Can't Miss This Chance

I dropped down from the tree.

What I had to do was simple and clear. My breathing had gone ragged. My whole body had gone cold. The winter rain was colder than I'd expected — cold enough to freeze ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everything it touched.

I closed in fast on the whale-backed mansion. The closer I got, the more its sheer presence pressed down on me.

"Quiet," I muttered.

Mumyeong spoke into my mind.

"I remember."

I narrowed my eyes and adjusted the newly fitted mask as the rain made it slip.

I nodded.

—KRA-KOOM!!

Thunder and lightning split the sky again. The road was a patchwork of puddles. Like an insect, I hugged the ground with both hands and both feet, staying as flat to the earth as I could. Even when I set a foot down, I led with the big toe; when I placed a palm, I touched with the fingertips first and rolled the hand flat.

—Shhhhhh.

I melted into the downpour and the dark.

In front of me stood a massive wooden gate that looked twice the height of a grown man. Beside it, a brazier was dying down to its last embers. Three paces behind it, the gate guards stood chatting with their arms folded against the cold of the winter night.

I crouched in the dark and held still.

"God, why is it this cold?"

"When it's this freezing, I've got to piss constantly."

White breath puffed from the guards' mouths as they talked.

"Gonna go take care of something real quick."

One of them turned, walked off along the path, and disappeared around a corner.

I swallowed, drew a short, heavy spear from my belt, and fitted a curved half-moon dagger into my other hand. I lashed a cord to the spear's tip and watched the guard heading off to relieve himself. Farther. Farther. He reached the corner. He turned and was gone.

—Thwick!

I hurled the short spear at the brazier's legs. The instant it threaded between them, I yanked the cord. The flying spear jerked back, hooked the legs, and toppled the whole thing.

—Clatter-crash!

"Wh-what the—?!"

The remaining guard startled and came forward. Rain drowned the brazier completely. The world sank into pitch-black ink. In the dark, the guard picked up a broken brazier leg and muttered to himself.

"This was fine a second ago — why would it suddenly sn—"

I clamped a hand over his mouth and opened his throat with the half-moon dagger. As he spun in shock, I drove the blade into his heart and solar plexus.

"Kh— khhk!"

With his throat cut, he couldn't even scream. He went down.

I grabbed the dead man's legs, dragged him in front of the wooden gate, and left him there in plain sight. I picked up a faintly smoldering scrap of firewood and set it beside the corpse, then melted into the shadow behind me. My hand found my belt and came up with a hammer the size of my fist.

"Lu-lu-lu… lu-lu…"

From far off came the sound of the second guard approaching, humming as he fastened his belt after his piss. Crouched in the shadow, I was invisible to the eye. I shut my eyes and trusted only my ears.

The humming drew closer. Beside the corpse, the scrap of firewood gave a soft crackle. The song cut off. I heard a swallowed breath.

"Wh-what the hell happened?"

Running footsteps, frantic.

"Hey! Why are you down?! Snap out of—"

The second guard dropped to his knees in the muddy water, propping up the body. Fumbling over the corpse, he muttered in blank confusion.

"…You're dead?"

Behind him, I was already rising, the hammer cocked high. Like a frog going stiff, the second guard went down without a sound.

Mumyeong had advised that for a one-strike kill, a blunt weapon beat anything with an edge.

I approached the wooden gate.

—Clank.

"Tch."

I bit my lip. "It's chained shut."

I looked at the fallen corpses. "Think the keys are on them?"

I raised the hammer. Before me, a heavy padlock clenched the gate shut along with a thick chain.

—KRA-KOOM!!!

A blade of pure white lightning stabbed down. The instant the enormous thunderclap rolled out, I brought every ounce of strength I had down on the lock.

I raised the hammer and waited for thunder.

—KRASH!

The padlock shattered and tore free. I'd put so much force into the blow that the hammer's haft snapped and hung limp. I stripped the chain away and stepped into the courtyard.

From here on, it was a race against time. I tore through the rain, the short spear I'd used on the brazier clenched in my fist.

"Hup!"

The short spear punched through the dark.

"Ghk—!"

A sound like a rat crushed underfoot, then something collapsing on a roof somewhere beyond the black.

—Whirrr.

In my hands settled a charcoal-blacked dagger two spans long and a single awl. I cut through the compound without restraint. The downpour and the thunder buried every sound completely. In the dark I moved like a ghost, red light flickering in my eyes.

It's definitely working.

