Unrivaled Spear Demon
Chapter 16 - The Staff Fiend (4)
A spear has what is called a sangmo.
It is a decoration made of long strings, animal fur, or paper, placed where the spearhead meets the shaft.
Of course, it is not merely for aesthetics; it is meant to prevent the blood flowing down the spearhead’s grooves from making the shaft slippery.
When Chui swung his black spear with force, its elasticity caused it to bend. With the sangmo spinning wildly, it was impossible for an enemy to predict the final point where the spearhead would land.
Countless masters had been sent wandering the Abyss as spirits of no return by this simple deceptive motion.
…However.
The Staff Fiend was different.
He was a man who had once been renowned as a master of the spear.
There was no way he wouldn't see through the technique Chui was using.
The Staff Fiend feigned being deceived by Chui’s maneuver.
The moment the bent shaft snapped back to its original form.
The moment the sangmo, which had been dazzling his eyes, settled down.
And the moment the tip of the spear exploded toward his neck.
In that fleeting instant when all three beats aligned perfectly.
The Staff Fiend pretended his hand slipped on the blood that had trickled down the handle of his staff, and he retreated slightly.
He lured the spear deep into his guard, then, a beat later, extended his staff to land a counter-blow.
…Krrrrk!
The Staff Fiend’s staff, laden with his full body weight, slid sideways on the blood and drove in just beneath the trajectory of the incoming spear.
Splat—!
A spray of blood and flesh erupted.
By a hair's breadth, the spear and the staff struck two different targets.
“…”
“…”
Chui’s spear had torn off the Staff Fiend’s entire left arm, up to the shoulder.
The Staff Fiend’s staff had smashed deep into Chui’s lower abdomen.
“I’ve won.”
The Staff Fiend chuckled, looking down at his own arm as it fell away below the bridge.
…Thud!
The staff was retrieved, and Chui pitched forward.
The counter had landed perfectly.
The Staff Fiend had merely lost his left arm, but all of Chui’s internal organs had been ruptured and torn.
In the end, the one left standing was the victor.
“I can’t believe it. How can a whelp who looks no older than fifteen possess such profound martial arts… Is he a creation of the Demonic Path?”
The Staff Fiend coughed, spitting out several mouthfuls of blood.
Just as he was about to raise his staff once more.
Rustle…
Chui pushed himself up.
Like a ghost.
“…?!”
The Staff Fiend’s eyes widened.
A glint of astonishment flickered in his solid white, pupil-less eyes.
“H-how did you get up?”
“…”
Chui said nothing.
Only then was the Staff Fiend able to break free from Chui’s overwhelming presence.
As his reason returned to some degree, he could observe his enemy’s condition objectively.
A living corpse.
Literally, a body with only a breath of life remaining.
Chui was standing in a state where it would not be strange for him to drop dead at any moment.
Perhaps he was holding on by sheer force of will alone.
The Staff Fiend was genuinely impressed.
Regardless of age or the depth of one’s martial arts, this was a spirit one could not help but acknowledge.
“What is it that raises you to your feet?”
The Staff Fiend asked Chui.
“Money? Pride? Fighting spirit? A promise? Friendship? Love? What is it that moves you?”
Then, Chui’s sealed lips parted.
“Fear.”
“…?”
The unexpected answer left the Staff Fiend speechless.
Chui continued.
“Do you know where you go when you die?”
He was seeing something other than the Staff Fiend before him.
Chui was now gazing into the inner world deep within his dantian.
A black pit. An eternal, bottomless abyss where only cold, darkness, and solitude existed.
And below, swarming like hungry ghosts, were the crimson Demonic Spirits.
They had long forgotten their dignity, majesty, and honor from when they were alive, and now simply howled like beasts.
He could see even the once-unflinching Jo Yang-ja, now whimpering like a dog in the depths of that abyss.
Chui spoke.
“When I think of becoming that after I die, I can’t bring myself to close my eyes.”
“Heheheh— What sort of nonsense are you seeing?”
The Staff Fiend forced a laugh.
