The Blood Jade's Whisper
“Keuk… keu-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi…”
Baekmok stared down at his own palms, stained with his senior brother’s blood.
Tears streamed from his eyes as he laughed like a madman.
In his gaze he saw the Blood Jade slip free from his senior brother’s mouth.
He heard the Blood Jade’s whisper.
‘Take me into your breast and go to the battlefield.’
Baekmok threaded a cord through the small hole at the jade’s center and hung it around his neck.
‘All that I once promised you at the foot of the Blood Wheel shall bow before you.’
The Blood Jade’s offer was intoxicating.
‘To a life forever cast in another’s shadow, I shall grant radiance and power.’
With bloodshot eyes, Baekmok sank deeper into the jade’s voice.
“What is it you desire of me?”
‘Never remove me from your body for as long as you live. And…’
The Blood Jade’s glow deepened, growing denser by the moment.
‘When you stand at the brink of death, be sure to shatter me.’
“Very well.”
Just then, the Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages, who had been holding the Blood Cult’s main force on the mountain’s mid-slope, came climbing up. Their entire bodies were soaked in blood, and of the original thirteen, only eight remained.
“Senior Brother Baekmok!”
“Is the Grand Senior Brother unharmed?”
Baekmok wiped his tears on his sleeve and rose to his feet.
“The Grand Senior Brother has fallen together with Hyeolsin—mutual destruction.”
At those words, despair washed over the faces of the Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages.
“Then… what of the Blood Cult forces carpeting the mountain below…?”
“The tide has already turned against us!”
“Even the Imperial Guard is being driven back!”
Shhhhhhing—
Baekmok tore his sword free with a savage draw.
Kuuuuuuung—
At the same instant, a colossal wave of internal energy rolled out across the summit of Danbasan.
“I will hold the line. Will you brothers follow me?”
Baekmok spoke with a kindly face.
Startled by the sudden change in his aura, the Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages hesitated, unable to answer at once.
Swaat—
Baekmok stepped through the Wudang footwork Taiji Green Pine Step and appeared before the Sword Sages. His speed was so absolute that none of them could so much as react.
One by one, he took the hands of the eight surviving Sword Sages and held them with gentle warmth. Strength began to flood back into bodies that had been utterly spent.
Smiling, Baekmok spoke to them.
“I have shared my internal power with you…”
“Senior Brother Baekmok!”
“…so there will be no lack when it comes to reversing the course of this battle.”
“What… what kind of energy is this?”
“You will know when the time comes.”
“We will follow Senior Brother Baekmok!”
“S-Senior Brother Baekmok… what of Junior Brother Hyeonsong?”
“He is already dead. Think no more of him.”
The eight Sword Sages scarcely knew what to do with the internal force overflowing their meridians. But they did not know this: a crimson haze had begun to coil within their once-clear eyes.
“Let us go.”
Smiling still, Baekmok unfolded the Cloud-Riding Steps and descended Danbasan. The surviving Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages followed at his back.
The battle of Danbasan—which decided the fate of the Song Dynasty, the martial world, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and the Blood Cult entire—ended in a strangely hollow victory. Hyeolsin had perished together with Martial Alliance Leader True Man Baekhak. Afterward, when True Man Baekmok and the Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages appeared, the Blood Cult’s forces behaved in a most bizarre fashion. Some took their own lives; others cast down their weapons, cried out Hyeolsin’s name, and had their heads struck from their shoulders.
Shhhhhhhhak—
Yeong-hwa snapped open his fan. In the same breath, the gut-rite he had been performing in Hyeolsin’s voice—the rite through which he had dueled Baekmok—shattered apart.
Baekmok stood dazed, clutching with precious care the Blood Jade necklace hidden deep in his robes.
Yeong-hwa’s cry shook the whole of Wudang Mountain.
“So that is how it was?”
“I… I saved the Song Dynasty and the martial world…”
“You saved nothing!”
Yeong-hwa turned a hollow gaze upon the blood-red full moon.
“The former Sect Leader gave his life to stop the Blood Cult’s dearest wish—and you would undo it yourself?!”
