Chapter 272 — Blades Standing Like a Forest 3
At some point, enemies had ceased to frighten him.
It felt like only yesterday that he had struggled desperately to survive.
Those had been the days when a powerless infantryman used every means he had just to stay alive.
He survived with stubborn tenacity, and after surviving, he learned with even greater ferocity.
The study of becoming human was surely the truest study.
Yet the first thing Yeongu learned was the craft of survival.
How to grab a man, roll with him, and stab with a short blade.
How to set obstacles around a night camp.
How to read the compatibility of weapons and choose arms on the battlefield.
How to lower the body and hold the breath when arrows rained down.
He had learned too much to recall each thing one by one.
Those were methods for barely keeping his life.
They were techniques for pulling a single body out of the cauldron of war and death.
He watched what his seniors did and copied them.
He protected himself more viciously than others did.
Those who survived were usually shameless.
Soldiers who survived were usually full of suspicion.
Yeongu became that way too.
Only after that did his true study begin.
That study was truly study.
Under the guidance of the immortal Baek In-gyeom, he learned the sword and learned breathing.
Except for times when other matters briefly seized his attention, he rarely stopped the study of breath.
He held a sword every day, and whenever he had time, he practiced moving with the sword.
Baek In-gyeom did not teach only swordsmanship.
He taught operations and command, tactics and military doctrine, and at last made him read the martial classics closely.
An idle military camp was the most peaceful place in the world.
In a camp where battle was far away, orders were absent, and the shadow of the enemy was nowhere to be seen, there were many strange empty hours.
In that peace, Yeongu advanced day by day and month by month.
From some point on, he became a man who would not sound strange even if called a master.
The first thing that changed was his sense.
He could see the sign of what would happen next.
His body knew before his eyes saw.
His mind moved before his ears heard.
It was a change that came after he completed the Middle Dantian.
A person's breath, the weight of the feet, the tilt of the shoulders, the trembling of the eyes—all came to him as one whole.
Things he had not seen before became visible, and his judgments were startlingly often correct.
As his study deepened, the signs became clearer.
It felt as though the fore-edge of events touched his fingertips.
Things that had not yet happened sometimes came toward him first like hazy waves.
When he entered the study of striking the Upper Dantian, Yeongu sensed that the gate would open before long.
After that, he studied even harder.
Whenever time allowed, he entered his breathing without fail.
Though it seemed as if something occupied him all day, time in a military camp had many gaps.
A military camp had strangely many empty hours.
There were no orders, and no enemy was visible, yet the mind could not fully relax.
Others yawned and chatted in those hours, but Yeongu settled his breath even then.
That small difference accumulated year after year.
Even now, as he left the estate under Cheon Manseok's guidance, he felt no fear.
He saw the dozens of warriors following behind.
Hands gripping scabbards.
Hands adjusting spear shafts.
The direction of their toes.
The short glances they exchanged with one another.
How could he see it?
To express it, it would be better to say that he sensed it as one complete whole.
It was a reckless thought, but he felt he could win even if they all rushed him together.
There were dozens of them, but they were not mere soldiers.
They were men who had studied martial arts professionally.
From Yeongu's point of view, he would not call them masters.
It would be better to call them men who made their living by the blade.
If they simply fought, it would be bothersome.
But if they attacked first, he could kill them.
That thought rose in one corner of his mind like a small itch.
Yeongu spoke to Cheon Manseok, who was walking ahead.
"They are following behind like dogs. Can I just deal with them here before I go?"
He deliberately put weight on the words "dogs" and "deal with."
It was provocation.
If martial men heard an insult of this degree and still did not rush in, it would be hard to call them martial men.
Yeongu understood the heart of warriors well.
It was not very different from why low-ranking fighters quarreled over nothing, grabbed their sword hilts at drinking tables, and flushed at a single careless word.
If one received an insult and stayed still, the next man would insult him too.
Once a man endured it, he came to look like someone anyone could insult.
So they struggled, rebelled, and rushed in to prevent that.
Martial men were the same.
