Parting the Red Cliff's Waters
It was a dark night, the clouds having swallowed the moonlight.
Torrential rain poured down as if a hole had been pierced in the heavens, and a fierce gale raged close behind, refusing to be outdone.
Despite the harsh weather, which would have kept even wild beasts huddled deep within their dens,
Thud-thud-thud!
A single horse galloped recklessly along the rough, steep mountain path.
Was it a wild stallion born in the fields?
Or had it escaped from a ranch?
It was neither.
Atop the beast navigating the rugged terrain sat a rider.
"Yah! Yah!"
The rider was actually spurring the horse onward even as they ascended the steep mountain path.
Anyone watching would have deemed him a madman, or perhaps a felon fleeing from a capital crime.
Otherwise, no one in their right mind would commit the suicidal act of racing through a mountain pass in the middle of a raging tempest.
Snort!
Just then, the horse let out a weary groan, its strength flagging.
"Whoa, easy. It's tough, isn't it? I know. I know."
The rider, Jeok-un, gently stroked its mane to soothe it.
"Running for four hours straight is no easy feat. Only a steed like you could pull this off."
It was only natural for the horse to be exhausted.
As Jeok-un had said, they had been running without a single break for nearly four hours.
Immediately after awakening Tam-rang, Jeok-un had slipped out of the clan manor.
He had taken the White Feather Fan—which he had received from the patriarch and kept in the inner hall—and a single horse.
It was a shocking feat to effortlessly bypass the security of the Jegal Family Manor, one of the Seven Great Families.
'In my past life, I even sneaked into the Demonic Cult and got back out. This is nothing.'
Jeok-un himself brushed it off as trivial.
After all, he had already awakened the first stage of the Heaven-Conquering Qi.
A task of this level was easier than breathing.
'But putting that aside...'
Jeok-un subtly turned his head, casting a sidelong glance toward the dense foliage shrouded in darkness.
To the untrained eye, it looked like an ordinary thicket with nothing out of place.
'It seems the old fox is getting impatient.'
Harboring that cryptic thought, Jeok-un turned his gaze back to the path ahead.
"Just a little more. We're almost there."
He patted the horse once more.
What happened next was peculiar.
As if it understood his words, the horse snorted and nodded its head.
Incredibly, even its heavy panting began to subside.
Clack! Clack!
The horse's pace, which had been flagging, began to pick up speed again.
Jeok-un surrendered himself to the shifting rhythm, aligning his breathing perfectly with the beast.
The rain-slicked ground, the pitch-black vision, the exhaustion from hours of running...
Even under conditions that would make the most seasoned equestrian hesitate, he handled the horse flawlessly.
He displayed a state of perfect unity between man and horse, unaffected by the terrain, visibility, or stamina.
It was a skill bordering on the divine.
Yet,
throughout his entire past life, Jeok-un had never once been taught horsemanship.
'It just came to me instinctively the very first day I rode a horse.'
Indeed, this was an innate talent.
Just as a newborn baby breathes naturally without being taught how, Jeok-un had guided horses with absolute ease from the moment he first mounted one.
It was an ancestral instinct, as if etched directly into his blood.
Thud-thud-thud...
Guided by the talent inherited through his veins,
"Hyah!"
Jeok-un set off once more to reclaim the legacy left behind by his ancient lineage.
Hwanggang County was filled with sedimentary terrain, true to its name which meant "Yellow Hill County."
This was due to the river that flowed majestically around the county. As is the way of nature, the topography had barely changed between his past life and the present.
'Fortunately, it won't take long to find.'
Jeok-un smirked inwardly as he scanned the surroundings.
Conveniently, a massive tree stood nearby, offering shelter from the rain.
"Wait here for a moment."
Jeok-un tied the reins to a branch and immediately headed toward the riverbank.
Naturally, there was no one around.
On a night like this, with barely any moonlight, a single misstep would send someone plunging into the river to drown.
But Jeok-un paid no heed to the danger, thoroughly searching the riverbank.
"Hmm, it was definitely around here."
Whoosh!
Perhaps because of the wide-open river,
the storm raged even more violently, and the waves crashing on the river rose in response.
Usually, even in foul weather, a ferryman or two would brave the waters to make a quick coin. The complete absence of any boats proved just how insane the storm truly was.
Yet, even the elements could not stop Jeok-un.
Though he swayed against the wind, he continued to scour the riverbank and the cliffs...
Until finally,
"Ah!"
He found the boulder he was looking for.
It was a massive, reddish-brown boulder resting beside the cliff.
Because of that boulder, the locals of Hwanggang County called this particular cliff by another name.
'Red Cliff.'
When one heard the name "Red Cliff," they might think of the famous Battle of Red Cliffs from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but this was not that place.
The historical Red Cliff lay on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, north of Puqi County in Hubei Province.
It was located much further west than Hwanggang County, and the scale of this local cliff was incomparably smaller than the site of the legendary naval battle.
Even so, Jeok-un had a singular reason for seeking out this Red Cliff.
It served as the crucial landmark for his search.
'Now that I've reclaimed my martial arts, it's time to retrieve the sacred artifacts.'
In his past life, Jeok-un had been hailed as the supreme ruler of the Unorthodox Faction. His profound martial arts were only part of the reason.
Five stars escort the dark sky,
And countless masters wither beneath their light.
