My Own Man
One Gate and Three Clans.
The Cheonggang Sword Gate, the Hong Clan, the Yun Trading House, and the Myeong Clan. The heads of every house in the alliance had gathered in one room.
It was Yi Do who spoke first.
"Let me begin by saying thank you."
All four men reacted at once.
"Not at all, my lord! How could you say such a thing to us? We merely did what had to be done."
Every question in this world has a model answer. And what those four men had just said was, without a doubt, the model answer.
We did what had to be done — how could you thank us for it? Helping Yi Do was only natural, and they had already signed their oath of loyalty to the Asura Sword Sect in blood, so they had simply acted according to it. There was no need for gratitude. To the ears listening, those who phrased things this prettily could not help but look better for it. They had already been held in good regard — and at this point, well, enough said.
"You've seen me many times by now, so you know full well what sort of man I am. I don't care for long speeches, so I'll put this cleanly. Your One Gate and Three Clans will reign over Sambong-hyeon and Jangan Commandery. Those two places."
The corners of all four clan heads' mouths twitched at the same moment.
They had gambled. The stake had been everything they owned, and they had won. So what kind of reward would come back to them?
That reward had just arrived.
"I'm not the sort of man who knows how to build up a family the way you do — raising money, running merchant houses, buying and stockpiling goods. But I do know how to read the overall board. You've only ever operated in Sambong-hyeon, which means you have no foundation in Jangan Commandery."
That was no mistake. Yi Do had never cared about commerce. Even back when he had accompanied merchant caravans under the Yi Clan, running one was another matter entirely. He didn't know which goods sold well and which didn't; it was only because he had regressed with knowledge of the future that he could even put on a decent imitation of such knowledge.
What does it take for a family to grow great? There is only one answer. A foundation. A foundation was what they needed.
"The thirteen clans I annihilated today were the ones who had divided Jangan Commandery between them. With them gone, every business they held beneath them has been blown apart. I will grant you ownership of all of it."
Everyone froze in disbelief. They had never imagined it would be that large.
"Your standing in Sambong-hyeon will change as well. Even if others have signed blood oaths, do you think it right that you and they remain equals?"
That much was only natural.
"Some may call it favoritism. The other families of Sambong-hyeon and Jangan Commandery may move to check you. But do not worry."
Yi Do's two eyes were perfectly clear.
"Favoring you is the correct thing to do, and you will become the victors of both regions, one way or another. There is only one thing that concerns me…"
When Yi Do let the words trail off, they all scrambled to respond.
"Anything at all, my lord! We will find a way to resolve it, whatever it is."
"It's simple. You fought and bled together, did you not — comrades in arms. In the murim, yesterday's ally drawing a blade against his comrade the very next day is as common as grass. There is no law saying you won't do the same…"
"Worry not, my lord. We are a blood pact. Are we not?"
At Hong Chik-seo's words, the master of the Yun Trading House nodded. The other clan heads were no different.
"Good to hear. Then move quickly through this turbulent time. Go absorb those businesses, and if anyone proves troublesome, report it to me."
"Yes, my lord!"
"Go on, then."
The four clan heads filed out of the room in a single motion.
"Well, that's everything finished. You've worked hard."
It was Un Dohyeon who spoke, and Myeong Hyeon nodded in agreement beside him.
But Yi Do knew.
A lifetime spent surviving the murim had let him witness many things and feel many more. And one truth above all: the moment a task is finished — the moment its reward reveals itself to be sweet — a man unknowingly lets go of the thread of tension. People call that moment an opening.
Which is why Yi Do never let the thread go slack.
Which is why.
He was able to react — to the dagger hurtling toward him at monstrous speed from just beside Un Dohyeon's face.
Even as he threw himself backward, his hand shoved Un Dohyeon aside. The young man toppled over, and the dagger whispered past right before Yi Do's eyes.
He drew the Unryong Sword instantly.
From empty air, where nothing had been, a man revealed himself. The dagger in his grip was sheathed in unmistakable astral force, and his two eyes poured out a murderous aura beyond all reason.
Yes. The killing intent of a Realm of Harmony master.
The master of the Killing Curtain, who had crawled in under the Heaven Cleaving Fist Sect.
The Black Slaughter Ghost King, Mun Hudo.
* * *
Honestly, this was the first time Yi Do had ever seen the man — and yet the face was familiar. There was no way he couldn't know him.
"……You son of a…… You're the one who took them out?"
"Mun Hudo."
A smile crept across Yi Do's lips. He drew up every remaining ring of natural qi he had; his three rings spun furiously.
"Truly pathetic, wouldn't you say?"
"……What?"
"Every one of your underlings died long ago, and only now do you show yourself. What a shameful master you are."
"……You…… I swear it. I will tear that mouth of yours to ribbons."
"Your arrogance pierces the heavens. And you think someone like you is capable of it?"
A master of the Realm of Harmony — the same summit the Golden Heaven Divine Sword had stood on in that other life.
Yi Do had grown since then, but he had not even deployed a formation. It would not be enough. Definitively not enough.
Even if it tore every one of his blood vessels apart — even if it cast him straight into qi deviation — if he dragged up everything he had, it was worth a try.
