Chương 42: Flashpoint

The makeshift wedge cut through the turbulent sea of bodies like the prow of a ship. By placing herself in front of the small formation, Chae-ha had solved the flaw with how her techniques interacted with a melee. Thanks to the burly Tai-shan swordsmen acting as her escorts, shielding her flanks and rear from stray elbows and blind collisions, she only had to worry about the threats directly in front of her. And when her enemies were forced to attack her directly, her Phantom Steps worked.

A Meng-shan soldier thrust his spear straight at her heart, but Chae-ha didn't flinch. She completed the rest of her choreographed motion with a sharp pivot on her heel, the oversized jade panels of her scholar's robes flaring out to distort her silhouette. The iron spear tip sailed cleanly past her ribs, missing her actual body and leaving the attacker overextended.

Before the soldier could pull his weapon back, Chae-ha spun and used her leather patch in her palm to drive a needle straight into his arm, slightly below the elbow. The trocar tip bit into bone." Geun-maek-jeom," Chae-ha intoned.

"Tendon Pin: Bicipitis Brachii." The man tried to pull his arm back, panicking visibly when he found he could not. With a jerk he tried again, only to let out a howl of pain as the tendon that controlled his arm began to tear itself in half along its length. The spear clattered out of his hand and onto the ground, making him an easy target for her escorts to clean up. Step by step, the group advanced across the swirling melee, growing ever closer to the Young Master. The gap closed to ten paces. Then eight.

But Mu-cheon was a localized hurricane, completely focused on the carnage in front of him. Just as Chae-ha drew near enough to see the sweat and blood plastered to the back of his neck, he let out another deafening, booming war cry and hacked his way even deeper into a fresh pocket of purple banners. Chae-ha gritted her teeth in frustration but continued following him. Nine paces. Eight paces. Six. They were growing agonizingly close.

But as she took yet another step forwards, a sudden shift in the crowd caught her eye. A tight cluster of Meng-shan spearmen was pushing its way aggressively through the fray, heading directly towards her small wedge. Their eyes were locked onto Chae-ha, their expressions cold, focused, and carrying exceptionally bad intentions. The spearmen closed the distance in a rush, completely ignoring the swordsmen on her flanks.

They fanned out and struck at her as a unit, their iron-tipped weapons taking turns plunging towards her position at the center of the wedge. Chae-ha twisted her body as quickly as she could, her heart beating so fast it felt like it might explode. Multiple, coordinated attackers weren't something she was prepared for. To make matters worse, these spearmen weren't just blindly trying to run her through, like all the others.

Although they made a few feints towards her torso, they ultimately kept swinging at her legs. The young Inspector danced backwards, her illusions collapsing as her footwork was cut off, leaving her vulnerable. Her mouth went dry. She was only four paces away from Mu-cheon, but the small gap felt like a canyon. Recognizing the imminent collapse of their formation, the two Tai-shan escorts on either side of her roared and surged forwards. They engaged the spearmen who were attacking her, but they were outnumbered.

One of her allies sank to his knees, multiple spears piercing his chest. But his life bought her a few precious moments. Chae-ha didn't waste the opening. She dropped her bookbinding needle, cupped her mud-stained hands around her mouth, drew air deep into her lungs, and screamed with absolutely everything she had.

"SENIOR BROTHER!" Mu-cheon blinked as a voice cut through the haze of battle. His Dae-jik-do was buried in the shoulder of the man in front of him, so the Young Master planted a giant boot in the middle of the spearman's chest and kicked him away, whipping his head around immediately after.

"Little sister?! What are you doing here?" The sight before him made his heart stop. Only a few paces away, Chae-ha was being beset by multiple attackers. He tried to push his way towards them, but two of his own men were blocking his path. Mu-cheon watched in disbelief as one spearman stabbed at her and missed, accidentally pinning one of her silk panels to the ground in the process. Another one swung low and wide as she stumbled, knocking her off her feet.

Yet another thrust the tip of his spear straight towards her stomach as she fell. Although she was able to twist her body a little in the air, the deadly iron tip still pierced through the veil of emerald silk all around her and buried itself in her midsection. When the man wrenched the weapon free and drew it back, its tip was covered in blood. Her body hit the ground with a dull thud, a dark stain steadily seeping out of her side and into the silk.

From that moment on, the Young Master could only see one color: red. In an instant, the two men blocking him were flung aside with total disregard for their safety. Mu-cheon bellowed like an animal in extreme pain, the primal roar deafening allies and enemies alike, as he descended on the group of Meng-shan spearmen in a berserk fury. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Muscling his blade straight through a spear shaft, he decapitated one of the men before cleaving another one in half. The brutish strikes left behind ugly, jagged rips covered with dangling bits of flesh – the natural result of taking a dull piece of iron and brute-forcing it through a body. Blood, bile, and torn pieces of organs sprayed everywhere. The third man tried to run, but one of the Tai-shan swordsmen who had been escorting Chae-ha cut off his escape.

He died the moment Mu-cheon's sword entered his heart from behind. But the fact that the man was already dead did not stop the enraged Young Master from continuing to hack away at him. Back on the edge of the road, the air itself was boiling. The Meng-shan High Elder almost disappeared as he rushed forwards, leaving behind a trailing hiss of superheated steam. He stormed directly into Tae-seok's guard, his huge Wol-do already whistling towards the veteran's neck in a horizontal blur.