The Ten Seats swallow their tears and bow in submission,
For who can break the dark sky while the five stars remain?
These were the peerless armaments known as the Patriarch's Five Sacred Artifacts.
Each weapon possessed distinct powers and attributes, and they were not of Jeok-un's own creation.
Just as his heavenly curse was passed down through his bloodline, so too were these sacred relics.
The weapons forged by his ancestors, who shared the same blood, were called the Patriarch's Five Sacred Artifacts.
However, there was one fact that no one in the world knew.
There were actually seven artifacts, not five. In his past life, he had failed to obtain two of them due to a lack of luck and timing.
'If only I had obtained all seven, it would have been the Heavenly Demon's head rolling on the ground, not mine.'
To be honest, he had wanted to visit the Crow River first.
The weapon he had failed to acquire in his past life rested there.
However, the Crow River was located in Henan, while the Jegal Family Manor was in Wuhan.
Traveling from Wuhan to Henan was too tight a schedule, forcing him to temporarily abandon that plan.
'Yes, everything in its own time.'
It was better to retrieve what was closest first.
There was no need to rush.
Eventually, they would all be his.
Jeok-un muttered to soothe himself, his eyes gleaming with a strange light.
"Now then..."
The Patriarch's Five Sacred Artifacts.
No, it was time to retrieve the first of what would now be called the Patriarch's Seven Sacred Artifacts.
Shlick.
Jeok-un drew the White Feather Fan from his robes.
Hummm!
The White Feather Fan was already beginning to resonate.
It wasn't because of anything Jeok-un had done.
As an instrument designed to command the wind, it naturally resonated in response to the raging tempest.
Jeok-un smiled faintly at the sight. He unleashed the power of Tam-rang and began channeling it into the fan.
Ssssshh...
The White Feather Fan possessed the ability to summon wind and rain.
When combined with the power of Tam-rang—the star of covetousness, symbolizing desire, change, and pioneering—
Rumble!
The power multiplied, and the fan's ability to command the wind and rain was literally maximized.
"I ask for your aid, Ancestor."
Jeok-un spoke to Zhuge Liang.
He asked him to summon the wind, just as his ancestor had once summoned the southeastern wind at the true Red Cliffs.
'Come to think of it, I'm borrowing the power of one ancestor to obtain the power of another.'
They were from different eras and had never met.
Finding the situation somewhat amusing, Jeok-un raised the White Feather Fan high.
Whoosh!
He swung it down with all his might.
And then,
"..."
Nothing happened.
The White Feather Fan remained perfectly still, as if its resonance just moments ago had been an illusion.
One might have panicked, but Jeok-un's expression remained unfazed.
Had he anticipated this?
His demeanor suggested he knew exactly what to expect. His confidence was proven correct a moment later when a single, slender breeze blew past.
Whoosh...
It was so weak it could barely lift a stray strand of hair.
It was such a light, insignificant breeze that one might wonder if it had truly been generated by the White Feather Fan.
It was neither a scorching hot wind nor a bone-chilling draft—just an incredibly gentle, minor breeze.
Yet, the path of that breeze was anything but light.
'I've heard stories, but to think it would be like this. Truly a magnificent sight.'
Even if others couldn't, Jeok-un, who was channeling the Heaven-Conquering Qi, could feel the immense power hidden within that fragile breeze.
The gentle breeze touched the river's surface and began to burrow deep into the water.
Despite the river overflowing with house-sized waves whipped up by the raging storm,
the tiny breeze created by the White Feather Fan began to carve through the water like a knife slicing through tofu.
Splash!
Once the path was carved, the river began to crash and shatter into white foam against an invisible wall.
The water split apart, breaking against the barrier as if hitting solid rock.
'I expected the effects to be amplified since I used the Heaven-Conquering Qi, but I didn't expect it to be this powerful.'
It was a pleasant surprise.
Jeok-un smiled faintly as he watched the water being sliced clean open by an invisible blade.
*Step.*
Maintaining his Heaven-Conquering Qi, Jeok-un took a step forward.
As he did, the wall of wind surrounding him advanced a step as well.
If ordinary people were to witness this, they would be frightened out of their wits.
Storytellers often spoke of masters who could "tread on water as if stepping on duckweed" or "cross a river on a single reed," but
had anyone in the world ever witnessed someone literally parting a river to walk through it?
Ten out of ten would swear it was a sight they had never seen in their lives.
Yet, Jeok-un, the author of this miracle, seemed entirely unfazed.
"Shall we go?"
He stepped onto the riverbed, which was exposing its bare earth for the first time in thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, and walked forward without hesitation.
Immediately after Jeok-un's figure vanished,
Rustle!
The bushes not far behind rustled, and a man clad in black night-gear emerged.
His tight-fitting outfit was a mess, soaked in rainwater and caked with mud and fallen leaves.
It was only natural.
He had been stealthily tracking Jeok-un ever since the boy left the Jegal Family Manor.
Until just moments ago, he had been filled with irritation, forced to run on foot using movement techniques to keep up with his mounted target.
Crack!
But now, staring at the unprecedented spectacle of the river splitting in two before his eyes,
'...What in the world is this?'
The first-class assassin of the Assassination Pavilion, the Soul-Reaping Wanderer Heug-yeong, who had pursued him so tenaciously, could not hide his sheer bewilderment.