Chapter 1774
Who did you just say it was? (9)
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As he watched Chung Myung slowly approach, Cheon Myeon Susa tightly grasped his own wrist. A dull pain throbbed from the wrist that had been sliced by a sharp sword.
‘Maehwa Geomgwi [Plum Blossom Sword Ghost/Sword Demon]…’
An eerie killing intent. It was hard to believe such an aura was emanating from a Just Sect bastard. No… regardless of him being of the Just Sects or not, has Cheon Myeon Susa ever felt such a tangible killing intent on his skin in his entire life?
‘My heart…’
A ‘fear’ deeply buried within his heart began to creep up. This was somewhat different from what he felt when facing Paegun.
The fear of Paegun stemmed more from the psychological pressure of not being able to predict his actions and not knowing how brutal he might become. In contrast, this man made people tense and shrink back just by standing in front of them.
‘…I don’t know who gave him that name, but ‘Geomgwi [Sword Demon]’ suits him terribly well.’
The problem is that now he has to face that Sword Demon himself.
Whoosh!
Chung Myung’s body distorted.
Even Cheon Myeon Susa, who prided himself on being second to none under the heavens in his swiftness, momentarily gulped at such tremendous speed.
However, Cheon Myeon Susa didn’t stop at being shocked – he reflexively drew numerous of palm shadows in front of him.
Paaaaaat!
The sound of sleeves fluttering echoed like a giant flag flapping in the wind. In an instant, Cheon Myeon Susa’s front was entirely covered with pure white palm shadows.
The Hand of Thousand Faces [천면수(千面手)].
Known by many names throughout the ages – such as The Hand of Ten Thousand Blossoms [만화수(萬花手)*] or Unarmed Divine Palm [소수신장(素手神掌)**] – the supreme martial art of the Evil Path displayed its divine might on the moonlit field.
The sight of countless palm shadows blooming white in the air and swirling around was so magnificent that it looked almost like a blizzard.
Cheon Myeon Susa was confident. He had perfectly blocked this attack. There wasn’t even a crack in the wall of palm energy he had erected.
But.
Shaaaaaa!
With a sound of a giant piece of silk being torn by a blade, the middle of the wall of palm shadows split vertically in a long line.
‘What?’
It was an unbelievable sight.
Not even a straight line, but an irregular one had appeared.
Since it was so irregular, it shouldn’t have been fast, yet this attack was so swift that he had never witnessed anything like it in his entire life.
A sword strike that seemed to embody the word ‘irrational [불합리(不合理)]’ tore apart his wall of palm shadows. Through the space that opened briefly, Geomgwi slipped in without a sound, his eerie gaze sharp and cold.
Crunch!
There was no time to dodge or even react.
Cheon Myeon Susa barely managed to block the descending sword with his hand. It was a reflexive movement to save his life.
Cheon Myeon Susa’s face distorted in agony.
The sword that had instantly sliced through flesh was lodged deeply in his bone. His hand, which had been strengthened with internal energy to be tougher than cold iron***, was splitting apart with unbelievable ease.
Cheon Myeon Susa had to clearly witness the sight of dark red blood spurting from his palm, which had turned ghostly pale. And the merciless gaze of Geomgwi visible beyond the blade of the sword.
Grind!
As the sword twisted, the eerie sound of it scraping against the bone echoed. Cheon Myeon Susa, gasping in horror, thrust forward with three palm strikes.
Kaang! Kaang! Kaang!
The three palm strikes, launched at point-blank range like flashes of light, were all completely blocked. But as if he had expected this much, Cheon Myeon Susa unleashed his palm energy again with his bleeding right hand.
Wooong!
Palm energy was layered over internal energy, and then covered again with more palm energy. The rapidly accumulated layers of energy transformed into one enormous torrent, engulfing the one wielding the sword.
At the same time, Cheon Myeon Susa kicked off the ground and leaped back.
