So You're a Dang Clan Martial Artist.
"...Chosam, you okay?"
"Don't talk to me, you bastard."
"..."
Countless trees flashed past around Cheon Seolhyeon.
Running at the very front of the four-person group, she was radiating a cold killing intent in every direction.
She ground her teeth at the thought of Baek Sihyeok.
"That rotten bastard..."
Of course. If he was going to a place that dangerous, shouldn't he have taken her along with him?
Instead of going off with that bandit chieftain who could betray him at any moment.
Was her trust worth so little to him?
The moment that thought took hold, Cheon Seolhyeon's face nearly crumpled into tears.
"Why, of all things..."
Mid-run, she glanced up at the sky for a moment.
Between the tall canopy of leaves, sunlight poured down in dazzling sheets.
And just then, Jin Sowol drew up beside her.
"...You okay?"
Jin Sowol patted her shoulder carefully and let out a sigh.
Cheon Seolhyeon was about to snap at her, but the moment she saw that bright, guileless smile, her mouth snapped shut.
"..."
"For him to run away, leaving behind such a pretty, adorable little junior sister..."
"...What did you just say?"
"When we get back, I'm definitely going to ask him why he did it. It might turn out to be less of a big deal than you think."
"One look and anyone can tell it's because he likes that woman. What is wrong with his taste, anyway? Is there something about me that's lacking compared to her?"
"..."
Jin Sowol's gaze slid briefly over Cheon Seolhyeon's flat, sparing upper body.
She'd heard somewhere that men who liked that kind of figure weren't exactly common.
Nok Soyun, by contrast, looked quite mature.
Perhaps Sihyeok's taste leaned a little more toward Nok Soyun's side of things.
But saying that outright might wound Cheon Seolhyeon — and besides, it might not even be true — so she held her tongue and kept running along the road they'd come by.
"...He'll still be in one piece by the time we get back, right? If he's hurt, I really won't let it slide."
"That monster? Pfft, come on."
As long as he didn't actually set foot inside the Dang Clan estate, it wasn't likely he'd run into anything above a Peak martial artist.
And honestly, having seen that monstrous strength of his, she figured he could handle even Peak-level opponents.
"As long as he doesn't lose his mind and pick a fight with Hwagyeong, or go poking around the Life-and-Death Gate trying to force a breakthrough and blow himself up... he should be fine, mostly."
"He does occasionally look a little unhinged... but surely he's not stupid enough for that?"
"Right?"
"Surely."
...Life.
An impact beyond anything I had predicted shook the entire Hundred Cycles, and blood ran freely down my Seven Cycles.
But there was a bigger problem than that.
My consciousness was starting to drift.
I knew it with certainty.
If I lost consciousness here, I would die on the spot.
I thought back to my days of training alone in the mountains and seized hold of my fading mind by sheer force.
That sensation of the old days — when my fingertips had no strength left, and I had wrung out my will to swing the sword anyway.
That same sense of oneness between blade and body I had entered back then — I used it to drag my drifting consciousness back under my command.
And so I managed to pin down the awareness that kept trying to scatter.
Suppressing the blood surging up from within, I gathered my strength once more.
Because there was no telling what might happen, I had intended to use only orthodox qi for the breakthrough...
But it was already far too late for such niceties.
The formulas of the Blood Yin Demon Art transformed the refined, azure energy of the Supreme Azure Pill into a dark crimson demonic force.
As the rampaging energy wreaked havoc on my meridians, the immense life force dwelling within the blood-demon qi began to mend the damage.
The Blood Yin Demon Art was a martial technique that expended qi to restore the user's wounds and vitality.
Nothing could have been better suited to this situation.
And so, all of my shattered, twisted meridians began regenerating — sturdier than they had ever been before.
I hadn't entered the Peak realm or achieved a complete rebirth of my body, but that in itself was a change equal to one.
The only drawback was that the blood-demon qi had mixed into the energy settled in my dantian...
"...?"
The moment the blood-demon qi settled into my dantian, a change began.
The Yin-Yang Supreme Harmony Art — was it really erecting a barrier between the pure internal energy I had cultivated all this time and the blood-demon qi, keeping the two from mixing?
The left half of my dantian filled with the taiji energy of black and white circulating in endless rotation; the right half brimmed with dark crimson blood-demon qi.
Feeling my body, hardened further by the power of the elixir, and my mind grown clear and sharp, I rose from my seat.
The strength in my clenched fist was on another level from before.
"...My power output's definitely up from before, too."
Good thing I'd picked up the Blood Yin Demon Art as an insurance policy, really.
The only regret was that I hadn't broken into the Peak realm.
Though honestly, attempting a breakthrough without a shred of enlightenment wasn't exactly a conscientious thing to do.
Then I opened the door of my room, stepped out, and looked down over the railing at the scene unfolding on the floor below.
There stood the innkeeper, who had come to his senses at some point and was now raging and thundering about.
