Beneath the Earth
The moment the fighting began, Sama Yul and Bi So-hyang pressed their backs together. In a numbers disadvantage, turning your back on the enemy was a one-way ticket to a slaughter.
Before showing off their specialties, they took a moment to size up the enemy's capabilities.
"Most of them are First-Class. A few Peak experts mixed in among them."
"Push to the wall first. Once our backs are covered, support me."
"Got it."
Sama Yul shot forward like a bolt. Cheongung's martial artists immediately closed around her in a ring. She did not hold back.
Demonic energy flared at once. Twin daggers in both hands, eyes burning red.
Since joining the Black Death Ghost Shadow Corps, she had maintained a perfect mission completion rate. Multi-on-one combat was nothing she feared.
"Gaaah!"
"Ghk!"
Her movements were spare and precise, aimed only at vital points. Footwork that dazzled the eye thinned her presence to a whisper, then she kicked hard off the ground and opened two Cheongung warriors' throats with her daggers.
She didn't even bother dodging the spray of blood. A Peak expert who had read her movements had already closed deep into striking range.
But she didn't spare him a glance. Her eyes were locked on Bi So-hyang.
Still holding off the approaching enemies, Bi So-hyang nocked an iron arrow to her bowstring.
Arrows were finite. Reaching the realm of formless projectiles required Transcendent mastery — so unless the moment was decisive, iron arrows it had to be.
"Duck!"
Thwick-thwick-thwick-thwick-thwip!!
At Bi So-hyang's signal, Sama Yul flattened herself against the ground. Razor iron arrows punched through Cheongung bodies in the same instant.
Of course she couldn't drop them all. Bi So-hyang still had to keep the ones charging her in check.
But for Sama Yul, even a heartbeat of opening was a golden chance. The Peak expert in front of her twisted aside to dodge the iron arrows —
and took one clean through the right shoulder. The path to his vitals lay wide open. Sama Yul did not waste it. She drove a dagger into the Peak expert's throat.
Shhhk!
In a blink, Sama Yul and Bi So-hyang's combined assault had killed five. The Cheongung warriors reached the same conclusion at once: those two must not be allowed to work together.
"Scatter! Engage them separately so they can't interfere with each other!!"
The shout came from the man who looked to be their commander. Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul locked eyes for a fraction of a second.
Kill the one holding command first. Once chaos set in, the rest would be far easier to handle.
They exchanged no further words — and charged the commander at the same time.
"Wha—?!"
"Protect the captain!!"
The captain reeled. He might have expected Sama Yul — but a bow-user charging headlong? That he had not seen coming.
And she was fast. For an assassin and an archer, footwork was life itself. Their closing speed put ordinary Peak experts to shame.
Clang!
"Kh!"
Sama Yul arrived first. The captain barely managed to bat her dagger aside with his sword. In that same instant, Bi So-hyang seized his rear.
Demonic energy flaring just like Sama Yul's, she drove a fist forward.
Booom!
Cloth brushed past. The captain unfurled the Descending Evasion Art and barely slipped free of their combined assault.
Or so he thought — until the red-eyed assassin was already right in front of his face.
I'm dea—
Kang!
As the dagger closed on his throat, someone else's blade saved the captain's life. Cheongung warriors surged in on Sama Yul and Bi So-hyang at once.
The two women clicked their tongues and fell back to the wall, pressing their backs together again.
"Failed. You didn't burn much internal energy, did you?"
"Haven't even properly run my internal arts yet."
"We're several moves ahead in external arts. There are a lot of them, so let's clean them up slowly."
The first storm passed, and a lull settled over the fight. It had to. The shockwaves from Shin Gi-woon and Hwaseon's clash were spreading wider by the second. One wrong move and they could all be buried alive.
They couldn't rush in recklessly. But they couldn't stand still forever either. They needed to finish this as fast as possible and link up with Shin Gi-woon.
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
"Full power."
At Bi So-hyang's words, Sama Yul's presence vanished. Even Bi So-hyang nearly lost track of her. What chance did the enemy have?
"Wh-what the—?!"
"Where did she go?"
"Watch your surroundings!"
Wolyeong Magong — the demonic art of crossing shadows. A secret art passed down only through the direct bloodline of the Sama family, who have held the seat of the Death Demon Sect's master for generations.
Low-level martial artists couldn't even sense Sama Yul's presence. Bi So-hyang calmly nocked a single arrow.
She trusted her partner. If it was Sama Yul, she would create an opening on the captain.
