Chapter 16: Blood Flows in Martial World Matters, Like It or Not
Hong Mun-deok, an elder of Hongwu Gate, felt like he was literally going crazy as he read the battle situation unfolding around him now.
The elites of Hongwu Gate were being defeated.
The Baek Family Escort was indeed worthy of its reputation.
Although there were some young ones whose skills fell short, the middle-aged and elderly martial artists each showed off skills that were nothing to scoff at.
While the center supported them firmly, those who revealed flashing skills eliminated the ones who could be called the core of this side one by one.
Although it was a close match at first, the flow of the battle gradually tilted.
Although he had to overturn this situation himself,
“How did you end up in such a plight, Great Hero Hong?”
He was in a situation where he was completely blocked by the Chief of the Baek Family Escort, Baek Jin-seong.
Seeing that the adjustment of strength could be felt in the midst of clashing swords, unlike this side which was fighting with all its might, the other side had room to spare, even to the extent of making him feel like he was being let off easy.
Being relaxed without putting forth all one’s strength must mean he had the confidence to win without major damage.
It must be a judgment made after roughly clashing swords and assessing their skills. If so, it meant he was also seeing the flow of the battle that he himself was seeing.
Surely, the flow he drew and the flow Baek Jin-seong drew would have the same appearance.
“Jong In-geol, that guy is truly a bastard.”
The Jungshin Merchant Group entrusted this matter to the Bright Fate Escort, with whom they were usually close. And through the Bright Fate Escort, they dragged in the Baek Family Escort.
Therefore, Hongwu Gate basically thought that the place Jong In-geol trusted and relied on was the Bright Fate Escort.
Thus, they intended to avoid the Baek Family Escort and only plunder the Bright Fate Escort before retreating.
The result was the exact opposite.
Not only did they target the emptiness within the emptiness, but thinking about it now, even the Bright Fate Escort was one of those emptinesses, considering that the real thing might be held by the Baek Family Escort instead of the Bright Fate Escort.
Jong In-geol, the owner of the Jungshin Merchant Group, used everything around him like chess pieces.
From Hong Mun-deok’s perspective, he was a person who left him with no choice but to call him a bastard.
“The disposition of those from official backgrounds tends to be somewhat like that. Although there are indeed respectable people who are not like that.”
“Are you taking that bastard’s side now?”
“Rather than taking sides, it is because this is not the first time I have been stabbed in the back. Furthermore, concerning him, I plan to squeeze a hefty sum out of him soon anyway. So I think it is fine to show him this much respect.”
“Tsk! It is a pity I cannot see that sight with my own eyes.”
For Hong Mun-deok, it was something to be pictured only in his imagination.
Yet, whether it was a quite satisfying sight, Hong Mun-deok, who had turned up his lips slightly for a moment, sighed and brought the sword in his hand to his own neck.
“Let me make a proposal. Can we not both back down here at the cost of my life alone?”
A sense of solemnity hovered around Hong Mun-deok, who showed the resolve to offer his neck without hesitation.
However.
“An eye for an eye.”
“……A tooth for a tooth.”
Guessing the remaining words, Hong Mun-deok spoke the words that would follow.
Instead, Baek Jin-seong nodded toward Hong Mun-deok, who had finished the rest of the sentence.
“Kindness returned twofold, vengeance tenfold. Isn’t that the physiology of the Martial World?”
“Unlike being known as a good person, you have a cold corner.”
“Still, it is not as if I am known only as a good person.”
At the sight of Baek Jin-seong speaking leisurely, Hong Mun-deok’s face stiffened.
The years since the Baek Family Escort began to make a name for itself reached nearly twenty years. Among the stories known during that time, a few were quite scary.
“Even if one is a good person, one must forget human feelings when holding a sword. If rumors spread that one gave half-hearted sympathy, the price will return in the blood of my people later. Right now, even Great Hero Hong is making such a proposal, are you not?”
“Haha.”
“I am sorry, but none of those who intervened in the wiping out of the Bright Fate Escort will return alive.”
Baek Jin-seong cut him off coldly.
In the end, it meant he would kill them all.
Realizing there was no way to turn back that resolve, Hong Mun-deok tore his sleeve. Then he bit his finger to draw blood and wrote a single character.
The character written in blood was Bul-won (不).
Not wishing.
“Deliver this to my older brother when he comes looking later.”