With a sigh, I made my way slowly toward them.
"...So you attempted a realm breakthrough?"
"Wasted a perfectly good elixir, that's all."
"And yet you look remarkably well? You don't appear to have succeeded in passing through the Life-and-Death Gate..."
"I covered the aftereffects of failure with a demonic art I'd learned in advance."
"...?"
Nok Soyun's clear, deep eyes widened as she stared hard at me.
"What? What is it?"
"That... that joke goes too far. It is common knowledge that anyone who has mastered a demonic art becomes a demon practitioner, hunted by the Murim regardless of allegiance..."
"Well, think whatever you like."
There was no reason I absolutely had to tell her.
My gaze turned to the old innkeeper, his arms and legs bound fast to the chair.
Having spent his fury on us for a while until he wore himself out, he was now glaring at us with cold eyes.
He drew a rough, ragged breath.
"Hahh... you... rotten bastards, the lot of you..."
"Please don't cause such a commotion, elder. The watchers of Sichuan are passing through this area as we speak."
"Wh-what...!"
At Nok Soyun's words — the watchers of Sichuan — the old man's eyes went wide.
"Aigoo, now I'm done for. What am I supposed to do about this?"
"You haven't been discovered yet — but if you keep shouting like that, you might be."
"..."
At her words, the old man's mouth clamped shut.
"...What, exactly, are these watchers of Sichuan?"
"Martial artists of the Dang Clan. And... the martial artists of the Four Dark Associations."
"...?"
"Because of them, the Green Forest has had trouble gathering intelligence on Sichuan. We need to obtain useful information and slip safely out of Sichuan... and the odds of doing that without running into a watcher are, quite literally, like plucking stars from the sky."
"Then why not just send a master strong enough that those watchers can't detect? The Green Forest King, say?"
"Any martial artist above the Peak realm can sense the presence of a Hwagyeong master. Hiding presence that immense is no simple matter."
"Hmm..."
Just as I was pondering this, the old man lowered his voice and spoke to us.
"Those... those men in black robes, they've been abducting people. Even Master Ju's daughter, who came by our shop every single day, and Master Won's son... one day, their footsteps just stopped."
"They're kidnapping ordinary people too?"
"Kidnapping...? Hm, maybe they're draining people's life force to brew pills? But wouldn't that make them not just heretics, but outright demonic practitioners?"
"Heh heh..."
The old man stared at us in silence for a moment.
"I was harsh with you earlier. Thinking back on it now... I didn't have much time left anyway. As an apology, let me at least put a proper meal on for you."
With that, he rose from his seat and headed toward the back of the kitchen.
"...Hm."
"What are you thinking about?"
"That thing you told me before, remember?"
"Yes. That if we worked at this inn, we could gather information from the travelers passing through and keep an eye on the region's movements."
"Then wouldn't it be simpler to just lure these watchers right to us, squeeze out whatever information we need, and cut them down?"
"...And if something goes wrong while doing that?"
"That's exactly why they only sent us measly Peak-realm types here, isn't it? So that even if we cause trouble, it won't become a big problem."
"..."
"First, let's eat."
And so we waited for the old man cooking away in the kitchen.
Then a sound of something slicing through the air reached my ears.
Shwiiing—
"Soyun, duck."
"...?"
I grabbed the back of her head and shoved it down.
I snatched whatever it was that had come flying through the wall — a needle. Thin as a hair.
A needle of extreme fineness, sometimes called the Ox-Hair Needle.
"..."
Dark crimson blood-demon qi bloomed up around my body.
"I'll be right back."
"...A demonic art?"
The Heaven-Controlling Supreme Harmony Step fused with the ferocious savagery of the blood-demon qi, producing an utterly absurd power.
I burst straight through the inn's wall and closed my hand around the throat of whoever waited on the other side.
"Gkkh...!"
"Oh..."
Caught in my grip was a woman.
Clad in a long green robe, she was staring at me with eyes wide with terror.
In her pupils, she could see my own two eyes — dyed red as blood.
"So you're a Dang Clan martial artist."
"Gghk... ghhk..."
Huh. Demonic arts were more efficient than I'd given them credit for.
In sheer destructive power, at least, they stood several steps ahead of orthodox qi.
I'd probably be using them more often than I expected, from now on.
The woman patted feebly at my hand with her own, her face contorted in anguish.
"P-please... spare me... I didn't know you were one of the Cult..."
"There's something I'm curious about, actually."
I raised the needle I'd snatched out of the air.
"What do you think is coated on this? Aren't you curious? Because I'm terribly curious."
How best to find out, I wondered.
And what a convenient test subject, right in front of me.
"Dang Clan martial artists train poison arts to build up their resistance to toxins, don't they?"
"...! Mmph—!"
Without a moment's hesitation, I drove the Ox-Hair Needle into her throat.
Thuck—
"Guhhk—!"
Foaming at the mouth, she crumpled to the ground where she stood.