Chapter 37: Wind Rising on Mount Hua (2)
“I don’t know how many of them there are… but minimize the damage as much as possible!”
This was the reason why Jeong Man-jok, a main sect disciple of the Mount Hua Sect—one of the Nine Great Sects known to be noble and proud—had readily asked for help.
No matter how strong they were, if the enemy’s numbers were large, civilian casualties would inevitably increase.
Although he had a bit of a foul mouth, he was a person whose care for others could be clearly felt.
“Don’t just kill them because you’re angry. Capture them alive if possible.”
“Are you saying that to me?”
“No, I’m saying it to both of you.”
Baek Mu-ho’s words decreased again. It was after he saw the traces at the entrance of the village.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“Tch! Fine.”
Seeing him grumbling as he answered, it seemed he had originally planned to just slice off all their necks and capture only one or two alive.
While that wouldn’t be bad for venting anger, the situation was not good enough to act according to one’s temper.
To root out the evil villains, information was needed. The more mouths there were to spit out information, the better.
Where they belonged to, how many of them there were, where they were hiding—there was plenty of information to find out.
The thoughts calmly organizing in my head reached a conclusion.
However, when I approached the place where the smoke was rising.
“Fuck…”
That thought was shattered.
At the place where the smoke rose, a fairly large thatched house was burning.
The people who had set fire to their own house, hoping for help and wanting to signal their emergency from afar, had been hacked to pieces.
One of the corpses was pinned to the wall, impaled by a sharp blade.
The corpse, which had been unable to close its eyes even at the moment of death, was staring with wide-open eyes. The resentfully glaring eyes, stained cloudy, were fixed toward the butchered family. It vividly conveyed how much grief and agony he must have felt.
Everyone makes a plan when they have a purpose.
But the moment they clash with reality, the plan becomes tangled.
Let’s capture them alive.
Those words, which I had spoken boastfully just a moment ago, crumbled in my head.
At the same time, I realized anew that I lacked experience.
Now I understood why Baek Mu-ho had become quiet.
I only knew after seeing it with my own eyes, but Baek Mu-ho had known even without looking.
“They didn’t retrieve the bodies.”
“The other side must have lost their composure too. Because they knew someone would come after seeing this smoke.”
I could feel boiling emotions in the voices of both Baek Mu-ho and Jeong Man-jok.
But their conversation was calm. No, it should be called cold and levelheaded.
“They must be nearby.”
They probably hadn’t escaped the village yet.
“Let’s split up.”
That was Jeong Man-jok’s opinion. If we wanted to save even one more person, that was correct.
Jeong Man-jok moved as if it were a waste of time even to ask for agreement.
“I’ll take this way.”
As if their minds were in sync, Baek Mu-ho also moved.
As Jeong Man-jok scattered to the right and Baek Mu-ho to the left, I naturally headed toward the center of the village.
A surging sensation surged crackling across my skin.
The heightened and elevated sense of Listening Jin swept wide and far around the surroundings.
‘There is one.’
I detected a presence. It was just as Baek Mu-ho had expected.
At that moment, something exploded with a thud in my chest, as if pulled tight.
The energy of the Heavy Earth Divine Art rose heavily from the tips of my toes as they kicked off the ground.
Boom!
My body shot forward like an arrow from a strong bow, closing the distance in an instant.
The opponent, who only reacted then, flinched in surprise.
Even at this moment, the sense of Listening Jin was sharply reading the opponent.
That sense told me.
He was dangerous.
His reaction speed was fast. His surprise at my sudden attack lasted only a moment as he immediately responded and counterattacked.
A slash drew a diagonal line and headed toward me.
If I dug in like this, my body felt like it would be sliced in two by that slash.
It was close.
Would I strike first, or would the opponent swing first?
It felt as if even the dead skin cells on my body stood on end.
I felt that I could understand, if only a little, the reason why technique was incorporated into Shaolin martial arts.
Rather than facing it head-on like this, it might be wiser to properly evade the slash and aim for the next opportunity.
But my body moved.
I could do it.
The Clear Brightness Mind Method shouted as it governed my heart, which was boiling with emotion.
Crack!
“Keo-heok!”
That sound was accurate.
The tip of my foot, half a beat faster, dug right into the center of the opponent’s chest as if to pierce through it.
Swish!
Even though I delivered a blow that wouldn’t have been strange if it had crushed his breastbone, the slash, carried by sheer tenacity, narrowly grazed past my chest.
Clang!
“Guh…”
Perhaps because it hadn’t ended with just a broken breastbone, the opponent dropped his sword, bent his waist, and wheezed.
My body, having gained momentum, did not stop. Half-floating in the air, my body rotated using the supporting foot as a recoil, and my heel whipped the back of his head.
Whack!
“Guh…”
The defenseless, face-down opponent crawled on the ground like a bug.
Looking down at such an opponent, I saw his neck.
A neck that felt as if it could be easily broken right now.
While strength naturally gathered in my hands without my realizing it.
“…”
I thought it would be nice to hear the sound of a dry branch snapping from that neck.
Snap it.
You saw it just now.
