So This Was the Path of Hegemony
That evening, in a secluded corner of the Nokhyeon Sect, dozens of outer disciples Yuk Im had scraped together stood in a restless crowd. Before them he was shouting with all the passion he could muster, arms and legs cutting the air.
"That wretch who deserves to be torn apart hasn't insulted me alone. He has insulted the Nokhyeon Sect, and every one of us outer disciples. If we let this pass, the order we have guarded together will collapse. I am certain not a single one of you would stand by and watch."
They all nodded. Not everyone agreed in their hearts, but among the outer disciples Yuk Im held some of the highest authority, and the outer elder trusted him deeply besides. He was harsh toward those beneath him, nothing like the deference he showed his betters, yet he also held the right to train disciples in the elder's stead. No outer disciple wanted to cross him.
He made no effort to hide the swollen wounds on his face. With fevered eloquence he told them how Yi Yeok had insulted him, the outer disciples, even the Nokhyeon Sect itself — how the man had looked down on the elders and bared an ambition to tear the sect's order apart. He exaggerated what had happened, and where the truth ran out, he invented it.
"I thought he was merely young and ignorant of the world, and I meant to admonish him gently. And what does he do? He ambushes me and beats me without warning. I could have killed him with a single blow on the spot, but the responsibility on my shoulders is not light. I had no choice but to take the beating."
"Senior Brother Yuk's forbearance runs deep indeed. Had I suffered the same humiliation, I would have forgotten every duty the sect ever laid on me and killed the bastard in an instant."
"I very nearly did. It was only by thinking of the brothers gathered here that I managed to endure."
Yuk Im seemed to possess a genuine gift for storytelling. Little by little he grew drunk on his own words, until at last he appeared to believe them himself.
"If the brothers here are of one mind, let us go to him at once. That Yi Yeok dared to throw the Nokhyeon Sect's order into chaos and insult me and my brothers. Let us make him pay for it with his life!"
Everyone resolved to follow where Yuk Im led. A few among them privately savored the humiliation he had suffered, but if this Yi Yeok truly disrupted the outer sect's order, none of them stood to gain by it.
A short while later, Yuk Im and his company arrived at the quarters assigned to Yi Yeok and Yeogwi. They had come ready to drag Yi Yeok out and beat him bloody, yet they stopped short and lost the words in their throats.
Hanging from the eaves like wind chimes were the brothers Hwa Jin and Hwa Woo.
Several disciples swallowed hard. The pair had earned plenty of resentment for tormenting their fellow disciples like mad dogs, but their skill was high enough that no one had dared lay a hand on them. Now the Hwa brothers dangled there, beaten until their faces no longer held a human shape, and no one could find a word to follow.
Yuk Im, by contrast, cheered inwardly. Assigning Yi Yeok and Yeogwi to the Hwa brothers' room had been deliberate. If the Hwas had subdued them, so much the better — and even if it came to this, he would still have a pretext for punishing Yi Yeok. Either way, it served him.
"Cowardly work. That Yi Yeok must have used some underhanded trick on Brothers Hwa Jin and Hwa Woo. A wretch like him could never have beaten the Hwa brothers in a fair fight."
At his explanation, the disciples looked a little easier.
"I know some of you bear personal grudges against them. Even so, they are our brothers. A man who has only just arrived, who hasn't even been formally admitted, has harmed our brothers by cowardly means. We cannot let this pass."
He had a storyteller's gift, and a demagogue's in equal measure. Anger and killing intent began to kindle in the eyes of the gathered disciples.
"Senior Brother Yuk is right. A sect needs order. We aren't fools for upholding it!"
"That's right. This is no different from an insult to all of us. We need to carve the order we've kept deep into that bastard's bones."
"I only worry this will put our brothers in a difficult position. He is no ordinary cunning, vicious wretch."
Yuk Im's belated show of concern only whipped the crowd higher.
"Don't worry. Even if the little bastard has a few tricks, how could he face everyone here?"
Then the door of the quarters opened.
Yi Yeok stepped out, and Yeogwi followed to lean against the doorframe. The crowd went quiet. On the surface he was merely a handsome face, with no great ability apparent — and yet, strangely, an unnameable tension locked their bodies stiff.
Yi Yeok picked Yuk Im out of the press and looked him straight in the face.
"You're here already. Quicker on your feet than I expected."
Yuk Im clenched his teeth, trying to shake off the fear creeping up through him.
"That's him. That's Yi Yeok...!"
A fat disciple on familiar terms with Yuk Im stepped forward.
"You've got some nerve. A man who hasn't even shaken the dust of the mortal world off his heels, daring to insult his seniors. Kneel, now! Beg Senior Brother Yuk and your seniors for mercy. If Senior Brother Yuk is generous, you might keep your life. If he isn't, I'll gouge out those eyes, hack off your arms and legs, and toss what's left into the Heaven-Center Immortal Realm!"
The others rushed to outdo him, pouring out ever more savage threats in a rising clamor. They belonged to an immortal sect, yes, but as outer disciples they were also its lowest rank, and resentment long suppressed was bursting out through the crack of an opportunity.
"Thank you, senior brothers. Busy men that you are, you've all come together to celebrate the birth of the outer sect's new number one. I hardly know where to put myself."
Yeogwi let out a snort of laughter.
"Polite lot, aren't they. Gathering in such numbers at this hour, just to offer congratulations."
The fat youth shouted, more incensed than ever.
"You dare play word games with me? I'll kill you today if that's what it takes to teach you how to conduct yourself!"
"Cut out that bewitching tongue first!"
