Deepening Debts
The murim had been thrown into upheaval.
Jangryeong Commandery.
Truth be told, this had never been a particularly famous region. Its proximity to the commercial cities dotting the surrounding area was a considerable advantage, but beyond that, it had little else to recommend it.
And now, a massacre had erupted in that very Jangryeong Commandery.
Not only had the three sects that ruled the commandery been annihilated to the last man, but even the provincial governor lay dead.
The calamity's source was a martial artist by the name of Yi Do — and when word spread of what he had done, and of the process by which he had done it, those who heard the reports doubted their own ears.
He had toppled the Jang Clan of Jangryeong Commandery, then gone on to destroy the Sangwoon Merchant Guild of Suju Prefecture in the neighboring district.
That alone would have been extraordinary. But he had also brought down his own family — the Yi Clan — along with the Hyuk Clan.
The number of martial artists who had died at his hand exceeded five hundred.
In a matter of days.
How many martial artists in living memory had ever blazed such a catastrophic trail?
Worst of all, he had dared to lay hands on the government.
Thirty-eight. That was the number of constables who had perished by his blade.
An utterly preposterous trail of destruction.
Honestly, almost nothing concrete was known about the man called Yi Do, but no one who looked at the facts could mistake him for a man who walked the orthodox path. Those who revered the orthodox way would claim he walked it all the same — yet none of them dared say it aloud.
They had no choice.
Laying hands on the government meant one thing.
A martial artist who walked the Demonic Path.
A piece of garbage with the mind of a demon.
That was what they called Yi Do.
He even gained an epithet: the Cruel Demonic Blade.
And the crucial matter was this.
The royal house of the Kingdom of Jeok had dispatched the Brocade Guard to hunt him down and kill him.
Setting aside the sovereign himself, the supreme power of the Jeok royal house was without question the Brocade Guard. They existed to cull and pursue anyone who threatened the crown — and laying hands on the government meant, by definition, drawing their pursuit. Nothing more, nothing less.
At that very moment, another place had descended into chaos in its own way.
"Sect Leader! Forgive my boldness, but I beg you — grant me leave to descend the mountain!"
It was the Emperor Sword Sect.
Jang Wun-yeon — direct disciple of Ma Heuk-rang, an elder of the Emperor Sword Sect, and former young master of the fallen Jang Clan — was shouting himself hoarse, his voice thick with grief and fury.
The Sword Emperor let out a long sigh.
"I must be the one to kill him! I will tear him apart with my own hands — I swear it!"
He shook his head.
"Even if you went now, how would you ever find the man?"
The Sword Emperor had intended to bury the events of Jangryeong Commandery in silence. He had been utterly certain that Ma Heuk-rang, whom he had sent there, would raze the Yi Clan and return in triumph. Instead, Ma Heuk-rang had vanished without a trace, and the catastrophe of Jangryeong Commandery had crashed across the entire murim.
It was a miscalculation. Something he had never even conceived of.
"Then help me. I need the strength of the Emperor Sword Sect."
"...Haa. Wun-yeon."
"Yes, Sect Leader."
"I will not permit it."
"...Sect Leader!"
"This has nothing to do with the fact that your cultivation will soon reach the Three Flowers Gathering at the Peak. Going now would mean nothing."
"How... how can you say that..."
"The Brocade Guard has already marched. This affair has slipped beyond the murim's grasp — that is what I am telling you."
Jang Wun-yeon squeezed his eyes shut.
"But if they kill him, then at the very least I will retrieve his corpse."
"..."
"Is even that not enough to satisfy you?"
"...Sect Leader... he annihilated my clan. He murdered my family. How could I possibly be satisfied with a corpse?"
"And yet there is nothing to be done. Your family is not the only one whose lives he has claimed."
"..."
"He laid hands on the government. He shattered the pact of governmental inviolability single-handedly. If the Emperor Sword Sect enters the fray on top of that, the whole affair becomes tangled beyond untangling. Above all — you know full well what state the murim is in right now, do you not?"
Of course he knew. How could he not?
"The demon practitioners are stirring. The remnants of the fallen Thousand-Year Demonic Cult are revealing themselves across every corner of the murim. You are being groomed as our sect's next leader — if you were to chase this man now, do you truly believe those demon practitioners would sit idle?"
"...Anyone who stands in my path, I will—"
"Now, now, Wun-yeon."
"...Yes."
"I regret concealing the events of Jangryeong Commandery from you, but I cannot grant you leave. Let us observe a while longer."
"..."
"And above all — Elder Ma is moving even now. Something seems to have gone astray midway and sent their paths diverging, but it is entirely possible he will bring you the man's head before the Brocade Guard ever does."
"...Sect Leader..."
The Sword Emperor placed a hand on Jang Wun-yeon's shoulder.
"Endure it. Just this once."
In the end, Jang Wun-yeon lowered his head.
"...Understood."
The debt of gratitude and vengeance that Yi Do had sown was quietly taking root within the Emperor Sword Sect.
And at that very moment, Yi Do was lodged in a small inn in Suju Prefecture.
A man wearing a black wide-brimmed hat and draped in a black traveling robe sat in a shadowed corner of the inn.
A serving girl approached him.
Before she could even ask what he wished to order, the man spoke briefly.
"The thirsty drink with ease."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"A touch of the armored sleeve."
The girl's expression transformed.
"Where a deed is seen, the wind rises."
"...An honored guest. I will show you to a finer room. Please follow me."
The man rose from his seat. The pair of swords at his waist knocked together with a striking ring as he stood.
Silently, he followed the serving girl as she led the way.
There were two ways to make contact with the Killing Veil. The first was to be introduced by a trusted party; the second was to speak the secret passphrase at a designated meeting place.
What the black-hatted man — Yi Do — had just spoken was the passphrase.
