The Sichuan Tang Guardian
“Sichuan Tang Family, is it?”
The secretary I had been interrogating twitched a few times with a clatter, then died on the spot. Centered on the sword buried in his forehead, his body began to corrode at a terrifying speed. In the span of a single breath, the secretary melted away until no one could have recognized who he had been. In his hand he still clutched a silver-plated dagger to the very end—perhaps meant for self-defense. I snatched it up.
I looked ahead. I could not have been more tense. I forced myself to my feet. At my words, the man wore an expression of open admiration.
“Hmm. You’ve got a sharp eye. Did you instantly see through the Tang Gate’s poison—the Shadowless Blood Poison?”
Of course there was no way I could have recognized any poison. Because I wore a mask, the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family had no idea I was Moyong Bi.
Damn it. Of all people, a Guardian.
I had expected Moyong Jinryong to be connected somehow. But I never once imagined that the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family would be here at Cheonsubaekryeonsa—not even at the Moyong Family or the Sichuan Tang estate itself.
Do I have to fight?
My entire body was drenched in tension. Rain and sweat soaked my mask through. These were human weapons called disasters even among the Nine Sects and One Gang, where monsters beyond the human realm thrived in droves. I had watched the martial power of Eun Seollyeong, Guardian of Mount Hua, from right beside her. I had also seen the skill of So Yeomgyo, the Flame Eye, said to rival any Guardian.
[Host.]
I nodded. With the secretary’s death, further pursuit had lost all meaning. This place was already far outside Cheonsubaekryeonsa’s grounds.
“Yeah, I suppose I have to charge, don’t I? I’ve been watching you fight for a while now, and you really looked like a wounded tiger. It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt competitive spirit just from watching someone.”
Daggers whirled into the hands of the Sichuan Tang Family’s Guardian.
“I, Dang Hoyeon of the Sichuan Tang Family, shall face you—”
The residual internal energy Mumyeong had used returned to me in a rush. I detonated every scrap of power throughout my body. What I had left now was one gapja and a half.
Red light blazed from both eyes beneath the mask.
Possession Experience Synchronization
First-class — Blood Sect’s Blood Shadow Mist Illusion Body Technique
There was no point conserving internal energy. Driven by the raw desperation of death, I poured every last drop of power into it.
“You bastard.”
Dang Hoyeon’s eyes went wide.
“What a monstrous aura! Where has a guy like this been hiding until now!”
The Guardian’s presence shifted. Eyes that had been locked in boredom now sparkled with interest.
“Good. This will be fun. Coming straight at me, are you? Really—your fighting spirit alone is that of a tiger of a man!”
Lightning erupted from my entire body as my qi exploded outward. It was the full-powered Blood Shadow Mist Illusion Body Technique that had once torn through even the Blood Sect’s Heavenly Net Earth Web.
“I, Dang Hoyeon, shall accept your spirit. Come!”
His hands clamped hard around the daggers. I gritted my teeth and gathered every ounce of strength. Spewing lightning-flame, I crouched my body to the absolute limit. My thighs contracted until they felt ready to burst. At the instant of launch I twisted my body hard.
I left a massive scar in the ground and shot away like a single streak of crimson light.
“…He ran without even thinking about it?”
Dang Hoyeon stood frozen in that spot for a long while. Overhead the rain kept falling as if nothing at all had happened from the very beginning.
I crashed back into the lodging through the window and tore the mask off the moment I landed. I collapsed face-down on the floor.
“Huk! Heok! Huk! Damn it all! Of all things, a Guardian had to pop out there!”
I had never fled with every scrap of power like that before. Even after bracing both hands on the floor and gasping for a long time, I was so spent I could barely think. I stripped off the rain-heavy upper clothes and sprawled flat on my back.
[That was the best choice. A wise one.]
Mumyeong’s voice was calm.
“What kind of bastard is it that the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family is standing personal guard for him!”
