It’s not like I’m doing it for you. (4)
Thud!
Chung Myung’s hand met the incoming palm force head-on.
“Huh?”
A strange flicker of surprise appeared in Chung Myung’s eyes. An energy that was pure, yet carried a peculiar chill. Proof that he had properly mastered an orthodox technique belonging to the school cold yin energy circulation [음한기공(陰寒氣功) – cold yin qigong].
Chung Myung had known Do Hyeon was strong, but he never imagined he had mastered martial arts to this extent.
“Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got!”
“Wait.”
“Hm?”
At that moment, Baek Cheon ran towards Chung Myung, draped an arm over his shoulder, and spun him around.
“You know, right?”
“Hm?”
“I’m not going to tell you not to fight at this point. You can’t do that anymore, and you’re not the sort of person who would listen to me anyway.”
“Then what?”
Baek Cheon’s eyes flashed as he spoke with the utmost seriousness.
“The Plum Bloss…. That… uh, yes, don’t use that sword technique.”
“What?”
Chung Myung’s eyes wavered.
“If that’s out too, and the… uh, anyway, you can’t use that palm technique either. You need to be careful with your movement arts, too. In any case, you can’t use anything that might reveal the characteristics of your martial arts. You remember the conditions you mentioned last time, right?”
Chung Myung’s mouth fell open.
“……He’s a master, though.”
“I know.”
“No! This isn’t something you can just end with ‘I know.’ How am I supposed to defeat a master when I can’t use my martial arts!”
“That’s for you to figure out. We never told you to fight him in the first place.”
“…”
Chung Myung turned his dazed gaze towards the disciples of Hwasan. Every one of them was cheering him on, thrusting their tightly clenched fists forward.
“Hang in there!”
“You can do it!”
“Challenging the impossible is the role of a martial artist!”
“……You bastards.”
They sure made it sound easy.
Baek Cheon patted Chung Myung’s drooping shoulders.
“Anyway, I warned you. And just to say it one more time, getting killed by that man would be a hundred times better than being dragged away by an enraged Sect Leader.”
“…”
“Well, then.”
Baek Cheon patted Chung Myung’s on the shoulders once more before quickly returning to his original position. Do Hyeon, who had watched the absurd display, narrowed his eyes.
“Is that all? Just how long am I supposed to play along with this idiotic nonsense?”
At those words, Chung Myung spun around and glared at Do Hyeon.
“Excuse me.”
“Hm?”
Chung Myung, his face stiff, shouted firmly.
“Earlier, how much did you say I had to tell before you’d let us off?”
“…”
At Do Hyeon’s blank stare, Chung Myung awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
“Hehe. Well, my calculations were slightly off…”
Boom!
Chung Myung recoiled in horror. Seeing the deep hole where he had been standing only moments before, he shuddered.
“Didn’t I say the jokes were over?”
An intense pressure began to emanate from Do Hyeon.
It wasn’t mere strength that allowed him to radiate such an aura. A man accustomed to standing above others. The kind of imposing presence inherent only to those who could command countless people with a single finger and hold sway over their lives and deaths.
There was no trace left of the Do Hyeon who had been mischievously joking around just moments ago.
“No, I told you, I’ve changed my mind.”
“Too late.”
“…Man, you’re awfully impatient.”
Chung Myung began sweating profusely.
‘This is bad!’
He had never anticipated this.
Of course, Do Hyeon was strong. But Chung Myung had never been the sort of person to back down just because his opponent was strong. Strong or not, he simply had to fight. That was Chung Myung’s way, but…
‘I can’t use my sword arts, and I can’t use my palm techniques? And I’m supposed to fight a master?’
This was crossing the line.
He had to find a way somehow…
Wooooooong!
At that moment, a palm strike radiating enormous energy flew straight towards Chung Myung. A straightforward strike with neither a feint nor a variation.
Chung Myung instinctively swung his sword and knocked away the incoming hand shadow [수영(手影)].
Claaang!
And at the same time, Chung Myung’s body was shoved far backward. The force of the internal energy carried in the palm force had far exceeded Chung Myung’s expectations.
