The Lower Five Gates
Before long, the messenger pigeon that had been circling overhead came down to rest above Han Beom-seong's head. Myeong Hyeon plucked it off with a smirk and read the letter attached to its leg.
"Looks like Gong Wi-ryang got impatient. He's trying to recall Han Beom-seong."
"Can you imitate the handwriting?"
"...Not right away, but give me about a day, and I can manage a few simple characters."
A day was too vague to count on.
He spoke to Myeong Hyeon, who still held the pigeon in hand.
"Just send it on its way."
Myeong Hyeon nodded, and the bird soared up into the sky. It would fly straight back to the Pacheon Gwonjong, carrying a letter with no reply in it.
Everyone there would find it strange.
Because as of today, Han Beom-seong would simply be missing.
"Lord Taju, you should head back first."
He shook his head.
"I have things to do."
Neither of them asked what those things were. They had more or less already guessed.
He let go of the head he had been carrying — Han Beom-seong's head.
Thud.
It dropped to the ground.
He turned toward the underbrush.
Staring at it, he dug his feet into the earth and sprang away.
At once, a sound rose from the thicket — a man scrambling away with his back turned, desperate to flee.
He drove refined qi into his legs.
The man was spent and dragging his feet, yes, but a few more leaps should have been well within his reach.
The Flying Dragon Charge unfurled at its limit. The surrounding scenery blurred and rushed past in an instant. He stretched out his hand, and his left hand closed around the back of the man's neck.
Then he slammed him into the ground.
BOOM—!
"Ugh..."
Gripping the man by the nape, he hauled him up.
A goatee. Arched brows. A low, flat nose.
He had never seen this man before.
But the clothes he wore, the killing intent leaking from him, and above all, Yi Do's own instinct told him everything he needed to know.
It was obvious.
"Hao Gate, is it?"
"...I... I don't know what you're talking about... I'm just someone passing through... Now let go of me, please..."
"If you weren't a disciple of Hao Gate, there would be no reason to speak with you at all. Will you die as you are, or will you tell the truth?"
The man swallowed hard and answered.
"...I am Jeong Yeong, a first-grade disciple of Hao Gate."
A smile spread across Yi Do's face.
"How refreshing, to meet someone so honest."
"...Then you'll spare me?"
"That depends entirely on what you tell me."
"..."
"Do you intend to report what happened here today to Hao Gate?"
"...I was going to, but if you tell me not to, I won't... However."
"However?"
"...As a disciple of Hao Gate, concealing information I've obtained could bring consequences down on me later. So..."
"You want something in return for staying quiet?"
"...Yes."
"Don't you think you're asking for quite a lot?"
"...What choice do I have? You terrify me, but... there's someone who sent me here. The branch head of Hao Gate's Jangan Commandery branch. He may not know what I witnessed here, but he does know that I was here at all."
In other words — kill me, and the branch head of Hao Gate will know exactly who the calamity was. Hmm...
Threat felt like a rather worn expression for it.
A warning, then. That was the better way to read it.
"Doesn't it strike you as strange?"
"...What does, may I ask..."
"Why is there not a single soul from Cheonjeongmun anywhere near this place?"
"..."
"Not one of the countless martial artists from the sects in Jangan Commandery, either — not even the wandering blades who merely passed through. Why is none of them here?"
"..."
"Is an information network like Hao Gate really this blind? The ones who needed to know what happens here and the ones who must not know are clearly divided. Those who caught on never came here. And those who didn't — fools like you — came anyway. Do you follow what I'm saying?"
"...A mistake... it was a mistake. We only..."
His words never finished.
Crack.
His neck snapped. If a man could still talk after that, he'd be a monster, not a person.
Yi Do rose to his feet and spread his senses outward.
When he had fought earlier, two outsiders had brushed against his perception.
He listened. Footsteps — the sound of someone fleeing like a madman — drifted faintly from afar. He turned his head and immediately pushed off the ground.
The man hadn't made it far. A martial artist who looked to be around the Jucheon Realm was crashing through the underbrush, running for his life. Yi Do drew the Unryong Sword and hurled it.
Thwack—!
"Gahk."
The man pitched face-first into the dirt. Yi Do walked over slowly and pulled the blade free.
"...P-please... spare me..."
"Why did you come here?"
"...I..."
"Did the branch head of Hao Gate order you? Told you to go see what was happening out here?"
"Y-yes, that's right."
"The branch head of Hao Gate must be quite the resourceful man."
"...Excuse me?"
"He dares skim his tribute off Jangan Commandery, yet won't hand me so much as a scrap of information — instead he sends men to squeeze it out of me? You shameless ingrates have no sense of your place at all. At this point, it's almost awe-inspiring."
