Chapter 30: Shaolin Turbulent Night (2)
“It feels like they are misunderstanding something, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think that’s particularly important.”
When I asked Baek Mu-ho in a cautious whisper, the reply I got back was quite unsatisfactory.
That woman named Jang So-wol seemed to have considerable influence over the disciples of the Nine Great Sects, so wouldn’t it be a big problem if she misunderstood?
I hoped she wouldn’t make any strange misunderstandings.
Ah, is that not it?
Indeed, even if it were me, if a guy I didn’t know suddenly popped out and turned someone into a bloody pulp, I would probably be on guard first.
Maybe it was a naive thought to think they would unconditionally welcome me if I appeared as someone who showed up to help in a dangerous situation.
First, I had to do something about this strange atmosphere. I felt I needed to show them more actively that I was not an enemy.
While such worries briefly flashed through my mind.
“I do not know who you are, but you are not an enemy, correct?”
The woman named Jang So-wol asked me in a calm tone.
She was the only one who kept her head straight amidst the strange atmosphere.
Her inside and outside felt the same. I had never thought the words bold and majestic would suit a woman, but Jang So-wol, who even exuded nobility, seemed to suit those words better than anyone.
Needless to say, this was absolutely not a compliment coming from her being pretty.
“Yes, of course. Please do not misunderstand.”
“Yes, then I won’t misunderstand. Absolutely.”
I felt a very strong tone carried in that word ‘absolutely’ attached at the end.
Anyway, since she said she wouldn’t misunderstand…
Swish!
In an instant, something cold swept past my forehead.
Even though it was night, the moonlight was bright, so I was able to avoid it by seeing the reflected sword light.
To be honest, rather than seeing it with my eyes and dodging, it was possible because my senses, which had finally become somewhat functional, and Listening Jin did their job.
If I hadn’t dodged this, my forehead would have been sliced. That meant about one-fifth of my head would have been cut off. Unsightly red and white things would have probably leaked and flowed down.
Imagining it was chilling.
They say even a dog isn’t disturbed when…
Boom!
While I was hurriedly dodging, another guy nearby rushed in.
Since I couldn’t respond properly while dodging, I blocked it for now, but the impact transmitted through my arm was stinging.
My feet slid back, scraping the ground, to the point where my forearm felt numb.
I managed to block it because I had achieved the First Stage of the Heavy Earth Divine Art; otherwise, my arm might have been broken.
What is this? There is something strange about these guys.
Starting from their eyes, they aren’t normal; it seems like they took some kind of drug.
The thing in their mouths, is that froth?
“I’ll kill you! You Orthodox bastards!”
The sword-wielding man who had been confronting Jang So-wol screamed.
Showing such a neurotic reaction, he was not a very cool villain.
“Be careful! They have taken the Latent Explosion Pill, so it is dangerous to face them head-on!”
Ah! So they went out of their minds because they took a drug.
Jang So-wol warned me. She must have been worried seeing me take the attack head-on and slide back.
The other side, whose lid had flown off due to some strange thing, was throwing a fit for no reason.
Perhaps because of that, their movements were large.
As I felt from the first sword strike, the martial art itself seemed to have the strength of extending stealthily and quietly, but with an excessive amount of power loaded into it that wasn’t there before, it felt rather clumsy instead.
Although the power and momentum had certainly increased, I wondered if the effectiveness of the martial art itself had decreased.
I wondered if it was their first time running wild after taking such a thing.
‘Why am I so calm?’
In the midst of that, there was something I realized anew.
In the past, even if I tried to look calm on the outside, I would have been a bit stiff on the inside, but now I was even analyzing naturally.
Did this mean I had acquired enough power to afford some composure?
Just as I felt when I sparred with Monk Hye-won, no matter how outstanding one’s moves were, they could not be displayed if the body did not support them. Just as a newborn baby, no matter how great their moves, could not handle an adult’s fist.
No, if it were Master Zhang Sanfeng, he probably would have deflected it even as a newborn.
Of course, I was not Master Zhang Sanfeng, so I would skip this part.
At any rate, with the achievement of the First Stage of the Heavy Earth Divine Art and the power transmitted by the grateful ape who had ascended to heaven combined, I was at least able to possess the basic capabilities.
Although I might be pushed back, I wouldn’t be unilaterally overwhelmed.
I could perform the moves I had learned.
In that respect, the clumsy yet fierce attacks were welcome.
‘How much have I learned just to devour things like this.’
The teachings of someone who would have flipped an adult over even when he was a newborn baby.
