The Master of the Cave
Deep within the Heavenly Heat Ice Palace.
In that strange space where cold that froze all things tangled with boiling heat, a woman stood alone.
Her vermilion hair danced and rippled through the air like living flame. Every breath she released sent waves of heat surging through the cave, melting the ice walls in heavy drips; every step she took turned the frozen floor into steam that scattered into the air.
Like a small sun risen inside the cavern, she was a woman of pure fire who melted everything that had been frozen solid.
In her hand rested a legendary spiritual medicine the shamans of the Central Plains searched for with desperate longing—the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng.
She brushed back hair that shimmered like a sunset and casually ground that priceless treasure to powder. Onto it she let fall a single drop of the milky-white Mita Holy Water, found only in the ice caves of extreme yin. Finally she added the original essence liquid of spirit-clear stone that gathered solely beneath the Ten-Thousand-Year Extreme Cold Platform, then rolled the mixture between her fingers into a round pill.
An inexplicable energy leaked from her fingertips, and a supreme pill of extreme yin qi—one that would shake the entire Central Plains—was complete.
The woman handled spiritual medicines that martial artists would kill for without a flicker of expression.
“How dull.”
She swallowed the finished pill in a single gulp and murmured the words. She had sealed herself in this cave intending to remain a hundred years or so, yet the silence here had begun to seep boredom into her very feelings.
Perhaps Heaven had taken pity on her tedium, for far away at the cave mouth a commotion stirred. Faint traces of presence, brushing footsteps, and a strange wave of energy brushed against her keen senses.
The woman fumbled through the heavenly secrets she had read before entering the cave. When she had peered then, the divination had shown only the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace setting foot here for a brief moment before vanishing.
Sensing something amiss, she opened the Divine Eye Penetration, the sacred sight that pierced the workings of heaven and earth and the flow of destiny itself.
Yet what was this? The view before her was clouded, as though veiled in fog.
“Huh…?”
The heavenly secrets she had foreseen long ago had twisted somewhere along the way, and even her Divine Eye was blocked by some alien force so that she could not read the currents. It was as if someone who bent fate itself stood within this space.
And the woman recognized that existence at once. A terribly familiar—and terribly tiresome—energy was flowing in from the cave entrance.
“Interesting.”
The corners of her mouth curled upward.
Even if she could not read the heavenly secrets, that fierce energy was unmistakable. One human who carried the myriad stars that hung in the night sky, and who brimmed with the Holy Star Qi as though he had melted those stars into himself.
Yet that human held more than star energy alone. Faint though it was, the lunar energy said to overturn a person’s reason was mixed in as well, small and newly sprouted.
“Kyahaha—one who holds both Holy Star Qi and Lunar Qi at the same time.”
A truly contradictory existence. Feeling a fierce spark of interest, she laughed lightly, shoulders shaking. Her long vermilion hair swayed and cascaded with the motion.
“Those two old men can’t have joined forces… What in the world has been happening outside all this time?”
Unlike the two elders who refused even ascension so they might wander the whole world chasing their own purposes, she had chosen seclusion of her own will and sought the sparsely peopled North. Yet perhaps this was the perverse guidance of fate—someone who seemed to be their disciple, or who had received their power, was now walking into her cave of his own accord.
“The Holy Star Qi is abundant, but the Lunar Qi has only just begun to sprout. Did he start learning it recently?”
She traced a finger through the air. Blazing Extreme Yang energy swept the cavern, melting ice walls and making the hot-spring water boil furiously.
Ilwol had been tolerable enough. A man of unknowable schemes, yet at least he caused no harm. Ilseong, however—that eccentric old man who had embedded a star in his name yet spread the power of the moon—was another matter entirely. He and all those who received his bewitching power alike went about throwing the world into chaos.
Moreover, stars broken into tiny pieces knew their place and dared not challenge her, but the vast moon regarded itself as the sun of the night sky and envied the brilliance of day.
“Hmph. Insolent, aren’t they.”
With eyes that blazed hot, she cast her gaze toward the cave entrance. If she went out and confirmed up close that this was truly a disciple carrying that old man Ilseong’s arrangements…
“Killing him right here and now wouldn’t be so bad!”
She twisted her lips into a smile and rose to her feet in one smooth motion. In that instant a searing heat swept every direction, as though a great beast had woken from sleep and stretched its limbs. Even the pill of extreme yin energy compacted to the utmost could not easily quiet her heat.
“Kyahahaha.”
Until now the only interesting thing in this ice cave had been one strange monkey. She had even given it a staff as a toy—yet now something far more entertaining had walked in.
“This too must be some kind of fate, so this Jeok-il shall personally claim that life.”
Her presence shook the cave so violently that spiritual beasts began to stir. The Heavenly Heat Ice Palace would no longer remain quiet.
“We must catch that spiritual beast no matter what!”
The Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp revealed itself before us, draped in a lustrous glow. Palace Lord Seol Jindo urgently ordered our party and his disciples to seize it.
“Got it—wait, huh?”
The eldest son, Seol Cheonsang, dashed forward and stretched out his hand. In that instant the Fire Carp’s form blurred, then shot away with a sharp whoosh. Its speed rivaled a loosed arrow; a long vermilion afterimage lingered faintly beneath the water’s surface.
“Damn it, what the hell was that just now?!”
Seol Cheonsang, who had lost the Fire Carp right under his nose, shouted in disbelief.
“Whoa, that’s insanely fast.”
I muttered in mild shock myself. It was almost the speed I reached when I used Whirlwind Steps—and it did that underwater. Clearly this thing hadn’t lived for ten thousand years for nothing.
