The Real Master of the Cave
Seol Soyeong, the youngest daughter of the North Sea Ice Palace, leaned against the ice-crusted wall and dragged in a ragged breath.
A cold so sharp it cut to the bone ran down her back, but her eyes were fixed on a single point.
The sight of the White-Haired Lion King—the beast that had broken her father—finally collapsing.
For a moment Seol Soyeong thought of her sister, Seol Sakwha, who had come to her before the expedition set out.
She had said she had brought a strange troubleshooter back from the Central Plains. Taking Seol Soyeong’s hands in both of hers, she had insisted that his skill, at least, was certain, and that this time they would find the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp and cure the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians.
Even so, Seol Soyeong had never quite believed her sister’s hopeful voice.
She had tried countless treatments and every method imaginable, and every time hope had ended only in disappointment and resignation.
And yet that handsome troubleshooter—oddly like her, with the same desperate light in his eyes—had said this:
There is no such thing as a fate set by the heavens. Don’t resign yourself. Fight.
It had not been empty comfort. It had been the words of experience and conviction, and they had drawn her after him into this cave with a fragile hope—and sure enough.
“Ukkiiiiiik—!”
The troubleshooter’s party had actually gone after the White-Haired Lion King’s rear end.
Struck by that outrageous tactic, the legendary spirit beast clutched its backside and howled as extreme yin energy burrowed into its body.
“Yes! That one finally landed properly!”
Seol Cheonsang clenched his fist and crowed in triumph.
“The feeling left on my palms is a little… off, but—we did it!”
Seol Sakwha, staring at the monkey’s bright-red rump, brightened as well; they had avenged their father and opened a path to save their sister in the same stroke.
Meanwhile the monkey spirit beast thrashed through the water, flailing as the cold invaded its insides.
Watching it, Palace Lord Seol Jindo murmured in a voice thick with long-held regret, as if offering the words up to someone’s spirit tablet.
“My wife… are you watching? We are a little late, but… we can finally save Soyeong.”
All that remained was to catch the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp they had lost because of the spirit beast and give it to his daughter.
Just thinking of it made his chest tremble. How long had he waited to see color return to her pale face?
But perhaps the beast refused to die so easily. In the midst of its agony, the White-Haired Lion King made one last desperate lunge.
“Ukkik!”
While everyone was off guard it surged upright, felt the yin energy seeping into its organs, and bolted.
Cutting through the water, it charged straight toward the rear—where an unprotected Seol Soyeong stood frozen in place.
“That—that damn monkey!”
“Protect the young lady!”
There were a few martial artists present, but they were nowhere near enough to stop an eight-foot spirit beast charging with no regard for its own life.
Fists loaded with monstrous strength sent the disciples of the North Sea Ice Palace flying with barely any resistance.
The pretty youth called Ilhong stepped forward and swung his sword as well, but the blade bounced off the tough white fur and hide without piercing through.
“Soyeong…!”
The blood of the North Sea Ice Palace cried out and ran for her, but it was already too late. Desperate terror flooded Seol Jindo’s eyes. Dan Mujin unfurled Whirlwind Steps in a rush, yet the beast was simply too fast.
Seol Soyeong was so startled she froze solid. And in that instant everyone thought the same thing: the beast was an intelligent spirit creature, and it meant to strike the most painful place in this group.
“Ukkik!”
But its target was not Seol Soyeong. It shot past her and plunged into the hot-spring water behind her.
Splash!
“Ukkik!”
What came up clenched in its fist was the scarlet spirit creature the martial artists of the North Sea Ice Palace had been desperately hunting—the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp.
To the beast, seeking out a being saturated with yang energy was pure instinct, a way to drive out the extreme yin digging through its body.
“N-no! Anything but that, you bastard—!”
Seol Jindo, still running, screamed as if he were tearing his throat raw.
But what did a beast care for a human’s circumstances? Without the slightest regard, it began to gobble down Seol Soyeong’s hope right in front of her eyes.
Its white-furred jaw worked brutally as it swallowed the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp whole.
“Ah…”
Seol Soyeong watched the only spirit creature that could save her life vanish, her face emptied of everything.
Her blue eyes seemed to grow duller by the second, as if the last spark of hope were slowly going out.
Gulp.
The White-Haired Lion King swallowed, and as if digestion had already finished, it belched a blast of hot air.
“Keo-eok.”
Heat and steam billowed from its whole body, and the white fur that had covered it began to take on a golden sheen once more.
Like fire spreading, the white coat flushed reddish, then turned gold. The sight was, in a strange way, magnificent.
