The Broken Balance
“The Beggar Sect… you say?”
At my words, thick with wariness, the beggar nodded.
“Yeah. Not those riffraff who came to train at Cheonsubaekryeonsa, but the real official deal. My position in the Beggar Sect is…”
The man scratched the back of his head, sending dandruff flying.
“Yeah. Let’s call it Branch Master. I’m a Branch Master. Hmm, since I mentioned the rank, I should give a name too, right? Name is… eh, whatever. Name’s Nobody. Branch Master Nobody of the Beggar Sect.”
It was a thoroughly messy self-introduction.
Yet even with that playful introduction, I could not suppress the dense tension rising within me. It was that very tension I had felt standing on the boundary between life and death—something I had briefly forgotten after the fight with Ilmanhyeolje, now surging back after so long.
“…Why is the Beggar Sect after me?”
The ominous sense of déjà vu was falling into place, front and back.
The beggar smacked his lips.
“Hey, Young Master Moyong Bi. You haven’t even committed a crime, so why so nervous? Lighten up that face, yeah?”
The beggar smiled.
I said nothing.
When no words came from me, the beggar spoke again.
“Well, we are sort of the watchmen of the orthodox factions. No matter how much of a mess the orthodox side is, we still keep the boundary lines, you know?”
The Beggar Sect Branch Master lifted his staff and used the tip of his bamboo hat to scratch his forehead with a swish.
“So I figured that even while the Blood Sect and the Demon Cult were frying and boiling each other, they were barely managing not to eye our side… or so I thought—?”
The staff scratching his forehead stopped dead.
The atmosphere shifted.
His gaze was fixed on me.
“Do you know what this is, Moyong Bi?”
—Whoosh!
With a sharp cutting sound through the air, a single sheet of paper flew at me like a blade.
—Snap!
I snatched the paper. I had no leisure to care that the Beggar Sect Branch Master was carefully watching my hand movements as I caught it. All my attention was on the paper.
“…This is?”
“A week ago. Something left at the site of a merchant caravan the Demon Cult attacked. Looked like it was left on purpose. Just like a letter. Moyong Bi, want me to tell you the funny part?”
Behind my trembling gaze, the young Beggar Sect Branch Master spoke.
“That caravan was heading to Cheonsubaekryeonsa to supply food. Along with the severed head of one of the dead, your name was there in blood with the letter. No doubt it was pointing at you.”
The front of the paper was black.
In the jianghu, black usually meant darkness and death. That was why assassins often used black for stealth, and it was common at funerals. It was also why I wore black martial robes, setting that meaning aside.
Heavenly Demon Cult
Mumyeong hummed low.
I flipped it over.
A single line of writing was there.
You freed me, so now it is my turn to free you.
Beneath it lay a fragment of a white mask, clearly marked with traces of purple lightning.
I picked up the white mask fragment. Gripped it. I recalled a being I had forgotten.
“Jeokmaryeong.”
—Whoosh.
Night wind blew. Torches flickered.
Seeing my expression, the Beggar Sect Branch Master sighed.
“Well, I don’t know the circumstances, but it doesn’t seem completely unrelated. Good. Listen carefully, kid. Oh right—no matter how old you are, I’m at least twice your age, so understand if I speak casually. From now on, whatever information I give, what you do is already decided. Got it? And what you’ve heard now, never breathe a word to anyone. Same goes for my identity.”
“What?”
It had passed like a storm; I could barely keep up with the flow.
“About the deaths from the supply raid heading to Cheonsubaekryeonsa and the discovered head.”
Branch Master Nobody of the Beggar Sect scratched his neck and spoke in a reluctant voice.
“That demon you mentioned, Jeokmaryeong. By that demon’s hand, the Sichuan Tang Family’s Guardian Dang Hoyeon had his head ripped off and died a miserable death.”
Nobody hugged his staff and let out a deep, deep sigh as if just thinking about it gave him a headache.
“There aren’t many in the jianghu who know this yet. Even within the Sichuan Tang Family, there’s no reason to go around blabbing this humiliating fact. The opponent is clear enough, but the problem is that their side is also going berserk, claiming they cast him out themselves and asking where the bastard is instead. Anyway, even if you’re just a kid from Cheonsubaekryeonsa, as a person of the jianghu you know what it means that a Guardian is dead.”
“If a Guardian is dead. If only the head remains. The body…”
The Beggar Sect Branch Master nodded with a gloomy expression.
“The gem near the dantian was cleanly carved out and taken. The one silver lining is that, unlike other sects, the Sichuan Tang Family’s Guardians split one gem into two to share? Anyway, the important thing is the gem was taken. Whether Guardian or the even greater Eight Demon Dragons, people of the jianghu will drink lye and make rivers of blood and mountains of corpses for legendary swords and elixirs if it means getting stronger—you know that too. With this incident, the balance has collapsed.”
Word by word, spaced out, the Beggar Sect Branch Master slowly declared. It recalled once more the words Ryu Hwasa had spoken when summoning Ilmanhyeolje into this world.
“All the Guardians who have been crouching until now will leave their respective camps, covet each other’s gems, and try to kill one another.”
—Rattle… rattle…
After parting with the man called Beggar Sect Branch Master Nobody, I joined the group departing for the regular trial, exchanged simple bows, and boarded the carriage heading to the destination.
It seemed one more man had been added, and that man was talking very noisily, trying to draw the attention of the group—especially working hard to capture the gazes of the two women of outstanding beauty among them—but I stared into empty space and did not look that way at all.
