The Flower Rain of Blades
Even after all that commotion, not a single villager came outside to see what was happening. Baek Mugeuk glanced around for a moment, then walked up to the masked man and pulled off his face covering.
The moment Dang Hye saw the face beneath it, her eyes turned sharp.
"This one? The bandit from earlier?"
One of the three bandits they had run into at the mouth of the mountain road. The one who had fled.
"So bandits broke into the village?"
At Dang Hye's question, Baek Mugeuk gave a snort of laughter and stripped off their black outfits. Then he turned one of the garments inside out.
Characters were embroidered into the lining of the black robes.
Good.
"Did the movements of the men chasing you seem like bandits?"
"No. More like..."
"Assassins, right. From the start, these bastards were disguised as bandits."
"Why?"
Dang Hye couldn't understand it. Why would assassins bother disguising themselves as bandits?
At her question, Baek Mugeuk's gaze drifted toward the fields.
"What did you see in the fields just now?"
"Poison weeds?"
"Right. Those weeds are the answer. This village is where assassins grow their poison. They disguised themselves as bandits to keep outsiders away naturally."
"Ah!"
Dang Hye gasped in admiration. She couldn't help it. She had seen the clues too, but she hadn't been able to connect them so neatly and at a glance.
Baek Mugeuk, on the other hand, had linked everything together as if it were nothing.
"Then why did you let that one go earlier? He could bring back more of them, couldn't he?"
"He could. I hope he does."
"You let him go on purpose?"
"You could say that."
"Why?"
"Because it's a pain. Chasing them down one by one."
"You haven't forgotten that your job is to protect me, have you?"
"I let him go because I'm your escort. You know what's so scary about assassins?"
"That they kill people without a trace?"
"This is what happens when you've just stepped into the martial world."
Baek Mugeuk shook his head. Dang Hye's face darkened with irritation.
"Just explain it. Don't keep needling me."
"The most frightening thing about assassins is that once they pick a target, they cling to it until one of them dies."
"So that's why you let him go. You used yourself as bait."
"I'd rather not have assassins trailing me all the way to Sichuan."
"But..."
Dang Hye's expression sharpened again, and she shot him a look.
"How did you know I found poison weeds in the field?"
"Huh? That? Well..."
Something like fluster briefly flickered across Baek Mugeuk's face.
Then his pace began to quicken.
He's sharp about the useless things.
From the moment Dang Hye arrived at the field and started mimicking his sword style, all the way through being chased by assassins to the stockade wall, Baek Mugeuk had watched everything.
Why else would every single throwing blade have missed Dang Hye by the width of a hair?
Her movement was better than I expected.
At first, he had intended to kill every assassin who came near the thatched house. But Dang Hye's sudden actions changed his mind.
He didn't know what she had been thinking when she drew their attention, but he decided to watch a little longer.
"So where are you going now?"
"To get our swords."
The moment he finished speaking, Baek Mugeuk stopped. At the same time, he began knocking on a door.
Creak.
The door opened, and a young man appeared, glaring suspiciously.
"What business do you have at this hour?"
"I'm here to see the village chief."
"The chief's already asleep. Come back in the morning."
"Is that so?"
"That's right. Be off with you."
The man shut the door. But Baek Mugeuk caught it before it could close.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"It's urgent."
"If you make any more trouble..."
The rest of the man's words never came. Before he could finish, Baek Mugeuk's fist slammed hard into his abdomen.
"Baek Mugeuk! What are you doing?!"
"I told you it was urgent, and he still blocked the way. What choice did I have?"
Dang Hye hurriedly checked the man's pulse. It wasn't beating.
"He didn't have any internal energy."
"So?"
"So? He was just an ordinary farmer!"
"Is that what he looked like to you?"
Leaving those words behind, Baek Mugeuk entered the village chief's house. He was unusual, yes, but she hadn't expected him to act this brazenly.
"Baek Mugeuk!"
Dang Hye opened the door as well. Inside, all she saw was a single bed in one corner, a table, and on it a kettle with two cups.
"What brings you here so late?"
"I'm here to receive my sword."
"To come calling at this hour is already rude enough. To kill one of my people as well..."
