The Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts
“It's a map the wild ginseng diggers use. Follow it and you'll know the mountain paths.”
I ran like a madman, clutching it in my fist.
The last conversation I'd had with Gam Seoin, right before setting out for Cheonsubaekryeonsa, rose unbidden in my mind.
“Even going straight, you're telling me I have to wind around three times the distance?”
At a glance the detour was more than triple a straight line.
“You have no choice. You must absolutely avoid any ordinary road where people travel freely.”
“Why?”
“Considering the Moyong Family's wealth, they won't have stopped at the Lower Gate. They'll have promised bounties and given orders all the way down to peddlers and itinerant traders.”
The situation was worse than I'd thought.
Gam Seoin had added one more thing.
“And along the route to Cheonsubaekryeonsa, we have no escort of our own.”
“Is there a particular reason?”
“Our Eighth Elder's faction is a drop in the bucket next to the other three brothers' forces. Better to have you slip through alone than to attach a clumsy escort that leaves a trail a mile wide.”
I had long since lost count of how many ridges I'd crossed.
A full week of this.
Between ragged breaths I spat a curse.
“What the hell kind of glory am I supposed to be chasing, going through this shit…”
The mountain path at dawn was treacherous with dew. The mud was slick; the grass felt greased. My foot shot out from under me.
“Ugh—!”
Thorns raked my face as I tumbled three and a half times and only stopped when my skull cracked against a tree stump. The instant I stopped rolling I scrambled to check my pack.
“Hah… still got it.”
Only after I confirmed the silver identity token Gam Seoin had given me to present at Cheonsubaekryeonsa did I let out a breath of relief. Lose that out here and I'd never find it again.
“I guarantee you, if this body were the old one it would've snapped a hundred times over.”
[Of course. Though it was reconstructed on the foundation of the host's original weak body—mere impurities, as it were—it is still the physique of the Heavenly Demon at his peak…]
Mumyeong's voice rang inside my skull the moment I'd spoken, as if he'd been waiting.
“Shut up. You sit there whispering about how unfair everything is into my ear all day and then say crap like that—you think I'm going to like it?”
[I did think you would like it.]
“…Forget it.”
I set off again, climbing and descending along the ridges for what felt like forever. Panting, clothes caked in mud, I pulled the map free once more.
I had barely slept. Day and night I ran. At my current level, if organized killers ever surrounded me I was dead for certain. So I did not stop. Step after step, I drove myself toward Cheonsubaekryeonsa.
Cheonsubaekryeonsa—the neutral ground no faction's breath could reach. Once I arrived there, Gam Seoin had said, he could finally breathe easier.
Days and nights of running.
“This it?”
Just in case, I hid in the undergrowth and checked again and again. When I lifted my eyes from the map, far ahead a faint plaque reading Cheonsubaekryeonsa came into view.
“I made it…!”
Staggering, I shoved through the brush and crawled out onto the road. A peddler walking by nearly jumped out of his skin when a filthy figure suddenly burst from the lonely thicket.
With a clatter the pack on his back spilled across the ground.
“Still… I got here without dying.”
Even back when I'd been clawing my way up from the bottom of the capital, I'd heard talk of Cheonsubaekryeonsa. The Nine Sects and One Gang, seeking the pinnacle of martial arts, had founded the academy to foster harmony in the martial world and advance its arts. Because of that, Cheonsubaekryeonsa belonged to no single sect; it was more like a neutral territory free of any one faction's influence, a second world inside the jianghu that ran on its own iron rules.
In short, for someone whose footing was as unstable as mine, it was the best sanctuary I could hope for. And it was the first place where I might finally receive true instruction in martial arts.
Finally… me too!
Day and night I had run with the terror of death breathing down my neck. The moment that signboard came into sight, relief flooded every inch of me. My whole body felt ready to melt from exhaustion. I wanted nothing more than to flash the silver token, finish the enrollment formalities, and collapse.
“Let's go.”
Light-hearted at last, I hurried forward—
and a kitchen knife punched straight through my gut.
“…?”
I looked down. The tip protruding from my belly was utterly foreign.
“Khhk… you son of a—!”
Blood surged up my throat. I twisted to look behind me.
“You're Moyong Bi, the bastard son of the Moyong Family, right?”
It was the same peddler who had dropped his pack when I burst out of the brush. With a wet thuck his hand clamped my shoulder. After that everything happened in a blur.
