No Fun At All
"Whoa... that one was a bit much....."
The Dragon-Phoenix Tournament, where the rising stars who were meant to lead the Orthodox Murim someday showcased their skills, had before anyone noticed whittled itself down to nothing but the final match.
Everyone had made such a fuss over the contenders who'd thrown their hats into this tournament, but once the lid came off, no fewer than three of them stood at the Transcendent Realm alone.
Worse, the Sword Saint's disciple — a warrior who couldn't even manifest hardened qi — had pinned down Wudang's Jinmu, a bona fide Transcendent Realm master, with all the ease of someone handling a baby.
The crane among chickens had turned into just another chicken at this tournament, leaving the whole crowd unable to contain its shock, while over the handful of prodigies now whispered of as not a crane among chickens but a phoenix among cranes, every tongue in the venue wagged itself ragged.
And chief among them — the hottest potato of all — was the Dang Clan's Mad Blood Ghost, Dang Muyeong...
"The champion's got to be the Mad Blood Ghost... right?"
"Hmm... well, how could it not be? Even granting that the Sword Saint's disciple can take hardened qi on her bare skin, when you think back on that match of his..."
Swish— swish—
"I know we can say this only because the young masters of the Three Great Clans aren't around, but... at the time, I honestly thought some Demon Cult master had strolled out wearing a human-skin mask. And small wonder — in all my years, I have never seen such an insidious martial art."
"You think you're the only one who thought so? Everyone standing there that day must have felt the same. Take the Dang off the front of his name and he'd have been clapped in irons on the spot, no questions asked."
"Well, it's not just the Mad Blood Ghost, is it? That Heaven-Cleaving Sword fellow he already beat, and this Diamond Skull he's about to face — they all swing strange arts too..."
"Eh... the Murim Alliance will handle the investigating in their own good time. We're just here to gawk."
"ATCHOO!!! Ow... somebody talking about me?"
I had just delivered a magnificent, full-bodied sneeze directly into the Sword Saint's face, and was now contentedly rubbing my nose.
Bonk— Naturally, the toll for that was one more lump added to the collection.
I was sitting through a strained meal with the Sword Saint and Bae Haemu when a stray thought made me open my mouth.
"By the way, how long exactly am I supposed to stay cooped up with you, Elder? I could start heading back any time now..."
"You brat. Did you not see Bulseong's eyes flash wide as he glared at you earlier? You'll be staying at least until the tournament ends and we set out for Sichuan."
"Hm... the way I see it, he was staring at you, Elder....."
"Enough of your babbling and eat your food!"
"Yes, sir....."
And so I returned to listlessly pushing food around. Somewhere in the middle of it, I turned to the girl called Haemu, who was already polishing off her fifth bowl across the table.
"Haemu, was it?"
"Yep! What?"
"Do you remember your mom?"
"No...?"
My remark — no turn signal, just cutting straight across three lanes — earned me a full-force smack on the back of the head from the Sword Saint.
WHAM— My head traced a graceful arc and planted itself face-first into the table.
"You rotten punk! Not everything that passes a person's lips deserves to be said! Is that how your mother raised you?!!"
"My mother is deceased, though....."
"...Ah."
After that single exchange, once the dust had settled, I fumbled together something vaguely apologetic.
"I just had a half-hunch about something, that's all. Truly no malice intended."
"Right... well. It does come across that way."
Doing his own share of papering over the awkward air, the Sword Saint likewise let the matter drop just as vaguely.
And with that, the most agonizingly stiff meal in recent memory came to an end...
In the deep small hours, I lay wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling as one thought after another shuffled through my head.
Flap flap— All I accomplished was kicking my poor blanket half to death...
Even if I wrote off that Blood Cult fellow the Sword Saint had mentioned, what conceivable link joined those three otherworlders? No matter how I gnawed at it, I could just about bend the thread far enough to tie Behemoth to myself — but why in the hell that bastard Mikhail was here...
And like me, he didn't seem to be inhabiting his own original body either — yet why he was the way he was, I couldn't fathom it at all.
And so I watched the whole night pass with open eyes...
"WOOOAAAAHHH!!!!!"
When I snapped out of it, I was somehow already standing on the dueling stage.
"Dang Muyeong!!! Dang Muyeong!!! Dang Muyeong!!!"
"Bae Haemu!!! Bae Haemu!!! Bae Haemu!!! Bae Haemu!!! Bae Haemu!!!"
The crowd's cheering thundered deafeningly through the arena...
and, by the thinnest of margins, the voices chanting for Bae Haemu carried a shade louder.
The monster wearing a human shape stood right in front of me — and I was the one who'd have to face her...
"Hm....."
It was like something out of the past had been lifted whole and pasted down again — a scene that stirred memories left behind like photographs — and before I knew it, a short laugh slipped out of me.
A glance around took in the crowd, screaming themselves hoarse in excitement; among them the Three Great Clans brats, watching me with faces full of simple, unshakable faith; in the seats of honor, the grand old names of the Orthodox Murim peering down at me; and seated in their very midst, Bulseong and Geomseon.
That old man was supposed to have taught Jinmu with his own two hands, yet until the other day I hadn't seen so much as his shadow — just what wind blew him into that seat?
I swept the hair fluttering across my face in the cool breeze and looked dead ahead again...
"Hi?"
"Yeah, hi. You feeling okay?"
"Yep! Let's have fun today."
"Body's not exactly in prime shape for that... but eh, it'll be fun anyway."
With our brief exchange done, the Sword Queen lifted one hand toward the sky.
