Coming Down
An incredible stroke of fortune far beyond one's station in life.
In the Central Plains, when someone obtained such a thing, people commonly said they had met with a fateful opportunity—a giyeon.
And here stood someone who had simply been standing still when a precious spiritual medicine was casually pressed into her hands.
"Why are you just staring at something so precious instead of eating it?"
Hwang Geolgae asked in a gentle voice, nothing like the way he treated Dan Mujin.
"I just… have a lot on my mind."
Ilhong spoke with hesitation written all over her face.
"What thinking? Opportunities like this don't come often. Swallow it down already."
Hwang Geolgae waved her on, as if someone might snatch it if she kept holding it instead of taking it at once.
"…"
A fateful opportunity. Ilhong rolled the spiritual medicine, which radiated an uncanny aura, silently across her palm.
Perhaps the greatest opportunity of her life had been the day she ran into the Boss in that alley.
The handsome youth who had saved her from being beaten by beggars and even given her the strange nickname "Runaway Ninja."
She had followed nothing but his back when he told her to come along, and somehow she had left her beggar life behind, taken the Dragon Head Sect Leader as her master, and now even held this spiritual medicine in her hands.
"What's making you hesitate?"
"Well, if I accept even this… the debt I owe will grow so huge I'll never be able to repay it."
Hwang Geolgae looked exasperated as she hemmed and hawed over such a trivial reason while a spiritual medicine martial artists would kill for sat in her palm.
"Tsk tsk. You think that bastard cares one whit about repayment or not? You're the only one fretting over it."
"…"
As a subordinate who had watched him for quite some time, Ilhong found it hard to argue—he really would be like that.
Grinning to show his teeth, Hwang Geolgae went on.
"He's just that kind of guy. A little off in the head… a complete lunatic. Just gulp it down, raise your realm, and keep helping him from the side like you do now. That is repaying the debt."
He had willingly given such a precious spiritual medicine to a pitiful child—that alone was accumulating merit. And thanks to that, the boy had surely gained something as well. Knowing this, Hwang Geolgae told her there was no need to hesitate.
"…He isn't crazy. He just doesn't hold back what he wants to say."
Having made her decision at Hwang Geolgae's words to grow stronger and help him, Ilhong quietly defended her Boss, then popped the round pill into her mouth.
The Imperial Golden Yellow Divine Pill melted away on her tongue.
A pure, clear energy traveled down her throat and spread through her entire body. A vast amount of natural energy swept through her like a raging current.
"Circulate the Jade Profound Returning True Profound Art."
As she assumed the lotus position, Hwang Geolgae pressed against her back and guided the surging energy of the spiritual medicine.
Ilhong, the rightful successor of the Haomu Gate, began circulating the Beggar Sect's heart method that the Dragon Head Sect Leader himself had personally taught her, concentrating to the extreme.
Tss-tss-tss—
For half a day she tamed the overflowing energy of the spiritual medicine within her body.
In the quiet, the typhoon that had been raging inside her began to subside.
Satisfied that the precious spiritual medicine's energy had been properly absorbed, Hwang Geolgae smiled and withdrew his hands.
"Heh heh. You're the first to take the Beggar Sect's martial arts and build them atop the foundation the Haomu Gate has laid."
On a night when insects sang mournfully, Ilhong's eyes snapped open in the darkness, gleaming with light.
She let out a long breath of excitement.
Someone had once said: if the sky is high, just pull the sky a little lower.
"Thank you, Master… and Boss."
And that night, a woman forged by the Haomu Gate and built up by the Beggar Sect ascended to the ranks of First-class experts.
The Blood Sect messengers were racing frantically through the darkness.
They were gasping for breath as if something were chasing them.
And then, from the deep shadows, a figure in black robes surged up and swung a heavy spiked staff.
"Gahk!"
Fierce staff qi flashed blue and swept through the surroundings. The nails set into the tip of the staff like wolf's fangs tore the Blood Sect cultists to shreds.
Even though the party included a Peak Realm martial artist, the moment the black-robed figure appeared, they were wiped out in an instant.
One Blood Sect cultist cried out in shock.
"So it's you…! The spiked-staff man who's been raiding Blood Sect hideouts lately…!"
Thud!
No questions asked. The head pouring out its rage burst open in a single blow.
"The Namgung Family never forgets a grudge."
The black hood slid down. The mystical jade eyes of the Blue Cloud Sword, Namgung Jin, cast their radiance beneath the starlight.
"How disappointing. To think you would truly go after the Heavenly Sword with such meager forces and preparation."
A slight sneer colored his tone.
He began examining one by one the important letters the messengers had been rushing to deliver.
Wiping away the mottled bloodstains and applying the decryption method he had deduced through tendon-and-bone analysis, the unsettling contents gradually came to light.
"Need to secure corpses of experts… What are you bastards plotting, Blood Sect?"
It wasn't just any corpses—they were specifically collecting the remains of martial artists, which was quite disturbing.
They seemed to be planning something else besides the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering incident.
