I Really Don't Know
"That will do."
The voice was low. Even so, it reached every ear on the field with perfect clarity.
Fwoom—!
In an instant, Yi Yeok's Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand scattered to nothing. He coughed up a mouthful of blood. He was still far from used to handling a blood spirit properly, and having it torn apart by an outside force had clearly wrenched his body.
Yi Yeok steadied his breathing. Fortunately, the internal injury did not seem grave. He lifted his head and searched for the source of the voice.
Every face but his had gone white.
They were five or six old men. Most were white of hair and beard, yet not one of them carried the slightest air of frailty. Yi Yeok recognized one among them. Baengni Hae.
He understood at once that the men before him were the inner sect elders. They had surely gathered after sensing the aura of the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand.
Beside Baengni Hae stood a slender elder. From the way Baengni Hae inclined his head, ever so slightly, this one stood higher still — the Sect Master, perhaps, or a senior even above that.
"You have not yet reached the Creation Qi-Blood Realm, and still you have achieved blood-spirit manifestation. Remarkable."
The old man spoke in little more than a whisper, his lips barely moving, and still every person present heard him clearly.
"But you are insolent. Not even a day has passed since the Vice Sect Master cautioned you to keep your place and not trample the hierarchy on a whim."
"This is Supreme Elder So Cheong-ha, the highest elder of our sect. Show your respect."
Baengni Hae's tone was as gentle as ever, but his eyes flashed like drawn blades.
"Damn it... this time I think we're really finished."
Yeogwi muttered.
Yi Yeok weighed it for a moment. Thanks to the blood qi he had taken from Ji Jung-ok, power surged through his whole body. Strength enough to smash a mountain of a hundred thousand fathoms writhed inside him. With power like this, even an inner sect elder would not dare take him lightly.
But Yi Yeok bowed his head with due courtesy. The world was vast — and vaster still. That was the very lesson he had just taught Ji Jung-ok.
"I have caused you concern, Supreme Elder. What happened here is my doing, yes. But I was not the one who started it."
So Cheong-ha offered neither yes nor no. He only studied Yi Yeok, slowly and with care.
"E-Elder. What Yi Yeok says is true. He meant to respect the sect's order, but they picked the fight first..."
Mo Yeong stepped forward. So Cheong-ha lifted a hand and stopped her.
Yi Yeok studied So Cheong-ha in turn. If Ji Jung-ok's blood qi was a stream and Baengni Hae's a river, then So Cheong-ha's was the sea. At a glance it seemed calm and still, yet within it lay a power whose depth could not be sounded. Should that power rise in earnest, it could sweep everything upon the earth away and leave no trace behind.
So Cheong-ha turned his head slightly toward the onlookers packed before the training hall. Among them stood No Jeong, who had been conducting the lesson earlier, and the outer sect elder who had dumped the class on him and gone off to rest.
"Elder Jang Deok-chu."
"Y-yes, sir!"
Jang Deok-chu came forward several paces and offered a cupped-fist salute. Sweat beaded on his brow. If he were called to account this instant for neglecting his duty and punished for it, he would have nothing to say.
"It has been a long time since I came out to the outer sect, and its discipline disappoints me. You entered as a low-rank disciple with a meager spiritual root, and by cultivating day and night without rest you rose to the seat of an outer sect elder. I watched those decades with my own eyes."
If he had watched the man from the day he entered, and had already been an elder then, So Cheong-ha's age would be a hundred years — perhaps several hundred.
"And now that there is nowhere left to climb, does everything seem meaningless? Is that why you decided the outer disciples' discipline was none of your concern, whether they ruined it or not?"
"How could I...!"
Jang Deok-chu could not even manage a proper excuse. He only poured sweat.
"An elder is granted great authority, and duty comes with it. Failing that duty alone is cause enough to die. Still, I will give you a chance to set things right yourself."
Everyone present turned the words over, grasping for what lay beneath them. Yeogwi's face twisted.
"Shit... I've got a bad feeling about this."
So Cheong-ha's lips barely moved.
Jang Deok-chu was shaken, but he understood that this alone was the path to survival, and he bowed his head.
"As you command!"
Yi Yeok clenched his teeth and drew Yojiyu from his sleeve. He had a feeling So Cheong-ha was hiding some other intent, but he had no wish to be taken quietly either way.