But while the corners of his mouth turned up, the corners of his eyes did not.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Was it because his blood vessels were constricting?
The bleeding from the stump of his severed left arm stopped on its own.
‘Does that demon-like bastard have something to fear? After death?’
The Staff Fiend grew curious.
He wondered what kind of past the Chui before him could possibly have.
But it was a curiosity that could never be satisfied.
After all, one of them was going to die here.
Clang!
Once again, the staff and spear clashed.
The Staff Fiend swung his one remaining arm, bringing the staff down, and Chui barely managed to raise his spear to block it.
…Boom!
With a sound of tearing air, Chui was knocked backward.
The Staff Fiend pressed in close behind him.
He had no intention of giving Chui even a moment to recover.
“…”
Chui readjusted his grip on the spear.
Then, using only the weapon’s weight, he brought it down from above, as if throwing it.
There was no room to dodge left or right.
On the precariously swaying single-rope bridge, the Staff Fiend made his final gamble.
Swish—
Chui’s spear grazed the Staff Fiend’s one remaining hand.
For a moment, the voice of the old man he had met before attacking the Black Way Guild echoed in Chui’s ears.
‘It’s too short. It needs to be over one jang to be useful.’
‘You’d have to go to a military barracks for something like that. This is the longest one they have.’
It was short. By a minuscule margin.
Chui’s thrown spear had been aimed to sever the Staff Fiend’s wrist, but it had merely grazed it.
It was a misfortune born from the spear’s short length.
Thud— Thump—
Two fingers were shyly severed from the Staff Fiend’s right hand.
The index and middle fingers, which had been wrapped around the staff, were swallowed by the watery mist below the rope bridge.
But the Staff Fiend did not lose his grip on the staff.
…Grip!
The thumb, ring finger, and pinky. Three fingers coiled around the staff like a snake, tightening their hold.
With that grip, the Staff Fiend once again smashed the staff into Chui’s side.
Crack—!
He felt it.
The ribs were all broken.
Chui’s spear had taken two fingers from the Staff Fiend’s remaining hand, but the Staff Fiend’s staff had crushed every bone in Chui’s torso.
With his internal organs turned to pulp and his bones shattered, he would not be able to escape instant death this time.
…or so the Staff Fiend thought.
However,
“…Hmph?!”
Something strange happened.
The Staff Fiend felt his vision burn to black.
“Cough!”
Chui stood up, clutching the rope.
There were several spikes in his mouth.
Just before the clash, Chui had spat one of the spikes at the Staff Fiend’s eye.
Like a sharp toothpick lightly scraping the surface of a grain of rice, the spike had grazed the surface of the Staff Fiend’s right eyeball as it passed.
The eye is an incredibly delicate and fragile organ; even a scratch that only scrapes the outer surface of the cornea is enough to render it useless for a time.
Ptui—!
Chui spat out the rest of the spikes in his mouth along with a spray of blood.
“Ugh! You madman!”
The Staff Fiend retreated from the Chui before him.
He saw his opponent differently now.
When they first met, he was an interesting brat.
The second time, a prodigy he wanted to take as a disciple.
Until just a moment ago, a junior from the martial world he could call a worthy opponent.
But now. Now…
What words could possibly describe that thing, spewing crimson blood from its tattered body while scattering a spear and metal spikes?
The Staff Fiend took a step back without realizing it.
And before he could even register that fact, he shouted.
“S-stop! I said, stay back!”
A fated enemy. A natural predator.
The vague hope of growing old and dying peacefully in his bed was shattered to pieces at this very moment.
“You die here today.”
Chui’s words sounded like a verdict handed down from hell.
With the wisdom and experience of his long years, and his innate intuition, the Staff Fiend foresaw that Chui’s words would soon become reality.
But the survival instinct, the strongest instinct inherent in any living creature, desperately tried to deny that fact.
“Aaargh!”
The Staff Fiend swung his staff.
He charged at Chui, paying no mind to the metal spikes embedding themselves in his forehead, eyes, chest, and shoulders.
At that moment, Chui took off his clothes.
Fwoosh—!