“Silence that mouth!”
Baekmok rose to his feet. Crimson energy poured from the Blood Jade and wound about his entire body. He cupped the jade tenderly in both hands.
“Yes… that will do…”
As if conversing with the Blood Jade, he began to mutter to himself.
“I need only kill everyone here. Claim I was ensorcelled by the sorcery of a shaman from Goryeo.”
At the sight, Hyeonsong’s face twisted with fury.
“Then I will be Sect Leader once more…”
“Draw your swords, all of you. For the crime of murdering the former Sect Leader, I hereby depose the present one.”
“Keuk… keu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Baekmok covered his mouth and howled with mad laughter.
“Junior Brother… that will not be so easily done.”
Shhhhhhing—
Baekmok drew his sword and lifted it high. Blood-hued sword qi erupted from the blade.
Kwaaaaaaang—
At the same moment, a thunderous blast rolled from the Eight Immortals Pavilion, where the elders resided.
Hagun watched and groaned.
“Elder Hyeonsong—the Taiji Thirteen Sword Sages who were holding the elders…!”
The scar at the corner of Hyeonsong’s eye contorted.
Tat— tat— tat— tat— tat— tat— tat—
Moments later, Wudang elders came down from the Eight Immortals Pavilion on Cloud-Riding Steps and ringed the gut-rite ground. Every face among them was painted with blood.
Yeong-hwa turned to Hyeonsong.
“Surely not… the eight Sword Sages who survived with Sect Leader Baekmok back then…?”
Hyeonsong set a hand upon his sword hilt and answered.
“Correct. The present elders—myself excepted.”
Dududududung— dududududung—
As if indifferent to the crisis unfolding around him, Myeong-yeon’s drumbeat rolled on without pause.
Yeong-hwa spoke to Hyeonsong.
“Buy me half a ke of time.”
“You have a plan?”
“This is not a board for living—it is a board for dying. I will stake my life as well.”
“Understood.”
Pook—
Yeong-hwa drove the broken sword into the center of the gut-rite ground. He looked to Myeong-yeon.
“Grandfather!”
At Yeong-hwa’s cry, the drumbeat quickened, faster and faster. Yeong-hwa climbed once more onto the straw-cutter blades and began to leap and dance upon them in a frenzy. From his mouth poured a taryeong thick with old sorrow.
Thud—
The moment the taryeong ended, Yeong-hwa tumbled from the blades. Drip— drip— drip— drip— His face had gone deathly white, and blood began to stream from his nose. With every last scrap of strength he shouted to the Wudang disciples locked in a standoff with the eight elders.
“Everyone—inside the gut-rite circle!”
Kwaaaaaaang—
In the meantime, Hyeonsong was facing Baekmok alone—Baekmok, who had fallen utterly under the Blood Jade’s thrall.
Hagun issued orders to the first- and second-generation disciples.
“Everyone, back—slowly!”
Still drumming, Myeong-yeon opened his mouth.
“Taoist Hagun—as far as the pigs!”
“Yes, Elder!”
The elders spoke with faces steeped in madness, each in turn.
“Remnants of the Blood Cult still live.”
“Senior Brother Baekmok summons us.”
“The glory of those days is not yet finished.”
Paaaaaat—
As if by prearranged signal, the eight elders drew their swords as one and charged the disciples.
In that instant the fallen Yeong-hwa forced out a hand and seized the sword he had planted in the earth.
Kwang— kwang— kwang— kwang— kwang— kwang—
The elders who slammed into the sudden wall were all flung into open air. At the same moment, black serpents burst forth from Yeong-hwa’s body and bound the falling elders mid-fall.
With eyes gone wholly black, Yeong-hwa spoke to Hagun.
“Now.”
Hagun and the disciples drew the kitchen knives they had prepared, each knife bound with cloth cut from the elders’ own garments.
“Drive them into the pigs’ heads!”
The disciples waiting by the pigs drew the knives and plunged them into the animals’ skulls.
