Total Annihilation
A little way north of Wi County lay Bushin County.
And in Bushin County stood a mountain, considerably larger than any other in the surrounding regions, known as Mount Bushin.
Shin Gong-baek, the Probationary Hundred-Household Chief, read slowly through the dispatch held in his hand.
"Last seen at Mount Bushin... using a cave there as a hiding place...?"
His first instinct was to doubt the report. He turned his head, and one of the deputy Hundred-Household Officers who assisted him, as if he had been waiting for exactly that, continued.
"When we questioned the people of Jangryeong Commandery, they said the Yi family had traveled up and down through Mount Bushin on their trading journeys many times."
"And?"
"Yes, sir. Every time, their caravan would rest at a hermitage on the mountain, and witnesses have confirmed just now that beside that hermitage stood a large cave where they could unload their cargo."
"In other words, the man hasn't gone far."
"No, sir."
And in truth, that was correct.
By everything the world knew of him, the monstrous fiend, the Butcher of Demonic Dao — Yi Do — his martial realm could not possibly be higher than the Twin Radiance stage, the very threshold of the Four Realms of Qi Condensation.
He had previously been believed to be at the Grand Circulation Realm, and for him to have climbed into the Qi Condensation Realms in a matter of mere days was absurd. His realm had been the Twin Radiance stage from the very beginning.
The prevailing theory explained everything else: the reason a martial artist of that level had been able to kill several warriors of the higher Five Dragons and Phoenix realm was that he had learned *Demonic Arts*.
With that, it all made sense.
Because he had learned Demonic Arts, his hand was ruthless; because he had learned Demonic Arts, he could somehow slay beings of higher realms. The reason this was not widely known was that most of those who had opposed him were dead. There were quite a few witnesses, granted — but they were ignorant rabble who understood nothing of what they had seen.
Which raised the question.
A martial artist steeped in Demonic Arts had gone about slaughtering people like a madman — were there truly no side effects?
Demonic Arts, as a rule, granted tremendous power, but power of that kind always came with a heavy price. The costs took many forms, though the most common was this: they demanded an enormous amount of time for recovery.
Yes.
The man was resting now. There could be no doubt that his wounded body had yet to heal.
Until this moment, his whereabouts had been unknown. This was the first lead ever seized.
"We move on Mount Bushin."
The two hundred imperial guards behind him roared as one.
"For the Chief-!"
And so Shin Gong-baek and the Embroidered Uniform Guard made for Mount Bushin.
They did not merely run — they rode. And they did not rest.
News of the trail had reached them a mere four hours before. In that span of four hours, they arrived at the mountain.
Dismounting in a single wave at the mountain's foot, they checked their weapons each man to himself and began the climb.
They had just reached the hermitage.
"So you've finally come."
The moment Shin Gong-baek laid eyes on the man standing before the hermitage, hands folded behind his back, a smile bloomed at the corners of his mouth.
"Not bad at all."
It was the sort of thing worth saying.
"You didn't even bother to flee. You waited for us."
"Fleeing, you say... What kind of martial artist runs with his back turned to an enemy? Especially one who is... merely an imperial guard, of all things."
Even at those words, the smile did not leave Shin Gong-baek's lips.
"They said your audacity was remarkable — now I see it was mere foolishness."
"Does it look that way to you?"
"Because if it did not, you would have no reason to stand there weighing your odds. Show me what you've prepared."
Yi Do glanced around him.
"This mountain, you see. They call it Mount Bushin now, but in the past it was known as Mount Jeol-yeong. Which is to say, it is a place of extraordinary beauty."
"..."
"More than fitting ground for your graves."
Shin Gong-baek drew a sword from his waist. A clear, ringing note rolled across the mountainside. Yi Do regarded him for a long moment, then spoke.
"I will grant you a chance — the first and the last. Whether you take it is your own affair."
"Hooh... very well. Speak."
"Cease your pursuit of me. Never hunt me again, and let everything end here. If you do not—"
"If I do not?"
"Every last one of you will die on this mountain. And the hounds who come chasing after will die as well, along with every soul who fed them information or lent them aid."
Killling intent poured from each syllable — a killing pressure so immense that even Shin Gong-baek, a master of the Samhwachwijeong realm, flinched.
"This offer, once refused or accepted, will never come again. Your choice will decide the fate of yourself and the imperial guards behind you, so choose well. I'll give you all the time you need."
There was no need for deliberation.
"What insolence! Who do you think you are, some wilderness-born nobody who has slain those who eat the royal stipend and shattered even the pact of nonaggression between crown and martial world, spewing such madness in our presence!"
A staggering volume of qi erupted from Shin Gong-baek's body — qi emanating from one whose lower and middle dantians had been fused into perfect unity, whose True Dantian glowed faintly but unmistakably.
