Chapter 237. Are There No Survivors?
The distance slowly closing between us felt like the time I had left in my life.
Was it because I was too focused? Time seemed to crawl. In any case, once surrounded by so many, these bastards wouldn’t be able to use their ultimate techniques either. They might kill their own allies.
They had to close the distance like this and, in the end, drive their blades into my body.
This was a strategy staked entirely on my life.
After all, half the energy of Cheonok was Extreme Yin Qi (極陰之氣). If the cold energy I’d accumulated through the Moon Shadow Heartless Art proved insufficient, I intended to forcibly draw out even that Extreme Yin Qi and spray my frozen blood in every direction.
“Kill him!”
At someone’s shout, I sprang low into the air. The senses of my entire body predicted the number of weapons that would soon pierce me, and the result was……
A hedgehog came to mind.
Imagining holes being punched all over my body, I released all the Extreme Yin Qi of the Dark Moon Ice Art in a single burst and spun in midair. I had deliberately clasped my palms together, blocking the most efficient medium for emitting palm force, and instead poured cold energy from my entire body as if releasing a qi wave.
Swaaaaaaaaa…….
A cool qi wave (氣波), strong enough to whip my hair about, spread out from my whole body. I landed on the ground, sprang up again, flipped through the air, released another wave of cold qi, and quietly dropped back down.
In the sudden silence, white breath flowed from my mouth.
“Haa.”
I held my breath for a moment, then checked my surroundings. All of them were frozen stiff with swords and sabers thrust forward. Half were holding their weapons horizontally, having attacked the spot where I had first been standing, while the ones on the outskirts were frozen in poses of looking up into the air.
Standing amid the gaps between the frozen men, I stared at the Blind Scholar a short distance away.
“…….”
The Blind Scholar, who had been waiting in the rear from the beginning, had easily knocked aside the two surges of Extreme Yin Qi from the Moon Shadow Heartless Art with both palms and widened the distance even further.
But naturally, he could not see anything, so he stood with his brow furrowed, straining his ears.
The Blind Scholar spoke.
“Why is everyone silent?”
I glared at the Blind Scholar with a frown.
“…….”
“It seems the Hao Clan Master used an ice art, but there is no way all of you were caught…… Speak. I Jaha, why are you staying still? Come at me already.”
I ignored his bullshit and looked around to see if anyone was still alive. As I examined one bastard after another, the moment I stretched out my hand and tapped someone’s arm in front of me, blade qi (刀氣) came flying with a sharp whoosh.
Pubububuk!
The arm I had touched went flying off somewhere, several dull impacts rang out, and then silence returned. I had already seen the incoming blade qi with my eyes and twisted my body aside.
The blade qi that had just flown in had sliced through several bodies, yet not a single scream could be heard. Even in the midst of this, I was curious about the cross-section of the severed arm and took a look.
It must have been properly frozen, because no blood flowed from the cut surface.
In that case, the Lecher really was a son of a bitch…….
If they were frozen this solidly, there would be few among them who were still alive and unharmed.
I wandered through the maze of the Frozen Hell, searching for survivors. Still, there was a chance that those on the outskirts, shielded by their comrades’ corpses and hit by less cold energy, were resisting. As I examined the whitely frozen bodies, I opened my mouth.
“Hey, Scholar…….”
Blade qi flew again, but I crouched down and evaded it without difficulty. With a pubububuk! the heads of the frozen bastards shot into the air and fell to the ground.
Still crouching, I looked at the head that had rolled toward me and stopped. Chilgyeom was staring somewhere with his eyes open.
I clicked my tongue inwardly and bade Chilgyeom farewell.
‘I was going to spare you for old times’ sake…… Go attain rebirth, you stupid bastard.’
Suddenly in a foul mood, I lied to the Blind Scholar.
“By the way, are you planning to kill all your subordinates? They were only struck by a cold finger technique. Why kill them? You cruel bastard. You killed the palanquin bearers of the four-man sedan chair, who ran so hard all the way here, with your own hands too, didn’t you? Just what did these men offer their loyalty for? You First Emperor bastard. In the end, you lot became the exact same kind of people.”
“Shut up!”
“Treating the lives of the weak carelessly is the same whether it’s the First Emperor or scholars.”
In the end, the Blind Scholar entered the maze formed by his frozen subordinates and followed the sound of my voice.
But who would have thought that losing one’s sight could be so abruptly cruel? After taking a few steps, the moment the Blind Scholar bumped into a frozen subordinate, he swung his blade.
Puak!
Only then did the Blind Scholar seem to realize how solidly they were frozen, and his expression twisted.
“……!”
