CHAPTER: Chapter 8
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Chapter 8.
“Huu....”
A low sigh escaped him.
It was not resignation, nor was it fear.
It was the weary expression of annoyance and contempt toward the pitiful creatures standing before him.
To all appearances, the boy looked not merely sickly, but almost skeletal.
And yet the words that followed from his lips were mockery itself.
“With the likes of you?”
That single sentence was enough to light the fuse.
“You filthy little worm...!”
“You dare look down on the Sagal Muk Family? Have you gone mad from wanting to die?!”
The leader of the pack ground his teeth and snarled.
‘The Sagal Muk Family....’
One of the martial houses of the Demonic Cult, then?
Their pride was certainly considerable.
Uncheon decided to make use of that instead.
“Sagal Muk Family? I have never heard of it.”
“You mean to say you do not know the Twelve Guardian Families that protect this cult?!”
“Is it something I need to know?”
It seemed even the brats of the Sagal Muk Family had not expected such a reaction from Uncheon.
After all, they had always chosen suitable children from lesser martial lineages in the Hidden Demon Cave and tyrannized them at will.
But Uncheon had been dragged in from outside, so he knew nothing at all of the Demonic Cult’s organizations or hierarchy.
Left speechless, the Sagal Muk Family brats resorted to bluster.
“Y-You insolent bastard! We will carve terror into your body so that you never forget the Sagal Muk Family!”
The four boys spread out and surrounded Uncheon.
“Oh-ho... Sagal, was it? The Muk Family of Four Snarling Hounds?”
It was a deliberate taunt, twisting the “Sagal” of snake and scorpion into words meaning four growling dogs.
“How dare you!”
To the Sagal Muk Family, who took immense pride in being one of the Twelve Guardian Families within the Demonic Cult, it was an insult unlike anything they had ever heard.
All four released killing intent at once and closed in on Uncheon.
They were children of the “highest” caliber, selected from among thousands, and had been trained in martial arts for more than a decade since birth.
‘For their age... they are not bad.’
But that was all.
To Uncheon’s eyes, they were nothing more than clumsy movements swollen with force, lacking even the fundamentals.
‘The flow of my training was finally taking hold, and now it has been broken. I should finish this quickly and return to it.’
The leader charged first and shouted, “I will smash that arrogant nose of yours first!”
His fist flew straight toward Uncheon’s face with a sharp tearing sound through the air.
Uncheon remained standing where he was, as though nailed to the ground.
At the very moment everyone expected to see his face burst open—
SLIDE—.
Uncheon’s body drifted half a step to the side like a sheet of paper slipping through the air.
‘There is no need to move any more than this.’
The fist split empty air, and the fierce attack only collapsed its owner’s center of balance instead.
“What—!”
Then Uncheon merely hooked the boy’s staggering foot with a light touch.
That alone was enough.
Unable to overcome the force of his own charge, the boy tumbled noisily across the ground.
THUD-CRASH!
“Ghk!”
Even as he rolled over the floor, the leader never dreamed it had been Uncheon’s skill.
A muffled snicker sounded somewhere nearby.
That was enough to snap the last thread of his reason.
Humiliated by his fall, he vented his anger in the wrong direction.
“You idiots! Are you here to watch a show? What are you standing around for?! Get him!”
At his furious shout from the ground, the other three finally came to themselves and rushed in.
“You insolent bastard!”
Uncheon did not evade this time either.
Or rather, it did not even look as though he had evaded.
He merely shifted a single step with effortless calm.
Uncheon let the kick flying in from the right slide past him with no more than a slight movement of his upper body.
Then he gave it a light push outward.
The path of the kick changed.
That foot buried itself in the ribs of the companion on the opposite side, just as he was about to throw a punch.
“Urk! Why are you kicking me?!”
Struck in the side by his own ally out of nowhere, the trajectory of his punch twisted astray.
Uncheon lowered his head and stepped forward.
At the instant the fist swept past his face with a whoosh—he seized the attacker and pulled him as though snatching his wrist from the air.
And then—
“Oof!”
The extended fist shot far beyond its intended target.
The place it reached was the face of another companion rushing in from behind.
WHAM!
Like a perfectly staged comedy, the brats of the Sagal Muk Family beat one another in a ludicrous spectacle.
“Pfft! What in the world are those idiots even doing?”
Not once did their attacks so much as brush the hem of Uncheon’s clothes.
And yet he had responded with nothing but footwork.
It was, quite literally, footwork in which offense and defense were one.
