The Tomb of the Divine Thief
As soon as Hwalgangsi opened its eyes, I threw my body backward and widened the distance between us. There had been no intelligence in those eyes at first, but in an instant they cleared, the way a living person’s would when awareness returned.
“This isn’t a jiangshi, it’s more like...”
“Like a person?”
“...!”
The jiangshi spoke.
I quickly searched my surroundings. Even if Hwalgangsi had been made from a living man, it should have been impossible for it to possess any intelligence. Which meant there had to be someone nearby controlling it. That voice, too, was the bastard speaking through the jiangshi’s body.
“Why are you looking around like that? Is this your first time seeing a talking jiangshi?”
“Shut up. Where are you controlling that thing from?”
“I am the one speaking.”
The jiangshi’s voice was so rough it was barely fit to call human. It was eerie, almost repulsive. The jiangshi rose to its feet and stepped down from the Taishi chair.
Instinctively, I raised my sword and prepared to respond if the bastard moved. But his behavior was unexpected. He clasped his hands behind his back, making it clear he had no intention of fighting.
“We don’t have much time, so let’s talk for a moment.”
“...You want to talk when you’re the one calling yourself a jiangshi?”
“And why not?”
I couldn’t make sense of his intentions. Still, this was not necessarily a bad development. If I could get information out of him, that was exactly what I wanted. Even so, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. If he was a Hwalgangsi, he could crush a first-rate martial artist like an ant underfoot.
“Are you the one who inherited his will?”
“His?”
“Simple. Are you the one who inherited the Martial God's will?”
“What did you say?”
Hwalgangsi tilted his head, then snapped his fingers. After that, he paused for a moment.
“You didn’t come in after dispelling the spell. So it seems you are the one.”
Hwalgangsi looked satisfied. I, on the other hand, was growing more and more irritated. The bastard kept spouting nonsense I couldn’t understand.
“Cut the crap. Where are you?”
“Me? Am I not right in front of you?”
“Enough nonsense. I’ve never even heard of a jiangshi with a self.”
“And yet here I am. Don’t assume the things you know are all the knowledge in the world, young martial artist.”
“Then you’re saying you’re a jiangshi with a self?”
“That’s right.”
It was absurd nonsense. If jiangshi could truly possess selves of their own, the people who controlled them would already rule the martial world. A jiangshi’s body was naturally far superior to what it had been in life.
“Then who are you? If you’ve got a self, you ought to be able to answer that.”
“You walk into someone else’s tomb and ask who I am? That’s a funny one.”
“Bullshit. This is the Treasury of the Divine Thief—”
This was the Treasury of the Divine Thief. That was what I had believed until now. But this Hwalgangsi was saying this place was a tomb. His tomb, no less.
“Then are you the Divine Thief?”
“That’s what they used to call me. But that’s not the important part. I don’t have much time to explain, either.”
Unlike his easygoing expression, the Divine Thief kept saying he was short on time. He sounded like someone being chased by something. He released his hands from behind his back and started searching through his robes.
“Good. Everything’s still here. Then let’s begin.”
“Begin...?”
Before I could finish, the Divine Thief lightly stamped his foot and lunged forward, reaching out toward me. I reflexively raised my sword and slapped his hand aside.
Clang!
Metal rang out where his hand met my blade. Then the Divine Thief bared his teeth in a grin.
“You should stay tense. Hwalgangsi are tough.”
“What the hell?”
The Divine Thief launched a rapid series of strikes, using a grappling technique. I knocked each one aside in succession, but I could feel my body being pushed back little by little.
“If you keep blocking like that, you’ll die. Are you sure that’s fine?”
“Shut that mouth.”
At my words, sword wind gathered along my blade and shot toward him. The force pushed the Divine Thief backward. At the same time, I sprang back to widen the distance between us. The Divine Thief looked down at his hand, frowning.
“If that’s all the trickery you’ve got, you’ll die for sure.”
The Divine Thief’s speech was slowing down. He seemed to be having trouble finishing his sentences.
“Taking advice from a half-dead man is pretty funny.”
“I’ll admit you’ve got confidence. But that won’t be enough.”
“Quit talking nonsense and come at me.”
The Divine Thief lowered his head and fell silent for a moment.
“That should be enough warming up. I don’t think I can hold out much longer.”
“...?”
“I mean, holding myself together so I don’t kill you.”
With his head still bowed, the Divine Thief lifted it slightly and extended a hand again with great force. I raised my sword and blocked his grappling technique.
“Be careful not to die in my hands.”
