This Solved the Case
The alleyways of Yanghwajin were growing deeper into night.
Cheongha had been waiting for the exact moment, as planned, when she would cut the culprit off.
The man who had passed by just a moment ago with a bundled blanket slung over his shoulder was definitely the one.
Burning with righteous indignation, Cheongha had wanted to block him then and there, but she swallowed it down hard so she could carry out the plan she and Song Hyeon had agreed on.
The Song Hyeon she had met at the tavern earlier that evening was a mysterious girl.
She was so beautiful that Cheongha had nearly blurted out that if a legendary celestial maiden descended into the mortal world, she would look just like this.
A bold, unruffled composure that seemed at odds with her small, fragile-looking frame.
Mesmerized by that strange, ethereal presence, Cheongha had rather impulsively decided to join in on the incident.
I wonder if big sister is doing all right.
Cheongha stood from behind the jar she had been hiding in and loosened her body.
In just a little while, the culprit was supposed to come fleeing this way, just as planned.
It had worried her when Song Hyeon, with that soft little body of hers, had said she would take on the role of storming the scene so brazenly, but Cheongha had decided to trust her.
After the declaration by Abbot Bangjang, anyone seeking that secret manual fell into one of three categories.
Either they were fools blinded by greed for fame, ignorant of the danger, or they were the sort who recognized its value and coveted it.
And then there were the ones who had gone mad under its spell.
Which one was she?
Cheongha rose from the jar where she had been hiding and looked up at the sky.
“The moon is especially bright.”
The full moon had already passed, but the sky was so clear, not a single cloud in sight, that the waning moon seemed to be gazing down on the earth.
Wolhameiingyeong...
Cheongha recalled the title of the secret manual the girl had taken from her bundle.
Unlike the one she possessed, the title alone made it impossible to guess what kind of power it held.
But one thing was certain.
It was no ordinary book.
She looked so calm when she said it.
Everyone who had ever read a secret manual hid it away and tried to keep it for themselves.
And yet she had left the manual sitting openly on the table and acted as though nothing in the world mattered.
Even someone as self-assured as Cheongha could never quite bring herself to part with what she carried at her side.
The reason, naturally, had to lie with the girl herself.
Tap, tap, tap—
At last, hurried footsteps echoed down the alley.
The same person who had passed by earlier.
The culprit.
Cheongha moved at once.
“Stop right there! Evildoer. The darkness of justice will not forgive you!”
Just as planned, she cut off the man’s path.
At the same time, sensing that something was off, Cheongha roughly drew her sword.
Thicker and fouler than even the black clothing he wore, a vicious, murky aura poured from him and pressed heavily on the surrounding air.
“What are you bastards supposed to be?”
His voice was as filthy as the energy around him.
Cheongha forced herself to stay calm and asked him about his crimes, but what came back was an absurd pile of twisted nonsense she had not expected in the least.
“How could this be.”
The man’s voice seemed to burrow straight into Cheongha’s mind, muddling her thoughts.
Don’t listen.
It’s a filthy trick.
Cheongha tightened her grip on her sword and drew a deep breath.
Glancing past the culprit’s shoulder, she saw her companion reading the book in her hand as calmly as ever.
So she got the manual!
Seeing that unruffled expression, Cheongha’s mind cleared at once.
Everyone who had been robbed of a secret manual until now had lost their reason and gone berserk, throwing themselves at their thief in a frenzy to reclaim it.
But the man before her had lost it and still managed to flee all the way here in a daze.
Which meant that even if Cheongha were defeated by him, her companion had the power to put him down.
The worry drained from her body, and her trembling stopped.
I won’t be shaken by his words anymore.
Seeing Cheongha’s resolute stance, the man let out a twisted smile and cocked his head.
“That’s a pity.”
Seeing that she still wasn’t fully prepared, he lunged without wasting the opportunity.
Clang!
A black sword, forged from coiling smoke, crashed against Cheongha’s blade.
With every exchange, something dank and ominous gnawed away at her sword aura.
The man’s stance was terrible.
He was simply swinging power around with no proper form at all.
And yet that wicked energy seeped into her like rot, and the more their blades met, the more she felt her mind begin to cloud.
“Kuhahahaha! Foolish slave of justice. Taste the power of fear!”
“Ghk. At this rate, the power of Black Wing is...”
Cold sweat ran down Cheongha’s brow.
If this kept up, defeat was only a matter of time.
She needed a countermeasure.
But the more she was driven back, the stronger the man’s power seemed to become.
What, does he feed on the enemy’s crisis?
The black-clad man’s sword brushed Cheongha’s shoulder.
It did not cut her skin, but the instant that sinister darkness touched her body, a draining weakness swept through her as though her strength were being sucked away.
“Eek!”
Pushed back by the man’s foot, Cheongha collapsed to the ground.
The man approached with a smile, his expression full of mockery, as though victory were already certain.
The darkness of justice... this easily...?
Cheongha bit down hard on her lip, grief welling in her chest.
Even the Destruction Palm, Black Angel’s proud technique, was useless against an enemy who leeched away strength.
Just as she was about to shut her eyes, staring at the approaching man...
Moonlight spilled through the clouds and illuminated a figure standing between the two of them.
Truly a beautiful and holy silhouette.
Song Hyeon stood perfectly still, wrapped in nothing but quiet.
