“Terrifying.”
The man wrapped in red bandages was Jindan, the head disciple of Fist King Ganghu. Since he had first begun learning the fist arts from his master, this was the first time he had ever looked at someone and thought them terrifying.
That horrifying appearance, the sort one should only ever see in hell, was one thing. The fearless momentum of him striding forward without hesitation, even though he must clearly feel the ominous aura flowing from their fists, was another.
But what felt most frightening of all was his master’s reaction.
In the fifteen years since learning the fist arts from Ganghu, this was the first time he had ever seen someone speak such words of contempt to his master, and the first time he had seen his master endure it in silence.
“As expected of the Demon Venerable.”
The strength that Ilhwa Geomjon had shown earlier was truly astounding. No, there was no need to even go that far—that young woman had cut down all the subordinates by herself. Though there were only three, he had felt the pressure of facing thousands.
“But the outcome of this fight is already decided.”
Because he could not even imagine his master losing to someone. He believed in his master.
“What matters is how I fight.”
If this became a closely fought battle against Kwonma, then victory or defeat would be determined by how he fought.
But that thought was his great delusion. There was no room in this fight for his will or judgment to intervene.
The figure of Kwonma, which had been striding forward, split the air and flew in.
Without dodging, Ganghu threw a fist.
The first punch signaling the start of the battle.
Boom.
When the fists, both imbued with internal energy, collided, an explosive sound erupted.
Having taken a step back, Kwonma couldn’t help but frown.
It was because of the vicious aura spreading from Ganghu’s fist. This bizarre and turbid energy, a mixture of killing intent and demonic aura, was the sort that would have already sent anyone with weak mental strength or insufficient internal energy into a stupor.
That energy pervaded the surroundings like the breath of death, consuming and crushing the battlefield.
Ganghu smiled coldly, putting on airs.
“Because I’ve yet to meet an opponent who could make me pick up a weapon against this fist.”
It had been a retort to Kwonma’s earlier mockery, but now Kwonma answered with his fist rather than words.
And with a powerful fist at that.
Thunder rumbled! Crash!
With the sound of thunder, a fist of tremendous power flew toward his face.
KABOOM!
The two fists clashed once more.
Though it was fist against fist, it left a shockwave more powerful than any clashing of weapons.
Whoosh.
The aftershock spread in all directions and fierce winds whipped around.
A shockwave surging from fist against fist? It was truly unbelievable power.
Ian shielded her eyes with her hand against the blowing whirlwind. Just as her father had protected her in the earlier fight, this time Ilhwa Geomjon protected her, for her internal energy was depleted. If not for Ilhwa Geomjon, she would have been swept away by that whirlwind.
In fact, Hall Master Yeon Baek-in of the Yellow Dragon Hall, who had been standing over there, was sent rolling across the ground far away.
Crack!
Trees standing around the distant wall bent greatly, and leaves flew through the air.
Sssshaaaa.
In that place where leaves fluttered like falling snow, Kwonma and the Fist King stood facing each other.
That punch from moments ago had been no ordinary fist.
The third fist among the six fists of Kwonma’s unique martial art, the Thunderbolt Asura Fist.
Third Fist: Heavenly Thunder Asura.
That heavy fist had flown out and struck true.
Ian sensed a change in her father’s martial art.
“Father’s thunder has grown softer.”
It was the thunder she had heard many times during his late-night training. Yet even if it had quieted, it was far too quiet.
“Could there be something wrong with his body?”
She still did not know. That when this thunder dwindled and vanished completely, that was the moment he was finally ready to shatter the cliff. That Kwonma’s martial art was endlessly advancing toward that very moment.
Ganghu looked down at his fist. From his trembling fist, even more powerful killing intent and demonic energy were flowing. His fist was reacting on its own after that single move just now.
“So you want to get right to it?”
To Ganghu’s question, Kwonma said in a low voice,
“The stench of your fists is too foul.”
Ganghu’s expression hardened once more. Kwonma was thoroughly mocking him. If it were the mockery of someone ignorant of the heavens and earth, he could simply make them pay for it, but his opponent was someone qualified to say such things.
