The Spiritual Treasure
The first-class assassin who had taken Cheonhwa’s decisive strike tumbled across the ground and lost consciousness on the spot.
Around the same time, the assassin Daehwa had been fighting also collapsed.
With every member of the White Tiger Unit that had come as reinforcements lying defeated, the assassins finally showed the first signs of agitation.
Cheonhwa flicked his wooden sword once and asked,
“Will you continue?”
It was a threat laced with bluff.
Cheonhwa himself—and Daehwa as well—were considerably spent from the string of battles so far. Yet without letting it show, they raised their auras and pressed the assassins hard.
The Heaven Tiger Unit was still exchanging glances among themselves when—
Wheeeee!
A sharp whistle cut through the air from somewhere unseen.
The instant the sound reached them, every trace of hesitation vanished from the assassins’ eyes.
“Withdraw!”
With that single command they fell back as one, not even sparing a glance for the fallen White Tiger Unit.
Apparently the whistle had been the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion’s retreat signal.
The entrance disciples watched the scene without lowering their guard. They did not give chase. They lacked the strength for it. Maintaining their sword formation, they simply watched the assassins melt into the darkness.
Before long, every last trace of the assassins’ presence was gone.
“Is it… over?”
The muttered words belonged to someone, yet they were the thought shared by every entrance disciple present.
But as if to deny that hope, a new presence approached from their direction.
“There’s a presence coming this way!”
“Have the assassins come back?!”
“Raise your wooden swords! Reform the sword formation!”
At Cheonhwa’s warning the entrance disciples snapped the slackening strings of tension tight once more.
Moments later the owner of the presence stepped out of the dark.
“Is everyone unharmed?!”
It was Muwol, together with the second-generation disciples. Having broken through the White Tiger Unit’s interference and followed the traces of the signal fireworks, they had finally reached this place.
Muwol took in the devastation around them: assassins strewn across the ground, entrance disciples still holding formation, the tattered wooden swords clutched in their hands—every mark of boys and girls who had fought with everything they had while the instructors could not reach them.
“You’ve worked hard. And thank you for staying alive.”
Muwol and the other second-generation disciples meant every word. On the way here they had passed entrance disciples who had fallen to the assassins; seeing those who had not merely survived the ambush but resisted to the very end filled them with pride.
“We’re alive……”
Only after confirming the faces of the second-generation disciples did the entrance disciples finally let their guard down and sink to the ground one by one. With the tension gone, exhaustion crashed over them in a single wave. The assassins’ surprise attack had been brutal, yet the three days of rough camping for the promotion exam had taken an even heavier toll. Cheonhwa, who looked scarcely different from usual despite the same ordeal, was the strange one.
“Some of you take the entrance disciples and return to the main mountain. The rest will clean up the battlefield.”
A bitter light flickered through Muwol’s eyes. Though he called it cleaning the battlefield, the real work was recovering the fallen entrance disciples. They were children he had taught for three years—children he had grown attached to—and the grief cut that much deeper.
After Muwol left, the remaining second-generation disciples spoke to the survivors.
“You’re exhausted and worn out, but rest can wait until we return. We’re heading back to the main mountain.”
The assassins had withdrawn, yet no one could swear the area was safe. The second-generation disciples led the entrance disciples toward the main mountain.
Cheonhwa set out on the homeward road with his sect brothers and sisters. The moment they reached the main mountain, a restless clamor washed over them.
Something feels off.
Cheonhwa sensed an inexplicable unease in the main mountain’s turmoil—something separate from the attack on the examination grounds. An ominous premonition stirred, and as always that premonition proved unerringly true.
“Martial Uncle Jinhyun is critically wounded?”
The words he caught with the keen hearing of the Six Harmony Sensory Path made Cheonhwa’s face harden to stone.
While Cheonhwa and the entrance disciples were under assault by the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion, an intruder had slipped into the main mountain’s Jangseogak amid the chaos.
Jinhyun discovered him and barred the way; combat followed at once. Material damage was limited to the wreckage of Jangseogak’s first floor. But having poured everything into containing the destruction, Jinhyun now hovered at the edge of death. The intruder, himself grievously wounded, had fled. Pursuit followed the trail only until it vanished midway; the man escaped.
That was the full account of the incident as it reached Cheonhwa.
Now he walked behind Danwon, Head of the Medicine Hall, toward the sickroom where Jinhyun lay. Jinhyun had barely regained consciousness and had asked that Cheonhwa be brought to him.
“We’ve taken every measure we can, but even so, keeping him breathing was the limit. Even that will not last long.”
Danwon’s voice sounded colder than usual. That stern tone recalled a judge of hell pronouncing unavoidable death; at the same time it seemed she was repeating the words so she herself could accept the inescapable truth.
“Think of this meeting as possibly the last.”
With that she ushered Cheonhwa into the room.
Jinhyun sat upright on the sickbed. His face was as calm as ever. Yet the deathly pallor, the bandages swathing his entire body, the iron tang of blood and the bitter reek of medicine that brushed the tip of the nose all spoke the same truth: the days left to him were few. The appearance of health was only the final flicker of a candle about to die—the last flare of returning light.
“……”
Not knowing what to do, Cheonhwa stood frozen with his mouth shut. His mind had gone blank white; no words would come.
“I heard there was an attack. Is your body all right?”
Jinhyun asked. Then, as if the earlier silence had been a lie, the answer left Cheonhwa’s lips at once.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“That’s a relief, then.”
Jinhyun smiled gently—a kindly smile that made the death standing at his shoulder seem like a lie.
Why, even while dying, was he worrying about Cheonhwa?
