Slap! (1)
"If you've got something to say, don't hesitate—spit it out, you bastard."
"Well, look at this son of a bitch. Who the hell do you think you're talking to—"
"And who the hell is this guy now?"
Jin Yigang muttered, glancing behind Mu Daebo.
Mu Daebo turned his head without thinking.
Crunch!
In that exact instant, a dull thud erupted from Mu Daebo's lower half—Jin Yigang's heel had buried itself squarely in his crotch.
"Guurgh!"
The sky went yellow for Mu Daebo, and the strength drained straight out of his legs. He'd been hit so hard he could barely breathe.
"You—you—?"
Mu Daebo raised a trembling hand to point at him.
Jin Yigang glanced around, then picked up a rock.
"You midget piece of shit…"
"I-if you hit me with that, I'll k-kill you…"
Crack!
The rock slammed into Mu Daebo's jaw.
"Gaargh!"
He let out a shriek and collapsed unconscious.
"Acting tough when you're only waist-high. Good thing I grabbed this."
Jin Yigang pulled out the small hand hoe he used for selling herbs. It had been an essential tool ever since his days studying in the mountains. Even getting lost in a winter mountain never fazed him. Bellflower roots, lance asiabell, arrowroot—the mountain was carpeted with things you could eat. The sea was another matter, but he'd never once believed a man could starve to death up in the hills.
He dug into the ground with the hand hoe.
Whenever Mu Daebo stirred in the middle of digging, Jin Yigang smashed a rock down on him until he passed out again. Once the hole was finished, he tossed Mu Daebo in, shoveled the dirt back over, tamped it down with his feet, planted a big rock on top, and left.
'Gah!'
Choking on stale air, Mu Daebo jolted awake.
'Where… am I?'
He tried to move.
He couldn't budge an inch. And it wasn't just his body. His hands, folded on top of his chest, wouldn't move either.
'Don't tell me—dirt? That son of a bitch!'
Mu Daebo flung both arms upward with all his might.
Boom!
With a dull roar, the earth exploded outward.
Whoosh!
He shot out of the hole.
"That son of a bitch. I'll kill him. Where is he?"
Mu Daebo bellowed, scanning his surroundings.
Fwoosh!
No Jin Yigang—only cold wind and darkness greeted him.
"So it's murder after all."
He shot forward, unfurling his Thousand-Li Eye Searching Art to hunt Jin Yigang down. He ran for half a sijin, but Jin Yigang was nowhere to be found. Following the main road, he found himself deep in a forest.
"That little…?"
Right then, he sensed movement near his ear.
"Got you!"
He sprang forward, breathing hard.
Moments later, he arrived at the source of the sound.
"I know you're hiding in there—come out, you bastard!"
He roared.
But Jin Yigang didn't come out, and a heavy silence settled over the forest.
"Come out, or I really will kill you."
Killing intent crept into Mu Daebo's voice.
Then, with a rustle of leaves, five figures emerged.
"Huh?"
Mu Daebo's eyes widened. Not Jin Yigang—not who he was looking for at all.
"What is this?"
He was already fuming thanks to Jin Yigang, so his tone was hardly going to be polite. The problem was that these five who'd appeared out of nowhere were no pushovers either—the Poison Sword Five Fiends, demon-duo notorious throughout Cheonghae Fortress for their viciousness.
"Well, would you look at this lowlife bastard?"
Jihurak, wielder of the great Poison Serpent Sword among the Five Fiends, spat out a curse.
"You filthy dog—"
Flash!
Mu Daebo launched himself with a roar.
His movement was staggering, utterly unlike a man of his colossal frame. In an instant he was in front of the Poison Sword Five Fiends, and he thrust out a palm.
"Chah!"
Wocheoljin, the youngest of the five, the Thousand-Poison Sword, let out a kiai and swept his drawn blade.
Then something astonishing happened.
KAANG!
Mu Daebo's palm shattered Wocheoljin's sword and drove straight on through.
Crunch!
"Gwaaagh!"
