Chapter 53: Tragic Loss (4)
The special-grade guards of the Hegemon Society were selected through a rigorous screening process.
First, they were famous for selecting only those who had passed strict conditions among the warriors raised internally by the Hegemon Society.
First, their height had to exceed six feet.
And they had to be able to lightly lift about ten mal of rice with one hand.
In addition, immediately after emptying a jar of unrefined rice wine without pausing, they had to be able to leap over a wall about their own height without using their hands.
Of course, they had to be able to do all of this without internal energy, and the amount and depth of internal energy was another separate condition.
This was the condition to become a second-grade guard of the Hegemon Society.
Those who passed this process were given the qualification to challenge the test to become a first-grade guard.
First, they had to engage in a bare-handed fight with two seniors and endure for half a shijin.
Then, they went through the final procedure of proving their grit by cutting their own face with a knife to leave a scar of at least a span.
Up to this point were the conditions to become a first-grade guard of the Hegemon Society.
And a first-grade guard who satisfied all of these conditions could challenge to become a special-grade guard.
To become a special-grade guard, it was mandatory to live as a vagabond for two years.
During their life as vagabonds, they had to either gather more than a certain amount of money or cut off and offer the heads of several figures designated by the society, and only when new scars of more than three spans were formed on their bodies during this process would all verification finally be complete.
Only from this point on could they be treated as special-grade guards of the Hegemon Society.
* * *
“…….”
Chui looked at the thirty-two special-grade guards surrounding him.
The two who had not lost their fighting spirit even after being hit in the head with a hammer just moments ago.
Before the hammer crushed their skulls, they had exquisitely turned their heads aside.
Thus, they were able to limit the damage to only their scalp being ripped wide open.
Meanwhile, the one whose collar was grabbed by Chui’s hand was struggling with an awl stuck in his eyeball.
“Let go, let go! You bastard!”
He discarded his long sword and tried to bite Chui’s neck.
“……I acknowledge your grit.”
Chui threw a fist at the guard’s face.
Thud!
Before the guard, whose lower jaw was shattered, could lie down on the floor, Chui pressed down on his neck with his knee.
…Crack!
The guard pinned under Chui’s knee died of a broken neck.
“Now thirty-one.”
Chui’s voice was still emotionless.
However, there was no change in the expressions of the guards surrounding Chui either.
Clang—swish!
Crimson blades hacked through the empty air.
Chui extended his staff long and swung it in a wide circle.
A fierce wind rose, forcing the guards to retreat far back.
However, they too were fierce and brave.
Also, their coordination with one another was excellent, showing absolutely no openings while executing their combined attack techniques.
Whoosh—
Numerous swords were swung horizontally, vertically, upward, downward, and in all directions.
It was like looking at a net tightly woven with blades as threads.
Since they had gone through a long life as vagabonds, they were accustomed to chaotic brawls and detached from variables.
Each one of them was a rough man worth a hundred.
They did not fall dead like minnows, and every single one of them stubbornly survived.
……However, they had only one problem, which was.
“Come at me.”
The fact that their opponent was Chui.
Thud!
The staff thrown by Chui struck the body of the guard in the very front.
The guard hurriedly raised his left elbow to block the staff, but he could not prevent the bone of his left arm from shattering into pieces.
“You threw away your weapon!?”
The guard behind him targeted Chui’s back with his sword.
However.
…Whoosh!
Chui forcefully pulled the silkworm thread tied to the end of the staff.
The staff returned along the exact trajectory it had flown, shooting backward again.
The staff, which had shattered the arm bone of the guard in front, caved in the chest of the guard behind.
“Keuhak!?”
The guard tumbled away, vomiting blood.
Since he had slightly twisted his body at the last moment, he seemed to have escaped instant death, but…… at this rate, he would be bound for the Yellow Springs before half a gack passed.
Right at that moment.
Chui rushed at the guard whose left arm was broken.
Stab—
An awl pierced his temple.
With one eyeball rolling in an odd direction, the guard died on the spot.
“Now twenty-nine.”
“…….”
“Are you not coming?”
Cold sweat broke out on the guards’ faces at Chui’s words.
No matter how many battles those swordsmen had been through, Chui’s current momentum was not something a human could possibly endure.
A giant sea monster tearing through a net of swords.
Would the South Sea Giant Crab, which appeared only in ancient legends, look like this?
“Uaaaa! You monster!”
One brave guard charged toward Chui.
Chui extended his staff once again.
The staff, thrust out like a harpoon, targeted the guard’s arm.
Swish—
The guard spun his body to avoid Chui’s staff, but.
Tight……
Chui’s staff tore through the guard’s sleeve and emerged from the opposite sleeve.
It was like laundry hung on a hanger.
Because of the staff tightly binding his two arms lengthwise and the hem of the cape, the guard was forced into a posture like a crab.
The flustered guard tried to tear his clothes and escape, but.
Crack!
He could not help but have his skull split by the hammer that followed.
“Twenty-eight. If you aren’t coming, I will go.”
Chui stepped forward.
The droplets of blood scattering from his entire body mixed with the red vapor, making him look even more bizarre.
“Damn it! You demon!”
A guard nearby shrieked and rushed forward.
He used a claw blade instead of a saber.
The blades extending over his four fingers aimed for Chui’s face.
But Chui calmly reached out his hand.
