Skull Breaker
Rewinding to a short while earlier...
After wandering lost for the better part of a day, the Saber King finally arrived at Mount Song—just in time to spot a group of familiar faces making their way down the mountainside.
They came trudging along with strangely strained looks on their faces, and he moved to meet them.
"Oh...? Saber King, sir? What brings you all the way out here?"
"I came because I had words to trade with that rascal Muyeong... So where's the whelp gone off to?"
Paeng Juhon swept his gaze over the group. Every last one of the great clans' young pups was accounted for—except for a single face.
And that face belonged to none other than the very culprit responsible for sending him trudging out to this far-flung corner of the world.
"Elder..."
Just as he stood gaping at the sight, the daughter of the Jegal clan suddenly spoke to him, her voice thick with tears.
"My lord... he... hic..."
"There now, child, no tears. Out with it—dry those eyes!"
While the Saber King did his best to soothe her, a thought was already hardening in his mind: something very much out of the ordinary has happened here.
Sniffle—
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Jegal Baekhwa began to speak.
"My lord was taken away by Elder Bulseong..."
"What in the world is that supposed to mean? Speak plainly, child."
"Well, you see..."
The story that spilled out of her was, in a word, preposterous.
"Right after his bout with young hero Hwangbo Segwang, the Elder suddenly summoned him..."
"So that's when Bulseong caught on, hm. Yes—and then?"
"After he finished his semifinal against some strange fellow, he collapsed, and they tried to haul him off by force again—the Sword Saint went so far as to argue them down and stop it..."
"A-and then?"
"And after the final match, once the prizes were handed out, four martial artists of the Profound Realm, Elder Bulseong among them, marched him off as though he were under arrest..."
"Hooo..."
The Saber King had gotten wind of it beforehand, so he grasped the shape of things well enough.
They meant to squeeze Dang Muyeong—pressuring him into 'voluntarily' stepping down so they could prop up the rising stars of the Nine Great Sects and One Union...
But wasn't this a bridge too far, even so?
"So what you're telling me is that Muyeong is being held by four of them at this very moment?"
"Yes... I believe it's so they can pry into the martial arts my lord created with his own two hands... hic..."
"Didn't you say the Sword Saint argued them down? Then why in blazes did the man suddenly change his tune?"
"It appears my lord crushed the Sword Saint's own disciple on the final stage. This is likely his revenge."
"Was Geomseon in on it as well?"
"Yes..."
To sum it up: Bulseong had noticed Dang Muyeong's realm, summoned him to apply pressure, and failed.
Next, he had seized upon the boy's self-made martial arts as a pretext and tried to drag him off while he lay unconscious...
And once the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament drew to a close, they had carted away a boy not yet twenty to interrogate him about his martial arts—did any of that sound like sense to anyone?
Worse still, the very man who had withdrawn from the world claiming his heart had left the murim had lent a hand to it all—for the sake of a private grudge?
The Saber King's fist clenched tight of its own accord, and his feet were already carrying him off at a stomp.
In his mind's eye an image had begun to flicker: Muyeong, that boy, being worked over under questioning by a pack of vile bastards...
"Those rotten curs dare pull a stunt like this?"
Age had cooled him by now, but in his younger days he'd been famous for a temper that could not stomach a single injustice.
And as a boy, he'd been renowned within the Paeng clan for an imagination that ran wild.
Perhaps that was why a whole story was already taking shape inside the Saber King's head.
A boy who lost his mother and brother in childhood, who himself barely cheated death at the hands of some treacherous scheme, clawed his way to power through bone-shaving effort—and for his pains...
...he was dogged by despicable men of his own righteous alliance, scheming day and night to keep him down.
Shaolin, of all places, even moving to extort and steal his martial arts out from under him...
Weren't they well aware themselves what a farce the old saying was—that all martial arts under heaven flow from Shaolin?
When nearly half of the fabled seventy-two supreme arts had likely been filched through filthy little schemes to begin with?
And that Sword Saint, knowing all of it perfectly well, had sold Muyeong down the river for a private bit of revenge...
The fantasy in Paeng Juhon's head sharpened with every step, and by the time he reached Bulseong's quarters, there was Muyeong—shuffling along, limp as a wet rag.
Slumped shoulders, a face set in a world-class sulk—and behind Dang Muyeong, the Saber King's eyes caught Bulseong reaching out toward the boy's head.
Shhhhiiiing—
The Saber King's first response was to simply swing his saber for all he was worth.
"Then what exactly is this 'misunderstanding' you speak of, hm?"
"W-well... it's all technically true, but..."
I was held fast by the Saber King, working hard to explain myself.
Granted, it looked rather odd for me to be running interference for Bulseong out of my own mouth...
But if I didn't, the old man was one wrong word away from marching back up Shaolin's gates and leveling the place.
"Elder, listen, so..."
The situation was threatening to balloon out of all proportion, so I kept talking as fast as I could.
The trouble was that the older people got, the less inclined they were to listen to a word anyone said...
"Bulseong summoned you once, didn't he?"
