The Mantid Maiden - 11
When you see a falling star, make a wish. If only you could finish all your wishing before the starlight faded, whatever you wished for would come true. Watching Moyong Sang-ah's sword unfold before their very eyes, the Changbong Corps came to understand why such a superstition existed.
The star shone. Each time its light flashed, another worthless life dropped away. Anyone fortunate enough to slip past that blade would surely believe a second life had been granted them—and live it with everything they had.
Countless lives hurled themselves forward, burning with their final light, yet nothing stood in the way of Moyong Sang-ah's sword.
The Meteor Sword Technique. Watching the sword art handed down through a thousand years of the Moyong Clan, the eyes of the Changbong Corps had already been steeped in awe.
A family that had endured a thousand years through countless storms. Though it had lost much of the martial learning it had amassed, and its prestige had fallen nearer the earth than the heavens, the star still shone.
No—though that starlight had begun upon the earth, it would climb high into the heavens and blaze there brilliantly. The warriors gazing upon the very sword they themselves must strive toward felt their hearts boil over.
Moyong Sang-ah's sword was shining.
When the worthless lives had all been snuffed out and only a single star remained, bringing its dance to a close—
"So this is the sword of the Moyong Clan..."
Not one of them doubted that the woman before them was the lord who would one day lead the Moyong Clan.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
"If not for the Moyong Clan, who knows what would have become of us..."
"Our boy... those fiends put him through something horrible... Waaah..."
The bandit gang that had murdered countless commoners and plundered their property had been crushed in a single morning. The moment the raid was settled, the villagers wept and praised the Moyong Clan over and over.
"This is no time for tears! We're throwing a feast!"
"Quick, fetch a pig! The plumpest one we've got!"
Spitting on the bandits' corpses as if to vent everything that had been done to them, the villagers hurried to lay on a feast for their saviors.
The Changbong Corps demurred, embarrassed, but once their lord and Changbongdaeju gave their blessing, they set about enjoying the feast with smiling faces.
"Did you see our lord's sword? It went like this, and then like this!"
"As if the likes of you could manage even an imitation."
"Well, his spearwork has come along nicely, I'll grant him that."
"I thought a fairy of the sword had descended from heaven."
"My point exactly."
The hottest topic of the feast was, naturally, Moyong Sang-ah's swordsmanship. Veterans and new recruits of the Changbong Corps alike, faces radiant with gratitude, could speak of nothing else.
"Warriors of the Moyong Clan! Have a drink with us!"
"Don't mind if we do!"
"First deployment and we wipe out a bandit gang. Glad we signed on."
"You can say that again. Seeing everyone so happy puts me in a fine mood too."
They had rid countless people of a long-standing scourge. The corps' new recruits were lost in the joy of their first victory, and the veterans too gladly drank in the atmosphere of a job well done.
Villagers, veterans, and recruits alike—a stretch of time when a great many people mingled and made merry together.
Yet one person did not melt into the revelry, watching from afar.
"Is that you, Changbongdaeju?"
A little apart from where the feast was held, in a spot from which the bonfires could be seen glowing in the distance, Moyong Sang-ah addressed the figure whose footsteps she heard behind her.
"Alone in a place like this?"
Changbongdaeju asked in a voice tinged with regret, as though to ask why she was not enjoying the feast with her subordinates.
"Let them enjoy themselves."
She had to become their star. And Moyong Sang-ah had no intention of shamelessly sitting within earshot while they told one another just how dazzling and magnificent that star had been.
"I can't remember the last time I saw the Changbong Corps smiling so genuinely."
Changbongdaeju said this while gazing fondly at the corps members flushed with drink around the distant bonfires.
"They're all struggling just to survive."
Rebuilding the declining Moyong Clan was a task beyond imagining.
Abroad, they had to contend with foreign tribes; within, with the Demonic Cult and her own brother. They had to hold their own in political struggles without being outmaneuvered, all while striving never to forfeit their righteous cause.
Unlike other martial clans, the Moyong Clan was all but a paramilitary organization raised to keep the frontier tribes at bay—and precisely because it wielded such immense power in Liaodong Province, it drew endless checks from officials and rival sects alike.
Even devoting themselves body and soul, it was hard enough to hold on to what they had—so hard that the values of the orthodox way, the most important thing of all, kept being pushed to the back burner.
"Were it not for your efforts, my lord, we would never have witnessed such laughter."
Moyong Sang-ah turned her gaze toward the bonfires.
"Young Hero Cheongun! When we set out to do something, we do it properly!"
"I saw it all. The Changbong Corps of the Moyong Clan. Truly formidable."
"See there! Even the Wudang Taoist admits it!"
"Hahahaha!"
"I hope today lingers long in their hearts."
With a curious expression, Moyong Sang-ah spoke to Changbongdaeju.
"It will. I still remember my own first campaign with the Clan Head, long ago—vivid as if it were yesterday."
Moyong Sang-ah nodded quietly.
The first campaign. The sword the warriors of the Moyong Clan would set as their mark. Extending a hand to the innocent. The taste of victory. Much of it would stay in memory.
Today had to become their nourishment.
It could not end with simply besting the Demonic Cult. What remained standing at the end could not merely be the stronger of two cut from the same cloth—it had to show the world that the orthodox sects had triumphed over the demonic.
The hegemon of Liaodong Province. The world had to know that the Moyong Clan, as a pillar of the orthodox way, had uprooted the Demonic Cult with its head held high.
And for that, she had to become their star.
"I'll head in first."
