16 – Staff Demon (4)

A spear has something called a tassel.

At the point where the spearhead and shaft meet, it is decorated with long cords, animal hair, paper, and the like.

Of course, it is not merely for appearance; it exists to prevent blood that runs down the blood groove of the spearhead from soaking the shaft and making it slippery.

When Chui swings his black spear with force, the shaft bends elastically, and if the tassel is spinning along with it, the enemy cannot predict where the spearhead will ultimately strike.

Because of this simple feint, countless masters had become travelers who never returned, doomed to wander the Yellow Springs.

…However.

Gonggui was different.

He was once a man famed as a grandmaster of spear techniques.

There was no way he had failed to see through the methods Chui was using.

Gonggui deliberately pretended to fall for Chui’s feint.

The moment the bent shaft snapped back into place.

The moment the tassel that had been dizzyingly spinning settled down.

And the moment the tip of the spear burst forth toward his neck.

In that split second when all three beats aligned perfectly—

Gonggui feigned that his hand slipped on the blood that had run down beneath the handle of his staff, and he retreated slightly.

Then, luring the spear deep into his guard, he extended his staff a beat later and struck back.

…Kirik!

The staff, weighted with Gonggui’s body, slid sideways on the blood and burrowed in just beneath the trajectory of the incoming spear.

Pu—uk!

Fresh blood and chunks of flesh sprayed into the air.

By a hair’s breadth, the spear and the staff struck different targets.

“…”

“…”

Chui’s spear severed Gonggui’s left arm completely, up to the shoulder.

Gonggui’s staff drove deep into Chui’s lower abdomen.

“I’ve won.”

Gonggui chuckled hollowly as he looked down at his arm rolling away beneath his legs.

…Thud!

The staff was withdrawn, and Chui collapsed forward.

The counterstrike had landed cleanly.

Gonggui had merely lost his left arm, but Chui’s internal organs were ruptured and torn to shreds.

In the end, the one still standing was the victor.

“I can’t believe it. How can a child who doesn’t even look fifteen possess such formidable martial arts… Was he raised by the Demonic Path?”

Coughing, Gonggui spat out several mouthfuls of blood.

And just as he was about to raise his staff once more—

Rustle…

Chui stood up.

Like a ghost.

“…!?”

Gonggui’s eyes flew wide open.

A flicker of shock glimmered in those pupil-less, pure-white eyes.

“H-how are you standing?”

“…”

Chui did not answer.

Only then was Gonggui freed from Chui’s oppressive presence.

As his reason partially returned, he was able to observe his enemy’s condition objectively.

A walking corpse.

Quite literally, a body sustained by nothing but breath.

Chui stood there in a state where death at any moment would not have been strange.

Perhaps he was relying solely on sheer willpower.

Gonggui was sincerely impressed.

Regardless of age or martial prowess, was this not a spirit that demanded recognition?

“What is it that makes you stand?”

Gonggui asked Chui.

“Money? Pride? Fighting spirit? A promise? Friendship? Love? What is it that drives you?”

At that, Chui’s tightly shut mouth opened.

“Fear.”

“…?”

Gonggui was left speechless by the unexpected answer.

Chui continued.

“Do you know where you go after you die?”

Before his eyes was no longer Gonggui, but something else.

Chui was peering into the mental world deep within his dantian.

A black abyss. An eternal bottomless pit where only cold, darkness, and solitude existed.

At its depths writhed crimson spear wraiths like starving demons.

They had forgotten all dignity, authority, and pride from their lives, wailing like beasts.

Even Joyangja, once so upright, could be seen howling like a dog in the deep layers below.

Chui spoke.

“When I think about becoming like that after death, I can’t close my eyes.”

“Heh heh heh—what kind of delusion are you seeing?”

Gonggui forced a laugh.

But while the corners of his mouth rose, the corners of his eyes did not.

A chill ran through him.