He reversed his grip on the Unryong Sword and brought it straight down.
CRACK—!
The man's head left his shoulders.
Yi Do turned.
Myeong Hyeon and Un Dohyeon were approaching, having apparently just finished their own work. Un Dohyeon carried Han Beom-seong's head — though he wasn't simply carrying it. It was wrapped in the killers' clothing, so that no one would know whose head it was unless Un Dohyeon himself chose to show them.
"Finished?"
"Yes. Cleanly done. The gouged ground and the broken trees are covered by Lord Taju's own technique, and we've moved a few of the killers' corpses over it. No one who comes will notice a thing. Besides, there are plenty of stray dogs in these hills — they'll stage the scene for us on their own."
Coming from anyone else it would have been hard to believe, but from Myeong Hyeon, it was entirely plausible. This was hardly the first or second time he had done such work. The man was a Yaksha. One must never forget that.
"By the way... they appear to have been Hao Gate disciples. What will you do?"
What would he do — what was there even to decide?
"Carry the two heads and follow me."
Myeong Hyeon let out a long, put-upon sigh, picked up the first Hao Gate disciple's head in his right hand, and Jeong Yeong's — the one Yi Do had just killed — in his left, then fell in behind him. Rest was clearly a lost cause.
Hao Gate, famed as one of the two great pillars of the information world, kept branches in every corner of the realm.
There had been none in Sambong-hyeon — but Jangan Commandery was another matter.
A Hao Gate branch stood right here in Jangan Commandery.
And Yi Do kicked its doors off their hinges.
CRASH—!!
The doors shattered inward, and chaos erupted inside.
Yi Do, Myeong Hyeon, and Un Dohyeon entered at a leisurely pace.
"Who—! This is the Hao Ga— ...Hup."
This was, after all, an establishment that dealt in information — one that had planted a branch in Jangan Commandery itself. If they didn't even know who now ruled that commandery, they deserved to tear their own sign down and die in the gutter.
"I will count to five. Branch head, come out this instant."
Yi Do drew the Unryong Sword with his left hand.
"If you do not, every soul in this building dies."
At the killing intent rolling off an Ogijowon master, everyone in the Hao Gate branch began to tremble uncontrollably.
Yi Do began to count.
The moment he reached exactly three, Cheon Chung-myeon, branch head of the Hao Gate Jangan branch, came bounding down from the upper floor like a man possessed.
"Wh-what in the world is the meaning of this outrage!"
Yi Do looked at Cheon Chung-myeon as he shouted, and spoke.
"Myeong Hyeon."
"Yes, Lord Taju."
Myeong Hyeon flung the two heads he was carrying straight at Cheon Chung-myeon. The man caught them — and recoiled in horror.
He knew these faces.
The two Hao Gate disciples he himself had ordered, just hours ago, to trail those three men.
"...You've... you've killed disciples of Hao Gate? Have you lost your mind—"
"Cheon Chung-myeon."
At Yi Do's low voice, Cheon Chung-myeon stopped mid-sentence and swallowed hard.
A shiver ran through his whole body. It felt as if thousands of blades were trained on him from every direction.
"You still haven't grasped the situation?"
"...Th-that is..."
Yi Do turned, sat down in a chair tucked into the corner, and jerked his chin toward the one across from him.
"Sit."
"..."
"If I have to say the word sit one more time, I will tear you limb from limb and kill every man in this branch."
Cheon Chung-myeon knew perfectly well that this was a man who would do exactly as he said. So he scurried over and sat down across from Yi Do.
"...Will you at least... tell me why you're doing this?"
"Do you truly not know, so you must ask?"
"..."
"I have no interest in whatever business you people of Hao Gate run. I don't spare it a single thought. Buying and selling information, eating your meals, planting men in taverns to track every movement in the region and gather your intelligence — none of it concerns me."
Cheon Chung-myeon's eyes were trembling violently. He could roughly guess what was coming next.
"But. When it comes to information about me, that is another matter entirely."
"..."
"From the hour of the snake, I sealed the western gate of Jangan Commandery. Not a single government soldier passed through — nor any of the wandering blades in the commandery, nor a single warrior from Cheonjeongmun or from any of the clans that hold grudges against it. Everyone, except you people."
"Th-that's..."
"Cheonjeongmun and the other sects knew something was going to happen out there. And even so, they did not try to find out. Because it was not information they were meant to have — if it had been, I would never have sealed the road. You people knew that too. Am I wrong?"
"...You are not."
Silence settled over the room.
Drip. Drip.
