Fragments (2)
The sound of impact echoed sharply.
Cheon Gang’s face twisted in agony.
He planted both feet firmly on the ground to keep from collapsing. Without inner energy, however, the strain on his muscles and joints sent waves of searing pain through his body.
Whoosh!
Cheon Gang’s fist shot forward at a bizarre angle.
It possessed clear form and structure, yet it was utterly practical. Even without inner energy, his punch seemed to carry a blazing whirlwind of flame.
Whoosh!
His fist grazed just beneath Yeon Hojeong’s chin.
Smack!
Releasing Cheon Gang’s collar, Yeon Hojeong struck the man’s nose with the back of his right hand.
Thud!
“Aargh!”
Cheon Gang instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and staggered. Tears streamed uncontrollably from his closed eyes.
Yeon Hojeong hadn’t infused the strike with inner energy, nor had he used his full physical strength. Yet the blow was enough to make his nose bleed and bring tears to his eyes. The sensitive location delivered a jolt of pain that instantly cleared his mind.
And beyond the pain, it ignited a towering rage.
“You son of a bitch!”
Whoosh!
Even with his vision blurred by tears, Cheon Gang’s senses remained sharp. His long confinement had left his body frail, but the blood vessels and nerves tempered by extreme inner energy were still intact.
Thud! Thud-thud-thud!
Cheon Gang’s flaming fists never once touched Yeon Hojeong’s body. With casual swings of his left hand, Yeon Hojeong deflected every one of the double punches.
In a monotone voice, Yeon Hojeong said, “Not much to it, is there?”
Cheon Gang had been about to shout again—what the hell was this supposed to be?—when he suddenly felt as if the top of his skull had exploded.
“You fucking dog!”
Bang!
This strike carried real weight. Yeon Hojeong had blocked the punch without raising his inner energy, yet the faint sting he felt in his palm was impressive in itself. As expected.
Cheon Gang’s dantian had not been completely destroyed. It was closer to half-ruined.
Perhaps that was why. Although he couldn’t properly circulate it, traces of the Gold Emperor Pure Art—the Shinwha Sect’s supreme fire-based cultivation technique—still flowed through various parts of his body. He couldn’t control it at will, but it granted him strength far beyond that of an ordinary man.
“You people are all disgusting!”
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The destructive power couldn’t compare to the martial arts he had once wielded. But the dazzling speed and intricate techniques were exactly the same—or even better.
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes gleamed as he blocked Cheon Gang’s fists and palm strikes. Full of venom.
There was no need to insult him like Moyong Gun or reveal any killing intent. Simply provoking the man’s pride was enough. Grabbing his collar and swinging him around once had already caused Cheon Gang’s emotions to erupt. That makes this even better.
He was on the verge of losing his reason. In that state, the martial arts he displayed contained no distracting thoughts. The techniques he had honed his entire life poured out purely on instinct. And I can see every movement clearly.
Because no inner energy was infused, he couldn’t produce that terrifying speed. As a result, every flow and transition was laid bare.
Moyong Gun, who had turned his back earlier, now stood to the side, watching Cheon Gang’s martial arts with keen interest. Fist techniques, palm techniques… and on top of that—
Whoosh!
Following the rapid fist and palm strikes came a scorching hand-blade attack.
It was the Shinwha Sect’s Fire Dragon Demonic Blade.
The blade-like strike unleashed with the edge of the hand carried truly exceptional momentum and destructive force. Impressive.
The trajectory that sliced inward was flexible and practical. Though the man was an enemy, Yeon Hojeong had to acknowledge the adaptability and combat effectiveness of the technique. Yet it still maintained a consistent framework, revealing the traces of tens of thousands of repetitions.
Suddenly, Yeon Hojeong’s eyes flashed.
Cheon Gang roared, “Just from watching this, I can tell! You bastards should all be burned to ash! There’s no need to treat mad dogs who know nothing of honor or decency like human beings…!”
Thud-thud!
Cheon Gang’s martial display came to an abrupt halt. Both of his hands and wrists had been caught in Yeon Hojeong’s grip.
Cheon Gang ground his teeth.