And it was also the moment Seol Soyeong’s thread-thin hope, so carefully raised, finally went dark.
“Aaah…”
Forgetting that she was soaking wet, she crumpled into the water with a splash.
Even tears would not come; her eyes were simply empty.
But then an abnormal reaction overtook the White-Haired Lion King after it swallowed that vast yang energy.
Its golden fur flickered unsteadily like a guttering flame, and its eyes filled with confusion.
“Kik, ukkikik?”
No matter how cold its belly was, bolting down a ball of fire was bound to cause trouble. The White-Haired Lion King’s scream-laced cries echoed along the ice-cave walls.
Apparently the monkey was paying the price for consuming ten-thousand-year yang energy with no preparation whatsoever.
“Ukki-eeek!”
It hopped as if the soles of its feet were on fire; then, when the enormous yang energy truly began to thrash through its insides, it could no longer endure and went wild on the ground in agony once more.
I unfurled Whirlwind Steps and slid up in front of Seol Soyeong in a smooth rush.
When our eyes met, she dropped her head with a look of pure sorrow.
“I knew it… maybe we shouldn’t have done this.”
“…”
Her voice sounded as if she had given up on everything.
“Maybe dying like this was the fate the heavens set for me…”
“Hey. What kind of nonsense is that? We don’t know that yet.”
I shot back at once. Until you give up, you never know how life is going to turn out.
And surrendering to some fate the heavens decided for you? Not a chance.
“This damn monkey bastard…!”
“Aaaargh, how dare it take the young lady’s only way to live!”
“I’ll beat it to death!”
In the meantime the martial artists of the North Sea Ice Palace, burning for revenge, charged the White-Haired Lion King as it rolled on the floor.
Their rage poured toward the beast that had stolen every last hope, a tidal wave of it. They ringed the monkey and began to thrash it without mercy.
Thwack-thwack-thwack! Thwack!
It was a pure hate-fueled beatdown.
They were pounding even harder on a spirit beast already writhing under a searing, mind-breaking pain.
Give up… submit… to fate…
Watching all our effort go up in smoke, the blazing-red Salsung started spouting garbage in my head.
“You submit. You little red bastard.”
…
I clenched my teeth, spat the words, and walked toward the pile-on where a dozen people were beating one beast.
As I approached with a distinctly unpleasant air, the martial artists of the North Sea Ice Palace glared at me, half afraid I had come to stop them or to finish the creature off cleanly.
“Why are you just beating on it? Split the belly open. That carp might not be digested yet, you know?”
But me, stop them? Hardly. I was not soft enough to feel sympathy for a beast that had effectively just taken a human life.
“B-but the blade won’t go in…”
Hearing that the problem was the spirit beast’s tough fur and hide, I pulled a sword from the waist of the martial artist beside me.
Shiiing.
I layered a clear, pure-white sword aura along the edge and set it against the creature’s gut.
“Ukkik! Kik-kik! Kiik?!”
With no chance to counterattack, the thing shook its head at me with a face that practically begged me not to do this.
Its face was similar enough to a human’s that every emotion came through in fine detail.
“Then spit the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp back up. Do you have any idea whose life that was?”
“That’s right—spit it out!”
Ilhong chimed in beside me as I snarled the threat.
The touch of those bright-red carp scales that had almost been in my hand. If I had only been a little faster, things might not have ended this way. The thought kept circling through my head.
I locked eyes with the monkey that had ruined everything and prepared to cut into its belly.
That was the moment.
“Is that any way to thrash someone else’s doorkeeper?”
A strange woman’s voice rolled through the ice cave like thunder.
Even a single line carried profound internal energy; everyone froze and scanned every direction.
“C-Captain—someone’s over there!”
Ilhong pointed a trembling finger into the depths of the ice cave.
From the shadows a woman with hair that seemed to burn stepped out, her footsteps clicking sharply on the stone.
She wore a red robe the color of sunset, and her eyes glittered a scarlet like twin suns.
And for some reason, the moment she appeared, the chill that had filled the ice cave seemed to start melting drop by drop.
She looked us over—soaking wet, surrounding a single monkey and beating the hell out of it—and her mouth curved in a faint smirk.
“Who has been tormenting this child so?”
Tormenting? The people of the North Sea Ice Palace had more than a few things to say about that.
Wasn’t it this monkey spirit beast that had charged out first and attacked them?
And it had been gripping a bizarre iron staff that looked for all the world like something made by human hands.
“Is that woman the owner of the garden plot we saw on the way in?”
