Converging on Gwando
The far northern edge of the Central Plains — the triple-border zone where the Murim Alliance, the Heavenly Demon Cult, and the outer reaches of the jianghu all met.
"Chief. What are we supposed to do about this?"
Rain was coming down in sheets. In a deluge so thick a man could scarcely see a foot ahead, the temperature at the northernmost tip of the Central Plains had plummeted until high summer felt like a bad joke.
Swaaaaah.
Two camps faced each other across a single wooden palisade. Below the barrier stood nine figures wrapped in black rain cloaks. Above it, countless martial artists in Murim Alliance colors stared down at them with open dread.
"R-r-rain… damn it all! What the hell is this mess!"
Seo Seo-yeong, the Murim Alliance section chief charged with security for Zone Three, shook his thick lips until water flew from them.
"Two more days and this posting is over! I was supposed to be gone!"
This was the outermost of the border zones between the orthodox sects and the Demonic Cult. Strategically it held no value whatsoever. Even during the Great Orthodox–Demonic War a century earlier, the flames of war had never reached this far. That was precisely why men with connections could land a posting here. Serve three years on the outermost frontier between the outer powers and the Demonic Cult, and even a martial artist without a great sect behind him received official eligibility to enter Cheonsubaekryeonsa.
Skill could be mediocre. Resolve could be nonexistent. Until today, none of that had ever been a problem.
Shiver, shiver, shiver.
From rich young masters who had only ever daydreamed of the jianghu to Murim Alliance men who had scarcely seen real combat, they trembled like aspen leaves. Hiding behind the palisade that blocked the canyon mouth brought them no comfort at all.
A few of the more hot-blooded subordinates finally hissed at the chief behind them.
"Chief, you have to give some kind of order…!"
"There's only nine of them. What if we just hit them first?"
The chief bellowed through a cold sweat.
"No! Everyone hold position and watch! Do not provoke them! That red line in front of the palisade is still Demonic Cult territory. Attack them and we hand them the excuse they want…!"
The nine tall demonic martial artists, lower faces veiled in blue gauze, kept silent and simply stared up at the wall. When the chief peeked through a gap and met their eyes, he recoiled as if struck and jerked back out of sight.
He snapped at his men again.
"Th-the messenger hawk! Did you send the messenger hawk? We need reinforcements!"
"Chief!"
A subordinate came running from farther back and dropped into a full bow.
"Ah! You're here — what's the reply? What did the rear say?"
At the chief's urgent demand the man looked apologetic. His clasped fists tightened.
"We sent the hawk, but the answer is always the same: 'We respect the officer in charge's discretion and prioritize on-site judgment. Maintain the status quo as far as possible. Send another hawk only if the situation becomes significantly worse.'"
The chief's face went purple.
"…These… these pig-dog bastards…! Did they even read the damn message? Do they think I wasted a messenger hawk over one or two random demonic martial artists?!"
"Ch-Chief!"
One of the men watching outside called out in a voice gone dead white.
"What? What is it!"
The chief scrambled to look past the palisade.
Squelch.
In the short time he had looked away, all nine of the demonic martial artists had deliberately crossed the red line and now stood squarely on Murim Alliance ground.
"H-hiiik!"
The chief made a sound like a pig having its throat cut. Until that moment they had been outside the line, so he had held fire. But with every one of them now blatantly inside Alliance territory, failing to attack would become a question of the commanding officer's negligence.
The blue veil stirred. The tallest of the nine, standing at the front, spoke in a calm, deep voice.
"Relax. We are not white pigs like you — beasts who play at purity while constantly scheming behind your backs and fancying yourselves the center of the Central Plains."
"What did you just say?"
The blue-veiled man continued.
"We have no intention of causing trouble. We of the Demonic Cult, the Nine Killing Stars included, revere strength. If we have a purpose we show no mercy even to an ant — but if we have none, we will not touch so much as that ant's young. That is what it means to be true martial artists of this jianghu."
"The Nine Killing Stars?! Did he just say the Nine Killing Stars!"
The Murim Alliance men on the wall erupted in panic.
"The hunting squad that even Guardians can't shake off — that Nine Killing Stars?!"
Blue light flickered in the demonic martial artist's eyes as he murmured,
"There is no need for meaningless bloodshed. Open the way."
"…?!"
"Our sole purpose is to hunt down and kill one deserter from our own side who crossed over in this direction. Succeed in executing him and we will vanish without a trace. I give you my word. Headquarters will never even learn that you opened the gate for us."
The chief, only his eyes showing above the palisade, shouted in a shaking voice,
"You'll use that kind of sweet talk to start an invasion of the Central Plains! Who doesn't know the treacherous hearts of you demonic bastards!"
"…We are telling the truth. The strong feel no need to lie. Only the weak wag their tongues."
"Bullshit!"
"Is that so?"
The lead man let out a short sigh.
"Then we have only one thing left to say."
His hand settled on the sword at his waist.
"Whoever blocks us becomes dirt. That is our creed."
Sssring.
Every member of the Nine Killing Stars quietly drew steel. The blades were bizarre cavalry weapons — curved sabers with one edge saw-toothed.
Splash, splash!
They began walking forward without hesitation, kicking up mud. Seo Seo-yeong's cheeks quivered.
"Ah… aah."
He stared at the steadily approaching Nine Killing Stars and shook. There was a palisade, yes, but he knew better than anyone that a wooden wall meant nothing against masters of that caliber.
Kuuung!
Suffocating killing intent blanketed every direction.
"U-uwaaagh!"
The once-bold Murim Alliance men lost their minds. They collapsed where they stood. Weapons clattered from nerveless hands. The enemy had not even crossed the wall, yet more than half of them were already sitting in the mud.
D-damn it, damn it!
Seo Seo-yeong squeezed his eyes shut.
"O-open…!"
Every gaze locked onto Chief Seo.
Tak.
The entire Nine Killing Stars halted as one.
Seo forced the words out.
"Open it…."
The Murim Alliance men, already stripped of fighting spirit, scrambled over one another to haul the gates wide. The massive wooden doors of the palisade swung slowly open.
The nine killing stars of the Heavenly Demon Cult looked at one another.
"What are we looking at right now."
"I never imagined it had rotted this badly."
"Peace is a poison, and they have drunk themselves senseless on it. Without the Blood Cult around, we of the Demonic Cult might have ended up the same way after a hundred years of quiet."
Beyond the open gate stood Murim Alliance martial artists who had already surrendered to the killing intent pouring from the Nine Killing Stars. The man at the very front watched them calmly and murmured,
"A promise is a promise… but the moment we return from the subjugation of the Flame Wolf King, every detail of this situation will be reported to the Cult Leader."
"Still, Number One — are you certain? That the Flame Wolf King will head that way?"
Swaaaaah.
The downpour only grew heavier with every passing moment. What had been heavy rain became a true deluge. Rain no longer merely fell from above; it struck the earth and rebounded upward, as if the sky were raining both ways at once.
Kuuuung.
Lightning split the heavens. Everything was being driven to the brink by the gathering storm.
In the midst of that torrent, the first of the demonic martial artists — Number One — looked back at the others.
"Knowing the Flame Wolf King as I do, he will definitely go there. That man cannot live with defeat."
The remaining eight killing stars nodded as one through the rain.
"Then from this moment on,"
Number One faced forward again and walked through the gate where every Murim Alliance man had his head pressed to the mud,
"we head for the place that funnels everything together like the neck of a gourd. To Gwando."
"You're certain of this?"
"Yes, Flame Wolf King."
Kuuuurung!
In the middle of the downpour, white breath steamed from Jeokmaryeong's mouth. He waved the letter his subordinate had just handed him. Arrayed before him stood seven subordinates in rain cloaks, letting the storm soak them. Unabsorbed water ran down the cloaks and dripped in fat beads onto the ground.
Shhhhk.
One of them opened an oil-treated bamboo umbrella. Beneath it, Jeokmaryeong read the letter at speed.
"During the Ha-mu-gwan trial at Cheonsubaekryeonsa, he returned ahead of the others, alone…."
White breath gusted past the white mask.
"That makes it too ambiguous to simply wait along any one return route. Did he somehow sense I was hunting him?"
"Then there is only one place we must go."
Everyone began preparing to move again at those words. Jeokmaryeong crushed the letter in his fist.
Fwoosh.
Violet flame flared in his hand and the paper was gone in an instant.
"All of you, get ready. We leave immediately."
"Flame Wolf King. Is the destination still the place you first named?"
The former Flame Wolf King of the Surayeomrang Squad, Jeokmaryeong, answered his subordinate.
"It is. We go to Gwando. There we wait for the one returning."
He looked up at the sky. For three days straight black clouds had poured rain without pause.
Thud-thud, thud….
Fat raindrops smashed against the white mask as he stared upward.
"In this Central Plains rotten to the core, let's have a proper match between men who would be second to none if only tomorrow existed."
In the downpour, violet light exploded through the black eye-holes of the white mask.
"Wouldn't you agree, Moyong Bi?"
Craaack!
I went rolling through the mud.
"Guh! Cough, cough!"
I spat out the foul sludge that had forced its way into my nose, ears, and mouth and gasped for air. Four straight days of relentless training had left my entire body feeling as if it were about to come apart.
From a safe distance, Muyeong-sintu stared blankly and muttered,
"Th-that bastard… he actually memorized every single formula of Polar Night…? When Asura said he copies martial arts, it wasn't just a figure of speech?"
"Goddamn it!"
I slammed a fist into the mud.
"Why the hell can I see the whole thing in my head and still not use it! Aaaaargh!"
Kuuung!
Hot torrents and black lightning surged up through my body again.
"Hup!"
I vanished.
Kwaaaarung!!!
A sound like a colossal thunderclap ripped the air apart as space itself tore and I disappeared.
An instant later—
KWA-BOOOOM!!!!
"Gyaaah!!!"
I smashed face-first into an invisible wall so hard my head snapped back as if my neck would break, then went tumbling. The impact was so vicious that even in mud that came up past my waist I rolled more than ten full turns and still had half a turn left over.
Muyeong-sintu's mouth fell open.
"H-he succeeded at tearing space — the first page of Polar Night — in only four days…?!"
He clutched his forehead.
"Oh, hell. A damn master and disciple pair showing up every thirty years to snatch my only meal ticket…! I had a bad feeling the moment that sly middle-aged bastard reappeared…."
"Hah! Hah! Hah! A-again…!"
I wiped the freely flowing nosebleed with the back of my hand. That was when I noticed Muyeong-sintu off to one side, still holding his head.
"Master Muyeong-sintu?"
"Ahem. Right. You dog-like highway-robbing bas— no. Ahem. Disciple of Asura."
He cleared his throat.
"You're advancing faster than I expected. Truly."
"I can see it clearly in my mind, yet I still can't activate it. I've never run into this before. If the copy was going to fail, it should have failed outright…."
Muyeong-sintu answered as if it were nothing.
"Polar Night is a martial art, but it also steps half a pace into the realm of sorcery — a technique I created myself. That's probably why. The part that's blocking you right now is almost certainly the sorcery side."
"Is that so? Then… what should I…."
He looked at me. He simply watched me bleeding from the nose in the middle of a mud pit. Then he crouched down and let out a long, deep sigh.
"Damn it. Back when I helped cover for the Heavenly Peach theft and kept you safe, I was glad I did it… but of course nothing in this world is free. I'm too embarrassed to go around calling it a one-man transmission technique anymore."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Not about you, brat. Just listen carefully!"
Muyeong-sintu pulled a folding fan from his waist.
"Three days left! For the next three days, to keep you from dying, I am going to give you a goal!"
He cracked the fan against his palm for emphasis.
"Now that you've cleared the first hurdle of Polar Night — tearing space — I will help you. For the remaining time you will train yourself half to death to fully embody Polar Night! Then, three days from now, when the 'moment' I spoke of earlier arrives, I will offer you a proposal that can change fate… and after that, everything is left to heaven!"
I looked up at him from the mud.
"…In other words, you will personally assist with my training?"
"That's right! Since things have come this far, I might as well see a version of Polar Night that isn't just for thievery — one fully adapted for Asura's Great Annihilation Art, made purely for life-and-death duels. That way I'll at least break even!"
He shouted,
"If you master this footwork, then even if that bastard is the Flame Wolf King — the one man the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult alone saw as a threat and ordered sealed — you'll still have a fighting chance!"
He clenched a fist tight.
"Which means the next three days are going to be so brutal you'll wish you were dead, so don't you dare die on me! You, you son of a bitch, are truly fucked!"
There was more than fighting spirit in that declaration; there was a strange undercurrent of anger as well.
I pinched one nostril shut.
Snort.
Blew the blood free. Spat the rest that had pooled at the corner of my mouth. Then I looked up with light in my eyes.
"Then for the remaining three days, I leave myself in your hands. My second master."