I Have To Go
Jin Seongun and Chae Seoryeong raced toward the direction of the screams. Even as they stepped only on the life gates of the formation, their speed never faltered for an instant.
It was a dangerous thing to do.
A single misstep onto a death gate could very well cost them their lives.
And yet the child's screams kept ringing out, again and again — they could not stop.
Chae Seoryeong was beginning to reach her limit.
The Falling Fire Dotting the Eye was not something she could sustain forever. A dreadful pain had set in, as though her eyes were about to be plucked out of her skull.
She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Blood smeared across her skin.
— Over there!
Jin Seongun veered along the path of her transmitted voice. Then came the moment the screams truly did sound close —
— Wait!!
The two of them stopped at the same instant.
The screaming was coming from just ahead.
Even as tears of blood streamed down her face, Chae Seoryeong studied their surroundings carefully.
— Are you all right?
Jin Seongun asked. Chae Seoryeong looked in genuinely terrible shape.
Then her expression hardened.
— ……We can't go.
Only a single rooftop stood between them and the source of the sounds.
The very heart of the Cheonghae Trading Company.
But there was no road leading there.
— Is it like before, with no life gates at all?
That had been true of the formation Sama Hui had unfurled some days past.
Back then, Jin Seongun had simply torn the entire formation to ribbons.
But that was something one could only attempt from inside a formation.
Chae Seoryeong shook her head.
— No. Two formations are layered on top of each other, so their life gates and death gates overlap.
In other words, a spot that was a life gate in one formation was a death gate in the other. In short, every life gate was simultaneously a death gate.
— What if we simply cross through empty air?
At Jin Seongun's question, Chae Seoryeong shook her head again.
The flow of qi was surging upward with utter abandon, heedless of how high it climbed. Unlike the Sama clan's formation, there was no crossing over through the air.
After all, if that were possible, a Great Thief of the Divine Thief's caliber would never have been caught in a formation to begin with.
"……"
Jin Seongun kept staring toward the direction of the screams. No matter how he racked his brain, no answer came.
— We can't get through. However we approach, the structure guarantees we fall into a formation. And that formation…….
It was the formation that had birthed the Divine Thief's death.
Or perhaps, after decades, something even more advanced than the one that had.
Frustration etched itself across Chae Seoryeong's face.
They had come this far, the screams rang out mere steps ahead — and they could not go. The fact was agony.
That was when it happened.
Jin Seongun took a step forward.
Chae Seoryeong, who had just dismissed the Falling Fire Dotting the Eye, jolted in alarm.
— What are you doing?
— I have to go, don't I?
— I told you we can't!
— Still, I have to see. What they're doing to those children they brought here. And if they can be saved, then they ought to be saved.
It was not out of any grand sense of chivalry.
He had simply learned the martial arts of the Sword Immortal and of Daji — and a man who had learned such arts could hardly ignore the screams of children right before his eyes.
Before long, Jin Seongun turned back to Chae Seoryeong.
It was time to keep the promise they had made before setting out.
— Go back, my lady.
— No…….
Chae Seoryeong froze where she stood.
She remembered the promise too.
But this was no ordinary dangerous situation. How could he ask her to walk away alone while he marched off to his death of his own accord?
Jin Seongun, however, was resolute.
— Keep the promise. Besides, someone has to tell the others what's happening here, don't you think?
With those words, he turned away with iron finality and launched into his light-foot movement.
Jin Seongun soared up over the rooftops.
Watching him go, Chae Seoryeong bit down on her lip.
He was right.
Someone had to spread word of this, without fail.
And right now, she was the only one who could. And yet, even watching Jin Seongun charge alone into a deathtrap, her feet would not easily carry her away.
Even so — she could not just stand here blinking dumbly, swallowed by frustration and lingering attachment, and end up doing nothing at all.
She had to do something. Chae Seoryeong's eyes flooded red once more.
Blood welled thickly from her savaged lip.
Jin Seongun leapt high into the air.
At last, the scene beyond the rooftops came into view.
"……"
Rarely did Jin Seongun's eyes tremble — but tremble they did.
Deep within, where the screams poured out without end, a scene of sheer horror was unfolding.
There were people there.
