Wandering
The path out of Sipmandaesan was a brutal, treacherous march.
Enemy watch networks and encirclements blanketed every approach, so that each step forward felt heavy and desperately precarious.
They had long since left the village at the mountain's mouth behind, and had reached a stretch of wilderness where playing at being a family no longer made much sense. A tense little group in stolen patrol uniforms—taken from men they had killed on the way in—picked their way through the forest with taut faces.
Then a line of Ming Cult disciples stepped out of the brush.
"Who the hell are you? This is the Fifteenth Shadow Command Unit's patrol zone."
They had sown their people so thickly that the net felt like Heaven's own snare; no matter how carefully you moved, slipping free without being spotted was impossible.
"Which Shadow Command Unit are you from? State your affiliation and the dark password."
"…Sixteenth Shadow Command Unit."
Jeok Unyeop gave the name of the unit they had already wiped out.
"And the password?"
"Well—we were in such a hurry getting here that it… slipped our minds."
The Fifteenth Shadow Command Unit snorted at the flimsy story, suspicion hardening in their eyes.
"You expect us to buy that?"
"Something's off about these bastards."
Steel hissed free of scabbards as the Shadow Command men closed in, weapons drawn. At the rear, one of them already had a whistle between his teeth, ready to blow at a moment's notice.
And then something rustled in the undergrowth.
A little kid poked her face out between the leaves.
"What."
"What's a brat doing out here…?"
In the split second their eyes flicked toward the child who had appeared at their flank, the Ming Cult disciples' heads went sailing into the air.
Shhk—!
The Myeolmade party shot forward like bolts of light and carved through their throats.
The last remaining cultist, white with terror, tried desperately to blow the whistle—
Thuk!
—only for a rain of shadow needles to punch through his lung. He made a wet, leaking sound and crumpled.
In an instant the slaughter was done, and hot blood soaked into the dirt. Another life guttered out here in the trees.
Moyong Cheonghye stared down at a severed head still wearing its look of pain and surprise, her expression deeply bitter.
"Vice-Captain, why that face? These are elite warriors of the Ming Cult. They would have cut our throats with a smile if they'd had half a chance."
Noticing that something seemed off about her, Captain Jeok Unyeop spoke while discreetly dragging the corpses into the brush so they wouldn't be found.
"And they got what they got for ignoring the old saying—beware of children and the elderly."
The jianghu was a pitiless place. Get caught not knowing the rules, and you deserved what came. That was his explanation.
"Captain, I am not a child."
"It's just a figure of speech. Stop flying off the handle over every single word, Lady Dang Yeohye."
Jeok Unyeop grumbled that Myeolmade—being the force that fought the demonic path on the absolute front line—somehow always ended up with the most exhausting, bizarre people imaginable.
"May you become a handful of wind, and shed the afflictions of this world."
Meanwhile, Moyong Cheonghye pressed her palms together in a brief prayer over the dead.
Namgung Jin, who had been watching her quietly, stepped up beside her.
"Lady Moyong Cheonghye—are the Ming Cult disciples weighing on you?"
He had been studying her carefully since the moment they set out. Everyone else was busy watching for cultists; his attention was fixed solely on her, so he noticed the strangeness at once.
"It's not that. I was only… rationalizing something selfishly."
"You've been a little strange ever since you heard Lady Dang Yeohye's story at the inn."
Scarlet blood seeped across the earth toward her boots. Moyong Cheonghye gazed steadily at the head she herself had cut free—still wearing that look of wounded injustice.
"Vice-Captain, why spare a thought for scum like this? These are the same people who once sheltered the Heavenly Killing Star and plunged the world into chaos. Utterly irredeemable."
The moment the words Heavenly Killing Star left Jeok Unyeop's mouth, Moyong Cheonghye flinched.
It was only a flicker—but Namgung Jin did not miss it.
Judging by that reaction, it really is the Heavenly Killing Star. But then how is he still in his right mind…?
The Blood Sect had been so certain of the Heavenly Killing Star that they had been desperate to abduct him. Yet a stubborn riddle still remained, and Namgung Jin could not quite bring himself to be sure.
"Captain, that was because the Heavenly Killing Star of that era was the Holy Maiden of the Ming Cult. Of course they would rise to protect her…"
Moyong Cheonghye, who had been listening in silence, spoke up—rare for her—taking the villains' side and making excuses for them.
