At the Boundary Line
Dog-Beating Dragon Dan Mujin.
It was a name that cracked the unshakable composure of Moyong Cheonghye — a woman who could cut down dozens of villains without so much as blinking. Like a boulder hurled into still water, emotions she had long buried rose to the surface.
Over on the other side, a new recruit of the Myeolmade was chattering away about him as if the two of them were the closest of friends.
"I'm telling you, the guy is ridiculous. He hasn't even trained in poison arts, and he still chews through poisonous mushrooms like snacks."
In that innocent, unguarded voice, she unspooled one story after another about Dan Mujin. Every single one of them was so outrageous that even Unit Leader Jeok Unyeop and Namgung Jin, listening quietly, couldn't help but snort with laughter.
"He charged the Human-Faced Spider and ripped out its poison sac?"
"And then he stormed the main gate of the Sichuan Tang Family Manor with it still in his hand…"
They had heard the rumors, of course — but nothing compared to hearing it from someone who had actually been there. From their slightly awkward first meeting, to the hardships they had weathered together, all the way to the moment they kicked down the Tang Clan's front gate side by side…
Moyong Cheonghye's eyes locked onto Dang Yeohye and refused to leave.
"I'm serious — you never know which way he's going to jump. Sometimes he's even more unhinged than I am."
The two men traded silent glances, struggling to believe that anyone could be more unhinged than the infamous Poison Claw Mountain Blood herself. Meanwhile the Tang Clan's young lady, thrilled to talk about her troublesome sworn little brother for the first time in ages, poured the stories out without pause.
She complained that she had been stuck with a real headache of a sworn brother, that he took so much looking after — but Moyong Cheonghye, woman to woman, could hear what lay beneath those words. The strange warmth threaded through the grumbling. The worry coloring her voice. And the quiet, unmistakable pride.
The others seemed to catch it too. Jeok Unyeop, who had been listening without a word, finally asked a question.
"Come to think of it, when we passed through Sichuan there was a rumor that you had dragged a fiancé into the Tang Clan. Was that young man Dan Mujin, by any chance?"
Dang Yeohye, mid-stream in her excited storytelling, snapped her mouth shut with a little eep. Through the sway of her dark hair, her ears — flushed bright red — stood out vividly.
"Th-that was… Big Brother Dang Ak was trying to shove me into a political marriage, so I had no choice but to…"
Unlike before, she waved both hands frantically, babbling that it was all a misunderstanding. The two men grinned at the sight of the infamous Poison Claw Mountain Blood flustered for once. And Moyong Cheonghye, watching the whole scene, found her expression turning remarkably complicated.
"Hmm."
Until now she had regarded Dang Yeohye as a reliable subordinate who happened to be on friendly terms with her younger brother. Now she was studying her with the meticulous eye of a prospective sister-in-law, weighing whether she was a suitable partner for her precious little sibling.
"A-anyway, I think I've loosened everyone up a little too much. We're still in enemy territory — let's focus and keep moving."
People couldn't live in constant tension forever, so they had used a brief lull to talk. But Dang Yeohye was right — they were still walking through a death zone crawling with enemies. By now the corpses would have been discovered, and the search radius would be closing in. There was no room to drop their guard.
They thoroughly erased every trace of their short rest, then set out once more across the sheer, knife-edged terrain, heading for the Central Plains. Surrounded by enemies on every side and forced to move fast, the fatigue of their escape was steadily mounting.
And yet, even through all of it, Moyong Cheonghye's gaze still refused to leave one particular woman.
"Hmmmm…"
Beyond one mountain rose another range. Past one dense thicket waited another forest. With the region sealed off from all traffic, no one had ever cut a road or laid a path. For weeks now we had simply been trekking through something that felt like a raw, primeval jungle.
To kill the boredom along the way, I started firing questions at Unit Leader Jang Jin about the Demonic Sect we were currently heading for.
"Why did the Demonic Sect end up at odds with the entire Central Plains in the first place?"