Mun Hudo kicked off the ground. His speed was nearly indistinguishable from a streak of light.
And then — something happened that no one had expected. Myeong Hyeon, standing at Yi Do's side, stepped in front of him.
Demonic qi of Ogijowon erupted from the man's body. For an instant, Mun Hudo faltered.
KWAAAAAANG—!
Myeong Hyeon's outstretched palm struck the dagger aside. He spun his body; his foot drove into Mun Hudo's solar plexus —
and Mun Hudo did not so much as sway.
"So you vermin finally went all the way. Demonic arts, is it? Ha… this just made my job easier."
Myeong Hyeon's face was utterly serious. He was, plainly and simply, trying to protect Yi Do.
"……Go, my lord. I will buy you time."
The moment Yi Do opened his mouth to answer, his gaze snapped sideways. Myeong Hyeon's gaze had turned as well — and so had Mun Hudo's.
There was no helping it. Because standing there —
was a white-haired old man. He reached out and closed his hand around Mun Hudo's skull.
"……This wretch. Who, exactly, does he think he's laying hands on right now?"
It was Myo Man-li.
Mun Hudo's face drained into despair.
"They said…… you had entered seclusion……"
"I came out today. I was on my way to repay my dear disciple for a very great kindness — and how convenient that we should meet here."
With that, Myo Man-li slammed Mun Hudo into the ground.
CRASH.
Yi Do turned his head and looked at Myeong Hyeon. Myeong Hyeon looked back at him. Anyone could see the man's heart was in knots; his trembling eyes slowly found their steadiness. The demonic qi still burned.
He looked back at Yi Do once more — with something like regret in his eyes. Then the transmitted voice reached Yi Do's mind.
— Take one hit from me. Please.
Apparently Yi Do's answer hadn't mattered to him at all. Myeong Hyeon's palm stretched out.
KWAAAAANG—!
It struck his solar plexus, and Yi Do was hammered into the wall — though strangely, it didn't hurt very much.
Afterward, Myeong Hyeon turned his back and kicked off the ground. In the space of a breath, the man was gone.
— Thank you for everything. Live long. I mean that.
The last transmitted words he left behind slowly scattered through Yi Do's mind.
Yi Do turned his head. Mun Hudo had torn his arm free of Myo Man-li's grip and lashed out a foot; the old man, struck in the chest, skidded backward. And he grinned.
"That tickles."
Natural qi began to settle into Mun Hudo's body — a black shape, the materialization of killing intent itself, an assassin's art fused with the natural world pushed to its extreme. Mun Hudo's figure blurred, melting into perfect union with nature — and from that union his aura poured forth. Light blazed from his eyes. He clamped down hard on his dagger and roared.
Myo Man-li drew his sword, the smile never leaving his lips. Slowly — and in the same instant — sparks of lightning crackled across his entire body.
"Disciple. Watch closely."
He brought the sword down.
BOOOOOM—!!!
Five bolts of lightning struck down from the heavens. In a flash, Mun Hudo's body was shredded to ribbons.
What Mun Hudo had done could not truly be called unity at all; he had merely borrowed natural qi. Myo Man-li was different. Perfect unity. He had become nature itself and called down the lightning — no, created it.
Torn into five ragged pieces, Mun Hudo glared at Yi Do, his face brimming with injustice. If Myo Man-li had not appeared — if Myeong Hyeon's demonic qi had not rattled him even for a moment — if he had not waited quietly in ambush but attacked the instant Yi Do first walked into this hall —
he believed he could have changed the outcome.
He was wrong. However skilled he might be, an assassin is still only an assassin.
But if he had been prepared to lose a few fingers — prepared to spend days bedridden in recovery —
Mun Hudo would have died at Yi Do's hand.
CRACK.
Myo Man-li's outstretched sword obliterated what remained of Mun Hudo's head. And he grinned.
"Did you see it? That is the Five Thunder Boundless Sword Formula."
Yi Do couldn't help but laugh.
"Didn't you just change the name?"
"Tch, you brat — I saved your hide and this is the thanks I get? This is a different art entirely. A new martial art I forged by fusing the Thunder Spirit Boundless Sword Formula you gave me with my own Five Thunder Demon-Sundering Sword Art. You saw it just now, didn't you? The natural qi I poured out was reabsorbed straight back into my body. Heheheheh! I have become the tireless thunder itself. Well? Doesn't it make your blood race to learn it? And yet —"
Calling down five bolts of lightning when even one is no small feat — that, undeniably, was a tremendous thing. Slowly, the smile drained from Myo Man-li's mouth.
"That man just now. He was using demonic qi."
Yi Do had already worked out exactly what Myeong Hyeon was thinking. The man intended to return to the Imperial Sword Sect.
He had no choice. There had been no other way.
Myo Man-li had noticed the demonic arts. His companion — the man standing at Yi Do's side — had wielded them. And Myeong Hyeon knew perfectly well how dear the Sword Sect was to Myo Man-li's heart. Myeong Hyeon's existence could become the perfect pretext for him to be branded a demonic cultivator — for the entire Sword Sect to become the public enemy of the murim.
