Return of the Mount Hua

That’s a different story, isn’t it? (3)

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It felt as though he has been crushed. His body and even his soul.

“Heh…”

And yet, what escaped his lips was not a groan of pain, but a weak, hollow chuckle.

‘This is absurd.’

The power was so overwhelming that he could not even feel fear.

The humiliation of being sent flying by an enemy’s attack? There was no room for such a thing. It was a miracle he was still alive. How could he spare a thought for humiliation?

Baek Cheon staggered to his feet.

‘This is impossible.’

He had no idea. How was he supposed to fight a monster like that?

No matter how loudly a mosquito buzzes, it cannot bite a human to death. That is not even a question worth considering. The best a mosquito can do is flee somewhere a human hand cannot reach. Surely that is the right choice.

But Baek Cheon was standing up now. With the tip of his sword pointed at his enemy.

It was not a choice he had thought through. He was simply moving as his body had been trained to move.

Throb. Throb. Throb.

Even the simple act of rising to his feet made his entire body scream. The attack had not struck him directly. He had merely been caught in its wake.

If it had hit him head-on… Baek Cheon would probably have ceased to exist in that instant. Not a single hair or scrap of clothing would have remained.

“Hah…….”

The more he thought about it, the more absurd that power seemed.

‘The problem is… it makes sense.’

By the standards of the Just Sects, that man had reached the realm of ascension a hundred years ago. But as a demonic martial artist, he had been unable to cast off the shell of his human body, and his power had only festered within it.

How much power, then, must have built up inside him over all those years?

‘At this point, can he even be called human?’

Baek Cheon knew.

But between ‘knowing’ and ‘feeling it firsthand’ lay a gulf greater than billions of eons.

‘What should I do?’

No answer came. However desperately he racked his brain, however many times he turned it over, he could not see how to fight him.

To make matters worse, the enemy seemed to have no intention of waiting for him to finish thinking.

“What are you standing there for?”

“…”

Baek Cheon did not answer.

It was not because he had no wish to speak to Heavenly Executioner. In fact, if he could, he would have brought up anything at all to hold the man back for even one more moment.

He kept silent because he sensed that the words were not directed at him.

“A paltry sense of justice? Hope that you can succeed? Confidence in yourself?”

Heavenly Executioner’s face looked devoid of emotion as he gazed at Baek Cheon.

“It matters little. You too must have your reasons. But…”

Crunch.

Heavenly Executioner’s foot drove forcefully into the ground as he stepped forward.

“Whatever they may be…..”

Grinding his teeth, he began to give off a ferocious aura.

“They cannot surpass this hatred seething within us.”

A cold shiver ran down Baek Cheon’s back. Heavenly Executioner went on in a chilling voice.

“ ‘I may lose, but not in spirit’. You people were always spouting that. Yes. Once, perhaps you were right.”

The final battle at the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

Heavenly Executioner had not been there. Because he had failed to foresee the final strike Chung Mun had wrung from himself in his last moments, an attack little different from suicide.

Yes. He could not have foreseen it.

Creatures no better than insects throwing away their own lives to sink their teeth into a God, and in the end, the God dying from the insects’ bites. He had never imagined such a thing.

He had been complacent. He had let his guard down. He had not been desperate enough.

“But that is no longer true.”

Heavenly Executioner took another step, as heavy as a mountain.

“Because of that one mistake, we have lived through a long hell. So how dare.. how dare the likes of you speak of resolve before us?”

Heavenly Executioner roared.

“I shall prove it with your lives!”

Thick, pitch-black demonic energy gathered around his hand. It looked as though the gates of hell itself were opening.

‘No.’

By the time Baek Cheon came to his senses, he was already charging at Heavenly Executioner.

It was neither a calculated move nor instinct.

The moment that hand would stretch forward, someone would die. One of his fellow disciples who had yet to recover from the aftermath of the previous attack.

He could not tell whether he had realized that first or pushed off the ground first. Either way, Baek Cheon hurtled towards Heavenly Executioner at a speed he had never once achieved in his life.

The closer he came to Heavenly Executioner, the more his numbed mind cleared and his dulled fear surged back.

But regardless of what was happening in his head and in his heart, Baek Cheon’s sword carried out its task without fail.

Claaang!

Baek Cheon thrust his sword into the heart of the gathering demonic energy.

Heavenly Executioner sneered. A mantis trying to stop a cart. The force behind that sword could never break through his demonic energy.

But at that moment, Baek Cheon’s sword twisted ever so slightly as it drove towards the center of the gathering energy.

‘Hm?’

Heavenly Executioner’s eye twitched.

It was no feint, nor was it an attempt to pierce straight through. Baek Cheon’s sword carved into the heart of swirling demonic energy as if slicing through a specific point – navigating the very grain of the energy itself, as though following a path even Heavenly Executioner was unaware of.

By the time Heavenly Executioner realized this, Baek Cheon’s sword had already reached his elbow.

Claaaaang!

Heavenly Executioner reflexively knocked the oncoming sword aside. Then his eyes widened, startled by his own reaction.

He had no needed to block it. A sword carrying such feeble energy could not have left so much as a scratch on his body.

Then why had he knocked it aside?

Whoosh!

As though determined not to waste the opening, Baek Cheon drove his sword fiercely towards Heavenly Executioner’s throat.

Heavenly Executioner paid it no mind and swung his fist at Baek Cheon’s stomach. As though he meant to punch straight through him with a single blow.