With his skull caved in, Wocheoljin went flying, screaming.
"Youngest!"
Jeonchilnam, the fourth of the five, the Demon-Poison Sword, lunged after him.
Crunch! Crunch!
"Gwaaagh!"
"Aaagh!"
Two more fell in the meantime—the second and third of the Five Fiends. They were moderately famous in their own right, but against Mu Daebo they didn't last a single breath.
"You son of a bitch."
Jeonchilnam and Jihurak, oozing killing intent, launched themselves simultaneously. Mu Daebo closed his open hand into a fist—then thrust both arms out at once.
Screeeech!
As he unleashed his fist arts, the sound of grinding steel rang out.
"Pa-Pagun Magi? The Tyrant Kun Fiend!"
Only then did Jihurak recognize him, crying out in horror. Only one man's fist arts made a sound like tearing metal—Pagun Magi, Mu Daebo.
And Pagun Magi was a name that always came up when ranking the true masters of the Central Plains' martial world. Fiery-tempered and simple-minded, he fell easily for tricks—but he was so overwhelmingly strong that he simply smashed through the tricks anyway. A freak among freaks.
"See? That's why you don't curse out just anyone, you brat."
Crunch! Crunch!
Two fist-strikes slammed into the chests of the two men.
"Gwaaagh!"
"Aaagh!"
Both crumpled to the ground.
"You—you cursed first, you lowlife…"
Jihurak glared up at Mu Daebo through gritted teeth.
"This bastard—huh?"
Mu Daebo's face stiffened.
Suddenly, as if stung by hornets, both his arms went heavy and leaden.
"The Poison Sword Five Fiends don't die easy, pretty boy."
"Either way, this bastard started it."
Mu Daebo snatched up a rock and hurled it point-blank into Jihurak's face.
Crack!
"Gyaaagh!"
Jihurak screamed hideously.
"Damn it all!"
Mu Daebo cursed. He could feel the poison spreading rapidly. He shifted his weight, eyes darting around. To purge the poison he would need to circulate his energy—but circulating energy alone, with no one guarding him, was practically suicide. While doing it, he couldn't move a muscle, and if some passerby so much as touched him, his inner force would reverse and he'd fall into qi derangement.
Qi derangement meant inner force running rampant—and even if you survived it, you were left a broken wreck. So one circulated energy only at carefully chosen times and places.
Most people did it at home, and when they had to do it outside, they asked someone they trusted to stand guard.
But here, he was alone.
He had no choice but to choose a spot for circulation with extreme care.
"There should do."
A suitable spot caught his eye: a pit dug into the earth like a vertical burrow, five ja across and seven ja deep. Covered in dead leaves, it looked perfect for circulating energy.
He gathered fallen leaves from all around and tossed them into the pit. The poison aura was already spreading fast; a faint dizziness crept over him.
"No time."
He raked in more leaves, leapt into the pit, and began circulating his energy at once. He'd expected the poison to clear quickly, but it was far nastier than he'd thought.
'Bastards.'
He swore and kept circulating.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Suddenly, something landed on top of his head.
Mu Daebo tensed.
"Who's—"
But no further sound came. He resumed circulating and soon sank into deep absorption. The circulation took a full meal's worth of time.
"Damn it."
The moment he finished, he swore.
Poison, once it entered the body, had to be expelled outward—or gathered into one spot and burned away with extreme-yang internal force.
But this poison was too vicious to expel. Pushing it out through the skin would cause the flesh to necrotize. And he possessed no extreme-yang force capable of burning it.
Gathering it into his left arm was the best he could manage.
If luck provided an elixir or antidote, he could neutralize it—but if not, he would have to cut off the arm where the poison pooled. For a man who fought with fists and palms, an arm was a weapon like any other.
Cutting off an arm amounted to throwing away a weapon—but a life mattered more than an arm.
"But who…?"
Dead leaves were piled over him to his head.
He rose and stepped out of the pit.