The mountain itself seemed to tremble.
Faintly — but in truth, the mountain shook.
"I am Shin Gong-baek, Probationary Hundred-Household Chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. A choice? There is nothing to consider. You will die here and now. You have even disgraced an official commission of the royal house of Jeok — you will not be granted an easy death."
"Yes. That will do."
A gentle smile spread across Yi Do's lips.
Several imperial guards flinched at the killing intent flowing out from that smile.
Yi Do took a step back. And then — KWAAANG.
He stamped the ground hard enough to split it, and in an instant his body had vanished into the cave across the way.
Pfft.
Shin Gong-baek laughed out loud.
"Such confident words — and in the end, what he means to do is run."
It flew squarely in the face of the man's declaration that he had never once fled, but the sight was simply too absurd.
"Whatever trap the wretch may have laid, we are the honored imperial guards of the crown. We cut down the man who disgraced the throne — right now. Steel yourselves."
"Yes, sir!"
"Move."
Shin Gong-baek stamped off first.
The two hundred imperial guards behind him stamped off after him.
And the moment every last one of them had entered the cave —
KU-U-U-UUNG-!!
A thunderous roar, and the cave came down.
***
Everything stopped dead.
The blood drained from Shin Gong-baek's face.
Dear God.
The cave had just collapsed.
Not merely the entrance.
It would be no exaggeration to say nearly the whole of it had come down.
"...Ah..."
It was the only reaction possible.
And who had been at the very front of the charge?
Shin Gong-baek himself.
The distance between him and the imperial guards following behind had stretched considerable.
Which meant —
every guard except Shin Gong-baek himself now stood squarely within reach of the fallen rubble.
"Survivors... Are there no survivors?!"
There were.
Perhaps twenty, give or take.
They dragged themselves up out of the stone, struggling. One of the guards shouted to Shin Gong-baek.
"Captain! Quickly, pursue the wretch before he— KHAHK-!"
A blade burst from the guard's mouth.
To be absolutely clear — it was not Yi Do.
A man with long hair, wearing a crimson robe.
Shin Gong-baek had no idea who this man was. But he could tell, at minimum, that he was a warrior who had reached the Five Dragons and Phoenix realm.
The man roared.
"You dare raise a weapon against the descendant of Great Kunlun, you gutter rats-!"
Shin Gong-baek, wondering what in the hell that was supposed to mean, jerked his head aside in haste.
Shrrk-!!
A beat too late — the blade carved along the side of his face, and blood came gushing out.
It was Yi Do.
"How do you feel?"
"...You cursed Demon Head bastard..."
Shin Gong-baek stamped the ground. His body moved at a speed like a beam of light and slammed straight into Yi Do's.
KWAAANG-!!
With a thunderous boom, Yi Do was hurled away and smashed into the wall. As he slid slowly down it, a smile curved his mouth.
And through his eyes, everything was perfectly clear.
Kang So-eo was butchering the surviving imperial guards without mercy. Driving his blade twice into the necks of men writhing beneath the rubble, stomping down hard on the stone heaps with his boot.
The number of guards sprawled there now exceeded one hundred and eighty.
Setting aside those whose breath had already ceased entirely, the only one who could wear a smile at the sight of Kang So-eo's handiwork was, presumably, Yi Do himself.
Shin Gong-baek was thrown into disarray.
He had never once imagined it would come to this.
How long had this been prepared?
Collapsing an entire cave?
This lunatic.
Shin Gong-baek turned his head. Yi Do's smiling face met his gaze.
Why else would the man have lured them here?
"I gave you your chance, plainly."
"...You bastard...!"
"Do not rage so. The guards who died first surely have a great deal they'd like to say to you, who came after. Honestly — strip away all pretense, and wasn't it you who killed them, not I?"
".....!"
"Setting aside the men who died from their commander's misjudgment — what do you imagine their families will say to you? In fact... it might be a kindness to kill you here and now."
"You son of a bitch...! I swear I will end you!"
Yi Do answered with a smile.
"Kang So-eo."
"Yes, my lord!"
"There's one hiding over in that corner. Go and cut his breath short."
Kang So-eo beamed brightly, sprinted off, and found the imperial guard cowering in the corner. The man was trembling like a leaf — and Kang So-eo drove his sword into his throat without a flicker of hesitation.
Shlk.
At that sound, something snapped loose in Shin Gong-baek's reason.
He stamped the ground — toward Kang So-eo, not Yi Do.
Yi Do stamped the ground too.
Shin Gong-baek had moved first, yet in an instant Yi Do overtook him.
Such was the power of Flying Dragon Chasing Lightning, a divine movement art of Kunlun. Yi Do's sword swept out.
