I Value the Rules, but I Defy Heaven
Once more Yi Yeok called his brother Yi Pyeong to mind. That overwhelming strength. That arrogant bearing, as if nothing in the world could stand in his way. Only now did he understand it. If a man meant to survive inside an immortal sect, that was the only posture he could afford.
As if to prove the thought, terror rose across the faces of the gathered crowd. They could not even scream — only choked, frightened groans. Since they had come to belong to the Celestial Realm they had grown numb to other people's deaths, yet the moment death came for them, they were no different from ordinary mortals.
"Tongue gone stiff? It was working fine a moment ago. I told you to talk. A man's dead. How do you plan to clean this up?"
Yuk Im's body had locked rigid; he could not answer. Yi Yeok, without a single drop of blood on his sleeve, looked to him like some blood-starved monster — hideous to behold.
"I'll make the offer first. There are two ways. Yuk Im, you take the blame alone and die — or you die together with everyone you dragged into this."
Faces that had gone corpse-white now took on a sickly blue.
"N-no...! Kill me, and you won't walk away either... The elders will never let you live...!"
The words scraped out of Yuk Im as if his throat were being crushed, and then he collapsed. From the wound already scored across his neck, blood poured.
"Ghk... kh..."
A few hiccuping sounds, and Yuk Im was dead.
"Never did get an answer."
Yi Yeok looked over the disciples who remained.
"What do you think? Which would Yuk Im have picked? Dying alone? Or dying with the rest of you?"
Terror had frozen their legs. The thought of running never even occurred to them.
Then a shout, thick with rage, tore through the air.
"What is this...! What do you think you're doing!"
Someone came hurtling through the air with savage force. He was moving too fast to see clearly, but the blood qi and the blood-specter churning around his body were unmistakable.
Boom!
A fist strike laden with killing intent shook the air. Yi Yeok let the blow glance off his forearm.
"Hold on, you damn thief! That man is probably—!"
Yeogwi lunged to stop him.
Too late. Yojiyu flashed once more, and the middle-aged man who had charged Yi Yeok crumpled, adding his own blood to the pool Yuk Im had already made.
"Heavens...! Elder Son!"
The disciples cried out in shock. Yeogwi pressed a hand to his brow.
"Shit... You killed an elder too. There's no coming back from this."
For the first time, surprise crossed Yi Yeok's face — though not for the reason anyone might have expected.
"That was an elder? Why was he so weak?"
"Or maybe you're just too damn strong? What kind of fortune did you stumble into? Last time I saw you, you weren't anywhere near this. What the hell did that old man of yours teach you? Don't tell me you've been cultivating the immortal path this whole time."
"I don't know."
Yi Yeok blinked.
"I just... trained the way the old man told me to."
The power of the Heavenly Origin Immortal Soul Pill the old man had passed to him still lingered in his body. Even so, Yi Yeok had no idea where an explanation would even begin.
Yeogwi clicked his tongue at the fallen elder's corpse.
"You rotten bastard. Even so, why the hell did you have to blow this up so big? You're an animal."
"Tch. He came at me meaning to kill me on the spot. What was I supposed to do? If he'd asked what happened first, maybe. Can't be helped. These days even I can't control how my hands move."
"Even an outer elder is the face of the sect. Kill a man like that and there's truly no fixing it. How about we just wipe out Nokhyeon Sect instead?"
"Do we really have to go that far?"
"It's already come to this — all or nothing. Run, and they'll still come for revenge. Better to cut the sprout out than spend the rest of our lives being hunted. That's the rule of the martial world."
The disciples, already blue with fright, went yellow, then white again — their faces cycling through a whole gaudy spectrum of dread.
"But if we annihilate Nokhyeon Sect, what happens to the money we paid?"
"Fair point. Then while you fight, I'll go clean out their coffers. That'll do."
"Something's off about that. I'm the thief, and I'm the one fighting — while you, the assassin, do the stealing?"
Yeogwi opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. Everyone present turned. A presence washed over them that made everything before it seem small.
For an instant Yi Yeok thought Yi Pyeong had appeared, and the shock of it struck him. A second look showed a hulking, heavily muscled man with coarse, heavy features — nothing at all like Yi Pyeong. And yet the aura rolling off him was similar.
Yi Yeok understood that he was facing the strongest man he had met since entering Nokhyeon Sect, and for the first time his shoulders drew tight.
"What is happening here?"
The man spoke in a clear, beautiful voice utterly at odds with his appearance. Not one disciple dared answer. Realizing that Yi Yeok stood at the center of it, he asked again.
"An unfamiliar face. Was this your doing?"
He did not seem to be deliberately rousing his power, and yet a dreadful blood qi rose from him the way a spring wells up of its own accord. Yi Yeok had to fight not to be crushed beneath it.
"I did it. I didn't start it."
"I see. Then how did it begin?"
"These seniors here were treating us newcomers unfairly. I only answered them as they deserved."
The man's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Unfair treatment... I can well imagine. Still, an ordinary new disciple would choose to endure."
"We aren't... at least, I'm not an ordinary newcomer."
The man laughed, long and deep. Then, all at once, his face hardened, and he fixed Yi Yeok with a stare.
"Do you truly believe that?"
He drew his blood qi up in earnest. A crimson haze bloomed around him, surging like a tide and warping the world at its edges. Several disciples could not endure the pressure shaking the air. They foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
Yi Yeok did not give ground. He knew that if he showed even a hair of an opening, if his momentum broke for so much as an instant, his head would leave his shoulders.
A moment later the man laughed again, louder than before.
"Excellent!"
The heaving blood qi scattered like mist. Before he knew it, Yeogwi had let out a long, heavy breath.
He looked at Yi Yeok with open pleasure.
"What is your name?"
Realizing the man had no intention of attacking him, Yi Yeok cupped his fist in a formal salute.
"Yi Yeok."
"Yi Yeok. I am Baengni Hae, Vice Sect Master of Nokhyeon Sect."
Yeogwi started. He had never imagined that on their first day inside the sect they would come face to face with a figure of that rank.
"Yi Yeok. And the fellow with you..."
"Yeogwi."
Yeogwi hastily cupped his fist.
"Very well. Yi Yeok and Yeogwi. Ordinarily you would serve a probationary period and then undergo the formal rites of entry. I will waive that. From this moment, you are official disciples of Nokhyeon Sect."
"Ah! Th-thank you so— no, your grace is boundless— no, no, that's not—"
At Yeogwi's flustered stumbling, Baengni Hae only smiled, gentle and unhurried.
"You have the talent, someday, to enter a middle-rank sect through the Immortal Selection. I will be watching you. Do not disappoint me."
Baengni Hae spoke as his gaze moved over the disciples who were dead or hurt.
"But remember this. Until that day comes, you will treat me properly — as your Vice Sect Master."
Yi Yeok considered it for a moment. He had run wild enough for one day. For now, letting the man keep his face was the better choice.
He bowed his head with due courtesy.
"Thank you. I won't give you cause to be disappointed."
"From here on, do not break rank so carelessly. Remember — what I acknowledged was not your present skill, but your potential."
Yi Yeok grinned.
"I'll conduct myself so I don't cause you any worry. The truth is, I'm the sort who takes the rules seriously."