The Eye of the Storm

The Life-and-Death Needles threaded between Saeng Sa Jon's fingers resonated with their master's killing intent, letting out a chilling ring.

The eyes of the old monster, caked in dust and dirt, flashed blood-red.

"Who are you!"

"I am Yu Ha, Young Pavilion Master of the Sun Moon Merchant Guild, Venerable."

Yu Ha lightly folded the fan he'd been carrying and assumed a courteous bow. The heavy, unshakable presence of the Sun Moon Twin escorts served as his shield, but Yu Ha's own composure was no less formidable.

Saeng Sa Jon's brow furrowed, as if that unruffled ease itself was distasteful to him.

"So you're the guild's brat. If the decision is yours, then stop dawdling and hand over the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow. Its owner is in critical condition."

"The owner of the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow… whom might you mean? My friend Yun Cheon, or your precious granddaughter?"

Yu Ha asked again, wearing a deliberately troubled smile. Saeng Sa Jon's eyebrows twitched sharply.

"…Both of them! There's no time for games—hand it over now!"

Yu Ha's eyes narrowed. The abacus beads in his head snapped together like lightning.

…This is exactly when I need to stay calm.

It was a rare elixir he'd originally intended to deliver to Yun Cheon personally.

But Saeng Sa Jon moved in person?

From the old man's disheveled state, a dire emergency was beyond doubt.

However….

Saeng Sa Jon was a man who would abandon the entire world for the sake of his granddaughter's safety. To him, Yun Cheon's life was of only incidental value.

If I just send the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow along with him, far from saving Yun Cheon, there's a very real chance I'll lose the elixir outright!

Yu Ha finished his cold calculation and opened his mouth. Every variable had been resolved in his mind.

"…I understand the situation, roughly. But I can't hand over consigned goods with no guarantee, can I? That is the guild's iron rule. Perhaps you received a letter or token from the owner?"

For Saeng Sa Jon, who had sprinted here in a panic, no such thing could possibly exist.

"How is a man dying in a sudden accident supposed to have prepared something like that in advance?!"

"Then we have a problem. If… you were to harm the owner and seize the goods, our guild would lose its credibility, wouldn't it?"

At Yu Ha's casually tossed remark, Saeng Sa Jon's face flushed red and blue in an instant. The barb had struck dead center.

In truth, the moment Seol Yeong's blood flow had stabilized, the one thought that had flashed through his mind was an old man's greed: heal my granddaughter, even at the boy's expense.

If only Yeong-a hadn't called that boy her savior and staked her life on him….

But the situation had changed now. If Yun Cheon died, Seol Yeong died too. Paradoxically, only by keeping the boy alive would his granddaughter survive.

"You dare treat this Venerable like some low, cowardly thug?!"

"Trust is the lifeblood of the guild. The Sun Moon Escort Bureau does not transfer goods to any third party whose client's safety has not been confirmed. Unless, of course, you have some 'guarantee' of a special relationship with the client, Venerable."

Yu Ha's logic was airtight, and the Sun Moon Twin Wheels of his escorts stood ready behind it at full power.

Saeng Sa Jon ground his teeth.

If that brat goes berserk, Yeong-a won't be safe either…!

Time was closing in like death's own shadow, minute by minute. Forcing his way through the escorts would cost ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more in delays than in damage. In the end, only one option remained.

"…Fine. An oath sworn on this Venerable's name should suffice as a guarantee."

Saeng Sa Jon's voice, laced with internal energy, shook the forest path.

"By the name of Saeng Sa Jon, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one of the Five Great Venerables of this Cult, I swear upon Heaven and Earth!"

His thunderous cry raked across the forest. The surrounding trees shrieked, shedding their leaves in a single collective shudder. The voice of a supreme master, charged with his refined qi, was itself a massive shockwave.

At the moment of the oath, the corner of Yu Ha's mouth rose ever so slightly, drawing a graceful arc.

A guardian's oath, declared with the honor of one of the Five Great Venerables on the line. With it, Yun Cheon's merit was officially acknowledged—and he now had the towering mountain called Saeng Sa Jon standing at his back.

Moreover, it was a chain ratified before the unimpeachable witnesses of the Sun Moon Escort Bureau. This was precisely the board Yu Ha had designed on the spot.

Snk—!

Only then did Yu Ha fold his fan with a satisfied expression.

By appointing himself guardian, Saeng Sa Jon can no longer harm Yun Cheon. If anything, he's now in the position of having to protect him.

While binding Saeng Sa Jon as Yun Cheon's backing, Yu Ha had simultaneously placed the Sun Moon Guild in debt to a Venerable of the world—something no one could refuse. A feat of killing two birds with one stone.

"I will receive the Venerable's oath with the gravity it deserves."

At Yu Ha's gesture, the Sun Moon Twin escorts stepped aside, opening a path. Then Yu Ha drew a jade vial gleaming with a limpid, watery blue light from his robes and handed it to Saeng Sa Jon.

