Chapter 217
Chapter 217: An Unexpected Grudge (2)
Ding—
【Sub】 Encounter with the Heavenly Yin Sect
【Sudden】 : On the path of saving the world, grudges always follow. Grudges stacked and layered pour down without warning, like a midsummer downpour. But if you are a hero, you must make even that into your own path. Whether to sever it with a sword or resolve it with words—that choice is entirely yours.
· Resolve the matter with the Heavenly Yin Sect party.
├─ Progress: 0%
└─ Reward: Hero History +3, A bond with the Heavenly Yin Sect formed
The system appearing was, as always, swift.
Between perceiving a situation and deciding how to respond, there is usually a gap. For an ordinary warrior, that gap would be filled with surprise, wariness, or at minimum a quickened heartbeat.
Dong Bong-soo simply read the quest text calmly.
'Whether to sever it with a sword or resolve it with words.'
Judging by Lumina's manner of phrasing, it meant both paths—peace and battle—were open.
'A bond formed.'
It was clearly written in the reward column.
A bond with the Alliance Under Heaven Formation formed. A bond with the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect formed. A bond with the Heavenly Yin Sect formed.
This was the third time.
Not an ill fate or a good fate, but explicitly a bond. The nuance of this word was worth remembering as a pattern.
Looking at the pattern so far, it wasn't as though an immediate quest like that would spring up, but somehow they become 'entangled'. With the factions from whom bonds had formed.
'Information recorded.'
Beyond this, the information could be developed further by compiling the events and quests that would follow.
He closed the quest window and focused on the Super True Energy Field's awareness.
Ten energy signatures in total.
The direction of approach: southwest from Hero Gate. Outside the compound.
There was still a slight distance remaining, and from their speed, it was closer to walking on foot than using Lightness Arts.
From the level of energy convergence, the suppression of breathing, and the swallowing of footsteps, it was the highest caliber of stealthy movement—a degree of concealment that would never be detected without a transcendent awareness like the Super True Energy Field.
Nine of them had similar energy waves.
By Gangdo's former standards, they were at the very top.
Then, measured against the Sword Patrol Corps he'd fought not long ago?
'About the level of the somewhat weaker ones among the Sword Patrol Corps members.'
Calculations ran without pause in Dong Bong-soo's mind. A conclusion came quickly.
Even combined, no great significance.
'The problem is one.'
The remaining one.
The Super True Energy Field's wall was still quaking even now.
Unlike when Myo Jin-heo's field-type formation had placed a load on the Super True Energy Field, it was quaking faintly but certainly—due to sheer energy waves alone.
'The energy is…… heavy.'
A being with an inherently vast mass of energy.
That entity was continuously distorting the energy field around itself. Even by simple estimation, it was a figure one cut above Sang Gwan-hwi.
'Interesting.'
He immediately pulled up the mini-map. He knew well that the moment a quest activates, the locations of its targets are pinpointed perfectly.
He confirmed ten yellow dots moving toward Hero Gate, spread out at regular intervals.
Click—
The moment he closed the map, his thinking shifted.
Heavenly Yin Sect.
Jade Token.
Jeon Ra-hwa.
In the blink of an eye, the meanings contained within those three words connected in a straight line.
The Jade Token hanging around Jeon Ra-hwa's neck. He'd known long since that it was a tracking device. They had followed that signal. Their destination was the Jade Token, and ultimately, Jeon Ra-hwa.
His gaze swept the compound beyond the window.
Jeon Ra-hwa. Asleep in the quarters. The children's breaths were steady too.
Eom Bi-ryeong. Still training somewhere near the Training Grounds. The boundary formation was leaving subtle lines in the air.
Myo Jin-heo. Still in that same quiet in the guest room. That stillness, whether sleep or pretense, remained unknown.
No other additional anomalies.
'Then what is to be done?'
Simple.
Resolve it before the situation spreads in multiple directions.
Let's keep it clean. Before they enter the compound—capture them outside.
Dong Bong-soo stepped down from the bed and stopped before the room door.
A single beat, just before his hand touched the door handle.
Dong Bong-soo placed Kim Rae-won on his face.
The corners of his mouth rose ever so slightly and the outer corners of his eyes relaxed gently. The tension in his shoulders eased, and his chest spread open with confidence. Like pulling on outer garments after having dressed in one's inner layers. A moment's ritual where inside and outside divide.
The warmth that had been stripped away before Jeon Ra-hwa—he wove it back on.
Strand by strand.
One second, just one second passed, and at the door stood the young Guild Master, Kim Rae-won.
He opened the door.
The compound was quiet beneath the moonlight.