The higher their skill, the thicker the rope that bound them to name and face.
Would water in a cauldron begin to boil like this?
From somewhere behind him, an unseen force began to seethe.
Cheon Manseok was too far away for his restraint to reach fully.
Before his command could arrive, there were those who could not endure the insult.
One of the Three Absolutes of Changbai stepped forward.
Strength entered the hand gripping his scabbard, and the shoulders of the other two moved almost at the same time.
Yeongu smiled without looking back.
The sound of their footsteps alone told him.
Who would come first.
Who would cut off the side.
Who would aim for the rear.
Cheon Manseok urgently turned his head.
"Do not act rashly!"
His shout split the courtyard.
Yet one man's toes had already kicked off the ground.
The presence of the warriors following behind changed.
Their steps stopped, and strength entered the hands gripping scabbards.
Spearpoints lowered, and toes turned toward Yeongu.
They were ready to cover him all at once the moment a single word fell.
Yeongu slowly adjusted his grip on the hwandō.
One drop of still-wet blood fell from the blade tip.
If they had surrounded him together and charged all at once, things might have been a little different.
But anger moves a person first.
The youngest of the Three Absolutes of Changbai lost patience before the others.
"Yaaaaaah!"
He swung an iron mace.
The warriors running from behind split left and right.
Those following three or four horse-lengths behind Yeongu instinctively opened a path.
In that brief instant, the youngest raised his iron mace high.
It was a move meant to smash both shoulder and neck from above.
Yeongu turned around.
He did not retreat.
He went straight forward.
Before the mace fell, he was already at the youngest man's chest.
The distance had become too close.
An iron mace was a weapon that gained power only when swung, and it was useless against an opponent who had entered inside the arc.
The youngest was startled and hurriedly raised his left hand to guard his chest.
But he was already too late.
Yeongu's hwandō rose briefly.
The blade opened the youngest man's forearm, then brushed across the front of his chest.
Silk and leather tore together, and the flesh beneath split open.
"Aaaaagh!"
The shout and scream burst out almost together.
The youngest man's arm hung limp, and the mace's path collapsed.
Yeongu drove him away with his shoulder.
That was the beginning.
The eyes of the warriors who had been holding back ignited.
Those who had been insulted as dogs and pigs could no longer hold on to face.
The road leading toward the main gate of the Li Family Great Estate was broad by road standards, but still only about two jang wide.
On both sides lay wide gardens, and within them low shrubs and unknown thickets grew in scattered clusters.
He remembered what he had heard on the way.
Do not enter the garden.
No one knows what is in there.
Because he had heard those words, he became more curious.
People naturally want to do what they are told not to do.
Yeongu kicked the screaming youngest man in the chest.
The youngest man's body was driven backward.
He tried to plant his feet and hold on, but no strength remained in a body with an arm split and a chest cut open.
There was a low sill.
It marked the boundary between the road and the garden.
The youngest struggled not to cross it.
His heels scraped the stone, and his remaining hand clawed at the air.
Autumn flowers were blooming brightly.
Into that flower bed, the bloodstained body was driven.
"Aaaaagh! No!"
The youngest of the Three Absolutes of Changbai screamed as if his throat would tear.
His arm torn and chest split, he fell into the flower bed.
Flower stalks were crushed all at once, and their bright colors shook together with blood.
The grass thicket stirred briefly.
Then all movement stopped.
The other two could not leap in immediately.
They lowered their bodies at the edge of the flower bed and peered inside.
The youngest no longer moved.
It was poisonous ground.
Strangely enough, it was common for flowers to bloom brighter and more beautifully on land where poison had risen.
The more death the soil held, the lovelier its outer color became.
"You son of a bitch!"
The second turned first.
The soul-chasing cord in his hand unfurled through the air.
At the end of the long cord hung a sickle, and beneath it a small iron weight swung.
When swung, it flew like a whip.
When it wrapped, it constricted like a snake.
When it hooked, it dragged flesh, clothing, and weapons together.
The sickle blade spun fiercely and aimed for Yeongu's neck.
