, this was a fight where you were meant to wipe and let the story move on—so far beyond us there was no point even trying to scrape against it.
"Senior brother!"
At her warning I reflexively took two steps back. Nothing happened in the space I had just left, yet the instincts honed upon reaching the Peak Realm told me that if I had held my ground, my legs would already have been sheared away and I would be rolling across the floor.
"Kh!"
The Face-Stealing Ghost, whom I had been trampling underfoot, scrambled free in a panic and took his place at Ugly Sword's side. The contrast could not have been starker: Ugly Sword stood with the straight, proud waist of a young man, while the Face-Stealing Ghost was so hunched he looked barely half as tall.
"My lord, you must say no more. To preserve secrecy, you are bound to observe the Edict of Silence."
"Holding our tongues will not settle this. If we fail to kill them, our traces will come to light regardless."
A baleful killing intent rose from every inch of Ugly Sword.
He stood a full hand taller than the rest, a massive frame. A mask concealed his face, but the white hairs escaping here and there betrayed the man's age.
"Wouldn't you agree?"
"...If we swear to forget everything we witnessed here, and keep our mouths shut?"
"Hah. If I were the sort to let you go over pretty words, I would hardly have cut out my subordinates' tongues and forced them to keep the Edict of Silence."
He has no intention of letting us go.
"Junior sister, don't move—"
Clang!
Before I could finish the warning, my junior sister, unable to endure the killing intent, drew her sword by sheer instinct.
It was not a conscious act. Her mind had reached its limit, and her body obeyed instinct rather than will. Trained as a woman of the murim, that body sought on pure reflex to draw steel and guard itself in a crisis.
Krang!
"Kyaa!"
In that instant a tremendous impact struck the blade of the blue-steel sword she had drawn—precisely at its midpoint. The shock burst back through her grip, and the sword tore free of her hand.
"Are you all right?"
"I-I'm fine...!"
Her hands looked soft and delicate, yet she was a swordswoman who had gripped and swung a blade for more than ten years, and still the blow had been accurate and heavy enough to rip the weapon from her in a single instant. I wanted to check the wound, but turning my back on Ugly Sword now would see both of us cut in two without question. I had to keep my eyes fixed on him and at least make a show of holding him in check.
"Reading your internal energy, the two of you appear to be disciples of the same school, trained in the same arts. Judging by the depth of it, the girl hiding behind you has reached a slightly higher realm."
Ugly Sword appraised us at his leisure.
"And yet... that look in your eyes, the way you strike without hesitation, the judgment that subdued the Face-Stealing Ghost and turned the fight, the mind you bring to battle... You are more of a threat than a girl who is merely strong in martial arts and ignorant of the world."
Dangerous.
Ugly Sword's target was me. It was some small relief that he had not aimed at my junior sister from the start. But from where I stood, having to fight him myself...
"Hoo..."
In the original, Yeon Cheongha's martial skill sat around the middle of the First-rate masters. I had never set my training aside, so I ought to have ranked in the upper tier of the First-rate.
And now?
I had opened the Conception and Governing meridians, so I could say I had set a foot in the Peak Realm—but my body had not yet adapted to the changed state. Could I really defeat Ugly Sword, who already had one foot in the Transcendent Peak Realm? Flesh-and-Bone Rebirth varied from person to person, but it was a trial one underwent in the Peak Realm. Ugly Sword had finished that rebirth long ago and trained onward until he stood in the Transcendent Peak. How long could I last against him? And already, merely from feeling his killing intent, my knees were buckling and my hands had begun to shake.
Damn it... damn it!
I wanted to run. If I just howled and fled with everything I had, maybe I would live. Maybe Ugly Sword would look at so pathetic a wretch and decide he was not worth chasing down to kill. The thought was a coward's comfort.
But I could not run and leave my terrified junior sister behind me.
"Any other piece of trash might not know, but a man of your level ought to have a rough sense of this one's realm... and still you do not flee?"
"What's it to you."
"Heh heh heh...! True enough! A man ought to have at least that much spine with a woman watching! Isn't that so, Face-Stealing Ghost!"
"My lord! If you speak our epithets here..."
"I mean to kill that one and erase every trace regardless. What of it? Do you imagine I fear he will carry our secrets to the King of Hell?"
"Hnnn... If my lord says so..."