The corpse that watched the scene of his family being hacked to pieces with open eyes until the moment of his death.
Can’t you hear the voices of the resentful spirits crying out their deep-seated grudges with bloodshot eyes?
Kill him.
Kill him.
Someone whispered in my head.
The voice inciting emotional impulses sounded so vivid, as if speaking right next to me close enough for me to feel its warm breath.
Perhaps because I had been listening to the masters’ voices for quite a long time, I was able to sensitively react to and identify where the source of this voice originated from.
This voice was coming from within me.
This voice, biased toward emotion rather than based on reason, originated from my own heart that desired such an outcome.
Recognizing the existence of that voice, I recalled one thing.
[Even if it was temporary, since you glimpsed an extremely high realm, a fairly unbalanced part must have formed in your body. Since it didn’t go through a normal process, it means it’s difficult to gauge what is twisted and by how much.]
Master Heavenly Demon’s warning.
Say what you want, Master Heavenly Demon’s martial art is a demonic art. If an imbalance in the body arose due to a demonic art, what kind of adverse effects would occur?
‘Is this what they call demonic nature?’
The side effects of demonic arts that I had heard in rumors were severe. Those who fell into demonic nature were true madmen.
However, the demonic nature I was feeling right now stopped at just being an annoying voice.
‘It’s thanks to the Clear Brightness Mind Method.’
The instantaneous progress that had surprised even Master Heavenly Demon. One of the forces that protected me in that situation was the Clear Brightness Mind Method. Even at this very moment, it was suppressing the demonic nature that was trying to leak out through my agitated mind.
‘Let’s think of it positively.’
What makes a person grow is purpose and stimulation. It would be different if I were to lose my senses from being swayed by this, but at this level, I could rather accept it as a good stimulation and use it as a stepping stone for growth.
Once I made that decision, my mind stabilized. I recalled the original goal.
Capture them alive without killing.
“You see, I don’t know how to seal acupoints.”
However, subduing them is necessary.
If I mess up their knees and big toes appropriately, they won’t be able to run away.
“So even if it hurts, understand.”
Crack!
“Aaaaargh!”
Along with the sound of joints rupturing from his knees, a loud, ear-grating scream resounded noisily.
I could have covered his mouth, but I didn’t bother to do so.
Since the sound of battle had already been heard, a surprise attack was no longer possible anyway, so there was no need to move stealthily. Moreover, if blood-stained resentful spirits were truly wailing around here, this irritating scream seemed quite useful as a requiem for the victims.
“When things start to go wrong, all kinds of bullshit act up.”
And this scream had one more useful aspect. It was that it gathered the surrounding people on its own.
Rough words.
A rough momentum.
Judging by the momentum clad around his body, he was a cut above the fallen man.
“You clearly don’t look like a disciple of the Mount Hua Sect. You should have known that you’d die if you run wild without knowing where you belong and where you don’t, brat.”
“That’s not something I want to hear from people doing such crazy things near the Mount Hua Sect.”
“Hmph! I’ll rip your mouth open!”
He flared up as if some sore spot of his had been poked.
He rushed at me fiercely, aiming at me with fingers curved like a hunchback’s, resembling a beast’s claws.
It wasn’t just his momentum that was fierce. Red energy surged from his hand as he rushed forward.
Jin.
He was emitting internal energy outward, materializing it to the point where it was visible to the eye.
A hand carrying that level of energy would tear steel like paper.
Among the many martial artists of the Martial World, he was an expert of a level who could have a title attached before his name.
I quietly stood my ground.
I merely prepared a simple punch.
Crunch!
It was the Ultimate Strength Strike.
The single punch containing the strongest destructive power I could show pulverized the opponent’s fingers, which held the red energy.
“Aaaaargh!”
His joints bent in a direction they couldn’t possibly bend, and split white things burst out from between them.
The impact didn’t stop at his hand. The sleeve of his shoulder burst open, and something white poked out from the skin of his shoulder as well.
It looked as if white flowers had bloomed all over his arm. Although it was a bit chilling that those white flowers were actually shattered pieces of human bone.
“You endured it?”
Even though he was a martial artist capable of externalizing Jin, I failed to beat him to death with a single strike despite using a martial art that Master Bodhidharma had refined a thousand times in the heavens.
This must be proof of how lacking my learning was.
As was the case with all profound martial arts, the Ultimate Strength Strike was also a martial art that became harder the deeper one delved into it. It required training.
“W-Who on earth are you…!”
Fortunately, this target seemed quite sturdy.
I wonder how many times he will endure.
Though I still have to keep him alive.
Ah, departed spirits? You are watching, right?
This is all I can do for you.
***
Hearing the sound of breaking air in the distance, Baek Mu-ho could tell that Yeon Cheong-un had been the first to engage in battle.
Jeong Man-jok was a swordsman like Baek Mu-ho. Swinging a sword and unleashing punches and kicks sounded different from the start.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Is this bastard grinding a person in a millstone?”
Hearing the screams that resounded one after another, it really sounded like he was putting a person alive into a millstone and grinding them.
Because the village was quiet with no sign of presence, it was heard clearly despite the distance.
