The Fastest Way Down a Cliff Is Straight Ahead (1)
The first runners came into Mu Dae-bo's view, sprinting along the narrow path carved into the cliff face.
Mu Dae-bo charged to meet them, swinging his right hand. It was his signature art — the Iron Demon Palm.
The man in the lead swung his weapon.
Normally, a swung weapon would shear an incoming palm force or fist art in half and dissipate it — the tremendous power carried in the blade spilled out to either side, and that energy deflected the incoming strike.
Thwack!
But the man's weapon failed to stop the Iron Demon Palm. Mu Dae-bo's strike bored into the Demonic Shadow's chest, and with his chest caved in, the man went hurtling backward.
Thwack! Thwack!
The ones trailing behind were knocked away in the same instant. At that very moment, the Demonic Shadows charging up from the rear vaulted over their fallen comrades and shot toward Mu Dae-bo.
Mu Dae-bo swung his left arm.
A palm-shadow the size of a giant hand materialized and scoured everything ahead of him. The Heaven-Conquering Palm.
The man running at Mu Dae-bo thrust out his fist. It accomplished nothing.
Thwack!
The man caught by the Heaven-Conquering Palm sailed cleanly off into the distance. While Mu Dae-bo was occupied with him, the ones below pushed in, and he swept them aside with alternating strokes of his right and left hands.
The enemy could not advance a single step.
"Why the hell can't you get through?"
Bi Geom asked from the rear.
"They say a man called Mu Dae-bo — the Paegon Maja — is holding the path, Elder."
Hwa Mu answered.
"Mu Dae-bo, you say..."
"He is strong enough to be counted among the Hundred Great Masters of the murim."
"Kill him!"
Bi Geom shot into the air.
Covering a dozen jang in a single breath, he stamped off a subordinate's shoulder, sprang a second time, and dashed ahead. As he ran, the man clogging the path came into view — Mu Dae-bo.
"Chah!"
A battle cry burst from his lips as he dipped his upper body slightly.
Shing!
The sword slid from the sheath on his back and shot toward Mu Dae-bo.
"Huh?"
Mu Dae-bo, gleefully carving through the enemy, jolted in surprise. He had sensed a monstrous force hurtling in from dead ahead.
"Tah!"
He thrust out his fist with a shout. The art he unleashed this time was the Demonic Emperor Palm. A jet-black fist force streaked out to meet the incoming blade.
KRA-BOOM!
"Ugh!"
Mu Dae-bo staggered back several steps with a groan.
"That little bastard..."
Once he had recovered his stance, his face twisted. It had been a very long time since a head-on clash had cost him anything.
Swish!
Bi Geom landed a good three jang across from Mu Dae-bo and snapped out his left arm. The sword that had been knocked away came flying back into his grasp.
"Who the hell are you?"
Mu Dae-bo asked, glaring at him.
"What an ill-bred cur."
Bi Geom's face mottled red and blotchy — thanks to Mu Dae-bo's habit of talking down to a man he'd never laid eyes on before.
"Such a tongue. Rootless, unlettered whelps always wear it on their faces, they do."
"Hey, Dae-bo! Why are you messing around with a guy whose dick's only good for taking a leak? Wrap it up and get back here."
Jin I-gang's voice drifted over from far away.
KRAAANG!
Loosing a monstrous roar, Bi Geom launched himself off the ground and hurled his body at Mu Dae-bo. At the word excretion, his eyes had snapped wild.
The reason he reacted so violently to talk of a "weak lower body" was the wife who had left him.
She had walked out less than three years into the marriage. He had convinced himself it was because of his inadequate lower body. Since his lower body was unreliable, he had avoided the marriage bed — while his wife, by contrast, had an appetite so vigorous that nothing short of relations once every two or three days could satisfy her. The longer he avoided her, the more her resentment piled up, and the two of them fought over the smallest trifles.
Then one day came a tremendous quarrel — and a few days later, his wife was gone. If only he had satisfied her, she never would have left, he told himself, over and over. It changed nothing.
Her departure became a wound on his mind that never healed. And Jin I-gang had just jammed a finger into it. Of course he was furious.
In fairness, Jin I-gang had known none of this. Having heard that Bi Geom was one of the old demons active a full sixty-year cycle ago, he had simply reached for the words to provoke him.