Cheongha could feel the black-clad man’s sinister aura, which had been pressing down on the surroundings, thinning like a lie simply from her presence alone.
Wonder filled the look she cast toward her.
“Since when—!”
The man, too, retreated instinctively, widening the distance between them.
He had gained power enough to make him feel untouchable, and yet from this mysterious woman there flowed a force as immovable as a mountain, one he dared not even approach.
Even in the exchange that followed between the man and Song Hyeon, Cheongha could only marvel at her lofty, unhurried bearing.
The man’s sinister energy could not come near her; it scattered before it could reach her.
The energy radiating from Song Hyeon’s body was pure, firm, and untainted by anything around it.
The man was seized by an instinctive sense of danger.
His strength was founded entirely on that sinister aura of his.
If he felt fear before the unknown darkness, then fear would only grow stronger and devour his opponent more completely.
But the woman before him only looked at him with utter calm, with not a shred of fear in her eyes.
That very ease pressed down on him instead.
The moonlight in the night sky shone on her.
It almost seemed as though the area around her was growing brighter than everywhere else.
As though to remind him that darkness, too, was merely one part of nature.
She stood there with an effortless, untroubled grace, as if everything were only natural.
Is she really some kind of celestial maiden?
Even carefully manufactured evil would not cling to her; it simply scattered away before reaching her.
The man finally forced the words out through gritted teeth.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“Why would I be?”
The woman merely tilted her head, looking genuinely puzzled.
At that composure, at that overwhelming presence, the black-clad man’s pride shattered to pieces.
It had been only a power he had obtained by chance, yet this force of fear, born from his resentment and rage toward the world, was being dismissed before that woman like nothing more than a child’s tantrum.
The unbearable humiliation scorched away his reason.
Cheongha, watching from the side, held her breath.
That ironclad steadiness before any wickedness at all was exactly the true angel she had always dreamed of.
“You... you rotten bitch!”
As the man, already in disarray, spat out his words in a frenzy, Song Hyeon cut him off with a single line. Then, driven mad, he roared and charged.
The aura pouring from his whole body surged toward Song Hyeon like a black storm.
Crude, yet terrifyingly powerful.
To Cheongha’s eyes, the attack looked like an unavoidable finishing strike.
But Song Hyeon merely shifted her body lightly, as though avoiding drifting petals, and let the furious charge slip past.
Then, at the end of that motion, her fist shot forward.
Cheongha could not even properly see the movement.
There had been no killing intent in it, no rage at all, so she had not even registered that a punch had been thrown.
The state of no mind.
A strike born simply because it ought to be so.
The instant her fist touched the man’s abdomen, all sound vanished as though the condensed moonlight had exploded, and only the shriek of air being split shook heaven and earth.
Without even managing a cry, the man’s body was blasted backward like a cannonball.
The aura wrapping around him evaporated the moment the fist landed, leaving behind nothing but pure physical impact.
The black-clad man slammed into the opposite wall and drove straight into it.
Cheongha stood frozen, her mouth slightly open, unable to believe what she was seeing.
The man who had been overwhelming her with madness and twisted sophistry only moments ago was now embedded in the wall like part of it, not moving at all.
His limbs were bent at grotesque angles, and his face held not pain or rage, but only a blank, stunned question—as if he still couldn’t understand what had happened to him.
Before that overwhelming manifestation of power, Cheongha could not say a word.
The one who had done all this casually dusted off her wrist and muttered in a low voice.
“Well, that solves the case.”
Her smile was so calm, so ordinary, that it stood in stark contrast to the impossible event that had just unfolded.
Snapping back to herself at those words, Cheongha nodded in a daze.
After collecting herself, she hurried to the man pinned in the wall and checked his pulse points, confirming that he had only been knocked unconscious.
Even after taking such a brutal blow, it seemed he would live.
Cheongha began binding him with the rope she had prepared while waiting for the plan to unfold.
Her gaze naturally shifted to the wall where he was stuck.
The impact had been that severe.
The sound alone had been strong enough to make it seem as though the whole building should have collapsed, yet aside from the faint mark where he had been driven into the wall, there was not even the smallest crack to be found.
All the destruction had been concentrated entirely on a single person.
That kind of mystery was beyond anything Cheongha could understand.
In the meantime, Song Hyeon picked up the secret manual that had fallen nearby and casually brushed the dust from it.
Even a child picking up a pebble would have looked greedier than that.
There was not a trace of emotion in the act of unfolding her bundle and tucking the manual inside.
“If you swing a sword for selfish reasons, you’d better be ready to lose just as much.”
Those words from Song Hyeon struck deep into Cheongha’s heart.
It was a stern truth every martial artist ought to carve into their chest.
She looked back on what it was she had been raising her sword for until now.
The desire to be recognized.
The longing for power.
A tool for conviction.
All of it had been selfishness.
The righteousness bound up in her words was so absolute that Cheongha shuddered.
The worthy hero her father had told her about when she was little.
Those words must have been meant for the woman before her.
Cheongha made up her mind.
Following her was the way to realize justice.
“I’ve received your instruction once more. Please, take me in.”
Cheongha bowed deeply toward Song Hyeon.
“Huh?”
For the first time, Song Hyeon’s face—until now completely unshaken—was dyed with confusion.
“No, I was planning to part ways with you today.”
That day, Cheongha’s sky collapsed.
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