Sword Maniac
War clouds blanketed the whole of Shaanxi Province.
The common folk held their breath as the great sects went to war.
Zhongnan Sect and Huashan Sect were righteous factions, and though the Beggar’s Union stood somewhere between the righteous and the unorthodox, it remained a great sect close to the people, so that was no cause for alarm. But Paegeommun, one of the Four Tyrants and Five Alliances, was another matter entirely.
Unorthodox sects had always regarded the common folk as an inexhaustible resource, yet war changed the equation. They used villagers as bait to draw in other great sects, or as hostages. And once demonic arts began to run rampant, they slaughtered people outright and absorbed their life force and vital essence like spiritual elixirs.
So the common folk had no choice but to read the room and keep their heads down. Fleeing was forbidden. Even the faintest show of favor toward the righteous sects was forbidden. The moment they gave Paegeommun the slightest pretext, death was certain.
They were called the grass of the people—and like weeds rooted in place, that was how they had to live. In the coming age of chaos, it was the only way the powerless could survive.
But bad luck finds people everywhere.
Huangling County, at the southern tip of Yan’an. Though it belonged to Yan’an, it sat close to Dongcheon, where righteous influence ran strong, and so it had been a comparatively peaceful little town. That peace was trampled without mercy by a sudden unorthodox raid.
Flying the name of Paegeommun, they extorted gold and grain and harassed the women. Those who resisted were not killed at once; their arms and legs were broken. Then, as an example, the raiders herded the people together for a public execution.
“Watch carefully. This is the end that awaits anyone who defies Paegeommun.”
A man who styled himself a martial artist of Paegeommun grinned, the eerie aura of demonic arts leaking from him in waves. The faces of the kneeling villagers and the people forced to watch were stained with despair and resignation.
There was no one in the local sects or martial halls to turn to for help. This was not righteous territory; every faction here was in bed with the unorthodox. Nor could they appeal to the authorities. The officials had been the first to submit or be bought. Even the county magistrate turned his back on the people to save his own skin.
The unorthodox martial artist raised his blade high.
The boy chosen as the first to die squeezed his eyes shut. The crowd held its breath; some could not bear to look and averted their gazes.
Then came a sharp swish.
It was unmistakably the sound of a blade cutting flesh. Right after it came the thud of something collapsing to the ground—the sound a headless corpse might make as it fell. A clear sequence of death. And yet the boy’s breath still filled his lungs.
“……?”
Wondering what had happened, he opened his eyes and lifted his head. What filled his vision were the wide-eyed faces of the people staring past him. Naturally his own gaze followed, toward the place where the unorthodox martial artist had stood.
And like everyone else, the boy was struck with shock.
The man who a moment before had been about to execute him now lay sprawled on the ground, his head gone. Behind the corpse stood a young martial artist.
A white robe embroidered with cloud patterns. A wooden sword that gleamed with the luster of jade. And a presence so vivid it seemed to cut the air itself. Every detail announced that the youth before them was no ordinary man.
“Th-the Flash Sword Dragon?!”
Someone who recognized him cried out. Flash Sword Dragon—a title the boy had heard before. The epithet of the Zhongnan Sect’s rising star who had taken first place at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering.
Zhongnan has come here?
As if to confirm the boy’s thought, the sounds of fighting erupted all around. Taoists in their robes clashing with unorthodox martial artists. The raiders belatedly unleashed their demonic qi and tried to respond, but the tide of battle belonged wholly to Zhongnan.
In an instant the Taoists of Zhongnan finished every unorthodox fighter in the town. The people stared blankly at the scene. The very men who had tormented them so viciously had been swept away so cleanly it felt like a dream.
When the last of the raiders had been dealt with, the Flash Sword Dragon sheathed his wooden sword, helped the boy to his feet, and asked,
“Are you all right?”
A voice that was courteous yet full of genuine concern. Anyone could tell the young Taoist truly worried for him. It was a small gesture, but something surged up inside the boy’s chest.
He had been on the brink of death at the hands of the unorthodox men who had stormed in without warning, certain no helping hand would ever come. Then this man had appeared like a miracle and saved him and the whole village. Relief and gratitude welled up together.
“Thank you. Thank you……!”
The boy choked out his gratitude in a voice thick with tears. He could think of nothing else to say. For the grace of a life saved, those words were all he had.
The young Taoist blinked in mild surprise, then gently patted the boy’s back until he calmed.
Cheonhwa soothed the weeping boy and returned him to his family. As if the tears had never been, the boy beamed and waved; Cheonhwa answered with a faint smile and a light wave of his own.
This was not the first life he had saved on his path through the jianghu. Looking at the boy, though, he saw his younger self, and the feeling was unexpectedly deep. He could not linger in nostalgia forever. Gathering the memories that kept welling up, Cheonhwa returned to his role as the senior disciple of Zhongnan’s third-generation.
“How did the cleanup go?”
Myeonghwa answered.
“Squeaky clean, of course.”
