Five Shadows
To the west of Xining, a gaping red fissure split open the vast salt flat desert.
The salt plain, which should have been blindingly white, had turned a bloody crimson, as though hell itself had descended upon the mortal world.
By the time the Red Cry Society arrived, the air had already been stripped of salt and replaced entirely by the foul reek of blood.
Six people.
Gang Jeok-u, Seo Han-muk, Jin Yu-ah, Wi Yeon-ho, Cheong No-yun, and Do Ha-jin.
The six survivors who had lost half their comrades in the hellish Manhon Yeon-ok—and who had returned with those horrific memories carved into them like tattoos—stood once more before that crack in the earth.
The captain, Gang Jeok-u, had his dao slung over his broad shoulders. The blade still glinted with sharp, cold light, but he did not draw it to show off his skill as he once might have.
Only those who had endured a Yeon-ok carried that kind of caution—or fear. It pressed his weight low and heavy.
“It’s a Hyeol-mun.”
His voice was low.
Seo Han-muk stepped forward with his spear angled down, the black spearhead pointing into the heart of the crimson rift. “It isn’t large. But the pressure coming off it… it’s no ordinary thing. It runs deep.”
Cheong No-yun crouched and pressed a hand to the rough ground. His senses, attuned to the earth’s veins, were stirring wildly.
“The flow is twisted abnormally. The core will be hard as iron. Just hacking at the surface won’t do anything.”
Jin Yu-ah tilted her head slightly, staring at the grotesque fissure. A thin, unreadable smile curved her lips. No one still knew what she was looking at when she smiled like that, or whether the expression was simply her own defense mechanism.
Wi Yeon-ho held only one sword at his waist. As a dual-sword user, he normally carried two, but the other one was still standing before a great boulder somewhere inside the Yeon-ok.
The youngest, Do Ha-jin, stared at the fissure with a pale face and whispered, “The color… it’s fading.”
It was true. Inside the Hyeol-mun, the vivid red had already begun to lose its life, draining into a dead gray as though all vitality had been stripped away.
Gang Jeok-u finally drew his dao. Crimson qi gathered along its edge. He had once lost comrades in that Yeon-ok, but with the warmth of Cheol-ya and Mugung Hyeoptak he had endured, found his realization, and climbed back up from it. Heaven still tells me to stand up.
“I’m going in.”
The walls inside the Hyeol-mun had been whitened into a hard, chalky crust, and only the veins flowing between them proved this place was still a living disaster.
Do Ha-jin squinted. The red aura, the white salt walls—everything looked washed out into a dull gray. Even the blood seeping from the walls looked dark, like black ink.
Jin Yu-ah dragged her fingers lightly along the wall. Her thin fingertips scraped over it, and the surface crumbled into powder without resistance.
“It’s empty. Feels like there’s only a shell left.”
“The core is deeper down.”
Cheong No-yun steadied his breathing and followed the earth’s veins.
“Its heart is sinking below. It’s a very stubborn one.”
As they descended into the deeper chamber, the space suddenly widened into something vast. The core at the center was completely unlike anything they had seen before.
It was a gigantic gray spherical mass, and across its surface ugly black fissures were webbed together like veins.
Those cracks twitched as though they were living things, drawing in the surrounding energy.
Gang Jeok-u’s eyes shook wide.
“That’s…!”
The black, sinister energy of those fissures.
The same ominous trace Cheol-ya had seen in the Yeon-ok. The same thing Heuk-ak-sa had warned them about. It resembled the fragments of black seeds that had seeped into Cheol-ya in a fleeting instant when the Yeon-ok’s gate had collapsed.
“There’s no time to hesitate!”
Seo Han-muk thrust his spear into the core, pouring dark qi into the strike.
But the gray surface did not split. Instead, the black fissures carved into the core began to surge backward along the spear. In an instant, black energy spread up Seo Han-muk’s wrist, and his gaze blurred for a moment.
“Pull it out!”
Cheong No-yun rushed in and shouted as he seized Seo Han-muk’s pulse. Jin Yu-ah sliced clean through the spear shaft in a single stroke. The spearhead remained embedded in the core, already stained black, while Seo Han-muk, gripping the severed shaft, dragged in rough breaths.
“Something’s growing inside.”
Do Ha-jin could see it. Inside the gray mass, a single black dot was swelling larger and larger in time with the beating of a heart. It was a seed.
“I’ll open it!”
Gang Jeok-u’s dao struck with crimson lightning. With a thunderous crash, the core shuddered hard. But it still did not break.
Jin Yu-ah gave a cold smile and reversed her grip on her sword.
“It’s not the outside. We have to tear into the inside.”
She had always believed she had some talent for martial arts. And in truth, she did.
Which was why she had also been the one who had harmed the greatest number of allies in the Yeon-ok.
Perhaps that was why she always wore that strange, brittle smile.
As though there were only grief and rage inside her heart, leaving no room for anything else, and the smile was being forced out, pushed away from within.
Yeopung Sword—Wind Before the Blade.