The girl led him into a separate building attached to the inn's rear. A woman was waiting there. She smiled brightly.
"Welcome. It's a pleasure."
Without answering, he walked to her table and sat down in silence.
"The strong, silent type, I see."
"..."
"Well, then."
A peculiar smile bloomed at the corner of her mouth.
"To think I'd have the honor of meeting the infamous Cruel Demonic Blade in the flesh. I'm flattered."
Yi Do set his hat down on the table beside him.
"My, my... you're more handsome than I expected. Not a single wound on you after causing a massacre of that scale — it makes me genuinely curious what kind of martial arts you've mastered."
Yi Do simply regarded her in silence.
"Ah, where are my manners — I've been slow to introduce myself. A pleasure. I am Yeon Hwa, Branch Manager of the Killing Veil's Suju Prefecture branch."
"I am Yi Do."
"I see. Well then — shall we get down to business? Most people who come to the Killing Veil come to commission an assassination, so..."
Yeon Hwa's eyes gleamed.
"Who shall we kill for you?"
At her words, Yi Do shook his head.
"I have not come to place a commission."
"...Then why have you come, going so far as to use the passphrase?"
"I have come to collect my money."
Yeon Hwa's eyebrows twitched.
"...Your... money?"
"Sang Myeong-gil paid one hundred gold nyang to have me killed. Having failed the commission, you owe that money back to him by rights."
"But Sang Myeong-gil is dead. Surely you're not unaware of that? You're the one who killed him."
"That's right, I killed him. So what of it?"
"..."
"The Yi Clan is annihilated, yet I still draw breath. The Sangwoon Merchant Guild remains the property of the Yi Clan, and therefore everything the guild possesses should naturally pass to me. And a failed commission, by rights, must be refunded. Is that not simply correct?"
"Don't be absurd."
"How is it absurd?"
"...Do you genuinely not know why it's absurd?"
"Enlighten me."
"We carried out the commission. Yes, we failed — but we lost a valuable assassin in the process. Our Killing Veil suffered losses too, you see. That's what makes it absurd. Sang Myeong-gil is dead, the Yi Clan is annihilated, and the Yi Do sitting before me right now is... frankly, a walking corpse that's merely still breathing, isn't he?"
Yi Do had heard something very similar before. He let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Spare me the speeches. Just the substance — hand over Sang Myeong-gil's commission fee."
"And if I refuse?"
"You appear to be laboring under a misunderstanding."
"...And what misunderstanding might that be?"
"Right now, I am granting you the final opportunity to settle this debt cleanly."
"...An opportunity...? You do know where you are, don't you? This is the Killing Veil."
Yi Do drew in a long, slow breath.
Very slowly.
A soft smile spread across his lips.
"I will say this one final time. One hundred gold nyang in commission fees, left unreturned past its due. Add thirty percent interest, and you owe me one hundred and thirty gold nyang. Bring it to me. Now. Because if you do not—"
Yeon Hwa smiled back.
"If I don't? Then what, exactly, do you intend to do? Don't tell me you plan to make an enemy of the Killing Veil as well? You're aware the imperial army has been dispatched, aren't you?"
Yi Do said nothing. Yeon Hwa pressed on.
"You really are a rarity, you know. Men like you."
"..."
"With nerve like that, no wonder you made an enemy of the Emperor Sword Sect and laid hands on the government besides. And now you want to add the Killing Veil to the pile? When you've heaped up that many enemies, the thing you ought to worry about isn't whether you'll die — it's how you'll die. You shouldn't be sitting here right now. You should be hiding yourself away somewhere. Wouldn't you agree?"
Still, Yi Do listened without a word.
"Though I'll admit, it's fascinating. That there would be 'another' man like you in the murim. Oh — a bit of trivia, if you don't mind. We had an assassin stationed here in Suju Prefecture who could deploy faster than anyone else. And would you believe it, he failed to kill a martial artist who was barely at the Zhucheon Realm. I considered sending another, but as it happens, Sang Myeong-gil dropped dead that very day, so there was no longer any need. Do you follow what I'm saying?"
Yeon Hwa smiled sweetly.
"You'll die eventually — to the Emperor Sword Sect, the Brocade Guard, someone, anyone. So in the end, it's no different from a successful commission. And whose pocket will that commission fee end up in? There's only one answer, isn't there. Ours. I've explained it all so nicely for you — surely you understand now?"
Yeon Hwa waved her hand. At the signal, three serving girls who had been waiting in the wings began to close in on Yi Do.
"The gentleman is leaving. See him out. Ah — if he'd like, let him have a meal outside first. After all, a ghost who died on a full stomach makes a prettier corpse, don't they say?"
Yi Do's gaze shifted to the three women.
There was no possibility that any of them were ordinary serving girls. This was a branch of the Killing Veil. Every single person who worked here was an assassin — however much their realms might vary.
"So you have no intention of returning the money at all."
"Of course not. Why on earth would we give back what's ours?"
"I see. Then this is settled. I'll see myself out."
It might have been his imagination.
He heard two sounds.
The first was the sound of a sword leaving its sheath.
And the second was the sound of lightning erupting from that blade.
Shrrk—!!
Yeon Hwa's body split in half.
Yi Do turned. He gripped his sword afresh at the three women — who had frozen for a heartbeat in shock — and swung in a great horizontal arc.
KRA-KOOM—!!
Amid a thunderclap that shook the very walls, all three bodies were cleaved in twain.
Sheathing his sword, he flicked the blood from the blade.
It was the moment the debt between him and the Killing Veil deepened yet again — but Yi Do had given them every chance to clear it, and they had refused.
He leveled his sword at the head of the first assassin already sprinting toward him.
Shk—!
By nightfall, the Killing Veil's Suju Prefecture branch would cease to exist.