After decades of preparing something in the shadows… Namgung Jin reflected that even though his father had tried to stop him, he had done well to put on this hood and go hunting.
"And 'Swiftly, as the law commands'—find a vessel for the descent of the Blood Heaven God… Hmm."
The Blood Heaven God—the wicked existence they believed without doubt would one day descend.
It was absurd, but not something to dismiss lightly either.
Namgung Jin frowned and continued decrypting. Then the truth emerged.
They seemed to be searching for some kind of body for a descent ritual and grand technique.
"They need the star-body of the Heavenly Killing Star? But that baleful star has surely lost its light."
The terrifying existence said to be sent down from heaven to dye the whole world in blood—the baleful star of Heavenly Killing.
Looking up, countless stars glittered in the night sky.
And one baleful star that had once shone, but now lay dark and dead, its light extinguished.
"I can't make sense of this."
Could it mean the Heavenly Killing Star was appearing once more in this generation?
Namgung Jin narrowed his eyes as he examined the letters.
First, a report. He would need to pass this news to the Murim Alliance and Myeolmade, who were hunting the Blood Sect.
He tucked the letters into his robes.
Then he checked the contents of the other letters as well.
"Dog-Beating Dragon—judged more threatening. Raise threat level to rank three?"
The youth his father had told him to keep an eye on, who seemed to possess talent equal to his own. He had given off a peculiar atmosphere on the sparring stage, if he recalled correctly.
And his own rank?
"Hmph. The Spiked Staff Phantom is rank four?"
Even after hunting down Blood Sect hideouts and smashing their grunts one after another, he was still only rank four.
Dog-Beating Dragon—just what kind of feats had this person been pulling off?
"…I'll have to work harder."
He hadn't expected there would be someone even more devoted to the Blood Sect than himself.
The Blue Cloud Sword, Namgung Jin, felt a strange competitive fire and crumpled the letter hard.
Crunch.
From dawn until noon, when the crown of one's head grew hot, Ilhong was lost in the depths of training, as if trying to dissolve the energy that had seeped into her body.
"Ha! Hup!"
Her sword tip cut through the air, and her sweat soaked the training grounds.
She was pouring her whole heart into it, as if she would never let go of the thread of mastery she had barely grasped.
"Oh, looks like you've made some progress."
Even at a glance, her presence was different. Had she reached the First-class Realm overnight?
"Heh heh."
Beside him, Hwang Geolgae, who had been glugging alcohol with a tipsy look, spoke with a pleased face.
"She reached First-class the moment she took it. On top of that, she still has an excess of internal energy melting into her meridians all over her body."
Her enlightenment had been insufficient to reach Peak Realm right away, but the foundation to climb further had been thoroughly laid.
So the pill was that effective. Maybe Cheon Su-gong thought better of me than I expected.
Quite a big gift, that.
"But it's a bit late to ask this now—is it really okay to just hand out the Beggar Sect's core martial arts like that? And to a kid who's after the Haomu Gate Leader's seat, no less?"
These days the Haomu Gate had gone off the rails and was doing black-path stuff and even contacting the Imperial Palace instead of just being an information organization.
But hadn't they once been the two most famous information organizations splitting the vast Central Plains?
And in this era, martial arts were like a household's livelihood and a company's core technology.
"If the big shots of the Beggar Sect find out, won't they go crazy demanding we seal her dantian and sever her meridians?"
Even no-name second- and third-class sects made a huge fuss over that kind of thing. I wasn't sure this would be okay.
"I'm the Dragon Head Sect Leader who decides that, you brat."
Hwang Geolgae snorted, saying he was the one who decided "cut that guy."
"But Master, you said you weren't going to play Dragon Head Sect Leader and were going to keep living as Divine Wind Daoist."
Rights came with duties—if you abandoned everything and left, would the Beggar Sect members really listen well?
When I grumbled, he pointed at me with his liquor bottle and continued.
"Then you can stop them."
"…Me? I'm still a nobody."
Some Beggar Sect members recognized me, and I had secretly leaked Hwang Geolgae's location and such, maintaining a peculiar relationship, but that was all for now.
From their perspective, would tens of thousands of Beggar Sect members move just because some nobody like me gave orders?
"Haaah!"
Ilhong was performing the Beggar Sect's only sword technique, the Crying Branch Sword Technique, with all her might.
A sharp sound of air being torn rang out. Her movements, charged with internal energy, were far more vicious and sharp than before.
"That child is working so hard. Shouldn't you take better care of her? Her past has been quite unfortunate too."
Hwang Geolgae glanced my way, subtly pressuring me and giving me looks.
"Like I said, I'm already taking good care of her. She's the subordinate who gets the best treatment at our office."
"…Your office only has one subordinate so far."
"Exactly."
Well, I wasn't wrong.
"I hear you treat her like some tomboy? That delicate, refined girl."
Apparently Ilhong had complained to her master about how I treated her while they trained.
"What's wrong with that? It's friendly and nice."
