Martial Arts Assassin (2)
Martial Arts Assassin (2)
"Die!"
Tournament Killer Gong Jo let out a piercing scream and leaped into the air. Then, as if dancing, he spun in a circle and drilled into the ground so fast his form blurred.
I threw the axe from my waist to stop the bastard from burrowing in, but he tore through the earth at a terrifying pace, as if a hole had always been there. The axe sailed through empty air and clattered uselessly to the ground.
Like a mole making its escape, all that remained on the surface were traces of dug-up soil.
I moved to pick up the fallen axe and channeled inner energy into my feet to track the bastard's movements. His attacks came bursting up from underground. Since it's impossible for a human to tear through the earth at high speed with a bare body, he inevitably had to expend inner energy to move. His attack trajectory was easy to read, and he was wide open after striking.
If I aimed for the moment he erupted upward, my odds were overwhelmingly good.
The moment I picked up the axe, I sensed a massive mass of internal strength moving underground. It was overwhelming in speed and pressure, like a beast brimming with inner energy or a geyser about to burst. I hurriedly rolled away from where I stood, escaping the direction he was aiming for.
Kwang!
The ground exploded again with a deafening roar. Clumps of dirt flew up and a sharp blade revealed itself.
"Huh?"
But the tip of the blade didn't rise vertically. It was flying straight toward me, right where I had dodged. The moment I rolled, he changed his trajectory too and erupted aiming for me.
"Fuck!"
I ducked hastily and rolled another full turn, and the bastard shot past right over my head like an arrow. The moment he missed, he spun wide to kill his rotational force and landed gracefully, as if dancing.
"You're a nimble one, aren't you. They didn't call me in for nothing."
Gong Jo said this and adjusted his grip on his sword. There was no sign of fatigue on him. With a smiling face, he continued.
"You weren't thinking you could win with a war of attrition, were you? I've killed over ten masters so far. You think none of those bastards had the same idea as you?"
"...So, you dig through the ground like that in martial arenas too?"
If he was a Tournament Killer who killed people in tournaments, did this son of a bitch really burrow through the ground to attack in the arena? Gong Jo shook his head at my question and answered readily.
"You don't know a thing. Killing in tournaments is my little brother's specialty. I kill and disappear my targets before they even reach the arena. That way I give them death along with the dishonor of having fled from the tournament. I kill before the tournament. That is my aesthetic."
"...So then you're not a Tournament Killer, just an assassin."
I was so dumbfounded I couldn't think of what to say. Gong Jo shrugged, as if he hadn't been expecting me to understand, and leaped back into the air.
"...I'll bury you too."
With that savage warning, he burrowed into the ground once again. I stayed on high alert and dropped my stance, gauging where he would emerge. He'd said I couldn't beat him with a war of attrition, but that was something nobody could know without trying. His inner energy wasn't infinite, and if Sannyeo, who had gone far off chasing someone, came back, I'd have an angle to work with.
I closed my eyes and focused, and again felt the vibration in the ground. With the oppressive feeling of that massive mass of internal strength approaching, I moved to evade the direction he would burst from.
Kwang!
"Shit!"
But this time he was too fast. He tore through the earth and charged at my head a beat faster than I could recognize his attack and move—like a cannonball flying in. There was no option but to block.
I had to decide fast.
Load inner energy onto the axe blade to stop his rotation while simultaneously countering it with the profound principle of Taijiquan. I didn't even have time to gauge whether it would work, so I simply swung the axe blade at him.
Kwang!
"Gwaaaaah!"
The explosion and the scream. Both came from me.
Before I could even attempt Taijiquan, I couldn't withstand his rotation and my body was launched away along with the axe. Thanks to that, I avoided getting my face ground off, but one axe was shattered, and my hand, hit by the shrapnel, was coated in blood and trembling uncontrollably.
"Hahahahaha!"
The bastard laughed as he landed. An uninjured body and a delighted expression. The sight of him confident in his victory made my blood boil.
"Fuck."
I picked up another axe and tried to shake my head and act like I was fine, but the strength wouldn't properly enter my hand and every breath smelled of blood. Internal injury. It wasn't a severe internal injury, but I no longer had the confidence to drag this into a war of attrition.