His wrists felt like they were about to snap. The grip strength was monstrous even without inner energy.
Yeon Hojeong smiled like a devil. “Is that all?”
“Ugh!”
“Looks like it is.”
Thump!
“Cough!”
Cheon Gang collapsed, vomiting blood after taking a knee to the abdomen.
Yeon Hojeong brushed off his hands and fell into thought. I get the general idea now.
Most of the fist techniques, palm techniques, and blade strikes Cheon Gang had used were now stored in his mind.
If he were asked to replicate them without a single error, he probably couldn’t. However, he had gained a solid grasp of their weaknesses and how to counter them.
Simply knowing the counters allowed him to predict the movements. Rather than copying the opponent’s martial arts exactly, he pierced through the openings and memorized them. In essence, he seized the very core of the technique.
This terrifying practical insight was what supported Yeon Hojeong’s overwhelming combat ability.
Yeon Hojeong turned to Moyong Gun. “Did you get the general idea?”
“Exactly as you said—general. I could probably imitate it to a similar degree. What about you?”
“Same here.”
“Surprising. With your talent, I thought you’d be able to reproduce it flawlessly without a single deviation.”
Yeon Hojeong gave a small chuckle. “I’m not that much of a genius.”
“Don’t say that in front of others. You’ll get cursed at.”
“Anyway, we’ve seen everything we needed to see.”
Moyong Gun nodded.
Yeon Hojeong called out to the warden who had been standing far away. “Take the prisoner.”
A moment later, the warden approached and shackled both of Cheon Gang’s arms with iron chains.
Panting heavily, Cheon Gang snarled, “Y-you filthy bastards! I knew it! Freeing me was all a lie!”
Moyong Gun tilted his head. “Don’t misunderstand. That part was true.”
“W-what?”
“To be precise, it was true. For me.”
“……?!”
“The one who had business with you was me. Yet you went and got yourself beaten unconscious by someone else. Did you even know what I wanted in the first place?”
“You… you—!”
“If you want to resent someone, resent this monstrous young man. I did not break my promise. Of course…”
Moyong Gun smiled coldly.
“I never intended to keep it either.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Take him away.”
The warden dragged the still-cursing Cheon Gang out of sight.
Moyong Gun stared intently at Yeon Hojeong.
Yeon Hojeong frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“This is unexpected as well.”
“What is?”
“I thought that if it was you, you would keep a promise even to an enemy.”
“Didn’t you say it yourself? The one who made the promise wasn’t me—it was you.”
“That’s nothing but petty wordplay. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
Yeon Hojeong smiled.
For a brief moment, Moyong Gun felt a chill run down his spine. Yeon Hojeong’s smile didn’t feel like a smile at all.
“I’d like to ask you something. In the current murim world, who do you think hates the Three Sects the most? You? The sect leaders of the Nine Great Schools? Or perhaps the officials of the imperial court?”
“……”
“Maybe it’s thanks to you getting so angry that I was able to stay calm.”
Yeon Hojeong turned away.
“Let’s go. We need to properly review that bastard’s martial arts.”
Moyong Gun, who had been silently watching him, soon followed.
What exactly is he? It was a question Moyong Gun had wondered about for a long time.
Moyong Gun—and all the older members of the Moyong family—harbored a fierce, almost pathological hatred toward foreign invaders who threatened the Central Plains. That hatred was deeply tied to the very roots of the Moyong clan.
But Yeon Hojeong was different.
If his family could die because of a foreign invasion? Of course one must prepare. Of course one would be furious and want to kill them.
Even so, the hatred Yeon Hojeong displayed went far beyond understandable territory. He usually kept it hidden, but when he bared those icy fangs like earlier, it was enough to make one’s blood run cold.
It existed in a completely different realm from the Moyong family’s hatred of foreigners or the Central Plains people’s hatred of invaders. It’s almost blind killing intent.
What connection could there possibly be?
What kind of hatred bound Yeon Hojeong—no, the entire Yeon family—to the Three Sects?
“Hurry up. Why are you so slow?”
Moyong Gun smiled faintly.
“I’m coming.”
Booom!
After finishing his demonstration, Yeon Hojeong sat down.