Unfazed, Tae-seok leaned his body back. The crescent blade of the weighty glaive came close enough to clip the ends of the retired general's beard, but the small movement caused it to miss his flesh. Furious, the High Elder twisted his wrists, turning the missed slash into a savage, downwards chop aimed squarely at Tae-seok's collar. The speed was unnatural; there was no time to raise a sword to block it. Needing to escape, the Tai-shan veteran expelled a sharp burst of pressure from his knees.

The unleashed kinetic energy slid him backwards across the gravel and mud, re-establishing distance. The High Elder's huge blade cratered uselessly into the earth where Tae-seok had been standing a single breath before. The Meng-shan elder roared, his skin slowly turning an ever more extreme shade of red. He wrenched his weapon free from the earth and immediately surged forwards again to press the attack.

Tae-seok followed the man's motion with his weapon, allowing the heavy tip of his Cham-ma-do to drop itself into place. As the High Elder tried to pivot and lunge into what he thought was a blind spot, the rampaging steam-beast suddenly found himself staring directly at the point of Tae-seok's oversized sword. He let out a choked curse, abruptly aborting his own charge and trying desperately to avoid impaling himself. As the duel continued, the dynamic between the two fighters became clearer and clearer.

The High Elder was a raging river, unleashing a seemingly endless torrent of sweeping cuts and thrusts. But Tae-seok was a stone, standing firm and splitting the current. He refused to be swallowed up by his opponent's frantic pace. Despite the High Elder's initial momentum and the obvious differences in speed and power, the tide of the duel was slowly, inevitably shifting. The Meng-shan warrior found himself being pushed back.

Every time he lunged, Tae-seok's Cham-ma-do was waiting for him, thrusting precisely into the gaps of his guard. The veteran's blade always seemed to somehow find the least convenient place it could possibly be, forcing the High Elder to abort his attacks and furiously parry to save his own life. And all the while, the metabolic technique he was using was taking its toll. The High Elder's skin had turned a horrific shade of violet-red.

Sweat couldn't even accumulate on his forehead; the moment moisture left his pores, it flashed almost instantly into steam. His breathing grew labored as his body rapidly cannibalized its own water reserves. His lips were splitting and cracking, and his eyes had grown dark and sunken in their sockets. Seeing his opponent beginning to wear down, Tae-seok went on the offensive. He released a burst of pressure from his leading foot, rocketing forwards to slip inside the arc of the man's Wol-do.

The veteran's Cham-ma-do flashed upwards in a carefully controlled, diagonal slash. The sharp steel of the weapon bit deeply into the High Elder's chest, ripping a massive gash across his torso from hip to collar. Blood erupted from the wound and sprayed out across the road. Tae-seok had seen many men bleed out entirely from similar injuries. But as quickly as it had begun, the bleeding stopped. The blood coagulated at an alarming rate, burying the wound in a thick, unnatural crust.

The High Elder barely paused as he absorbed the blow. He used the moment of surprise to step back into Tae-seok's guard, a victorious, manic glint in his sunken eyes. The Meng-shan warrior unhinged his jaw and exhaled. A blinding, deafening blast of superheated, boiling steam erupted directly into Tae-seok's face. The retired general's instincts were the only thing that saved him. Without hesitation, Tae-seok engaged the second mnemonic of the Chuk-ap-gyeol.

He forcefully opened the Danzhong point at the center of his chest, allowing his body to explosively depressurize. BOOM. A concussive shockwave of compressed air rippled outwards. The blast hit the High Elder like a battering ram, launching the Meng-shan warrior backwards and causing the remainder of his exhalation to scatter harmlessly in the air. Tae-seok stumbled back a step, coughing and in pain.

The entire left side of his face was a raw, blistering red from exposure to the boiling steam, and his left eyebrow was completely gone. He kept one eye closed, although his grip on his sword never wavered. A dozen paces away, the High Elder crashed heavily into the mud. He rolled to a stop right next to the saddlebags of his bisected warhorse. The steam had stopped rising from his body, and the violet-red hue had faded from his skin, replaced by a sickly, exhausted pallor.

He looked like an old, terribly dehydrated man. Tae-seok rested his Cham-ma-do over his shoulder and began a slow, measured walk towards the fallen elder, his injured eye still closed.

"Metabolic acceleration is a terrifying art," Tae-seok called out, his voice raspy but calm.

"But it looks like your furnace has finally run out of fuel. It's time I finished this." The High Elder let out a dry, rattling chuckle. His cracked lips split further, bleeding down his chin as he reached his hands into the ruined saddlebag beside him.

"You Tai-shan are all the same," the High Elder wheezed.

"So arrogant. So sure of your superiority." He pulled his hands from the bag. Clutched in one palm was a waterskin. In the other was a thick, yellow block of rendered animal fat, easily the size of a man's fist.

"Thousand Beast Tallow," the man grinned, his teeth stained with blood. Before Tae-seok could close the remaining distance, the High Elder took a huge swig from the flask and then shoved the massive block of raw, rendered fat directly into his mouth, his throat bulging as he swallowed it all in a single, grotesque gulp. The reaction was immediate. The sickly pallor vanished, replaced by a fresh, surging flush of crimson.

The water in the mud around the High Elder's boots began to bubble and hiss as the terrifying heat rushed back into his extremities. Steam began to pour from his mouth with every breath. Still kneeling in the mud, the High Elder reached back into the saddlebag. He pulled out a second, identical block of rendered fat, and took another swig from the waterskin. Then he looked up at Tae-seok, his sunken eyes burning with renewed energy.

"Don't be so quick to count me out, old man," the High Elder hissed, steam curling around his lips.

"I'm just getting started. And it's a lot harder to block with only one eye."