‘I need to widen the distance…’
If a sword master [검수(劍首)] and a fist fighter [권사(拳士)****] clash at close range, the fist fighter has the advantage. This is common knowledge.
But now was the time to trust instinct over common sense.
Boom!
Just then, the layered palm strikes that Cheon Myeon Susa had unleashed with all his might shattered into pieces and scattered in all directions, like icicles smashed hard by a stick.
Cheon Myeon Susa immediately realized that his instincts had not been wrong.
However, it didn’t take long before he had to revise that realization.
Flutter!
At first, it was the sound of something small trembling. Soon, it grew into a deafening clamor like that of a thousands of birds flapping their wings. Soon the sound began to emanate from all directions.
Cheon Myeon Susa’s eyes grew wider and wider.
Like red paint spreading across a canvas, red flowers began to cover the dark sky.
‘Plum blossoms!’
The very symbol that had made the current Hwasan the most famous sect under the heavens – the plum blossoms. Those blossoms multiplied from tens to hundreds in an instant, pouring down as if to engulf Cheon Myeon Susa’s entire body.
He had heard about it countless times. He had even seen it with his own eyes.
However, facing Hwasan’s plum blossoms head-on like this exerted an incomparable pressure compared to watching from the sidelines. It felt as if his entire body was being crushed.
Isn’t it absurdly vivid?
Each of those petals scattered like real flowers. The petals fluttered, dyeing the entire sky. It was as if this windless field had suddenly become enveloped by a warm spring breeze.
“Uaaaaah!”
Cheon Myeon Susa frantically swung both his hands. Pure white palm shadows rose like clouds.
But no matter how many walls he erected, he couldn’t block all those petals.
Slice!
A single petal grazed his thigh.
Slice!
Another embedded itself in his solar plexus.
Slice! Slice! Slice! Slice!
Countless petals slashed Cheon Myeon Susa’s body. His clothes were soon stained with blood. As red as the fluttering petals.
‘Damn it.’
Every martial art has its weaknesses.
Because one cannot be both fast and slow, nor can one be both strong and gentle.
Even if one pushes the perfection of martial arts to the extreme, fundamental weaknesses are bound to exist.
Therefore, the first thing to do when facing an enemy is to identify the distance at which you can definitely gain the upper hand. Whether you can maintain that distance or not becomes the initial factor that determines victory or defeat.
But for that man, distance holds no meaning.
Even when he was so close that he couldn’t swing his sword, or so far that his sword couldn’t reach, that dreadful sword did not reveal any weaknesses at all.
Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!
The few cannot defeat the many [중과부적(眾寡不敵)*****].
Cheon Myeon Susa, Dam Yeohae, who had toyed with enemies through change [변(變)] and illusion [환(幻)], is now being pushed back by those very changes and illusions.
No, he is being crushed.
Strictly speaking, each wound is not deep.
But at this rate, soon there won’t be a single unharmed spot left on his entire body.
‘How… how can I… Hmm?’
At that moment, a strange light flickered in Dam Yeohae’s eyes.
‘Could it be?’
He brought both his hands together at the center.
Slash!
In that instant, the petals he had barely been blocking poured down on his body like rain.
But Dam Yeohae gritted his teeth and shot both palms forward.
“Huaaaaaaaah!”
Kwaaaaaaa!
An honest strike that abandoned change.
Then, the petals that had been fluttering as if to envelope the entire world disappeared like a lie.
Boom!
The distorted palm energy, colliding with something, crashed into the ground.
“Hah! Hah!”
Dam Yeohae exhaled raggedly. He felt excruciating pain all over his body.
It felt as if countless sharp blades were embedded all over.
Chung Myung’s figure was revealed as the dust that had risen slowly settled. Unlike Dam Yeohae, who was a complete mess, not a single strand of his hair was out of place.
On the surface, the gap between them was clearly evident.
However, in contrast, both of their expressions were peculiar. Neither was confident of victory or defeat.