“Only something of that caliber deserves to be called a spiritual beast that can save a human life.”
“……Admiring it is fine and all, Captain, but how exactly are we supposed to catch that thing?”
“Hmm… maybe throw a fishing rod at it?”
Jo Harang snorted at my random remark as if it were the dumbest thing she had ever heard.
“Like that would work.”
True enough—a spiritual beast that had lived ten thousand years couldn’t be that stupid.
While we stood around not knowing what to try next, Seol Jindo shouted at the children and disciples he had brought along.
“Surround it! Like casting a Heavenly Net, leave it no gap to escape and gradually tighten the net!”
The method he chose was simple. Just as children once stretched a net across a stream while others drove fish toward it from the opposite bank, he decided on a crude, overwhelming drive-hunt: rush from every direction, sow confusion, and herd the creature in.
“What are you doing? Hurry up and run!”
“Take your positions! Do not let it slip through!”
Using their numbers, the disciples of the North Sea Ice Palace spread out in every direction and began to close the circle. And so we went splashing through hot-spring water that reached our calves, engaged in an absurd scramble that had no business happening here.
“It’s heading that way! Catch it!”
Yet our opponent was a ten-thousand-year spiritual beast that vanished the moment anyone’s focus slipped. Even with overwhelming numbers we lost it again and again. Still, as we gradually gained the knack and desperation sharpened, we managed once or twice to brush its tail or scales.
“Ah! I almost had it…!”
Seol Sakwha, already soaked from racing every which way, poured out her frustration as the Fire Carp’s rear end slipped through her fingers. Farther off, Seol Soyeong clenched both fists and cheered us on.
“What kind of water disaster is this…”
I muttered while wringing out my thoroughly soaked martial robes. Alternating between freezing cold and scorching heat was one thing, but after breaking through a blizzard only to run around submerged in hot water, I was even starting to sweat.
“Huff… huff…”
If my whole body were underwater it might be different, but every time my foot struck the bottom the water seemed to drag at me, making it hard to put out real speed. While I was catching my breath, my eyes suddenly met those of the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp. Its gaze then slid past me toward something behind my back.
I flicked a sidelong glance that way and spotted a tunnel that seemed to connect to another place entirely.
“That little carp bastard… don’t tell me…”
As with every encirclement, Seol Jindo’s net worked on a simple principle: the narrower the space the prey had to dodge into, the higher the chance of catching it; the wider the space, the chance dropped exponentially.
“That bastard! It’s trying to escape into the tunnel over there! Block it!”
I saw through its scheme and called for support. Masters of the North Sea Ice Palace came racing across the water like skipping stones. But the creature, true to its spiritual nature, read my urgency at once and shot toward us, slicing the surface.
Shwaaaak—!
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
I mapped the projected path of the scarlet trajectory racing through the water and thrust both hands under the surface.
Splash!
Hard scales caught against my fingertips. The slippery little monster tried to squirm free of my left hand; I clamped its tail tight with my right. The move carried the subtle principle of the Hundred Knots Divine Fist I had learned from Hwang Geolgae.
“Got it…!”
There was satisfaction in having learned something while getting beaten black and blue. Just as I brightened and tried to haul the Fire Carp out of the water—
“Ukk?”
My eyes locked with those of a bizarre eight-foot beast that suddenly thrust its face out from the far side of the tunnel. White fur plastered wet against its body, the creature quietly surveyed the chaos of the hot spring.
“What the hell is th—!”
Thwack—
Something smashed into my chest before I could finish. It was a long staff swung by a spiritual beast that looked exactly like a monkey. The large monkey spirit beast rose to its full height before everyone, radiating a menacing aura.
“Oookiiiiii—!”
It seemed the true master of this cave had finally appeared.
“Captain, are you all right?!”
The force carried on the tip of that staff was so tremendous I went flying and crashed into the water far away. Ilhong came rushing over in a panic, worried, and helped me up. Jo Harang, who knew how tough I was, drew her great saber with a flash of cold light and boldly planted herself in front of the monkey spirit beast.
“Ugh… Ilhong, stay back for now.”
I told the boy who had helped me stand. Judging by the monstrous strength that had just shaken my insides, this thing was clearly no easy opponent.
“It’s Baekmo Sawang!”
“Do not fear! If you fight exactly as we practiced, we can defeat it!”
“Everyone, form the White-Haired Monkey Beating Formation!”
The White-Haired Monkey Beating Formation—a simple, brutally direct joint formation whose name meant exactly what it said: surround the white monkey and beat it senseless. Palace Lord Seol Jindo calmly directed the encirclement, pressing the fear out of everyone’s eyes.
“Today is the day you die, you damned monkey.”
Splash. Splash.
Everyone closed the distance little by little, weapons ready. A joint formation was originally a method in which several people formed a large pattern, measured the gap with the opponent, occupied all eight directions, and struck in turn.
“Ookik?”
Yet this net we had thought was already closed had one unforeseen flaw: the beast, mere animal though it was, gripped long weapons in both hands like a human.
Thwack!
“Guh—!”
Its staff suddenly stretched to twice its length and one-sidedly smashed the martial artist standing at the very front. With a short scream the man of the North Sea Ice Palace went flying backward. Seizing the gap as the formation collapsed, the beast began to swing its staff savagely and charged in earnest.
“Oookiiii—!”
“Aaaaah!”
Baekmo Sawang’s staff work swept every direction with raw violence.
“What the hell, does it think it’s Sun Wukong?!”
I leveled the Hell Horse-Slaying Staff and charged straight at the beast.