“Even so, it’s a bit unexpected that there are no signs of presence at all.”
One might think they fled upon witnessing the critical situation, but the situation did not match such a judgment.
The fact that someone was being smashed by Yeon Cheong-un meant that enemies were still remaining in the village. In other words, the villagers must also be somewhere.
A lethal amount of blood was splattered at the entrance, yet the bodies had been retrieved.
They had left behind urgent anger on the corpses in front of the burning house.
The bastards were in a hurry.
They were afraid of the Mount Hua Sect.
“It’s too tame to be considered the work of the Demonic Cult or the unorthodox factions.”
To come all the way to the territory of the Mount Hua Sect and cause such an incident, they had to be quite extreme. They were guys who caused incidents while putting their lives on the line. It would be normal for them to act recklessly like those guys seen at Shaolin.
If those kinds of guys had moved, the entire village should have been a bloodbath, with corpses scattered everywhere.
“Yet, since they aren’t just crazy people.”
It had to be viewed that they had some purpose and were moving accordingly.
What could it be?
But his thoughts stopped there.
An enemy appeared in front of Baek Mu-ho.
He was a man whose clothes were covered in blood stains. He seemed related to the lethal blood splatters seen at the entrance of the village.
“Who are you!”
Because he had approached without bothering to hide his presence, the opponent shouted at Baek Mu-ho while pointing his saber.
No words were needed.
Without answering, Baek Mu-ho stepped forward and thrust his sword.
Clang!
Sword and saber clashed.
The metallic cry produced as the straight sword collided with the steeply curved saber resounded thrillingly.
“Hup!”
Along with a shout holding his breath, Baek Mu-ho’s legs moved actively.
The arm and shoulder holding the sword, along with the solid waist supporting his upper body, lightly absorbed the previous clash.
His body, which had been changing at an astonishing rate ever since he accepted the energy of the ape, harmonized with his internal energy and advanced rapidly.
Even though there was an age difference of over ten years, the difference in strength was not large.
If so, what decided the match was the skill in wielding that strength.
Clang!
Once again, the sword clashed, vomiting a metallic cry.
However, that sound was quite different from the first.
“You little brat!”
In the opponent’s voice, there was a trace of fluster.
It was what he felt from the collision of the weapons.
Baek Mu-ho was putting enough of his own strength into the clash while deflecting the opponent’s strength.
On the contrary, the moment they clashed, the opponent felt the shock travel up his wrist while his own strength went completely astray.
There are many things to gauge when clashing force against force.
But above all, one must know what is contained within the opponent’s strength.
That sensation, which those who enter the Martial World must feel clearly until the moment of their death, applies a terrifyingly cold and precise standard.
If one cannot gauge it, one dies.
Even if one knows, if one is weak, one dies.
Between the flash of an instant lies death.
That was why the battles of Martial World people were cold and merciless.
Baek Mu-ho loaded that coldness into his subsequent sword strikes.
Claaang!
The gap glimpsed amidst the pushing and clashing.
A flaw appeared in the opponent’s skill.
As the exchange of moves continued, the flaw grew larger and larger.
Slice!
A sword strike that accurately cleaved the gap sliced the opponent’s wrist in a single blow.
“Argh!”
The hand holding the weapon flew far away along with red blood.
Between the blood sprayed along with a single scream, Baek Mu-ho’s sword moved.
Although a desire to chop off the neck just like that remained, causing killing intent to flicker momentarily at the tip of his sword.
Stab!
“Argh!”
Having destroyed the opponent’s mobility by stabbing him in the thigh, Baek Mu-ho gazed quietly at the man who had fallen to the ground bleeding.
“They say that looking at sword movements reveals the depth of the learner, and looking at footwork gauges the history of the learner.”
“Ugh…”
“So is the way you grip your blade.”
Baek Mu-ho rolled the opponent’s severed hand—the one that had held the weapon—here and there with the tip of his sword, checking the way he held his blade.
“The sword art you learned seems to be the Black Snake Sword Art, but the foundation is poor. You didn’t learn it through a proper process, but acquired it intuitively in actual combat, didn’t you? Where are you from?”
“What’s it to you!”
Perhaps because of the fact that his hand had been severed, he shouted at Baek Mu-ho’s question like a man who had abandoned all hope.
Baek Mu-ho smiled joyfully.
Stab!
“Aaaaargh!”
“If you don’t answer my questions properly, I’ll chop your limbs into pieces and shove you alive into a latrine. You can look forward to it. I will absolutely not let you die easily.”
Thrusting his sword into the arm from which the wrist had been severed, Baek Mu-ho spoke with a blood-chilling smile.
Baek Mu-ho was serious.
***
“What is that lump?”
“Look who’s talking.”
When I spoke sourly to Baek Mu-ho, who was carrying something (?) while covered in blood, he replied just as sourly.
“Ahem!”
Meanwhile, the person who quietly revealed himself from another direction was also quite bloody.
Somehow, what they all brought back seemed to be ‘alive’.
Just barely alive.
“Well, let’s just say everyone worked hard…”
Since we captured them alive anyway.
Let’s not split hairs and give ourselves a headache.