If he twisted aside with everything he had, he might survive. If he took the blow to his side rather than the pit of his stomach, he might still have a chance to live and fight.

But in that moment, Baek Cheon chose another course instead of dodging.

He changed the path of the sword he had thrust towards Heavenly Executioner’s throat. He aimed it straight at his eyes.

Heavenly Executioner instinctively jerked his head back. At the same time, he swept his outstretched arm across and struck Baek Cheon.

Boooom!

Baek Cheon flew through the air, spraying blood.

“You…….”

When his intended attack was thwarted, Heavenly Executioner’s face twisted with vicious fury. The face glaring at Baek Cheon as he crashed into the ground looked like that of a vengeful ghost.

“You’re no better than a mosquito… and yet you dare play those petty tricks.”

Thud.

As Baek Cheon hit the ground, the sky filled his vision. Dark red blood came gushing from his mouth.

But that moment was fleeting. Baek Cheon suddenly pulled his upper body upright. Then, he flashed a grin with his blood-stained mouth.

“In the end…..”

Scrape.

He drove his sword into the ground, leaned on it, and rose to his feet.

“In the end, no matter how strong you are, you’re still human.”

Strong. Incredibly strong.

But that was all.

‘He’s no God.’

A human who feared being cut and dreaded being wounded. Heavenly Executioner had yet to escape the bounds of humanity.

That tiny opening. No, a crack so thin it was almost absurd to call it an opening gave Baek Cheon a faint glimmer of hope.

Heavenly Executioner, on the other hand, seemed deeply displeased by Baek Cheon’s reaction.

“What is that look in your eyes?”

His face contorted as he glared murderously at Baek Cheon.

“You’ve prolonged your life for a moment with a worthless little trick. Is that really something to be proud of?”

Baek Cheon chuckled faintly at Heavenly Executioner’s blatant mockery. Heavenly Executioner’s expression turned cold.

“You’re laughing?”

“You know?”

Baek Cheon grinned, his whole face smeared with blood.

“I heard you were wounded?”

“Wounded?”

Heavenly Executioner’s hand reflexively went to his chest.

“Do the weaklings of the Central Plains call a mere scratch like this a wound?”

Baek Cheon’s smile deepened.

‘This is more than I thought…’

He could not tell whether Heavenly Executioner’s injury truly was minor or the bastard was merely clinging to his foolish pride. Either way, one thing was certain.

‘Looks like the wound Chung Myung left him is deeper than I thought.’

Not a wound to his body, but to his mind.

From Heavenly Executioner’s perspective, the people of the Central Plains were undoubtedly little more than insects. Even setting everything else aside, the same held true if one compared nothing but the strength each possessed.

Yet Heavenly Executioner kept talking. He knew better than anyone that no understanding could pass between them, and that neither had any need to acknowledge the other.

What that meant was obvious.

Baek Cheon’s face slowly twisted. He did it deliberately, making sure Heavenly Executioner could see the mockery in his expression.

“Seems what Chung Myung shattered… wasn’t your body, but your pride.”

Sure enough, Heavenly Executioner’s brow twitched faintly. Baek Cheon’s keen eyes did not miss it.

“What nonsense are you spouting…”

“As you said, it was a fight you should have won.”

“…”

“You had the better cause, the stronger resolve, even the greater power. Yes, at least that’s what you believed. Isn’t it?”

Heavenly Executioner gave no answer.

But the demonic energy rippling around him like flames seemed to lay his feelings bare.

“Then why couldn’t you win?”

Crunch.

The sound of Heavenly Executioner grinding his teeth reached Baek Cheon’s ears. His eyes stained red, Heavenly Executioner glared fiercely at Baek Cheon.

“Yes. I failed to finish that bastard off. My pride was torn to shreds. I was enraged, and now I am filled with hatred because of it.”

A chill ran down Baek Cheon’s back beneath the force of his terrifying aura.

“But what does any of that… have to do with an insect like you?”

“…”

“Your sword cannot cut me. However much you try to provoke me, that remains true. Nothing will change. Just because you’ve buzzed around a few times, you dare to…”

“Yeah. Maybe so. My sword can’t kill you. But what does that matter?”

Baek Cheon calmly cut Heavenly Executioner off.

“What?”

“Didn’t that bastard tell you?”

Baek Cheon grinned at Heavenly Executioner, who looked momentarily taken aback.

“We have no pride to speak of. Pride is a privilege of the strong. So… if my sword can’t pierce you, I just need to use one that can.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than someone landed quietly beside him.

A sword different from Baek Cheon’s. Another sword capable of cutting even that demonic martial artist’s body.

“I’m late, Sahyeong.”

Baek Cheon shook his head.

“Not at all. Your timing is perfect, Samae.”

Yu Iseol nodded slowly. Even so, her eyes never left Heavenly Executioner for so much as an instant.

“My sword won’t work.”

“Yes.”

“But yours might.”

Yu Iseol nodded without a word.

“I’ll make an opening. Let’s try.”

“Our chances?”

“A sliver, maybe?”

“All right.”

She asked no more questions. She did not even seem to doubt him. As though a chance that small was enough.

“Let’s begin.”

With those brief words, Yu Iseol advanced towards Heavenly Executioner without waiting for Baek Cheon’s reply. Her fighting spirit [투기(鬪氣)] rippled quietly around her, slowly spreading outward.

________

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