Their bodies swelled somewhat, then promptly melted away. It was enough to make even a hardened villain furrow his brow and look away.
Jin Seongun took it all in, committing every detail to memory.
Amid the victims' screams and the cruelty unfolding before them, the smiths standing in their midst were utterly composed. As calm as if this were their daily routine, they placidly gathered up bones and hammered them against hunks of iron.
As though testing the strength of the bone.
A metallic ring sounded from human bone.
He could guess what was happening — they had been forced to cultivate demonic arts.
Demonic arts were, by nature, Arts of extreme effect and extreme side effect. The demonic cultivators of the Heavenly Demon Cult trained the ones whose side effects were comparatively mild.
But there also existed arts whose power was extreme — and whose side effects were equally extreme.
Say, an external art that hardened bone and muscle beyond any hunk of iron — with the terrible side effect of swelling the body until it melted away.
Jin Seongun drew the Nokhwa Sword.
Fierce crimson flame coiled around the blade.
SHWAAEK—!
A colossal sword qi of deep red swallowed the smiths whole.
KRAAKOOOOM—!
The entire area shook violently.
And at that same moment, something seized Jin Seongun by the ankle and dragged him down, deep.
Jin Seongun found himself in a small, sealed room — about the size of Seongun Inn, or a touch smaller.
There was no furniture of any kind. Only walls of dark-brown earth closing him in on every side.
Jin Seongun channeled crimson flame into the Nokhwa Sword and swung.
BOOOOOM—!
A massive shockwave erupted.
The billowing cloud of dust hung for a moment, then slowly settled.
"……"
The wall was unscathed.
Astonishingly, not so much as a hairline crack.
Jin Seongun finally understood why his master, the Divine Thief, had struggled so. In a space this cramped, there was almost nothing his master could do.
SHWAAEK—!
A sharp cleaving of air rang out.
Jin Seongun shifted into his new form on instinct.
Something grazed past his face at terrifying speed.
"……"
A vine.
Absurdly enough, a thick green vine had sprouted from the wall and was now lunging at him.
Jin Seongun swung the Nokhwa Sword lightly.
Thwap.
The vine came apart with almost insulting ease.
The severed length writhed briefly on the floor, then simply melted away.
Jin Seongun stared at it in disbelief, then gathered his energy into the Nokhwa Sword once more.
SHWAAAAAENG—!
A sword qi of devastating force, incomparable to anything before, tore forward.
A thunderous boom followed, and the whole room shook.
Where the qi struck the wall, a very, very fine hairline fracture appeared.
"……So that's all it takes."
That strike had carried power comparable to the one that had shredded Sama Hui's formation. What manner of formation could withstand a blow like that?
Even as he pondered it, a sudden chill crawled up his spine, and Jin Seongun swung the Nokhwa Sword without hesitation.
Swish—!
Vines again.
This time there was more than one. A dozen-odd vines surged out of every wall and came rushing at him.
He cut down most of them, but one that erupted without warning from the floor coiled around his ankle.
Almost in the same instant, Jin Seongun severed it.
'It absorbs internal energy.'
Even in that sliver of a moment, the vine had stolen a fair chunk of his qi.
A brief silence fell.
Jin Seongun surveyed his surroundings. A deeply strange feeling crept over him. The formation itself was unbearably sinister, unbearably unpleasant.
The moment the vine that had gripped his ankle melted away, vines came charging in from every direction once more.
He had his suspicions now, so this time he channeled no internal energy at all — simply cut them all down with the bare edge.
"Just as I thought."
No new vines sprouted.
Those vines fed on internal energy to grow. Pour sword qi into the wall, or lose energy to a vine's coils, and they erupted without fail.
The room itself felt like a single living creature.
'Then I crush it.'
Having grasped the rough principle, Jin Seongun nodded. There was only one way through this, after all.
He took his stance.
Gripping the Nokhwa Sword firm, he fixed his gaze on the wall where he had first loosed his qi.
In a flash, fierce crimson flame flooded the blade.
SHWAAAEAEAK—!
The sword arc flew and slammed into the wall.
Just as expected — dozens of vines erupted from every direction and came surging all at once.
The vines were fast and stealthy, and the room was far too small to evade them all.