I had wondered how anyone could settle in a place occupied by a dangerous spirit beast. Turns out she herself was the beast’s master.
“I don’t know who you are, woman, but stay out of the affairs of the North Sea Ice Palace! We have business with this monkey’s belly…!”
Seol Jindo, on the verge of losing his daughter in a single stroke, shouted at her with bloodshot eyes to stop interfering and get out of the way.
But she showed no intention of leaving. Instead she wore a smile that said she found the whole situation amusing, and she approached at a leisurely pace.
“Ha-ha-ha. Cut open the belly, you say? Does a ten-thousand-year carp look to you like it’s made of nothing but flesh and bone? That energy was absorbed into the spirit beast’s body long ago.”
Her clear, ringing laughter rolled brightly through the cave.
According to the red-haired woman, the yang energy that had made up the Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp had already been completely absorbed by the White-Haired Lion King, and cutting the belly open would do no good at all.
In other words, every one of us had been wasting our time, and the youngest young lady of the North Sea Ice Palace was now going to die of the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians without a single escape—a bolt from the blue.
“We don’t know that yet. There might still be some residual energy clumped together!”
I shouted that it was still too early to give up. The red-haired woman tilted her head.
“Have you learned some kind of Heat-Yang Divine Art that absorbs yang energy? Even if you have, it’s already too late.”
That child is finished, she declared, cold and absolute.
The blood kin of the North Sea Ice Palace, who had been listening in silence, finally shouted at her with fury in their voices.
“You’re the one who set this dangerous beast loose, who injured Father and threatened our little sister’s life…!”
“If only that monkey hadn’t been here! Our Soyeong could have lived!”
Seol Cheonsang and Seol Sakwha fixed the woman they took for the root of every disaster with flashing blue eyes.
Ice-palm force that froze the very air rose into their hands; they looked ready to launch themselves at her at any second.
“What an insolent little mouth that doesn’t know its place.”
But the red woman paid no mind to whatever the two blond foreign-looking youths were spouting. She clicked her way forward until she stood before the monkey spirit beast.
As if she meant to stop them from cutting the beast’s belly open, the martial artists of the North Sea Ice Palace raised their weapons and began to ring her in a circle.
Sharp blades leveled at her from every side, and a killing aura thick with cold poured toward her like a rain of knives.
“You damn monkey’s master…”
“Pay the price for trampling the young lady’s hope!”
When she came closer than they liked, the martial artists kicked off the ground and lunged at her as if they had been waiting for the chance.
In that instant the woman’s eyes flashed red.
Swordless in the hand, yet a sword in the heart.
Shhhk—
Though she made no movement at all, the sound of something being cut and sliced raced quietly through the ice cave.
Everyone felt something immense pass by and stood frozen, not knowing what had struck them.
Click. Crack. Ssshh.
The weapons the martial artists held were sheared in half or shattered to pieces, and their martial robes were shredded to rags.
“H-huuh…!”
A single move that made everyone present’s blood run cold. The martial artists of the North Sea Ice Palace, spines crawling, scrambled backward in horror.
While everyone else was still reeling from the inexplicable phenomenon, only Salsung—who alone had recognized what the red-haired woman had done—screamed a frantic warning into my mind.
Swordless in the hand… sword in the heart!
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Her small palm wrote characters frantically in the empty air.
But red was the writing and white was the background; when I only looked blank, her finger scrawled even more fiercely.
Formless Sword… master… dodge, you fool…!
Whoosh—
At the same time the renowned experts of the North Sea Ice Palace—and Seol Jindo himself—were struck by something invisible and crumpled helplessly to the ground.
Without ever swinging her hand, the unidentified red-haired woman had knocked every expert and martial artist of the North Sea Ice Palace unconscious.
In the space of a few stunned “wait—”s, only Jo Harang and I were left standing near the White-Haired Lion King.
“You. What is your name?”
And that woman, who I could only assume was a hidden recluse of the highest order, fixed her gaze on me alone.
There were plenty of other people, yet from the start she had zeroed in on me with pointed interest.
Looks like dodging this was already a lost cause.
We’re… screwed.
I let Salsung’s shriek go in one ear and out the other and edged backward, little by little.
Something even the Heavenly Killing Star itself was afraid of…
“Troubleshooter Dan Mujin, they call me.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. Eyes that shone like the sun bored straight through me.
“Good. Die, then—Dan Mujin, disciple of Ilseong.”
The same attack that had dropped everyone without warning carved toward me this time, trailing a vivid, bloody killing intent.
Shhhhk!