With that, the light in the Divine Thief’s eyes vanished. As though he had lost all intelligence again, he foamed at the mouth and rushed at me.
The Divine Thief’s attacks were each and every one threatening. But because they were so straightforward, blocking and evading them wasn’t difficult.
I moved evasively, parrying his strikes while thrusting my sword forward. Yet the Hwalgangsi’s body was so hard that every time my blade struck it, it simply rebounded.
“Damn it, you’re absurdly hard.”
The Divine Thief seemed to realize my sword was ineffective, and his assault grew even fiercer. It became clear that simply cutting at him like this was useless.
Baek Family Seven Swords, First Form: Illusion.
I began increasing the number of attacks. The direction of my blade widened, and the count of strikes began to rise. As my sword sped up, it blossomed into plum blossoms and gradually forced the Divine Thief back. Finally, when I drew the sword downward, the force sent his body rebounding away.
“That should at least have some impact.”
Against an ordinary martial artist, that would have been enough to kill him, never mind merely injure him. But the Divine Thief rose immediately. Despite being cut by countless sword strikes, he didn’t seem to have even the slightest wound.
“No impact, huh.”
The Divine Thief only growled and prepared to attack again. Yet he looked wary, as if a storm had just passed. Until now he had charged with reckless ferocity; now he muttered something under his breath and slowly closed the distance.
“...Bha. ...Jinbha.”
“What are you muttering about? If you’re not coming, I’ll go first.”
This time I rushed at the Divine Thief. I mixed real and feint strokes into my swordplay and began targeting the vulnerable parts of his body.
The Hwalgangsi’s body was hard. I admitted that plain illusionary sword techniques would not cut through it. So I started attacking the joints with all my focus. The first hit did almost nothing. But—
“An eternal truth. If it doesn’t break on the first strike, hit it twice. If it doesn’t break after two, hit it three times!”
“......”
Repeated attacks on the joints worked exactly as I had hoped. For the first time, one of the Divine Thief’s knees slammed into the ground.
“......”
I didn’t let the momentum die and kept attacking. No, I tried to.
I can’t move my body!
It felt as if someone had seized hold of me. No matter how I tried to move, my body wouldn’t obey. The Divine Thief didn’t miss the chance and drove a fist into my abdomen.
“Ugh...”
A sharp pain burst through my stomach. But there was no time to be startled, because his assault continued. He raised his fist and swung it wildly without restraint.
It’s a spell!
At that moment, I identified both the use of sorcery and the instant it was being released. The spell came undone at the very moment it took impact. The pressure pinning my body down vanished the instant I was struck. That was why, after taking the hit, I quickly raised my sword and blocked the follow-up attack.
That only lasted a moment, of course, before my body stopped obeying me again.
“Azure Dragon Bind, Demon-Succession Strike.”
I heard the Divine Thief muttering clearly. From the moment those words fell, my body no longer responded.
As soon as another blow landed, my body became mobile again. I flung out sword wind to widen the distance between us. The Divine Thief reached out toward the sword force.
Bang.
With the sound of the sword wind exploding, the Divine Thief was pushed backward, but that was all. Not a scratch on him. It was hard to believe he could face sword wind with a bare hand and no protective qi, but there was no time to dwell on it.
“A jiangshi, and you’re even using sorcery?”
The information from the Martial Alliance flashed through my mind.
The Divine Thief is believed to be from the Mosan Sect.
That was it. The Divine Thief was a martial artist of the Mosan Sect. That was why Hwalgangsi, the Divine Thief, was using sorcery instead of ordinary martial arts.
“An annoying combination.”
The hard body of a jiangshi and the spells of the Mosan Sect. It was a terrifying fit. Which meant the opposite, of course, was that he would not be easy to bring down.
“Well, nothing for it.”
I rolled my neck from side to side. Then I created as much distance as possible between myself and the Divine Thief. He charged at me again, but I kept backing away.
There are three broad ways to deal with sorcery. Either you have overwhelming internal energy, or you possess the power to dispel evil, or you keep enough distance that the sorcery simply cannot reach you.
The only method available to me right now was the third. So I kept putting distance between us while gauging the range of his spells.
“About this much.”
“Azure Dragon Bind, Demon-Succession Strike.”
Regardless of distance, the Divine Thief kept muttering the spell. But I wasn’t going to let him get me twice. I thrust my sword toward him.
“Divine Thief. This next strike will be the one that kills you.”
“Azure Dragon Bind, Demon-Succession Strike.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to understand me anyway.”
There’s a wall so hard it seems impossible to break. What do you do?
The answer is simple.
“Break it harder.”