I slammed a fist into the floor and clenched my teeth. I hadn’t even recovered my stake. The world never turned the way I wanted. I had planned to threaten the secretary so that, when he panicked and ran to his superior, I could reverse-track from there and identify whoever was acting as Moyong Jinryong’s hand and foot inside Cheonsubaekryeonsa’s Disciplinary Committee. If necessary I had even intended to cut that hand off. But as if the man had read my thoughts, the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family had been waiting right there.
Is this what Mara Jin meant?
Mara Jin had said a fighting ghost was drawing near and wished me survival once again. The moment I heard those words my nerves had gone razor-sharp without my noticing. Who wouldn’t? An existence that was almost certainly not human had predicted and declared that I would face a danger equal to death. Anyone who laughed calmly after hearing that would have to be a madman without a head.
“How is it that I came to Cheonsubaekryeonsa for safety, yet Cheonsubaekryeonsa feels more dangerous than anywhere else?”
[Still, you gained something, didn’t you?]
“True enough. It wasn’t a total waste.”
I fumbled inside my clothes. What I pulled out was the silver-plated dagger taken from the secretary’s corpse. On the scabbard were the words: “To the one who contributed to the glory of our sect.” I drew the blade. Aside from that phrase there was not a single other mark. An ordinary person would have passed it by without a second glance.
“You’re certain?”
[Absolutely.]
I wiped the scabbard clean. In its center a mandala pattern was engraved against a background of white lotus. I had already seen this exact design—on the walls of Yuk-bi-dong and O-bi-dong.
[White Lotus Demon Sect. At the very least, someone connected to the White Lotus Demon Sect is involved. The White Lotus Demon Sect is currently destroyed and split into the Blood Sect and the Demon Sect. We cannot yet say which of the two forces it is.]
“And one pillar of that is our eldest brother, right?”
There was nothing left to doubt. The Covenant of the Sacred Mountain—a powerful pledge by which a Guardian protects another without condition, excluding only their own sect. The wealthy Five Great Families had long understood the value of raw martial power. They salivated at the chance to form the Covenant with even one more Guardian, while the Nine Sects and One Gang that housed those Guardians used the covenant as leverage to extract the finances their own sects lacked. Of course money was secondary; the Guardian’s own will and judgment mattered most. The pride of those who contended for the title of greatest under heaven ran high, so the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain was never handed out carelessly. And the Guardian of the Sichuan Tang Family, as far as I knew, had formed that covenant with the eldest son of the Moyong Family—Moyong Jinryong. If he was here at Cheonsubaekryeonsa, a place with no connection to the Sichuan Tang Family at all, there was only one reasonable conclusion: he was here by Moyong Jinryong’s will.
“Moyong Jinryong really doesn’t choose his means…. I think I finally understand a little why Third Brother Moyong Ryu hated him so much.”
I set the dagger down and ordered my thoughts.
“Finances handled by the eldest son of the Moyong Family. Martial power and other support coming from outside forces. And we still don’t know who the hand planted inside Cheonsubaekryeonsa actually is.”
I spun the dagger idly while muttering. The pieces were roughly falling into place. From the start what I needed had never been evidence I could present to others. Even a foundation solid enough to harden my own conviction would have been enough.
[Moyong Jinryong requested a check on the Host, and some specific force lent its hand. In return Moyong Jinryong would have provided that force with something of value.]
“Yeah, that’s… huh?”
The dagger kept spinning. The pearl set into the end of the hilt had been turning the whole time. At first I thought it was simply a loose decoration spinning freely with the blade. “What is this… could it be?” But the pearl had been crafted with extreme precision into the form of a screw. Minute as the movement was, the pearl was clearly working itself free.
I slipped on the Seven Sects Black Pearl Gauntlet, gripped the pearl, and crushed it with my grip strength. Beneath it a hollow space opened inside the hilt.
“As expected. It was a lid.”
I brushed away the pearl dust and opened it. Inside lay a single sheet of paper.