Ganghu forcibly suppressed the surging killing intent. Though that killing intent was his greatest strength.
“Not yet.”
Ganghu massaged his arm and stepped forward.
“Your fist hurts more than I expected.”
To that calm reaction, Kwonma nodded once. It was not a nod acknowledging his opponent.
Why would he acknowledge an opponent he must kill?
It was a signal to himself—a gesture meaning that since his opponent was someone worth acknowledging, he must not become complacent. Because that opponent had walked out completely unscathed even after the Heavenly Thunder Asura.
“Your temper is as short as mine.”
This time, Ganghu charged and threw a fist.
Even when fist met fist, it sounded like chunks of iron colliding.
Jindan watched the two fight while taking a step back. And amazingly, he saw openings.
“There! Now!”
Why wasn’t Master launching a counterattack there?
He saw a gap where he would have struck, yet his master did nothing.
The opposite was also true.
“It’s dangerous, Master!”
It was an opening in his master that he had never once seen before.
But Kwonma did not attack that opening.
Only then did he understand.
“Ah, it’s not an opening.”
That opening was not a flaw, but a trap. The moment a fist flew there, he would be counterattacked—a death trap. Ultimate techniques were exchanged in an instant, ones that even the eyes of a figure like the Fist King’s head disciple could not discern.
At a glance, it looked like a crude fight, but their battle was by no means such a simple one.
Fist artists are those who must face armed opponents with bare hands.
That is why these fist artists who savagely exchanged punches had to be even smarter. Otherwise, how could they defeat those wielding sharp weapons? It was a fight between two who had approached the pinnacle of the fist arts.
That was why this was a fight Jindan could not intervene in. Because the fight continued with no way of knowing what this move intended or what the next move would be. All he could do was not miss the moment when his master called for him.
Amidst the probing back-and-forth, this time Ganghu unleashed a hidden ace.
Ganghu’s unique martial art was the Nether Spirit Annihilation Fist.
Among them, the move unleashed now was the Second Fist: Soul-Severing Strike.
Sssshaaaek!
The small energy flying from the fist suddenly grew enormous like a great blade the moment it reached the opponent. An enormous energy impossible to evade by leaping aside.
Sssshaaaek!
Kwonma’s fist struck the incoming Soul-Severing Strike. Without taking a single step back from that massive energy, he threw a punch.
First Fist: Black Cloud Asura.
Though it was the first of the six techniques, that did not mean its power was the lowest. The Black Cloud Asura—you only understand once struck—became an energy blade and tore through the air.
The moment the two energies clashed!
WHOOOOOSH!
The surroundings were swept away with a tremendous explosion.
Crack! Rumble!
A tree that had merely lost its leaves earlier was uprooted entirely, and the surrounding walls collapsed all at once from the shock. The building that Ilhwa Geomjon had half-destroyed earlier now completely crumbled down.
Swept away by this shock, the one who rolled even farther across the ground than before and stood up was Yellow Dragon Martial Hall Master Yeon Baek-in. Clutching his chest from internal injuries, he lamented inwardly.
“My martial hall… my martial hall is all collapsing.”
Of course, a martial hall could be rebuilt, but after the main hall had collapsed from a single sword strike of Ilhwa Geomjon, all of this felt like his fate.
“I can survive if I run away now.”
That was the cry of instinct.
“This is not a fight I can intervene in.”
An ominous premonition that whoever won, they would show him no mercy.
But when that person underground brought out the peerless secret manual, what if he wasn’t there? What if that person came looking for him? He had waited all this time, so what if he wasn’t there at this final moment?
That regret, terrifying even to imagine, gripped Yeon Baek-in by the ankles. For sometimes, lingering attachment and regret can be more frightening than greed.
And this was another reason he ran toward the cliff even after seeing its edge.
“I even killed my younger brother!”
That fact made it impossible for him to turn back.
That is why one must never, in life, cross a bridge one cannot turn back from; only after standing at the cliff’s edge did he feel this keenly.
“He will come out. I just have to survive until then.”
