The Sisters of Murim
Whoosh.
At the heart of the Cult Lord’s hall, the sacred flame—Baekhwa—shuddered for an instant.
An ordinary person might have dismissed it as a mere flicker of fire. But the Divine Maiden of the Ming Cult, who knew this was no ordinary flame, threw her eyes wide open.
“It can’t be…….”
When the flame wavered during a divination, it meant only one thing: an oracle of fire.
Divine Maiden Baek Soha flinched and looked down at the hexagram tablets scattered across the floor. At the same moment, hair white as falling snow cascaded down, hiding her startled face.
“What did you see?”
The Cult Lord of the Ming Cult, whose eyes had for some time now held a strange light, asked the Divine Maiden in a low voice.
“The fate of the Nameless Protector is no longer visible.”
The bamboo hexagram tablets showed nothing, and the sacred flame affirmed it. More often than not, that meant the person in question was dead.
“Who killed him?”
But the Nameless Protector had been a seasoned master of the Transcendent Realm—a man who had stood tall even in this land where the strong reigned supreme. The battered, desperate rats of the Central Plains, worn ragged by the Demon Cult’s netlike pursuit, were not the sort who could have managed such a thing.
At the Cult Lord’s question, Baek Soha’s pale lashes trembled, and she stammered.
“I d-don’t know…….”
In truth, only moments ago the flame had seemed to whisper something more—yet for some reason the Divine Maiden of Baekhwa could not bring herself to speak it. Because the one who had severed the Nameless Protector’s fate appeared to be the same person to whom Baekhwa had already reacted.
And so she could not easily say it before the Cult Lord. One reason, no doubt, was the eerie madness that now shimmered like moonlight in his eyes.
“Anyone who has set foot in the Ming Cult must pay the price, even if they have fled to the Central Plains.”
However they had managed it, if even the Nameless Protector had fallen, the odds were high that the Central Plains party had already escaped the Demon Cult’s territory. Even so, the Cult Lord declared that they must pay—just as the Beggar Sect agents whose heads had been cut off and their corpses put on display had paid.
“Divine Maiden. Convey this Lord’s will as a decree to the ‘field mice.’”
He ordered that the spies hidden throughout the Central Plains be told the Demon Cult would without fail exact its price.
But those who had slipped into the Demon Cult this time had been a small elite force—each of them a master not to be taken lightly. Some were even scions of great noble houses, which made creeping up in their sleep with a dagger anything but simple.
“Cult Lord, among the intruders there appear to be children of the Namgung Clan and the Moyong Clan. If we cut their throats in the Central Plains…… this could truly explode into a great war.”
Never mind that the spies they had spent so long concealing would be exposed and swept away on every side. The Divine Maiden of the Ming Cult voiced her concern with uneasy eyes.
It was the counsel of a woman said to be the wisest in the Ming Cult for her ability to glimpse the wisdom of the sacred flame.
“That, too, is something that will come to pass.”
“…….”
The Cult Lord accepted war with a calm so complete he saw no need for further explanation—as if it were already a settled fact, without the slightest rise or fall of feeling.
And to the Divine Maiden, that demeanor felt deeply uncanny. The Cult Lord of before had never been a man like this.
“……The Ming Cult is invincible. The Lord’s command is eternal.”
Yet no matter how strange it seemed, the man before her was the summit and the lantern of the Ming Cult—the leader they trusted and followed. Beneath the gentle glow of Baekhwa’s flame, the Divine Maiden only bowed her head.
“I will convey it so to the field mice of the Central Plains.”
Still, by her own discretion she could control the speed at which the order was delivered. Knowing the time was not yet ripe, she resolved to receive this command with a measure of caution.
Some time later.
The cave’s cold air gradually gave way to a warmer wind. At the end of the secret passage, sunlight from the outside world at last began to seep through.
To us, after so long clawing our way through the pitch-dark tunnel, that light felt like a single thread of salvation.
“Mujin, look. An exit…….”
Jo Harang, who had been half-dead when we first entered the cave, now seemed to have enough strength left to speak beside me. As the state of her Purple Micro Star made clear, after countless hardships and close calls we barely had the stamina left to use martial arts at all.
“From here on, this is likely Central Plains territory.”
Unit Leader Jeok Unyeop studied the changed landscape and the lay of the land, muttering that we seemed, against the odds, to have survived. Then he pulled from his robes a whistle that made a peculiar sound.
Tweeeee—
A sharp whistle echoed through the mountain valley. After so long living as fugitives, silencing even our breathing as we moved, the sudden loud noise made us all flinch. For a heartbeat it felt as if Demon Cultists would come pouring after us, blowing whistles of their own and swinging blades—but what emerged from the brush at the sound was something else entirely.
“Th-the Demon Extermination Unit!”
“The Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden and Young Hero Azure Cloud Sword as well……!”
“Ohhh! The heroes of the Central Plains have returned!”
It was a Murim Alliance scouting party, spread wide and patrolling near the border of the territory. Strategist Jegal Seon must have sent troops ahead to receive us.
“W-we made it…….”
“Haaah.”
Only then could we let go of our tension and breathe a sigh of relief. Out of that hellish space where enemies surrounded us on every side, we had escaped alive—every last one of us.
No wonder the people welcoming our return stared at us with such astonished faces.
“Jeok Unyeop, Unit Leader Jang Jin—what in the world happened in there?!”
“……It would take a while to tell. First, tend to the wounded.”
The unit leader jerked his chin toward the party, noting how many of them were barely hanging on. As the scout captain scanned the survivors, his gaze locked on the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, whose complexion looked terribly pale.
“Heavens—even the mighty Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden reduced to such a haggard state…….”
