Chapter 56. To Live Without a Mask
The Great Rakshasa, who looked not like the master of some tiny Black Path faction but like a man seated upon a throne, studied me and extended a hand.
“Welcome.”
Thinking of the dead Jeoksa, I asked after the Great Rakshasa’s health.
“Master, has your back been all right lately?”
The Great Rakshasa nodded.
“Not bad.”
“And there is no discomfort in your legs?”
“There is discomfort, but when one grows old, one lives while bearing that much. It becomes fine again when I fight, so there is no need to worry.”
“I see. Are you sleeping well? Living in the jianghu consumes a great deal of mental strength, so you must get enough sleep.”
As though agreeing with me, the Great Rakshasa nodded.
“Now that I’m old, my sleep grows shorter and shorter. Once I die, I’ll sleep for a long time, so you need not be overly concerned. Are you on your way back from killing someone again?”
The Great Rakshasa was speaking to me as though I were Jeoksa as well.
“I beat to death a few fellows who were running around in vain.”
The Great Rakshasa let out a brief sigh and said,
“Since my cherished disciples are dead, I suppose I must take revenge now.”
“Of course you should.”
“How was Jeoksa at the end?”
“He competed in a headbutt with a wall, but only his head broke. He must be standing in line somewhere at the entrance to hell by now.”
“He was my most cherished disciple. What a pity.”
I asked the Great Rakshasa something I had been curious about all this time.
“There is something your disciple has always wondered about, so please answer me once.”
“Ask freely.”
“Why on earth do you wear this mask? It seems Jeoksa was curious about that until the moment he died.”
The Great Rakshasa bared his teeth and laughed.
“How curious. How very curious.”
“…….”
“All this time, no one has ever asked me about that in detail. Even though I had many disciples. It is a simple story. I wear it because hiding behind a mask makes evil deeds more natural. It becomes unclear whether you are the one doing evil, or whether the mask is doing it in your stead.”
The Great Rakshasa leaned his face forward from where he sat.
“Only those chosen by me may wear a mask. And once you assign ranks to them, they become capable of doing anything to compete among themselves. This is the nature of fools.”
The Great Rakshasa laughed, showing his large teeth.
“Also, this is an old tradition. My master’s master was a man who performed masked plays. Only by wearing that mask could he put food on the table. But in the end, he failed to master the art of changing masks in an instant and was driven out. The one driven out like that was my master.”
“Good grief.”
The anger of the weak spreads like a plague, tormenting unspecified multitudes and even giving rise to bastards like this.
The Great Rakshasa smiled and said to me,
“Since I have told you the secret of the mask, you show me your face as well. One of us will die, so surely that much is acceptable?”
“Ah…… my face.”
I stroked Jeoksa’s mask and replied,
“I am about to do something evil now, so I cannot.”
I mingled my laughter with the Great Rakshasa’s.
The rhinoceros beetle laughed, the dead Jeoksa laughed from somewhere, and I laughed as well. Each of us laughed while thinking of the other’s death.
The Great Rakshasa rose and said,
“A fellow like you should have been my disciple.”
“Even if I had been your disciple, I would have run off somewhere and become a waiter.”
“Why would you do such vulgar work?”
“What work one does is not important. While wiping floors, I would have kept thinking of my wretched master. In the end, I would have learned martial arts somehow and come back to kill you. And just like today, I would have asked why you put a mask on me.”
The Great Rakshasa nodded.
“Correct. That is how a man ought to live.”
As the Great Rakshasa descended the stairs, his sleeve fluttered in the wind.
While I was carefully watching that sleeve, the Great Rakshasa approached very close.
Closing the distance like this was because he had confidence.
It was also a psychological battle.
Because the moment I stepped back to widen the distance, the Great Rakshasa would have attacked after seizing the initiative.
The Great Rakshasa was shorter than me.
And he was on the ugly side.