The knife punched through my stomach again and again. Only after the third thrust did the reality of it sink in. I flung both arms across my belly in a desperate shield. Even then the blade skated along my forearms twice more and buried itself in my gut. When it missed the stomach it sank into my arms instead. Blood sprayed the dirt.
I flailed, trying to slap the knife away with my palms. Skin split; flesh tore. On the seventh attempt I finally closed my fingers around the incoming edge.
“Ghh… ghhh!”
My trousers were already soaked through with the blood pouring from my belly and my clenched fist. The ground beneath me turned into a dark puddle, as if someone had dumped a bucket.
With my free hand I shoved the peddler's face. My own blood-slick fingers filled my vision. Between them his cheek bulged; blood-wet eyes rolled and fixed on me.
“Kkrrgh!”
The edge bit deeper into my palm. I still couldn't let go. The second I did, the stabbing would start again.
“Heh-heh… how does it taste? Sharp, right? Yeah?”
The peddler trembled, face a mess of excitement, joy, and fear, spittle flying.
“Ha—haha! I told them you'd come to Cheonsubaekryeonsa! The bounty’s all mine!”
He thrashed, trying to wrench the knife free of my grip. The raw frenzy was nothing like a trained assassin. He was chillingly ordinary—just a peddler, a pack-carrier, eyes gone mad for money.
Our faces were close enough that our noses almost touched. Through his pupils I felt every raw emotion, unfiltered.
“Grrrk…”
A searing heat pulsed through the holes in both arms and my stomach. His brute bulk was large enough to overwhelm my body completely. There was only one way I could crush a man this size in an instant.
Using a butcher's cleaver to kill a worm was ridiculous—but I had no other choice.
“Hey.”
“Die already, brat. The wine and women at the brothel are waiting for me.”
“Hey. Look at me.”
I panted, blood bubbling at my lips. It might have been overkill. I didn't care. Sparks were already dancing in my eyes. Anyone who tried to kill me—man, woman, old or young—I would not leave alive. Whoever raised a hand against me once would be torn apart. Whoever tried to harm me would be repaid tenfold. Age and sex meant nothing. From this day that was my goal, the measure of my life. I was done living only as the one who got hit.
“As thanks for feeding me a bellyful of steel, I'll show you something precious.”
“What?”
The instant the words left my mouth both of my pupils flooded crimson. The handful of inner energy I'd seized from the Guryeonggeumdan stirred like fuel. The amount was pitiful, but enough to run a single form.
“Eyes open. Watch.”
Crimson snakes coiled around both of my fists—
and then:
[Don't.]
“What?”
The red serpents gathering in my hands scattered in an instant. The scarlet draining from my eyes reversed; they returned to black. The inner energy that had been condensing to burn dissolved like flour in water and soaked back into my flesh. The heat roaring in my skull plummeted.
Through a mask of blood I muttered,
“What the hell do you think you're doing.”
[Inner energy hastily obtained from an elixir is unstable. Use it now and you risk qi deviation.]
“You crazy—right now, of all—!”
I was so furious the words wouldn't come.
[I will manage the wounds somehow…]
“You bastard, who asked you to—”
A cauldron-lid fist smashed into my face. I went tumbling.
I spat. A blood-clotted gob of spit and a molar bounced across the dirt. Both arms were ruined. My belly had two clean stab wounds that had mercifully missed the vitals but still bled freely. My trousers were soaked through. Clutching my stomach, I tried desperately to stanch the flow and crawled away, leaving a trail of red, desperate to put distance between us.
Something was wrong. It was broad daylight. Why was the road completely empty?
Damn it. My head swam.
“Heh-heh. Looking around for help? Sorry—no one's coming.”
“What?”
The peddler adjusted his grip on the knife and strode closer.
“Cheonsubaekryeonsa is infamous for rules sharper than any blade against anyone who so much as sets a finger inside its territory. Who'd want to walk past and get snagged for nothing?”
I'd thought his boldness in broad daylight was excessive. Now I understood why.
“You son of a bitch… the way you dish out knife-work, this isn't your first time. You really a peddler?”
I kept talking just to hold onto a mind that was starting to float away on the reek of blood.
“Plenty of rich men in this world who don't want to dirty their own hands. Heh-heh. Doing this on the side every now and then pays pretty well.”
He seemed lost in old memories, a greasy smile on his face.