"Then the wrists! Let him remember the price of strutting as if he didn't know how high the sky sits!"
The roar reached its peak. Disciples clenched fists or drew weapons and settled into attacking stances. Not one of them meant to leave Yi Yeok alive — nor Yeogwi, for that matter. The elders didn't even know the two existed. They had yet to pass formal admission.
Yi Yeok vanished. Before anyone properly registered the fact, he was standing in their midst.
"Ghk—!"
"Urk!"
He was back where he had stood. A few of the weaker disciples hadn't even grasped that he had disappeared and reappeared.
The one who had shouted to cut out his tongue had his mouth crushed. The one who had called for his wrists to be severed had his wrists severed. Those who managed, barely, to understand what had happened felt a chill race down their spines.
"I'm a little confused. Which senior brother was it who said he'd gouge out my eyes and cut off my arms and legs?"
The fat disciple recoiled in terror and retreated behind his brothers. His bulk, of course, was far too much for anyone to hide.
"He's using some uncanny art!"
Yuk Im ground his teeth at him. The fight hadn't even properly begun, and already he was rattling their own side?
"Don't panic! It's nothing but a trick of the eye. Even if he does wield some strange art, how can one man handle numbers like these? Don't forget — every one of us is a disciple of the Nokhyeon Sect!"
The unrest eased a little. Afraid of losing the momentum, Yuk Im pressed on in a rush.
"Strike him all at once! I don't care if you kill him in a single blow!"
He had hoped to take the man alive and make him pay for the insult, but they might well suffer no small damage if this dragged on. Grasping his intent, the disciples surged toward Yi Yeok in a murderous tide.
"Hahahaha! Now this is what I wanted! I've been waiting, senior brothers!"
Yi Yeok burst into a delighted roar of laughter and charged to meet them.
His figure wavered like a heat haze, as if he were turning into wind. Like a wind no stone wall, no pagoda, no rampart could stop, he moved freely through the disciples rushing in on him. He collided with them like lightning. Each time, a flash lit the dark, and fresh blood was drawn across an arm, a leg, a chest.
Those who felt fear fell back, and those in the rear shoved them forward. Tangled together like that, however many they were, they were nothing but a rabble.
A few who wanted an easier mark spotted Yeogwi and closed in on him.
"Hah. So you think I'm the soft one?"
Yeogwi snorted and swung his sword, scabbard and all. The disciples who had come at him were smashed and broken in an instant, tumbling across the ground.
"Hey. You sure you can handle what comes after this?"
Yeogwi shouted. Yi Yeok didn't so much as pretend to hear. He only laughed as if he could hardly contain his delight, dropping the men who crowded him one by one.
A moment later he was back at Yeogwi's side. For all that rampage, not a drop of sweat stood on him.
"The aftermath? Not confident at all."
Yeogwi let out an empty laugh.
Yuk Im and roughly half their number were still standing, but they couldn't bring themselves to rush Yi Yeok.
"B-brothers! Don't fall back. If we just push a little harder..."
"Damn it! Stop running your mouth and lead the charge yourself!"
It was none other than the fat disciple who shouted. Once the first defiance broke out, cries rose from every side.
"All you've done is talk. You haven't swung a blade once, and you mean to drive us like cattle?"
"You've only ever known how to order people around with a jerk of your chin. When have you ever shown real skill? That's why a newcomer beat you bloody. You started this. You clean it up!"
Yi Yeok and Yeogwi watched the infighting and snickered.
"Fair point."
"Fair, my ass. They all started this together, and now they're looking for a sacrifice."
The world went dark before Yuk Im's eyes. He had no idea how to untangle this.
But he couldn't simply stand there. He took a few steps forward and forced his mouth open.
"J-junior brother."
"Junior brother? You and me?"
"Why must you be like this, junior brother? You belong to the Nokhyeon Sect as well. You're no different from our brothers. Let us stop here."
"You started it, and now that you can't clean it up, you want to call it off?"
"Don't do this. I'll apologize. I wasn't entirely in the right either."
Yuk Im's eyes fell on the Hwa brothers, still dangling. Hope flickered. If he used them, he might yet salvage the situation.
"I already knew how rough-tempered Brothers Hwa Jin and Hwa Woo were. I meant to find a pretext and drive them out before long, so I'm grateful you handled them in my place. Let us do it this way. We'll say the Hwa brothers abused you newcomers, and the outer disciples, unable to stand by, joined together to punish them."
He glanced around at the disciples groaning where Yi Yeok had scattered them. His thoughts were sorting themselves out, and the words came more smoothly.
"Those injured and broken now will be recorded as the Hwa brothers' doing as well. Fortunately you stayed your hand, and no one is dead. Do it that way, and no one need take responsibility — the situation can be settled. If everyone here keeps their mouth shut, the elders won't know a thing!"
The disciples around him grasped the plan and nodded with fervent enthusiasm.
"Let's do that, senior brother! Let's end it here."
"I'll take today's business to my grave!"
Yi Yeok stroked his chin as if it were a fine idea. Hope lit the disciples' faces. Yeogwi watched him with interest. In his judgment, this was not a man who would ever let it end that way.
"No one's dead, so it can still be cleaned up..."
"Yes! Exactly that!"
"Then what happens if I do this?"
Yi Yeok drew Yojiyu and stepped toward the Hwa brothers. In the instant the dagger flashed, a single stroke took the heads of Hwa Jin and Hwa Woo at once.
The two heads rolled and came to rest at Yuk Im's feet. His mouth fell open, but no words would come. He only gaped like a fish.