The upper body of the corpse that had been standing upright fell to the ground, cut diagonally.
Thud…….
At that sound, the Blind Scholar looked slightly startled. I carefully observed his expression and said,
“To think you spent years enduring hardship and biding your time because of the Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars, only to fall into a Frozen Hell. What sin did the Beggars’ Gang Chief commit that you all came swarming in to torment him like this? Did you covet the Chief’s martial arts that much? If you covet them, then train. You worthless bastards…….”
The Blind Scholar followed at a faster pace, but the moment his chest was lightly pricked by the frozen blade one of his subordinates had been holding out, he stopped. Seeing that, I laughed.
“My, what a shame. You nearly died at the hands of your subordinates. Run over to where I am. Hurry up. If you stay there, your subordinates will wake up and take revenge on you.”
The Blind Scholar advanced with his blade extended forward, swinging it this way and that. I deliberately changed directions here and there so he would not escape the maze of the Frozen Hell, inducing the blind man to wander.
Shing…….
Drawing my wooden sword, I said,
“Scholar, I’m thinking of fighting properly now, so shall we start with introductions? What is your name? Though you may have lost your light (明), surely you have not lost your name (名).”
“It has been long since I abandoned my name.”
“Ah, how unfortunate. I am I Jaha. I was an inn errand boy who scrubbed floors, but I never abandoned my name. By the way, you could have simply stood outside…… Yet because of that damn killing intent of yours, you chose to enter the Frozen Hell yourself. Did you forget that you were blind?”
“Shut up.”
“What an idiot. If it were me, I’d simply spring into the air and…….”
Before I even finished speaking, I poured sword qi at the Blind Scholar as he sprang into the air. The Blind Scholar, who had been trying to fly straight to where I was, responded by swinging his blade.
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
After clashing once with sword qi, the Blind Scholar landed on the ground, then started in fright and spun in place, swinging his blade around him. It was an action born of concern for the frozen corpses, and in fact, he struck away several frozen blades and sent them flying.
As I approached the Blind Scholar, I asked,
“What kind of bullshit are you doing? Hey, Scholar. Now that the subordinates who served as your eyes and legs are gone, look at your pathetic state. You weren’t strong because you were so great. You were strong because your subordinates helped you. There’s nothing around you now, so come at me without worry.”
As soon as I finished speaking, I smiled faintly.
When I smiled, the very faint sound of my lips parting must have pierced the Blind Scholar’s ears.
Whether there were more frozen corpses around him or not, the Blind Scholar had no way of knowing from the start. He had not suddenly gone blind; he had already been blind before coming here.
At that instant, the Blind Scholar and I both turned to the right.
“Hm?”
There came a crack— the sound of the ice art coming undone. I strode over as if in a temper, grabbed the arm of the fellow who hadn’t frozen completely, and cut it off with my wooden sword.
For some reason, the bastard even screamed.
“Aaaaaagh!”
If he’d been lucky enough to avoid the ice art...
Was he lucky, or even more unlucky? I threw the severed arm at the Blind Scholar, then split open the body of the bastard writhing in pain with my wooden sword.
“...Honestly, if this bastard kept screaming, that’d work in my favor, but I can’t fight by taking advantage of someone else’s suffering. So I killed him for you. Scholar, as you can see, there are still some lucky bastards alive. If you want to beat me, kill every subordinate here with your own hands. I’ll wait.”
The Blind Scholar was steadying his breathing, moving his head this way and that.
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
Perhaps because he had trained in martial arts in a closed-off environment, he seemed to lack real combat experience compared to the Martial Alliance or the Demonic Cult. When his subordinates were around to help him, his martial strength would be intact, but faced with an unexpected situation like this, the level of his power had dropped sharply. The fellow who had been explaining the situation to him from beside him hadn’t been there for nothing.
In other words, absurdly enough, the Blind Scholar was nothing without his slaves.
While the Blind Scholar hesitated, I grabbed the nape of one frozen corpse and hurled it at him.
The Blind Scholar’s blade emitted a chilling blue light, and the corpse was split apart in midair.
This time, no blood came out.
I picked one frozen corpse from the outskirts and threw it at the Blind Scholar again. When the blade flashed, this time blood gushed from the corpse and poured over the Blind Scholar’s face.
The moment the Blind Scholar was drenched in blood, I cackled and laughed.
“What are you so startled for? A man of the jianghu has never been covered in blood?”
I watched the blood-soaked scholar’s expression, then kicked another corpse into the air, threw another, grabbed one bastard by the collar and lifted him up, using him as a shield as I charged at the Blind Scholar.
“Hey, you son of a bitch. Come at me!”
