Nightmare of the Swine
It was a mill.
A single bright shaft of sunlight poured through the open window. Countless motes of grain dust and flour drifted and swirled within the beam. The vast interior of the mill was thick with the dry, dusty scent of grain.
—Creeeak…
—Thud.
Along one side, a water channel turned a great waterwheel. Suspended from it, a massive wooden pestle rose high as the sky and crashed down again and again.
—Creeeak…
—Thud.
Beneath it lay a deep stone mortar, already filled with pounded rice flour.
—Thud.
The flour that should have been collected long ago still sat there, endlessly pulverized by the relentless pestle.
—Trickle, trickle…
Beside it, bright red blood flowed. It ran across the white rice flour. Droplets beaded and rolled without soaking in at first, then, once enough had gathered, they collapsed and sank all at once into the powder.
Behind the stone mortar, a young girl lay collapsed, her throat cut, tears still wet on her face.
“Aaaagh!”
The stench of blood filled the air. People were dying. A slaughter was unfolding around the mill—chase and kill, kill and chase. Masked martial artists poured through every corner like countless sacks of black sesame seeds dumped out at once. The killing spilled from the mill into the alleys and on into the village itself.
—Creeeak…
—Thud.
Amid the regular pounding of the pestle, martial artists of the Moyong Family, faces wrapped in black cloth, swung their blades. Everyone beneath those blades was prey.
“Why… why in the world?!”
The servants and martial artists of the Weiji Family fell helplessly.
“Puhah, puhahaha! These bastards are seriously weak!”
“This is why country bumpkins are a problem!”
At first the Moyong blades had been taut with tension, thick with the scent of blood. But after watching the Weiji martial artists flail and collapse so pitifully, they began to enjoy themselves. One deliberately slowed his pace to toy with a screaming woman and child as they fled. Another rifled through corpses for gold and valuables. No one stopped them.
“Hey, kill them faster! We’ve got to move to the next sector!”
“Hey, even so—we’re still supposed to be orthodox sect people. Is this really okay?!”
They murdered and looted, shouting in high spirits.
“Everyone here is going to die anyway. Who’s going to know what we do?!”
The shout was so loud it seemed to shake heaven and earth. The pestle fell.
—THUD!
The massive impact rattled the entire mill. One martial artist, yanking a jeweled necklace from a woman’s throat, yelled in irritation.
“Damn it! Somebody smash that dog-shit pestle or stop it somehow! It’s splitting my ears!”
—Creeeak…
—Thud.
As if answering him, the pestle—smeared with blood and flour—slammed down once more.
—Thud-thud.
—Thud-thud-thud…
The sound grew faster. The face of the man who had shouted turned beet red. He tore his gaze from the woman’s body he had been ransacking and exploded in rage.
“I clearly said to do something about that pestle’s pounding—!”
No one was looking at him. Every head had turned toward the outside of the mill.
—Thud… thud…
The ground itself was shaking.
—Aaaagh… aagh…
—Crunch… crack, craaack…
Faint screams. Sounds of things bursting. One by one the Moyong martial artists turned their heads and looked at one another.
“What the hell is that sound?”
“Seems like it’s coming from far away.”
“No… more than that.”
One adjusted his mask and muttered.
“Why is it so quiet around us? Just around the mill there should be three more teams besides us, and five more down the alleys into the lower village.”
—BOOM…!
The floor shuddered again.
—Shhhssss…
Dust sifted down from the mill’s ceiling. The man who had first complained about the pestle looked up blankly.
“This sound…”
The pestle that should have been the source of the latest impact was not on the floor. It still hung high in the air.
“It wasn’t just the pestle…?”
—Thud-thud-thud…!
It accelerated sharply. A sound as if heaven and earth were being flipped over. No—as if the world itself were being crushed like pottery shards.
—THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!!!
Like a giant sprinting at full power, something charged straight toward the mill. Everyone cried out in shock.