"As Young Pavilion Master, I take full responsibility. Take it."

Saeng Sa Jon snatched the vial as if plucking it from the air and gave Yu Ha a curt nod.

"The Hollow Azure Stone Marrow is an elixir that could shake the entire world… Even with the Bureau's trust at stake, I will not forget the decisiveness of a Young Pavilion Master bold enough to make that call."

"…Then hurry. You said it was urgent, didn't you?"

"We'll meet again."

With those parting words, Saeng Sa Jon shot off toward the Mad Path Pavilion like a bolt of lightning.

BOOOM—!

In the dust cloud where Saeng Sa Jon had vanished, the Sun Moon Twin escorts surrounded Yu Ha with worried eyes.

"Young Pavilion Master, are you truly certain about letting go of that treasure? It was meant to secure your tie to the Young Cult Leader candidacy…."

"The Demonic Physician is a stubborn blockhead, utterly set in his ways. Investing in a man with no real faction of his own hardly seems a sound calculation…."

But Yu Ha shook his head.

That's because it wasn't an investment in Saeng Sa Jon, of course.

Rather than explain, Yu Ha simply spread his fan with leisurely ease and turned the question back on them.

"Twin escorts, what sort of vessel do you take me for?"

"We have attended you since our childhood, Young Master. A Young Cult Leader candidate? We are certain that seat is beneath you, if anything."

"Naturally! With the Sun Moon Merchant Guild of all the world backing you, who would dare stand in your way!"

The escorts answered without a moment's hesitation.

"Just so. With the guild's full strength behind me, reaching that seat would be a trivial matter. But tell me, escorts—do you take me for a man who would fail to become Young Cult Leader merely for lacking something like that Hollow Azure Stone Marrow?"

Yu Ha asked again, wearing a cold, slanted smile.

"…Ah… no. Of course not!"

"Impossible!"

The escorts hurriedly replied.

"I was born with far too much. That's why the world always bored me. Searching for some variable to fill the emptiness, I met 'that one' in the Hidden Demon Cave."

Yu Ha's gaze had already pierced past the Mad Path Pavilion, toward wherever Yun Cheon would be.

"Look at the Cult as it stands now. Talents overflow everywhere, yet those without connections are simply ground down and wasted—while useless men who happened to be born with the right bloodline squat in the seats above them."

A chill of strange obsession settled in Yu Ha's eyes.

"This is not the doctrine our own Cult preaches—Survival of the Fittest. It's nothing but the inheritance of vested interests!"

The hand gripping his fan tightened.

"But that one was different. He had nothing at all—and yet he twisted open the heavens with his own two hands. That power to bow to no destiny… that is the true 'qualification' I've been searching for. I intend to raise him to the very summit of the Demonic Path."

Yu Ha's eyes were already fixed beyond the Mad Path Pavilion, where Yun Cheon waited.

"And in the process, I'll overturn this stagnant Cult of ours and realize the true doctrine of the strong reigning supreme…! What greater thrill could any game offer?"

A mad, exultant joy bloomed at the corner of Yu Ha's mouth.

To think there exists someone the Young Master rates this highly….

If that boy falls short of the Young Master's expectations, this old man will not stand idly by….

The escorts bowed their heads, though inwardly they resolved to test with their own eyes this boy named Yun Cheon, whom Yu Ha had praised so extravagantly.

"Now then. Since I handed over the consignment ahead of schedule, we have some slack in our itinerary. We must commend our escorts who never once retreated, even before that Venerable's terrifying bluster."

Yu Ha smiled brightly and turned to his escort corps.

"To the tavern! The Young Pavilion Master will treat everyone to a celebratory drink in honor of a successful escort mission!"

"WAAAAH—!"

"The Young Pavilion Master is the best!"

The cheers of the escort captain and his men filled the forest path as they receded into the distance.

Only the Sun Moon Twin escorts, following behind, let out a deep sigh and pressed a hand to their foreheads.

"Ugh…."

"Young Master, truly…."

One moment he wore the mischievous face of a boy; the next, in the space of a blink, his eyes turned those of a ruthless strategist surveying the world like a Go board. Even the battle-hardened escorts found themselves adrift before the unfathomable footwork of Yu Ha's schemes.

Yu Ha turned his head, gazing at the dark shadow of the Mad Path Pavilion receding behind them.

Survive. Only then will the board I've laid out finally be complete.

There, even now, an improbable bond of fate was fighting a battle with his life on the line.

See you soon, Yun Cheon.

Seol Yeong's voice pierced straight through to his mind, and Yun Cheon's consciousness snapped awake as if doused in ice water.

…A verse of the Ice Soul Divine Art.

It was an abstruse incantation, worthy indeed of the name "Divine Art." An ordinary martial artist could dedicate an entire lifetime and still fail to cross its very threshold.