The village chief wore a displeased expression. Dang Hye could see that he was just an old man with no internal energy at all. But he was no ordinary village chief.
Even after seeing someone die before him, he did not flinch or let his expression waver.
"Did you know there were assassins in the village?"
"Assassins in the village? That's hard to believe."
"Then I'm taking my sword and leaving."
"The only thing I can offer you is this."
He lifted the kettle and cup from the table and poured for Baek Mugeuk.
"This tea is what I can give you."
"You were cultivating poison weeds in the fields."
"Do you know who lives in this village? They're all people who lost family to martial artists. They gathered and built a village together."
"I don't see what that has to do with growing poison weeds."
Baek Mugeuk's tone changed, and his aura turned cold. Even so, the village chief kept speaking.
"To someone, those plants may look like poison weeds. But to someone else, they're medicinal herbs."
"So you're distributing those poison weeds to physicians?"
"That's right."
The village chief looked proud. Then he lifted the tea in front of Baek Mugeuk and drank it down without hesitation.
"Well now. Do you still think there's poison in this tea?"
"I still think there's poison in it."
Baek Mugeuk picked up the kettle and poured the tea onto the floor.
The smell of tea filled the room, and before long, a sharp, acrid scent began to rise.
Dang Hye's expression twisted.
"Aconite..."
It was unmistakable. That was the smell given off when aconite was steeped.
For Dang Hye, the daughter of the Dang Family, aconite was a familiar poison weed. But familiar or not, it was still dangerous.
If one ingested aconite or even let it touch the skin, the nerves would be paralyzed. But the truly dangerous thing about it was that one could be poisoned merely by smelling it.
Before the pungent scent could completely fill the room, Baek Mugeuk raised a hand. Every window in the room flew open, and with a slight twist of his wrist, the aconite inside was swept up by the wind and carried out of the house.
The village chief stepped over to his bed. He reached down and pressed a hand to the floor, then revealed the bed entirely.
There, hidden beneath it, were two swords.
Baek Mugeuk's sword and Dang Hye's.
"Take them and go."
The village chief handed the swords to the two of them and curled the corners of his mouth.
"But do you know why I'm returning them so willingly?"
"You figured we'd die anyway."
"You're quick on the uptake. It would almost be a shame to kill you like this."
The chief frowned, looking genuinely regretful. It seemed he no longer had any intention of hiding who he was.
"The next time we meet, you'll be a corpse. What a pity."
"Chief. Then let's make a bet."
At the word bet, the chief's eyes lit up.
"A bet?"
"If, when we meet again after I walk out this door, I'm still alive, then I'll take the Sudanhwa you have."
"Sudanhwa?"
At the name, killing intent and doubt flashed through the village chief's eyes at once. More shocked than he was, though, was Dang Hye.
Sudanhwa.
It was a poisonous flower that even the Dang Family knew only from legends.
According to legend, Sudanhwa could melt the dantian, which was more vital to a martial artist than the heart.
In simple terms, the moment one fell prey to that poison, even a peerless master or the greatest fighter under heaven would lose all their martial arts and become a cripple.
...
The village chief said nothing for a while. He was curious. Who exactly was Baek Mugeuk that he could tell there was a Sudanhwa here? But he didn't ask.
In any case, the boy would die, and he could confirm that secret right before death.
"If you die, I gain nothing, do I?"
Baek Mugeuk took a piece of paper and a seal from his robes and tossed them at the chief.
"What's this?"
"A receipt and seal. With them, you can collect the money I left in the military camp."
"Do I look like a man who chases money?"
"Why don't you check how much money there is before you answer?"
At Baek Mugeuk's words, the chief's eyes drifted to the receipt. In that instant, his eyeballs seemed ready to pop out of his skull.
"It's only a drop in the bucket compared to Sudanhwa, but this should be enough to make the bet worthwhile. I'll win either way."
"Then I'll be going."
"If you walk out that door, you will definitely die. Aren't you afraid?"
"Not really. I've never once considered the possibility of losing to an assassin."
"Arrogant."
"It won't take long."
With that, Baek Mugeuk left the village chief's house.
"Baek Mugeuk! You knew there was a Sudanhwa here?"
"Yep."
"How? Sudanhwa is a poisonous flower even the Dang Family has spent ages trying to find. It has never once shown itself!"