And the barb had landed squarely on Bi Geom's reverse scale.
Bi Geom drew up his entire internal energy. With his eyes rolled wild, he was beyond thought.
He loaded his full cultivation into the sword and swung his arm.
SHWAAK!
The instant he moved to release the blade, a black object came shooting at him at a horrifying speed.
"Gahk!"
Bi Geom's face drained white.
It was a stone Jin I-gang had thrown, but Bi Geom took it for a hidden weapon — and the speed and angle of its flight were exquisite. It knocked the sword off course, sending the blade that had been headed for Mu Dae-bo spinning away.
"Chah!"
At that very instant, Mu Dae-bo thrust out his fist. Fist force burst from his knuckles and bored straight in toward Bi Geom's chest.
It was a combined assault bordering on perfection.
"Damn you!"
Bi Geom had already flung his sword with everything he had. There was nothing left to do but raise his protective qi. He batted aside the stone Jin I-gang had thrown as he brought up his guardian qi.
KAANG!
"Ugh!"
A groan spilled out of Bi Geom.
The force carried in the stone was far weaker than he'd expected.
Which meant he had just been struck by a feint. And in that very instant, the fist force Mu Dae-bo had sent burst against his chest. The true attack had been Mu Dae-bo's fist force all along.
THWACK!
"Kuh-ack!"
Bi Geom flew backward with a scream.
SHWAAK!
Even as his body hurtled away, the whistle of splitting air reached his ears.
The second stone Jin I-gang had thrown.
Gravely wounded by Mu Dae-bo's strike, Bi Geom knew the stone was coming and did not much care. The force in the one he'd just swatted down had been nothing worth fearing. He was warier of Mu Dae-bo than of any flying rock.
SHWAAAK!
"Hm?"
Bi Geom's eyes went wide. The stone was coming faster than the first.
"What is—"
THWACK!
"Kuh-ack!"
Bi Geom's mouth fell wide open.
The stone had buried itself in his dantian.
He had climbed to the realm where protective qi bloomed of its own accord, unbidden, so the stone did not punch a hole clean through him. The problem was the pain and momentary paralysis from the massive impact. The agony flooding up from his lower body was beyond anything — and the sheer force of it had nothing whatsoever to do with any "inadequacy." Both legs folded up on their own, and his limbs locked rigid.
On flat ground he would have rolled where he lay or crumpled where he stood — but Bi Geom was hanging in empty air, five jang — fifteen meters — above the earth.
His whole body locked rigid, he dropped like a stone of his own. With his dantian slammed that hard, his internal energy would not rise either.
"M-my body... no, m-my energy..."
What is wrong with him?
A Demonic Shadow below sent a voice transmission to a comrade.
Some feint-and-strike gambit, I'd wager.
The comrade answered in kind. "False and true" was the name for a tactic of making it look as though one's own side had met with disaster, luring the enemy in close before shattering them in a single stroke.
And in truth, what else could the Demonic Shadows believe? Bi Geom was no common fighter — he was one of the Nine Demons of the Demonic Cult. The notion that he would plummet out of the sky because he couldn't circulate his own energy was beyond believing.
"C-catch me!"
Unable to draw up his power, Bi Geom shrieked.
What's he saying?
Beats me. Sounds like he wants us to catch him.
Could something be wrong with his body?
Don't be absurd. Not the Elder Bi Geom...
THWACK!
"KRAAAK!"
A hideous scream tore from Bi Geom's mouth.
"...?"
The Demonic Shadows stared at him, dumbfounded.
At the last instant he had twisted his body and spared himself a headfirst landing, but his arms and legs were bent at impossible angles. Anyone could see at a glance that they were broken.
"E-Elder!"
Several of them raced to his side.
"AAAGH! UAAAAAGH!"
Bi Geom went on shrieking.
"What happened here?"
Dok Ji came over and asked.
"He fell."
One of the Shadows reported.
"Fell?"
"Yes. From up there."
The Shadow pointed at the empty sky.
Dok Ji looked at Bi Geom. He lay motionless, as if unconscious.
RUMBLE!
Just then a thunderous racket rolled down from above. The boulders flanking the cliff path had collapsed — some sealing the trail, others tumbling toward this side.
"Take Bi Geom and get down!"
