Chapter 12. A Third-Rate Warrior Who Protects His Sect’s Honor (6)
“What in the world is going on?”
“R-right. No matter how you look at it, this is……”
“They said the Blood Wolf of the Twin Wolf Iron Swords was at a level beyond the castle walls, but that must have been a completely empty rumor too.”
A disciple of the Taeul Sect was overwhelming the Iron Sword Sect’s prodigy, yet the mood was stronger in dragging down the Iron Sword Sect than in acknowledging the Taeul Sect.
This is dogshit, seriously.
Because the Taeul Sect had failed for centuries to play even the role of a paper fox, let alone a paper tiger, it would still take a very long time to change people’s perception of the Taeul Sect.
And for the sake of that time, I needed a justification so great that the Iron Sword Sect’s honor would not merely be shattered thoroughly, but collapse altogether.
A perception had to take root in the Murim that the moment the Iron Sword Sect so much as lifted a finger, people would think, ‘Look at those bastards. They’re trying to devour the Taeul Sect like the Black Path.’
“Haa, haa. Haa.”
In that sense, the board was flowing very well right now.
Seong Mo-hyeon had become a beggarly mess while performing Lazy Donkey Roll, which was humiliating for a Warrior, and there were small wounds all over his body.
In contrast, I was clean, without a single wound, and I was not even out of breath.
Anyone could see that I was in an overwhelmingly dominant position, but Seong Mo-hyeon could not easily concede.
‘I wouldn’t be able to either.’
For one thing, there were too many eyes watching.
Not only the people inside the Iron Sword Sect, but every person in Anhui Province who liked liquor had gathered here.
Wasn’t backbiting what people who liked liquor considered the finest side dish?
If defeat was recorded today, Seong Mo-hyeon would spend his entire life with the label of a bastard who could not even beat the Taeul Sect.
Along with that, the greatest reason he could not give up was probably that he did not think he would lose.
Judging by the course of the martial duel, I had no sword art that could respond to the Mountain-Shattering Sword Art.
He should clearly be able to win, yet for some reason, his inner qi kept cutting off, and his circulation would not work properly.
“Your study of inner arts seems lacking.”
“……Y-you bastard!”
The inner qi that burst forth from the Dantian should flow continuously and steadily like a stream running through a valley, but because the Azure Dragon Bracelet kept cutting off the water, neither his techniques nor his strength could properly connect.
“You bastard, just what……”
“What do you mean?”
“You bastard, could it be?”
“It seems you are having idle thoughts because your skill is lacking.”
SWISH.
SHRRRK.
In the end, Seong Mo-hyeon’s hair was cut off by my sword.
Reduced to a disheveled beggar’s state, Seong Mo-hyeon was snorting as if he could not endure his rage.
“Does something feel strange?”
“Huu, huu.”
Even the foolish Seong Mo-hyeon seemed to realize something by this point, and he began using fist arts instead of his sword. The moment I clasped his hand, I activated the Azure Dragon Bracelet and drained away a great amount of his inner qi.
“Huuup!”
His eyes finally held certainty.
As if he had encountered a ghost, Seong Mo-hyeon quickly retreated.
Then he shouted toward the platform.
“W-witchcraft! It is witchcraft!”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the Iron Sword Sect’s warriors and the Iron Sword Sect figures atop the platform sprang to their feet.
Whether they did or not, I swung my sword at Seong Mo-hyeon with an even more vicious momentum.
“Hiiik!”
A sound that was neither scream nor shout leaked from Seong Mo-hyeon’s mouth, and he began rolling across the floor.
The wounds carved into his body gradually grew larger, and despair and snot streamed all over his face.
“Stop!”
In the end, the Iron Sword Sect Leader on the platform sprang to his feet and shouted.
His shout, filled with inner arts, rang out so thunderously that it seemed it would tear the eardrums of everyone watching, and those lacking inner arts even clutched their heads and staggered.
“Haa, haa.”
The instant Seong Mo-hyeon turned his head as if he had gained a breath of relief at the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s shout, I scattered the Minor Heaven Sword Art with the intent of cutting off his neck.
“Did you think it would end with this?”
SWISH.
Seong Mo-hyeon, who had been relieved by the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s appearance, began retreating and fleeing from the Minor Heaven Sword Art that suddenly pressed in on him before he even had time to use footwork.
But I was one step ahead of him and drew my sword in a long slash down his back.
“Kraaak!”
With a wound cutting across from his right shoulder to his left side, red blood sprayed in all directions.
The instant I was about to swing my sword across his back in the opposite direction again.
The Iron Sword Sect Leader suddenly appeared and stretched out his hand.
With a bursting boom, my body flew two jang away.
‘Something is going wrong.’
The Iron Sword Sect Leader, Seong Cheon-wol, thought so.
Wasn’t there such a thing?
An ambiguous situation where one could not say exactly what it was, but one clearly felt that something had gone wrong, and yet because the matter was exceedingly important, one could not easily stop it.