Crack.
Cheon Myeon Susa lightly shook his bleeding hand.
‘What was that?’
A deep sense of unease swept over him.
The gap that Maehwa Geomgwi showed earlier wasn’t really a big deal. No one can be perfect all the time. Even if it wasn’t a mistake, it’s not easy to maintain that level of sword energy for a long time in the first place.
But Cheon Myeon Susa didn’t dismiss the unsettling feeling that was agitating his mind.
What is this sensation he is feeling now?
It’s like seeing one slightly misaligned flag among thousands that are perfectly arranged – it was irritating. Something he couldn’t quite identify was grating on his nerves.
What he knew and what he saw with his own eyes were different. He didn’t know what it was.
But how on earth could he figure out what that something was? Even after unleashing such sword energy, the opponent stood there so calmly, what could he possibly do…
‘Hmm?’
At that moment, Cheon Myeon Susa’s eyes gleamed.
He found it. He figured it out. But it was hard to accept easily. His cold mind and bleeding body were giving different answers.
‘I’ll know once I confirm it.’
Cheon Myeon Susa once again scattered dozens of palm energies into the air.
His target was only Chung Myung, the sword master [검수(劍首)] of Hwasan who stood as if overlooking the entire world.
Flutter!
Palm shadows of a different nature than before surrounded Chung Myung, fluttering as if dancing butterflies were taking flight.
Eventually, the sword in Chung Myung’s hand transformed into countless blades, piercing through all the palm shadows flying towards him.
At the same time, as if folding space, Chung Myung appeared right in front of Cheon Myeon Susa and kicked straight towards his solar plexus.
Thud!
Cheon Myeon Susa’s body was flung back.
His sleeve instantly turned to dust and scattered, and a clear footprint was imprinted on his white forearm. He had managed to block the attack but couldn’t completely avoid it.
Thud!
Despite sustaining an injury, the expression on Cheon Myeon Susa’s face as he landed back on the ground was hardly that of someone who had suffered a setback.
A faint smile formed at the corner of his mouth, from which a trickle of blood flowed.
His body still couldn’t accept it, but… he had reached a conclusion.
All the countless stories he had heard about Maehwa Geomgwi and the information Haomun had meticulously collected without missing a single trivial detail. The conclusion he had drawn from analyzing all that was now proven wrong.
Cheon Myeon Susa opened his mouth.
“You’re not standing there so calmly out of sheer confidence, are you?”
“…”
“You cannot continue, can you? With anyone else, maybe not, but with you – given your nature – you’d want to kill me without giving me a moment’s rest.”
“…”
“Yet, seeing that you can’t rush at me… your internal energy is running low, isn’t it? Or is it boiling over? Well, either way, it’s the same.”
Even as he said this, Cheon Myeon Susa inwardly chuckled. Despite not being able to inflict a single wound on his opponent and being pushed back unilaterally, he was still looking down on his adversary.
But no matter how he thought about it, there was only one answer.
If he had continued pressing the attack, he could have inflicted greater damage, but suddenly the strength from his sword energy drained. Despite attacking fiercely and pushing him back, he gave him time to rest.
At first glance, one might mistake it for the composure of a strong person, but Cheon Myeon Susa judged that couldn’t be the case because it was ‘him’.
Maehwa Geomgwi is not someone who wastes time showing leniency against the Evil Sects.
That’s right. There’s only one conclusion.
“You…”
Cheon Myeon Susa revealed his teeth, soaked in blood.
“You’ve grown weak, haven’t you?”
“…”
Crack.
From every joint of Cheon Myeon Susa’s fingers, the sound of bones cracking leaked out.
Cheon Myeon Susa, who had been striving to distance himself from Chung Myung, now took a step towards him.
Cautiously, but without hesitation.
“Well… that’s unfortunate.”
Cheon Myeon Susa grinned broadly like a wolf that had found wounded prey. It was truly an eerie delight.
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