When the Sun Sets, Night Comes

Honestly, when I settled on the Lee Clan Manor as my destination, another thought had crossed my mind.

Just how strong are the other Peak Realm masters?

I was a martial artist of the Peak Realm—no. By then I was a martial artist of Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, and I wanted to know. I had never once laid eyes on another expert of the Peak Realm.

The answer was frankly disappointing. No—it bordered on embarrassing.

Lee Jin-hwa was far too weak. Weak enough that I caught myself thinking even the man I had been in those days, who had only just reached the extreme of Transcendent First-Rate, might have beaten him, if only with difficulty.

The sword-astral guarding his body was unstable, and he had no ability whatsoever to read an opponent's heart. His reactions were nothing swift, and he lacked even fighting spirit and resolve. A Peak Realm martial artist, of whom the entire world held a number that did not exceed three digits—and yet this was him. The other clan members, who had not even reached that height, never stood a chance of holding out.

Which was why they now lay face-down before me, unconscious.

They were not dead, and they were not gravely wounded. I had simply knocked them out after leaving them with the slightest injuries I could manage. The reason, of course, was that Seol-ah had decided it should be so.

Sparing them was one thing. The problem was that I was not wearing a mask.

"Well. This ought to do."

Murmuring to myself, I cut the ground with my sword. The earth sheared away like tofu, and words carved themselves into it.

This would be enough. For their part, they were firmly convinced we were immortals; they would never dare take a warning like that lightly.

"Seol-ah, shall we go?"

"No. Let's look in on the patriarch's hall first. The secret manual of the Snow Blossom Divine Art should be there. It's a martial art only the patriarch and the young patriarch can learn, so the odds are good it's kept inside."

She said it with a bitter smile.

I had never had parents, so I could not truly know—but even if one's parents were nothing like parents, I didn't think a person could shake it off and get back up that quickly. Her will seemed far stronger than mine. To me, it was simply astonishing.

"All right. Then will you go down to the village and stay at an inn? We've dealt with the unorthodox sects, driven off the cultivators, and wiped out the Lee Clan Manor. Whoever comes looking after this won't be weak."

I said it with a smile. From the way they had called me Foundation Establishment and Core Formation, it was entirely possible that people known by those titles would come. Judging by their reactions, they would be anything but weak. Better, then, for Seol-ah to be somewhere safe. For her, and for me.

At my words she smiled faintly and drew me into her arms.

"All right. Be careful. You hear me?"

"That's my line. Look after yourself."

I'll say it again. So long as Seol-ah is waiting for me, I could survive even with my head cut off. Well—if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠someone told me to manage it now, I might even be able to.

A soft kiss, neither of us sure who had moved first, and then we parted.

And so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was left alone.

...It's been a while, this.

Lately I had always been with Seol-ah. Now there was only me. It hadn't been like this before I met her, but this time the loneliness cut to the bone. When I got back, I was going to pull her into my arms and roll around under the blankets.

"Heh."

Before I knew it, the corner of my mouth had lifted and left a short laugh behind. Thinking of what would come once this was over made me feel a little better. A place to rest. Someone to lean on. Someone waiting for me. I really had been blessed.

With a thin smile lingering at my lips, I made for the patriarch's hall.

There was no one inside. His wife, I had been told, had passed away not long ago, and the master of this hall had died with his throat cut by Seol-ah. Empty was only natural. White fluorescent light washed over the vacant hall. Fluorescent lights, of all things. There had been cars and pasta, too.

I contemplated the flow of qi drifting through the hall, then swung my sword where that flow was conspicuously warped.

Shhk—

The qi floating over the spot was cleft in a single stroke, and space distorted. A moment later, what had been hidden showed its true shape before me: a circular opening just large enough for one person to pass through with a little room to spare, and a ladder set into the passage beyond.

A formation.

I had heard of them. Roughly speaking, they used internal energy to distort space—though I wasn't sure the thing even counted as a martial art. However I looked at it, it seemed far closer to those spell-arts the cultivators used. I folded the idle thoughts neatly away and leapt into the hole. The ladder would have been far too slow.

Whooosh—. The wind went on for a long while before my feet drew near the floor.

Tap. Spatial manipulation bled off my speed just before impact, and I landed lightly on the ground.

The room was pitch-dark. I overcame it by pouring internal energy into my eyes, amplifying the light that reached my retinas. Quite apart from that, the place was so narrow that three people lying side by side would have filled it; merely standing there felt stifling.

Bookshelves walled me in on every side, sparsely filled. I took the books down one by one and read them through. It did not take long. The Spirit, grown vast since I had risen past the Peak Realm, saw to that.

Nothing remarkable.

Ordinary martial manuals. There were things worth referencing—methods of circulating internal energy, and the like—but taken as a whole they sat below the arts I had made myself. Still, having anything to reference at all was something to be grateful for. I carved the arts into my memory, then sliced apart the left-hand bookcase, where I judged a formation to be spread.