“What the hell is that sound?!”
“An advancing stomp…?! No, impossible—this impact!”
“It’s coming! It’s coming!”
The martial artist who had pocketed the necklace shouted as he stuffed it into his robes.
“Everyone form up and prepa—!”
—Fwoot.
Like a thread snapping, the approaching impacts vanished right in front of the mill entrance. A heavy, corpse-like silence filled every corner.
—Creak, creak…
The mill door swayed with a dry sound. The martial artists stared at one another with eyes as wide as lanterns.
“…It’s gone?”
There was no presence. Everyone held their breath and extended their senses in every direction. Only dust floated silently in the sunlight.
—Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing behind a mask.
“….”
One man jerked his chin toward the door. Covering one another’s blind spots, they slowly stepped outside.
“Good gods.”
Where the road from the lower village should have led straight to the mill, everything now looked as if it had been overturned by a giant shovel. It was like the aftermath of a typhoon. Corpses lay so mangled that their original shapes were hard to make out, mixed with the rubble of collapsed buildings.
“…What in the world happened here?”
—Crack.
One Moyong martial artist’s corpse was visible, lower jaw ripped clean off while still alive. His face was frozen in a scream of agony.
—Crack.
A brief black lightning flickered across his body and vanished.
“Crazy… this is footwork.”
One of them examined the ground and spoke in a hoarse voice. The epicenter of the total devastation was a single deep line of footprints.
“This is impossible. Martial arts of this scale exist?”
“Could a Guardian have come?”
“Nonsense. In this backwater?”
Sensing something seriously wrong, one man muttered.
“…Fire the signal flare. Call Lord Cha Ryu-ja. This is an emergency.”
One pulled a signal firework from his robes and launched it skyward.
—Fweee…!
A red flame streaked straight up and split the sky. They slowly backed into the mill. The building was solidly constructed of thick timber—enclosed, with only a single entrance at the front for quick entry.
Facing the white sunlight pouring through that entrance, the martial artists retreated with extreme caution. They formed a semicircle with the doorway at its center. The lead man spoke in a low voice.
“We don’t know the enemy’s level or numbers. No means are off-limits. You still have that rare thing we recovered from the Weiji warehouse earlier, right?”
One man produced a thunderbolt bomb from his robes and nodded. They tightened their grips on their swords.
“Don’t be scared. There are still about twenty of us. The terrain is on our side too.”
One rapped the mill wall. A heavy sound confirmed the thickness of the timber planks.
“Among the Moyong Family’s formations, the eighth form of the Bagua Suppressing Formation—the one that focuses purely on defense. Everyone remember it?”
“That one…”
The eighth form of the Bagua Suppressing Formation was so extremely restricted in movement and so purely defensive that it was almost never used in real combat. Glances were exchanged.
“Worth a try.”
“Especially in terrain like this.”
The direction of any attack was fixed. They slowly faced the entrance and completed the formation. Anyone whose shadow so much as flickered in the doorway would be shredded by blades.
—Huff… huff…
Hot, tense breaths rasped beneath the masks. Beneath one slightly slipped mask, a philtrum dusted with fine hair was visible, beads of sweat standing out on it. Stray hairs plastered to a forehead, soaked with sweat. Suffocating silence filled the space.
—Creeeak… creak-creak…
“…!”
Every pair of eyes rolled upward without a sound, staring at the ceiling. Something was walking across the timber roof of the mill. It was extremely careful, quiet, and composed.
—Creeeak, creeeak…
Like a reaper searching for the slightest gap through which to slip in and claim lives, it paced the planks. Everyone nodded. Carefully they drew throwing knives from their robes.
—Hummm.
Condensed inner energy of First-rate level infused the blades; heat haze shimmered around them like boiling water. Behind them, a single painfully bright shaft of sunlight cut through the entrance.
—Creak… creeeak…
They tracked the regular footsteps.
