The Fool and His Excuses
There had been no carelessness. Even if his skills had waned, the man across from him was a monster too massive to underestimate, and Jin Cheong-un had gone so far as to commit his full strength on the assumption that a monster of that caliber would be hiding at least one trump card.
But something about this was strange.
This shouldn't have been possible.
KWAAANG!
The moment they collided, Yeop Ji-chang's prized weapon, the Black Tiger Saber, went flying back with no more force behind it than a branch of firewood.
'Wh-what the hell is this strength?!'
Yeop Ji-chang staggered backward until his spine hit the wall. By the time he frantically tried to tear himself away, Jin Cheong-un was already airborne, hurtling straight at him.
"You think losing my internal energy means I lost my external arts as well?"
"......!"
Pride and dignity be damned — Yeop Ji-chang flung himself into a desperate roll to the side.
KWAAANG! KWARREUNG!
The wall exploded inward, a cloud of dust blooming in its wake.
Ashen-faced, Yeop Ji-chang screamed.
"You were hiding your strength all along—!"
He never got to finish.
PWUNG!
The heart of the dust cloud burst open, and the gleaming tip of Jin Cheong-un's blade drove down from above.
KKWANG!
Yeop Ji-chang barely managed to knock the blow aside, his stance collapsing beneath it, his face contorted in agony.
His grip burned. It felt less like deflecting a man's sword and more like catching a boulder tumbling down a cliff face.
'The m-man's changed.'
Now Jin Cheong-un flaunted his qi, charged head-on, and unleashed proper techniques. He fought like a true martial artist.
That wasn't the Sword Ghost he'd known.
At least, not the Jin Cheong-un that Yeop Ji-chang had seen and heard about in the past. That man had been closer to a military commander of the army than a martial artist. And more than a commander, he'd suited the role of executioner or assassin.
Despite nominally belonging to the Murim Alliance, a righteous-faction confederation, Jin Cheong-un had always fought like a man who had distilled his craft down to a single purpose: putting enemies down with maximum efficiency. Nothing more.
But now?
Force and weight. He charged like an enraged buffalo, like a savage tiger, his attacks so ferocious that the underlying structure of the forms was plain to read.
JJEEEOENG!
"Kkheup."
In an instant, Yeop Ji-chang's forms had been pierced through their weak points, and he clenched his teeth so hard one cracked. Yes, the man was using different martial arts than before — but the uncanny ability to read an opponent's movements remained exactly the same.
'S-still, it's all brute force! His movements are simplistic. He's not beyond my ability to counter!'
Yeop Ji-chang shifted his stance. He lowered his center of gravity, eyes flashing, deliberately baiting Jin Cheong-un's attack.
TEOENG!
At that moment, Jin Cheong-un threw himself forward again with reckless abandon.
'Now!'
KAGAGAGANG!
Yeop Ji-chang angled his saber to deflect the strike, letting it slide harmlessly past — then lashed out with his left hand like a thunderbolt at Jin Cheong-un's ribs.
KKWANG!
Direct hit! It sank solidly into his side!
He had barely begun to smile when his expression froze solid.
"KKRAAK!"
The pain shot up from his hand — pain so vicious the fine hairs on his arm stood on end. When he hastily inspected it, his wrist was swollen red as a ripe persimmon. As if the bones had shattered.
"Ptui."
Jin Cheong-un, knocked back all of a few steps, spat out the blood pooling in his mouth with utter calm.
CHIIIIEEK!
Yeop Ji-chang's eyes bulged. Along the ribs where Jin Cheong-un casually wiped his mouth with his sleeve, a pale white energy was flickering.
'No... it couldn't be... Counter-Returning Qi?'
The art of returning an attacker's own force upon him — was that not the most refined of all body-protecting qi techniques?
Palhwangmu Geongongong, Cheonrabyeok — the Heaven-Net Wall of the Eight Sovereign Dance.
A new martial art of Jin Cheong-un's that Yeop Ji-chang could not possibly have known.
'Cheonrabyeok is a domineering art.'
The Geon trigram of the Eight Palaces ordinarily signifies the heavens, and in the Five Elements it carries the attribute of metal. Geongon primal qi — firm as refined steel — fortifies both mind and body, sinew and bloodflow.