"Take the archer first! I'll hold the assassin!"
The captain made a swift call — with the vanguard gone, eliminate the archer. A sound judgment… if the assassin's level had been far lower.
"Got you."
"…!"
The voice came from behind. Goosebumps raced over the captain's entire body. Instinct took over — he rolled across the ground to survive.
By a paper-thin margin, Sama Yul's dagger skimmed past his skull. The killing blow came up empty.
A satisfied smile touched the captain's lips. But the corner of Sama Yul's mouth curved ever so slightly upward.
As if she had known he would do exactly that.
Damn — I forgot about the arch—
Fwoooosh!!
The captain's thought never finished. Bi So-hyang's arrow, loosed at a speed he couldn't even react to, shattered his skull.
Bi So-hyang's ultimate technique — Tua-po.
"Captain!!"
"Got time to look elsewhere?"
"Gaaaaah!"
With the commander's death, Sama Yul and Bi So-hyang's slaughter began in earnest.
Sama Yul was wreathed in black shadow — the product of pushing the Shadow-Crossing Demonic Art to its absolute limit.
Nothing stood in the way of a woman who had become one with the dark. Every sweep of her daggers sent Cheongung blood arcing through the air.
Bi So-hyang's iron arrows were just as merciless. Against opponents of equal rank it might have been different — but against martial artists a full tier below, an archer was a walking catastrophe.
Unavoidable attacks rained down from range without pause. Even if luck let someone dodge one, the next punched through their skull.
The Cheongung warriors died under the two Peak experts' massacre without mounting any real resistance.
In truth, Cheongung had poured an almost excessive force into securing the Gongcheongseogyu. First-Class martial artists weren't exactly growing on trees.
The average realm among Murim fighters was Second-Class. Which meant that no matter how many high-level experts existed, plenty never even reached Peak.
Sama Yul and Bi So-hyang had attained Peak at a young age. That was their own achievement — nowhere near an average result.
Jamma Cave graduates numbered fewer than a hundred. Strip away the top ranks, and some hadn't even reached First-Class.
Cheongung must have dispatched this force determined to claim the Gongcheongseogyu no matter what.
The variable they never accounted for: the enemies who appeared were of a higher realm still — and had not spent ordinary childhoods.
Bright, outgoing Bi So-hyang and quiet, spare-spoken Sama Yul had both spent three years of their youth sealed inside closed-door training grounds.
Their very mindsets were different.
While the two women's massacre unfolded on one side, Shin Gi-woon and Hwaseon pressed on with their own ferocious duel.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
It was a blood-soaked struggle that left no room to breathe. Every exchange was so razor-sharp that a single lapse in focus would almost certainly cost a limb.
Shin Gi-woon steered the fight with cold precision. Hwaseon, on the other hand, was growing restless.
At this rate, Mount Hua is going to notice.
No — they might already have. If he didn't finish this quickly, the Mount Hua Sect would arm itself and march straight here.
Hwaseon would not walk away clean. Elder or not, he had slipped out in secret to conduct shady business.
He had meant to clean up the young bastard's underlings first — but that plan was looking like a failure. Their level was simply too high.
"You… what's your name?"
"I've got nothing to say to a Cheongung dog."
"Amusing. Have you not noticed that I'm holding back?"
"Heh. You think I'm not holding back either? Want us all buried alive together?"
Shin Gi-woon's eyes flashed red for an instant. A threat, plain and simple — push him and he'd tear the whole place apart.
Of course, the same logic applied to Hwaseon. If either of them failed to kill the other cleanly, the survivor would dump whatever strength remained into collapsing the cave. They were walking a tightrope.
Only a decisive kill meant survival. That was why both of them had no choice but to hide their full power.
Waste energy carelessly, bring the cave down, and it was mutual suicide.
Not yet?
"I haven't finished mapping the geology. Conserve your energy as much as you can, just in case."
You can actually do this, right?
"You got trust issues or what? Shut up and believe me! Finding this place was my achievement, remember?"
Ryu-jin's outburst left him a little cowed — she was clearly in a mood — but he didn't let it show.
Just receiving Hwaseon's sword was hard enough.
This was nothing like the Kunlun Radiant Sword. For one, Hwaseon had climbed to the Transcendent realm — and he had reached a higher stage than the Kunlun Radiant Sword ever had.
As things stood, their strength was evenly matched. Whichever of them could deploy the right ultimate techniques would decide the course of the fight.