For one breath, everyone went silent. Flutter—
The instant her hand dropped in the signal to open the duel, a blood-red spear was already crossing the air.
WHAM— She caught the ominous-looking thing square in the sternum and went flying backward, and I chuckled.
"Well, you're certainly sturdy."
Diamond Skull, Bae Haemu.
Disciple of the Sword Saint — and a martial artist of the fist and foot... no, of straight-up brawling.
From the preliminaries right up onto the final stage, every one of her matches had been a one-sided affair. Warriors who faced a girl who could take everything from sword aura to hardened qi on her bare skin and walk away without a scratch couldn't help trudging off hollow...
People marveled so hard at that incomprehensible body — something past any steel-boned physique — that before anyone noticed, the nickname Diamond Skull had been hung around her neck. Not that anyone shouts it much anymore, mind you — not after everyone watched a certain someone get folded in half for bellowing it right next to the Sword Saint.
And in the final, that same girl was busy serving up another one-sided match...
WHAM— WHAM— KRAKOOM— Red spears came surging in without a breath's gap.
The sight of her, once again swallowing every one on her bare body, looked pitiful enough to knot the brows of everyone watching. Granted, she stood it without a wound — but raw momentum was another animal entirely, and with every spear that punched home, her whole frame skidded backward...
Meanwhile the Mad Blood Ghost over there stood flicking nothing but his fingers, so languid it pulled the word cheap right out of the spectators' mouths. One arm tucked behind his back, the other loosely raised — each lazy flick of the hand sent five or six spears flying her way...
"Wow... that's a bit much."
At the words someone in the crowd let slip unbidden, most of the audience was nodding furiously on the inside.
A few among them did know the truth that couldn't be seen, though...
"Aigoo... young master, you're overdoing it. And you said yourself that stuff was harder than it looks..."
Dang Giyeong's murmur drowned beneath ten thousand other voices, heard by no one at all.
In any case, the one-sided duel rolled on...
"Ow... no fun....."
Tears welled in Bae Haemu's eyes at the first violence she had ever known in her life.
Where was the fun in standing at a range where she couldn't land a single hit, getting hammered by those red things for the better part of forever?
At the sight of his disciple, the Sword Saint found himself shouting before he could think better of it.
"Haemu! Close the distance!!!"
"Okaaay..."
A master of the fist must, by any means, close the distance against a master of the sword; a master of the sword must, by any means, keep the distance open against a master of the fist.
And when a boxer draws some archer-coward lobbing things in from the back line, then so long as he can close the gap — even eating every attack on the way in — the odds of winning come spilling over the brim.
So she came charging in, swallowing every one of my harrying shots flush on the chin...
Fwoom— I slipped the fist whipping toward my head, laid my palm flat against that soft belly, and thought:
Who do you take for a fool.
WHAP—
"AAAGH!!!"
A sound like hide splitting cracked across the stage, and her scream with it...
"Huh... did nobody ever hear how that one lost to me?"
I tipped my chin toward Hwangbo Segwang, who was off to the side unconsciously scowling in full-body sympathy.
"Ahem... hem."
Watching the suddenly summoned man cough awkwardly into his fist, I opened the distance once more...
"You did ask me to make it fun... so we keep going, yeah?"
And with her tears now falling freely down her face, I started hurling Blood Spears all over again.
"Oof... this one might genuinely be too far."
"At this point, shouldn't they be calling a stop to it....."
One-sided ranged barrages; the moment she got inside, a palm technique hammered her and the range opened right back up. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
By now, the groans had begun to outnumber the cheers.
"Sob... no fun. It hurts....."
The Sword Saint was glaring long and slow at Dang Muyeong, the man who had made his disciple... no, his granddaughter, cry.
Ignoring that glare entirely, I spoke.
"You ought to know how to use that body of yours properly. Did the Sword Saint not teach you right? The way you are now, you cross the wrong madman out there and you're dead."
"Hhk... hic... hic..."
Truthfully, short of running into a master at the Profound Realm, none of that was going to kill her. Well... if she could ever bring out her true form, I doubt even a Profound Realm master could manage it.....
The only reason I put it that harshly was to repay a debt to the Sword Saint. He seemed to have raised the girl on nothing but spoiling, and if she kept burning through hardware that fine with no technique to back it, the ending wouldn't be pretty — so this was me handing him a justification to teach her martial arts for real.
It was absolutely, definitively not because I remembered taking a stray hit somewhere down below during the Behemoth subjugation and rolling across the ground like a runaway wheel.
Anyway — at the sight of her sitting sprawled on the stage, sniffling, I glanced toward the Sword Queen...
Declaration made, I scratched my head and came down off the stage.
"My lord, the Sword Queen Elder is calling for you from behind?"
Baekhwa had run up and wrapped herself around me the moment I stepped down; at her words I turned to look back...
"Hey, you brat! The awards aren't finished yet!"
At the sight of the Sword Queen beckoning furiously, I smacked my forehead and climbed back up onto the stage.
"The runner-up prize: a Great Rejuvenation Pill, and......."
The awards proceeded for those who had finished high in the rankings. As for the epithets, apparently, those would take some deliberation — this Dragon-Phoenix Tournament had seen far too much of one thing and another to confer them casually.
And so, with the ceremony concluded...
"So... just what in the world is the true nature of this power of yours?"
"Well....."
Bulseong, Geomseon, the Sword Saint, the Sword Queen.....
Sitting before a lineup of old monsters who could choke the air out of you on name value alone, all I could do was scratch my head.
And the Sword Saint in particular looked ready to strike me dead with his eyes alone.