A Crack in the Great Wall
“A mere cadet, not even an instructor, has triumphed over an instructor. This is the first time such a thing has happened since the Hidden Demon Cave came into being.”
Gal Mu-heun descended in person and came to a stop before Yun Cheon, who had been beaten to within an inch of his life.
He cast a brief glance at the half-broken Black Iron Plaque clenched in Yun Cheon's hand, then asked in a low voice.
“This Pavilion Lord made a promise. Whoever wrested the Black Iron Plaque from an instructor would be granted a single wish. It is only half a plaque, but you have proven yourself worthy of far more than that.”
The training ground stirred. Even the spectators held their breath. The wish of the Mad Path Pavilion Lord — that was the greatest power a Hidden Demon Cave cadet could possess.
Yet Gal Mu-heun radiated an unsettling aura as he approached Yun Cheon, carrying his beloved judge's brush.
“By the authority of the Mad Path Pavilion Lord, I hereby proclaim: Yun Cheon, you have passed the Hidden Demon Cave of this cult. You are no longer a cadet — you are now, formally, a warrior of our cult.”
At his unprecedented declaration, the cadets began to murmur.
“What…? They said passing the Hidden Demon Cave took at least three years, even at the fastest… and he did it in one?”
“A formal warrior of the cult? Then does that make him a first-rate master?”
“He held his own against an instructor at the Transcendent Realm… of course he is!”
The cadets traded remarks one after another, looking upon Yun Cheon as though he were some kind of idol. The man himself, however, felt nothing in particular.
A formal warrior of the Demonic Path… is that supposed to be a reward?
As a disciple of Kunlun, Yun Cheon found it hard to rejoice over such a prize.
Tch. Still, I suppose I've taken one more step toward my goal.
His aim was, in the end, the inner circle of the Demonic Path. And to reach it, what Yun Cheon sought was to rise above the Heavenly Demon himself. But it didn't end there.
Gal Mu-heun beckoned toward the air, and one of the Black Iron Plaques resting on the spectator seats flew to his hand.
Void-Seizing Grasp!
He drew a single stroke through the empty air, and the character for Pact carved itself onto the flying plaque as though it had always been there.
“Your affiliation as a formal warrior will be discussed in due course. Bring this plaque to me later, and I shall grant the wish you desire.”
“…Thank you.”
At Gal Mu-heun's intervention, the raucous spectator seats fell silent. And so the end-of-month evaluation that had shaken the Hidden Demon Cave to its foundations came to a close.
After all the commotion had died down, Yu Ha stood alone, gazing out over the dueling arena and murmuring quietly to himself.
“The Mad Path Pavilion Lord, indeed… On the surface it looks like he's handing out a reward, but in that single instant he turned every spectator's attention back onto himself.”
Gal Mu-heun had publicly handed Yun Cheon the Black Iron Plaque — and he hadn't even bothered to hide his Void-Seizing Grasp while doing it. There was an unmistakable intent behind it.
To flaunt the fact that Yun Cheon still rests within his influence…
Even if Yun Cheon had been recognized by the Pavilion Lord and made a formal warrior, nothing had yet been decided about his affiliation or placement. The power to decide still lay squarely in the Pavilion Lord's hands.
One Brush Soul Snatcher… the way he ran the examination, too. He's a man cut from an entirely different cloth than the Pavilion Lords before him. His scheming runs deep.
After today's duel, Yun Cheon's market value had skyrocketed. What the Pavilion Lord had done was declare to every spectator that the prize stallion everyone coveted still sat in the palm of his hand.
“From now on, every organization and spectator will come fawning to the Pavilion Lord to get their hands on Yun Cheon… Well, well. His improvisation is a cut above mine, isn't it?”
As things stood, all the effort Yu Ha had poured in might slip into Gal Mu-heun's grasp in a single moment. And yet, even so, Yu Ha remained perfectly at ease.
“…Now then, let's see. How should I put this to use?”
In his hand was a Black Iron Plaque engraved with the same character for Pact that Yun Cheon had received. Yu Ha, too, had subdued Instructor Geum So-so and claimed his own plaque.
It all depends on how I play this card.
Where Yun Cheon ended up would be decided by it. Clamping an ill-fitting shackle around his ankle would never win the young man's heart — especially not when both of them held a plaque of their own. And so Yu Ha chose to approach from the exact opposite direction.