Any ordinary orthodox martial art would pair such qi with a defensive technique built atop it. Cheonrabyeok does the opposite. A shield exists to block, yes — but no law forbids it from being wielded as a weapon. Swing it, and it ceases to be a shield and becomes a blunt instrument instead.
A martial art that drapes unyielding qi over the body like armor and charges forward with relentless, unbreakable straight-line force — that was Cheonrabyeok.
"It's true that I've grown weaker," Jin Cheong-un said, adjusting his grip on his blade several times over. "But that doesn't mean you've grown stronger."
"......!!"
The next instant, the world before Yeop Ji-chang's eyes flashed white.
KKWANG!
The sensation of something slamming into his whole body sent him tumbling before he could even react.
"Kkeup! Heok!"
He rolled helplessly across the ground and scrambled to his feet — and in that instant, he saw it.
The eyes.
The eyes of that Asura looking down at him on that day, so long ago.
"UAAAAAAAAAH!"
Yeop Ji-chang let out a shriek and drew up every last shred of internal power he possessed.
"I will not fall like this!!"
KWAAANG!
A ferocious qi blast erupted from his feet, driving his ankles deep into the earth. Then a dense, dark-blue saber aura billowed and thickened, swirling inward to gather upon the Black Tiger Saber.
Not far away, Yeop Ji-chang — bloodshot eyes blazing — kicked off the ground and swung.
"......"
Watching him come, Jin Cheong-un shifted his stance with an indifferent expression, slow and unhurried.
FWUUUUNG!
The air itself changed. The Black Tiger Sect thugs nearby stared at Jin Cheong-un, dumbfounded.
An upright upper body. A lower body rooted firmly to the earth. And a blade aimed skyward, as if to pierce the heavens themselves.
It was the opening stance — the most fundamental high guard, the first posture every student of a weapon learns. Nothing more than that. And yet it radiated a crushing pressure that stole the breath of everyone who beheld it.
FWUUNG!
A white heat, unlike anything before, began to spread from Jin Cheong-un's blade. Everyone felt the same thing.
A sky unfolding.
At first it was faint, like a single drop of ink falling onto paper — but that presence spread wider and wider, blazing ever fiercer, until it bore down upon and smothered Yeop Ji-chang's murderous aura entirely.
'......I cannot block it.'
Watching Jin Cheong-un's single strike descend upon him as a bolt of blinding light, Yeop Ji-chang squeezed his eyes shut.
How much time had passed?
The Black Tiger Sect thugs stared at a single spot, doubting their own eyes.
Plop. Drip-drip.
The hem of Yeop Ji-chang's clothing, where he knelt, began to soak through with red.
"Kholk."
He vomited up a mouthful of blood. Forcing open his trembling lips, the first words he managed were these:
"......Spare me."
When no answer came, he began to beg — just as he had back then, in those days long past.
"I didn't do anything to you worth dying for, did I?"
"......"
"I attacked without knowing my place, sure, but that's hardly a crime deserving death. Please, spare only my life—"
"Would you have spared someone who set fire to your home and ran?"
Yeop Ji-chang's eyes went wide as saucers.
"Of course not. A man who'd abandon his own son would never spare anyone."
The tone was so utterly indifferent that Yeop Ji-chang trembled. In the end, he decided to change tactics.
"I-if you touch me, the Fortress won't sit idle. I've already made a deal with the Iron Blood Fortress! They've agreed to look after my back!"
"So what do you want me to do about it?"
At the listless reply, Yeop Ji-chang ground his teeth and pressed on.
"You think you'll be safe after killing me?!"
"......"
Yeop Ji-chang took Jin Cheong-un's silence as a good sign. Seizing what he believed was his moment, he hurried on.
"D-did you think I wouldn't know? You, you avoid killing, don't you?"
The thugs doubted their own ears. How many of their brothers had gone down today, and what in the world was this absurd nonsense?
"You've never spared the grass, have you? You didn't kill a single one of our men today. S-so spare me too, I beg you!"
The thugs startled and looked around. The fallen men were battered and broken, but every one of them was still breathing. Even the Fierce Tiger Saber, Yeop Gun-pyeong, whom they'd assumed had died a glorious death, was lying face-down on the floor, flat as a pancake.
