It’s Not Like I’m Doing This For You. (4)

Thwack!

Chung Myung’s hand met the incoming palm force.

“Huh?”

A strange surprise appeared in Chung Myung’s eyes. An qi that was utterly pure, yet carried a peculiar chill at the same time. It was proof that he had properly mastered an orthodox art of the Yin Ice Qi Arts.

He knew the man was strong, but he hadn’t expected him to have mastered martial arts to this extent.

“Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got!”

“Wait.”

“Hm?”

At that moment, Baek Cheon rushed over to Chung Myung, draped an arm around his shoulder, and spun him around.

“You know, right?”

“Know what?”

“I’m not going to tell you not to fight now. We can’t do that anymore, and you’re not the sort of person who would listen to me anyway.”

“Then what?”

Baek Cheon’s eyes flashed as he spoke with utmost seriousness.

“Plum Blossom… That… Uh, right. Don’t use that sword technique.”

“What?”

Chung Myung’s eyes wavered.

“That’s out too, and the deat— Uh, anyway, you can’t use that hand technique either. You also need to be careful with your movement technique. In short, don’t use anything that could reveal the characteristics of your martial arts. You remember the conditions you mentioned last time, right?”

Chung Myung’s mouth fell open.

“…He’s an expert.”

“I know.”

“No! Is this something you can just end with ‘I know’? How am I supposed to beat an expert if I can’t use my martial arts?”

“That’s for you to figure out. It’s not like we told you to fight him in the first place.”

“….”

Chung Myung turned his vacant gaze toward the Mount Hua disciples. They were all thrusting their clenched fists forward and cheering him on.

“Hang in there!”

“You can do it!”

“It’s a martial artist’s duty to challenge the impossible!”

“…You bastards.”

They made it sound so easy.

Baek Cheon patted Chung Myung’s drooping shoulder.

“Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And for the record, I’ll say this one more time: dying at that man’s hands would be a hundred times better than being dragged before an enraged Sect leader.”

“….”

“Then.”

Baek Cheon patted Chung Myung’s shoulder again, then hurried back to where he had been. Do-Hyeon, who had watched the absurd spectacle, furrowed his brow.

“Are you finished? Just how long am I supposed to humor this stupidity?”

At those words, Chung Myung spun around and glared at Do-Hyeon.

“Excuse me.”

“Hm?”

Chung Myung shouted firmly, his face set.

“You said you’d let it go if I blew up to what point again?”

“….”

At Do-Hyeon’s blank stare, Chung Myung awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“Hehe. Well, my calculations were just a little off—”

Boom!

Chung Myung flipped out of the way in fright. Seeing the spot where he had been standing until moments ago cratered, he shuddered.

“Didn’t I say the jokes were over?”

An intense pressure began to radiate from Do-Hyeon.

It wasn’t simply because he was strong that he could emit such an aura. It was the pressure of a person accustomed to standing above others—the kind possessed only by those who could command countless people with a single finger and decide whether they lived or died.

The Do-Hyeon who had been tossing out mischievous jokes just moments ago was nowhere to be found.

“No, I told you, I changed my mind.”

“Too late.”

“…Man, you’re impatient as hell.”

Chung Myung began sweating profusely.

‘This is bad.’

He hadn’t seen this coming.

Of course Do-Hyeon was strong. But Chung Myung wasn’t the sort of person to back down just because his opponent was strong. Strong or not, he just had to fight. That was Chung Myung’s way, but…

‘I can’t use my sword or my hands… and I’m supposed to fight an expert?’

That was crossing the line.

He had to find some way…

Wooooong!

At that moment, a hand strike radiating tremendous qi flew straight toward Chung Myung. An honest blow, with neither a feint nor a variation.

Chung Myung reflexively swung his sword and knocked away the incoming hand shadow.

Clang!

At the same time, Chung Myung’s body was pushed far backward. The internal force carried by the palm strike far exceeded Chung Myung’s expectations.