“Uaaaaaargh—”
“Keuaaaaaargh—”
The elders twisted in agony, thrashing to free themselves from the black serpents that bound them. Yeong-hwa’s mantra accelerated. At the same time, the crimson blood-qi drained from the elders’ eyes. Kaaaaaang— Seeing this, Baekmok—still locked with Hyeonsong—tried to fling the man aside with raw force. The blood-qi that left the elders’ bodies was sucked straight into the pigs.
Hagun shouted to the disciples by the brazier.
“Fire—now!”
They set flame to kindling and thrust it urgently toward him. Puaaaaaak— The remaining disciples doused the pigs, now flushed red with absorbed blood-qi, in oil. Hagun set the fire to them.
Hwaaaaaak—
Eight pig carcasses went up in a roar of flame. At the same instant, the thrashing elders went limp as rags.
Baekmok beheld the sight in horror.
“No—no—no!”
He tried to rush the last of the burning carcasses, but Hyeonsong blocked his path again and again.
“Where do you think you are going, Senior Brother Baekmok!”
By then the death-match between Hyeonsong and Baekmok had reached its peak. Both men were honing sword-force with the Guhontalbaekgeom, lashing at each other with razor-edged qi. Yet Baekmok, who had mastered the Limitless Divine Art—the heart-method only a Wudang Sect Leader may learn—was overwhelming Hyeonsong.
White sword-force and blood-red sword-force collided.
Kwaaaaaaaaang—
Undaunted, Baekmok rained down stroke after stroke, driving the defending Hyeonsong back. Kwang— kwang— kwang— kwang— kwang— Hyeonsong, who seemed wholly on the defensive, slipped Baekmok’s final cut by a hair’s breadth. Shifting half a step aside, he spun to the right and swept his blade at Baekmok. Sword-wind rose along the edge and detonated with a blast.
A storm of sword qi erupts, lashing toward the upper body of an opponent whose stance has broken.
Hyeonsong tasted victory already. But the corner of Baekmok’s mouth curled upward. A red radiance burst from Baekmok’s body.
Kwaaaaaaaang—
Blood-qi whirled from his entire frame and canceled the sword-wind. Hyeonsong reeled under the sudden shock, his balance gone. Baekmok did not waste the opening; he thrust for Hyeonsong’s dantian. Barely rising, Hyeonsong tried to knock the blade upward.
Puuuuuuk—
Hyeonsong’s sword failed to fully stop the strike. Shaaang— Impaled deep through the right shoulder, Hyeonsong dropped his blade.
“Hah— hah— hah— hah—”
“Farewell, Junior Brother Hyeonsong.”
Baekmok laughed wildly as he spoke.
“Wudang will be mine for the rest of my days. Do not trouble yourself on that account.”
In that moment, a sword-cry sharp enough to pierce the ear rang out from behind.
“What shall I do?”
The voice belonged to Yeong-hwa, eyes closed, gripping the sword driven into the center of the gut-rite ground. He muttered to himself a moment, then drew the blade free.
“I am not confident about this either.”
Sword in hand, he walked out of the gut-rite circle.
“But Lord Hyeoncheon Sangje says he will aid me—so I will trust in that.”
Yeong-hwa’s hands described a circle. A clear shape of the Taiji took form around him. Softly, he extended his left hand. A small wind, laden with internal force, drifted toward Baekmok. Baekmok made to bat it aside with a casual palm.
“Brat—our sect’s arts are not so simple as you ima—”
Kung— kuuung— kuuuuuung—
The little wind grew heavier and heavier, until it crushed down upon Baekmok’s entire body even as he tried to slap it away with a simple palm-strike. Puaaaak— Forced to wrench his sword free of Hyeonsong’s shoulder, Baekmok stumbled back and cut through the monstrous force.
“This is… our sect’s Soft Palm.”
A gentle breeze that becomes an irresistible weight—Wudang’s yielding force, soft as cotton and heavy as a mountain.
Yeong-hwa settled into a sword stance and answered.
“The former Sect Leader taught it to me.”
He smiled—a smile familiar only to Baekmok.
“Junior Brother Baekmok never once managed to properly block his Soft Palm!”
Yeong-hwa lowered the broken sword and crooked a finger at Baekmok.
“Come, then.”