The Storm Breaks
In the outskirts of the Imperial Capital, in the study of an old manor long cut off from human traffic, two men sat facing each other in a murky darkness lit by a single trembling lantern.
One was a middle-aged man built gaunt as bamboo, with long, slender fingers. The other was a man whose face was so ordinary it could have belonged to anyone.
"The order has come down directly from His Excellency of Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor."
The reed-thin man, Sa An, branch head of Spider Blood in the Imperial Capital, spoke in a cold voice laced with the scrape of metal.
"Tonight, every warehouse owned by Yeomga Manor burns."
The owner of that forgettable face, Jeok Gwi, asked cautiously, "You mean the warehouses Sangguan Wan'er built for her salt monopoly? But they're filled with nothing but useless oil and bamboo drums. Is there truly any need to go that far?"
"Fool."
Sa An clicked his tongue. "Sangguan Wan'er is persuading the imperial court that she can cut the price of salt in half. These are things she prepared with her own hands, at staggering expense. How could anyone call them useless?"
"My apologies. I wasn't thinking far enough, Branch Head."
Sa An's eyes gleamed with killing intent. "More important than that, Jeok Gwi, is this man called Hahu Gang, who has been staying at those warehouses these past few days. Our superiors suspect he is the very one who provided Sangguan Wan'er with her revolutionary salt-refining method."
"Does Sangguan Wan'er truly possess a revolutionary refining method?"
"The higher-ups consider it more than likely. Otherwise, why would she pour in such an enormous fortune and risk sharp confrontation with the main manor and Gold Mountain Tower just to secure the salt license?"
Sa An went on. "They suspect Hahu Gang is holding the blueprints containing the salt field plans and the refining techniques."
A short silence passed before Jeok Gwi asked, "Is there any real basis for suspecting this Hahu Gang?"
"Sangguan Wan'er and Yeom Pung suddenly paid him a visit, received him with the utmost courtesy, and even allowed him to stay in the warehouses. How likely is it that Myriad Gold Mountain Manor, which had always stood far removed from the salt trade, developed a revolutionary refining method all on its own?"
"Ah..."
"Myriad Gold Mountain Manor must have received outside help, and the man who appeared at precisely this moment is Hahu Gang. Suspicious enough for you?"
"So this is not a matter of burning the warehouses and being done with it."
"Precisely. If at all possible, we take Hahu Gang alive. We must learn who stands behind him."
Sa An continued in a resolute tone. "Tomorrow night, we reduce the warehouses to ash and take both Hahu Gang and the blueprints."
He pressed on. "We will execute a threefold operation. Jeok Gwi, you will make every preparation it requires."
"Understood, Branch Head. What am I to prepare?"
"First, hire thirty first-rate ronin. They are expendables. Their role is to set the warehouses alight. It matters nothing if every last one of them dies."
"Yes."
"Second, summon Yawol the Shadowless Thief. He will secure the blueprints."
A cruel smile spread across Sa An's lips. "And third... allowing for any unforeseen variables, we commit the Shadow Fourteen. They will capture Hahu Gang, and should any other problem arise, they will erase it. All of it."
Jeok Gwi bowed his head. "I will see it done, Branch Head."
The following night, midnight. The Yeomga Manor warehouses.
Ouyang Qiangang was running the Transcendent Formless Divine Art, every scrap of his concentration poured into engraving the heart of the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art: the "solar energy integrated circuit."
Ten thousand nanobots moved as if dancing across the oil, rewriting its molecular structure strand by strand. In their wake, geometric patterns invisible to the naked eye were taking shape.
Akasha's worried voice echoed through his mind.
Doctor, for four days now every available nanobot has been committed to the engraving work, leaving our external surveillance systems deactivated.
At present, I am effectively blind and deaf. If we were ambushed from outside in this state, the danger would be severe.
Akasha, don't you think you've become quite the nag lately? Eighty more and you'll have hit a hundred.
Still...
It's not that I'm not worried about it either. But if we want to shorten the work, this is the only way. Let's trust the guards.
Haah...
Outside the warehouses, thirty warriors personally selected by Yeom Pung from the Du Clan Manor stood on guard.
KRAKOOM! Thunder split the night sky and rolled out across the world. When it passed, everything was briefly swallowed by a silence that stopped the breath.
Plop... plop-plop... Then raindrops the size of beans began striking the warehouse roof. The sound swelled in an instant, rising into a deluge as if the heavens themselves had torn open.
SHHHHAAAAA! KRAKOOM! At the very moment thunder shook heaven and earth, the blaze of lightning laid bare dozens of shadows advancing on the warehouses.
Dohcheol, the warrior commanding the guard, had been muttering up at the sky that tonight's shift was fucking bullshit. The color left his face in a heartbeat.
"Enemies!"
Before his shout had even died, the shadows were already upon the guards, right under their chins.
"Kill them! No need to leave survivors!"
With the ronin leader's cruel bellow, the savage battle began.
CLANG! TANG! Shff! From every direction came the dull crunch of bone meeting flesh and the razor whistle of blades cleaving the air, tearing at the ears. Even beneath the torrential rain, the sickening reek of blood, the ragged breathing, and the stench of sweat did not wash away; they only grew thicker.
THWACK! THWACK! In the blink of an eye, the battlefield dissolved into chaos.
