Stay Strong, Segwang
"Hah... hah..."
My breath had climbed all the way up to my throat and refused to go any deeper.
"Damn it... damn it all..."
My vision was dimming by the second.
Thud— thud— thud— thud—
My heartbeat seemed to be ringing from inside my skull, each dull blow shaking my mind to its core, and through the thickening haze only that crimson glare was faintly visible.
"Hah..."
"Shall we finish this? I can keep going, if that's what you want..."
At the sight of that monstrous bastard, grin split ear to ear as he let the end of his words drag on and on—
"RAAAAAAGH!!!"
Desperately, for my very life, I wrung out every last shred of strength I had and hurled my fist at him. As if to mock the very sight of me, he thrust out his own fist in precisely the same way.
Thud—
And the moment our hands met—
Rip— riprip—
The shockwave sent a prickling ache screaming from my left fist all the way up to my shoulder; blood vessels burst open, and droplets of red scattered through the air.
I had been born the rightful heir of the Great Hwangbo Clan, and for nearly twenty years I had lived swinging my fists beneath a single vow: that one day I would shatter the heavens. In pursuit of that grand ambition I had fallen more times than I could count, been cracked open and broken more times still, and yet—
"Ghhk..."
—what in the world was that bizarre martial art, that it could ruin my flesh and blood this effortlessly? This horrific agony, as though I were being torn apart from the inside out, was beyond what any amount of gritted teeth could endure. It was as if all the blood in my body were...
'Khh... every drop of blood in my body feels like it's flowing backward.'
Drip... drip...
My clothes had long since been soaked scarlet, drenched past ever showing their proper color again. I must have made a grisly sight—lacquered head to toe in blood like a man hemorrhaging from all seven orifices—because even the spectators of the match had begun wincing without realizing it.
"Friend... that's enough now..."
Hyeon-in, was it...? No—Hyeon-jin? My mind had grown so addled that I could no longer properly recall the name of the monk who watched me with pity in his eyes.
"I can still... I can still keep going."
Forcing my trembling legs to root themselves into the earth, I stoked my fighting spirit one more time.
Someone watching me burn my will to the very last could only marvel...
"An unbreakable heart, even in a state like that. So the Hwangbo Clan did have a man with the makings of a hero."
...while my little sister, who had been knocked out of the tournament just yesterday, clasped her hands together and shouted for me.
"Big brother! Don't give up!!!"
Anyone could see how this match would end, and still she was cheering for my victory—and at the sound of her voice, I found myself chuckling in spite of everything. Then I loosed a battle cry and threw myself at that monster.
"RAAAAAAGH!!!"
'Whoa... he's still coming at me? Damn, that's stubborn. Genuinely stubborn.'
I was witnessing the birth of a hero with an indomitable will.
By time-honored tradition, a hero was meant to overcome towering trials or stand against some mighty villain—like facing an iron-masked demon-fiend in the midst of his atrocities and landing the final, decisive blow.
Watching Hwangbo Segwang burn the last of his light as though he meant to drag his enemy down to hell with him, unleashing that final strike—an exclamation of admiration escaped me unbidden.
In this fight, which might one day be remembered as the opening chapter of his heroic tale, he hurled his last fist in the most wretched of states—and the target of that fist was the face of the villainous bastard who had toyed with him and laughed.
'Sure... there's real merit in a righteous-sect scion—one of the Five Great Clans, no less—showing such a heroic side...'
The only regrettable part was that the fist was headed straight for my face.
'But why does the opponent have to be me?'
"Tsk..."
Was I actually supposed to take this as a compliment...?
The smile had slid off my face at some point, and with an expression caught between far too many feelings, I swung out my hand.
WHAM—
His fist brushed my cheek; my palm sank into his stomach. In that instant, a crack like a bursting drum rolled across the arena—and time seemed to freeze, the Young Clan Heads of two Great Clans locked together mid-blow—and the crowd began to murmur.
"Who... who won?"
"The Serpent-Scorpion, obviously..."
"Look closer! Did the Hwangbo Clan's young clan head not land his fist just as squarely?"
"Please... Brother, please..."
"C-could he actually have won?"
Just as the voices in the stands began to swell—
Drip, drip, drip—
—blood came streaming down from Hwangbo Segwang's clothes, soaked past the point of holding another drop.
"Well... good work, either way."
I gave the shoulder of the man who had fainted on his feet a couple of pats, then turned away.
"D-Dang Muyeong... wins!"
Only then did the referee's voice ring out, declaring my victory. The spectators, having watched one man's noble yet pitiful struggle, held their silence for a breath—
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap—
"Young Master!!!"
The moment someone called my name amid the clapping, applause and cheers erupted across the stands.
"WAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!"
"Big brother!!!"
With those cheers at my back, I was making my way down from the duel stage when Hwangbo Segwang's younger sister came scrambling up onto it, eyes brimming with tears.
"Uh... how do I put this. Tell your brother it was... pretty decent, I guess."
I caught her arm as she clambered up, saying it with an awkward face; she nodded once, twice, and then rushed off to him.
"You did well, my lord."
"No, no—hardship, nothing of the sort..."
I gathered Baekhwa into my arms as she came running full tilt and folded herself against me, thinking:
'Seriously, why does that guy have to cling to such pointless stubbornness and turn me into the villain...'