Jegal Mun-ho looked at Moyong Gun, who nodded.
“There may be slight differences in angle and distance, but it’s almost identical.”
“Hmm.”
Jegal Mun-ho, who had memorized every single one of Yeon Hojeong’s movements, quickly began analyzing them.
In a sense, the Jegal family—overwhelmingly gifted in observation, memorization, and analysis—could be considered one of the most genius clans in the murim world. Manifesting those techniques with their own bodies was another matter, but if they had devoted themselves solely to martial arts while setting aside astronomy, geography, and formation techniques, they might have already reigned as the foremost among the Six Great Families.
That was how terrifying the intellectual abilities of Jegal Mun-ho and Jegal Ah-yeon were. Especially the process of deconstructing, analyzing, and reassembling a single phenomenon—it was on an entirely different level from others.
A moment later, Jegal Mun-ho asked Jegal Ah-yeon, “Among the Five Elements’ mutual conquest, which reversal is it?”
“Water and Wood.”
She fell short in other areas, but when it came to formations and mechanical traps, Jegal Ah-yeon was one step ahead of Jegal Mun-ho.
It was partly due to her outstanding talent, but also the result of several months spent obsessively studying formations.
“I see.”
Jegal Mun-ho looked at Yeon Hojeong with an expression full of disbelief.
“Really… I can hardly believe this is possible.”
Yeon Hojeong’s expression hardened.
“Is it similar?”
“Similar doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Jegal Mun-ho brought out a map and spread it open.
“If we take the terrain here that Ah-yeon had questions about and apply the equation of the formation’s axis, then eliminate all the imaginary numbers from the useless formation pillars…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m not quite following…”
“To put it simply, even if we don’t know exactly what formation the Shinwha Sect bastards are using, we have identified the fundamental axis of their formation.”
Both Yeon Hojeong’s and Moyong Gun’s eyes sharpened.
“In other words, the martial arts of the Second Martial General Cheon Gang…?”
“Fit perfectly. Of course, many pieces are still missing, but when you connect the directions and dotted lines of the martial techniques’ flows, they align exactly with the formation axis on the map.”
“This is insane…!”
Yeon Hojeong felt utterly stunned.
And it wasn’t just him. Moyong Gun spoke with a dazed expression.
“Are these people even sane? From martial arts to strategy—are you saying every single movement they make corresponds to that diagram? All of them?!”
Just what kind of place was the Shinwha Sect? With what kind of mindset were they trying to invade the Central Plains? Of course, it would be difficult for anyone to even think of making such correlations. In fact, it’s safe to say no one would. War is no game. In a conflict where one side could be completely burned away, no one would spare the time to ponder over something like this.
At that moment, Jegal Ah-yeon spoke.
“In other words, this is what it means.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
Jegal Ah-yeon’s face was flushed with excitement as she stared at the map.
“I don’t know about the other sects, but at least the Shinwha Sect seems to be teaching its followers by confining them within a fixed framework. In other words, they take a single principle—one truth—and instill it as doctrine, then melt it into their martial arts, strategies, scriptures, and everything else.”
“It could be mere generalization. But… the possibility seems more than sufficient.”
The problem didn’t end there.
“If, by some chance…”
Yeon Hojeong’s eyes trembled.
“The Saneum Sect and the Gwanghyeol Sect also display similar patterns…”
Jegal Mun-ho swallowed hard.
“This war… might turn out easier than we thought.”
“We cannot bet our lives on unconfirmed information. However, it is more than worth investigating.”
Yeon Hojeong stood up.
“We still haven’t clearly identified which of the Three Sects the spy was sent from, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“There has been no unusual reaction since the rumor spread?”
“None.”
“He’s lying low. There’s nothing to gain by making a suspicious move at a time like this.”
“Indeed.”
“Is the background investigation on the Bonggong members still underway?”
“It is. It’s progressing slower than expected.”
“Share all the information we’ve gathered so far. We’ll need to bring in Lord Moyong, my father, and Lord Dang as well.”
“Does that mean…?”
“Yes. The time has come.”
Bang!
Yeon Hojeong slammed his fist onto the map.
“After sharing the information, we will catch the spy within five days.”