As if he had read the thought, Jinhyun continued.
“The reason I worry about you is because I feel the responsibility and duty of having brought you to the Zhongnan Sect.”
Just as he had once spoken of responsibility and duty when Cheonhwa trembled with anxiety before truly entering the martial path, Jinhyun spoke of them again. They had never been mere words of comfort to soothe a child. Only now did Cheonhwa understand they had been the words of an oath for which the man had staked even his own life.
“Does that mean I have that much worth? Enough to stake a life on?”
“Of course. I can say with certainty that meeting you then and bringing you to the Zhongnan Sect was the best choice of my life.”
“……”
“And so I am all the more sorry. Whether I have only added to the weight on your heart without having done anything proper for you until now.”
The light of life was guttering. With every word he grew rapidly weaker. Yet Jinhyun did not stop; he spoke to the very end.
“So at least move as your heart leads. Wherever I am, I will cheer for you.”
With those words Jinhyun breathed his last, his face as peaceful as if he had simply fallen asleep.
A grand funeral was held at the Zhongnan Sect—a joint rite for all who had lost their lives in the attack. Jinhyun was among them, of course.
In the murim, when blood ties were absent, the master-disciple lineage of a sect often took their place. Jinhyun, however, had neither master nor disciple. Thus Gakhyeon, his closest friend, came to preside over the funeral.
In Jinhyun’s personal quarters almost nothing that could be called a personal belonging remained. The room was so spare it felt desolate, like a guest chamber prepared so one might leave at any moment. Yet for other people he had left a whole heap of keepsakes. Worry for those who would remain after him could be felt in every item.
Among the things that came to Cheonhwa were spiritual medicines and a book. He entrusted the medicines to the Zhongnan Sect for safekeeping and kept only the book.
On its cover was written:
Six Harmony Sensory Path
It was the completed version of the martial-arts manual Jinhyun had once handed him at the Submerged Water training ground.
Alone in his quarters, Cheonhwa looked down at the manual and sank into thought. For some reason tears would not come—not at the moment of Jinhyun’s death, not during the funeral, not even when he received the manual as his share of the keepsakes. He was not without sorrow, yet the feeling never rose high enough to overflow.
Why? he asked himself.
Because we weren’t that close.
Close enough that one could not call it distant; distant enough that one could not call it close—an ambiguous distance. That had been the space between Cheonhwa and Jinhyun.
Then the final conversation flashed through his mind. “Sorry for not having done anything for you.” Those words stuck in a corner of his head and would not leave. Had Jinhyun truly done nothing?
No.
It was Jinhyun who had brought him to the Zhongnan Sect. It was Jinhyun who had comforted him when he trembled with fear before beginning martial training. It was Jinhyun who had always answered with his utmost whenever Cheonhwa came with questions. Materially, yes, Jinhyun might have given him little. Yet Jinhyun had always waited for him at Jangseogak.
The one who should have said sorry was me.
For three years Cheonhwa had driven himself forward for his own sake, and Jinhyun had simply stepped back a pace and watched in silence. That had not been wrong. But still. Even so. Nevertheless. He could not shake the feeling that he should not have left it at that.
“I should have visited more often.”
The words slipped out unbidden. The boy who had run looking only straight ahead looked back at last upon the footprints he had left, and belatedly saw the traces of an adult remaining in them. Yet they could no longer spend time together. Even if he spoke his thanks, the words would never reach the man himself.
The moment he realized that death had stolen a piece of the everyday he had taken for granted, a scar named regret was carved deep into a corner of his chest.
“I never even said thank you at the end.”
And that scar, though it might not hurt, would remain forever vivid in memory. Whenever he used the martial art the Taoist had left him, the man’s face would rise unbidden.
Truly, precious things were always understood only after they were lost.
Once the aftermath of the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion’s attack during the third promotion examination and the intrusion into the Zhongnan Sect main mountain had been settled for the time being, the Sect Leader and elders gathered for a council.
The subject was the contents of the will Jinhyun had left behind.
“According to the will, the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion’s attack was carried out at the instigation of the intruder who entered the main mountain.”
Clear evidence was absent from the will. Yet words left by one who could read the heavenly secrets could not be dismissed lightly.
“Though we cannot know his purpose in infiltrating, to use one corner of the Six Tyrant Coalition as a mere piece for the infiltration—how bold.”
“Moreover, seeing that he brought Martial Nephew Jinhyun down and still escaped pursuit despite serious wounds, we must regard the opponent as at least a Super Expert who has achieved the Three Flowers Gathering.”
“From the traces remaining in Jangseogak, a heterodox and alien energy belonging to the intruder was discovered. It appears he has refined a wicked demonic art.”
“According to the debriefing Martial Nephew Jinhyun gave immediately after waking, the opponent can read the heavenly secrets and planned the entire affair on the basis of foresight.”
Sect Leader Okwon Jinin listened to the elders and sank into thought. At first glance the series of events had looked like a diversionary operation by the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion. The traces left in Jangseogak and the will Jinhyun had written denied that conclusion.
Though the Dark Night Assassination Pavilion walks the evil path, I have never heard of them employing arts that refine a wicked and alien energy.
The possibility that they had cultivated such arts in secret was not zero. Yet Okwon Jinin felt intuitively that the attack and the intruder were separate matters.
To hire so many assassins at once would have required enormous funds. For a private individual to raise that sum is extremely difficult.
Therefore he reached the conclusion that the incident was not the work of a lone person but an organized movement by a specific force.
A mysterious power that toys with both the orthodox and the evil paths alike……
It was the first moment a mysterious force that had long operated in the shadows beyond the curtain was spoken of openly in the light of day.