Hong Mun-deok threw the piece of sleeve written with the blood letter.
What that phrase meant, which he told him to deliver to the person he called his older brother, the Sect Leader of Hongwu Gate, was clear.
“I shall use it usefully.”
“Jungshin Merchant Group. That man Jong In-geol is like a viper, so Chief Baek had better be careful. It is not as if we fought this sword fight because we liked it.”
It was indeed advice to be engraved. Considering what he had done now, he was definitely a person to be careful of.
At the sight of Baek Jin-seong nodding and accepting the advice, Hong Mun-deok turned his gaze for a moment.
Into his gaze entered a young expert running wild.
“……He is a material with a promising future, so raise him well.”
“He is indeed a child to look forward to.”
“Indeed. He is essentially the child who shook the balance. If it were not for that child, you would not have been able to be so relaxed either.”
If Baek Jin-seong had fully displayed his skill, the Baek Family Escort would have won in the end, but the damage the Baek Family Escort had to bear would also have increased.
In that sense, the activity of that young expert certainly changed the game.
As if feeling the flow of time while watching the wild young expert, Hong Mun-deok, who seemed to have aged a few years, albeit briefly, raised his sword again.
“Let us also see the end now.”
Toward Hong Mun-deok, who held his sword like a martial artist, Baek Jin-seong also raised his sword.
And he met his end as a martial artist, just in that manner.
***
One whose foundation is sturdy develops in real combat.
A solid foundation means that the base to accept something large is prepared to that extent. The capacity to accept is different from one whose vessel is small.
My state, having awakened the Heavy Earth Divine Art, was exactly like that.
A world I had not normally seen is visible.
Although my current state was close to an unusual foul, the level of sight that rose through it was looking at a higher level.
Looking from that height of sight, the martial arts I had cultivated all this time began to be understood. I did not know it at the time I learned, but as the sight level rose, things gradually became visible.
How to move more efficiently, which parts are unnecessary; the things I had learned and practiced connected and meshed into one.
They formed a single large trunk.
As I stared completely at the flow meshing into one, a tingle ran down to my legs.
There was nothing useless among the things Master Zhang Sanfeng and Master Bodhidharma taught. Each of the learned things carried meaning, and even if I did not understand them immediately, they were stepping stones to climb higher more easily in the distant future.
There are things that one realizes late only after the mind ripens more. Things that one comes to feel when becoming more mature and achieving a higher level; I realize that such things were present throughout my own training.
How lucky I am, how great the teachings of the two masters are; I realize it while exercising a power that defies time.
Is it telling me, however, that defying is not the natural law?
“Ugh?!”
The moment came when the breathing of the Clear Brightness Mind Method collapsed.
A sensation as if a precariously connected thread snapped struck my entire body.
It felt like a temple bell rang with a deep *bong!* in my stomach.
It was the price of drawing up power that I could not handle with my capability.
The aftermath, returning fully in proportion to how wild I had run, struck my entire body.
To express it briefly, it was this.
“Hee-yoo-ae-oh……”
I am dying. I am going absolutely crazy.
My entire body shriveled up like a squid on a grill.
I cannot breathe. My fingers do not stretch open fully. My waist bends.
Yet, I could not even lose consciousness comfortably.
[Can you not pull yourself together!]
[You can still move. The training we made you do is not so easy as to collapse from this much.]
They constantly demanded that I move.
The individuals I had thought of as good fortune until just a moment ago now felt like the only two villains in the world.
However, at those words, my body moved.
*Whoosh!*
As the fight was not over yet, if I wanted to live, I had to move.
A body in a situation of being rammed down from the bottom to the bottom, to the state of digging into the ground.
Although the intensity was higher now, it was still a sense of exhaustion that felt familiar somehow.
Was it because of that familiarity?
“……Damn…… thank you, you goddamn…… masters!”
From where the strength came, my body was still moving.
Gently evading the attack of the one who swung his fist as if to crush my skull, I snatched the opponent’s wrist.
And threw him.
The final remnant of the power fading from my body erupted in the process.
The moment I slammed the opponent onto the ground like that.
*Crunch!*
Falling over him as if collapsing, I struck the opponent’s philtrum with my elbow.
I struck the death point properly. It was a finish at a level where it would be lucky if he did not die.
That was my last movement.