As I dodged the incoming attacks screaming with strange cries three times, the movements became larger and larger, and the flow became visible.
I grasped that pulse.
Penetrating naturally as if blending in.
Swish!
Stepping inside the range of the sword.
Whoosh!
I threw him.
Thud!
The body slammed onto the ground.
Crack!
At the same time, the moment the opponent’s body slammed into the ground, I kicked the defenseless body.
The opponent’s body flew like a ball kicked by the tip of a foot.
Like handling a jackstone in the palm of my hand, that series of actions was too natural.
…Or so it should have seemed.
[Tsk, tsk. If Sanfeng were here, you would have gotten a scolding.]
“Yes, I know that too.”
If it had been thrown naturally, no leftover force should have remained in the hand.
But at the last moment, the remnants of the resisting force remained in my wrist, tingling.
Master Zhang Sanfeng would have scolded me severely, asking how I couldn’t even handle such a loophole-ridden scrub.
What can I say, even though it was only the First Stage, since I completed the Heavy Earth Divine Art, it felt like my body had become somewhat stiff. Was it an illusion?
If it wasn’t an illusion, Master Zhang Sanfeng was going to drill me hard.
It felt like he would make me do all kinds of crazy things.
“Wudang… Sect?”
But why was the atmosphere like this again?
Jang So-wol looked at me with eyes widened in disbelief, as if she had seen something hard to believe.
There were eyes watching me from several other places as well.
Among them was also a person known as a genius of the Wudang Sect.
Ah, Yin Si-hoo over there. You just lower your eyes.
Anyway, maybe because this was the second time, I was getting somewhat used to it.
Perhaps because I was receiving attention, I also felt a bit of a thrill.
But since this wasn’t what was important right now.
Whoosh!
A fist swung aiming at the back of my head made a menacing sound.
Before the sound of cutting through empty air without any impact subsided.
Crack!
My vertically rising elbow hit the chin of the opponent who had aimed for the back of my head.
The sound of firewood splitting echoed.
As the guy, whose mind had flown away in a single blow, rolled back his eyes and collapsed like a sandcastle, another guy stuck to my back.
But the number was not just one.
Two of them came rushing in, occupying the left and right.
It was a cowardly pincer attack.
Then again, if they were guys who cared about being cheap, they wouldn’t have launched a surprise attack aiming for the back of my head.
Then, who first?
First, I’ll beat up the closer one.
As my thoughts moved, my body moved too.
The refined Qi. The compressing muscles. The flow that twisted and gathered power was contained in the fist.
Extreme Strong Strike.
Without wasting any movement, my body dashed in a straight line and delivered a blow full of destructive power.
Boom!
“Keo-heok!”
I sent one guy off like that.
Without delay, I prepared for the other guy.
Slash!
The remaining guy’s body was split in two.
A vertical line running from the crown of the head to the crotch.
“These people take me too lightly.”
The one who delivered the finishing slash was Baek Mu-ho, who was knitting his brows.
But was this fellow’s swordsmanship always this brutal?
[Hmm.]
Master Bodhidharma also reacted strangely upon seeing Baek Mu-ho use the sword. It seemed the slash just now was worth noting even in Master Bodhidharma’s eyes.
He seemed to have gained something from the encounter with the spirit ape.
Come to think of it, it felt similar to what was left on the wall.
An intimidation, perhaps?
Master Bodhidharma had said it belonged to a fellow with a nasty temper, and I wondered anew who it was.
[Should I view this positively? To think it connects like that again.]
He didn’t say who it was specifically, but hearing him speak like that made me think so even more.
[Your friend is a bigger figure than I thought.]
“He is a big figure in many ways, that guy.”
Stealing the temperament just by looking at a trace that must be about a thousand years old. Could he be some kind of Heavenly Martial Body?
I knew his talent was extraordinary, but seeing it confirmed like this made me feel somewhat strange.
[Though not as much as you.]
“Of course, unlike that fellow, I have masters.”
[I am speaking purely about talent.]
“……?”
Talent? Did I have such a thing?
If I had such a thing, I wouldn’t have struggled even to maintain my status as a Wudang Sect lay disciple.
What on earth did Master Bodhidharma see to value my talent over Baek Mu-ho’s?
[This is no time to be distracted.]
Having drifted off for a moment, at Master Bodhidharma’s words, I felt a sharp presence scraping past my skin.
A bright moonlit night.
The moonlight touching my body suddenly felt as sharp as a blade.
A sharp energy was carried along the cold night wind.
Snapping back to my senses and looking in that direction, I saw a man pointing a sword.