Her slender blade flooded with sword qi and slipped into the tiniest seam between the black fissures. Gang Jeok-u nodded and lifted his dao again. As the edge forced the gray surface apart, a gap opened, and something black raised its head from within.
When Cheong No-yun saw it, he clenched his teeth and shouted, “That shouldn’t be in the ground! It’s a parasite, feeding on the earth’s veins!”
The five martial artists moved at once. Wi Yeon-ho’s sword widened the opening, Jin Yu-ah’s blade scraped at the inside, Seo Han-muk drove his spare spear deep into the wound, and Cheong No-yun poured out his internal force to forcibly sever the twisted channels of energy.
“Aim for that dot!”
With Cheong No-yun’s cry, Gang Jeok-u unleashed his final blow.
Heavenly Thunder Falling Dao Art—Thunder Faster Than Sound.
The crimson lightning pierced cleanly through the black dot deep inside the opening.
In that instant, the space exploded with a soundless scream. Every shred of gray energy shattered and scattered, and the Hyeol-mun itself convulsed violently.
***
Outside.
The red fissure that had split the salt flat began to close rapidly, drawing itself together. The crimson aura that had covered the white salt receded like a falling tide.
The ones thrown out of the Hyeol-mun were… not six.
Gang Jeok-u, Seo Han-muk, Jin Yu-ah, Wi Yeon-ho, Do Ha-jin.
Only five collapsed onto the salt flats, gulping air.
“No-yun… Where’s Cheong No-yun? Where is No-yun!”
Gang Jeok-u shouted wildly, looking around in confusion. Seo Han-muk’s lips trembled.
At the very last instant, when the core burst, the black fissures had lashed upward in a final struggle. Cheong No-yun had seized that fissure with his bare hands. To cut off the earth’s veins completely, to buy his comrades the seconds they needed to get out safely.
His hands, which had held on to his comrades’ pulse lines until the very end, disappeared into the closing Hyeol-mun, still clutching the black seed.
Wi Yeon-ho lowered his head, his fist clenched so tightly it shook.
The vividly clear blue sky was infuriating. Jin Yu-ah absentmindedly scratched the back of her hand.
A drop of blood welled up there. Looking at it, she smiled that same grotesque smile.
“There’s still… something sweet I can eat. Right, No-yun?”
A wind carrying salt blew again from afar.
Not from the Yeon-ok, not from the Hyeol-mun, but somewhere in the borderland between them.
One small pulse beat again, like a hammer striking a dam.
On the road leading toward Mugung Hyeoptak, five shadows stretched long, each bearing the weight of the comrade they had lost.
Not being able to stay with an injured comrade. Losing a comrade. These were all things they would have to become used to.
***
Elsewhere, the Hyeol-mun opened again.
This time, the sky itself seemed to ripple, and a black-red fissure was drawn across the void.
The five of the Red Cry Society took their places.
Cheong No-yun, the Blue Pulse Master, was not there.
His absence, after disappearing in the Hyeol-mun on the salt flats, left behind a hollow far greater than the loss of a single person.
The space behind them, where he should have stood, had become an empty hole where even the wind could not linger, chilling the backs of the Red Cry Society.
Gang Jeok-u went in first.
“I’m going in.”
Seo Han-muk said, “Formation stays the same. Pair up in twos.”
“There aren’t two.”
Wi Yeon-ho replied dryly.
Five people. An uneven number. They exchanged silent glances. The place where Cheong No-yun always stood at the very back, watching over the pulse of his comrades, stood out painfully.
This Hyeol-mun was completely different from the last.
There was no ground. The moment they stepped forward, the air hardened beneath their feet into a platform, but if they looked back only one step, the space they had just stood on had vanished like a mirage. There was no retreat here to begin with.
“So we can only advance.”
Seo Han-muk muttered. Beyond the mist in the distance, massive black towers rose up. They were not a natural thing that should exist in a Yeon-ok, but artificial structures, as if someone had meticulously designed and built them.
Jin Yu-ah’s eyes were half out of focus, as if she were seeing hallucinations, but the snowflake sword in her hand remained featherlight and perfectly straight.
“This time… someone’s waiting politely inside.”
As if that sentence were a signal, the air tore open and people in black and crimson robes spilled out.
More than ten of them, their eyes gleaming a murky blood-red. They were the sorcerers of Mu-hyeon-gok—the ones Cheol-ya had mentioned, the ones who tampered with Yeon-ok cores and engineered disasters by force.
Instead of swords, they hurled red talismans into the air. The paper burst, and the axes of the entire space twisted. Up and down reversed, and the boundaries of left and right tangled into chaos.
“Aaagh!”
The transparent floor beneath Do Ha-jin disappeared, and he started to fall.
In that instant, Jin Yu-ah launched herself like lightning. Her snowflake sword cut directly through the distorted axis of the space.
Clang!
Where her cold blade flashed, the warped axis snapped back into alignment for a moment. Do Ha-jin dropped onto the transparent floor again.
“Keep your eyes forward.”