“Agh…… I am dying.”
Amidst my fading consciousness, my body, which had squeezed out its strength until the very last moment, stopped moving as it lay on top of the last defeated enemy.
***
It was sublime.
There were no other words to describe the sight of Yeon Cheong-un, who defeated the martial artist of Hongwu Gate until the end and collapsed on top of him.
In that sight was a power that made the blood of the beholder boil.
“Kill him!!”
“Kill at least that bastard!!”
“Block them!”
“Do not let them harm even a hair on his head!”
To the martial artists of Hongwu Gate, he was an enemy they wanted to tear apart and kill immediately, but to the escort warriors of the Baek Family Escort, he was the exact opposite, an ally.
When Yeon Cheong-un, who had been running amok in all directions, lost consciousness and collapsed, the escort warriors of the Baek Family Escort stood in the way of those rushing in like a pack of wolves smelling blood.
Among them, Baek Mu-ho’s movements were the most prominent.
Once a brief moment was bought like that,
*Slash! Slash!*
The ones who were no different from a nightmare to the martial artists of Hongwu Gate began to move.
Baek Jin-seong and Escort Leader Jeong Il-sang.
As the core figures who could be called the peak of the Baek Family Escort moved, the fighting spirit of the Hongwu Gate martial artists who were burning their remaining strength withered in an instant.
Thus the battle was concluded, and the escort warriors of the Baek Family Escort gathered in one place.
It was near where Yeon Cheong-un lay collapsed.
“This fellow Cheong-un, it felt like yesterday when he said he would become a martial artist, but when did he grow this big?”
The veteran escort warriors who had watched Yeon Cheong-un associating with Baek Mu-ho since childhood felt proud looking at him displaying strong martial prowess.
Among the new escort warriors who had carelessly trifled with Yeon Cheong-un, some showed a bitter expression, and some showed admiring eyes.
In the midst of various emotions mingling,
“Was the place Cheong-un went to learn martial arts really the Wudang Sect?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Martial arts that temporarily amplify strength are usually of the type that triggers latent potential. Those are generally heterodox martial arts, and…….”
Someone who misunderstood also emerged.
Examining Yeon Cheong-un with a face mixed with worry and doubt, Escort Leader Jeong Il-sang frowned.
“It is not heterodox. With energy so pure like that, there is no way.”
“But…….”
“Furthermore, just because it is orthodox does not mean there are absolutely no martial arts that temporarily amplify strength. Even I know a few.”
Baek Jin-seong dismissed the possibility of it being a heterodox martial art.
Looking at Yeon Cheong-un, he wore a somewhat distant face for some reason.
“Perhaps…… I might know who Cheong-un’s master is.”
***
[Perhaps…… I might know who Cheong-un’s master is.]
Zhang Sanfeng and Bodhidharma, who were watching Yeon Cheong-un through the Meridian Mirror, flinched upon hearing Baek Jin-seong’s words.
“He noticed us?”
“No way.”
Although they thought there was no way, he spoke so meaningfully. The two immortals, unable to deny it entirely, stared at the Meridian Mirror with a small sense of tension.
Baek Jin-seong’s mouth opened.
[Ximen Dacheng.]
“……Who is that?”
“Haha.”
Although they wondered if it could be, it was as expected.
A completely unknown name came out.
However, the only ones who did not understand were Zhang Sanfeng and Bodhidharma. Jeong Il-sang understood immediately and went on talking about the person named Ximen Dacheng.
[Are you talking about the person who was…… a joint disciple of the Nine Sects? The peerless genius?]
[If it is the Nine Gates Returning to One Divine Art, the method of triggering energy is also explained. Since that martial art itself was based on conflict and mutual generation.]
He babbled on, but it was all nonsense.
Zhang Sanfeng let out a hollow laugh.
“He is clueless.”
“Haha. From their perspective, wouldn’t that rather be a more rational thought?”
“Come to think of it, I think I heard that there was such an attempt in the lower realm when I went to support the work on the underworld side.”
Sometimes, the hell department requested help from Zhang Sanfeng or Bodhidharma, saying they were short-handed. It seemed there was also a story about that among the things heard while temporarily helping with the hell department’s work to look into how the lower realm was running.
Was it an attempt to collect the essence of the Nine Sects’ martial arts to create the strongest martial artist?
Although it was something that ended in failure in the end.