A dagger leaving an assassin's hand cut through the air and flew at him.
Seonwoo Hyun reflexively bent sharply at the waist, ducking under the dagger.
A second dagger came right after, its blade flashing.
Along with it, two assassins who had closed in from the left and right brought their short swords down at him.
CLANG—!
The sound of steel striking steel rang through the silent mountain.
It was the sound of Seonwoo Hyun swinging his sword to knock away the assassins' swords in one stroke, even as he dodged the dagger.
‘Ngh!’
Seonwoo Hyun swallowed a groan at the impact transmitted through his sword.
The assassins' swords, stabbing at his vital points, were very fast. But they were no match for Seonwoo Hyun's swift sword.
The problem was inner arts.
In terms of sword skill alone, he was ahead. But in inner arts, they clearly had the upper hand.
‘Good thing I trained my outer arts so hard. Otherwise…….’
His wrist might well have broken after just these few clashes.
Just then, Seonwoo Hyun caught sight of an opening in one of the assassins.
‘Now!’
Without the slightest hesitation, Seonwoo Hyun darted inside the man's guard and thrust his sword.
SWISH—! SPLURT—!
As white light flashed and the sword passed across the assassin's neck, a fountain of blood spurted up.
“……!”
The assassin whose throat had been cut collapsed to the ground with his eyes wide open.
The encirclement of five was instantly reduced by one.
Startled out of their wits by the unexpected sight, the remaining three quickly pulled back.
“…….”
A momentary silence.
The assassins' eyes were wide, as if they could not possibly believe what had just happened.
The same was true of the leader, who had been watching the situation from behind.
‘What? I couldn't even see that strike! What on earth just happened?!’
A greenhorn whose peach fuzz had not even fully grown in had unleashed a sword that even he, a first-rate master, could not see.
The leader's brow contorted fearsomely.
‘He is no ordinary brat. My subordinates may be second-rate, but they are seasoned enough to easily dispatch a decent first-rate master by attacking together…….’
He had thought sending five men to deal with a single kid was excessive.
But facing the boy directly, that was not the case at all.
‘…I will have to step in myself.’
Judging that Seonwoo Hyun could not be taken lightly, the leader drew his sword and stood in front of his three remaining subordinates.
With him at the center, the assassins slowly began to tighten the encirclement again.
But something about Seonwoo Hyun's state was strange.
‘What? Why does he look so dazed?’
Though the assassins were poised to pounce at any moment, Seonwoo Hyun was only trembling blankly.
No matter how hard he tried to steady himself, he couldn't come to his senses.
‘I really…… killed a person.’
Seonwoo Hyun's eyes were fixed on the assassin's corpse, from whose wound blood was still pouring.
The sensation of the blade cutting through flesh and bone.
And the crimson blood that had poured over his face.
Ever since he had first sworn revenge, he had thought he might someday kill someone.
And driven by the will to live, he had unleashed a lethal strike without hesitation.
But killing a person in real combat was a completely different matter from what he had braced himself for.
The sensation from a moment ago remained far too vivid.
A shock so great that he could not even register the life-or-death situation before him engulfed his entire body.
Watching him, the leader's lips curled into a faint scoff.
‘I see.’
He drew a dagger from inside his robes.
‘The brat has never killed before. Then there is no need to hesitate. I will kill him in one stroke while he is confused.’
The dagger, imbued with sword qi, rushed swiftly toward Seonwoo Hyun.
SWISH—!
“……!”
Startled by the eerie air-splitting whistle, Seonwoo Hyun quickly twisted at the waist and dodged the flying dagger.
But his stance broke.
Just then, an assassin who had rushed up to within an inch of him thrust his sword at his throat.
CLANG—!
Seonwoo Hyun quickly turned his sword and blocked the attack.
He immediately counterattacked, but the assassin pulled back as if he had been waiting for it and deflected the tip of his sword.
‘Kh……!’
He had to pursue.
But unlike his thoughts, his feet would not move forward.
The eerie sensation still lingering on his fingertips from moments ago was muddling his head.
That was the very opening they wanted.
