The Gap
"That's my line to ask. Where did an opium smuggler learn an internal cultivation method?"
I tossed the question back at him with the same easy air as some louche saber-slinger who had his blade slung over one shoulder.
Inside, though, I let out a quiet breath of relief.
I had almost ended up as mountain beasts' dinner right there.
Pyo Hol-deuk was good enough to fight Bok Ha-gyu on roughly equal terms, even to land a decisive cut if the opening came.
Of course, real combat wasn't a sparring match. Skill alone didn't decide the winner.
Every sort of trickery and filthy method flew around in a fight, and more than once absurd bad luck or blind fortune produced the ugly result of a master losing to an inferior opponent.
Since learning all the way through the latter eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique, I'd made decent progress. After carefully studying Pyo Hol-deuk's swordsmanship, I judged that I wouldn't lose.
If it came to it, I was prepared to use my internal energy.
Pyo Hol-deuk was alone while fleeing, and I was alone on the chase, so there was no one watching anyway.
It was blood-deep internal energy, sure, but if I had any chance of meeting Jeok Chu-yeong, this wasn't the time to be stingy with it.
I hadn't expected Pyo Hol-deuk to know how to use internal energy either.
The fact that he hadn't run far and had been waiting for me on a clearing halfway up the mountain suggested he had the same idea.
He meant to use his internal energy to kill me, then hurry back and ambush Bok Ha-gyu and the others.
He had come all the way out here looking for opium. There was no way he'd give up that easily.
"A master who can use internal energy and still ends up as an opium smuggler? I don't know what sect you come from, but that's pathetic."
I didn't actually expect an answer.
I was just buying time so I could push a little more internal energy through my channels.
My half-hearted taunt worked better than expected; Pyo Hol-deuk's face twitched.
"The martial lineage of Mount Tian. Not something trash like you has any right to belittle."
"...A demonic cultist?"
I was dumbstruck by that identity, of all things.
Thinking about it, it finally made sense. No wonder all three of them had been so strong.
"So you know nothing about Mount Tian either. Right. That's how it is with Central Plains dogs."
Pyo Hol-deuk lowered his stance and drew his sword.
"Hold on. Is Explosive Heat Fist Monk still alive?"
"Go ask him in hell."
Pyo Hol-deuk's eyes flashed as he lunged. He was quick enough to bring a tiger or leopard to mind.
Internal energy didn't just make you faster and stronger. It sharpened the eyes as well, in step with the body's speed.
Tracking his movements and the path of his blade with my eyes, I raised my saber overhead. I swept it in a wide half-circle, pouring my weight into a long horizontal slash.
Right before my blade should have cut apart his thrust from below, Pyo Hol-deuk dropped one knee and twisted his wrist.
The sword tip flattened sideways, and my saber sliced through empty air.
I didn't stop. I stepped through my footwork and slipped to Pyo Hol-deuk's left flank, turning my body once around.
In an instant I'd taken the blind side and drove the saber in.
Pyo Hol-deuk didn't retreat. He leaned back and struck my blade aside with his sword, scattering the line of attack as he countered.
A battle fought with internal energy had an incredible sense of speed.
The force riding the weapons was heavy as well, and every time blade met blade, the metallic ring cracked through the air.
To the eyes of martial artists who didn't know internal energy, how did the fight between Pyo Hol-deuk and me look?
Probably like a life-and-death struggle so fast you could barely follow it, enough to leave your mouth hanging open.
No wonder martial artists went insane and threw themselves at internal cultivation methods.
Using internal energy had evened the conditions, but Pyo Hol-deuk was still a difficult opponent.
He was the man who had killed an inspector with a single stab from behind. In his fight with Bok Ha-gyu, he'd never once been at a disadvantage.
I had my own share of hard years and blood-soaked experience, but I couldn't imagine what the hell this bastard had gone through in Mount Tian to make his sword so filthy.
Won Seo-gang's swordsmanship was tricky enough as it was, but this maddened bastard's sword was so rotten Buddha himself would have gone cross-eyed at the sight of it.
He pressed so fiercely that I couldn't find the tiniest opening for a punch or kick.
Every time our weapons crashed together in a brutal exchange, another handful of my internal energy went flying.
I had only been training for a short time, so my efficiency wasn't good, but the rate of consumption was cold enough to make my spine prickle.