And on top of that.
“What is this?”
Chung Myung instinctively grabbed his wrist. An indescribable, tingling chill traveled up through the sword. It was a kind of cold different from the frosty energy felt in the martial arts of the Northern Sea. In other words….
“Yin energy [음기(陰氣)]?”
Chung Myung stared at Do Hyeon in disbelief.
“A man with yin energy… uh…”
Chung Myung’s gaze lingered on Do Hyeon’s face before sneaking downward.
“What is it?”
“No. Well… I’ve cleared up the misunderstanding.”
“Hm?”
When Do Hyeon narrowed his eyes, Chung Myung shrugged.
“Well… as you know, you’re a very robust man.”
“…”
“So… I thought perhaps ‘it’ might still be there. But seeing you handle this much yin energy, I realized that you… How should I put it? You were a man who knew to preserve what needed to be preserved. Uh, something like that?”
Do Hyeon glared at Chung Myung without replying. Chung Myung flinched under that terrifying gaze and let out an awkward laugh.
“No, I’m just saying that’s how it is.”
Boom!
Chung Myung rolled to the side and shouted angrily.
“You asked, so I answered!”
But Do Hyeon sent palm strikes flying at Chung Myung without another word. He seemed quite displeased at having to grapple with Chung Myung in front of his subordinates.
“Good grief!”
Chung Myung dodged the incoming palm strikes with pained groans.
“…You’re pretty good at running away.”
“He’s like a rat.”
“Serves him right for acting up.”
“Whose side are you on, you bastards!”
“…At least it doesn’t seem to be yours.”
Chung Myung ground his teeth.
‘This is bad.’
This was no joke. He was in quite a predicament. Do Hyeon’s martial arts were more difficult to deal with than he had expected.
‘Cold yin qigong. And an extremely high-level one at that.’
Normally, a cold yin qigong of this degree was difficult for a man to cultivate. That was because the yang energy naturally inherent in a man would clash with the yin energy accumulated through the martial arts.
That was why, even when born with the same Nine Yin Severed Meridians, women could, on rare occasions, overcome the illness, survive, and become prodigies of the era, whereas men almost certainly failed to even make it to twenty and promptly bid farewell to this mortal world.
“But how the hell can a man practice cold yin qigong!”
And yet Do Hyeon had mastered that very cold yin qigong. And not merely mastered – he had perfected it.
Something that would have been impossible without the characteristics of a eunuch.
The problem was that cold yin qigong was, by its very nature, already exceedingly difficult to contend with.
Taaang.
Unable to evade the incoming palm strike completely, Chung Myung struck it with his sword and gritted his teeth.
Throb.
“Argh! It hurts even though I blocked it!”
That was the nature of yin energy.
The fundamental nature of yin energy was to seep in. No matter how firmly one surrounded oneself with their own energy to block it, there was no way to completely prevent the minute traces of yin energy from burrowing in like needles.
That was why, once cold yin qigong reached its pinnacle, most people would block the incoming attacks only to find themselves unable to withstand the yin energy that seeped inside, and perish.
“No….”
At that moment, a palm strike twice as fast as those that had been flying at him until then came rushing right before Chung Myung’s nose.
“Eeeek!”
He hastily raised his sword to block it, but he was sent flying backward by the impact. The masked disciples of Hwasan caught Chung Myung as he rolled across the ground.
“Cough! Cough! Good grief… Th-That man is insanely strong.”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
“Hm?”
“Now, back out you go.”
Yoon Jong and Jo Geol coldly pushed Chung Myung forward again.
Chung Myung, shoved forward with a bewildered look on his face, spun around and snapped at them.
“Are you even human?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what we’ve always wanted to say to you.”
“So you finally understand how we feel.”
“…”
Chung Myung wiped briefly at the corner of his eye and tightened the grip on his sword.
But seriously, this was dangerous.
‘Should I just use my sword techniques?’
No, he couldn’t. If he did, Hwasan might really be uprooted from its very foundations.
Hwasan had endured to the bitter end even when those locust-like bastards from the Demonic Cult had set it ablaze, but if it were branded with the stigma of treason, it would never again be able to set foot on the land of the Central Plains. Then it would truly be finished.