—Huff, huff…
Dozens of suppressed breaths lay low. The silence was so thick they could almost hear eyeballs moving.
—Pat-pat…
With each light, delicate step across the ceiling, the faintest dust sifted down. Every hand holding a throwing knife slowly drew back.
—Creeeak…
First step.
Second step.
—Creak.
The third step landed.
“Now!”
Every throwing knife flew at once.
—THUD-THUD-THUD!
Dozens of blades turned the plank where the last footstep had sounded into a honeycomb.
—CRASH-CRASH!! THUD-THUD-THUD!
Every martial artist poured out every throwing weapon they possessed in a frenzy.
—Tadatadatada!!
The footsteps accelerated madly. The timber shook.
—CRACK! CRASH-CRASH-CRASH!
Where the knives had passed, countless holes let white sunlight pour down into the dark mill.
—Tadak, tadadak!!
Dodging the rain of blades, the footsteps zigzagged left and right at blinding speed, then suddenly changed direction and shot in a straight line.
“Catch it…!”
With a choking cry, more knives chased those steps. The moment a blade was about to pierce the spot where the next stride should land—
—KRA-KOOM!
A thunderclap like the wall of air itself exploding, and the presence vanished once more.
“What?”
The martial artists whispered in bewilderment.
“It disappeared…?”
That presence had clearly been heading for the mill’s single entrance.
—Creak…
The slightly crooked main door swayed in the autumn breeze. Then one man jerked his chin as if he had spotted something. Beneath the sunlight flowing through the entrance, the hem of a martial robe fluttered behind the door.
“….”
The man nearest the door pointed to himself, then to the door. Gripping his sword, he approached in silence.
—Rustle…
The faint sound of cloth stirring. He raised his blade. Inner energy concentrated along the edge.
“Haaap!”
A flash of light pierced the door and the wall together. The shadow of the martial robe was stabbed and shook violently. It trembled.
“I got it…!”
The man who had thrust cried out in triumph. Every face relaxed at once.
—Creeeak… THUD!
The precarious door tore free of its hinges and crashed down.
—Clank! Clatter-clatter!
Heavy weapons tumbled out with a racket that shattered the silence.
“Huh?”
The thruster sensed something wrong. There was no blood on his blade. He stared blankly at the fallen door.
“What is this?”
There lay a black martial robe fluttering like a scarecrow’s clothes, along with a sword and a three-section staff that had served as its frame.
“…Don’t tell me!”
He yanked his blade free and spun around, shouting.
“Everyone be careful, it’s a tra—!”
—KRAAANG!!!
Caught in the storm of an advancing stomp, the man was flung away like a bursting dumpling, his waist snapping. It was Black Thunder, its core a white light so bright it hurt the eyes. Infinitely ominous. Infinitely dense.
A single stomp. That one stomp blew a hole clean through one entire wall of the mill. Amid the exploding splinters and dust, crimson eyes gleamed.
“Good gods—how did it come through the wall?!”
“Enemy! It’s the enemy!”
A cloud of dirt filled the mill.
“How many?!”
“I can’t see!”
Every line of sight was blocked. The martial artists frantically tried to reorient the formation.
—Papapat!
Green beads punched through the dust cloud. Thumb-joint-sized green scatter pellets flew toward them, red fuses already burning down.
One man muttered.
“Fuck. Who the hell are y—”
—KRAAAANG!
A deafening explosion and billowing smoke.
—THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
A storm of tiny iron pellets swept the martial artists in front like millet.
“Aaaagh!”
“Uwaaagh!”
At the same moment a man appeared, crimson eyes blazing.
“Who am I, you ask?”
The man took his first step into the mill, Black Thunder with him.
“Originally I might have become the master of you swine.”
“…What?”
—Kiiing!
Crimson light flared from his eyes as his body dropped low.
“And right now, I am the nightmare of you swine.”
—Whoosh!
Moyong Bi’s black shadow plunged into the group before him as if pouring over them.