And on top of that—

“What is this?”

Chung Myung reflexively clutched his wrist. An inexplicable, tingling chill had traveled along his sword. It was a coldness different in nature from the cold qi of the Northern Sea’s martial arts. In other words…

“Yin qi?”

Chung Myung looked at Do-Hyeon in disbelief.

“A man possessing yin qi… Uh…”

Chung Myung’s gaze lingered on Do-Hyeon’s face before darting downward.

“What?”

“No. Well… I’ve cleared up my misunderstanding.”

“Hm?”

When Do-Hyeon frowned, Chung Myung shrugged.

“Well… as you know, you’re rather impressively built.”

“….”

“So… I thought perhaps there might still be something left. But seeing you handle this much yin qi, I realized you were the sort of person who keeps what ought to be kept. Uh, something like that?”

Do-Hyeon glared at Chung Myung without replying. Pricked by that terrifying gaze, Chung Myung gave an awkward laugh.

“No, I’m just saying.”

Boom!

Chung Myung rolled to the side and shouted angrily.

“You asked, so I answered!”

But Do-Hyeon sent palm strike after palm strike at Chung Myung without bothering to respond. He seemed thoroughly displeased at having to grapple with Chung Myung while his subordinates watched.

“Ow!”

Chung Myung dodged the incoming palm force with a pained groan.

“…He’s good at running away.”

“He’s like a rat.”

“That’s what he gets for acting cocky.”

“Whose side are you on, you bastards?!”

“…At least not yours.”

Chung Myung ground his teeth.

‘This is bad.’

This was no joke; he was in serious danger. Do-Hyeon’s martial arts were far more difficult to deal with than he had expected.

‘Ice Cold Qi Arts. And not just any Ice Cold Qi Arts—it’s at the pinnacle.’

Martial arts of this level were difficult for a man to master in the first place. That was because the yang qi inherent in men collided with the yin qi accumulated through the martial art.

That was why, even among those born with the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, women occasionally overcame the illness, survived, and became geniuses of the age, whereas men almost invariably failed to endure even until adulthood and had to leave this world cleanly.

“But what kind of man practices Ice Cold Qi Arts?!”

And yet Do-Hyeon had mastered that very Ice Cold Qi Arts—and had taken it to its utmost level.

It would have been impossible without the special nature of internal viewing.

The problem was that this martial art called Ice Cold Qi Arts was already extraordinarily difficult to counter.

Clang.

Chung Myung failed to completely evade the incoming palm force and knocked it aside with his sword, grinding his teeth.

Throb.

“Agh! It hurts even though I blocked it!”

That was the nature of yin qi.

The basic nature of yin qi was that it seeped in. No matter how firmly one wrapped oneself in qi to block it, one could never completely stop the minute yin qi from burrowing in like needles.

That was why, when Ice Cold Qi Arts reached its peak, most people would die because they could not withstand the yin qi that infiltrated them even after blocking the incoming attack.

“No…”

Then, a palm force twice as fast as all those that had come before rushed right up to Chung Myung’s nose.

“Eek!”

Chung Myung raised his sword and blocked it in fright, but he was unable to withstand the aftermath and was sent flying backward. The masked Mount Hua disciples caught Chung Myung as he rolled across the ground.

“Cough! Cough! Oh, god. Th-that guy is insanely strong.”

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

“Huh?”

“Now, go back out there.”

Yoon Jong and Jo Gul coldly pushed Chung Myung forward.

With a dazed look on his face, Chung Myung was shoved forward, then spun around and snapped at them.

“How can you call yourselves human after doing this?”

“Exactly. That’s what we’ve always wanted to say to you.”

“You finally understand how we feel.”

“….”

After wiping at the corners of his eyes for a moment, Chung Myung gripped his sword tightly.

In any case, this was seriously dangerous.

‘Should I just use my swordsmanship?’