The tattered garment was whipped around, catching the tip of the Staff Fiend’s staff.
The instant the staff’s trajectory was slightly altered.
“Die, you demon!”
The Staff Fiend let go of his staff.
A desperate throw of his staff, chosen as a last resort.
But the strategy was effective.
Chui tried to alter his spear’s attack trajectory to block the staff, but he hadn't anticipated his opponent would throw it, and his response was too slow.
Whoosh!
Chui’s spear cut through the empty air and vanished uselessly into the mist beyond.
And the staff struck Chui’s head before embedding itself deep into the cliffside.
“Hah… Hahahahahaha!”
The Staff Fiend laughed.
He laughed like a madman, baring his blood-stained teeth.
He’d won. He had won now. He had truly won.
Even that insanely tenacious demon would not be able to revive this time.
Behold, the proof. The demon had fallen. He had collapsed, clutching his head.
“Khahahahahahaha! That’s right! Just sit right there! I’ll beat you to death in a single strike!”
The Staff Fiend raised his one remaining hand.
Though only three fingers remained, there was no reason he couldn’t beat to death a man who was barely clinging to life.
The Staff Fiend let out a crazed laugh and charged toward Chui.
…No, he tried to charge.
“Huh?!”
The Staff Fiend, who had been rushing forward to deliver the final blow, stopped in his tracks.
His one remaining eye flew wide open.
Something was wrong.
Chui was running away.
Chui was clearly sitting down, clutching his head, and yet, he was rapidly moving away backward.
Even at this very moment, he was fleeing from him at an incredible speed.
“What…?!”
The Staff Fiend quickly regained his senses.
And he understood the situation.
The bridge had been cut.
The spear Chui had thrown at the end had severed the last rope of the precariously swaying bridge.
And so, the bridge that had connected the two cliffs split in two, each half plummeting in its own direction.
As it happened, Chui and the Staff Fiend were on the ends of the two separating sections.
“Kgh!”
The Staff Fiend had to admit it.
For now, it was wiser to seek his own survival than to try and take his enemy's life.
In this state, Chui couldn't escape anyway.
He would fall helplessly to his death with the collapsing bridge.
The Staff Fiend provisionally considered himself the victor of this battle.
So he hurriedly turned and began to run, leaping across the planks of the falling bridge toward the opposite cliff.
…In that very instant.
Shiver—
Instinct once again sent a prickling chill up the nape of his neck.
But reason kept the Staff Fiend’s face fixed forward.
‘Surely not.’
Who in this world would try to attack a fleeing opponent while the very bridge they stood on was splitting in two?
From a common-sense perspective, it was absurd.
…but was that madman he had been fighting a being that could be explained by common sense?
The Staff Fiend ran.
And leaping off the planks of the plummeting bridge, he brought the opposite cliff’s edge within reach.
At that point, the Staff Fiend spent the sliver of leeway he had just barely gained on the motion of turning his head.
He turned his head to see what was behind him.
Thanks to that act of courage, the Staff Fiend was able to gain one advantage.
The fact that he could see with his own two eyes exactly what was killing him.
“…!”
What the Staff Fiend saw when he turned his head was a spear.
The spear Chui had thrown into the air.
Wrapped in silken threads, it emerged from beyond the mist and lightly poked the Staff Fiend’s forehead.
Poke—
The skin in the center of his forehead peeled back slightly, blood welling up in tiny droplets.
The entire sequence of events seemed to unfold in slow motion.
The Staff Fiend turned his eyes, which had glanced upward, back to the front.
Only then did it come into view.
The falling bridge, the footing-less mist, the empty void.
And suspended there, Chui’s blood-red gaze, staring right at him.
‘I thought he was a ghost… but he was a man.’
His expressionless face, completely unchanged from when they had first met before the fight began.
“Ah.”
The Staff Fiend opened his mouth.
“I thought he was a man….”
But he could not finish the thought.
For Chui’s spear, which had begun by lightly piercing the skin of his forehead,
CRACK-KRAKRAKRAKRAK!
had shattered the Staff Fiend’s skull and pierced straight through to the cliff beyond.
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