This was a different world from simply feeding internal energy into forms while practicing saber techniques.
I could understand why Pyo Hol-deuk was attacking so desperately. I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible too, if only to conserve my own energy.
"Haaah!"
Pyo Hol-deuk roared and unleashed a savage barrage of thrusts.
Just how much internal energy he had packed into them was frightening; the speed and force of each stab were monstrous.
It was a storm of sword strikes so overwhelming I could barely parry and defend, much less counterattack.
As I fought desperately and gave ground, my left shoulder burned hot.
Having drawn blood, Pyo Hol-deuk surged forward with even greater momentum.
He was older than I was, which meant he'd spent far longer cultivating internal energy.
That meant the density and depth of his energy, and the efficiency with which he manipulated it, were both a tier above mine.
I wanted to hurry, but I couldn't draw out any more internal energy here. Even now I was circulating it at the maximum level I normally used.
If I forced it too hard and sent my blood and qi into reverse flow, it would be over.
So I stayed calm, knocking aside his sword and holding firm while I waited for a chance to counter.
Fortunately, like a downpour easing after it has passed, Pyo Hol-deuk's momentum finally faltered.
I tilted my head, sensing that his blade had grown dull.
He was late. His reactions were late. Even his movements were late.
The meaning of that realization shot a shiver from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.
His internal energy was gone... and that in barely over thirty exchanges.
That terrifying flurry he had just thrown at me must have been a gamble to dump everything he had left into one last decisive strike.
I had spent a lot of internal energy too, but I still had about half left.
Pyo Hol-deuk hadn't used internal energy down below. He'd already landed a cut on Bok Ha-gyu, so there'd been no reason to waste any.
Internal energy was spent once and gone. To replenish it, you'd have to get your hands on precious spiritual herbs. If possible, it was better not to use it at all.
Even after I and Geuk-hwan had intervened and driven him into a corner, he'd chosen flight over internal energy. Now I thought I understood why.
He simply didn't have much of it to begin with.
If he could use internal energy to carve through his opponent in one stroke, good for him.
But if either I or Geuk-hwan could use it, the fight would have dragged on the way it had now. And once he ran dry, there would be no answer.
He'd judged he couldn't bear that risk and backed into the mountains first.
I drew a deep breath, widened my eyes, and stared at Pyo Hol-deuk.
Now it was my turn.
I kicked off the ground and charged without hesitation.
Pyo Hol-deuk's face, still clenched in resistance, darkened with despair.
To finish him, I drove in with a lightning-fast strike.
Backing away, Pyo Hol-deuk fought with all his might to stick the sword tip against the blade and twist the line of attack.
It was an exquisite technique, but overwhelmed by the speed and force behind my blow, it failed to show its full power.
I shook loose his defense and brought the saber down in a sweeping cut from left to right.
Pyo Hol-deuk leapt aside just barely in time, then went for my lower body. He kicked off the ground and sprang upward, drawing the saber from above down toward me.
Pyo Hol-deuk went pale and rolled frantically across the ground.
When Pyo Hol-deuk had used internal energy earlier, I had been the one cornered in an instant. Now the situation was exactly reversed.
He could no longer keep up with my movements, and he was weaker than me in raw force as well.
Confidence swelling, I varied the decisive forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique and hammered him without pause.
Every time I slashed upward from below, stabbed, or swept across, Pyo Hol-deuk's vital points inched closer to the blade.
When his sword could no longer hold, it was knocked flying and his upper body was left open.
Without a shred of hesitation, I slipped into the blind side and swung the saber.
Schhk.
Just the familiar resistance running through the blade told me it was over.
Preparing for a possible counter, I turned with the saber still in motion.
The headless corpse was slowly toppling backward. Pyo Hol-deuk's head flew off into the bushes beside him.
Thud.
The body collapsed to the ground.
I steadied my breathing and flicked the saber to shake off the blood. As I stepped closer, I frowned.
The fingers of the corpse's hand, still wrapped around the sword, were twitching.
Anyone seeing it for the first time would have been startled enough to wet themselves.
It wasn't alive.
Fresh corpses sometimes did this. Some even kept moving their legs or had a chest that rose and fell as if they were still breathing.
I had even seen cases where a whistle-like breath leaked out through the hole in a severed throat, blood still streaming down from it.
I didn't know why. Maybe the bastards had lived such miserable lives that they couldn't even die properly.