In my own way, this was how I looked after her. Taking care of her like a little sister one year younger—what was bad about that?
"Ahem, is that any way to treat a girl her age? Be a little warmer and kinder, hmm?"
This old man was saying some dangerous things.
"She's dressed as a man. If I act warm and kind, people around us will get the wrong idea. Some people are already looking at us weirdly as it is."
Dang Yeohye was one, and there were others casting suspicious glances at our relationship.
I had no confidence I could endure that kind of public misunderstanding.
"Heh heh. A man should be able to put up with that much."
"What kind of…"
He would beat me with a staff at the drop of a hat, then always had this temperature difference that left me speechless.
"Anyway, the fact that you finished looking over Ilhong and came to me means you want to check my progress, right?"
A small insight gained from taking down three Peak Realm martial artists.
Over the past few days, under Hwang Geolgae's guidance, I had swung the Dog-Beating Staff fiercely and gained several realizations.
"Right. How far has your realm risen?"
I answered while raising blazing white staff qi.
"Whirlwind Steps, Hundred Knots Divine Fist, and Seongun Simbeop have all reached five stars now, and the Dog Beating Staff Technique is around four stars."
A realm achieved through countless crises and life-or-death battles. Thinking of all the effort, pain, and victories along the way made me a little proud.
Hearing this, Hwang Geolgae also let out a small gasp of admiration.
"As expected of the Heavenly Killing Star."
He nodded as he said it.
"…I built this realm through hard work, not the Heavenly Killing Star."
"Mmm, truly worthy of the martial talent Heaven sent down to destroy the earth."
"No, I'm the one who worked hard?"
When I insisted stubbornly, Hwang Geolgae clicked his tongue briefly and glugged his liquor.
"Tsk tsk. Always so full of the need for recognition. Fine, I'll praise you. Praise."
Anyway, having one star stuck in my head made it damn hard to get any praise.
Even with genius talent, it meant nothing without effort.
"But don't get arrogant. There are other baleful stars in this world that can stand comparison with your martial talent."
Especially seeing how the heavenly mechanisms of this generation were unsettled, there was no telling what kind of baleful stars might be lurking, Hwang Geolgae warned me repeatedly.
"Of course, they're beings you might not even encounter once. But you're the type who, left alone, ends up entangled with the Eastern Depot, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, everything—so I have to warn you…"
Listening to that, I thought my fate was pretty strange too.
"Master."
Don't get entangled? I was already entangled way past the point of no return.
Especially since the other party seemed to have feelings for me, and recently seemed to have some weird misunderstanding as well.
"You told me to be careful of the Purple Micro Star, right?"
"That's right, you brat. It's a relationship of destined rivals led by the fate of the stars. You must never get involved."
The moment you meet, an inescapable destiny begins, or something like that.
Just as the past Moyong Cheongjin had struggled but could never escape the destiny of blood and slaughter.
"Then what if, hypothetically, the Purple Micro Star exists in this generation…"
"Hmm."
"And I've already helped raise that Purple Micro Star's realm twice… what does that make me?"
The first time hadn't been intentional, and the second time I'd repaid a favor I had received.
"What does it make you? The dumbest Heavenly Killing Star in history."
Ah, of course.
Back then I'd been thinking of repaying kindness and returning what I'd received, but looking back now, I'd done something pretty stupid.
"You… what did you do…?"
Given my track record with the Imperial family matter, Hwang Geolgae looked at me with needle-thin suspicious eyes.
"Nah, nothing. It's nothing."
I hurriedly shook my head at those suspicious eyes and scampered away from the spot.
"You're going?"
Jo Harang silently nodded at the question from her master, Song Ryeong, whose hair had gone purple.
Having refined her Peak Realm achievement and enlightenment, under her master's guidance she had reached the very brink of the Transcendental Peak Realm.
"Has the storm inside you settled as well?"
"…Yes, probably."
The shocking sight she had witnessed before climbing Mount Song.
Jo Harang had been swept up in an inexplicable sense of betrayal upon seeing it.
The more confusing part was that she herself didn't really understand why she felt betrayed.
But now, after spending the winter and with a year having passed, her emotions had settled, and she could control the confusion as well.
Having decided to descend the mountain, Jo Harang—
"So, what's that kid's name?"
Out of the blue, her master Song Ryeong threw out that question.
Jo Harang peeked her head up from where she had bowed it for farewell and asked back.
"What kid do you mean…?"
"You muttered it sometimes. Something something Mujin."
"…I never did that, Master."
At her disciple's flustered answer, Song Ryeong smiled knowingly, as if she could see right through her.
"…Then I'll descend the mountain, raise the name of the Jaha Sect high, and accumulate good deeds!"
Bowing her head deeply once more, Jo Harang turned and ran.
Even when she had climbed the mountain she seemed possessed by emotion, and now when she was going down, her heart seemed to already be far away with someone.
Normally she was so fixated on beating evil people to death.
"Heh heh. Youth."
Song Ryeong watched her disciple's retreating back and smiled with amusement.