He launched Lightness Arts over that space. He ran carried by the naturally arising Super True Energy Wave. Not a single speck of dust rose from the footsteps that skimmed the ground.
He took a wide detour around the perimeter of Eom Bi-ryeong's boundary formation. The ends of the threads extended as far as the outer reaches of the Training Grounds, but since the pattern had already been read, slipping through without touching them was not difficult. The gaps between thread and thread. He grazed through those intervals like slicing between them.
The outer perimeter of Hero Gate.
Once he stepped outside the compound, the night of Gangdo opened before him.
Empty streets. Extinguished night market stalls. The silence of night lay heavily upon the city.
Dong Bong-soo moved toward the southwest outer lane—the direction from which the Heavenly Yin Sect was approaching.
There stood a single ancient tree, several hundred years old by the look of it.
A massive tree with branches spread in all directions—he leaned his back against it and stood.
He spread the Super True Energy Field as thick and wide as possible.
The sensation of ten dots approaching became even more vivid. It was as if each individual pulse was reaching his fingertips. Nine heartbeats beating steadily, and one alone unusually deep. A pulse slow and heavy and cold like the very bottom of an abyss.
New prey was always interesting.
All that remained to do now was wait for the right moment.
Like a lion crouched in the thicket.
***
The night in Gangdo was quiet.
Quiet enough to seem unbecoming of a place called a Lawless City.
Ice Night was leading ten subordinates and had entered Gangdo. It had already been quite some time since she had left the Heavenly Yin Sect's Stalactite Cave deep in the Demon Abyss. The night air of the Central Plains was dry and lukewarm, unlike that of the Stalactite Cave.
'……Close.'
The resonance of the Jade Token was distinct.
The Jade Token given to Dharma Maidens is a Dharma treasure in which the Heavenly Yin Sect's Yin Energy has been inscribed. If one is a practitioner of the same sect, one can trace that residual aura even across hundreds of li. The residual aura is like ice—the closer, the colder; the farther, the fainter.
It was cold now. A single point within this city. Nearly in a straight line.
But one anomaly.
The texture of the resonance was different. It carried an energy different from when Cheol So-a had held the Jade Token. The internal power of the Heavenly Yin Sect was correct, but the method of its operation was not that of a Dharma Maiden. The essence of the water was the same, but the form of the vessel was entirely different. Not a properly sealed jar, but rather the dissonance of something forcibly contained in a cracked vessel.
'As expected—it is someone who is not a Dharma Maiden who carries the Jade Token.'
What that implied was simple.
Cheol So-a had either had the Jade Token taken from her, or she was dead.
Ice Night's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
The Sect Leader's command was recalled once more.
The Stalactite Cave of the Demon Abyss. The moment the space itself twisted from the Yin Energy seeping through the curtain, and dozens of stalactites from the ceiling shattered and rained down. The chill of that moment when a single shard touched her neck as if guided by an invisible hand—Ice Night still remembered it in her skin.
"Find out. Who dares touch the Dharma Maidens of our Heavenly Yin Sect without permission."
The Sect Leader's voice had been low.
Low as it was, it was heavy, and heavy as it was, it could not be defied.
—You shall move personally.
Personally.
When the Sect Leader used that word, failure was not permitted.
"Sisters."
Ice Night called in a low voice. Nine silhouettes closed in without a single sound of footsteps.
"The resonance of the Jade Token is just ahead. I can feel it staying in one place. Within a building to the north."
"Commanding officer, do we move in directly?"
The youngest subordinate asked. The junior member of this expedition. A girl with wide eyes whose voice had not yet acquired an edge.
"We do not rush."
Ice Night turned her head and fixed her gaze in the direction of Hero Gate.
"There is something I must look into first."
What exactly that something was, Ice Night herself had not yet put into words. It was merely that the awareness honed over decades as a Heavenly Yin Sect Adept was being faintly scratched. A feeling that something else lay beneath the resonance of the Jade Token.
She slowed her pace while surveying the streets of Gangdo.
Once, a Lawless City. She had heard this was a place where night markets, gambling dens, and brothels burned bright through the night.
But now, it was entirely otherwise.
Orderly streets. The night market lanterns were dark, and almost no vagrants could be seen in the alleyways. It was not simply because of the hour. The atmosphere permeating the streets themselves was different.
Someone had changed the order of this city.
'Hero Gate, was it?'
According to the information gathered on the way here, a new sect had established itself in Gangdo. The former power, the Iron God Society, had been exterminated. That very Iron God Society where Young Mistress Cheol So-a had been. And on that site, a sect called Hero Gate had been built.
The resonance of the Jade Token was pointing precisely in the direction of that Hero Gate.
It could not be a coincidence.
Right at the moment that thought reached its conclusion.
Ice Night's footsteps stopped.