That was precisely Seong Cheon-wol’s position right now.
“The Taeul Sect’s sword art is quite sharp.”
At Jegal So-myeong’s words, murmured as if to himself, that suspicion began to grow larger and larger.
The Taeul Sect’s sword was too light to pierce through the Iron Sword Sect’s sword.
Because the depths of their sword paths were different, the compatibility was poor.
For the Taeul Sect’s sword to surpass the Iron Sword Sect’s sword, one had to possess overwhelmingly greater inner arts.
“That child of the Taeul Sect seems to have a great deal of real combat experience.”
At Jegal So-myeong’s words, the fog finally cleared, and when he began to look objectively at the skill of that arrogant child named Jin So-un, he received a shock as if struck in the back of the head.
His adaptability, surpassing most wanderers, made the same technique appear like an entirely different technique.
But by the time he realized what had gone wrong, it was too late.
“Kraaak.”
The precious Seong Mo-hyeon screamed and collapsed to the floor, and blood was spraying everywhere.
Seong Cheon-wol had no time to continue thinking.
“You bastard! Did you not hear me tell you to stop!”
The fellow who had been pushed back two jang still seemed to have no intention of ending it, and he was walking this way.
“Has victory and defeat been decided?”
“How dare you!”
“That man Seong did not admit defeat. If he had meekly admitted defeat, he would not have seen blood.”
No matter what, was it right to draw blood in a martial duel?
“So are you saying you did well?”
“That bastard not only refused to admit defeat, but shamelessly insulted my victory by claiming I was using witchcraft, and in the end, he even tried to flee while showing me his back. If today had not been the Sect Leader’s sixtieth birthday banquet, I would have cut his neck instead of his back.”
“Shut your mouth, you bastard!”
Seong Cheon-wol tried to bury that word, witchcraft, no matter what.
Because “witchcraft” and “forbidden art” carried weight, they were words that could not be carelessly thrown around.
The problem was that the one who had spat out that word was his own grandson.
“To begin with, this one-sided humiliation disguised as a martial duel began because of your grandson’s forced insult, Sect Leader. Do you still believe you were in the right?”
“You bastard!”
The Iron Sword Sect Leader’s robe slowly began to swell.
He tried somehow to pressure the fellow and make him withdraw, but the fellow showed no sign of doing so.
No, rather, as if he had found a good pretext, his eyes lit up and he began charging in.
“It seems the Iron Sword Sect is a petty sect that cannot even acknowledge defeat in a fair martial duel, so its Sect Leader personally steps in to ruin the match. Do you understand now? The reason the Iron Sword Sect cannot enter the One Hundred Eight Peaks is because there is a problem with the Iron Sword Sect itself.”
Each time the bastard continued speaking, the mood of the crowd slowly began to change.
The Iron Sword Sect Leader had been placed in a situation where he could do neither this nor that.
“Witchcraft, I am certain it was witchcraft. Grandfather!”
Seong Cheon-wol felt as if he wanted to sew Seong Mo-hyeon’s mouth shut at once.
“……Be quiet!”
“It is true. I felt it clearly! That bastard has definitely learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art!”
The Iron Sword Sect Leader looked at his own grandson with eyes that could not believe he was this foolish.
During battle, it might pass as nonsense, but in the middle of so many people listening clearly, one must not affirm the existence of a forbidden art.
In the end, the moment one spoke of a forbidden art, one would be held responsible for it as well.
Moreover, right now, even the Grand Strategist of the Murim Alliance and people from the Namgung Clan were present.
Fortunately, neither the Namgung Clan nor Jegal So-myeong showed any particular movement.
It was a moment when the massive bribes he had fed them did not feel wasted.
“Is it true?”
“How else could I possibly have lost!”
“You bastard……”
If he was saying this simply to excuse the fact that he had lost, he could never be forgiven.
Even if it meant the Iron Sword Sect’s lineage would be cut off.
“Grandfather! I am Seong Mo-hyeon, the Blood Wolf Iron Sword. Since childhood, I have never lost to my peers in inner arts or martial arts. Do you truly think it makes sense for someone like me to lose to the Taeul Sect?”
There had been his own effort as well, but since childhood, Seong Mo-hyeon had received every benefit imaginable, from Marrow-Cleansing and Hair-Shedding to all kinds of spiritual medicines.
Even judged coldly, there was no way Seong Mo-hyeon should lose to Jin So-un.
“What grudge would I have to make up something that does not exist? I clearly felt my inner qi cut off several times during the martial duel, and my inner arts drain away, and I continued the duel in order to confirm that.”
Seong Mo-hyeon poured out his passionate speech through tears.
“You are certain it cut off while you were circulating your inner qi?”
“Of course. And that is not all. At the end, I even felt the inner arts I was circulating suddenly drain away.”
Once he spoke this far, suspicion turned toward Jin So-un again.
“If your words are not true……”
“I, no, Seong Mo-hyeon, disciple of the Iron Sword Sect. If this is not true, I will gladly accept the punishment for that crime.”