Before long the fingers stopped moving.
I was about to wipe the remaining blood off the man's clothes with my saber, then hesitated.
The official inspector's uniform Pyo Hol-deuk was wearing was something I needed to trade with Bok Ha-gyu.
I planted the saber in the ground, stripped off the uniform, and bundled it up. Then I wiped the blood off my blade on the padded under-robe beneath it and slid the saber back into its scabbard.
I tucked the inspector's identity plaque and seal into my chest. I also took the money pouch and the pocket stuffed with miscellaneous belongings.
The sword looked usable too, but the corpse had it clenched tight, as if saying this one thing was not for surrendering.
Was that what he'd been twitching his fingers for earlier? Pyo Hol-deuk really was a martial artist to the marrow of his bones.
Still, I couldn't just leave an expensive sword behind.
After prying each finger open, I picked up the sword.
Once the excitement faded, the sword wound in my left shoulder started throbbing.
I slid a finger under the torn cloth and checked the injury. It was shallow, barely more than a graze.
Getting away with only this much damage against a master like him was pure heaven's luck.
I took a small bamboo tube of wound medicine from my robes. I applied the medicine to the cut and wrapped it in bandages.
Howl.
Maybe they had caught the scent of blood, because wolves were howling not far off.
As my body cooled, a chilling draft rolled over me. The mountain, white with frost that had not yet melted and gone dry, was as cold as the dead of winter.
Sunset came early in the mountains. If I wanted to get down before dark, I'd have to hurry.
Carrying my spoils, I retraced my steps.
When I passed through a patch of thick brush and climbed onto a rock, the scenery around me didn't match my memory.
I backtracked again and came down another way. This time a steep cliff face appeared.
I had no idea where I was.
It seemed that in the confusion of the fight I'd forgotten the path I'd taken.
The sky was buried under clouds, and I couldn't see the sun. There was no way to judge direction.
I was studying the shape of the mountain and the lay of the land as I walked when I felt something following behind me.
I killed my footsteps and hid myself beside a boulder. Then I slowly leaned out and met the eyes of a wolf crouched far off in the distance.
Its fur was patchy and thin, its belly skin clinging to its ribs.
It was an old wolf, cast out from the pack or simply abandoned.
The wolf stared fixedly at me, its whites flashing. Drool gathered at its mouth and dripped away in strings.
It was old and weak, so it didn't dare rush me.
It would probably just trail after me, drooling and stubborn, until I collapsed from exhaustion.
By now, the corpse of Pyo Hol-deuk, left behind with its throat cut, was probably in the wolves' possession too.
"Get lost!"
After barking at it once, I climbed the mountain path again.
I was thinking about finding a cave somewhere, lighting a fire, and warming myself when something moving caught my eye.
It was beyond a nearby ridge.
As I drew my internal energy up and cleared my vision, a way out of the mountain appeared.
Two large wagons were moving slowly along the main road.
I adjusted my direction and headed that way.
Following the mountain path down, I had to make a long detour before I could get back out onto the main road.
The old wolf never left the mountain. It had survived this long precisely because, no matter how hungry it got, it never wandered out of the woods.
"Huuuu."
My strength drained all at once, and a lazy exhaustion came flooding over me.
It had been a day with a lot to gain and plenty to think over.
I didn't know how much time had passed, but I'd found the road, so that was enough. Even if dusk fell on the way, I'd be home soon enough.
I was walking along the main road when a wagon came up behind me. I stepped to the roadside so I wouldn't get hit by the horses.
The wagon, throwing up a gust of wind, suddenly stopped. Someone opened the window and leaned out. It was a woman in the bloom of youth.
"Long time no see. What happened to you? Did you roll around with bandits again?"
The voice was familiar.
Maybe it was because I'd just fought my way through the mountain and spent everything I had. For some reason I felt strangely distant and hollow, and before I knew it the words slipped out like a murmur.
"...Sister?"
The woman frowned in disbelief.
"You've gotten incredibly shameless while I wasn't looking. Sister? Who are you calling sister? Your face looks way older than mine. Are you into older women or something?"
I shook my head to clear it, then looked again.
The cool beauty, radiant like she'd found her season at last, was glaring at me with clear, bright eyes.
A Tang Clan woman who had come to Seochon months ago in pursuit of a traitor, then returned to Sichuan.
Tang Hye-seo.