Whsst! Whsst! Whsst!
Three daggers flew at him simultaneously from different directions.
Seonwoo Hyun hurriedly twisted his body and let the daggers on the left and right slip past.
The moment he knocked away the last one with his sword.
CLANG—!
A chilling killing intent surged up behind him.
The assassins' leader, who had slipped in like a shadow, was swinging his sword at him.
SLAAASH—!
His side split open, and red blood spurted up.
He had twisted his body in an instant to evade, but he could not completely dodge the leader's strike.
“Ngh!”
Grimacing at the wound in his side, Seonwoo Hyun thrust his sword right back.
But the leader had already withdrawn far away.
Daggers flew in again one after another.
CLANG! CLANG-CLANG!
While Seonwoo Hyun blocked the daggers, the leader closed in again, his sword flashing.
CLANG—!
Seonwoo Hyun barely blocked the attack.
But that was all.
Once pushed back in momentum, he could see no opening for a proper counterattack.
SLASH! SLAAASH!
As the exchange went on, more and more blood sprayed from his body.
He was somehow avoiding fatal wounds, but the leader's sword, stabbing through the gaps in the joint attack, was far too chilling.
Seonwoo Hyun blamed himself.
No matter how great the shock of killing had been, he should never have lost his wits with an enemy right before his eyes.
‘This won't work! First, I'll open some distance!’
When Seonwoo Hyun raised his inner arts, faint sword qi formed at the tip of his sword.
In that state, he unleashed the First Form of the Iron Sword Twelve Forms.
FWAAASH—!
As the sword slashed swiftly up, down, left, and right, the encirclement widened for an instant, creating room to retreat.
Seonwoo Hyun quickly put distance between them and caught his breath.
“Huff, huff.”
While he gasped for breath, the shock from a moment ago had been pushed into a corner of his mind before he knew it.
Neither the sensation of cutting through flesh and bone nor the blood that had drenched his face came to mind any longer.
He had no room to think about such things now.
‘If I want to live, I have to focus only on the enemies in front of me!’
Seonwoo Hyun's gaze settled calmly once again.
The leader's sword was keen, but it was clearly a level below Namgung Cheong-un's.
One-on-one, he would never be pushed back like this.
But the problem was numbers.
He had taken one down, but four still remained.
And they were assassins more accustomed than anyone to the work of killing people.
‘I need to find a way.’
Seonwoo Hyun's gaze swept swiftly across the assassins blocking his path.
Behind him, a sheer cliff.
Before him, four assassins surrounding him.
Only two methods came to his mind.
The first was to defeat them all. But that method was now close to impossible.
He had only released sword qi a few times, yet less than three-tenths of his inner arts remained.
With that, he could never deal with the remaining assassins.
‘In the end, my inner arts are holding me back. Then… I'll use the second method.’
Create an opening in one stroke and break through the encirclement.
Then run down the mountain ahead of them.
If he could just break through the encirclement in one strike, he was confident he could keep running even if his inner arts ran dry.
Even if they used movement arts, they couldn't move as fast on a rugged mountain path as on flat ground.
As long as he could break through, there was a real chance.
Above all, he still had the stamina he had trained to the brink of death all this time.
‘I'll stake everything on this one chance!’
Seonwoo Hyun clenched his teeth and raised every last bit of his inner arts as if wringing out his qi center.
At that moment.
SWISH—!
A dagger flew at him.
‘Now!’
Seonwoo Hyun instead flung himself toward the dagger flying at him.
At the same time, he twisted his sword and swung it rapidly up, down, left, and right.
Iron Sword Twelve Forms, Fifth Form: Four-Direction Barrier.
CLA-CLA-CLA-CLANG—!
As the sword imbued with sword qi knocked away the dagger and swept in all directions, the assassins instinctively pulled back.
Seonwoo Hyun did not miss that fleeting opening.
‘Break through!’
He immediately stepped forward with one foot and poured all his remaining inner arts into his sword.
Iron Sword Twelve Forms, Seventh Form: Raging Wind Cascade.
WHOOOOM—!
A white sword light shot forward as if exploding.