Dohcheol and his guards fought with everything they had, resolved to die where they stood. Their numbers were nearly even, but the gap in skill was not. With Dohcheol the only first-rate among them and the rest mere second-rate, holding back intruders drawn entirely from the ranks of first-rate ronin was simply impossible.
All around, guards went down like bundles of straw amid desperate screams. Dohcheol threw himself into deflecting the three blades that came shrieking in at him.
KRAK! CLANG! His grip felt as though it were being torn apart, and he clenched his teeth. What met his eyes was the ronin's cruel gaze, mocking him, and behind it his men collapsing in fountains of blood.
TSENG! With a sharp crack, even his sword snapped away.
The ronin leader raised his blade high, a sinister smile playing on his lips.
At that same moment, behind the third warehouse.
In stark contrast to the savage melee raging at the front, this place lay sunk in a deep stillness where only the rain could be heard.
Shhhk... A single thread of black shadow was scaling the warehouse's outer wall without a sound, like a spider. His body was light as though it defied gravity, and from the hands and feet finding purchase in the tiny crevices of the rain-slicked wall came not even the faintest whisper.
He was Yawol the Shadowless Thief, so named in the underworld of the Imperial Capital. The warehouse's detailed structural plans, obtained well in advance, lay perfectly mapped in his head.
Second floor, the hidden room at the eastern end. Where the blueprints for the revolutionary refining method are kept.
Silently, he slid his body through the gap of a second-floor window. It was a stealth art that had not failed him once in a dozen years.
Watching it all from the woods beyond the warehouses were yet other shadows. Rain-soaked black masks, and beneath them ten pairs of cold, glinting eyes. They were the assassins Sa An had held in reserve for any contingency: the Shadow Fourteen of Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor's Imperial Capital branch.
"Yawol is in."
The one who appeared to be their leader spoke in a toneless voice. "If the ronin take Hahu Gang alive and Yawol succeeds, we withdraw quietly. If they fail, we erase everything."
His words carried a vicious ruthlessness that treated even the lives of his own side as pawns on a board.
Ouyang Qiangang, still sustaining the Transcendent Formless Divine Art as the engraving continued, felt his brows twitch. Between the roar of the rain and the thunder, his ears had caught a faint, needle-thin ring of steel that had no business being there.
What was that?
The moment he broke off his qi circulation, Akasha's voice rang through his mind.
Doctor, a large-scale engagement appears to have broken out outside. I am halting the engraving work this instant and releasing two thousand nanobots beyond the warehouse to assess the situation!
Two or three seconds later, Akasha spoke again.
Thirty intruders, all first-rate in martial prowess. Our guards are being driven back one-sidedly. Some of the intruders are carrying torches that refuse to die even in the rain.
They mean to burn the warehouses.
Simultaneously, one individual is infiltrating the third warehouse. His stealth arts have reached a considerable depth of mastery. Doctor, this appears to be a planned pincer operation. The frontal assault seems aimed at the warehouse, and at you.
Ouyang Qiangang frowned. The third warehouse? There's nothing in there but ledgers for oil and bamboo drum purchases. Why on earth?
Akasha continued in a cold voice.
I suspect the enemy is under the impression that the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art and the secret records of the Heavenly Salt Art are kept there, and is attempting to steal them.
They would have been analyzing with severely limited intelligence on this place, so a mistaken conclusion was all but inevitable.
Ouyang Qiangang found it absurd; a heartbeat later, his eyes went cold. Which means... they're killing innocent people to lay hands on something that doesn't even exist.
Two frozen images streamed into his mind in real time: his guards falling bloodied to the ground, and a masked thief slipping in through a window gap.
Ouyang Qiangang rose from his seat. The thief in the third warehouse could be dealt with later; there was nothing there for him to take anyway. What mattered now were the guards fighting with their lives on the line to protect him and the warehouse.
Akasha, in my current state, how long can I last until every one of them is dealt with?
Your current internal energy is seventy percent depleted. At this level, activating 'Maximum Combat Mode' would sustain you for six minutes.
That's more than enough.
The next instant, his figure vanished from where he sat, leaving no trace behind.
"So this is the end..."
Despair clouded the eyes of guard captain Dohcheol as he watched the blade flying for his neck. KRAKOOM! In the lightning's flash, the ronin's cruel, mocking eyes and the frost-white edge of his blade stood out with terrible clarity.
And then.
KWAANG! With a sound like a thunderbolt striking, the ronin leader's upper body burst apart along with the blade he held. In place of steel, a crimson spray of blood engulfed Dohcheol from head to toe.
At a turn no one could have imagined, the fighting across the field froze for a single breath. Every gaze snapped to one point.
A man stood tall amid the downpour, his whole body wreathed in a chilling killing intent, colder than the sheets of rain and heavier than the thunder. It was Ouyang Qiangang. His eyes burned through the darkness like demon fire.
One of the ronin, unable to hold down his terror, screamed, "Wh... who... who the hell are you?"
Ouyang Qiangang answered not with words, but with action.
PHWAAAAH! Unfolding the Springing Flash Steps, his figure seemed to waver once, faintly, and the next moment he already stood in the very heart of the ronin. Moving at a speed the eye could not follow, his twin hands raised a monstrous typhoon of palm shadows.
KWAKWAKWAKWA!