"Gong Hwi! At last! I can finally have my revenge! Wait for me! I'll slit this bastard's throat and offer it at your grave!"
Spouting that strange rant, he burrowed into the ground again. I took a deep breath, steadied the surging internal strength, and spat out the sour taste that had risen into my mouth. I licked my lips and tried to assess the situation coldly.
How was the bastard tracking me in the first place?
Since he didn't have eyes on the outside, pinpointing my position was likely a method of reading my qi. When I reflexively spread my qi to track him, he read the flow and charged at me.
In that case, what if I hid my qi?
What if I stored and concealed my inner energy as much as possible, and poured internal strength into something else and threw it?
Where would he fly off to then?
It was worth a try.
Hiding qi was one of the things I was good at.
Recalling the secret manual of the Lustful Demon Cheonpung, I lowered my stance. I picked up a stone in one hand and loaded it with inner energy while simultaneously storing away my body's inner energy as much as possible.
I had never tried anything like this before.
Conceal the body's inner energy, then gather and compress it all into a single stone. Like filling a ball with water through a syringe, I packed inner energy so tightly into it that the stone's shape began to warp.
And then the ground began to shake. A strong vibration and the bastard's presence rose from below. I hurled the stone into the air with all my strength.
I focused my mind and gripped the axe tight. I felt blood trickle as I tensed my arm, but a minor wound wasn't something I could afford to care about right now. Where would he emerge?
The fierce presence drew near. With the sound of churning earth, dust rose into the air.
Kwang!
With the explosion, the direction he burst from was—the stone. As the violently spinning bastard met my eyes, I saw him tilt his head slightly, as if perplexed. His sword had charged precisely at the stone, and the moment it pierced the stone's center laden with internal strength, a violent explosion followed, like igniting a powder keg.
Kwah-ang!
"Uwoh!"
With a flash of blue light, the inner energy surged out in all directions like a dragon sweeping past.
The explosion left the bastard staggering in midair, his body halted. His face contorted from the abruptly stopped rotation, and he was floating in the air, riddled with openings. I sprinted with everything I had and loaded inner energy into my arm. I channeled it into the axe blade I gripped tight, spun my body in a full rotation, and drove the axe into his flank.
The third form of the Heavenly Dragon Axe Technique.
It was Dragon Fang.
"Grraaaaaaaah!"
The bastard screamed, his body bending like a bow. Unable to withstand the speed of my axe, his body bent along its trajectory and was dragged along. If I had struck with proper strength, I might have cleaved him in two, but with my injured arm, launching him away was the limit.
Like hitting a ball with a bat, he shot out in a straight line and slammed into a tree.
Kwah-ang!
Still in the stance of the wide axe swing, I let out a breath and collapsed. My head throbbed and cold sweat ran down my forehead. On the other hand, I was thinking about the explosion from a moment ago. It had been an explosion caused by the repulsion of inner energy, but I remembered the shape of that explosion.
The special technique Hwang Ryong-seong had used, and the form of the special technique Sannyeo had demonstrated as a test.
The explosion the stone had left behind resembled that shape.
It wasn't just vaguely firing inner energy outward.
The answer was a bomb.
Just as a bomb attached to a bat would explode on impact and send shrapnel flying everywhere, you gather inner energy in a short span until it clumps together like a bomb, then apply impact to trigger a devastating explosion.
This was it.
The way to complete the special technique of the Heavenly Dragon Axe.
A way to experience, however roughly, the state of the peak.
"Urraaaaaah!"
A human form burst out through the dust.
Gong Jo was not dead. Blood streamed down from his head, and his leisurely smile had been wiped away, replaced by wide, wild eyes. Snorting through his nose, he aimed his sword at me and shouted.
"You think you can beat me with cheap tricks? You're sorely mistaken! No one has ever broken my Spiral Sword until now!"
I recalled how I had infused energy into the stone moments ago and loaded inner energy into the axe blade. Picturing a massive lump of gunpowder attached to the front of the axe blade, I poured in inner energy and tried to swell it beyond capacity. A clear shape didn't emerge, but I could see it flickering and swirling.
