Had he truly been this strong? (3)
Clang! Clang!
The blade he swung with all his might frantically knocked away the incoming plum blossom petals.
But no matter how desperately he struggled, stopping every one of the endlessly blooming plum blossoms was impossible.
Clack! Clang!
The whirling plum blossom petals kept grazing Four-Nine-One. Of course, the feeble petals could not pierce the demonic energy enveloping Four-Nine-One’s body. But the very fact that the sword energy was slashing at his flesh, regardless of whether it was actually harming him, was itself driving Four-Nine-One to the brink.
‘This…….’
His consciousness refused to fade.
Demonic arts were, by their very nature, accursed martial arts that robbed their practitioner of consciousness the more power he drew forth. Yet Four-Nine-One’s consciousness was painfully clear. It was as if ice-cold water were being poured over his head.
The sense of danger from the crimson blade thrusting at him again and again was forcibly keeping Four-Nine-One’s consciousness awake.
‘This….’
His instincts were screaming.
Dangerous. This was far too dangerous. These worthless petals were steadily driving him towards his death.
“You damned Taoist bastard!”
Ignoring all of Baek Cheon’s pouring sword energy, Four-Nine-One swung his blade in a desperate struggle.
He would accept the damage. Even if his arms and legs were severed – no, even if his throat were pierced – it would still be better than slowly but surely dying like this.
But Four-Nine-One’s desperate gamble, staked upon his very life, was rendered futile with almost absurd ease.
Thwung.
The blade he swung with all his strength lost its course as though pushed aside by rushing water, grazing just above Baek Cheon’s head.
At the same time, Baek Cheon’s sword cut into Four-Nine-One’s shoulder.
Shhk!
Four-Nine-One felt a chill run down his spine.
It was barely a chi. A small wound, the kind that might have only scraped the skin. But precisely because of that, because it was a wound so small it could be called insignificant, it was terrifying.
‘You don’t even need to take a risk?’
Four-Nine-One swung his blade fiercely once more. This time, he used as little strength as possible – the fastest slash he could unleash.
Clang.
Immediately following that came a lethal, rapid-fire combo [연격(聯擊)] in which he had poured every ounce of his strength!
Clang!
But all of it came to nothing. It was as if an invisible barrier existed around Baek Cheon, one that could not possibly be pierced. That was how far off his blade strayed each time, merely grazing past Baek Cheon’s body.
‘You damn bastard!’
Four-Nine-One’s eyes turned bloodshot.
The experience of being crushed beneath the strength of someone more powerful? For one who belonged to the Cult, it was an unbearably common occurrence. For that reason, Four-Nine-One did not particularly consider kneeling before a stronger opponent humiliating.
But this was clearly different.
“Gwaaaaaah!”
Clang!
Before his blade had even completed its swing, a sword that had thrust out from nowhere struck his blade with pinpoint accuracy. The immense force still carried by the incomplete swing turned back at Four-Nine-One, baring its fangs at him.
Boom!
It felt as though a massive bomb had exploded inside his body. Demonic arts were martial techniques that squeezed the practitioner dry in order to tear into the enemy. The razor-sharp edge of that aggression did not distinguish friend from foe, so long as it could cut someone.
Crack!
Four-Nine-One’s arm gripping the blade twisted grotesquely.
“Gaaaaaaah!”
He let out a blood-curdling scream as he staggered violently. His arm kept bending and breaking, transforming into a shape too gruesome to look at.
Crack, crack.
With a sound akin to dried leather being twisted and wrung out, Four-Nine-One’s arm split apart like an ancient, withered tree. It was not Baek Cheon’s power, but Four-Nine-One’s own demonic art, and its destructive force, that was devouring him.
Gripping his own shoulder with his left hand, Four-Nine-One clenched his teeth as he gasped for breath.
‘Not yet!’
Not yet. He would not be swallowed by the demonic art.
Crack.
Four-Nine-One’s arm regained its original form faster than it had been crushed. It was an unbelievable sight, as if life and vitality returned to a tree that had died.