“……Eight…… Methods of…… the Sky-Shaking…… Kill…….”
It was the fellow I had kicked a moment ago, the one who had been confronting Jang So-wol.
Although his appearance was changed to the point of being completely unrecognizable.
It was truly a sight too dreadful to look at. None of his teeth were intact, and white bone and teeth were visible between his torn lips. From inside his face, which looked as if a hole had opened in the middle of it, the sound of murmuring something leaked out like wind.
But the momentum flowing from his body had changed even more than his appearance.
Did he come to his senses after getting hit once?
It was being refined.
I could feel that he was refining his clumsy and rough sword momentum.
The momentum of a single sword converging to a single point.
It felt like a sword had been pressed against a part of my heart, which had been running wild without fear.
I could tell. This man staked his life on a single strike of the sword.
A human who staked their life could become strong up to the realm their will reached. The will of a person who staked their lifetime was that terrifying.
A tingling sensation in my fingertips spread throughout my entire body.
Tight!
I clenched my fist. I gripped my tingling fist and suppressed the sensation rising within.
“I’m not a stray dog either, you know?”
I knew it was dangerous.
But so what?
Barking only at opponents one can defeat?
That would be unsightly.
“Come at me.”
“……Here I come.”
In the dark night, the single strike of the swordsman who staked his life emitted a flash that harbored the moonlight, and.
A peerless, great fist burst out into the world.
***
Although the disciples of the Nine Sects were pushed into a disadvantage against the attackers, they were not unilaterally overwhelmed either.
The moment the balancing confrontation broke, the disciples of the Nine Sects drove their opponents back all at once.
However, that did not mean everyone could do so.
Take Yin Si-hoo, for example. His capability was exactly at the level of lay disciples.
Every single one of the attackers displayed martial arts that had reached a certain level of maturity.
Whether out of brotherly affection or because he disliked the reputation of abandoning his brother, Yin Si-hoo’s younger brother, Yin Seung-hwan, overexerted himself to protect his older brother.
The price remained on his flank.
Stopping the bleeding of the wound from which blood kept gushing out, Yin Si-hoo took out emergency gold sore ointment from his bosom and applied it.
“Don’t die, Seung-hwan.”
“……I won’t die…… from this much.”
Perhaps because of the wound on his flank, he seemed to find it difficult to speak.
Surprisingly, however, the wound did not look as deep as expected. A scar would remain, but it seemed he could recover fully if he recuperated well.
The thought that it was a relief flashed Yin Si-hoo’s mind.
But looking at Yeon Cheong-un’s martial arts that he soon witnessed, he bit his lip once again.
It felt like something inside his chest had caught fire.
A base emotion welled up.
Just how did he obtain such power in that short time?
What on earth did he do to acquire that kind of power?
If only he could have such power, he wouldn’t care about the means or methods.
The base emotion dyed Yin Si-hoo.
And.
“……Seung-hwan.”
He realized one thing.
“Don’t die.”
That his younger brother, currently in his arms, was extremely weak.
The brother who had always felt like an insurmountable wall was now like a fragile bird caught in his grasp. He could crush him just by tightly clenching his fist.
The wound was not deep, but what would happen if the thing that penetrated his flank burst?
Even if his brother died, he wouldn’t become an official disciple of the Zhongnan Sect, but wouldn’t the family’s strength that had been directed only to his brother be concentrated on him?
Then, if that were to happen?
‘Maybe I’ll get a chance too.’
Suddenly, the brother who had staked his life for him just a moment ago, the brother he had felt grateful to for the first time, looked different.
Coincidentally, there were no watching eyes around.
Almost everyone was fighting desperately to grasp the tilted victory.
The people who had gained even a little leeway to look elsewhere were busy watching Yeon Cheong-un’s battle.
“You must not die, my brother.”
Yin Si-hoo, who was no longer pressing down on the wound to stop the bleeding, made a pathetic sound and put strength into his hands.
“……?!”
Blood poured out like a waterfall from the mouth and wound of Yin Seung-hwan, who stared with wide eyes.
“Brother……!”
“My brother, don’t die.”
Like a live fish hit by a harpoon, Yin Seung-hwan, who was spilling blood, could not say a single word properly and trembled.
And then he stopped.
***
“Oh my. Things are turning out quite interesting here?”
While Yin Si-hoo thought no one would have seen it, one person watched the sight.
Maek Gyeong-pung toyed with the Mount Hua Sect’s characteristic purple—no, closer to red than purple—hero’s headband, wearing a strange smile.