No, he couldn’t. If he did, Mount Hua’s very foundations might truly be torn out.

Mount Hua had endured even when those locust-like bastards from the Demonic Cult set it ablaze, but if it were branded a traitor, it would no longer be able to set foot anywhere in the Central Plains. That would truly be the end.

But for something like that to happen because of him?

Then Hyun Jong would no longer be the problem. So…

—I’ll kill him. I really will kill him. I absolutely will.

“Of course you will…”

He had no confidence that he could endure Chung Mun and Chung Jin’s nagging in the afterlife. If any of his other sahyungs had luckily ascended, those bastards would also come charging at him with their eyes bulging.

‘No.’

That, at least, was unacceptable. After everything he had endured with such determination, was he really going to suffer such humiliation in his final years?

But then what the hell was he supposed to do?

‘He’s really strong.’

He wasn’t quite at the level of a high priest or anything, but in terms of this life alone, he was a powerhouse of a caliber Chung Myung had rarely encountered.

Usually, sheltered scholars who had never set foot on a battlefield could be beaten easily with methods that worked in actual combat, but Do-Hyeon’s absurdly pure internal qi covered up even that weakness.

Just look.

Thump!

There was no feint or variation. It was nothing but an honest palm force thrust straight forward, yet it was so fast and powerful that there was no way to respond.

“Agh!”

But if he simply let himself take a few hits—

Clang!

Chung Myung smacked aside the incoming palm force with his sword. At the same time, his hand clutched his solar plexus.

“No! Why does my stomach hurt when I blocked the palm force with my sword?!”

Faced with this utterly incomprehensible absurdity, Chung Myung breathed fire.

---

“Uh…”

The Mount Hua disciples tilted their heads.

“He’s strong, right?”

“Yes. Extremely strong. But… isn’t Chung Myung acting a little strange?”

“How so?”

“…Why is he clutching his stomach? He wasn’t even hit in the stomach.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he has an upset stomach?”

Beside them, as they wore puzzled expressions, Hae Yeon spoke with a serious look on his face.

“Ami… Ahem. I believe it is an Infiltrating qi technique.”

“Infiltrating Qi?”

“It works on a principle similar to Striking the Ox Across the Mountain, but instead of affecting the area it touches, it makes the qi seep beyond it. Though that isn’t an entirely accurate analogy either.”

“Huh? So even if his arm is hit, his stomach gets hurt?”

“Yes.”

“How does that make any sense?”

“I once heard from the… elders. They said that the most troublesome qi to deal with was yin qi, because yin qi fundamentally possesses the nature of Infiltrating Force.”

“Ah…”

The Mount Hua disciples looked at one another and nodded.

“As expected, the el… The elders on your side know a lot.”

“That’s probably because they’ve experienced a lot, right?”

“What, are you saying we’re incompetent?”

“W-who said that? That’s not what I meant.”

Yoon Jong quickly changed the subject.

“Then you learned how to deal with it too, right? How do you counter it?”

“…I didn’t learn that.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Hae Yeon spoke in a slightly flustered tone.

“They said at the time… Those who wield yin qi are that troublesome to fight, but conversely, yin qi is that difficult to accumulate, so experts who have perfected Ice Cold Qi Arts are unlikely to exist.”

“….”

“So we should know about yin qi, but there was no need to worry about it…”

At those words, the Mount Hua disciples all turned their heads at once.

Before their eyes was Do-Hyeon, wielding something that looked faintly bluish—a tangible form of yin qi.

“It’s difficult to accumulate?”

“….”

“He seems to have accumulated so much that it’s overflowing.”

“Ahem… I’m not sure about that either.”

“So that means an expert in that yin art, who supposedly can barely exist, just happens to be over there?”

“Well… Um. Yes, that is the case.”

“Haha…”

The Mount Hua disciples exchanged awkward smiles.

“We’re screwed.”

It felt as though they could hear the signboard of Mount Hua splitting apart in their ears.