I lifted my sword into a starting stance. Seeing it, the Divine Thief charged at me again at top speed. Just before he stepped into the range of his spell—
Baek Family Seven Swords, First Form: Illusion.
My sword danced through the air, sending out a pleasant plum blossom scent as it moved. Along its path, sword qi shot forth and struck the Divine Thief’s body. The sword force unfolded into a single blooming plum blossom, yet even then the Divine Thief seemed to feel no impact and thrust his foot forward to break through it.
I had expected this. An attack like that would not pierce his hard body. But this illusionary sword was only a feint, meant for the next strike.
Baek Family Seven Swords, Second Form: Strength.
My voice, carrying internal energy, spread through the Divine Thief’s tomb. At the same time, my dantian trembled violently and poured itself out along the sword.
I raised the blade high and brought it straight down, a single stroke with no embellishment whatsoever. Blue sword qi shot toward the Divine Thief along the line of the blade.
The sword qi swallowed the plum blossom and erased it. At the same moment, the Divine Thief’s hand reached out toward the sword qi. But this time, there was no sound of the blade exploding apart. It simply kept cutting forward, parting the fist first, then the arm, then the shoulder, and finally half of the Divine Thief’s body.
I brought down a thousand-year black iron and slaughtered the body that seemed it could never break.
“Cangtian.”
I murmured low. Then I dropped one knee to the ground. It seemed the sudden release of so much internal energy had strained my body.
My gaze went to the Divine Thief. Even with half his body blown apart, he was still twitching and thrashing. There was nothing to say except that he was truly monstrous.
“Let’s end this now, Divine Thief.”
I put strength into my legs and forced my body fully upright. Then I stood before him. Just as I was about to cut his throat, the Divine Thief spoke.
“You managed to overcome it?”
“It wasn’t much.”
“Not much, huh? You look like you can barely move.”
The Divine Thief gave a faint smile. It was a strange smile, the kind that looked like a man barely holding his collapsing body together through sheer will.
“Is this some kind of twilight clarity? Any last words?”
“What’s your name?”
“Baek Mugeuk.”
“Baek Mugeuk... I’ll remember that.”
The Divine Thief reached into his inner pocket with the one hand he had left. What he took out was a small wooden box. He handed it to me.
“This is...?”
As I accepted the box, he forced the words out with difficulty.
“You must... win...”
Those were his last words.
Win against whom? I couldn’t make sense of it. But the expression on his dying face was resolute.
I clasped my hands together over the Divine Thief’s corpse in respect. Then I burned the body completely. The moment the corpse caught fire, it crumbled and turned to ash. Once it had burned away entirely, a strong fragrance filled the air. At the same time, the entrance of the thousand-year black iron, which had remained shut until now, finally began to open.
“A fragrance...”
Every time the entrance of the thousand-year black iron opened, it gave off the exact same smell as the altar. It was probably the scent of the spell being dispelled. I swung my sword and whipped up a gust of sword wind. The ash that had once been the Divine Thief scattered into the air and dispersed completely.
“Farewell.”
I tucked the wooden box the Divine Thief had given me into my robes and left his tomb.
Thud.
As soon as I stepped out of the Divine Thief’s grave, the thousand-year black iron sealed shut completely. At the same time, the altar at the entrance disappeared. Even though the Divine Thief had died, it seemed the spell had not been fully lifted.
“So the Divine Thief’s tomb probably wasn’t built by the Divine Thief himself.”
The mechanism carved with sword marks and the spell were operating on entirely different principles. If the sword marks were the method to break into the proper treasury, then the spell was a security measure against intruders who didn’t belong. The mechanism was probably built first, and the Divine Thief later overlaid it with sorcery.
“Who built this fortress?”
I had many thoughts, but I decided to sort them out later and turned away from the Divine Thief’s tomb.
“But... feels like I forgot something?”
I turned my head lightly and looked at the wall of thousand-year black iron. Then I remembered.
Gold and treasure!
Before I realized it, I had pounded on the wall of thousand-year black iron.
“Divine Thief! I left something in there! Open the door one more time!”
I shouted pitifully, but the thousand-year black iron wall didn’t budge.
“Open it!”
I grabbed my sword again to force the door back open. But in the end I shook my head and turned away.
“I’ll leave it for now. I’m definitely coming back for it.”
I wanted to open the door right that second, haul out the treasure, and move it away, but I had already spent too much energy. Besides, there wasn’t even a place I could keep all that treasure.
I left my regret behind and went to my room at the inn, where I sat down at the desk.
“After all that misery, I deserve to see what I got.”