Moyong Sang-ah rose, brushing off her seat.
"My lord."
"When the feast ends, see that the villagers are given coin to more than cover it. I would have the village the Moyong Clan saved greet a warm winter."
"It will be done—and nothing will be lacking."
Changbongdaeju bowed his head to his lord, who was devoting herself to the Moyong Clan yet again today.
"The Changbai Sect?"
Having returned to the clan estate, Moyong Sang-ah was able to learn the name of a sect from an herb gatherer who knew of the Taoist of Changbai Mountain.
"Yes. It's the name of a Taoist sect on Changbai Mountain."
"An unfamiliar name."
"Small wonder, that it is. It's a sect of Joseon, and Changbai Mountain lies a thousand li beyond the Moyong Clan's domain. And it's no sect that goes about its business in the outside world, so few can know of it."
"A sect of Joseon. It's true—I know precious little of the martial world there."
The Moyong Clan's domain was Liaodong Province. And though Liaodong lay in Manchurian lands, the clan's sphere of influence covered the Liaodong Peninsula and reached into Joseon's northwestern frontier.
Changbai Mountain, by contrast, stood in eastern Manchuria—a mountain a thousand li from Shenyang, the provincial capital of Liaodong. Moyong Sang-ah nodded slightly, the explanation sitting well with her.
"I heard of it from a Joseon friend of mine."
"From a friend?"
Moyong Sang-ah turned her head at the unexpected words from Cheongun.
Cheongun made it clear he had heard it from the Joseon friend he had mentioned before, then looked to the herb gatherer.
"I'm told it is the sect that keeps the Changbai Pure Silver."
"Yes! Yes! That's right! That region swarms with Jurchens and tigers alike, and lying on Joseon's border it was ever rife with strife—and then the Changbai Pure Silver appeared on top of it all, so the fighting never ceased. It was the Changbai Sect, in ages long past, that finally settled that chaos."
"So the Changbai Pure Silver carries such a history."
Moyong Sang-ah's gaze stole briefly toward her own left hand.
"The Changbai Pure Silver comes out of Joseon, so there's little reason for it to be known here."
Watching the herb gatherer bob his head as he answered, Cheongun spoke up with a faintly troubled expression.
"Is that other tale also true...?"
"And which tale would that be?"
"He who would claim to be Number One Under Heaven—let him come to Changbai Mountain."
From Cheongun's lips sprang the very words Kang Yunho had once spoken.
"What?!"
"What did you just say?"
"Who in the world would utter such madness!"
Everyone present turned to stare at Cheongun, eyes gone wide.
For martial artists who spent their whole lives honing their arts, the phrase Number One Under Heaven could only land as an outrageous provocation.
"Such a rumor truly exists?"
Even Moyong Sang-ah, unable to still her startled eyes, asked the herb gatherer.
"I'm an herb gatherer, not a warrior, so I can't say for certain—but I have heard that no martial artist, not one, dares set foot carelessly near Changbai Mountain."
"Heh heh heh..."
Who would dare speak of being Number One Under Heaven? A laugh of sheer disbelief spilled from Changbongdaeju's lips.
"It seems quite likely that the person you seek, Young Hero Cheongun, resides there."
"Yes. Then—do you know where on Changbai Mountain the Changbai Sect is to be found?"
At last, his destination was in sight. Cheongun nodded and pressed the herb gatherer for an answer.
"Even the people who live in that region don't know where the Changbai Sect is."
"Didn't you say you knew the way there?"
"While gathering herbs, I once slipped from a great boulder and was hurt so badly I could neither walk nor crawl. It was then that, by sheer chance, a Taoist of the Changbai Sect came to my aid."
"They came to your aid?"
"I've never set foot inside the Changbai Sect itself, but I know how to meet them."
"What a relief."
Cheongun let out a small sigh of relief. Had it truly not been for the Moyong Clan, he could have searched Changbai Mountain for days on end and never found it.
"I didn't tell you to come prepared for nothing. Something special is required."
"Could a formation be laid over the place, such that some special implement is needed to pass?"
Moyong Sang-ah asked the herb gatherer in a level tone. A sect whose location was unknown even to those living nearby—could a formation be the reason?
"Something... of the sort."
The herb gatherer glanced around cautiously, then nodded.
"Tell us. The Moyong Clan will see to it that everything is prepared."
"Deep in the mountain valleys of Changbai, there is something like a shrine. Place a special offering there, and you can sometimes meet them."
"Don't tell me the offering must be Changbai Pure Silver."
"Ah—n-no, nothing quite so precious as that."
"Then what is it?"
If the information so far was true, this was surely a sect of staggering power.
The Changbai Sect, the pride of Joseon's martial world.
Even the Jurchens dared not trespass on Changbai Mountain, and great tigers gave the Changbai Sect a wide berth. Perhaps, as Young Hero Cheongun had said, it was a sect carrying on the Taoist lineage.
A sect said to guard the staggering treasure of the Changbai Pure Silver, yet one that no one could so much as lay a hand on.
And on top of that—he who would claim to be Number One Under Heaven, let him come to Changbai Mountain.
What on earth could be required to seek out the Changbai Sect? Every soul in the room stared at the herb gatherer, faces taut with tension.
"You need only bring something sweet."
"Sweet?"
Everyone in the room doubted their own ears, but the herb gatherer was not finished.
"He is especially fond of macarons."
"...Macarons?"
"Bring Joseon-style ddungcaron, fresh-steamed in the cauldron, and you'll be able to meet him without fail."
For a moment, silence hung over the room.