Jin Yu-ah smiled without warmth.
“There’s no behind us anymore.”
Gang Jeok-u’s Jeokroe Dao surged.
The crimson sword aura that split the air seemed slower than before, yet its presence was far heavier than it had ever been.
Each time he swept the Jeokroe Dao, the sorcerers in black robes were cut cleanly in half at the waist.
But instead of collapsing, they scattered into crimson mist.
“They’re not real!”
Seo Han-muk’s spear, subtly different from before, thrust hard into the bottomless air.
Qi-an Spear Art—Brushstrokes of Ten Thousand Paths.
The tip of the brush splits into countless roads.
As the ink-black ripples spread in all directions, the blurry mist rapidly condensed, and the true flesh of the hidden sorcerers was revealed.
Wi Yeon-ho tightened his grip on the remaining sword. His movements were stripped down to the cleanest possible line.
Just before his final strike, he hesitated for a fraction of a second. The empty place behind him—where his little brother and No-yun had always protected his back.
A black-robed figure seized that opening and thrust a dagger forward.
Slash!
But at that very moment, Do Ha-jin threw himself in the way and severed the enemy’s throat. The youngest’s sword was clumsy, rough, but his will to save a comrade was the same as anyone else’s.
“I-I’ll… I’ll handle the back! So don’t stop!”
Wi Yeon-ho didn’t nod. He simply resumed cutting down the enemy.
Rumble—
Before long, however, the Hyeol-mun itself began to shake and writhe. One of the black towers came crashing down with a deafening roar, and inside it a core like a giant heart revealed itself.
Thump. Thump.
The core, coated in black, oil-like liquid, was pulsing in a revolting rhythm. Every surrounding current of energy was also flowing toward it.
“There it is.”
The instant Gang Jeok-u’s eyes flashed, the surroundings plunged sharply dark, and when light returned a gaunt old man stood there. He must have been a strongman from Mu-hyeon-gok.
“You’ve come again. This time… only five.”
The old man raised a hand lightly, and all five hearts constricted at once. It was an illusion. Cheong No-yun’s face flickered into view. The warm hand that had once felt the pulse of his comrades through the labyrinth of the Yeon-ok had now turned into cold murderous intent, reaching for their throats.
“This is interesting.”
Jin Yu-ah cut the back of her hand with her blade. Clear pain surged, and bright red blood spilled out.
“I can still… feel that I’m alive.”
Plink. Plink. Her self-inflicted blood, falling through empty air and scattering, tore through the cage of the illusion.
Gang Jeok-u raised the Jeokroe Dao high. This time, he would not stop.
The dao, filled with crimson lightning, swung toward the black, oily core.
The red lightning reflected in his eyes as he swung the blade made it look, somehow, like tears. Seo Han-muk’s spear opened the path, Wi Yeon-ho’s sword cut the old man’s shadow apart, and Do Ha-jin threw himself toward the final point.
A dark, sticky black heart. Inside that black surface, countless human shapes overlapped into one another. Those sacrificed in the Yeon-ok, souls that had never returned, were all screaming as though sealed inside the core. Among them was even a face resembling Cheong No-yun’s.
“If we break it… everyone trapped in here disappears with it.”
Do Ha-jin’s voice trembled. Gang Jeok-u shouted back, “As martial artists, our duty is to send them on, not keep them locked away!”
The Jeokroe Dao drank in all its qi, and with crimson lightning came a brilliant star-like radiance.
Heavenly Thunder Falling Dao Art—Heavy Thunder Rain Dao, a dao bearing heavy thunder pouring down like rain.
Gang Jeok-u’s blade split the core in two. The black heart tore apart, and countless shadows scattered into the wind. Watching it, the old man clicked his tongue.
“Closing again, are you? But remember this. Next time… I’ll be waiting for you inside. Heh heh heh—”
The old man’s finger pointed at Do Ha-jin.
“Aaah!”
“You bastard!!”
But then the Yeon-ok collapsed at once, and the space twisted violently. The five martial artists were flung back out onto the cold ground of reality.
Only ragged breathing drifted away on the forest wind. The Hyeol-mun had vanished, and the world was quiet.
This time too, there were five.
But Do Ha-jin remained on his knees and could not rise. His eyes had now turned completely gray.
“The color… it’s all gone. I can’t see anything.”
Wi Yeon-ho silently touched the empty place at his side. Gang Jeok-u looked down at his dao. On the blade’s edge, an indelible black fissure had been branded like a scar.
Seo Han-muk braced himself on his spear just to keep standing.
“It isn’t over yet.”
Far away, beyond the ridgeline, black energy was stirring again.
Mu-hyeon-gok had only lost one of many cores. And in Gang Jeok-u’s ears, a sinister melody other than Heuk-ak-sa’s began to ring. Someone else was playing a requiem in the darkness.
Jin Yu-ah tilted her head and whispered, “You hear it, don’t you? The sound calling us.”
Gang Jeok-u gripped his dao again.
“Next.”
The Red Cry Society was only five now. But they would not step back.