The Holy Maiden was the one who commanded and guarded the sacred white flame, the Baekhwa, the holy fire that was the very symbol of the Ming Cult. So was it any wonder they had fought for her? At that, Captain Jeok Unyeop looked at her as if he could not believe his ears.
"You—who never hesitated to take an evil man's head—are saying that?"
Had she forgotten her own record as the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden? His face said she must have eaten something wrong.
"…"
But she had had her reasons then. The Heavenly Killing Star had taken root in her precious little brother, and she had decided the evil sunk deep into this world was to blame.
She had cut down wicked men without rest, as if pouring out her resentment on them—until recently, when she had found her brother alive and whole, and that knot inside her had begun to loosen.
The feelings that had once swirled so violently now had nowhere to go. They were wandering.
"To think you, of all people, would speak up for the Ming Cult and the Heavenly Killing Star."
"Maybe there was some misunderstanding with the Ming Cult as well. Once you strip away the prejudice, sometimes another path to peace finally comes into view…"
That, too, was more than enough to scramble the thoughts of Namgung Jin, who was already suspicious of her.
What Heavenly Killing Star in the history of the world had ever sought peaceful methods over bloodshed?
"What I mean is… unless we clear away these old misunderstandings, things like the Orthodox-Demonic Great War will just keep repeating."
The Myeolmade members—who knew the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden's reputation by heart and had seen her hands work often enough—were briefly struck speechless by her words.
Among them, Jeok Unyeop, who had spent endless days being dragged around while she hunted down and killed villains, opened his mouth with a faintly incredulous look.
"Is the person standing in front of me really the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden? Or did some impostor slap on a human-skin mask?"
At the challenge to her identity, Moyong Cheonghye's brow furrowed.
Steel whispered free.
She flared a blade of sword force so sharp it looked ready to cut down everyone around her, and Jeok Unyeop threw both hands out in a panic.
"I'm sorry—it was a joke. Please put the sword away."
That crushing pressure unique to the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, the kind that made you feel your whole body might split apart. Whenever she drew her blade and swung, someone always ended up spraying blood in a massacre—so Captain Jeok Unyeop was thoroughly rattled.
"That's enough of this. Let's move, and start figuring out how to escape."
She was a woman of the Moyong Clan, stronger in martial arts than he was, with a background and reputation that completely overshadowed his. Ordinarily the captain should have been the one giving orders—but Jeok Unyeop decided it was an excellent idea and nodded so hard his head nearly came off.
"Looks like we'll be traveling together for a while, so how about we introduce ourselves properly?"
On the road toward Sipmandaesan, headquarters of the Ming Cult, Jang Jin—captain of the Conciliation Unit—floated the suggestion with a faintly bored look on his face.
The psychological weight of heading into the cult everyone dreaded had kept the group quiet, but once he opened the channel, people started talking one by one.
"Young Hero Dan Mujin, Lady Jo Harang—come to think of it, we already know each other, don't we? Back during the Dragon-Phoenix Blood Incident, we fought the Blood Sect back-to-back."
The Murim Alliance captain uncle was dusting off a fairly old memory.
"Yes, sir. You even tried to recruit me into the Conciliation Unit. I remember."
He went on to say that back then I had been young—borderline a kid—and that he had no idea what I'd been eating to grow this much.
The three of us traded notes on the arts we used, our weapons, and our realms. For a Conciliation Unit captain, the old man looked to be somewhere around the Transcendental Peak Realm himself.
Then Namgung Sohye, the young lady of the Namgung Clan, who had been listening quietly to our conversation, cut in out of nowhere.
"I hardly think I need explaining, given how famous I am, but the art I use is the Azure Sky Boundless Sword Art, and my primary weapon is a sword. As for the realm I've reached… Peak Realm."
So to rescue the officers of Myeolmade, we had three Transcendental Peak martial artists and one Peak Realm fighter assembled. Everyone had clear identities and more than enough voluntary will for the job.
Still—we were used to running wild, taking on every mission that came our way. That a young lady who ought to have been treasured deep inside the Namgung Clan had volunteered herself all the way out here was a genuine surprise.
She must have misread the way I was staring at her, because a faint flush rose in her cheeks.
"For my age, this is a considerable achievement, you know? Big Brother, Dan Mujin, Jo Harang—you're the strange ones here."