The assassin blocking the front hastily raised his short sword, but Seonwoo Hyun's sword was faster.
SLAAASH—!
Blood spurted like a fountain where the white sword had passed.
As the assassin, cleaved deep from shoulder to chest, crumbled, the eyes of the rest went wide with shock.
At that moment, one side of the encirclement opened completely.
‘Got it!’
Without hesitation, Seonwoo Hyun kicked off the ground.
Like a wild beast seizing an opening, he broke through the encirclement and flung himself toward the path leading down from the cliff.
But right then.
“Kuh!”
Suddenly his vision shook and his body staggered.
A burning pain shot up from his qi center, and something hot surged up the back of his throat.
“Urk… Cough!”
A clot of red blood burst out of his mouth.
At the same time, all the strength in his body drained away limply, and he pitched forward onto the ground.
THUD!
“N-no…….”
He tried to get up somehow, but no strength would enter his body.
In the end, the inner arts he had forcibly raised had overturned his blood meridians.
“Cough! Cough!”
‘Damn it… So it ends like this…….’
The mountain path was visible before his eyes.
Only a few dozen feet away. A path he had thought he could easily reach just moments ago.
But now it felt far away, as if he couldn't reach it even by stretching out his hand.
The assassins, who had been frozen for a while, only then came to their senses.
The boy who had taken down two of them had suddenly coughed up blood on his own and collapsed, so even they could not hide their bewilderment.
The assassins' leader slowly stepped forward.
His gaze swept over Seonwoo Hyun coughing up blood and his two fallen comrades in turn.
“Impressive. To be this skilled at that age—it is truly hard to believe.”
“…….”
Looking down at Seonwoo Hyun for a moment, his eyes narrowed.
“But… your qi is strangely pitiful. How incomprehensible.”
“Nnngh…….”
Seonwoo Hyun clenched his teeth and reached out his hand.
He tried somehow to grab his sword, but even his fingertips would not obey.
Watching that, the leader's eyes sank coldly.
“Because of you, two of my subordinates lost their lives. So I will not let you die comfortably.”
He slowly raised his short sword and said:
“I will show you what the cruelest pain is for a martial artist!”
SHHK—!
The cold blade plunged deep into Seonwoo Hyun's waist.
And then.
CRUNCH—!
In that instant, a pain as if his qi center were being torn apart assailed his entire body.
“Gah, gaaah!”
It was truly tremendous pain.
At the same time, blood gushed explosively from his mouth, and the world reflected in his eyes was dyed red.
He could feel even the last specks of inner arts in his qi center scattering.
Unable to overcome that hollowness, Seonwoo Hyun's expression was stained with despair.
‘I swore I'd take revenge…….’
A drop of moisture—whether blood or tears, he could not tell—fell from his eye.
The pain of his qi center shattering was tremendous, but what truly tormented him was something else.
That though he had sworn revenge, it would end like this without his achieving anything.
His closing eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
“I'm… sorry, Father…….”
With that as his last, Seonwoo Hyun let go of the thread of consciousness.
***
Silence hung over Heaven's Barrier Cliff, where Seonwoo Hyun had fallen.
“…Still alive, is he?”
Looking at Seonwoo Hyun, who had lost consciousness but was still faintly breathing, the leader muttered.
He slowly raised his sword toward Seonwoo Hyun's neck.
However.
‘He is a brat I meant to throw off Heaven's Barrier Cliff anyway, so there is no need to spill blood and leave more traces.’
Shing.
Sheathing his sword again, he spoke to his subordinates:
“Throw this bastard down the gorge and clean up the area. Not a single trace must remain.”
“Yes.”
The assassins slowly approached the blood-soaked Seonwoo Hyun.
It was then.
Thoom.
As if someone had struck a drum hard, a heavy reverberation burst from deep within Seonwoo Hyun's body.
“……?”
The assassin approaching first stopped in his tracks.
At the same time, Seonwoo Hyun's fingertips trembled faintly.
THOOM! THOOM!
This time it was clearer.
And the next moment.
WHOOOOOSH—!