To be fair, the plan had absolutely been to play the villain and pull aggro—but with everything now hurtling down some catastrophically wrong path, I found myself replaying the previous night.
"Give it your best tomorrow."
"Pfft..."
Hwangbo Segwang had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of dinner and asked me to do my best, and Paeng Jun, who'd been sipping tea beside us, sprayed it across the table.
"Huh...?"
I had crossed hands with the man a few times by then, so I knew exactly what level he stood at—and request or no request, I'd meant to flatten him regardless—so all I could do was stare at him, blank-faced.
But there was Hwangbo Segwang, repeating himself with the most solemn face imaginable.
"I am asking that you give your utmost in tomorrow's match against me."
"I was going to give my utmost stomping you flat anyway..."
"But I have a separate request."
"A request? Out of nowhere? What request?"
"Beat me as thoroughly as you possibly can."
"Pfft—... hack, hack, hack..."
At words that sounded for all the world like a spontaneous confession of his... inclinations, my jaw dropped open; Paeng Jun, who had apparently heard every syllable, doubled over coughing all over again, and—
"Your tastes are truly one of a kind, my friend..."
—Namgung Han nodded along with the face of a woman who understood completely.
"I... look, if that's what you're into, I'll respect it, but..."
"I have no idea what misunderstanding has seized you all, but that is not what I meant."
Feeling every strange look around him, he cleared his throat and pressed on.
"Ahem... Of late I have chanced upon a small thread of insight, and I wish to grasp it beyond all doubt. That is why I make this request."
"And what, exactly, does getting beaten to a pulp have to do with it?"
"Whether it is because my head has always been slow, I cannot say—but in moments such as these, it is by taking the blows that realizations come to me."
The wary glances around the table sharpened another degree.
"Enough! Stop staring at me so! I am merely making this request so that I may receive instruction from a master of the highest order!!!"
Hwangbo Segwang roared on, scarlet-faced and stout-hearted to the last—but I still looked entirely unconvinced as I asked him...
"So how badly do you want to be beaten? Are you literally asking me to pummel you until you black out?"
"Use on me what you used on me the last time we crossed hands."
"You want me to drive Penetrating Force into your body? That stuff hurts like hell, you know. It's made to wreck you from the inside out—of course the rest of you takes damage too..."
While we were preparing for the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament and trading match after match with the other clans' young masters, Hwangbo Segwang had been the only one who kept throwing himself at me, again and again, until he'd become such a nuisance that one day—
WHAM—
"GRAAAAAAGH!!!"
—I simply planted a single, honest Penetrating Force strike deep in his gut. Leaving him clutching his belly and rolling across the floor, I returned to the inn, and for a long while after that, Segwang left me in peace.
And now this lunatic was asking me to use it on him. In tomorrow's match. When a man volunteered himself for torment this earnestly, the least I could do was scratch the back of my head and ask...
"You're serious? You want to take that again?"
He answered me with a smile that was almost shy.
"Penetrating Force only, if you would. And make it hurt the most."
With that answer, the suspicion lurking in a corner of my heart slowly hardened into certainty.
So another day passed, and morning arrived on the day of the match...
"A-woo, go easy on him. I'm begging you, go easy..."
Just before I stepped up onto the stage, Namgung Han had grabbed hold of me and, in a tone of genuine worry, made her plea. I answered her with a wintry smile.
"Go easy? There's no such thing. A man answers for his own words."
"Your eyes have gone properly mad right now, A-woo... At this rate I'll end up holding a funeral for you, so do calm yourself a little."
The Mad Sword herself, of all people, spouting words of such uncharacteristic good sense—I snorted despite myself as I replied.
"If I stop halfway and leave him half-crushed, he'll just come crawling back with some other bullshit favor. What will you do, sis, when that lunatic pervert starts showing up at your door every single day begging you to hit him?"
"Ahem... fine, then—up you go. I only said it because I was worried, that's all..."
With that brief exchange behind me, I stepped onto the duel stage.
"Begin!"
The instant the call rang out, I opened the match with a blow straight into that madman's gut.
"Ughhhk..."
Penetrating Force... or so it appeared. In truth, what Hwangbo Segwang was taking was blood-flow manipulation—with every single gesture of my hand, his vessels burst and he vomited blood. And still—
"I can still... I can still keep going... come at me!!!"
—he came charging on. Whether it was the fabled iron bones peculiar to the Hwangbo Clan... or simply that he was a lunatic who relished pain... either way, I kept planting Penetrating Force into him as he barreled through mouthfuls of blood...
'Damn... maybe it's just the sheer size of him. Hitting this guy feels incredible.'
It was more satisfying than wailing on Paeng San had ever been, and before I knew it, I was grinning.
And the result...
"Oh! Over there—"
"Shh! Quiet! Why are you pointing? Do you want to catch his eye and find out what happens to you?!"
"Then... that man truly is the one from the rumors?"
"He is! That's the madman himself! His hands are so cruel that the righteous sects' own rising stars have taken to calling him the Mad Blood Ghost."
My epithet had been promoted—from Poison Flower and Serpent-Scorpion, to Mad Blood Ghost.
"Fuck........."