So she thought I was staring because her realm was below average.
Namgung Sohye, who had never once gone anywhere without being called a genius, muttered that something was wrong with this group.
"I didn't say a word."
I shrugged, answering as if to ask why she was the only one flinching and making a scene.
"Hmph. Whatever."
She snorted as if I were utterly repulsive and strode on ahead.
How a self-absorbed little sister like that had popped out under a righteous hero like Namgung Jin was beyond me.
I filed the mysteries of Namgung Clan blood away in my head and marched on with the party down that endless road.
We repeated the cycle—short rests, then lightfoot arts—for a full two weeks. At some point the terrain around us shifted, and a strange kind of vegetation began to catch the eye.
Captain Jang Jin spoke up as if to warn us to stay sharp from here on.
"From this point forward, we're in Ming Cult territory. The orthodox martial artists who've gone in and come back in one piece can be counted on one hand."
Get discovered, and if you weren't a cultist, you died. In short: treat everyone who wasn't us as an enemy. A killing field, basically.
I swallowed hard, my face tight.
This wasn't just my neck on the line. It was my blood sister's neck—and my other sworn sister, Dang Yeohye's—hanging in the balance too.
"Don't worry, Mujin. You've got me."
Beside me, Jo Harang thumped my shoulder, apparently mistaking my weight of responsibility for fear. Her own expression, though, was a little stiff around the edges.
"You look a bit scared yourself."
"W-what are you talking about?"
We steeled ourselves and pushed deeper into Ming Cult territory.
People called this place a heaven-sent demonic realm, a den of pure terror—plenty of terrifying names. So when it turned out to be just another stretch of grass and trees, I was starting to feel faintly puzzled.
I… remember… this place…
Salsung began reacting hard to the scenery as we entered the cult's domain.
As the sun slanted westward, Jeok Unyeop's party halted for a rest.
They nursed bodies worn thin by days of forced marches and fighting, and dug into what little rations remained for a simple meal.
But the supplies, which had been dwindling for some time, had finally hit bottom. Jeok Unyeop realized the jerky was completely gone and his face fell into pure despair.
That was when he spotted Dang Yeohye among the trees, munching away on mushrooms with great enthusiasm. Her expression was so thoroughly satisfied, and a little sound of delight even slipped out, that Jeok Unyeop found himself approaching as if spellbound, mouth watering.
"That good, is it? Give me a bite."
A thread of curiosity ran through his voice. He snagged a piece of the mushroom she was eating and popped it into his mouth.
"Huh?"
Dang Yeohye's face went startled. Jeok Unyeop chewed, found no taste worth mentioning—only a sharp, numbing spread across his tongue—and tilted his head.
"Captain. That's a poison mushroom."
"What—?!"
Jeok Unyeop's eyes flew wide and he erupted into a violent fit of coughing. He jammed his fingers into his mouth and retched up what he'd swallowed.
"Have you lost your mind?! Why are you stuffing yourself with poison mushrooms?!"
His shout was pure, speechless disbelief.
"Well… because they're tasty…?"
And they helped with poison-arts training, too, she added with a sly little smile.
This—this was exactly why martial artists took one look at the Sichuan Tang Family Manor, shuddered, and kept their distance.
"You damn useless subordinate… When your captain is about to swallow poison, you're supposed to say something."
"Hmph. There wasn't time. You didn't even ask—you just shoved it in your mouth."
To be fair, he had only assumed it was safe because she—who could sniff out poison like a ghost—had been eating it herself.
"I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would chew and swallow poison mushrooms with a look of pure enjoyment instead of pure necessity. Are all you Sichuan Tang people like this?"
The captain reinforced every prejudice he had about the Tang clan—freaks and poison fiends, the lot of them.
"Not really. Plenty of other people do it too, you know? There was this one young martial artist who loved poison mushrooms just like me and gorged on them. Didn't even practice poison arts."
And with that, Dang Yeohye insisted there was nothing strange about them at all.
Jeok Unyeop cocked his head as if to ask what on earth she was talking about.
"…Who in the world is this freak, then? Running around doing the same nonsense as you."
Dang Yeohye smiled faintly, as if sifting through an old memory, and opened her mouth.
"There is one. His name is Dan Mujin."
And at that familiar, longed-for name, Moyong Cheonghye's ears pricked up at once.