"Damn it all... it's all or nothing. One of two things happens today. Either I die, or the Nokhyeon Sect vanishes from this world."
"Insolent!"
Jang Deok-chu charged without so much as trying to take the measure of his opponent.
Yeogwi and Mo Yeong moved to join him, but in that same instant Yi Yeok checked them with a look.
Stay out of this. This isn't a fight you belong in.
Jang Deok-chu roared like a beast. Blood qi burst from his entire body and wrapped him whole, and in a breath he had become an enormous tiger, lunging straight for Yi Yeok.
KRAKOOM!
A tremendous blast hurled everyone but the elders backward.
Jang Deok-chu was aghast. He could feel his tiger blood spirit under attack, yet Yi Yeok had already vanished from sight.
He realized the same thing Ji Jung-ok had only faintly sensed a moment before. His blood spirit was disappearing. And at the same time, the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand's momentum was growing stronger still.
The blood spirit was being devoured!
The tiger blood spirit slowly faded, losing its force, then vanished like foam. Yi Yeok reappeared.
Both arms drove forward at a speed the eye could not follow — thousands of shadow strikes born in a single breath.
"Enough."
At last So Cheong-ha spoke. Yi Yeok had no intention of stopping.
......!!!!!!
A detonation erupted beyond any comparison to what had come before, past anything a human ear could bear. Most clapped their hands over their ears and fell back. A few burst their eardrums and bled.
Ears stopped, eyes filling until her vision swam gray, Mo Yeong saw countless sword strikes pouring toward Yi Yeok. He turned the Ten Thousand Illusions Phantom Severing Hands and beat every one of them aside.
Only when the sharp ringing had just begun to fade did So Cheong-ha — who had loosed at Yi Yeok a sword formed of condensed blood qi — speak quietly once more.
"Stop. That is enough."
Yi Yeok glared at him, eyes bright with hostility.
"I've seen a technique like that before."
He was thinking of his match against the woman of the Guryeong Immortal Sect.
"Have you? The world is wide. Similar martial arts may well exist. But the Azure Sea Sword Formation is a creation of this old man."
Yi Yeok's expression hardened. So Cheong-ha was the strongest opponent he had faced in his life — stronger, he thought, than the woman of the Guryeong Immortal Sect. He grit his teeth and unfolded the Ten Thousand Illusions Phantom Severing Hands once more. His internal energy drained so quickly that blood burst from his nose and ran in a stream.
In the end he endured the Azure Sea Sword Formation a second time. Had he not grown so remarkably of late by devouring so much blood qi — and had So Cheong-ha not left room to spare in his hand — then no matter how he deployed the Ten Thousand Illusions Phantom Severing Hands, he could not have survived.
So Cheong-ha nodded, as if confirmed.
"What is your relation to that man?"
Yi Yeok could not answer at once. He was still catching his breath.
"Who do you mean?"
"You know who I mean."
Something stirred faintly at the back of his mind, but Yi Yeok only shrugged, as if it meant nothing.
"There is no need to play ignorant. At your level, you could have gone straight to a middle-rank immortal sect. Why come here, of all places? Did he send you?"
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"That thief... so he found a vessel worthy of that uncanny martial art after all."
So Cheong-ha murmured as if to himself. In that moment he looked every bit the aged old man he was.
"Nothing good comes of keeping company with that one. A thief's path is a thief's path. It can never walk the righteous way."
Yi Yeok realized there was no longer any point in pretending not to understand.
"I see. So the one you're speaking of now was that one? I wasn't sure whether you meant him."
Even at the needling in his voice, So Cheong-ha did not stir.
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
So Cheong-ha tilted his head.
"I truly don't. If you happen to meet him, would you tell him I'd very much like to see him?"
"For your own sake, you would do well to sever your tie to him. He has already laid upon you something you cannot bear. You could spend your whole life and never resolve it."
"I don't care. I don't concern myself with what other people think of me. He'll be the same, I'd wager."
"I am not speaking of mere reputation."
So Cheong-ha let the silence hang, then added exactly one phrase.
The smile vanished from Yi Yeok's face. He understood, with perfect clarity, that So Cheong-ha was not taking a rough guess.
But in the next moment, he only grinned.