“I suppose… that's the way to go.”
Night had fallen, and the residue of the brutal evaluation still hung in the air. As the exhausted cadets shuffled back to their stone chambers to rest, someone knocked on the door of Yun Cheon's room, where he was quietly flexing his battered body back to life. The aftermath of the duel had sharpened his senses, but the presence beyond the door was not unfamiliar to him.
Knock, knock.
“Hey, Yun Cheon. If you're not asleep yet, could we… talk for a moment?”
The voice through the door belonged to Yayul Hui — but none of her usual ferocity remained in it.
“What is it?”
When Yun Cheon silently opened the stone door, she was standing there in the moonlight, her face a tangle of emotions.
“…Come in, first.”
Yayul Hui stepped into the chamber, and for a long while she could not bring herself to speak. She stared down at her own feet for an eternity before finally lifting her head, as though she had resolved herself to something.
“Your eyes were right. The truth is, my saber art is… a half-finished thing. It has no footwork.”
From the mouth of a girl so fiercely proud came an honest confession. But there was no shame in it — only the gravity of someone who had stared her own limitations dead in the eye.
“The dazzling Wild Wind Thirteen Sabers? You know it? Every last form is incomplete. Unless you master the Wind Soul Step, the latter half of the Wild Wind Thirteen Sabers can't even be unleashed.”
A chill self-mockery settled at the corner of her mouth.
“My family has… a brother they call a genius. I've always lived in his shadow. The elders don't even see me as a martial artist. All they calculate is which household a marriage pact with me would profit.”
She went on with a bitter smile. “Pathetic, isn't it? Every man in the cult looks up to me, and in the end I'm fated to become some one of their trophies.”
To those who thought only of the clan, a daughter was, sooner or later, someone who would leave it. A bride was a stranger to her own blood. Her place had been decided the moment she was born.
“That's why neither my father nor my brother has any intention of teaching me the Wind Soul Step or the latter half of the Thirteen Sabers. They think I'm destined for a wedding bed anyway. Secret arts must never leak to a rival house!”
For the first time, deep fury seethed beneath the voice of the girl who always seemed so unshakably bold. What Yayul Hui had truly wanted was so simple: her family's recognition, and the right to stand tall as a martial artist in her own name.
To shout so loudly about the survival of the strong, only to be tripped up by bloodline and tradition — kicking away their own jewels with their own hands…
Yun Cheon felt a genuine kinship with her, warrior to warrior. That pure, undying hunger for the martial path burning on through rage and resignation alike — it was the very light in his own eyes. And talent like hers was rotting away, fettered by nothing more than a family's approval. It was a waste. And yet, at the same time, another thought occurred to him.
Perhaps the thread I need to unravel the Demonic Path from within is right here.
What if the cultists could be led down the road of the warrior, rather than the road of the fiend? Yun Cheon could not say for certain whether this was calculation, or empathy as one martial artist to another. Before his eyes, at this moment, there was simply one warrior wandering lost at the mouth of the wrong road.
“The world is vast, and the martial arts have no end. Is there any real reason to cling to one family's arts alone?”
“What…?”
“Answer me this. Do you want to live as a martial artist? Or do you merely want your family's approval?”
The question struck into her heart like a thrown dagger.
“If you truly wish to live as one, then pursue your own martial path — no one else's. That road is meant to be opened by your own hands. That is what the way of the sword and saber means.”
“…!”
Yayul Hui reeled as though struck across the back of the head. For the first time, a crack ran through the colossal wall that had imprisoned her all her life — the wall called the Wild Wind Yayul Family. Her family's approval. Her father's praise. Surpassing her brother.
Ah…
The world she had believed was everything was trembling to its foundations at a single sentence from the boy before her.
How foolish of me. All this time, I've done nothing but stare at the wall standing in my way.
Yun Cheon simply waited in silence for the storm inside her to pass. When Yayul Hui finally raised her head after the long stillness, the world seemed to look a little different. The fog of her wandering had lifted, and a new road now lay sharp and clear before her eyes.
I won't curse the wall any longer. From now on, I'll simply soar into the sky under my own power.
And standing at the very beginning of that road was Yun Cheon. Come to think of it, he was unlike anyone Yayul Hui had ever met — not the cadets of the Hidden Demon Cave, not her own clansmen, not even the scions of the Twelve Guardian Families.