Yeongu retreated.
Yet the place he retreated to was not empty.
He slipped behind Cheon Manseok, who was turning around.
Cheon Manseok's eyes widened.
The soul-chasing cord swept past his face.
He reflexively drew his sword and struck the cord.
The blade hit the line.
But the weight at the end spun and coiled around Cheon Manseok's sword.
"Stop!"
Cheon Manseok twisted the entangled sword and shouted.
With his gloved hand, he grabbed the cord of the soul-chasing line.
The line pulled taut, and the second man's body was drawn forward.
In that brief instant of struggle, Yeongu disappeared from behind Cheon Manseok's back.
The next moment, Yeongu came around from the side.
The hwandō flashed low.
The second man was putting strength into the cord so Cheon Manseok would not take it from him.
His waist was open.
Yeongu's blade cut through that open waist.
"Kugh!"
The second released the soul-chasing cord.
Both hands went to his waist.
His body folded as if bending in half, and his knees struck the ground.
Behind him, as he fell, the first leaped up.
"You son of a bitch!"
His mouth was foul.
The deeper the rage, the rougher the words that came first.
The first man's ring-pommeled great saber plunged vertically from above his head.
It came with enough speed and weight to split a person in one stroke.
Falling from above, he aimed to take Yeongu's shoulder and head together.
Yeongu did not meet the blade head-on.
Receiving falling force from the front was a foolish act.
He twisted his body half a step.
The ring-pommeled great saber tore down through the edge of his clothing.
At the same time, Yeongu's hwandō entered inside.
The first man could not withdraw the weight of his attack.
The downward force landed directly on Yeongu's blade point.
Yeongu pushed in, and the first man came down by himself.
The short hwandō pierced beneath his chest.
The first man's eyes opened wide.
His attacking arms froze in the air.
There was a saying that the most perfect moment was when the enemy attacked.
That saying was truly true.
When the body's strength pours forward, and the mind gathers in one place around the intent to kill, a person forgets his own defense.
Yeongu did not wait for that moment.
He entered that moment first.
The explanation was long, but the time it took for the three men to fall was very short.
The youngest charged while swinging the cord, and Yeongu drove inside his reach, cutting his arm and chest.
The screaming youngest was pushed into the poisonous flower bed and stopped moving.
The second sent out the soul-chasing cord, and Yeongu slipped behind Cheon Manseok, twisting the path of the cord.
While Cheon Manseok and the line were entangled, he cut the second man's waist.
The first leaped with a ring-pommeled great saber, but was pierced by Yeongu's hwandō using the very force of his fall.
All three collapsed in the moment they attacked.
Yeongu did not block and then counterattack.
He did not dodge and then rush in.
He entered together with them at the very instant their attacks began.
He did not leave even half a breath between them.
So to those watching, it looked as if they had rushed in to die.
Cheon Manseok slowly unwound the soul-chasing cord wrapped around his sword.
The sickle at the end of the cord scraped the ground and stopped.
He looked at the places where the Three Absolutes of Changbai had fallen.
The youngest was no longer visible inside the flower bed.
The second lay face down on the road, clutching his waist.
The first knelt, having dropped his ring-pommeled great saber.
The surrounding warriors could not say a word.
The rage they had held a moment ago had nowhere to go.
The three men who had come out to avenge the insult had fallen in an instant.
Hands that had drawn blades froze in midair.
No one could take the next step.
They had seen a force they could not handle.
The three masters of the Three Absolutes of Changbai had not even completed a single swing.
They died before one attack could be completed.
Who could easily say that it was because of movement technique?
No.
Yeongu was not that fast.
His movements were clearly visible to the eyes of those watching.
Yet he stood exactly where he needed to be, blocked or avoided, and drove the hwandō in perfectly.
Yeongu shook the blood from the hwandō once.
Drops of blood fell onto the road.
"Anyone else?"
His words were not loud.
Yet the entire courtyard fell silent as if all had heard.
Cheon Manseok raised both arms to restrain the agitation of the crowd.