Jin Seongun swung the Nokhwa Sword without pause, relying purely on his energy sense. Tracking and deflecting each one by sight was impossible.
In the span of a single breath, the Nokhwa Sword moved a dozen times. The instant he had severed every vine without once laying eyes on them, he again poured sword qi into the wall.
From there, it was repetition.
Strike the wall with sword qi, cut the vines down with the edge. Naturally, the more energy the room devoured, the more vines sprouted, and the faster they came.
If he exhausted himself before the wall broke, he died.
If the wall broke before he exhausted himself, he lived.
It was that simple.
Standing in one spot, Jin Seongun simply swung his sword, and swung it again.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
The cracks in the wall widened little by little. All the while, vines filled the room on every side. A line of sweat ran down Jin Seongun's brow.
How much time had passed like that?
It was when, for the first time since learning martial arts, his body began to feel fatigue —
KWAAAAAAAANG—!
At last, the wall shattered.
Just as Jin Seongun felt an inner surge of relief —
From that place, a middle-aged man appeared.
"Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"
The man asked in a voice heavy as stone.
Jin Seongun knew the moment he laid eyes on him.
'Strong.'
The thick, tarlike demonic qi rippling around the man looked, even to Jin Seongun's eyes, profoundly dangerous.
He could not say for certain, but the man was clearly stronger than Sikmugaek or Saryeonggeuk.
And so, he asked.
"And who might you be?"
At Jin Seongun's counter-question, the man wore a bemused expression. He stroked his black-stubbled beard for a moment, then broke into a wide grin.
"Ask the King of Hell."
"Seems you're rather famous down in hell."
Jin Seongun nodded along, stalling for time. But soon the man's brow twitched.
"You've trained some outlandish internal art. Filling your reserves even now, in the middle of this?"
"That's hardly yours to criticize."
How could a man wreathed in such sinister demonic qi dare call the Yeowol Mind Art of his master Daji outlandish?
At Jin Seongun's flat remark, the man burst into booming laughter.
And in that very instant.
He came whirling toward Jin Seongun, billowing thick demonic qi, and swung down a sword strike.
Jin Seongun calmly deflected the middle-aged man's blade.
A considerably weighty resistance pressed against his wrist.
'Not good.'
Ordinarily it would have been nothing, but exhausted as he was now, it was far from easy. Worse, vines kept surging in from every direction except the front.
"……"
Jin Seongun pushed his senses to their absolute peak, fending off vines and sword strikes simultaneously.
But soon his limits showed.
WHISH—!
Every so often now, a vine managed to coil around his ankle. Each time it did, it felt as though a fistful of his qi was siphoned away.
Jin Seongun's complexion grew somewhat pale.
The man's sword strikes, by contrast, were growing fiercer by the exchange. It was a truly lopsided fight.
As the battle stretched on, wonder deepened in the man's eyes.
"A monster of a bastard. Showing up in the dead of night in a mask, of all things……."
Jin Seongun remembered that he was, in fact, wearing a mask. No wonder his heart had stayed so calm despite the urgency of the situation.
'This way, there's no hope.'
Whether it was the mask or simply his nature, Jin Seongun assessed the situation in his characteristic, deadpan manner.
This fight was one he could not win. He understood now why even the Divine Thief had ultimately failed to solve this place.
Especially in a war of attrition like this, his odds were not one in ten thousand.
Jin Seongun realized he had to force the issue as fast as he possibly could.
Before long, Jin Seongun stopped his sword. Seizing on that sliver of an opening, dozens of vines bound his every limb.
In the same breath his energy began draining away at a terrifying rate — and the man swept his sword down to pierce Jin Seongun's heart.
The man's blade stabbed into Jin Seongun's chest.
KAANG—!
A piercing metallic shriek rang out.
The man's eyes bulged. His sword could not break through the bastard's skin. It was nothing short of preposterous.
Jin Seongun swung his left arm. The vines coiled around him were torn away by sheer physical strength alone.
THUDUDUDUK—!
His left hand, steeped in Blood Demon Qi, tore toward the man's face.
The man had only just released his strike, leaving the two of them terribly close. He frantically backpedaled —
KRAAAAAKOOOOM—!
And the Blood Demon Palm detonated squarely in his face.