“Around this time last year there was this rich young lady… the money was good, sure, but—”
“Shut up.”
“What?”
His eyes went cold. I planted a palm on the ground, forced my upper body up, and sagged back against the great gate of Cheonsubaekryeonsa.
“I thought maybe you were like I used to be—some bastard thrashing around just trying to stay alive. Now I'm sure. This world is full of bastards, and plenty who deserve to die, but…”
I dragged in ragged breaths and forced the words out one by one.
“You? You really need to die.”
“Oh, is that so? Then let's start by ripping that mouth open. I don't know what scheme you've got that lets you still look so relaxed, but—”
He advanced, knife reversed in his fist. I panted and kept talking.
“Among those iron rules you mentioned—the ones that apply the second a single finger crosses the line—is attempted murder just… free?”
“I was wondering what you were counting on right to the end.”
He snorted, incredulous.
“That'd be summary execution, of course. So what? Does this look like inside the temple to you?”
“Obviously not. I'm leaning on the gate, so this is outside.”
“And?”
I smiled.
“I just hope the people of Cheonsubaekryeonsa are every bit as territorial as you say.”
“…?”
The peddler stared at me blankly. I tilted my chin. His gaze followed the gesture down to my hand.
My blood-slick arm had already slipped through the gap beneath the great gate and into the compound beyond.
“You… you little—!”
He screamed and lunged with the knife. He hadn't managed two full steps before—
a soft fwip, like air escaping, and his head left his shoulders. A beat later blood jetted from the clean-cut stump.
“Hah… hah…”
I'd lost far too much blood. Through a graying haze I saw a figure looking down at me. Fresh blood still dripped from the right hand like clotted threads.
Now came the real problem.
“Just curious—even if Cheonsubaekryeonsa's rules are strict, they wouldn't execute the person who got ambushed, right?”
The world swam. The figure flicked a sword through the empty air, shedding blood.
“…Right?”
I switched to formal speech. Even so, the tip of the blade came to rest against my throat.
“The letter of recommendation from the Eighth Elder of the Moyong Family should already have arrived.”
I reached into my robe and carefully drew out the silver token.
“My name is Moyong Bi. Fourth… of the Moyong Family…”
I'd bled too much. Strength left my fingers.
The blood-soaked silver token clattered onto the ground. A pale hand picked it up. An unusually white hand. In my blurring vision I caught the silver sword at the figure's waist. A plum-blossom motif was carved into the scabbard; blood freckled the petals.
Blood kept leaking from my gut. A thought drifted up unbidden. How many times in a single week had I already walked the edge of death? I no longer knew. From inside the torn clothing, from the depths of the wounds themselves, flesh seemed to knit as if someone were forcibly stitching me back together—but I could barely register it. I was exhausted. In that blank haze I simply let the thought fall out of my mouth.
“I'm so fucking sick of this.”
“What?”
Silver eyes blinked.
My head reeled.
“I yelled about rising in the world, about making a name—but the truth is I'm not asking for much. I just…”
Too much blood was gone.
“The years I spent in the Moyong Family I was too young to remember what I even ate, so that doesn't count…”
Every memory was starting to tangle. I rambled on.
“I just wanted to eat meat until I was stuffed. Once.”
A memory from not long after we'd settled in the countryside. The kid next door had bragged about eating beef. He'd gone on and on and then asked if I even understood what he was describing. I'd made a retching face and said it tasted bad, that I didn't eat that junk. Then I'd gone home and cried.
“I still remember that day out of nowhere.”
The silver eyes simply listened.
Head bowed, I muttered,
“Sometimes I'm so tired I just want to drop everything. But I've still got too many regrets… I really wanted to eat some meat…”
A soft click—the sword sliding home into its scabbard.
“At Cheonsubaekryeonsa you can eat as much meat as you want. And…”
The voice was clear and pure as ringing crystal. Beneath the blue sky the sunlight was almost too bright. Looking up, I couldn't make out the face of the person gazing down at me. Only the silver eyes gleaming from within the shadow burned themselves into memory.
“Every life ends someday. But that day will not be today.”
“Heh… like a person's life ever goes the way they plan. Who decides that—god?”
“I do.”
“What?”
With another soft click the plum-blossom sword was laid on the ground.
“Eun Seollyeong, Guardian of the Mount Hua Sect, has decided it so.”