But for something like that to happen because of him?
Then Hyun Jong would no longer be the problem. Therefore…
– I’ll kill you. I really will kill you. I’ll definitely kill you.
“Of course you will……”
He had no confidence that he could withstand Chung Mun and Chung Jin’s nagging in the afterlife. And if there were other Sahyeongs who had been lucky enough to ascend, those bastards would probably charge at him with their eyes bulging, too.
‘No.’
Anything but that. After everything he had endured with such determination until now, how could he suffer a fate like that in the afterlife!
But then what else was he supposed to do?
‘He’s really strong.’
He wasn’t quite on the level of a Bishop or anything like that, but limiting it to this lifetime, he was a powerhouse the likes of which he had rarely encountered.
Usually, sheltered bookworms who had never set foot on a battlefield could be dealt with by roughing them up in a way that worked in actual combat, but Do Hyeon’s absurdly pure internal energy covered even that weakness.
Look.
Thwoooooong!
No feints, no fancy variations. It was nothing more than a straightforward palm strike thrust along a single line, yet it was so fast and powerful that there was no way to counter it.
“Argh!”
But letting himself take a few hits wasn’t an option either.
Clang!
Chung Myung struck the incoming palm force with his sword. At the same time, his hand clutched his solar plexus.
“No! Why does my stomach hurt when I blocked the palm strike with my sword!”
Faced with this utterly inexplicable phenomenon, Chung Myung breathed fire.
“Uh…”
The disciples of Hwasan tilted their heads in confusion.
“He’s strong, right?”
“Yes, incredibly strong. But… don’t you think something’s wrong with Chung Myung?”
“What?”
“…Why is he clutching his stomach? He wasn’t hit in the stomach.”
“Maybe he has an upset stomach?”
While the others looked bewildered, Hye Yeon spoke up with a serious expression.
“Ami… Ahem. I believe it’s penetrating force [침투경(浸透經)].”
“Penetrating force?”
“It works on a principle similar to Striking the Ox From Behind the Mountain* [격산타우(隔山打牛)]: it makes the energy seep beyond the area of contact. Though that isn’t an entirely accurate comparison, either.”
“Huh? So even if his arm gets hit, his internal organs get injured?”
“Yes.”
“How does that make any sense?”
“I once heard it from the Abb…… ahem, from the Elders. They said that the most troublesome energy to deal with is yin energy [음기(陰氣)], because yin energy inherently possesses the properties of penetrating force.”
“Ah……”
The disciples of Hwasan looked at one another and nodded.
“As expected, the… your Elders know a lot.”
“They must have experienced a great deal, right?”
“What, are you saying we’re incompetent?”
“W-Who said that? That’s not what I meant.”
Yoon Jong quickly changed the subject.
“Then they must have taught you how to deal with it, too, right? How do we counter it?”
“…We weren’t taught.”
“Huh? Why not?”
Hye Yeon spoke in a slightly flustered tone.
“They said back then that… those who wield yin energy are indeed exceedingly troublesome to face, but conversely, yin energy is just as difficult to accumulate, so it is rare for a master who has achieved great heights of cold yin qigong to exist.”
“…”
“So they said we should know about yin energy, but there was no need to worry about it…”
At those words, the disciples of Hwasan all turned their heads in unison.
They saw Do Hyeon wielding what appeared to be bluish yin energy, so dense that it had taken visible form.
“It’s difficult to accumulate?”
“…“
“He seems to have accumulated so much that it’s overflowing.”
“Ahem… I’m not entirely sure about that, either.”
“So the master of those yin arts [음공] who is supposedly almost impossible to exist just happens to be over there?”
“Well… hm. Yes, that is the case.”
“Haha…….”
The disciples of Hwasan exchanged awkward smiles.
“We’re screwed.”
It felt as though they could hear the sound of Hwasan’s signboard splitting in half.
Special Spinoff Chapter 75 >>>
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*It is a concept of hitting a barrier without damaging the actual barrier, but damaging what is behind it.
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