I saw through the Blind Scholar’s movements and thrust out the ice corpse like a shield.
The instant the Blind Scholar’s blade sank into the corpse, I injected more ice art into the already frozen body. At the same time, I struck down with my wooden sword in my right hand, and the Blind Scholar, unable to pull his blade free in time, hurriedly retreated and abandoned his sword.
At the same time, there came a thunk— and the sword a subordinate was holding out lodged in the Blind Scholar’s back.
The moment the Blind Scholar’s face twisted, I said,
“Wow... I’m lucky. I really am lucky.”
The Blind Scholar frowned and poured out palm force, and the corpses around him began shattering.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
I watched while laughing.
“...Crazy bastard. Kill them all. Good. Good job. If you kneel and let yourself be bound, I’m thinking of treating you like a slave. What do you say? For reference, Chilgyeom, the one who said that earlier, was killed by you. His head was cut off. Watch your feet. Chilgyeom is rolling around.”
In an instant, the Blind Scholar seemed to use some ultimate technique and turned like a madman, swinging his hands; every frozen corpse he touched shattered to pieces. Using the noise as cover, I stepped back and silently watched the Blind Scholar.
The Blind Scholar glared at a place where I was not standing and screamed.
“I Jaha!”
“......”
Feeling the vanity of life, I tried erasing my presence the way the Sect Leader of the Beggar’s Sect had shown me on the bridge. It hadn’t worked well on the bridge, but for some reason, now, in order to torment the Blind Scholar, my presence was gradually disappearing. To begin with, I was not a virtuous man like the Sect Leader of the Beggar’s Sect; I had been a rotten bastard even before I became a waiter. Even in the way I erased my presence, the starting point of my mindset was different from that of the Sect Leader of the Beggar’s Sect.
In any case, I confirmed that this was the aesthetics of “letting go”...
“Scholar, let’s settle this. I’m a busy man.”
With the distance widened between us, I recalled the Starry Brilliance and Meteor Sword I had trained in at Cheolli Inn. I injected the Hyeonwol Ice Art into my wooden sword, then added extreme yang energy on top of it.
A strange clang— clung to the blade.
I moved through the remains of the corpses like the Blood Night Palace Lord, dodged the Scholar’s palm forces as he attacked wildly, then drove the wooden sword, now beginning to glow red, into the Blind Scholar’s body.
The Blind Scholar grabbed the sword with his right hand and thrust out his left palm, aiming for my head.
Even then, he was aiming for mutual destruction.
But when I had predicted that my sword would be grabbed, I was already in the air. I floated upward with the same speed I had been charging with, grabbed the Blind Scholar’s head with both hands, and injected the Baekjeon Ten-Stage Art.
Cracklecracklecracklecrackle!
“Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
I landed on the ground and shook the head of the huge flopping fish while injecting lightning energy into it.
“Hey, you son of a bitch... When you were chasing me so happily while ordering slaves around, I must’ve looked like an idiot to you, huh? No. The idiot was you!”
As I laughed and drew up my internal energy, for some reason the lightning energy poured out even more fiercely. In an instant, a burnt smell began rising from the Blind Scholar’s head. When I quickly poured out the Baekjeon Ten-Stage Art up to the fifth stage, the blind fish’s convulsions also slowly subsided.
I said to the limp Blind Scholar,
“Have you passed on? There’s no way the Scholar would be this weak. Were you some bottom-rung scholar?”
That did not seem to be the case.
In any case, I felt slightly uneasy, so as soon as I wrapped wood energy around my palm, I smashed the blind fish’s head.
I retrieved my wooden sword and looked around.
“...Anyone still alive, raise your hand?”
Just then, there came a thunk—.
“You scared me.”
I had forgotten that a sword was already stuck in the Blind Scholar’s back. As soon as the scholar bastard collapsed to the ground, the sword lodged in his back slid out at an angle and jutted up through his chest.
Even though I had clearly killed him, the subordinate’s sword protruding from the Scholar’s chest was quite impressive.
Somehow, it felt as if the slaves had risen in revolt and killed the Scholar.
I raised my right hand high and waited for the dead to answer.
“Head count. Any survivors?”
“......”
“Confirmed none.”
At that moment, I heard the sound of thunder from a clear sky and turned my head. Since the Three Calamities were still contending nearby, I had no time to chatter with the dead.
For now, I had successfully stopped the Blind Scholar from persecuting our Sect Leader of the Beggar’s Sect, the greatest master of the White Path.
But when I thought about it, what came next was also a problem.
Leaving the corpses behind, I headed toward the place where the Three Calamities were fighting.