Even while racing ahead with his lightness technique, the Righteous Cooperation Unit's Uncle Jang Jin kindly filled me in on the Demonic Sect's history.
"Because the founding emperor discarded them the moment they were no longer useful."
He brought up the Imperial Court itself, saying it was tied to the Demonic Sect's origins.
"In the early days they were called the Ming Cult and enjoyed quite a bit of prestige. But once that prestige looked ready to rival the authority of the throne, the emperor — who claimed to be the Son of Heaven — stepped in."
Determined to extend his authority across the whole of the Central Plains and busy casting himself as a living god, the emperor crushed them with terrifying thoroughness and purged them. Unlike the world I used to live in, a purge in this era meant a savage, total extermination — wiping out three generations so that no loose ends remained.
"Honestly, that emperor… If you're going to purge someone, do it properly, or don't touch them at all. Every few years it's the Righteous-Demonic War this, the Righteous-Demonic War that, and the Central Plains gets turned into a wasteland. What a mess."
The unit leader grumbled that some distant ancestor of an emperor had started the whole disaster, and now they were the ones stuck cleaning it up.
"You just call him 'the emperor' so casually, Unit Leader. Most people say 'Son of Heaven.'"
Not the Son of Heaven, child of the sky. The way he said "leave them alone" and "what kind of emperor is this," it was obvious he held no reverence for the Imperial Court whatsoever.
"A man made of flesh and blood, calling himself a god? Those people can't even live out a proper natural lifespan. They eat, they shit — they're just humans like the rest of us."
Whoa. This guy was seriously blasphemous. If anyone from the government overheard him, he'd be in for a rough time. But I liked him a lot.
"So basically all of this is because of the seeds of disaster the Court sowed."
Back in my old world, when some bizarre conflict needed a culprit, pointing at Britain was usually the right answer. Here, it seemed the Central Plains Court filled that role.
"But why send the Myeolmade deep into the heart of the Demonic Sect in the first place? I heard the Murim Alliance's other agents were already handling things just fine."
The answer came from the Alliance Leader's daughter walking beside us — Namgung Sohye.
"They were handling things too well. That's why we were deployed. Once they were firmly in place and intelligence started flooding into the Murim Alliance, reports started coming in about people who absolutely had to die for the peace of the Central Plains, or about incidents that had to be stopped…"
"So the people in charge of force were quietly inserted to kill those targets or prevent those incidents?"
"Exactly. The agents are masters at infiltration and gathering information, but even when the opportunity presents itself, they don't have the combat power to actually kill someone or make a move."
In short, when the agents pointed a finger at a target, they needed a blade that would actually swing. And the unit chosen for that role was the Myeolmade — the force that, with the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden among them, had been the most aggressively hunting down villains of any combat unit.
Everything had seemed to be going smoothly. Emboldened, they had even pushed their combat unit deep into enemy territory.
"And it turns out the whole thing was just the Demonic Sect playing them like puppets the entire time?"
Looking back, it was strange that agents had been so successful for so long inside a place as closed-off as the Demonic Sect. The enemy had known who they were from the start and had been using them right back.
"…I wouldn't go so far as to say we were played."
Namgung Sohye's face tightened a little as she defended the Murim Alliance, where her father served as Alliance Leader. Not that it changed the reality of having been jerked around.
"Sure. Let's go with that."
I locked eyes with Jo Harang and shrugged. Namgung Sohye narrowed her eyes at our reaction, clearly annoyed.
Lastly, I asked about the Heavenly Killing Star said to have appeared in the Demonic Sect.
"The Heavenly Killing Star of that era was the Holy Maiden who managed the White Flower — a sacred treasure of the Demonic Sect."