"You…"
Jin Yigang sat on the boulder beside the pit, a wooden club resting in front of him.
"You son of a—"
"Want an antidote?"
"An antidote?"
"You couldn't purge it, could you."
"And how the hell would you know that?"
"There's a blue streak between your eyebrows. That's a symptom of poisoning. And judging by the smell, it's Blood Death Poison."
"Blood Death Poison?"
"A poison made by blending red viper venom and toad venom in a three-to-seven ratio. After a day, red blotches spread across your whole body; after two days, the blotches rot. And on the third day, you die. That's why it's also called the Three-Day Death Poison."
"Th-that poison is—this?"
"Ever heard of it?"
"They call it the King of Poisons."
Mu Daebo's face twisted. He shot a glance at his left arm.
"King of Poisons, my ass. There are poisons far nastier than that. Hold on… now where did I put it."
Jin Yigang rummaged through his pack.
"Found it."
He pulled out a single pill and tossed it to Mu Daebo, who stared back and forth between the pill and Jin Yigang.
"Eat it if you'd rather not lose the arm."
Saying that, Jin Yigang climbed into the very pit where Mu Daebo had been circulating his energy. He set his pack by his head and lay down.
Mu Daebo watched him for a long moment, then popped the pill into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
"It works."
Mu Daebo shouted, his face lit with gratitude.
He immediately sat in a cross-legged position and began circulating his energy. He didn't need a full Great Circulation—a Minor Circulation was enough to fully dissolve the poison aura pooled in his arm.
Twirling his now-clean left arm around, he ducked back inside.
"Thanks."
He offered his gratitude first.
"You owe me one."
"…Fair enough. But did you come in here to sleep?"
"Winter's coming. Sleep out in the open field and your mouth'll freeze over."
"…"
Mu Daebo nodded. Winter was only just beginning, but the night wind was already biting. The pit was the perfect cozy refuge.
"But what kind of pit is dug exactly the right size for a bed?"
"Because it was a bed to begin with."
"This is a bed?"
"Strictly speaking, it's a bedroom."
"What kind of lunatic digs an earthen burrow deep in the mountains and turns it into a bedroom?"
"Not a lunatic. A dead man."
"…"
Mu Daebo stared hard at Jin Yigang.
"S-so you're telling me this place we're both lying in is a grave?"
Mu Daebo's voice shook.
"What? I told you it's a grave—does that scare you?"
Whoosh!
Mu Daebo answered with action: from a seated position, he shot straight out of the pit.
Jin Yigang watched him go.
"I'm not afraid of the emperor, not even a little. No—in fact, there's exactly one thing in this world that scares me."
"And that one thing is graves?"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"Ghosts."
"You look scarier than any ghost, and you're scared of them? There aren't any here, so get in and sleep, damn it."
"R-really none?"
"The ghosts moved out. Why would any be left?"
"Moved out?"
"It means the corpse was relocated. It's an empty grave now."
"Should I actually believe that?"
"Believe a man who's lived in the mountains for twenty years, you brat."
"Then there's no ghosts, huh."
Mu Daebo came back to his original spot and lay down again.
"Want to cover up with this?"
Jin Yigang said, pulling a fur-lined cloak from his pack—one of the things Yuk Daemo had packed for him.
A winter cloak like that would pass for a blanket without complaint.
"You carry one of those around?"
"If you don't want your mouth freezing shut, of course you do."
"Thorough fellow, aren't you."
"Thorough preparation is the nature of the weak. So—satisfied?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's your people's world now, isn't it?"
"Whose world, exactly?"
"The martial artists'."
"Ah—right."
"So, how is it?"
"Same as ever. Not a thing's changed in five years."
"Do you know how the martial world ended up on top?"
"Hwonwon Chiguk, the Great Heavenly Martial Sovereign and former Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance, staged a rebellion—and it worked."
"That's not what I asked. I asked if you know why he rebelled."
"No idea."
Mu Daebo shook his head.
"What changed the world was the sound of a single slap."
"A slap?"
"Yep."