But it wasn't anyone from the great families. It was this boy — the one I'd dismissed — who treated me as a martial artist.
Of all the people she had ever known, Yun Cheon was the most warrior-like, and the most earnest. The gaze she had seen on his face so many times felt deeper and harder than it ever had before.
…I've learned something from you. What a kid — older than his years.
That a martial artist worthy of becoming a role model should be someone barely her own age…
“…Thank you.”
“For what? You can spare me the courtesies.”
Yun Cheon read the hesitation in her manner and spoke with deliberate indifference. To seek advice from a rival, and to accept it — neither came easily to anyone in their position.
If she can truly take it to heart, she'll be able to walk the martial path unbound by the cult or her family.
Yun Cheon put that hope into words — the hope that she would go forward as a martial artist, not as a servant of the Demonic Path.
“Walk a road alone, and loneliness is all you'll find. As a comrade on the way of the martial arts, I can offer advice whenever you need it.”
At his matter-of-fact words, Yayul Hui was momentarily at a loss. To her, who had been cast aside even by her own family, this was an outstretched hand from the very boy she had thought of as her competitor. With feelings too tangled to name, she nodded.
Then, before long, she brought out the second reason she had come to his chamber.
“…Enough about my troubles. Let's talk about yours. You said before that your body is a broken vessel, didn't you?”
Being the one who only received advice had never been in her nature. Her gaze swept over Yun Cheon from head to toe. She had seen the brilliance he displayed in the evaluation — but the eyes of a girl who had watched him this whole time saw it for what it was: a desperate, thrashing struggle against his own body.
“If you're thinking of entering the Ten Thousand Demons Assembly to meet the Demonic Physician, you'd better think again.”
“…Why?”
“Because the Demonic Physician no longer practices medicine.”
“…!”
“His only granddaughter is… suffering from an incurable illness. Even the finest physician under heaven could not cure his own granddaughter.”
Deep furrows carved themselves between Yun Cheon's brows.
“He's long since let go of medicine, cursing what use is an art that couldn't save one girl. He doesn't perform the Demonic Bone Metamorphosis Art anymore, either.”
It was devastating news.
Unbelievable… If this is true, then even a private audience with the Demonic Physician would likely earn me nothing but the door slammed in my face — never mind the Metamorphosis Art!
The most certain road to his treatment had just been sealed shut. Yayul Hui added a warning.
“It's not simply meeting him that's the problem. The problem is breaking the stubbornness of the Life and Death Venerable. To that old man, even the Mad Path Pavilion Lord is nothing but a distant junior.”
Yun Cheon listened to her in silence.
“And the Ten Thousand Demons Assembly isn't a place where the Demonic Physician is the only danger. The cult's elders all gather there — the intrigue and madness are said to be beyond imagination. That's everything I've been able to find out.”
Her information stung — and at the same time, it was worth more than anything else he could have asked for.
If demonic qi seeps into the brain, the end is qi deviation. And if that many veterans steeped in demonic arts are gathered in one place, it's nothing short of a hall of madmen.
Yun Cheon nodded and offered his thanks.
“I'm grateful. That helped.”
“…No. It's me who should be thanking you.”
With an unburdened expression, Yayul Hui turned away without lingering regret and left Yun Cheon's stone chamber behind.
The next day, having rested and recovered, Yun Cheon presented himself at the Mad Path Pavilion Lord's office.
Knock, knock.
Befitting a man called One Brush Soul Snatcher, the room was steeped in the scent of ink and a chill, weighty authority. Gal Mu-heun did not lift his eyes even at Yun Cheon's entrance; his brush kept moving across the page.
“You've come.”
Yun Cheon drew the Black Iron Plaque from his breast and held it out — the one inscribed with the character for Pact.
“I have come to speak my wish. Please arrange a private audience with the Demonic Physician for me.”
The brush in Gal Mu-heun's hand stopped moving.
“…”
A moment of silence flowed past. Then, slowly, he raised his head. An unreadable smile hung on his face.
“That wish, I cannot grant. Name another.”
“…!”
An unexpected refusal. It struck all the harder coming from the mouth of a Pavilion Lord who prized his promises above all else. But his next words were not what Yun Cheon expected either.
“After all, there is no need to grant the same wish twice — is there?”
“What is that supposed to—”
Return of the Cloud Dragon
Author | Autumn Frost
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books
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