That won’t be a particularly good choice either. (5)
Whoooooooosh!
A long spear brimming with ferocious power came flying at Chung Myung as though determined to punch a hole clean through his body.
His face deathly pale, Chung Myung hopped frantically around, dodging the spear thrusts that came one after another.
“W-Wait!”
Chung Myung desperately tried to say something, but So Yeonshin had no reason to listen. Without a word, he simply pursued Chung Myung, thrusting his spear at him relentlessly.
“W-Wai.. Wait…”
Slash!
At last, the long spear grazed Chung Myung’s cheek, splitting the skin. The moment Chung Myung’s eyes widened at the sight of the bright red drops of blood trickling down from the wound, the spear thrust forward again, this time aiming straight for his crotch.
“Eeeeeek!”
Chung Myung evaded the spear with a desperate leap and screamed as he tumbled across the ground.
“Aaaaaaagh! My sword! I’m telling you my sword broke! Just a moment!”
“What nonsense are you spouting?!”
To So Yeonshin, the words were beyond laughable. Your blade broke on the battlefield? Then you damn well died. What business did you have running your mouth?
“Come on! Don’t you even know what a fair fight means? You coward!”
“Coward?”
A sneer heavy with contempt curled So Yeonshin’s lips. Those words might provoke a martial artist, but they would not even draw a yawn from a soldier. On the battlefield, equipment was part of your strength, and maintaining it was a skill in its own right.
Anyone who spouted such nonsense about fighting on perfectly equal terms did not even deserve to don a soldier’s armor.
“If you’re done spouting bullshit, hurry up and die!”
“Eeeeeek!”
Chung Myung rolled frantically across the ground, looking as though his neck were genuinely on the line at the very gates of hell.
“I-I’m going to die! I’m really going to die! Help!”
“Help, my foot. Good grief, you’re going to be the death of me!”
Baek Cheon rubbed his face vigorously with both hands.
“I told you we should have gone back to swap our swords.”
“Why, we might as well carve the words ‘We’re from Hwasan’ into our foreheads before we fight.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Think carefully. Would you rather be stabbed to death by their spears, or have the Sect Leader personally carve a plum blossom into your forehead?”
“…Wouldn’t it be our skulls rather than our foreheads? More importantly, he’s really going to die at this rate.”
“…At this point, I almost wish he would.”
Despite his words, Baek Cheon fumbled at his waist and unfastened his sword.
If he had his way, he would have told Chung Myung to try his best fighting with his fists and feet, but the force behind So Yeonshin’s spear was clearly far from ordinary. Though every disciple of Hwasan was required to learn unarmed combat, Hwasan was still fundamentally a sword sect. This was no opponent to face with martial arts they were not accustomed to using.
“Hey!”
Baek Cheon tossed the sword in his hand to Chung Myung.
Chung Myung’s eyes flashed as he desperately dodged another thrust from So Yeonshin’s spear, then he leaped into the air like a carp and caught the flying sword, drawing it in a single motion.
“Kraaagh!”
Letting out a strange, beast-like cry, Chung Myung landed with his eyes rolling wildly.
“You underhanded bastard! Picking on someone who doesn’t even have a weapon?”
“What kind of bullshit is that..”
“Shut up! Now I’ll teach you some manners and proper conduct…”
Snap.
“…”
Chung Myung stared blankly at the sword in his hand. With a single clean thrust of the spear, it had snapped like a rotten stick yet again. Chung Myung muttered as though his soul had left his body.
“I swear I’ll track down the bastard who sold this…”
“Die!”
“Eeeeeeeeeek! A sword! Hurry up and throw me a sword, a sword!”
At those words, swords came flying towards Chung Myung from every direction. Snatching another sword out of the air, Chung Myung roared.
“I’ll remember the bastard who threw one without a sheath!”
“Even when we give him what he wants, he still complains.”
No sooner had Chung Myung gripped the sword than So Yeonshin’s spear came flying at him again. Who knew better than the soldiers of the north exactly where a shoddy weapon was most likely to break? With exquisite precision, So Yeonshin’s spear struck hard at the sword’s center of balance.
Claaaaaang!
This time, however, Chung Myung’s sword did not break. That was certainly not because it happened to be in better condition than the others.
“Ugh… This is a real pain in the ass.”
Chung Myung wiped away his cold sweat as he looked at the sword energy enveloping his blade.
“What did you do?”
So Yeonshin stared at Chung Myung’s sword in apparent bewilderment.
A poorly made weapon was not necessarily one that was weak, but rather one whose core strength was inconsistent. It meant that within a single sword blade, strong, densely forged sections and weak, poorly forged sections were intermingled unevenly.
Forcing powerful sword energy into such a sword would not make it sturdier. Instead, the weaker sections would fail to withstand the sword energy and the blade would shatter.
“What do you mean, what did I do? I just wrapped the sword energy around the surface of the blade.”
“….Is that even possible?”
“That’s why I said it’s hard. Argh, this is killing me, so hurry up and attack.”
“…Now that you’ve said that, I find myself rather reluctant to attack”
“Are you seriously going to keep fighting this dirty?”
So Yeonshin let out a deep sigh. Never in his life had he encountered someone who so readily rattled off his own weaknesses. No matter how seriously he tried to take the fight, this brat somehow made it absolutely impossible to remain serious.
‘Damn it.’
If he had his way, he would have liked nothing more than to leisurely drag things out until that bastard’s internal energy was completely exhausted, but to be perfectly honest, he was hardly in a position to waste time himself.
“In the end, a petty trick is still just a petty trick.”
So Yeonshin leveled the tip of his spear at Chung Myung’s face. A sharply honed energy rose from the tip of his spear.