“Good.”
Seong Cheon-wol decided to stake his bet on his own grandson.
And also, with the expectation that perhaps he might be able to uproot the Taeul Sect’s pillar as early as tomorrow, he spoke to Jin So-un.
“Did you hear? I must examine your body.”
After agonizing over the gravity of the matter, the old man eventually made a bad move.
On one hand, he must have desperately wished that I had learned such a forbidden art.
If that were the case, he could establish an affiliated martial hall of the Iron Sword Sect where the Taeul Sect had disappeared, obtain a position in the One Hundred Eight Peaks, and expand his influence throughout the Hefei area.
But I could never allow such an ugly sight.
“By what right do you intend to do that?”
“It is something I must naturally do as a Warrior who desires peace in the Murim.”
“Do you wish to drive my sect into a corner this badly?”
But Seong Cheon-wol had made a bad move.
Any bastard with even basic sense would not learn the Great Star-Absorbing Art and then use it in a place with this many people.
Because that would be no different from sending a signal asking everyone to tear his body limb from limb.
“The Iron Sword Sect’s fame resounds through Hefei, no, beyond Hefei, through all of Anhui Province. Yet because you could not enter the One Hundred Eight Peaks, do you wish to frame a small sect like the Taeul Sect as an unorthodox side path?”
“Then are you saying my grandson is lying right now?”
“My sect has already been smeared because of that rash man. If I and our Taeul Sect are innocent, how will you deal with the aftermath?”
“…….”
“Though it may be in name only, we too are responsible for one peak of the One Hundred Eight Peaks. May I take this as suspicion aimed at the Murim Alliance?”
Since the Grand Strategist had come as well, I might as well add a spoonful of the Murim Alliance too.
“Shut your mouth! Seeing how your words keep growing longer, I suspect you all the more. As you said, after I verify it, I will contact the Execution Pavilion of the Murim Alliance and have both you and the Taeul Sect held responsible for this matter.”
I seized the hem of the Iron Sword Sect Leader’s pants, as he wanted to pull his foot out, and tugged hard.
“I! With my honor and the honor of my sect at stake, will resist the Iron Sword Sect’s unreasonable and senseless behavior this time to the very end!”
Instead of inner arts, I drew up my innate true qi.
Heat rose to my face, and like the Iron Sword Sect Leader before, my clothes swelled as if they would burst.
“This crazy bastard……”
The Iron Sword Sect Leader cursed, as if horrified by the sight of me prepared for mutual destruction.
I filled my voice with inner arts and shouted thunderously.
“Hall Master! If I become crippled or die here! Please make sure no one can lay a single finger on my body until the Execution Pavilion of the Murim Alliance arrives.”
“Jin So-un!”
Father called me desperately.
“Father! This unfilial son ultimately gives up his precious body because of insult, but it is for the Taeul Sect, which I regard as dear as my own life, so please forgive me.”
Once my resolve was complete, an indescribably immense pressure began forming over the training ground and its surroundings.
The faces of the Iron Sword Sect Leader and Seong Mo-hyeon were crushed beneath that pressure.
As if I feared nothing, I took one step toward the Iron Sword Sect Leader, and the Iron Sword Sect Leader unknowingly retreated three steps.
“Hmph! Do you think I would allow a disciple who has not even come to Swift Blossom Hall yet to damage his body recklessly!”
Kang Chae-seok, Hong Sa-ryeon, and even Father came up onto the training ground.
“There is no father in this world who sends off his child first. Today, I will bury my bones in the Iron Sword Sect.”
The Taeul Sect had the momentum to block the Iron Sword Sect Leader even if they had to perish together with him.
“H-how dare you……”
The Iron Sword Sect Leader was snorting, unable to swallow his rage.
However, there was nothing he could do.
He could push us aside with force, but if he did that, he would be about a hundred years away from a position in the One Hundred Eight Peaks.
The Iron Sword Sect Leader looked at Jegal So-myeong with an earnest expression.
The gazes of the spectators all turned toward Jegal So-myeong as well.
They knew all too well that he was the only one who could resolve this situation now.
“Enough.”
Jegal So-myeong’s voice, as he rose from his seat, echoed through every corner of the training ground.
Though it was not a loud voice, there was an undeniable weight to it.
“Everyone…… lower your swords.”
No sooner had his words fallen than Seong Mo-hyeon and Seong Cheon-wol lowered their swords, and the people of the Taeul Sect sheathed theirs one by one.
“……?”
Jegal So-myeong’s questioning gaze, full of doubt, turned toward me.
“Why do you not sheath your sword?”
Keeping the gaze I had been directing at Seong Cheon-wol, I looked at Jegal So-myeong and said.
“Because I cannot trust the Grand Strategist of the Murim Alliance, who has done nothing but look on until now, I will not sheath my sword.”
“!!!”
“!!!”
The people standing atop the training ground.
The people around the training ground.
Even those watching through the windows of the halls beyond the training ground wore expressions of utter shock.