Four-Nine-One could still fight. Stronger, faster, if he could tear into that bastard before him, perhaps he could surmount the wall now blocking his path. Perhaps he might even reach that realm he had dreamed of attaining.
Yes, if only he could kill this bastard! If only he could kill him!
Four-Nine-One once again poured every bit of his demonic energy into his blade. As though he meant to burn his entire body away.
Yes, he could simply ignore any counterattack and crush that bastard to death with sheer force. With all the strength he possessed, while staking everything on a single instant…
Crack.
At that very moment, Baek Cheon’s sword pierced straight through Four-Nine-One’s right side.
“…”
The sharp steel tore through living flesh, yet Four-Nine-One did not even have time to feel the searing agony he should have felt.
He merely stared blankly at Baek Cheon with his eyes wide open.
At Baek Cheon’s eyes, which seemed indifferent, as though they held nothing… No, eyes that seemed to look upon him as if calmly observing everything from beyond it all.
He had been pierced before he could even finish gathering his energy. It had been a long time since Four-Nine-One had reached the realm where energy moved the very instant the mind commanded it. And yet Baek Cheon had beaten him to the move?
‘That bastard knew my actions and saw my intent before even I did…?’
An indescribable terror came rushing over him.
No matter how desperately he struggled, it was meaningless. No matter how high a tiger on the ground might leap, no matter if a peerless steed capable of astonishing the world raced a thousand li in a single day, to the eyes of a hawk soaring in the sky, it would all look like nothing more than futile struggling.
Lofty.
This was not a difference in strength. It was not a matter of crushing an opponent with sheer power and might, but a realm from which one looked down from a level above.
How could anyone possibly fight such a person?
‘Had he truly been this strong?’
Had the martial artists of the Central Plains, those Taoist bastards from that place called Hwasan, truly been this powerful?
There was no time to continue thinking. He was given no such leisure.
The sword pulled from his side like a streak of light immediately darted for his neck like a venomous snake. As though it would not let even the slightest opening slip by.
Boom.
Four-Nine-One threw himself to the ground and rolled with all his might.
Honor? Pride? There was no place for such things among the Cult’s followers. If rolling across the ground could keep him alive, then it was nothing.
But apparently, the same was true of his opponent.
Crack!
Baek Cheon shot towards Four-Nine-One, so low he nearly swept the ground, and thrust his sword at his throat once again. At the instant Four-Nine-One twisted his neck with all his strength, Baek Cheon’s sword pierced through the ground and sank in almost up to the hilt.
“Khk!”
Whoosh!
Baek Cheon immediately pulled out his sword and thrust it at Four-Nine-One once more.
“Aaaaaah!”
Judging that it was too late to raise his blade and block, Four-Nine-One instinctively reached out and seized Baek Cheon’s sword.
Shhk!
His flesh was sliced open in an instant, and his bones grated with a harsh sound as they clamped around Baek Cheon’s sword. But even then, the sword could not be completely stopped and pierced about half a chi into Four-Nine-One’s neck.
“Ghurk…”
As though his airway had been damaged, Four-Nine-One let out a wheezing sound as he violently shoved the sword away in a desperate struggle. He struck the ground to propel his body away, then stamped his foot and forced himself upright.
But when Four-Nine-One regained his stance, what met his eyes was a profusion of countless plum blossoms that had, in the meantime, bloomed as though to cover the entire world.
There were more plum blossoms than he could fathom, yet each seemed different from the next, blooming without end.
Perhaps they were swords. Perhaps merely images born from the mind [심상(心象) – manifestation of mind].
“…”
Though his hand had been almost cut clean off and even his throat had been injured, Four-Nine-One lost himself for a moment. He was not admiring the breathtaking scene before him. He was feeling a profound terror.
Could there be a more paradoxical sight in this world?
It was dazzlingly beautiful, yet what it contained was a vicious killing intent [살의(殺意)]. Even in the Demonic Cult, where no means or methods were considered too extreme when it came to trampling down and destroying their enemies, he had never experienced such vicious and thorough deception [현혹(眩惑)].