Shhk. Shhk. Shhk. The sound of wood parting followed late behind each stroke, and a hidden space came into view.

A safe?

Lavish, made of black iron, its corners trimmed in gold. It sat before my eyes. But that was not the end of it. Circuits of some kind seemed to run across the safe, and the qi of the natural world flowed through them as if they were veins.

A detonator.

Well. There wasn't much else it could be. Most likely the sort that exploded if you handled it wrong. I swung the sword horizontally, as if it were nothing, and cut through the circuits and the safe together. Whatever material they had used, it felt far harder than steel—but it was nothing beside a sword wrapped in sword-astral.

Sssk. The safe split smoothly along a straight hairline and laid its insides bare. A volume bound in black leather, its luster slightly faded, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a single wooden box the color of ink.

A secret manual, and inside the box... an elixir.

The manual would be the secret text of the Snow Blossom Divine Art. The elixir—I couldn't be certain, but a family that practiced ice arts would keep something steeped in yin energy. An aura of exactly that sort was pricking at my skin even now.

I couldn't give it to Seol-ah. She suffered from Nine Yin Severed Meridians, a condition born of far too much yin. Pouring still more yin into her would make it not medicine, but poison.

Hmm... some poisons can be used as medicine, if you handle them well.

Botulinum toxin, the venoms of snakes and plants—plenty of poisons are used as drugs. But laying a cold compress on someone with frostbite is nothing but an extreme poison, the kind that can never be turned into medicine. All things considered, this seemed like something I ought to take. I would give Seol-ah the True Sun Fruit, and take this chance to build my own internal energy a little.

I set the lid back on the wooden box, opened the volume and read it through, then gathered both up. I had memorized the book cover to cover, so there was no real need to bring it—but just in case.

Hm?

A presence. One carrying an energy similar to the cultivators from before. I kicked off the ground and set my internal energy to driving me up into the sky.

I brought the black robe.

All that remained was the mask. I drew from my bosom the black mask that hid the upper half of the face and set it in place.

"Hoo..."

The tension went out of me with the sigh.

I may have to fight. Shall I make ready?

Reason, cooled to ice, compiled the martial arts and made them one. The frame was the Snow Blossom Divine Art. Onto it I added only the strengths of the miscellaneous arts I had created, and of the arts I had found in the archive.

Not bad.

I might call it the Ice-White Divine Art. If anything, it surpassed the Snow Blossom Divine Art; it certainly did not fall short, so there was no shame in granting it the name of a divine art. But what I had used while crushing the unorthodox sects was blade-energy of a yang nature, and nothing else. The art itself did not particularly govern yang energy. Even so, I could hardly leave a newly gained art unused, and so I seated a flame-like blade-energy in the sword alongside it.

I locked my grip around the hilt, unfolded steps upon the void, and rose into the sky.

"Hm...?!"

"...A cultivator? For that, I don't sense any divine sense..."

Two cultivators, hovering alone in the open sky, spoke to each other.

Divine sense? And what is that supposed to be.

Well. If they cooperated, I would ask them in whatever manner that cooperation allowed. If they didn't, I would pull it out of them under torture. The same went for what they knew of the True Sun Fruit. Torture is best done by a man who has suffered it. I had been through every torture under the sun, so the chance they would keep their mouths shut even under my hand was slim. Last time, they had made an enormous fuss over nothing more than a pierced thigh.

"You there—who might you be? We are retainers of the Jin Clan Domain, come to look into the annihilation of the Lee Clan Manor."

The Jin Clan Domain... The elder those cultivators had spoken of back then had borne the surname Jin. People of the same house, then.

What was I supposed to answer? I didn't even know what spirit speech was, nor how high a realm Foundation Establishment might be.

Th-that's a mid-stage Core Formation cultivator!

Right. That was what those cultivators had said.

"Core Formation...?"

"...Haha! No wonder I couldn't sense any divine sense. So you were a senior!"

One threw his eyes wide, alarm written plain across his face. The other betrayed nothing, and laughed broad and easy.

"A favor, you say?"

Money I had in plenty. I could settle the price with that.

"Yes, yes! Please, speak!"

"...? The True Sun Fruit, you say?"

"Isn't that just a snack you can get for a few spirit stones? It holds a fair amount of yang energy, too, so until a tolerance sets in it's popular with men. Does a body good."

What? They ate an elixir as a snack?

"...A senior of the Core Formation Realm could hardly fail to know that."

Suspicion gathered in both their eyes and pricked at me.

"...What are you plotting?"

"No—from the start, it was strange that a cultivator of Core Formation should be here at all. Reach that level, and most enter closed-door seclusion."

Hmm. This was not going well.

"......"

I let the silence hold a little while, then opened my mouth.