The only sound was the blood falling from Myeong Hyeon and Un Dohyeon's bodies.
Yi Do broke the silence.
"I don't care about the rest of the realm. But in the land where I stand, the land I govern — if someone gathers information about me and tries to sell it to another party, it requires my permission. Nothing less."
"What kind of... whose law is that supposed to be?"
"A law I made myself. Because this Jangan Commandery is mine."
"...You intend to control things to that degree? I understand the intent, but isn't it excessive?"
Yi Do smirked.
"Whether it's excessive or not is not for you to judge. It is my rule. And if you refuse to follow it — then what? You all simply die."
"You'd make an enemy of the entire Hao Gate...? Could you truly bear the consequences?"
"You think I couldn't?"
"..."
"Do you people fancy yourselves the foremost clan under heaven, just because you wander the murim gathering your little scraps of intelligence?"
"..."
"I find it tiresome, watching mere information-peddlers forget their place. Give me a single month, and within that month I will flatten a hundred Hao Gate branches, take the heads of a hundred branch heads, and kill half of the Fourteen Elders hiding across the realm."
Cheon Chung-myeon was struck dumb with shock.
"...Have you gone mad?"
"Hardly. And even after all that — if Hao Gate still refuses to bend..."
A smile curved at the corner of his mouth.
"Then Cheonjeongmun will become the foremost information clan in the murim, and Hao Gate will simply cease to exist."
The color drained from Cheon Chung-myeon's face. Cheonjeongmun would no doubt see it as the opportunity of a lifetime to sweep aside the Hao Gate that had always been a thorn in their side — and if that judgment came from the leadership, Hao Gate would suffer a devastating blow.
"I've talked too long, and now I'm irritated. Un Dohyeon."
"Yes, my lord."
"I am going to ask this man questions. If his answer to any of them is anything other than yes, take his head at once."
Shring. Un Dohyeon drew his blade.
It was like watching a madman. What on earth did a man have to do to command that depth of loyalty from another human being?
"Myeong Hyeon."
"Yes, Lord Taju."
"I know it's a strain, but move a little longer. If Un Dohyeon takes this man's head, kill every Hao Gate disciple in Jangan Commandery on the spot."
Myeong Hyeon grinned.
"Ooh, how about I dress it up a bit — in the killers' style?"
"Nothing wrong with that."
Yi Do paused briefly, then continued, glaring at Cheon Chung-myeon.
"This man might choose to make an enemy of me, but the elders of Hao Gate might not think the same way. So leave a few traces suggesting I did it. Even they deserve a chance."
Myeong Hyeon looked like he was about to die of delight. Watching all this from one step back, he had thought Yi Do's sheer audacity bordered on reckless — how on earth would the man clean up afterward? But now that it was his own business, he found it fascinating.
It was almost something to look forward to.
"I'm confident in that sort of thing, so I'll make sure to do it properly this time."
The hair stood up all over Cheon Chung-myeon's body.
How could anyone not shudder, watching a man drenched in blood smile like that?
"Now then, Cheon Chung-myeon. Think carefully before you answer. That one answer of yours decides your life, and the lives of every Hao Gate disciple in this place. Will you follow my rule — the rule I made?"
He swallowed hard.
These madmen meant it.
He believed Hao Gate would protect him... but did he, really?
If a justification presented itself, the elders would sooner reach out and take this man's hand than risk themselves to shield him.
After all, the Jagged Demon Sovereign's name was even now spreading through every corner of the murim — a rising star among rising stars.
He even had the Asura Sword Sect behind him. Make an enemy of him, and you made an enemy of the Asura Sword Sect as well.
And if Hao Gate then pulled one of the other Eight Great Sects into the fight — did anyone seriously believe they would do it for free?
Of course not.
They would demand something in return, and whatever that was, Hao Gate would inevitably end up bleeding for it. The arithmetic was inescapable.
There was nothing left to weigh.
"Yes... I will follow your rules."
"Good. And one more thing."
Yi Do reached out, seized Cheon Chung-myeon by the hair, and slammed his face down onto the table.
Yi Do's icy gaze bored into him, and terror seeped into Cheon Chung-myeon's bones.
"Never rise again. That is what it means to know your place. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes... yes... I under... stand."
Yi Do glared at him a moment longer — then simply hurled him across the room. Cheon Chung-myeon's body flew into the bookshelf on the far wall, and the volumes stacked inside came cascading down, but he did not so much as twitch from where he lay.
Yi Do's gaze was still fixed on him.
He was afraid.
Genuinely, truly afraid.
Yi Do turned away.
"We return to Bunta."
"Under your command!"