The more desperately they moved, the more they collided with one another, entangled themselves, and threw their own formation into disarray.
And in the midst of it, Uncheon realized something remarkable.
The more he unfolded the footwork, the more the Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art responded. Rather than fatigue accumulating, his body was growing lighter instead.
Warmth began to circulate through his withered frame, and his joints grew supple, as though freshly oiled.
‘Using the two together produces an unexpected effect....’
A faint smile appeared at the corner of Uncheon’s lips.
‘Perhaps I should play with them a little longer.’
From that moment onward, he moved beyond mere evasion and began to control the entire field.
At his subtle movements, the boys obstructed one another’s paths and repeatedly stumbled over themselves.
The watching children began to doubt the ability of the Muk Family brats, one of the Twelve Guardian Families.
‘...The notorious Sagal Muk Family is being made into fools by some nobody we have never even heard of?’
‘They say they always tyrannize the newcomers to flaunt their strength whenever new entrants come in... and now they are the ones being toyed with.’
The leader who had brought the gang along was nearly going mad with frustration.
If he returned after doing nothing but making a fool of himself, Muk Hajin would beat him to pieces.
“You brainless fools! Get hold of yourselves and surround him! Deploy the Snake-Scorpion Formation!”
At his shout, the collapsed formation reorganized itself.
‘It is already four against one. If we retreat like this, we will only be left with humiliation... better to beat the bastard senseless so no one dares speak afterward! That is the way of the Sagal Muk Family!’
The four boys took up cunning positions like snakes and scorpions, completely sealing off Uncheon’s avenues of retreat.
Their formation, built through nearly ten years of accumulating internal energy and training together in coordination, might have belonged to mere boys, but it still exuded a pressure that could not be taken lightly.
A low murmur rose from among the onlookers.
The Sagal Muk Family’s coordinated joint assaults were rather well known.
‘And yet... to deploy a formation against a single opponent....’
‘That is just like the vicious Sagal Muk Family... He held out well on his own, but this is the end.’
That was what everyone thought.
Even Yayul Hui, who had already begun to sense something extraordinary in Uncheon, swallowed dryly.
‘Four... the Four Symbols. That is the perfect number for unfolding a basic formation. Will he be able to handle even this?’
And yet, when he faced the Snake-Scorpion Formation, Uncheon’s expression remained just as calm as ever.
‘A coordinated joint assault, is it? The shape is impressive enough... but once that one at the center collapses, the rest will crumble like a sandcastle.’
“Die!”
At the very instant the attacks of all four descended upon Uncheon like a single great wave,
he did not retreat. He stepped straight forward.
‘You cannot even control your own bodies properly, and yet you attempt a joint assault formation? They do not even understand the danger of it.’
With a step imbued with the mysteries of the Limitless Step, he cut straight into the very heart of the wave.
And then, with a single move.
Like flowing water, he merely swept out his hand once.
It was such an ordinary motion that it scarcely seemed worthy of being called a martial art.
But the result it produced was anything but ordinary.
TAP—.
The moment Uncheon struck aside the wrist of the one at the center of the formation, the entire flow twisted out of shape.
The venomous strikes aimed at him crashed into one another instead.
“Urk!”
“Aagh!”
Once the two vanguard attackers collided, everything afterward happened in swift succession.
CRASH—!
In a single instant, the four Muk Family brats became tangled together and rolled across the ground.
The Snake-Scorpion Formation collapsed utterly.
“Ugh... my arm...!”
“Aaagh! My leg!”
The attacks they had unleashed so mercilessly collided against one another instead.
Whether arms or legs had been broken, their agonized groans rang across the cold floor of the Hidden Demon Cave.
“H-How did he break the Snake-Scorpion Formation?”
With the core of their coordinated assault formation destroyed, all of their intended lines of movement had twisted out of shape.
Unable even to withdraw their attacks, they had merely continued along their predetermined paths and rushed to their own destruction.
“...The problem is not the formation. The problem is your level. If you wish to become strong, you would do better to devote yourselves to tempering yourselves rather than hiding behind your family or your pack.”
At those words, a laugh slipped from Yayul Hui before she could stop it.
And the mysterious boy leaning against a pillar and watching everything burst into loud laughter and mocked them.
“Ha ha, exactly so. To come at him with numbers and still make such a spectacle of yourselves! Before deploying a formation, you should improve your own abilities first.”