I know men who are as ugly as the Great Rakshasa. But I also know that a person’s charm is not all in the face.
Just as, despite being rather handsome myself, I had never been popular with normal beauties.
Suddenly, anger…….
The Great Rakshasa smiled.
“Disciple, what shall we compete with? Palm arts, fist arts, saber arts, sword arts, internal energy. Anything is fine. Since I have trained in martial arts longer, I shall yield the choice to you.”
“What are you confident in?”
“For an old man, it is internal energy. You will be at a disadvantage in this, so choose something else.”
The Great Rakshasa wore a faint smile, as though engaging in psychological warfare.
I nodded.
“Then let us start with internal energy.”
Thinking of having a contest of internal energy made my heart pound.
The Great Rakshasa gave a hearty laugh, then slowly extended his left hand.
“If you have no regrets, place your hand against mine.”
An internal energy contest is, by nature, the sort of thing only top-ranking madmen do.
No soldier or man from any nation fights in this manner.
Only mad monkeys stake their lives, riddled with openings, trusting solely in their own internal energy.
I slowly moved my right hand while studying the Great Rakshasa’s expression. Since the two of us were standing close together, it would not have been strange at all if either one of us broke the agreement and launched a surprise attack.
However, the Great Rakshasa and I pressed our palms together without either of us launching a surprise attack.
The Great Rakshasa’s palm was as hard as touching a rhinoceros beetle.
The two of us closed our mouths.
As though we had agreed on the finer rules of the internal energy contest on the spot, the amount of internal energy we took turns injecting into the centers of our palms gradually increased.
If grown men like this stood around blankly with one hand pressed together, to those who knew nothing of martial arts, we would look like idiots.
But if you looked closer, we were even more serious idiots.
Because we were staking our lives.
Even in the midst of this, I stayed wary of the Great Rakshasa’s right arm.
He might have attached some sharp awl to his severed forearm and stab me at any moment.
The two joined hands gradually began to tremble, and the smiling Great Rakshasa’s face wavered like the surface of water.
The Jeoksa mask I had put on also trembled violently.
The Great Rakshasa’s eyes looked at my left hand, and I looked at the Great Rakshasa’s empty sleeve.
The force of his palm grew a little stronger.
I prepared for a prolonged battle with my wood-attribute energy, then switched to my flame-attribute energy. As my palm gradually flushed red, the Great Rakshasa’s eyes shifted to our locked hands.
By now, every tendon in our joined hands had swollen as if about to burst.
As if it were only natural, the Great Rakshasa’s right arm moved.
To be able to swing one arm like this in the middle of a contest of internal energy meant he had been holding something in reserve.
Of course, I had reserves of my own.
I moved my head to the right and seized the Great Rakshasa’s forearm. Beside my neck, a silver blade stretched out, leaving only the narrowest gap.
It seemed he had attached a blade to the place where his forearm had been cut off.
Holding the Great Rakshasa’s hand and forearm, I poured in my internal energy.
The Great Rakshasa was sinister, but being sinister did not mean one could win every fight.
In the end, a contest of internal energy was won by the one with deeper internal energy.
When I poured flame-attribute energy into my left hand, which was gripping his forearm, his sleeve burned as if scorched by fire.
Only then did I confirm the shape of his forearm.
A metal covering of some kind was fixed over the severed part, and the blade was attached atop it.
A surprise-attack blade specially made for the Great Rakshasa.
Looking at the Great Rakshasa, I tried using flame palm force with my right palm and the Great Star-Absorbing Art with my left.
The Split-Mind Art (分心功), which the foolish could not even perform at its most basic level.
From the left, the Great Rakshasa’s internal energy flowed into me; from the right, my flame palm force heated the Great Rakshasa’s arm.
A brief regret over my ice art flashed through my mind.
Deciding to train a little more against the Great Rakshasa, I used the Great Star-Absorbing Art with my right hand and flame palm force with my left.