This is a certificate bestowed by Taeuljin of the Disciplinary Committee. All forces under Taeuljin shall immediately cooperate with the one who presents this.
I crushed the paper in my fist. My hand trembled.
“Finally caught you. You son of a bitch.”
Heavenly Demon Divine Cult — Ten Thousand Mountains — Cult Leader’s Hall.
“I’ll say it one more time.”
A man wearing a cracked and shattered white blank mask stood before the Cult Leader’s Hall. In front of him a demonic person fully clad in black robes, sword at his waist, blocked the entrance.
“I asked whether the Cult Leader is inside.”
“Y-Yeomrangwang-nim! You cannot do this! Please restrain yourself!”
Surayeomrang Squad’s Yeomrangwang, Jeokmaryeong, stared silently at the demonic person before him.
“Restrain myself? What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Th-that… that is…!”
White light blazed from the black sockets beneath the mask.
“Do I look to your eyes like a man who has lost his reason and is running wild in rage?”
“N-no…!”
“I did everything you ordered. I lived carrying out every command like a hunting dog exactly as directed. I took our people and performed every kind of dirty work… even the filthy tasks no one else wanted, discarding the pride of a demonic person!”
In a calm, even voice without rise or fall, Yeomrangwang spoke quietly.
“And as the price for that, I requested a single audience after thirteen years—and you block me from even that one thing? Me, who obeyed like a dog without voicing a single question to any order…?”
The demonic person swallowed hard.
He’s already lost his reason.
Beyond the calm voice, hatred burned like an unquenchable fire.
“Look at this.”
Jeokmaryeong opened his empty palm.
“From twenty jang in front of the Cult Leader’s Hall, all weapons are forbidden—so as you can see, I am empty-handed. Moreover, according to my promise with the Cult Leader, I have always placed a third-star restriction upon my only pride and specialty—Heaven and Earth Great Shift. Through every asura I have walked, I have never once broken that vow.”
He raised his arm. A thick bracelet like a black-light shackle was locked around it.
“Even so, is my loyalty to the Cult Leader still in doubt? Still insufficient?”
“Y-Yeomrangwang-nim… p-please restrain yourself.”
“You.”
Jeokmaryeong thrust his flickering eyes right into the demonic person’s face.
“Let’s see whether you can keep from screaming after I tear your limbs off right here. The Cult Leader will surely accept even a fraction of this Yeomrangwang’s earnest desire to see him.”
He slowly seized the man’s collar.
“C-Cult Leader!”
The demonic person almost wailed.
“He said there are matters requiring careful consideration, and ordered that not only Jeokmaryeong-nim but absolutely no one is to be admitted for an entire month! It is by no means that he is avoiding Yeomrangwang-nim!”
Jeokmaryeong flinched.
“…No one?”
The answer came from behind him.
“Yeah. That gatekeeper’s words are right.”
Jeokmaryeong turned. In the corridor of the Cult Leader’s Hall where no one should have been, a man stood waiting.
“Still as rude as ever. No matter how much the Demon Cult prioritizes raw strength above all else, this is exactly why lowly bloodlines will never do. The breed is simply different.”
Jeokmaryeong growled low in his throat.
“Well now. If it isn’t Captain Lee Eulseong of the Cheonrangdae.”
“Yeomrangwang Jeokmaryeong.”
The man with red skin and a large sword scar across his cheek twisted his bushy brows and sneered.
“You look a complete mess. Is the rumor true?”
“Rumor?”
“Playing dumb, are we?”
Lee Eulseong grinned mockingly.
“The rumor that you crawled around like a beggar picking up scraps that fell along the orthodox border, then got yourself injured and came slinking back like a wounded shit-dog.”
Jeokmaryeong released the guard’s collar. He removed the white mask and let it drop to the floor. The face revealed beneath was perfectly expressionless.
“Cheonrangdae Captain Lee Eulseong.”
“You. Come see me for a moment.”