But it was far too small.
To buy time, I asked the bastard a question.
"When are your comrades coming? The ones waiting in the forest."
"...What are you talking about? What comrades?"
But Gong Jo asked back with a bewildered look instead. He genuinely didn't seem to know.
I couldn't help tilting my head too. Then what was the bastard who'd been radiating hostility toward me and Sannyeo?
Gong Jo clenched his teeth again, loaded internal strength into his sword, and roared.
"Enough nonsense! And the leniency ends now! I'll show you the secret of the Spiral Sword!"
His form was sucked into the ground in an instant. It was a fluid movement, like disappearing down a pipe. I regripped the axe with both hands and stared down at the ground.
I was drawing every last bit of internal strength from my body and cramming it into the axe—half of it was leaking out beyond my control, the axe was starting to crack, and the internal strength swirling outside the axe like a waterskin tied to it was unstable.
But it was taking the shape I wanted.
One way or another, I had prepared the most powerful attack I could muster.
With the force to drag out a serpent hiding underground, I struck the earth and split the ground.
I spread my legs and lowered my stance. Like a miner, I raised the axe high and, matching the immense tremor I felt from below, swung the axe down with every ounce of strength I had.
It was named the Python-Severing Crushing Axe, the axe that captures the serpent.
And as if to prove the name true, the ground burst open around the descending axe blade as though a meteor had struck.
Kwang!
Unable to withstand the recoil of the swing, my body was flung backward, and the axe was pulverized to dust, its fragments scattering everywhere. Like a dragon struck in the head with an axe thrashing in agony, the earth tore and split in the writhing shape of a serpent, unleashing explosion after explosion.
Overcome with exhaustion and lethargy, I coughed and rolled across the ground, then lay flat on my stomach and watched through the smoke.
The smoke rose, and a fallen silhouette was visible on the ground.
It lay motionless, enough to think it was dead, then stirred—twitching and writhing like a worm, clawing at the ground and raising itself up.
"...You're a goddamn brute, aren't you."
And as the smoke cleared, Gong Jo stood there, his entire body a mess of blood. His face was full of displeasure, but the hatred from before was gone, and his sword, chipped and notched in multiple places, looked even more vicious. He was staggering, but he was still standing on two feet, and his fighting spirit as he glared at me was unwavering.
"No one has ever pushed me this far before."
The bastard spat blood from his mouth and corrected his stance. The external wounds looked severe, but he still had fight left in him.
Unfortunately, I had no way left to beat him. Because I'd poured all my inner energy into that last strike, aiming to kill him with it. I was gasping for breath, and I had no weapon left either. I couldn't match his rotational force with Taijiquan.
Gong Jo read my condition and spoke.
"Your internal strength seems to have bottomed out too, so out of respect for your skill, I'll make it one clean stroke..."
"Stop."
A strange woman's voice intruded upon the standoff that had seemed destined for its conclusion.
Gong Jo and I both turned our heads toward where the voice had come from.
A woman with long white hair and calm eyes stood there. Her face was pale, and her eyes slanted upward like a fox's, giving her a fierce impression. She resembled someone I knew.
With her hands clasped behind her back, she looked straight at me and said,
"Your fighting was intriguing. You have wit and are skilled in calculation—clearly worth using."
She stepped forward. Was she on Gong Jo's side? But Gong Jo was only staring at me with the same expression. He regripped his sword, looked at the woman, and said,
"What's a bitch like you doing here?"
The woman glanced at Gong Jo and spoke.
"You have no eye for people. You delight in pointless killing—the day of your retribution is not far off."
"This bitch, how dare..."
Gong Jo never finished his sentence. The moment the woman extended a single finger and flicked it, Gong Jo's head burst like an overripe persimmon. His body swayed like a puppet with its strings cut and collapsed backward.
The woman spoke with an impassive expression.
"I dislike long conversations. I'll state my business succinctly, so answer me sincerely."
I was fucked.
I don't know what's going on,
but I think I'm fucked.