“….”
The woman from the Jeomchang Sect named Sa Ha-yun was looking at me, but I paid that no mind either.
‘They’re telling me this and then telling me to just stay put?’
As I said that to the Beggar Sect Branch Master, the Branch Master who was about to leave the road turned back and asked me.
‘Then what are you going to do? Setting skill aside, you have no official position, justification, or affiliation to convince a group?’
‘…’
‘If you’re here, at least the opponent will try to enter and run into us who stand on the border between the Demon Cult and the orthodox. That’s your significance.’
In the end, to them I was nothing more and nothing less than bait to lure Jeokmaryeong.
[Objectively speaking, it can’t be helped since they know nothing of the clash with Ilmanhyeolje. And the belt Eun Seollyeong gave seems like even he couldn’t see through it.]
Mumyeong added.
I checked the surroundings. Fortunately, the companions in the carriage were either taking a short nap in the free time or chatting among themselves.
I muttered quietly.
“It seems certain, right?”
Mumyeong pondered a moment then answered.
[Certainly, that man from the Beggar Sect is not at the level of a Branch Master. A master who has even undergone complete physical rebirth being a mere Branch Master? I don’t know a speck about how the current Beggar Sect hierarchy works in the jianghu, but I’m certain that much is nonsense.]
I agreed with Mumyeong’s words as I recalled the man’s face that was youthful yet carried a sense of incongruity.
“When he blocked my path with the staff, the pressure was different. Even in conversation, his rhetoric had a feel of Jegal Sea. Starting from that unique stickiness.”
[Like experience?]
I gave a short laugh.
“You could say that. Especially his appearance was somehow strange. Not young, not old… something like a bizarre feeling of having reversed time. It was a first for me.”
[That’s possible. Those who have undergone complete physical rebirth aren’t easy to meet.]
Something suddenly came to mind.
“Eun Seollyeong didn’t give that feeling at all. From the bits she’s mentioned, she seems to have lived far longer than the Beggar Sect Branch Master… strange.”
[That’s not it.]
Mumyeong answered.
[Those who have undergone complete physical rebirth have a unique artificial feel of having forcibly straightened and rearranged the flow of their meridians, but she doesn’t even have that. Her meridians are as is, so how could it be complete physical rebirth.]
“…Then it doesn’t add up?”
[Why think so roundabout and difficultly.]
Mumyeong simply concluded.
[It just reveals that the Host knows nothing about her.]
“….”
That wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t the type to approach others first and ask about every little detail. On top of that, Eun Seollyeong thoroughly drew lines and kept her distance.
Thorough and complete purposefulness. The nobility of a martial artist and an unyielding pure white pride like a snowfield under the winter full moon. That was the fragmentary picture I felt when looking at her.
“…Next time I meet her, I should ask once. Exactly what kind of life she’s lived.”
[Honestly… Host, there’s one thing I’m uneasy about. Can I say it?]
It was extremely rare for Mumyeong to hesitate.
[This is just a simple hypothesis, so I hesitated until the end whether to say it or not. I don’t even know if the story is still passed down and current in the present jianghu. Honestly, I still don’t have a clear conviction on how much gap there is between the era I lived in as active and the present, so if I say useless info it might just bring the Host anxiety.]
“What is it. Tell me.”
I leaned forward. Interlocked my fingers.
[Around the end of our era, the Guardians absolutely avoided meeting each other one-on-one. Know why?]
“Why?”
Mumyeong laughed low.
[To put it nicely, it was an era of power and romance, and to put it bluntly, it was truly an era of savagery. They just stabbed and killed. Stabbed to death and shoved a hand into the belly to pull out the gem. While trying to pull out that gem, they’d die screaming from a spear stuck in the back, and it repeated. It had to be that way. Because we actually saw it in dreams. The thing that makes people of the jianghu go the most crazy.]
Something uneasy.
“What did they show?”
[What else.]
Mumyeong said.
[The door that ‘definitely’ leads to the next realm.]
“…!”
It felt like all the spinning pieces were falling into place. I could understand why Ryu Hwasa had said this would be the start of destruction, why the Beggar Sect Branch Master had sighed.
[The absolute realm that people of the jianghu dream of, and the final gateway a person can reach through effort, is the Profound Realm. You know that Guardians have reached this realm and possess the final decisive secret techniques as symbols.]
As if recalling the blood-reeking savage era of those days, the form of a black dog that shouldn’t be visible before my eyes wavered.
[The realm above that, the one the primordial Martial God who first created the Guardians’ gems is said to have reached. The one that can realize ‘Heaven above, earth below, I alone am supreme’ that martial artists dream of, and where the Martial God descends to the present world and grants any wish for his successor—that is the Reincarnation Realm.]
The black dog faced me in the illusion with red eyes and spoke.
[The number of Guardians in our era was eleven. Those eleven witnessed that if one absorbed six or more of the Guardians’ gems in a single moment, in a dream, one would ‘unconditionally’ reach the Reincarnation Realm.]
The black dog muttered as if recalling the memory of then.
[The problem is the total number is eleven, an odd number, but what’s needed to ascend to the Reincarnation Realm is six, an even number. Host, do you understand what this means?]
—Shudder.
Mumyeong said calmly.
[The moment anyone hurries to stab and kill six, the remaining five can never become the Reincarnation Realm. Forever. Over a mere difference of one gem.]
I realized belatedly what that number meant.
Mumyeong muttered low with red eyes.
[Now then. So, what do you think we did next?]