At that ridicule, the leader pinned beneath the others shouted furiously,
“Damn it! If only these worthless hangers-on had mastered the Snake-Scorpion Formation properly—!”
“What? Hangers-on? You are from a collateral branch too!”
“Hmph! I am not the same as trash like you. I... have been promised the main house’s martial art!”
“Then where in the world did Muk Wijin go?! He said the likes of us would be more than enough!”
Uncheon cast a single glance at them, all tangled together and shifting blame onto one another in such a disgraceful fashion, as though looking at insects, and turned away without a shred of regret.
‘So he used the promise of a family-transmitted martial art to control these fools. I thought their fundamentals were poor....’
With that, the commotion no longer had anything to do with Uncheon.
However, just as he was about to leave the stone chamber area—
“Wait.”
It was a low voice, yet one that carried a weight not to be defied.
Uncheon halted mid-step.
When he turned his head, he saw a man standing there with his arms folded, watching him with cold eyes.
‘I felt someone’s gaze, but to think it would be this one.’
He was the Head Instructor who had suffered humiliation after having his identification tag stolen by Uncheon during the evaluation of his frame, and a master of leg arts.
It was Head Instructor Ma Chung, Blood Wind Leg.
A complex tide of emotions surged in his eyes.
Seething anger toward the brat who had damaged his dignity.
Pure admiration for the footwork that had just unfolded before him.
And even greed toward the rough gem of overflowing talent.
‘He took that manual only three days ago. And in that time he has already comprehended the footwork to this extent?’
As a master of leg arts, Ma Chung was also deeply versed in footwork, and he could tell that Uncheon’s footwork had already reached a very considerable level.
‘That... was no mere luck. Perfect shifts of balance. He read not only the opponent’s strength and speed, but even their next line of movement, and redirected them with a difference of half a step.’
Ma Chung cast a sidelong glance at the groaning collateral-branch brats of the Muk Family sprawled across the floor, then fixed his gaze on Uncheon again.
With a jerk of his chin, he indicated a dark corridor.
“There are too many eyes here, so we will move elsewhere. Follow me.”
Uncheon did not object and simply followed after Ma Chung.
Only the sound of their footsteps echoed through the cool corridors of the Hidden Demon Cave.
Ma Chung led Uncheon to a small training chamber where few people ever came.
Once he shut the stone door, every sound from outside was cut off, leaving a space meant for the two of them alone.
“I will ask you this. Just what are you?”
Ma Chung’s voice was cold and sharp as ice.
“You toy with the Snake-Scorpion Formation with footwork you have trained for a mere three days? Leg arts and footwork are my specialty. Did you not conceal martial arts and enter this place?!”
Releasing his aura, Ma Chung pressed down on Uncheon.
“Was it not you yourself, Head Instructor, who directly judged my frame to be of the lowest grade? And now you say that I concealed martial arts?”
At Uncheon’s calm reply, Ma Chung had no choice but to acknowledge it inwardly.
‘No... at that time, the boy most certainly had not learned martial arts.’
Uncheon’s cool gaze seemed to pierce straight through Ma Chung’s thoughts.
“...Or perhaps do you bear some private grudge against me over the matter of the identification tag last time?”
Ma Chung’s face stiffened at once, having been struck squarely in his sore spot.
He let out a dry cough, forcibly regained his composure, and snapped, “Hmph, do not flatter yourself! I was merely surprised that your attainment in footwork was rather decent, that is all.”
“In that case, why did you summon me here separately?”
“Since you happened to choose footwork from the foundation library, I merely intended to give you instruction, as one who is a master of footwork and leg arts.”
It was a clumsy excuse improvised on the spot, but at the same time it was also a threat backed by the authority of a Head Instructor.
Uncheon immediately understood the meaning behind those words.
‘He wishes to teach me?’
Uncheon clicked his tongue inwardly, then suddenly thought of something and asked with a glint in his eyes,
“Could it be that, besides me, there are no children who chose footwork or leg arts?”
For an instant, Ma Chung’s brow twitched.
What Uncheon had said was correct.
“...That is right. Tch, and yet footwork may be called the foundation of all martial arts. Those brats do not even know its importance....”
He paused for a moment, then finally began to reveal his true intention.
“Well, as you know, I do not hold you in especially high regard. But... since you chose footwork, what can be done? Will you learn under me?”
Just as Head Instructor Ma Chung posed the question to Uncheon, an unexpected figure appeared in the training chamber like drifting smoke.
“Hold, Ma Chung. Wait. I, too, have business with that child.”
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