They had cleared away the unorthodox corpses, returned the stolen goods to their owners, and were now gathering the wounded for treatment. No one had fled Huangling County, but reinforcements could still arrive, so sentries had not been forgotten.
Cheonhwa nodded at the report.
“Good. Looks like everything wrapped up smoothly.”
“Biggest reason is that the ones holding this place weren’t much of anything.”
“Probably new recruits, the lowest dregs who only just joined Paegeommun.”
“Yeah. They deliberately sent the green ones just to wear us down. The real fighters will be farther up the line.”
Cheonhwa nodded again.
After Paegeommun’s declaration of war became known, the sect had begun a full southward push. Swollen with the unorthodox factions it had absorbed, it drove its forces all the way to the edge of Yan’an. In response, Zhongnan Sect, Huashan Sect, and the Beggar’s Union split their strength into three directions to drive the front north again.
The central axis toward Luochuan County was given to a mixed force of Huashan and Zhongnan. The flanks—Huangling County and Yichuan County—fell to the younger generations of Zhongnan and Huashan respectively.
“Concentrate everything on one side and you just get surrounded and beaten. They said we have to lift the whole front at once, right?”
“Yes. Put the main weight on Luochuan in the center, and the two wings—us—support from behind as we advance.”
Recalling the briefing he and Myeonghwa had received, Cheonhwa felt how utterly different this war was from any battle he had known.
I’ve fought large-scale battles before, but none of them felt like this.
Recently he had helped cleanse southern Shaanxi and had fought the Anti-Dragon King faction. The southern campaign had been a series of separate strikes against unorthodox groups in each town; the clash with the Anti-Dragon King faction had been a single massed battle in one place.
This war requires us to move on both flanks at once and seize the enemy’s ground.
Even if the front advanced, an empty rear invited a flanking strike from behind. Rear-guard units were therefore ready to hold the line, and messengers kept the center and both wings in constant contact so they could reinforce one another. The Beggar’s Union had taken full responsibility for scouts and couriers.
Pulling this many fighters to the front inevitably thinned the defenses of the main mountains, but that shortfall would be made up through the Martial Alliance. As the coalition of the righteous sects, it could hardly stay out of an affair this large. Direct combat aid might be difficult, yet guarding the rear was well within its power. Should the joint Zhongnan-Huashan force suffer defeat, the Alliance’s follow-up troops would step in and end the war.
Beyond that, people and supplies were already moving on every front for this conflict.
Even a war between great sects is this tangled. I can barely imagine how much more complicated it must be when the imperial army, which can field far greater numbers, takes the field.
He understood anew why the authorities so rarely committed their military forces.
Just then Cheonhwa sensed someone approaching. A Beggar’s Union agent was racing toward them with intelligence. The moment Cheonhwa saw the man’s face, surprise lit his own; the agent, recognizing Cheonhwa in turn, broke into a glad smile.
“It’s been a long time, Young Master.”
“It has. You’ve been well, Jangsam?”
He was the Beggar’s Union man who had once infiltrated the shipboard auction hosted by Muksangbang under the alias Jangsam. Both men remembered the roles they had played—servant and spoiled young master—and a snort of laughter escaped them.
Feeling left out, Myeonghwa asked,
“What, you two know each other?”
“We worked a mission together once.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Daoist Myeonghwa. Name’s Jangsam.”
“Still using the alias Jangsam?”
“Yes. It’s common enough that it makes a convenient cover. So feel free to call me Jangsam, Daoist Cheonhwa.”
Both would have liked to talk longer, but war left little room for leisure. Jangsam came straight to the point.
“One of Paegeommun’s units is marching due south. Looks like the clash will come at Fuxian.”
“The way you single them out, they don’t sound like the rabble we just faced.”
“Correct. It’s a regular unit of Paegeommun led by a Peak Expert who bears the title Nachalgeom—the Rakshasa Sword.”
“A regular unit. We won’t win as easily as we did here.”
“You won’t. Anyone who’s climbed any height in Paegeommun is utterly mad for the sword.”
Paegeommun was an unorthodox sect that sought the pinnacle of the sword through the path of domination. Those who reached high attainment in its arts were therefore obsessed with swordsmanship to an uncommon degree. There was a reason the disciples of Paegeommun were called Sword Maniacs.
I heard Paegeommun’s main art is the Tyrant Sword.
The principle of Tyranny was as powerful as the principle of Strength, as swift as the principle of Speed, and as relentless as the principle of Continuity, pouring out linked attacks in an unending cascade. Matching that power, its consumption was fiercer than any other principle, a martial doctrine built for short, decisive battles.
If they’ve cultivated demonic arts as well, they can offset much of that drawback.
They would not be easy opponents, yet Cheonhwa had no thought of retreating. The moment he fell back, the smile he had just seen on that boy’s face would vanish, and once again the people would twist their faces in suffering.
I trained all this time precisely so I could stand against injustice like this.
Remembering his original resolve, Cheonhwa steeled his will for battle.