"Yes... that's true."
"And after the match, when you dropped unconscious, they tried to haul you off as well—your words."
"Also true, but..."
"Once the awards were done, four Profound Realm masters carted you off and grilled you about your martial arts."
"It wasn't only my martial arts—if anything, they asked rather more about the Tang clan's internal affairs..."
"And isn't that even worse?! I'll have to snap every last limb off those doomed bastards, one by one!"
"Elder... please, just breathe for a moment..."
"And the Sword Saint—he sold you out because you beat his disciple, no?"
"That... also isn't exactly wrong..."
At some point, the Saber King's hand had closed around his beloved saber, already bared of its stifling sheath.
"You lot, go on home. I shall go reforge my chivalry this very day, and return."
"Aish... Elder, what's gotten into you? How about we start with some nice, deep breaths?"
I was throwing every ounce of myself into calming this enraged champion of chivalry, while Baekhwa kept dodging my eyes, as though something had pricked her conscience...
"Unhand this old man! If I leave those mutts alone, worse beasts than dogs, does that not make me complicit myself?! I have lived my one and only life for nothing but clan and chivalry—how am I to leave that wretched mess be?!!!"
Faced with this raging hell of a situation, I could do nothing but heave sigh after sigh, feeling a lifetime's worth of age settle onto me on the spot.
To make matters worse, the Sword Queen had, at some point, already swept up her own disciple and vanished without a trace.
Then a fact I'd clean forgotten came back to me.
"Saber King, sir? But if you'd simply arrived on the day you promised in the first place, wouldn't none of this have happened?"
".........."
"I mean, you were due four days ago, were you not? Which, now that I think of it, was precisely the day Bulseong first summoned me..."
"Ahem... Now that you mention it, I may have gotten a touch carried away."
"Wow... I staked everything on that promise of yours, so why exactly were you late? Don't tell me you got lost... or, what, forgot... surely not that?"
"Ahem... ahem..."
"Wow... if you'd just kept the date, not one bit of this would've happened. Some 'chivalry' that turned out to be!"
At the sight of me winding up to gloat with relish, the Saber King slid his saber back into its sheath and swung it at my head instead...
Crack—
The instant I heard something snap inside my skull, I let out one final wail and dropped into darkness.
Clatter-clatter— clatter-clatter—
A carriage flying the Tang clan's banner rolled steadily along the road.
Horses and coachwork gleaming rich enough for anyone to see they'd cost a fortune.
And inside, a man with the face of a pampered young lord lay sprawled out for all the world like a corpse...
"FUCK!!!"
Quite unlike his refined looks, the man spat out the crudest word imaginable, eyes flying open as he bolted upright.
The first thing he saw upon sitting up was...
"Sis?"
"What is it?"
"Why am I lying in here? And where is everybody?"
"Everyone headed home while you were out cold."
"What about Baekhwa? I told her I'd escort her to Hubei myself, and she left without even a goodbye?"
"The Jegal clan has Hubei to get to, and we have Sichuan. Isn't it about time we hurried back to the Tang estate ourselves?"
"Baekhwa just left? Tsk... that's odd."
Of course, Jegal Baekhwa had not set off for Hubei in quite so graceful a manner.
"My lord!!!"
When Dang Mulin loaded the unconscious Dang Muyeong into the carriage, Baekhwa cried out until her throat all but tore, but...
"Don't the Tang folk have a home to hurry back to as well? Enough now—let us be on our way to Hubei."
Jegal Baekjun, having concluded some manner of negotiation with Dang Mulin, seized his wildly flailing sister and dragged her off.
"Then I shall take my leave."
"How dare you tear apart our beautiful, anguished love?!!!"
"There now! That's quite enough of that."
Having somehow wedged his tantrum-throwing sister into the carriage, he offered a brief bow and took his leave.
And so the Paeng clan made for Hebei, the Jegal clan for Hubei, and the Murong clan for Liaoning, each parting with promises of their next gathering.
Of course, to her younger brother—who took a full half day to come around—Dang Mulin relayed a somewhat edited version of events...
"That doesn't sound like her at all..."
"Perhaps her love has simply cooled a little. Don't go thinking too hard about it."
All I could do was tilt my head this way and that.
Anyway, I rubbed at my skull—which still throbbed angrily at the slightest touch—and mused.
'Seriously, what is it with these damn old codgers and my head? It's not like anyone smeared honey on it or anything...'
Just then the carriage window swung open, and Dang Giyeong poked his noggin inside.
"Young Master, you're awake? My goodness... when I heard what sounded like a watermelon cracking earlier, I honestly thought you'd passed on!"
How does that bastard Dushik always manage to pick out precisely the most useless things imaginable to say?
So I demonstrated upon Dang Giyeong the fine art of skull-cracking that I'd had the privilege of learning firsthand of late...
And thanks to his one-strike treatment, he quietly keeled over, slumping face-down across his horse's back, fast asleep. I watched him and murmured with deep satisfaction.
"So this is why everyone's so obsessed with skulls. It feels pretty damn good..."