Though he was traveling back and forth between the world of the living and the dead alone, no one was paying him any mind.
Ilhwa Geomjon, who watched the fight while protecting Ian, sensed that Kwonma, too, was no longer at his previous level of strength. After gaining a connection with the Geommu-geuk, she had grown stronger as well.
Seeing Ganghu fighting such a Kwonma, she realized anew how powerful the ones behind this were. It was not an organization prepared in just a year or two.
“Just when was this organization created?”
Her gaze turned to Ganghu. His expression had grown grave.
Having blocked the Soul-Severing Strike head-on, Ganghu’s momentum changed. He had always emanated the aura of death toward his opponents, but now he felt that death might turn toward himself.
Sssshaaaek!
Now sensing that Death itself sat in the spectator’s seat, the two men’s speed began to grow faster and faster.
Their figures vanished before one’s eyes and reappeared. Even those watching had trouble keeping up with their forms.
Big guys are slow?
Kwonma shattered that prejudice to pieces. He was fast. The muscles of that large frame seemed to exist not for strength, but for speed.
At the end of that feast of speed—
Fwoosh!
A different sound of wind than any before, created by a different attempt.
The wind sound was light, but the impact sound was heavy.
Thwack!
Ganghu’s head was snapped back. As if he were looking up at the sky itself. With vacant eyes gazing upward, Kwonma’s fist was thrust right before his chin.
Puaack!
Looking at the sky, Ganghu spewed blood. Truly, blood surged like a fountain and scattered in all directions.
The Second Fist, Thunderbolt Asura, had struck his face.
The Thunderbolt Asura was a technique that threw punches so fast they were invisible to the eye. If compared to the Bicheon Sword Technique, it was the same as the Changcheon Form of the Rapid Sword Style—that very technique had struck his face.
If he hadn’t tilted his head back at the very last moment, the force would have blown his entire face clean off.
Right then, Ganghu suddenly spewed curses.
“Kwonma, you bastard I’ll chew up and kill! I’ll completely pulverize that filthy face of yours.”
Curses completely unbefitting his skill spilled out. Now he revealed another—no, his true—self.
His killing intent was not elegant killing intent. He was a figure who utilized raw, primitive killing intent—the most violent and vulgar kind found at the very bottom of humanity. He was drawing up every shred of killing intent he possessed.
“I’ll beat you until your whole body turns to dust. I won’t leave a single bone in your body. I’ll chew you up and swallow you whole.”
Endless killing intent flowed from the body of a man whom no one had ever liked even once in his entire life. Curses and killing intent born of pure loathing.
Kwonma did not take that killing intent lightly. He mustn’t fall for that vulgarity. The moment he thought, “So this bastard is showing his true, pathetic self,” he would die.
Ganghu’s killing intent was precisely that kind of killing intent.
Unless his opponent were a mere ruffian, from someone with such skill, this was killing intent that screamed at the heavens beside the fires of hell. True, primal killing intent hidden within vulgarity.
Sure enough, wiping the blood from his face, Ganghu sneered coldly. For a moment, his eyes seemed to glow white with an intense killing intent, the likes of which he had never experienced in his life,
Sss, sss, sss.
Then the characters engraved on both his hands began to glow blue like will-o’-wisps. That, too, was a light not of this world.
Kwonma intuitively realized his opponent was preparing his final move, and sensed that this fight would not be an easy one.
Yes, if this was a fight that had to roll around in the mud to the very bottom, if it was a fight over who would open that hell gate and come out—
Just as Ganghu had said it had been a long time since he’d had to unravel his bandages.
Kwonma roughly tore off his top. He revealed a truly perfect, muscular upper body.
He had often stripped during training, but it had truly been a long time since he’d met an opponent in actual combat who made him take off his shirt.
Kwonma clenched his fist with vigor. The muscles of his arm were taut to the point of bursting, and his veins stood out as distinctly as flowing rivers. The true energy flowing through those vessels burned as hot as lava.
Of course, Kwonma did not lose his composure.
Because it was a fight before his daughter’s eyes.
“If it gets too painful to bear while trading blows, tell me. I’ll face you with a sword.”