As expected, his severed arm was defenseless, and the right side of the Great Rakshasa’s clothing gradually burned away.
‘This is right.’
The Great Rakshasa’s level of internal energy was not far beneath mine, but when I dealt with him using the Split-Mind Art and mixed in the uncommon Great Star-Absorbing Art, he was visibly flustered. Moreover, lacking one hand was certainly a disadvantage.
In contests of internal energy until now, he must have won often with that blade.
Even in the midst of this, the Great Rakshasa was somehow enduring with the internal energy he had accumulated over a lifetime.
Just then, a click sounded from inside the Great Rakshasa’s mouth.
‘Poison, or a poisoned needle.’
There were often those who hid poison pellets in the gaps where their teeth had fallen out.
The moment the Great Rakshasa drew in a breath and exhaled……
I pulled with both hands and headbutted him in the mouth.
Thwack!
The red-serpent mask split apart.
Thwack!
This time, the white porcelain mask split apart.
Thwack!
This time, my forehead crushed the Great Rakshasa’s nose.
Only then did I look at the Great Rakshasa, whose face had been turned bloody by mine. His front teeth were all broken, and his nose had been smashed flat.
I had never killed anyone with a headbutt before, so I used the Great Star-Absorbing Art with both hands just as I was.
With his composure shattered and his qi and blood beginning to churn, the Great Rakshasa had the internal energy he had built up stolen from him like water pouring through a broken dike.
When using the Great Star-Absorbing Art, which I had obtained through a convergence of coincidence and inevitability, I had my own iron rule.
I would not take a life with it.
I threw exactly half of the energy the Great Rakshasa possessed to Cheonok as food, then released both hands.
As soon as I let go, the Great Rakshasa collapsed to the ground.
He was still breathing.
The Great Rakshasa’s eyes were scanning my face. His expression said that his curiosity had finally been resolved.
Looking down at the Great Rakshasa, I spoke in a solemn tone.
“It is our first meeting. I am I Jaha, leader of Haomun.”
As if hearing my name for the first time, the Great Rakshasa murmured.
“I Jaha……”
“If you had fought like this from the beginning, your foolish disciples might have lived a little longer.”
The Great Rakshasa spat out a mouthful of pooled blood, then said,
“Who is your master?”
Considering that short question, it contained the meaning that he could not understand how I was so young and so strong. I crouched down and met the Great Rakshasa’s eyes.
“I don’t have one.”
“You lie.”
“From now on, I will take over not only the Twelve Divine Generals’ forces, but everything you managed. You were not even qualified to be the leader of fools. Whether you want it or not, all of this will come under Haomun, but as the chief who led this group, say a word to your disciples.”
“You killed them all. Where are my disciples?”
From where the Black Cat Gang’s subordinates were, Hong Sin and Geumhae appeared with complicated expressions.
Almost at the same time, the surviving Baek In, Cheongjin, and Baek Yu appeared atop the wall. It seemed they had no intention of interfering in a one-on-one fight, but had been listening from beyond the wall because they were curious about the outcome.
The Great Rakshasa let out a sigh, looked around at the disciples who were still perfectly alive, and spoke frankly.
“This madman left so many of you alive. Impressive.”
I saw the light in the Great Rakshasa’s eyes brighten again, as it had earlier.
It was the final radiance before death (回光返照).
The Great Rakshasa straightened his back where he sat and addressed the disciples who were alive.
“……My disciples, you have suffered much attending to an unworthy master. From now on, serve the leader of Haomun with all your hearts. You too should take off your masks and live. Rather than me……”
The Great Rakshasa’s next words did not follow.
It was a death met with open eyes.
I looked at the Great Rakshasa, whose breath had ceased, for a long while. Peace was finally settling over that wicked face. Still, thinking that in his final moment the Great Rakshasa had spoken with his disciples in mind, I reached out and personally closed the world he had been looking at.
The Great Rakshasa’s eyes closed.