Chui’s fingers slipped between the blades of the claw knife, intertwining with the guard’s fingers.
…Crack! Crunch!
The guard’s fingers, caught between Chui’s fingers, bent backward and broke.
Chui pushed hard against the claw blade, whose edge was now facing backward.
Squeeeeze—stab!
The claw blade eventually penetrated its own master’s neck.
Chui briefly spoke while covering his body with the corpses.
“Twenty-seven.”
“…….”
Facing that terrifying momentum, the guards broke into a cold sweat.
A few of them were unconsciously stepping back slowly.
Right at that moment.
Thud!
A loud noise came from behind the siege.
Do Mak-saeng had sliced the necks of the three retreating guards in a single breath.
He shouted as if growling.
“How dare the warriors of the Hegemon Society think of running away! I will personally kill with my own hands anyone who profanes this sacred battle for my son!”
The master’s bloodshot eyes turned toward the hunting dogs.
“Are you afraid of me, or are you afraid of that guy? That guy only seeks to cut your lifelines, but I hold even the lifelines of your families!”
Naturally, hunting dogs feared their master’s whip more than the tiger before their eyes.
Much more so since even their families had their leashes held tightly.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
Hearing Do Mak-saeng’s threat, the guards adjusted their grips on their swords once again.
The atmosphere in the area was sharpened bloodthirstily once more.
Meanwhile, seeing that, Hae Baek-jeong clicked her tongue.
“Shouldn’t you cherish your subordinates a bit more? You kill those precious skilled people too easily.”
“If you care about the pawns, the king gets captured. And consumables are ultimately consumables. Even if you spare them, they will eventually turn to dung.”
Do Mak-saeng waved his hand as if it were of no consequence.
Hearing those words, Hae Baek-jeong turned her head as if disgusted.
……However.
Despite all this, Chui’s expression was actually calm.
“Now twenty-four.”
Since three heads had run away on their own, it was a gain for Chui.
The width of the encirclement became narrower than before.
However, the swordplay of Do Mak-saeng, who volunteered as the battle supervisor, was certainly effective.
Clang!
Instead of the net flying toward Chui shrinking in width, the spaces between the meshes became much tighter and denser.
The guards’ swordplay became even more venomous.
The amount of blood droplets gathered every time the staff swung also decreased significantly.
Chui took five heads while exchanging fifty blows, but failed to take a single head while exchanging one hundred blows after that.
The guards did not die, even if their limbs were broken.
Nevertheless, they somehow clung on tenaciously, leaving minor wounds on Chui’s body and grinding down his stamina.
So that it would be easier for Do Mak-saeng, who would join the battle later, to take his head.
The fight was growing increasingly desperate.
Meanwhile, Do Mak-saeng stood leisurely outside the encirclement, observing the situation.
“Here is your burial ground, Three Calls of the Yellow Springs. I will turn your flesh into sliced boiled meat for the ancestral rite table, your entrails into salted seafood, and scrape away your bones to the last tiny splinter to make decorations beneath my son’s grave.”
A monologue close to a curse followed.
Indeed, just as he said, Chui was gradually being pushed toward a dead end.
Even if he somehow killed all the remaining guards, he would have absolutely no way to withstand the joint attack of Do Mak-saeng and Hae Baek-jeong that would follow.
However.
“…….”
Still, there was no change in Chui’s expression.
Hae Baek-jeong thought that was highly suspicious.
‘Does he have some trick up his sleeve?’
While she was feeling a slight sense of anxiety inside.
“This is enough.”
Chui’s mouth opened.
“It is a waste of time to go on any longer.”
At those words, the guards showed a bewildered reaction.
Do Mak-saeng, who was behind, bared his blood-stained teeth and laughed.
“Crazy bastard. On whose authority is this enough? We will keep going until you die!”
But Chui’s words were not directed at him.
The reply flowed from the mouth of someone else, not Do Mak-saeng, Hae Baek-jeong, or the guards of the Hegemon Society.
“Understood.”
Simultaneously, a change occurred at the very rear of the encirclement.
The outermost edge of the encirclement, which Do Mak-saeng’s gaze had not yet reached.
The very end of the net made of swords.
…Click!
A single thread from there came undone.
No matter how tightly woven the mesh is, if the finishing on the edges is loose, the threads are bound to unravel eventually.
There was a reaction at the lowest seat of the encirclement of blades, the outermost side.
Flutter—
A single petal fluttering in the wind.
That which fluttered along with a faint scent of blood was surely a red plum blossom.
“……?”
The guards wore puzzled expressions as they watched the plum blossom petal brush past the tips of their noses.
Soon, a rain of flowers fell.
Countless petals scattered from the tip of the sword of the guard standing at the lowest seat of the encirclement.
And soon, the petals became droplets of sword tears, blooming new plum blossoms on the necks of numerous people.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Exactly twenty-three sounds.
And twenty-three heads rising high into the sky.
The red plum blossoms blooming under the moonlight were certainly temporary and volatile, but they were that much more beautiful.
Twenty-three special-grade guards of the Hegemon Society were annihilated in a single instant.
And the single special-grade guard standing at the very end shook off the blood on his sword.
The single thread that dismantled the net of blades. The traitor at the very rear.
He finally threw off the mask covering his face.
“It originally takes some time for flowers to bloom fully.”
It was Death Plum Blossom Oh Ja-woon.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost