I'd Rather Die by a Knife in the Back
I looked at the silver necklace Eun Seollyeong held out.
Then at her fingers.
"Moyong Bi?"
Jegal Sea pressed me again.
In front of me, the teacup that had once held steaming tea was growing cold.
I stared at the table, then lifted my head.
"I refuse this offer."
"…What?"
Eun Seollyeong's eyes wavered, just slightly.
Jegal Sea's mouth fell open.
"Wh—wh—what. What did you just say? Moyong Bi? Wait. Wait!"
She hurriedly shoved her head between me and Eun Seollyeong.
"Moyong Bi, no matter how little you know about the jianghu, do you even understand what you're saying right now?"
"I do."
"What do you mean, you do?!"
Jegal Sea shouted.
"It's the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain. And a Guardian is volunteering it herself! Do you have any idea how hard I worked to convince Eun Seollyeong—"
"No. I've already decided. I will not enter into the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain."
My black eyes did not so much as flicker.
"And I'll say it again—I know perfectly well what the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain is without your explanation."
The Covenant of the Sacred Mountain.
It meant that a Guardian—the strongest sword and final blade of each sect—would, of their own will, form a mutual protection pact with a third party outside their own sect.
They called it mutual protection, but in practice the overwhelmingly powerful Guardian provided physical protection, while the other party paid a corresponding price in wealth, privileges, and the like to the Guardian or the sect they belonged to.
Moyong Jinryong, the first son of the Moyong Family, had formed just such a Covenant of the Sacred Mountain with the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family. That Guardian had become Moyong Jinryong's hand and made threatening remarks toward both me and my elder brother Moyong Ryu.
Brother Moyong Ryu had reacted razor-sharp, too, the moment he heard Moyong Jinryong had signed another Covenant of the Sacred Mountain.
From local power brokers to the Five Great Families, how many Covenants of the Sacred Mountain one had secured was a critical measure of strength in any clash of factions.
That was why countless men of means hungered to secure even one such covenant—and the more famous and powerful the Guardian, the fiercer the scramble became.
But the mightier and more renowned a Guardian was, the less readily they entered into a Covenant of the Sacred Mountain with just anyone.
Even if their sect desired it, the Guardian's own will came first. Sheer wealth alone could not force the issue.
"…."
Eun Seollyeong regarded me in silence.
I did not look away from those eyes.
I met them straight on.
"More than anyone, I have lived by colliding bare-handed with the bottom of this jianghu. I have rolled in the dirt and eaten mud to survive. And through every step of that path, I may have lived a life of helping others—but I have never lived a life of pitifully holding out my hand and being dragged around by someone else."
I snatched the silver necklace.
—Bang!
I slammed it down on the table.
Then shoved it roughly back toward Eun Seollyeong.
"…!"
Her pupils trembled faintly.
"No matter how much those idiot elites drool over it—being shielded by a Guardian like some patron deity, the fame that comes with it, whatever. I don't care about any of that. If I need something, I take it with my own two hands."
Jegal Sea cried out.
"Moyong Bi! Face reality! At a time like this, what is this childish stubbornness—!"
"This is not childish stubbornness!"
I roared back.
"It is the pride of a man who intends to live as his own master!"
"…!"
"That dogshit compromise and groveling subordination—that is what is childish! And if that is what it takes to become an adult—!!"
A crimson light flared and detonated in both my eyes.
"Then I would rather give up on becoming an adult! If I had walked this jianghu with that kind of mindset, I would already have died long ago—in my one-on-one duel with Ilmanhyeolje!"
"…What?!"
Horror flooded Jegal Sea's eyes.
"Wait. Ilman…hyeolje? You mean the founding Guardian of the Blood Cult? Hold on, Moyong Bi. When you explained it back then, you only said he was a strong fighter from the Blood Cult—"
"Jegal Sea, you called me the weakest of us, but I am nothing like what you think. Don't assume I've shown you every last card I hold."
She stammered.
"You… just what the hell did you fight down there in that underground pit?"
When Ilmanhyeolje died, even the fragments of his corpse had turned to ash and vanished without a trace.
But his gem had remained intact, and I had used it to save So Yeomgyo.
I was no genius, but I was not so stupid that I failed to grasp what kind of shockwave a gem of that caliber—something outside every standard of the present jianghu—would send through the world.
Jegal Sea, to put it plainly, was one of the established powers of this jianghu.
I had seen plenty of filth while living in it.
And because she was exceptionally sharp, I had never trusted her completely.
Right after the battle with Ilmanhyeolje she had pressed me with endless questions, but as long as I—the sole survivor—kept my mouth shut, even someone as brilliant as her could never uncover the whole truth.
"And Eun Seollyeong."
I turned my head roughly toward her.
"I don't know what kind of life you've lived. I don't know what hatred you've carried or how you've endured until now. Of course—we've each lived our own lives, so it's only natural there are things we can't accept in each other. But I'll say just one thing."
I did not retreat a single step. I looked straight into Eun Seollyeong's eyes, so clear they were almost cold.
"I may be weaker than you, but until this day I have stood beneath the sky without a single point of shame."
"…."
"If you think you can shove some covenant or whatever at me—something that forcibly binds us together out of circumstance rather than anything that comes from the heart—and that I'll just gobble it up like every other man, you're wrong. The Covenant of the Sacred Mountain can wait until later—"
I spoke to her with absolute finality.
"When you truly feel the need for it from the heart, come talk to me again."
"You idiot!"
Jegal Sea said.
"That's exactly why I pushed for this! Mutual absolute treaty or not—once it becomes a Covenant of the Sacred Mountain, neither side can harm the other. Contract or no, we need airtight mutual trust inside this framework first if this operation is going to have any chance of success, so stop being stubborn and—"
"I'd rather die with a knife in my back."
Jegal Sea pressed her forehead with a sigh.
"Ah. There he goes again."
Eun Seollyeong retrieved the silver necklace and fastened it back around her own neck.
Jegal Sea looked aghast.
"Eun Seollyeong, not you too?!"
Eun Seollyeong spoke to me.
"I understand your meaning perfectly. I will withdraw the offer of the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain. Moyong Bi. If it appeared discourteous, that was not my intent. I ask that you set aside any misunderstanding."
Jegal Sea sank into her chair as if she had given up entirely, sniffling.
"Ah, seriously… you two. Could you please stop being so uselessly alike in that damned charge-straight-ahead-without-retreating temperament of yours."
"However, regarding the remark about dying with a knife in your back, allow me to add this. The earlier momentary…."
Eun Seollyeong's words broke off for a beat, then continued.
"…lapse of private emotion will not happen again. Of that I give my word. Before I am a person or a woman, I am a martial artist who swore to become a single blade—and before I am a martial artist, I am a Guardian."
Her unwavering eyes filled for an instant with complicated feeling, then cleared.
"…."
I could feel it again.
Even as she spoke, she was not looking at me.
She was looking at something behind me.
She has not taken a single step forward past that point.
I recalled Jegal Sea's words once more.
"Haa. Fine. If you're going to put it that way, I'll revise the plan to match. And from my position, it doesn't seem like such a bad outcome in the end either…. All right then."
Jegal Sea took the ink brush and furiously blacked out part of the plan she had written on one corner of the map on the table.
"I won't dig into the details. Just answer me one thing, Moyong Bi."
With that single act she seemed to have neatly put her turmoil in order, and she looked at me.
"For now I'm not scheming about the future or anything like that. I'm asking straight out because I need to know. To build a plan, I have to be able to gauge at least some measure of your absolute maximum strength."
"…."
Jegal Sea leaned back in her chair, rocking it lightly as she spoke.
"When we investigated the great underground cavern where the battle took place, we were able to confirm traces of a massive human sacrifice. It was clearly recorded in our people's reports as well. But with no survivors, what exactly that ritual was meant to summon—later, any number of orthodox-path sorcerers, yin-yang masters, and high officials came and examined it meticulously, yet not one of them could uncover the answer."
From among the chess pieces laid out on the map—the one representing me and the one representing Eun Seollyeong—Jegal Sea picked up Eun Seollyeong's piece and set it beside her own.
Then, with the brush, she drew the routes each of the two groups would take all the way to Shaanxi.
In front of my piece, left alone, a much shorter route had been marked—one that cut straight through a certain village on the way to Shaanxi.
"Don't worry about secrecy. Let me make this absolutely clear—if anything you say in this room somehow reaches the higher-ups of the orthodox path, you can assume I was the one who opened my mouth and come kill me for it. I'll offer my neck without a single excuse."
"I'll hear you out first. What's the question."
I looked at her.
Jegal Sea said,
"In that great underground cavern—the opponent you never clearly named. The one you fought to the very end."
She swallowed.
"Was it Ilmanhyeolje, the founding Guardian of the Blood Cult, who had been summoned?"
I considered it briefly.
Then I nodded.
"…."
"…."
Jegal Sea and Eun Seollyeong both fell silent.
Jegal Sea murmured blankly,
"I called a guy like that the weakest? I've seen plenty of people all over the orthodox path claiming to be the next generation's hidden dragon, but here's the real hidden dragon sitting right here."
Eun Seollyeong muttered under her breath.
"I had my suspicions from the star signs, but of Ilmanhyeolje's caliber…. Fortunately, it seems he never reached his complete form."
I said,
"I killed him starting from the First Night, before the Seven Nights could come."
"…Seven Nights. That matches the description of Ilmanhyeolje I read in the old texts exactly."
Eun Seollyeong let out a short breath.
Jegal Sea propped her chin on her hand.
"Now the story's starting to make sense…. Now the Gwando incident and everything else are finally lining up front to back."
"What story?"
Jegal Sea opened her mouth.
"You clashed with the former Flame Wolf King of the Sura Flame Wolf Unit in Gwando, didn't you?"
"That's right."
She spoke flatly.
"That incident turned the orthodox path's upper ranks and even the Imperial Court upside down. Gwando was completely wrecked. Investigators are still on site looking into it. At first, based on the appearance of the Nine Killing Stars and the number of demonic practitioners, the investigators concluded it had been a large-scale localized battle between groups of demonic practitioners. The damage was that catastrophic. But there was one thing that snagged in the process."
"…."
"Every single eyewitness in Gwando said the same thing—only two people had been tangled up fighting. One wreathed in violet flame, the other sheathed in black thunder, pouring out a terrifying black aura."
I remembered a danger I had let myself forget.
A cold sweat ran down my spine.
Right in the heart of the orthodox path, I had detonated demonic energy and fought a life-or-death duel to save everyone, to drive him out of Gwando by any means necessary.
Black thunder had sprayed in every direction and I had been moving so fast my face must have been nearly invisible—but there were bound to have been a few witnesses all the same.
…Right. That was a problem.
A martial artist of the orthodox path unleashing demonic energy in the middle of orthodox territory.
That alone would have been enough to brand me a public enemy of the murim with no room for argument.
"—And the higher-ups of the orthodox path and the Imperial Court dismissed all of it as the nonsense of ignorant commoners and are trying to close the case as internal strife among demonic practitioners."
Those words were like a single ray of light cutting into a corner of my heart that had begun to darken.
"…What did you say?"
"Setting aside the fact that the level of force was hard to accept as a simple duel between two people—do you know what the decisive reason was?"
"What."
Jegal Sea said,
"The officials asked them to at least describe the faces of the two demonic practitioners they'd seen—even just the one covered in black thunder—so they could sketch them. Do you know what the commoners said?"
I swallowed dryly.
Jegal Sea spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Every last one of those commoners, as if they'd all agreed beforehand, clamped their mouths shut and said they couldn't remember. So it was dismissed for lack of credibility. Funny, isn't it?"