'……What is this?'
It was a sensation she could not explain.
Too faint to call energy. No texture to call it a formation. It was neither Line, nor Rope, nor Field, nor Membrane. It matched none of the categories of any technique Ice Night knew.
The feeling that the entire space had been subtly placed—like an oil film spread across the surface of water—under someone's control.
She sharpened her Heavenly Yin Sect Adept's awareness to its utmost.
It could not be read.
Not Yin Energy. Not Yang Energy. Different from Immortal Energy either. Evil Energy was even further removed. Something that belonged to none of any attribute—pure control of energy itself. As if the concept of energy had been stripped of all attributes, leaving only its shell.
Ice Night's brow furrowed.
Is this a type of technique she does not know?
Or is it a level beyond what her current realm can grasp?
Either way, it was sufficient reason to stop her feet.
"All halt."
Nine stopped.
"Ahead lies someone's space."
The look in the sisters' eyes shifted.
Space.
The precise meaning was unclear, but the intent could be read.
That a strong individual, one who Ice Night would describe in such terms, was residing or lying in wait there.
"I will go first. Stand by in the rear."
"Commanding officer!"
"It is an order."
Her voice dropped by one note. The intonation that resembled the Sect Leader's—a tone that could not be defied.
The youngest closed her mouth.
Ice Night stepped one foot into the space of the unknown one.
The air changed. Neither cold nor hot. Simply the density was different. As if placing one's foot in water, the air itself had resistance. Subtle but certain.
'Inside here, my movements are being read.'
It was intuition. The owner of this domain would have known the moment she entered. The weight of her footsteps, the intervals of her breathing, even the beating of her heart.
If so, there was no reason to hide.
Ice Night released the concealed footwork she had been using and walked openly and directly.
A lane opened before her. A quiet outer road where moonlight fell evenly.
At its end, before an ancient tree that appeared several hundred years old, a man stood leaning against it.
About twenty, perhaps?
The man with his black hair grown long was undeniably young.
And.
He was yawning.
Ice Night's steps stopped.
'This is the owner of this space.'
She could be certain. That man was the center of this transparent awareness. The space was curving outward with him at its center.
And yet, through energy sense, nothing could be read.
It was as if he had no energy.
No flow of internal power, no ripple of True Energy could be felt. Observed through the Heavenly Yin Sect's awareness, that man appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary young man of about twenty—
But this space's energy was distributed with such perfect uniformity. As though someone had deliberately spread it out evenly in all directions.
Within the principles of the Heavenly Yin Sect that Ice Night had practiced her entire life, there was no logic that could explain this contradiction.
So she asked directly.
"Seventh Dharma Maiden…… where is Cheol So-a?"
Without even stopping his yawn, the man, Dong Bong-soo, raised his middle finger and pointed it straight down at the ground.
"Here."
And then immediately bent the same finger the opposite way, raising it toward the sky.
"Or perhaps, up there?"
"Could be both. Body in one place, soul in another."
At that instant.
The world froze white.
It was not a metaphor.
The frost on the ground spread. The thickness was different from a moment ago. Not the grass but the soil itself froze. The bark of the ancient tree turned white and split. Ice spread across the bricks of the surrounding wall.
The white vapor rising from Dong Bong-soo's breath grew considerably denser, and
ice began adhering to the boundary of the Super True Energy Field.
This was an entirely different dimension from before. If the faint chill he had felt earlier was a wave lapping against the boundary, this was a tsunami attempting to swallow the boundary itself.
He raised the density of the Super True Energy Field. One level. The frost was pushed back. But new frost filled the space where it had been pushed from.
A load was bearing down on the entire area where the Super True Energy Field was deployed.
'Remarkable.'
The moonlight bent toward Ice Night and converged around her.
Heavenly Yin Sect.
A sect that absorbs the Yin Energy of moonlight and sublimates it into internal power.
In this very moment, the moonlight of Gangdo existed for one person alone.
The cold energy pouring from Ice Night's entire body was turning the dead of night in Gangdo into the depths of winter.
If Cheol So-a had been a shard of ice, this was a glacier.
Ice Night took one step forward. The ground her foot touched froze. Ice spreading in a circle. A second step. A third step. With every step she took, not footprints but ice flowers bloomed.
"……Your name."
Ice Night opened her mouth. Her voice had changed. It was not the cold and controlled tone of before. Lower, deeper, heavier.
"May I ask your name?"
For a Heavenly Yin Sect Adept to ask an opponent for their name—
it was the courtesy shown before a killing.
Dong Bong-soo's teeth also reflected the moonlight pure white.
Because.
"Kim Rae-won."
He was smiling.
"Guild Master of Hero Gate."