A red energy erupted explosively from Seonwoo Hyun's body, which had lain limp as if dead.
His blood-soaked clothes flapped as if about to tear, and the snow and dust around him shot up into the air in an instant.
Fwip-fwip-fwip!
The assassins instinctively backed away.
An inexplicable fear swept down their spines.
“Wh-what is that?!”
The leader shouted in bewilderment, but no one could answer.
The red energy writhed, coiling around Seonwoo Hyun's body like a living beast.
Seonwoo Hyun's hand, pressed against the ground, clawed at the earth.
WHOOOM—!
As Seonwoo Hyun's closed eyes snapped open, the red energy blasted out and stretched in all directions.
“…Grrrrr.”
Seonwoo Hyun slowly raised his blood-covered body.
The body was undoubtedly his.
But the pressure emanating from him was not of this world.
It was an energy the leader had never felt from any master he had ever faced.
Like an evil ghost crawling out of hell…….
That was how Seonwoo Hyun appeared in their eyes now.
Growling like a beast, Seonwoo Hyun slowly stepped toward the assassins.
“Th-this bastard…….”
At the tremendous energy engulfing the surroundings, the leader's voice trembled like an aspen leaf.
But forcibly suppressing his fear, he shouted at his subordinates:
“What are you standing around for?! Cut off his head! Right now!”
Coming to their senses, the assassins quickly raised their swords.
And following the leader, who took the lead, they charged at Seonwoo Hyun.
However.
CRUNCH—!
Seonwoo Hyun had merely swung his hand once.
But the red light gathered in that hand swept through all the assassins charging at him at once.
Blood and entrails flew through the air from the assassins' severed waists.
From the mouth of the leader, falling to the ground with only his upper body left, a thin sound leaked out.
“Im, impossi…….”
That was the end.
The assassins breathed their last without even realizing how they had been struck down.
“KRAAAAH!”
BOOM! BANG! BOOM!
Though the assassins had all become lumps of meat, Seonwoo Hyun's rampage showed no sign of stopping.
He went back down the path he had come up, smashing everything he saw around him at random.
Every time he stretched out his arm, spewing red energy, the mountain screamed.
Giant boulders blocking his way burst into pieces, and ancient trees that had stood with their roots driven firmly into the earth were snapped at the trunk and sent tumbling.
Every time he stamped his foot, the frozen earth overturned, and soil and snow surged up like waves.
CRUNCH—! BOOOOM—!
Once it began to rampage, the energy did not know how to subside.
Wherever he passed, the forest was crushed, and startled beasts fled without leaving even a shadow behind.
The blood that had been flowing from his body had also stopped at some point.
No, it had not merely stopped.
His torn skin was writhing as the wounds slowly closed.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
“KRAAAH!”
A roar tearing through the night sky, which had darkened before anyone knew it, echoed across Mount Tianzhu.
The strange cry Seonwoo Hyun let out was not a human voice, but the howl of a crazed beast.
At that sound, the entire mountain seemed to tremble.
It was then.
From somewhere, a cluster of white light flew in and descended before Seonwoo Hyun.
Shhhhh.
The cluster of light blocking his way brightly lit up the pitch-black mountain.
Within the light, so bright it stung the eyes, the form of something gradually emerged.
It was a woman.
As the cluster of light dimmed little by little, her figure was gradually revealed more clearly.
White robes embroidered with winter flowers.
And silver hair that seemed not of this world.
Even in the night air without a breath of wind, her long hair fluttered softly.
At last, the final light vanished completely.
Then the woman's face was finally revealed.
A face so beautiful that no words in the world could fully describe it.
But beyond that beauty, a mysterious and cold aura enveloped her whole body.
It was as if a being from another world, not human, had revealed itself.
Seonwoo Hyun was still emitting a red glow from his eyes.
But he shrank back as if crushed by the overwhelming presence flowing from the woman.
It was the first moment that he, who had been rampaging and destroying everything before him, grew docile.
The woman glared at Seonwoo Hyun with eyes like frost on the north wind and opened her mouth.
“Where did you come from, you fiend, that you dare destroy my mountain?”