Charged to the brim with Pure Harmonious Qi, the blade took the shape of a dragon. Shin Gong-baek swung his own sword in answer — and from it erupted massive waves of internal force, crashing down like a waterfall.
KWAAAHANG-!!
Yi Do retreated two steps; Shin Gong-baek gave back one. Yi Do's gaze remained fixed on him.
However much Pure Harmonious Qi he drew upon, it was only right that he be somewhat pressed by a master of the Samhwachwijeong realm wielding a True Dantian. If Yi Do himself had a True Dantian, the Ring Stepping Cultivation would compound his Pure Harmonious Qi exponentially and he could crush the man — but that time had not yet come.
And yet, it did not feel like he was losing.
He stamped forward at once.
KWARURURUNG-!!
Lightning force rode upon the Pure Harmonious Qi surging up through his two rings, and he brought it down from above.
A blade wreathed in roaring thunder descends from the heavens above.
At that cataclysmic peal of thunder, Shin Gong-baek raised his guard —
KWAAANG-!!
Amid the explosion of sound, his sword snapped clean in half. And it was not only the sword. The force behind the blow had been overwhelming.
How was this possible?
Shin Gong-baek, still on his knees, flung himself sideways in a roll.
Yi Do's sword came down again on the very spot where he had been a heartbeat before.
Kwarururung.
The ground split in two with a ragged crack. Yi Do's head turned. Their eyes met. Shin Gong-baek slapped his palm against the earth and shoved himself backward.
Shak-!
A sting at his throat. A thin gash had opened on his neck from Yi Do's preceding sweep.
A moment slower, and his head would have been cleaved in two.
He was shaken.
The man was supposed to be a wilderness newcomer, yet the judgment he showed in combat resembled some veteran master of the rivers and lakes, rich with decades of blooded experience.
This ends here.
He clenched his fist with crushing force.
The man would die on this mountain today. That fact would not change.
He stamped the ground.
Within all of Jeok Country, Shin Gong-baek was one of only forty holders of the junior sixth rank to bear the post of Probationary Hundred-Household Chief.
He had not held the seat long, but there were martial arts that had come to him naturally with the promotion.
Two of them — one a footwork art, and one a fist art.
Yellow Dragon Step and Yellow Dragon Fist.
The two were linked techniques: plant the earth with the stolid gravity of a yellow dragon, then in a single instant — as though the dragon itself had taken wing — drive out a fist of tremendous force. A simple art, but its power and subtlety were so exquisite that even those who knew its workings were often felled by it.
Block it with a sword, and the sword shatters. Block it with a shield, and the shield shatters. Meet it with a fist of your own, and your fist shatters.
Because the art detonated its condensed internal force in a single explosive instant, its destructive power had already been proven in countless battles.
And that was
what he intended to use now.
Shin Gong-baek's feet wove a storm across the earth. Behind his back, the phantom of a yellow dragon rose.
Yi Do stood still. He did nothing at all — merely watched, silent and unmoving.
Shin Gong-baek's fist shot out, and the phantom dragon lunged with it. He was certain.
This blow would surely burst open the skull of that cursed wretch called Yi Do.
But.
The result that followed left Shin Gong-baek utterly numb.
PWAAAHANG-!!
The fist drove forward. And yet that fist hung limp and lifeless in Yi Do's left hand, caught as if it were nothing. The shockwaves erupting in every direction were all Shin Gong-baek's own internal force, tearing back into him.
He could not understand it.
How — how had he caught it?
No, setting the catch aside — why had my own force collapsed?
"Yellow Dragon Fist. It's been a long time since I've seen it."
"...What?"
"That art only releases its true power when the final step of the Yellow Dragon Step aligns with the direction of the fist. That is its great strength — and, at the same time, its fatal flaw. Look at your feet. Now."
His gaze dropped before he could stop it.
His foot was wrenched sideways.
Yi Do.
Yi Do's foot had turned Shin Gong-baek's own foot out of its line. He had never noticed. So he had not been standing still at all.
In that sliver of an instant, he had tampered with his footing like *this*?
Even a veteran master would not have managed that much. His mind went blank.
KWARURURUNG-!
Shrrk-!!
A peal of thunder, and beneath it the sound of slicing steel. Then an agony beyond description seared through him.
From Shin Gong-baek's right shoulder, diagonally down to his left flank —
the path Yi Do's sword had traveled.
Srrrk.
With a sound that turned the blood to ice, Shin Gong-baek's body began to come apart in two.
He collapsed to the ground.
It was cold. Looking down at him, Yi Do spoke.
"Do not worry. I'll be sending the rest of them along after you shortly."
Yi Do's blade turned toward Shin Gong-baek's face.
And then —
Shlk-!
Every last Embroidered Uniform Guard who had hunted Yi Do that day was dead.