But Yun Cheon was different. The experience of having dissected Seol Yeong's meridians stem by stem, along with the vast martial scholarship he'd accumulated in his previous life, opened his eyes to it at once.

Cold. And exquisitely precise.

The essence of the incantation etched itself into his frame with perfect clarity. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠core of the Ice Soul Divine Art was to compress scattered cold qi and forge it into a solid inner core—yet that was precisely the problem.

Both he and Seol Yeong suffered from blocked meridians.

Their method of handling yin-cold energy is worth referencing… but forming a dantian that way would be disastrous…!

He could not repeat the mistake that had once worsened Seol Yeong's yin-severed meridians.

Is there… another way?

Flash!

A cold gleam of insight streaked across his mind. The essence of the Heaven and Earth Moving Art. Not stillness, but motion. Not hoarding, but flowing.

I see it.

Conventional wisdom said to compress qi into a fixed inner core. Instead—maintain a dynamic current while sustaining a static centripetal pull.

A spinning storm never scatters.

The sensation he had carved into his bones through months of practicing the moving art supplied the answer. Once his resolve settled, Yun Cheon deliberately twisted the path of the internal energy Seol Yeong was channeling into him.

CRACK!

The meridians around his nascent dantian wrenched askew and screamed. The yin-cold energy that had been rampaging at will was sucked violently toward a single point, tracing a spiral.

"…!"

Seol Yeong, supporting Yun Cheon's back, flinched as her shoulders trembled. The energy flowing through her palm was whirling in a trajectory she had never once seen in her life.

Wh… Benefactor?!

She wavered for a moment at the unfamiliar circulation method, then resolved simply to trust him and watch.

…This isn't the Ice Soul Divine Art. But he is unquestionably controlling the yin-cold energy. In a way entirely different from mine!

An unprecedented method that laughed in the face of established convention.

Hmmm—!

A strange resonance hummed from deep in his lower abdomen. The gathered energy had begun to rotate. A heavy vibration like a millstone grinding swept up along his spine, and a bizarre spiral began to swirl in Yun Cheon's lower belly.

Now.

The principle of the Taiji met the flow of Heaven and Earth, forming the eye of a typhoon. A divine art that did not freeze yin-cold energy into a lump, but whipped it into a raging vortex that sustained its own form through sheer rotation.

"…!"

Seol Yeong's eyes went wide as she poured internal energy into Yun Cheon's back. She had taught him the verse of the Ice Soul Divine Art, no question—but the phenomenon unfolding inside his body belonged to a different order entirely from anything she had cultivated all her life.

The energy… it's rotating endlessly?

A peculiar spiral traced itself around his nascent dantian and began devouring the surrounding yin-cold energy at a terrifying speed. In the heart of that storm of yin energy, the mystery of the Taiji blossomed.

"…Ugh!"

Seol Yeong let out a short groan. The vibration she felt through her fingertips was anything but ordinary. It was certainly the verse she had transmitted—yet the change rising within Yun Cheon's body was soaring far beyond the bounds of the Ice Soul Divine Art.

That's not ice-soul energy. This is….

She shuddered. What pulsed inside Yun Cheon was no frozen mass of ice. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a typhoon of cold qi, rotating in lone, austere majesty.

"Whew…."

At last, deep in Yun Cheon's lower abdomen, the vortex that never stopped spinning settled into its place. Something far too fierce and alien to be called a dantian. A long plume of white cold air exhaled from Yun Cheon's lips.

The deathly ashen pallor that had covered his face lifted, and a cool but clear color returned to his skin.

"He… he's alive…."

The tension drained from Seol Yeong, and her legs gave out beneath her as she collapsed to the ground. She, too, was on the verge of exhaustion—she had suppressed her own runaway yin energy and immediately tuned Yun Cheon's qi on top of it. Collapse was only natural.

Yet a radiant smile spread across her cheeks.

"Benefactor… are you all right?"

Yun Cheon slowly opened his eyes. Deep within his pupils, a cold blue light flickered past like a glint of jade.

"Thanks to you."

Yun Cheon gently brushed a hand down over his lower abdomen. It was not a complete dantian—a precarious form, sustained only by the constant focus of his will to keep it spinning.

But with this, for the first time in a year, Yun Cheon held the power called internal energy in his grasp.

"You saved my life, miss. And… you've even granted me a precious secret art."

"You saved my life, Benefactor. And…."

Seol Yeong lowered her head, almost shyly.

"You didn't learn it the way I taught it, after all. If anything, I learned a thing or two from you."

Just as Yun Cheon was about to rise—

BOOOM!

The thick doors of the Demonic Physician Hall were torn away like sheets of paper and scattered in every direction. Bursting through the roiling cloud of dust came Saeng Sa Jon.

"Yeong-a! Your grandfather is here! The medicine—!"