Such a Shallow Trick
Lee Yeok unleashed the Myecheonjinhwan Jeolyeongsu—the Myriad True Illusory Shadow-Severing Hands—and attacked the woman. In the span of a single heartbeat, dozens, perhaps hundreds of strikes came pouring down.
The woman's expression, composed and unhurried until now, stiffened for the first time. The Myecheonjinhwan Jeolyeongsu bore down on her with the fury of a storm overturning heaven and earth, every one of those countless strikes aimed at a fatal point.
But the woman was no ordinary person. Like petals scattering on the wind, she slipped through that avalanche of attacks with graceful, flowing movements.
Unease stirred in Lee Yeok's chest. Unlike the woman, the time he could remain airborne was severely limited.
He gritted his teeth and steeled himself. I will kill her—no matter what!
Gradually, shadows crept across the woman's frozen face, and the faintest wrinkle appeared between her beautiful brows. The whistle of the Yojiyu cutting through the air was as relentless as a waterfall.
Lee Yeok knew instinctively that in the next instant he would begin to fall. This would be his final strike. He twisted his wrist, altering the Yojiyu's trajectory.
Startled by the unexpected movement, the woman twisted away to dodge the blade. A few strands of hair, blacker than the night sky, drifted loose into the air.
Bang!
Lee Yeok crashed to the ground. He immediately rolled and sprang back up into a defensive stance.
"If you want to die that badly, I suppose I have no choice."
The woman's voice was so frigid it could have frozen the night wind itself. As she posed her right hand in a strange configuration and murmured something under her breath, the air around her began to tremble.
In an instant, the air condensed like steam crystallizing into water, transforming into razor-sharp swords that hurtled toward Lee Yeok.
Shwaaaaak!
He barely dodged. The sword grazing past his shoulder cleaved the tree behind him clean in two.
He had no time to inspect the severed tree. Two, three, then dozens more—like a hundred archers loosing arrows at once, the dozens of swords the woman had conjured from thin air flew at him without pause.
Clang!
A moment later, the Yojiyu—having shattered the last of the swords—turned once more to aim at the woman suspended in midair.
Exhaustion was plain on Lee Yeok's face. Wounds gaped all over his body, seeping fresh blood. Yet the fighting spirit burning in his eyes had dimmed not one whit.
"Does death not frighten you?" the woman asked quietly.
"Of course it scares me," Lee Yeok said with a wide grin. "But I don't think I'll be dying today."
"How rash. Your confidence is remarkable. Or should I call it foolhardiness?"
Despite the mockery lacing her words, Lee Yeok did not waver.
"Give me your name."
"You think you can't kill me today, is that it?"
"Maybe not today, but someday you'll die by my hand. If you'd rather not, give back the Eunhyeol. In return, I'll spare that wretched life of yours."
The woman flashed a seductive smile. It was a deliberately calculated expression, the kind that had sapped the fighting spirit of countless masters she'd faced—men, and on occasion even women.
But Lee Yeok remained unmoved.
"However beautiful a flower may be, if it carries deadly poison, it has no value at all."
It was a cutting remark that made it perfectly clear he saw straight through her intent. The woman felt caught off guard. Her pride wounded, fury surged up inside her.
She took a deep breath and forced her emotions back down. That was exactly what he wanted. To be swayed by a mere mortal—that, above all, would be a stain upon her dignity.
"Enough. There's no need to waste any more time on a pig or a dog, unworthy even of the name of beast."
The woman turned her body around in midair.
Whiik—
A moment later came a slender sound, so faint one would have missed it without listening carefully. It was the Yojiyu flying at her with terrific speed.
Without even attempting to dodge, the Yojiyu veered far wide of her. The woman sneered.
But something was wrong. The Yojiyu traced a wide half-circle, and in the next instant began circling around her, her at its center. And still it did not stop.
Only then did the woman realize the Yojiyu was tethered to a fine, thin cord.
Before she could do anything about it, the cord riding the Yojiyu whipped around and bound her body fast.
"Such a shallow trick—!"
Lee Yeok yanked hard on the cord of the makeshift lasso he had tied around the Yojiyu with every ounce of strength he had left.
Thud!