Was it because his blood vessels were constricting?

Blood stopped flowing on its own from the stump of his severed left arm.

‘Does even this yaksha-like fellow have something to fear? After death?’

Gonggui found himself curious.

What kind of past this Chui might have.

But it was a curiosity that could never be satisfied.

After all, one of them would die here today.

Clang!

Once again, staff and spear collided.

Gonggui swung his remaining arm and brought the staff crashing down, while Chui barely raised his spear to block it.

…Boom!

With a thunderous impact, Chui was pushed backward.

Gonggui pressed in close, giving him no time to recover.

“…”

Chui adjusted his grip on the spear.

Then, using only the weight of the spear itself, he hurled it downward from above, as if throwing it.

There was no space to dodge left or right.

On the precariously swaying rope bridge, Gonggui played his final trump card.

Slice—

Chui’s spear grazed Gonggui’s remaining hand.

In that instant, a voice from the old man he had met before raiding the Black Knife Gang echoed in Chui’s ear.

‘Too short. It has to be over one jang.’

‘You’d only find something like that in the army. This is the longest there is.’

It was short. Just barely.

Chui had meant for the thrown spear to sever Gonggui’s wrist, but it merely grazed past.

Misfortune born of a spear that was too short.

Drip—thud—

Two fingers were shyly severed from Gonggui’s right hand.

The index and middle fingers that had been wrapped around the staff were swallowed by the mist beneath the rope bridge.

But Gonggui did not let go of the staff he was holding.

…Crunch!

The thumb, ring finger, and little finger—three fingers—coiled around the staff like a snake and clenched it tightly.

With that grip, Gonggui slammed the staff once more into Chui’s side.

Crack!

He felt it.

Every rib had shattered.

Chui’s spear had taken two more fingers from Gonggui’s remaining hand, but Gonggui’s staff had crushed every bone in Chui’s torso.

With his organs devastated and bones completely destroyed, this time he would not escape instant death.

So Gonggui thought.

However—

“…Mm!?”

Something unexpected happened.

Gonggui felt his vision burning black.

“Cough!”

Chui stood up, gripping the rope.

Several caltrops were clenched in his mouth.

Just before the clash, Chui had spat one caltrop toward Gonggui’s eyes.

Like shaving the surface of a grain of rice ever so slightly with a sharp toothpick, the caltrop barely scraped the surface of Gonggui’s right eyeball as it passed.

The eye is an exceedingly delicate and fragile organ; even a superficial scratch to the cornea is enough to render it useless for a while.

Spit!

Chui spat out the remaining caltrops along with blood.

“Ugh! You crazy bastard!”

Gonggui retreated from Chui.

Now the opponent before him looked different.

When they first met, he had been an interesting brat.

The second time, a talent worthy of becoming a disciple.

Until just moments ago, a junior of the martial world who could be called a worthy rival.

But now. Now…

What was that thing, spraying crimson blood from a tattered body, scattering spears and caltrops?

Gonggui unconsciously stepped backward.

And before he could even register that fact, he shouted,

“S-stop! Don’t come any closer!”

The enemy of the Imja year. A natural predator.

His vague hope of lying comfortably in bed and dying of old age shattered completely at that moment.

“You will die here today.”

Chui’s words sounded like a verdict descending from hell.

Through long years of experience and instinct, Gonggui foresaw that Chui’s words would soon become reality.

But the strongest instinct of any living being—the desire to survive—was desperately rejecting that truth.

“Aaaaargh!”

Gonggui swung his staff.

Ignoring the caltrops embedding themselves into his forehead, eyes, chest, and shoulders, he charged at Chui.

At that moment, Chui took off his clothes.

Wham!

The ragged garment whipped through the air and caught the tip of Gonggui’s staff.

The instant the staff’s trajectory twisted ever so slightly—

“Die! Demon!”

Gonggui released the staff.

A thrown staff, his final gambit.