Imagining how fierce the Demon Cult’s pursuit must have been, people clicked their tongues. In truth her pallor came from having briefly drawn up her true original energy rather than from external wounds—but to the eye she looked as if she had suffered serious internal injury, and medical corps members immediately rushed toward the woman leaning on my support.
“I’m fine…… Please look after the others first.”
At the sight of the expensive internal injury medicine, Moyong Cheonghye shook her head as if it would be a waste. She knew full well that taking those pills would do her no good.
But the Murim Alliance members, knowing none of that, kept pressing closer as if she were talking nonsense.
“We’re the ones who aren’t fine. You must receive treatment at once…….”
“I said I’m fine.”
Moyong Cheonghye answered again, her gaze faintly empty of feeling.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Understood.”
They used formal speech with everyone, but the most terrifying person in that place was still the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden. Whether it was her record of ruthlessly cutting down countless villains or the rumors that followed her, people shrank back of their own accord even when she simply stood there expressionless.
“Are you truly all right? You drew up your true original energy, even if only for a moment.”
I asked the pale woman I was supporting whether there was really no problem. Even for a master, there were forces one was not meant to call on lightly.
“Don’t worry. At worst, my lifespan has shortened by three or four years. I’m fine.”
“…….”
So that was supposed to be something I didn’t need to worry about, was it?
Her remaining years of life had been cut down for certain—and yet she looked almost… satisfied? Her expression was as peaceful as someone who had finally settled an old debt of atonement.
“Young Hero Dan Mujin, why that face? You look as if something’s troubling you. We’re finally being rescued.”
The woman with the high ponytail tilted her head and spoke. As she said, I had been saved—but I could only feel about half the relief I should have.
Because of you, that’s why. Moyong Cheonghye.
Right now I had two worries, and one of them was the woman standing in front of me—vice leader of the Demon Extermination Unit, the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden.
Don’t tell me she figured out who I am……?
Back in the cave I was pretty sure I had shouted at her to get her hands off my sister. We weren’t even at the stage of calling each other big sister and little brother the way Dang Yeohye and I did.
On top of that, she had come back into that death trap for me alone, and had even burned part of her own lifespan trying to save me.
She probably noticed.
But if that were true, one thing still didn’t make sense: how calm she looked, and the fact that my head was still attached to my shoulders.
“Vice Leader Moyong Cheonghye…… you seem to be held in great respect by the people of the Murim Alliance.”
I gestured toward the scouting party that had just withdrawn, putting a polite spin on the fact that everyone seemed a little afraid of her.
She must have caught the meaning, because she gave a small, bitter smile.
“Vice Leader, do you still cut down villains who bring harm to the world without so much as a word?”
There was a reason Jo Harang of the Purple Micro Star admired and looked up to this woman so much. She was famous for offering villains no compromise whatsoever—only the merciless flight of their heads from their shoulders.
“Of course.”
“……!”
I flinched and took a step back from her. After everything that had happened, I thought her thinking might have softened a little—but she was still every inch the unyielding eldest daughter of the Moyong Clan.
“However.”
Just as I was about to give up on her entirely, she paused. The look in her eyes as she regarded me shifted, subtly.
“These days, I’ve decided to move only once I’m certain someone truly is a villain who will harm the world. I’ve changed a little.”
Time had passed, and she had been through a great deal; that much, at least, had shifted. She would still take a villain’s head—but when it came to deciding who counted as one, a small measure of leniency seemed to have grown.
“…….”
Words rose to the back of my throat and sank again, over and over. The part of me that was still Moyong Cheongjin also seemed to be caught in a tangle of emotions at facing his own blood sister.
If she had figured it out, should I tell her who I really was?
But what if she hadn’t? She might decide to finish here what she hadn’t finished at the cliff, and put a blade through me. In other words, the risk outweighed the reward.
If she was pretending not to know, better to leave her pretence alone. If she truly didn’t know, better to leave her ignorance alone. That seemed the wise course. Was there any real need to pry open Pandora’s box?
“Thank you for running back for me then. Thanks to you, I kept my life, Vice Leader.”
“Not at all. I kept mine thanks to you as well, Young Hero.”
Moyong Cheonghye smiled softly, saying we had helped each other and neither of us owed the other a thing. From a distance, Jeok Unyeop stared our way with faintly dazed eyes, as if he had never seen her act this warmly in his life.
“Well then, I’ll go to the unit leader, Young Hero.”
“Yes, of course.”
She looked a little better now, so I released my support and let her go.
The moment the spot beside me emptied, a small woman slipped up and tapped my arm.
“Hey. I came back too, you know.”
Dang Yeohye spoke up with a pouty face, apparently a little jealous that only Moyong Cheonghye had gotten a thank-you. Honestly—if she just stayed quiet, I would have said something to her on my own. No need to fish for credit.
“Of course I’m grateful to you too, Noona. We won because of you.”
I grinned and told her that thanks to her, I had been able to cut the enemy down.
“Hmph. When your little brother is in danger, of course his noona goes after him.”
Her mood brightened at once, and she started chattering about this and that with a silly smile. Transparent, really—a woman who couldn’t hide what she felt and just let it show.
“When I first saw you, you were some nobody wanderer, huh? And now look at you—all grown up, charging into a death trap to save your noona…… I’m so proud.”
As if proud of how well her “little brother” had grown, she tried to pat my head. But even on tiptoe her hand couldn’t reach, and she gave up with an awkward face.
“Hey—don’t hunch over. That just makes it more embarrassing.”
When I bent at the waist out of consideration, she bristled. She still seemed to be under the misunderstanding that I had charged all the way there just to save her alone.
But there was no real need to correct her. The secrets surrounding the Moyong Clan were hard enough to explain as it was.
“But Mujin.”
Then, all of a sudden, Dang Yeohye spoke to me with a serious face.