“This is the end. You brat.”
“Ah, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Hm?”
“I won’t kill you.”
Seeing the eyes revealed above the mask curve into a smile, So Yeonshin stamped his foot down with tremendous force.
“Die!”
Booooom!
So much internal energy had he poured into that stamp that the ground beneath his left foot exploded. Converting that force directly into propulsion, So Yeonshin shot towards Chung Myung like a bolt of lightning.
There was no need for elaborate variations in technique. The martial arts of the battlefield were characterized by simplicity and sheer power. They concerned themselves with nothing beyond cutting down and piercing the enemy before them. Forgoing all variations in favor of overwhelming speed and power, a single strike shot towards Chung Myung.
‘You brat!’
A vicious glint flashed in So Yeonshin’s eyes.
He already knew from their exchanges that his opponent was strong. Both his mastery of technique and his talent for martial arts had reached a level So Yeonshin could not hope to contend with.
But that was all.
A man who spent his entire life on the battlefield was bound to encounter countless opponents stronger than himself. Battlefield martial arts were not a means of growing strong, but a means of killing the strong. However extraordinary the brat’s abilities might be, he would never evade this strike if he had never experienced the battlefield.
‘I’ll finish this in one blow.’
The tip of So Yeonshin’s spear, which had been thrusting forward in a straight line, dipped ever so slightly. This created a tiny opening that anyone of lesser skill would fail to notice. A single path for a sword, one that, if deliberately exploited, could reach all the way to his throat.
His opponent was a master and would certainly notice this opening. Then what would he do? Eager to settle the fight quickly, would he really let this opportunity pass and choose to cross sword and spear again?
Of course not.
He would undoubtedly take the bait. Without fail. And that would be the end of him. Whether it was his shoulder or his chest, So Yeonshin would sacrifice whatever he had to. In return, his spear would sever the bastard’s spine.
“Oh?”
Sure enough. Upon seeing So Yeonshin’s strike, the bastard naturally extended his sword forward. Seeing the angle of the sword’s tip, So Yeonshin knew his ploy had worked and increased his charging speed even further.
“Uoooooh!”
So Yeonshin thrust his spear straight at Chung Myung’s abdomen. At that moment, Chung Myung kicked off the ground and spun into the air, evading the oncoming spear before thrusting his sword at So Yeonshin’s throat in a single motion.
An astonishing sword strike that bordered on acrobatics rather than martial arts. Had he not anticipated it, that strike would have pierced his throat. Yes, had he not anticipated it.
“Haaaaah!”
At that instant, So Yeonshin threw his body backward with all his might
Whooooosh.
For someone charging forward with his upper body lowered, and with all the internal energy in his body driving that charge, suddenly leaning his torso back was far easier said than done. But So Yeonshin, who had staked everything on this one moment, accomplished that difficult feat.
Slash!
The sword bit into the tip of his chin. Wreathed in vivid blue sword energy, the blade sliced through it like tofu.
Had the cut been half a chi, just half a chi deeper, the sword energy that penetrated his flesh would have severed even So Yeonshin’s tongue. But thanks to that half-chi difference, the injury went no further than a split jawbone.
Then only one thing remained. To drive his spear into the body of that greenhorn still suspended in the air.
‘Too greedy!’
Had the brat simply aimed his sword at So Yeonshin’s chest without overreaching, So Yeonshin would never have escaped with a wound this minor. But his greed to pierce his throat in a single strike had determined the fate of them both.
‘Such are the limits of a martial artist who has never known the battlefield!’
The veins on the back of So Yeonshin’s right hand bulged grotesquely. Pouring every last bit of his strength into his spear, he thrust it with all his might at Chung Myung’s abdomen, never allowing himself even a shred of complacency.
“Uoooooooooh!”
So Yeonshin clearly saw Chung Myung swiftly draw his sword back to intercept the spear.
‘Useless!’
Craaaack!
The tip of his spear shattered the sword energy enveloping the blade, then broke through the sword itself in a single thrust. So Yeonshin could clearly see the sword that had blocked his spear shatter into countless fragments.
‘Now it’s over….’
At that instant, So Yeonshin’s eyes flew wide.
Just as his spear shattered the sword, the masked man’s eyes seemed to curve in a smile, then he suddenly spun through the air like a swallow and evaded the spear.
‘Could it be? This bastard?’
Had he deliberately allowed his sword to shatter by turning the force of So Yeonshin’s own spear against him?
No. Impossible. Would that not mean he had anticipated this entire situation? Such a thing could not be possible!
But before he could even finish that thought, Chung Myung swooped down upon So Yeonshin like a hawk snatching its prey. Chung Myung knocked aside the left hand So Yeonshin instinctively raised with his elbow, then slammed his shoulder into So Yeonshin’s chest.
“Hyaaaaaah!”
Booooooom!
With a thunderous crash, So Yeonshin’s body was driven into the ground – crushed between the unyielding earth and the force behind Chung Myung’s shoulder. Feeling an impact as though he had been struck by a massive battering ram, So Yeonshin coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Uugghh!”
So Yeonshin’s vision went black. When he laboriously opened his eyes again after briefly losing consciousness from the overwhelming impact, all he registered was a man whose infuriating smile was apparent even through his mask, and the feel of a sharp edge of a broken sword pressed against his throat.
“Tsk, tsk.”
“…”
Then a voice tinged with amusement reached So Yeonshin’s ears.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have let your guard down. You ought to know better.”
At the masked man’s words, all strength drained from So Yeonshin’s body.
‘So the one who let his guard down and underestimated his opponent… was me all along.’
A complete and utter defeat, leaving no room for excuses. Unable to bear the humiliation, So Yeonshin squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
________
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