Before coming here, with Yun Hyeon's help, I'd recruited martial artists out of the Lower Gate and copied their arts. Each Lower Gate technique was low grade on its own, but as support they were more than enough. Because the level was so low, the process from copy to full mastery hadn't taken long at my current level either. The fully internalized Lower Gate arts helped me smother my presence and stay hidden — and they let me handle throwing weapons and short blades with extreme precision.

That was the promise with Mumyeong. Right now I was concealing my identity. To hide that I was Moyong Bi, I wore a black mask and called myself Biryu of the Blood Death Sect — but for dirty work like tonight's, even Biryu needed to be buried one layer deeper. Of the arts I'd mastered, the others were fine. But my strongest trump card, the supreme art that required unleashing the Heavenly Demon's authority — especially ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Heaven and Earth Great Shift — had a signature far too distinctive.

What about Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul? Or the other first- and second-class arts?

Mumyeong's answer was short.

I needed a workaround. Judging that I'd need additional foundational arts to shore up the plan in place of what I couldn't use had been the right call.

—Snrrrk… snrrrk…

On rain-soaked feet I slipped quietly into a corridor. Even with the thunder that loud, the breathing of servants dead asleep after a hard day rolled softly down the hall. I cracked the seventh door, checked inside, and eased it shut again.

Damn it.

The Ju family's compound was split across three separate houses. Yun Hyeon had secured three maps to match. Time forced me to pick two and abandon one — and I'd just finished tearing through the first house only to come up blatantly empty.

I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled what Yun Hyeon had said.

Two days ago, while calling on a related trading matter, someone from our Luoyang branch confirmed it again. The documents in question are kept by the eldest daughter of the household — she locks them in a chest and manages them personally. The chest is blue, with a lock carved from jade.

I bit my lip. Even now, the night kept bleeding away. I decided to move fast. This time, I needed them to be there.

One or the other. Fifty-fifty. As I hesitated, Mumyeong spoke.

"…What's that supposed to mean all of a sudden?"

Mumyeong answered flatly.

More troops didn't necessarily mean the documents were there. The Ju father and son were notorious for their womanizing — they could just as easily be throwing a pleasure banquet. There were any number of reasons. I was simply leaning on probability. The stake was my life. Hearing the garrison was twice as large only made me want to go there even less. I set my jaw.

"North."

—KRA-KOOM!

With white lightning at my back, I sprinted at full power. Far ahead, a three-story pavilion blazed bright as a city that never slept.

—Click.

I drew a second short spear from my belt, slotted an extra shaft onto the back to lengthen it, and tied a cord to the end. I kept driving forward at speed.

I didn't slow. I kicked off the top of the wall and, still running, snapped eight kicks down at the ground.

—Pa-pa-pa-pat!

Eight roof tiles punched through the black sky. Shattering white raindrops to pieces, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eight tiles flew their separate paths into the dark, swelling large in my vision as if magnified.

At Mumyeong's shout, red light flared in both my eyes.

I pushed the Blood Cult's footwork, Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul, to its absolute limit. Crimson afterimages bloomed in my wake as I tore forward. I kicked off the ground — the same extreme realm of lightness skill I'd once used to fly a gorge and escape the Blood Cult's Heavenly Net: Deungpyeon-dogong, Ascending Shards Crossing the Void.

—Tadat!

I landed on the first tile. The instant I kicked off, it exploded into fragments. The moment my foot found the second, I stacked the third beneath it to make up the missing force. Both the second and third shattered as I drove off them. I skipped the fourth, planted my left foot on the sixth — and my weight punched it down hard.

Kh—!

I set my right foot on top of my left instep, kicked off my own foot, and hurled my body forward at the same time. The eighth tile hung above my head. I snagged it and used the slight rebound to haul myself up, then reset my grip on the spear in my right hand. With a grinding creak, the weapon's weight loaded through my chest, upper arm, and forearm until they felt ready to tear.

Haaah!

I threw with everything I had. The spear blasted out at blinding speed and buried itself deep in the second-floor wall at the pavilion's center. My body was already dropping. I seized the trailing cord, hauled myself up with both arms, and landed on the second-story roof.

—Crunch!

Tiles shattered under both feet, but the downpour would have swallowed the sound.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

I was proud of myself. A faint smile tugged at my mouth as I lifted my head.

Directly in front of me was a second-floor window. Inside it, a woman in her underclothes sat with her chin in her hands, staring blankly straight at me.

"I'm screwed," I muttered into the rain.