She had also been the granddaughter of the Ming Cult Leader of the time — the one the Central Plains called Cheonma. That connection had thrown the entire martial world into chaos. Orthodox and unorthodox factions alike had risen like wildfire, demanding the Heavenly Killing Star be eliminated. The Demonic Sect claimed their own sorcery and secret arts could suppress the Heavenly Killing Star. But not a single power said, "Ah, I see. Then let's wait and watch." They issued an ultimatum. The Demonic Sect refused — and since the whole of the Central Plains was already their enemy, they fought them tooth and nail.
"Huh."
I stared silently at the palm-shaped silhouette burning red in front of my eyes.
…
Until now, every chance it got it had been yapping about killing this and slaughtering that, clicking its tongue and calling me a "foolish… thing," a "stupid… thing." The moment the conversation turned to itself, though, this thing went dead quiet at record speed.
Hey, Holy Maiden of the Demonic Sect. Say something.
…
Would you look at that. A rare phenomenon.
From what I was hearing, she had been something like a Flame-Keeper Maiden who guarded the Demonic Sect's sacred fire — and as the beloved granddaughter of the Cheonma of that age, every kind of sorcery and secret art had been poured into her. So how had she ended up corrupted into this murder-parrot?
Hey, Holy Maiden of the Demonic Sect. I said say something.
I poked the floating palm a few times.
…
Even with a stage this well set, silence. Completely unlike its usual self. By now a razor-edged insult should have come flying.
"Hmm. What the hell is this thing, really."
Come to think of it, what even was its true identity? The Ominous Star itself seemed to have fallen into some kind of dormant state for unknown reasons — but this thing had woken up alone, developed an ego, and kept picking fights with me. Was it some kind of vengeful spirit or ghost, one of those imaemangnyang entities? I had seen corpse-raising sorcery and blood arts before, after all.
"Some unidentifiable something attached to the Ominous Star…"
Back when Hwang Geolgae first ran into me in that alley, he had recklessly scanned my insides and said he saw something. Unidentified vengeful spirits trapped in a hellscape of piled corpses, weeping tears of blood — and the monstrous "something" that was binding them. He said he had yanked his hands off me in a panic before that terrifying presence could notice him. After that, he was so spooked he wouldn't even properly perform true qi circulation or bone-washing for me.
"He did everything for Ilhong, though."
When you're raising kids, the one thing you should never do is play favorites. Which is probably how I ended up as the high-maintenance problem disciple.
"Mujin, what are you muttering about by yourself?"
Jo Harang, walking beside me, had caught my grumbling.
"Just cursing the world a little."
"…Out of nowhere?"
Not out of nowhere. I did it on a regular schedule. I just didn't usually say it out loud.
"We've got a long way to go. Let's pick up the pace."
We had slowed down enough while talking and resting. Time to push the speed back up. Somewhere beyond those mountains, inside Demonic Sect territory, my blood sister and sworn sister might already be in serious trouble. So I urged the slightly lagging party forward again.
Meanwhile, Dang Yeohye found herself in a rather difficult situation. The terrifying Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden had glued herself to her side and was peppering her with question after question.
"So then — what exactly is your relationship with Young Hero Dan Mujin?"
When asked if they were courting, Dang Yeohye had answered vaguely that they might be, someday — and the Vice Leader of the Myeolmade had widened her eyes and started digging in with relentless persistence.
"Are you going to exchange the Hundred-Year Pledge as well? How many children? You aren't planning to have him marry into the Sichuan Tang Clan, are you? I won't allow that."
"…?"
Why was a third party the one deciding what would and wouldn't be allowed?
What is wrong with this woman.
Dang Yeohye could not make sense of the situation at all.
And then, in that very moment—
Ssshhh.
Black silhouettes burst up from between the trees. Men in black, wearing the garb of the Demonic Sect's Shadow Spirit Unit.
"Found you at last, you Central Plains bastards."
"You hypocrites — did you really think you could slaughter Ming Cult disciples and walk away clean?"
They had found the corpses, narrowed the search, and finally caught up. The Myeolmade party's secret escape had just become a desperate chase.
"Attack…!"