And the strategy worked.

Chui tried to adjust the trajectory of his spear to block it, but he had not anticipated that Gonggui would throw the staff, and his response was delayed.

Whoosh!

Chui’s spear cut through empty air and vanished uselessly beyond the mist.

The staff struck Chui’s head and then embedded itself deeply into the cliffside.

“Huh… hahahahahaha!”

Gonggui laughed.

Bararing bloodstained teeth, he laughed like a madman.

He had won. Now he had truly won.

That tenacious fiend would never rise again.

Look—there was the proof. The demon had fallen, clutching his head and slumping down.

“Kahahahahaha! Yes! Stay right there! I’ll beat you to death from one jang away!”

Gonggui raised his remaining hand.

Though only three fingers remained, there was no reason he could not beat to death a man who had barely escaped becoming a corpse.

Laughing maniacally, Gonggui charged toward Chui.

…No, he tried to.

“Huh!?”

Just as he rushed forward to deliver the final blow, Gonggui stopped.

His remaining eye widened.

Something was wrong.

Chui was retreating.

He was clearly slumped down clutching his head, and yet he was rapidly moving farther away.

Even now, he was fleeing from Gonggui at tremendous speed.

“What…!?”

Gonggui quickly regained his composure.

And then he grasped the situation.

The bridge was severed.

The spear Chui had thrown at the end had cut the final rope of the precariously swaying rope bridge.

The bridge connecting the two cliffs had split in two, each half falling toward its respective side.

By coincidence, Chui and Gonggui stood at opposite ends of the dividing bridge.

“Tch!”

Gonggui had to admit it.

Right now, seeking his own survival was wiser than finishing off his enemy.

In any case, Chui could not escape in that condition.

He would fall helplessly with the collapsing bridge and die beneath the cliff.

Gonggui tentatively recognized himself as the victor of this battle.

So he hurriedly turned his body and began leaping across the falling planks toward the opposite cliff.

…At that very moment.

A chill—

Instinct once again sent shivers up the back of Gonggui’s neck.

But reason kept his face fixed straight ahead.

‘No way.’

With the bridge breaking apart on both sides, who in the world would turn around to attack an enemy who was fleeing?

By common sense, it was impossible.

…However.

Had that madman he had been fighting all this time ever been explainable by common sense?

Gonggui ran.

Stepping on the falling planks, he leapt and brought the opposite cliff within reach.

At that point, Gonggui spent the small margin of safety he had barely gained on turning his head.

He turned and looked back at what was behind him.

Because he mustered that courage, Gonggui gained one thing.

The chance to see, with his own eyes, what would kill him.

“…!”

What Gonggui saw when he turned his head was a spear.

The spear Chui had thrown into the air.

Entwined with silken threads, it emerged from beyond the mist and lightly pricked Gonggui’s forehead.

Tap—

The skin at the center of his forehead peeled slightly, blood beading out drop by drop.

The entire sequence appeared to unfold in slow motion.

Gonggui turned his eyes, which had been looking upward, back to the front.

Only then did he see it.

The falling bridge, the mist with nowhere to stand, the empty void.

And floating there, looking this way, Chui’s blood-red gaze.

‘I thought he was a ghost…’

That expressionless face, no different from when they had first met before the fight began.

“…Ah.”

Gonggui opened his mouth.

‘I thought he was a human…’

But he could not finish speaking.

Because the spear that had begun by lightly pricking the skin of his forehead—

Kraaaash!

—shattered Gonggui’s skull, pierced through it, and slammed all the way into the cliff beyond.

 

[T/N: Read 30+ advanced chapters on https://www.patreon.com/c/Virion_Arvallost

This novel is at high risk of receiving strikes from publishers. The other group that started translating this novel has already removed it from their site. So, I suggest you all read the chapters quickly before they are removed again. Please support our Patreon and the original author if you can. Those of you who can, read from the original site to support the original author.]