Was this truly a Taoist’s sword?
“Ha……”
The forest of plum blossoms filling his vision suddenly spread outward as if exploding. The plum blossoms that had been blooming so delicately scattered into the sky all at once, filling the entire world.
Four-Nine-One let out a hollow laugh.
“And after this, you had the nerve to….”
Then he unleashed a furious roar that seemed to boil up from the pit of his stomach.
“You sure talked a good game about righteousness and chivalry. You fucking bastards!”
The swirling petals struck Four-Nine-One’s body.
Like shards of porcelain fired as thin as possible, they simply crumbled the instant they touched his flesh. They were petals that weak. But just as endlessly falling drops of water eventually bore through a massive boulder, the petals that kept striking him countless times began to shatter even his steel-like body.
Four-Nine-One’s mouth opened as wide as it could. Before he could even cry out from the pain, his body was swallowed by the swirling plum blossoms and disappeared without a trace.
The plum blossoms vanished in an instant, as though they had been nothing but a dream.
“Cough!”
Baek Cheon, standing alone on the ground swept by the plum blossoms, spat up a mouthful of blood. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a faintly trembling hand and frowned.
‘I overdid it.’
For a moment, he had allowed himself to be carried away by the sword. The repercussions of forcibly pushing his way into a realm he could not yet reach shook his entire body.
Even so, he had no regrets. He had finally caught a glimpse of the sight that damned Chung Myung saw.
Baek Cheon quietly closed his eyes. It was to firmly engrave the sensation lingering at his fingertips into his memory.
“Phew…….”
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Four-Nine-One gasping for breath with one hand braced against the ground.
“Ugh….”
He was in a wretched state. The blade he had been holding was nowhere to be seen, and his entire body was covered in gaping lacerations.
Even the areas that had not suffered major wounds were covered in countless small cuts, to the point that at a glance, he looked as though he had been draped in a net.
“Bwaaaaargh!”
Four-Nine-One spent a long while vomiting up black blood. The blood flowing from his body and the blood he had vomited pooled around him like a puddle. The amount of blood he had lost was considerable, but he was clearly still alive.
“……A demonic martial artist, is he?”
His sheer resilience was so astonishing that it was hard to believe he was even human.
Baek Cheon regarded him with a dark, sunken gaze.
“It seems the match is decided.”
“Heh…….”
Four-Nine-One let out a labored scoff.
“The match… is decided, you say. Just like someone from the Central Plains, spouting such care… free nonsense.”
Trembling violently, he raised his head. One eye had been deeply slashed, blood streaming from it. But in his remaining eye, a desperate, venomous malice seethed.
“For a follower of the Cult, there is no such thing as a ‘match’. We simply carry out our duty.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than multiple demonic cultists came rushing at Baek Cheon from behind.
“Predictable.”
Baek Cheon smoothly swung his sword, blocking the incoming attacks. In the tiny opening that appeared at that instant, Four-Nine-One swiftly threw himself away. While some of the cultists clung to Baek Cheon and held him back, the others snatched up Four-Nine-One and put distance between him and Baek Cheon in a blink.
Baek Cheon’s shoulders rose slightly when he saw this, then soon settled. It was not as though he could not pursue them, but the task before him was not to chase down someone who could no longer fight and finish him off.
First, he had to help his fellow disciples.
“…..Four-Nine-One.”
But then again, who knew? What would Chung Myung have said?
“A guy who got the crap beaten out of him and ran away, and yet he still has enough breath to run his mouth.”
Yes, he would certainly have said something like that.
As if clearing his mind, Baek Cheon lightly flicked his sword. Then he shifted his gaze to demonic cultists surrounding him.
“You’re wasting my time, so come at me all at once.”
A confident smile spread across Baek Cheon’s lips, much like the one he had seen so many times on a certain someone.
Special Spinoff Chapter 71 >>>
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