That was why he had asked Yi Do to take a single hit.
To manufacture the pretext.
Myeong Hyeon did not follow Yi Do; at the moment of crisis, he attacked him; and the Great Elder witnessed it with his own eyes.
He had staged the entire board.
Yi Do did not consent to it.
He turned his head.
"It seems one of my subordinates was called away on urgent business."
"……You…… You know full well this is no ordinary matter."
Myo Man-li's expression was grave. But Yi Do's was just as grave.
"I told you, didn't I? One of my subordinates seems to have been called away on some urgent errand."
Myo Man-li let out a long sigh.
"Disciple."
"I am not your disciple."
"Whatever you call yourself — do you truly have no regrets?"
Yi Do lifted his head.
"Great Elder."
"Yes. Speak."
"A man lives by making a choice at every moment. You do, and so do I. And at every crossroads, I always make the choice I will not regret."
"So?"
"It is the same now. I have made my choice. Myeong Hyeon is my own man. Whether he learned demonic arts or anything else — he is my own man."
"……And for that, the murim may turn against you. The Sword Sect may find itself the enemy of all the world."
Yi Do laughed quietly.
"I once had a conversation much like this with your Sect Leader, and I'll give you the same words I gave him."
Myo Man-li crossed his arms, as if to say, go ahead. Yi Do spoke, unhurried and unbowed.
"I move according to my debts and my grudges. I do not care how that looks to anyone else. Myeong Hyeon has been of great help to me. He carried out countless tasks under my command. He has not yet saved my life — but he very nearly has. Whatever the world may say of him, even if every soul on earth calls him a demon, to me he is simply 'Myeong Hyeon.'"
"……"
"If the murim turns on me for keeping my own man at my side, I will break the murim. If heaven turns on me, I will break heaven. And if, in doing so, I die —"
"And if you die?"
"I will have lived proud and without regret, so I will die smiling. And I won't die alone. I'll kill every last one of the people who made me what I am on my way out."
Yi Do took a single step forward.
"Great Elder."
"……Yes."
"Right now you have two choices. The first is to cast me out. If I am no longer of the Asura Sword Sect, then everything that unfolds from this moment on will leave the Sword Sect untouched."
"And the second choice?"
"You simply accept things as they are. I don't care which of the two you take. There are debts and grudges of a kind between Myo Man-li and myself, so even if a war breaks out between the Sword Sect and me, my sword will not touch him."
Hah.
Myo Man-li exhaled a long sigh and bowed his head. Then, at last, his shoulders began to shake.
"Heheh…… Heheheheheheh!"
He threw back his head and roared with laughter, his signature cackle ringing off the walls. When at last it subsided, he turned to Yi Do with a face full of smiles.
"You, my boy, are absolutely no ordinary martial artist. You'd set the whole world against yourself to protect a single man of your own? Hehe…… heheheheh…… It's been a long, long time since anything gave me chills. Good. I'll respect your choice. There's nothing left to weigh — a man has made up his mind, so of course one must respect it. I accept things exactly as they are. And……"
Myo Man-li let the words trail off for a moment, then said, firmly:
"Let's have a drink. There's something serious I need to discuss with you."
Yi Do nodded.
And then —
"Where did you go and get beaten? You're carrying quite a few wounds."
He said it plainly. Those injuries had not come from Mun Hudo.
He was a master of Entering Divinity, after all — he had been toying with a Realm of Harmony master.
"Oh, this? Ah…… um…… there were reasons."
Yi Do studied Myo Man-li for a moment as the old man scratched his jaw.
He had certainly changed. Having reached Entering Divinity, Myo Man-li had been grave from beginning to end — so grave that even his signature cackle carried a trace of weight. As if the man himself had grown heavier, somehow.
What on earth did he want to talk about?
First things first — Yi Do hauled Un Dohyeon up from where he still sat slumped on the floor.
"Send people to Baekmun Town. You can make use of the Cheonjeong Gate network."
"Baekmun Town…? You mean the one under the Full Moon Saber Sect, my lord?"
"That's the one. And report everything that happens there to me, moment by moment."
Un Dohyeon nodded and went out.
Where had Myeong Hyeon gone? He would never truly return to the Imperial Sword Sect. Which meant he was heading for its sphere of control.
But what mattered was where he was now.
Yacha, Cheongryong, Hyeonmu. Only the Sword Emperor and the four elders beneath him, along with a handful of clan heads scattered across the murim, knew those three existed. In Baekmun Town — ruled by the Full Moon Saber Sect, one of the Eight Great Sects — there was a house called the Bright Moon Sword Clan, whose patriarch was the Sword Emperor's right hand. That house was where the three of them were kept as hidden blades.
He had gone there.
Running off on whose authority?
Myeong Hyeon had something he absolutely had to hear from Yi Do. If he didn't hear it, he would regret it until the very second he died.
Yi Do turned his head. And more than that — what in the world did Myo Man-li want to talk about?
"Heheheh. What's this? Now that you're a master of Entering Divinity, have you come begging to be my disciple after all?"
Yi Do's answer was crisp.
"No, I have not."
"Heheheheheh… this brat, truly…"