"Yes. I hear you collect comely faces. A face as fine as that—does it suit your taste?"
At those words the Face-Stealing Ghost slowly admired my face, then dragged a tongue slick with foul spit across his dry lips.
"It is certainly to this humble one's liking."
"Then I shall take the head cleanly and present it to you as a gift. I would like that spirited look preserved as a mask of human skin."
Ugly Sword took one step forward.
"And the ones who fainted are in the way. Get out. A hundred of you could not so much as touch that man's collar."
At that, those my junior sister had struck unconscious, or left with something broken, began to crawl away in desperation, dragging themselves on both arms if they had to. It was possible only because her heart was soft and she had stayed her hand, leaving most of them lightly wounded. Even the master of the pleasure house, lame from the start, forced his bad leg into motion and tried to flee.
That was how dangerous a man called Ugly Sword was.
"If it were only my own inclination, I would take my time and amuse myself with the juniors of the martial world. But I am in the midst of official business, so it cannot be helped."
He came toward me with light steps. Watching the vast energy he gave off shift and move, I felt as though Mount Tai itself were walking.
"Still, as a final gift on your way to the underworld, I will show you this one's face. You need only tell the King of Hell that you died at the hands of a man called Ugly Sword."
The Face-Stealing Ghost had already given up; he bowed his head. Ugly Sword cast aside his mask without a trace of shame.
Scars upon scars. Of late his mind had steadied, and there were no fresh ones—but the face was so mottled with sword cuts that hardly a patch of whole flesh remained. My junior sister drew in a breath without meaning to and turned her head away.
I felt revulsion at that wounded face, and yet a strange feeling as well, toward the martial artist who had accepted his own ugliness and climbed to a new realm. In the novel I had read, he was nothing but a powerhouse left with malice for Yeon Cheongha. Now he looked like an enemy with a conviction of his own—one who, however much he regretted it, meant to put the younger generation of the murim to the sword and leave no witness behind.
As I move, the story changes... and even the impression this character leaves on me changes?
"As my junior, speak your name."
"Yeon Cheongha."
"This side is called Ugly Sword. This one's true name no longer matters. In the past I was known by another epithet, but now, as you can see... I wear a title that suits the face."
His voice sounded remarkably young, yet in truth he was past eighty. In his youth he had been called the Jade-Faced Heavenly Sword, until a duel fought over a woman left a sword scar across his face.
It was a thin cut any martial artist might have shrugged off. But the Jade-Faced Heavenly Sword, obsessed with his own face, believed his perfect visage had been ruined. He carved sword scars into it one by one with his own hand, convinced that reaching Flesh-and-Bone Rebirth would restore it, and he trained with desperate fervor.
In the end he achieved that rebirth. His face did become whole again—yet faint traces of the scars remained. Seeing them, he despaired and threw himself into the shadow organization.
Only after he forged the new epithet of Ugly Sword did his mind find stability. He accepted his reality and set a foot into the Transcendent Peak Realm. And now I had to face him with no one beside me but my junior sister, and endure.
But that is exactly why this won't be easy.
In the original he had come charging in, mad with old grudges, and that was why Yeon Cheongha could spend his own life to take the other's—a move of mutual destruction. Watching him now, coldly reading his surroundings as he drew his sword, I could see no opening at all.
"I yield you the first move."
Just as a man of the modern age feels terror when a keen blade suddenly flies at his eyes, so now—though Ugly Sword and I stood a full ten zhang apart, some thirty meters—a chill as if steel already touched the tip of my nose ruled my senses.
"Senior brother... what are we supposed to do?"
Even my junior sister was on the verge of tears, fear finally reaching her. I did not look back. I gave her my back and spoke.
"Junior sister."
"Yes... senior brother."
"I'm trusting you with defense."
"Defense...?"
"I'll try to close in on him. Follow me in, and block his killing strokes as best you can."
"Can I really...? I..."
"I'll leave my life in your hands. But in exchange—"
Crunch!
I dropped into a stance so hard my foot bit into the wooden floor, lowering myself like a great cat gathering to spring, every muscle drawn tight.
"I will land one blow. No matter what."
It was close to bluster.
But in that moment my junior sister shook the blood bursting from her grip onto the floor and seized her sword again.
"Then I will protect you, senior brother. Without fail."
Yes. Now that was my junior sister.