At Dang Hye's words, Baek Mugeuk raised a finger and pressed it to his lips.
Then he grinned.
"Secret."
"Secret?"
Dang Hye frowned in exasperation, but she couldn't press him further beneath the sudden weight of his cold, sharp aura.
"I'll tell you the rest when there's time. Right now, I have an earlier guest to deal with."
Baek Mugeuk's gaze moved toward the houses opposite the village chief's. Dang Hye followed his line of sight, but she couldn't sense anything different at all.
The sound of Bright Destroying Sword being drawn from its scabbard rang out like a single note.
When Baek Mugeuk casually swept his sword at the building in front of them, a thin blade of qi sliced through it, and at the same time a groan of "Ugh..." drifted out from within.
As if that sound were a signal, assassins began to reveal themselves in such numbers that they couldn't be counted, emerging from every house around the village chief's home.
"What the hell... is this...!"
Dang Hye's jaw dropped.
This was impossible.
How was a single martial artist supposed to face so many assassins?
Tap.
Baek Mugeuk lightly tapped the crown of Dang Hye's head with his fist.
"Hey. You scared?"
"This isn't the time for jokes! At this rate, we're..."
"Going to die?"
Dang Hye couldn't answer.
It was obvious this place would become her grave.
"You won't die today."
The words had barely left his mouth before an irresistible force seemed to shove Dang Hye's body backward, and she was hurled toward the village chief's house in an instant.
At that moment, the assassins moved.
They hurled flares around Baek Mugeuk.
With a series of booming explosions, smoke scattered everywhere and swallowed every trace of vision.
At the same time, a storm of hidden weapons rained down on the spot where Baek Mugeuk had been standing.
Ping.
Tiiing.
"Don't close the distance! Keep throwing the hidden weapons!"
Even with the advantage, the assassins did not rush in recklessly. They were cautious.
If the flares blinded their target, then the advantage of numbers would vanish.
The answer was simple.
Keep the distance and keep throwing blades into the smoke.
Baek Mugeuk himself would be blinded by the smoke and unable to deflect them properly.
And then, a moment later...
Fwaang.
Just as expected, Baek Mugeuk seemed unable to endure the onslaught of hidden weapons and shot upward out of the smoke.
"Got him."
This was the situation blade users loved most: when their opponent was lifted into the air.
The instant Baek Mugeuk's figure rose into the sky and slowed, the assassins' hidden weapons poured forth.
Watching it, Dang Hye clenched her teeth.
Could those even be called hidden weapons? It was an onslaught no human movement could possibly evade.
Yes. It was coming down like a torrential rain.
"Hap."
Baek Mugeuk's shout rang out. Starting with that cry, his sword knocked away the first dagger.
It shot back faster than it had flown in, piercing straight through an assassin's neck and burying itself in the wall.
Then he began deflecting the blades that followed.
Just as before, the hidden weapons struck by his sword flew back out and pierced the assassins instead.
Even so, despair did not leave Dang Hye's eyes. The blades still coming after that were far beyond what a human could possibly handle.
Without meaning to, she turned her head away.
In a little while, she thought, there would be nothing left of a human being except the fact that one had once stood here.
Then...
"Don't look away. Watch closely. Watch the road you have to walk."
Baek Mugeuk's voice came to her. Dang Hye turned back toward him.
His movements became faster and faster as he deflected the blades. Using the force of each impact, he began to spin in midair.
The countless blades he sent flying back reflected moonlight and began to trace dazzling arcs through the night.
"Flowers...?"
Those countless arcs overlapped, and a flower began to bloom across the sky.
Then they fell.
A rain of blades.
Along with Dang Hye's hollow, half-broken voice.
"Flower Rain... Flower Rain...?"
Kwaaang!
With a thunderclap-like roar, it pierced through the assassins' bodies as though lightning had struck the earth. No, it began to grind them to pieces.
The scent of blood burst out in all directions, and when the thunder of the blades finally ceased, Baek Mugeuk's feet slowly touched the ground.
He looked at Dang Hye and smiled.
"How was it?"
He walked forward slowly. To Dang Hye, the way he moved seemed almost like the gait of an immortal.
"Was it beautiful again this time?"