The woman was slammed into the ground. For the first time in an incalculably long life, her skin touched dirt—and her face went deathly pale. It felt like falling into a pool crawling with repulsive insects; gooseflesh rippled across her skin.
Lee Yeok threw himself onto the fallen woman. With no time to retract the Yojiyu, he rained down blows with his bare fists.
Wham! Wham! Wham-wham!
"You damned bitch! How dare you look at me like that? Who the hell are you to scorn me? Say it again! I dare you—say it one more time!"
Lee Yeok's fists hammered into her face without pause. Half her head was driven into the dirt.
"Graaagh!"
The woman screamed. Her face was a smeared ruin, her whole body caked in dust. It was a humiliation and disgrace she had never once experienced in her long existence—had never even been able to imagine.
Lee Yeok, wild-eyed, groped over her body and pressed down on her acupoints one after another, trying to seal her movements. The tremendous vital force surging from her body made his fingers feel as though they would snap.
It worked. Her thrashing visibly weakened. Her expression twisted into murderous fury—a look that could have torn a man apart with her eyes alone. Lee Yeok drove his fist into that face yet again.
"What are you looking at!"
Wham! Wham-wham! Wham!
"Damn it, how are you this sturdy?"
After beating at her for a long while longer, Lee Yeok growled in irritation. The woman was a filthy, disheveled mess, her long hair tangled and wild—yet her face, after dozens of direct hits, bore not a single scratch.
He could feel her slowly working her sealed acupoints free.
Pressing his left forearm down across her throat to choke her, Lee Yeok groped with his right hand until he found the Yojiyu. The Yojiyu would be enough to kill her.
The instant his fingers closed around it, a chill shot down his spine.
He kicked off the ground and tore himself away from her body at once. For Lee Yeok, who had tempered the Eunbaek Shinhon-gyeol, instinct had always been faster and truer than judgment.
KWA-BOOM!
A massive explosion tore through the earth, hurling clods of dirt in every direction.
The hazy cloud of dust settled. The woman, cord now severed, revealed herself hovering in midair once more—though unlike before, her appearance was a complete disaster.
"You... I'll tear you apart... ten thousand deaths wouldn't be enough... I'd chew your guts and still not be satisfied...!"
Her face, a maelstrom of rage and humiliation, was still beautiful—but now it was the kind of beauty that inspired terror rather than longing.
"I'll flay that pretty skin from your living body and tear you limb from limb! I'll make you weep and beg me for the mercy of death! You will not die a clean death—never!"
Her voice, pouring out curses like retched blood, was still as lovely as a played instrument—and that very dissonance made it all the more horrifying.
Lee Yeok listened to her curses in silence as he drew in a long, steady breath.
"Hey, you done? Then shut that filthy mouth of yours and come on down. One more round."
The woman bit her lip at the vulgar provocation, worthy of some street thug. She wanted to tear him apart on the spot, but the memory of her humiliation moments ago—of her own disheveled state—made her shudder with shame.
"Today is enough."
The woman glared at Lee Yeok with smoldering eyes.
"Mark my words. You had best abandon any thought of living long, or of dying a peaceful death."
"I've been marking my words for eleven years already, you stupid bitch."
Furious, the woman stamped her foot in midair. Bang! With a thunderous detonation, she vanished without a trace.
"Hoo..."
Lee Yeok let out a long sigh. When he unclenched his fists, both hands were trembling. The Myecheonjinhwan Jeolyeongsu was a technique that placed a heavy burden on the body, and this was the first time he had ever pushed it so hard, so many times in succession.
"There goes ten years of my lifespan."
By now, dawn was fast approaching. He needed to hurry back.
The moment he moved to leave, he noticed something half-buried in the dirt, glittering with a jewel-like radiance in the moonlight.
Digging through the soil, he found a jade tablet—elongated and oval, with a ring-shaped hole pierced through its center. Lee Yeok narrowed his eyes and read the characters engraved on its surface.
"Guryeong (Nine Spirits)?"
It was a phrase he had never seen before in his life.
"Guryeong, Guryeong... Is it the name of a sect? Or that woman's name? Probably a sect. Naming a person Guryeong would be far too rustic."
Lee Yeok tucked the Guryeong jade tablet into his breast.
"Well, all things considered, that hellish ordeal wasn't for nothing."