I opened the wooden box the Divine Thief had carried. It contained only two things.
A broken blade and a milky liquid sealed in a glass bottle.
“First...”
I picked up the broken blade. It must have been left untouched for a very long time, because dust had clung to it so thickly it had darkened almost black.
“Let’s wash you off.”
I poured water from the kettle over the blade and used a cloth to wipe away the grime embedded in it. Not long after, the blade’s true form was revealed.
“This is surprising.”
The sword looked as though it had been forged a very long time ago. And yet it had not lost the color of its own steel. More surprising still, even broken, it still carried a razor-sharp edge. I couldn’t tell what sort of sword it had once been, but one thing was certain.
“Before it broke, it must have been a divine weapon.”
There’s a saying that a master doesn’t blame his tools. I don’t know who said it, but my opinion was simple.
“That’s bullshit.”
Of course, anyone skilled enough to be called a master in any field would be exceptional. Even if they used inferior tools, they’d still produce better results than ordinary people. But what if they met a master of similar caliber? Or someone even better?
They would probably lament the lack of a good tool, or else already be using an even better one.
“Too bad I didn’t get this before it broke.”
I was a martial artist too, so the moment I saw the blade, disappointment was my first feeling. But what was I supposed to do? It was already broken. I put the blade back into the wooden box and turned my attention to the glass bottle.
“Maybe three drops.”
What was inside the bottle was, quite literally, a milky liquid. And only a very small amount of it.
“Milky liquid... and it’s viscous too... as far as I know, this has to be...”
I tilted the bottle from side to side as I looked at it, then opened it. The moment I did, a foul odor stabbed into my nose. I would have been justified in grimacing at it, but instead I burst out laughing. Because this was the legendary...
Gongcheongseokyu!
Gongcheongseokyu. A legendary elixir said to contain the harmony of heaven and earth. I had never seen it even once in my previous life. In fact, legend said it could produce only one drop in a hundred years, so three drops was an astonishing amount.
“No wonder he was called the Divine Thief. Where the hell did he steal this from?”
I wondered how the Divine Thief had gotten hold of this Gongcheongseokyu, but I didn’t dwell on it. I lifted the bottle without hesitation and poured it into my mouth, then quickly folded into a seated meditation posture.
As soon as I drank the Gongcheongseokyu, a scorching energy began to fill my dantian. The internal energy already within me reacted to it at once, and the dantian itself began to heat up.
I have to focus and absorb as much as possible.
The amount of internal energy in Gongcheongseokyu was beyond imagination. The fact that just three drops contained this much power was astonishing in itself.
At first, my existing internal energy and the power of the Gongcheongseokyu did not blend together. Which meant that if I wasn’t careful, I could fail to control the energy properly and lose a great deal of it. That normally would have been a serious problem, but not for me.
Baekcheon Gong.
I quickly recited the formula of Baekcheon Gong and began circulating my internal energy. Soon, the energies started to blend into a single current. At the same time, they began to move rapidly. “Rapid” wasn’t enough to describe it. The abundant internal energy was spreading at a terrifying pace, like a wildfire racing across a mountain.
This is bad. It’s more than I expected.
Baekcheon Gong, together with the Wudang heart method, was one of the safest internal arts out there. But after consuming the Gongcheongseokyu, it could no longer fully display that quality. The internal energy wasn’t stabilizing; it was running wild instead. There had been no mistake in my circulation method. Which meant the internal energy in the Gongcheongseokyu was too powerful for Baekcheon Gong to contain.
I felt Guanyuan Point struck like a hammer. The point burst open as if a dam had been smashed apart. Then it flowed through Qianxu Point and Tongtian Point, breaking through three hundred and sixty-five acupoints in succession.
“Cough.”
Bright blood began to spill from my mouth. I had only completed one full cycle, yet pain like breaking bones and joints washed over me.
Don’t stop.
Without letting the completed cycle of energy cease, I began moving it through Guanyuan Point once more. It was easier to turn my body this time than during the first cycle, but the pain did not diminish.
The final third cycle!
After completing the second cycle, the internal energy raced toward the third.
The blood trailing from my lips spread farther and farther, until it began to pour from my seven apertures.
I couldn’t even tell whether that too was due to pain or not. Blood streamed from each opening, and then, in the moment it finally dripped from my chin to the floor, the internal energy completed its third cycle and began settling into my dantian in layers.
“Damn it... this hurts too much...”
Once the third cycle was complete and all the internal energy had settled in my dantian, the world started turning upside down. My vision gradually turned red, then quickly began staining itself black.
When my sight was completely swallowed by black, consciousness cut off.