Truly, no one had died. Even amid all that violence, Jin Cheong-un really hadn't killed a single soul.
'Sharp eyes, he has.'
Even Jin Cheong-un couldn't deny it. His fighting style was so brutal that there had been times he'd failed to restrain his strength — but outright slaughter was something he had deliberately avoided.
Yeop Ji-chang sneered viciously and hurled his curse.
"Kill me and you go right back to how it was before! A vengeful ghost of those days, living only to feed your grudges! Are you not afraid of that?"
"......"
"Heheheh! You bastard! You hypocrite! You can't kill me! Because the moment you take my life over something as petty as this, you'll be that man again—!"
Swish.
At that moment, with a short, clean sound of a blade being drawn, Yeop Ji-chang's words were cut off mid-sentence.
"......?"
He looked up at Jin Cheong-un with eyes that refused to believe it.
Jin Cheong-un flicked the blood from his blade and spoke.
"Even so. Some people simply have to be killed."
"Kholk!"
Slowly, Yeop Ji-chang's body toppled sideways.
THUD!
Blood began pooling beneath him where he fell, spreading like a dark pond.
Jin Cheong-un glanced aside with a sour expression.
'Wasn't that basically begging me to kill you?'
More to the point — what was he going to do now? He'd asked the Open Sect for help looking into this, so one way or another, word of it was bound to reach the Alliance Leader's ears.
After a moment of brooding, Jin Cheong-un nodded to himself.
'Promises exist to be broken, after all.'
He had concluded from the very start — from the moment the Open Sect turned up the information — that the Black Tiger Sect Lord could not be left in peace. There were plenty of reasons, but honestly, they all sounded like excuses.
This was a man who had stirred up his hometown, set fire to his house, stolen his sword, and finally come at him blade in hand swearing to take his life.
If he were the sort to forgive all that, he'd have shaved his head and entered a monastery, or gone off to cultivate immortality in the mountains — not spent his life drifting through the Jianghu.
'The Sect Lord, fair enough. But—'
Jin Cheong-un gathered his thoughts and looked around.
"And what am I going to do with these ones?"
Flinch!
Every Black Tiger thug who met Jin Cheong-un's eyes flinched and trembled as one.
The Black Tiger Sect thugs swallowed dryly, watching Jin Cheong-un's face for any clue.
'What kind of bolt from the blue is this?'
'The Sect Lord dead in a single morning, and the Fierce Tiger Saber himself struck down...'
What should they do? Attack? The man who'd cut their Sect Lord down with one stroke? Or should they run? And what if they got caught running?
That was when they heard it — Jin Cheong-un, deep in thought, muttering to himself.
"Killing all of them would be a bit much."
The color drained from the thugs' faces in an instant.
Who said something like that in the tone of a man agonizing over what to have for dinner?
Then Jin Cheong-un added with an awkward expression:
"Kidding. Just kidding. I'm not a lunatic — obviously I'm not going to kill all of you."
'Not ALL of them? So he's saying he'll kill some, then?'
Tremble-tremble-tremble!
As the thugs shook like aspen leaves, shooting each other nervous glances—
THUD!
One of them abruptly smashed his forehead into the ground.
"S-spare us, Great Hero!"
"......?"
"W-we were only following orders! P-please, at least spare our lives!"
The other thugs' eyes lit up.
A stroke of genius!
That's it! That's the only way!
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The thugs threw down their weapons and dropped to their knees in a frantic race.
"W-we did do some bad things, sure, but only the ordinary roughing-up kind! We never killed anybody or anything like that!"
"We'll pay for our sins, so please, just spare our lives—!"
"Show mercy, just this once!"
Silence fell.
Jin Cheong-un considered for a moment, then nodded.
"Fine. The Sect Lord had to answer for it, but holding his underlings to the same account would be going a bit far."
We're saved!
Just as hope bloomed across the thugs' faces, Jin Cheong-un bent down and picked up a wooden stave lying in the dirt.
'Why is he picking that up?'
The thugs stared at him, bewildered. Jin Cheong-un swung the stave through the air a few times with a whoosh whoosh, then said:
"Still, we ought to verify whether you've actually repented."
Silence.
The Black Tiger Sect thugs began trembling all over again, fresh terror in their eyes.