Dok Ji roared the order and hammered palm force into the oncoming boulders.
While he held them off, the Demonic Shadows carried Bi Geom down the cliff.
Before long the whole company had reached the base of the cliff. Dok Ji examined Bi Geom's condition in detail, and the others gathered around to watch.
And there were eyes on them.
They belonged to the Jeongcheonbu warriors who had been hunting the Demonic Shadows. Sama Yucheon flashed a hand signal to his men, and the Jeongcheonbu operatives scattered to the left and right.
All units ready, sir.
The transmission came from the unit commander.
Begin.
Yes, sir.
The commander gave the order to attack.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
From the flanks of the open ground before the cliff, the Jeongcheonbu warriors burst forth. Not one of them made a sound.
The Demonic Shadows did not spot them until they were barely thirty meters away.
"Ah!"
"Enemies!"
"Kill them!"
A murderous roar tore from Sama Yucheon's lips.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
The Jeongcheonbu warriors kicked off the earth as one, closed the distance in a heartbeat, and swung.
CLANG!
SHK!
When one man's strike was parried, another behind him slipped around to the flank and swung.
THWACK!
A weapon bored into a Demonic Shadow's body. But the Shadow made no sound of pain.
"Who the hell are these bastards?!"
Dok Ji bellowed and hurled himself at the Jeongcheonbu warriors. Reaching their rear, he flung out his right hand, fingers splayed — and from four fingertips shot a murky black radiance. Dok Ji's exclusive art: the Asura Demonic Poison Finger.
The Asura Demonic Poison Finger was projected finger-force, but it was also a vicious poison art — any part of the body it struck began to melt.
Thud! Thud!
Two of the four finger-forces slammed into Jeongcheonbu warriors.
"Kuh-ack!"
"Krrk!"
The men struck by the finger-force collapsed shrieking.
"Kill every last one of them!"
Spitting murder, Dok Ji tore into the Jeongcheonbu warriors. Sama Yucheon was no different. Each time his sword cleaved the air, a Demonic Shadow's body split apart. His arts were every bit as fearsome — a handful of Shadows threw themselves at him and could not last a single breath.
"Hwa Mu! Kill that one!"
Dok Ji roared.
"Yes."
Hwa Mu shot forward at once. Her destination was the space behind Sama Yucheon. A few Jeongcheonbu warriors lunged at her along the way and died on her sword. Reaching the space behind him, she activated her concealment art and closed in.
Hm?
Sama Yucheon started and kicked off the ground.
The instant his body soared skyward, Hwa Mu's sword tore through the space where he had stood.
"Demonic Shadows — deploy your concealment arts!"
Hwa Mu shouted.
"Scatter the night-glow powder!"
Sama Yucheon roared the order after her.
The night-glow powder — ground from luminous pearls — had been prepared for exactly this: enemies who fought as assassins or masters of stealth. In moments, glittering dust spread in every direction across the field, and it clung to the Demonic Shadows' clothes.
"Ah!"
"Huh?"
Groans leaked out from all around.
"Demonic Shadows — strip your clothes!"
Hwa Mu shouted again, and the powder-drenched Shadows shed their garments and flung them away. Their figures melted into the darkness.
"KRAAAK!"
"AAAGH!"
"UAAAAAGH!"
Screams ran rampant across the field.
"Let's go."
Jin I-gang said, looking at Mu Dae-bo.
"Go where?"
"Down there. Where else?"
"So you're saying we go fight."
"Those people down there came to steal the Treasure Map. And they can't take it without wiping us out first, can they?"
"So what do you want me to do about it?"
"Don't you want to live?"
"Obviously I want to live."
"Then the easiest, simplest way for us to survive is to wipe them out before they wipe us out."
"So..."
"Come on, hurry up."
Jin I-gang walked toward the cave mouth.
"You wrecked the only way down, you bastard."
"There's still a fastest way."
"And where the hell is this 'fastest way'?"
"Straight ahead, obviously."
"Straight ahead...? You bastard, that's not straight ahead, that's a fall!"
"Hurry up, damn it."
And Jin I-gang leaped straight off the edge.
"Hey! You lunatic! It's forty-five meters straight down here!"
White-faced with horror, Mu Dae-bo flung himself toward the precipice after him.